FRANK RICH: They’ll Break the Bad News on 9/11

[kevinmc]

BY this late date we should know the fix is in when the White House’s top factotums fan out on the Sunday morning talk shows singing the same lyrics, often verbatim, from the same hymnal of spin. The pattern was set way back on Sept. 8, 2002, when in simultaneous appearances three cabinet members and the vice president warned darkly of Saddam’s aluminum tubes. “We don’t want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud,” said Condi Rice, in a scripted line. The hard sell of the war in Iraq — the hyping of a (fictional) nuclear threat to America — had officially begun.

America wasn’t paying close enough attention then. We can’t afford to repeat that blunder now. Last weekend the latest custodians of the fiasco, our new commander in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus, and our new ambassador to Baghdad, Ryan Crocker, took to the Sunday shows with two messages we’d be wise to heed.

The first was a confirmation of recent White House hints that the long-promised September pivot point for judging the success of the “surge” was inoperative. That deadline had been asserted as recently as April 24 by President Bush, who told Charlie Rose that September was when we’d have “a pretty good feel” whether his policy “made sense.” On Sunday General Petraeus and Mr. Crocker each downgraded September to merely a “snapshot” of progress in Iraq. “Snapshot,” of course, means “Never mind!”

The second message was more encoded and more ominous. Again using similar language, the two men said that in September they would explain what Mr. Crocker called “the consequences” and General Petraeus “the implications” of any alternative “courses of action” to their own course in Iraq. What this means in English is that when the September “snapshot” of the surge shows little change in the overall picture, the White House will say that “the consequences” of winding down the war would be even more disastrous: surrender, defeat, apocalypse now. So we must stay the surge. Like the war’s rollout in 2002, the new propaganda offensive to extend and escalate the war will be exquisitely timed to both the anniversary of 9/11 and a high-stakes Congressional vote (the Pentagon appropriations bill).....

http://freedemocracy.blogspot.com/2007/06/frank-rich-theyll-break-bad-news-on-911.html

[glowing]

1. Personally, I think we have spread enough Depleted Uranium to

make a mushroom cloud for the Iraqi's and subsequently our own troops to breathe. Condi is a snake.

[fightthegoodfightnow]

2. When Will the Democratic Presidential Candidates Say Enough is Enough?

Had Enough America?

[bleever]

3. It feels like we're approaching the breaking point,

just as the Vietnam era reached its own, when the overreaching and denial make the whole castle of lies collapse under its own weight.

The tension for Republicans between loyalty and electability is going to get excruciating. Will they all follow Custer down into the valley?

[puebloknot]

6. The Valley of Megiddo, you mean? I fear they will! nt

[autorank]

4. Excellent post...Rich is really getting good at this sort of analysis.

Lets see, they're saying "We started something that we can't stop becasue stopping will result in the fears that we unjustly and inaccurately used to justify the war in the first place."

This is not really an option, it's a delaying tactic. Wont' work.

[Jillian]

5. Thanks for posting this

Frank Rich really summed it up, didn't he??

Maybe it's time to start pressuring Warner.

[babylonsister]

7. Thanks! nt

[leveymg]

8. If only the rest of America knew, what we know about 9/11 - it would lose it's magic

and the whole burned-out edifice of presidential lies would come tumbling down.

THEY KNEW: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/5/7/124813/4868

[DemReadingDU]

9. evening kick