◼ How Obama’s media strategy unraveled with recovered POW - NY Post
She knew that was not a true thing to say about Bergdahl’s service, but she had to say it because the pop-culture plotline called for it.
She also said reporters Bergdahl’s release had been urgent because he was near death — a detail that offered even greater emotional justification.
Alas, this proved not to be true either; at a closed-door meeting on Capitol Hill on Wednesday, the director of national intelligence, John Clapper, said the administration had no intelligence to suggest this.
The bottom line is that the president settled on a controversial, high- risk strategy here in a difficult and problematic manner — and then sought to use his mastery of pop culture to change the story to a more palatable one. But some stories just can’t be gussied up.
More important for the president’s future fortunes is this lesson: You can only spin for so long before you start spinning yourself. Spin and spin and spin and soon you have a whirlwind to reap.
