DUer finds smoking gun on Banner-gate

I'm reposting Jetjaguar's post from one of yesterday's long threads. This is the smoking gun. It deserves attention.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A10976-2003May3¬Found=true


An Unfinished Mission

Sunday, May 4, 2003; Page B06

THE VICTORY celebration held aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln Thursday was well-deserved, both for President Bush and for the servicemen who cheered him. Thanks to those who gathered on the carrier's deck and their comrades in arms, Saddam Hussein's homicidal hold on Iraq was broken in three weeks, with relatively small, if painful, losses of Iraqi and American lives. None of the disasters feared before the war has come to pass: neither burning oil fields nor bloody street-to-street battles; neither Arab revolutions nor armed interventions by Iraq's neighbors. Mr. Bush acknowledged before the war that these risks were real, but argued that they were outweighed by the risks of not acting: So far, he has been proved right. Nor can there now be any doubt that most Iraqis welcomed the ouster of Saddam Hussein and the elimination of his apparatus of terror. When the horrors of the Baathist regime -- now being confirmed in terrible but necessary detail -- are set against even the destruction and deaths of the war, it's impossible not to conclude that the United States and its allies have performed a great service for Iraq's 23 million people.

Still, it's also impossible to agree with the banner that was draped near Mr. Bush on the carrier deck, proclaiming "Mission Accomplished." Aides say the slogan was chosen in part to mark a presidential turn toward domestic affairs as his campaign for reelection approaches. But neither Mr. Bush nor the American public can afford to put Iraq on the back burner. There is much to be done; the greatest tests and risks still lie in the future. Perhaps Mr. Bush understands that reality; yet his reluctance to fully explain it to Americans or to work for the support he will need is troubling.

Remarkably, Mr. Bush described the Iraqi victory mainly as an episode in the war on terrorism, focusing on purported connections among Iraq, al Qaeda, and the attacks of 9/11 that have yet to be firmly established. He failed to mention Saddam Hussein and devoted only one sentence of 22 words to weapons of mass destruction -- which the United States presented to the United Nations and the world as the decisive reason for military action. Odds are that the dictator will eventually be found, and evidence that has surfaced so far strongly suggests that illegal weapons or weapons programs will be uncovered as well. But the Bush administration should not treat the matter as an afterthought: The weapons could still prove deadly to Americans if they are not secured, and American credibility will be seriously damaged if proof of chemical, biological or nuclear arms is not eventually produced and certified by U.N. inspectors or other independent experts.

...


(Aides say the darndest things.)

...on May 4, aides admitted this banner was a strategic part of marketing.

...not angle brackets, for it to show up bold.

I can't wait to campaign for the nominee. I will work my ass off next year (barring Lieberman).

probably in an article in a right-wing newspaper or magazine, possibly in an on-line chat, in which the aide boasts of the brilliant PR work he and his team did.

PS: That would be a real smoking gun.

It was partly his idea.

http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/05/16/nyt.bumiller/

various news organizations all day. I doubt they'll pay attention, but who knows.

http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/05/16/nyt.bumiller/

Media strategists noted afterward that Mr. Sforza and his aides had choreographed every aspect of the event, even down to the members of the Lincoln crew arrayed in coordinated shirt colors over Mr. Bush's right shoulder and the "Mission Accomplished" banner placed to perfectly capture the president and the celebratory two words in a single shot. The speech was specifically timed for what image makers call "magic hour light," which cast a golden glow on Mr. Bush.