Frank Rich, The Greatest Story Ever Sold. Book Report

[Hamlette]

I started this book a couple of times and set it down. There are days when I just can't listen to all of this administrations failures but when I saw him on Maher last week (or was it Colbert or Stewart or some combination of those?) I started again.

Glad I did.

You might not want to read the rest of this post if you plan on reading the book. If you don't plan on reading the book, or just don't have the time (there is not enough time to read them all), here's a summary of a very important book (IMHO) I'll cross post on the nonfiction group but there aren't many of us there and I thought more might be interested as this book answered two of the questions that have driven me crazy about the Iraq war: "Why did Bush invade and why didn't he fight to win?"

Rich sets out, in chronological order, each one of the administrations lies. For each lie he examines the evidence the admin knew (or should have known) proving the statements were known lies. He also tells us each place the media reported the truth (showing the lie) if reported at all (usually the 16th paragraph of a page 8 story with a headline that doesn't reveal the lie.)

He is very hard on the media for cheerleading this admin.

The end of the book is the best. The last half of the book he shows the "perfect storm" that resulted in Bush's approval ratings going down; Plamegate, Cindy Sheehan, and Katrina.

There are a few new things in the book but to most of us who frequent this site, not much, but he puts it all together. Sometimes the most surprising thing is the timeline ("that really happened the very next day" I'd think) and the crushing conclusions at the end.

In the last chapter he asks the question I've always wondered about: "So why did Bush invade Iraq?" I thought he was going to just offer the suggestions reasons we already know about: faulty intelligence, connections to 9/11, to spread democracy, to get rid of a dictator...nothing new. Then he uses the evidence to destroy all those reasons. And posits his own.

Bush invaded Iraq to win the 2002 midterm elections. His reasoning for reaching that conclusion are compelling. Rove has always wanted to establish a permanent GOP majority (control). That fighting terrorists as a police action does not capture the attention of the citizens since so much of it has to be done in secret. That the population was not freaked out scared anymore and Bush et al were slipping in the polls. We were also not getting scared enough by terror threats. It wasn't working enough anymore.

Polls showed that Americans did not support an invasion of Iraq in early 2002. So, how do you scare people AND change opinion about invading Iraq? Nukes, WMD, connections to 9/11. And, if you got people whipped up enough then told them: "only the GOP takes your security seriously" you can take back the Senate AND invade Iraq.

He lays out an air tight case for this as the reason for the invasion and why none of the other reasons make no sense using direct evidence by way of quotes from the parties ("don't roll out a new product in August" Card, "you don't use the military for nation building because there already is too much civilian interference with the military and that's wrong" Bush...not direct quotes, going by memory here. And much more.)

At least now I have an answer to two of my questions: Why did Bush invade and why did he never "fight to win" in Iraq?

Now the question is, can we prevent this in the future? If you think there will be a full "hearing" on this, it's a dream. It has not been that many years that we've been allowed to know/think that Tonkin Gulf was a lie. I hate to put that much faith in blogs but there is no doubt, a thinking person CAN get the truth online at the time its happening. Maybe that is our only hope now that the media has abandoned us.

He also mentions that nightly news reaches so many more people that it can help control the debate. Maybe we can/should pressure the media to report this stuff. It would help if it would take a good hard look at the part it played in this tragedy but I doubt many of them will since Rich is not kind to many of them (he does name names of the best and the worst.)

He also loves Stewart and mentions the show a few times.

[MrModerate]

1. Talk about burning down the house to get rid of ants in the kitchen . . .

How stupid (or cynical) are these people? I haven't read the Rich book, so I don't know if he goes into it, but did Rove & Co. really think that winning in 2002 guaranteed a permanent majority? Or was the idea to invade some new country every 2 years to flog the base into voting for them? Can't they do elementary math and figure out that no country in history could possibly afford such a strategy (moral objections not apparently a concern)?

[Hamlette]

2. maybe they bought their own propaganda

they would invade Iraq, be greated as liberators, establish a wonderful liberal democracy, the rest of the middle east would quickly fall in line, the whole of the middle east would become democratic, they would all love Americans, (hey, maybe they would all become Christians too?) there would be peace and cheap oil forever.

They could probably win elections.

Rich doesn't address your questions.

[question everything]

3. Colbert did not really tear his book, right?

Rich was on both Colbert and on Bill Maher - a few days apart.

Colbert yesterday told people to move Rich to top of Amazon, ahead of Chomsky because Rich's is being promoted by an American - himself.

And then, he said, once you buy it, don't read it, jut tear the pages our. I do hope that these were empty pages. I cringe when I see a book getting mutilated. Yes, even if it is a book by all the RWers who shamelessly promote theirs on the Daily Show.

[immoderate]

4. I'm pretty sure he did.

Yes you could get a blank page book as a prop, but they cost about as much and I'm sure there are several promotional copies of the actual book around. I share your reverence for books, but it was a bit, and made it's point.

--IMM

[Laurab]

5. He probably did, but you know Colbert hates that book stuff

so he didn't want to encourage his audience to actually READ. I've been selling books online for years, though, and you'd be amazed at the sheer number of new titles that get tossed because far too many are printed, or there is an error in the printing. Entire BINS of brand new books - it's sickening.

Then again, it would probably bother Stephen (the man, not the character), so maybe it WAS a damaged book or a prop book.