Another day ... another Photo-Op!!

[PsychoSy]

The Bird Was Perfect But Not For Dinner
In Iraq Picture, Bush Is Holding the Centerpiece
By Mike Allen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, December 4, 2003; Page A33
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President Bush's Baghdad turkey was for looking, not for eating.

In the most widely published image from his Thanksgiving day trip to Baghdad, the beaming president is wearing an Army workout jacket and surrounded by soldiers as he cradles a huge platter laden with a golden-brown turkey. The bird is so perfect it looks as if it came from a food magazine, with bunches of grapes and other trimmings completing a Norman Rockwell image that evokes bounty and security in one of the most dangerous parts of the world. But as a small sign of the many ways the White House maximized the impact of the 21/2-hour stop at the Baghdad airport, administration officials said yesterday that Bush picked up a decoration, not a serving plate.

Officials said they did not know the turkey would be there or that Bush would pick it up. A contractor had roasted and primped the turkey to adorn the buffet line, while the 600 soldiers were served from cafeteria-style steam trays, the officials said. They said the bird was not placed there in anticipation of Bush's stealthy visit, and military sources said a trophy turkey is a standard feature of holiday chow lines. The scene, which lasted just a few seconds, was not visible to a reporter who was there but was recorded by a pool photographer and described by officials yesterday in response to questions raised in Washington.

Bush's standing rose in a poll conducted immediately after the trip. Administration officials said the presidential stop provided a morale boost that troops in Iraq are still talking about, and helped reassure Iraqis about U.S. intentions. Nevertheless, the foray has opened new credibility questions for a White House that has dealt with issues as small as who placed the "Mission Accomplished" banner aboard the aircraft carrier Bush used to proclaim the end of major combat operations in Iraq, and as major as assertions about Saddam Hussein's arsenal of unconventional weapons and his ability to threaten the United States.

The White House has updated its account of an airborne conversation in which a British Airways pilot wondered into his radio if he had just seen Air Force One and was told that it was a Gulfstream 5, a much smaller plane. White House officials first said that the British Airways pilot had talked with the Air Force One pilot. Bush aides now say the conversation occurred between the British Airways pilot and an air traffic control worker. "I don't think everybody was clear on exactly how that conversation happened," White House press secretary Scott McClellan said.

British Airways said it has been unable to confirm the new version. "We've looked into it," a spokeswoman said from London. "It didn't happen." White House officials do not deny that they craft elaborate events to showcase Bush, but they maintain that these events are designed to accurately dramatize his policies and to convey qualities about him that are real. "This was effective, because it captured something about the president that people know is true, that he really cares about the soldiers and gets emotional when he sees them," Mary Matalin, a former administration official, said about the trip to Baghdad. "You have to figure out how to capture the Bush we know, even if it doesn't come through in a speech situation or a press conference. He regularly rejects anything that is not him."

The Democratic presidential candidates tipped their hats to the White House stage managers by refusing to criticize the trip, which dominated weekend newscasts. Aides to the Democrats said they concluded that the less said about the trip, the better. In the view of these aides, the trip produced reassuring images of a situation that has badly deteriorated, and Democrats just wanted the moment to pass so they could go back to criticizing Bush's postwar policy. A poll conducted four days after Thanksgiving by the National Annenberg Election Survey put Bush's job approval rating at 61 percent, up from 56 percent during the four days before the holiday. His job disapproval rating dropped from 41 percent to 36 percent. His personal popularity increased from 65 percent to 72 percent. The polls of 789 people before Thanksgiving and 847 people after Thanksgiving each had a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

The trip was pulled off in total secrecy -- only a few Bush aides and reporters knew about it in advance, and they were allowed to discuss it only on secure phone lines. Reporters covering the Thanksgiving program in Baghdad were not allowed to report the event until after Air Force One had left. Some of the reporters left behind at Crawford Middle School, where they work when Bush is staying at his Texas ranch, felt they had been deceived by White House accounts of what Bush would be doing on Thanksgiving. Correspondent Mark Knoller said Sunday on "CBS Evening News" that the misleading information and deception were understandable, but that he had been "filing radio reports that amounted to fiction."

"Even as President Bush was addressing U.S. personnel in Baghdad, I was on the air saying he was at his ranch making holiday phone calls to American troops overseas," Knoller said. "I got that information from a White House official that very morning."

© 2003 The Washington Post Company

Wow...just simply wow - a decorative turkey holding up a decorative turkey!

As long as the White House is doing such a superb job in telling lies, staging bullcrap photo-ops, and outright mocking our troops just for the sake of "Approval Rating" points in the media as well as a few golf-claps from the Religious Right, I just recieved a whopper of one straight out of the nation's capital: The U.S. Supreme Court has just now ruled there cannot be a live nativity scene in Washington, DC this Christmas. This isn't for any religious or constitutional reason. They simply have not been able to find three wise men and a virgin in the nation's Capital. However, after brief interviews with Condy Rice, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and John Ashcroft, SCOTUS concluded on a postive note that there was no problem whatsoever in finding enough asses to fill the stable!!

Until the next photo-op, this has been PsychoSy!
- NvNews.Net's Unofficial Political Analyst/Official Resident Carmudgeon! -

[digitalwanderer]

Originally posted by PsychoSy


Wow...just simply wow - a decorative turkey holding up a decorative turkey!

ROFLMFAO!!!!

