All The News That's Fit To Distort
By Edward Daley (09/11/04)
Now that the Democratic candidate for president has begun taking a beating in the polls, various members of the old Clinton election team, as well as most of the "mainstream" press, are rallying behind the junior Senator from Massachusetts in a last ditch, desperate attempt to win back the White House in November.
Their latest tactic, as unbelievable as it may seem to most people, is to once again dredge up a story that was declared dead by the majority of the American people quite some time ago... Bush's service record.
Predictably, all the major liberal news organizations have gleefully resuscitated the issue following the Republic National Convention in a transparent, full-court-press effort to divert attention away from the fact that, among other things, John Kerry is now being formally investigated over the validity of his Silver Star citation.
Somehow these people feel perfectly justified in beating this dead horse once again, while simultaneously ignoring most of the information coming to light about John F. Kerry's scandalous wartime activities, and the subsequent probing of his records by the Navy.
The second of this clearly biased one-two media punch is coming in the form of front page headlines reading "U.S. Toll in Iraq Reaches 1,000" in papers like the Los Angeles Times. Of course, nowhere in this story (or most other left-leaning publications) will you find quotes from our fighting men and women in the Middle East who overwhelmingly support President Bush's decision to go to war in Iraq, in spite of the losses they've suffered.
"If 1,000 died today, that'd be pretty significant, but its just another number," remarked National Guard Major Tony Quinn, who is currently stationed near the Iraq/Iran border. And, of course, he's right. There's is nothing particularly significant about the number 1,000, other than the fact that it makes for provocative headlines, and will be used by the liberal media to hurt George W. Bush.
Now, I'm not suggesting that a thousand dead American soldiers in something to jump for joy over. It's a terrible cost we are paying in this war against terrorists, and that cost rises every day. Casualties of war are always difficult to deal with, and no one is more heart-sickened to hear about them than I, but the words of left-wing journalists, who are content to report such news using the most anti-war spin they possibly can, does nothing to protect all the military people in Iraq and Afghanistan who are still alive and fighting for us right now.
Yes, having any of our troops killed in war is never a positive thing, especially when the number reaches what it has, but would the president's political foes rather see another 3,000 civilians slaughtered in the blink of an eye here at home?
As I read through the Times article, I noticed that the person who wrote it felt it was necessary to rehash the story about Bush's speech on board the USS Abraham Lincoln, when a banner was displayed behind him with the words "Mission Accomplished" printed on it. The author writes "the insurgency had not yet taken hold and many Americans thought the war was essentially over."
While it may be true that some people in this country were so ridiculously naive as to believe that the war had actually ended simply because someone decided that celebrating the victorious efforts of the men and women of the Lincoln might be a good idea, no serious minded adult did.
I also noticed that whoever wrote the article in question failed to mention the fact that more soldiers died in one day on the beaches of Normandy, France than have been killed in a year and a half in Iraq and Afghanistan combined. But then, nobody has ever accused the L.A. Times of infusing a lot of relevant perspective into their news articles.
As I moved on to more stories in other newspapers, I happened upon one wherein some liberal politico had commented about Bush's convention bounce. His take on the event was so remarkably disingenuous that I sat stupefied by it for several minutes. His take was that the word bounce means that the numbers bounce up and then they bounce back down again, and he wasn't the only to make that claim. As I turned my attention to the televised news, I heard another left-wing commentator saying the same thing, almost word for word.
Funny that people like these two pundits weren't saying that before the Democrat's convention, when it was hoped by Kerry's shrill shrieking supporters that their man would pick up a few points in the polls himself.
After that fiasco they said that Kerry didn't get a bounce because nearly everyone had already made up their minds about who to vote for. There simply wasn't enough undecideds left to push up the French-looking candidate's numbers. NOW they're saying that bounces, by definition, are temporary... they just don't matter.
Well, if that's true, why then are so many leftists reacting as if Kerry's campaign is coming apart like a paper kite in a hurricane? The truth is that every one of them is running scared in the wake of Bush's 11 point gain in the polls, and they, with the help of their national media cronies, are prepared to say and do anything in order to get Senator flip-flop back into contention.
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