Sweet jumping Jehosephat, who knew Iraqi bloggers sound so much like Karen Hughes? Or do they pen their thoughts -- thankfully, for us, in the king's English -- more like David Frum?
I couldn't believe it when on Countdown tonight, Keith showed a snippet of Bush's speech to the what's-your-beef council or whatever:
Bush made a surprising reference to the blogosphere during a spirited defense of his war strategy on Wednesday. The mention seemed even more unusual because the president didn't identify whom he was quoting, so he seemed to be leaning on anonymous commentary.
"They have bloggers in Baghdad, just like we've got here," Bush told the National Cattlemen's Beef Association. Then he began to quote: "Displaced families are returning home, marketplaces are seeing more activity, stores that were long shuttered are now reopening. We feel safer about moving in the city now. Our people want to see this effort succeed."
Could Bush's blogger buddies be a whole lot of sizzle, but not much steak?
Consider the short sentences. The clipped, precise prose. The use of phrases like "long shuttered." And the whopper of them all: "Our people want to see this effort succeed." Forgive me if I personally suspect that the bros Fadhil just might be on the White House propaganda staff gravy train. A couple of -- if you will -- Iraqi Armstrongs.
Of course, it wasn't too long before media folks were badgering the press office for more information. Exactly who are these bloggers, they asked, since Bush did not identify them in his speech.
Turns out they met Bush in 2004. In Washington, D.C.
... the White House made clear hours later, that he was quoting two brothers, Mohammed and Omar Fadhil. They write an English-language blog from Baghdad called IraqTheModel.com. Both of them got to meet Bush in the Oval Office in 2004.
In his speech, Bush was pulling select lines from an op-ed that the brothers wrote. It appeared in The Wall Street Journal on March 5.
http://www.signonsandiego.com/...
March 5, eh? Didn't take much of a surge, then, to get those long shuttered stores opened up. Don't know about you, but I think it's weird to lift material from a dated Washington Post commentary and attribute it to "bloggers" (Was Bush trying to be relevant?) (Oh, spare me.) (He can't even pronounce the word without hissing.) (To counteract blogs like this one?) (Who knows how his mind works.) (Or doesn't.) (But it wasn't written by him anyway.) (Karen Hughes?)
White House spokeswoman Dana Perino defended the appearance of blog commentary in a presidential speech. And got corrected on the op-ed date (it was March 7, not 5). (Poor Dana).
It is just one more way, she said, to show that positive news is happening in Iraq. But in perspective, she said, the White House cites all kinds of sources. Among the others she mentioned in the same breath: reporting from Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq.
I think not. More like "just one more way to bullshit the American people." The day after McCain got a slapdown on CNN for his patently false statements about Iraq and certifiably stupid suggestion that Petraeus joy rides around Baghdad in an unarmored convertible, here come the Baghdad boys to let us know: the malls are open!
Our old friend Howie Kurtz arrives on the scene, of course:
Howard Kurtz interviewed the brothers more than two years ago during their visit to the U.S. and quoted Mohammed Fadhil in a Dec. 20, 2004 column: "Now we want to say in a loud and clear voice that we welcome American troops and consider this a liberation, not an occupation." Fadhil added: "People outside Iraq are more worried than the Iraqis themselves."
Kurtz pointed out: "In true Internet fashion, they are already having a war of words with other bloggers who see them as American tools."
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/...
Ah ... yeah. Go visit IraqTheModel.com. I haven't had a lot of time to peruse the site, but I noticed right away that it has a blogroll. Sorry, folks -- no DailyKos. But you'll find links to Michelle Malkin, RedState, Little Green Footballs. Hate to break it to you, Howie, but the only people who go to those sites are American tools.
Here's a more recent entry at the site, by someone named Sahar:
March 18 by Sahar
Every time I tell myself that my next blog will be a pleasant story of days of old, I am confronted with a different story that needs to be told.
A friend of mine called me to tell me the bad news. Her brother had been kidnapped, and the ransom set at $100,000. For any Iraqi, such an amount spells disaster.
Selling all they could sell, the whole extended family pitched in to save the poor man. They told the abductors that they couldn’t manage more than 20,000. Surprisingly, the criminals said "OK, have a woman bring the money to .....". After leading her on a merry dance, a boy of sixteen or seventeen approached her, took the money and said, "We will contact you". And that was the last they saw of them.
Two weeks later, their women combing the hospitals and then the morgues, had found no trace of Hani.
Considerable money was poured into Iraq for the dispersal of "friendly press" -- stories written by hired guns and fed to local outlets that would often print the false releases for money. It was a nifty Rumsfeld psy-ops maneuver (for more, see here http://www.alternet.org/...
Maybe it's true. Perhaps Iraqi bloggers do write like this. Or maybe they do it for the money. Or maybe Karen Hughes or some other shill pens the entries and the Fadhils just lend their names and pocket the cash.
My guess? More psy-ops. On all of us. Dumb, dumb, dumb. I think Bush has forgotten one thing: it's really hard to bullshit a blogger.