Spin the Tale on the FOX

You got to hand it to Linda Vester -- she tries her damnedest to keep spinning for the Bushies no matter what obstacles come her way. Yesterday's roadblock came in the form of a guest on the show who was obviously supposed to put a happy face on the Iraq quagmire but who instead spoke the plain truth to the DaySide with Linda Vester audience. Ms. Vester announced the segment by saying that they were always on the lookout for good stories on Iraq to balance the bad. Unfortunately that is what passes for journalism these days (and not just on FOX News): you can't just report significant events -- you must give equal time to the 'other side' of a story no matter how much that may distort the presentation of the 'news.'

Ms. Vester's guest was Ali Salhi who was identified as the Chair of Iraq Security & Economic Committee (who was a Kurdish opposition leader who spent the past 30 years in exile in South Dakota). The problem for Ms. Vester (and Faux News and Bush) is that Mr. Salhi did not stick to the FOX approved script.

While Vester repeatedly tried to get him to say how well the situation was going in Iraq, Salhi couldn't help but to say that after his recent visit to Iraq, he thought that the situation on the ground there looked worse than it did on TV. Vester kept prompting him for a rosy perspective on the prospect of holding scheduled elections there in January but Salhi was pessimistic that elections could take place given the massive violence in many areas.

Vester then floated Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's ideas on limited elections in Iraq ("Let's" say you tried to have an election and you could have it in three-quarters or four-fifths of the country. But in some places you couldn't because the violence was too great," Rumsfeld said at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing. Well, so be it. Nothing's perfect in life, so you have an election that's not quite perfect. Is it better than not having an election? You bet," he said.) but Salhi did not take the bait.

The best Vester could get was to have the poor guy say that he was hopeful that one day Iraq would be the kind of place where one could hold an election (without the fear, say, of being blown up or kidnapped on the way to the polls).

Thanks again, Linda!

You never fail to provide good grist for the blog mill!