Politics: A new beginning

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Originally posted by Tyrone_Slothrop
I was just looking at this story, and thinking about posting about it here. When we find out that the President's appearances are -- in part -- artifice calculated to look good, his credibility takes a hit. I personally thought that he did the right thing in going to Baghdad on Thanksgiving, and the criticism of the trip was uncharitable, to say the least. Obviously, there are other criticisms I have of his Iraq policy, but this is not one of them. But when you find out that the turkey in the photographs was fake, and that he wasn't serving it to the troops, then you start to wonder about his motivations. Likewise with the new reports about the bogus British Airways story -- it's just too cute. Those of you who don't suspect the Administration's credibility to start with can surely explain all of this away as innocuous salesmanship, but those of us who distrust him find confirmations of our concerns.

How would the President's supporters take this sort of thing if they'd heard it coming from Al Gore?

I think that people who support the Administration can "explain it away" quite legitimately as media wacko-ness. We all know my thoughts on the President, and even I thought this story was ridiculous. If I were walking into a place and knew my picture was going to be taken at Thanksgiving, I would pose with the only real turkey there too, not with a steam tray. It's not like he started cutting up the turkey and giving pieces to the soldiers.

The British Airways thing is just weird. Maybe it wasn't really BA, maybe it was some Iraqi American-haters pretending to be BA to throw off the President's security people.

Reporters feeling "betrayed" or whatever is also ridiculous. They have to understand what was going on, and be able to laugh at themselves for reporting what they were told.

On the other hand, I tend to think that the rabid GOP supporters around here would jump all over Al Gore (or Clinton, or Dean, or Clark) for doing exactly the same thing as Bush did. I more than "tend to think" -- I'm pretty damn certain.

Which is a sad, sad commentary on this board.