Stage Manager
The Associated Press reports that today's teleconference between George Bush and U.S. soldiers (and one Iraqi soldier) was staged.
Some excerpts from the rehearsal before the teleconference, according to the AP:
"OK, so let's just walk through this," Barber said. "Captain Kennedy, you answer the first question and you hand the mike to whom?"
"Captain Smith," Kennedy said.
"Captain. Smith? You take the mike and you hand it to whom?" she asked.
"Captain Kennedy," the soldier replied.
And so it went.
"If the question comes up about partnering — how often do we train with the Iraqi military — who does he go to?" Barber asked.
"That's going to go to Captain Pratt," one of the soldiers said.
"And then if we're going to talk a little bit about the folks in Tikrit — the hometown — and how they're handling the political process, who are we going to give that to?" she asked.
No wonder so many veterans from the Iraq war (i.e. Paul Hackett) are returning home as Democrats, and running for political office. They have seen, up close, the consequences of having a Commander-in-Chief who really doesn't have their interests at heart. They see the consequences of having a Commander-in-Chief who doesn't want the reality of what is happening on the ground in Iraq; he only wants those who will lie to him and tell him everything is coming up roses in Iraq.
Paul Rieckhoff, Director of Operation Truth, said "If he wants the real opinions of the troops, he can't do it in a nationally televised teleconference. He needs to be talking to the boots on the ground and that's not a bunch of captains."
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051014/ap_on_go_pr_wh/bush_iraq
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If you knew anything about the military you would know that's what we call planning!
Comment by Elmers Brother— 2005/10/13 @ 09:12 PM — (Reply)
What happened today was not by an stretch of the imagination "just planning." It's called scripting an event so that Bush only gets one perspective of the Iraq war: a rosy scenario that would support his false view that everything is coming up roses there.
They were deciding WHAT questions would be asked and by whom.
Comment by Shalana— 2005/10/13 @ 09:18 PM — (Reply)
Yea but you have never served.
Comment by Elmers Brother— 2005/10/13 @ 09:32 PM — (Reply)
First of all, just because I never served,doesn't mean I don't understand the military. In case your reading comprehension isn't that good, I just explained that I do understand the military, because of the people in my life who have served.
I don't serve in our military, because I choose not to make a career out of war and killing people. Those are not my values. I have enormous respect for our people who where the uniform. I have chosen not to make a career out of war. That is my choice.
And as usual, you have NOT addressed the issue at hand. Which is that George Bush is so wedded to his idea that everything is coming up roses in Iraq. And he doesn't want anyone to tell him anything about Iraq, that would go against his rosy scenarios. He doesn't live in the reality-based community.
Comment by Shalana— 2005/10/14 @ 06:50 PM — (Reply)
When we wrote about the so-called "staged" teleconference between the president, ten American soldiers, and one Iraqi soldier, we introduced Sgt. Ron Long, who actually participated in the conference. We e-mailed Sgt. Long to ask if the soldiers themselves actually wrote their own answers, or if the answers were supplied by (or even edited by) the White House.
Sgt. Long did not respond personally, but he answered the same question in his blog. The blogpost quotes a fellow soldier from the 278th Regimental Combat Team, Lt. Gregg Murphy, who was interviewed by the Chattanooga Times Free Press. Murphy was chosen for the Tikrit teleconference because he had spent the last three months leading an Iraqi army training program near the Iranian border. The article is titled "Soldiers' questions weren't scripted, participant says," by Edward Lee Pitts.
"We wanted to give President Bush a no-kidding assessment of what we have all been working 14- (to) 18-hour days on for the last 11 months," said Lt. Gregg Murphy, of Chattanooga. "We gave him the God’s honest truth as we know it."
Although the soldiers themselves gathered before the teleconference to "brainstorm" what questions President Bush was likely to ask and how best and most accurately they could answer, there was no coercion, suggestion, or even editing by administration personnel.
[Lt. Murphy] said the only guidance the solders received was to avoid using military jargon that would confuse the general public and to write out bullet points to keep their comments concise and clear. Lt. Murphy said writing out key points kept the soldiers from being nervous.
"[Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Allison Barber] did not orchestrate the interview," Lt. Murphy said of the Defense Department employee. "We were nervous, and she put us at ease. Nothing more."
As for the reharsal, Lt. Murphy has this to say:
[T]he military rehearses all the time. "We do that so that when we actually have to execute, there isn’t any confusion," he said. "Rehearsing is why we are so good at what we do."
This should be the final refutation of the initial knee-jerk and entirely predictable -- scripted, if you will -- response by the Associated Press, reprinted in the Washington Post, that smarmily implied (without quite saying) that the soldiers were either too dumb or too intimidated by the president to give honest answers, and that the White House had scripted the entire event.
On the one hand, you can believe the nod-and-a-wink insinuations of a reporter whose only connection to the teleconference is that he saw some of the rehearsal inadvertently broadcast -- footage that does not show even one single reported instance of the White House altering a soldier's answer. Or you can believe the straightforward words of two of the actual participants in the teleconference, a lieutenant and a sergeant who have each spent many months fighting in Iraq (the latter as a combat medic) and are still there on the ground, dealing with Iraqi citizens, Coalition forces, and terrorists on a day-to-day basis.
It's your choice.
