Repeat After Me And Then Raise Your Right Hand

Nice. Did you hear the NPR story about the scripting here? It completely confirms what you say about scripting.
The press needs to take Scott McC to the wood-shed for overtly lying to them.

Darryl….how many times do you have to take someone to the woodshed before you figure out they like it?
Bag you wrote:>>>>Just like the U.N. bathroom memo incident revealed a couple weeks ago, the evidence continues to pile up that Bush is only as good as what the last person told him to do or say. (My theory, by the way, is that the Harriet Miers situation exemplifies what happens in the occasional instance in which Bush keeps his own counsel.)<<<<<<
This dynamic has been seen before. Spoiled brat of kid with learning disabilities, (Kaiser Wilhelm–Der Kaiser of WWI) once was supremely, and completely, guided by the old fox, Bismarck. Slowly, at first, the Kaiser began to disregard the advice of Bismarck. Then not so slowly. We know how that story turned out.

Hey, one more thing…assuming the one dark skinned solider was the Iraqi solider mentioned in the press reports….does it mean that there were no black soliders in the picture?

This post and the one where he was walking in the south with firefighters from Utah , in uniform, are so BAD.
Not the posts, but the behavior of the subject.
He and his media group are chipping away at respect for those who serve.
On our dime.
Who wants to be used like a puppet?
(Perhaps next to all these soldiers cots are photos of themselves resting their head on hand.)
Kookoo B has aged quickly in the last year. He looks old in these shots.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

The soldiers are so infantilized on screen. They’re lined up like elementary school kids for a class picture. They’ve must have been told to continuously smile, which makes them even more childlike. What an insult to them. The fact that they were forced to rehearse instead of being allowed to speak spontaneously is one more indication of the contempt the Administration and the Pentagon have for ordinary soldiers.

I was also curious about there not being any black soldiers, because the military always puts a token black and a token woman – in their recruiting posters, for example.
I don’t watch TV often, so I really don’t see Bush speaking much, but I saw him the other day talking about Syria. He said something about “the report” (into the assassination of Rafiq Hariri) that’s expected soon. Then he paused for what seemed a long time, and then said, “the Mehlis report”. Then another long pause, and then something else about it. It really did seem like those pauses were for someone to prompt him… and while he’s waiting, he’s just got this stupid look on his face.
How could this guy get elected – OK, the first time he didn’t actually win the most votes, but what about the second time, after people had seen him in action for several years? And this system of government is the one that the rest of the world is supposed to be yearning for?

Wait wait wait. We don’t in fact know that those are actual soldiers or that they really are sitting (happily and obediently) in Iraq and not on a set in Nevada. Just because we’re told they’re soldiers in Iraq — and shown a picture to “prove” it — doesn’t mean it’s true. Have we already forgotten Bush’s photo ops and bald-faced lies in New Orleans from last month? If so, refer to http://landrieu.senate.gov/releases/05/2005903E12.html and http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/9/6/233139/2154, which has a link to the Utah firefighter reference that I think mugatea is making.
Bush has used human props since 9/11/01 to great effect (he is serving a second term, after all, and the “Patriot” Act did pass). But I would hope we’ve seen enough since 2001 to question the authenticity of every picture we are shown and the accuracy of every word uttered to the press and public by this administration. If we’re going to assume that these ARE real soldiers in Iraq, then I guess this was another successful stunt.

ummabdulla,
As a BushCo hater (and hater is the right word) this is a self-serving answer to your question about how he got elected a “second time” but its one I firmly believe: They stole the second election too. And I am not alone….Google the “Conyers Report+elections in Ohio”. I’m a lawyer who makes his living dealing with computer security issues. That does not mean I have exclusive, conclusive, answers that others do not. But digital election fraud is often discussed topic in my peer group. And I am not alone in my hunches.

Then get ready for next year’s great political upset. GOP RETAINS MAJORITY.
2006 = D-I-E-B-O-L-D

TF-MA,
I’ve been “ready” for this issue since 1996. Somewhere down the road it is going to have to be addressed in a serious manner. But with the inmates in charge of the asylum….

He appears to have just had had his hand in his right trousers pocket? I don’t how to explain the jacket corner “riding” up on the dais in the first shot.
The second, forgive my “scapulamancy” (a practice apparently once reported widespread in native North America, the reading the cracks in an animal’s scapula thown into a fire, also, said to have been similar to the basis for the “fortune telling” origin of the “I Ching” which judging from the number “X-mancies” in the dictionary, were in no short supply in ancient Rome) but his scapula appears very sharp in that jacket. Anyone an anatomist?

Woops its the TV lights in the first shot creating the shadow behind the lectern.

