An Old Hippie Who Don't Know What To Do
By Randall Nunn (11/02/03)
There is a saying that the generals are always fighting the last war. With respect to the war in Iraq and the reconstruction of Iraq, it appears the media, with a few exceptions, are reporting the last war. The last war, in this case, is the Vietnam War.
During the Vietnam War, the liberal media used their coverage to try to persuade Americans that the war was wrong, that it was going badly and that the United States should get out. A steady stream of negative and distorted news gradually weakened the resolve of politicians and the country. The media achieved their goal in the Vietnam War and ever since have used the specter of Vietnam to intimidate politicians, military leaders and the general public against the use of military force. What they fail to understand is that we have a very different president now and a country that has largely rallied to his side and become much more supportive of the use of force in this instance.
The media pundits and journalists have their heroes from the Vietnam era and probably see themselves emulating the actions of that time in their quest for fame and national attention, not to mention the heady stimulant of feeling that they are influencing events and shaping history. One of the problems with many of the pundits and liberal media personalities is that they socialize and interact with their own types and thus have their opinions and biases validated by each other, rather than really understanding the mood of the country. Talk radio and the Internet have weakened the media's ability to shape public opinion as easily as they once could.
It has been fashionable since the end of the Vietnam War to be critical of the use of military force by the United States when its interests are threatened by foreign powers. The prevailing model for aspiring young reporters seems to be the liberal investigative reporter of yesteryear, ferreting out abuses of power by the "power structure" and disclosing normal internal debates about policy options as though they are indications of dissension and confusion. To be truly enlightened, today's journalists must question traditional American values and strive to understand the values and actions of other nations, even those hostile to this country and that violate the basic human rights of their people on a daily basis. Diplomacy is to be pursued for its own sake, not in an effort to achieve some useful and beneficial result. Military force is never to be used, even if it can achieve a useful and beneficial result, because it represents nothing more than a powerful nation imposing its will on a weaker nation, and that is somehow bad, no matter that the weaker nation is violating every norm of human decency and international law. But a new day seems to be dawning, with more Americans sensing that something is wrong when a majority of the questions asked at a White House or Pentagon briefing are hostile in tone, rude, arrogant and designed to further the particular organization's agenda of portraying the war in Iraq as having been a mistake and the reconstruction of Iraq poorly planned and beset by a multitude of troubles. Accuracy, balance, and fairness from the media representatives are not very evident at these news briefings. The questions, tone of voice, demeanor, and overall attitude of the media people are becoming predictable and petty. The great bulwark of our liberties that the press was supposed to be is in need of a major overhaul. The media are not reporting, they are editorializing. They are not engaging in original thinking, but rather are acting like programmed robots, following the conventional wisdom and copying the past behaviors of liberals in their profession who reached positions of prominence by criticizing, carping, and belittling traditional American values.
There is a change occurring in this country and the liberal, anti-war media do not yet see the extent and significance of the change. In fact, their continued bias and lack of civility is fueling and accelerating that change. The liberal media are mentally still stuck in the 60's and 70's, wearing bell bottoms, tie-dyed shirts and listening to heavy metal rock while crusading for the oppressed and downtrodden of the world and supporting anti-American efforts of some European countries and the United Nations. They just haven't fully realized that the true oppressors in today's world are the regimes of people like Saddam Hussein, Fidel Castro and Kim Jung Il. Whether the post-war reconstruction of Iraq is proceeding perfectly, or we are in danger of being sucked into a quagmire doesn't matter quite so much as the fact that free American citizens are fighting and dying to protect our country and its interests, as well as the right of Iraqi citizens to live in freedom. This is a different world after September 11 and it is time for the media to shed their bell bottoms and engage in some serious thinking rather than reacting, in the words of a song from a few years ago, like "an old hippie who don't know what to do."
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