Anti-Americanism

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.

First it was the traumatized Vietnam veteran, now are Iraq vets set to become the next "progressive" cliché?

Being the strapping patriot sort of folks that they are, the Hollywood left is gearing up to release a bunch of anti-military movies that portray veterans of the Iraq war as deranged psychopaths, screwed up by an "unjust" war. The New York Times's Michael Cieply reports (h/t Instapundit):

Now some in Hollywood want moviegoers to decide if the killing is emblematic of a war gone bad, part of a new and perhaps risky willingness in the entertainment business to push even the touchiest debates about post-9/11 security, Iraq and the troops’ status from the confines of documentaries into the realm of mainstream political drama.

You can't possibly make this up: the producer of the 9/11 truther film "Loose Change" was arrested Monday for - wait for it! - deserting the Army.

As reported Wednesday by the Daily Star (h/t Hot Air, emphasis added):

Korey Rowe, 24, a veteran of Afghanistan and Iraq, was picked up by deputies at about 10:45 p.m. Monday, Otsego County Sheriff Richard Devlin Jr. said.

Rowe, along with Dylan Avery and Jason Bermas, are members of Louder Than Words, a production company that is working on a third edition of the movie "Loose Change," which contends the U.S. government was involved in the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

In his bio at the film's website, Rowe referenced his military service, but not that he was allegedly never officially discharged (emphasis added):

Updated with video below:

Following on the heels of the Daily Kos' anti-military “Killitary,” former Air America host and “Saturday Night Live” alum A. Whitney Brown vlogged about our “idiot” murderous troops who are “crapping in their pants” in Iraq and the Republican zombie-drones who “support” them.

In the comment thread, Brown confirmed this wasn't satire, stating it was “all about anger, not humour” and offered a sarcastic (non) apology to an offended Koz Kid, “It was not my intent to defame or offend anyone who might sign a piece of paper saying they are available to kill whoever their marginally superior officer tells them to, wherever they are sent, for 1200 dollars a month.” That's nice. Enjoy (bold mine):

Hello, I’m A. Whitney Brown, and I support our brave troops overseas. We all do and we all should. But what about those troops who are not so brave? Perhaps they just signed up hoping for some extra money for college, for the medical insurance, or even some hot gay military sex.
(...)
But do I still support the individual men and women who have given so much to serve their country?
(...)
I think they’re a bunch of idiots. I also think they’re morally retarded. Because they sign a contract that says they will kill whoever you tell me to kill. And that is morally retarded.
(...)
To to sum up, I don’t like our troops, I don’t like what they’re doing, I don’t like their fat, whining families...

The hatred for America's military emanating from the left in this nation reached a new low on Thursday when a blog was posted at Daily Kos entitled "KILLITARY: Are America's Armed Forces Creating Serial Killers and Mass Murderers?

In it, Corey Mitchell, a crime author and editor of In Cold Blog, addressed the "list of serial killers and mass murderers who have spent time in the military" while making the case that "a seemingly normal, everyday, All-American soldier [can] turn into a brain scooping cell phone camera posing beast."

Or, even Son of Sam or Jeffrey Dahmer. "It's all about the training."

According to Charles Johnson at Little Green Footballs:

Last Saturday, NewsBusters shared a truly disgraceful Ted Rall cartoon that depicted a United States soldier as a suicide bomber.

On Friday, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, in its "Cartoons From Around The World" section, featured a rather revolting "comic" by German cartoonist Rainer Hachfeld. In it, a panel showed children in Afghanistan shooting toy guns playfully at an American military plane, with panel two dramatizing the same plane attacking the kids with gunfire clearly hitting one as the other ran screaming for cover.

How delightful.

As this is the property of cartoon syndicator Daryl Cagle, copyright laws prevent unauthorized distribution. However, as the above link indicates, Hachfeld's piece was also published at Cagle's MSNBC.com webpage.

