Was it staged, or merely advance work?
You’d think by now that the last thing the Bush administration would want would be yet another instance where it’s caught in a controversy involving truth…but, then think again.
The new controversy-of-the-day, the new catastrophic-moment-of-imagery (except to hardcore Bush loyalists — and that category doesn’t include his entire party anymore) swirls around a Bush teleconference call and whether it entailed routine White House advance work or a blatant ham-handedly staged military photo-op revealed in painful detail by the press
Judge for yourself. First, the AP story:
WASHINGTON – It was billed as a conversation with U.S. troops, but the questions President Bush asked on a teleconference call Thursday were choreographed to match his goals for the war in Iraq and Saturday’s vote on a new Iraqi constitution.
“This is an important time,” Allison Barber, deputy assistant defense secretary, said, coaching the soldiers before Bush arrived. “The president is looking forward to having just a conversation with you.”
Barber said the president was interested in three topics: the overall security situation in Iraq, security preparations for the weekend vote and efforts to train Iraqi troops.
As she spoke in Washington, a live shot of 10 soldiers from the Army’s 42nd Infantry Division and one Iraqi soldier was beamed into the Eisenhower Executive Office Building from Tikrit — the birthplace of former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.
“I’m going to ask somebody to grab those two water bottles against the wall and move them out of the camera shot for me,” Barber said.
A brief rehearsal ensued.
“OK, so let’s just walk through this,” Barber said. “Captain Kennedy, you answer the first question and you hand the mike to whom?”
“Captain Smith,” Kennedy said.
“Captain. Smith? You take the mike and you hand it to whom?” she asked.
“Captain Kennedy,” the soldier replied.
And so it went.
The Washington Post‘s piece also shows how the administration shot itself in the foot — taking what should have been a nice photo-op with the focus on the images MILITARY and IRAQ and transformed it into a press story with the word STAGED and the undercurrent of whispered words (rehearsed…untrue that it was a real give and take…):
President Bush yesterday sought to rally U.S. troops behind his Iraq strategy — and he and his aides left little to chance.
Before the president spoke via a video link, his event planners handpicked 10 soldiers from the Army’s 42nd Infantry and one Iraqi soldier, told them what topics the president would ask about, and watched them briefly rehearse their presentations before going live.
The soldiers did not disappoint. Each one praised the president, the war and the progress in training Iraqi troops. Several spoke in a monotone voice, as if determined to remember and stay on script.
The Iraqi, Sgt. Maj. Akeel Shaker Nassir, who is in charge of the Iraqi army training facility in Tikrit, had only a few words for Bush, but they were gushing: “Thank very much for everything. I like you.”
Nassir’s comments came near the end of one of the stranger and most awkwardly staged publicity events of the Bush presidency. It started with Bush, in Washington standing at a lectern, talking to the soldiers via video on a large flat-screen. They sat shoulder to shoulder and stared dutifully at the camera.
The president’s delivery was choppy, as he gazed frequently at his notes and seemed several times to be groping for the right words.’
Watch the VIDEO HERE via Crooks And Liars. We did, and we now grope for our own words — like “public relations debacle…creating more reasons for independent voters not to take administration assertions at face value…shockingly lousy White House staffing….Jiminy Cricket will knock at the White House door any minute now…”
Who’s directing White House P.R. operations now? Bob Shrum??
Are we being harsh? The White House briefing was again an unpleasant one for White House spokesman Scott McClellan:
Q Scott, why did the administration feel it was necessary to coach the soldiers that the President talked to this morning in Iraq?
MR. McCLELLAN: I’m sorry, I don’t know what you’re suggesting.
Q Well, they discussed the questions ahead of time. They were told exactly what the President would ask, and they were coached, in terms of who would answer what question, and how they would pass the microphone.
MR. McCLELLAN: I’m sorry, are you suggesting that what our troops were saying was not sincere, or what they said was not their own thoughts?
Q Nothing at all. I’m just asking why it was necessary to coach them.
MR. McCLELLAN: Well, in terms of the event earlier today, the event was set up to highlight an important milestone in Iraq’s history, and to give the President an opportunity to, once again, express our appreciation for all that our troops are doing when it comes to defending freedom, and their courage and their sacrifice. And this is a satellite feed, as you are aware, and there are always technological challenges involved when you’re talking with troops on a satellite feed like this. And I think that we worked very closely with the Department of Defense to coordinate this event. And I think all they were doing was talking to the troops and letting them know what to expect.
Q But we asked you specifically this morning if there would be any screening of questions or if they were being told in any way what they should say or do, and you indicated no.MR. McCLELLAN: I don’t think that’s what the question was earlier today. I think the question earlier today was asking if they could ask whatever they want, and I said, of course, the President was — and you saw —
Q And I asked if they were pre-screened.
