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L. Brent Bozell III has gained a reputation as one of the most effective national leaders in the conservative movement, and is famous for his work ...
Read more about L. Brent Bozell III.
L. Brent Bozell III has gained a reputation as one of the most effective national leaders in the conservative movement, and is famous for his work ...
Read more about L. Brent Bozell III.
Seeing Moral Grays in 9/11
L. Brent Bozell III
Picking up the Sunday paper Nov. 15 could make a reader a little
airsick -- even while standing in the driveway. The Washington Post
"news analysis" on the front page carried the headline "9/11 trial
could become a parable of right and wrong: Before worldwide audience,
both prosecution, defense seek control of narrative."
Does The Washington Post really think that the death and destruction of 9/11 "could" be right, or "could" be wrong?
Liberals cannot stand it when the national media won't simply declare contentious debates over and their viewpoint settled truth. Take, for example, the allegedly inevitable impending destruction of global warming. It is the left's position that the media should conclude one side is right and the other wrong. Conservatives should be ignored when they object. But that's a debate over the future. It's grotesque for an American newspaper to publish a "news analysis" that stares 9/11 in the face and said it "could" be a matter of right and wrong.
The Post's analyst was reporter Barton Gellman, the author of a hostile biography of Dick Cheney (so he does have some definite feelings about who's evil, after all.) He began by noting the trial of 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM for short) would make for "riveting drama." Attorney General Eric Holder proclaimed on PBS it would not be a "show trial," but Gellman echoed the headline: "both sides hope to use the case to define Sept. 11 as a parable of right and wrong."
One might dismiss the willful moral ignorance as a simple journalistic endorsement of anything done by Holder and President Obama. But it sends a clear signal of the differences between the Bush era and the Obama era, and the media's obvious preference for the latter. Liberal journalists always admonished President Bush for his "arrogance" and "certitude," and this is what they meant: He remained certain that the Americans who died on 9/11 were victimized, and were denied their civil liberties in the most complete and horrific way.
Liberals, on the other hand, have such a talent for finding moral "complexities" that they wind up showing more outrage for the fact that KSM was waterboarded than for the fact that KSM successfully plotted the death of 3,000 Americans. While liberals beat their breasts at the outrageous prospect of KSM being tried by a military commission, most Americans would prefer hustling KSM to the top of the Empire State Building or the Statue of Liberty and throwing him off.
Putting KSM on trial in a courtroom just blocks from his "accomplishment" is a decision that Holder and Obama made not in the interests of justice, but in the interests of flashiness, showing "the eyes of the world" in the most attention-grabbing and increasingly tiresome way possible that they are in no way comparable to Bush.
Liberals find "world opinion" to be a much more desirable and cosmopolitan standard than the worldview of simple-minded Americans. In the Post, Gellman quoted Georgetown law professor David Cole, without even calling him a "liberal," let alone what he should really be called: a radical defender of the civil liberties of terrorists. Cole argued that this trial marks a "sea change," that the sentencing will be "seen around the world as legitimate and not fixed," since the "world" thinks military commissions would be fixed.
Journalists don't seem to consider whether "the world" is qualified to judge America as right or wrong, when "the world" is full of thuggish regimes that aren't a fraction as punctilious as Americans are about the rule of law. Should the butchers of Tiananmen Square get to judge us? Should the Russians get to complain after their consolidation of power in the wake of the 2004 Beslan school massacre by radical Islamists? How about most of Europe, Great Britain and a handful of others excepted, that has redefined moral cowardice in the face of radical Islam? They should judge us, too?
Why can't our media have enough respect for facts and for their fellow countrymen that we can all see a mass-murderer like KSM as a much greater villain than say, our naked-pyramid builders at Abu Ghraib? Will our media show 9/11 footage during this trial near Ground Zero with as much repetitive ardor as they bombarded us with Abu Ghraib clips in 2004?
It's much more likely that they'll wonder, in that wonderfully neutral way of theirs, whether Americans or terrorists will "control the narrative." And then we can get back to real problems, like the plight of the kangaroo rat.
