Chi Trib’s Michael Tackett’s main interest is how Bush is spinning things politically. He could not care less about actually defending us against terror attacks. He gets page one billing, “Behind disclosures, GOP political agenda,” so as to make his point, much as Carey Orr, Joseph Parrish, and other cartoonists had page one years ago under Col. McCormick. He’s today’s equivalent of a page-one political cartoon. Call it cartooning while on head trip.
Combine him with Mark Silva, whose story of yesterday’s late web edition is today’s hard-copy page one next to Tackett, verbatim. Look down and there it is. For Silva, and they are on the same page figuratively too, the emphasis is on torture. This is his main interest, with defense against terrorism a distant second. They are both perfect Democrats. In a Republican paper!
Some of Tackett:
“Surprising concessions” by Bush “about secret CIA prisons” are in his lede, as in the Silva head. Bush’s party is “limping” and “burdened." Bush “still has a sense of the bold,” but “the public now listens with a far more skeptical ear” than when he “grabbed a bullhorn at ground zero in New York” and rallied the nation. He remains “unapologetic in acknowledging that his administration had gone to extraordinary--some would say extralegal--lengths in the name of defending us.” (Italics added: get the “some,” which is standard for “he did it.”)
And he used such delicate language--"alternative set of procedures"--to describe decidedly indelicate techniques in forcing information out of suspects.
Such as what? “Such” means “very” here. Indelicate? Here lies irony, even sarcasm. Cartoon analysis.
“He did not identify” nations where we may continue to hold prisoners. No? Now why not?
He attempted to shift the focus [Trib won’t let him] from the fighting in Iraq, where there is little hope of any dramatic turnaround in the short term, to various faces of evil [Italics added: This on a news page? What next?] who finally will be put on trial for their roles in terrorist attacks against the U.S.
What’s more, “He gave those villains names and faces.” Those villains. Colorful, eh? Italics not necessary.
He’s going for legislation to facilitate his pursuit of evil faces and villains, “almost ensuring that those who opposed such tribunals could be branded as weak on terrorism.” Which they certainly are not, right?
With the upcoming [sic] commemorations of the Sept. 11 attacks, the nation will be reliving that harrowing day--and the days following when Bush enjoyed the highest standing of his presidency. Having actual suspects held to account for their alleged roles in those attacks ensures in the short run that terrorism stays prominent in the news cycle.
Not if Chi Trib has anything to say about it, with Tackett leading the charge on p-1 with such (very) devastating analysis. “Niceties of the U.S. legal system” are not to obstruct punishment of “those people.” Yes, niceties. I said it’s a cartoon, but can’t he be a little more subtle?
It’s coming:
Cue the videotape of the suspect being walked before the cameras and open coverage of the case that the government has against him.
Over our dead front-page news analyses!
It apparently suits the White House now to acknowledge the existence of the CIA prisons. Before, the mere mention of the subject engendered a fury of recrimination from the administration.
Those furious recriminations get to you after a while. The strategy?
The White House, and by extension Republicans running for Congress in November, will talk about these matters, but on their terms [fancy that!], hoping to force Democrats into the kind of defensive crouch that has kept them in the minority.
Oh? That’s why? Tackett has analyzed the defensive crouch before, has he? Page one analysis, so that we could see clearly that the voting majority has not trusted them in these matters? When was that?
But Democrats signaled that they have seen this movie before [this “Farenheit 9/11” for Bushies] and are prepared.
"I understand his desire to talk about the war on terror and not Iraq," said Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.), the chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.
Etc. Read it yourself. It’s a sort of love-letter snippet from one of Chi Trib Wash bureau’s sources with whom they feel really comfortable. Italics not added.
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