(I also wrote this article for the UNT newspaper. This is nothing any of you don't already know, but I find that whenever my passion dies down a little, stuff like this makes me even more willing to fight.)
Recently, it was reported that Bush’s conference call with 10 troops and an Iraqi soldier in Iraq last Thursday was choreographed. Allison Barber, deputy assistant defense secretary (yes, that’s a real position), coached the soldiers before the call about who would answer the questions and even where the water bottles would go.
"OK, so let's just walk through this," Barber said. "Captain Kennedy, you answer the first question and you hand the mike to whom?"
"Captain Smith," Kennedy said.
"Captain. Smith? You take the mike and you hand it to whom?" she asked.
"Captain Kennedy," the soldier replied.
You can go to this to this link - http://video.msn.com/v/us/v.htm?g=56c26aa7-6a00-4baa-8e75-39b480dac2b1&f=copy – to see the Keith Olbermann report which shows Barber choreographing the stunt as well as the painfully awkward conference itself. I strongly urge you to check it out to understand fully how unimaginably bad this was.
But why did Bush recklessly stage such an event with such immediate risk of exposure? It might have something do with all recent polls consistently showing his approval rating to be below 40%. This is know doubt do to not only bad news from Iraq, but Bush sitting on his hands while an American city was wiped off the face of the Earth, or high gas prices hurting Americans across the country, or his best friends in the House and Senate being indicted and subpoenaed left and right (well, I guess just the last one!) and other things that don’t surprise me so much they make me do little more than yawn at this point. And, of course, it also probably has a lot to do with more Americans than not now believing the war to be a mistake with a strong plurality advocating pullout next year.
You know, it’s a funny thing - Bush says he’s a “war president.” But real war presidents like Franklin Roosevelt went to war because they had to, not because they wanted to. No good President of this country would send our troops into harm’s way for his cronies’ academic ideas or financial gain. Real war presidents wouldn’t cut taxes for his wealthy donors while are soldiers needed body armor and other resources. Real war presidents wouldn’t act so callous to those who’ve lost loved ones or continue to justify the deaths of more Americans just so they can save face and not admit their mistake (Bush is LBJ 2 save for one difference – Johnson actually felt sorry for what he did and those who perished in Vietnam haunted him until the end of his days).
Most of all, real war presidents would show leadership by addressing the troops for real, with no rehearsal beforehand.
Thursday, October 20, 2005
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3 comments:
Sadly, this administration seems only to know how to stage events with our soldiers. That they staged it so poorly is the real surprise; that they did not know how this would appear to the average American only shows how far off their game they are. It would be nice if Bush had more to offer then poorly staged "meetings" with the troops, but I've long given up hope that he has the wisdom or moral fortitude to address and do right by our soldiers honestly.
Anyone who has ever worked in journalism, particularly TV journalism, or has worked with journalists like I have would know that almost everything you see on TV news is rehearsed - even the toothless, uneducated, shirtless witness who agrees to go in front of a camera because he wants his 5 seconds of fame has been rehearsed. Reporters (or deputy secretaries) want to make sure that they don't 1)make asses of themselves or worse 2) make asses of the tv station for putting someone like that on television. Plus, you have a very small window to get your point across (most TV new stories are less than 2 minutes long). I've seen interviews that have taken hours, just for 2 minutes of footage. The deputy secretary told those soldiers to be honest about what they see and how they feel - or did the version of event you saw conveniently edit that out? Besides... do you really think the Whitehouse would be stupid enough to pick out military personnel that don't like the President or what they are doing in Iraq. And, do you really think that any smart military person who wants to stay in the military and not be dishonorably discharged would speak badly of the President on national television? There's a BIG difference between scripting and rehearsing. Scripting is what you see on Jerry Springer; rehearsing is what you see every day on the news. Afterall... TV journalists and producers don't really care about informing the public. They just care about ratings and getting their next paycheck.
All that may be true, but the White House is not practicing journalism. This was an effort to make a carefully rehearsed presentation appear as a "chat" between the President and the troops. I certainly agree that the White House would never pick soldiers whose questions they couldn't rely on, but if it's the case that they picked soldiers sympathetic to the President Bush, when why do they feel the need to so carefully "rehearse" the questions? Why can't Bush simply asks his questions, directed to certain soldiers, and allow them to answer as they see fit? Beyond that, the chat simply appeared awful; it was awkward, and it was clearly obvious that the soldiers had certain "themes" they were supposed to stick with. It was not only bad politics, but bad theater.
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