MR. McCLELLAN: You saw earlier today the President was trying to engage in a back-and-forth with the troops. And I think it was very powerful what Lieutenant Murphy was saying at the end of that conversation, when he was talking about what was going on in January, how the American troops and coalition forces were in the lead when it came to providing security for the upcoming election, an election where more than eight million Iraqis showed up and voted. It was a great success.
And he talked about how this time, when we had the preparations for the upcoming referendum this Saturday, you have Iraqi forces that are in the lead, and the Iraqi forces are the ones that are doing the planning and preparing and taking the lead to provide for their own security as they get ready to cast their ballots again.
Q But I also asked this morning, were they being told by their commanders what to say or what to do, and you indicated, no. Was there any prescreening of —
MR. McCLELLAN: I’m not aware of any such — any such activities that were being undertaken. We coordinated closely with the Department of Defense. You can ask if there was any additional things that they did. But we work very closely with them to coordinate these events, and the troops can ask the President whatever they want. They’ve always been welcome to do that.
And so we see even more of this administration’s credibility vanish. Yes, run-throughs may not be unusual at White House events. Advance work is par for the course.
But the administration’s defenders apparently forget that earlier in the day the press was told this would be unscripted, with no screening. That’s flatly stated in the reporters’ questions and in the video CNN report you hopefully watched above.
So, unless the reporters at the White House briefing had some evil, coordinated agenda, the White House…misspoke…and due to a satellite feed everyone saw the…misstatement. Why does this matter? You look at polls and the controversies this administration is becoming enmeshed in and there is one common denominator: credibility.
This episode suggests that relations between the administration and the press will worsen…because there is now a clear narrative. It is NOT merely a matter of the media “smelling blood.” The narrative — emerged on all too many issues for an administration with poll numbers trending in the same direction as the Titanic — involves whether the Bush administration on a whole host of issues is being above board with the American people, the press and members of its own party.
FYI, reporters generally don’t give sources lists of questions in advance, but they can on a light feature, profile or Q&A. But that’s NOT what happened here. Here you had the WHITE HOUSE basically deciding who would speak and the topics discussed. It was NOT military folks being casually picked at random — or people lined up in advance who were to allowed to ask any question they wanted.
A source doesn’t tell YOU what questions YOU will ask or what areas to touch on. That’s not news — it’s p.r. or propaganda. Take your pick.
If the news media is presenting the most accurate info it can to the public, it can’t pass off as spontaneous something that is not only prepackaged but something newspeople actually watch BEING packaged and rehearsed. If reporters had ignored this part of the story, they would deserve to be fired.
UPDATE: A Fox News report says the Pentagon has denied that the event was staged but it also quotes other Pentagon officials as furious that the soldiers were coached. Read the whole link yourself, but here are some key highlights:
WASHINGTON — Pentagon officials are denying that a live video conference between President Bush (search) and U.S. troops in Iraq was staged.
“On behalf of these fine young men and women, we certainly regret any perception that they were told what to say. It is not the case,” said Pentagon spokesman Lawrence DiRita.
That’s the lead…but then it has this:
Some senior Pentagon officials told FOX News that they are angry that soldiers were coached at all before the video conference went live….
The White House defended the video conference on Thursday, saying that the soldiers were expressing their own thoughts.
“I think all they were doing was talking to the troops and letting them know what to expect,” White House spokesman Scott McClellan said, adding that the president wanted to talk with troops on the ground who have firsthand knowledge about the situation.
The questions pitched to the troops by Bush were choreographed on the president’s goals for the war in Iraq and the upcoming vote this weekend on a new Iraqi constitution.
Privately, at least one senior military commander told FOX News that he’s outraged by the way the young soldiers were coached.
Others pointed out that despite efforts behind closed doors at the Pentagon to spin what happened, the tape of the event tells the story of soldiers who were being ‘scripted’ and given answers that had been ‘drilled through’ — in the words used by Deputy Secretary of Defense for Internal Communications Allison Barber on a tape that captured her 45-minute practice run of the event.
Barber told the soldiers on camera shots before the video conference went live that the president was interested in three topics, including the overall security situation in Iraq, security preparations for the vote and training for Iraqi troops.
“This is an important time,” Barber said to the soldiers before Bush arrived. “The president is looking forward to having just a conversation with you.”
Barber continued to talk to the troops before the event went live.
ETC. So this MUST mean that Fox News is in on what some see as part of an effort to smear the White House — not that there was a story that reporters didn’t have to even dig up, but was virtually handed to them on a silver platter by hapless White House officials who earlier in the day had told reporters it would not be a screened event (see White House press spokeman under fire above). That was virtually daring them to do this story. It’s akin to Gary Hart’s old “just follow me” thing to reporters. With the same result.
