Maddow Guest Richard Engel Tweaks Her Libya Revisionism
NBC foreign correspondent Richard Engel is my favorite frequent guest on “The Rachel Maddow Show” — who knows what he might say. Certainly not Maddow. Engel didn't disappoint in his last appearance on her program Oct. 20, subtly calling Maddow out for a conspicuous omission in her recounting of Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi renouncing his weapons of mass destruction. (video after page break) Before Maddow spoke with Engel about Gaddahi's death earlier that day, she said this — The process that resulted in Gaddafi finally being allowed to come to New York and pitch both the idea of Isratine (a joint Israeli-Palestinian state) and a tent up at Trump's place (for Gaddafi's speech at the UN in September 2009) , that process started actually right after 9/11. Gaddafi was one of the first Arab leaders to denounce the 9/11 attacks. He shared intelligence with the US about al Qaeda. And then he made an agreement with the Bush administration to give up his weapons of mass destruction program. In return, what the US traded for all of that, was bringing Gaddafi essentially in from the cold. We pretended like Gaddafi wasn't a murderous rogue dictator and narcissistic freak show in exchange for a sort of alliance, a pretend relationship, a facade of an effort to treat Libya like a country, like a normal country with a normal president. At the end of her subsequent interview with Engel, he specifically asked to mention this “factoid” — ENGEL (pointing finger at her):
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on October 24, 2011. Filed under