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[bryant]

I kept the cynical from my door for about, oh, 24 hours. Going to a warzone and cheering up the troops is a pretty good thing to do, even if the motives are impure. So, sure, I gave him points for that.

But then I stopped and asked myself why he brought the press corps along.

I gotta say. If I’m the President, and I’m worried about my security, and the purpose of my visit is to rally the troops — why do I need Fox News on that plane? Why am I taking the risk of letting reporters in on the story a few days early? I could just, you know, get on the plane and go and come back without bringing along a bunch of cameramen and reporters. If I gotta have pictures, I’m sure there are a couple of Army guys whose job it is to take pictures of things.

Wouldn’t it be safer for both me and the soldiers I’m meeting if I skipped the press coverage and kept the people who knew to the absolute bare minimum?

Cynical’s back. But I’m not the one who decided to heighten the security risk for the sake of positive media coverage.

Comments

[tayefeth.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that was my thought exactly. Sadly, when I heard about it, I was with my father-in-law, who was so excited about the fact that the AP wasn't told about it until ShrubII was headed back to DC that he couldn't see that *no* reporters were necessary for the trip.

[totient]

Well, US presidents don't go much of anywhere without some press around. And you have to wonder if someone would have claimed it was faked if there hadn't been someone "objective" around.

[tayefeth.livejournal.com]

Fox News reporters are objective?

[totient]

No, but there were some print reporters there too.

[head58.livejournal.com]

Well, duh! The point of the trip was to show how safe Iraq is now. Yup, safe as the proverbial houses. Which is why they didn't tell anyone about it until Bush was coming back, and the press corps was told "if this leaks on the way there, we're turning this plane around and going back."

Maybe safe as houses in very bad neighborhoods. That are full of asbestos. And on fire.

the point of the trip

[totient]

... was not to show how safe Iraq was, but to show the Bush isn't a wuss.

The stuff we're hearing now about how hard it was to talk him into it isn't helping much with achieving the intended goal, I must say.

Re: the point of the trip

[head58.livejournal.com]

Funny, here they were saying on the news yesterday "President Bush went on this trip to show how safe Iraq has become." I must have misunderstood that. Or maybe I was distracted by the deaths of seven Spanish Intel agents and 2 Japanese diplomats in Iraq on the same day Bush was posing for the cameras.