Absolutely amazing. The squishy Kodak moment when Bush played America’s heartstrings like a fine violin was, in large part, a hoax, a sham, a set-up. This is a great example of blogger sleuthing and I wonder why the story isn’t everywhere. How cynical can our leaders be? (No, don’t answer; it was strictly a rhetorical question.) A great example of the conspiratorial nature of this presidency.
February 4, 2005
The Discussion: 9 Comments
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1
By Sam_S (ShenzhenRen)
I don’t get how it’s a hoax, unless she actually didn’t vote. Being associated with a right-leaning anti-Saddam group doesn’t change that her father was assassinated by Saddams intelligence, and she (allegedly) voted.
True, she’s not some innocent, random, Iraqi plucked off the street to appear at the SOTU affair.
February 4, 2005 @ 7:54 pm | Comment
2
By richard
They presented her as just that, and as a victim of Saddam’s brutality. Turns out she’s tied to Newt and Jack Kemp and all the usual Republican suspects and hasn’t ;oved in Iraq for decades! And did you note how the Web sites she was affiliated with suddenly vanished, lest she be associated with Bush’s good old boys network?
February 4, 2005 @ 7:59 pm | Comment
3
By JD
Hmm… I think I may have met her once, at a “Women in Iraq” seminar type thing I covered for my university newspaper in London. The name certainly rings a bell.
Unfortunately, for some reason I placed a low priority on bringing the press pack from that day to China, so I can’t check.
February 5, 2005 @ 3:36 am | Comment
4
By David F.
She is also apparently Iraq’s ambassador to Egypt, and married to the Iraqi minister for human rights. Odd that Bush neglected to mention either of those salient facts.
February 5, 2005 @ 5:30 pm | Comment
5
By Mike J.
A hoax, a sham? That’s an inaccurate statement; there was no deception. She is Iraqi and her father was murdered by Saddam’s intelligence service. A few days ago she voted in her native country. She now serves Iraq again as an ambassador. She’s privileged; she wouldn’t be in the gallery if she wasn’t somehow special.
If you read the article in the update, where it seems the US was complicit in the murder of her father, well, I think that’s more illustrative. First we betray them, and only now we liberate them. A flawed history through and through.
February 5, 2005 @ 11:30 pm | Comment
6
By David F.
Mike J., Bush misrepresented her as an ordinary Iraqi voter who, in her gratitude to the US for liberating her country, purportedly spoke for the majority of her fellow Iraqis. The argument is that, under those circumstances, not mentioning her status as ambassador or her political activities in the US amounts to deception.
February 6, 2005 @ 4:26 am | Comment
7
By boo
From the transcript of the speech:
“One of Iraq’s leading democracy and human rights advocates is Safia Taleb al-Suhail. ”
Doesn’t sound like she’s being portrayed as “an ordinary Iraqi voter” to me.
February 6, 2005 @ 8:07 am | Comment
8
By richard
She was misrepresented as an Iraqi citizen while she hasn’t lived there in decades. Was it a lie? No. Was it deceptive and sneaky? Yes. And her deep connections to the Republican Party would certainly have cast her in a somewhat different light — which, I suspect, is why those web sites vanished overnight, the best evidence there is that they wanted to cover up her affiliations. And that’s conspiracy, and there’s certainly enough deceit and secrecy here to constitute a sham.
February 6, 2005 @ 9:42 am | Comment
9
By Enoch
ouapfsivirq poiuyt http://ghjkloaif.com/
April 3, 2005 @ 10:59 am | Comment