A ‘surge of facts’

July 13, 2007

Look out, everyone, the White House has a new catch-phrase. “Stay the course” didn’t work out too well, and “they stand up, we stand down” was a policy flop, but now the vaunted White House communications team has a new one.

“The interim report is the beginning of a new kind of surge and it’s a surge of facts, because what’s happened with a lot of the war in Iraq, as you know, Rush, is that people get pictures of dead bodies, but they don’t get any sense of what’s actually going on on the ground,” Tony Snow told Rush Limbaugh yesterday, adding, “[W]e need a surge in facts.”

Snow then hosted a conference call with conservative bloggers.

“We need a surge of facts. That’s one of the things we’re going to be working on. I’m going to be doing it from the podium…. So far we have had very few visuals to confirm what Americans want to believe. We have an amazing and heroic American military… The only way to change public opinion [on Iraq] is to present a fuller, more nuanced and more accurate picture.”

“We’re gonna present bad news too. You have to… But it’s a miracle anyone supports the war, based on the characterizations that have been painted.”

Snow says he’s going to put up slides, video, and audio on new screens behind him during the daily press briefing. “We’re not gonna spin, but we’re going to provide real hard data.”

I can’t believe Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert are off this week. Some of this material just writes itself.

In the meantime, I have a few questions.

* With the war in its fifth year, why did the White House wait until now to start “providing real hard data”?

* What does this say about the data the Bush gang has offered up until now?

* Will the “real hard data” include information about al Qaeda’s role in Iraqi violence, even though it contradicts the president’s talking points?

* Will the data resemble the bogus and exaggerated success stories from the Initial Benchmark Assessment Report?

* Snow now says, “We’re not gonna spin.” Can we get that in writing?

Steve M. noticed a Freeper exclaiming, “Like Rush said, when the Surge of Facts start coming, the left will be tied into pretzels and will be forced to back down.”

Yes, of course. That’s exactly what’s going to happen. Liberals everywhere are cowering at the very thought of Tony Snow’s “surge of facts.”

Go ahead, Tony, dazzle us with the good news from this mischaracterized war. I’m really looking forward to it.

I’m expecting ‘facts’ on the order of:

“This just in: reports suggest that somewhere in Iraq, somebody is greeting us as liberators. We’ll provide more information when it becomes available…”

  • If the White House put half as much effort into thinking about actual substantive solutions and tactical alternatives as it did to rhetoric and name-calling, we wouldn’t be in this quagmire.

  • Snowjob apparently didn’t get the memo that The Deciderer doesn’t “do nuance.”

  • Deliver the government into the hands of businessmen, and every problem becomes a marketing problem.

    Highly predictable.

  • I’m just going to quote a commenter on Phil Carter’s blog:

    “Why aren’t the bad ol’ media reporting about the 10,000 cars that didn’t explode yesterday in Baghdad?”

  • In the White House press room: “Tony, when can we expect a surge of facts on the Scooter Libby case and on the firing of U.S. attorneys? It’s a miracle there are any Republicans left, based on the characterizations that have been painted.”

  • Their “surge of facts” just shot out of the toilet and is flowing down the stairway. Rush says the smell is just the leftover roses they threw at us after the invasion.

    It’s almost funny how these people can cling to their ideology even as they drown in the sad reality they have made.

    Hang in there, Republicans! After November of 2008, you won’t have to worry about whether your retarded spin is being bought by the American people. But don’t be too worried, you’ll be selling Amway in 2009, and your proclivity for bullshit will still come in handy.

  • Sung to the tune of TV show theme: The Facts of Life

    You dump the truth, you dump the bad,
    you dump them both and there you have
    The Surge of “Facts”, the Surge of “Facts.”

    There’s that truth you got to just ignore
    So You’re happy now you to wait for
    The Surge of “Facts”, the Surge of “Facts.”

    When Iraq never seems
    to be livin up to your dreams
    And suddenly you’re grasping for
    The Surge of “Facts” are fantasy too, too.

    So, it takes denial to get ’em “right”
    When you’re making The Surge of “Facts.” (making The Surge of “Facts”)
    Making The Surge of “Facts” (making the Surge of “Facts”)
    Making The Surge of Facts.

