When the only way you can get a hand from a handpicked military audience is by having a ringer in the audience start clapping, you know you’re bombing (so to speak.)
Back to Main
June 29, 2005
WB: Bombing Run
Comments
“Even greater actors, like Mussolini, or the dictator of a certain Central European country in the ’30s and early ’40s, could use military audiences to make themselves look larger than life, and even larger than their assembled legions — with the help of a llttle stagecraft.”
What?
You mean the Roving Halliburtonians working for the Twignoramous forgot that part in the Speer story that says klieg lights are the ticket when the going gets tough and the putsches get going.
Dick Durbin better get out his hanky for that post.
Posted by: Jimmy Jazz | Jun 29 2005 6:35 utc | 2
It may have grated on those of us who understood how many unwritten constitutional rules Bush was breaking by dressing up in a military costume. But the sailors genuinely seemed to enjoy it.
Could you imagine if Bush had shown up in military dress tonight? Those grump-ass sargents would have torn him apart.
Those guys know the truth about Iraq better than anyone, and by their stony faces they told Bush loud and clear how fed up they were with his snake oil.
Posted by: Night Owl | Jun 29 2005 6:41 utc | 3
I remember reflecting two years ago that Ronald Reagan prepared for the Presidency by acting in B-grade movies, while GW Bush prepared for the job by watching them. He really is dismal as an orator.
Posted by: Jassalasca Jape | Jun 29 2005 6:48 utc | 4
“Dick Durbin better get out his hanky for that post.”
Isn’t Durbin still performing at the Blue Angel until the end of August?
Posted by: Syd Barrett | Jun 29 2005 7:01 utc | 5
Some observations from watching the C-SPAN take:
– No applause when Bush entered the stage
– The troops were seperated from the stage by a railing. Why?
– The teleprompters were at a high were Bush’s view was constantly above the troops. He couldn´t look the listeners into the eyes without dropping the view from the teleprompters and he didn´t.
– At one point Bush wasn´t talking to soldiers at all for some minutes, but asking non-soldiers to support soldiers.
– The troops seemed hostile to me
– The claqueur can be heared distinctivly on the CSpan take for the single applause during the speech. Why did Rove think that only one applause was appropriate?
– After the speech and a small applause Bush goes down from the stage and along the rail to shake hands with some troops.
– There are five Secret Service folks, three real close to Bush while he does the handshaking. This is Ft. Bragg and there are 750 selected troops and the Secret Service feels the need to cover his ass really, really close?!
Three lines from his speech:
The claquere applause sets in after this line, three quarter into the speech: “So we’ll fight them there, we’ll fight them across the world, and we will stay in the fight until the fight is won.”
-> message to Congress – no timeline, no drawback
“Our military reports that we have killed or captured hundreds of foreign fighters in Iraq who have come from Saudi Arabia and Syria, Iran, Egypt, Sudan, Yemen, Libya and others.”
Saudi Arabia named first in line? How does this connect to Prince Bandar resigning as Saudi ambassador to the U.S. yesterday after 22 years?
“There is no higher calling than service in our forces.” (Jenna? Jennaaaah!!!) This “higher calling” goes directly to his religious base and the air force academy.
Most significant of these points is the strong Secret Service attention in a secure environment. Or maybe not so secure anymore…
Isn’t Durbin still performing at the Blue Angel until the end of August?
Club Silencio, I think.
No. Hay. Banda.
Posted by: Jimmy Jazz | Jun 29 2005 7:06 utc | 7
As far as comparisons with actors go, I saw Bush pulling a new face last night in the few (final) minutes of the speech: Robert De Niro (as in, the last ten or fifteen years of really useless, mannered, self-imitating De Niro). The exaggerated inverted smirk coupled with a slight “Hey, Frankie, how ya doin” nod…
And I think the applause thing is way under-reported so far. This was one empty speech and the people who were being asked to die for that kind of crap rhetoric knew it very well.
