Stephen Hayes, Probably Not The Best Connector

9:08 pm EST November 16th, 2009 | Terrorism | 5 Comments

I notice that Stephen Hayes has co-written a piece in the Weekly Standard called “Connecting the Dots”. By now you probably know where it’s coming from, trampling the well worn path that asserting that Malik Hasan was a terrorist. Maybe he is. Maybe he’s an Al Qaeda agent, but frankly, we don’t know that at this point.

Conservatives are all about making quick, half assed conclusions about stuff, however. Particularly in the arena of national security, which they feel is a club they can use to hit Democrats with. And of course, there’s Stephen Hayes and his idiot connections.

Here is what Hayes wrote in 2004:

Until this material is declassified, there will be gaps in our knowledge. Indeed, even after the full record is made public, some uncertainties will no doubt remain.

The connection between Saddam and al Qaeda isn’t one of them.

Of course, we know that this is – to put it charitably – b.s.

Weekly Standard staff writer and author of the book The Connection: How al Qaeda’s Collaboration with Saddam Hussein Has Endangered America (released on June 1 by Rupert Murdoch’s publishing house HarperCollins), Stephen F. Hayes has appeared in recent months on numerous cable and Sunday talk shows to support his contention that there was indeed a connection between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda. Despite vigorous critiques that have undermined the credibility of Hayes’s contention, conservative pundits have embraced Hayes and his book in order to, in the words of Center for Strategic and International Studies fellow Daniel A. Benjamin, “shore up the rickety argument that Baathist Iraq had posed a real national security threat to the United States.”

Everything old is new again, and just as dumb the second time around.

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5 Responses to “Stephen Hayes, Probably Not The Best Connector”

  1. Max Udargo says:
    November 16, 2009 at 10:37 pm

    So let me get this straight: al Qaeda has an asset in the US Army, a major no less, who is stationed first at Walter Reed Medical Center (a very high-profile military institution) and then at the largest military base on American soil.

    Their instructions to this invaluable asset? “Grab a couple of pistols and see if you can kill a dozen or so soldiers before you’re martyred.”

    Something tells me al Qaeda would have had bigger plans for Hasan.

  2. Duros62 says:
    November 16, 2009 at 10:57 pm

    Didn’t Stephen Hayes write that bio of Dick “Dick” Cheney, another guy who still believes in the Saddam-al Qaeda link?

  3. jr says:
    November 16, 2009 at 11:51 pm

    Why can’t media cons take responsiblity and admit Hasan would have been discharged years ago if we hadn’t invaded Iraq. The military is so overstretched people in their 50s are being deployed

  4. Wilbur says:
    November 17, 2009 at 12:36 am

    What really puzzles me is why anyone pays any attention to people like Stephen Hayes. I mean, how many years of being consistently wrong does it take before people start tuning out?

  5. Oliver Willis says:
    November 17, 2009 at 1:54 am

    It’s kind of hard when the so called liberal media, in this case, CNN, keeps putting up people like Hayes as credible sources.