'Speaking Of Secret', -Bush's trip to Iraq

Speaking of secret…

By Andrew Longworth -November 30

Lately, the media has been at least an apparition of the fair and balanced journalism it’s always purported to be. There’s Peter Jennings talking about the latest war deaths on the evening news. There's CNN (that’s right! CNN!) showing the toppling of the Bush statue during the Commander in Chief’s recent visit there. These are clear signs that might prompt you to think that our journalism may be waking out of its stupor. Then again, this country is not big enough for two Rush Limbaughs.

Then I realize that it takes only one setback to put the media back into a coma again.

That day came on Thanksgiving Day, November 27, 2003. “Bush Pays Stealth Visit”, the Chicago Tribune proclaimed. “Stunning Mission Conducted Under Enormous Secrecy”, cried the Washington Post. “Bush Stuns Troops in Iraq Visit”, it hailed from the New York Times.

I am referring, of course, to the latest Rovian masterpiece designed to pull the wool over our eyes while eating the turkey and slurping the gravy. Instead of calling the act what it really was – a desperate act of a flailing presidency – the focus shifted to the bold visit undertaken by our presidential presumptive. Although the media used different articles, one they did agree on was the word ‘secret’. So secret he had everybody but a few reporters twisting in the wind. So secret even his parents thought he was coming home to the ranch. Let’s see… secret. What would our corporate press really know about that? Why don’t we write about every little secret this administration has kept from us?

How about the Energy Policy co-written by Cheney and numerous representatives of the industry, Kenny Boy Lay included? Wasn’t that secret? Where was the media then? And speaking of Kenny Boy, how about Enron and its ties to the Bush Administration? Secret. The 9-11 panel is still patiently waiting for the documents elaborating on their ties to the Royal family in Saudi Arabia, the country that’s spawned both Bin Laden and the grand majority of the hijackers. Would you call that ‘secret’, Mr. Rather?

If we’ve learned anything from this Administration, then it’s how to keep a secret. The outing of an undercover agent? Yup, that was the administration. Just don’t look stupefied if Rove & Co. act like the class of kids twiddling their thumbs and pursing their lips while the teacher rants and raves about the punishment he will dish out after he’s just been hit in the head by a rubber band while his back was turned to the class.

Cheney alone has more secrets than could ever fit into a confession booth, too many skeletons for all of the closets of the White House. Accounting irregularities at Haliburton? Shush, top secret. His bullying of the CIA prior to the war? Never happened, depending on whom you ask, which is good enough for that sometimes haunting label ‘reasonable doubt’, I guess. What would be refreshing is the revelation of the real secrets, the ones abetting to our nation’s slow demise. It is more important that applauding the clandestine flight of a Chief Executive who has outworn his usefulness and can only serve the neo-cons’ cause if he is far away from Washington.

Not surprisingly, the headline I preferred the most came from a – surprise, surprise – British newspaper, the Independent: “The Turkey Has Landed”.

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printed from 'Speaking Of Secret', -Bush's trip to Iraq on 2004-06-03 10:31:31