Doggedly searching for the crux of the biscuit.
The toppling of the Saddam statue? Staged for the cameras.
The rescue of Jessica Lynch? Staged for the cameras.
Pulling Saddam from a spiderhole? Yep, you guessed it. (Or not.)
Is there anything about this occupation that's genuine? Of course there is, but it doesn't really make for very exciting television.
TrackBack... but ... but ... but you said that cameras don't lie!
Posted by: John Johnson at March 9, 2005 03:26 PMYou know those "town hall" meetings where ordinary people spontaneously praise Bush for making them destitute, I mean for "saving" SS?
Uh huh.
I think it was Ari Fleischer who pointed out that Bush knows how powerful TV is.
Posted by: Tripp at March 9, 2005 04:44 PMYou gotta hand it to the Bush administration, though. This war is one fantastic Palace of Cards.
Mission accomplished indeed.
(Unfortunately for Bush, the saying popularly attributed to Lincoln is true. You _can't_ fool all of the people all of the time. In addition, the law of karma can be particularly nasty if you try to get away with too much.)
Posted by: John Johnson at March 9, 2005 09:26 PMYou forgot the very real profits made by the Halliburton and Companies including the missing $9.5 Billion... Those are very real indeed.
Posted by: NBT at March 9, 2005 10:04 PMCute post, but Saddam's capture was not staged for the cameras:
(1) Saddam was captured by infantry and special forces, not Marines.
(2) The Marines have no record of a "Sgt. Nadim Abou Rabeh", the guy claiming everything was faked.
(3) A real Iraqi guy who was present at the Saddam's capture verified the "official version" of events.
Of course, you can choose to believe all this evidence has been forged, too.
But your mistrust of the Bush administration is incapacitatingly powerful if you're prepared to immediately accept some random guy in Lebanon, speaking to a Saudi newspaper, as a credible source of new information about a U.S. military operation that took place over a year ago.
Posted by: GaijinBiker at March 10, 2005 05:36 AMThanks for the link, GB; I updated the post.
My mistrust of the Bush administration is very powerful, though not incapacitating. This is easily the most cynical and dishonest administration since Nixon and I don't take anything they say about this war at face value because, well, that policy has proven remarkably sound so far.
Posted by: apostropher at March 10, 2005 08:01 AMGosh, one (1) thing ever used as PR fodder by the Bush administration might - might - have been something slightly less than staged by ham-fisted wonks? Well, dang, that just shoots down my whole leftist philosophy.
Why does fact-based history hate America so?
Posted by: Robust McManlyPants at March 10, 2005 11:51 AM