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12/04/2005: Two more Op-Eds (for the road)
The Chicago Tribune has two more good op-ed pieces today. One GEM from Clarence Page about the Fake "Iraq Good-News" Department:"When I heard that our government has secretly paid Iraqi reporters and newspapers to report good news about the war, it only made me wonder how bad the real news must be.
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A Senate committee is looking into Los Angeles Times reports that our military has been paying the Lincoln Group, a Washington "strategic communications" firm, to translate articles written by our military and place them in Baghdad newspapers, sometimes for a fee and without revealing the true source of the stories.
Lincoln operatives have posed as freelance reporters or advertising executives to deliver their "stories," the Times reported. Knight Ridder later reported that Lincoln paid about a dozen Iraqi journalists, called the "Baghdad Press Club," as much as $200 a month to produce positive pieces.
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The episode also illustrates how reluctantly the administration is learning a painful public relations lesson, he said: "Once you lose your credibility, it's a long hard road to get it back...."
And this other GEM from Steve Chapman:"Desperate plan to stay the course:
When President Bush went to the Naval Academy the other day, he spoke in front of a sign that could have been an answer on "Jeopardy." It had the words "Plan for Victory." The question: What did the Bush administration fail to do when it invaded Iraq?
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At this point, the administration's arguments have the ring of desperation. They're the equivalent of telling a man who picks up a beehive and gets stung by dozens of bees that whatever he does, he must not let go of the hive.
Karen on 12.04.05 @ 10:00 AM CST
