June 24, 2006
Another ill deed...
From an article by Jack Kelly.
...A disturbing anecdote from Col. McMaster illustrates why. His 3rd ACR broke the insurgents' hold of the city of Tal Afar last September in an operation which generated these effusive words of praise from the town's mayor:"To the lion hearts who liberated our city from the grasp of terrorists who were beheading men, women and children in the streets...(you are) not only courageous men and women, but avenging angels sent by The God Himself to fight the evil of terrorism."Time magazine had a reporter and a photographer embedded with the 3rd ACR. When the battle was over, they filed a lengthy story and nearly 100 photographs.
"When the issue came out, the guts had been edited out of the reporter's story and none of the photographs he submitted were used," said the admiral, quoting Col. McMaster. "When the reporter questioned why his story was eviscerated, his editors...responded that the story and pictures were 'too heroic.'"...(thanks to Dave Price)
Too heroic! TOO HEROIC! Our troops were heroic, they were generously lauded as heroes by Iraqis, and to our press this is a bad thing. Something that has to be excised from the story.
This is just a little weblog, and so I don't have to be mealy-mouthed and polite and say the press is "biased." They are not biased, they hate America. They are leftists, and like all leftists, they hate this country. They usually try to disguise it in various ways, sometimes even from themselves, but it's always true.
You think I'm exaggerating? Find a leftist and read them the letter from the mayor of Tall' Afar (I blogged it here.) You won't find a single one that is not made uncomfortable, at the least, by that letter--watch 'em wrinkle the lip, and twitch. Or by the idea of an article in which American troops are presented as simply heroic and good, with no countervailing negatives added on for "balance."
Posted by John Weidner at June 24, 2006 08:14 PMThe journalists would sneer at the phrase "they hate America," because long ago they left the path of loving a country, because that was too "sentimental" and "schlocky" and too much like the middle-class bourgeois mentality of their "stuffy," "conventional" older relations that they rebelled against. Actually, they wouldn't sneer, they would be incomprehending, or patronizing ("how primitive the uneducated are" they'd think, without bothering to consider the fact that the person confronting them might have a precious university degree, and even have more academic credentials than they).
I don't think we should even bother trying to get them to admit they hate America, since in their minds they have moved beyond such mundane concerns. We may consider the fact that they also hate heroism, or at least any heroism that is of the "old" kind -- that comes out of war, or is performed by a man using his physical attributes. Their hatred of heroism is qualified, of course -- "heroism" of the sort that is a woman peace activist moving to an Iraqi village for a while, living in a UN-protected enclave and coming out for a bit to mingle with the women and children for photo ops, and then leaving as soon as she can in order to appear on CNN to denounce the hegemonic US-led war effort as destructive to women 'n' kids, that sort of heroism is okay.
Posted by: Andrea Harris at June 25, 2006 08:04 AMMy local paper (fishwrap) is symptomatic of this; in Today's paper; their front page, disparages the
Liberty Seven jihadeers; and all like them; another columnist takes the same arguments of
a Gitmo detainee's mouthpiece; argues for the
closing of Gitmo (and forgets it will be replaced
with a real bamboo gulag. The actual editorial
section; is fronted by a 30+ year investigation
of an alleged Vietnam War crime, with braod allusions to Haditha, and a comment by one of the
more extravagant John Kerry wannabees; Jimmy Massey; while another piece argues; why is it so
hard to recriut and retain troops;
Is Jimmy Massey still being pimped by the liberal media, even after being proved a liar and a fraud?
Posted by: lyle at June 25, 2006 09:28 PM
