Beldar blows a gasket.........
Seriously confused about the concepts of demagoguery and jihad
Beldar blog
Saturday, October 02, 2004
The Associated Press reports on Peter Jennings' and Tom Brokaw's defense of their embattled "competitor," Dan Rather (boldface added; ellipsis in original; hat-tip InstaPundit):
<<<While acknowledging that a mistake was made in a "60 Minutes" report questioning President Bush's National Guard service, fellow network news anchors Tom Brokaw and Peter Jennings offered their support Saturday for beleaguered colleague Dan Rather.
"I don't think you ever judge a man by only one event in his career," Jennings said at a panel on which all three men were speaking.
Brokaw criticized what he called an attempt to "demonize" CBS and Rather on the Internet, the place where the first complaints about the report were raised and heavily debated.
"What I think is highly inappropriate is what going on across the Internet, a kind of political jihad ... that is quite outrageous," the NBC anchor said.
"It is certainly an attempt to demonize CBS News and it goes well beyond any factual information a lot of them has [sic], the kind of demagoguery that is unleashed out there."
Rather declined to comment on the situation, saying he had been asked not to talk about it further by news division officials while an investigation was underway.>>>
Excuse me for a moment. I have to take a short break to calm down my poor dog, who doesn't understand why I'm screaming at my computer monitor and thinks I'm mad at her.
*******
Okay. The dog's calm, even if I'm not.
dem·a·gogu·er·y n. The practices or rhetoric of a demagogue.
dem·a·gogue also dem·a·gog n.
A leader who obtains power by means of impassioned appeals to the emotions and prejudices of the populace.
A leader of the common people in ancient times.
So who's the demagogue, Mr. Brokaw? Would you care to show me where in the Society of Professional Journalists' Code of Ethics it says that Mr. Rather and CBS News were entitled to knowingly collaborate in the propagation of forged documents in an attempt to enflame the emotions and prejudices of the populace and thereby defeat a sitting United States President?
In fact, Mr. Brokaw, I think you've just joined Mr. Rather in the Demagogue's Club. You both fit both parts of the definition — "ancient times" in this context meaning before Al Gore invented the internet.
As for the "political jihad" argument — does the NBC stylebook approve the use of the term "jihad" to describe efforts by the public to hold a network news division accountable when it conspires to perpetrate a fraud? Are are you genuinely too dense to understand the sarcasm in bloggers' self-description as the "pajamahadeen"?
Posted by Beldar
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