The Media Campaign to Unseat G. W. Bush
The following is a joke sent to me by my sister-in-law:
***The Pope is visiting DC, and President Bush takes him out for an afternoon on the Potomac, sailing on the presidential yacht, the Sequoia. They're admiring the sights when, all of a sudden, the Pope's hat (zucchetto) blows off his head and out into the water. Secret service guys start to launch a boat, but Bush waves them off, saying, "Wait, wait. I'll take care of this. Don't worry." Bush then steps off the yacht onto the surface of the water and walks out to the Holy Father's little hat, bends over and picks it up, then walks back across the water to the yacht and climbs aboard. He hands the hat to the Pope amid stunned silence. The next morning the topic of conversation among Democrats on the Hill, CBS News, NBC News, ABC News, the New York Times, and in all the papers in France and Germany is: "BUSH CAN'T SWIM." ***
While not all that incredibly humorous, it manages to capture the essence of the state of mainstream media. As we near the election, there isn’t even any attempt to balance their reporting. And with regards to the war in Iraq, after months & months of non-stop negative reporting (you’d swear every US serviceman/woman & western civilian were dead by now), the same source of all this negativity commissions a poll which finds – gasp! – for the first time more Americans are against our involvement than for it.
Way to go, you anti-Americans! It’s kinda like a self-fulfilling prophecy, or actually more like propaganda. Repeat the same theme over and over, ad infinitum, and – viola! – people start to believe it, true or not. All you have to do is sample some of our servicemen/women’s journals/e-mails or whatever, and you’ll see a different view. Try some
Iraqi bloggers, and you’ll get a perspective completely lacking in western media. I saw an
brain-dead op-ed piece in the WaPo where the jerk had the nerve to suggest that our soldiers have to rely on the press to get out a realistic message as to what’s happening in Iraq. No, seriously, he does! And I quote:
“…The point is that enough officers in the field sense that what they see happening to their troops in Iraq is so out of sync with Washington's version that they must rely on the press to get out a realistic message. That is usually how defeat begins for expeditionary forces fighting distant insurgencies.”
Do NOT read the whole thing; you hear the same crap everyday – no need to waste your time.
UPDATE: This past Sunday, my local rag, the
Hoosier Times (what do you expect from the paper of record in Bloomington, IN?), reported on the Iranian court’s acquittal of the only defendant in the murder trial. Front page, ala Abu Gharib? Nope, page A8. How’s about the
WaPo? A search of their website using the murdered photojournalist’s last name turned up one article on the subject, also on Sunday. Front page? Nope, page A18 with no follow up to date. CNN? The name "Kazemi" fails to turn up anything after 18 July 2004, when they reported that the Iranian judiciary had abruptly ended the trial, although I thought I saw a link to an article referencing the recall of the Canadian ambassador (can’t find it now). Let’s try the
NYTimes – well, I don’t have access to their dead-tree publication, so I don’t know where the story may have ended up. I’d bet you the farm that it wasn’t on Page One. To their on-line version’s credit, they have links to articles released Sunday (7/25) with follow-ups from today. Sure would like to see a hardcopy…
My point is – HER HEAD WAS BASHED IN!!! Where is the coverage, the outrage??!! Can you imagine the headlines if a US soldier had fractured an Iraqi women’s skull and KILLED her? And don’t you know that you wouldn’t have to dig thru the pages to find the story - it would be Page One for months.
At least we know where the media bias can be found…