NewsBusters' member Saw the Light, who forwarded this piece to me, made the following sage observations about the cartoon which he has given me permission to share:

As American media turned anti-war in late 2003 in order to assist Democrats in the upcoming 2004 elections, a common strategy of comparing the war in Iraq to Vietnam was implemented.

In fact, since the March 19, 2003, invasion, there have been thousands of press reports which included the words Iraq and Vietnam.

With this is mind, our friend Jim at Gateway Pundit posted an absolutely fabulous analysis on Thursday of just how absurd such comparisons are (h/t Glenn Reynolds):

After reporting on the compassionate U.S. soldier rescue of abused Iraqi orphans, CBS’s Lara Logan ran a follow up story on the June 21 edition of "The Early Show." To her credit, Logan continued to defend the soldiers. She noted that an Army captain went "back to check on the 24 boys he and his soldiers rescued" and "thanks to these soldiers...the boys’ lives were saved."

Upon reporting that the Iraqi labor and social affairs minister accused Lara Logan of reporting a "lie" and that the U.S. soldiers that rescued these emaciated boys "have no compassion," Logan played a gracious remark from an unidentified U.S. soldier.

On Thursday, Instapundit’s Glenn Reynolds was curious how quickly Israel would be blamed for Hamas’ activities in Gaza, with the answer expeditiously coming from the Boston Globe.

Well, CNN’s Jack Cafferty one-upped the Globe Friday by actually blaming Hamas' takeover of Gaza on – wait for it! – President George W. Bush.

Color me unsurprised.

In his normal spot on CNN’s “The Situation Room,” Cafferty exhibited some of the most extraordinary Bush Derangement Syndrome yet as he blamed every problem in the Middle East on the current White House (video available here):

The Middle East Media Research Institute published a rather concerning announcement Thursday regarding the Global Islamic Media Front’s new campaign to bombard non-Islamic websites with pro-Islamic propaganda (h/t Charles at LGF, emphasis added throughout):

"What we expect from you brothers and sisters is for the [Islamist] forum to be like beehives during the raid... [whereby] one person takes part in distributing [material]... another generates links... one person writes an article... while another writes a poem... People must feel and notice that the forums have changed radically during this blessed raid..."

How pleasant. The announcement continued to quote from this GIMF directive:

The Long Memory Brigade here at MRC remembered Flag Day with a few reminders we've published in our Notable Quotables newsletter. The Left can easily display their contempt for the American flag. For example, there's this dropping of unpatriotic nastiness from the days right after 9/11 in The Nation:

"My daughter, who goes to Stuyvesant High School only blocks from the World Trade Center, thinks we should fly an American flag out our window. Definitely not, I say: The flag stands for jingoism and vengeance and war. She tells me I’m wrong – the flag means standing together and honoring the dead and saying no to terrorism. In a way we’re both right....[The flag] has to bear a wide range of meanings, from simple, dignified sorrow to the violent anti-Arab and anti-Muslim bigotry that has already resulted in murder, vandalism and arson around the country and harassment on New York City streets and campuses." -- The Nation’s Katha Pollitt in a column in the October 8, 2001 edition.

 

Update Below:

Fox News and Variety have reported that Larry Register, former longtime CNN producer, resigned Friday from Al Hurrah, which is a US government-funded TV station in the Mid-East that is supposed to be a type of Mid-East Voice of America combating the pervasive anti-US and anti-Israel rhetoric in on TV stations like Al Jazeera.

As I noted here at NewsBusters in March, “within weeks” of Register taking over in 2005, the station took a sharp turn toward the radical. Award-winning investigative journalist and columnist Joel Mowbray and the Wall Street Journal have been on top of this story, reporting the problems, which included Register reversing the Al Hurrah policy banning terrorists as guests, that resulted in the broadcast of most of an anti-US/anti-Israel rant by Hezbollah leader Sheikh Hasan Nasrallah and giving other terrorists and extremists air time. Al Hurrah later covered the Iranian conference that denied the Holocaust and hired Yasser Thabet, a well-known Al Jazeera editor who had a habit of “fawning over terrorists,” including broadcasting Osama Bin Ladin's unedited propaganda videos because “[i]t's important to hear [Bin Ladin's] opinions.”

