Friday, May 16, 2008

Media abdication: news outlets accomodate Democratic whining about Bush's speech but don't tell you what Bush actually said

The mainstream media has accommodated the Democrats who whined about Bush's supposed slam on Obama. But the media has failed in their responsibility to inform Americans what Bush actually said.

Since CNN and McClatchy won't tell you what Bush actually said, I will. Here is the part of President Bush's speech that sent the Dems howling that Bush had attacked Obama:
There are good and decent people who cannot fathom the darkness in these men and try to explain away their words. It's natural, but it is deadly wrong. As witnesses to evil in the past, we carry a solemn responsibility to take these words seriously. Jews and Americans have seen the consequences of disregarding the words of leaders who espouse hatred. And that is a mistake the world must not repeat in the 21st century.

Some seem to believe that we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along. We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: "Lord, if I could only have talked to Hitler, all this might have been avoided." We have an obligation to call this what it is -- the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history. (Applause.)

Some people suggest if the United States would just break ties with Israel, all our problems in the Middle East would go away. This is a tired argument that buys into the propaganda of the enemies of peace, and America utterly rejects it. Israel's population may be just over 7 million. But when you confront terror and evil, you are 307 million strong, because the United States of America stands with you.
(Applause.)
(AP photo via CNN)
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The complicity of the mainstream media in this sorry episode is appalling.
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But this episode exposes something twisted in the Democratic party, which planned and coordinated the hissy fit response. Scott Johnson says the Dems' fake outrage betrays a lack of moral seriousness: "Obama's protestations against Bush's speech make up his own play-within-the-play. They don't serve to prick a conscience, but rather to obscure the senator's inability to offer a rationale distinguishing between the terrorists and their state patron."
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