Comment by Elmers Brother— 2005/10/18 @ 10:10 PM — (Reply)
Comment by Elmers Brother— 2005/10/18 @ 10:22 PM — (Reply)
When we wrote about the so-called "staged" teleconference between the president, ten American soldiers, and one Iraqi soldier, we introduced Sgt. Ron Long, who actually participated in the conference. We e-mailed Sgt. Long to ask if the soldiers themselves actually wrote their own answers, or if the answers were supplied by (or even edited by) the White House.
Sgt. Long did not respond personally, but he answered the same question in his blog. The blogpost quotes a fellow soldier from the 278th Regimental Combat Team, Lt. Gregg Murphy, who was interviewed by the Chattanooga Times Free Press. Murphy was chosen for the Tikrit teleconference because he had spent the last three months leading an Iraqi army training program near the Iranian border. The article is titled "Soldiers' questions weren't scripted, participant says," by Edward Lee Pitts.
"We wanted to give President Bush a no-kidding assessment of what we have all been working 14- (to) 18-hour days on for the last 11 months," said Lt. Gregg Murphy, of Chattanooga. "We gave him the God’s honest truth as we know it."
Although the soldiers themselves gathered before the teleconference to "brainstorm" what questions President Bush was likely to ask and how best and most accurately they could answer, there was no coercion, suggestion, or even editing by administration personnel.
[Lt. Murphy] said the only guidance the solders received was to avoid using military jargon that would confuse the general public and to write out bullet points to keep their comments concise and clear. Lt. Murphy said writing out key points kept the soldiers from being nervous.
"[Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Allison Barber] did not orchestrate the interview," Lt. Murphy said of the Defense Department employee. "We were nervous, and she put us at ease. Nothing more."
As for the reharsal, Lt. Murphy has this to say:
[T]he military rehearses all the time. "We do that so that when we actually have to execute, there isn’t any confusion," he said. "Rehearsing is why we are so good at what we do."
This should be the final refutation of the initial knee-jerk and entirely predictable -- scripted, if you will -- response by the Associated Press, reprinted in the Washington Post, that smarmily implied (without quite saying) that the soldiers were either too dumb or too intimidated by the president to give honest answers, and that the White House had scripted the entire event.
On the one hand, you can believe the nod-and-a-wink insinuations of a reporter whose only connection to the teleconference is that he saw some of the rehearsal inadvertently broadcast -- footage that does not show even one single reported instance of the White House altering a soldier's answer. Or you can believe the straightforward words of two of the actual participants in the teleconference, a lieutenant and a sergeant who have each spent many months fighting in Iraq (the latter as a combat medic) and are still there on the ground, dealing with Iraqi citizens, Coalition forces, and terrorists on a day-to-day basis.
It's your choice.
Comment by Elmers Brother— 2005/10/18 @ 10:23 PM — (Reply)
I'm so sorry you don't live in the reality-based community. What part of "scripted teleconference" don't you understand?
If they really wanted an honest assessment from the field, then they 1) would not have had a bunch of higher-up Captains asking the questions and 2) They would not have known in advance what questions would have been asked.
Unscripted means you don't know what's coming at you in advance!! Duh!
They scripted the teleconference because George Bush doesn't want ANY information that goes against his rosy scenarios of Iraq.
Comment by Shalana— 2005/10/19 @ 03:56 PM — (Reply)
Comment by Elmers Brother— 2005/10/19 @ 04:10 PM — (Reply)
Comment by Elmers Brother— 2005/10/19 @ 04:11 PM — (Reply)
Of course I'm NOT a hpyocrite. But do you actually think the military would admit they staged an event for Bush? No, of course they wouldn't. But we don't need them to tell us the event was staged. We saw it was staged the minute the cameras caught them rehearsing the questions before the event!
It doesn't take rocket science.
And as usual, you have yet to address the true issue at hand: the fact that the event was staged because Bush doesn't want to hear anyone's assessments of Iraq, that don't jive with his own.
Comment by Shalana— 2005/10/19 @ 07:44 PM — (Reply)
Okay ignore the truth. Like most liberals who only hear or read what they want to. I could show you assessments that are good. I have friends in Iraq that tell me what is really going on there vice what the MSM wants us to hear and see. So you can pretend to care about the troops, "respect them" but not what they say, but you are still a hypocrite who talks out of both sides of your mouth.
Comment by Elmers Brother— 2005/10/19 @ 09:00 PM — (Reply)
My comrades who were there answered you and you ignored them because they didn't say what you wanted to hear. "Respect the troops" my a**!
Comment by elmers brother — 2005/10/19 @ 10:38 PM — (Reply)
An unscripted press conference means you don't rehearse the questions or the answers in advance!
You just can't escape that fact.
Comment by Shalana— 2005/10/20 @ 07:19 PM — (Reply)
the only thing I can't escape is military hating liberals with a penchant for angry diatribes about nothing.
Comment by elmers brother— 2005/10/20 @ 08:42 PM — (Reply)
Captains are only 0-3's and taking the brunt of the officer casualties. So again don't patronize the troops. Among officers, captains have been killed more than anyone else. At least 65 have died and at least six lieutenant colonels have been killed by hostile fire.
Comment by Elmers Brother— 2005/10/22 @ 09:01 AM — (Reply)