Free Republic

President fell off bike today... Kerry told reporters in front of cameras, 'Did the training wheels fall off?'... Reporters are debating whether to treat it is as on or off the record... Developing...

Singing a partisan song By Boston Herald editorial staff Friday, March 26, 2004 A ``p´´ word does describe the reason Boston firefighters weren´t allowed to perform at a fund-raiser for President Bush [related, bio] last evening, but the word is ``petty´´ not ``political.´´      Surely there is no more political an event around these parts than the St. Patrick's Day breakfast in South Boston and there wasn't a peep of concern about the Boston Fire Department Acappella Quartet singing there. (Yes, the breakfast is a bipartisan event, though Republicans are usually served up right along with the corned beef and cabbage.)...

<p>On February 3, by a vote of 394 to 0, the House overwhelmingly approved a resolution (H.J. Res. 84) congratulating Ronald Reagan on his 93rd birthday.</p> <p>Not surprisingly, a group of five angry liberal congressmen refused to pay Reagan even this small courtesy and instead voted "present." A handful of Democrat congressmen did the same last year.</p>

It's not quite Soviet-style airbrushing, but the Bush administration has been using cyberspace to make some of its own cosmetic touch-ups to history.

Ok, he looks like Saddam Hussein. He sounds like Saddam Hussein. And, yes, he has the same DNA. But can we be sure that it is, in fact, the former Iraqi leader? And not just some poor turkey? Another of his hapless body doubles? Or even a clone? Turkey. Consider the word and its significance in the region, not simply because Turkey is a nation in the neighbourhood. In all its other forms, the word turkey refers to the giant North American chook and is a case of mistaken identity if not deceptive packaging. You see, the Pilgrim Fathers exporting...

Several weeks ago, Time magazine ran a cover story about how split the country is in its opinion of President Bush. The theme of the story was that with this president, there appears to be little or no middle ground in the electorate. You either love him or hate him. The reaction to the discussion within this space last week about the newspaper's coverage of the president's surprise Thanksgiving Day trip to visit the troops in Baghdad was typical of the bipolar feelings Time found going into the 2004 election year. Of the three or four dozen e-mails I received...

A Baghdad Thanksgiving's Lingering Aftertaste By Dana Milbank Friday, December 12, 2003; Page A35 Stars and Stripes, the Pentagon-authorized newspaper of the U.S. military, is bucking for a court-martial. When last we checked in on Stripes, it was reporting on a survey it did of troops in Iraq, finding that half of those questioned described their units' moral as low and their training as insufficient and said they did not plan to reenlist. With the Pentagon just recovering from that, Stars and Stripes is blowing the whistle on President Bush's Thanksgiving visit to Baghdad, saying the cheering soldiers who met...

washingtonpost.com Was This Turkey a Story? By Michael Getler Sunday, December 7, 2003; Page B06 The Thanksgiving turkey is long gone, but some Post readers think the paper is still sticking a fork in the White House and President Bush. At issue is a story in Thursday's paper by White House reporter Mike Allen, who accompanied the president on his holiday visit to the troops at Baghdad airport and who provided first-rate coverage of the event. The most widely published image of that visit was an Associated Press photo of a beaming president wearing an Army workout jacket, surrounded by...

The Thanksgiving turkey is long gone, but some Post readers think the paper is still sticking a fork in the White House and President Bush.At issue is a story in Thursday's paper by White House reporter Mike Allen, who accompanied the president on his holiday visit to the troops at Baghdad airport and who provided first-rate coverage of the event. The most widely published image of that visit was an Associated Press photo of a beaming president wearing an Army workout jacket, surrounded by soldiers and carrying a picture-perfect, golden-brown turkey on a platter.But in the Thursday article Allen reveals...

