David Letterman (who appears to reveal that he is a big fan of MSNBC) welcomed NBC News' Rachel Maddow to "The Late Show" last night for a healthy round of Republican bashing. During the segment Maddow mocks McCain for Meeting Gaddafi in 2009. She obviously forgot that Sen. Obama met with Gaddafi one month prior. Oops.
Well, the truth is an very inconvenient thing.
ReplyDeleteGadaffi's "lap" has seen quite a bit of liberal traffic, but Rachel Maddow will keep a tight lip on that.
After all, I recall that Jessie Jackson and Louis Farrakhan were frequent guests of the Libyan strongman. But of course Rachel can't let facts get in the way of good Republican bashing.
This is a bad post. It's badly in need of context.
ReplyDeleteFirst, a correction. According to Wikipedia, Obama was a U.S. senator from January 3, 2005, to November 16, 2008. Obama was not a senator at any time in 2009.
Second, let's make sure we understand some recent history. The Bush administration restored full diplomatic relations with Libya in 2006. In September 2008, Condoleezza Rice met with Qaddafi in Tripoli. According to the NY Times: "Ms. Rice’s visit has been two years in the making. The Bush administration announced in 2006 that it was restoring diplomatic ties with Libya as a reward for Colonel Qaddafi’s decision in 2003 to renounce terrorism and abandon work on weapons of mass destruction, a reversal that Bush administration officials were quick to attribute to the American invasion of Iraq."
McCain and other senators went to Tripoli in August 2009 to tell Libyan officials that they opposed the release of convicted Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi.
President Obama shook hands with Qaddafi at the July 2009 G-8 summit in Italy. Remember, diplomatic relations with Libya were restored three years earlier.