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Politics : Right Wing Extremist Thread -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: gao seng who wrote (17206)	9/25/2001 3:48:05 PM
From: DMaA	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 59480

Just like Diane Sawyer "accidentally" left out "endowed by their creator" when she read the declaration of independence. Diane Sawyer skipped over "endowed by their creator." During ABC’s hour-long "Independence Day 2001" special from Philadelphia’s July 4 celebration, Sawyer read the preamble to the Declaration of Independence. Well, most of it. She announced: "You know, it’s hard to imagine now that it was such a shocking idea at the time, these words: ‘We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, endowed with certain unalienable Rights, among these Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.’" I was in New Hampshire last week where neither the Boston or Manchester ABC affiliates carried live the 10pm EDT broadcast hosted by Sawyer and Charles Gibson (they showed the concert from Boston’s Esplanade which featured Peter Jennings reading historic passages), but Northern Virginia free-lance writer Steve Allen alerted me to the incident. Here’s the preamble in full: "We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness." MRC analyst Jessica Anderson reminded me it’s not the first time Sawyer has offered an unusual take on God. Back on the September 9, 1999 Good Morning America, after Bill Gaither and his choir in Tennessee sang "Good morning, America," this exchange occurred: Charles Gibson: "That is one of the fine gospel groups in this country, and they have a new album called, ‘God is Good.’" Diane Sawyer: "Yes, she is. I can confirm it." Gibson, laughing: "Smattering of applause around the studio."

To: gao seng who wrote (17206)	9/25/2001 4:59:35 PM
From: gao seng	Respond to of 59480

Journal: HARM US, BLAME US: No way for perpetual critics to excuse the inexcusable Thomas Oliver - Staff Tuesday, September 25, 2001 It isn't patriotism that makes me blanch whenever I hear any Tom, Dick or Sally suggest we are somehow responsible for the Sept. 11 attack. That somehow the United States' past has caught up with us. That we must look at what we have done to provoke such hatred. I wince not from jingoism but at the sound of stupidity, gullibility or culpability. If I hadn't heard it before, ad nauseam, I'd ask what planet are these people from. Since forever, those who would harm us blame us. Japan blamed us for restricting the flow of oil into their country. That justified their bombing Pearl Harbor. Of course, everyone knows their complaint was nothing but a ruse to eliminate us from the Pacific so they could conquer the islands and lands and people in that region. The sense that the criminal is not totally to blame was nurtured by the past century's social commentators, who instructed us to seek every excuse possible for criminal acts. We excused the inexcusable by blaming childhoods, as if all law-abiding people had Ozzie and Harriet for parents. This hunt for excuses fits perfectly with the criminal mind, which always seeks to justify itself. The wife abuser convinces himself that she asked for it. The thuggish killer was not shown the proper respect by the victim. We now have legal defense funds for a mother of five who is accused of drowning her children in a bathtub one at a time. Her possible postpartum depression elicits more sympathy than her alleged heinous crimes elicit condemnation. What other than naivete or culpability can explain how someone could equate the remnant of racism in America with the ethnic cleansing in Bosnia or Rwanda? Or say that acts of prejudice here, even now against Muslims, are somehow on the same order as the executions of Christians in China? That we have backed dictators is no secret. Some we shouldn't have. Dubious choices usually have us trying to pick the lesser of two evils in the hope that we can move that country and its people toward democracy. Even still, our mistakes have never become our mission, though for some, our mistakes are reason enough to forsake our mission. These critics, too, often speak out of both sides of their mouths. As soon as some suggest we not back a regime because of its human rights violations, the critics accuse the United States of trying to impose our belief system on another and of not recognizing the future human-rights value of, say, awarding the Olympics to Peking. It never seems to occur to these naive critics that those who attack us do so because we stand in their way. We certainly don't stand in the way of freedom, unless one finds sense rather than subterfuge in the saying that "one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter." No, we stand in the way of those like the Taliban, who have freed no one but have enslaved thousands; who preach hatred and train killers; whose passion to rule is seen in the misery of the women and children of Afghanistan subjugated under a tyranny unimaginable in this country. Only if one holds us to the ideal of perfection can the United States be found wanting in the real world of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; even then, we're farther ahead than anyone else. And light years from our enemies. Thomas Oliver is a member of the Journal editorial board. His column appears Tuesday. accessatlanta.com