Secret Trip to Anbar
By PAM BERNS
President Bush took an unannounced trip to Iraq for a photo op this weekend, along with press and other staff—the first visit to Iraq since 2006. Most Americans are waiting for General David Patraeus to issue a moderately positive report this month—staying the course while heralding an improved security situation in the Anbar region. However, many suspect that the recent drop in violence in Anbar may be due to militants moving to other parts of the country, and this signifies nothing. It does little to encourage those who are hoping for a reduction in troops by Christmas. Bush’s six-hour visit and photo op in front of a few hundred troops and his traditional triple kiss to President Jalal Talabani (who arrived late) compares favorably, however, to Bush’s 2003 surprise Thanksgiving trip to Iraq in which he posed for a photo op while serving a large plastic turkey to soldiers. Published: September 04, 2007
Comments
Plastic Turkey
The turkey was more reality-based than your politics and your journalism, lovey.
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C07E7DE113BF932A25754C0A9629C8B63
murph, Sep-05-2007
Plastic Turkey
More of the "fake but accurate" reporting from our wonderful media - so committed to the "truth". Would it kill ya to get the facts straight?
Sheesh.
Lupo, Sep-06-2007
Plastic Turkey
According to a 2003 article by The Washington Post's Mike Allen, the turkey Bush carried in the photographs was for show, not for eating.
pam berns, Sep-06-2007
Plastic Journalism
It is a cooked, edible turkey. That's plastic to you??
Forget it, everyone. Pam Berns is establishing her "journalism" credentials and is not going to stoop to allowing a fact to mar the framing.
Watch for an upcoming "de facto" in place of a correction.
Mike Maddox, Sep-06-2007
Plastic turkey links
The turkey was not plastic. Decorative real turkey is typical in mess hall special occasions such as Thanksgiving. A realistic plastic turkey is much more expensive.
The Bird Was Perfect But Not For Dinner" Washington Post, Dec. 3, 2003 http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A33090-2003Dec3
Dec. 4, 2003 7:07AM entry at Instapundit http://www.instapundit.com/archives/012856.php
Artificial cooked poultry, prices http://www.trengovestudios.com/food/food23.shtml
Photos of Bush serving, yes, edible turkey from behind counter to troops in Baghdad:
Visual II, The Corner, National Review, Dec. 6, 2003, 9:15 AM http://www.nationalreview.com/thecorner/03_12_04_corner-archive.asp#020588
Touching Turkey, The Corner, National Review, Dec. 6, 2003, 9:12 AM http://www.nationalreview.com/thecorner/03_12_04_corner-archive.asp#020587
What is the point of the plastic turkey fantasy? It is two-fold. It’s supposed to be a quintessential and comic case of the supposed Bush’s supposed phoniness. It’s supposed to be about Bush’s media manipulation. But it’s really about the msm’s and the left’s self-manipulation.
The other purpose, closely related, is to taint or eclipse all else that was happening at the time -- and anything that’s happening at whatever later time a given writer is referring to the plastic turkey. It’s about killing or preventing any good feeling about success.
Important events around that time, which many media critters love to taint or eclipse with their plastic-turkey myth and decorative-turkey consolation hysteria:
***Nov. 19, 2003 - Bush's "Three Pillars" speech at Whitehall Palace in London.***
***Nov. 27, 2003 - Bush & Condi Rice fly into Baghdad to visit the troops and reassure Iraqis of US resolve.***
***Dec. 5, 2003 - Anti-terrorism march in Baghdad***
"Iraqis march in salute to U.S.," Washington Times, Dec. 6, 2003 http://www.washtimes.com/world/20031206-120933-1854r.htm
***Dec. 10, 2003 - Anti-terrorism marches in Baghdad and other Iraqi cities***
"Thousands of Iraqis call for end to violence," Maureen Fan, Knight Ridder via the Seattle Times and many other newspapers, Dec. 11, 2003 http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2001812403_demo11.html
"Iraqis for the 'Occupation,'" Walid Phares, FrontPageMagazine.com, Dec. 11, 2003 http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=11259
"Iraqis march against 'terror'," News24.com (South Africa), Dec. 12, 2003 http://www.news24.com/News24/World/Iraq/0,,2-10-1460_1455595,00.html
***Dec. 13, 2003 - Capture of Saddam Hussein.***
ForNow, Sep-06-2007
Losing the forest for the trees
There are more than 3,700 of our troops whose families will have a permanently empty spot at the Thanksgiving Day table. Whether a turkey on that table is real or plastic is insignificant when one asks “What happened to the yellow cake for dessert?”
Jim, Sep-06-2007
Plastic Journalism
"Whether a turkey on that table is real or plastic is insignificant"
Take it up with Pam. She made it up.
Mike Maddox, Sep-06-2007
PLASTIC TURKEY
She didn't make it up. She's just parroting what she read on the Daily Kos.
