What they were saying then.
"I will bet you the best dinner in the gaslight district of San Diego
that military action will not last more than a week. Are you willing to
take that wager?" (Fox News Channel's Bill O'Reilly, 1/29/03)
"The majority of the American media who were in a position to comment
upon the progress of the war in the early going, and even after that,
got it wrong," Hume complained in the April 2003 speech (Richmond Times
Dispatch, 4/25/04). "They didn't get it just a little wrong. They got
it completely wrong."
"The war was the hard part. The hard part was putting together a
coalition, getting 300,000 troops over there and all their equipment
and winning. And it gets easier. I mean, setting up a democracy is
hard, but it is not as hard as winning a war."
(Fox News Channel's Fred Barnes, 4/10/03)
"He looked like an alternatively commander in chief, rock star, movie
star, and one of the guys."
(CNN's Lou Dobbs, on Bush's 'Mission Accomplished' speech, 5/1/03)
"What's he going to talk about a year from now, the fact that the war
went too well and it's over? I mean, don't these things sort of lose
their--Isn't there a fresh date on some of these debate points?"
(MSNBC's Chris Matthews, speaking about Howard Dean--4/9/03)
"It is amazing how thorough the victory in Iraq really was in the
broadest context..... And the silence, I think, is that it's clear that
nobody can do anything about it. There isn't anybody who can stop him.
The Democrats can't oppose--cannot oppose him politically."
(Washington Post reporter Jeff Birnbaum-- Fox News Channel, 5/2/03)
"Now that the war in Iraq is all but over, should the people in
Hollywood who opposed the president admit they were wrong?"
(Fox News Channel's Alan Colmes, 4/25/03)
"I doubt that the journalists at the New York Times and NPR or at ABC
or at CNN are going to ever admit just how wrong their negative
pronouncements were over the past four weeks."
(MSNBC's Joe Scarborough, 4/9/03)
"I'm waiting to hear the words 'I was wrong' from some of the world's
most elite journalists, politicians and Hollywood types.... I just
wonder, who's going to be the first elitist to show the character to
say: 'Hey, America, guess what? I was wrong'? Maybe the White House
will get an apology, first, from the New York Times' Maureen Dowd. Now,
Ms. Dowd mocked the morality of this war....
"Do you all remember Scott Ritter, you know, the former chief U.N.
weapons inspector who played chief stooge for Saddam Hussein? Well, Mr.
Ritter actually told a French radio network that -- quote, "The United
States is going to leave Baghdad with its tail between its legs,
defeated." Sorry, Scott. I think you've been chasing the wrong tail,
again.
"Maybe disgraced commentators and politicians alike, like Daschle,
Jimmy Carter, Dennis Kucinich, and all those others, will step forward
tonight and show the content of their character by simply admitting
what we know already: that their wartime predictions were arrogant,
they were misguided and they were dead wrong. Maybe, just maybe, these
self-anointed critics will learn from their mistakes. But I doubt it.
After all, we don't call them 'elitists' for nothing."
(MSNBC's Joe Scarborough, 4/10/03)
"Over the next couple of weeks when we find the chemical weapons this
guy was amassing, the fact that this war was attacked by the left and
so the right was so vindicated, I think, really means that the left is
going to have to hang its head for three or four more years."
(Fox News Channel's Dick Morris, 4/9/03)
"This has been a tough war for commentators on the American left. To
hope for defeat meant cheering for Saddam Hussein. To hope for victory
meant cheering for President Bush. The toppling of Mr. Hussein, or at
least a statue of him, has made their arguments even harder to defend.
Liberal writers for ideologically driven magazines like The Nation and
for less overtly political ones like The New Yorker did not predict a
defeat, but the terrible consequences many warned of have not happened.
Now liberal commentators must address the victory at hand and confront
an ascendant conservative juggernaut that asserts United States might
can set the world right."
(New York Times reporter David Carr, 4/16/03)
"Well, the hot story of the week is victory.... The Tommy Franks-Don
Rumsfeld battle plan, war plan, worked brilliantly, a three-week war
with mercifully few American deaths or Iraqi civilian deaths.... There
is a lot of work yet to do, but all the naysayers have been humiliated
so far.... The final word on this is, hooray."
(Fox News Channel's Morton Kondracke, 4/12/03)
"Shouldn't the prime minister and all of us who thought the
war was hasty and dangerous and wrongheaded admit that we were wrong? I
mean, with the pictures of those Iraqis dancing in the streets, hauling
down statues of Saddam Hussein and gushing their thanks to the
Americans, isn't it clear that President Bush and Britain's Tony Blair
were right all along? If we believe it's a good thing that Hussein's
regime has been dismantled, aren't we hypocritical not to acknowledge
Bush's superior judgment?... Why can't those of us who thought the war
was a bad idea (or, at any rate, a premature one) let it go now and
just join in celebrating the victory wrought by our magnificent
military forces?"
