Hey, would *I* make up a rude, disrespectful title like that? Implying that Dear Leader was just the littlest, teensyest bit of a fraudulent flatulent faker?

Naw, I'd have said something WAY ruder. But I think it's pretty damn out-there for the WaPo. From our Esteemed Mr. Froomkin, whose only tut-tut comes for placing this at the very bottom of today's column. However, with great originality, he titled it:

Today's Staged Event

Bush this morning participated in a video teleconference with U.S. troops in Iraq.

In a scene reminiscent of his carefully staged domestic town meetings, part of the session was devoted to questions and answers -- with Bush asking the questions. And the answers all seemed, well, quite scripted.

As Tom Raum writes in his initial report for the Associated Press: "'Do the Iraqis want to fight, and are they capable of fighting?' he asked. He was told they were."

I've got to wonder: Will later reports on this photo op describe how the participants were selected and prepped? How did they know just what to say? What about all those unpleasant facts that tend to belie Bush's optimistic rhetoric?

On CNN, at least, Jamie McIntyre injected this note of cynicism: "Obviously," he said. "this format was not a format for a frank exchange of views."

Yahoo seems to have picked this up, and of course Atrios had it. Just a couple more nudges should get this all over the Nightlies this evening.

Like the Preznit No Give Me Turkee Trip, with the plastic bird of Baghdad a few years ago, not to mention all the other phony staged "town meeting" events throughout the campaign and now in the Lame Duck years, there is nothing new about the fakery of the Chimperator. What's new is it getting reported on to the masses who don't read blogs.