Bush's Bad News Blues..(workers online)

The Bush Administration is cooking up a new campaign 'to shine light on progress made in Iraq', writes Bill Berkowitz.
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In its quest to get the $87 billion for military and reconstruction efforts in Iraq and boost the president's flagging poll numbers, the Bush Administration is frantically trying to cook up some good news about the situation in Iraq. In the face of the wounding of Aquila al-Hashimi, one of three women on the 25-member Iraq Governing Council, another suicide bombing near the UN headquarters in Baghdad, the killing by an American soldier of an Iraqi interpreter working for an Italian diplomat, a series of "friendly fire" incidents that have claimed the lives of eight Iraqi policemen and several civilians over the past few weeks, and a U.S. casualty count that soared past 300 dead and 1500 wounded, it would take more than Emeril and a host of Food-TV chefs to transform these tragic ingredients into something the public will deem digestible.

Without hundreds of embedded reporters at their beck and call and the cable news networks salivating over military actualities, the administration is having a hard time marketing the occupation of Iraq. In recent weeks, it has come up with a new marketing scheme: selling its policy by having top officials, including the president himself, available for safe and predictable media ops where they tout the "good news" about Iraq. <snip>
http://workers.labor.net.au/features/200310/b_sportspage_bush.html