Can we stop with the "liberal media" trope now?

The House Oversight Committee uncovered some tasty little nuggets while investigating the cover-up surrounding the death of Pat Tillman and the Kabuki theater that was the Jessica Lynch rescue. If the media is so damned "liberal" why was Ron Fournier of the Associated Press sending Karl Rove encouraging messages and telling him to "keep up the fight" when he was lying to Americans about Lynch and covering up the facts surrounding the death of Tillman?

And Fournier wasn't alone - the media actually gave detailed instructions to the Mayberry Machiavelli's on how to manipulate the American public. Peggy Noonan (no ones idea of a liberal, granted) contacted the White House and advised them to find out Tillman's faith, and have the president go to a house of worship of that denomination and light a candle and say a prayer.

Tillman, however, thwarted that scheme from the grave...the selfless hero who gave his all denied them that lip-chewing, overwrought photo op - he was an atheist.

~BG

You weren't really sucked in, were you?

About that Petraeus “Report” that he assured all he would be writing himself after it leaked out that the report would be coming from the White House?

Yeah, scratch the indignant “I'll be writing my own report” bullshit – and by the way, I will remind you here and now that anyone familiar with the mans body of work knew he was blowing smoke.

Today we learned that the only hard-copy Petraeus will be working from will be his opening statement. He will bring a stack of PowerPoint graphs and charts – the sort of thing that sucked in the lame-brained Brian Baird – but Petraeus won’t be writing, nor will he be presenting, a “Petraeus Report” because no such animal exists.

Yes, I realize full well that the text of PL 110-28 says:

“the President, having consulted with the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Defense, the Commander, Multi-National Forces-Iraq, the United States Ambassador to Iraq, and the Commander of U.S. Central Command, will prepare the report and submit the report to Congress.”

“[T]he United States Ambassador to Iraq and the Commander, Multi-National Forces Iraq will be made available to testify in open and closed sessions before the relevant committees of the Congress.”

…so save the slavering wingnuttery. Especially since you probably didn't know yourself until some right-tard fatassed-fascist chickenhawk war-blogger with no skin in the game gave you the petticoat to crawl under within the last 72 hours. For the record, I read the text of the law in May, have known what it said for months and I've been waiting for the wingnuts to crawl out of the woodwork. I have my can of Raid at the ready for the vermin.

In other words, I am in no mood to tolerate having my leg pissed on and being told it’s raining.

Now, riddle me this, Batman (nice cowl, by the way) : What do you think got through to more people: The actual text of the law? Or the lawmakers talking on the TeeVee? (I’m going with the TeeVee, because there is no possibility of a boob-shot if you are reading the text of the legislation that rules our lives, and Galileo knows that Americans will always go for boobs over substance.) I am guessing that MAYBE .5% of Americans who consider themselves well informed read the text.

(h/t John Amato @ Crooks & Liars for the rundown)

Senate Minority Leader McConnell:

Let me remind the Senate of what we agreed to…We voted, and put into law, that General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker would report in September on progress. The benchmarks report and the timeline we set in May was clear. It gave us, the troops, and our allies, clarity on what was expected.

Senator McCain:

The war will be discussed in September again—we all know that—when General Petraeus is ready to report to the Senate…General Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker will come to Washington in September to report on the status of their efforts and those of the Iraqis.

Senator Sessions:

To press the point further, I strongly believe that whatever the inclinations of Senators on the conduct of the war in Iraq, to change our strategy now before we even hear from General Petraeus in September would be a colossal blunder for a host of reasons. To do so would be unthinkable…I am anxious to hear General Petraeus’s report.

Senator Coleman:

Fifty-four days ago we sent a message to General Petraeus: Go forth with the surge, and then come back and report to us.

Senator Chambliss:

I have never been more convinced that waiting for General Petraeus’s report in September was more right than yesterday afternoon…

Senator Craig:

That’s why when we confirmed General Petraeus unanimously in the Senate, we said to him very clearly, you go to Iraq in relation to a surge that is being implemented and you come back to us and give us your honest and fair assesement in September.

Senator Cornyn:

But the fact is, Gen. David Petraeus…will come back and report to us in September.

Senator DeMint:

The Democrats agreed on that funding, but they requested that we have a report from General Petraeus in the middle of September to find out what progress we were making. We all agreed to that.

Senator Bunning

I promised in person, in my office, to General Petraeus, that I would wait to hear his report this fall.