BUT THERE ARE OTHER VOICES SPEAKING OUT ON THIS STORY AND HERE’S A CROSS SECTION OF EXCERPTS:
Not only were the teleconference troops told what to say by Deputy Assistant Defense Secretary Allison Barber, they were also prevented from speaking freely by the looming threat of their ground commanders. Undoubtedly there was a PAO (Public Affairs Officer—likely someone ranking Major or higher) standing directly off-camera making sure the soldiers spoke in line with White House directives. Every troop presented an upbeat view of the situation on the ground in Iraq. There was no talk of armor issues or mortars attacks. A token Iraqi soldier in the group at one point gushed to President Bush, “Thank you very much for everything. I like you!�
It might come as a surprise….but being an officer in Iraq is no more a picnic in a park than being one of the “boots on the groundâ€? is. Plus, Bush meets with plenty of soldiers. He makes regular visits to hospitals here in America where wounded soldiers back from Iraq are recovering, not to mention the regular visits he pays to the families of fallen soldiers. I’m sure he has no trouble getting the “real opinionsâ€? of these people… It was clearly stated that these soldiers were not told what to say and there is absolutely no evidence to suggest otherwise.
—Countercolumn: “You could just feel how badly the media wanted to believe the President’s videoconference with 10 U.S. soldiers was “staged.” And dammit, if the media wanted it to be staged, then staged it will be.”
—skippy (who writes in lower case): “we’re suggesting that awol [Bush] is an egotistical, hypersensitive despot who can’t stand even the slightest hint of things not going his way, and thus has to choreograph the entire world to look as if everything and everyone approves of his masterful policy-making (which, we all know, is impossible to do).
—The Agitator: “News reports are so far not as critical of the staged event as I figure they will be in print tomorrow morning. (And I’m not so dumb that I don’t realize this sort of coaching is utterly normal; it’s just not the sort of thing you want to get caught doing. Nor is it something the media will tolerate, and certainly not from this lying sack of low poll numbers.)”
—Wonkette:
Today’s video conference between the President and “the troops” shows that the White House has learned a lot from its mistakes. Namely, if you have a question-and-answer session, make sure everyone knows both the questions and the answers before hand….
…Perhaps they didn’t want another “body armor” moment, a spontaneous admission of reality onto the Bush stage set. Whatever the reason for clamping down so tightly on their message, we can’t say that propaganda like this says much for “American-style democracy.” Two thumbs down.”
—Matt Margolis: “The word “staged” implies—at least to me—something completely scripted. Even the opening paragraph of story use the word “choreographed” to describe the event—which is a bit more accurate. Later on in the story, it explains that White House press secretary Scott McClellan said that the troops were expressing their own thoughts. It seems to me that the AP is trying to delegitimize the teleconference solely because some planning went into to beforehand.”
—Studio Simple: “It’s incredibly disheartening to read articles like this. If President Bush truly believes in his motives for the agendas that he pushed, then why not let the soldiers speak freely about what they are experiencing?”
—Jiblog: “I am now convinced the Republican rift will heal and we’ll be back to politics as usual pretty quickly. Why? Because anti-Bush stupidity has returned to the media… First, let’s look at the word “staged.” The perception that this word gives is that the soldiers had their answers scripted for them and were given performance cues. Not only is their no evidence of this, there is no claim of it. The use of staged in the headline is either an act of sensationalism, or it is just plain sloppy journalism by use of inaccurate words.”
—Social Code Injection: “Well, some people have already known it, but this definitely confirms it: Soldiers are coached, or possibly outright scripted, in what they say in response to Presidential questioning. This is a serious blow to the credibility of statements that soldiers are supporting George Bush in the War on Iraq because how are we to know that any statement that has been said positively about the war was not scripted? Bush’s approval rating is already low, seems like this should send it even further down.”
—Alex Whalen: “That’s how badly things are going for this White House. They can’t even pull off staged events. Do they have even the faintest idea how unbelievably pathetic this looks? I know Bush lives in a bubble, but if rumours of his foul temper really are true, can you imagine how he would react if he knew the people around him were this incompetent?”
–The conservative media watchdog site Newsbusters has two excellent posts here and here. We’d ruin them if we quoted from them, so be sure to read them yasself.
—Michelle Malkin (as usual) has an extensive roundup and she writes:”I’d also add that NBC’s news division in particular has some gall making such a big fuss over anyone else staging things. Same goes for the rest of the MSM. (Can you say “projection?”) Look for the talking heads to hype this story all weekend. I have no doubt the news producers will be prompting political commentators to, you know, “Get angry.” But that’s not “staging.” It’s their therapy.”
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