The John Kerry of Reporters

MSNBC's Kieth Olbermann suggests that he's not afraid of some old mustard or nerve agent. 

"We have found Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq.

15-year old Weapons of Mass Destruction that could give you the equivalent of a serious rug burn.

Our fifth story on the Countdown: Independent experts and the level-headed, staggering in amazement today, that deteriorated mustard gas canisters -- at least fifteen years old and as much as **eighteen** years old -- could be **palmed off** by desperate politicians as some kind of rationale for the deaths of 2500 American servicemen in Iraq."

At Powerline (link not currently working) someone has suggested that as a test of Olbermann's seriousness in pooh-poohing this find, he take a bit of either of those agents, and smear them on his arm.  To see if he gets a "rug burn".  It's a good idea, however I can assure you that Keith ain't got the cojones to take him up on it. 

Of course Olbermann's not serious about his rug-burn comment, he's showboating.  Like all Lefty's on this topic, he is in complete contradiction of his earlier position on the exact same subject.  Several years ago, when the US Army sought permission to destroy tons of mustard gas and nerve agents left over from as far back as WWI, the Lefties were in an uproar, completely convinced that this 90 year-old mustard gas and 40 year-old nerve gas was a huge threat to thousands of people!   

The Army's preferred method of disposal is to incinerate the deadly chemicals under high pressure and 2,700-degree heat. But public acceptance of incineration has been elusive, especially for places like Blue Grass, located near populated areas.

About 52,000 people live in a 6.2-mile radius around Blue Grass known as the ''immediate response zone'' -- the area that would be under greatest threat from a chemical accident. The area includes five elementary schools, two middle schools, a high school, a hospital, a shopping mall and Eastern Kentucky University.

Craig Williams, who heads the Berea, Ky.-based Chemical Weapons Working Group, a national organization that has challenged the Army's disposal program in court and elsewhere for more than a decade, said incineration has ''proven to be a failure'' and poses a serious threat of catastrophe.

The CWWG has organized public opposition in Madison County to the Army's plans to burn the chemicals at Blue Grass.

''If there is a threat to the community, we're going to fight it and continue to fight it,'' Jim Strand, who lives near the Blue Grass site, said at a public meeting in January on how to get rid of the lethal material.

It was the CWWG that challenged the Army's timetable claims regarding the 2007 deadline. At Blue Grass, Williams said, the likely disposal completion date is seven years later -- November 2014.

Williams' group also is helping community activists in Anniston, Ala., and Hermiston, Ore., where incinerators are nearing completion.

Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., has said the Army program is making guinea pigs out of Anniston residents, who were given survival kits that included plastic sheets and duct tape to be used to cover windows in case of a leak.

Back then, there were lawsuits and protest marches (isn't there always another reason for Lefty's to protest march?).  Now folks like Keith Olbermann are trying to say that these agents are harmless once they get past adolescence.  Contradictory?  Sure.  Common Lefty tactics?  You bet.  Intellectually dishonest?  Of course. 

Apparently when the US is trying to get rid of its nerve and mustard agents through scientifically sound methods, in order to comply with international agreements, 90 year-old agents are a huge threat to the public.  But when 15 year-old agents are found laying about in Iraq, they are so tame as to be of no import whatsoever. 

Keith Olbermann, the John Kerry of reporters. 

(Note: For those of you who think that old nerve agents cause only rug burns, you may want to want to watch this al Queda video.) 

Comments

[tblubird]

Just a thought on the Al-Queda video. It wasn't long ago that humans were used for this type of experimentation. It was the Jews in Germany who suffered then. Pretty much the same tests. Jay Tea over at Wizbang has a post that takes apart the lefties always unique "give a war and nobody shows up" fantasy. He mentions the Germans generating tables still in use today about human survivability in extreme cold conditions.

[Diggs]

There will always be controversy on the use of that data. As recently as 1984, Doctor Arnold Relman, the editor of The New England Journal of Medicine, refused to publish data obtained by the Nazis in an article on rewarming hypothermia victims. Doctor Robert Pozos, Director of the Hypothermia Laboratory at the University of Minnesota of Medicine at Duluth, had used that data in his research on hypothermia. To get it published, he had to extract the Nazi data.
Given the likelyhood that there was, in fact, no data recorded by the Nazi doctors free from their personal views, all the data must be assumed to be tainted.

[joan]

It was my understanding that any shell posed a risk. Why not dispose of them? Or rather, dispose of them in Iraq but not in America. Maybe Mr. Olbermann doesn't have to care.