MSM A-Western, A-Historicism
— Bruce Kesler
Democracy Project
In a discussion of the media’s attitude toward the U.S. in Iraq on Hugh Hewitt’s radio show yesterday, with Slate online magazine’s Mickey Kaus and Instapundit’s Glenn Reynolds, they estimated that 80% or 90%, respectively, are “anti-Bush” and 65% or 85%, respectively, are “anti-war.”
Mickey Kaus commented:
<<< First, then, they’re very careful about who they hire. And if they hire somebody who Bush makes puke, or whatever he wrote in that memo [John Green, currently executive producer of the weekend edition of ABC’s GOOD MORNING AMERICA], he’s not going to change his spots just because he’s ordered to be sensitive. So, these people are all over the media, they have tenure, they’re not going away. >>>
What has largely “gone away”, due to inbreeding and ageing, has been the seasoned reporters of yesteryear. One, whom I’m proud to call a friend, is Sol Sanders. I last wrote about him in September:
<<< Seasoned Asia reporter Sol Sanders never forgets. Or, I should say, Sanders has forgotten more than most ever knew. He’s been a correspondent for Business Week, US News & World Report and UPI. Those knowledgeable who experienced the Vietnam War know him as one the finest correspondents there, and his contacts and experience continue to be invaluable. >>>
In an email to me this morning, Sanders wrote at length about the roundly discredited screed from Harvard, “The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy”, that repeated every anti-Israel shibboleth it could find. (Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz even traces much of the arguments to neo-Nazi sites.) Sanders added this personal experience:
<<< I always remember my rented car driver in Cairo, an Arab, in the mid-60s who told me he was originally from Haifa, that he had been told if he left for a couple of weeks he could come back and get his Jewish neighbors' property. He was frank and rather philosophical about the whole thing, just remarking sarcastically, that it had been a long two weeks. As some of us older types remember, the Arab states' radios called on the local Arabs to sabotage and leave…. In fact, there were no Palestinian Arabs until Arafat -- born in Egypt -- put them together in his fashion. I was alongside the so-called Palestinian Brigade in the British 8th Army just as the war ended in northern Italy in 45 -- they were Jews, mostly Germans and Austrians from Tel Aviv, volunteers who fought through the whole Italian campaign [forbidden, by the way, by the British command from crossing into Austria for fear they would try to revenge themselves -- more than once I gave them lifts in my ambulance to visit their old summer holiday retreats on the Wiessen Zee. Until relatively recently "Palestinians" were Jews from the Mandate. The others were Arabs. Also there has been steady the inflow of Arabs before WWII from elsewhere as the Jews drained the swamps, started the citrus industry, revived tourism, etc., etc. >>>
Sanders’ regular column at World Tribune is a must read for understanding the underreported stories, and the story behind the stories, of Asia.
Young reporters, particularly those whose education and training is virtually bereft of historical knowledge and experience, are – at best – dupes of propagandists and current reporting fads. At worst, they are without basic grounding in Western civilization.
Historian Victor Hanson was on another segment of Hugh Hewitt’s show yesterday.
<<< Hewitt: …What is the disease in the media? Where did it come from?
Hanson: I think it came, to be frank, between the journalism schools, the academic training of a lot of the people, and this affluent, elite culture, to be frank, that comes out of the universities on the left and right coasts, that's divorced from the tragic view, because these people are not...they don't open hardware stores. They don't service cars. They've never worked physically with their hands. They have an idea in this international culture of the West that somehow, all of their affluence, all of their travel, all of their freedom came out of a head of Zeus, and it's not dependent on the U.S. military, the United States role in the world. They have no appreciation for the very system that birthed and maintained them. And they've had this sort of sick cynicism, nihilism, skepticism, and the height of their affluence and leisure, that they don't have any gratitude at all, which is really one of the most important human attributes. Humility to say you know, I'm very lucky to be a Westerner, and have certain freedoms. And that's why he cannot appreciate what we're trying to do in Iraq, because he has no appreciation of the very idea that he can jet out of Baghdad anytime he wants on a Western jet that's going to get him safely to a Western country, where he's going to be protected, that the people in Iraq want that same thing that he doesn't seem to appreciate. And that's...I know I'm sounding a little emotional, but that's been one of the most depressing aspects of this entire media... >>>
Arnold Kling in today’s TCS offers key questions to prospective 2008 presidential candidates. They should be widely distributed to see whether the candidates share the view with concrete policies, rather than platitudes:
<<< I see myself as an American, first and foremost. I value America for its folk beliefs in liberty. >>>
Kling’s questions:
<<< Do you believe that it is possible for America and its values to co-exist with a militant Islam as strong and as popular as it appears to be today?
If your answer is "yes," then:
· Does that mean that you envision a world in which American values have a sphere of influence and Islamofascism has its sphere of influence, and we achieve a sort of detente?
· What parts of the world are you prepared to see come under the Islamofascist sphere of influence?
· Are you prepared to see the Islamofascist sphere armed with nuclear weapons?
· How would you defend the American homeland if Islamofascists choose to attack?
If your answer is "no," then:
· Do you believe that Islamic militancy can be reduced through appeasement, or does it have to be opposed militarily?
· Who do you see as our key allies, and who do you see as our key adversaries?
· What is your strategy for limiting the military capability, particularly access to weapons of mass destruction, of Islamic militants?
· How important are American values in this conflict?
· How would you go about promoting American values abroad? >>>
These same questions need to be asked of every journalist writing about Iraq.
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