Operation "Iraqi Enduring Photo-Op"

Yesterday, Ron did a summary of the recent Bush photo-op with a hand picked crew of military folks in Iraq, but I think there's still some meat left on this bone. The Mahablog has an excellent roundup from Friday on all the news and blog views fit to print on the story, including Barbara O'Brien's as always excellent analysis. She is pointing out how the staged event itself was less of a story in this case than the way the media handled it, and how they are showing signs of being less obsequious in front of the White House these days.

Righties are chagrined that television newsies piled on the hapless W, and the even more hapless Scott McClellan. But I think the newsies have been steaming for a long time about the White House's phony news conferences, town meetings, and photo ops. The satellite feed gave them the chance to vent.

The right wing (e.g. Betsy Newmark) has been in a big hurry to point to a blog entry by one of the soldiers explaining that, of course it wasn't staged. But O'Brien also points to Joe Gandelman, himself a former professional journalist, who explains exactly how the Bushies dropped the ball on this one.

The only problem is: the White House had told reporters it would be freewheeling with no screening. That's WHY this story was done. If officials then went on and selected who got to talk and Bush got to choose his questions and the people who got to talk him had advance warning it's hard to say that its unscreened and unscripted.

The bottom line is that poor thinking and advance planning created this. The news media was HANDED this story. The White House set themselves up by what they told the press earlier. No one has contended that the military there were given every word that they said and when the White House spokesman tried to flip the question around to questioning the motives of the reporter (whether they believe the military meant what they said) it could not obscure what was said earlier to reporters and what they saw with their own eyes.

Staged photo-ops, the GOP proclaimed "town hall meetings" and all the other tools that Bush's handlers use to keep him inside the delusional bubble where he is always doing "the right thing" are nothing new. However, I find this particular display to be especially nauseating. Sending the troops over to die in this folly is bad enough. Abusing them further by treating them as stage props for his "Save my poll numbers at any cost" initiative is infuriating. If you really want to "support our troops", what say we start by treating them with a little bit of respect as real human beings, and not toy soldiers for you to play with in your endless war game?