[Vnbiz] Georgie Bush Jr, Google & News: Vietnam +/-Iraq +/-War = Oops

[AD Marshall]

2007-08-23 Georgie Bush Jr, Google & News: Vietnam +/-Iraq +/-War =
Oops<http://sighgone-ho.blogspot.com/2007/08/google-news-georgie-bush-jr-vietnam.html>This
has to be one of Georgie Junior's biggest PR screw-ups to date.  Keep the
troops in Iraq to avoid another "Vietnam", he told the world.  The world
Press has pounced on this one like a pack of starving dogs.  If Bush Jr's
Admin' weren't on their way out, you'd almost think they were desperately
insane.

Skimming the hundreds of titles listed yesterday from some thirty news feeds
via Google Reader <http://www.google.com/reader/>, it started to seem almost
grossly negligent to continue ignoring Bush Jr's breach of his own Admin's
PR taboo on comparing the USA's Iraq war to it's Vietnam debacle just three,
four decades earlier.

[image: undefined]
From the TimesOnline UK <http://www.timesonline.co.uk/>, 23.Aug.2007,
"Bush invokes Vietnam to justify Iraq commitment"

[image: US president George Bush during a speech to the Veterans of Foreign
Wars National Convention in Kansas City, Missouri.]
US president George Bush during a speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars
National Convention in Kansas City, Missouri. Photograph: Jim Young/Reuters
From Guardian Unlimited <http://www.guardian.co.uk/>, 22.Aug.2007,
"Bush gambles with Vietnam reference over Iraq"

Some four years ago, searching Google for "Vietnam" became increasingly
tedious as more and more comparisons between the USA's Iraq and Vietnam wars
started marching in step with preparations for the Iraq invasion and Bush
Jr's denials of any relationship between the two misguided and ultimately
regrettable conflicts.

Eventually, it wasn't worth searching for "Vietnam" unless "Iraq" was
excluded, along with the old exclusion for "war" that had always been
needed.  A year or two later, the Iraq exclusion could be dropped as the US
Admin's PR strategists succeeded in pushing such invidious comparisons out
of the memory and interests both the USA's media and public.

But, yesterday, those same old comparisons came rushing back online, this
time promoted by the very Admin' that had worked so hard to suppress any
such comparisons, just a few years earlier.

Take a look at the Google stats from roughly 10h00-11h00.Thu.23.Aug.2007.ICT.
The specific period has to be mentioned because the numbers below where
rapidly rising with each page refresh ("|" means "OR"; "-word" means exclude
"word"; "word1-word2" means find the exact phrase "word1 word2"):

   - Web: 223,000,000 for vietnam | saigon | hcmc | hanoi | hochiminh
   <http://www.google.com/search?q=vietnam%257Csaigon%257Chcmc%257Chanoi%257Chochiminh&safe=off>
   - Web: 157,000,000 for vietnam | saigon | hcmc | hanoi | hochiminh
   -iraq -war <http://www.google.com/search?q=iraq-war&safe=off>
   - Web: 24,500,000 for
iraq-war<http://www.google.com/search?q=iraq-war&safe=off>
   - News: 25,262 for iraq-war<http://news.google.com/news?q=iraq-war&safe=off>
   - News: 24,948 for vietnam | saigon | hcmc | hanoi |
hochiminh<http://news.google.com/news?q=vietnam%257Csaigon%257Chcmc%257Chanoi%257Chochiminh&safe=off>
   - News: 13,196 for vietnam | saigon | hcmc | hanoi | hochiminh -iraq
   -war
   <http://news.google.com/news?q=vietnam%257Csaigon%257Chcmc%257Chanoi%257Chochiminh+-iraq+-war&safe=off>
   - News: 5,478 for vietnam | saigon | hcmc | hanoi | hochiminh iraq
war<http://news.google.com/news?q=vietnam%257Csaigon%257Chcmc%257Chanoi%257Chochiminh+iraq+war&safe=off>
   - News: 5,407 for vietnam iraq
war<http://news.google.com/news?q=vietnam+iraq+war&safe=off>
   - News: 2,734 for vietnam iraq war
   <http://news.google.com/news?q=bush+vietnam+iraq+war&safe=off>bush
   <http://news.google.com/news?q=bush+vietnam+iraq+war&safe=off>

Take your own snapshot now. Clicking on the link for each page-count above
takes you to the latest Google search results -- providing new numbers, not
the ones above. (Warnings: For consistency, underlying URLs turn
"Safe-search" off, force Google home to be used, not google.com.vn or other,
and browser differences are ignored.)

We might do an update or two ourselves, later on.  For now, a couple pieces
from "America's Oldest Journal Covering the Newspaper Industry", Editor &
Publisher <http://www.mediainfo.com/eandp/>, might be worth a read:

   - Apocalypse ... Now? Press Explores Bush's Iraq/Vietnam
Link<http://www.mediainfo.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003628927>,
   Greg Mitchell, Editor, August 22, 2007 10:55 AM ET
   - LBJ's 1965 Vietnam Speech Echoed By Bush
Today<http://www.mediainfo.com/eandp/columns/pressingissues_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003629456>,
   Greg Mitchell, Editor, August 22, 2007 ET

--
Posted By Mặc AD Marshall to SighGone, Hø! at 8/23/2007 11:42:00 AM
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