In an article online at the Jewish World Review, Charles Krauthammer comments on the recent kerfuffle over the Armenian Genocide resolution currently being considered by our noble Democrats in Congress.
There are three relevant questions concerning the Armenian genocide.
(a) Did it happen?
(b) Should the U.S. House of Representatives be expressing itself on this now?
(c) Was House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's determination to bring this to a vote, knowing that it risked provoking Turkey into withdrawing crucial assistance to American soldiers in Iraq, a conscious (columnist Thomas Sowell) or unconscious (blogger Mickey Kaus) attempt to sabotage the U.S. war effort?
The answers are:
(a) Yes, unequivocally.
(b) No, unequivocally.
(c) Heaven only knows.
I posted recently here on blog648 about my own reaction to the motivation behind Ms. Pelosi’s determination to bring this bill to the floor. In it I offered my opinion that the resolution is more about obstructing the war effort than about genocide and the Donks know exactly what their doing, and I insisted that it’s a brilliant strategy to bring the war effort to an end without having to defund the troops because passing this bill will provoke the Turks into cutting off our supply lines and bring failure in Iraq by virtue of the fact that we won’t be able to support our troops logistically.
But Krauthammer disagrees.
So why has Pelosi been so committed to bringing this resolution to the floor? (At least until a revolt within her party and the prospect of defeat caused her to waver.) Because she is deeply unserious about foreign policy. This little stunt gets added to the ledger: first, her visit to Syria, which did nothing but give legitimacy to Bashar al-Assad, who continues to engage in the systematic murder of pro-Western Lebanese members of parliament; then, her letter to Costa Rica's ambassador, just nine days before a national referendum, aiding and abetting opponents of a very important free-trade agreement with the United States.
Is the Armenian resolution her way of unconsciously sabotaging the U.S. war effort, after she had failed to stop it by more direct means? I leave that question to psychiatry. Instead, I fall back on Krauthammer's razor (with apologies to Occam): In explaining any puzzling Washington phenomenon, always choose stupidity over conspiracy, incompetence over cunning. Anything else gives them too much credit.
Well, okay. I guess I stand corrected, then. She and they aren’t so smart after all.
I don't know. I'm just not 100% convinced.
Friday, October 19, 2007
BHUTTO BLAMES DEADLY ATTACK ON “MILITANTS” (scare quotes mine).
The reason I put the scare quotes around the word "militants" is because I have doubts that that’s the actual word she used. Did she speak in English, and is "militant" the actual word she used? I’m just asking, that’s all. Granted, she may have said it, but I’m just so suspicious of our media elite that I take everything they report with a grain of salt.
And with good reason.
I read an article online a couple of years ago in a publication that’s aimed at publishers, editors and media big shots. It said that the media has a responsibility to stop the war in Iraq, or at least do all in their power to bring it about. Yes, it was an American publication.
And I’ve looked at everything they say with a jaundiced eye ever since.
Merriam-Webster defines "militant" as 1: engaged in warfare 2: aggressively active especially in a cause.
"Soldier" as: a person in military service esp : an enlisted man or woman.
"Military"as 1: of or relating to soldiers, arms, war, or the army
2 : performed by armed forces; also : supported by armed force
Synonyms martial, warlike.
"Terrorism" : the systematic use of terror especially as a means of coercion
–ter*ror*ist \-ist\ adjective or noun.
"Terrorize" 1 : to fill with terror : SCARE 2 : to coerce by threat or violence
Synonyms terrify, frighten, alarm, startle.
Soon after 9/11 President Bush declared that our nation was at war, and called the struggle the Global War on Terror. We would combat terrorism with armed force, or in other words, with our military forces.
Almost immediately, our media elite quit using the word "terrorist" and "terrorism" and began substituting the word "militant".
Why? Because it legitimized the terrorists by equating them with our military. It made them merely the opposite side of the same violent coin.
They also began aggressively denigrating our armed forces in order to de-legitimize them by equating them with terrorists. If they couldn’t find actual cases of abuses or atrocities committed by U.S. armed forces, they made them up. Examples: the Haditha non-massacre and the flushed Koran at Guantanamo.
By making U.S. armed forces to appear as evil and villainous as the terrorists, they make the war effort harder to carry out. It’s part of their agenda to stop the war.
Remember, now, 90% of the people in the media are Democrats or Democrat sympathizers. Most of them don’t even know any conservatives, and there are no known conservatives in their social circles. There may be some, but not vocal ones, because it doesn’t pay, if you’re a conservative journalist, to let that fact be known. Conservative journalists don’t get hired, and if they do get hired, they don’t get very far in the corporate organization. In other words, they don’t get promoted.
