Larry Johnson: So wrong so often that he?s actually becoming a nearly-pitch perfect predictor of what?s right
Even as the London terror siege appears to be ramping up ? and even though new prime minister Gordon Brown and his cohort acknowledge that what Britain is witnessing is, in fact, the work of terrorists with ?Asian? ties (which, in Brit speak, means ?Pakistani,? perhaps of the potentially home-grown variety) ? former CIA member and DU hero Larry Johnson, along with his smarmy, truthy media enabler Keith Olbermann, spent last evening talking about the ?non-event? in London.
Writes Allah of Johnson?s appearance on Olbermann?s ?news? show:
It?s a segment six years in the making, starting with Crazy Larry?s now-legendary ?stop worrying about terror? op-ed published in July 2001 and continuing through to this morning when he wowed the dKos faithful by pronouncing the car-bomb plot a ?crock of crap.?
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?Larry [?] sniffs about ?yuppie terrorists? who drive Mercedes but naturally doesn?t mention that the Mercedes was ten years old, which means it probably cost considerably less than 10 grand assuming it was purchased recently. He also scoffs at the idea that a bomb this crude could have done much more than torch the car itself and maybe singe a few people within 20 or 30 feet. The (left-leaning) weapons experts at Danger Room, who are taking this very seriously, beg to differ, as does ABC News, which was told by British officials that the explosion would have been lethal within a ?several hundred yard radius.? And then there?s this:
The cell phone had received at least two calls, which should have detonated several gallons of gasoline, but when the calls came in, the bomb failed to go off, the official said.
Had it done so, that blast then would have ignited six to eight tanks of propane in a mist to make a fuel-air explosion, creating a fireball the size of a small house and propelling 18 to 20 boxes of roofing nails around a large area at bullet speed, counterterrorism officials said.
The news organization responsible for that report? The same one that signs Olby?s checks.
It ends with a stirring note about the only thing we have to fear. Hint: It doesn?t involve a wild-eyed guy sitting on a pile of hurtling high explosives and muttering about Allah.
It used to be there came a time when even your most ardent supporters began to doubt you when you were so often wrong on the pronouncements you made as a result of extrapolating out from facts.
But it seems that nothing Johnson can say or do ? remember his run-in with Seixon and, later, Rick Moran? ? can disqualify him as an ?expert? so long as he?s willing, regardless of the evidence, to maintain the positions that his ideological fellow travelers wish to hear.
It?s a strange cycle of enabling: Johnson, as expert, reinforces the beliefs of those who look to him for such reinforcement; and they, in turn, continue to prop Johnson up as an expert.
Me, I?m no expert on any of this stuff, quite frankly. But then again, I?m rarely invited on news programs to give ?expert? analysis about how that the Brits are getting all stupid with fear over nothing, even as car bombs are turning up on the West End, and ?Asian? men are trying to drive SUVs loaded with gas canisters into airport terminals.
Once again, Johnson?s wannabe-hipster pessimism ? which is temperamentally tied to the grand conspiracy scenarios he and his acolytes like Olbermann cling to like Lindsay Graham might a victory sombrero ? has led him to look like an utter ?denialist? (hi, Commissar!), one who, if his track record is any indication, wouldn?t be able to spot imminent Islamic terrorism were it wearing a ?Hi, I?m a Jihadist? name tag and galloping towards him on a camel wrapped in explosives and sporting a riding blanket made entirely from roofing nails and the severed heads of western journalists.
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update: COBRA is meeting now, and the UK terror alert level is now at ?critical,? meaning authorities believe a new attack is imminent.
Reached for comment, Larry Johnson reminded people that he is ex-CIA, and so who are they gonna believe ? him? Or some hysterical government officials and their lackey ?witnesses? in whose interests it is to scare the population with a lot of hooey about suspects running away from the scene while their skin falls off??
Reality-based.
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