========
L. Brent Bozell III is the president of the Media Research Center. To find out more about Brent Bozell III, and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.
COPYRIGHT 2009 CREATORS SYNDICATE INC.
This news arrived on: 11/18/2009
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Posted Comments:
11-21-2009 03:16
JCE wrote:
Redneck I wonder why you never address the many facts about Bush, why you are so adamant about defending him yet you don't defend any of the allegations or the facts. Because you can't, and we are still living with the fact that he sold us out all he could. The people stopped him from selling our ports to our enemies. And you defend the trying to sell our ports to our enemies, you defend our enemies, and you defend Bush who sold us out. What do you have against America, its people, and the truth?
11-20-2009 10:28
John W Smith III wrote:
I read your post loud and clear for they last few days. What you need to do is go back and read your own post.You didn't bring up that a terrorist just been tried in Canada until I did.
You were to busy trying to hop on the conservative talking points about how unsafe NY would be for having a terrorist trial and Toronto is more unsafe.
You act like Canada is doing everything right.
America knows how to protect itself.
You were to busy trying to hop on the conservative talking points about how unsafe NY would be for having a terrorist trial and Toronto is more unsafe.
You act like Canada is doing everything right.
America knows how to protect itself.
11-20-2009 07:16
Catharyne Stauffer wrote:
To old cowboy hehehe :) You make some excellent points . I didn't mean to come off like I was blindly defending them but more to open the possibilities for a shadow of a doubt .
I am not a big fan of repeating negative speculation which has been the case sometimes concerning Bush . But there is no doubt in my mind that he was not one of your best presidents but still someone that has personable charm and the people in Canada that came to his talks recently all came out with a positive remarks .
When I first heard about all the US ports up for sale to the Arab Emirates I nearly fell over and Bush seemed rather neutral to the whole idea .
Until the public out cry was rather adamant and loud . My first thought was whose grand idea was this the Arabs or Bush's ? I still don't know the answer to that .
As for Cheney I really don't know what to believe.
I am not a big fan of repeating negative speculation which has been the case sometimes concerning Bush . But there is no doubt in my mind that he was not one of your best presidents but still someone that has personable charm and the people in Canada that came to his talks recently all came out with a positive remarks .
When I first heard about all the US ports up for sale to the Arab Emirates I nearly fell over and Bush seemed rather neutral to the whole idea .
Until the public out cry was rather adamant and loud . My first thought was whose grand idea was this the Arabs or Bush's ? I still don't know the answer to that .
As for Cheney I really don't know what to believe.
11-20-2009 02:28
old cowboy wrote:
bowing at the altar of Bush/Cheney
As I have stated before, I am from Wyoming--a state not only guilty of giving the plague of Cheney but one that knows something of the oil patch. Bush and Cheney both sold out to the Arabs even before they were in public office. Cheney ran Haliburton and Bush had extensive oil connections and both connected directly to the Arabs and were completely willing to ignore the fact that the Saudis provided some funding and safe haven for the 9/11 bombers including Bin Ladin and as mentioned in post by WCM Bush bowed and kissed the ring. Now the neocons complain that our current President bowed to leaders on his visit to the Far East. I often agree with some of the posts of Catharyne S but this time I think she has gone too for in her defense of a couple of real crooks.
11-19-2009 23:11
WCM wrote:
Catharyn Stauffer
Just to be fair on President Obama bowing to the Arabs ,I recall seeing pictures of Bush on his last official trip to the middle east.He had the press taking pictures of he and his brothers in oil,gathered together,while he wore their traditional head dress.If I'm not mistaken,he was also shown kissing the ring of the King of Saudi Arabia.If you will do a little investigating, you'll find that he was kissing "His Royal **s" long before he became President.This was probably,because they bailed his **s out of several failed business ventures.The Bush family and friends, have way to much in common with their Arab buddies to be considered adversaries.You might be surprised to learn,that the Saudis have controlling interest in many of our North American businesses including banking,aircraft production,entertainment and even defense contractors.I wonder how this happened?
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