The Daily Jot: THIS JUST IN! WHO'S IMPARTIAL?

Tuesday, September 18, 2012

THIS JUST IN! WHO'S IMPARTIAL?

BULLY BOY PRESS & CEDRIC'S BIG MIX -- THE KOOL-AID TABLE

THE 'INDEPENDENT' AND 'OBJECTIVE' PRESS WHICH IS ALWAYS 'IMPARTIAL' IS YET AGAIN GRINDINGS ITS AXE AND PLAYING FAVORITES.

TODAY'S PRETEND OUTRAGE THAT LEADS THEM TO SHRIEK LIKE BANSHEES AND PRETEND IT'S THE END OF THE WORLD?

COMMENTS GOP PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE MITT ROMNEY MADE AT A PRIVATE FUNDRAISER THAT WERE TAPED AND LEAKED TO THE PRESS.

ROMNEY DECLARED OF VOTERS:

AND IT'S NOT SURPRISING THEN THEY GET BITTER, THEY CLING TO GUNS OR RELIGION OR ANTIPATHY TO PEOPLE WHO AREN'T LIKE THEM OR ANTI-IMMIGRANT SENTIMENT OR ANTI-TRADE SENTIMENT AS A WAY TO EXPLAIN THEIR FRUSTRATIONS.

OH, WAIT.

MITT ROMENY DIDN'T SAY THAT. BARRY O SAID THAT BACK IN 2008. AND THE PRESS MADE IT LESS THAN A 1/2 DAY STORY AND DESPITE BREAKING LATE FRIDAY EVENING, IT WASN'T EVEN A DRIVING TOPIC ON THE SUNDAY CHAT AND CHEWS TWO DAYS LATER -- NOT MEET THE PRESS, NOT FACE THE NATION, NOT THIS WEEK.

BUT LET ROMNEY MAKE SIMILAR STATEMENTS ABOUT DEMOCRATS AND WATCH THE MEDIA PRETEND TO BE SHOCKED AND OUTRAGED, WATCH THEM GIN UP THE STORY AND PRETEND SOMETHING MAJOR HAS JUST TAKEN PLACE.

WHY IS THAT?

1) THEY'RE IN LOVE WITH THEIR OWN CREATION (BARRY O).

2) THEY'RE IGNORANT AND UNINFORMED SO THEY CAN'T COVER ISSUES AND NEED THE EQUIVALENT OF 'LINDSAY LOHAN IS IN A CAT FIGHT!' TYPE 'NEWS' TO REPEAT OR THEY HAVE NOTHING TO SAY.

FROM THE TCI WIRE:

Starting wih war resistance. Kimberly Rivera and her family (husband and two kids) went to Canada in early 2007 with only what they could carry on their small family car. She was on leave from Iraq and horrified by what she saw while serving. Already a believer in Jesus Christ when she deployed, the horror deepened her spirituality and her conviction to do the Lord's work as she understood it.

What happened to her is no uncommon. Agustin Aguayo also was a practicing Christian when he deployed to Iraq. Seeing war up close deepened his own faith and religious beliefs. That is why he stopped carrying a loaded gun while deployed in Iraq and why he found he could no longer participate in the Iraq War.

Faith. like any relationship, is not static nor is it taught to be. Regardless of the religion, there is the belief that, for example, in times of crisis, the power of religion can carry you through the experience when you could not make it through on your own. (Hence the modern day parable of the two sets of footsteps in the sand that becomes one as your higher power carries you in the darkest of times.) Faith is not stagnant which is why religious scholars spend so much time pursuing knowledge, why followers do not attend one service their entire life but continue to attend to deepen their understanding and beliefs.

Kim and Agustin's experiences are in keeping with their religions which do allow for faith to grow and deepen. The US military has refused to recognize that and has found itself in the questionable (legally questionable) position of interpreting faith and judging faith. The US military will not allow an Agustin Aguayo or Kim Rivera to become a conscientious objector, they will argue that they were practicing a religion when they went to Iraq and that if they had objections they should have been lodged prior to deployment. (Lodging the objection prior to deployment, to be clear, does not mean someone will get C.O. status.) They will refuse to recognize that faith and spirituality are not fixed and that they can grow and deepen over time and due to experience.