And of course I couldn’t leave out everyone’s favorite Republican:

Senator Lieberman

In fact, this amendment should not even be considered now…Because in that bill we required General Petraeus, along with our Ambassador to Baghdad, Ryan Crocker, to come back in September and report to us…I made a personal pledge to him. I am going to give him and the troops a fair chance, which this amendment would deprive him of, and I am going to give him until September to come back and tell me how it is going.
[All emphasis mine]

So lets do a rundown, shall we? Refresh our memories on the high- (and low-) lights of the past 12 weeks:

First, Resident Evil™ and his minions in the Senate systematically set out on a disinformation campaign designed to pin all hopes on a “Petraeus Report” that every last mother-fucking one of them knew was actually going to be written by the White House. (This is called lying. It ought to be called Treason when it involves a war and the lives of other peoples children.)

When the citizenry began to grumble about being lied to, wingnut congresscritter from Virginia, Tom Davis tried to tamp down the controversy by explaining that the report would be Petraeus’ but the White House would probably “tweak” it, but it would be Petraeus’ report.

(Another lie from a Republican. Surprise, surprise, surprise! They always fall back to their default position, don’t they?)

There will be no written report from the Surgin’ General. His statements to Congress will be made public, but there will be no public record of what information he provides to aWol. This obscuring process doesn’t go very far toward discrediting the reports we got this week that pull the masks off the bandits, does it?

I am left with one conclusion: Petraeus did such a good job of producing Kabuki this summer, they are extending the run into the fall!

(H/T to the bloggers at Think Progress. Their archives were relied on heavily for this post.)

The PR is surging along just fine

Even the most ardent supporters of this clusterfuck will have a hard time defending this.

Or maybe not.

Let's set aside for a moment that I think those juggernauts to the war zone on the taxpayer dime are a ridiculous waste of money, security and time and should be ceased immediately. The bottom line is that idiotic Senators and Representatives are going to keep traipsing in and out of Iraq to take in Dog-and-Pony Shows™ until a congresscritter dies over there.

But the Kabuki doesn't stop with the performance for the critters and the camera - oh no, baby.

The Psy-Ops heathens are also manipulating the perceptions of the lawmakers that the Iraqis and the American forces walk away from the meetings holding. (CENTCOM, of course, disavows all knowledge of the smear and manipulation campaign.)

War supporters get their official bios pulled off the House and Senate websites. War critics....not so much.

Representative James Moran (D-VA) was one whose record and bio were cherry-picked:

The sheets of paper seemed to be everywhere the lawmakers went in the Green Zone, distributed to Iraqi officials, U.S. officials and uniformed military of no particular rank. So when Rep. James P. Moran Jr. (D-Va.) asked a soldier last weekend just what he was holding, the congressman was taken aback to find out.

In the soldier's hand was a thumbnail biography, distributed before each of the congressmen's meetings in Baghdad, which let meeting participants such as that soldier know where each of the lawmakers stands on the war. "Moran on Iraq policy," read one section, going on to cite some the congressman's most incendiary statements, such as, "This has been the worst foreign policy fiasco in American history."

The bio of Rep. Ellen O. Tauscher (D-Calif.) -- "TAU (rhymes with 'now')-sher," the bio helpfully relates -- was no less pointed, even if she once supported the war and has taken heat from liberal Bay Area constituents who remain wary of her position. "Our forces are caught in the middle of an escalating sectarian conflict in Iraq, with no end in sight," the bio quotes.

"This is beyond parsing. This is being slimed in the Green Zone," Tauscher said of her bio.

Tauscher is right to be pissed - her record was distorted and manipulated. And that is putting it kindly. On Tauschers info sheet, under "latest Iraq vote" it was noted that she had voted in favor of legislation requiring a withdrawal from Iraq to start within 120 days of the bills enactment. And she did indeed vote that way - last May, during the battle over the supplemental funding bill. But on August 2nd, she voted for her own bill, which mandates that G.I.'s receive as much dwell-time as they spend in the war zone before they can be returned to battle.

They conveniently left out that bit , as it would likely have been a bit too popular with the soldiers she was meeting with.

Somewhere, Goebbels is smiling.

Petraeus and the Summer of Kabuki™

The natural born cynic in me has a lot to work with these days, and the material is an embarrassment of riches – in addition to just being embarrassing.

Next Tuesday the Government Accountability Office is scheduled to present to the Congress a 70-page report on the prospects for political reconciliation in Iraq. Insiders who have seen the report say it paints a very grim picture. It seems to confirm the “scorecard” of the status of Iraqi security forces that was released yesterday that concludes the Iraqis are years away from assuming responsibility for the security of their own country.

