{"id":942,"date":"2003-12-12T10:48:25","date_gmt":"2003-12-12T15:48:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/942.html"},"modified":"2003-12-12T10:48:25","modified_gmt":"2003-12-12T15:48:25","slug":"first-the-fake-turkey-then-the-bogus-british-airways-story-now-this","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/first-the-fake-turkey-then-the-bogus-british-airways-story-now-this\/","title":{"rendered":"First the fake turkey, then the bogus British Airways story, now this"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bush’s Thanksgiving trip to Baghdad, which seemed like a public relations coup at the time, is quickly turning into yet another debacle for the White House.<\/p>\n

First, Bush had to deal with a few headaches after we learned that the picture-perfect turkey the president was holding for the cameras was just a prop<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Then, the White House had to scramble for an explanation after they were caught fibbing<\/a> about having seen a British Airways flight over the Atlantic on the way back from Baghdad.<\/p>\n

Now, the president has pulled a trifecta with reports that the cheering soldiers who met Bush were pre-screened and other soldiers who showed up for Thanksgiving dinner with the president were turned away.<\/p>\n

The Washington Post’s Dana Milbank<\/a> today cited a report in Stars and Stripes, a Pentagon-authorized military newspaper, which quotes two officials with the Army’s 1st Armored Division as saying that “for security reasons, only those pre-selected got into the facility during Bush’s visit…. The soldiers who dined while the president visited were selected by their chain of command, and were notified a short time before the visit.”<\/p>\n

I have to admit, I don’t understand the need to screen soldiers “for security reasons.” They are, after all, U.S. troops.<\/p>\n

Stars and Stripes also ran a letter from Sgt. Loren Russell, who noted that soldiers were “dismay[ed]” when some of the troops were “turned away from their evening meal.”<\/p>\n

Apparently, the 1st Armored Division officials told Stars and Stripes that all soldiers had the opportunity to get a proper Thanksgiving meal, but many of the troops had to wait until the president was gone.<\/p>\n

I guess when you go out of your way to manipulate a photo-op, some of these little details are bound to get out.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bush’s Thanksgiving trip to Baghdad, which seemed like a public relations coup at the time, is quickly turning into yet another debacle for the White House. First, Bush had to deal with a few headaches after we learned that the picture-perfect turkey the president was holding for the cameras was just a prop. Then, the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-942","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/942","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=942"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/942\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=942"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=942"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=942"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}