If I'm Lying I'm Dying: Pentagon Spins Green
Fri Aug 31, 2007 at 06:06:42 PM PDT
This morning's Washington Postdropped a small bombshell that's seems to be slipping away under the weight of Bush's non bailout, bailout.
Namely, someone -- we don't know who -- but we've got some pretty good hunches -- someone has been telling lies again.
Of course, this happened in the Royal Court of the US GreenZone where apparently only pro war zealots and Republicans are supposed to lurk. Only, Of late, the Democrats have been arriving, wanting to get a look see for themselves. Only, the Pentagon (or some interested party, we're not saying who) doesn't seem to want the Democrats to learn much. They're only shown the best rooms, facing the most excellent desert view, and apparently someone (we're not saying who) is handing out hundreds of 'talking points' pamphlets, about what to say AND which way these Democratic political entities lean--kind of like classic oppo research for someone on a political team, and not, for example, rank and file soldiers in the middle of an occupying military base in the middle of a very hostile country. At least that's how we thought this kind of stuff was supposed to work. Guess not.
More than two dozen House members and senators have used the August recess to travel to Iraq in the hope of getting a firsthand view of the war ahead of commanding Gen. David H. Petraeus's progress report in two weeks on Capitol Hill. But it appears that the trips have been as much about Iraqi and U.S. officials sizing up Congress as the members of Congress sizing up the war.
Brief, choreographed and carefully controlled, the codels (short for congressional delegations) often have showed only what the Pentagon and the Bush administration have wanted the lawmakers to see. At one point, as Moran, Tauscher and Rep. Jon Porter (R-Nev.) were heading to lunch in the fortified Green Zone, an American urgently tried to get their attention, apparently to voice concerns about the war effort, the participants said. Security whisked the man away before he could make his point.
Not only were they forcefully blindered, but information was spread regarding their 'war' views. Apparently, these 'tip sheets' were just about everywhere.
Distributed to Iraqi officials, U.S. officials and uniformed military of no particular rank. So when Rep. James P. Moran Jr. (D-Va.) asked a soldier last weekend just what he was holding, the congressman was taken aback to find out.
In the soldier's hand was a thumbnail biography, distributed before each of the congressmen's meetings in Baghdad, which let meeting participants such as that soldier know where each of the lawmakers stands on the war. "Moran on Iraq policy," read one section, going on to cite some the congressman's most incendiary statements, such as, "This has been the worst foreign policy fiasco in American history."
The only problem (outside of sheilding Congress critters from any worthwhile information about the actual occupation --that is, I guess to put it formally, obstructing) is that the tips about the Congress critters themselves were, actually, um , wrong. And not in an innocent way.
For example on Aug. 2, Rep. Ellen O. Tauscher voted in favor of a bill (her own) which mandates that troops be granted a leave from combat at least as long as their last combat deployment before being shipped back to Iraq.
In the 'tip sheet', for Tauscher the write up reads as follows.... Tausher voted "in favor of legislation requiring the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq within 120 days of the bill's enactment". True, but that was in May, and there was no mention of the troop "leave" vote which she sponsored and voted for in August. Why not? Wouldn't that constitute part of any bio vis a vis Iraq?
That vote might have been a little too popular with the soldiers she was meeting, Tauscher said.
Not even close to accurate, but an excellent talking point for the old 'precipitous withdrawal' line.
TPM calls this disgusting. Personally, I think Josh is being generous.
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