:: NEWS COCKTAIL aka BlahBlahBlog ::
"Everything is being compressed into tiny tablets. You take a little pill of news every day - 23 minutes - and that's supposed to be enough." -Walter Cronkite, RE TV news. The Web has changed that for many, however, and here is an extra dose for your daily news cocktail. This prescription tends to include surveillance and now war-related links, along with the occasional pop culture junk and whatever else seizes my attention as I scan online news sites.:: 10.14.2005 ::
:: "Bush accused of staging chat with troops" ::
From The Guardian, UK
By Jamie Wilson in Washington
The White House found itself at the centre of another public relations disaster yesterday after a Pentagon official was seen coaching a group of handpicked US troops before a live teleconference with President George Bush.
In a cringingly wooden exchange the group of soldiers stationed in Saddam Hussein's home town of Tikrit told the president exactly what he wanted to hear - that Iraqis were eager to vote on a new constitution this weekend and the country's fledgling security forces were ready to meet the challenge.
But before Mr Bush entered the room Alison Barber, a senior defence department official, went through a list of topics the president would later ask them about. At her prompting, the soldiers, who were displayed on a large video screen in a room of the Eisenhower Building next to the White House, raised their hands when the topic they were to answer came up.
Democrats dismissed the event as a sham. The Senate minority leader, Harry Reid, said: "The American people and our brave troops deserve better than a photo-op for the president and a pep-rally about Iraq. They deserve a plan. Unfortunately, today's event only served to highlight the fact that the president refuses to engage in a frank conversation about the realities on the ground."
posted by me
:: 11:00:00 AM [+] ::
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