{"id":1476,"date":"2006-10-24T09:44:32","date_gmt":"2006-10-24T16:44:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp\/2006\/10\/unstaying_the_uncourse\/"},"modified":"2006-10-24T09:44:32","modified_gmt":"2006-10-24T16:44:32","slug":"unstaying_the_uncourse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/2006\/10\/unstaying_the_uncourse.html","title":{"rendered":"UNSTAYING THE UNCOURSE"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Now for the latest addition to the Ministry of Truth&#8217;s dictionary of Newspeak, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=Jwd4BuqEo6Q\" class=inline target=new\"><strong><font color=#003399>offered on camera<\/strong><\/font><\/a> by the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/archives\/2005\/08\/jim_holts_criti.html\" class=inline target=new\"><strong><font color=#003399>Bullshitter-in-Chief<\/strong><\/font><\/a>: &#8220;We&#8217;ve never been stay the course. &#8230;&#8221;<br \/>\nFor the record, note the difference between a skeptical story of the uncourse told with a smile, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/wp-dyn\/content\/article\/2006\/10\/23\/AR2006102301053.html\" class=inline target=new\"><strong><font color=#003399>&#8220;Bush&#8217;s New Tack Steers Clear of &#8216;Stay the Course,'&#8221;<\/strong><\/font><\/a> and a credulous story told with a straight face, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2006\/10\/24\/world\/middleeast\/24policy.html?hp&#038;ex=1161662400&#038;en=ea22729b6dbcc421&#038;ei=5094&#038;partner=homepage\" class=inline target=new\"><strong><font color=#003399>&#8220;Bush Abandons Phrase &#8216;Stay the Course&#8217; on Iraq.&#8221;<\/strong><\/font><\/a><br \/>\nThe first, from the Washington Post, begins:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>President Bush and his aides are annoyed that people keep misinterpreting his Iraq policy as &#8220;stay the course.&#8221; A complete distortion, they say. &#8220;That is not a stay-the-course policy,&#8221; White House press secretary Tony Snow declared yesterday.<br \/>\nWhere would anyone have gotten that idea? Well, maybe from Bush.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;We will stay the course. We will help this young Iraqi democracy succeed,&#8221; he said in Salt Lake City in August.<br \/>\n&#8220;We will win in Iraq so long as we stay the course,&#8221; he said in Milwaukee in July.<br \/>\n&#8220;I saw people wondering whether the United States would have the nerve to stay the course and help them succeed,&#8221; he said after returning from Baghdad in June.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The second, from The New York Times, begins:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The White House said Monday that President Bush was no longer using the phrase &#8220;stay the course&#8221; when speaking about the Iraq war, in a new effort to emphasize flexibility in the face of some of the bloodiest violence there since the 2003 invasion.<br \/>\n&#8220;He stopped using it,&#8221; said Tony Snow, the White House press secretary. &#8220;It left the wrong impression about what was going on and it allowed critics to say, &#8216;Well, here&#8217;s an administration that&#8217;s just embarked upon a policy and not looking at what the situation is,&#8217; when, in fact, it is the opposite.&#8221;<br \/>\nMr. Bush used the slogan in a stump speech on Aug. 31, but has not repeated it for some time. Still, Mr. Snow&#8217;s pronouncement was a stark example of the complicated line the White House is walking this election year in trying to tag Democrats as wanting to &#8220;cut and run&#8221; from Iraq, without itself appearing wedded to unsuccessful tactics there.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><strong>Postscript:<\/strong> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.truthdig.com\/report\/item\/200601019_after_pats_birthday\/\" class=inline target=new\"><img alt=\"Pat Tillman (left) and his brother Kevin before their tour of duty in Iraq in 2003 [Courtesy of the Tillman Family, via truthdigg.com]\" src= \"http:\/\/www.truthdig.com\/images\/eartothegrounduploads\/kevin_pat_350.jpg\" width=220 align=right border=0 \/><\/a>Kevin Tillman, pictured with his brother Pat, has <a href=\"http:\/\/www.truthdig.com\/report\/item\/200601019_after_pats_birthday\/\" class=inline target=new\"><strong><font color=#003399>much to say<\/strong><\/font><\/a> about the &#8220;illegal invasion&#8221; of Iraq and the Orwellian nature of the bullshitter&#8217;s regime, including this:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Somehow subversion of the Bill of Rights and The Constitution is tolerated.<br \/>\nSomehow suspension of Habeas Corpus is supposed to keep this country safe.<br \/>\nSomehow torture is tolerated.<br \/>\nSomehow lying is tolerated.<br \/>\nSomehow reason is being discarded for faith, dogma, and nonsense.<br \/>\nSomehow American leadership managed to create a more dangerous world.<br \/>\nSomehow a narrative is more important than reality.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Kevin Tillman joined the Army with Pat in 2002 and served with him in Iraq and Afghanistan. In Afghanistan Pat was killed by friendly fire. The <a href=\"http:\/\/www.msnbc.msn.com\/id\/4815441\/\" class=inline target=new\"><strong><font color=#003399>Pentagon lied<\/strong><\/font><\/a> about the circumstances of his death, claiming he was killed by the Taliban, to exploit him as a hero and prop up the image of the Army.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Now for the latest addition to the Ministry of Truth&#8217;s dictionary of Newspeak, Bullshitter-in-Chief: &#8220;We&#8217;ve never been stay the course. &#8230;&#8221; For the record, note the difference between a skeptical story of the uncourse told with a smile, &#8220;Bush Abandons Phrase &#8216;Stay the Course&#8217; on Iraq.&#8221; The first, from the Washington Post, begins: President Bush [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1476","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-main","7":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbvgEs-nO","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1476","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1476"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1476\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1476"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1476"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1476"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}