media watch
Is the shrub full of soundbites or what? That speech last night sounded, and was delivered, like every line could have made its own soundbite. And every line probably will become a soundbite. After the speech ended, ABC radio news started its analysis then went to a commercial 2 minutes later, and that's when the soundbites inbetween commericial breaks started. The propaganda machine is churning away.

And to cement my "propaganda machine" point, news outlets have not questioned Bush on the points he made in his speech, they only took what he said as fact. Unfortunately, it's not fact. Bush said that we would would deliver food to the Iraqi citizens, but I did not hear anyone point out that because the US is about to drop 3000 bombs within a two day period on Baghdad, the UN has pulled out ALL of their employees, including those who deliver food and medicine to 40% of the countries residents. Save for NPR, I haven't heard anybody mention that in the first two days of the Gulf War I air assault, only 348 bombs were dropped, and the aim of 40% of these bombs was inaccurate. That's a good point to ask about when the government says that innocent Iraqis will not have to worry. And, of course, nobody wants to add to the list of causalities from Gulf War I those who died from Gulf War Syndrome. (For the record, over 120,000 fell ill to this, with 10,000 of them dying. That's just OUR troops, I have not seen the figures on how this affected Iraqis.)

Since Bush last night all but declared that Baghdad was soon to become the world's largest parking lot by the end of this week, oil prices have dropped.