Waking up early this morning, turned on NPR morning edition in time to hear about a (weekly?) ritual at the Green Zone in Baghdad. General Petraeus takes time out of his busy schedule to go to the stage at the American Embassy and makes himself available for photos with anyone who wants them - and can get through the security screening.

The story isn't up at the NPR site  yet (they promise 8:30 for a summary, audio by 9:00 East Coast time), but you may want to check it out there if you don't catch it on the radio. The story is, so many people were always asking if they could have a picture taken with the general, his staff decided to streamline the process. Now they line up by the hundreds to run through a regular assembly line photo op on a regular schedule.

I'm not even going to try to comment on this. Feel free.

Right now CNN is reporting that John McCain is in New Orleans for a 'forgotten' areas tour (aka the areas forgotten by the likes of Republicans and the DLC).  The headline on cnn.com is that McSame 'scathes' Bush's response to Katrina. [Feel free to drop a comment at Jack Cafferty's blog regarding your thoughts towards McSame in NO and his photo-op. ]

Interesting. Here we see McSame try to claim some difference from the Imperial Bush way of doing things.

So is the 'maverick' GOPer actually ANY different from Bush on Katrina? Well, while reading the HuffingtonPost, a startling post reminded me of how little difference there truly is between McSame and Bush.

I just read the CNN transcript of Bush's famous Photo-Op at Ground Zero on 9-14 2001.
America's New War: President Bush Addresses Rescue Workers in New York

David Gregory explains what is about to happen and exactly what Bush will do in detail.

Bush at Ground in Staged Photo-Op

In the wake of the dust-up of Don Imus' racist remarks against the Rutgers Women's basketball team, a number of people showed themselves predictably tone-deaf on the race issue. Rush Limbaugh, Hannity, and other bats in the right-wing cave remained characteristically upside down and without light, opting to distract the discourse to hip-hop music or other topics, lest their own records on the race issue become subject to too much sunlight before an angry public. And some politicians got a little stuck to the fly-paper, like the sinking ship of the John McCain campaign, and the curious waffling of John Kerry, not directly refusing to go on the program.
    But almost lost in the background noise is the extremly curious, unprovoked, attack by New York City Mayor (Jump the Hudson River here!)
   

This morning, I got an e-mail from my old friend, Tom Turnipseed, a veteran political activist and former Democratic State Senator from South Carolina. Tom wonders why The State Newspaper of Columbia (a Knight-Ridder property) has not covered the story about Graham and McCain’s transparent photo-op in Iraq, which put hundreds of American Troops and Iraqi civilians in a very dangerous situation in order to carry off a complete media hoax and has now, apparently, become a complete human disaster.

http://www.crooksandliars.com/...

Please folks, read this and click through to the news story referenced by John at C&L.

Aside from the US military who died on the day that McCain's Iraqi market photo op happened, when he diverted 100 service people and FIVE aircraft to defend him, Lindsey Graham and Mike Pence in his photo-op...

The next day after his hermetically-sealed armed-to-the-teeth little shopping stroll...snipers returned, and several people were abducted and killed.

On April the 2nd, John McCain did his staged photo op in a flak jacket, 100 troops, 2 Apaches and 3 Blackhawks to say "This market is Safe"

In a story today in the London Times, they report on this Obscenity:

...21 Shia market workers were ambushed, bound and shot dead north of the capital. The victims came from the Baghdad market visited the previous day by John McCain, the US presidential candidate, who said that an American security plan in the capital was starting to show signs of progress.

It's almost certain that this market was targeted because of McCain's visit. Which would mean his photo opportunity meant that 21 innocent workers were kidnapped, tied hand and foot and shot in the head.

http://www.nytimes.com/...

This is the print version; should be linkable.

Looks like McCain read the communist playbook on propaganda.  He would have made Goebbels proud.  

Dear John,

Today you really showed us all what a brave man you are.  You were able to walk the streets of Baghdad without getting blown up, a difficult task indeed.  Of course you could have never done it alone.  No, you needed three Black hawk Helicopters, two Apache gun ships and one hundred heavily armed soldiers to offer you protection.

If only the Iraqi people had a few helicopters and few dozen troops to walk them down the street everytime they went to the store, you know just maybe they wouldn't get killed either.  Sure they would be living in a military state far worse than anything under Saddam Hussein, but you know they might just be able to survive their walk to the store just as easily as you did.

How 'bout that Baghdad security?

A day after members of an American Congressional delegation led by Senator John McCain pointed to their brief visit to Baghdad’s central market as evidence that the new security plan for the city was working, the merchants there were incredulous about the Americans’ conclusions.

"What are they talking about?" Ali Jassim Faiyad, the owner of an electrical appliances shop in the market, said Monday. "The security procedures were abnormal!"

The delegation arrived at the market, which is called Shorja, on Sunday with more than 100 soldiers in armored Humvees — the equivalent of an entire company — and attack helicopters circled overhead, a senior American military official in Baghdad said. The soldiers redirected traffic from the area and restricted access to the Americans, witnesses said, and sharpshooters were posted on the roofs. The congressmen wore bulletproof vests throughout their hourlong visit.

"They paralyzed the market when they came," Mr. Faiyad said during an interview in his shop on Monday. "This was only for the media."

He added, "This will not change anything."

Flying from DC to Baghdad. Travelling from the airport to the Green Zone with heavy escort. Having 100 US soldiers and 3 heavily armed helictopters spend an entire day of their time protecting his ass rather than doing their real jobs.

How much did all this cost? More importantly, did McCain's campaign pay for any of it? Certainly, taking the time to fly to Iraq and set up this one-day fantasyland where he could "safely" walk "unescorted" around in Baghdad did zero to actually help the US effort to win in Iraq. It only served one purpose--a last-ditch attempt to keep his candidacy from going completely off the rails, as more people get a clear picture of just how far of the road of reality the "Straight Talk Express" has now steered.