Variety reported Register's resignation June 10 and printed a portion of the letter he submitted (bold mine throughout):

So, what is CNN?

THIS is CNN in 1998; the link is to a story debunking the network's Peter Arnett and April Oliver, who accused Vietnam soldiers of war crimes in Operation Tailwind.

This is from 2003. The network's Eason Jordan confessed that the network twisted the news out of Saddam Hussein's Iraq, thereby giving false impressions of the regime to the world so that it could maintain its access to the country (the article is posted at the author's web host for fair use and discussion purposes).

Then there's this from 2005. Eason Jordan accused the US military in Iraq of targeting journalists, and ultimately resigned in the wake of the outcry. "Somehow" the actual video footage of Jordan's accusations, made at the World Economic Forum in Davos, never surfaced.

Next, there's this incredible episode from 2006, where the network showed videos of enemy snipers killing American soldiers in Iraq. Even more incredibly, the videos were marketed on corporate affiliate Time Warner Cable as an On Demand offering.

Now there's this -- paying to have a story staged (bolds are mine):

What is it about some news outlets that they can't report a story without trying to flavor it with their own biases? That they can't give "just the facts m'am" but have to throw in their snide asides and negative phraseology? And, it's bad enough when they do it in their normal attempts at "reporting" the news, but when they do it in between an upbeat report by one of our soldiers who's opinion is that the surge is working and our presence in Iraq is a good thing, it's all the more grating. But, then, they just can't leave their hatred for American foreign policy aside long enough to report this soldier's enthusiasm, now can they?

In this case, Boise, Idaho TV 2 News, in a story by Scott Logan, just can't leave the snide comments out of their story of Army First Sergeant Noah Edney's enthusiastic point of view on our efforts in Iraq. Even the title seems to take a swipe at policy: Boise Infantryman In Baghdad Shares Views On "Surge" -- notice the quotation marks around the word surge? Even as surge is a commonly acceptable term and not one to be questioning with quotations they cast doubt onto it by using the grammatical device.

But, if you might think the parenthesis around the word surge might not be suspect, they quickly set the record straight on how they feel about the policy with their very first line of the story.

On Sunday night’s “1/2 Hour News Hour,” comedian Dennis Miller gave Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada) the on-air tongue-lashing that every conservative in America has longed for since Reid replaced Tom Daschle as the Democrats’ top guy in that chamber of Congress.

In a two and a half-minute evisceration, Miller referred to Reid as a “dim bulb” stating that he’s had it with the Senator’s “projectile naysaying” while deliciously presenting his views “with no due respect.”

For your entertainment pleasure, here are some of the highlights (video available here, h/t Hot Air):

The reader is warned to proceed with caution, for the piece of…"journalism" to be addressed here is truly one of the most vile and disgraceful examples of Bush Derangement Syndrome I’ve seen.

In fact, it is so much so that I will not copy one single sentence of this detritus beyond the headline which appeared at the Huffington Post early Monday morning, and is still prominently featured there 58 hours later, which tells us a lot about the proprietor and her readership.

With “How to Foil a Terrorist Plot in Seven Simple Steps,” screenwriter and director Nora Ephron has despicably disgraced all Americans working for various federal agencies as they risk their lives trying to protect this nation from another terrorist attack.

What's the matter with Cuba? Why is its economy a disaster, its people mired in poverty? Could it be . . . communism? Of course not. Cuba's dire straits are the fault of that hegemonistic entity just to the north of the Florida Straits. Oh, and Cuban youth could care less about being enslaved. Don't believe it? Ask Andrea Mitchell.

The NBC correspondent appeared this morning at 7:10 am EDT on a special live-from-Havana edition of "Today," anchored by Matt Lauer.

NBC CORRESPONDENT ANDREA MITCHELL: The island's infrastructure is crumbling, crippled by a U.S. trade embargo that has lasted nearly half a century.

