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too dumb to be spun
Aug. 3rd, 2004 12:32 pmThe past weekend's Orange Alert has almost immediately garnered a wash of undermining press, suggesting that the data is up to four years old, as opposed to discovered as part of the capture of an AQ agent last week1. You'd imagine that if it were a proper spin, this information wouldn't have been revealed by the Executive's own intelligence people. This is just the latest in a series of incidents which suggests one of several conclusions:
1. The capture itself had its own problems. Predicted by several left-winger publications/web logs via a Pakistani source; Happening on the weekend, but not making it to the news until right before Kerry's acceptance speech; The actual status of the captured AQ agent in terms of what he's actually done, who he is, etc. Which further adds to whatever point it is I'm trying to make.
update: Hmm. I appear to have confused one capture with another. The points about the dubious status of the captured AQ agent are correct, but don't relate to the other guy whose capture allegedly led to the Orange Alert.
- It's not spin, it's all real, and America is constantly under vague, undefined threats whose veracity the Administration is attempting to bolster for credibility's sake lest the populace get lulled into a false sense of security by Tom Ridge's constant shades of Yellow, Orange and Red;
- It's incompetent spin, where noone's thinking more than one day - if even that - ahead of the Official Line, and Karl Rove is constantly having to fight fires;
- It's a clever attempt to present something of the latter as the former;
- It's lazy spin, because the administration figures that the populace and the fourth estate will eat whatever bullshit they're fed and go out and reelect Bush come November regardless.
1. The capture itself had its own problems. Predicted by several left-winger publications/web logs via a Pakistani source; Happening on the weekend, but not making it to the news until right before Kerry's acceptance speech; The actual status of the captured AQ agent in terms of what he's actually done, who he is, etc. Which further adds to whatever point it is I'm trying to make.
update: Hmm. I appear to have confused one capture with another. The points about the dubious status of the captured AQ agent are correct, but don't relate to the other guy whose capture allegedly led to the Orange Alert.
