Image IS Everything?

One of the many goals of this blog is to give the lie to deceit and sham and propaganda. The following item displays to what lengths the White House will go to create false facades and deceitful impressions.

Watching Bush's speech before the Council on Foreign Relations on TV, you never would have seen the reality: that only a handful of the total membership of this group actually showed up to hear the Presdient's speech.

Instead, according to the Washington Post:

Only a few hundred members showed up for the hastily organized event at a Washington hotel and empty chairs were removed from the back of the ballroom before Bush arrived.

You should look at the Think Progress item, since it prints an email that the Council on Foreign Relation's PR person depserately sent out to get people to attend the event.

In this era of staged events, where there is so much deceit and illusion, ferreting out the facts is hard enough. The question remains: what to do with those facts? I go on the belief that people want to know the truth. Yes, they will often twist facts to fit their beliefs and hopes, but faced with overwhelming evidence to the contrary they will ultimately change their minds.

This is why people call me an idealist.