Rice ‘Planted’ Question With ‘Friendly Journalist’ To ‘Help Erase’ Pre-Iraq War Legacy
Rice ‘Planted’ Question With ‘Friendly Journalist’ To ‘Help Erase’ Pre-Iraq War Legacy
In 2003, then-National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice helped push America into war with Iraq. She disregarded at least two CIA memos and a personal phone call from CIA Director George Tenet stating that the evidence behind Iraq’s uranium acquisition was weak. She infamously said, “[W]e don’t want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud.”
In an interview with C-SPAN’s Washington Journal today, Washington Post reporter Glenn Kessler, author of Confidante: Condoleezza Rice and the Creation of the Bush Legacy, revealed that after President Bush promoted her to Secretary of State, Rice mounted a “public relations” campaign to distance herself from the pre-war fiasco.
As part of this PR campaign, she directed an aide to “plant a question” asking if she would run for President, in order to help “negate American memories of her very direct role” in invading Iraq:
She had a very deliberative public relations strategy when she became Secretary of State to help erase the images of how ineffective she had been as National Security Adviser. And I describe how one of her aides even planted a question with a friendly journalist to ask whether she would be interested in running for president — to give her the aura of someone who might have presidential aspirations, make her seem more powerful than she was.
And that all helped negate American memories over her very direct role in the invasion of Iraq.
Watch it:
In October, it was revealed that FEMA clumsily staged a “fake” press conference where agency employees posed as journalists. Condi, however, has fake press conferences down to a fine art.
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With a serious shortage of housing, particularly of rental housing, ad critically of low-income retnal housing, the geniuses in Washington have decided on this criminally stupid enterprise:
http://www.nola.com/ news/ t-p/ frontpage/ index.ssf?/ base/ news-9/ 1196404143178840.xml&coll=1
Demolition of housing complexes approved
$31 million in contracts doom St. Bernard, Lafitte, Peete, Cooper
Friday, November 30, 2007
“The Housing Authority of New Orleans on Thursday approved nearly $31 million in contracts for demolishing vacant brick buildings at five developments, part of its sweeping plan to transform the city’s public housing.
“Demolition will begin Dec. 15, HANO spokesman Adonis Expose said, with more than 4,000 apartments headed for extinction in the first phase.”
People should know what is being destroyed by the worst president ever:
http://www.nytimes.com/ 2007/ 02/ 22/ arts/ design/ 22hous.html?fta=y
“One of the complexes scheduled for demolition, the Lafitte housing project is ranked by some among the best public housing of its era. ”
http://www.nytimes.com/ 2006/ 11/ 19/ weekinreview/ 19ouroussoff.html
“Built at the height of the New Deal, the city’s public housing projects have little in common with the dehumanizing superblocks and grim plazas that have long been an emblem of urban poverty. Modestly scaled, they include some of the best public housing built in the United States. ”
http://www.city-journal.org/html/eon2007-02-23ng.html
November 30th, 2007 at 3:08 pm“The Bush administration has proposed to demolish New Orleans’s four largest public-housing projects, shuttered since Katrina, and replace at least some of their nearly 5,000 apartment units with the “mixed-income†housing popular today with the subsidized-housing crowd. But if New Orleans really hopes to become a thriving city again someday, it won’t let the federal government knock down valuable, and much-needed, housing. Instead, Mayor Ray Nagin and the feds should open the perfectly decent project apartments to new middle-class homeowners.
“Further, the buildings are basically in good shape structurally, says MIT architecture professor John Fernandez, who has visited each complex since Katrina. While they do need full-scale renovations, it seems folly to tear them down, especially since they withstood Katrina so well, when many of the city’s newer single-family private homes did not.”
The fish stinks from the head down…Rotten to the core.
November 30th, 2007 at 3:12 pmOkay, I understand the importance of this charge, coming as it does as part of a pattern of Bush administration dishonestly manipulating the press.
But, since it is the Bush administration, the bar is set pretty high for newsworthy corruption. We’re gonna need more details .
