Most Americans buy into the myth that their country stands for democracy, human rights and freedom. Staged propaganda events like the 'Mission Accomplished Landing' only reinforce those myths. Step aside and pay attention Hitler and Stalin; this is how it's really done!

Trillions have flowed straight into the coffers of the predator Corporations so I'd say:

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!

with more Missions to come...................

Yeah, the corporate media infotainwhores collectively went into orgiastic convulsions on that memorable occasion, all right.

It was like the premiere of a new 3D Disney production amalgamating "The Emperor's New Clothes" and "Pied Piper" stories.

Too bad they don't do double-features anymore, because by rights Amerikans should also commemorate Obama's historic acceptance of the Nobel Peace Prize.

It doesn't have the same thigh-tingling panache as the "Mission Accomplished!" stunt, but it IS another milestone of Presidential hubris and hypocrisy.

i think dowd meant erection harness between his legs.

The comments of the MSM quoted here are truly sickening. Interesting that all the commentators were absolutely WRONG and yet they're all still there. They all still have jobs. They all still make the big bucks for their "insightful commentary".
Sheesh! You would think that being THAT wrong about something THAT important would have some consequences. Not here! Consequences here are for the poor, the sick, the powerless...even when they are consequeces for other people's actions. Big Banks and Wall Street anyone?

This veteran of the Nixon-Kissinger Fig Leaf Contingent (Vietnam 1970-72) always thought that the AWOL Texas Air National Guardsman looked like a randy bantam rooster at a aviary mating ritual -- and that the Naval officers who allowed Karl Rove's political propaganda operation to debase their ship and crew in this manner deserved courts martial. A few years later, I managed to chronicle -- in verse -- just some of the Texas stud hamster's monumental bungling. More and worse came later and persists unto this day. At any rate:

"Deputy Dubya's Droopy Diaper Rap"

You fell asleep on watch and let some bad guys blow us up,
And when you woke you swore to pay them back.
You then attacked a country that had never done us harm
Which seems to indicate it's brains you lack.

You needed made-up reasons that you thought the rubes would buy.
You swore Saddam Hussein had done the crime.
You had Ms. Rice warn darkly of some sprouting mushroom clouds
In little less than forty minutes' time.

Dick Cheney spoke of spies who may have met one night in Prague
Discussing who-knows-what? or when? or how?
He claimed that all this nothing added up to something big
That justified attacking Iraq now.

Don Rumsfeld claimed to know just where to find those awful bombs.
He said he knew exactly where they were.
That none had ever come to light disturbed him not at all;
For dreams, not facts, made better sales allure.

And Colin Powell played along and told the world untruths
In service to a man who oft betrays;
And now no thinking person who resides on Planet Earth
Believes a single word that this man says.

Your CIA did what it does, whatever that might be;
And spent more billions finding zilch to fear;
But undeterred you pressed ahead until the spooks agreed
To tell you everything you longed to hear.

The Pet Press pundit sycophants fell quickly into line;
For "access" they had sold their souls for free.
You gave each one a nickname in return for which they swore
To overlook your rank stupidity.

The Congress went along and did precisely not one thing
To cure us of our doubts about their worth.
They swarmed aboard the lemming liner, "Gulf of Tonkin II,"
Which led us once again to rue their birth.

So came the night of green-hued TV pictures from "The Front"
With breathless claims of "Shock and Awe" profound
That really only lulled and bored the viewers back at home
Impressing no Iraqis on the ground.

You and your team, of course, converged to watch the main event;
To stomp and cheer each way-cool boom and bang.
You had photographers snap pictures of you gettin' down
And doin' that studly Texas hamster thang.

With manhood issues unresolved, you pranced and leaped about
With every adolescent urge fulfilled,
You launched three dozen missiles at a Baghdad neighborhood
Yet never cared to wonder whom you'd killed.

And don't you think that forty missiles seem a little much
To cut the heads off three Iraqi men
Who, anyway, were somewhere else when all the bombs arrived
And not where you supposed them to have been?

That word "decapitation" sounded swell not long ago
But now only reminds us of your lies.
Some folks have lost their heads, all right, just not the ones you planned;
Just those who drive your trucks and cook your fries.

So things have gone from only-bad to worse-than-that and more
As GI coffins come home late at night;
And billions run into the hundred-billions off the books
Which makes those foreign lenders quake with fright.

You started spouting Jesus jive because you think it sells
Among religious folks who live in dread
Of terrorist hijackers crashing into Red State barns
And working people organized and led.

To you, the Middle Ages sound like just the place to reign
With hopeless people waiting for their doom
Who every thousand years or so take off their clothes and climb
Up on their roofs to wait for what? and whom?

You learned to watch the NBA and do that high-five dance.
You've learned your three-word mantras through and through.
George Tenet taught you how to 'slam-and-dunk' and jockstrap-sniff
But still you've never grown to more than you.

Michael Murry, "The Misfortune Teller," Copyright 2005

"The leader is petting a hedgehog." (Eugene Ionesco)

That about sums up how the crowd of sycophants finds whatever "the leader" is doing worthy of validation if not admiration.

And it's this kind of echo effect issued throughout the media maze that is key to manufacturing consent. No one should under-estimate its power when it comes to influencing minds and forming mass opinions. That's why when some posters quote polls, or others speak about how the "American public" went along with thus and so, it bears mentioning that a LOT of expensive mind control (and subtle forms of psy-ops) has gone into fabricating consensus where otherwise it would never exist.

we've even had Admission Accomplished and still no one moves to bring these criminals to justice.

The Commander-in-chief is a civilian. Bush's choice of apparel on that day is a reminder that a costume is not the same as a uniform. Ask a soldier!

Dowd sez: ""Out bounded the cocky, rule-breaking, daredevil flyboy, a man navigating the Highway to the Danger Zone, out along the edges where he was born to be, the further on the edge, the hotter the intensity."

***
Wow.
Pretty hot review of a deserter's flight to San Diego.

Going AWOL was the best thing he ever did. If all of the troops went AWOL we would put an end to war.

Hey! Life is cheap! Always more unemployed kids to throw into the cannon fodder fields of Vietnam--er, I mean, AFPAK!

Besides, Iraq war has made Iran the major power in the region! Wasn't that Bush's secret plan? HA, ha.