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This is another good example of the liberal media and hopw they want to destroy America and Pres Bush
Hangin' in the Hamptons? Krugman, Herbert Sound Same Song
Posted by Mark Finkelstein on August 14, 2006 - 07:29.
Were New York Times columnists Paul Krugman and Bob Herbert hangin' in the Hamptons this weekend? Exchanging ideas at a chic cocktail party with ocean views? You might think so, judging by their columns this morning in which they sound such similar themes.
Compare Krugman: "The Bush administration and its allies in Congress saw the terrorist threat not as a problem to be solved, but as a political opportunity to be exploited."
With Hebert: "Will [Americans] continue to fall for the political exploitation of their fears of terrorism?"
Other annotated excerpts, first from Herbert's column, Aiding Our Enemies [subscription required. Note to readers: despite my reluctance to patronize the NY Times, I broke down and subscribed over the weekends. I subscribe, read and report back, so you don't have to!]
"The catastrophic war in Iraq, which has caused the deaths of tens of thousands, was a strategic mistake of the highest magnitude. It diverted our focus, energy and resources from the real enemy, Al Qaeda and its offshoots."
No wonder then that Al-Qaeda has successfully attacked the US on a number of occasions since the Iraq war began. Wait: no they haven't. There are no guarantees in this game, of course. But if Hebert is going to excoriate the Bush administration for making us more vulnerable at home, shouldn't he praise it for having protected us so far?
"The debacle in Iraq, and inhumane policies like torture, rendition and the incarceration of Muslims without trial at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, serve only to strengthen the appeal of militants who are single-mindedly dedicated to the destruction of American lives."
Given all those American misdeeds in Iraq and Guantanamo, it's no wonder that Al-Qaeda attacked us on 9/11. . . except for the fact that 9/11 came two years before we went into Iraq. So what was it that the Clinton administration did over the eight years preceding 9/11 that so provoked Al-Qaeda? Could it have been Clinton's fecklessness in the face of multiple Al-Qaeda attacks on US interests, from the Cole to the first WTC bombing at the very beginning of the Clinton administration?
Herbert approvingly cites Jessica Stern, author of Terror in the Name of God: Why Religious Militants Kill who has said:
Were in a world where Islamist terrorist leaders are teaching their followers that they have been humiliated . . . Terrorist leaders teach their followers that not only is this humiliating, but somebody else is to blame and thats us. They say that we have deliberately set out to destroy the Islamic world and humiliate Muslims.
So which is it, Mr. Herbert? Do you want us, as your column urges, to focus "like a laser on the fight against Al Qaeda-type terrorism"? Or do we need to give Al-Qaeda a hug so they won't feel humiliated?
Turning now to Krugman, who in his column, Hoping for Fear [subscription required], accuses the Bush administration of "cynicism" and "political motives" in pushing for the arrests of the latest terror plot suspects earlier than our British counterparts did.
For a New York Times representative, this is the height of chutzpah. We can all imagine the headlines had we heeded the Brits: "Bush Administration Let Terrorists Conduct 'Dry Run'".
But weighing even heavier on the Bush administration's mind might well have been the concern that had it not acted sooner-rather-than-later, the Times or another sterling member of the MSM would have alerted the terrorists by divulging the story. There were reports that so concerned was Homeland Security Chief Chertoff about leaks that he typed his own reports on the matter on his personal, secure computer. And given the Times deplorable track record in the area, just who can we imagine was the object of Chertoff's concern?
http://newsbusters.org/node/6951
No wonder then that Al-Qaeda has successfully attacked the US on a number of occasions since the Iraq war began. Wait: no they haven't. There are no guarantees in this game, of course. But if Hebert is going to excoriate the Bush administration for making us more vulnerable at home, shouldn't he praise it for having protected us so far?
Must you always quote op ed pieces to sound like a complete jackass? Moreover one which makes this mother of all claims:
Which explains the tremendously strong ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda? Or is it perhaps because we rooted them out of Afghanistan? Hmmm... Who knows... But I think that those of us who live in reality all know that its because of what happened in Afghanistan.
