There have been rumors for some time that the Administration is planning another propaganda offensive, despite that fact that they were embarassed by the revelations that the like of Armstrong Williams and Joseph Perkins were paid shills for unpopular programs.
Comes now Jeff Jacoby with this pean to Bush as the champion of freedom and democracy.
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/06/23/the_power_of_presidentia
l_solidarity/
The power of presidential solidarity
By Jeff Jacoby, Globe Columnist | June 23, 2005
''A READER living in Moscow," writes National Review's Jay Nordlinger, ''sent me a photo from a rally in Azerbaijan, which showed a youth holding up a poster of President Bush with the words, 'We Want Freedom.' The reader commented, 'It's good to remember whom people turn to when they're desperate -- and it ain't Kofi Annan.' "
A poster of Bush in Azerbaijan with WE WANT FREEDOM!!!! Give me a large break. He doesn't even ask how that got there or who set up the camera to take the picture.
Then it's time for a little UN bashing.
It is fashionable in some circles to invoke the United Nations as the touchstone of moral authority, but realists know better. They look to the United States, not the UN, as the great moral engine in world affairs. Like the Lebanese who waved a US flag during the demonstrations in Beirut earlier this year...
Yes, and where did the Lebanese get that one flag which also just happened to be photographed?
But this is just a prelude. Jacoby ranges over the case against Venezuela, Cuba and, of course, for Israel--calling forth that favorite of the PNAC crowd, Natan Sharansky, who's being resurrected as a "Soviet refusnik."
Perhaps the screed would be more credible if Jacoby didn't try to contradict what everybody knows about Bush--that he doesn't read. In addition to suggesting that Bush had read the book by Sharansky, "The Case for Democracy," he wants us to believe the following:
Last week Bush met privately with Kang Chol Hwan, who survived 10 years in one of North Korea's horrific slave labor camps. Bush had read ''The Aquariums of Pyongyang," Kang's searing memoir of his experience, and wanted to convey to the author -- and to Kim Jong Il's regime -- how seriously he regards North Korea's abuse of human rights. ''He kept on repeating how deeply sorry he was about the situation," Kang told The New York Times. ''To hear a president say these deep things made me feel that he cared."
And Jacoby concludes what?
Compared to the policies of his predecessors, Bush's promotion of democracy as a matter of national security, his blunt talk about dictatorships, and the honor he shows dissidents are revolutionary. Think of Gerald Ford in 1975, refusing to meet with the Soviet writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn for fear of irritating Moscow. Or Jimmy Carter in 1979, kissing Leonid Brezhnev on both cheeks and praising the shah of Iran as ''deeply concerned about human rights." Or the first President Bush in 1991, urging Ukrainians not to free themselves from the Soviet Union and allowing Saddam Hussein to savagely crush the Kurdish and Shi'ite uprisings that followed the Gulf War.
Perhaps because Papa Bush is being dissed, we are not to think that this whole thing is a plant? But, we already know there's no loyalty to family or country in this bunch. Not to mention that the crew which has reduced democracy here at home to little more than a rubber-stamp electorate, can't honestly be considered as committed to democracy and human rights.
So, what's this all about? Is it just an attempt to bolster the credibility of our Secretary of State who
spoke of the recent imprisonment of three Saudi dissidents, whose only offense was to peacefully petition for a constitutional monarchy. ''That should not be a crime in any country," she said.
at the same time that the American Library Association reveals that law officers have requested data about the reading habits of our citizens at least 268 times since 2001?
It's my guess that Jacoby has been recruited to do a littl pre-emptive spin control; to blunt the effect of the release of the videos and pictures from Guantanamo, that are expected any day.
That's what the flap over Durbin's comments was very likely about, as well. In reading the FBI comments into the Congressional record, Durbin was preparing the ground and Jacoby has been dispatched to cover the tracks with propaganda.
Of course, that's just my hypothesis. But how else to explain this blatant fabrication?
Every president speaks of freedom and democracy. Bush is the first to make their promotion the cornerstone of his foreign policy. His critics are legion. But from the slave camps of North Korea to that young man in Azerbaijan, so are those fervently hoping he succeeds.
Wonder how many people it took to work that up.
More to the point. Was Jacoby a willing shill when he was fed this stuff or was he duped into participating in this disinformation campaign?