Posted by: The Fretful Porpentine | Jun 29 2005 9:52 utc | 8
Globalnewsmatrix:
‘ ABC’s Terry Moran just reported that the only time Bush got applause was in the middle of his speech when a White House advance team member started clapping all on their own in order to cajole the soldiers into clapping, which they dutifully did.
‘ Applause During Bush Speech Promted By White House Staffers: “A couple of Bush staffers begain to applaud.” Faux News’ Carl Cameron, reporting from Fort Bragg, NC, explaining how applause *finally* began during the Idiot Usurper’s speech, 28 Jun 2005 20:57 EST. ‘
The MSM may be feeling the wind blowing in their face. They’ll get it behind themselves very quickly.
“The way I used to love ya baby, that’s the way I hate ya now!”
Posted by: John Francis Lee | Jun 29 2005 11:03 utc | 9
Isn’t Durbin still performing at the Blue Angel until the end of August?
Club Silencio, I think.
From what you all report (I had other priorities last night), I’d say that’s where Bush gave his speech.
Il n’est pas une orchestre, indeed.
Posted by: cymack | Jun 29 2005 11:45 utc | 10
Ten things I would have liked to see last night:
1) A very loud fart from one or several soldiers (what, they don’t feed them beans anymore?)
2) A DEAD ZONE (film/book, not TV) moment with Bush holding a baby as a shield from a sniper.
3) Same as (2) less the baby.
4) A Mayor Quimby moment à la The Simpsons
5) Aliens invading
6) Teleprompter guy sneakingly typing in MY PET GOAT for Bush to read akloud.
7) Bush hit by Tourette’s Syndrome
8) Busah mistakenly pulling on invisible strings and Cheney falling from the ceiling
9) Army of zombi soldiers raising from the ground and eating his brain
10) Kerry delivering a “peace with honor” speech
Posted by: Lupin | Jun 29 2005 12:58 utc | 11
why be too surprised at the security around shrub? There has already been one infamous attack by a serviceman against his own unit. Those under the most pressure are the most likely to crack…
I’d bet lots of soldier in GWB’s cast of props consider themselves changed people by what they have seen or done in Iraq. From what I hear, combat does that to people. These changed people probably have a great deal less tolerance than they once had for a president who, obviously, has no idea what they are going through. Their desire for a president who would just cut through the BS and level with them was palpable, I’m sure.
I’d bet my hat at least one soldier in that audience decided right then , right there: “I’m getting out … this is crap…6 months, 10 days…and counting.”
Perhaps they forgot to filter out the soldiers who had gotten stop-loss orders.
Indian Lands
Tuned into Democracy Now this morning to watch clips from the Bush speech, having better things to do yesterday evening in the garden.
Bush was speaking…”We will protect our (sic) freedoms…” and then the satellite feed went off, no signal, “dead air”, proving that, I suppose, the PuppetMaster BlueCoats can indeed turn our freedoms on … and off …, at an instant’s notice.
We could wake up tomorrow to martial law and the permanent draft.
Then in those brief seconds while he spoke, with the muted sky-blue background, and his muted sky-blue tie, so UN-ish, like Sinatra in Vegas, so carefully framed, even when I turned to the commercial feed, the announcers were also wearing sky-blue, passive, calm.
The twilight zone.
To really know what’s going on, read the pioneer tales from the Black Hills Gold Rush, before the White Man forced the First Nation tribes onto their desolate and unliveable reservations. Look at the old maps:
“Indian Lands” … now today, with four presidents carved in stone, those lands are all fenced and cordoned off by Whites, and the so-called Indians relegated to some of the poorest regions of the entire United States, reduced to class-action pleading that the PM’s BIA Overlords be dismantled, here, what, *one hundred and forty years* after their occupation first began!
Twelve years, my baboon-blue ass. This is colonialism, Vichy-style.
