See no evil

The White House has just announced that a scheduled speech to British
Parliament has been scrapped:

GEORGE Bush was last night branded chicken for scrapping
his speech to Parliament because he feared being heckled by anti-war
MPs.
The US president planned to give a joint address to the Commons and
Lords during his state visit to Britain.
But senior White House adviser Dr Harlan Ullman said: "They would have
loved to do it because it would have been a great photo-opportunity.
"But they were fearful it would to turn into a spectacle with Labour
backbenchers walking out."
The only speech Mr Bush, who will stay with the Queen at Buckingham
Palace, is now due to give will be to an "invited audience" at the
Banqueting House in Whitehall.
Labour MP Jeremy Corbyn said: "This is yet another slight on this
country by the president of the USA.
"The least he could do is subject himself to questions from MPs."
And colleague John McDonnell said: "Bush might be able to run from the
protesters, he might be able not to see the banners.
"But he must not be able to hide from the anger felt across the country
at this unjustified war."

Why are they going to such great lengths to keep Bush away from public scrutiny? As far as I'm concerned, the least
plausible explanation is "terrorist threats". I just find it hard to
believe that the FBI thinks London is so infiltrated with Al Qaeda that
Bush can't even be allowed to see any protesters. A far more logical
explanation is that it's simply PR concerns. Karl Rove is most likely
hoping to get some good images of Bush's adoring British contingency,
and no matter how hard you try you can't spin a photo-op if there's a
guy in the background waving a "Try Bush for War Crimes" sign. Now that
the "Mission Accomplished" banner has been rendered radioactive, the
Bush campaign is going to be mining every opportunity for usable
footage.
However, there is a third explanation which is somewhat sinister. I'm
beginning to suspect that George Bush has no idea
that any of this is going on. The Administration has gone to such
painstaking lengths to keep him isolated from popular opinion that it
makes me wonder what could possibly make it worth all the effort. By his own admission,
Bush "doesn't bother reading newspapers" and instead claims "[T]he most
objective sources I have are people on my staff who tell me what's
happening in the world". By filtering Bush's reality, the neocon cabal
gets to do their dirty work behind a well-intentioned puppet who has
extraordinarily high personal ratings.
This strategy worked extremely well during the Reagan years, and the
more I hear about "free speech zones" and cancelled Parliamentary
addresses the more I'm convinced that they're pulling the same trick
now.

Posted by flow Frazao on November 18, 2003 at 07:47 AM | Permalink