Greg Mitchell reminds us of a big anniversary coming up on Sunday, the 8th birthday of George W. Bush's "Mission Accomplished" speech from the deck of the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln.
Mitchell dredges up some of the media's breathless coverage of that dreadful day in 2003. Here's Chris Matthews giving Bush a gurgling blow-job:
"He won the war. He was an effective commander. Everybody recognizes that, I believe, except a few critics. ...Women like a guy who's president. Check it out. The women like this war. I think we like having a hero as our president. It's simple."
And here are some others:
PBS' Gwen Ifill said Bush was "part Tom Cruise, part Ronald Reagan." On NBC, Brian Williams gushed, "The pictures were beautiful. It was quite something to see the first-ever American president on a?on a carrier landing."Bob Schieffer on CBS said: "As far as I'm concerned, that was one of the great pictures of all time." His guest, Joe Klein, responded: "Well, that was probably the coolest presidential image since Bill Pullman played the jet fighter pilot in the movie Independence Day. That was the first thing that came to mind for me."
Everyone agreed the Democrats and antiwar critics were now on the run. The New York Times observed, "The Bush administration is planning to withdraw most United States combat forces from Iraq over the next several months and wants to shrink the American military presence to less than two divisions by the fall, senior allied officials said today."
Riiiiiiiight. The Iraq war Bush declared to be essentially over that day had not yet taken 150 American lives. This week, two more?1st Lt. Omar J. Vazquez and Pvt. 1st Class Antonio G. Stiggins?were killed by hostile fire in Numaniyah, bringing the total U.S. military deaths in Iraq to 4451. Another 318 coalition soldiers have died in the conflict. And hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, a total that will never be known with any certainty.
Meanwhile, U.S. Army 25th Infantry Division Commander Major General Bernard Champoux affirmed in a press conference Wednesday that, after the U.S. troop withdrawal is completed at year's end, some 16,000 employees, including "military and security advisers," will remain at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad:
?Most of the employees at the Embassy have significant authorities and are highly informed about the course of developments in Iraq including the conclusion of contracts with neighbouring countries, the evacuation of some officers and the supervision on Iraqis? training,? he added.
It was unclear how many of the 16,000 would be Iraqis and how many would be from whoever replaced Xe/Blackwater in Iraq.
? ? ? ? ?
At Daily Kos on this date in 2009:
Sean Hanny-teabag tells us that teabaggers furious at Janeane Garofalo for calling them racist are plotting their revenge ? by purchasing tickets to her upcoming comedy show in Boston.That?s right: the teabaggers are paying Garofalo for the right to protest her. Oooh...scary.
Just for the record, while Garofalo was wrong to call all teabaggers racists, it?s not like Fox doesn?t say the same exact thing about those of us on the left. But you?ll never hear Hannity talking about that, because IOKIYOF ? It?s Okay If You?re On Fox.
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