Anti-Americanism

The anti-American bias at Al Jazeera English became “so stereotypical, so reflexive” that former “Nightline” reporter David Marash quit his job with the Qatar-based channel, in part over that attitude. What was even more interesting was Marash's assertion that the anti-American attitude came more from the British administrators than the Arabs at AJE.

In a March 27 article, AP television writer David Bauder reported the situation that made the award-winning reporter quit (all bold mine):

Former "Nightline" reporter Dave Marash has quit Al-Jazeera English, saying Thursday his exit was due in part to an anti-American bias at a network that is little seen in this country.

Marash said he felt that attitude more from British administrators than Arabs at the Qatar-based network.

Marash was the highest-profile American TV personality hired when the English language affiliate to Al-Jazeera was started two years ago in an attempt to compete with CNN and the BBC. He said there was a "reflexive adversarial editorial stance" against Americans at Al-Jazeera English.

"Given the global feelings about the Bush administration, it's not surprising," Marash said.

But he found it "became so stereotypical, so reflexive" that he got angry.

On the 25th, the Washington Post served up a lament for Hollywood's dismal box office returns for the many Iraq war pictures it has churned out over the last several years, wondering why they have all failed so spectacularly? The whole article amounts to the Post just not understanding why moviegoers have stayed away in droves from these dark and dismal movies. But with the anti-Military, anti-American point of view depicted in every single one of these movies, it is no surprise that Americans have ignored these self-denigrating flicks. After all, with soldiers really taking casualties on the battle field, who wants to see a film that tells us all it's OUR fault? Still, the Washington Post is mystified.

After five years of conflict in Iraq, Hollywood seems to have learned a sobering lesson: The only things less popular than the war itself are dramatic films and television shows about the conflict... A spate of Iraq-themed movies and TV shows haven't just failed at the box office. They've usually failed spectacularly, despite big stars, big budgets and serious intentions.

Wednesday’s CBS "Early Show" devoted four segments to Obama’s speech on race and the Jeremiah Wright controversy and that coverage began with a proclamation by co-host Maggie Rodriguez that: "It's being called a defining cultural moment in America. Barack Obama speaks about America's racial stalemate, a moving moment, a political risk." Rodriguez went on to tease upcoming coverage of the speech by again emphasizing its "historic" nature: "It was without question a defining moment in American political history. But for an African-American presidential candidate who'd played down race in his campaign, this was a huge gamble politically."

The first of the show’s four segments featured a report by correspondent Byron Pitts, who observed: "If critics hoped Senator Barack Obama would disown his controversial pastor, they were disappointed." After speaking of Obama’s "disappointed critics," Pitts went on to praise Obama’s unifying message and give some political advice:

But beyond condemning his minister's words, Obama tried bridging the racial divide, acknowledging years of bitterness and anger amongst blacks and whites...While Obama invoked the tone of a preacher, it was a politician speaking. With a slip in the polls, the Illinois Senator needs to take the nation's attention off race and back on jobs, health care, and the war in Iraq.

Are Reverend Wright’s anti-American sermons simply taken out of context? According to "View" co-hosts Sherri Shepherd and Barbara Walters they are. Sherri Shepherd first made excuses for Wright claiming "he suffered racism full force,"and then added viewers are not getting the full context and any of "The View" co-hosts could be tagged as racist with a sound bite.

Barbara Walters concurred noting that in Joy Behar calling Barack Obama "literate" could be taken as a racial slur. Elisabeth Hasselbeck struck back challenging the co-hosts to "put [Reverend Wright’s inflammatory remarks] in a context that sounds good. It doesn’t."

Joy Behar, who does not even know the Constitution and its history, took a shot at President Bush’s intelligence labeling him illiterate and claiming if he were to give a speech about race, "it would be about NASCAR."

The entire transcript is below.

