Apparently - and this may come as a surprise to the 37 people who don’t pay attention to either the newspaper, internet, television or the dozens of people carrying signs outside the American embassy on University every weekend - the War in Iraq is not going so well and may even get (OMG!) worse before it gets better.
It took a new “intelligence report” to deliver this news to the American government, where an unnamed source spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity, because if his superiors ever found out that he leaked the critical information that “there were no surprises in the report,” he’s finished in Washington.
I understand the need for unnamed sources as well as the next hack, but when you declare that you must be an unnamed source for a story like this, it only makes you - and the administration by extension - look worse. Especially if all you say is “there were no surprises in the report.”
The thing is, if there really were no surprises in that rep
ort - then have Bush say that. It might give him a chance to look like he’s on top of things. When an ‘unnamed administration official’ does it (Hi, Karl Rove!’) it makes it sound to an observer like it’s a bad thing that there were no surprises.
Yes, admitting to knowledge of the actual situation on the ground in Iraq and the likelihood that it will deteriorate further doesn’t exactly correspond with the optimistic messages of recent months … but not commenting publicly on it makes it seem as though either a) there really were no surprises and by admitting that you’ll be contradicting the images of smiling , democratically-conceived Iraqi children picking flowers that you’ve been beaming into people’s heads via subliminal undertones hidden in every awkward pause in a Bush speech, or…
b) You just don’t have the balls. Which confuses me, because Bush is the decider, right? So who decided he would keep his mouth shut on this one?
I dunno. It just seems like a Cloak of Unnecessary Secrecy to me.
BONUS: I could write an entire blog consisting of references to Barack Obama’s ‘blackness’, ‘negroness’ or ‘electability’ (which is a formula wherein:
x = negroness - (blackness/ethnicity) + articulateness X How-often-he-listens-to-50-Cent
instead, I’ll just continue to give you tantalizing tastes, like this one: Is Obama Black Enough? (For instance, can he call you ‘my nigga!’ if he feels it appropriate?)
And if he is black enough, does he then become subject to black(politician)-on-black(politician) violence?
I don’t trust that look from Jesse.
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