If the Iraqi people have any illusions that one day the occupation will be over, they just have to read the words of Chief Suiattle. Then the Whites will have finished their slaughter, and their Green Zoning takeover, and the only place you’ll see “Iraqi Lands” then will be way out in the backcountry, and the only resources they’ll have left will be Sunni casinos, and Shia tax-free cigarettes.
Posted by: tante aime | Jun 29 2005 14:04 utc | 13
The mighty Dem bomber Biden:
Biden, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, acknowledged progress in Iraq.
“I just wish he had leveled with [the American people] more,” he said. “We cannot afford to lose.”
…
“We have do more to reach out and get the rest of the world in on the game,” he said.
(emp. mine)
and
Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, told “Larry King Live” that he was satisfied Bush made his case.
“I think the president laid out tonight an excellent scenario of what the realities are and what we face. [The American people] needed that. Now we need to show some progress on the ground,” he said.
bush said there’s no stopping now b/c his freedom-hating puppetmasters haven’t completed their own totalitarian experiment. individual terrorists, my ass. it’s state terrorism that is most lethal, and ain’t no bigger state terrorist than the good ole usa.
Posted by: b real | Jun 29 2005 14:39 utc | 15
“I think the president laid out tonight an excellent scenario of what the realities are and what we face. [The American people] needed that. Now we need to show some progress on the ground,” he said.
Thank you, Senator “straight talk.”
McCain must figure it’s gonna be HIM up on that stage in a few years spinning the bullshit, and he doesn’t want to jinx it.
Posted by: Billmon | Jun 29 2005 14:47 utc | 16
AP : Bush critics call for more troops
Sen. John McCain, interviewed on CBS’s “The Early Show,” maintained that “one of the very big mistakes early on was that he didn’t have enough troops on the ground, particularly after the initial victory, and that’s still the case.”
Sen. John Kerry, Bush’s Democratic opponent in last year’s presidential election, told NBC’s “Today” show that the borders of Iraq “are porous” and said “we don’t have enough troops” there.
Sen. Joseph Biden Jr., appearing on ABC’s “Good Morning America,” disputed Bush’s notion that sufficient troops are in place.
Two to one the Demoplicans think we need MORE troops in Iraq.
Face it. The real enemy is the “opposition party”.
Posted by: John Francis Lee | Jun 29 2005 15:06 utc | 17
“…the only resources they’ll have left will be Sunni casinos, and Shia tax-free cigarettes.”
The purity. The pyooooooooooority of that!
Posted by: Roger Bigod | Jun 29 2005 18:23 utc | 18
I do expect the Dems to fall into the Bush trap and to be the first to call openly for a draft in early 2006. Then, after the 2006 election is won by the Repubs with an anti-draft stand, the Repubs will introduce a “common youth service” were the white and rich ones can “choose” to work in a health clinic and the non-white and poor can “choose” to go to Iraq and Iran.
Froomkin’s take
President Bush last night offered no new evidence to dissuade the growing majorities of Americans who believe that the United States is bogged down in Iraq, that the war was a mistake in the first place, and that he has no clear plan to bring troops home.
His prime-time speech did, however, contain a bold rhetorical shift. The president who took his country to war in Iraq on account of nonexistent weapons of mass destruction, then recast the invasion as a pro-democracy move, is now arguing that Iraq is ground zero for World War III, the battle against terror that began on Sept. 11, 2001.
And having failed to capture or kill the mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, the president who has been notoriously averse to even mentioning his name out loud last night actually quoted Osama bin Laden in support of the speech’s central argument.
“Hear the words of Osama bin Laden,” Bush said: ” ‘This Third World War is raging’ in Iraq.”
More Froomkin – link above
Jeff Zeleny writes in the Chicago Tribune: “Bush asked Americans to log on to AmericaSupportsYou.mil , a Department of Defense Web site, and register support for the troops. . . .
