Russell Pickering said:
2 b.) Here is a CT article on it that raises the points I mention in fair detail about Barbara Olson's call. vialls.com/lies911/lies.htm
Hi Russell,
Welcome to the forum. It's good to have you here.
I realize that you will likely receive a large number of responses and queries to your posts, and appreciate that it will be difficult to keep up to them at times if they are tossed about willy nilly, and I will try not to add too much to the traffic, as it were, but since you seem to be basing your position about Barbara Olson's telephone calls on the Joe Vialls article that you linked above, I thought I would point out some of the egregious errors and weaknesses in the story you linked.
Because it is already very lengthy, I have omitted the first few lead-in paragraphs as they are merely hyperbole setting the stage for what the author says he is going to prove. From there on, the story is as written with my comments and corrections following each section.
The little white lie was about Barbara Olson, a conservative commentator for CNN and wife of US Solicitor General Ted Olson. Now deceased, Mrs Olson is alleged to have twice called her husband from an American Airlines Flight 77 seat-telephone, before the aircraft slammed into the Pentagon. This unsubstantiated claim, reported by CNN remarkably quickly at 2.06 am EDT [0606 GMT] on September 12, was the solitary foundation on which the spurious “Hijacker” story was built.
While the time of the first report on CNN is not verifiable via the CNN website (because it is obvious that the dateline is incorrect on the top of the page, but that the date was September 12 appears correct). I will assume for purposes of this discussion that Mr. Vialls was correct about the time being 2:06 a.m. EDT.
Without the “eminent” Barbara Olson and her alleged emotional telephone calls, there would never be any proof that humans played a role in the hijack and destruction of the four aircraft that day.
This is a very strange statement with no basis in fact. There is
plenty of evidence that "humans played a role in the hijack and destruction of the four aircraft that day." There is, however,
no evidence that the events were carried out by non-humans.
The suggestion that there was no evidence of hijackers prior to the CNN story about Ms. Olson’s death and phone calls is wholly false. It ignores the fact that there were reports that the airplanes had been hijacked all over the news on September 11, through numerous media outlets. The airlines reported that planes had been hijacked. As we now know, the air traffic controllers and NORAD and NEADS, etal knew about the hijackings, heard the hijackers’ voices in some instances, etc. Why is it surprising, let alone suspicious, that it might take a day to contact and report upon phone calls made by passengers to family members of the deceased?
As for the "eminence" of Ms. Olson, please note that the Sept. 12/01 report was about “prominent people” who had died on some of the airplanes and was not a story specifically about Ms. Olson alone.
It is not at all unusual that early reports about mass casualties deal with well known people or celebrities who were injured or killed in the disaster. The title of this particular article was:
Industry, media figures among crash fatalities:
http://archives.cnn.com/2001/US/09/11/notable.victims/index.html
Lookalike claims surfaced several days later on September 16 about passenger Todd Beamer and others, but it is critically important to remember here that the Barbara Olson story was the only one on September 11 and. 12.
This is both untrue and deliberately misleading. First, it is patently untrue that there were no other reports of telephone calls made from airplanes until “several days later”. There were reports of other telephone calls made from airplanes 24 hours after the initial report cited above. See this CNN report posted
September 13/01 at 2:37 a.m. EDT.
Relatives wait for news as rescuers dig:
http://archives.cnn.com/2001/US/09/12/family.reacts/index.html
It includes a section under a sub-title “Frantic phone calls from the air” with details of some of the phone calls made to loved ones, talking about the airplanes being hijacked, etc.
(It is also untrue that Todd Beamer's phone call was not reported until September 16/01, which is addressed later in the story, below)
It was beyond question the artificial “seed” that started the media snowball rolling down the hill.
There is no evidence to support the contention that the reports above were based on anything “artificial” and no evidence to support the contention that it was a “seed” planted for any purpose.
And once the snowball started rolling down the hill, it artfully picked up Osama Bin Laden and a host of other “terrorists” on the way. By noon on September 12, every paid glassy-eyed media commentator in America was either spilling his guts about those “Terrible Muslim hijackers”, or liberating hitherto classified information about Osama Bin Laden. “Oh sure, it was Bin Laden,” they said blithely, oblivious to anything apart from their television appearance fees.