Oh man, that got me good! Thanks PsychoSy, very witty observation.

[1stFlight]

Dammit, figures Pyscho would do a better post on this than mine....still it's funny as hell!!!

It was all staged!!!

[UDawg]

Oh geeze, as this is nothing new. Sigh Psy. Every president is looking for a photo op all the time. Bush is not exception. I do smell a little jelousy in the air though because Bush is much better at it.




photo op

This isn't a photo op but it did bring back memories. Oh and note how impartial CNN is with their subtle "CLINTON AQUITTED" STAMP. LOL



Oh no, no photo op here. What is funny is Clinton keep walking and then cam upon a pile of rock. Out of the clear blue on a sandy beach a pile of rocks. LOL! He then proceeds to kneel down and arrange the rocks into the shape of a cross. LMAO BAHAHAHA. There was also a lone battle ship in the distance. I remember wathing this on the evening news. It was very well done.


Just a ka-winky-dink.

[1stFlight]

Nice try UDawg, but your piss-poor attempt at Clinton bashing doesn't rate against a fake war, a fake President and a fake turkey

[PsychoSy]

I remember CNN doing that...as well as all the other cable, network, and print media outlets! It's was "Big News" dude! C'mon, any political or Hollywood figure that either found guilty or innocent of "damnable offenses", the media is going to be right there just itching to put the appropriate headline right on the front page...in 36 Pt. Copper Plate Bold!!!!

Just in case you have cateracts!

[UDawg]

Ok so let me get this straight. You bash Bush but it is called patriotic descent. I bring up the point how every president does photo op, no every president lives for photo ops and it is called Clinton bashing?

Notice you said Bush is fake the turkey is fake every thing is fake. You just plain hate Bush. The left hates Bush far worse than the right hated Clinton and we did hate him.

I think the photo ops I showed prove that the current and last president at least ingage in photo ops. Piss poor attemp. Grow up. They are as plain as Bushes photo ops.

[intercede007]

Ohhh *****!!!!

You mean all the Butterball commercials out there lied to me and told me my turkey would look like theirs?!!?!?!?!?!?!?!!! I DIDN'T COOK IT WRONG...I WAS LIED TOO!! I WANT MY MONEY BACK!!!

For fu*** sake, if the worst thing that Bush does for PR is walk around with a fake turkey, I think he's doing OK. I mean hell, our last president shot cruise missles into middle-eastern countries while the spotlight was on a cigar box and his interns blue dress.

Move along, children. Nothing to see here.

[1stFlight]

Originally posted by UDawg
Ok so let me get this straight. You bash Bush but it is called patriotic descent. I bring up the point how every president does photo op, no every president lives for photo ops and it is called Clinton bashing?

Notice you said Bush is fake the turkey is fake every thing is fake. You just plain hate Bush. The left hates Bush far worse than the right hated Clinton and we did hate him.

I think the photo ops I showed prove that the current and last president at least ingage in photo ops. Piss poor attemp. Grow up. They are as plain as Bushes photo ops.

Ummm, yes I hate Bush... the man's an idiot who's getting good soldiers killed and the best he can do is a photo-op.... so sue me.

[UDawg]

That is all I wanted. Honesty. I just wanted to show how no matter what is said about Bush or what ever good Bush does you will take the opposite opinion just out of hate.

I personaly did not hate Clinton. I wanted to like him. He was my president. I want to back the president no matter what party but he had such low charater. In the end he was a blessing for the republicans. A big blessing.

BTW Clinton got good soldiers killed also for HUMANITARIAN reasons. Did Clinton visit Kosovo? No. Did he vistit Haitti? No. Did he vistit Somolia? No. Did he run to England during Vietnam? Yes. If you are going to bring up Bush's record on his time in the Texas national air guard don't. The Boston Globe had a large piece on it and found that nothing wrong happened. You can find any crack pot site you want to agree with you but it is just a crack pot you will be linking to. The Boston Globe BTW is among the biggest Bush hatting news papers out there.

Psy I know what you mean. It was just so much more bigger on the liberal stations. and much more red.

[saturnotaku]

Originally posted by UDawg
That is all I wanted. Honesty. I just wanted to show how no matter what is said about Bush or what ever good Bush does you will take the opposite opinion just out of hate.

I personaly did not hate Clinton. I wanted to like him. He was my president. I want to back the president no matter what party but he had such low charater. In the end he was a blessing for the republicans. A big blessing.

BTW Clinton got good soldiers killed also for HUMANITARIAN reasons. Did Clinton visit Kosovo? No. Did he vistit Haitti? No. Did he vistit Somolia? No. Did he run to England during Vietnam? Yes. If you are going to bring up Bush's record on his time in the Texas national air guard don't. The Boston Globe had a large piece on it and found that nothing wrong happened. You can find any crack pot site you want to agree with you but it is just a crack pot you will be linking to. The Boston Globe BTW is among the biggest Bush hatting news papers out there.

Psy I know what you mean. It was just so much more bigger on the liberal stations. and much more red.

Zing!

[PsychoSy]

Originally posted by UDawg
In the end he was a blessing for the republicans. A big blessing.

And Michael Moore, in his book "Stupid White Men", totally agrees with you for he called Clinton "the best Republican President we ever had" after citing a laundry-list of Pro-Conservative/Republican things he did or failed to do as President!

Believe it or not, Moore used the same exact laundy-list to hammer Bush.