Dueling Ops (Hilary and Bush in Iraq--great comparison)

[joeybee12]

http://www.signorile.com/articles/nyp105.html

By Michelangelo Signorile


All we get from Iraq is ghastly news, and for weeks the Bush administration has said that the media does not emphasize the positive. The Bushies have complained that the press reports a lot on the bombings, the deaths and the protests, but doesn’t report on how happy many people are. Attacks on Americans are declining, the White House claims (which belies those media reports), and the security situation gets steadily under control. It’s only a few rogue guerrillas anyway–no more than 5000, says Gen. John P. Abizaid, the senior American commander in the Middle East, as opposed the 50,000 figure leaked in a CIA report a few weeks ago. Whatever the number, it’s nothing much to worry about, as we’ll be handing this everything over to the Iraqis in a matter of months anyway. All will then be just fine, as a new democracy born.

If that’s the case, why did the president of the United States fly into Iraq under cover of night in a Thanksgiving Day cloak-and-dagger escapade that had George W. Bush and Condoleezza Rice actually wearing disguises at one point (baseball caps that, according to Bush, made them look like "a normal couple")? And why is Baghdad safe enough for a former first lady, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, to announce her trip there two months prior and then, accompanied by secret service, spend more than 10 hours meeting with Iraqi leaders and mingling with citizens, but not safe enough for the president to make a quick tour of the city?

Iraq is either a) so totally in chaos that the president couldn’t make his trip public the way that, say, Lyndon Johnson announced his trip to Vietnam during the height of the bloody and dangerous war there or; b) though Baghdad is very unstable, with a literal army of security accompanying him it would it's safe enough for Bush to have announced the trip or at least venture out in the city more, but the Bushies are using the "security" issue as a way to once again orchestrate a photo-op and control media coverage.


Snip--last two paragraphs:


Meanwhile, the Bush Baghdad airport drop-in did the trick of blunting Hillary Clinton’s full-fledged visit, which would have been the only front-page news that day. Was that part of the Rovian plan too?

"A source familiar with the planning of her visit said the administration was informed in late September that she would go," the Associated Press reported about Clinton’s visit. It was only a few weeks later, in mid-October, that the White House began planning Bush’s top-secret trip.

[opihimoimoi]

1. Who got Courage??

:shrug:

[Virginian]

2. He is afraid to stay at the White House. Surprised me he went to Iraq

Just imagine him in Viet Nam.

This fear of being a target and feelings of superiority that he is the annointed one... Doesn't that add up to Paranoia? He seems to have it to an extreme degree.

He says Iraq is safe but is afraid to go; she says Iraq is not safe but has the courage to go anyway.