That was the sum total of Mitchell's explanation of Cuba's economic woes. Although Cuba is free to trade with all the 180-or-so other countries in the world, she offered not a word suggesting the brutal communist dictatorship could be to blame for what Matt Lauer had earlier acknowledged is the 50-cents per day average wage. True, Mitchell was seen boldly inveighing for change to a government official . A U.S. official, that is. Interviewing Cuban-born U.S. Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez, Mitchell made her case for lifting the embargo.

On Saturday, a NewsBusters headline asked the following question: “JFK Terror Plot: How Soon Before Media Blame Bush For Timing of Arrests?”

Well, Sunday morning, ABCNews.com actually went one better by using a statement made by John Murtha (D-Pennsylvania) on “This Week” as the headline for the video of George Stephanopoulos’ interview with the Congressman: “Murtha Ties Foiled JFK Plot to U.S. in Iraq.”

In reality, Murtha was brought on to counter the “things are getting better” in Iraq after the surge viewpoint expressed by the previous guest, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani (video available here).

Yet, about one minute into Stephanopoulos’ interview with Murtha, the Congressman said (video available here):

Washington Times reporter Martin Arostegui has an excellent article in today's paper about the socialist leaders of two South American countries following Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez's example by moving to restrict press freedoms in their respective countries. By contrast, the news didn't even meake the "World in Brief" digest on page A16 of today's Washington Post:

SANTA CRUZ, Bolivia -- The leaders of Bolivia and Ecuador are moving with Cuban encouragement and in concert with their mentor, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, to restrict press freedom in their countries.

Bolivian President Evo Morales and Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa both announced steps to crack down on independent broadcasters within days of Mr. Chavez's closure on Sunday of Venezuela's main independent television station, RCTV.

Updated with video (14:35 EDT).

On Wednesday’s "Good Morning America," the ABC program attempted to justify and explain away the booing that Miss USA, Rachel Smith, received in Mexico City during Monday night’s Miss Universe pageant. In a tease for the segment, GMA anchor Diane Sawyer even wondered aloud, "Was it fair?"

Video (1:21): Real (2.19 MB) or Windows Media (2.49 MB), plus MP3 (376 kB)

A website has sprung up called FireElisabethHasselbeck.com and has a petition for people to sign if they think token non-liberal Elisabeth Hasselbeck should be fired. So far over 18,880 people have signed in support of firing the woman the petition calls the “aggressor throughout the entire discussion.” The petition reads like a satire of what actually happened but with the two hosts' names reversed (all emphasis is mine):

Elisabeth began by interrupting Joy with sarcastic comments as Joy attempted to provide some facts about the George Bush presidency, and then continued as Elisabeth angrily defended her refusal to respond to the Republican pundits who incorrectly said that Rosie called the U.S. troops terrorists. As the discussion progressed, Rosie repeatedly tried to de-escalate the situation and not get into a disagreement. However, Elisabeth angrily continued in her blind defense of this administration and her criticisms of Rosie’s views. While many have portrayed this fight as one over politics, it was really a fight about friendship and Elisabeth’s refusal to support Rosie by denouncing what these pundits were attempting to say about her.

ABC has just announced co-host Rosie O'Donnell will not return to "The View." Brian Frons, president of Disney ABC's Daytime Television made the announcement.

"We had hoped that Rosie would be with us until the end of her contract three weeks from now, but Rosie has informed us that she would like an early leave. Therefore, we part ways, thank her for her tremendous contribution to 'The View' and wish her well."

"View" creator Barbara Walters also made her statement.

"I brought Rosie to the show. Rosie contributed to one of our most exciting and successful years at 'The View.' I am most appreciative. Our close and affectionate relationship will not change."