Rhetoric, not really worthy of response, but I will say this. Conspiracy theorists can’t have it both ways. The same CTers who argue MIHOP or LIHOP always cite the August 6, 2001 PDB which said that bin Laden was determined to strike in the U.S. as part of their “proof” that the government knew about bin Laden and knew about the very real threat he posed, and yet simultaneously claim that pointing to bin Laden as the culprit is somehow suspicious, as if he was not a threat and a legitimate suspect from the very moment the first plane hit the first tower.
I'm sure I do not have to point out the history of attacks against U.S. interests by bin Laden and al Qaeda in the past, which most certainly made him the most “obvious suspect”, so I do not see how suspecting him at an early date, particularly in light of the August 6 PDB, is unreasonable.
The deliberate little white lie was essential. Ask yourself: What would most Americans have been thinking about on September 12, if CNN had not provided this timely fiction? Would anyone anywhere have really believed the insane government story about failed Cessna pilots with box cutters taking over heavy jets, then hurling them expertly around the sky like polished Top Guns from the film of the same name? Of course not! As previously stated there would have been no Osama Bin Laden, and no “War on Terror” in Afghanistan and occupied Palestine.
The foregoing paragraph is simply ridiculous on numerous levels.
1) there is no evidence that there was any “little white lie”, deliberate or otherwise.
2) there was nothing “essential” about any such little white lie, as pointed out above
3) there is no evidence that the report by CNN was a “fiction”, let alone a timely one
4) on September 12/01, there was no “insane government story about failed Cessna pilots … etc etc.”, nor any evidence (then or now) of the hijackers “hurling them expertly around the sky like polished Top Guns”
5) the existence of the reports by CNN of passengers and the phone calls they made had no bearing on the existence of bin Laden, there is no connection between the phone calls and bin Laden, nobody on the flights knew the names or identities of the hijackers
6) obviously, even if Ms. Olson had
not made any phone calls, all of hte remaining facts and evidence would not have changed one iota; the strange connections the author seems to make here are bizarre.
This report is designed to examine the sequence of the Olson events and lay them bare for public examination. Dates and times are of crucial importance here (my bolding - please keep this line in mind for later), so if this report seems tedious try to bear with me. Before moving on to discuss the impossibility of the alleged calls, we first need to examine how CNN managed to “find out” about them, reported here in the September 12 CNN story at 2.06 am EDT:
Wouldn’t the best approach have been for the writer to have called CNN and asked?
“Barbara Olson, a conservative commentator and attorney, alerted her husband, Solicitor General Ted Olson, that the plane she was on was being hijacked Tuesday morning, Ted Olson told CNN. Shortly afterwards Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon” … “Ted Olson told CNN that his wife said all passengers and flight personnel, including the pilots, were herded to the back of the plane by armed hijackers. The only weapons she mentioned were knives and cardboard cutters. She felt nobody was in charge and asked her husband to tell the pilot what to do.”
At no point in the above report does CNN quote Ted Olson directly. If the report was authentic and 100% attributable, it would have been phrased quite differently. Instead of “Ted Olson told CNN that his wife said all passengers and flight personnel…”, the passage would read approximately:- Mr Olson told CNN, “My wife said all passengers and flight personnel…” Whoever wrote this story was certainly not in direct contact with US Solicitor General Ted Olson.
And?
Think about it, people! If you knew or suspected your spouse’s aircraft had just fireballed inside the Pentagon building, how would you spend the rest of the day? Initially you would certainly be in deep shock and unwilling to believe the reports. Then you would start to gather your wits together, a slow process in itself. After that and depending on individual personality, you might drive over to the Pentagon on the off chance your spouse survived the horrific crash, or you might go home and wait for emergency services to bring you the inevitable bad news. As a matter of record, Ted Olson did not return to work until six days later.
And?
About the last thing on your mind [especially if you happened to be the US Solicitor General], would be to pick up a telephone and call the CNN Atlanta news desk in order to give them a “scoop”. As a seasoned politician you would already know that all matters involving national security must first be vetted by the National Security Council. Under the extraordinary circumstances and security overkill existing on September 11, this vetting process would have taken a minimum of two days, and more likely three.
And?
The timing of the CNN news release about Barbara Olson, is therefore as impossible as the New Zealand press release back in 1963 about the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
Huh? How does the foregoing paragraph follow from the ones above? There are serious lapses in logic here, the depths of which may never be plumbed.
While I can think of all kinds of scenarios in which CNN may have obtained the story via their sources, whether directly from Mr. Olson or from people close to him, I cannot for the life of me figure out how the writer goes from A to B here to conclude that the timing of the CNN news release (on September 12 at 2:06 a.m.) is, therefore “impossible”.
