Bubo Virginianus with Rummy

Golly, but it was a curious press conference this afternoon at the Pentagon.
Our owlish, both in appearance and predaceous skills, Secretary of Defense opened with a lengthy statement that seemed as much as a forestalling of the eventual Paul O’Neill question as it was a jumble of bureaucratic mumbo-jumbo meant to recast the umpteenth rejustification of the administration’s drooled-after privatization plans.
Eventually, from the most senior member of the usual clutch of timid Pentagon reporters, the beginnings of the expected O’Neill question hit a descending avalanche of allegedly avuncular Rumfeldian quibble.
Most informative in the black is white uninformative way that is so popular today!
As with the President’s aggressively demeaning “pet” names, the Secretary’s blood thirsty faux jocularity, while terribly effective with a cowed press, is wearing a bit thin as televised theater for even supportive members of C-SPAN nation.
Secretary Rumsfeld may forget, in the complexity and duplicity of today’s post-modern American life, a person’s only recourse, as we are sometimes frog marched through the fourth dimension, is to occasionally believe what passes before our own lying eyes.
The President’s seasoned team, masters of scenic backdrop, pithy banner and naked gamesmanship, have long rolled these dice and, naturally, feel they own this game, the box and all the little accessories.
Maybe they have owned them, but I, along with many others, sense a growing awareness, most visible among the Deaniacs and Blogistan, that belie the argyle-obsessed tame media and the forced inevitability of the President’s cash-heavy campaign.
This new phenomenon of blogging, while, likely, partially responsible for the chinks in the administration’s Teflon and, definitely, responsible for goading a recalcitrant press, has proven in e-spades that nastiness and lengthy memories are not exclusive to the not-so-in-control control freaks in Washington.
I know old Don’s ready.
Are you?

Photos: OwlPages.com, Reuters
- posted by Sean @ 6:17 PM