the Centrist

The now infamous piece in “Newsweek” by Michael Isokoff is not the first shot across America’s bow by this publication. In the Feb. 2nd (2005) issue published for Japan the American Flag was featured in the trash bin, that same week the international version showed an unflattering photo of Bush with the headlines: “America Leads But Is Anyone Following?” What is perplexing is that same issue in the U.S. featured Jamie Fox, and other stars and the headline was “Oscar Confidential”. The blogsite “Rising Sun” stated: “It is one thing for “Newsweek” to actively promote the notion that America is a ‘dead’, rotting country overseas, but it is quite another thing indeed to hide those efforts from its American readers”. You see it is not that Newsweek is ignorant or that Isokoff is a ‘bad reporter … it is that he and his editors knew his accusations would cause chaos and harm the image of the United States … just as the foreign issues of Feb. 2nd did. One needs only compare and contrast how the same reporter and magazine handled the Lewinski story. They sat on it for months, checking the sources over and over again, falling back on the excuse that it would not be ‘responsible’ to release such an accusation without triple checking the facts and sources. They held that the harm it could do to a sitting President ‘demanded’ they not release the story. That was their position until the story broke on the Internet (“Drudge Report”). That was then, this is now. Why wouldn’t they use the same standards especially in a time of war? Newsweek, not unlike Dan Rather, decided to go with a story not because they had the evidence … but because they wanted it to be true. They cared not about the consequences to either America, or the brave souls who insure their1st Amendment Rights … American Service men and women. It is not only our military, but theirs who are fighting a war in countries that would react most radically to their accusations. It is not an understatement to conclude that Newsweek has given al Qaeda new grounds for recruitment. But their ‘right’ to push their agenda, bested national security. Although there have been 15-17 deaths in riots around the globe Newsweek has been reticent to all but retract the story.
One might think their headlines would be teaming with the obvious and blatant atrocities perpetuated on the general public of nations across the globe. There is virtually no problem confirming be headings, rapes, and torture perpetuated by radical Islam … yet they search out anything anti-American. They seem to want our military to be the bad guys and the enemy the good guys, be they North Vietnamese or al Qaeda. This was obvious in the Viet Nam era, when our press championed the North Vietnamese. Yet after America’s withdrawal they failed to report the ethnic cleansing of the Cambodia (3 million killed). This occurred as a direct result of their pressure to abandon the South Vietnamese Government. To this very day the media insists that this was the right thing to do … 3 million dead Cambodian be damned.
Nothing Bush does seems to placate the main stream media’s animosity. While they fawned over the late Democratic icons John F. Kennedy (goal to democratize the world) and Sen. Patrick Moynihan (plan to privatize Social Security), they bristle when a he champions the same issues. So rather than fight for the greater good, Newsweek and other main stream media find themselves fighting for what they feel is the greater ideology. They find themselves opposing expanding women’s right in the Middle East, voting for a popular government in Iraq, and the defeat of a despotic government such as that of Saddam Hussein. The media-watchdog group “Accuracy in Media” (AIM) is calling on the Washington Post (the company which owns Newsweek), to compensate the victims of the violence caused by its story and help pay to rebuild properties that were destroyed. “This goodwill gesture would help show that the Newsweek correction, apology and retraction are sincere,” said AIM editor Cliff Kincaid. May I point out that along with the ‘people’s right to know’ comes the people’s right not to buy magazines that attempt to harm American soldiers in an already hostile environment? It is the also the people’s right not to buy products who advertise in such a publications. ‘Loose lips sink ships’ … but loose journalists do much more harm. They should be fired … just as you or I would had we made such a grievous error that would have caused death and destruction to those within our scope of responsibility. Thus, as the death toll of Americans and Iraqi’s ratchets upward one is reminded of the left’s spin of the Rather report: ‘Rather lied, but nobody died’. What we are not hearing from them is that when Newsweek lied, many died.