September 22, 2005

Sent to me by my co-editor:

WH Briefing, 91/2//05: Another Day, Another Charade!

It was business as usual: another staged press briefing featuring favored lapdogs in the WH Press Corps panting to ask their vetted questions. The embarrassing giveaway this time was someone named Bianca. As reporters’ hands were raised as if to get the attention of the President, he called on Bianca to pose her planted query. But Bianca wasn’t there; she hadn’t shown up for her performance. Dang.

A bit later into the farce, a female reporter rose to ask a question. "Are you Bianca?" asked the President. No luck again, - Bianca and her obviously crucial question were still missing. Sadly, we’ll never know what Bush/PNAC policy the elusive Bianca had been preened to promote today. Dang, again.

President Bush held the briefing at the Pentagon to keep the nation up to date on his great successes in the global war on terrorism, otherwise known as the unending wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Generals George Casey and John Abizaid played intro to the main attraction, and long absent Veep Cheney, aneurism and all, stood solemnly in the background. Hmm, there must be an anti-war protest coming soon.

And wouldn’t you know, it was time to pull the 9/11 - terror - terrorist connections out of mothballs again. The President’s redundant speech was filled with the same old lies that withdrawing American forces from Iraq would make the world more dangerous and would allow terrorists "to claim an historic victory over the United States." Making the same old references to past terrorist attacks around the world, he concluded that "The only way the terrorists can win is if we lose our nerve and abandon the mission." Yawn.

Oh yes, our noble, always truthful President reminded us that we’re in Iraq because we can’t allow Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and Osama bin Laden to dominate the Middle East. What say? Is that as opposed to PNAC dominating the region? Gasp of disbelief…

If you missed it, read the text for yourself and wonder why there’s no one in the WH with the skill to come up with a better rationale for killing more and more people every day. Someone should have been able to cover up the failures of the Bush policies with some new mantras. Someone should have put in a clever talking point to counter Cindy Sheehan’s concern about some supposed glory in all this. But, no…it was same old, same old, same old.

And so it also went with the long dead Press Corps(e): the same old, same old questions about the war and the hurricanes. Everything that emerged from the mouth of any reporter fed the President a cue to reassure that nation that he was in full charge of our safety. It was all a joke and a farce….but it passed as a press briefing. Barf.

What wouldn’t I have given to hear just three meaningful challenges from some of these bought-and-paid-for mutants? Just three of so many that should have been asked:

1. Mr. President: Why do you take every opportunity to connect your war against Iraq with terrorism and with the attacks of 9/11, when you know perfectly well that Saddam Hussein had absolutely no connection to either Al Qaeda or the attacks of September 11th?

2. Mr. President: If you honestly intend, as you always claim, to leave Iraq when the mission is completed (whatever that is), how is it that you are building fourteen permanent military bases in Iraq at this very moment?

3. Mr. President: You ran on a platform of keeping the country safe. How is that you appointed Michael Brown, and five other totally incompetent, inexperienced and unqualified cronies to head and run FEMA?

Dream on. It’ll never happen. We’ll never hear a question posed to George W. Bush that is meant to hold him accountable to the people of the US. On the day that Helen Thomas was banished from her seat of honor at press briefings, the rest of the Corpse sold their souls to corporate America.

Every full moon they growl menacingly at Scott McClellan, but even he knows that the WH Press Corpse, despite any pretense to the contrary, is really toothless and clawless - and ultimately spineless. Dang.