As reported independently by Colonel Fletcher Prouty USAF (Retired), whoever set Kennedy up, accidentally launched a full international newswire biography on obscure “killer” Lee Harvey Oswald, without first taking the trouble to check his world clock.
It was still “yesterday” in New Zealand on the other side of the International Date Line when the biography was wired from New York, enabling the Christchurch Star newspaper was able to print a story about Oswald as the prime suspect in its morning edition, several hours before he was first accused of the crime by Dallas police.
Entirely irrelevant.
If the CNN story about Ted Olson had been correct, and he really had called them about Barbara on September 11, then he would most surely have followed the telephone call up a few days later with a tasteful “one-on-one” television interview, telling the hushed and respectful interviewer about how badly he missed his wife, and about the sheer horror of it all.
Again, terrible leaps of illogic. First, the writer assumes that the CNN story was incorrect, but there is no evidence of that. Second, the writer suggests that the CNN story’s correctness is contingent upon Mr. Olson having called CNN (which, of course, it is not). The rest of the foregoing paragraph is pure conjecture with absolute zero basis in fact, and zero evidence of any kind. It is unfathomable to me that the writer can purport to know and propound upon what Mr. Olson “would most surely have” done in the days after his wife’s death. And even more bizarre to purport to divine that from a faulty set of premises in the first place. While I would not expect Mr. Olson to call up CNN to offer to attend an interview, I would be surprised if CNN didn’t call Mr. Olson and ask him for an interview.
There is no record of any such interview in the CNN or other archives.
Oh, really?
Here’s the transcript from a September 14, 2001 interview of Mr. Olson by CNN’s Larry King:
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0109/30/lklw.00.html
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE, SEPTEMBER 14, 2001)
TED OLSON, SOLICITOR GENERAL OF THE UNITED STATES: The moment that I heard there was hijacked planes, I was both terrified and fearful for everything that was going on. But I made a mental calculation, because the first thing that comes in to your mind is that Barbara's plane, could that be one of those planes? And I thought oh, thank goodness, it can't be her plane. I'm sounding rather selfish here. That just went through my mind because there wasn't enough time for that airplane to have gotten to New York.
Then one of the secretaries rushed in and said, "Barbara is on the phone." And I jumped for the phone, so glad to hear Barbara's voice. And then she told me, "Our plane has been hijacked." This was some time -- must have been 9:15 or 9:30. Someone would have to reconstruct the time for me.
KING: So the television is on. You've see the buildings, both in disaster mode, and you are talking to your wife who has just been hijacked.
OLSON: Yes.
KING: And she says?
OLSON: She says we have just been hijacked. I had two conversations, Larry, and my memory is -- tends to mix the two of them up because of the emotion of the events. We spoke for a minute or two, then the phone was cut off. Then we she got through again, and we spoke for another two or three or four minutes. She told me that the plane had been hijacked, that she had been -- she told me that they did not know she was making this phone call.
She told me that she had been herded to the back of the plane. She mentioned that they had used knives and box cutters to hijack the plane. She mentioned that the pilot had announced that the plane had been hijacked. I believe she said that. And she -- I had to tell her about the two airplanes that had hit the World Trade Center.
KING: Why?
OLSON: I just felt that I had to. I had to tell her. I will look back at that and wonder about that same question myself, but I had to tell her.
KING: You're the kind of couple, knowing you guys, you tell each other everything.
OLSON: We are extraordinary close.
KING: This was a mad love affair?
OLSON: Yes, it was. I could not have kept that from her.
KING: What did she say when you told her?
OLSON: I think she must have been partially in shock from the fact that she was on a hijacked plane. She absorbed the information. We then both reassured one another this plane was still up in the air. This plane was still flying, and this was going to come out OK. I told her, "It's going to come out OK." She told me it was going to come out OK. She said, I love you.
KING:
Didn't she ask about the pilot? Was the pilot in the back with her then?
OLSON:
I don't know. But she told me at one point in this conversation: "What shall I tell the pilot? What can I tell the pilot to do?"
KING:
Implying he must have been back there with her.
OLSON:
Either the pilot or possibly the copilot or part of the crew. That was the implication, but I didn't really think to ask that specific question.
KING: Did she sound terrified, anxious, nervous, scared?
OLSON: No, she didn't. She sounded very, very calm.
KING: Typical Barbara.
