Thought Theater

Tony Snow: GWB's Shaman, Sorcerer, & Salesman genre: Just Jihad & Polispeak & Six Degrees of Speculation

Anyone that doubts that the White House Press Secretary is a partisan hack need only read Tony Snow’s tortured screed in Thursday’s USA Today, titled Victory In Iraq Is Vital. I understand his role but I still find the dissemination of half-truths and hyperbole to be a distasteful demonstration of all that is wrong with the Bush administration.

I was struck by the length of the piece…not because it was in fact lengthy…but because it was so very brief. Frankly, it made me realize that the art of spinning a story is a matter of careful manipulation and those who make their living doing so have given new meaning to George Orwell’s notion of doublespeak. Tony Snow and those who no doubt consulted on the article have mastered the art…but then that realization simply sullies all that is art.

Snow starts off with a doozey when he suggests that our invasion of Iraq was simply in response to his refusal to conform to seventeen UN resolutions. Snow fails to state that many of those resolutions had been ignored before 9/11 and never elicited an invasion…so while the resolutions provide necessary cover for his carefully concocted incantation, they ignore a reality long accepted by all who witnessed the run up to the Iraq invasion.

Snow goes on to state that Hussein had supported “terror movements" around the world. Yes, the world had long known that Saddam was paying money to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers…a detestable act but by no means the reason we invaded Iraq…and certainly not a reason to assume he was supporting al Qaeda.

Snow then masterfully applies a well-known Karl Rove tactic when he suggests that opponents of the President created the impression that the administration believed that Hussein was connected to 9/11. That tactic involves taking one’s vulnerabilities and going on the offensive with a manufactured assault…repeating the falsity as often as possible.

Contrary to Snow’s assertion, Democrats have tried for years to divorce the voting public from the belief that Hussein was “connected" to 9/11…a task that became necessary following Dick Cheney’s numerous efforts to tie Iraq to 9/11. What Snow has done is manufacture an affirmative assault to defend a negative insinuation…or as anyone with a parent might understand it…telling an additional lie to defend another. Good job Tony!

Snow’s next point is nothing short of disgusting. Immediately following his assertions that politics has “muddled" the facts, he makes a veiled reference to conspiracy theories that the U.S. government actually committed the terrorist attacks. This nuanced effort to tie Democrats to idiotic beliefs which can then be spun as anti-American, unpatriotic, and indicative of complicity with the terrorists is shameless.

Snow then proceeds to play a game of “grab a rabbit from a hat geography"…suggesting that since we vanquished al Qaeda in Afghanistan, they are a cause without a country and they are therefore fully engaged in a fight for Iraq in hopes of making it their new base of operation. Tony, my friend, have you ever heard of Pakistan? You know…that country that signed an accord with its lawless remote region…the same area where everyone that’s anyone in intelligence believes al Qaeda has been allowed to reconstitute with virtually no interference. Would you have us believe that Osama prefers battling 160,000 U.S. troops than sitting pretty in Pakistan?

Mr. Snow must suffer from the belief that everyone outside of the Bush administration is mentally insufficient. Unfortunately, if that were the case, then why is Osama still a fugitive and why do a wide majority of Americans realize our efforts in Iraq have failed? Looks like someone needs to tell the “emperor" he’s naked…as soon as he puts his own clothes back on.

But Tony doesn’t stop there…he has more for us to digest once he finishes his effort to stuff our collective gullible gullets with fanciful fabrications. Snow tells us that the recent reports that al Qaeda has met with resistance from the Iraqi natives is a “vindication" of the President’s “faith in liberty as a common inheritance of mankind". Now I’m not suggesting that none of the Iraqi’s have decided al Qaeda is an enemy…but to extrapolate that their opposition to al Qaeda means that the Iraqi’s are committed to liberty is laughable.

More plausible is the fact that al Qaeda serves as an interloper to the sectarian conflicts that have yet to fully play out and the Iraqi’s would prefer that al Qaeda not deter that process from unfolding. A review of the issues stalled in the ineffective Iraqi government supports the argument that the three distinct groups are each looking for the lion’s share of whatever liberty is to ultimately be afforded in the country. Iraqi’s shooting a few al Qaeda operatives may make the Bush administration feel good but believing it signals a groundswell for universal freedom and liberty is the equivalent of believing one can buy ocean front property in Colorado.

Snow concludes that victory in Iraq will “mark the beginning of the end of the war on terror". All I can say is I hope it happens soon since the rest of the world is gearing up for some rather nasty assaults from the more elusive agents of al Qaeda…people like Osama bin Laden…that man George Bush thinks is hiding in a cave or under a rock. I can’t wait for us to win in Iraq because I’m just dying to see Osama step out and wave the white flag of defeat…from his club-med hideout in Pakistan.

Thanks Tony Snow…I’m feeling better already.

Comments

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