Frank Rich: It Takes a Potemkin Village

Legend has it Potemkin erected a series of fake villages to impress empress Catherine II on her visit to the Crimea in 1787. Frank Rich is of the opinion that, metaphorically speaking, the administration is doing the same thing over 200 years later to impress a skeptical public. They have the full article over at B12 Partners. $Q: What raised the “Plan for Victory” show to new heights of disinformation was the subsequent revelation that the administration's main stated motive for the address - the release of a 35-page document laying out a “National Strategy for Victory in Iraq” - was as much a theatrical prop as the stunt turkey the president posed with during his one furtive visit to Baghdad two Thanksgivings ago. Rich not only convincingly proves the assertion, he pulls back the curtain on the entire amateur-hour propaganda war the administration is waging.