Spokesmen

During a brief period in 2003, I was tempted to make fun of the USA's search for mythical weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, which I likened to a quest for the Grail [display]. I didn't carry on with this website for long, because I soon discovered that things weren't in any way funny. Back in those days, everybody laughed a lot at the comical declarations of the Iraqi spokesman Muhammad Saeed al-Sahhaf.

You can find several amusing samples of al-Sahhaf's outpourings on YouTube. As for the man himself, it's said that he's currently leading a happy family existence in the United Arab Emirates. Maybe, observing the situation in Iraq, al-Sahhaf is having the last laugh.

In my sarcastic website, I imagined a certain Aristobulus Flavius, Scribe of the Oval Office, latter-day image of Josephus Flavius, author of The Jewish War. The real man in question was Ari Fleischer, who resigned in 2003 after getting horribly mixed up in the Scooter Libby affair... which I've often mentioned briefly in the past:

— article of February 3, 2007: All my trials, Lord [display]

— article of March 7, 2007: Goat stories [display]

— article of July 9, 2007: Woman who has paid the price [display]

— article of August 14, 2007: Brain removal [display]

All of that is past history. Today, we learn that a dyed-in-the-wool Bushman, also a former presidential spokesman, has just turned traitor. The mere title of the memoirs published by Scott McClellan sets the tone: What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception.

Obviously, we've reached the stage where it's no longer wise for a head of state such as Saddam or Bush to employ a spokesman. Would this mean that chiefs should henceforth speak personally for and by themselves, unaided? That could well be a greater calamity.