[Kjorteo]

I think Obama has had his imperfections but still support him overall, personally... however, I will say that if you happen to dislike him, then I wouldn't get your hopes up for any particularly good choices in 2012, barring some Governor or someone we've never heard of or something coming out of absolutely nowhere with less than a year before the election. (Though, to be fair, that happens frequently enough that I'm not sure why people even bother to discuss the next Presidential election this far in advance.) Assuming that doesn't happen (which... is a very bold assumption,) the current GOP frontrunners are Sarah Palin and Mitt Romney, which I see as a strikingly perfect metaphor for both the party's perceived lack of original ideas (George W. Bush in 2000 was the last time they ran a new candidate; 2004 was a reelection and 2008 was an old primary loser coming back to try again, like 2012 is shaping up to be) and their whole Establishment vs. Tea Party thing.

[Zipperfish]

Teikiatsu wrote:

One of the greatest media distortions of the decade. That banner was for the servicemen on the aircraft carrier to congratulate them for completing their specific assignments in the combat zone. The media on site knew that but painted their own narrative anyway.

I think an even greater media distorion was all the media organizations jumping on board with the WMD and Al-Qeada connections dreamed up by the Bush neo-conservatives. People like Hans Blix and Scott Ritter were daily ridiculed in the media. Of course, it turned out that they were right. But the media didn't want to appear as being unpatriotic, I guess.

When they realized that they'd been duped, they took it out on the Republicans, but failed to address the shameful lack of investigation to what were, in hindsight, ridiculous claims.

[Lemmy]

Zipperfish wrote:

I think an even greater media distorion was all the media organizations jumping on board with the WMD and Al-Qeada connections dreamed up by the Bush neo-conservatives. People like Hans Blix and Scott Ritter were daily ridiculed in the media. Of course, it turned out that they were right. But the media didn't want to appear as being unpatriotic, I guess.

When they realized that they'd been duped, they took it out on the Republicans, but failed to address the shameful lack of investigation to what were, in hindsight, ridiculous claims.

Good points. I think what goes, part and parcel, with your thinking is the massive wave of books that came out on the subject, beginning immediately after 911. There were the "I told you so's" by Richard Clarke, etc, as well as Blix' and Ritter's books. Gwynn Dyer had his trilogy. It seemed every pundit had a book to peddle. Every pseudo-academic, disgruntled former government employee and politician had a book on Iraq and/or Al Queda. There was just a massive groundswell of dollars available to every crack-pot with a crazed theory on Iraq. And they were all doing the talk-tv circuit, pushing and elbowing their way to the trough. Some of them were right on the money, most of them MADE money and many were glossed over, as you say, for fear of being labelled "unpatriotic".