She is now threatened with expulsion. The Canadian government wants her out of the country by September 20th. August 31st, Kim took part in a press conference with War Resisters Support Campaign's Michelle Robidoux.

Kim Rivera: If you want to know my biggest fear is being separated from my children and having to -- having to sit in a prison for politically being against the war in Iraq which I had experience in. Without that experience, I know that I would not have come to the decision I had made to leave and also be here in Canada for people to know that experience which I had spoken many of. So the only thing that I guess I can really ask is that all of my legal applications that I applied be considered and my agency application also get a decision. That's pretty much all I have.

Many Canadians support her and organizations as well including the United Steelworkers of Canada which issued a statement calling for the government of Canada to let Kim and her family stay and Canada's National Union of Public and General Employees which also issued a statement. Now Archbishop Desmond Tutu has added his voice to the cause with a column for the Globe and Mail:

But those who were called to fight this war believed what their leaders had told them. The reason we know this is because U.S. soldiers such as Kimberly Rivera, through her own experience in Iraq, came to the conclusion that the invasion had nothing to do with weapons of mass destruction. Indeed, the presence of U.S. forces only created immense misery for civilians and soldiers alike.

Those leaders to whom soldiers such as Kimberly Rivera looked for answers failed a supreme moral test. More than 110,000 Iraqis have died in the conflict since 2003, millions have been displaced and nearly 4,500 American soldiers have been killed.

There are many people who, while they may have believed the original justification for the war, came to a different conclusion as the reality of the war became more evident. Prime Minister Stephen Harper himself came to the conclusion that the Iraq war was "absolutely an error."

It is large-hearted and courageous people who are not diminished by saying: "I made a mistake." Not least among these are Ms. Rivera and the other American war resisters who determined they could not in good conscience continue to be part of the Iraq war.

Hopefully other voices will join Archbishop Tutu in calling for the Canadian government to allow Kim and her family to stay.

Someone needs to call out Soledad O'Brien. Newsbusters is a right-wing media critique site. They sent something to the public e-mail account. It's their report on CNN's Soledad O'Brien 'fact checking' US House Rep Peter King (link has text and transcript). It wasn't journalism. Excerpt.

Soledad O'Brien: So let's talk about that last line. "What we saw this week is in may ways a logical result of all of that." Are you saying that the president is responsible and his policies responsible for the death of the American ambassador to Libya?

US House Rep Peter King: I'm saying the president's policies have sent a confused message. For instance, take Egypt. Here is a country getting $1.6 billion in aid annually from the United States. Yet President Morsi for the first day, the entire day of our embassy being under attack, did virtually nothing to protect us and was actually putting out statements in Arabic where he was sympathizing with the demonstrators and those attacking the American embassy. What it's done is it's created a climate, it's created an attitude in the Middle East where our allies don't trust us, where those who are undecided are starting to hedge their bets and turn against us. For instance in Iraq, the president talks about how he pulled our troops out of Iraq. The fact is he was given a glide path in Iraq. He pulled the troops out without getting a Status Of Forces Agreement, without leaving any American troops behind and now Iran is emerging as a major power in that region whereas if we had our troops there it would not happen.

Soledad O'Brien: But you-you've been talking about an apology tour. As you know that matches the framing of other people. Donald Rumsfeld says he's made a practice of trying to apologize for America, he's talking about the president. Mitt Romney has said "I will not and never apologize for America. I don't apologize for America." Tim Palwenty back in February was saying, "Mr. President, stop apologizing for -- " Where do you see an apology? You called it an apology tour. You said the apologies. What apologies are you specifically talking about?

US House Rep Peter King: I would say when he was in Cairo in 2009, when he was basically apologizing for American policies, saying American policies sometimes have gone too far --

Soledad O'Brien: Never once in that speeh, as you know, which I have the speech right here. That was -- he never once used the word apology. He never once said I'm sorry.

US House Rep Peter King: Didn't have to. The logical -- any logical reading of the speech or the speech he gave in France where he basically said that the United States can be too aggressive --

Soledad cuts him off again. What she needs to do is cut off that hair. (When you have circles and bags under the eyes, do not wear your hair long unless you're pulling it back. The goal with bags and circles is never to create more shadows on the face. What an idiot.)