(Washington Post's William Raspberry, 4/14/03)
"Some journalists, in my judgment, just can't stand success, especially
a few liberal columnists and newspapers and a few Arab reporters."
(CNN's Lou Dobbs, 4/14/03)
"Sean Penn is at it again. The Hollywood star takes out a full-page ad
out in the New York Times bashing George Bush. Apparently he still
hasn't figured out we won the war."
(MSNBC's Joe Scarborough, 5/30/03)
"This will be no war -- there will be a fairly brief and ruthless
military intervention.... The president will give an order. attack] will be
rapid, accurate and dazzling.... It will be greeted by
the majority of the Iraqi people as an emancipation. And I say, bring
it on."
(Christopher Hitchens, in a 1/28/03 debate-- cited in the Observer,
3/30/03)
"I will bet you the best dinner in the gaslight district of San Diego
that military action will not last more than a week. Are you willing to
take that wager?"
(Fox News Channel's Bill O'Reilly, 1/29/03)
"There's no way. There's absolutely no way. They may bomb for a matter
of weeks, try to soften them up as they did in Afghanistan. But once
the United States and Britain unleash, it's maybe hours. They're going
to fold like that."
(Fox News Channel's Bill O'Reilly, 2/10/03)
"He actually thought that he could stop us and win the
debate worldwide. But he didn't--he didn't bargain on a two- or three
week war. I actually thought it would be less than two weeks."
(NBC reporter Fred Francis, Chris Matthews Show, 4/13/03)
"Speaking to the U.N. Security Council last week, Secretary of State
Colin Powell made so strong a case that Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein
is in material breach of U.N. resolutions that only the duped, the dumb
and the desperate could ignore it."
(Cal Thomas, syndicated column, 2/12/03)
"Chris, more than anything else, real vindication for the
administration. One, credible evidence of weapons of mass destruction.
Two, you know what? There were a lot of terrorists here, really bad
guys. I saw them."
(MSNBC reporter Bob Arnot, 4/9/03)
"Even in the flush of triumph, doubts will be raised. Where are the
supplies of germs and poison gas and plans for nukes to justify
pre-emption? (Freed scientists will lead us to caches no inspectors
could find.) What about remaining danger from Baathist torturers and
war criminals forming pockets of resistance and plotting vengeance?
(Their death wish is our command.)"
(New York Times' William Safire, 4/10
"I will bet you the best dinner in the gaslight district of San Diego
that military action will not last more than a week. Are you willing to
take that wager?" (Fox News Channel's Bill O'Reilly, 1/29/03)
"The majority of the American media who were in a position to comment
upon the progress of the war in the early going, and even after that,
got it wrong," Hume complained in the April 2003 speech (Richmond Times
Dispatch, 4/25/04). "They didn't get it just a little wrong. They got
it completely wrong."
"The war was the hard part. The hard part was putting together a
coalition, getting 300,000 troops over there and all their equipment
and winning. And it gets easier. I mean, setting up a democracy is
hard, but it is not as hard as winning a war."
(Fox News Channel's Fred Barnes, 4/10/03)
"He looked like an alternatively commander in chief, rock star, movie
star, and one of the guys."
(CNN's Lou Dobbs, on Bush's 'Mission Accomplished' speech, 5/1/03)
"What's he going to talk about a year from now, the fact that the war
went too well and it's over? I mean, don't these things sort of lose
their--Isn't there a fresh date on some of these debate points?"
(MSNBC's Chris Matthews, speaking about Howard Dean--4/9/03)
"It is amazing how thorough the victory in Iraq really was in the
broadest context..... And the silence, I think, is that it's clear that
nobody can do anything about it. There isn't anybody who can stop him.
The Democrats can't oppose--cannot oppose him politically."
(Washington Post reporter Jeff Birnbaum-- Fox News Channel, 5/2/03)
"Now that the war in Iraq is all but over, should the people in
Hollywood who opposed the president admit they were wrong?"
(Fox News Channel's Alan Colmes, 4/25/03)
"I doubt that the journalists at the New York Times and NPR or at ABC
or at CNN are going to ever admit just how wrong their negative
pronouncements were over the past four weeks."
(MSNBC's Joe Scarborough, 4/9/03)
"I'm waiting to hear the words 'I was wrong' from some of the world's
most elite journalists, politicians and Hollywood types.... I just
wonder, who's going to be the first elitist to show the character to
say: 'Hey, America, guess what? I was wrong'? Maybe the White House
will get an apology, first, from the New York Times' Maureen Dowd. Now,
Ms. Dowd mocked the morality of this war....
"Do you all remember Scott Ritter, you know, the former chief U.N.
weapons inspector who played chief stooge for Saddam Hussein? Well, Mr.
