The White House War On The Facts
Wasn’t there a book about a world where the government controls everything including the information and the history, where history is officially changed in the archives to agree with what the government wants people to believe, and where people are told what to believe and remember?
People — o.k. Left-wingers — have been making a lot of references to 1984, comparing many of the things the current administration has done to the Orwellian world. Let’s face it, there’ve been a number of revelations of press releases and press ops that appear to have been completely staged or have been suggested to have been, including the Jessica Lynch rescue, the capture of Saddam Hussein, Bush’s recent teleconference with soldiers in Iraq, and his photo ops with rescue and restoration crews in New Orleans and Mississippi following Hurricane Katrina. Then there have been the efforts by the White House and the administration to hide the American dead, whether it be coffins returning from the Middle East or bodies found unattended in New Orleans.
But those things are just an effort to formulate opinion, to positively shape the image of the President and his administration and their causes and efforts, but where do they draw the line from trying to shape the image they present to the press to trying to change the facts to fit their agenda?
No, ironically, I’m not even talking about the whole conspiracy to misled Americans into a war with Iraq with falsified information, I’m talking about something much simpler.
Wonkette has an interesting tale about how the White House attempted to alter history. Think Progress summarizes:
Everyone agrees NBC’s David Gregory said this:
Q Whether there’s a question of legality, we know for a fact that there was involvement. We know that Karl Rove, based on what he and his lawyer have said, did have a conversation about somebody who Patrick Fitzgerald said was a covert officer of the Central Intelligence Agency. We know that Scooter Libby also had conversations.
Congressional Quarterly and FNS both transcribed Press Secretary Scott McClellan’s answer as “That’s accurate.” The White House transcript lists McClellan’s answer as “I don’t think that’s accurate.”
We’ve isolated the clip so you can judge for yourself:
If you listened to the clip, it’s clear McClellan says “that’s accurate.” Nevertheless, the White House is trying to get CQ and FNS to change their transcripts. They’ve refused. [” That’s Not Accurate: White House Alters Transcript of Press Briefing (Think Progress)”]
Wonkette also quotes CQ, if you’d like to hear their version of the story.
O.K. So now I’m going to talk the conspiracy to use fabricated intelligence to mislead Americans into a war without win. If the White House is willing to try to alter the facts about a press conference that’s on publically available video feed after the fact, how big a leap is it to think that they might have tried to alter the facts about the intelligence on Iraq beforehand?
Just a little “point to ponder” as a friend of mind says.
Tags: 1984, paranoia, lie, propaganda, Scott McClellan
