The miracle, as it has been widely declared by the media for lack of anything more profoundly descriptive, is something that not only today's generation but generations to come can savor when young students sit in their American history classes to trace the twists and turns of the presidency. In some ways it was the Jackie Robinson story on a much wider societal field. It should be a proud conceit of every American now to know that we have made an enormous stride in confirming that we are what we say we are. It wasn't that long ago, after all, that I, as a young uniformed Air Force officer was denied a seat in a St. Louis hotel bar because I was accompanied by another officer who happened to be black. (The host apologized to me, sort of, but said I would understand as a military officer that rules are rules.)
But Obama's victory told us another story that mythologized (for me, as well) the potency of coast to coast rants by right wing flim-flam talkers who decided to raise the ante on a black presidential nominee. Fox News, the megaphone and safe house for the Bush Adminstration, referred to Michelle Obama as "Obama's baby mama"), a day did not pass when some radio host didn't connect Obama to a monkey (which, it can be argued, all of us evolved from ), and there were warnings making the rounds that Obama would lead us into a race war. He was at times compared to Hitler, and other times linked to Ahmadinejad. Communist, socialist,terrorist, traitor, classless jerk. The perps included the grandmaster himself, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Michelle Malkin, Michael Savage, Glenn Beck, Ann Coulter, Bill O'Reilly and countless talk-show galley slaves across the land who doubtless believe that their dutiful rowing of Limbaugh's flagship would someday make them sinfully rich, too.
The moral of their tasteless rapture with lies and more lies is that they failed miserably. Even to this day they continue to flail at imaginary objects with endless deception from the shared security of their own disgusting universe, where honest debate is not a prerequisite for honorary membership. These thugs can't be too smart. If they were, they would look for ways to make their hysterical charges hold up under even the most casual scrutiny.
So now the Bushes and their ilk will soon be on their way out the door. There will be no more utterances (by Richard Perle) that within six months of the invasion the grateful Iraqis would name a central plaza in Baghdad after George Bush; there would be no more aircraft carriers idling off the West Coast for the landing of a macho Bush in flight gear to declare the end of the war; there would be no more uplifting statements by Bush and his echoers that the fundamentals of America's economy are strong; no more denials by Condi Rice that the White House had no forewarning of 9/11; and a lot of other nonsensical behavior that amounted to a giant pyramid of Plato's noble lie as Bush's approval rating in a Gallup survey was mired at 22 pct.
As for the broadcast carnival barkers' persistence in recklessly spinning the facts, I must reluctantly defer to Donald Rumsfeld's oratorical sensitivities in describing the continued conflict in Iraq after we had declared the battle won. Of it, he explained:
"The dead-enders are still with us, those remnants of defeated regimes who'll go on fighting long after their cause is lost." (Aug. 25, 2003)
Clip and mail to that other universe.
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7 comments:
Abe, I at least give the left a benifit of a doubt. I feel that I have been insulted for something I have not done. I have many Black friends both left, right, Democrat and Republican. I stopped listening to Limbaugh years ago because of his arrogance, I own no Ann Coulter books and don't think she's that attractive, and also stopped watching Hannity because I was tiring of the piled higher and deeper syndrome. But why is there this great disdane about Fox? They are one network of many that has their opinion as others do. My own opinion is that the left has ABC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC, PBS, CNN, Print media, and some others. The right has Fox, Talk radio and that's about it. To me greatly tilted the lefts way. Why all the concern? Don't you believe these anomolies will eventually just "die" off and then media will be dominated again by these points of view?
Fox is where Hume, Hannity, Coulter, O'Reilly,
and the other conservative screech owls roost.
And you wonder why nothing grows under the tree.
And by the way, liberal CNN is running a commentary today titled, " Bush Will Be Vindicated".
For as long as I can remember the networks as well as the media have been scorned as lefties. It is a myth that simply won't die even though the media that I once worked for were owned by ..eh... Republicans, an ownership (see Rupert Murdoch, the giant media mogul) that is even more Republican today. I would call your attention to CBS, NBC And ABC - who owns these networks? Fox is certainly entitled to have its say, but so much of what it says can be easily dismissed as pure drivel without any basis in fact. If that's how Fox wants to play its game, fine. But that should not shield it for its mindless ideological reporting.
I would argue that after a year of non-journalistic talk-show insanity, conservatives should be as troubled as I am by the way Fox and its kindred spirits have taken over the script from Republican centrists, driving most moderates out of the party.
But as a journalist, my main concern in this response is the barnacled myth that lefties control the media. Where were they when Bush led us into a war under false pretenses? It was only when Bush's popularity started to tank that they decided to get off his bus.
PS: I normally don't reply to comments, and welcome them, good or bad. But the media myth always sets me off as a dagger to the truth.
Abe, I respectfully disagree, but I'll still read you posts. Makes for interesting mind consumption.
Mind consumption? How about constipation! You obviously need a laxative with you Kool Aid. I would suggest a little dose of reality.
Fox's propaganda would put Joseph Goebbels to shame. It is most certainly NOT a news network, but rather poses as one to try to mask its Orwellian attempts to promote its various Big Lies. It is a cancer in our society, though, sadly, only one of many that currently riddle our media and political discourse.
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