November 30th, 2007 at 3:12 pmOk raplph, would it make any difference if condi and the planted questioner were in adjacent stalls in a public restroom?
November 30th, 2007 at 3:15 pmBut, since it is the Bush administration, the bar is set pretty high for newsworthy corruption. We’re gonna need more details .
Comment by ralph the wonder llama
The main detail is the Dr. Rice was the wrong person to even be named as national security advisor or sec. of state. She is in way over her head, and as it happens, needs a PR push to make people forget about her actions. That doesn’t sound like a good use of MY tax money. I would prefer her to simply do her job and not hire cheerleaders to polish her image.
November 30th, 2007 at 3:19 pmThis is like living in an Orwellian nightmare.
“Now from New York it’s 1984 live”
November 30th, 2007 at 3:21 pmThe audacity, even though most of the mainstream media is in their hip pockets, the current regime has to resort to planting questions to get their version of the truth across.
November 30th, 2007 at 3:22 pmSatyam: I think that, the right word is infamously.
November 30th, 2007 at 3:25 pm‘Help Erase’ Pre-Iraq War Legacy ???
All the perfumes of Arabia …
November 30th, 2007 at 3:28 pmHey, she is Bush’s girlfriend, and has lots of nice shoes. What more credibility does she need?
November 30th, 2007 at 3:31 pmWe are witnessing a new and dangerous phenomena of planting questions, even faking press conferences like the case with FEMA used by politiicans to deceive the public.
November 30th, 2007 at 3:36 pmPeople should be alert and not be rewarding,like in the case of FEMA, to people who apply such deceptive methods to lie to the public hoping to give inaccurate and misleading pictures about themselves.
How many more times have the republicans stage managed questions
All the time, living the propaganda 24hours a day
November 30th, 2007 at 3:37 pmheres another stage managed photo op
UNITED NATIONS - In an about face, the United States on Friday withdrew a U.N. resolution endorsing this week’s agreement by Israeli and Palestinian leaders to try to reach a Mideast peace settlement by the end of 2008, apparently after Israel objected.
November 30th, 2007 at 3:39 pmone of her aides even planted a question with a friendly journalist to ask whether she would be interested in running for president
You can be either an “impartial journalist” or you can be a “friendly hack”. It is not possible to be both.
November 30th, 2007 at 3:41 pmWe are witnessing a new and dangerous phenomena of planting questions, even faking press conferences like the case with FEMA used by politiicans to deceive the public…
Comment by tarazan — November 30, 2007 @ 3:36 pm
New? This story is from 2003, a better way to think about it is that this has been going on for a long time, it’s only now that we’re finding out about it.
November 30th, 2007 at 3:43 pmBy orchestrating the image of a very senior executive, a person of presidential caliber, Condi utilizes a common frame to diffuse the taint of failure. Americans are already innoculated to believe that ‘top chiefs’ of any enterprise are removed from nuts and bolts details of the stanard activities in their realm. They are too busy thinking grand visionary thoughts for the future…
All deficiencies of execution, all lapses of judgement, all crimes were committed by those positioned several steps down. Corporate and political criminals use this to avoid accountability. More of than not, it works.
November 30th, 2007 at 3:44 pmOf course it comes as no surprise that those on the right, who pledge their faith in objective facts and deride subjectivity and relativism, are in the end the people who have the weakest grasp of reality.
Condi probably still wishes she lived in a counter-history where the Soviet Union still existed, so that her actual area of expertise was not so nearly obsolete.
November 30th, 2007 at 3:46 pmThe main detail is the Dr. Rice was the wrong person to even be named as national security advisor or sec. of state. She is in way over her head, and as it happens, needs a PR push to make people forget about her actions. That doesn’t sound like a good use of MY tax money. I would prefer her to simply do her job and not hire cheerleaders to polish her image.
Comment by StratRat — November 30, 2007 @ 3:19 pm
No arguments, StratRat. But we knew all that without hearing about this latest example of BushCo disdain for a free press.
