Media Matters covers misrepresentation of Howard Dean's remarks on alerts.

[madfloridian]

http://mediamatters.org/items/200408110004

SNIP..."On August 4, Dean told CNN: "There's one of two possibilities here. One, we need a new president so we can really take care of intelligence needs and the defense of the United States of America against terrorism. Or two, they're playing politics with their timing of the release of these documents."

Contrary to Donatelli's assertion that Dean said the administration "put too much information out," Dean praised the specificity of the information that was released: "I give the administration some credit for this. This is the first warning since September 11th, almost three years ago, where we have actually seen specifics," Dean said as a guest on CNBC's Capital Report on August 4, "I think it's very helpful." And in fact, Dean's original comments on CNN explicitly encouraged the Bush administration to provide more information: "It would be very helpful if the federal government would be much more specific about exactly what they'd like to us watch out for as they're raising all these levels."

[madfloridian]

1. More.

SNIP..."On the August 1 edition of CNN's Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer, Dean said of Ridge's decision to raise the terror alert level:

It's just impossible to know how much of this is real and how much of this is politics, and I suspect there's some of both in it. ... The question is, do I believe this is being fabricated? No, of course I don't believe that. But I do think that there is politics in this, and the question is, how much is politics and how much is a real threat? I have no doubt there's a real threat here, but I also -- this is a long history of orange to yellow, yellow to orange, orange to yellow without a lot of explanation....."

[Cha]

2. Thank goodness for David Brock...he is out there doing

such good work.