Fuzziness

FUZZINESS

Though not new, it’s certainly a PR strategy that’s been in the news—for lack of a better term—lately: in America, if you don’t like the truth or anything closely resembling the truth, revise and edit to make things fuzzy. Take a look at corporate America’s latest “fuzzing” of Wikipedia; if they don’t like something, they fuzzy it. Very Orwellian—yes, but I think it's more simple than that because many of the fuzzies haven’t read Orwell. Sorry. Remember: our President’s mantra in 2000 was “fuzzy numbers”; one never knew that that also meant “fuzzy realities.”

Invoking the name of General David Petraeus in the last few weeks as if he were banging his chest at a keg party, Bush has sought refuge in the General’s overseeing of the “surge”—really an escalation—and his forthcoming report on September 15th. Yet, this week we learn that Petraeus WILL not write the forthcoming report; it will be written by—frightening, I know—George. Bush and this team—I’m sure—will revise and edit whatever Petraeus reports; folks, any high schooler well-versed in cheating, lying, editing and revising knows that this is NOT a good thing.

Even Thomas Friedman, who makes me frequently “invoke” my impression of Linda Blair in The Exorcist, knows this is not a good thing. One might think that Friedman would have his pom-poms in a stir for this fuzzy Petraeus report, but no. In today’s column, Tom says it best:

Had the surge happened in 2003, when it should have, it might
have prevented the kindling of all of Iraq’s sectarian passions.
But now that those fires have been set, trying to unify Iraq feels
like doing carpentry on a burning house.

Nothing fuzzy ‘bout that. Love the “burning house” metaphor, Tom. So as Iraq burns and our soldiers yearn to get out, George W. Bush and much of his media continue to smokescreen the American public yet again by “fuzzying” reality to obscure the truth.

ADDENDUM: Please check out this post at Drinking Liberally for a more thorough overview of some of the fuzziness going on.