On dog and pony shows

Contributed by: filbert Monday, September 25 2006 @ 04:36 PM CST

ABC News on their evening broadcast tonight showed somber Senators saying Iraq is going to hell in a handbasket, followed by clips of testifying former generals, saying that Rumsfeld is to blame.  For balance, they showed a short clip the Homeland Security Advisor, being interviewed on the White House lawn.

A reasonable observer would conclude that the Bush Administration had once again been raked over the coals in a Congressional hearing.

The reasonable observer would be wrong.  There was no Congressional hearing.  There was a partisan dog-and-pony show held by Democrats on Capitol Hill, who invited their favorite former generals to come and lambast Donald Rumsfeld.

The truth, via the Washington Post[*1] :

In testimony before the Democratic Policy Committee today, retired Maj. Gen. John R.S. Batiste, who commanded the 1st Infantry Division in Iraq in 2004 and 2005 and served as a senior military assistant to former deputy defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz, charged that Rumsfeld and others in the Bush administration "did not tell the American people the truth for fear of losing support for the war in Iraq."

Why does ABC News report a partisan event as if it was a Congressional Hearing?  Hmm?  Is the case against the Iraq war so fundamentally weak?  A reasonable observer should wonder.

Rep

Medary.com - On dog and pony shows
http://www.medary.com/article.php/20060925173636937

[*1] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/25/AR2006092500731.html