Bush's problems will continue next week - From this coming Sunday's NYT

Frank Rich's Sunday column is online now. I expect this will be a major topic on Imus Monday as he's a big Rich fan. Bush is fucked even if he does well Friday night.

Why Did James Baker Turn Bush Into Nixon?

FRANK RICH
Published: October 10, 2004

WE'VE never seen anything like this, even the old Kennedy-Nixon classic great debate," said a breathless Chris Matthews on the "Today" show as he touted a poll showing that John Kerry had won presidential debate No. 1 by as much as a 4-to-1 margin. But actually we have seen something like this - and at that first Kennedy-Nixon debate. The polls may have gyrated more violently this time around, but the scenario is identical: a campaign's seemingly mundane decision about television theatrics has potentially changed the dynamic of a presidential election.

snip

Mr. Bush could recoup by Nov. 2 for all manner of reasons, including his showing in the subsequent debates, both yet to come as I write. John F. Kerry is no John F. Kennedy. But the liberal blog Daily Kos had the big picture right: on Sept. 30, "months of meticulous image manipulation" by the Bush-Cheney forces went "down the toilet in 90 minutes."

That's a shocking development because until recently, that manipulation had been meticulous and then some. The administration has been brilliant at concocting camera-ready video narratives that flatter if not outright fictionalize its actions: "Saving Jessica Lynch," "Shock and Awe," the toppling of the Saddam Hussein statue (a sparsely populated, unspontaneous event, when seen in the documentary "Control Room"), "Mission Accomplished." Mr. Bush has been posed by his imagineers to appear to be the fifth head on Mount Rushmore; he has kept the coffins of the American war dead off-screen; he has been seen in shirtsleeves at faux-folksy Town Hall meetings that, until his second debate with Mr. Kerry, were so firmly policed in content and attendees that they would make a Skull and Bones soiree look like a paragon of democracy in action. Time reported last spring that even the Department of Homeland Security was told to take a break from its appointed tasks to round up one terrorism-fighting photo op a month for the president.

snip

But those who live by Fox News can die by Fox News. If you limit your diet to Fox and its talk-radio and blogging satellites, you may think that the only pressing non-Laci Peterson, non-Kobe, non-hurricane stories are "Rathergate" and the antics of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. Your diet of bad news from Iraq is restricted, and Abu Ghraib becomes an over-the-top frat hazing. You are certain that John Kerry can't score in the debates because everyone knows he's an overtanned, overmanicured metrosexual. You reside in such an isolated echo chamber that you aren't aware that even the third-rated network news broadcast, that anchored by the boogeyman Dan Rather, draws 50 percent more viewers on a bad night than "The O'Reilly Factor" does on a great one (the Bush interview).

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/10/arts/10rich.html?pagewanted=2&8hpib&oref=login

Thanks..I keep thinking I'm going to cancel my hbo and then last week ..all the times I didn't watch it was worth seeing THE DIXIE CHICKS! :kick:

"on Sept. 30, "months of meticulous image manipulation" by the Bush-Cheney forces went "down the toilet in 90 minutes."

CHEERS! :toast:

swooooosh, gurgle, gurgle, gurgle.
Bye-bye, georgie & dick!

Flush out this MESS!!:)

While it's a scathing critique, it will be written off as coming from that unreliable & liberal NY Times.

One of them was being interviewed and was gushing about Cheney's performance getting the "base back" because he blurted out that the base was depressed and disappointed in Bush's performance. NO shitola!!---they have been fed nothing but Rove spin and preacherman sping, etc. Seeing that subpar jerk for 90 minutes is like finding out that Santa Claus isn't real. Kerry will have a strong performance in the next two debates BUT Bush is incapable of being the god they have been told he is. A part of his base will be gone soon - they might not go vote Kerry; but they will sit home shocked.