WTF Is It Now?!?

The mother of all inventions
'The storytelling started quickly after Sept. 11, 2001, when the Bush White House, clueless until then, discovered that waging war was its only chance to stay relevant.'

Pierre Tristam rips into the many Bush lies, starting with the Jessica Lynch rescue, at the Daytona Beach News-Journal:

'First the BBC, then the Chicago Tribune and the Associated Press, among others, have corrected the Pentagon's Rambo account of Lynch's capture and rescue. At this point it's doubtful whether the 19-year-old West Virginian fired a single shot, because her injuries were the result of a pretty bad vehicle accident. No gunshot wounds, no stab wounds, no torture. To the contrary: The Iraqi hospital staff where she was kept seems to have accounted for much bravery and compassion, treating her fractures, donating blood for her and protecting her from roving thugs. She "sipped juice and ate biscuits," reports the Tribune. But that version of the story didn't fit the narrative the Pentagon wanted.

'If the fabrication of the Jessica Lynch story is a harmless lie, it is nevertheless emblematic of the Bush administration's sordid deceptions that led to the very lethal, very costly Iraq war and its equally pointless aftermath. For the media, Vietnam had its Five O'Clock Follies. But Iraq was (and still is) an around-the-clock sham. At least in Vietnam the press learned to call trickery by name. Regarding Iraq, and admirable exceptions aside, much of the press remains a stooge, stage-managed as surely as that $250,000 set built at Central Command Headquarters in Qatar, where the press corps gets its daily fix of fictions.'