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Jewish World Review July 13, 2005 / 6 Taamuz, 5765 Short memories and politically correct lies By Tony Blankley
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
Radio talk show host Michael Savage led off his Monday night
show with a collage of sound bites from the weekend network television news
shows. The empty skirts and empty suits — as he calls the news anchors —
were heard filled with news about Washington's new baby panda, the
"disappointingly" mild Hurricane Dennis, the continuing non-news from Aruba,
the latest media thoughts on Karl Rove's statements from two years ago and
other similar topics.
What drove Dr. Savage (and me) to distraction was the de minimis
level of news about the terrorist attack on London — which had happened
only 48 hours previously. CBSNBCABCCNNMSNBCFOX had all returned to regular
programming — as it were — within hours of this historic and appalling
event.
When the media thinks something is truly important, they find a
way to keep the story intensely reported. A few years ago, New York Times
Editor Howell Raines thought the failure of Augusta National Golf course to
let women join their club was terribly important, so he put the same story
on the front page of the Times incessantly. The lack of news coming out of
Aruba has not stopped cable television from putting on wall-to-wall coverage
of that non-event for almost a month now. But network reporting of the
Islamist terrorist attack on London subsided within hours, and only
re-appears when there are hard news events — such as finding the bodies of
the terrorists.
But the media is certainly getting an un-useful cue from
government officials. Almost every top British official seemed to be taking
the attack far too well in stride. They have taken "stiff upper lip" to the
point of parody.
And, of course, the evil influence of political correctness
quickly suppresses honest language and clarity of thought. In the immediate
aftermath of the terror attack, reporters blurt out the truth. "In
terribilis veritas." Once they have calmed down, political correctness
regains control.
As has been noted by AndrewSullivan.com, the BBC offered a
particularly Orwellian example of political correctness:
"Early on Friday morning another BBC webpage headlined "testing
the underground mood," spoke of "the worst terrorist atrocity Britain has
seen.' But at 12:08 GMT, while the rest of the article was left untouched,
those words were replaced by "the worst peacetime bomb attacks Britain has
seen." ... In its round-up of world reactions, BBC online was also quick to
highlight the views of conspiracy theorists. The very first article listed
by the BBC started by quoting Iranian cleric Ayatollah Mohammad
Emami-Kashani saying Israel was behind the London attacks. It was followed
by a commentary on Iranian state radio explicitly blaming the Mossad."
There were other examples of political correctness gone mad. I
saw a senior British law enforcement official on Thursday making the
explicit point that the words Islam and terrorist do not belong in the same
sentence. Yesterday, the head of the Scotland Yard press briefers finished
his factual account of various details with the statement that extremists
and criminals did these acts, and no one should "stigmatize any community
with these acts."
But, of course, no one was, nor should be, stigmatizing "any
community." On the other hand, while some very large percentage of the 2
million Muslims living in Britain are law abiding, it is also the case that
100 percent of the "extremists and criminals" so far identified by Scotland
Yard who attacked London were Islamic — or more to the point "Islamist."
The danger manifestly comes from those Muslims — either born or
converted — who believe in the armed jihadist policy of terror attacks.
Political correctness started out as an externally applied
pressure placed by academic elites on regular people not to say certain
things that were judged improper.
But it has become a more dangerous phenomenon now. Government,
law enforcement, military officials and many regular citizens are beginning
to internalize the politically correct mentality. If government officials,
the media and increasing elements of the public actually begin to believe
that there is no relationship between Islam as currently practiced by some
percentage of the Moslem population and the mortal threat of terrorism—then
it will be hard if not impossible to mount an effective defense.
Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here. Tony Blankley is editorial page editor of The Washington Times. Comment by clicking here.
© 2005, Creators Syndicate |
Mitch Albom | |||||||||||||||||
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