It's not news, part II

David Corn echoes Hesoid at American Street.

No Reason For Networks To Show Bush's Iraq Speech?

On Tuesday night George Bush will give a speech on Iraq. His (impossible?) mission: to counter the sinking polls in which a majority now says the war wasn't worth it. This is a particularly hard task, given that in recent surveys a majority also says that Bush purposefully overstated the WMD threat (that is, he lied) to grease the way to war.

[....]

What has helped Bush in the polls vis a vis Iraq these past two years have been events on the ground. When Saddam Hussein was nabbed, when the elections were held--these occasions gave Bush and his allies the opportunity to peg their misleading happy-talk to something real, and the public, justifiably eager for good news, responded accordingly. But Bush jaw-flapping on its own has not been effective. Just look at the Social Security fight. The more he opened his mouth, the more he and his vague plan dropped in the polls. And these days, there are few, if any, positive developments in Iraq's security picture for Bush to exploit.

It won't be news worthy because Bush use a lot of words to say as little as possible. He can't talk about a plan because they don't have one. He can't tell the truth about the situation on the ground because it's really fucked up.

In fact, judging from the Social Security debacle the administration should be hoping that the speech isn't covered. A year or to ago people were still drinking the kool-aid and Bush could have sold a war without end. Those days are long gone.