Media reality check

Add CNN to the list of MSM outlets publishing stories intentionally designed to sway voter opinion leading up to the November elections. Although many might say, "we already knew that", such opinions are usually the result of reading biased news stories, not outright commentary.

So, while scandals swirl around Harry Reid and while Steny Hoyer is accused of making racist remarks we get this "three part" headline look about how things are going in Iraq, just to make sure nobody forgets the most promising democrat talking point. Written by CNN's Joshua Levs, the commentary even includes a disclaimer alluding to a "war of words" between political sides leading up to the elections, as if this piece alone was going to clear everything up.

Message board veterans might recognize Mr. Levs's phraseology:

Early in the Iraq conflict, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld dismissed insurgents as "dead-enders." In 2004, President Bush said the battle against these fighters was "turning a corner." In 2005, he described a "turning point," and Vice President Dick Cheney said the insurgency was in its "last throes."

Ridiculously optimistic in hindsight (the media hates optimism) but what were they supposed to say? Leaders have to remain positive even when everyone else is negative. A CNN/ Bob Woodward world works this way--after trailing 24-14 at halftime of the championship game coach Parcells comes up to the TV booth and says "we made some mistakes in the gameplan, we've had setbacks, so I've decided we're outa here, game over."

Here's a different sports analogy. After their game one loss in the NLCS St. Louis slugger Albert Pujols was quoted as saying Mets pitcher Tom Glavine wasn't that good, even though he allowed zero runs. In reality he was correct, since the Cards had peppered line drives all over the park but they were caught. Ballplayers look to the positive while the media tends to dwell on the negative. Nothing gets their juices up more than seeing the negative actually occur.

Perhaps CNN will wander into more depth in their next two installments about who's fighting whom and where that might lead if we abandon ship. For example, conventional wisdom said if we left Vietnam Pol Pot would be freed up to kill, and he was. In this conflict, conventional wisdom says our departure would perhaps double, triple or triple-qaudruple the Lancet civilian death figure (mentioned by CNN in this article) caused by the entire region falling into war.

As to the above, one must try real hard not to think such a development would be the 'gift that keeps on giving' for the democrats and CNN, since they could conceivably spend the next two decades reminding everyone who was to blame. Consider how certain media outlets and democrats are currently spinning the North Korea nuclear flareup as entirely Bush's fault, even though it was obvious to everyone Kim Jong never had intentions of stopping his WMD programs and was cheating on the Agreed Framework while Clinton was boinking Monica and Dubya was still governing Texas. Imagine how a disgraced exit from Iraq would be spun.

No, the question remains the same as back in 2004--is Iraq worth the fight? Do the drawbacks of leaving outweight the positives of staying, or vice versa? Was Saddam somehow complicit in the terrorism during the 90s? Do his minions now fighting for control of Iraq have any further destructive potential? How would our leaving impact the oil markets, including OPEC and tinhorns like Chavez, and how would it impact Israel and the Palestinians?

If we determine the war is worth fighting then troops are tragically going to get injured and some will die, all the reason to pull out immediately if we collectively determine it's not. That's the only reality check we need. November will decide.

MORE 10/18/06

After the above was posted I checked CNN.com's main headline and it had changed to "Ten Soldiers Killed in Iraq", By afternoon that story was nowhere to be found, replaced by one about four soldiers being charged with rape.

This falls in line with a Little Green Footballs post on how the Jihadis are planning to ramp up the killing in coordination with the upcoming election:

“The people of jihad need to carry out a media war that is parallel to the military war and exert all possible efforts to wage it successfully. This is because we can observe the effect that the media have on nations to make them either support or reject an issue.”

If challenged, CNN would probably claim to be an international media company not an American one. But who around the world, outside of the liberal establishment here, would actually buy that?

MORE 10/19/06

In case you missed Bush's interview with George Stephanopoulis, he was asked if the current situation in Iraq compares to the Tet offensive in Vietnam in 1968:

"He could be right. There's certainly a stepped-up level of violence, and we're heading into an election."

So, how does al-Reuters headline their story?

Bush sees possible Iraq-Vietnam parallel

Memo to Bush--never allow any comparisons between Vietnam and Iraq in the same interview, no matter how trivial. If you do, the media will run with it like a dog who's just stolen a hunk of pork off your Crawford barbeque pit.