Posted on 04/08/2003 3:53:40 PM PDT by What Is Ain't
WASHINGTON, April 8 — When they hand out all the medals for the Iraq war, I hope they save one for the best press secretary. I’ve got someone special in mind. Torie Clarke? Nope. Ari Fleischer? Try again.
NO, THE BEST P.R. flak, the guy who gave the best quotes, who used the most illustrious picture words and the snappiest action words, who encapsulated the day’s action and message into simple pithy sentences was ... drum roll, please …
Iraqi Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf.
He’s the mother of all press secretaries.
From “Today, the tide has turned, we are destroying them” to “Be assured Baghdad is safe, secure and great. There is no presence of American infidels in the city of Baghdad, at all,” al-Sahhaf has shown he’s the master of his craft.
A WAY WITH WORDS
He knows how to pander to our particular interests — he denied that the Americans had taken the Baghdad airport by calling images to the contrary a “Hollywood trick.” Then he warned that the United Nations was becoming “a place for prostitution under the feet of the Americans.”
He knows how to cast doubt — “They are sick in their minds. They say they brought 65 tanks into center of city. I say to you this talk is not true. This is part of their sick mind.”
And he’s not afraid to invoke the Big Guy upstairs
“Their forces committed suicide by the hundreds. ... The battle is very fierce and God made us victorious.”
Meanwhile, as for our side, al-Sahhaf notes. “They are superpower of villains. They are superpower of Al Capone.” Putting things starkly, nothing but black and white — yes, that’s how the pros do it.
‘They are beginning to commit suicide at the walls of Baghdad and I encourage them to increase the rate of suicide. Their columns are being killed in the hundreds at the walls of Baghdad. We have fed them hell and death.’
He also doesn’t talk above the audience. He keeps things simple. When news broke that U.S. troops had taken the Ministry of Information, al-Sahhaf said, “Absolutely that’s not true. I can tell you that because I am here at the Ministry of Information.” You know, you just can’t argue with that. Don’t even try.
Sure, sometimes his scenarios get a wee bit rosy — “They are beginning to commit suicide at the walls of Baghdad and I encourage them to increase the rate of suicide. Their columns are being killed in the hundreds at the walls of Baghdad. We have fed them hell and death.” And: “Iraqi fighters in Umm Qasr are giving the hordes of American and British mercenaries the taste of definite death. We have drawn them into a quagmire and they will never get out of it.”
And, sure, he crosses the line of good taste when he calls Donald Rumsfeld a “criminal dog.”
But gosh darn it, I laughed out loud when he also said about President Bush and Rumsfeld: “Those only deserve to be hit with shoes.”
No! Not the shoes! Actually, yes the shoes. He once declared that Britain “is not worth an old shoe.” Shoes, shoes, shoes. This man certainly has sole.
OVERWORKED AND UNDERPAID
It’s easy to laugh along with a guy who described the coalition forces as “the international gang of rascals.”
This professional is definitely underpaid. I don’t know if Saddam pays him by the project or by the hour or maybe he commands the special Evil Dictator mark-up, but however much he bills, it’s not enough. No one else is this good.
I’d like to think al-Sahhaf had a hand in this anonymous Iraqi military statement about U.S. forces advancing on Baghdad: “”We were able to chop of their rotten heads.” I’m sure that was his. It’s the romantic in me. And it’s the talent in him.
(Excerpt) Read more at msnbc.com ...
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