Bruce, Sep-06-2007
Bush's trip
Pammy, you could easily fact - check your little screeds if you only cared to do so. See, there's this little thing called the "internet," and you can perform a function called a "search." Nnnkay?
Sounds like another in a long line of fine graduates from Medill.
Dmac, Sep-06-2007
Plastic Turkey
No comment, really. I just came to laugh at Pam's idiotic Plastic Turkey reference.
Dusty, Sep-06-2007
PR Stunt
Whether or not the turkey was plastic, inedible or a prop, it was a PR stunt, and I can't believe you fell for it! That's irresponsible citizenship.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3660806/
Pam Berns, Sep-06-2007
Who's the real turkey?
If, after so long, you still can't get it right about the turkey, which was REAL, why should anyone pay attention to anything you say?
Tony, Sep-06-2007
Pam says don't be fooled!
From the Slate article at MSNBC to which Pam links in her comment:
"Soldiers were actually served from steam trays; the White House said the turkey in the photograph was simply on hand to prettify the chow line. The revelation is the latest in a series of stagecrafted moments designed to shine an impossibly perfect light on the president."
Revelation? It's typical for mess hall special occasions like Thanksgiving. And who served the men from behind the counter? Bush was there with the other servers, doling out. My previous comment provided URLs to the photos.
Pam thinks that Karl Rove made sure that there would be decorative turkey there and that he told Bush a hundred times to hoist it up and smile.
The idea that Bush was just horsing around a bit is way beyond the power of Pam's imagination. It's just got to be the evil manipulative Bush! And we have just got to think of it instead of his flying into Baghdad to boost morale, and to reasure Iraqis of America's resolve. We just must not think of the anti-terrorist demonstrations which followed, and the capture of Saddam Hussein on Dec. 13, 2007.
"Soldiers were actually served from steam trays; the White House said the turkey in the photograph was simply on hand to prettify the chow line. The revelation is the latest in a series of stagecrafted moments designed to shine an impossibly perfect light on the president."
Revelation? It's typical for mess hall special occasions like Thanksgiving. And who served the men from behind the counter? Bush was there with the other servers, doling out. My previous comment provided URLs to the photos.
Pam thinks that Karl Rove made sure that there would be decorative turkey there and that he told Bush a hundred times to hoist it up and smile.
The idea that Bush was just horsing around a bit is way beyond the power of Pam's imagination. It's just got to be the evil manipulative Bush! And we have just got to think of it instead of his flying into Baghdad to boost morale, and to reasure Iraqis of America's resolve. We just must not think of the anti-terrorist demonstrations which followed, and the capture of Saddam Hussein on Dec. 13, 2007.
ForNow, Sep-06-2007
Hey ForNow...
Hussein was captured in 2003, not 2007. Might want to check your sources on that one, Nostradamus.
Jim, Sep-06-2007
Plastic Journalism
My earlier prediction: "Watch for an upcoming "de facto" in place of a correction."
And... S-C-O-R-E: "Whether or not the turkey was plastic, inedible or a prop, it was a PR stunt, and I can't believe you fell for it!"
(crowd roars)
Thank you.
Mike Maddox, Sep-06-2007
Response to Nostradamus
Yes, thanks, sorry, that was a typo. Dec. 13, 2003 is the correct date.
ForNow, Sep-06-2007
Turkey Schmurkey
Hi Pam - I defend your use of the word "plastic" to describe a turkey that, while real, was there only for decoration.
I'm always cooking turkeys and leaving them around the house for decorative effect. Mind you, I throw them away after a couple of days when they start stinking the place up.
Margaret, Sep-06-2007
PR Stunt
"Whether or not the turkey was plastic, inedible or a prop, it was a PR stunt, and I can't believe you fell for it! "
You see Pam, there are these things known as "photo ops." Whether it be cutting a ribbon, or presenting an award, they're opportunities for public figures to be seen in a positive light. Happen all the time, from small town councilmen to big city mayors, Congresspersons and yes, all the way up to the Oval Office. (Frankly, I'd have thought someone in your position would have been aware of them.)
But no-one with any critical discernment really "falls for" these photos. That is to say, when the mayor and city council are shown with hard hats and shovels "breaking ground" for the new community center, nobody with a brain is tricked into thinking these people are actually engaging in manual labor.
So when Bush was photographed with a Thanksgiving turkey, no-one "fell for" the notion that he had cooked the thing himself. Rational adults recognized the event as a photo op.
Really, the only truly "fake" aspect of the occasion is your notion that the turkey was plastic. But despite the correction that ran in the New York Times three years ago, the canard that the turkey was artificial continues to this day.
So if anyone has "fallen for" a bogus narrative, it would be you, Pam.
Frogwhistle, Sep-06-2007