Brent Bozell, President of the Media Research Center which publishes NewsBusters, appeared live Thursday night on FNC's Hannity & Colmes to discuss Michael Moore's latest far-left documentary, Sicko. IMDb describes it as “a comedy about 45 million people with no health care in the richest country on earth.” Sean Hannity pointed out how the New York Times called it “a virtual love letter to Hillary Clinton” and how in it Moore takes workers sick from the 9/11 site to Cuba to get better health care.

Bozell characterized Moore as “Dennis Kucinich-crazy” and recalled how “Michael Moore said in 2003 that the Saudi Arabian royal family was hiding bin Laden in Saudi Arabia and the Bush administration knew where he was.” Indeed, that comment from Moore to HBO's Bob Costas was a runner-up in the “The I’m Not a Geopolitical Genius But I Play One on TV Award” category at the MRC's 2004 DisHonors Awards (posted with a streaming Real clip and transcript).

Video clip of Bozell's appearance (3:40): Real (2.7 MB) or Windows Media (2.3 MB), plus MP3 audio (1.2 MB)

Canadians are mad as heck, and this time, they’re not going to take it. Michael Moore went too far to be ignored, which meant that a Canuck really gave him “what for” in the form of a polite but pointed recap of a heated press conference on Saturday for the premiere of “Sicko,” Moore’s one-sided US health-care hit job, which debuted at Cannes Film Festival .

 May 20, Toronto Star entertainment reporter Peter Howell wrote in the ideologically left of center paper that the Canadian journalists who saw “Sicko” were less than happy with his “playing fast and loose with the facts” and churning out a one-sided Pollyanna treatment of Canadian health care, presenting a system without problems. After being chastised by some of the most polite people on Earth, he fired back and leveled a truly terrible offense at them by stating their system is barely a step above America's. Quelle horreur!

Read what one of the few articles critical of Moore and his accuracy had to say about the movie's obvious problems with Moore’s film (bold emphasis mine throughout):

On the May 21 edition of "The View," co-host Rosie O’Donnell responded to the fall out from her moral equivalency rant on Thursday. Rosie claims some cable news outlets "twisted" her words, and then got personal with token non-liberal Elisabeth Hasselbeck, calling her critics the "crappy shows" that "Elisabeth watches."

"But I didn't say it. You know who said it? Those crappy cable shows said it. The ones Elisabeth watches. Those shows."

Hasselbeck harshly reacted to those comments and it prompted Rosie to personally attack her more.

HASSELBECK: I watch all cable news, number one. I watch all of the, because that's part of my job and as an American citizen I try to broaden as many concepts as possible by watching all those news programs, okay. I do, obviously, like, like certain shows. I'll throw them out if you want me to. Like "Hannity and Colmes," they're one of my favorites, because they hold debates [applause] They hold debates on that show and I think that is, that is like what we do here only, you know, we have four women. And I think it's special here. But to say that, you know, someone can't hold two thoughts at the same time just because I believe in terrorism when there are Democrats out there running for office who don’t want to believe in terrorism and they want to treat it like the boogeyman. How are they going to protect us from something--

There's been some good television in England lately. First it was the hard-hitting special "The Great Global Warming Swindle," now, the BBC, of all places, ran a great special on anti-Americanism. Joseph Loconte reports:

Restrained praise is in order for the BBC’s Radio 4 series on anti-Americanism called “Death to America.” The brainchild of senior Washington correspondent Justin Webb, the three-part program examined the hatreds toward America that are bubbling over in France, Venezuela, Egypt and beyond. “A pattern was emerging and has never seriously been altered,” Webb said of his experience of anti-Americanism in Europe. “A pattern of willingness to condemn America for the tiniest indiscretion—or to magnify those indiscretions—while leaving the murderers, dictators, and thieves who run other nations oddly untouched.”

It was this realization, he said, that launched him into the series, which aired three consecutive weeks last month. Any regular consumer of the BBC, if he’s honest, must admit that Webb’s simple insight is rarely if ever heard across the BBC’s media colossus. It took gumption for Webb to approach his superiors about the program concept, and a refreshing measure of fairness for the BBC's top brass to sign off on it. [...]