Following Monday’s sanitized coverage of the controversial comments of Barack Obama’s pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, Tuesday’s CBS "Early Show" continued to gloss over the most inflammatory of Wright’s comments, spending over 6 minutes on Obama’s upcoming speech on the issue while devoting only 16 seconds of video to Wright’s more mild statements. Following this video, co-host Russ Mitchell asked left-wing commentator Nancy Giles: "How careful does he [Obama] have to be today not to denounce Jeremiah Wright and make some black voters angry?"

The rest of the analysis with Giles, who was ‘balanced’ with Democratic strategist Joe Trippi, was entirely about political strategy, not about Wright’s statements. Mitchell asked Trippi about the possibility of race affecting Obama’s appeal: "Joe Trippi, sticking with the risk factor for a second. There are folks out there who are going to look at Barack Obama, who's made no secret of the fact that he's black of course...And look at this speech and say 'you know what honey, I just realized something today, he brought up race. Barack Obama is black.' How risky is that in this speech?"

During the roundtable segment on Monday's The Situation Room, CNN's Jack Cafferty compared the racist and anti-American words of Barack Obama's pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, to Jerry Falwell's and Pat Robertson's condemnation of the many abortions in America. Cafferty, who in January suggested that abortion is a "crap" issue, asserted: "How is this different than John McCain chasing after Pat Robertson or the late Reverend Jerry Falwell, who talk about how we have a culture of murdering unborn children in this country and that we've turned into Sodom because we coddled the gay community in this country? I mean, to me, that stuff is considerably more offensive than decrying racial violence and intolerance in this country, which members of the black community have some firsthand knowledge of." (Transcript follows)

On Monday’s CBS "Early Show," a total of over 13 minutes of coverage was given to the controversy involving comments of Barack Obama’s pastor, Jeremiah Wright, but only 16 seconds was given to play video of Wright’s comments, video which did not include some of the Reverend’s most shocking comments that September 11 was caused by U.S. foreign policy or that the AIDS virus was part of a government plot against the black community.

The coverage began with a report from CBS correspondent Dean Reynolds, who suggested the media was paying too much attention to the story: "For days now the news media have recycled Reverend Wright's sermons or at least their most inflammatory parts." That was followed by a relatively mild 3 second clip of Wright declaring: "Not God bless America! God damn America!" Reynolds went on to explain that: "Obama has denounced that and other anti-American statements, though the Senator says he never heard such comments before from the man who was his spiritual mentor." Reynolds never mentioned what those other "anti-American statements" were.

While press outlets such as the New York Times grieved over the death of Imad Mugniyah last week, they disgracefully ignored the hundreds of innocent people directly and indirectly killed by this terrorist the past three decades.

One such was Robert Stethem, a Navy Seabee diver that was assassinated on June 15, 1985, during the hijacking of TWA Flight 847; Mugniyah was one of the hijackers.

On Thursday, during an interview with WOR radio's Steve Malzberg, Patrick Stethem made his feelings known about how the press covered the death of one of his brother's slayers (9-minute audio available here):

You're all aware, I'm sure, of the several attacks against our fighting men and women perpetrated by city governments of late. The Berkeley City Council, who intended to try and kick Marine recruiting offices out of the city, and Toledo, where Mayor Finkbeiner refused to allow the Marines to exit a bus in his city when they arrived to start planned upon exercises, are all over the news. It is also well known that in Toledo, Ohio and Berkeley, California protesters for and against the Marines have been deployed to face each other and the news media have been there to chronicle it all. But, one paper has taken it upon itself to try and excuse the very people who put these ignorant politicians into office who caused these rows in the first place.

The Toledo Free Press published a recent article titled "Controversy over Marines rejection impacts city's development efforts", the main thrust of which is that people shouldn't blame the businesses of either Toledo or Berkeley for the actions of their politicians. But, after seeing all the whining about lost revenue by the business community in both cities and after seeing them plead with people not to blame them for what their politicians do, it left me wondering why shouldn't we hold voters accountable for what their politicians do?

