Letters to the Editor
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The reporter
should have followed up with the question, "Do you ever feel like your head is going to explode from the pressure of all that B.S.?"
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Oh, God, That Poor Girl!
Someone needs to tell Ms. Perino only to answer the specific question asked. For one thing, in the, let's face it, increasingly likely event she will one day have to testify before Congress or at deposition, she can't just go babbling like that. She sounds so ridiculous, firing off discredited bromides left and right!
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She is sorta right....
That is we did prevaiil in the unprovoked war against the Iraqi government. Unfortunately the mission was to establish successful democracy in Iraq, which we haven't done and won't be able to do. The Iraq War was over four years ago. What we have had since is the US occupation of Iraq and various forms of resistance to that occupation as well as a brewing civil war. I wish the media and the White House would get this straight. There is no winning anything now, we won the war but will not accomplish the mission. We were never going to be able to win the political battle. Iraq will be a theocratic shiite state no matter what we do, stay or go. Nothing pretty will come of this, and that was clear from the very beginning.
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Groundhogs Day or Deja Vu All Over Again
Reading this piece I thought, didn't she just have almost an identical exchange last week on this topic. Yep she sure did, and Tom Grieve wrote about it on April 26th in a bit entitled "The president heard the call".
http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2007/04/26/missionaccomplished/index.html
Man, how is Perino ever going to stop going in circles when she keeps getting her foot nailed to the floor?
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mission accomplished
According to Bob Woodward, in State of Denial, the words "mission accomplished" were in the speech initially, but Rumsfeld got them taken out. They took it out of the speech, Rummy says, but they didn't take down the banner. The WH clearly wanted to use those words, though, and to claim it referred to the particular ship is more of the same old lies. Ms. Perino is finally getting this job down.
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World Bizarro in are we
Is it possible that we're trapped in a DC Comic? Is the anti-Superman really our inglorious unleader?
Saying just I'm.
Here on Planet Htrae, Hsub proclaims victory at the beginning of his Bizarro war, and works hard to jump-start it at the end. He is not encumbered by the responsibilities of his position, but freed by them. His nominees for public service must be the least qualified to gain his support. He has a mandate from a minority. And his press agents speak backwards much, much better than forwards.
If it weren't so funny, it would be true.
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We did prevail
The purpose of our invasion was to topple Saddam and to rid Iraq of those pesky WMDs. We did topple Hussein, and there were no WMDs. That took a few weeks. At that point, the war was over, and we won.
That is just the facts, ma'am.
Unfortunately, it was a totally unjustified unilateral invasion that was done against the wishes and advice of our allies and of everyone who knew anything about the topic.
We have royally fucked up everything since, of course.
I really wish that Reid and Pelosi and Murtha, et. al., would point out that we won the war, and are now an occupying force. Since W won't define "victory", lets define it for him, pointing out that we did indeed accomplish our original mission, and it is time to go home.
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Horse pucky
Every time I hear Bush say how concerned he is about the Iraqi people, that we can't get out because there'll be a bloodbath -- I mean, come on! The easiest thing would be to pull out and let the Dems take the heat. He's not pulling out because he's afraid there WON'T be a bloodbath.
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Good Grief
Is there really any difference between what Dana Perino says in these briefings and the "wah wah wah" adult voice in the Peanuts cartoons?
"Mission Accomplished?"
"Wah wah wah, wah wah, wah."
"Timetable for withdrawl?"
"Wah wah. Wah wah wah wah, wah wah, wah wah."
"Alberto Gonzalez?"
"Wah wah wah, wah wah."
"The will and trust of the American People?"
"Wah wah wah."
"Good grief!"
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Standard practice has been to place talking points in background.
It has been standard Bush Administration practice to embed the days' specific "message" into the background of whatever event is being performed. From "Helping Small Business" to "Plan For Victory" to staging President Bush alongside the heads at Mount Rushmore, his media team has made a specialty of managing the Visual message space. To me it is disingenuous to say that the "Mission Accomplished" banner wasn't more of the same.
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"Several months later, 12 million Iraqis voted...."
Somebody remind me: how many of those months later wasit that we finally let the Iraqis vote? Were they standard months or Imperial months? And d'ya suppose that many many months of trying to avoid a vote despite the clamoring of Iraqis for a vote (because, after all, we knew the Shiites would roll over the Sunnis) had anything to do with a full-scale revolt on our hands?
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He'll do everything but...
The "Mission Accomplished" speech:
Major combat operations in Iraq have ended. In the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed. (Applause.) And now our coalition is engaged in securing and reconstructing that country.In this battle, we have fought for the cause of liberty, and for the peace of the world. Our nation and our coalition are proud of this accomplishment -- yet, it is you, the members of the United States military, who achieved it. Your courage, your willingness to face danger for your country and for each other, made this day possible. Because of you, our nation is more secure. Because of you, the tyrant has fallen, and Iraq is free.
Between the "end of major combat operations" and "proud of this accomplishment," it sounds like Bush has his "technical virginity."
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"We did prevail"
Yes you did. You prevailed in destroying any credibility the US had in the world, you knocked the Islamic hornet’s nest from the tree of diplomacy, you lied, tortured, renditioned, wire tapped, corrupted the attorney general’s office, screwed up the world bank, killed the U.S. economy for all but the rich, labeled differing political views as traitorous, and incompetently ran a war of your choice into the ground so poorly that 9 billion American dollars have simply vanished into Iraqi air, and managed to get 3, 300+ American soldiers killed and tens of thousands maimed. That's just our carnage. The Middle East looks like a glowing coal forge of distrust and hate that will shun our involvement for years to come. All of this while never being held accountable by your own Party for any of it. It brings new, if not nauseating, meaning to the word prevail.