Tennessean Article Challenges Bush Rhetoric?

I can honestly say I never expected to live to see the day that the tennessean had an article entitled Factcheck: Bush speech more upbeat than recent reports in which president bush’s speech was questioned. it’s almost as if the technique of stating things as facts having the power to *make* them so is beginning to fail. this has been one of the most vexing aspects of the American political landscape, it’s as if we’ve all been in this collective subconscious lie wherein we were willing to accept statement as fact. finally this brilliant PR maneuver by the powers that be might be dying. one can only hope. here are some choice snippets from the article:

For instance, Bush asserted that “Iraq’s national leaders are getting some things done,” such as “sharing oil revenues with the provinces” and allowing “former Baathists to rejoin Iraq’s military or receive government pensions.”

Yet his statement ignored the fact that U.S. officials have been frustrated that none of those actions have been enshrined into law — and that reports from Baghdad this week indicated that a potential deal on sharing oil revenue is collapsing.

…

Bush also thanked “the 36 nations who have troops on the ground in Iraq.” But the State Department’s most recent weekly report on Iraq said there are 25 countries supplying 11,685 troops — about 7 percent of the size of the U.S. forces.

…

The president also painted a relatively favorable picture of Baghdad, saying that a year ago much of it “was under siege” but that today “ordinary life is beginning to return.” He did not mention that much of the once-heterogeneous city has been divided into Shiite and Sunni enclaves.

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The president also said that groups of “Iranian-backed militants” are “being broken up, and many of their leaders are being captured or killed.” In congressional testimony this week, Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker emphasized that Iran poses a looming menace in Iraq.

I probably copied and pasted more than I should have, but this is truly notable.  It is worth reading, and will make anyone who loves freedom and democracy happy.  Once the American media begins fact-checking and doing it’s job again, the US can regain it’s position as a moral and ethical leader in the word.