During a two part interview on the Thursday and Friday CBS "Early Show," co-host Maggie Rodriguez asked Hugo Chavez’s ex-wife, Marisabel Rodriguez, "Is Hugo Chavez a charismatic leader or a mad man?" This was followed later by the question, "Is he a Communist?" To which Marisabel Rodriguez responded: "If he's not, he's very similar to one."

Maggie Rodriguez, who is Cuban-American, had several other questions critical of Chavez:

Just last week Hugo Chavez reportedly boasted about chewing coca leaves, which is the base of cocaine. What do you think about this? Could this have altered his mind?...Do you think he should step down as president of Venezuela?

So, scientists find the dead bodies of dozens of dolphins and baby porpoises near Miami, Florida and across the pond along Scotland's East Coast. These aquatic mammals where literally beaten to death with multiple internal injuries, lacerations, contusions and the like. Back in 1997 the whole C.S.I. treatment was given these animals and guess who these scientists first blamed? You guessed it, the United States Military. It turns out, however, that scientists have now realized that it is the "smartest" fishie on earth that is responsible. Yes, they were surprised to discover that dolphins are outright murderers. So much for a "smarter" more "peaceful" ocean, eh?

On Friday's NBC Nightly News, correspondent Jim Maceda reported that Europeans have an unusually high interest in this year's presidential election as "they say they'd be very happy with anyone who makes a clean break with the past eight years. In a word, change." Maceda also suggested that Hillary Clinton reminds some of President Bush because of her "talking tough on Iran and terrorism." Notably, while liberals have long criticized Bush for his "You're either with us or against us" line after the September 11th attacks, according to USA Today, Senator Clinton, a week before Bush's speech, used similar words as she argued that Bush should articulate "to every nation in this world, you're either with us or you're not, and there will be consequences." And, appearing on the CBS Evening News the same day, she spoke approvingly of Bush's plan to "make it clear that every nation has to either be with us or against us." (Partial audio available here.)

Reuters, in its headline for a story reporting the death of Philip Agee, a former CIA agent turned traitor, labeled Agee a "CIA whistle-blower" ("CIA whistle-blower Philip Agee dies in Cuba"). As the blog Little Green Footballs put it, Agee was "the traitor who exposed fellow CIA agents to violence and murder by revealing their names" in his 1975 book "Inside the Company: A CIA Diary."

Agee, who had worked for the CIA for 12 years both in the United States and in Latin America, resigned from the Agency in 1968 after expressing "disagreement with U.S. support for military dictatorships in Latin America." Reuters then went on to say that Agee "became one of the first to blow the whistle on the CIA's activities around the world." He died on Monday in Havana, Cuba, where he had settled in the 1980s.

[Update, 4:03 pm Eastern: See Ken Shepherd's item on AP's treatment of Agee's death.]

Moisés Naím, the editor in chief of Foreign Policy magazine, wants to pretend that he and his ilk love America. But, after reading his newest editorial, titled "A Hunger For America" where he denounces the U.S.A.'s "incompetence, recklessness and ignorance," one can only come to the conclusion that he only loves it when America does what foreigners want her to do. In other words, he doesn't love America at all, he only loves the interests and desires of others and using the power and money of America to their ends instead of our own. More ridiculously, he seems to pine for an America of the past, saying "the word wants America back," proving that his real problem is just more of the kind of boring Bush Derangement Syndrome so endemic in the MSM.

Even Naím's initial premise is flawed.

Rosie O'Donnell may have been one of Time's 100 Most Influential People, but now she is 2007's Most Annoying Celebrity. The woman who surprised blacksmiths everywhere when she claimed that fire can't melt steel trounced her competition in the Parade.com poll, getting 44% of the vote, nearly double the amount of second place winner Paris Hilton. Ann Coulter was third.

The woman who admitted that she's so gullible, she's “five seconds away” from joining a cult, also outed herself as a 9/11 Truther and floated several conspiracies. She doesn't think Al Qaeda is a threat--hey, they're mommies and daddies, too! 

