Monday, December 11, 2006
RAPT IN PLASTIC
Donklephant.com on that favourite bird of ours:
How many people heard an anti-administration type chortling over the “Bush served plastic turkey to troops in Iraq in ’03” story this holiday? I just heard my newsroom co-worker insist, without a shadow of doubt, that it was an absolute, incontrovertible fact that Bush posed with a plastic turkey, pretending it was a real one.
This was a popular story on the left-wing blogs last year about this time. It seems to be entrenched over there now. It’s going to go down in history as yet one more of those little memories that divide us as a nation.
You hear that, all you plastic turklers? You’re dividing the nation, just like Chimpeachment abu Hitlerstein himself. More than three years after Ol’ Plastic first appeared, David Michael Green joins Team Turkey:
The regressives who rejoiced at this war and worshiped the plastic turkey tough-guy who ordered it up are furiously scrambling to affix blame anywhere else they can. A couple of them have had the good sense and intellectual honesty to be properly mortified at the monster they’ve created …
Easy there, Dave. Considering your belief in fantasy poultry, you’re on thin ice lecturing anyone about “good sense” and “intellectual honesty”. The Niagara Falls Reporter’s Mike Hudson is another sensible, intellectually-honest type:
A few years ago, President George W. Bush made a surprise Thanksgiving Day trip to Baghdad to have his picture taken helping to serve the troops their turkey dinner. The sight of a chicken carrying a turkey into a roomful of heroes was memorable enough, but the irony became even more delicious a day or two later when it was reported that the turkey had been as fake as Bush’s play Army suit.
The big bird was made of plastic, and once again our feckless leader provided ample evidence that he wouldn’t know the difference between reality and fantasy if it came up and bit him …
Count yourself among the bitten, Mike. In his “Top Five Pseudo-Events of the Bush regime”, David Benjamin of the Capital Times includes an event that never took place:
Plastic Turkey for the Troops. On the first Thanksgiving of the Iraq war, Dubya surprised the troops with a turkey dinner. Except, well, the turkey, which photographed beautifully, was fake. And Dubya didn’t actually hang around for dinner. Nice uniform, though.
Nice fact-checking, Benjamin. Thrive on, magic bird!