Defending his assertions that the situation in Iraq is better than portrayed in the American and Arabic media, President Bush cited a poll (if anyone knows the source of the poll he cites, please share) that says that the "right track / wrong track" numbers are better in Iraq than they are in the US. A true litmus test statement. What is your takeway? a) Wow. That's surprising. Maybe things are going better in Iraq that I thought. b) Holy ********. What happened to my country? Discuss.
Yeah I saw that. Did the president provide a link? This response was canned, "Your polls say it's bad? OH yeah?? Well my polls say it's awesomeo!"
A perfect example of the perpetual campaign mode that the Bush Administration has been in since the 2001 inauguration. They are now so far in that educated analysis from the CIA gets less attention than poll numbers, in fact, they are blurring fact and opinion. Considering Bush seems to live in a fairly black and white world, that's just scary.
My favorite thing to come out of that press conference was the president repeatedly saying that the situation in Iraq was good because the interim Prime Minister said it was good.
Remember this good news don't sell newspapers. So what is posted on is the bad news that does sell papers. The majority dealing with the 25 million in iraq is probably not bad news. So who wants to do straight reporting on that? Good news is boring to the reader. However if they heard it now they would be interested because all that is reported now is bad news. But if they did that the election would be boring because Bush would win. Would you have us believe that all that is happening in iraq now is bad news? Only a fool can actually believe that.
Rove needs to keep Bush away from the press for now on. That was such an assinine comment. Good news is that the cable news channels are ripping him to shreads about the comment right now.
Why would they when everyone knows this is how a conversation proceeding the comments went down. Bush: You tell them it's good so that I can tell them that you said it was good. Allawi: Ok. PS, Iraq doesn't have a President. They have a Prime Minsters (iterim)
It would be equally foolish to believe that the continuing violence in Iraq isn't persistent, incredibly bad news. Armed conflict in my country anywhere near me is something I've only had to experience one time. It sucked. Telling me that there's a new school down the street or that 15 of the 18 provinces are perfectly safe isn't going to make me feel that safe if I'm in one of those other three provinces. Playing Pollyana for Presidential Politics is pathetic.
It turns out that the poll Bush cited comes from a dubious source. http://balta.blogspot.com/2004_09_01_balta_archive.html#109606687244148573 Yeah, a blog, but it has links'n'everything.