Posted on 02/03/2005 7:54:50 AM PST by paudio
MSNBC's "Hardball" host Chris Matthews suggested last night that the high point of President Bush's State of the Union Address - the emotional hug between grateful Iraqi voter Safia Taleb al-Suhail and Janet Norwood, mother of a Marine who died liberating her country - was staged by the White House.
The cynical host apparently first voiced his skepticism during a commercial break. His comments were immediately seized upon by "Hardball" guest, MSNBC contributor Pat Buchanan when the show returned.
(Excerpt) Read more at newsmax.com ...
My memory,too.
And I'm hearing, loud and clear.
Pray for W and Our Troops
Which is what I said...
As well as the firemen with the flag on 9/11... some said it was staged to look like Iwo Jima.
Nice video...
Hey, make that four..because after all, it is the seriousness of the charges which warrants an investigation.
You said "directly after" (which has a specific meaning) and I pointed out that technically that was not so, which you have confirmed.
Please read it. You will love it. My dad was a talker (a lot of those WWII vets aren't, you know?), but I didn't fully understand what it was like there until I read the book as kind of a personal Memorial Day weekend project. For me, it was one of those that I didn't want to pick up, but couldn't put down once I did - it's very graphic. I cried like a baby.
Please extend my thanks to your father for his service.
Rosenthal really felt that he just got lucky. It's amazing the number of people (even here) I've bumped into who thought that photograph was staged or posed. Drives me nuts! LOL
I don't believe that, either. If they were staging it to look like those six young men on Mt. Suribachi, they could have done a much better job by getting three more guys and hoisting the flag, screaming, "Take the picture NOW!". ; )
>>Why shouldn't she accept it? Why aren't you accepting it? Understanding that some legwork went into the timing and location of their introduction does nothing the cheapen the moment or assault the genuineness of her emotion. There's absolutely nothing wrong with accepting the truth behind what happened.
Not assuming they were props, props have no choices to make in how they behave <<<
listen tv land trivia man, i could care less about your self proclaimed inside knowledge of tv land ok? so stop repeating yourself.
and yes, you have said these people were used as props. you didn't use the word, but you have described it over and over as just that.. that they were PLACED there for a specific purpose or outcome for the benifit of tv land. you have said that repeatedly
and i repeat - YOU don't KNOW that as a fact or TRUTH. you can go on and on and on proclaiming all your knowledge - but you are still just suppositioning. you are like someone who finds a rock on the ground and then goes into lengthy oratory of how it had to have fell from the sky because you are a expert on sky-rock trivia. i have never said you are wrong - because i don't know. but guess what? neither do you.
and you are wrong about how most Marine mothers would feel about being used for a tv prop. and that's my field of expertise. you are truly full of yourself if you think i MUST except your guess work because you are a self-proclaimed tv land trivia expert. just as i would listen to the rock-from-the-sky expert and perhaps find some merit to his theory - i sure as heck don't HAVE to believe he correct or that there is not a more simplistic and innocent explaination for the rock being on the ground. got that?
and now i see you have tried that old sorry lie/myth that the SP Marine Flag raising was staged also. i also see some very sharp INFORMED ladies have proved you wrong. but you won't admit you were wrong or even might have been wrong.
why don't you just admit that the seating chart the night of the SOTU speech could possibly have been made with no other motive than they were honored guests? period? that it's a possibility that NO ONE ever thought "oh yeah, this might make for some great tv moment"?
that scenerio is every bit as possible as the one you have stated repeatedly. just because you believe it doesn't make it a fact nor a truth. nor MUST i believe your supposition as FACT.
I repeat myself because you haven't said anything that requires anything new.
No I didn't say they were props. I said a situation was constructed. That doesn't make them props. By the definition of prop you're trying to foist off on me everybody that has ever appeared infront of a camera is a prop, including the President himself. Maybe that's how you think of it, but not me.
My explanation is the simplest with the facts available and therefor the most likely. Yes other possibilities exist, but they are more complex and require more assumptions with no facts to back them up. Sorry if you're uncomfortable assuming that the people who work for the President did their jobs well, not sure why anyone would find that an uncomfortable assumption but apparently you do.
