{"id":11658,"date":"2011-09-13T18:02:52","date_gmt":"2011-09-14T02:02:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/?p=11658"},"modified":"2011-09-13T18:05:46","modified_gmt":"2011-09-14T02:05:46","slug":"debunking-rachel-maddow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/2011\/09\/13\/debunking-rachel-maddow\/","title":{"rendered":"Debunking Rachel Maddow"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Obama cult is going on the offensive, on the theory that the best defense is a good offense, the Obama cult is going on the attack \u2013 launching a special web site, and a twitter feed, attackwatch.com<\/a>, which is devoted to refuting the \u201csmears\u201d being repeated by the counter-revolutinary wreckers who oppose the Will of the Dear Leader. \u201cPresident Obama\u2019s opponents have falsely suggested that the President has not been a strong ally to Israel,\u201d the Obamaites whine. How dare anyone suggest that the US isn\u2019t at Tel Aviv\u2019s beck and call! Even the suggestion of something less than absolute fealty is considered a \u201csmear.\u201d If that doesn\u2019t underscore what\u2019s wrong with American foreign policy in the Middle East, then I don\u2019t know what does.<\/p>\n

\u00a0On the boob tube, Rachel Maddow is leading the counter-attack, going after Republicans for \u201clying\u201d about the Dear Leader\u2019s wise policies.\u00a0 When Ron Paul said that the US embassy in Iraq is bigger than the Vatican and will cost $1 billion \u2013 and that we should be keeping that money at home \u2013 Rachel is<\/del> had a cow on camera. No, she barked, the Vatican is 110 acres and the embassy is 108, and also the cost of the embassy is \u201cseveral hundred million\u201d under $1 billion.\u201d She then crumpled a piece of paper, threw it at the camera, and bellowed \u201cFalse!\u201d<\/p>\n

Rachel, you need to hire some new researchers: yes, Vatican City is 110 acres, but that\u2019s not the same entity as The<\/em> Vatican. Vatican City<\/em> is a sovereign state, which includes the Holy See \u2013 the actual residence of the Pope and the organizational headquarters of the Roman Catholic Church \u2013 as well as\u00a0the land around it. Indeed, as this source<\/a> points out:<\/p>\n

\u201cVatican City, the state, is distinct from the Holy See, which is the episcopal leadership of the Roman Catholic Church. The two entities even have distinct passports.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Look at this <\/a>detailed map of Vatican City: clearly the Holy See is centered in the buildings encircling St. Peter\u2019s Square, from the Papal Audience Hall in the southern sector, to the Barracks of the Swiss Guards, to the north — totaling perhaps a third of Vatican City\u2019s land area.<\/p>\n

Why am I not surprised that Maddow and her staff know even less about the Vatican than they do about other subjects?<\/p>\n

As to the cost issue, the answer is to be found in a piece published on \u2026 the MSNBC web ite! And I quote<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\u201c<\/em>Estimated cost of over $1 billion<\/em><\/strong>
\nOriginal cost estimates ranged over $1 billion, but Congress appropriated only $592 million in the emergency Iraq budget adopted last year. Most has gone to a Kuwait builder, First Kuwaiti Trading & Contracting, with the rest awarded to six contractors working on the project\u2019s \u201cclassified\u201d portion \u2014 the actual embassy offices.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

So they want more, and will probably appropriate more in the future \u2013 but the original estimates totaled a cool $1 billion, and there\u2019s plenty of time to equal and \u2013 yes \u2013 surpass that figure.<\/p>\n

C\u2019mon, Rachel \u2013 you can do better than this \u2013 I just know<\/em> you can!<\/p>\n

The question I find fascinating, however, is why \u2013 out of all the subjects brought up at the GOP debate \u2013 did Mad Cow Maddow pick up on this one in particular? Are the Obamaites getting their clueless followers ready to swallow a new line change about Iraq? You\u2019ll remember that Maddow breathlessly reported on \u201cthe last American troops to come out of Iraq\u201d \u2013 a laughable propaganda stunt that made her look foolish, what with all those thousands of Americans still there<\/em>, and the US government making every effort to persuade the Iraqis to let them stay. Oh, but those aren\u2019t troop troops, they\u2019re \u201cback-up\u201d troops, trainers, advisors \u2013 and where have we heard this line before?<\/p>\n

Maddow gets more disgusting servile by the day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Obama cult is going on the offensive, on the theory that the best defense is a good offense, the Obama cult is going on the attack \u2013 launching a special web site, and a twitter feed, attackwatch.com, which is devoted to refuting the \u201csmears\u201d being repeated by the counter-revolutinary wreckers who oppose the Will […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-11658","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"meta_box":{"disable_donate_message":"","custom_donate_message":"","subtitle":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11658","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11658"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11658\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11660,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11658\/revisions\/11660"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11658"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11658"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11658"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=11658"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}