Fox: Bush Interview "Definitely Helped?" Helped Bush? Helped Who?

[Bush_Eats_Beef]

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,119156,00.html

"Mouafac Harb, news director for Alhurra, told Fox News that Bush's interview definitely helped the United States' image in the Arab world.

"The fact that the president of the United States personally took the stage … I think it worked," Harb said. "He said 'justice' in his interview and I think, ultimately, people will be waiting to see that."

OBSERVATIONS:

1). Bush "personally took the stage?" "It was the reunion of George Michael and Andrew Ridgely..."Wham! 2004"...and in the middle of "Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go, PRESIDENT BUSH took the stage!"

:wtf:

2). "He said justice"...come on, I'm not the only person thinking Beavis and Butthead here. "He said "justice"...heh heh, snarf snarf"

3) "People will be waiting"...that's right, Carly Simon and the ketchup commercial. "An-ti-ci-pay-ay-shun, is making me wait, it's keeping me way-ay-ay-ay-ay-ay-ting...."

OK, a final quote from the article:

"Meanwhile, The Washington Post in its Thursday editions said it had obtained a new batch of more than 1,000 digital photos from Iraq. The newspaper said the photos ranged from snapshots depicting everyday military life to graphic images of what appeared to be a female soldier holding a leash that goes around a naked man's neck at Abu Ghraib prison.

Friends and relatives of the soldier with the leash said the photo must have been staged, the Post said. The newspaper acknowledged that it "could not eliminate the possibility that some of them were staged."

WHEW! What a relief! I'm sure the Arab world will no longer be pissed once they learn that the photos were STAGED.

Picture Jon Lovitz from SNL here. "Staged....yeahhhhh...THAT'S the ticket"...

[terrya]

1. Fox would praise Bush if he were drooling and spouting obscenities.

Of course, Bush didn't apologize for the abuses. But in the magical, very special world that is Fox News, that doesn't seem to matter, I guess.

The photos were STAGED? Like they were filming a porn movie or something? That's certainly news to me. I'm sure glad they explained it for me.

[Sparkly]

I don't understand "staged" either

What would the difference be? The prisoners weren't really prisoners but willing participants?

Well, I guess the Fox viewers can rest easy now that they're telling themselves the Chimp "helped" and all's well.

[readmylips]

18. Fox uses word familiar to bush...STAGED...

Everything bush does is staged. If we the people don't kick his foking a$$ back to Texas, we'll be on that stage with him, when the big one comes...the big explosion.

I find it interesting that in his TV address to the Arabs, bush was speaking (mumbling really), not sitting directly in front of the camera but looking away not making eye contact with the audience. That to me, made it even more insulting, more disingenuous. He was acting, like always, as if someone was asking him questions. He was also reading the few mumble jumble stupidity that came out of his mouth. For a christian, the man has no humanity, no soul, no difference from Charles Manson.

[kskiska]

22. Just saw an interview on CNN

with an Iraqi spokesman. The CNN anchor asked whether *'s non-apology was effective, and the Iraqi said no, because * showed no emotion at all.

[Sparkly]

23. The other word: "ACT"

You got that one. Remember him saying that when they become aware of such things, they "act?" At least that was true.

[Bush_Eats_Beef]

24. Yeah, it was like a Katie Couric fluff piece

[Cerval]

26. IMHO...

...Bush is drooling and spouting obscenities.

I mean come on: "These things happen during war..."
Bush is obviously a raving lunatic.

[MallRat]

2. Al Hurra is funded by CONGRESS.

It is an Arabic-language news station headquartered in VIRGINIA, funded by Congress to give a pro-American viewpoint in the Middle East.

Did you expect "fair and balanced" news analysis from them?

-MR

[RoyGBiv]

3. Says who...

Arabs Say Bush Interviews Are Too Little Too Late
By Jonathan Wright

CAIRO (Reuters) - President Bush (news - web sites) did too little too late when he told two Arabic-language television stations that he condemned the mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners, Arab commentators and pundits said on Thursday.

