"Wag the Dog" on TV with discussion tonight

[Newsjock]

Being reported at http://tvbarn.com as a press release ...

Discovery Times Channel brings a new layer of commentary and political insight to the wickedly satirical comedy WAG THE DOG in context of current events with Dee Dee Myers, former press secretary to President Clinton; Ken Duberstein, political advisor, former chief of staff to President Reagan; Joe Lockhart, former press secretary to President Clinton; Elisabeth Bumiller, The New York Times White House reporter; Barry Levinson, Academy Award Winning director of Wag the Dog ... Thursday, April 28, 8 PM ET/PT and Saturday, April 30, 8 PM ET/PT

http://times.discovery.com/convergence/wagthedog/wagthedog.html

... Could political operatives really manipulate the media, and fool the public into believing that a phony event really happened?

Well, if you believe Internet conspiracy theorists, it’s already happened. Numerous Web sites proclaim, for example, that the 1969 moon landing was an elaborate $30 billion fraud, and that the grainy video images of astronaut Neil Armstrong stepping onto the lunar surface were fabricated at some government studio whose precise location remains a highly classified secret. Completely faking an event might be a bit risky, since keeping secrets in Washington is notoriously difficult. But less hyperbolic critics of the mainstream news argue that the real problem is government manipulation of the coverage of actual events. During the first Gulf War, for example, TV news programs repeatedly aired dramatic government-provided video of a “smart” bomb being dropped down the smokestack of an Iraqi target, giving the public the impression that such technological marvels won the war. Six years later, a report by the General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress, revealed that 80 percent of the bombs dropped were conventional ones, and that the high-tech weaponry’s performance had been greatly exaggerated. During the 2003 invasion of Iraq, TV news programs aired even more dramatic footage of U.S. soldiers bursting into a building to rescue prisoner-of-war Jessica Lynch. As it later turned out, the pictures obscured the reality that the building had been unguarded, and that two days before, Iraqi hospital staffers had tried to hand the injured prisoner over to U.S. forces.

[bryant69]

1. Interesting

Equating people who think the moon landing was faked with people who think that the Jessica Lynch rescue was faked (or, at the very least, staged). Is that supposed to lend credibility?

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[ET Awful]

2. I notice they don't mention the proven falsification of the whole

Kuwaiti babies and incubators story or the faked satellite photos produced by none other than Colin Powell to show Iraqi troops massing along the Saudi border.

[leveymg]

3. The film isn't very good. It was also released seven years too soon.

Remember the 1998 cruise missile strike on UBL's camp in Afghanistan? Missed Osama by a few hours because Pakistani intel tipped him off the missiles were on the way. The Repugs cited "Wag the Dog", which had just opened, in criticizing Clinton for distracting us from what they thought was the real news, the "Monicagate" impeachment hearings.

My, how things have changed. The Repubs haven't earned the right to wrap themselves in the flag, even as the scoundrels they are. They are the ultimate hypocrites in their War on Terra.

:bounce:

[paineinthearse]

4. Forward this to your networks.

I included sending the information to the head of my high school's social studies department and the teacher who is advisor to the AI group.