On August 3, Lauren Kornreich of CNN posted an entry at their "Political Ticker" blog falsely entitled "Tancredo: Bomb Muslim holy sites first" and containing the following false statement:

On Tuesday, Tancredo warned a group of Iowans that another terrorist attack would "cause a worldwide economic collapse." He said that attacking Muslim holy sites first would be the only means to prevent terrorists from attacking America. IowaPolitics.com recorded his comments.

He did not say that he wanted to attack those sites "first", as Kornreich falsely claimed. In fact, his remarks made it clear that he would only support attacks against those sites as a response to attacks inside the U.S. He was not supporting a pre-emptive strike, and his plan was intended to deter attacks inside the U.S. You can hear the audio here, and audio from a different radio appearance is in this MP3 file.

The CNN post was originally titled "Tancredo: Bomb Muslim holy sites first", but it's now been changed to "Tancredo: Threaten to bomb Muslim holy sites in retaliation". However, the URL still contains the "first":

politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2007/08/04/tancredo-bomb-muslim-holy-sites-first/

Note the August 3, 2007 12:54 pm comment from Dave Dolan:

I don't think that he should say such things, because certainly that angers folks, but he did not suggest bombing them FIRST. He said we should say first that we WOULD FOLLOW any nuclear attack on the US with a nuclear attack on those cities and that the idea of dooming their own cities by attacking us would be a deterrent. I think his logic is faulty, but your alarmism and misconstruation of the statements he actually made is shameful, and not representative of his true intent.

Note also that even Democratic Underground posters (link below) point out that CNN was lying.

Original CNN post in the extended entry.

Please let CNN know what you think: cnn.com/feedback/forms/form2a.html?1

The following is from a message board; the original message is no longer there so the cache is here:

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POSTED BY t c ON 3rd August, 2007 AT 18:32:04

August 3, 2007
Tancredo: Bomb Muslim holy sites first

WASHINGTON (CNN) - Colorado Rep. Tom Tancredo's campaign stood by his assertion that bombing holy Muslim sites would serve as a good "deterrent" to prevent Islamic fundamentalists from attacking the United States, his spokeswoman said Friday.

"This shows that we mean business," said Bay Buchanan, a senior Tancredo adviser. "There's no more effective deterrent than that. But he is open-minded and willing to embrace other options. This is just a means to deter them from attacking us."

On Tuesday, Tancredo warned a group of Iowans that another terrorist attack would "cause a worldwide economic collapse." He said that attacking Muslim holy sites first would be the only means to prevent terrorists from attacking America. IowaPolitics.com recorded his comments.

"If it is up to me, we are going to explain that an attack on this homeland of that nature would be followed by an attack on the holy sites in Mecca and Medina," Tancredo said. "That is the only thing I can think of that might deter somebody from doing what they would otherwise do. If I am wrong, fine, tell me, and I would be happy to do something else. But you had better find a deterrent, or you will find an attack."

Tom Casey, a deputy spokesman for the State Department, told CNN's Elise Labott that the congressman's comments were "reprehensible" and "absolutely crazy." Tancredo was widely criticized in 2005 for making a similar suggestion.

–CNN Associate Producer Lauren Kornreich
Posted 8/3/2007 01:07:35 PM
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2007/08/03/tancredo-bomb-muslim-holy-sites-first/
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The first part of the CNN post appears in the DU thread "Tancredo: Bomb Muslim holy sites first" http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x2940596

It includes the paragraph from the above:

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On Tuesday, Tancredo warned a group of Iowans that another terrorist attack would "cause a worldwide economic collapse." He said that attacking Muslim holy sites first would be the only means to prevent terrorists from attacking America. IowaPolitics.com recorded his comments.
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It also links to http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2007/08/03/tancredo-bomb-muslim-holy-sites-first

Note that that URL now does a 301 redirect to

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2007/08/04/tancredo-bomb-muslim-holy-sites-first/