Scott Pelley: Bush Administration shill

Last night while watching Scott Pelley's appalling interview with Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, informed people around the country simultaneously shouted "Bullshit! That is just not true."

That the venerable 60 Minutes has sunk to parrotting Bush Administration talking points is just unbelievable.

Some examples:

PELLEY: Well, sir, you're the head of government of an Islamist state that the United States government says is a major exporter of terrorism around the world.

PELLEY: But the American people, sir, believe that your country is a terrorist nation, exporting terrorism in the world.

(CBS) PELLEY: Mr. President, you say that the two nations are very close to one another, but it is an established fact now that Iranian bombs and Iranian know-how are killing Americans in Iraq. You have American blood on your hands. Why?

Oh, for the days when Mike Wallace knew the difference between a hard-hitting question and propaganda bullshit.

I hate to link to the Big Blue Smurf more than you know, but as far as the Iranian bombs killing Americans in Iraq, well, I knew that Sean-Paul Kelley has written extensively about this, and I found this debunking of the "Iranian-made weapons killing American soldiers via his post at The Agonist. More on how this claim is an out-and-out Administration lie from Cenk Uygur, Weldon Berger, Noah Schachtman at Wired, Richard Cranium, and Spencer Ackerman.

This "Iranian-made weapons are killing our troops" is Administration boilerplate that they want to use as an excuse to attack Iran, and they think it'll give them public support to do it. There's just one problem, and that is the investigation into whether Blackwater contractors sold weapons and other military goods to the very insurgents that the Administration claims have used Iranian-made weapons to kill American soldiers.

There was a time, not too long ago, when 60 Minutes stood for investigative journalism. How sad to see it reduced to being yet another mouthpiece for the Bush Administration's warmongering. Scott Pelley should be ashamed of himself.