All I meant was that, if I’m going to get outraged about yet another cynical manipulation of the government/press dynamic, I’m going to need more details than this account provides. If this report is all I’ve got to go on, I’m afraid I just don’t have the energy.
Call it outrage faugue.
November 30th, 2007 at 3:50 pmJust keep in mind that these are REPUBLICANS who are doing this. You know, the ones with all the morals.
November 30th, 2007 at 3:51 pmYou can be either an “impartial journalist†or you can be a “friendly hackâ€. It is not possible to be both.
Comment by Menehune — November 30, 2007 @ 3:41 pm
Best comment so far.
November 30th, 2007 at 3:51 pmWere there any shoes for sale at the presser?? If not, how could the question be credible…HA! If it didn’t come in croc or alligator it’s not news-worthy…
HACKS!! ALL!
November 30th, 2007 at 3:52 pmThanks, Satyam.
November 30th, 2007 at 3:52 pmCondi is a fake.
Fake smile. Fake patriot. Fake cabinet member. Fake woman. Fake!
Ohhh, but those eyes! Bush must have fell into those cesspools at once.
November 30th, 2007 at 3:54 pmI hope they allow inmates to wear CFMN pumps in prison! Condi’s a first class fraud - just like the rest of the Bush Cabal and will be held accountable for war crimes - nice legacy, Ricey-Poo!
November 30th, 2007 at 3:54 pmZimzone: “Fake” doesn’t even begin to describe this charlatan. She’s one of the biggest frauds in Washington. She didn’t do anything but lie as National Security Adviser and hasn’t done one worthwhile thing as Sec. of State. She’s going down in flames with the rest of the neo-fascists.
November 30th, 2007 at 3:55 pmRalph: If we think we’re in “outrage fatigue” right now while still scratching the tip of this necrotic iceberg, I can’t imagine how overwhelmed we will be when we discover that not only has no one in this administration done the jobs they were paid to do but that Bush has excavated our entire system of government from the inside out. All that’s left is a “shell of it’s former self”.
November 30th, 2007 at 3:57 pmCondi’s “tokened” herself up the ladder all her life. No subtance - just air between those ears of hers. If she has a formal education, you’d never know it from the presentation she makes.
November 30th, 2007 at 3:59 pm…but her hair was perfect…
November 30th, 2007 at 3:59 pmCONDI RICE=WAR CRIMINAL! She can try as much as she wants to change this perception, but it will never work! We all knew that they were telling lies! Because of these obsene lies, over two million iraqui civilians are dead and another two million are refugees. I can say that I which this animal (C. Rice) would go off in a “mushroom cloud”, and the people from government spying on this site would place a flag on my coment. However, I’m looking foward to the day that she will face a serious international court for WAR CRIMES! Bush, Chenney, Chalab, Perle, Wolfowitz, Rice, Powell, Rumsfeld and many other from this FACIST administration should be queing to be hanged, just like the NAZI WAR CRIMINALS!
November 30th, 2007 at 4:09 pmHow about –
“Slick Lee-zy”
“Sticky Rice”
November 30th, 2007 at 4:09 pmVERITAS, i’M SORRY FOR THE THINGS i SAID THE OTHER DAY… i WAS ANGRY AFTER KNOWING OF MORE ATROCITIES FROM THE US/ISRAEL… i SAID STUPID ANGRY THING THAN. JUST UNDERSTAND THAT PEOPLE AROUND THE GLOBE IS VERY CROSSED WITH THE US TODAY! i’M SORRY!
November 30th, 2007 at 4:13 pmSo it was only important to Condi and the Republicans that she LOOK competent - not that she actually BE competent? Yep, those are republican values alright!
November 30th, 2007 at 4:20 pmAll I meant was that, if I’m going to get outraged about yet another cynical manipulation of the government/press dynamic, I’m going to need more details than this account provides. If this report is all I’ve got to go on, I’m afraid I just don’t have the energy.