Bush's gesture politics suggest a man seriously worried about his career The 1980s movie The Ploughman's Lunch took its title from an early example of what we have now come to know as spin. Ian McEwan's script took its central image from the fact that the bread-and-cheese snack that claimed to link yuppies in pubs to their ancestors who toiled on the soil was an invention of the contemporary advertising and catering trades. In Richard Eyre's film, this fraudulent food became a metaphor for political lying and pretence at the time of the Falklands war. If anyone makes a similar...

There are those whose only purpose is to tear down. Unfortunately, they dominate our news media. And their condescending, arrogant tone of condemnation is often far louder than the story they are supposed to be telling. Like this visit by the president. The trip to Baghdad to spend Thanksgiving with the troops. It turned a new corner yesterday with the scoop on the turkey. With the nation at war, reporters peppered the White House spokesman with questions about the Thanksgiving turkey. The one President Bush picked up and moved to another table. It was ornamental, and not meant to be...

The photograph was ubiquitous in the days following Thanksgiving. President Bush, all smiles and sporting an Army windbreaker, appears to be serving turkey to surprised American troops in BaghdadBUSH’S BIRD is big and luscious, golden brown and generously garnished. But, The Washington Post reported on Thursday, the bird was just a prop. Soldiers were actually served from steam trays; the White House said the turkey in the photograph was simply on hand to prettify the chow line. The revelation is the latest in a series of stagecrafted moments designed to shine an impossibly perfect light on the president. Turkeygate unfolded...

Troops Demoralized by Bush Turkeygate Scandal (2003-12-04) -- American military morale hit an all-time low this week in the wake of revelations that President George Bush didn't serve a display turkey to hungry troops during his surprise visit to Baghdad last week. Political experts have already dubbed the episode 'turkeygate', and predict that the effect of this latest Bush administration scandal will be even more devastating than the outing of Valerie Plame. "When I went home after dinner that night, I wrote a letter to my wife about how proud I was to fight for liberty," said an unnamed Army...

President Bush's Baghdad turkey was for looking, not for eating. In the most widely published image from his Thanksgiving Day trip to Baghdaqd, the beaming president is wearing an Army workout jacket and surrounded by soldiers as he cradles a huge plater laden with a golden-brown turkey. The bird is so perfect it looks as if it came from a food magazine, with bunches of grapes and other trimmings completing a Normal Rockwell image that evokes bounty and security in one of the most dangerous parts of the world. But as a small sign of the many ways the White...

I couldn't possibly make a theory like this up. Now, Mike Allen reports in the Washington Post this morning that the turkey Bush held in his photo-op with troops was a prop that was never served to the soldiers. White House officials defend such stage-managing by insisting that their fiction is "designed to accurately dramatize his policies and to convey qualities about him that are real." They're right, and pictures are worth a thousand words. From the man who lied about why we went into war, nothing could be a more accurate image. P.S. The turkey prop itself was, in...

President Bush's Baghdad turkey was for looking, not for eating. In the most widely published image from his Thanksgiving day trip to Baghdad, the beaming president is wearing an Army workout jacket and surrounded by soldiers as he cradles a huge platter laden with a golden-brown turkey. The bird is so perfect it looks as if it came from a food magazine, with bunches of grapes and other trimmings completing a Norman Rockwell image that evokes bounty and security in one of the most dangerous parts of the world. But as a small sign of the many ways the White...

President Bush's Baghdad turkey was for looking, not for eating.In the most widely published image from his Thanksgiving day trip to Baghdad, the beaming president is wearing an Army workout jacket and surrounded by soldiers as he cradles a huge platter laden with a golden-brown turkey.

Administration officials tell Thursday's WASH POST that Bush picked up a decoration, not a serving plate for photo op... MORE... 'Officials said they did not know the turkey would be there or that Bush would pick it up. A contractor had roasted and primped the turkey to adorn the buffet line, while the 600 soldiers were served from cafeteria-style steam trays,' Mike Allen at POST to report. White House officials do not deny that they craft elaborate events to showcase Bush, but they maintain that these events are designed to accurately dramatize his policies and to convey qualities about him...