Most of us here knew from the beginning that this, or something like this was what transpired. There has been a long tradition of navy ships returning from successful missions displaying some type of banner or talisman. There were accounts of submarines in WW II returning to port with a broom tied to the mast to indicate a “clean sweep”.
What was maddening about this episode was the incredibly passive and mind-bogglingly incompetent way “our side” refused to fight back and thus allowed the media and their political opponents to wrest control of the dialogue from them and re-shape public opinion.
This could all have been explained easily and simply to the American people, but it would have required the President or his designated surrogates to stand up to the media and his political opponents and directly call them the liars that they were. Unfortunately, as subsequent events showed it was an ominous foreshadowing of repeated public relations debacles yet to come...
The greatest failure of George Bush was to stand up to the media.