Wednesday, April 02, 2008

Olbermann and Rachel Maddow Flirt with LIHOP/LIHOI



I have not followed the FISA story closely, but I know that Olbermann appears to be right about one thing; if the call went from a known terrorist phone overseas to the US, then the government could have intercepted it. The issue is whether the government could then (by association) start tapping the phone of the person in the US who received that call.

Here's the portion of the speech that has attracted attention:

Before the 2001 terrorist attacks, he said, "we knew that there had been a call from someplace that was known to be a safe house in Afghanistan and we knew that it came to the United States. We didn't know precisely where it went. You've got 3,000 people who went to work that day, and didn't come home, to show for that."


It sounds to me like he's posing a hypothetical, not saying what actually happened, but he should certainly be pressed for clarification on the issue. Olbermann and Maddow proceed from the assumption that the phone call in fact took place and advocate a LIHOP/LIHOI (Let It Happen On Purpose/Let It Happen On Incompetence) sythesis. But watch as Olbermann starts to "put these little strands together" (i.e., connect the dots) towards the end of the segment; that's where he gets close to kookville. Not quite over the line, but standing right on it.