Liberal journalists are having a hard time living with the fact that George W. Bush was elected, twice, to the presidency in spite of all they could do. They are baffled and mystified by the electorate, and can’t understand how someone like Bush could have come to power in our times. They think the American electorate is mostly stupid, ignorant and uneducated, but if they can just "educate" them, they will become enlightened and brighten up. So part of their agenda is to tell the American people, not just the facts, but what to think about them.
And if the facts don’t fit the narrative of their agenda, they don’t hesitate to make them up. Example: the "fake but accurate" Texas Air National Guard documents that supposedly proved George W. was a shirker of his military obligation that came to light just weeks before the 2004 presidential election.
The 2006 mid-terms in which the Democrats won slim majorities in both houses of Congress have given them hope. President Bush responded by replacing the secretary of defense and changing strategy in Iraq. Robert Gates was confirmed by Congress as the new secretary and General Petraeus was confirmed as the new head of coalition forces in Iraq. Petraeus advocated bringing more troops into Iraq and squashing the insurgency by force of numbers.
Well, Harry Reid, the Democrat Majority Leader in the Senate, wasn’t going to stand for any of that non-sense. He stood on the floor of the Senate and declared that the war was lost and we should bring the troops home because the "surge" was an utter failure. Before it had even started, the surge was a disaster. He tried to kill the baby while it was still in the cradle. The elite media was shamelessly complicit.
He was parodied and mocked in the blogosphere. Someone photoshopped a picture of him dressed as a pre-invasion Iraqi general and posted it on the internet. Here it is.
But recent trends in Iraq and Afghanistan have been disconcerting to the media because things aren’t going as poorly as they led us to believe they would go. The quagmire that is Iraq is indeed a quagmire, alright, but for al-Qaida, not the Coalition.
In spite of everything they could do to see that it didn’t happen, it looks like progress is being made in Iraq.
In spite of everything they can do to make it look as if we’re on the verge of a second Great Depression, our economy is still healthy and robust, with low inflation, low unemployment, strong gross domestic product, and a trade deficit that is plummeting. All the good news about our economy is downplayed or ignored altogether.
The truth is that elite media do indeed consider themselves the elite of America and in fact, the world. They are contemptuous of conservative Americans, patriots and those who serve in the military. They consider all of these people "the great unwashed masses", although they are careful to never put it in writing.
Their problem is that they can’t hide their contempt and condescension. It comes through in all their products. It’s unmistakable, and people see it and reject it. As a result, major newspapers, such as the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times, as well as many others, are losing money as subscribers vote with their pocketbooks and cancel subscriptions and refuse to read their "dead tree editions".
In the meantime, talk radio, especially conservative talk radio, is robust, even riotous, not shy at all about heaping criticism and contempt upon the Democrats and the liberal media. And their audience is growing, while progressive Air America has been on the verge of bankruptcy because they can’t seem to attract listeners, and if they can’t attract listeners, they can’t attract sponsors, and they have to survive by donations and bailouts from liberal fat cats like George Soros.
Well, the Democrats are going to do something about that, by golly, and so they’ve started talking about reinstating the "Fairness Doctrine" that was institutionalized in the 60's and 70's when there were only three main networks and so radio and tv stations were required to give "equal time" to opposite sides of political issues. It had a chilling effect on political debate, because producers had to sit with a stop watch and keep track of what one side said and then give the opposition equal air time to rebut. It was much easier to just not get involved.
When the so-called Fairness Doctrine was done away with because there were so many media outlets that all sides had access to the media, right wing talk radio found an audience and a home, and has been going strong ever since.
The liberals and Democrats regret the demise of the Fairness Doctrine because they seem to have lost ground in talk radio. They seem to be doing alright in the other forms of media, although some of them have fallen upon hard financial times. I believe they could cure that if they could cure their liberal bias and get rid of their "progressive agenda".
Okay, well, now that I’ve got that off my chest, I feel better. Thanks for reading.
And with good reason.
I read an article online a couple of years ago in a publication that’s aimed at publishers, editors and media big shots. It said that the media has a responsibility to stop the war in Iraq, or at least do all in their power to bring it about. Yes, it was an American publication.
And I’ve looked at everything they say with a jaundiced eye ever since.
Merriam-Webster defines "militant" as 1: engaged in warfare 2: aggressively active especially in a cause.
"Soldier" as: a person in military service esp : an enlisted man or woman.
"Military"as 1: of or relating to soldiers, arms, war, or the army
2 : performed by armed forces; also : supported by armed force
Synonyms martial, warlike.
"Terrorism" : the systematic use of terror especially as a means of coercion
–ter*ror*ist \-ist\ adjective or noun.
"Terrorize" 1 : to fill with terror : SCARE 2 : to coerce by threat or violence
Synonyms terrify, frighten, alarm, startle.
Soon after 9/11 President Bush declared that our nation was at war, and called the struggle the Global War on Terror. We would combat terrorism with armed force, or in other words, with our military forces.
Almost immediately, our media elite quit using the word "terrorist" and "terrorism" and began substituting the word "militant".