But she knows who the real bad guys are. She called the US a state sponsor of terror and equated the military with terrorists. She claimed the captured British sailors were really part of a “false flag” operation (“Google it!”), and Ahmadinejad isn't all that bad. Don't worry, she is concerned about terrorists. She thinks the US is robbing 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed of his humanity by labeling him a “terrorist.” (Her sneer quotes, not mine.)

Here are some of the quotes that helped Rosie win her new title (bold mine):

Don't fear the terrorists. They’re mothers and fathers-11-09-07

Call it the Brzezinski Variation of the Some-Say Gambit. In the wake of the Bhutto assassination, Morning Joe panelist Mika Brzezinski has broken out a "friend" to put the blame on George Bush.

Joe Scarborough spoke with Mika from Florida, where he has been spending the week.

View video here.

Excerpts:

Reuters injected bias into this December 24 article about 40 missing Cuban “migrants” who never arrived in America after being smuggled out of Cuba. The article minimized Castro's oppression and faulted the US for the Cubans' flight.

The wire service began by deliberately mischaracterizing the Cubans as “migrants” instead of calling them “refugees” or even “passengers.” Labeling them “migrants” ignores Cuba's political and economic straitjacket, and more importantly links Cuban refugees to the issue of illegal immigration.

The media are beginning to call everyone who comes to America with the intent to stay, “migrants,” whether here legally or not, which erases any distinctions. People who are anti-illegal immigration often support Cuban refugees remaining in the US, and linking the two issues can reduce opposition to illegal immigration.

While explaining why the Cubans risked their lives coming to the US, Reuters ignored Castro's totalitarian regime (bold mine throughout):

How much do you have to hate your country, Christianity, and the military to actually believe that religious United States soldiers are similar to Hamas homicide bombers?

Regardless of the answer, such was the case made by Truthout Senior Editor Jason Leopold Friday, as well as in a recommended diary at the liberal website Daily Kos Sunday.

*****Update at end of post: Daily Kos FAQ section cautions readers against recommending diaries sourced from Jason Leopold articles!

Readers are warned to proceed with caution, for the following contains pictures and text that will certainly be offensive to many (emphasis added, h/t NB reader Francine):

Hollywood doesn't learn. Even though the latest round of America-hating movies flopped, Project Greenlight producer Chris Moore will turn "A People's History of the United States" by pop historian and Karl Marx fanboy Howard Zinn into a TV miniseries and a feature-length documentary.

Zinn's 1980 book influenced a generation of students with its negatively-framed distortions of American history which minimized successes like WWII. It exchanged traditional history for marginal topics such as Great Railroad Strike of 1877, Joan Baez and Angela Davis while omitting Washington's Farewell Address, the Wright Brothers and the Normandy Invasion.

The December 10 Variety stated production begins in Boston this January. Ironically, it will use wealthy celebrities like Matt Damon, Danny Glover and Josh Brolin to convey the book's Marxist theory (bold mine):

Miniseries will center on the actors and musicians as they read from the books or perform music related to their themes: the struggles of women, war, class and race. (...)

On Tuesday's "Morning Joe," hosts Joe Scarborough and Willie Geist skewered the morally relative, anti-American comments made by the women of "The View" on last Friday's edition of the ABC program. As reported on NewsBusters, hosts Sherri Sheppard and Whoopi Goldberg assigned blame to a British schoolteacher who was being persecuted in the Sudan for naming a teddy bear Muhammad.

After playing a clip of the discussion, Scarborough disgustedly asked, "And I do wonder why these people who are so quick to defend extremism like this-- I do wonder if they have any idea what they are talking about, about these cultures that abuse women." Geist asserted that some violent societies aren't "worth understanding." That prompted Scarborough to retort, "Or if we do understand them, we'll understand how evil they are and they'll need to be neutralized. Possibly killed. I'm sorry. That's just the way it is."