We killed em all in Afghanistan ???:shocked:
Once again, fake news is in the news, as it turns out that many moving stories of carnage in Lebanon were not only moving, but, well, fake. This raises major questions about the future of the news business, and offers a significant threat to free expression. As Tim Rutten observed in the Los Angeles Times:
Many, including grisly images from the Qana tragedy, clearly are posed for maximum dramatic effect. There is an entire series of photos of children's stuffed toys poised atop mounds of rubble. All are miraculously pristinely clean and apparently untouched by the devastation they purportedly survived. (Reuters might want to check its freelancers' expenses for unexplained Toys R Us purchases.) In some cases, the bloggers seem to have uncovered the same photographer using more than one identity. There's an improbable photo by Hajj of a Koran burning atop the rubble of a building supposedly destroyed by an Israeli aircraft hours before. Nothing else in sight is alight. (With photos, as in life, when something seems too perfect to be true, it's almost always because it is.) In other photos, the same wrecked building is portrayed multiple times with the same older woman -- one supposes she ought to be called a model -- either lamenting its destruction or passing by in different costumes. . . .
Some of it may stem from the urge every photographer feels to make a photo perfect. Some of it probably flows from a simple economic imperative -- a freelancer who produces dramatic images gets picked up more and paid more. Moreover, the obscenely anti-Israeli tenor of most of the European and world press means there's an eager market for pictures of dead Lebanese babies.
It's worth noting in this context that there is no similar flow of propagandistic images coming from the Israeli side of the border. That's because one side -- the democratically elected government of Israel -- views death as a tragedy and the other -- the Iranian financed terrorist organization Hezbollah -- sees it as an opportunity.
And the press seems eager to play along. Writing in the Rocky Mountain News, Dave Kopel notes:
I e-mailed some questions to Linda Wagner, the AP's director of media relations and public affairs. She sidestepped my question about access to the building, stating: "We know that, generally, access to combat sites for journalists in Lebanon is greater than it has been for journalists operating within Israel, Iraq or Afghanistan."
On July 22, Reuters published a photo of a woman crying because Israeli planes had just destroyed her apartment. On Aug. 5, the AP published a photo of the same woman in Beirut, crying because Israeli planes had just destroyed her house.
We've seen this kind of fakery before, of course, and not just where Israel is concerned. The Boston Globe ran fake rape photos purporting to show U.S. troops raping Iraqi women. The photos turned out to come from a Hungarian porn site. Nor does the fakery stop with photos. Rutten's own L.A. Times ran a nasty piece about Paul Bremer's departure from Iraq, saying that he didn't even give a farewell speech and suggesting that he was afraid to look Iraqis in the eye. In fact, Bremer had given a speech that was nationally televised in Iraq. As columnist John Leo observed in response to this bit of bogosity: "What's new about the press is that so many people who follow it with a critical eye now have an outlet to howl about inaccuracy and partisanship. The big media used to be able to shrug off critics like this. Now they can't."
No, they can't. But I have to say that I'm disappointed with their response nonetheless. I had hoped that increased scrutiny from bloggers would make the press more honest, but so far there's no sign of that. And bad or dishonest reporting is destructive and unpatriotic (note that reporting bad news honestly is not, a distinction that dishonest media defenders sometimes try to elide). Can a free press survive if the public concludes that it's in the business of purveying politically motivated propaganda on behalf of civilization's enemies? And, if this kind of thing keeps up, will people be able to resist coming to such a conclusion? The press often responds to business scandals by noting that misbehavior by businessmen is likely to undermine support for free enterprise and lead to public demands for free enterprise. I fear that the same dynamic may lead to reduced support for a free press, and to demands for government regulation of reporting in wartime.
In the meantime, we have to hope that the market will correct the problem before things get that bad. Perhaps newspapers will be less willing to use photos and stories from AP and Reuters when those stories are likely to be lies, and, and I strongly suspect that readers will be less likely to trust newspapers when they run stories that are exploded as propaganda. It's not too late for the press to save itself yet. But it's getting close.
Must you always quote op ed pieces to sound like a complete jackass?
It was a transcript of Krugman and Herbert playing the fear card
Unlike left wing sites that take quotes out of context and cherry pick phrases, the entire exchange is there to read
whatever happened to 'telling' the news? For stories, I go to Borders:
http://www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=081506C
