Mission Accomplished: Remember Tweety and Coulter fawning over Bush?

[NNN0LHI]

http://mediamatters.org/items/200604270005?f=h_top

Mission Accomplished: A look back at the media's fawning coverage of Bush's premature declaration of victory in Iraq

On May 1, 2003, President Bush landed on the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln aboard an S-3B Viking jet, emerged from the aircraft in full flight gear, and proceeded to "press{} flesh," as The Washington Post put it, as he shook hands and hugged crew members in front of the cameras. Later that day, Bush delivered a nationally televised speech from the deck of the Abraham Lincoln in which he declared that "{m}ajor combat operations in Iraq have ended," all the while standing under a banner reading: "Mission Accomplished." Despite lingering questions over the continued violence in Iraq, the failure to locate weapons of mass destruction, and the whereabouts of Saddam Hussein, as well as evidence that Bush may have shirked his responsibilities in the Texas Air National Guard (TANG) during the Vietnam War, the print and televised media fawned over Bush's "grand entrance" and the image of Bush as the "jet pilot" and the "Fighter Dog."

Chief among the cheerleaders was MSNBC's Chris Matthews. On the May 1, 2003, edition of Hardball, Matthews was joined in his effusive praise of Bush by right-wing pundit Ann Coulter and "Democrat" Pat Caddell. Former U.S. Rep. Robert K. Dornan (R-CA) also appeared on the program.:

MATTHEWS: What's the importance of the president's amazing display of leadership tonight?

{...}

MATTHEWS: What do you make of the actual visual that people will see on TV and probably, as you know, as well as I, will remember a lot longer than words spoken tonight? And that's the president looking very much like a jet, you know, a high-flying jet star. A guy who is a jet pilot. Has been in the past when he was younger, obviously. What does that image mean to the American people, a guy who can actually get into a supersonic plane and actually fly in an unpressurized cabin like an actual jet pilot?

{...}

MATTHEWS: Do you think this role, and I want to talk politically {...}, the president deserves everything he's doing tonight in terms of his leadership. He won the war. He was an effective commander. Everybody recognizes that, I believe, except a few critics. Do you think he is defining the office of the presidency, at least for this time, as basically that of commander in chief? That {...} if you're going to run against him, you'd better be ready to take {that} away from him.

{...}

MATTHEWS: Let me ask you, Bob Dornan, you were a congressman all those years. Here's a president who's really nonverbal. He's like Eisenhower. He looks great in a military uniform. He looks great in that cowboy costume he wears when he goes West. I remember him standing at that fence with Colin Powell. Was {that} the best picture in the 2000 campaign?

{...}

MATTHEWS: Ann Coulter, you're the first to speak tonight on the buzz. The president's performance tonight, redolent of the best of Reagan -- what do you think?

COULTER: It's stunning. It's amazing. I think it's huge. I mean, he's landing on a boat at 150 miles per hour. It's tremendous. It's hard to imagine any Democrat being able to do that. And it doesn't matter if Democrats try to ridicule it. It's stunning, and it speaks for itself.

[texastoast]

1. ...

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

Oh, Ann, you are one dumb, easy b*.

[donkeyotay]

2. Tweety's been busy revising history. He now claims he was never

for the war. I don't remember it that way. This is more like I remember Tweety's stance:

MATTHEWS: Do you think this role, and I want to talk politically {...}, the president deserves everything he's doing tonight in terms of his leadership. He won the war. He was an effective commander. Everybody recognizes that, I believe, except a few critics. Do you think he is defining the office of the presidency, at least for this time, as basically that of commander in chief? That {...} if you're going to run against him, you'd better be ready to take {that} away from him.

[NNN0LHI]

4. I still see people swear that Tweety was against the war from the beginning

They think we are idiots.

Don

[BOSSHOG]

3. I agree with what coulter said

The fucking lunatic political theatre of the absurd used to excite the scum of the earth garbage human beings like coulter sure did SPEAK FOR ITSELF. What's it saying now ann? He fucked up on that landing, was it all Clinton's fault.

[mudesi]

5. My ''favorite'' conservative blog in April, 2003

http://www.thewaterglass.net/archives/2003_04.html

"Nyah, Nyah, Nyah, Neener Neener

National Review Online, one of my favorite sites in the whole world, has unfortunately engaged in "neener neener journalism" in their latest article, which quotes various anti-war pundits, Monday-morning military quarterbacks, and the typical loudmouth cretins who predicted things like "quagmire" in order to show how wrong they all were.

Like I said, neener neener journalism. Doesn't mean that it isn't brilliant, however. Ha!"

David, Waterglass Admin. Apr. 10, 2003

"Thing is, I think a bit of gloating, a little neener neener is okay, in that the anti-war crowd was so goddamn convinced that they were right and everyone else is wrong"

David, Waterglass Admin. Apr. 14, 2003

[deutsey]

7. I'm sure he has since admitted that HE was wrong...about everything.

:sarcasm:

[Ganja Ninja]

6. I remember the day very well.

I got up and turned on my TV and it was on all the major networks and it went on all day long. Sadly it wasn't just Coulter and Matthews. It was every freaking damn one of them. They were all fawning over him and pimping him like he was the second coming. It was the most disgusting day in television history.