We Will Never Forget

Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, September 13, 2005, in a press conference with President Bush in Washington, D.C.:

“In the name of Iraqi people, I say to you, Mr. President, and to the glorious American people, thank you, thank you. Thank you, because you liberated us from the worst kind of dictatorship.”

“Mr. President, you are a visionary, great statesman. We salute you. We are grateful to you. We will never forget what you have done for our people.”

Reflect for a moment about what had to take place in order for the leader of a free Iraqi to have the opportunity to meet an American leader and express that sentiment. That little speech was the puncuation on what future historians will surely see as an important episode in 21st century history. But did you see this reported in the MSM? Most likely not. The Anchoress says it well:

Try to find some coverage of this on the television - you won’t see more than 30 seconds of it, and it’s all about the press playing “gotcha” with President Bush.

This is a historic moment…Talabani’s generous and moving statement should have been a moment of national pride - a moment for all of us to consider the great sacrifices made by our troops and their families to bring Iraq’s great hope about. Instead…pushed aside because the press is interested in NOTHING but “getting” Bush. Not a single question to Talabani.

This is sick, sick, SICK.

A while ago, I wondered if the press still wanted what was best for America - I wondered it because they seem so resolutely unwilling to print a good word about anything - not the Katrina rescuers, not the troops in Iraq who are doing heroic work, nothing…it’s just “blastBushblastBushblastBush” all the time. Their hatred is in control of them. Very sad, very sick.

She's right, of course. It is very sad, and in its own way, sick. But lets be careful about how we direct that anger and righteous indignation: the MSM reports in this manner not because they're all a bunch of evil liberal monkeys. They report in this manner because behaving like evil liberal monkeys is gets them lots of viewers, and therefore lots of advertising revenue. If only Howard Dean and Ted Kennedy watched CNN, and only Hilary Clinton had a subscription to the New York Times, and only Joe Biden and Robert Byrd read the Washington Post ... then they'd be out of business in very short order. Well, actually, their CEOs would see this happening and would change the way they reported until they figured out what they had to do to get an interesting number of viewers.

In other words, the reason we don't see the news objectively reported in the MSM is because the MSM (which is very much a business) has figured out that there is too much business opportunity with other modes of presentation. I'll remind you that we do have some objective media: the Wall Street Journal comes immediately to mind, with its focus on helping the business world understand what is really happening in the world. And Fox is somewhere in between. But the shrill, sensationalist, loosely-rooted-in-the-facts kind of presentation dominates because the majority of the viewers prefer it. For some of us, that's a very uncomfortable fact. When one explores the implications of that fact, you can't help but ponder on the impact it has on the workings of a popular democracy. It can be a scary thought...