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July 15 - 31, 2003 |
VOL. 1 ISSUE 7 |
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MEDIA WATCH HOW TO STILL SOUND RIGHTEOUS WHEN CAUGHT LYING AND YOUR POLICIES ARE FOUND TO BE DISASTROUS by Betsy R. Vasquez |
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July 17, 2003 – $1.9 trillion dollar deficit as a result of the massive tax cuts. A war that has turned out to be exactly what the other side had warned, an unnecessary mess with no exit strategy. Lie upon lie being investigated and berated publicly. So what are all the right wing talk show hosts to talk about? Do they dare say something honest, admit the policies they backed were wrong, that the President they pushed was the liar Gore and Nader supporters said he was? Do the Limbaughians apologize, do a mea culpa, ask forgiveness, and, most importantly, get with the right policies and people? MSNBC HARDBALL: G. Gordon Liddy leads a "debate" to assert why, "that the President doesn’t need to justify the war." FOX NEW’S SEAN HANNITY: Screaming rage about a man who sexually assaulted an 11-year old girl. KABC RADIO’S AL RANTEL: Using the accident in Santa Monica that killed 9 and injured 50 to express rage at how liberals stand in the way of passing laws against elderly drivers. And it goes on. One right-wing AM host took on some local law that was only, supposedly, being considered by someone somewhere that would make a fine for becoming rowdy at sporting events. And so you see, the formula becomes more and more obvious – keep the right-wing audience hating – hating something, someone, and somehow blame the liberals for it. MSNBC – fresh off its employment of Michael Savage – allows this convicted felon to ask the question – or more accurately, assert his idea - that the President doesn’t need to justify the war. He doesn’t? Tell that to the aunt of a soldier who was just killed who said, in an interview with Minnesota Public Radio, "President Bush made a comment a week ago, and he said, 'bring it on.' They brought it on and now my nephew is dead." link: http://news.mpr.org/features/2003/07/14_zdechlikm_iraq1/ Call me crazy, but I think the President just might have to have a good reason why this young man had to die, and anyone who suggests otherwise should maybe go die in his place – I can’t justify exactly why, but Liddy's point was that I don’t need to. The Bush/Limbaughians clearly have no morals, never care to admit fault or change to useful policies, and there is no level they will not sink to. Take the other two examples. Talking about the man who sexually assaulted the 11-year old and the car accident. What does this have to do with disastrous tax-cuts, the President lying to lead us to war, failing in the war on terror? Answer: everything, because shifting focus, always finding some absurd, hateful thing to talk about is how the media gets people to support people and policies they don’t even agree with. The line of implication is that if you are a Democrat, a liberal – in fact, anyone who doesn’t support the President – you are like the man who sexually assaulted the 11-year old. If you don’t back the President in this battle over whether or not he lied, you are responsible for the old man plowing into that crowd of people in Santa Monica. That’s the game. A law against getting too rambunctious at sporting events. Rather than deal with the fact that the man they backed is a liar and a disaster, they will spew hate about how "absurd" such a law is when laws already exist to punish bad public behavior. Desperate. Pathetic. The right-wing puppets on parade. Hannity, Liddy, Rantel, Fox News, MSNBC, and KABC-Radio that employ them and give them their forums respectively. As you can see, the right-wing domination of the media is not some far corner, just-on-some-irrelevant-station-no-one-listens-to thing. It is the mainstream, and the far corners, the near corners, and every little slime-filled crevice. Wait, it doesn’t stop there. Their next tact is going to be, as displayed by Frank Gaffney, president of the Center for Security Policy, writing in Canada’s National Post, to equate questioning whether or not the President lied about WMD’s with helping Saddam – yes, the "un-Patriotic" and "threat to your own country" garbage again. Here is a taste of it, as excerpted in Howard Kurtz’ Media Notes column in the Washington Post: "Somewhere, probably in Iraq, Saddam Hussein is gloating. He can only be gratified by the feeding frenzy of recriminations, second-guessing and political power-plays that are currently assailing his nemeses: President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair. "The hysteria surrounding charges that faulty British intelligence about one aspect of Saddam's nuclear weapons program -- and a Bush 2003 State of the Union allusion thereto -- may even be emboldening Saddam to believe the unimaginable: He might yet survive (physically and perhaps politically) the current pair of U.S. and British leaders, just as he did their predecessors in the wake of Operation Desert Storm. "It is hard to believe that Americans of any political persuasion would actually want to gladden the heart of so vile a tyrant as Saddam Hussein, let alone to encourage those who seek his return to power. This is particularly true in light of the evidence of his regime's odious predations that have come to light since Iraq's liberation." As we said, they are pathetic, and there is no level this new breed of Bush/Limbaugh Republican won't stoop to to avoid truth and keep people in fear and hating so they can get their votes. Hey, I hear some kid just stole bubble gum from a candy store. Maybe you pathetic jokes can use that to shift focus from the fact that North Korea is piling up the nukes, Osama is free and planning his next attack, and our front-line defenders are severely underfunded. How proud one must be to be a Bush-supporting Republican – creatures so un-American they make Benedict Arnold seem like a brave patriot in comparison. |