October 15, 2003- Disapproval

President Bush has never been one to hide his true feelings. Ever since he first came into office, he has always been up front and forthright about what he feels concerning a certain situation. Oh sure, he may use all sorts of distortions and falsehoods in order to support what he feels, but his feelings have never been hidden from anyone. From the earliest hours of September 11th, 2001, he has made it known that he was going to get those that he felt were responsible for the events of that day. He declared his War On Terror, and vowed that there was nowhere that it would not go if it was deemed necessary, and nothing that it would not do to achieve its stated objectives. Bush insisted that Iraq was a central figure in this terror scene, and that he had a moral duty to the citizens of America and almighty God Himself to put a stop to Saddam's shenanigans before they got totally out of hand. No matter what anyone said to the contrary, Bush said that his feelings were that this was a necessary operation that was needed to stop worldwide terror. So he launched the War On Iraq back in the springtime. At first, this war seemed to be going all America's way as the troops sped across Iraq and conquered the land in no time flat. The news reporting here in America echoed that fact in excelsior. All that they said was how this campaign seemed to be so successful and America was once again showing its supremacy to the rest of the world. Bush and the Pentagon basked in the reflective glow of the unlimited praise that the media was heaping on them. In fact, Bush repeatedly praised the American media for the fine job that they were doing in covering everything. Then, the war ended and things started to change. Postwar Iraq became a land of anarchy and violence, with more Americans being killed in the aftermath of the war then there were in the entire war itself. The American news media was still there in Iraq for all this, as they still are, and journalistic integrity compelled them to report these facts to the American people. This has been going on for the better part of six months now, these almost daily reports of more Americans being killed and maimed in Iraq in a variety of ways. Shit like suicide bombings and car bombings have been becoming almost everyday occurrences. Films and pictures of this carnage have been broadcast to the American people, and those people have begun to question a lot of things that they never questioned before. That has led to some pretty tough questions being asked of the Pentagon and White House, and they do not like that one bit. The unlimited, effusive praise was great, but these tough questions are not acceptable to them. President Bushy has said as much recently. He has criticized the American media as of late for their coverage of the situation in Iraq. He says that they are far too negative with it now. He claims that they focus too much of the violence and not enough on what he wants them to. Now that things are going sour for Bush, he is blaming the media. That statement of his about too much coverage of violence is the most absurd, ridiculous statement that has been uttered in some time. The situation in Iraq is a postwar situation, a war that was waged to topple a government and install another one in its place. Wars are violent things, in fact, violence is what they are mainly about. Even though Bush says that the major combat is over in iraq, it is still a warlike situation, and that means that lots of violence is going to come of it. He seems to want the American media to ignore shit like suicide bombers that are targeting hotels where American journalists are staying and the like in favor of some feel-good stories about some school opening or new sewers in Baghdad or something. He wants the media to forget about shit like Muslim clerics declaring that they are going to form a government of their own in favor of Pentagon praise. He wants the media to be the meek propaganda puppets that they were during the war itself when all that they did was sing America's praises and promote its propaganda. When that happened, the American media took a lot of heat from certain segments of the American population that said they were nothing more than shills and mouthpieces for the White House and Pentagon. This was said by an awful lot of people across America, and it impugned the integrity of the journalists. Many of them also felt that they had been used as propagandists by the White House but felt that was what they had to do in order to be able to cover the situation as it happened from the inside. Journalists were allowed unprecedented access to everything in the war this time around, and the Pentagon made it clear that the price they were to pay for that unlimited access was that they did not say anything negative about the war effort. Once the war was over and America took over Iraq, it became a different story. The journalists did not have to go everywhere with the American military, and they could see things for themselves more and report things more fairly. Unfortunately for Bush, more fairly meant that reports of death and destruction and mayhem became commonplace. As people saw these reports, they saw that America was not in control of the situation in Iraq at all and that things were going rather badly there. That had led to the biggest drop in President Bush's popularity since before September 11th, 2001. This had led Bush to assail the media and show his disapproval of the way they are covering events in Iraq and elsewhere in the War On Terror. It is obvious that he does not care about the media being the free press that they are supposed to be, but that Bush wants them to be nothing more than propaganda outlets so that he can push his agendas to the American people. Now the same media that Bush praised so effusively six months ago has now seemingly become an object of his ire and disapproval. As Always, Bush wants the media to change, because he feels that he never needs to change, as he is always right, as he is guided by God Himself. Now it seems as if the President and the American media are increasingly at loggerheads.

