Thursday, May 04, 2006

 

Three Years After

Greyhawk at Mudville Gazette notes the coordination of a media campaign to use President Bush’s “Mission Accomplished” speech (despite that said speech said much the opposite, that there would be a lot of hard work ahead) as a contrast for the obvious “where we find ourselves today” report.

Greyhawk excerpts from a report by David Broder in The Washington Post:

On Monday, to mark the third anniversary of President Bush's appearance on the USS Lincoln to announce that "major combat operations in Iraq have ended," Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada issued a news release in which Bush's text was set in contrast to barbed reminders of everything that has gone wrong in Iraq since that boast.

Amazing how congruent are the press releases from major Democratic Party operatives and the reporting of cooperative mainstream media outlets. Broder whitewashes his reformulated press release with Senator Joe Biden’s fanciful “let’s do nation-building lite” proposal on a loose Federation of autonomous Sunni, Shia, and Kurdish Iraqs (three Iraqs at the same price!), and closes with a smarmy, “At a time when most people see nothing but hopeless discord in Iraq, it is healthy to have someone offering alternatives that could produce progress.”

Greyhawk also notes the lock-step in media portrayals on the “Three Years After ‘Mission Accomplished’” theme. (You can almost hear the “hurrumph” when you read the articles.) He also excerpts from Lawrence Korb and Brian Katulis in The Boston Globe. Here, the Globe’s reporters go the Post one step better, and add this provocative and completely un-provable assertion:

The oil-rich Gulf region has become less stable, contributing to a run-up in gas prices at home and an increase in terrorist attacks around the world.

Greyhawk suggests that googling "mission accomplished" will yield many similar examples of this kind of reporting and commentary. In contrast to the media presumptions of what President Bush’s speech actually conveyed that day three years ago, Greyhawk reminds those who would listen what the President actually did say. He told us it would not be easy, nor quick. That there was much hard work to be done. As Greyhawk quotes, he also said the following that day:

"The war on terror is not over, yet it is not endless. We do not know the day of final victory, but we have seen the turning of the tide. No act of the terrorists will change our purpose, or weaken our resolve, or alter their fate. Their cause is lost. Free nations will press on to victory."

And Greyhawk suggests, “You can decide for yourself whether your resolve has weakened - or if you ever had any to start with.”

These publicity stunts and press reports are part of a coordinated effort, as I know my readers and Mudville Readers are well aware.

General McCaffrey's assessment of his recent trip is being carefully parsed, with the only significant bits warranting media attention being how much longer, how much more, ignoring all of his (mostly favorable) comments.

Greyhawk mentioned the great disparity between what Bush actually said and the version continuously sustained by liberal and media mythology. This is the same orthodoxy of "fake but accurate" that sustains the same untruths about the President's 2003 State of the Union address and his "16 words."

I have a post due today, if I get to it, about the mental contortions and self-delusions that are required to maintain this liberal, left-leaning, immune to truth or reason point of view, where only the other side distorts or misleads or misremembers.

If ever pinned to the wall with their errors of fact and recollection or downright deceit, they turn to a defense of semantics, or that their critics are arguing about what the meaning of "is" is.

They'll flitter to the next Bush- or war-bashing meme, and on about the business at hand: gaining a political advantage without having to do any heavy lifting coming up with actual ideas or workable policies.






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