A Little Help from My ...

Friday, February 13, 2004

And now the most fascinating two minutes in television, the latest from the wartime grapevine:

AP-propriate Lead?

CIA Director George Tenet (search) may have mounted a spirited defense of his agency on Iraq and asked for more time to complete its work, but this is how the AP led its report on the testimony:
"In his first public defense in the growing controversy over intelligence, CIA Director George Tenet said Thursday that U.S. analysts never claimed before the war that Iraq was an imminent threat. The urgency of such a threat was the main argument used by President Bush for going to war."

In fact, no administration official, including the president has ever said the threat from Iraq was imminent, and the president specifically argued that the U.S. could not afford to wait until such threats were imminent to act.

Related

A Little Help from My ...

John Kerry (search) -- who has cast himself as a lifelong fighter against special interests -- helped an insurance company be able to profit from investing federal dollars.

In 2000, he blocked legislation that would have stopped American International Group (search) -- or AIG -- from investing millions of dollars it was overpaid in insurance for a major construction project in Boston.

Kerry says he didn't do it for the company, he did it for his constituents -- who needed the project finished. But the AP says Kerry accepted $48,000 worth of donations to his senate and presidential campaigns from AIG and its executives.

Questioning the Constable

One week after two BBC executives resigned amid a scandal over unfair and unfounded reporting, the BBC is now apologizing to a British police chief for having -- "edited misleadingly" an interview with him.

In the interview, David Westwood, Chief Constable of Humberside, was repeatedly asked why computer records on a convicted murderer were deleted when they could have prevented the murders in the first place.

Westwood says the BBC edited his interview to make it look like he stormed out under difficult questioning, which, he says, is -- "quite untrue." BBC, quoted by London's Telegraph, says there are -- "lessons to be learned."

Offensive to Hawaiians?

Thousands of Americans are urging Daimler-Chrysler to change the name of its new car, the Dodge Kahuna, saying it's -- "offensive [to] Hawaiians."

An online petition, which already has more than 2,800 signatures, insists the company is -- "doing nothing more than trying to cash in on the current trend of using Hawaiian words and artifacts to sell something."

Merriam Webster says a "Kahuna" is a Hawaiian witch doctor.

FOX News' Michael Levine contributed to this report

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