Bush “Staged” Event Still Mired In Controversy (UPDATED)

Has the controversy over press reports describing President Bush’s purportedly spontaneous talk with soldiers as a stage managed event abated?

No, despite the blog post of a soldier who was in on that highly controversial talk President Bush gave to some military folks, allegations that it was staged not only have not abated — but are being reinforced.

The latest not-too-helpful-for-the-White-House-twist is summarized by Crooks And Liars here, which cites a Village Voice piece indicating that one of the soldiers was in fact a military spokesperson. Go to the link and you’ll see the photo, too. Here’s some of the Voice article, which is in various parts is clearly written from an ideological standpoint:

But here’s another part of the flack attack you may not know: The soldier on the left side of the front row was actually a flack herself, though she didn’t reveal it during the regime’s 24-minute infomercial. Her name is Corine Lombardo, and I hope she stays safe in Iraq. It’s a dangerous place even for flacks.

Here is where the Voice nails the issue on this latest twist:

Bush could have told the American people that he had at least one public-affairs person flacking them this morning. I mean, a public-relations person spouting the regime’s line back at us? Instead, he pretended that they were all combat soldiers, not spokespeople.

Like Jeff Jarvis, I got my masters in journalism from Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism. I did many stories as a freelance correspondent in New Delhi, Madrid and Bangladesh, and as a reporter on chain newspapers in Wichita and San Diego.

If I had ever been sent out on an assignment to talk to a bunch of typical combat soldiers and interviewed them on a subject that was even remotely controversial and it later turned out that one of them was actually a military spokesman and I had passed them off in my story as typical soldiers chosen at random, I would have at the very least had a job performance review. They would have said I didn’t do my homework. They would have reminded me that a spokesperson is just that — someone who helps get across the official line. And if it later came to their attention that the group of military people weren’t what we had told readers they were in the published story, the papers would have immediately run corrections.

Now, someone may say say: “Big deal. A military spokesperson.” It IS a big deal. This was billed to reporters as the President talking to a typical group of soldiers.And we just know someone will say, “Well they never said it wouldn’t include a spokesperson.”

OK. So let every reporter and citizen who isn’t a Bush administration partisan hire a lawyer to parse every word that is uttered, look for every loophole, question every single sentence they speak to ensure nothing is being left out.

What do we know so far about this fiasco of imagery (remember this was an event that was supposed to HELP THE PRESIDENT’S image — not spark a new controversy that raised questions about the administration’s credibility):

• Press Secretary Scott McClellan led White House reporters to believe this event would NOT be screened or scripted.

• It was rehearsed for order of questions and the President got to pick what was going to be talked about.
• A soldier, in an eloquent post on his blog, praises and defends the President and blasts the news media but says that it’s only natural that: “We were given an idea as to what topics he may discuss with us, but it’s the President of the United States; He will choose which way his conversation with us may go.”
• It turns out that one of the soldiers was a military spokesperson.
• The media saw the rehearsal. You can listen to it here. Remember: no one is alleging that every single word that came out of the soldiers’ mouths were scripted or that they didn’t mean what they said. That’s a separate (non) issue. The issue is whether it was stage-managed or not.

Yours truly LIKES military spokespeople and had great relationships with them when he covered Camp Pendleton for some stories for the San Diego Union. Ditto in dealing with military on the island of Cyprus in the mid-70s for reports for the old Chicago Daily News.

So there’s nothing wrong with being a military spokesman.

What’s wrong is what is developing into the major theme of this administration — the precise reason why George Bush is losing independent voters who once either voted for him or at the very least gave him the benefit of the doubt on issues such as the war. On this issue we see a classic case of an administration that has first of all displayed truly amateurish p.r. management (Bush must be asking “Who is the rocket scientist that let the media watch the run-through?).

And, secondly, and most importantly, once again this administration has been caught in a controversy because has said one thing (what reporters believed they were told by McClellan), done another (not a freewheeling event with people picked at random who were all typical soldiers), then contended it didn’t do or say what it did and said in the beginning.

Where was the basic problem? In the administration’s description of what this event would be — and what it really was.

Net result: future events like this will likely be cheered by the administration’s staunch supporters but will have little impact in the future on other voters who, polls are showing, are starting to tune out.

This may be the kind of issue that gets the juices going with partisans, but the big issue remains one of c-r-e-d-i-b-i-l-i-t-y. The perceived NEWS VALUE was the President having a conversation with typical soldiers. That meant it would have been easy for someone to can raise a new concern, or a new idea, or a new issue. That meant that perhaps, in his chat, Bush would straighten a military person out on a fact or misconception. That meant he could possibly be challenged or questioned about something that was a great concern to them.

Could that have happened at this event from what we know now?

Nope. It was set up as more infomercial than variety show.

But we learned all that LATER.

UPDATE: There’s MORE. CLICK HERE. It turns out yet ANOTHER SOLDIER from that group has been on the media record for some time with a specific stance. (To readers who will say, “well, that’s a liberal site”: that doesn’t obscure the fact that the site notes).

A give and take with a typical group of soldiers? How much more info will come up suggesting that this ‘typical’ group just happened to have viewpoints that were solidly in sync with the administration’s message before the rehearsal was even held?