Maybe I should have phrased that better. I am genuinely surprised, in my experience Unc has been a vociferous advocate, but not a mendacious one. Even known to apologize for the occassional fuck-up, the mark of a gentleman and a Doper.
So when I say surprised, I mean surprised. Got two bucks says he does the right thing by this.
(Old story: Noah Webster, lexicographer extraordinary, caught in bed with the maid by his wife…)
Wife: “Noah, I am surprised!”
Noah: “No, my dear, I am surprised, you are astonished”
This message brought to you by the Professional Association of English Majors.
How qualified can this person be if he quoted the 20 billion dollar figure instead of the 89 billion? Doesn’t this person read the papers?
I have also noticed that Bush politicizes everything. I recently received a letter about how glorious the new changes in Medicare are going to be. It had all of the earmarks of propoganda; it wasn’t straight-forwardly informative at all. In the end it was “full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” I don’t want snuggly sweet letters from my government about things that haven’t happened yet. And I don’t want my tax dollars spent on unnecessary mailings.
No, but I suspect they’re handing out the same sort of “good news” that came from both military and civilian administration flacks in the Vietnam War.
Question is - is the Iraq press operation a horribly sinister development dreamed up by the Bushites, or is it just the latest example of government trying to put the best possible face on its policies? It’s always fun to project GWB and crew as Satan, but this can backfire among people with a little knowledge of history.
By the way, it would be interesting to see examples of the hard-hitting, no-holds-barred investigative journalism being churned out of the British Press Office in Iraq, with their dedicated hordes of non-partisan professionals. :rolleyes:
Werewolf, old badger bugger, this “western” thing just isn’t for you. Being of a foppish and effete race of dentally challenged “city boys”, you are unfamiliar with the rough gentility of scraping your boots off on the porch steps, or you would know that the word is “corral”, being a containment for large, smelly, hairy and ambulatory vegetables.
Dear Mr. Calling, our word “horse” has two syllables.
.
No offense, but I thought his use of ellipses made it pretty clear there was more to the quote. Or is it that you fear your peers lack the initiative to investigate what’s behind the “dot-dot-dot”? To find “The Truth,” as you see it? Funny you should mention it, by the way, because the rest of the quote constitutes the very basis of “überhijack,” wherein Mr. Boorstin gets his biased ass handed to him.
You can’t blow this off, Boorstin’s statement is at the very least, perplexing; branding something, especially Public Policy, “particularly noxious” demonstrates a disconcerting lack of judgment and objectivity. I expect more from a Vice President of the purportedly non-partisan Center for American Progress, especially when “progress” generally implies constructive dialog. In salted earth, the seeds of discourse wither into nitre.
By openly decrying the Republican control of the Media, Boorstin manages to step on his dick and show us why, precisely, people with power must choose their words very carefully. Metaphorical isn’t it, and all brought about by one redacted quote…
With regard to the OP, it’s certainly a shame that more Americans can’t digest news that is unchewed. rjung, you also live in Los Angeles. How many people on your city block are capable of consuming your ideology?
Haven’t seen any Bush-Cheney bumper stickers or “pissing Calvin” window decals, so I imagine they’re reasonably bright. Can’t say I’ve done any door-to-door surveys, though.
But heck, if any of 'em don’t comprehend, I’ll just use smaller words. Heck, even UncleBeer will grasp a point once you’ve sufficiently oversimplified it for him.
This administration is all politics, no brains. It’s been confirmed over and over and over, and even the fellow travelers can’t seem to find good deferences for it. No surprises here.
Well, true enough, I suppose, but it is just as reasonable to decry the propaganda coming out of stratcom today as it was to decry the propaganda produced by the military during Vietnam, is it not?
Naturally, being exposed to this sort of disinformation program now, under these circumstances, brings the issue home in a way that reading about it in history books does not. Somehow it’s always seemed so abstract to me before; something that happened before my time, so to speak.
Well, I’ll wait to dismiss it until I see it.
In addition, now that I stop to think about it, the thrust of the article goes a bit further than just accusations of war-time propaganda; Krane seems to be saying that stratcom is being exploited to further the aspirations of the Republican party vis-a-vis the Democrats. That strikes me as an even more serious charge. El Cid:
Well, no, not exactly. I just found it ironic that Uncle Beer would criticize a poster for “creative quoting,” and then support his accusation by means of the same technique. After all, rjung linked the article in his OP, so it was also pretty clear anyone who wished to read the article could do so for himself. (Perhaps Uncle feared the initiative of his “peers?”)
Well, I disagree; but perhaps a brief reflection on the word “partisan” is in order. At least with regard to “political partisanship,” Boorstin’s statement, taken as a whole, is the very essence of “non-partisan;” he argues that Democrats, were they in charge, would be doing exactly the same thing. He then notes that this thing is “noxious;” but does that make him partisan? Or can someone have a strong opinion about something without being partisan?
“Wartime propaganda is noxious,” I say, “regardless of who spreads it!” Is that a partisan statement? Or does your definition of “partisan” include “any strongly held opinion”? In order to avoid accusations of partisanship, must I mute my claim to, “Well, wartime propaganda is…just not a very good thing, really, sort of.”
I’m really at a loss to understand your point here. The British don’t seem to have a press office there at all. And the Brits aren’t too impressed with what’s going on, anyway:
And I find it ironic that I’m called to task for the use of truncated quotes, yet it appears that rjung’s use of them is acceptable. It is to laugh - all this irony, it is.
What, if I’d added to my post the same link that rjung used, despite it being very clear that I was quoting from the same source, it would be okay? That’s more irony, right?
Fuck off Elvis; you’re just bitter over having your pants yanked down so many times.
The linked article doesn’t make clear exactly what sort of information/press service the British have, but says this: “The U.S. team stands in deep contrast to the British team that works alongside it, almost all of whom are civil or foreign service employees, not political appointees. Many of the British in Iraq display regional knowledge or language skills that most of the Americans lack.”
This statement refers to the CPA in general, but the implication is that news releases are handled by less politicized staff. So it’s legitimate to ask just how the British staff is handling public relations.
As to the “British” not being impressed with “what’s going on”, it’s hard to tell from the unnamed source(s) in the link just what the beef is.
Well, just observing here, but I don’t get how the OP truncating his quotes
makes it perfectly OK for you to truncate yours. High road and all that.
As usual, a thread involving politics devolves into unpaid partisan advertising. Y’all go ahead and spin the thing till it flies apart; I’ll just read the article and make up my own mind, thanks.