So, we are the "ugly American," we're always told. But to whom do they come running when they need help? Italy, France, maybe? Hardly. Still, they love to beat up on the US, and unfortunately our MSM is only too happy to act the echo chamber for anti-Americanism. This time it is Time Magazine that gleefully adds to the din of opprobrium at America with theirs titled, "US Ranked Low in Humanitarian Aid," wherein, crook and ex-UN chief Kofi Annan has decided that we are cheapskates where it concerns so-called "humanitarian aid" to foreign countries. Yes, after all we've done, after all we do around the world in their time of need, Annan and his UN cronies have the gall to call us cheap, uncaring, stingy even, where it concerns this supposed rate of "humanitarian aid" that other countries are so much more generous with. Even Luxembourg beats us according to the novel mathematics employed by Annan and others who want to attack the US of A. Ain't we Americans just such meanies?

All the co-hosts of "The View," a show intended to advance women’s voices, do not get offended by women’s persecution in the Islamic world. On the November 30 edition, in discussing the British woman charged for naming a class teddy bear Muhammad, the co-hosts did not direct any anger at the Sudanese government, but rather blamed the woman for not adapting to their culture.

Co-host Sherri Shepherd opined "you would think that with her being in Sudan, she would know the rules and customs." Whoopi Goldberg said Europeans and Americans are "not as anxious to learn the customs before we go places." And of course that’s why we’re called "ugly Americans."

The show was recorded before news of the woman’s 15 day sentence. The entire transcript is below.

WHOOPI GOLDBERG: Now in the Sudan, there’s a British teacher who is possibly going to be stoned or lashed.

JOY BEHAR: A woman.

CNN’s Jack Cafferty gave another of his rantings against the war in Iraq and the Bush administration on Monday’s "The Situation Room." Cafferty, channeling Ramsey Clark, called the war in Iraq "an unprovoked act of naked aggression," and charged that the issues of establishing a Palestinian state and the brokering peace between the Israelis and Palestinians have been "virtually ignored by the Bush administration through almost two terms."

Cafferty made this commentary on the upcoming Annapolis, Maryland peace summit eight minutes into the 4 pm Eastern hour of "The Situation Room" as part of his regular "Cafferty File" segment. In addition to the above, Cafferty speculated that the reason that the summit was occurring at this time was due to President Bush rushing to secure a legacy.

Dictator-groupie Sean Penn told Australia's The Age that Venezuelan autocrat Hugo Chavez is “much more positive for Venezuela than he is negative” and the Chavez-crafted constitution is “a very beautiful document.”

Yes, that's the same leader who is a student of the Robert Mugabe School of Economics, shut down a TV station that criticized him and just installed himself El Presidente for life. 

But hey, Venezuelans, relax! Actor/director/humanitarian Sean Penn isn't concerned that Chavez is on his way to becoming a dictator. So, stop worrying that Chavez will confiscate your home or business and force you to sew “I Heart Holocaust-Deniers” onto his custom-made Commie-red button downs.

With Update- Welcome Wonkette Readers The new album from The Eagles, Long Road Out of Eden, is just one long, sustained attack on the integrity of the United States and is as bad as any loud-mouthed Dixie Chicks diatribe. With songs prosaically about Global Warming and the evil American “empire,” seemingly the only one of the band who just wanted to entertain the fans was Joe Walsh, the others too puffed up with their own sense of superiority to bother. Unfortunately, what we have here just another exclamation from pampered rock stars that they are smarter, more environmentally friendly and more caring than the rest of us... but be sure and buy more albums for gifts folks! This album should have been titled “Long Trip to the Bank” because for much of it the band seems to be on autopilot and too much of it seems like a cynically geared ploy to sell plastic as opposed to a solid attempt to entertain. It seems that they consciously wrote this one to appeal to sectors of the radio market -- the country market, adult contemporary -- so much so that the album lacks freshness. Several of the songs are so obviously written to have a country sound in an effort to get airplay on America’s country stations, for instance, that it’s a bit hard to get past the obvious ploy to enjoy the tunes.

