Remember
this??
WH Pooler Geoff Earle of the New York Post writes of the teleconference: "The soldiers, nine U.S. men and one U.S. woman, plus an Iraqi, had been tipped off in advance about the questions in the highly scripted event. Allison Barber, deputy assistant to the Secretary of Defense for internal communication, could be heard asking one soldier before the start of the event, "Who are we going to give that [question] to?
After dozens of photo-ops -- from the WTC bullhorn to Mission Accomplished to the Turkey-in-Chief carrying a plastic turkey in Baghdad -- the American people have started to catch on. Even if it's not a conscious realization, I believe that Americans understand at some level that Bush is the Photo Op President. If this stage managed teleconference with the troops didn't at least raise suspicions I don't know what would.
It's possible that in an attempt to restore Bush's authenticity his handlers and strategists came up with a sneaky idea: stage some private moments with the President and let them be accidentally caught on the mic ... and better yet, with video too.
continued below
There is no evidence -- and how could there be, unless a WH staffer or complicit media tech sold their story to the National Enquirer? But it is an idea worth examining if only for the entertainment value.
If the G8 private moment was all planned out then you can see how it benefits Bush in at least two ways: one, he has publicly headbutted Blair in the chest concerning his efforts at resolving the Israel-Lebanon conflict. Just read the British press' take and you'll see this is indeed what happened. And two, he has shown to his loyal supporters back home that he really does practice Cowboy Diplomacy. Whether it's effective or not doesn't matter, since his loyal supporters think diplomacy never works anyway. He's confirmed with a pure "unscripted" moment that he's exactly who he says he is in private and BAM! -- instant certifiable authenticity.
There's a clever tie in with the NSA's illegal wiretapping here -- Bush demonstrates that even the President of the United States, doesn't have any guarantee of privacy, even during important conversations! He can be caught revealing his private thoughts and he's powerless to do anything about it. And you might notice that he's not too worried about it. Well, you must have heard by now that if you haven't done anything wrong you shouldn't worry about a little secret domestic surveillance. If it's okay for the president it's okay for us. Just like him skipping his flu shot last year.
Remember that Bush "accidentally" revealed his private remarks on February 10, 2006 when he kicked the press out of the room before delivering "private" remarks on NSA's domestic spying to GOP lawmakers that were pretty much identical to his public remarks on the issue. You can make the same case here that he's trying to demonstrate that people who have nothing to hide have nothing to fear from domestic spying.
A lot of people said that Bush knew the mic was on in February. I think that given how tightly controlled stage management is for this White House, every one of Bush's "accidental" private moments is suspect for being staged, going all the way back to the 2000 campaign when he told Dick Cheney "There's Adam Clymer, major league asshole from the New York Times." To which Cheney replied, "Big time," earning himself a new nickname from W. Once again totally consistent with his image as someone who calls 'em like he sees 'em, and his base eats that shit up.
They pepper these private moments with profanity for a little added authenticity and to throw people off if they're suspicious like me -- certainly if he knew the mic was on he wouldn't let it catch him saying the S-word...!!!
So I know it sounds fairly conspiratorial, but in these these post Truman Show times, where reality television has become thoroughly integrated into popular culture, and where the Bush Empire openly admits to creating its own reality while we all just write about it, it's worth taking a serious look at what we're looking at, and ask, "is that for real?"