$1.4 Billion Spent on Spin
I don't know about anyone else, but I think this might be an issue that liberals and conservatives can BOTH raise an objection to. $1.4 BILLION of our tax dollars have been spent on PR firms to try and give George Bush and his administration a better image.
Is it just me?
Is it just me?
by MG at 8:02 AM
17 Comments:
Holy. And keep in mind that the Bushies approval rating is still at an all time low.
Imagine how long ago he would have been out of office without all that positive advertising? And imagine all that cash spent on something like healthcare, or education. The mind boggles.
Or even better, on more tax cuts!
why would they need to make themselves look better? they are doing a great job! (cough, cough)
The article indicates that a lot of the money was spent on ad campaigns touting specific policies -- medicare, marriage, not buying drugs in Canada, whatever. I agree that trolling for votes for only one party is a terrible use of public funds, but both parties have been doing it when in office for a while now.
And the biggest portion was spent by the armed forces, which actually makes a little sense: they have been needing to run a lot more enlistment ads, recruitment drives at high schools, etc. So if you want to raise public outrage, you're going to have to subtract that portion of the $1.4B. Then the question is, is what remains much more than what the last few administrations spent on PR?
I agree both parties spend too much of our money. I wonder How much would a Presidential Haircut cost if:
Shut Down runways at LAX for 1 hour.
Cause a major jam on freeways in LA.
The lost of productivity. (250 to 500 thousand persons affected)
Cost of fuel wasted, and environmental impact.
Iggy, are you, by chance, drawing a parallel to the alleged Clinton hair cut? The one where the documented evidence debunked the claim that there was any slowdown of air traffic of any kind?
Your friend Joe Klein tried that one in his book The Truth About Hilary Clinton and was absolutely embarrassed by Joe Conison on the Al Franken show when it came out that was proven to be 100% false. I've got the audio if you're at all interested.
But I suspect that you aren't. Truth isn't one of your strong points, either.
Iggy,
It would cost far less than going to War without on bad intelligence.
Addendum: I thought since I called Iggy a liar, I should at least give him the courtesy of what the truth looks like:
While between May and July of 1993, when this story broke, there were 250+ articles published by the "liberal" media about Bill Clinton holding up air traffic at LAX, very little attention was given to the correction issued by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch article that was issued as a correction:
The story was that planes were kept circling as President Bill Clinton had his hair clipped on Air Force One at Los Angeles International Airport last month. The runway haircut by Beverly Hills stylist Cristophe became such a metaphor for perceived White House arrogance that the president himself felt compelled to apologize for the reported flight delays. But the reports were wrong. According to Federal Aviation Administration records obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, the haircut May 18 caused no significant delays of regularly scheduled passenger flights - no circling planes, no traffic jams on the runways. Commuter airlines that fly routes reportedly affected by the president's haircut confirmed that they had no record of delays that day. The FAA records show that an unscheduled air taxi flight had the only delay attributed to the closure of two runways for an hour in anticipation of Air Force One's departure. The air taxi took off 17 minutes after leaving the gate - two minutes late, by FAA accounting. "If you understand the air traffic system, you'd find that statement (that planes were circling) ludicrous," said Fred O'Donnell, an FAA spokesman at the agency's Western-Pacific regional office. The office responded to Newsday's May 21 request under the Freedom of Information law. O'Donnell said that although two runways were closed, traffic was light that afternoon and arriving flights were simply diverted to the two other runways. "It did not cause any problems," he said. Press secretary Dee Dee Myers said Wednesday that "we're happy that the matter has been cleared up." The latest report was "consistent with what we were told at the time," Myers said. "The president made a point of asking and ensuring that no air traffic would be impaired if he should remain on the runway." During the uproar over the haircut, an unidentified FAA spokesperson was quoted in wire service reports as saying that a flight from Yuma, Ariz., to Los Angeles was delayed 25 minutes, a flight arriving from Palmdale, Calif., was delayed 17 minutes and several other flights were delayed about 10 minutes. These details were widely repeated by news media.
My point was the waste of money based on vanity.
I was at LAX, caught in traffic exit by 405 /Century Blvd.
Learned about the reason for the mess by tuning into KFI 640AM
Most certainly did cause a jam and delays. I don't recall Al Frankin was on the Air then.
Iggy, Presidents who visit cause traffic jams. I also know this firsthand and the current Prez was at my workplace two weeks ago. The place was like Soviet Russia circa-1980.
And you really need to learn to read. I said that Al Franken and Joe Conison debunked Joe Klein who had the audacity to repeat this lie in his recent book.
Documents from a FOIA give the official account of the events - not the contrived version by right-wing hacks which you are so attuned to.
There was no air traffic backup because of a haircut. End of story.
Iggy, just to let you know that your god and hero, W, is coming to Tampa on Friday and the papers have already warned us about the traffic backups, etc.
Iggy, I think that Nicho just cleaned your clock. hahahahahaha
This is OT but I wanted to pass it on to you for sh++s and grins..
A little boy walking down the street with a box of puppies meets Bush. Bush asks him "What ya got there?"
The boy replies "These are republicans." Bush chuckles and walks on.
