{"id":396,"date":"2007-03-29T15:35:31","date_gmt":"2007-03-29T22:35:31","guid":{"rendered":"\/?p=396"},"modified":"2007-03-29T15:56:31","modified_gmt":"2007-03-29T22:56:31","slug":"the-blogs-bush-reads","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=396","title":{"rendered":"The Blogs Bush Reads"},"content":{"rendered":"

The President spoke<\/a> yesterday at the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association and defended his escalation plan for Iraq. As support for his argument that things are getting better, he cited bloggers with a surprisingly rosy view of life in Baghdad:<\/p>\n

“Displaced families are returning home, marketplaces are seeing more activity, stores that were long shuttered are now reopening. We feel safer about moving in the city now.”<\/span><\/p>\n

What Bush did not mention<\/a> is that these so-called “average<\/em>” bloggers were actually old friends, Mohammed and Omar Fadhil, who had met with him in the White House in 2004. Their blog<\/a> is available at Pajamas Media, a conservative leaning blog network. And in an interview with Howard Kurtz of the Washington Post in December of 2004, they declared:<\/p>\n

“Now we want to say in a loud and clear voice that we welcome American troops and consider this a liberation, not an occupation. People outside Iraq are more worried than the Iraqis themselves.”<\/span><\/p>\n

Exactly how numb do you have to be to believe that? I don’t know about the Fahdils, but if dozens of bodies were discovered each morning in the city where I live, I would be pretty worried. But it’s not surprising that Bush would select these gleeful cheerleaders to affirm the gaiety of Baghdad. They almost make me regret living in the doldrums of Southern California and thinking about all the good times and parties I’m missing in Iraq.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The President spoke yesterday at the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association and defended his escalation plan for Iraq. As support for his argument that things are getting better, he cited bloggers with a surprisingly rosy view of life in Baghdad: “Displaced families are returning home, marketplaces are seeing more activity, stores that were long shuttered are […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-396","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4Ijg-6o","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1761,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=1761","url_meta":{"origin":396,"position":0},"title":"Christian Broadcasting Network v. News Corpse","author":"Mark NC","date":"6\/15\/2010","format":false,"excerpt":"The Christian Broadcasting Network, home of The 700 Club, has notified News Corpse of a defamatory posting on this web site. I received an email from their legal team that included an attached letter (pdf) from Louis Isakoff, Vice President and General Counsel of Pat Robertson's Regent University. Isakoff is\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Censorship"","block_context":{"text":"Censorship","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=56"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":282,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=282","url_meta":{"origin":396,"position":1},"title":"Open Season On Bloggers","author":"Mark NC","date":"11\/17\/2006","format":false,"excerpt":"As the Conventional Media strive to retain a sliver of stature, they are making all the wrong decisions. As the calendar peels off pages, the world adapts to the renewal of spirit that each season represents. This fall, like many before it, we will pull out our winter clothes, set\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":733,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=733","url_meta":{"origin":396,"position":2},"title":"Huckabee Calls On Bloggers To Stop The Presses","author":"Mark NC","date":"1\/2\/2008","format":false,"excerpt":"In a campaign event to thank bloggers for their support, Mike Huckabee told about 700 of them that they were \"doing the Lord's work.\" He drew specific attention to a little known Commandment that compels disciples...er...voters that \"Thou shalt disrupt the work of journalists.\" \"He noted that the mainstream media\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Election"","block_context":{"text":"Election","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=152"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":537,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=537","url_meta":{"origin":396,"position":3},"title":"TVNewser Turning Into Drudge?","author":"Mark NC","date":"7\/27\/2007","format":false,"excerpt":"People who are in the television news business, or are interested in following the inside machinations of the media, have come to rely on a spunky little site called TVNewser. Recently, its founder, a college student at the time, Brian Stelter, graduated and was hired by the New York Times.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":385,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=385","url_meta":{"origin":396,"position":4},"title":"The Howard Kurtz Confessional Column","author":"Mark NC","date":"3\/21\/2007","format":false,"excerpt":"\"For those who wonder why I quoted two new and obscure bloggers as criticizing the speaker--along with David Frum, who kind of defended her--I often try to look for average bloggers in their pajamas.\" With those rather unsettling words, Howard Kurtz attempts to justify what appears to be a prodigious\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":341,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=341","url_meta":{"origin":396,"position":5},"title":"Murdoch Confesses To Propaganda On Iraq","author":"Mark NC","date":"2\/3\/2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Last Friday, at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Rupert Murdoch sat on a panel where he lamented what he described as a \"loss of power\" due to the ascension of the Internet and other new media. The notion that this captain of one of the most dominant media\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=396"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=396"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=396"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=396"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}