General Petraeus Wins the TV War in a Rout

In modern warfare, the main theater of battle is television. Someday they'll hand out Emmy Awards in lieu of ribbons and medals.

In a back-and-forth reminiscent of the Verizon man's "Can you hear me now?'' commercial, the technical difficulties ate up a 15-minute recess. Score the general 1, Congress 0.

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Comments

[jhNY]

More and more it appears the PR rollout attending The Petraeus Report TM was for the delectation of the embedded press corpse in the DC Metro Area and wayward Republicans in congress only. Of course anybody else wandering by the TV was welcome to watch for as long as they could stomach the proceedings, but whatever we bystanders to bloodbath want to think about it doesn't actually matter much. Perhaps we'd all be saved alot of useless anticipation as well as hours of prostrate boredom if next time the Republican National Committee just duct-tapes a monitor about 4 inches in front of each of the faces of their war's most tepidly supportive members and makes a closed circuit broadcast aimed straight at their heads. And the heads of all Broders, Krauthammers, Kristols and Brookses and the rest of the upholders of the murderous status quo.

What if they gave a show only nobody showed up?

It's been said that Washington is the Hollywood for the ugly, which is unfair, because Hollywood works so much harder than those layabouts in DC. Hollywood, being in business to profit, does not assume an audience of fans, but hopes by production values and catchy public releations to attract as many people as they can to go to the theatres and plunk down money. What if the Hollywood for the Ugly actually respected its constituents at big PR moments like the Petraeus Report TM, and gave them a real show?

We'd get major battles utilizing all the flashiest weapons systems coordinated with presentations of endless progress to congress, flyovers of a hundred jets when the president walked away from reporters without answering questions on his way to Camp David,and what about electric medals? Or neon? In Petraeus'case, the effect would indeed be dazzling. Maybe Gold Star mothers could receive holograms of their fallen children by way of gratitude from the nation in a solemn ceremony professionally lit by coked-up experts from Tinsel Town.

After all, we're paying for it, and paying plenty. We deserve a better show. A much better show.

[akoop]

Margaret Carlson using measured rhetoric and a deliberate style managed to address the issues lost in the hysteria of the moveon.org ad.

One does not have to denigrate, besmirch, or otherwise defame someone to raise valid questions or provide differing rationale regarding testimony before congress.

Sometimes in order to be heard you have to stop screaming.