Today's lesson in jounralism: When the going gets rough, blaming the media is always a handy fallback.
Not a good week for the media. A few days after being labelled "lazy" by the Veep, Wolfowitz has added a couple of punches to the midsection during his trip to Capitol Hill, by declaring that
"[f]rankly, part of our problem is a lot of the press are afraid to travel very much, so they sit in Baghdad and they publish rumors."
Nice comment from someone who spends his days walled within the Green Zone. Oh, no -- that's wrong, because --- wait for it -- Wolfie ISN"T EVEN IN IRAQ.
Moreover, even Wolfie's subordinates are disagreeing with this assessment:
Quote:
... comments from an e-mail I received from former Pentagon spokesman Charles Krohn, a retired Army colonel:
"It's bad enough that Wolfowitz makes such a statement. What's worse is the motive of the person who put the bug in his ear. Having spent three months in the presidential palace in Iraq supporting the infrastructure reconstruction program, I worked closely with the media who worked closely with me. . . .
"But when the insurgency started pushing news south, some of the same voices complained about the media's falling down on the job. This is worse than hypocrisy; it's scandalous. When senior officials express disappointment that schemes to manipulate the media aren't working well, one might say it's a triumph of principle over power. A truly professional public affairs staff could have worked out compromises. Unfortunately, the political dilettantes running the show were unable to rise to this level."
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Paul, I gotta tell ya, if your goal is to try and replace Rummy when he gets booted sometime between now and the end of the year, this little tidbit will not work well for you. The press (maybe even FNC) will nurse this grudge like the last beer before closing time, and the confirmation hearings will make Abu Gharif* look like a garden party.**
Gattigap
* Anyone see The Daily Show last night, covering GWB's comments? I've decided that their picking on GWB for adding an "f" to Abu Grahib was patently unfair, and in solidarity with him, I'm gonna use that pronunciation for a while.
(The pause before adding "situation" was nice, though.)
** Of course, Not Me has declared that this is what the "situation" really was anyway, on OTOH maybe you're gonna be OK.