Why? Because it legitimized the terrorists by equating them with our military. It made them merely the opposite side of the same violent coin.
They also began aggressively denigrating our armed forces in order to de-legitimize them by equating them with terrorists. If they couldn’t find actual cases of abuses or atrocities committed by U.S. armed forces, they made them up. Examples: the Haditha non-massacre and the flushed Koran at Guantanamo.
By making U.S. armed forces to appear as evil and villainous as the terrorists, they make the war effort harder to carry out. It’s part of their agenda to stop the war.
Remember, now, 90% of the people in the media are Democrats or Democrat sympathizers. Most of them don’t even know any conservatives, and there are no known conservatives in their social circles. There may be some, but not vocal ones, because it doesn’t pay, if you’re a conservative journalist, to let that fact be known. Conservative journalists don’t get hired, and if they do get hired, they don’t get very far in the corporate organization. In other words, they don’t get promoted.
Liberal journalists are having a hard time living with the fact that George W. Bush was elected, twice, to the presidency in spite of all they could do. They are baffled and mystified by the electorate, and can’t understand how someone like Bush could have come to power in our times. They think the American electorate is mostly stupid, ignorant and uneducated, but if they can just "educate" them, they will become enlightened and brighten up. So part of their agenda is to tell the American people, not just the facts, but what to think about them.
And if the facts don’t fit the narrative of their agenda, they don’t hesitate to make them up. Example: the "fake but accurate" Texas Air National Guard documents that supposedly proved George W. was a shirker of his military obligation that came to light just weeks before the 2004 presidential election.
The 2006 mid-terms in which the Democrats won slim majorities in both houses of Congress have given them hope. President Bush responded by replacing the secretary of defense and changing strategy in Iraq. Robert Gates was confirmed by Congress as the new secretary and General Petraeus was confirmed as the new head of coalition forces in Iraq. Petraeus advocated bringing more troops into Iraq and squashing the insurgency by force of numbers.
Well, Harry Reid, the Democrat Majority Leader in the Senate, wasn’t going to stand for any of that non-sense. He stood on the floor of the Senate and declared that the war was lost and we should bring the troops home because the "surge" was an utter failure. Before it had even started, the surge was a disaster. He tried to kill the baby while it was still in the cradle. The elite media was shamelessly complicit.
He was parodied and mocked in the blogosphere. Someone photoshopped a picture of him dressed as a pre-invasion Iraqi general and posted it on the internet. Here it is.
But recent trends in Iraq and Afghanistan have been disconcerting to the media because things aren’t going as poorly as they led us to believe they would go. The quagmire that is Iraq is indeed a quagmire, alright, but for al-Qaida, not the Coalition.
In spite of everything they could do to see that it didn’t happen, it looks like progress is being made in Iraq.
In spite of everything they can do to make it look as if we’re on the verge of a second Great Depression, our economy is still healthy and robust, with low inflation, low unemployment, strong gross domestic product, and a trade deficit that is plummeting. All the good news about our economy is downplayed or ignored altogether.
The truth is that elite media do indeed consider themselves the elite of America and in fact, the world. They are contemptuous of conservative Americans, patriots and those who serve in the military. They consider all of these people "the great unwashed masses", although they are careful to never put it in writing.
Their problem is that they can’t hide their contempt and condescension. It comes through in all their products. It’s unmistakable, and people see it and reject it. As a result, major newspapers, such as the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times, as well as many others, are losing money as subscribers vote with their pocketbooks and cancel subscriptions and refuse to read their "dead tree editions".
In the meantime, talk radio, especially conservative talk radio, is robust, even riotous, not shy at all about heaping criticism and contempt upon the Democrats and the liberal media. And their audience is growing, while progressive Air America has been on the verge of bankruptcy because they can’t seem to attract listeners, and if they can’t attract listeners, they can’t attract sponsors, and they have to survive by donations and bailouts from liberal fat cats like George Soros.
Well, the Democrats are going to do something about that, by golly, and so they’ve started talking about reinstating the "Fairness Doctrine" that was institutionalized in the 60's and 70's when there were only three main networks and so radio and tv stations were required to give "equal time" to opposite sides of political issues. It had a chilling effect on political debate, because producers had to sit with a stop watch and keep track of what one side said and then give the opposition equal air time to rebut. It was much easier to just not get involved.
When the so-called Fairness Doctrine was done away with because there were so many media outlets that all sides had access to the media, right wing talk radio found an audience and a home, and has been going strong ever since.
The liberals and Democrats regret the demise of the Fairness Doctrine because they seem to have lost ground in talk radio. They seem to be doing alright in the other forms of media, although some of them have fallen upon hard financial times. I believe they could cure that if they could cure their liberal bias and get rid of their "progressive agenda".
Okay, well, now that I’ve got that off my chest, I feel better. Thanks for reading.
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