“The technology resembles the Bush campaign’s Internet site from last year’s presidential race. Like the Bush 2004 site, the pages are chock-full of good news and smiling pictures. And dissenting views on the war are not allowed.”
As of 11 a.m. ET today, the site boasted 73,216 messages received — but only 25,913 were viewable by the public .
And indeed, none of the messages I saw expressed any reservation about the war effort whatsoever.
Searching for the word shame, for instance, you find things like: “The media definitely doesn’t tell of all the good they are doing. What a shame.”
Searching for the word rotten, you get: “Don’t let the rotten news from home get you down . . . it’s only the dirty press looking for headlines.”
And searching for the word quagmire, you get nothing.
This is fucking nuts. You’ve got Biden and Kerry sounding like bigger pro-war Republicans than even McCain.
Posted by: Phil from New York | Jun 29 2005 19:27 utc | 22
Lupin — tante aime,
WOW !! we got serious (black) comedy talent here, you’all made my morning.
Posted by: anna missed | Jun 29 2005 19:30 utc | 23
Twelve years, my baboon-blue ass. This is colonialism, Vichy-style.
If the Iraqi people have any illusions that one day the occupation will be over, they just have to read the words of Chief Suiattle.
last night i had the pleasure of hosting some visitors fresh from iraq w/ their state department interpreter, a palestinian living in dc
one of the first things i ask’do you believe the occupation will ever leave?’ they didn’t even flinch , just replied ‘no’. another shocking statement, you know who bush reminds them of…. sadam!! they kept telling me, the iraqi’s are not stupid people. they know whats going on, we chatted about pnac. i thought i would have to wear kid gloves. not the case at all. they are doubtful zarqawi exists. they don’t believe most ‘ insurgents’ are not flowing in across the border. they don’t believe they are going to ever see any reconstruction money. 3 beautiful women. and a bunch of my neighbors, everyone kept stopping by , it was incredible.
Posted by: annie | Jun 29 2005 19:48 utc | 24
that was supposed to read ‘they don’t believe most ‘insurgents’ are flowing in across the borders.’
Posted by: annie | Jun 29 2005 19:50 utc | 25
i wish i could relive it over and over. i kept having to run into the kitchen to prepare the food. i could have talked to them all night. it’s over so fast…….
my heart, my heart, my heart…..
Posted by: annie | Jun 29 2005 20:05 utc | 27
Indeed thanks for sharing.
Looking forward with anticipation for the longer version.
Posted by: A swedish kind of death | Jun 30 2005 11:12 utc | 30
If the Iraqi people have any illusions that one day the occupation will be over, they just have to read the words of Chief Suiattle.
a haunting passage from his address to gov stevens at the signing of the port elliot treaty
To us the ashes of our ancestors are sacred and their resting place is hallowed ground. You wander far from the graves of your ancestors and seemingly without regret. Your religion was written on tables of stone by the iron finger of your god so that you could not forget. The Red Man could never comprehend nor remember it. Our religion is the traditions of our ancestors – the dreams of our old men, given them in the solemn hours of night by the Great Spirit; and the visions of our sachems, and is written in the hearts of our people.
Your dead cease to love you and the land of their nativity as soon as they pass the portals of the tomb and wander away beyond the stars. They are soon forgotten and never return. Our dead never forget teh beautiful world that gave them being…
When the last Red Man shall have perished, and the memory of my tribe shall have become a myth among the white men, these shores will swarm with the invisible dead of my tribe, and when your childrens’ children think themselves alone in the field, the store, the shop, or in the silence of the pathless woods, they will not be alone… At night when the streets of your cities and villages are silent and you think them deserted, they will throng with the returning hosts that once filled them and still love this beautiful land. The White Man will never be alone.
Let him be just and deal kindly with my people, for the dead are not powerless. Dead – I say? There is no death. Only a change of worlds.
Posted by: b real | Jul 3 2005 6:38 utc | 31