Semi-Daily Journal

Kos has excellent coverage of this issue (though not the nice Orwell reference), including a Bush quote saying "America sent you on a mission and that mission has been accomplished" - see
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2003/10/28/131955/73

Bush might be able to convince me of something but not that his advance team doesn't cover all the angles.

I am posting this just so I can claim I posted a comment within 15 minutes of Brad's original post.

Mission accomplished.

Rats. In my haste to post withing 15 minutes I missed the doubleplusungood crimespeak headline. Oceania is at war with Eastasia. Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia. Brad Delong is a doubleplusungood unperson who must be vaporised.

Bush is counting on the sheep screaming "four legs good two legs bad" long enough and loud enough that nothing else will matter. And they do.

If I were some hack working for Slate, I would write:

Bush was right! Technically, it was members of the USS Lincoln that put the sign up.

Never mind that it was Bush's people that had the sign fabricated and directed it's placement down to a gnat's arse, it was the sailors who performed the physical task of actually putting it up, so Bush is in the clear.

But the boldness! Won't SOMEBODY remember the boldness?!?!

BILL PRESS: Bush said...the crew of the ship put that sign up. Now we find out the White House has just confirmed, we just got this handed to us...Senior Navy officials now confirm the sign was in fact produced by the White House.

http://atrios.blogspot.com/

Perhaps if we remembered always to look at the second definition in the OED for any word of over three letters used by the Bush administration this would all make a lot more sense.

If I remember correctly, he's pretty wedded to the standard definition of "is"

Next he's going to tell us that his prominent pubic bulge was the fault of whoever forgot to tell him to release his harness straps.

"...I know it was attributed somehow to some ingenious advance man from my staff--they weren't that ingenious..."

Obviously, he had that statement prepared for him. As the Prof. pointed out, Bush hadn't mentioned this point for months, and, most suspiciously, the sentence has two fairly large words in it.

The advance men had the carrier's homecoming delayed, and had the carrier moved out of sight of land, and arranged for Bush to be flown in on an airplane rather than a helicoper, and arranged for crewman in color-coordinated uniforms to be behind Bush, and arranged for his lectern to be positioned so that the banner was perfectly positioned in the pictures, ....and we are supposed to believe that they didn't arrange for the banner?

And you know what? There are a hundred million Americans who will believe just that. Many of whom should be posting here shortly.

Bush sent the crew of the USS Lincoln off to die (potentially, but hopefully and thankfully not) a literal death for their country. They are now being called back into service to die a PR death for their President.

"Mission Accomplished" has made it onto the small screen so many times it has become truth. A little spin may convince the hard right but not the independents or Dems. So true or not true, it resides in the visual memory of all American TV watchers. At the time, the spin on the right was powerful image / president / flight suit / aircraft carrier / "Mission Accomplished" banner. The message was not disowned at the time. Now Mr. Bush owns it, the same way he owns the everyday problems in Iraq. If the everyday problems of Iraq are still on the nightly news next October, expect to see the "Mission Accomplished" banner in Democratic ads instead of Bush ads. "Mission Accomplished" is the most serious propaganda blowback of the Bush administration.

Rilkefan points out in the very top comment a place where a little spin could have solved the whole problem. "America sent you on a mission and that mission has been accomplished." That mission was either a) the complete domination, passification and democratization of Iraq, or b) the specific air-support mission assigned to the vessel in question. Choose b) and say you were congratulating the crew in front of you for a job well done? No, better to fall back on lying, once again, to ... to what? I cannot see any reason to for such a blatant lie, other than the sort of CEO-think that says "the truth is what I tell you it is, got it?"

The weird thing about it is that when you listen to it, it's such an *obvious* lie. The whole statement had that tone of "I'm trying to convince myself that it's true, why don't you believe me?" I guess if you're a person who can never admit making even the smallest mistake, having committed a colossal PR blunder requires you to continually tell whoppers to justify it to yourself.

The weird thing about it is that when you listen to it, it's such an *obvious* lie. The whole statement had that tone of "I'm trying to convince myself that it's true, why don't you believe me?" I guess if you're a person who can never admit making even the smallest mistake, having committed a colossal PR blunder requires you to continually tell whoppers to justify it to yourself.

And why not? It's what's worked for them up until now.

it really doesn't matter whether sailors requested a banner on their own, whether there was a little prompting by the administration propagandists, or whether the banner was pushed entirely from the top. the banner was part and parcel of the set piece, and we all know it without having to check our sources.

of course, when we do check..
5/16/03, NYT:
Media strategists noted afterward that Mr. Sforza and his aides had choreographed every aspect of the event, even down to the members of the Lincoln crew arrayed in coordinated shirt colors over Mr. Bush's right shoulder and the "Mission Accomplished" banner placed to perfectly capture the president and the celebratory two words in a single shot. The speech was specifically timed for what image makers call "magic hour light," which cast a golden glow on Mr. Bush.

http://www.notinourname.net/resources_links/bush_image_may03.htm

Everything, and I mean everything that comes out from this administration is either a lie, or in service to a lie. Count on it.

Everything, and I mean everything that comes out from this administration is either a lie, or in service to a lie. Count on it.

In his errors a man is true to type. Observe the errors and you will know the man.

The words of truth are always paradoxical.

To be poor without bitterness is easy; to be rich without arrogance is hard.