Another presidential legacy gets the Orwellian treatment; Reagan got away with it, George W. will not

The jig has been up for some time now for the once revered Bush administration PR machine with the President's job approval rating failing to crack the fortieth percentile in more than two years. In fact, the President's numbers never really rebounded since 2005 following his hugely unpopular attempt to privatize Social Security; the tragic milestone of 2000 fallen U.S. soldiers hit and surpassed in Iraq; and of course, his administration's woefully inept response to Hurricane Katrina.

That year, Katrina's wake washed away whatever credibility remained following the exposure of this Administration's penchant for payola, staged "town hall meetings," disingenuously named initiatives like "Clear Skies" and "Healthy Forests," fabricated news reports praising the President's prescription drug program, gallingly inappropriate stunts like strutting across an aircraft carrier in a flight suit to declare "Mission Accomplished" in Iraq, and even a phony reporter planted in White House press briefings as a lifeline. Such propaganda tactics would make "The Ministry of Truth" from George Orwell's dystopian classic 1984 blush.