Hi and welcome to Sabirism's malicious life, I'm Ran Levy. The story you're about to hear concerns two people, George and Jeremy.

In some ways George and Jeremy are quite similar, in what they do and what lines they are willing

to cross to do it.

But in most ways they couldn't be more opposite. Like if you mapped out the

entire spectrum of humanity you could just about put one of them on one end of the

picture and the other way on the other side.

Consider, for example, what happened on March 19th and 20th, 2003, an important day in both of their lives.

It was that kind of day for a lot of people, actually, as it would turn out to be an historic date.

George Friedman for his part knew that before almost anyone on the planet.

The war is going to start at 8 tonight, he told a representative from the New York Times, quietly, from the front seat of his car.

He was on his way to meet the reporter at the Hilton Hotel in Melbourne, Florida, but things were already moving fast.

British B-52s were already in the air and en route to Baghdad, he claimed, and President Bush was going

to make an announcement to the nation at 9 p.m. The New York Times reporter, the kind of person you'd expect to be the first to hear about such a thing, had no knowledge that a war was about to begin.

So when he arrived at the Hilton before Friedman,

he turned on the TV in his room and flicked through the news channels.

There, too, quote,

no one was expecting the war to begin immediately.

The White House hadn't asked the networks for TV time.

Some correspondence, not to mention Peter Jennings, were heading home.

Friedman and Sconese in his climate-controlled sedan on I-95 was claiming to know something

the best reporters in Washington didn't.

End quote.

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