OLSON: In retrospect, enormously, remarkably, incredibly calm. But she was calculating -- I mean, she was wondering "What can I do to help solve this problem?" Barbara was like that. Barbara could not have not done something.
KING: What's going through you?
OLSON: My -- I am in -- I guess I'm in shock. And I'm horrified because I really -- while I had reassured her that I thought everything was going to be OK, I was pretty sure everything was not going to be OK. I by this time, had made the calculation that these were suicide persons, bent on destroying as much of America as they could.
KING: How does the second conversation end?
OLSON: We are -- we segued back and forth between expressions of feeling for one another and this effort to exchange information. And then the phone went dead. I don't know whether it just got cut off again, because the signals from cell phones coming from airplanes don't work that well, or whether that was the impact with the Pentagon.
It was not -- I stayed glued to my television. I did call the command center again. Someone came down so I can impart this information and also to be there in case she called again. But it was very shortly thereafter that news reports on the television indicated that there had been an explosion of some sort at the Pentagon.
KING: Did you immediately know then that's what it was?
OLSON: I did. I mean I didn't want to. I did and I didn't want to, but I knew. But it was a long time before what had happened at the Pentagon -- or it seemed like a long time -- before it was identified as an airplane. Then the first report that I heard was that it was a commuter plane, and then I heard it was an American Airlines plane.
I called some people, I guess maybe just because I had to share the dread that was living with me. I called my mother and I called my son. I said I didn't think -- I thought that -- I was hoping that it wasn't true, but I was very worried. I did not want them to see something on television and hear her name.
KING: You told me about one thing last night, which just tore Shawn and my heart out. When you finally went to bed on Tuesday night, the end of this harrowing day, you find a note.
OLSON: Yes.
KING: What was it?
OLSON: Barb -- I left the home a little before 6:00, as I said. And Barbara left not long thereafter to catch the plane. And it was my birthday. And when I finally went to bed, it was after 1:00 on -- now it was September 12. There was a note that Barbara had written to me on the pillow, saying, "I love you. When you read this, I will be thinking of you and I will be back on -- I will be back Friday."
There were a few more words than that, but I just, that was a -- extraordinarily special and very much like Barbara. And I'm grateful that she did that.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
Indeed, if you key “Barbara Olson” into the CNN search engine, it returns only two related articles.
The first is the creative invention on September 12 at 2.06 am EDT [0606 GMT], and the second is on December 12, about President Bush, who led a White House memorial that began at 8:46 a.m. EST, the moment the first hijacked plane hit the World Trade Center three months before.
This is untrue. After the initial story on September 12/01 at 2:06 a.m., and prior to the December 12, 2001 story referenced by the write, there are also these related stories that include reference to Ms. Olson and the telephone calls she made to her husband:
http://archives.cnn.com/2001/US/09/12/pentagon.terrorism/index.html (Sept. 13)
http://archives.cnn.com/2001/US/09/12/family.reacts/index.html (Sept 13)
http://archives.cnn.com/2001/US/09/15/vic.terror.funerals/index.html (Sept 16)
http://archives.cnn.com/2001/US/09/16/inv.oconnor.otsc/index.html (Sept 17)
http://archives.cnn.com/2001/US/09/25/rec.olson.cnna/index.html (Sept 25)
CNN includes this comment about Ted Olson:
"In a poignant remembrance at the Justice Department, U.S. Solicitor General Theodore Olson referred to "the sufferings we have all experienced." He made no direct reference to the death of his wife, Barbara Olson, who was a passenger aboard the American Airlines flight that crashed into the Pentagon…”
Regarding the same event, Fox News reports that, extraordinarily
What is extraordinary about this?
Deputy Attorney General Larry Thompson then said Barbara Olson's call, made "in the midst of terrible danger and turmoil swirling around her," was a "clarion call that awakened our nation's leaders to the true nature of the events of Sept. 11."
So Ted Olson avoided making any direct personal reference to the death of his wife.
What is the writer insinuating here? Do you know? If so, do you agree?
Clearly this was not good enough for someone somewhere. By the sixth month anniversary of the attack, Ted Olson was allegedly interviewed by London Telegraph reporter Toby Harnden, with his exclusive story “She Asked Me How To Stop The Plane” appearing in that London newspaper on March 5, thereafter renamed and syndicated around dozens of western countries as “Revenge Of The Spitfire”, finally appearing in the West Australian newspaper on Saturday March 23, 2002.