When you look at this, it shows the utter arrogance that Bush has about everything. The man is totally aware that the situation in Iraq is volatile and that bad things are happening every day over there. Yet, he wants the American media to totally ignore it and concentrate on what he wants them to. Bush seems to feel that he out-and-out owns the media in America, just as he feels that he owns everything else too. He says that he invaded Iraq so that the Iraqis could be free like America is, well, part of that freedom that America has is the freedom of the press and media, meaning that they are not at all obligated to be mere mouthpieces for his administration or any other administration, for that matter.Bush just wants to use the media to promote his endless war efforts, as he and his Pentagon cronies have been doing as of late. They have been talking about how they need to branch the war out some more into Syria and Cuba and Iran and North Korea and who knows where the fuck else. All this while Iraq is unstable and nothing is being accomplished there. The media is far more obligated to report these things to the people than they are beholden to the American government to be its mouthpieces. But Bush does not care about that, just like he does not care about anything that does not fit into his war agenda. He uses the flag and patriotism to bully and shame everyone into toeing his line. So if he cannot wave the flag at the media and get them to bow and supplicate themselves to his will accordingly, he will do the next best thing, and that will be to start to discredit the American media to the American people. He is already starting that by chastising the media about its Iraq coverage, hoping that the brainwashed American public will demand that the media do what he wants them to do or else be unpatriotic. However, just showing his disapproval like he has will probably not cut it here. For as long as there are car bombings and suicide bombings and snipers and the like all over Iraq, the media is going to tell the people all about it. No matter how much Bush says that he disapproves of what they are reporting, they will continue to report what they see, whether or not that is negative or positive. No matter how much Bush bitches about their reporting, the journalists are very focused on showing the American people that they are not the shills and mouthpieces that they seemed to be on September 11th, 2001 and during the Iraq War. They will do that by reporting truthfully on everything they see, and since America is having such a shitty time of it in Iraq, they will report the lack of progress there to the American people, as they should. If Bush wants this to stop, all that he has to do is to make sure that the situation in Iraq is not so unsettled and chaotic and do something to stop all the violence and killing that is going on there. Of course, that is proving to be an impossible task, because if it was possible, America would have done it by now. So Bush is going to be stuck with lots of what he perceives to be negative media coverage coming out of there. So the only thing that he can do about it is to attack and assail the media. Watch for him and the Pentagon to start to say that the reporting that is coming out of Iraq is not exactly accurate. The same reporters that were such valuable tools for them during the war and got such massive praise for doing that now wi become unreliable showboaters according to Bush. He will go on about how these reporters are trying to make names for themselves in their business by reporting this shit that is not necessarily true. Of course, The Pentagon and White House will be the only ones that tel the truth about what is going on in Iraq, at least that is what Bush will say. He will send some fuckin' Pentagon generals out to try and tell "the accurate truth" about things going on there. These shills will inevitably say that what the media reports is not entirely true, because they do not have all the facts due to the secret nature of the military operation ongoing in Iraq. When the media were good in their eyes, the Pentagon said that they had accurate information and had their facts straight. Now that things are not going so well, the media suddenly don't have these facts straight, even though they are getting these facts from the same sources that they got them from six months ago, from their own observations and from the Pentagon. Suddenly, the secrecy that surrounds the military will become so great that the poor media can't get their facts straight. The media will be accused of heinous things like putting American lives in jeopardy through their misrepresentations. Bush will try his favorite tactic, to scare the shit out of the American people so that he gets his way, and he will use fear of American lives being lost because of inaccurate media reports to fuel that. The only thing that this will do is to further mistrust and contempt for the President in the media, which is exactly what Bush wants. Then, he can paint the media as his enemy that is out to fuck with him and undermine his efforts. What he will do is to start a feud between himself and the American media, with the American people in the middle. Bush will do his damndest to portray himself as the heroic savior of humanity that is being assailed by an uninformed and egomaniacal media that are just out for themselves. If he thinks that this tactic is going to glean support from the American people for his war efforts, he has another thing coming. All that these conflicting reports and feuding are going to do is to further confuse and agitate the American people, as they will not know what to believe. After all, they will be getting two very different accounts and explanations as to what is going on in Iraq from two factions that are both there and allegedly seeing it all firsthand. Since the American public is not there themselves by and large, they will not know who is telling the truth here and who is full of shit, and that will just cause them to turn against the entire issue and either ignore it totally or demand that it be stopped altogether, and neither of those scenarios are what Bush wants. But since all that Bush seems to know how to do is fight, he will start yet another fight against the media and end up making things much worse by doing it, but that is the way that Bush operates, for everything that he has done as President has just made situations worse everywhere and Bush is starting to reap the consequences of that, and his dissatisfaction with the media is part of that, for their perceived negative reporting would not be going on if things were not so negative in Iraq, but Bush never looks at the consequences of what he does, he seems to feel that consequences are only for others to deal with, not him, and that is why the man is proving himself to be worse for the world than Ronnie Reagan was, and I'd hoped that I'd never see anyone worse than Reagan, but, unfortunately, I am, as we all are too, and that is a great shame.