Ah, sometimes you wish he would just keep his counsel Miers to himself.

OK, so he uses notes to speak. So fucking what? Lots of people do that when speaking in public.

his scapula appears very sharp in that jacket. Anyone an anatomist?
I thought we decided last year that it was either a back brace or a battery pack for a high-wattage radio receiver.
Speaking of which, perhaps “keeping his own counsel” of late is a consequence of people criticizing his earpiece adviser.
Is anyone else thinking that the fake soldiers will get helpings of fake turkey this Thanksgiving?? (I know, that’s totally unfair; they’re genuine soldiers, it was only the spontaneous conversation that was pretend.)

What is that thing underneath his jacket? Sure looks like another wire or cable to me. Are these people really this stupid?

Well, he had a visible earpiece in for this one. It was an external wire curling up to his left ear.
Must get kind of busy under that jacket, between the official receiver, the unofficial one for press conferences and debates, the defibrillator, the bulletproof vest…

A lot of happenstances yesterday….just happened to stumble upon this session on CNN when it aired ‘live’. The immediate things which struck me: the ethnicity of the group, the rank (all officers – captains except for one 1Lt. & a senior enlisted, master sergeant), the stilted posture & speaking styles. Then later in the car caught NPR & the piece with Allison Barber ’scripting’. Then just happened upon this piece from The Village Voice . The master sergeant, for one, is in Public Affairs.

After hitting ‘post’ I realized I should’ve clarified – of those who spoke, all were officers except for MSgt. Lombardo. There were other enlisted members who were inactive participants in the video teleconference.

jonst, I remember there was some controversy about Ohio, but I didn’t really know the details, so I took your suggestion and went to google. I guess with the “red state” / “blue state” split, one really could affect the election by tampering with votes in just one swing state (or even one area of that state). It’s amazing the things that happened, and the fact that no one did much about it… I wonder, has the media really gotten a little more brave lately? Would they hammer away at an issue like election irregularities if it happened now? I’m not optimistic.

OneGoodMove has the footage..
http://onegoodmove.org/1gm/1gmarchive/002474.html#002474
From it you can see they are in Iraq as the Iraqi makes a complete mess of the interview with his “I thank you! for anything! I like you!”.

Sounds like the soldiers/officers were reading off cue-cards.
I suppose they all believed there were participating in this sham for a higher cause – OK, fine, I guess – but have a little self-respect, eh.

Other blogs have commented that the video-screen setup makes it look like the soldiers are in the crosshairs of a sniper-scope.

ummabdulla,
The mainstream media won’t touch this. There are simply not enough ‘hard facts’ (which is often the problem when you have no digital audit logs. see Enron, Parmalat et al) to take the huge risk they would be taking to run with this story.
Digital audit logs will become akin to fingerprints in the world of crime. But we are not there yet…and not even close.

jonst, the mainstream media has indeed picked up the story. Dan Froomkin covered it in his column for the Washington Post here.

There’s really nothing new, outrageous, or conspiratorial here. It’s just the usual attempt (albeit a pretty transparent one) at managing media impressions. Does any politician on either side of the aisle NOT attempt to do this whenever possible?
From the soldiers’ POV, you’re participating in a live, televised “interview” with your Commander in Chief. You will be seen by millions of Americans and other people across the world, not to mention the rest of your unit, your immediate commanders, and your family. Bloggers probably don’t count for much.
As a member of the armed forces representing the United States, or as the POTUS, you’re simply not going to walk onto a global stage unprepared. Here’s the behavior that the U.S. Army recommends for close encounters with the Fifth Column:

U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command
Pocket Guide to Encountering the Media
http://www.eustis.army.mil/PAO/meeting.htm
As an Army leader and TRADOC expert in your field, you should view radio, television and newspaper interviews as opportunities to tell the Army story and the TRADOC story.
With assistance from your public affairs staff, the right attitude and proper preparation, you can clearly and positively convey Army messages to the American public – through the media.
Your success during an interview is tied to the quality of your preparation and the level of control you exercise. Although you will probably be asked about your job, don’t think an interview is a casual conversation you can just “wing.”
For the unprepared, being questioned by the media can be stressful and embarrassing. But if you’re prepared, the interview will be an opportunity to make a presentation reflecting professionalism, knowledge and enthusiasm.
This guidance will help prepare you to do just that.
[topics:]
• Know About the Interview
• Know What You Want to Say
• Know How to Say It
• Get Your Message Across
• Nonverbal Communication
• Rules of Engagement
• Answering Questions
• Do’s and Don’ts [edited:]
Do -
- find out all you can about the interview
- anticipate questions you will be asked
- practice answering the questions
- sit up straight in the chair
- smile when appropriate
- convey enthusiasm
- talk about personal experiences
- assume everything you say, even when off camera, will be broadcast or printed
- set the record straight
- always be honest
- bridge to your messages
- take every opportunity to tell the Army story
Don’t -
- fail to prepare
- cover or gloss over the truth
- speculate
- smile or grin at inappropriate times
- make nervous gestures
- roll or shift your eyes
- say anything you don’t want on the air or in print
- use acronyms or technical jargon
- answer hypothetical questions
- use no comment
- argue
- just answer “yes” or “no”
- assume you won’t be asked about important issues