Allegedly interviewed? Either he was or he was not. Has the writer done anything to determine whether this “alleged” interview took place as advertised? If not, why not? If so, why call it an “alleged” interview? This is a bit baffling to me as the interview is available online here:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/main.jhtml?xml=/health/2002/03/05/folsen05.xml&page=1
I have diligently tried to find a copy of this story in an American newspaper but have so far failed.
So?
The reasons for this rather perverse “external” publication of Ted Olson’s story are not yet clear, but it seems fair to observe that if he is ever challenged by a Senate Select Committee about the veracity of his claims, the story could not be used against him because it was published outside American sovereign territory.
Perverse? What is “perverse” about it?
“External”? If one reads the story, one will soon find that the interview was reportedly conducted in Mr. Olson’s office in Washington by a reporter with whom he and his wife had some history.
Further, the suggestion that he should or would be “challenged” by a Senate Select Committee about the “veracity” of his “claims” is a red herring. There is no evidence to suggest that he has been less than honest. Moreover, the suggestion that “the story could not be used against him because it was published outside American sovereign territory” is another red herring.
Regardless of the real reason or reasons for its publication, the story seems to have matured a lot since the first decoy news release by CNN early on September 12, 2001. Here we have considerably more detail, some of which is frankly impossible.
What is surprising about a sit down, one on one interview months after the events have transpired being more detailed than a brief, possibly second or third hand account hours after your wife has been killed?
Note also that the writer again fails to acknowledge the interview that was done on September 14, 2001, which was fairly detailed.
In the alleged words of US Solicitor General Theodore Olson:
“She [Barbara] had trouble getting through, because she wasn’t using her cell phone – she was using the phone in the passengers’ seats,” said Mr Olson. “I guess she didn’t have her purse, because she was calling collect, and she was trying to get through to the Department of Justice, which is never very easy.” … “She wanted to know ‘What can I tell the pilot? What can I do? How can I stop this?’ ”
"What Can I tell the pilot?" Yes indeed! The forged Barbara Olson telephone call
There is no evidence that the telephone calls were “forged.”
claims that the flight deck crew were with her at the back of the aircraft, presumably politely ushered down there by the box cutter-wielding Muslim maniacs, who for some bizarre reason decided not to cut their throats on the flight deck. Have you ever heard anything quite so ridiculous?
1) The writer has either deliberately or negligently omitted reference to the September 14, 2001 interview again, which addressed the point about whether or not it was pilots or other crew members at the back of the airplane.
2) Why presume that the initial CNN report, which clearly was not quoting Mr. Olson but paraphrasing him or someone else from whom they got the story second hand, to be correct and that the detailed interview which is actually first hand is incorrect?
3) What purpose is served in making such silly remarks as “presumably politely ushered”, “Muslim maniacs”, “bizarre reason decided not to cut their throats”?
4) Again, the writer is just making things up without any basis in facts or evidence.
5) And yes, I have heard many things much more ridiculous - like this author's story.
But it is at this juncture that we finally have the terminal error.
Since
no “errors” have been shown so far, except for those of the author, I'm skeptical that there might be a "terminal" one coming up.
Though the American Airlines Boeing 757 is fitted with individual telephones at each seat position, they are not of the variety where you can simply pick up the handset and ask for an operator. On many aircraft you can talk from one seat to another in the aircraft free of charge, but if you wish to access the outside world you must first swipe your credit card through the telephone. By Ted Olson’s own admission, Barbara did not have a credit card with her.
Mr. Olson said that he “guessed” she didn’t have her purse with her, and that she called collect.
It gets worse. On American Airlines there is a telephone "setup" charge of US$2.50 which can only be paid by credit card, then a US$2.50 (sometimes US$5.00) charge per minute of speech thereafter. The setup charge is the crucial element. Without paying it in advance by swiping your credit card you cannot access the external telephone network. Under these circumstances the passengers’ seat phone on a Boeing 757 is a much use as a plastic toy.
I see no facts or evidence provided to support this claim. The author may have a valid point (for the first time so far in this story of his) if he could provides some.
Perhaps Ted Olson made a mistake and Barbara managed to borrow a credit card from a fellow passenger? Not a chance. If Barbara had done so, once swiped through the phone, the credit card would have enabled her to call whoever she wanted to for as long as she liked, negating any requirement to call collect.
