Bush's side of the story

The administration is again complaining, albeit implicitly, that the SCLM is stomping on Bush's Iraq policy out of malice or carelessness, overlooking the "good news" in Iraq. Per the Washington Post coverage of Bush's speech:

Bush's speech offered nothing new in policy or strategy but instead reframed an argument that the president's advisers believe has not been presented adequately to most Americans... "You don't have to be a rocket scientist to know it [was] time to address this issue," one official said. "We have to get our side of the story out... and make our case."

Thanks to the miracle of Google, we can see whether the argument holds that the Bush administration isn't getting their side of the story out.

There are approximately 3400 pages at whitehouse.gov alone that include the terms Iraq AND 9/11 -- and another 490 pages that include Iraq AND September 11.

So, they've a pretty good start on their bully pulpit. Did the news media ignore them? Well, though I don't have Lexis-Nexis, Google News returns 3600 results for the search of Iraq AND 9/11 -- and this is just for the last month alone!

The far right tends to either bully from their bully pulpit or climb up on their cross and claim the world -- or at least the media -- is aligned against them. Just recently we learned that liberals wanted to send Osama Bin Laden to therapy; we also learned that Democrats are collaborating in a war against Christianity. If Americans don't magically come around to Bush's latest, if recycled, rhetoric, what will the administration try next? Will they continue to dish out more of the same and hope for the best, will they climb up on their cross, will they blame liberals, or will they expand operations and "conduct covert operations against suspected terrorist targets in as many as ten nations in the Middle East and South Asia" and let Rumsfeld "run the operations off the books," as Seymour Hersh reported in THE COMING WARS?

All the above, I think. If it isn't obvious, the PR war is held in a bothersome alternate universe from what the administration views as the real war, and they try to prevent at all cost the convergence of these two universes. Only responsible Congressional Republicans now have the power to bring Bush to his senses by way of flexing their appropriative and investigative muscle and joining the Democrats in putting a halt to the madness, or at least traveling a more sensible path.

Which is to say, I think we're fucked.

•  Government by a gang of criminals..

  Looting this nation blind.. stripping all of our equity.. while we still have some..

  Thats what it looks like to me..

  by tarball on Tue Jun 28, 2005 at 11:38:23 PM PDT

•  Didn't they already do this

  "We have to get our side of the story out... and make our case. Isn't that why we're in Iraq now, because they made their case? This administration had their chance, they f..ked it up and now they want to present their side of things and make their case. What is new? They don't get to do a "do over", there are too many dead soldiers for them to be able to rewrite history.

  by p a roberson on Wed Jun 29, 2005 at 04:46:17 AM PDT

  •  Exactly

    They've sucessfully pushed their propaganda again and again and again -- and yet, when it ceases to work, they claim they can't get their side of the story out.

    by sakitume on Wed Jun 29, 2005 at 06:52:35 AM PDT

    •  BTW Like your name...

      not to date myself, but makes me think of Laugh In.

      by p a roberson on Wed Jun 29, 2005 at 06:59:28 AM PDT

      •  Laugh-In

        That's exactly the reference!

        by sakitume on Wed Jun 29, 2005 at 07:15:33 AM PDT