LAT: Rosa Brooks: The Google Catches Bush
Exposing the administration's folly on Iraq with a three-second Internet search.
October 27, 2006
UNLIKE HIS DAD, whose apparent befuddlement over a supermarket checkout scanner helped lose him the presidency, George W. Bush is one tech-savvy guy. He told CNBC this week that he sometimes goes "on the Google...to pull up maps like, I kinda like to look at the ranch. It remind me of where I wanna be sometimes."
Who can fault Bush for wishing to be back at the ranch? He's had a rotten week — and it's partly thanks to The Google.
As the president discovered this week, The Google — along with The Yahoo, The AltaVista and all the other Internet search engines — have made it infinitely harder for politicians to contradict themselves without getting caught.
It started on Sunday. On ABC-TV's "This Week," Bush insisted to George Stephanopoulos that when it comes to Iraq policy, "we've never been 'stay the course,' George!" Stephanopoulos looked astonished by this, since it's not exactly a state secret that Bush has promised to "stay the course" in Iraq on about 10,000 separate occasions.
OK, I exaggerate, but he's definitely promised to "stay the course" on at least several dozen occasions, a fact that you and I and a million bloggers can prove in about three seconds flat … thanks to The Google. Try it! On the White House website, plug "stay the course" into the search toolbar. I got 181 hits. Gotcha, W! The Google comes back to bite you!...
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-oe-brooks27oct27,0,6790811.column?track=mostemailedlink