This is not complicated. Soledad, using faux-gressiver terms like "framework" (the journalist term is "narrative"), may indicate some cabal but Donald Rumsfeld and King honestly believe what they're saying. I would assume the same for Mitt Romney and Tim Pawlenty as well but with Rumsfeld and King there is a long body of the critique. It predates Barack Obama and if Soledad thinks she's up to a 'fact check,' she needs to educate herself on this.

To move to a different topic but to explain the larger point, then-President Ronald Reagan supported SDI (Strategic Defense Initiative). I didn't. I thought it was a lunatic idea, I thought it militarized space, etc. Ronald Reagan had one opinion, I had another. By Soledad's 'understaning,' she can fact check that and determine one of us to be right. She is an uneducated lunatic. Ronald Reagan believed he was right about SDI, I believe I am right. Those are opinions. They don't go to fact check.

I bring up SDI specifically because Soledad wants to treat King's statements as something she's never before encountered. (Maybe she hasn't. She's not that smart.) But his statements are at the heart of modern day conservatism and Barack's approach is in stark contrast to Reagan (Reagan remains the hero of most modern day conservatives). You can read the SDI speech and you can see a lot of what's being discussed by King and others in that speech. Here's an excerpt:

President Ronald Reagan: The defense policy of the United States is based on a simple premise: The United States does not start fights. We will never be an aggressor. We maintain our strength in order to deter and defend against aggression - to preserve freedom and peace.

Since the dawn of the atomic age, we have sought to reduce the risk of war by maintaining a strong deterrent and by seeking genuine arms control. Deterrence means simply this: Making sure any adversary who thinks about attacking the United States or our allies or our vital interests concludes that the risks to him outweigh any potential gains. Once he understands that, he won't attack. We maintain the peace through our strength; weakness only invites aggression.

I disagree with those opinions (including the claim that the US doesn't start fights). And I can argue with someone who holds those opinions. But I recognize those to be opinions. Not facts. It's an ideology. If this is so far above Soledad's head, CNN needs to send her to a college where she can hopefully learn. And I'll go further, if EJ Dionne, an opinion columnist, wanted to call the conservative opinion "wrong," that's fine. He's an opinion columnist. Soledad is supposed to be objective. That makes her performance today even more embarrassing.

Sunday, Ava and I wrote "TV: Media Fail" and it was about the media's refusal to play fair. Jim did a quick piece that bookends that with "Romney and Obama last week" and, though we answered his questions in that, Ava and I were both confused why he wanted that. He's getting at the points above. It is not fair for Soledad to pretend to be 'objective' and then treat a conservative ideology to a 'fact check.' It's about the same as putting religious beliefs to a 'fact check.' Beliefs and opinions can differ and, in fact, in a democracy are supposed to. You may not like the conclusions someone forms based on the facts, but they are allowed to reach their own conclusions.

Karl Rove wrote a piece for the Wall Street Journal, published in April of 2009, about what he termed Barack's "apology tour." He wasn't the only one using that term at that time. Click here for a video about the "apology tour" that was posted to YouTube April 32, 2009. For Soledad to be ignorant of all of this is an insult to the viewers. Her segment was an insult. If she wants to debate ideology, fine, let her take a stand -- and state whether it's her own or that she's playing devil's advocate -- and have that discussion. But don't pretend that she's dealing with facts. And don't pretend that we (on the left) win when some journalist plays America dumb by acting as if ideology and belief can be put to a fact check. CNN should be ashamed of themselves.

These are serious issues and if Soledad O'Brien's not up for them, she needs to be pulled. If it's still not clear, let's look at King's remarks on Iraq.

US House Rep Peter King: For instance in Iraq, the president talks about how he pulled our troops out of Iraq. The fact is he was given a glide path in Iraq. He pulled the troops out without getting a Status Of Forces Agreement, without leaving any American troops behind and now Iran is emerging as a major power in that region whereas if we had our troops there it would not happen.

Barack pulled US troops from Iraq? That's a fact. Removed them without a SOFA? Fact. King takes those facts, places them in his conservative framework and comes up with opinions ("glide path" and the US left in a position of weakness). So-called objective journalists need to learn to do their job. Media Matters, as this item demonstrates, does a better job of grasping the points about ideology and opinion, that Soledad O'Brien refuses to -- and Media Matters doesn't claim to be objective or impartial -- it is a left-wing organization.

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