On Sunday’s 60 Minutes, Anchor Scott Pelley interviewed left-wing rocker Bruce Springsteen and said of the aging musician that he "sees himself following a long American tradition that reaches back through Vietnam and on to the Great Depression, from Dylan to Guthrie."

Apparently that tradition includes the ranting that Springsteen gave at a live concert on NBC's September 28 "Today" when he "yelled about "rendition," "illegal wiretapping," "voter suppression," "an attack on the Constitution," "the neglect" of New Orleans and "the loss of our best young men and women," in a tragic war." After Pelley’s description of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as "incorruptible"and "friendly"a couple weeks ago, we should not surprised by his glowing assessment of Springsteen's anti-American views.

Pelley opens the segment exclaiming that "He’s returned to full-throated rock and roll, and a message that is sharper than ever, damning the war in Iraq, and questioning whether America has lost its way at home." Pelley then helps to further frame Springsteen’s political activism and wonders what the message is:

Much of the new music is a protest. Some of it blunt, as in the song that asks "Who will be the last to die for a mistake," but most of it subtle, like the story of a man who returns to his all-American small town but doesn’t recognize it any more, "It's gonna be a long walk home." What's on your mind? What are you writing about?"

It should not be that difficult to read the Boss’s mind on that one Scott.

Joe Scarborough is still trying to wring mileage out of bashing Bill O'Reilly over his Sylvia's comments. After calling the "Factor" host a "moron" yesterday, the "Morning Joe" host was back at it today.

Six years after the fact, the attacks of September 11th seem to have lost their cultural relevancy for much of America. In a thought-provoking essay Jonah Goldberg wonders how we got to this point. In his view, it is largely a communication issue, something for which the media shares a significant amount of blame (h/t Ace):

[I]t’s important to remember that from the outset, the media took it as their sworn duty to keep Americans from getting too riled up about 9/11. I wrote a column about it back in March of 2002. Back then the news networks especially saw it as imperative that we not let our outrage get out of hand. I can understand the sentiment, but it’s worth noting that such sentiments vanished entirely during hurricane Katrina. After 9/11, the press withheld objectively accurate and factual images from the public, lest the rubes get too riled up. After Katrina, the press endlessly recycled inaccurate and exaggerated information in order to keep everyone upset. The difference speaks volumes.

Once again, and engaging in perfect Soviet styled historical revisionism, our glorious MSM presents the "truth" of how failed Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev was really the one who "helped" the U.S. win the Cold War. AP claims Gorby brought about the fall of the Soviet Union but this "ushered in an era of U.S. imperialism," which the AP claims is responsible for "many of the world's gravest problems." So, according to the AP Gorby helped the U.S. win the Cold War, but his good deed is now the cause of all the world's ills? How losing the game can equate to an assist to the winners is anyone's guess.

Every couple of months the left leaning western MSM dusts off this old loser to beat up the United States. And with this one the AP mixes their hero worship of Mikhail Gorbachev with their hatred of the U.S.A. in a crescendo of far left double speak that is just incredible for its cluelessness. The very mind boggling leftist dogma of their first two sentences is head spinning.

Covering Raul Castro's July 26 hour-long Revolution Day speech, the Washington Post characterized the fill-in dictator's latest speech as one that "hits capitalist notes while placating hard-line party loyalists." But in truth Castro's speech was the typical Communist agitprop fare: empty promises for more pay, a call for harder work from the people, and above all else, blaming the United States for the collectivist economy's failure.

"Wearing his trademark tinted eyeglasses and military uniform, Castro, 76, struck distinctly capitalist notes before tens of thousands of flag-waving Communist Party loyalists," reporter Manuel Roig-Franzia noted in his July 27 story, filed the day before from Camaguey, a city 350 miles east of Havana.

Yet from Roig-Franzia's article itself, it becomes clear Castro is not a Latin incarnation of Milton Friedman. A little more foreign investment is the only capitalist bone to be thrown Cuba's way.