On Friday, July 9, 2004, the Boston Globe published a Letter to the Editor that was so wrought with factual errors, it's remarkable that it ever saw the light of day.

Bush's experience vs. Edwards's

I find it particularly galling to see President Bush attack Senator John Edwards's qualifications to be John Kerry's vice president because of lack of foreign policy experience. Has the president no shame? He ran for president with no foreign policy experience; now he says that a man with a lack of experience is not qualified to hold a lower office than his.

With no foreign policy experience Bush told the American people that the United States was "in imminent danger" from Saddam Hussein and his weapons of mass destruction and continues to tell us with a straight face that there was a "relationship" between Hussein and Al Qaeda. And Bush went against the advice of people with more foreign policy experience and decided America should go it alone in the world, alienating our European allies and forcing our citizens to pay the full price for his misadventures in trade and war.

(Emphasis added for rebuttal. TheMediaReport.com has removed the writer's name and address to avoid any embarrassment. This posting takes issue with the Globe's decision to publish this letter, not with the writer's submission of it.)

        The facts?

        1. (As of this publication) TheMediaReport.com has been unable to find any public remarks by President Bush regarding Senator Edwards' lack of foreign policy experience! Where on earth did the writer get this one? (Neither the Globe nor the writer tell us.)

        2. Has President Bush ever said specifically that the United States was "in imminent danger" from Saddam Hussein? Although the media has claimed he has, TheMediaReport.com has found no instances in which the President himself has uttered such words!

        3. Countless investigative pieces (example, example) have decisively demonstrated the relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda. Even the 9/11 Commission does not dispute the connection. (Commission member Tom Keane, 6/17/04: "Were there contacts between al-Qaeda and Iraq? Yes. Some of them are shadowy, but there’s no question they were there." Commission member Lee Hamilton, 6/17/04: "The Vice President is saying, I think, that there were connections between Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein's government. We don't disagree with that.")

        4. The United States did not "go it alone in the world" in its campaign against Iraq. As of early 2004, the coalition in the Iraq campaign included 49 countries, including England, Italy, Denmark, Japan, South Korea, Poland, and Turkey, to name a few. The United States has hardly been "alone" in its Iraq campaign. (Here's a link.)

 

TheMediaReport.com asks ... The Boston Globe: Responsible major city newspaper or DNC mouthpiece?