Soldiers follow orders, and practice, preparation, and rehearsal are the orders of the day.
The U.S. Air Force has a more extensive set of guidelines here (PDF file.)

One small problem fotonique…
Not one of those guidelines say, “Repeat whatever the interviewers want you to say, the way they want you to say it.” Especially when it’s only half an hour before “showtime.” They’re people, after all, not actors running lines for King Lear, and they’re entitled to saying things the way they would say them normally, without coaching from the interviewer. Or does the White House think the military corps is too stupid to answer questions on their own?

LJ/Aquaria,
The burden of proof would be to show that the military interviewees—mostly officers, from what I gather—responded to President Bush with memorized or written answers from a script. Teleprompters for everyone?
I seriously doubt they had to stick to a script, primarily because it wouldn’t be necessary, and secondly because such a request would be an insult to them as professional soldiers. (And as you mentioned, they’re not actors: they couldn’t be relied upon to deliver their lines properly.)
As I tried to point out above, the military interviewees’ behavior and responses lined up with the preparatory procedures in the Army’s Pocket Guide to Encountering the Media.
Rehearsals of an upcoming live TV interview before a national audience, especially with your CIC asking the questions, would definitely be wise. The lack of one, combined with voicing unrequested personal opinions, would be positively stupid, and might well be professional suicide not only for the personnel involved, but for their commanders. This wasn’t the time nor the place for free speech, no matter what the Constitution allows.
The military’s personal sense of duty and responsibility must carry a great deal of influence, and this includes one significant part of the Army enlistment oath:

…I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

As civilians, we do not swear a military oath (nor should we), and we are free to say what we want. Given a private face-to-face (or public screen-to-screen) opportunity, we might even get away with telling the POTUS exactly what we think.
Life in the military, however, is much different than yours and mine.

fotonique: There’s no need to defend the military because no one is criticizing the military. Any and all criticisms are intended for the commander in chief. In fact, everyone here seems to be rather upset that Bush is once again USING OUR military for his own personal political gain (Bush is tanking in the polls, by the way). What IS outrageous is that this president has put these people’s lives at grave risk for his whims, not the country’s needs. This spectacle is much more than “managing media impressions,” as you call it. Once the teleconference is over, these officers will need to consult their Pocket Guide to Roadside Bombs.

RTBAG,
Comments like “…Bush’s teleconference today with these U.S. (strike)actors(/strike) soldiers in Iraq was completely canned.” and “…the questions the soldiers had previously been coached to answer” may not be intentional criticisms of the military or their abilities, but they sound like it.
And I find it hard to believe that any President, even George Bush, has managed to subvert the entire American military for personal political gain. Not that any President might try, but they deserve more credit.

fotonique,
You can dress this bullshit up as nothing more than SOP for all politicians. You can rightly offer how the soldiers here are, understandably enough, tenderly and longingly thinking of their sweethearts and families at home. You can quote me all babble you want from military manuals. But you will never be able to convince me that this anything more than bullshit designed to distort, from Americans, the soldiers’ fellow Americans, the realities on the ground. If the nation wants to go on spoon feeding itself this bullshit…and people want to excuse it “because this normal…everyone does it”; then the nation will get what it deserves. I hope I can hold out for a higher standard of duty.

fotonique: You are misreading the line you quote back to me. The clue to the SUBJECT of The BAG’s entire post lies in the words “the new Bush PR team” in the second line. The “actors”/”soldiers” reference is a comment on the administration’s “staging” (a word implied, not stated) of this PR event, so “script” leads to “actors” — get it? But even if you aren’t familiar with this blog’s focus and its previous examinations of PR images/media spin in current American politics, The BAG is still allowed to criticize the military if he wants to.
As for your second point, I guess you must find it hard to believe that weapons of mass destruction won’t still be found someday in Iraq. If the war in Iraq (undeclared, remember?) isn’t a subversion of the military, then I don’t know what is. The thing that disturbs me is that you don’t seem to have a problem with the sacrifice of human lives for a fictional cause.

