As the propaganda that led America to attack Iraq [3] continues to fall apart, President Bush is looking for scapegoats for his own PR stunts. "The triumphal 'Mission Accomplished' banner was the pride of the White House advance team [4], the image makers who set the stage for the president's close-ups. On May 1, on a golden Pacific evening aboard the carrier Abraham Lincoln, they made sure that the banner was perfectly captured in the camera shots of President Bush's
speech declaring major combat in Iraq at an end. But on Tuesday in the Rose Garden, Mr. Bush publicly disavowed the banner... 'I know it was attributed somehow to some ingenious advance man from my staff. They weren't that ingenious, by the way.' ... The banner 'was suggested by those on the ship,' [Bush press secretary Scotty McClellan] said. 'They asked us to do the production of the banner, and we did. They're the ones who put it up.' The man responsible for the banner, Scott Sforza [5], a former ABC producer now with the White House communications office, was traveling overseas on Tuesday and declined to answer questions. He is known for the production of the sophisticated backdrops that appear behind Mr. Bush with the White House message of the day, like 'Helping Small
Business,' repeated over and over." On May 16th the New York Times reported that "White House officials say that a variety of people, including the president [5]" came up with the carrier landing stunt. We wonder, is that super-sexy flight suit President Bush wore on its way to the Smithsonian, or the shredder?