Paradigms

Isn't it interesting how even with new information, some paradigms just won't die?
Richard Cohen today is remarking how the admistration is full of hype. (in regards to the 7 home grown potential terrorists arrested last week in Florida.

In his item we get these little numbers:

It (the administration)said there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and there were none.

This in spite of the bits of wmd that have been found over the last couple of years. (link to article from 2004 vs the latest news from Santorum)

It said al-Qaeda and Iraq were in cahoots and that was not the case.

This in spite of the news coming out of all those documents that are now public and being interpreted and studied. Captain Ed nicely recaps the Fox News story from Ray Robison who's been working on this.

About a year ago, for instance, (re: exaggeration) President Bush (with Gonzales at his side) asserted that "federal terrorism investigations have resulted in charges against more than 400 suspects, and more than half of those charged have been convicted." The Post looked into that and found that the total number of (broadly defined) "terrorism" convictions was 39.

Personally rather than look further into this one, I'll go with the assumption that the administration did not exagerate by 360 cases but that perhaps they used other laws such as when income tax evasion is used to nab mobsters.