So why does all of this ideological inflexibility and aversion to facts not bother the same pundits who pleaded with Bush to pay attention to the real world? It is not hard to figure out why. When the outcome is to its liking (e.g., pursuing withdrawal from Iraq) the mainstream media is second to no one in ignoring inconvenient evidence. It is not surprising then that Iraq has largely disappeared from the front pages of most major newspapers.
Because, Jennifer…(and I think the world of you) of you.
And me. And everyone like us. We point at propaganda, we point at the rape of our information stream. We point at the leftist distortion of truth. We point at their spitting upon a public trust. But we never take the next step. We won’t press the attack, organize it into a larger movement, insist that we won’t settle for lies and say “Oh, those darn leftists, you know how they are!”.
They have shaped the image of Republicans (or anyone who isn’t a far leftist…ie, see what they did to Joe Lieberman and most recently to Bill and Hillary). They shape the issues, distort the facts, revise the history.
Walter Cronkite turned the Tet Offensive into a military loss. The NYTimes tried to turn the Afghanistan offensive into a “quagmire” after three weeks. The BBC, Reuters and the AP tried to fake photograph and distort their way to demonizing Israel.
Dan Rather and Mary Mapes cheapened network “journalism” with known fake (but, “true”) documents.
We point at individual battles…they organized for war against the truth.
It was the DEMOCRATS (William Cohen and his five pound bag, Albright, Sandy Berger, Al Gore, Bill Clinton…and ALL their senators and kings’ horsemen) who detailed how Saddam Hussein was the greatest threat to mankind. Who was a threat to pass off killing agents, (chemical, biological and possibly nuclear)to terrorists…and who argued for and voted in regime change in Iraq. They did this based on the intelligence that the ENTIRE WORLD voted on in resolution after resolution. But, now…somehow…the ONLY one who was ‘stupid’ enought to believe it and act on it…was President Bush?
When we sit idly by and merely tsk-tsk the actions of liars, propagandists, seditionists and feel we have done enough by pointing at them, we fool ourselves.
When we take the trembling hand of a coward and allow him to lead us…we get exactly what cowards reap. Appeasement. Capitulation. Weakness.
Jimmy Carter, perhaps the greatest coward to ever hold the Presidency…how did that work out for us in Iran? 444 days of abject humiliation and a Keystone Kop comedy of helicopters bumping into each other. A weakened defense and a national malaise. Gas lines. Double digit interest rates. Were we “liked” any better?
How did appeasing the North Koreans work out for us on their nuclear ambitions and “believing” them with our “dialogue” tactics?
How did it work out for the Cambodians when we tucked tail and ran from Viet Nam without looking back at the mass murder the enemy lay waste to on the ground behind us?
How did the Bay of Pigs turn out when we tucked tail and ran?
The surge is working…and yet we still reach out for the trembling hand of an appeaser to lead us…because we will not stand in unity against narrative based upon a framed lie. We find it much easier to point at it from the sidelines. I’m as much to blame as anyone.
We have allowed the liars and cowards to own our information stream for 40 years. To dominate it. To shape the issues and revise the history. The blogosphere, Fox News and talk radio try to fight back, sure. But not in any organized fashion. And if we don’t care enough about the truth to fight for it…maybe we don’t deserve it.