So, I'd like to know. How much of my (hard-earned, taxpayer) money did John McCain just steal, in the form of a non-consensual campaign contribution?

On Monday Senator John McCain(R-Arizona) told reporters in Baghdad that the "surge" plan was "making progress."  He also chastised the press representatives for not giving the American public “the full picture about what’s happening.”

Old Straight Talk might have been testy because the press outed the truth about his downtown Baghdad shopping spree on Sunday.  Representative Mike Pence (R-Indiana), part of McCain's congressional delegation, said the Shorja market was "like a normal outdoor market in Indiana in the summer time," and that he was deeply moved to be able to "mix and mingle unfettered among ordinary Iraqis."

Senator Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) said, "We were warmly welcomed…  I bought five rugs for five bucks. People were engaging."

 Here's Brave John Magoo McCain strolling freely through the streets of Baghdad, just like he said he could:

(Not pictured: 100 American troops, 3 Black Hawk helicopters and 2 Apache gunships accompanying the Senator.)

I don't think McCain could have showed any less interest in telling the truth if he'd actually fallen asleep at his own press briefing.

Which brings me to the video. I originally was looking at video of the post-jaunt briefing to see the much-ballyhooed "heckling" of McCain by CNN's Michael Ware, but it was not to be. Not only is there no such heckling (or any heckling at all) in evidence, but if anything, I'd say McCain's heckling the press. If by "heckling" one means repeating the same ridiculous, cookie-cutter talking points over and over again, regardless of how many times reporters are forced to approach the same question from a different angle because the Senator ducked the previous formulation, that is.

You can almost hear McCain's soul leaving his body, in the hollow rattle of his repetitious mumblings.

         Reporters: You said it was safe.

         McCain: I'm not saying "Mission Accomplished" or "Last Throes" or "Dead-Enders."

         Reporters: But you said it was safe.

         McCain: [Rewind.] I'm not saying "Mission Accomplished" or "Last Throes" or "Dead-Enders."

Rinse. Repeat.

Meanwhile, what's in the news today?

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - The crack of shots fired by unseen snipers echoed on Monday through Baghdad's wholesale Shorja market, a day after U.S. Senator John McCain held up his visit there as one sign of improving security in Baghdad.

Yeah, you knew it would happen. Truthfully, even McCain knew it. Which is why he can barely catch his breath each time he has to mumble his non-answer answers. It's hard work keeping your Ensure^TM down when you're sickened by your own rhetoric.

Update by kos: Look at how the right-wing noise machine used Drudge to create a complete alternate reality, one in which a CNN reporter who said nothing and did nothing at a press conference was suddenly "heckling" McCain. Who needs reality when making shit up is just as good?

by

Larry C Johnson (bio/blog)

While John McCain was excoriating the press in Baghdad yesterday for not presenting the "full story" about how swell things are in Iraq he neglected to mention the pre-visit security sweep that made that neighborhood stroll so safe.  

I am sure you have already heard about the 100 soldiers, the three Blackhawk helicopters and two Apache gunships that accompanied his entourage, but did you hear about the soldiers who swept the area before the American legislators and their security team showed up?  Who cares about those mooks?  They are expendable.

John McCain and Lindsey Graham put American soldiers' lives at risk just so they could have a photo op.  That's the bottomline.

Remember the other day when John McCain said the escalation was working so well, he could walk the streets of Baghdad unescorted?

Take a look at his "stroll" for yourself:

What is that, an apron?

Note the... uh... well, body armor -- which I'm sure is just totally out there on a stroll of its own and just happens to walk into the shot!

And it's kinda hard to make out from the photo, but Senator Magoo McCain has a few friends with him.

Y'know, soldiers. But just a couple.

Well, a hundred.

And three Blackhawks and two Apaches overhead.

But I swear, it was all just coincidence! They were all out for their own strolls, independently!

Ah, Senator! How cruel fate does conspire against you!

UPDATE: ThinkProgress has video of NBC News kinda doubtin' his story. And you'll be tempted to shout "April Fools!" just one last time today when you hear this exchange:

NBC Reporter: McCain fielded a question about a statement he'd made last week.

Reporter in Baghdad: You said there are areas in Baghdad that you can walk around freely...

McCain: Yeah, I just came from one.

The guy couldn't stop lying if you wired his jaw shut.

Sen. John McCain visited a Baghdad market Sunday and later told reporters the American people were not getting the full story on what he said were improving security conditions in the war-ravaged capital.

McCain, a presidential hopeful, was among a delegation of Republican lawmakers that made an unannounced trip to Iraq this weekend, the details of which were withheld for security reasons. - (Source)

http://news.yahoo.com/...

April 1 (just out about 1:15 PM EST)

No, despite appearances, its not an April Fool's thing.

Driving down the beach highway headed home from the store last night, I noticed the local police and city workers were out setting up temporary fencing alongside the road shoulder and blocking off the parking lots adjacent to the beach. I wondered what could be going on as I slowly approached a stoplight. While sitting there alone in the car it all of a sudden hit me: I remembered hearing something on the six o'clock news about President Bush returning to the Gulf Coast to visit. All of a sudden, once again, that feeling of being pissed off over living through the aftermath of Katrina six blocks away from the Gulf came back and possessed me all over again. Weird thing is, when I get mad over the storm this far down the road it isn't about all of the past misery and loss  of income that it caused me. I once again get the maddest over that arrogant, incompetent, spoiled-brat "daddy's boy" that has two more years to occupy the White House. God I wish he wouldn't come back down here!