Location, Location, Location

Patterico notes the some serious fact-checking on some incredible LATimes spinning for Kerry.

The subject? Zarquawi's presence in Iraq, and the media's and CIA's cluelessness about it.

Patterico notes about the Times' claim that there was no evidence Hussein harbored Zarquawi:

(I'm not sure why the Times is referring to something the CIA said "last summer." I think the reporters are confused. I think the story means to say that Bush said this summer that Hussein had harbored Zarqawi, but a CIA report delivered to the White House about two weeks ago found no conclusive evidence of that.)

If the story is going to say that Bush made assertions in this speech that had been contradicted by his own officials, you'd think the story would back up that accusation with something more convincing than a Bush assertion which is undeniably true -- Zarqawi fled to Iraq, got medical care, and set up terrorist operations -- but which, the article claims, implies something that has not been substantiated by the CIA.

That's the most questionable assertion he made? (By the way, the earlier, more interesting version of the article had claimed that Bush made "several questionable assertions" in the speech.)

By the way, even the implication attributed to Bush is not that "questionable." The Times doesn't tell you that officials have said that the case is not closed on whether Saddam harbored Zarqawi. And for good reason: it is pretty far-fetched to think that Hussein had no idea Zarqawi was there. Michael Totten observes:

As Christopher Hitchens once put it, Baghdad under Saddam Hussein was a place that was as difficult to enter as it was to leave. You couldn’t exactly waltz in there as a foreigner and check yourself into a hospital as if you were showing up to buy smokes at a corner grocery in Brooklyn.

And if Zarqawi wasn't welcome in Iraq, why did he choose Baghdad as a place to see a doctor?

Bush must be doing well, if the Times needs to spin this hard to defend Kerry.