It Will Never Be A Happy "Mission Accomplished" Day

We wonder how The Commander Guy celebrated yesterday.

Did he strut around in his his new Dallas neighborhood in the flight suit? ... Stand on his back porch, reliving the moment on the deck of the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln? ... Or, simply remain obtuse, as dense as he has ever been.

Yesterday, if you recall, was the 6th Anniversary of "Mission Accomplished".

You remember, when the invasion and occupation was all wrapped up, all that "stuff happens" happened, the cheering crowds of liberated people, fading in the deep crevices of The Bush Grindhouse, a few stray rose pedals, and flowers, drifting aimlessly..

As egregious (and, perhaps, criminal) as this was, it was more horrific, the complete submission, and full-throated cheerleading, of our dunce-capped media.

So many were so, so wrong.

Greg Mitchell has captured that, in his book, "So Wrong For So Long", and has a piece up on Huffington Post, "On 6th Anniversary of 'Mission Accomplished' -- How the Media Blew It";

Chris Matthews on MSNBC called Bush a "hero" and boomed, "He won the war. He was an effective commander. Everybody recognizes that, I believe, except a few critics." He added: "Women like a guy who's president. Check it out. The women like this war. I think we like having a hero as our president. It's simple."

PBS' Gwen Ifill said Bush was "part Tom Cruise, part Ronald Reagan." On NBC, Brian Williams gushed, "The pictures were beautiful. It was quite something to see the first-ever American president on a -- on a carrier landing."

Bob Schieffer on CBS said: "As far as I'm concerned, that was one of the great pictures of all time." His guest, Joe Klein, responded: "Well, that was probably the coolest presidential image since Bill Pullman played the jet fighter pilot in the movie Independence Day. That was the first thing that came to mind for me."

Ahh .... Dwarf, finks, phonies, and frauds, the bunch of 'em ...

Go check out, for a head-shaking chuckle, our elite media, in Mitchell's "On 6th Anniversary of 'Mission Accomplished' -- How the Media Blew It"


Bonus Links

Bush Remarks on "Mission Accomplished" Banner Embarrass White House

Top Ten Cloves: Lengths White House Staff Will Go Today To Avoid Reminding President Of "Mission Accomplished"

Yeah, Why Not!

We should have run this yesterday, it would have fit nicely with the Jake Tapper riff.



The title of this post signals our taking an affirmative position on the question Ana Maire Cox asked this past Sunday;

Why We Should Get Rid of the White House Press Corps

Yet too often, the White House briefing room is where news goes to die.

Name a major political story broken by a White House correspondent. A thorough debunking of the Bush case for Iraqi WMD? McClatchy Newspapers' State Department and national security correspondents. Bush's abuse of signing statements? The Boston Globe's legal affairs correspondent. Even Watergate came off The Washington Post's Metro desk.

[Snip]

But putting a horde of reporters on the site where the big decisions about the country's future are made is no guarantee of enhanced coverage. Instead of heaping more telegenic reporters into a single White House beat, break up the work among the corps of plugged-in journalists. When the president speaks out on AIG, let financial and labor reporters truth-squad him; when North Korea launches a missile, let defense and Asia specialists assess the White House reaction. Let the beleaguered journalism business prove its worth by providing something you can't get by watching the White House's YouTube channel.

Now, I feel confident, that in just writing this piece, Ana Marie ruffled a whole flock of feathers.

But it is not far-fetched, that some Managing Editor looks at this proposal, says "Hmmmmm", that would certainly be one way, for a newspaper, or television network, to, how-should-we-say, stand above the crowd, a bit.

We know of, at least, one White House correspondent, that won't be sad to leave the post, as it is likely, he would have been replaced at the next Presidential News Conference, anyway.

I mean, even the guy who writes the obituaries could probably come up with better questions.

Ain't that so, Chuck Todd?


Bonus Riffs

Top Ten Cloves: Reasons President Bush Decided Not To Be Funny At WHCA Dinner

WHCA Dinner - Hey, Check That Guy For A Pulse! ...Rich Little ... Frank Dell ... Frank Dell ... Rich Little

Elizabeth Edwards: "The Cliff Notes of the news"

“Did you, for example, ever know a single fact about Joe Biden’s health care plan? … But let me guess, you know Barack Obama’s bowling score.”

Ouch!

You go there, Elizabeth, you go girl!

Man, something like this today has the thought creeping into your mind that, maybe, the wrong Edwards was running for President.

We speak of Elizabeth Edwards' NYT Op-Ed, "Bowling 1, Health Care 0"

Mrs. Edwards rips into the MSM, for covering the silly, the pap, and not being the beacon bulldogs of a robust democracy.

Why? Here’s my guess: The vigorous press that was deemed an essential part of democracy at our country’s inception is now consigned to smaller venues, to the Internet and, in the mainstream media, to occasional articles. I am not suggesting that every journalist for a mainstream media outlet is neglecting his or her duties to the public. And I know that serious newspapers and magazines run analytical articles, and public television broadcasts longer, more probing segments.

But I am saying that every analysis that is shortened, every corner that is cut, moves us further away from the truth until what is left is the Cliffs Notes of the news, or what I call strobe-light journalism, in which the outlines are accurate enough but we cannot really see the whole picture.

She laments that lack-of-coverage for all the candidates, people like Joe Biden and Chris Dodd, whose good policy plans went, virtually, unnoticed.

Or, as she questions "who decided that Fred Thompson was a serious candidate."

I’m not the only one who noticed this shallow news coverage. A report by the Project for Excellence in Journalism and the Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy found that during the early months of the 2008 presidential campaign, 63 percent of the campaign stories focused on political strategy while only 15 percent discussed the candidates’ ideas and proposals.

Watching the campaign unfold, I saw how the press gravitated toward a narrative template for the campaign, searching out characters as if for a novel: on one side, a self-described 9/11 hero with a colorful personal life, a former senator who had played a president in the movies, a genuine war hero with a stunning wife and an intriguing temperament, and a handsome governor with a beautiful family and a high school sweetheart as his bride. And on the other side, a senator who had been first lady, a young African-American senator with an Ivy League diploma, a Hispanic governor with a self-deprecating sense of humor and even a former senator from the South standing loyally beside his ill wife. Issues that could make a difference in the lives of Americans didn’t fit into the narrative template and, therefore, took a back seat to these superficialities.

The essay is on-the-money and a good read.

And it has generated (for the most part; There's a few in the RWFS out there dissing it) good kudos.

Kevin Hayden: Strobe-light journalism: the ADD of campaign 2008

Bang The Drum: Elizabeth Edwards, I’d Vote for YOU

Mark Halperin: Elizabeth Edwards Points Finger at News Media

Take some time and read Elizabeth Edwards' "Bowling 1, Health Care 0"