"Not a peaceful welcome"

Media Matters has a report up this week concerning NBC's Brian Williams interview with President Bush. The whole thing is worth reading, as it points out a number of areas where Williams, playing the now traditional role of docile little media puppy dog for the administration, asked single questions of Bush and failed to ask any probing follow-up questions to the Presidents disingenuous answers. One of them, however, caught my attention in particular.

WILLIAMS: A lot of people have seen, in this series of speeches you're giving on Iraq, a movement in your position. They call it an acknowledgment that perhaps the mission has not gone as it was originally planned, that the U.S. would be welcomed as liberators.

BUSH: I think we are welcomed, but it was not a peaceful welcome. There were some in society -- rejectionists and Saddamists and the terrorists that have moved in to stir them up -- that said, `We're going to prevent a democracy from emerging.' But I think a lot of people are glad -- I know a lot of people are glad we're there -- and they're glad we're helping them train their troops so they can take the fight.

Williams's follow-up: none

Did you catch that? Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld had all predicted (based on the lies of Chalabi and the INC in exile) that we would be welcomed as liberators with grateful Iraqis throwing flowers in the streets as our soldiers passed by. When Bush was finally pressed on this question, that was his answer.

Why, yes, Brian. Clearly we were welcomed. But, you know... it just wasn't as peaceful of a welcome as the intelligence indicated. Granted, they weren't throwing flowers, but ... you know, they were at least throwing stuff.

Yes, Mr. Bush. They were throwing improvised bombs which they built out of all the munitions we failed to secure when we invaded with too few troops into a country that really didn't want us there to start with.

Staggering. Simply and purely jaw-droppingly staggering. I fail to see how they even let this clown on TV anymore, say nothing of continuing to let him "lead" a superpower.