While the White House portrayed the interviews with al-Hurra and Al Arabiya on Wednesday as a special effort to address Arab public opinion, the commentators said Arabs saw Bush on television often and were unlikely to change their minds about him on the basis of a single appearance.

Some said that Bush was more worried about looking good to Americans in advance of presidential elections in November than in improving relations with the Arab world, which would require painful changes in U.S. policy toward Iraq (news - web sites) and Israel.

U.S. government-financed channel Alhurra, which appears to be little watched in the Arab world, ran its interview with Bush without a translation into Arabic, much reducing the impact.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=574&ncid=721&e=2&u=/nm/20040506/wl_nm/iraq_bush_arabs_dc

OnEdit: Forgot to add link

[THUNDER HANDS]

6. hold on...it wasn't even translated?

:wtf:

[RoyGBiv]

16. Link...

Edited it to add the link....sorry about that.

[leftchick]

10. omg... that really says it all doesn't it?

:wow:

on edit: do you have a link for that? It needs to be spread around! Thanks.

[Bush_Eats_Beef]

14. Here ya go...

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=586&ncid=586&e=2&u=/nm/20040506/wl_nm/iraq_bush_arabs_dc

[leftchick]

20. "The Time of empires has passed and will never return".....

Thanks for the link...

<snip>


Egyptian columnist Ahmed el-Birri wrote in Egypt's al-Ahram:

"It's not enough for Bush to be indignant... What they need to do is take an immediate decision to withdraw their forces from Iraq, confess the terrible injustice they have done to Iraq and apologize in public for what their troops have done.

"In the end we say to them (Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair (news - web sites)): 'Enough of your illusions. The time of empires has passed and will never return'."

.... I can't argue with that logic!

[LynzM]

12. They didn't TRANSLATE it?!?!?

W.T.F..... Oh, right. Because Iraqis are intelligent enough to understand english, I forgot. (Sorry, based on Freeps saying that Iraqi signs must be photoshopped or distributed to them because they couldn't make them, as they were in english).

What kind of good does it do for Bush to make a non-apology that isn't even translated for all of them to understand? Ok, maybe that's better, some of them might still believe he was apologizing....

Sorry. I am grumpy this morning. :(

[RoyGBiv]

19. Seems Iraqis/Arabs are smarter than Freepers

They knew full well this was a campaign stunt.

Shrub is so compassionate, ya know.

:puke:

[DarkPhenyx]

4. Apaprently they didn't pay attention to the opinion in the ME...

...where people were generally unimpressed. They want action, not words.

[ugarte]

5. This guy is the Tokyo Rose of Iraq

He broadcasts from a studio in suburban Virginia for the U.S. propaganda network.

[Bush_Eats_Beef]

13. Oh, that's too funny for 6:45 AM...LOL

This is the "real" Tokyo Rose, by the way...Iva Ikuko:



Here's the Web Site for anyone who's interested:
http://www.earthstation1.com/Tokyo_Rose.html

[BJ]

7. al Hurra is the White House mouthpiece for the Islamic world.

Most of what I've read online from Islamic sources is that it's treated with even most disdain than DUers treat FauxNews. It's lies, all lies!

[keithyboy]

8. Just shows you what kind of news comes out of FOX

This is the administration's own network. They don't WANT a clue!

[LizW]

9. Staged? What do they mean by staged?

She wasn't really holding the leash? The Iraqi man wasn't really naked? He was faking that look of agony? The woman soldier was holding the leash and looking at the naked prisoner, but she wasn't having a good time?

Even if I understood why they think "staged" is better somehow than "not staged" (huh?), why would someone "stage" a scene like that and take pictures of it?

[EdGy]

11. this is how they create a parallel universe

This kind of story is why viewers of Fox News are so out of touch with reality and are living in a fantasy world.

It's worse than the kind of propaganda seen in the Soviet Union. At least there, people were very skeptical of the "news" they were seeing.

