{"id":1162,"date":"2004-09-01T10:18:27","date_gmt":"2004-09-01T14:18:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/000af36.netsolhost.com\/wordpress1\/2004\/09\/01\/brokaw_a_patsy\/"},"modified":"2004-09-01T10:18:27","modified_gmt":"2004-09-01T14:18:27","slug":"brokaw_a_patsy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/2004\/09\/01\/brokaw_a_patsy\/","title":{"rendered":"Brokaw a Patsy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Campaign Desk this morning argues<\/a> that even Tom Brokaw (I\u2019m not sure why I say \u201ceven\u2019 as most top-paid reporters are as bad as rookies) lets the GOP get away with misleading statements.<\/p>\n

Brokaw asked [Bush strategist Karen] Hughes about Bush’s consistency (or lack thereof) on the question of whether the war on terror can ever be definitively “won.” In response, Hughes asserted, “We’ve captured two-thirds of the members of al Qaeda.” <\/p>\n

Political gunslingers routinely take a grain of truth and massage it into a pearl. But in this case, Hughes took the art one step farther — she started with an official Republican talking point that is months old and through the process of strategic condensation, converted it into a startling (and undocumented) new declaration. And Brokaw, an old hand who should know every trick in a political operative’s arsenal — even an operative as slick as Hughes — let it slide.<\/p>\n

The official talking point that has been flowing from the mouths of Bush administration officials and Bush campaign surrogates for months refers to the supposed capture of two-thirds of the pre-Sept. 11 al Qaeda leadership, not to al Qaeda’s entire troop strength. Chapter Two of the White House’s “Record of Achivement” report released last Friday reads, “Of the senior al Qaeda and associated leaders, operational managers, and key facilitators [that] the United States has been tracking, more than two-thirds have been detained, captured, or killed.” (Emphasis added.)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This is a point Kerry should make: We’re creating more terrosits than we can kill, and there is no evidence that we are changing the minds of young and moderate Muslims that we are on a crusade against a religion and a culture we think is somehow less than Christianity and our moral fiber.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Campaign Desk this morning argues that even Tom Brokaw (I\u2019m not sure why I say \u201ceven\u2019 as most top-paid reporters are as bad as rookies) lets the GOP get away with misleading statements. Brokaw asked [Bush strategist Karen] Hughes about Bush’s consistency (or lack thereof) on the question of whether the war on terror can… Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1162"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1162"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1162\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1162"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1162"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1162"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}