Bush's "Conversation" With Troops All Bogus

See, this is what bothers me: The Bush White House doesn't just lie about the big things like why we went to Iraq, but they also fib about the dumb stuff.

President Bush held what was billed as an unscripted conversation between him and U.S. troops serving in Iraq, via satellite yesterday. Sadly for Team Bush, that silly premise was quickly blown away and it was revealed that the entire affair was a propaganda infomercial, meant to show troop support for the president's agenda.

The Associated Press has the whole story here, including details of the rehearsal and scripting of the questions.

Crooks and Liars has the video of a CNN report that shows what went on behind the scenes. And NPR has some great audio portions, which show just how carefully scripted and rehearsed this "conversation" really was.

Look, we all know that Bush only speaks in front of carefully-screened fans – who often have to actually sign a loyalty oath – and that he doesn't have the natural charm and intellect of oh, I don't know, Bill Clinton. But they could at least spare us the charade of lying about it and using the troops like this.