Sunday, September 17, 2006

Minty green

The Bush administration has one goal: Increasing the profits of oil companies. As Greg Palast details in Armed Madhouse, Bush's subservience to Big Oil trumps even his loyalty to the neocons.

And yet, suddenly, the prez is going green, or pretending to do so.

How do we know he's serious about finding an alternative to oil? Because he gave a speech in front of this nifty backdrop.

We know that Rove believes in the power of imagery over words, facts and history. That's why W rarely speaks unless he stands in front of a visual aid produced by the White House art department, such as that infamous "Mission Accomplished" banner. Props give the audience something to look at while he tries to formulate a thought.

Has any other president ever made use of these theatrical scene-setters? I don't recall seeing them behind Clinton.

This may be the first Bush visual keyed to the color green. I'm not sure I would have gone with that minty-fresh Colgate shade, and I suspect that Petra Kelly's corpse has had a few rotational moments. But at least we know that W means business when it comes to alternative fuel. This can't be a mere political gimmick. I mean, just look at that backdrop. It's serious.

O.J. Simpson should have made a televised announcement of his innocence while standing in front of a backdrop featuring the word "NON-VIOLENCE" above images of Gandhi and Martin Luther King. Viewers would have looked at that oversized photo-montage and muttered: "Well, I guess that settles that."

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

This is an insightful and amusing post, unlike the ones by that hacker who keeps putting up the 9-11 hit pieces under guise of being the regular Cannonfire blogger.

BTW, who were those straw donkeys that have been braying about the CITGO videos "definitely" showing the Pentagon impact? Maybe I have not read sufficiently widely, but I don't remember this statement anywhere.

The regular Cannonfire blogger would point out that a common tool for quelling citizen dissent is to hold back some "non-evidence" and later release it to "debunk" those who doubt the "official" version of events.

This tactic is often used by political campaigns, which release the "debunking" evidence just ahead of the election and too late for the opponent to respond.

It's a nifty trial tool, also, if you can get the opposing attorney to bite. The attorney will ask the fatal question, "if the defendant is telling the truth, why didn't he produce [evidence X]?" The defendant then gleefully produces "evidence X," which turns out to be completely neutral on the subject. But the jury now thinks the plaintiff's argument has been debunked.

Which is why attorneys are counselled to never ask a question at trial to which they do not already know the answer.

It's a red herring sleight-of-hand, but the jury will fall for it every time.

What we know now is that the CITGO video adds nothing to the evidence on the Pentagon attack that is in the public domain.

It puts egg on the face of amateur sleuths who speculated the video would show something else. So let's check the video off of the list of potentially useful evidence and move on -- hopefully, to an evaluation of the actual facts; and not to a discussion of red herrings that are artfully floated for our consideration.

Anonymous said...

I think the green is very unbecoming to Bush