On Bush and Kerry

I believe that many/most liberals are blinded to reason by their hatred of George Bush. This appears to be so complete that they take the irrational and totally unsupportable position that everything he says and does is dishonest and self-serving, and is a disaster. A complicit media made up of fellow travelers supports these ideas. These people think so little of their profession, or hate George Bush so much, that they are willing to bastardize their profession to defeat him. They are not honorable people, and they do a great disservice to the nation.They may succeed in helping defeat Bush, and elect Kerry. What a tragedy if someone with no firm political ideas like Kerry is elected because so many people hate Bush, and so many people hate Bush due in no small part to the disgraceful performance of our media. Bush isn’t perfect, but at least you know where he stands, and you can count on him not to change directions with the wind. You may not realize what a great asset that is. 9/28/04

Lies

The use of the term “lie” over the last few years would give great satisfaction to George Orwell, who predicted this loosening and twisting of language. It is evidence of the desperation and low politics of the Left today. Rather than make an honest evaluation of what the other side says, liberals now prefer to say that everyone lied about everything. If I tell you that it is going to rain tomorrow, and it doesn’t rain tomorrow, I didn’t necessarily lie to you. Perhaps I was just wrong. Frequently, perhaps most often, there is just a difference of opinion or of evaluation of circumstances, not lies. This tactic eliminates, or at least severely hampers, useful political discussion. You said earlier that Bush lied about WMD. He didn’t. He, along with most everyone else on Earth, was simply wrong about it. I know of no one who has never lied, or shaded the truth. But to say that Bush (or Clinton, or anyone else) lies all the time avoids the issues. 9/28/04

The Media

A friend recently reminded me about how the Right controls the media. For a short while, I had forgotten that Dan Rather/CBS, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, CNN, ABC, NBC, and all the others were actually biased in favor of Bush and the conservative point of view. Liberals have actually latched on to an effective, if dishonest and untrue, tactic by simply turning the “liberal media” label around. The problem is, though, that hardly any objective person really believes that, unless you want to talk about talk radio, which is a true conservative media.

However, if you believe that because newspapers and networks are businesses, and business people tend toward conservatism, thus newspaper and network news functions are controlled by the Right, that simply flies in the face of reality. Were that true, how could there be anti-Bush editorials and op-eds? What conservative newspaper or network owner would publish or broadcast them? The problem is that the “call” to journalism is most often heard by those who want to change the world for what they believe is the better, and to take on the fight for the “little guy.” These crusaders are unable to escape their ideology, and it rules their professional lives. The rest of us are the worse for their quasi-religious fervor.

Every now and then someone screws the pooch like Rather and CBS did, and we see in the full light of day who these people really are. When your job is to tell people what is going on, devoid of bias and opinion, and you are caught using fake documents to make your case, that pretty much lifts the veil behind which most reporters and news outlets hide.

Unfortunately, sad episodes like this one, which has rendered “journalists” lower than used car salesmen and politicians on the Trust List, are far more frequent than most people know. Trust me, as someone who has worked in and with broadcast and print media for 20 years, the majority of the media tilt substantially left, and the news Americans put their faith in is impure. 9/28/04

Iraq

As for Iraq: Fifteen of eighteen provinces in Iraq are prepared to hold free and open elections. This came from the Prime Minister of Iraq, a man sought out in exile by Saddam’s thugs, who broke into his home with axes to kill him. He is a man that cares about his country enough to risk his life every day to create a better nation for his people. Doubt him if you choose, but the news from Iraq focuses on the worst to the exclusion of the best and most common. This is a result of the infection of what is supposed to be an unbiased media by crusading “journalists.” By omitting the “good news” from Iraq (and elsewhere), and trumpeting the bad, it is a far easier job to convince American voters that Bush is not a good President. There are certainly serious problems there, not the least of which is the U.S. presence. But the plan has always been to train and develop the Iraqi police and military functions, and let them take on the insurgents. This is happening, and the Iraqi ability to take care of its own problems will continue to expand until one day we can walk away and leave Iraq better than we found it.

Some are overly concerned over the suicide bombings in Baghdad, and a couple of other locations. That is only part of the story. Iraq is a nation of 27 million people. Not all Iraqis live in Baghdad, in Sadr City, or in Fallujah. And not all of them, not even most of them, face daily horrors that our media wants you to believe consume the country. If that were so, why are we hearing only about the bombings in a handful of places? 

Do you truly believe there is nothing good going on in Iraq, that it is all bad? As Hiram Johnson famously said, “The first casualty when war comes is truth.” It is disgraceful that our own media has helped to kill it.

Here is some of the rest of the story, from Allawi’s address to Congress:

“Across the country there is a daily progress, too. Oil pipelines are being repaired. Basic services are being improved. The homes are being rebuilt. Schools and hospitals are being rebuilt. The clinics are open and reopened. There are now over 6 million children at school, many of them attending one of the 2,500 schools that have been renovated since liberation.

“Last week, we completed a national polio vaccination campaign, reaching over 90 percent of all Iraqi children.

“We're starting work on 150 new health centers across the country. Millions of dollars in economic aid and humanitarian assistance from this country and others around the world are flowing into Iraq. For this, again, I want to thank you.”

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“Today the foreign media have lost interest and left, but millions of dollars in economic aid and humanitarian assistance are now flowing into [Najaf and Kufa]. Ordinary citizens are once again free to live and worship at these places.”

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“Our independent electoral commission is working with the United Nations, the multinational force and our own Iraqi security forces to make these elections a reality. In 15 out of our 18 Iraqi provinces we could hold elections tomorrow. Although this is not what we see in your media, it is a fact.

“Your government, our government and the United Nations are all helping us mobilizing the necessary resources to fund voter registration and information programs. We will establish up to 30,000 polling sites, 130,000 election workers, and all other complex aspects mounting a general election in a nation of 27 million before the end of January next.” 9/28/04