PR Bomb
by digby
There may be reasons for the administration to be cautious about their Libya policy right now, but when even Wolf Blitzer wakes up and wonders why they sound completely ridiculous, administration officials should probably think twice about their public relations strategy.
Blitzer: Here's what was worrying, surprising to me, even shocking. yesterday both Gates and Mullen, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, they say they have no evidence that Qadaffi is using air power to go after his enemies, the rebels, the opposition. Today, we saw it on tape he launched air strikes against targets in Bengazi. We saw Ben Wedeman get out with his life, our own CNN crew.
Is that possible? There were so many eye-witnesses reports over these past two weeks that the Libyan air force, helicopter gunships were firing at people on the ground and Gates and Mullen say they don't know anything about that?
The good news is that there was a good Pentagon embed on the set to defend them:
Pentagon Reporter Chris Lawrence: ...eyewitness accounts but they aren't US military assets.
Blitzer: The US doesn't have military assets that can see that?
Chris Lawrence: They're depending on a lot of the same reports that we're getting. They're seeing the reports from our reporters on the ground and uh, but what they're saying is, Yes, we know the bombing is taking place. What they don't know for a fact is that the bombing have directly targeted people, or directly targeted armament or...
Blitzer: it made Mullen and Gates look sort of ridiculous yesterday ... that we have no evidence that they're doing it after all these reports from eyewitnesses saying "we're getting bombed."
Yeah it did. And really? Are we supposed to believe that the US government is depending completly on CNN to tell them if bombs are being dropped and planes are strafing civilians? I'd say we're spending just a tad too much money on all that fancy technology if that's the best they can do. They don't even have phones?
Borger steps up to pivot away:
Gloria Borger: I agree and I think the question is, do the Libyans fighting the regime want intervention and, if so, what kind of intervention, right? I mean, do we know what the people on the ground want?
Uhm, if the Pentagon says they don't even have any evidence that people are getting strafed and bombed it's fairly doubtful they've been able to take a poll. But hey, you never know ...
It is even obvious to Wolf Blitzer that the administration is obfuscating and probably divided on how respond to this, which means it's glaringly obvious to any sentient person. Pretending they just don't know what's going on isn't working.
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