Well since I don't think she was used as a prop then I'm not making any declaration about how any Marine mother would feel about it. But since she did volunteer to attend the SOTU, and she is probably bright enough to understand her attending the SOTU would be in some way worked into the SOTU, and that the way her attendance would be worked in would be a way that helps increase support for the President and his policies, and it's obvious that what she did at the SOTU did increase support for the President and his policies, it seems to be a fairly safe assumption she wouldn't have a problem with that. Anybody that would have a problem with that probably wouldn't volunteer to be there in the first place.
I didn't bring up the flag at Iwo Jima and nothing they said it outside of what I said. They clarified and added, they didn't contradict, and I'm thankful for their clarifications and additions.
Because no seating chart at a SOTU has been made just because. And while the possibility does exist if that was the case then Bush should fire everybody who worked on it, this was too good an opportunity to waste with incompitence. The fact that good things did happen shows either he's got good people working for him or God decided to pick up the slack. It is possible, but it is not every bit as possible and not nearly as likely. For that possibility to exist everyone who works for the President on the SOTU would have to be an incompitent moron that lucked into the right things happening at the right time, it's a much simpler and more likely explanation that paid professionals did their job well.
>>>I didn't bring up the flag at Iwo Jima and nothing they said it outside of what I said. They clarified and added, they didn't contradict, and I'm thankful for their clarifications and additions. <<<<
do you have no grip with reality? she said - you were wrong. and you see that as a clarification that you didn't contradict? lol .... strange little self absorbed world you live in eh? lol
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To: discostu
I honestly think you need to give this up, and just enjoy it for what it was. You were as wrong about what happened on Mt. Suribachi as you are about this.
459 posted on 02/04/2005 9:09:23 AM PST by DaughterOfAnIwoJimaVet
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and yep - you have said over and over that the purpose of those two women being seated where they were was for a hoped for reaction... as in: used as props. all tv land stuff..
the Marine mother might also be "bright enough" to realize the Prez wanted to simply honor her and the memory of her son... and nothing more - because that is enough.... as a matter of fact - it is HUGE - and way bigger and more awe inspiring then your tv land stage world. and obviously beyond your comprehension as you have shown repeatedly.
>>>Yes other possibilities exist..... And while the possibility does exist <<<
lol.... thankyou.... very gracious of you.
And I don't think what I said was wrong. Everybody knows there were two flag raisings, reasoning for the second one varies by hwo's telling it, doesn't really matter because that got the good photo. And even it was 100% staged and posed and reheared and directed by Cecil B DeMille (which, of course, it wasn't) it's still one of the greatest photos of WWII.
See that's part of the problem with this whole discussion. Everybody insisting there couldn't possibly have been any staging at the SOTU does so from the position that even the most mild staging somehow devalues the event. I don't think it does. Whether it was completely staged (I don't think so), mildly staged (my position), or just an accidental alignment of the stars (your position) it was still a wonderful moment and I'm truly grateful it happened in a way the whole nation could see and feel.
Props don't react. You don't hope for human moments out of props, the only thing you hope for out of props is that they don't break. Human moments require human beings. The type of people who would approach them as props would screw it up, they'd introduce them before the speech and ask them to do something when introduced.
From what I've seen of her comments after the fact the Marine mom is quite bright enough to understand that she was there both as a person and as a symbol. That she was both herself, a grieving yet proud mother, and an answer to the immortal question "where do we get such men". She volunteered to take a stand, help our President, and be a proxy for all of the other mothers of soldiers in Iraq both serving and fallen. And I applaud her for it.
You really need to chill out on this whole thing. I'm not insulting anybody, I'm not belittling anything, and nothing I've said has earned the ire you're focusing. You're assigning a lot of emotional baggage to what I'm saying that shouldn't be there. If thinking this was staged in anyway somehow lessens the moment for you then please don't think it was staged. It's more important to enjoy the moment than understand how it happened.
My eleven year old has trouble getting his heels out of the ground too.
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