Bush is a big ole "FAKE"!

[Tight_rope]

Yes many of us know this already...but check this out.

"You mentioned before his comment about most Americans receive their news from television with the sound turned off. That seems like a very telling comment, considering that Rove's certainly the best master of the television image since Mike Deaver handled Reagan's image. Rove may be more masterful, because Reagan was an actor and he just walked onto Mike Deaver's sets.

But let's take an example of what happened on the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln, and the fact that now even Ari Fleischer's admits it wasn't an issue of not being able to take a helicopter because it was too far away, since it was only 30 miles offshore, changing the story and saying that Bush really wanted to see what it was like to land on a carrier. And then we learned that the ship was delayed, and the delay cost a lot, and Condoleeza Rice flew out ahead on a helicopter -– all sorts of things are coming out.

This seems to capitalize on what you just said –- that Karl Rove isn't concerned about the lies getting out, because that's all sort of an insider's story that the average American is never going to learn about or hear about. All the average TV-watching American sees is that image of the Commander in Chief landing on the deck there, triumphantly, in a pilot'suniform. And that's the image Rove knows is going to be in the campaign commercial. The White House all but admits it was preparatory for the campaign. And it's almost at this point that it doesn't even matter if the truth comes out, because when it comes out, it's really only being absorbed by a very select group of people. The country at large doesn't suck in that footnote information that reveals the charade and lies.

And Rove, unfortunately, just seems to be brilliant at that. It seems the Democrats don't understand that at all -- they don't understand the power of image. They don't understand that even on the rare occasion that they do object or criticize an extremist Bush policy, that it doesn't matter, because it's not translated into an image that Americans can understand.

Where did Rove develop this? He wasn't really a journalist. He started in the political world; ironically, as a college Republican, since he never graduated from college. But basically his political consulting started off as a expertise in direct mail. How did he develop such skill at playing the media like a fiddle?

MOORE: Well, he's always been a very quick study, and he's an extremely intelligent guy. He's one of the brightest people I've ever met. And I guarantee you he was watching closely what Deaver did. And he knows the way the media works, he knows what drives it. He knows that if you get the big image and the big moment, you can use it. And he's fearless when it comes to intimidating the media and making them think twice about asking questions.

I was astonished by the Abraham Lincoln event because it is such an irony, and so hypocritical for the President to don a flight suit and take that flight because we're talking about a President who used family connections to get into the National Guard.

Punishment was issued for him to do civilian duty in Denver, for which he did not show up. He claims to have showed up in Alabama, when he transferred to Alabama to work on his Senate campaign. The commanding officer there said that he never showed up. I mean, he takes a privileged position in the Guard and then does not honor his commitment -- disappears for the last two years of his hitch and uses family privilege to avoid combat and making any kind of political statement about the War in Vietnam. And yet they have the chutzpah to put him in a plane and fly him out there, and think that no one will ask him about these contradictions.

And guess what? there was was media gushing about what an amazing event this was, and how great the President looked,cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And no one called him a draft dodger. No one said: Mr. President, there's a difference between you and the people you're here to honor. They finished their commitment -– their military duties -– and you shirked yours.

snip~
They play this game of access. They know very well that once a reporter loses his or her access to the White House, their job is gone. And so the reporter is sort of intimidated into not asking these kinds of tough questions.

http://www.alternet.org/story/16080/

[jimshoes]

1. Frankly, if that's what it takes to do jouralism today...

I'd rather be on the outside looking in. At least I could sleep with a clear concience.