MSM: "Bush staged event with troops!"

The MSM is getting more worked up than a Frenchman at the thought of bathing! What's got their collective panties in a bunch this time? They're saying that Bush's addressing the troops in Iraq was staged. Details from Newsbusters:

In the Bush/Iraq segment, Today screened footage indicating that prior to engaging in a video conversation with President Bush, soldiers on the ground in Iraq were given tips by a Department of Defense official.

But the only advice that the official was shown as giving was a suggestion to one solider to "take a little breath" before speaking to the president so he would actually be speaking to him. It was also stated that some of the soldiers practiced their comments so as to appear as articulate as possible. But there was no indication, or even allegation, that the soldiers were coached as to the substance of their comments or in any way instructed what to say.

You have to understand something about the MSM. They think there is a big difference between good staging and bad staging. When liberals or the media (pardon the redundancy) stage, it's acceptable. When non-libs stage, it's an outrage!

Anyone remember Bill Clinton's walk on the beaches of Normandy in 1994? He just so happened to come upon some rocks while walking "pensively" on the rockless beach, and he bent over (keep it clean, children!) to form the rocks into a cross (for those of you in blue states, a cross is an important Christian symbol). I'm just sure it was an act of spontaneity, and not staged. Well, it had its desired effect: the press swooned like lovesick prepubescent teenie girls at a Justin Timberlake concert. Conclusion: staging good.

How about December last year, when a TN National Guardsman read a prepared (i.e. "staged", if the left wants to try a first and be consistent) question to Rumsfeld about a lack of body and vehicle armor? The question was prompted (and written) by a reporter for The Chattanooga Times Free Press who got the soldier to read the reporter's question! Conclusion: staging good.

Right after U.S. troops caught Saddam from a rathole in Tikrit, how does the media coer it? Barely had time to cover it, since they were wetting themselves over an event where Bush served a (gasp!)...turkey to the troops! Contrary to myth, it wasn't a plastic turkey, either. Doesn't matter! Conclusion: staging BAD!

Look, the troops love Bush. They voted for him to the tune of 70% - 30% in 2000 and about the same last year. Democrats' hostility to all things defense hasn't made the troops happy in a long time. This reality drives the MSM madder than Ted Kennedy on the last drop of Chivas Regal!

Nope...no liberal media bias.

UPDATE (12:34 p.m. EST): What comes around, goes around! From Newsbusters:

In a deliciously ironic twist of fate, shortly before airing a segment aimed at embarrassing the Bush administration by suggesting that it had staged a video conversation between the president and soldiers in Iraq, the Today show was caught staging . . . a video stunt.

(snip...)

Today's timing couldn't have been worse. A preceding segment focused on the incessant rains and ensuing flooding in the northeast. For days now, beautiful, blonde - and one senses highly ambitious - young reporter Michelle Kosinski has been on the scene for Today in New Jersey, working the story. In an apparent effort to draw attention to herself, in yesterday's segment she turned up in hip waders, standing thigh-deep in the flood waters.

Taking her act one step further, this morning she appeared on a suburban street . . . paddling a canoe. There was one small problem. Just as the segment came on the air, two men waded in front of Kosinki . . . and the water barely covered their shoe tops! That's right, Kosinski's canoe was in no more than four to six inches of water!

"People in canoes in a few inches of water shouldn't throw video-stunt stones."