As some of you may be aware, in November of 2003 Tom Delay, in conjunction with the House Republican Conference created the website
http://www.freedom.gov In a press release at the time (Which I could no longer find on the Delay site, but found at the
Free Republic site) Delay described the site this way:
House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) launched a new Web site that provides an unfiltered look at free Iraq. The site, www.Freedom.gov, serves as a one-stop shop for the timeliest information on the liberation and reconstruction taking place in Iraq each day.
Now from Day 1 this site was always a joke. The very first thing that one sees on the page is the large print headline "Victory In Iraq". (Which is where my headline for this diary also comes from.) It was a great way to shut up a war supporter who claims that Bush never said "Mission Accomplished". All I had to do was say that even if Bush never uttered the words, Tom Delay and the House GOP sure did.
While this site claimed to be "unfiltered", of course there is no negative news at all, and despite the use of the ".gov" extension, if you click on the "member trips to Iraq" there are only Republican members shown. The implication being that only Republicans have made trips to Iraq, which is a complete falsehood. There is nothing on the site that identifies the site as being created by the Republicans.
But the real reason for this diary is to point out that it appears that this site hasn't been updated in many months. Apparently the last update came during the elections in Jan. One can't help but wonder why there are no stories showcasing "the timeliest information on the liberation and reconstruction taking place in Iraq each day". Why is Tom Delay and the House Republican Conference no longer supporting the effort of the site? In fact many of the links to speeches and releases by house members no longer work.
As it stands now, www.freedom.gov can be seen as a time capsule, kind of like a mideval festival. The site STILL has links to stories like "Iraq's quest for nuclear weapons", and "Bush says Iraq must fully disclose or game's over". It is very nostalgic to look back and see all in one place both the boogeyman and imminent threat that Saddam Hussein supposedly posed to the US as well as the "progress and accomplishments" that are taking place on a daily basis.
This was my first diary, and I was dreaming when I wrote this, so forgive me if it goes astray.