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And I'm glad that people see that (at least here where minds are far less clouded!). That's EXACTLY what it is.
They're trying to get ahead of this by framing it as "aw, poor widdle george, just going to pieces, the stress dontcha know? Hard work dontcha know? Poor thing... not his fault. Let's all unite around him and give him our support GROUP HUG! GROUP HUG! And maybe he's ... um ... "touching" a shot glass of whisky every now and then, but it's nothing. First Lady's on it. Nothing to see here, not that much to worry about, really, except let's all stand by "Our pResident" in HIS time of trouble. NEVER MIND that THOUSANDS of other Americans are having a LITTLE trouble at the moment from the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina - they don't count anyway. Especially since, well (chuckle), they were underprivileged anyway so this is working well for them. They're not as important, anyway, as our DEAR, DARLING, PRECIOUS georgie... let's all gather around him and lift him up and - yeah! LIKE those biblical phrases! Good! To the house not built by hands... 9/11!
That's PRECISELY what they're trying to do. The situation evidently is getting so bad in the White House what with aides afraid to tell him anything they know he doesn't want to hear, and the boss hitting the bottle again. He's probably a pretty mean drunk, too, judging from past behavior and his self-absorbed, petty, vindictive prima donna behavioral tendencies - they KNOW what can happen if somebody crosses him (thank you Joseph Wilson). Evidently somebody's worried that this is gonna get out full-bore, and they damned well better get a handle on it and be able to shape it to suit their agenda. Furthermore, what better place to float a trial balloon for the "faithful" lowest-common-denominator red-staters who probably put a LOT of credibility in the "Enquirer" and read it as religiously as they follow limbaugh and the propagandizing of Pox "news." They may also strategize that because it's the "Enquirer," if the story gets out from there it has an equal chance of being dismissed as tabloid bunk, so maybe it'll just be discredited at the outset and go away.
The embroidery of all that shameless "oh, poor george is SO distraught over the loss of American lives in Iraq..." and "oh my how deeply he cared that Katrina was kicking the shit out of everybody in the Gulf states" - just bullshit. It's THEIR way of trying to tell this story. It's the "he's drunk again" chapter of the Karen Hughes spin machine - the same one that claims it's the looting that the world witnessed in Katrina's aftermath that's gonna make us all look so bad, that's all. It's the looting! Nothing more, nothing less. Also, the claims that a "Newsweek" article about flushing the Koran down the toilet is what is making the Islamic world hate us. Not the war. Not our unilateral aggression. Not our hamhanded way of stomping onto their turf on false pretenses and trashing the place. That's not it at all. It was those damned "few rotten apples" getting a little out of hand with their torture techniques that are to blame!
Easy, isn't it? All nice and tidy. That kind of strategy is at work here, too, I suspect. Smokescreen. Change the subject a little. Distract and deflect and divert their attention. Make 'em all look OVER THERE somewhere - I guess - wherever the buck stops these days. And if the story picks up steam they always have the convenient backdoor escape route - "HAH! It's in the 'National Enquirer.' Yeah...right."
EVERYTHING THEY DO, EVERYTHING-EVERYTHING-EVERYTHING, to deflect and dispel an attack on them, however justified and fact-based that attack may be, ALWAYS-ALWAYS-ALWAYS involves an attempt to discredit whoever or whatever is originating that attack. Seems like one of those classic defense moves in court - immediately try to slough off the attention and the blame from your defendant and push it over onto somebody or something, anybody or anything else. That means the focus goes off of the defendant and onto - someone or something else. And your defendant is then off the hook as everybody goes running to pile on whoever or whatever is off somewhere OVER THERE.
That said, it was my experience while I was still working at the AP that the "National Enquirer," love it or hate it, was correct a LOT more often than it was off-base. In fact, many of the reporters and writers would pour over the stories in each issue, especially if there was something titillating in the news like a Michael Jackson controversy, to get ideas and leads and possible sources to pursue - to flesh out a story that would be AP's own. And also to keep tabs on what was developing, so we didn't miss anything.
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