Annals Of Patheticity: Ari Fleischer’s Watch

Been wondering what the original Mouth of Sauron for the Bush Junta’s been up to lately? Wonder no more!

And so Ari Fleischer and some other well-financed NeoCon fellow travelers have come galloping over the hill with “Freedom’s Watch” (which I originally read as “Freedom Swatch” and immediately thought, “Ooh! I want one!” before I realized my mistake.), another “non-profit” Right Wing/White House propaganda mill like Swift Vote Veterans for “Truth”.

And boy oh boy is it a stinky little mill:

Just in case you thought the Iraq war was lost, here comes the cavalry! Former White House spokesman Ari Fleischer, tanned, rested and ready, is returning to public life with a new political action group, Freedom’s Watch, that’s promising to spend $15 million in a five-week advertising campaign designed to convince Americans that the so-called surge is working.

What’s next, are they gonna exhume Rabbi Baruch Korff and put him back on the rubber-chicken circuit?

It’s hard to determine what’s more pathetic about this: That it’s obviously being coordinated with Bush’s current White House staff (why else would Bush be making the bizarre and wrongheaded “Quiet American” and Vietnam references in his recent speeches?), that it’s directed largely at those wavering Republicans up for election who are slowly realizing that their only chance at electoral survival is to repudiate Bush and all his works, or that Ari Fleischer doesn’t even know the name of the disabled veteran who he’s shamelessly using to promote the continuance of a policy that’s killed over a million Iraqis and thousands of US and other troops?

I’ll take Door Number Three, Monty:

On MSNBC’s Hardball tonight, former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer, who is leading a White House front group to defend Bush’s escalation, was unable to name the wounded Iraq veteran featured in his organization’s pro-war ad. “I don’t have his name in front of me,” said Fleischer when asked by host Mike Barnicle if he knew the soldier’s name.

(Psssst, Ari: It’s John Kreisel.)

Paul Rieckhoff, who was on that same program, knew the guy’s name:

Later in the program, Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America executive director Paul Rieckhoff ripped into Fleischer’s offensive ignorance. “What bothered me the most is that Ari Fleischer didn’t even know the guy’s name.” said Rieckhoff. “He’s willing to run a multi-million dollar campaign, utilizing the personal story of a soldier, and he couldn’t tell you on national TV what that soldier’s name is.”

Rieckhoff described it as part of “a problematic trend” that Freedom’s Watch is using the soldier’s “personal story” as “a backdrop for political rhetoric”:

People on both sides of the aisle, but especially the president and this administration, have continued to use troops as a political prop. As a backdrop for political rhetoric. It’s why the president gave such an impassionate speech today in front of the VFW. It’s why this ad carries so much weight on a visceral level. And it really bothers me because our troops are not political props and they’re not chew toys.

Sorry, Mr. Rieckhoff, but if Ari and the gang can’t be bothered to give a rodent’s behind about the deaths of one million Iraqis in four years, they’re not gonna bother to remember the name of the guy they’re using as a stage prop. (Psssst, Ari: It’s John Kreisel.)