Categorical Aperitif

I almost missed this telling anecdote from William Rivers Pitt about a cell phone call he took while driving in Boston back in the pre-war winter of 2003:

On the line was a producer for an MSNBC news show; she told me she had read my book and really enjoyed it, and was inviting me to come on the network to talk about Iraq. Specifically, she wanted me to come on and talk about Hans Blix and his weapons inspectors, who at that point had been in Iraq for less than 100 hours. They hadn't found anything yet, but were still looking. Very specifically, she wanted me to come on MSNBC and say that Blix and his inspectors were doing a terrible job, that Iraq definitely had WMD and 9/11 connections, and that Bush should blow off Blix and do whatever the hell he wants.

I very nearly put my car into the river. You couldn't really have read my book, I said to this MSNBC producer, because if you had, you'd know that the very last thing in the world I would ever say on television or anywhere else was the inspectors were not doing their jobs and that war in Iraq was a necessity. Let's allow Blix and the inspectors to do their jobs, I said, so maybe we can avoid a costly and unnecessary war that would certainly kill thousands and thousands of people.

The MSNBC producer chortled—literally, a deep, throaty too-many-cigarettes chortle—and hung up on me.

Remember that the next time someone regales you with tales about the "liberal" MSNBC.