Bush's "Rehearsed" Speech with the Troops

CBS continues its bashing of President Bush's efforts on the war on terror and Iraq specifically. Yesterday the President spoke via teleconference with ten soldiers in Iraq. Naturally CBS placed a spin on the meeting calling it "rehearsed." In some ways they are right but not in the way they attempt to fool the American public. As one of the soldiers put it in the article, "'The truth is that everything that was said was meant to be said, though it may have sounded scripted in some places,' Sergeant David Barry-Smith told Logan."

In the article, Paul Rieckhoff, director of Operation Truth, which is an advocacy group for Iraq and Afghanistan veterans, pointed out that the speech was propaganda. He noted that of the ten soldiers present five of them were officers and their opinions didn't accurately reflect those of the troops on the ground. In this, Rieckhoff is probably right. The typical ground soldier conducting day-to-day operations in Iraq probably doesn't want to be there. Who would want to be there? While they may not want to be there they understand that they have to be there. And while they may not want to be there, they will admit that progress is being made in Iraq, which is something the MSM has continuously ignored in order to run its smear campaign against the President and this Republican administration.

The soldiers involved with the meeting yesterday knew what the questions would be. They knew how they'd answer them but their answers were still honest answers. The "rehearsal" was merely preparation in order to ensure that the meeting ran smoothly.

The article was quick to point out data collected from a recent poll:

Thursday's conversation with soldiers came as a new poll revealed that more people said Mr. Bush's presidency will be judged as unsuccessful than say it will be seen as a success. Some 41 percent in a survey by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press said it will be seen as unsuccessful in the long run, while 26 percent said the opposite. Thirty-five percent said it's too early to tell.

That's a big shift from January, when 36 percent said successful and 27 percent said unsuccessful.