Herbert: Webs of Illusion (* Spinning)

[RamboLiberal]

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/11/opinion/11herbert.html?hp=&pagewanted=print&position=

It's understood that incumbents campaigning for re-election will spotlight the good news and downplay the bad. The problem for President Bush, with the election just three weeks away, is that the bad news keeps cascading in and there is very little good news to tout.

So the president and his chief supporters have resorted to the odd tactic of claiming that the bad news is good.

The double talk reached a fever pitch last week after the release of two devastating reports - the comprehensive report by Charles Duelfer, the chief U.S. weapons inspector, which destroyed any remaining doubts that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction; and the Labor Department's dismal employment report for September, which heightened concerns about the strength of the economic recovery and left Mr. Bush with the dubious distinction of being the first president since Herbert Hoover to stand for re-election with fewer people working than at the beginning of his term.

Mr. Bush turned the findings of the Duelfer report upside down and inside out, telling crowds at campaign rallies that it proved Saddam Hussein had been "a gathering threat." It didn't matter that the report, ordered by the president himself, showed just the opposite. The truth would not have been helpful to the president. So with a brazenness and sleight of hand usually associated with three-card-monte players, he pulled a fast one on his cheering listeners.

[mazzarro]

1. Herbert hits the nail again!

"Spinning gets old after a while. A president who spends too much time spinning webs of illusion can find himself trapped in them." - Me think that the ChimpCo* has been trapped that web for a long, looooooonnnnng time now!

[Demeter]

2. The Bad News Is There Is NO Good News!

And in this case, that's good.