Ritter actually told a French radio network that -- quote, "The United
States is going to leave Baghdad with its tail between its legs,
defeated." Sorry, Scott. I think you've been chasing the wrong tail,
again.
"Maybe disgraced commentators and politicians alike, like Daschle,
Jimmy Carter, Dennis Kucinich, and all those others, will step forward
tonight and show the content of their character by simply admitting
what we know already: that their wartime predictions were arrogant,
they were misguided and they were dead wrong. Maybe, just maybe, these
self-anointed critics will learn from their mistakes. But I doubt it.
After all, we don't call them 'elitists' for nothing."
(MSNBC's Joe Scarborough, 4/10/03)
"Over the next couple of weeks when we find the chemical weapons this
guy was amassing, the fact that this war was attacked by the left and
so the right was so vindicated, I think, really means that the left is
going to have to hang its head for three or four more years."
(Fox News Channel's Dick Morris, 4/9/03)
"This has been a tough war for commentators on the American left. To
hope for defeat meant cheering for Saddam Hussein. To hope for victory
meant cheering for President Bush. The toppling of Mr. Hussein, or at
least a statue of him, has made their arguments even harder to defend.
Liberal writers for ideologically driven magazines like The Nation and
for less overtly political ones like The New Yorker did not predict a
defeat, but the terrible consequences many warned of have not happened.
Now liberal commentators must address the victory at hand and confront
an ascendant conservative juggernaut that asserts United States might
can set the world right."
(New York Times reporter David Carr, 4/16/03)
"Well, the hot story of the week is victory.... The Tommy Franks-Don
Rumsfeld battle plan, war plan, worked brilliantly, a three-week war
with mercifully few American deaths or Iraqi civilian deaths.... There
is a lot of work yet to do, but all the naysayers have been humiliated
so far.... The final word on this is, hooray."
(Fox News Channel's Morton Kondracke, 4/12/03)
"Shouldn't the prime minister and all of us who thought the
war was hasty and dangerous and wrongheaded admit that we were wrong? I
mean, with the pictures of those Iraqis dancing in the streets, hauling
down statues of Saddam Hussein and gushing their thanks to the
Americans, isn't it clear that President Bush and Britain's Tony Blair
were right all along? If we believe it's a good thing that Hussein's
regime has been dismantled, aren't we hypocritical not to acknowledge
Bush's superior judgment?... Why can't those of us who thought the war
was a bad idea (or, at any rate, a premature one) let it go now and
just join in celebrating the victory wrought by our magnificent
military forces?"
(Washington Post's William Raspberry, 4/14/03)
"Some journalists, in my judgment, just can't stand success, especially
a few liberal columnists and newspapers and a few Arab reporters."
(CNN's Lou Dobbs, 4/14/03)
"Sean Penn is at it again. The Hollywood star takes out a full-page ad
out in the New York Times bashing George Bush. Apparently he still
hasn't figured out we won the war."
(MSNBC's Joe Scarborough, 5/30/03)
"This will be no war -- there will be a fairly brief and ruthless
military intervention.... The president will give an order. attack] will be
rapid, accurate and dazzling.... It will be greeted by
the majority of the Iraqi people as an emancipation. And I say, bring
it on."
(Christopher Hitchens, in a 1/28/03 debate-- cited in the Observer,
3/30/03)
"I will bet you the best dinner in the gaslight district of San Diego
that military action will not last more than a week. Are you willing to
take that wager?"
(Fox News Channel's Bill O'Reilly, 1/29/03)
"There's no way. There's absolutely no way. They may bomb for a matter
of weeks, try to soften them up as they did in Afghanistan. But once
the United States and Britain unleash, it's maybe hours. They're going
to fold like that."
(Fox News Channel's Bill O'Reilly, 2/10/03)
"He actually thought that he could stop us and win the
debate worldwide. But he didn't--he didn't bargain on a two- or three
week war. I actually thought it would be less than two weeks."
(NBC reporter Fred Francis, Chris Matthews Show, 4/13/03)
"Speaking to the U.N. Security Council last week, Secretary of State
Colin Powell made so strong a case that Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein
is in material breach of U.N. resolutions that only the duped, the dumb
and the desperate could ignore it."
(Cal Thomas, syndicated column, 2/12/03)
"Chris, more than anything else, real vindication for the
administration. One, credible evidence of weapons of mass destruction.
Two, you know what? There were a lot of terrorists here, really bad
guys. I saw them."
(MSNBC reporter Bob Arnot, 4/9/03)
"Even in the flush of triumph, doubts will be raised. Where are the
supplies of germs and poison gas and plans for nukes to justify
pre-emption? (Freed scientists will lead us to caches no inspectors
could find.) What about remaining danger from Baathist torturers and
war criminals forming pockets of resistance and plotting vengeance?
(Their death wish is our command.)"
(New York Times' William Safire, 4/10