I am critical of the military in this post.
This post is what happens in just about any run-of-the-mill interview you would find between the President and a group of soldiers.
I have lost the ability to employ irony as an expository technique.
(In case Typepad doesn’t “read” the html for this post, you should know that each of the previous lines was supposed to have a “strike through” line running through it….)

After reviewing my Pocket Guide to Irony, I request permission to laugh, Sir!

RTBAG,
Oh, even I get it.
I haven’t missed anything regarding the ironical intent of the BAG’s post: PR, stage, script, actors, and so forth. It’s clear to anyone with half a brain (I like to think I at least possess a third of one) that Bush’s “interview with the troops” is a staged event. It’s yet another transparent attempt at political media spin: put it in the dustbin of history with all the others.
I’m not in much of a position to defend the military (I’m not a veteran, nor do they need anyone’s help), but I think it’s unfair to imply that the interviewees were somehow accomplices, dupes, or actors sticking to scripted lines from the White House PR team.
During this discussion you’ve said “…no one is criticizing the military. Any and all criticisms are intended for the commander in chief.” to “The BAG is still allowed to criticize the military if he wants to.”
Now some might see your comments as contradictory, but you’re absolutely right: BNN belongs to the BAG, and I think he does a great job with it. In this particular case, though, I don’t agree with the punch line.
I’ve been reading BNN long enough to recognize its “progessive” spin (although some might think it “regressive”). Ironically enough, I appreciate a good visual snark, but the best irony cuts in all directions, and not just towards the Right. He who wields it should expect to get nicked once in a while, too.
P.S. — I don’t recall saying anything about the lack of WMD or the unjustified sacrifice of human lives, but I appreciate the prejudgment.

jonst; it sure as Hell does. You don’t see any do you?

pjr,
What? not clear on what you alluding to.

fotonique: The problem with quoting from a manual called the “Pocket Guide to Encountering the Media” in the first place is that it sounds like a JOKE (like a Saturday Night Live skit when the writers are good). Typical of the military that they don’t recognize that their own earnest-bonehead defensive language style (“encountering” the media is no different than “encountering” the enemy) and kindergarten-level content is laughable. And then you exposed the contents, which include “Dos” like “sit up straight in the chair,” and “Don’ts” like “smile or grin at inappropriate times,” “make nervous gestures,” “roll or shift your eyes,” “use no comment,” “argue,” “just answer yes or no.” When I read your first post I wanted to say (and maybe I should have said): ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?! THIS is an argument in SUPPORT of the military’s behavior and demeanor?
Since you went to great lengths to educate the readership of this blog about military procedure, I had to assume you were, forgive me for saying so, an earnest bonehead yourself. Plus, you kept INSISTING your point had some kind of real gravity. You may well have a valid point, but NOT when you use a ridiculous document like the PGTETM to support it. I should have said what I originally thought about it: I don’t want to KNOW that OFFICERS selected for the interview with Bush had EVER been issued a “Pocket Guide to Encountering the Media.” In other words, I don’t want to know that the soldiers in Iraq are morons. That upsets me more than I already am. So did I click on your link to the Air Force manual to make myself even more berserk? Hell no!
Based on the rather overwhelming detail you reproduced from the Pocket Guide and the fact that I don’t know you, I hope you can see how I might have mistook you for, at the very least, a blind supporter of the troops simply because they are over there doing “their” job.
Ultimately, I think our sparring has produced some feisty, interesting, and necessary examination of what is said in this forum. But the whole problem of “fair” vs. “unfair” is a philosophical one. When does “fair” end and “unfair” begin? “Fair” is often fair only to a minority while unfair to another group. I am and always have been opposed to the war in Iraq, so am I required to be “fair” to the military? I don’t think so. And while I still have any rights left, I’m going to utilize them, even if it gives me the opportunity to say some unfair things about our government.

Come on folks get a grip. Most of you seem to hate a person so much you have nothing intelligent to say. Mixing pointless rhetoric and half baked understandings of photography does nothing to further anything. Some point that should be made; stop assuming things you do not know, photojournalist tell stories so that those who are not there can try to understand the situation. If you do not like the subhects in a situation, fine, but do not try to analyse out your point of view, especially if you where not there. If you don’t trust an image, look for other sorces, don’t look for others who will provide crazy explanations to support your feelings. Photojournalist do their best to be objective and accurate, if you want to analyze a photo cut them some respect and do it objectively and fair. This means leave you emotions elsewhere. And if you are going to get technical when speaking about a professional photojournalist image have a professional understanding of the mechanics of photography: example being, a wide angle lens has a wider field of view this effects field of view not amount of light, aperture does that. While we are talking tech don’t bring up the effects of a lens choice unless you know exactly what lens was used. Please, grow up, find something productive to do, you are wasting so many resources here.