What must it be like going through life, knowing that almost everything you say is a total lie? Let's just let John take Weasel Boy out to the woodshed, shall we?
Conservative bloggers are in an uproar that the "liberal media" has put out "fake story" claiming "incorrectly" that Bush's chat with the troops yesterday morning was a pre-scripted fake event.
Sure sounds like John's met America's Dumbest Wanker™, doesn't it? Just read the rest of John's piece, including delicious excerpts from that event like this (emphasis gleefully added):
Deputy Asst. Defense Secretary Allison BARBER, prepping the troops: If he gives us a question that's not something that we've scripted, Captain Kennedy you're gonna have that mic and that's your chance to impress us all.
CAPT KENNEDY: Okay.
BARBER: Which won't be a problem for you. Alright here we go.
Make sure you read the whole thing to appreciate the pure scriptitudeness of it all.
In addition, AP writer Deb Riechmann lays it all out in glorious detail:
A brief rehearsal ensued.
"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.
And so it went.
"If the question comes up about partnering — how often do we train with the Iraqi military — who does he go to?" Barber asked.
"That's going to go to Captain Pratt," one of the soldiers said.
"And then if we're going to talk a little bit about the folks in Tikrit — the hometown — and how they're handling the political process, who are we going to give that to?" she asked.
Some pretty serious choreography there. Bob Fosse would be proud. But just when you figure it can't get any sillier, well, it does, as apparently the Bush folks used one of their own military press people as one of the "combat soldiers".
It's annoying enough that the Bush handlers are padding combat soldiers with some of their own flacks. It's more irritating when they lie:
SERGEANT LOMBARDO: I can tell you over the past 10 months we've seen a tremendous increase in the capabilities and the confidences of our Iraqi security force partners. We've been working side-by-side, training and equipping 18 Iraqi army battalions. Since we began our partnership, they have improved greatly, and they continue to develop and grow into sustainable forces. Over the next month, we anticipate seeing at least one-third of those Iraqi forces conducting independent operations.
"Tremendous increase in the capabilities?" "They have improved greatly?" Are these the same Iraqi forces for whom the number of battle-ready battalions has dropped from three to one?
The news is not that the Bush administration is putting on the same dog-and-pony shows that they have for years. The news is that the MSM is finally starting to write about it. Better late than never, I guess.
And yes, Weasel Boy is still as wankerific as ever.
BONUS TRACK: After you read all of the above, take the time to appreciate White House Press Lizard Scott McClellan here:
Q And regarding yesterday's event with the President and the soldiers in Tikrit, has there been any adjustment in the administration's position about whether or not it was scripted or rehearsed, and what sort of protocols will be followed in the future?
MR. McCLELLAN: I think you heard from the troops. The troops that were participating in that event said that they were expressing their own thoughts. So you heard directly from the troops. And these are troops that are on the ground in Iraq, who were giving the President and the American people a firsthand account of the progress that is being made on the ground.
Note the very careful wording of this non-denial denial. Scottie never explicitly denied it was "scripted," did he? Rather, he claimed that "you heard from the troops" which, technically, is totally accurate since those troops physically generated the sounds coming out of their own mouths. No one's questioning that.
Scottie also said they were "expressing their own thoughts," which still doesn't address the scripting issue. Regardless of whether they were the troops' own thoughts, there's no question that those answers were supplied to them, so whether the troops actually believed what they were saying is beside the point.
Give Scottie credit -- he knows how to chew up time while avoiding the question entirely. Then again, that's what he's paid the big bucks for, isn't it?
BY THE WAY, make sure you understand something -- there is no longer any debate as to whether the above event was "scripted" -- that debate ended the instant Deputy Asst. Defense Secretary Allison Barber (assuming this was transcribed correctly) said the following:
Deputy Asst. Defense Secretary Allison BARBER, prepping the troops: If he gives us a question that's not something that we've scripted, Captain Kennedy you're gonna have that mic and that's your chance to impress us all.
Once that sentence was out of her mouth, this argument was over and can't be re-introduced with bullshit like "Well, you have to look at the context" or similar idiocy. As the saying goes, stick a fork in this debate -- it's done. Anyone who keeps trying to resurrect it is simply lying to you.
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