It is certainly not a new thing for this administration to deflect blame onto another body other than its own, but how far will they go? As you probably already know, Bush gave a press conference yesterday, his first since July. When he was asked if standing under the 'Mission Accomplished' sign on May 1 was presumptuous, he decided to blame it on the Navy. Even if it was the Navy's idea to put the sign up, it would certainly be naive for anyone to think that the president and his handlers did not know it was going to be there, hence the banner's appearance over his head throughout his speech. As Jonathan Micah Marshall from Talking Points Memo wrote today, "every such major event for a modern president is minutely choreographed."
It isn't their claim that it was the Navy's idea that bothers me. What does bother me is that they are dancing with another lie. CNN reports that Scott McClellen, Bush's Press Secretary, said yesterday, "We took care of the production of it. We have people to do those things. But the Navy actually put it up." No one doubted that the Navy put the banner up. It is safe to assume that Karl Rove and Andy Card weren't scrambling to manually hang the thing over an aircraft carrier. Still, if someone comes to you with an idea, and if you like the idea enough to make it happen, then isn't that, in essence, an approval of the idea. Therefore, saying that the Navy did it, is not only embarassingly juvenile, but it is also trying to pass it off as if you didn't think it was a good idea. Well, obviously if you made the banner then you didn't think it was a bad idea. Of course, Bush now says, "I know it was attributed somehow to some ingenious advance man from my staff -- they weren't that ingenious, by the way." First of all, Bush probably shouldn't be ridiculing anybody's lack of genius. Secondly, if they thought it was such a bone head idea, then why did they make the sign? And why was it placed above his head during his speech? Do they expect us to believe that the sign's placement was a coincedence?
The importance of who was responsible for the banner is most certainly superficial. It is just that when you see such an act of such insane bravado, you relish any oppurtunity you may have to poke fun at the idiot about it after the fact, especially when he makes such an incredible faux pas as he did yesterday. I mean here is a guy who landed on an aircraft carrier, and paraded around like Maverick from Top Gun, when it turns out he might as well have been riding the bomb like Slim Pickens in Dr. Stranglove. Because this war has gone to hell in a big way, and the banner is just another way for us to let this guy know how pissed we are about his mess.