The New Republic reports good news from Iraq. I love the grudging good news reports that come from Liberal bastions like the NY Times and the New Republic. Of course, when the Bush haters report on improvements in Iraq, there's usually a backhand agenda lurking. This time, its Joshua Hammer gleefully reporting that "mercenaries" are taking big pay cuts and going unemployed due to the decreasing violence. See how this works? Find a bright spot, but then use it to poke Bush, Halliburton, Blackwater, whomever supported this damned war! Iraqis are *Gasp* making their own oil contracts with other sovereign nations! This flies in the face of the whole Bush-Cheney oil stealing plot, so the press spins it negatively.
Mookie Al Sadr is turning his operation into a politico-charity joint, but Bush is criticized. What was the president supposed to do, go over there and kill him with his bare hands? The Iraqi Army decimated Sadr's forces; he had no options left, but of course, the press characterized it as Sadr offering a cease-fire.
Whatever. His guns are now silent, and this is often how insurgencies end. Those still alive who want to put down weapons are invited into the political process. You can't kill 'em all. Progressives should understand that, but they would rather feign ignorance and stick it to the president.
So now comes a reporter using good news to slam the security professionals who helped create this positive situation. That's the trend nowadays, isn't it? People like Josh don't put masculine values on a pedestal, they denigrate them. Probably to mask their own feelings of inadequacy.
Blaise Pascal said it best: "Men blaspheme what they do not know."
7 comments:
Real reporters would not be "conflicted" on what's occurring. They would report what they see, objectivlely, with editorializing and without advocating one position or the other.
Imposter such as Joshua Hammer wouldn't know a real reporter if one slapped him up side his head.
Oops. Meant to say "Without editorializing..."
I know what you meant. The brain moves faster than the fingers.
As for the slap up side the head, maybe we could hire one of those unemployed mercs to do it!
I thought the invasion of Iraq was a mistake. But once we were there, I desperately wanted us to "win", that is, for Iraq to emerge as a democracy. I found it hard to understand people who, allegedly liberal and internationalist and on the side of the down-trodden, who were positively gleeful as the place seemed to be sliding towards bloody chaos. Sometimes they would grudgingly say that "of course" they did not want the country to become a charnel-house, but the way they said it belied their obvious pleasure in seeing just that -- in order to discredit George Bush and the neo-cons.
And now we see this in reporting from Iraq. With one or two exceptions, the stories always try to spin things so that the reader is left thinking ... well, it may look okay now, but it will probably slide back into chaos.
Now ... I don't want journalists to do a Pravda-in-reverse, and turn into propagandists, not even propagandists for democracy. But "neutral" journalism is not possible: everyone has a view, and that view conditions which of an infinite number of facts one chooses to attend to. And it is clear that many journalists are not really happy with the prospect of an Iraq that is beginning to move along the path towards becoming a normal country.
Doug, you're right but you're wrong about "neutral" journalism.
But if you're willing to gather facts and let the story tell itself -- it always will, if you look and see and listen, and question honestly and creatively -- other than being a cipher who goes out with predetermined ideas and finds answers to support those predeterminations, then you can report as objectively as possible.
And do a much, much, much better job than essentially all of those opinionists-masquerading-as-reporters are doing in Iraq and elsewhere.
Yup. The only way I see the press getting behind this is if Obama wins and implements his magic 16 month plan.
In that case, we would have reporters finally cheering the US on and talking about how great things are.
What a world...
Doug: You may be interested in my post on Free Tibet. I have also wondered how the internationalists can turn their back on so many catastrophes to focus solely on Bush's presumed sins.
Please drop me an e-mail.
http://warskill.blogspot.com/2008/08/whatever-happened-to-free-tibet.html
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