  • We don’t need a surge of facts. We have plenty of facts. We need a surge of truth. They can start small – baby steps – by simply telling one truth per week. As they get the hang of it, they can try telling the truth once per day. It would be a historic turnabout, though it’s a little late to salvage any of these clown’s reputations.

    If Snow is sitting down with Limbaugh and wingnut bloggers to get this incredibly lame mantra out there, they are truly desperate.

  • Didn’t the pentagon stop reporting on the number of daily attacks a while back. I don’t require the specific metric that was being measured, but it was not trending in a positive direction. The solution was just to stop reporting that. Maybe now we can get that data.

  • Question #1 is: “whose facts?”

    Question #2 is: “All the facts or just the ones you want the people to know?”

    Question #3 is: Are you fucking kidding me?” (which I have reduced to the acronym AYFKM? since I say it all the time these days) It is most often the first question, so feel free to place it at the top of any list of questions for this administration.

  • I imagine they will be going around to Iraqis and paying them money to do PR shots and say how wonderful their life is now that the American’s have invaded their country. Lots of smiling kids and happy familes.

    Surge of facts? No, more like a surge of propaganda.

  • So basically Tony is saying that until today (or whenever the Surge of Facts begins) he hasn’t been presenting reporters with facts.

    Thanks Tony, but I think they’ve already figured out you’re a lying piece of shit.

    Some questions of my own:

    How will he know which slides and films to show if he doesn’t know what questions the reporters are going to ask?

    What if the questions have nothing to do with Iraq?

    Are the press conferences going to become a series of propaganda films?

    Could Snowballs be tired of making up shit on the spot?

    Whatev. When/If this surge begins, students of propaganda will have new material to study.

  • Yeah, cause the messaging has been the problem these last few years and a new catch-phrase will turn the entire administration around.

    No matter how you try to dress it up, shit is still shit. I think everyone with half a brain who isn’t paid to think otherwise realizes that.

  • With the war in its fifth year, why did the White House wait until now to start “providing real hard data”?

    Excellent observation, CB. That pretty much sums up the propaganda that the Loyal Bushie Brownshi(r)t Cabal has used to corrode American Democracy and destroy our Constitutional Republic.

    They substitute myth for fact, lie for Truth, all the while questioning the patriotism of political dissent and the practice of Democracy. They want us to believe that Iraqi National Security is American National Security. They never admit a fault or wrong. They never leave room for alternatives. They never accept blame. They have enthroned fascism in the United States of America.

  • I just need to say that Former Dan is a freakin’ genius — how you don’t have your own blog, Dan, is beyond me.

    On topic: So what facts, exactly, are not currently being reported?

    Did we paint another school that has no electricity, running water or kids?

    Did the Iraqi government forces suddenly stop being infiltrated by criminals?

    Did they find that nearly $300 million that was just stolen?

    Did they find those WMDs we were promised?

    Did they realize they work for us, the people, and decide to start doing what we want?

    I can’t wait to see what they come up with.

  • Premised upon the idea that to the whitehouse the word “facts” means something other than…well…facts, could it safely be said that they’ve actually branded a propaganda campaign?

  • If Tony’s “Surge of Facts” takes as long to completely arrive as the surge of troops in Iraq, we’ve got a long wait.

    As for the multimedia bullshit planned for the new (and completely unnecessary) press briefing room, the Sister # 13 is exactly right. Instead of even pretending to truthfully answer a question, Snow will just run videos of Ahmed Chalabi and “Reefer Madness.” He won’t even have to be there, which would be a plus.

    Come to think of it, the old briefing room was unnecessary. As was the old Tony Snow.

  • Upon further thought, maybe the multimedia platform is designed to simply replay the same non-information of the past six years over and over again as a continuous loop. The press can do kind of a “Rocky Horror Picture Show” thing, repeating lame excuses from 2004 in unison and tossing rose petals at certain points. Personally, I want to see the “Mission Accomplished” bit a few more times. Helen Thomas can dress in a codpiece flight suit.

  • So far we have had very few visuals to confirm what Americans want to believe. — Snowjob

    No, because, as they say in Poland, “from an empty (container), even Solomon cannot pour (out)”. Where are they going to get their surge of *positive* facts? Suck them out of their thumbs?

  • Suck them out of their thumbs?

    I don’t think that’s thumbs they’re sucking on …

    Well, it is the GOP. Maybe it’s hard to tell the difference.

    (Pun acknowledged, and totally intended.)

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