Remember her?<\/p>\n
She was the Kuwaiti ambassador’s daughter (and member of the royal family) who testified to Congress that she saw Iraqi troops throwing babies out of incubators.<\/p>\n
She falsely claimed to be a nurse’s aid<\/a> when she had not even been in the country at the time of the invasion.<\/p>\n Well,”Nurse Nayirah,” meet Liz Wahl, the former RT News anchor who resigned on the air<\/a>:<\/p>\n Liz Wahl\u2019s on-air resignation as a Russia Today news anchor came amid a perfect geopolitical storm. She announced her departure from RT just as tensions escalated between the U.S. and Russia over Ukraine.<\/span> Note that the Foreign Policy Institute (FPI) was founded by William Kristol, who founded PNAC, and <\/p>\n A source from inside RT, who spoke to WhoWhatWhy anonymously for fear of retribution, had at one point \u201cobserved [Wahl] taking pictures of the office over the summer, asking all sorts of odd questions about my experience, and looking at Jamie Kirchick\u2019s website while in the office.\u201d<\/span> The prevalence of this kind of sh%$ in the political and media landscape is why I try to get as much of my news as possible from overseas sources.<\/p>\n
<\/span>\u201cI cannot be part of a network funded by the Russian government that whitewashes the actions of Putin,\u201d said the 28-year-old American reporter and show host, who worked at RT America for two-and-a-half years. \u201cI am proud to be an American and believe in disseminating the truth. And that is why, after this newscast, I am resigning.\u201d<\/span>
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<\/span>Wahl\u2019s Howard-Beale-like moment came just one day after her colleague Abby Martin, host of RT America\u2019s \u201cBreaking the Set,\u201d committed her own on-air indiscretion. Martin denounced Russia\u2019s military occupation of the Crimean peninsula, which had been part of neighboring Ukraine since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991<\/span>
<\/span>Unlike Wahl, however, Martin didn\u2019t quit the network; she is still hosting her daily 30-minute show. Martin\u2019s decision to stay at RT drew criticism from the same reporter who landed the first interview with Wahl after her resignation, The Daily Beast\u2019s Jamie Kirchick.<\/span>
<\/span>\u201cIndeed, far from damaging the propaganda efforts of the Russian government, Martin\u2019s momentary act of nonconformity plays right into the Kremlin\u2019s hands,\u201d Kirchick wrote in a March 4 article in Tablet Magazine. \u201cRT will now be able to hold up her 60-second departure from the official script as evidence of its editorial independence.<\/span>
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<\/span>Case in point: The Beasts\u2019 Kirchick\u2014who got the first interview with Wahl and was critical of Martin after she remained at RT\u2014gets his paychecks from the neoconservative Foreign Policy Institute, where he is a Fellow. FPI has been described as a renascent version of the Project for the New American Century, which is in turn often described as one of the well-connected brain trusts behind the launch of the Iraq War.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
<\/span>This led the RT America employee to believe that Kirchick\u2014with the help of Wahl\u2014was planning to write a hit piece on the organization.<\/span>
<\/span>A recently published piece by TruthDig goes further, contending that Kirchick and neoconservative allies orchestrated\u2014in TruthDig\u2019s words \u201cstage managed<\/a>\u201c\u2014Wahl\u2019s resignation right from the start.<\/span>
<\/span>\u2026\u2026\u2026<\/span>
<\/span>A large part of TruthDig\u2018s contention that Kirchick and the Foreign Policy Institute \u201cstage managed\u201d the whole thing relies on FPI\u2019s Twitter feed activity in the minutes leading up to Wahl\u2019s on-air resignation.<\/span>
<\/span>FPI\u2019s feed that day telegraphed \u201csomething big might happen on RT\u201d and teased \u201cyou\u2019re really going to want to tune in to RT\u201d within 19 minutes of Wahl\u2019s stepping down. Then, as soon as Wahl made her announcement, FPI tweeted, \u201cRT Anchor RESIGNS ON AIR. She \u2018cannot be part of a network that whitewashes the actions of Putin.\u2019\u201d<\/span>
<\/span>Asked about the feed and timing of the tweets by WhoWhatWhy, Kirchick responded, \u201cI am an employee of FPI. Liz called me [while I was] at work. I told everyone in the office to watch. We did.\u201d<\/span>
<\/span>Wahl corroborated Kirchick\u2019s account of how events unfolded.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n