It wouldn't be a "mistake" but rather a "guess", as he said. And in any event, the hypothetical scenario as described by the writer would not negate the fact that she could still, and by all accounts did, call collect. But again, without a shred of factual basis upon which the writer relies, and zero evidence, this is hardly a “terminal error” – it is, at best, a minor anomaly worth looking at and thinking about all of the other possibilities that may either explain it or refute it.
Sadly perhaps, the Olson telephone call claim is proved untrue.
Not by a long shot.
Any American official wishing to challenge this has only to subpoena the telephone company and Justice Department records. There will be no charge originating from American Airlines 77 to the US Solicitor General.
Since there is no basis upon which to doubt Mr. Olson’s account, there is no reason for officials to subpoena telephone company and Justice Department records.
Even without this hard proof,
None has been presented. None.
the chances of meaningfully using a seat-telephone on Flight 77 were nil. We know from the intermittent glimpses of the aircraft the air traffic controllers had on the radar scopes, that Flight 77 was travelling at extreme speed at very low level, pulling high “G’ turns in the process.
Under these circumstances it would be difficult even reaching a phone, much less using it. Finally, the phones on the Boeing 757 rely on either ground cell phone towers or satellite bounce in order to maintain a stable connection. At very low altitude and extreme speed, the violent changes in aircraft attitude would render the normal telephone links completely unusable.
Again, no facts or evidence are provided to back up these unsubstantiated claims. Furthermore, another call was made by a flight attendant on Flight 77.
Exactly the same applies with United Airlines Flight 93 that crashed before reaching any targets. The aircraft was all over the place at extreme speed on radar, but as with Flight 77 we are asked to believe that the “hijackers” allowed a passenger called Todd Beamer to place a thirteen minute telephone call.
There were numerous calls made by numerous passengers on Flight 93. It is very odd that the writer ignores all of that evidence. I can only put it down to his being very uninformed, whether deliberately or negligently.
Very considerate of them. The Pittsburg Channel put it this way in a story first posted at 1.38 pm EDT on September 16, 2001:
“Todd Beamer placed a call on one of the Boeing 757's on-board telephones and spoke for 13 minutes with GTE operator Lisa D. Jefferson, Beamer's wife said. He provided detailed information about the hijacking and -- after the operator told him about the morning's World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks - said he and others on the plane were planning to act against the terrorists aboard.” Note here that Mrs Lisa Beamer did not receive a telephone call from Todd personally, but was later “told” by an operator that her husband had allegedly called. Just another unfortunate media con job for the trash can.
Another personal attack against a woman whom the writer knows nothing about. These are quite common among conspiracy theorists and are particularly odious.
By the way, reports of Todd Beamer and the other Flight 93 passengers trying to overtake the airplane from the hijackers was not “first reported” on September 16, 2001 as the writer has asserted in the opening paragraphs of his story and again here. A simple internet search shows that reports of same were made at least as early as September 13, 2001. For instance, see these sites:
http://www.infoworld.com/articles/hn/xml/01/09/13/010913hnoracle.html (Sept. 13)
http://www.stpetersburgtimes.com/News/091401/Business/Oracle_tops_earnings_.shtml (Sept.14)
As previously stated it is the Barbara Olson story that really counts, a view reinforced by the recent antics of the London print media. The photo at the top of this page is a copy of that printed in the West Australian newspaper. You only have to study it closely for a second to realize its full subliminal potential.
Here is a studious and obviously very honest man. The US Solicitor General sits in front of a wall lined with leather-bound volumes of Supreme Court Arguments, with a photo of his dead wife displayed prominently in front of him. Does anyone out there seriously believe that this man, a bastion of US law, would tell even a minor lie on a matter as grave as national security?
Theodore Olson’s own words indicate that he would be prepared to do rather more than that On March 21, 2002 on its page A35, the Washington Post newspaper printed an article titled “The Limits of Lying” by Jim Hoagland, who writes that a statement by Solicitor General Theodore Olson in the Supreme Court has the ring of perverse honesty.
Addressing the Supreme Court of the United States of America, US Solicitor General Theodore Olson said it is "easy to imagine an infinite number of situations . . . where government officials might quite legitimately have reasons to give false information out."
Straw man, red herring, irrelevant, etc.
And for someone who claims that dates and times are "crucial", he sure got a lot of them wrong.
I am, of course, not ascribing the writer's poor research abilities to you - you have shown via your website and on the LC forums that you have decent research abilities and capacity - but if your position about the Barbara Olson phone calls are premised on the article that you linked, perhaps you can see how tenuous that is.