A couple weeks go by and Bush meets the little boy walking along with the box of puppies. Bush puffs up his chest and asks the boy "What ya got there, son?"
The boy replies "They're democrats."
Bush is stunned and says "Last time you told me they were republicans."
The boy says "Yeah, but that was before they opened their eyes."
Ridiculous that so much has been spent on damage control for the various mistakes Bush has made. Imagine how that money could have been better used, say in education initiatives or health care. It's disgraceful!
BTW, Great site, I'll come back regularly.
This floor speech by Congressman Ron Paul TX (R) tears chimpy and the rest of his neocon asswipes a new shitpipe. This guy is a true conservative, he's smart as shit, and he aint afraid to tell it like it is. I've written about this plenty, and now here's a Republican saying the same thing.
We have been lied to, we're being lied to still, and we are on the verge of an economic collapse, and it's all Bush's fault.
The End of Dollar Hegemony
(..)[A]fter all these many years of great success, our dollar dominance is coming to an end. (...) the time will come when our dollars-- due to their depreciation-- will be received less enthusiastically or even be rejected by foreign countries. (...) The shift in sentiment regarding the dollar has already started, but the worst is yet to come. (...)
the dollar/oil relationship has to be maintained to keep the dollar as a preeminent currency. Any attack on this relationship will be forcefully challenged—as it already has been.
In November 2000 Saddam Hussein demanded Euros for his oil. His arrogance was a threat to the dollar; his lack of any military might was never a threat. At the first cabinet meeting with the new administration in 2001, as reported by Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill, the major topic was how we would get rid of Saddam Hussein-- though there was no evidence whatsoever he posed a threat to us. (...)
Even with no evidence of any connection to 9/11, or evidence of weapons of mass destruction, public and congressional support was generated through distortions and flat out misrepresentation of the facts to justify overthrowing Saddam Hussein. (...) Within a very short period after the military victory, all Iraqi oil sales were carried out in dollars. The Euro was abandoned.
In 2001, Venezuela’s ambassador to Russia spoke of Venezuela switching to the Euro for all their oil sales. Within a year there was a coup attempt against Chavez, reportedly with assistance from our CIA. (...)
Now, a new attempt is being made against the petrodollar system. Iran, another member of the “axis of evil,” has announced her plans to initiate an oil bourse in March of this year. Guess what, the oil sales will be priced Euros, not dollars. (...)
Iran, like Iraq, has zero capability to attack us. But that didn’t stop us from turning Saddam Hussein into a modern day Hitler ready to take over the world. Now Iran, especially since she’s made plans for pricing oil in Euros, has been on the receiving end of a propaganda war not unlike that waged against Iraq before our invasion. (...)
Once again Congress has bought into the war propaganda against Iran, just as it did against Iraq. (...) These arguments are all based on the same false reasons given for the ill-fated and costly occupation of Iraq.
Our whole economic system depends on continuing the current monetary arrangement, which means recycling the dollar is crucial. (...) countries that challenge the system-- like Iraq, Iran and Venezuela-- become targets of our plans for regime change. (...)
The urgent arguments about Iran posing a military threat to the security of the United States are no more plausible than the false charges levied against Iraq. (...)
It seems that the people and Congress are easily persuaded by the jingoism of the preemptive war promoters. It’s only after the cost in human life and dollars are tallied up that the people object to unwise militarism.
The strange thing is that the failure in Iraq is now apparent to a large majority of American people, yet they and Congress are acquiescing to the call for a needless and dangerous confrontation with Iran. (...)
Concern for pricing oil only in dollars helps explain our willingness to drop everything and teach Saddam Hussein a lesson for his defiance in demanding Euros for oil.
And once again there’s this urgent call for sanctions and threats of force against Iran at the precise time Iran is opening a new oil exchange with all transactions in Euros.
http://www.house.gov/paul/congrec/congrec2006/cr021506.htm
Sorry i'm double posting all off topic, but we will be bombing Iran with strategic nuclear bunker busters soon if no one steps up to stop it.
The real prob is the US net foreign indebtedness, which has doubled just under chimpy. We're fucked no matter what we do, but we can't let chimpy start another war for lies. This is no joke.
When the Euro begins to look more attractive than the $, the US economy is going to go belly up. Bombing Iran before the oil bourse next month might be a short term solution, but oil prices will triple overnight. maybe more if Venezuela makes good on its solidarity agreement it made with Iran last year as part of their free trade agreement. many estimates of an Iran/Venezuela oil freeze to the US peg oil at around $300 a barrel or more.
Ready for $262/barrel oil?
http://money.cnn.com/
Today we are led to believe, because anything else is "-ist", America just came to be. Or that before 1941, 1919, 1863, 2001 take your pick, man was a primitive creature without history.
Bushites/Elites support this viewpoint, the governors of today love dismissing the constitution as "dead white male" baloney. "They weren't Israelites, and where's Jesus if I am to give a damn about the 19th century?" There is no balance of power/ the powerful enjoy their ominpotence.
America is a Caste system, an oligarcy, faked rule of the mob, given a choice of two skull and bones parties. I won't skirt that I AM ANTI-AMERICA. It is the same Serf system of the old world except with the internet and melting ice caps; it's worse.
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