Fun With Transcripts

From today's American Morning on CNN:

BILL HEMMER: Well, the White House would say the evidence is in Zarqawi, still operating in Iraq today with al Qaeda links there.

SEN. CARL LEVIN (D - MI): The Zarqawi links, however, to Saddam Hussein are very nebulous.

Now, here's Cliff May misstating the Senator's statements, only moments later.

CLIFF MAY, FORMER RNC COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR: As for Zarqawi, you are absolutely right. To say that well, it's nebulous, the connections between Zarqawi and al Qaeda, [emphasis added] look, al Qaeda is not the kind of organization that applies for 501(c)3 status. They don't sign treaties and contracts. What we know is this is an ideology we're up against. Zarqawi represents it. He was in Iraq at the invitation of Saddam Hussein before the invasion.

Saddam, al Qaeda, whatever. It's all the same when you're shilling for the Bush administration. Just for kicks, let's see what the conservative Weekly Standard has to say about the evil Zarqawi/al Qaeda/Hussein triangle.

Zarqawi was first thrust into the global media spotlight in February 2003, before the U.S. invasion of Iraq, when Secretary of State Colin Powell at the U.N. called him an "associate and collaborator" of bin Laden and part of a "sinister nexus between Iraq and the al Qaeda terrorist network." Zarqawi, however, is not Osama's man, and still less was he Saddam's.

...

PROBABLY THE MURKIEST and most intriguing feature of this man of many mysteries is the question of Zarqawi's relations with Osama bin Laden. Though he met with bin Laden in Afghanistan several times, the Jordanian never joined al Qaeda. Militants have explained that Tawhid was "especially for Jordanians who did not want to join al Qaeda." A confessed Tawhid member even told his interrogators that Zarqawi was "against al Qaeda." Shortly after 9/11, a fleeing Ramzi bin al-Shibh, one of the main plotters of the attacks, appealed to Tawhid operatives for a forged visa. He could not come up with ready cash. Told that he did not belong to Tawhid, he was sent packing and eventually into the arms of the Americans.