Press Ignore History-making Italian Election: No Commies Elected

Michael Ledeen over at the National Review's Corner reminded me today that the recent elections in Italy resulted in a historic event- for the first time since World War II, no Communist was elected to the Italian Parliament. And in an equally positive corollary, no member of the fellow-traveling Green party won either. Mr. Ledeen also noticed something that the Big Media around the world managed to miss- the incoming government will be decidedly pro-American and pro-George W. Bush. Ledeen writes,

Tomorrow's papers will pretend that this didn't happen, and warn that Berlusconi's allies in the Northern League are mercurial and dangerous, and that his majority isn't as stable as it looks. But it is. And there's an even more annoying feature to these elections, as seen by the chattering classes: Berlusconi is an outspoken, even passionate admirer of George W. Bush and the United States of America. Reminds one of the elections that brought Sarkozy to the Elysee, doesn't it? Best to keep that quiet, or somebody might notice that hatred of America doesn't seem to affect the voters in Italy, France or Germany.

When many foreign governments were in office that enjoyed spiting Mr. Bush's initiatives, the media reported that Bush's America was 'unilateral', although the U.S. would have liked to work with those countries- it was their incumbent governments who preferred not to co-operate with the United States. Now that Germany, France and Italy are governed by those who are more admiring of Mr. Bush, will the Press report that in fact, the previous issues were mostly caused by the attitudes of the foreign governments, and not Mr. Bush's supposed arrogance and unilateralism? Will the Press admit that from the first, this Administration has worked well with many other countries, though those workings are not always in plain view?

Certainly the Bush Administration has made a great number of mistakes. However, the level of vitriol directed at this Administration by the Press is astonishing, especially considering that there appears to be no logical reason for it. The Press has distorted and downright twisted many of the actions the Administration has taken, and their dishonest presentation of the Coalition and its accomplishments has limited the ability of the American people to understand the magnitude of the task and how things have changed. If not for real journalists like Michael Yon, perhaps the media would have succeeded in twisting the tale of Iraq to match their dark victory in Vietnam.

So now that many of our traditional allies in Europe have chosen to elect governments with pro-American and pro-Bush sentiments, perhaps all that loud talk about Bush's 'going it alone' was simply blather. But I won't hold my breath waiting for the media to acknowledge how wrong they were- they never apologize, just move on to the next hit job.

[Cross-posted on StoneHeads]