Congress is wasting no time. Indeed, they are starting hearings on the reports in the House Foreign Affairs and Armed Services committees in advance of the Petraeus - Crocker Happy-talk Express that is supposed to be delivered the following week.

For the cynic in all of us, they have invoked clichés that would be edited out of a dime novel – Petraeus is scheduled to appear before Congress on September 11.

The atmosphere is sure to be charged, and enough congresscritters have Petraeus' number to make his appearance contentious. Especially in light of the fact that Petraeus tampered with the integrity of last weeks NIE.

The NIE, requested by the White House Iraq coordinator, Lt. Gen. Douglas E. Lute, in preparation for the testimony, met with resistance from U.S. military officials in Baghdad, according to a senior U.S. military intelligence officer there. Presented with a draft of the conclusions, Petraeus succeeded in having the security judgments softened to reflect improvements in recent months, the official said. (emphasis added)

For his part, the Resident continued to spin yesterday. He was rhetorically high-fiving Iraqi politicians for reaching some minor agreement on Sunday, but so what? The Cabinet still does not have a quorum so it doesn’t matter. Without a quorum, it’s just so much rowing with one oar.

Politicians traipsed to Iraq all summer long in an endless parade of self-important potentate puffery, as if a few hours of being shown what you are meant to see and nothing more is an honest assessment medium!

This Summer of Kabuki™ has provided Petraeus with the opportunity to do what he does so well…stage productions. It has been like summer stock theater over there, and let's give credit where credit is due! His production values have been spectacular!

Some of the Dog-and-Pony-Shows have even been somewhat effective, as in the case of Brian Baird, Representative of Washington. He came back after a one-day fact finding fact free trip to the war zone, where, by golly, he saw enough to convince him of the necessity to give Petraeus another Friedman Unit! This did not go over well with his constituents, and at a town-hall meeting, he got a face full of claws and faced a rhetorical lashing at the hands of an angry electorate that apparently stopped just short of burning him in effigy. One constituent pulled no punches and reminded him just who the hell he works for. "We don't care what your convictions are," said Jan Lustig of Vancouver. "You are here to represent us."

Petraeus will be appearing before a congress that has been provided details about what they have done that pissed us off, and that has been told in explicit terms just what the hell is expected of them, so he is not in for a Sunday stroll to the ice cream parlor, or even an open-air market in Indiana. He has been hinting around at a decade of combat involvement in Iraq – will he mention that in his testimony before a hinky congress?

And will Congress listen to those of us who control whether they keep their jobs or not? Or will they furrow their brows and scratch their chins in a most studious manner, and then do what ever the little idiot wants, while the killing continues apace?

[Crossposted from WTWC]

So…Why are we waiting for Petraeus?

You know how the Resident keeps saying that we should sit back on our heels and wait for what Petraeus and Crocker have to say come September?

Yeah…about that…Petraeus and Crocker aren’t even writing the report that will bear their names.

Despite Bush's repeated statements that the report will reflect evaluations by Petraeus and Ryan Crocker, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, administration officials said it would actually be written by the White House, with inputs from officials throughout the government.

And though Petraeus and Crocker will present their recommendations on Capitol Hill, legislation passed by Congress leaves it to the president to decide how to interpret the report's data.

So someone tell me again why we are waiting for Petraeus and Crocker to deliver Georgies foredrawn conclusions?

One “senior administration official” – speaking on condition of anonymity, of course – said that the process had put the administration in “uncomfortable positions” because they can’t decide what constitutes “satisfactory progress.”

In July, when the interim report was being written, some officials were encouraging the telling of blatant lies, by claiming progress where none existed. They urged the administration to claim success on the Exxon-Mobile Enrichment Act er, Oil Sharing Law, in spite of the fact there had been no agreement reached.

At least some insiders argued against telling the big lie, claiming it would be disingenuous. "There were some in the drafting of the report that said, 'Well, we can claim progress,' " the administration official said. "There were others who said: 'Wait a second. Sure we can claim progress, but it's not credible to . . . just neglect the fact that it's had no effect on the ground.' "

A DoD official who has been skeptical of the escalation from the outset said he expects Petraeus to emphasize military progress, such as “improving security in Baghdad” and a reduction in the number of suicide attacks. But how does that translate to political progress? How does that improve the day-to-day lives of the Iraqi people? "Who cares how many neighborhoods of Baghdad are secured?" the official said. "Let's talk about the rest of the country: How come they have electricity twice a day, how come there is no running water?"