Ironically, in the US people who watch Fox seem to be so gullible, actually believing that the media is reporting "reality"...

[Cerval]

28. I can't believe...

...how these RW Conservative idiots need to delude themselves into thinking that everything that the U.S. does is right and just.

I mean, they pick up the evidence of evil in their own hands, they look at it under a microscope, the analyze it, Carbon date it, turn it into gospel and then they say...reality isn't real.

Where do we live, the freakin' Matrix?

Hell, I'm a Buddhist and believe that life is an illusion of Maya, and I can't believe the Republican non-Reality.

[greatauntoftriplets]

15. Al Hurra is a propaganda station...

...financed by the United States government -- and its taxpayers. That means you and me.

[Cerval]

29. I think everyone...

...should stop paying taxes. Get a respectable job that doesn't produce anything that the government can use.

I wish!

[Tracer]

17. And wasn't it charming that ..

... pResident Turd congratulated the Al Hurra interviewer at the end by leaning over and saying "Good job."

Oh yes. Good job that no really difficult questions were posed; that the interviewer gave the Moron plenty of time to blither away with the usual drivel "Murrica... um ... uhh, uuh...freedom... um, aah, uuuuh...democracy..."

[Bush_Eats_Beef]

21. And here's why * WILL be held responsible...

...from the Reuters article mentioned above (http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=586&ncid=586&e=2&u=/nm/20040506/wl_nm/iraq_bush_arabs_dc)

"If Bush is really sincere that the torturing of the Iraqis does not represent American values then he should couple his talk with deeds. He should uncover what is going on inside Guantanamo (the U.S. detention center in Cuba)," he added."

"No matter how hard Bush pledges to punish those responsible, there will be no guarantee these barbaric acts will stop as long as the sovereignty of the people of Iraq is violated by foreign occupation," said the Qatar paper al-Watan.

Abdel-Moneim Said, the director of the Al-Ahram Center, said that serious punishment of the offending U.S. troops could repair some of the damage but Bush did not seem to understand that people do not like to live under occupation."

Bush...did...not...seem...to...understand.

Now THERE's a first!

I love this photo because he's workin' the "Osama finger" (who SAYS that behavior can't be taught):



This one's not bad, either:

[kskiska]

25. Just saw a Faux News segment with 2 schoolchildren

who'd sent their savings – $21 – to our soldiers in Iraq. Well, that would have been a nice story before this, but the timing is a little off. Faux is now the Baghdad Bob of networks, fighting and lying their way against the inevitable. It should be interesting to see how Chris Wallace will handle his Koppel rebuttal this Sunday.

[ProfessorGAC]

27. Does Anyone Here Really Believe. . .

. . .that the whole interview wasn't fully scripted? I sure don't. I think the reporter asked the questions they were given, and the answers were formulated in advance.

The questions were too "softball" and the answers seemed a little too anticipatory, as if the questions were known in advance.

No emotion, no intensity, no sweat, while talking about humilation and atrocious behavior on the part of the military people? I don't see Li'l Georgie as being that controlled, that reasoned, and that thoughtful.

I think the entire interview was a fake. It wasn't an interview at all, but rather, a modified speech.
The Professor

[Bush_Eats_Beef]

30. It was an "infomercial" for the additional $25 billion

Bush asks for $25 billion more for Iraq
Request comes amid plans to keep more troops in country next year

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4908166/

Because, after all, he CAN'T break a promise to the Iraqi people that he made on their OWN network.

Folks, this is the real reason he brought back Karen Hughes. I don't care how evil Karl Rove is, she knows more angles. She's smarter.

From the article:

"One camp in the White House has been agitating for weeks for a supplemental budget request, on two grounds. The officials have argued that neither Democrats nor Republicans in Congress would block such funds if the military made it plain that the money was needed for the troops and that it was better to have a long fight over the money sooner rather than later in the year — and closer to the election."