Call it outrage faugue.
Comment by ralph the wonder llama
Understood. It does take a tremendous amount of energy - and a good memory - to keep up with all this nonsense.
November 30th, 2007 at 4:22 pmWith regard to that question posed by a Rice “plant”, I recall it quite vividly. When I heard it, I thought I was hearing things - Condi For President?? She’s one of the most unqualified women in politics. Amazing how “odd” that question was and how “out of the blue” it seemed at the time - guess my bullshit detector was working just fine though, as it turns out.
November 30th, 2007 at 4:29 pmStrat: Confusing americans with their daily litany of criminal activities is precisely what they counted on as a way to boggle people’s minds. That combined with american incredulity that someone in the highest offices of this country could commit treason against the very country they’ve been elected to protect. Mind boggling, indeed!
November 30th, 2007 at 4:31 pm#32 If Condi’s so obsessed with how she “looks”, I know a bunch of great plastic surgeons she needs to visit - that is, if she can take the time out from her obsessive shoe buying.
November 30th, 2007 at 4:32 pm#30 Good and apropos monikers. How about adding in “sleazy rice” to the mix?
November 30th, 2007 at 4:33 pmAfter all the lies Condi has told over the past seven years, it’s a wonder her nose isn’t four feet long.
November 30th, 2007 at 4:54 pmBTW, would someone, anyone, please slap some mashed potatoes between her front teeth for me. Thanks.
Mind boggling, indeed!
Comment by Veritas
Yes it is…It takes the strength os Zeus to keep up with it all.
November 30th, 2007 at 4:54 pmPerhaps the next Condi plant should ask her if she’d make a good Pope?
November 30th, 2007 at 4:55 pmBTW, would someone, anyone, please slap some mashed potatoes between her front teeth for me. Thanks.
Comment by RUCerious
Yeah, a little spackle would do it. Geez, the money she makes, she can’t see a dentist while she tries on shoes?
November 30th, 2007 at 4:55 pmBTW, would someone, anyone, please slap some mashed potatoes between her front teeth for me. Thanks.
Comment by RUCerious — November 30, 2007 @ 4:54 pm
Bondo, my man, Bondo…
November 30th, 2007 at 4:56 pm#30 Good and apropos monikers. How about adding in “sleazy rice†to the mix?
Comment by Veritas — November 30, 2007 @ 4:33 pm
I’ve been calling her ‘Condosleeza’ for a while now.
November 30th, 2007 at 4:58 pmChina has refused nine U.S. Navy ships and one Air Force jet entry to Hong Kong in the past month, U.S. military officials said Friday.
November 30th, 2007 at 5:00 pmI believe that even Pickles said Condi would make a fine president.
November 30th, 2007 at 5:34 pmThis was all a coordinated effort - does anything legitimate emanate from this White House?
TRoS: Condosleeza gets the nod! Good one!
November 30th, 2007 at 6:40 pm“Condi is a fake.
Fake smile. Fake patriot. Fake cabinet member. Fake woman. Fake!”
Yes, but let’s not forget what might be the more important issue for our democracy - the “journalist” is fake.
November 30th, 2007 at 7:10 pmI don’t like feeling this way, but when I look at that little well-dressed phony masquerading as a journalist to spread propaganda, I just want to sucker-punch him right in the face. I guess a pie in the face would be almost as good.
November 30th, 2007 at 8:08 pmThis entire administration is composed of phonies, imposters, incompetents and liars. This is the Potemkin administration - everything is for the photo op, the PR or the appearance — nothing is true or of value. It’s all propaganda. Those that aren’t in over their heads (like Bush and Rice and a few others) are corrupt beyond redemption, or criminals worth of prison terms (if not worse).
December 1st, 2007 at 12:15 amHillary had a debate question planted. Where was the outrage there? Be fair, people. I’m tired of this, “well, we cheat but they cheat more” crappola.
December 2nd, 2007 at 5:01 pm