All the news that isn't. Again.
Well, my day began with an e-mail from a conservative friend announcing that Al Qaeda's top man in Iraq, Abu Ayyub al-Masri, had been killed. My first reaction was to ask myself how the timing of this announcement would benefit BushCo. Well, it didn't take long to come up with reasons the White House would love to hijack this news cycle...
1) The fourth anniversary of 'Mission Accomplished,' and the potential that reporters could ask questions requiring more than the usual lies.
2) The vetoing of the Iraq funding bill, which the right is desperate to frame as Democratic defeatism, if not outright treason, in spite of the fact that a strong majority of Americans agree with the Dems. They know the base will get the message, but probably aren't keen on too much publicity among the other 70% of us.
3) The State Department's report of global terrorism deaths increasing 40% over the last year (though much of it was in 'liberated' Iraq).
4) Reports of "the surge"-- you know, the strategy that will succeed "because it has to"-- resulting in nothing more than a huge escalation in violence. Notably in Baghdad, which the surge was supposed to lock down.
5) A new memo by Alberto Gonzales in which he handed over hiring and firing decisions at the DOJ to two aides-- including the now-notorious gal then-fresh out of Pat Robertson's bottom-rung Dominionist law school.
6) The potential of more salacious details of the Beltway prostitution ring that's already brought down one of the top Bushies at the State Department.
And that's just the first six reasons that came to mind. But I didn't even need to waste all that energy, as it turns out. The story was retracted hours later as bogus by all the major media outlets that happily passed it on as fact in the first place. If it was al Qaeda intentionally dispersing a lie, you have to give them credit for cunning-- they managed to hijack the news cycle with the headline "al Qaeda's Iraq leader alive and well." I actually feel kinda nauseous to think that our real foes are leading BushCo around by the nose. Somebody should really try to stop them.
1) The fourth anniversary of 'Mission Accomplished,' and the potential that reporters could ask questions requiring more than the usual lies.
2) The vetoing of the Iraq funding bill, which the right is desperate to frame as Democratic defeatism, if not outright treason, in spite of the fact that a strong majority of Americans agree with the Dems. They know the base will get the message, but probably aren't keen on too much publicity among the other 70% of us.
3) The State Department's report of global terrorism deaths increasing 40% over the last year (though much of it was in 'liberated' Iraq).
4) Reports of "the surge"-- you know, the strategy that will succeed "because it has to"-- resulting in nothing more than a huge escalation in violence. Notably in Baghdad, which the surge was supposed to lock down.
5) A new memo by Alberto Gonzales in which he handed over hiring and firing decisions at the DOJ to two aides-- including the now-notorious gal then-fresh out of Pat Robertson's bottom-rung Dominionist law school.
6) The potential of more salacious details of the Beltway prostitution ring that's already brought down one of the top Bushies at the State Department.
And that's just the first six reasons that came to mind. But I didn't even need to waste all that energy, as it turns out. The story was retracted hours later as bogus by all the major media outlets that happily passed it on as fact in the first place. If it was al Qaeda intentionally dispersing a lie, you have to give them credit for cunning-- they managed to hijack the news cycle with the headline "al Qaeda's Iraq leader alive and well." I actually feel kinda nauseous to think that our real foes are leading BushCo around by the nose. Somebody should really try to stop them.
posted by Matt Sandwich | 4:01 PM
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