Quotes of the Morning: The New Fall Lineup

“Presidential adviser Karl Rove criticized a federal judge's order for an immediate end to the government's warrantless surveillance program, saying Wednesday such a program might have prevented the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
Rove said the government should be free to listen if al-Qaida is calling someone within the U.S.
‘Imagine if we could have done that before 9/11. It might have been a different outcome,’ he said.”
-Associated Press, August 23, 2006

“Yes, it might have had a different outcome. Of course reading the Presidential Daily Briefing named ‘Bin Ladin Determined to Strike in U.S.’ might have helped too. And listening to al-Qaida calls within the U.S. was legal then anyway as long as there was sufficient evidence for a FISA warrant, but we shouldn’t let any of that get in the way of a good story. I mean, I love a good story. How about that story about how Saddam was linked to 9/11?”
-Skippy

“Because Bush has told the public that Iraq is central to the war on terror, the worse things go in Iraq, the more the public thinks the war on terror is going badly. Asked at his press conference what invading Iraq had to do with Sept. 11, Bush seemed so dumbfounded that at first he answered directly. ‘Nothing,’ he said, before sliding into a falsely aggrieved self-defense – ‘except for it's part of -- and nobody has ever suggested in this administration that Saddam Hussein ordered the attack.’"
-Salon, August 24, 2006

“Oh.. Sorry. For some strange reason I thought that Saddam had been linked to 9/11. I guess I was mistaken.”
-Skippy

“The reason I keep insisting that there was a relationship between Iraq and Saddam and al-Qaida, because there was a relationship between Iraq and al-Qaida. This administration never said that the 9/11 attacks were orchestrated between Saddam and al-Qaida. We did say there were numerous contacts between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida.”
-George ‘Dubya’ Bush, June 18, 2004

“Oh.. Apparently the issue is that Saddam didn’t actually order the attack. He was just a big supporter (which is pretty impressive, since Osama wanted him dead).”
-Skippy

“A taped message believed to be from fugitive militant Osama bin Laden on Tuesday warned Arab nations against supporting a war against Iraq as threatened by the United States -- but branded Saddam Hussein an infidel.”
-Reuters, February 11, 2003

“Hey, maybe that was just Osama trying to throw pursuers off the trail of his good buddy Saddam? Who are you going to believe: Osama or Dubya? No, seriously, who are you going to believe?”
-Skippy

“On Tuesday night, President Bush mentioned the September 11 attacks five times during his address on the war in Iraq, prompting criticism from congressional Democrats.”
-CNN, June 29, 2005

“Cheney, interviewed on Sunday on NBC's ‘Meet the Press,’ left open the possibility of a Saddam link to the attacks.
Cheney said on Sunday ‘It's not surprising’ the public would believe Saddam was involved in the attacks, blamed on the al Qaeda network of Osama bin Laden, who has repeatedly praised the attacks.
‘We don't know,’ Cheney said. ‘We've learned a couple of things. We learned more and more that there was a relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda that stretched back through most of the decade of the '90s.’
Bush said Cheney was right about suspicions of an Iraq-al Qaeda link, citing the case of Jordanian Abu Musab Zarqawi, a leader of an Islamic group in northern Iraq called Ansar al-Islam believed to have links to al Qaeda.
The United States believes Zarqawi received medical treatment in Baghdad and helped orchestrate the assassination of a U.S. diplomat in Jordan.
‘There's no question that Saddam Hussein had al Qaeda ties,’ Bush said.”
-Reuters, September 18, 2003

“Up next: the links between Osama bin Laden and Iran. Coming to a news program near you this fall.”
-Skippy

"From a marketing point of view, you don't introduce new products in August.''
-Andrew Card, September 2002