Foregone conclusions: Without the assistance of Our Liberal Media, Pres. Bush and his political handlers could not get away with an extravagant charade like the one we’re witnessing now:
[It’s] hard to decide which is more pathetic: Bush’s “listening tour,” or the national media, which have cravenly agreed to call it by that name and cover it within that frame.
This “tour” has required no tourism. It has taken Bush from the Oval Office, over to Foggy Bottom, back to the West Wing, then over to the Pentagon, and back again to the White House. But the media have treated it like Lenin’s trip to the Finland Station, or the Beatles coming to America. Wow! Lookit him go! He’s even taken his fingers out of his ears! That bubble boy sure can listen!
You can imagine the staff meetings in the days leading up to the Iraq Study Group report. “We gotta give the appearance of paying attention to the report, Mr. President. We gotta let some time pass after Baker’s big show, until some serial killer or anorexic distracts the country again. In the meantime, we gotta give those newsie jerkoffs something to cover. Snow can only snow ’em for a day or two. We need action. Photo ops. Soundbites. A storyline…. Wait a minute, I’ve got it: we’ll put you on a listening tour. Yeah, that’s the ticket. They’ll eat it up. A listening tour… and A New Way Forward!”
I’m not surprised that Bush has tried such a brazen stunt; I’m just stunned that the media has fallen for it so frictionlessly. Maybe it’s just the time of the year; perhaps the press corps’s just preoccupied with playing Secret Santa.
It is amazaing that, with the exception of Keith Olbermann, no one in the Gang of 500, not a single talking head or pundit, has voiced any doubts about the president’s campaign to convince Americans that he’s in the throes of decision-making about Iraq.
As we suggested here and here, the decision about what to do will be based on what best suits the interests of George W. Bush — and among the choices available, there is only one that suits his personal and political aims: sending in more troops.
