POOF! The sarin shell story disappears...

[Goldmund]

It was the lead CNN.com story a mere hour ago. Now it's replaced with another story about Iraqis replacing the head of their interim government, and the sarin story is now only mentioned as a part of this story (and it doesn't have its own headline anywhere):

Meanwhile, a U.S. convoy in Iraq found an artillery shell believed to have the makings of sarin -- a deadly nerve gas used in chemical weapons, the coalition said Monday.

A senior defense official said that a preliminary field test had been completed on the shell, which will undergo further testing. Field tests sometimes yield false positives.


Typical. It was all they talked about all morning, but the correction, if and when it comes, will be buried for those who actually read the articles, and given a 5 second soundbite on the news shows. Only those who take it upon themselves to get informed will, in effect, see the correction -- but they won't vote for * anyway.

This is a deliberate propaganda tactic -- they plant these lies and trumpet them for a few hours, then whisper the correction afterwards. In the process, they get a few tens of thousands of uninformed sheeple to falsely believe that Iraq had WMDs. It's like drive-by propaganda.

[tom_paine]

1. Exactly.

[robbedvoter]

2. What? No retyraction? No "sorry"?

I am shocked!

[TheDebbieDee]

12. What about awed? Are you awed, too?

Sorry, I couldn't help it. It's a conditioned reflex :^)

[kentuck]

3. You got it!

Tomorrow, a significant percentage of people will believe they found WMDs...very effective method of propaganda.

[nadinbrzezinski]

7. Well the right wingers on AOL

were grabing at straws and making it larger than it was...

I swaer we found (according to them, who are desperate)
tons of MUSTARD GAS... not a single shell of Sarin, that
was well beyond its shelf life

[nadinbrzezinski]

4. Got no traction

people saw this for what it was...

Only took them hours to back away from it...

I wonder how bad the October Surprise will back fire when it comes... or was this replaced by REAL NEWS? (which it was)

[ElsewheresDaughter]

5. throw any & all shit out there and see if any sticks >>>bush stragery

the repukes are sprewing the "sarin gas/WMDs crap far and wide soon it will be Gospel

[jobycom]

6. Just a diversion away from yesterday's report linking Bush to

the torture orders at Abu Graib. A dead Iraqi leader, WMDs... they pulled out the stops, so the report must have been right.

[Khephra]

8. They started backtracking on the story almost from the start

All they needed was to get a headline or two out, so the Faux crowd can crow about WMD being found. It will just fade from the rest of the press, then a quiet "correction" story, all leaving Faux to never correct the issue. A good false headline is all you need to make that crowd believe anything. If Faux says it then it must be true.

[lovedems]

11. They do the same thing with economic numbers and they did it with

the March and April job numbers. They ALWAYS do it with unemployment numbers. It is one number one week and then the next week it is corrected and the numbers *don't look as good as they did*. All they care about is the headline, the truth behind the headline is never quite known. I know you are absolutely aware of this, I don't know why I feel the need to point it out.

[Cush]

9. foxnews.com still has it

at the top of their page: Chemical Weapons Found In Iraq

[Goldmund]

21. And buried in that story:

It was a weapon that we believe was stocked from the ex-regime time and it had been thought to be an ordinary artillery shell set up to explode like an ordinary IED and basically from the detection of that and when it exploded, it indicated that it actually had some sarin in it," Kimmitt said.

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

10. Still the lead on Faux News

They mention deep within the story, however, that it's probably from the Iran-Iraq war and that we knew about them already.

[Generator]

13. Yeah, and it's justification for all the other lies, manipulations ect.

One shell. Ha de ha. Pathetic.

[bedtimeforbonzo]

14. no, it's still there.

CNN always does this, they append a new headline to the top of a story, and just push the previous related story further down the page. You wouldn't know unless you click on the new headline, though.

http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/05/17/iraq.main/index.html

[i_c_a_White_Ghost]

16. faux web headline: U.S. Confirms WMD's Found In Iraq

now excuse me while I swallow some more kool aid :beer:

[Goldmund]

18. Right, that's the story I was refering to.

It's titled "Iraqi council replaces slain leader"

The sarin story, huge news this morning, doesn't even have a headline now.

[HFishbine]

15. What ever happened to the "ricin" in Frist's office?

I remember false positives; no wait, it really was ricin; no wait, maybe not. I don't remember however, a definitive answer, much less an further reporting of an investigation.

[htuttle]

27. It turned out to be paper shavings and dust

It was nuthin.

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

17. "If this pans out, it looks like they have found the W-" psst psst psst

What? psstpsst Oh.

"In more news, Americans outraged about the Nick Berg beheading!"

[sampsonblk]

19. We've been here before

Fox is still running with it. Incidentally, last year, they had pre-made graphics ready for the impending discovery of WMD which of course never took place. Now they have pulled those graphics from the vault. Have the "people" at Fox not noticed that this is about a year too late? These BS graphics have re-emerged from their hole, just like the gang of crooks who sold us the story in the first place. At this point, Fox is saying I told you so. That will last about one day, as you said, and then they will drop it - without a retraction.

Even if it IS sarin, its too little too late, and there is no connection between this and the case for going to war, namely that Saddam's regime had WMD ready to use against the USA. That was garbage.

[SoCalDem]

20. Fox will be reporting it for WEEKS

:(

[Kahuna]

22. You know it. Rush and Sean will be bleating out this story until...

election day. They are shameless.

[Cronus Protagonist]

23. Now it's "believed" and "makings"

Typical Bush regime spin.

http://brainbuttons.com/home.asp?stashid=13

[Karenina]

24. Same MO as the boogeyman Zarqawi...

:SIGH:

[AlCzervik]

25. 2 artillery shells do not a stockpile make

especially when they are from Crazy Rumsfeld's wmd blowout sale, his prices are insane!!!!

[JanMichael]

26. Bingo. A few shells are not an arsenal.

Especially compared to the TONS and TONS of crap that Rummy was claiming.

[VolcanoJen]

28. I'm really not worried about an "October Surprise" anymore.

This is a dirty-tricks-crooked Administration, for sure, but you know what else they are? Bumbling, incompetent, and terrible judges of how the public will respond to a certain story.

Even if they've had an October Surprise in the works for months, they just don't have the finesse and intelligence to pull it off. Everything they touch turns to shit.

They don't scare me anymore. I'm not afraid of them anymore. They can be beaten, and they will be beaten.

[kymar57]

30. Amen VJ

[elf]

29. "MORE TEST NEEDED" Just in

from News Ticker MS NBC: not sure, it's Sarine, more tests needed.(paraph.)

Did somebody else saw that??