Journalists Rebuke Army General’s Christian
Views as “Divisive”
Stop the presses! A Christian man has expressed Christian views while speaking inside some Christian churches. A night after Tom Brokaw labeled the comments as “divisive” as he trumpeted how “NBC News has learned that a highly-decorated General has a history of outspoken and divisive views on religion, Islam in particular,” the other networks piled on Thursday night, treating a few remarks made months ago by Lt. General Jerry Boykin as suddenly scandalous.
ABC and CBS put up a “Holy Warrior” graphic as each teased their respective evening newscasts. Peter Jennings previewed the October 16 World News Tonight: “The holy warrior in the American Army. God, he says, has revealed the enemy.” Over on the CBS Evening News, Dan Rather teased: “God and the U.S. military: One of the country's top Generals embroiled in controversy for saying we are at war with Satan.”
Jennings set up the full story by John Cochran: “General Jerry Boykin is making headlines today because he has said so openly that the war on terrorism is God's war against Satan and he's in God's Army.”
Rather framed a piece by David Martin: “At the Pentagon today, officials from Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on down faced questions about a U.S. Army General who says publicly that God put George Bush in the White House. The issue is this: No matter how strongly he may believe it, should or should not an American General, in uniform, be publicly proclaiming it to the world?”
But he only proclaimed his pretty standard Christian view to people inside some churches where he spoke earlier this year. It’s only because of the media that a wider audience has now heard the supposedly dangerous views of the General who heads a secret unit tasked with hunting down Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein and, if exposing those views really will hurt America’s war on terrorism, which side are the media on in so unnecessarily publicizing them?
This mini-scandal started with a report by Lisa Myers on Wednesday’s NBC Nightly News which aired in conjunction with a Thursday story in the Los Angeles Times.
Reporters at Thursday’s Pentagon briefing incessantly peppered Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld with questions intended to get him to denounce Boykin.
Thursday night on FNC’s Special Report with Brit Hume, Weekly Standard Executive Editor Fred Barnes criticized NBC’s news judgment, including how they so ridiculously packaged the re-playing of some church-produced video clips someone gave them as some kind of great scoop by their “Investigative Unit.” Barnes opined, as taken down by MRC analyst Brad Wilmouth:
“I think these charges by NBC are totally outrageous, and they are way off, about 100 percent off base. Look, it’s one thing to say that this man should not be expressing these views in the public square, but he’s, but he’s expressing his religious views in church. I mean, that’s a place where you’re supposed to express your religious views. They’re not out of line with President Bush’s view. He certainly uses the word 'evil,’ and he means it partly in the religious sense. Tony Blair said something very similar. I forget the word he uses, like 'sinful’ or something who are the enemies. I read the whole collection of statements that NBC had. I didn’t find any of them surprising or different from what you hear, what many, many Christians, if not most, hear in church all the time. Now, President Bush does not say, or I think believe, that God has chosen him and put him in the White House, but certainly many Christians believe that about him.”Brokaw touted the “exclusive report” on the October 15 NBC Nightly News: “There's a strange new development in the war on terror involving one of the leaders of a secretive new Pentagon unit formed to coordinate intelligence on terrorists and help hunt down Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein and other high-profile targets. NBC News has learned that a highly-decorated General has a history of outspoken and divisive views on religion, Islam in particular.”
Lisa Myers began: “He's a highly-decorated officer, twice wounded in combat -- a warrior’s warrior. The former commander of Army Special Forces, Lt. Gen. William 'Jerry' Boykin has led or been part of almost every recent U.S. military operation, from the ill-fated attempt to rescue hostages in Iran to Grenada, Panama, Colombia, Somalia.
“This summer, Boykin was promoted to Deputy Undersecretary of Defense, with a new mission for which many say he is uniquely qualified: to aggressively combine intelligence with special operations and hunt down so-called high-value terrorist targets including bin Laden and Saddam.
“But that new assignment may be complicated by controversial views General Boykin -- an evangelical Christian -- has expressed in dozens of speeches at churches and prayer breakfasts around the country. In a half-dozen video and audiotapes obtained by NBC News, Boykin says America’s true enemy is not bin Laden.”[“Obtained” as if they had to sneak into the churches with a hidden camera. In fact, as Myers spoke NBC panned tapes and CDs with professionally printed, graphically-appealing tape and CD labels with titles like “2003 Patriotic Service” over a waving flag background. So, the churches had obviously taped the sessions and reproduced copies for sale.]
Myers played a home video quality clip of Boykin on an altar doing slide a show on June 21 at the Good Shepherd Community Church in Sandy Oregon, with his somewhat muffled words on screen: “Well, is he [bin Laden] the enemy? Next slide. Or is this man [Saddam] the enemy? The enemy is none of these people I have showed you here. The enemy is a spiritual enemy. He’s called the principality of darkness. The enemy is a guy called Satan.”
Myers: “Why are terrorists out to destroy the U.S.?”
Boykin: “They’re after us because we’re a Christian nation.”
Myers: “NBC News military analyst Bill Arkin, who’s been investigating Boykin for the Los Angeles Times, says the General casts the war on terror as a religious war.”
Arkin: “I think that it is not only at odds with what the President believes, but it is a dangerous, extreme and pernicious view that really has no place.”
Myers: “Boykin recalls a Muslim fighter in Somalia who bragged on television the Americans would never get him because his God, Allah, would protect him.”
Audio only of Boykin at the First Baptist Church in Daytona, Florida on January 28 of this year: “Well, you know what I knew, that my God was bigger than his. I knew that my God was a real God, and his was an idol.”
Myers: “In a phone conversation, Boykin tells NBC he respects Muslims and believes the radicals who attack America are 'not true followers of Islam.' Boykin also routinely tells audiences that God, not the voters, chose President Bush.”
Boykin on June 21 at the Oregon church: “Why is this man in the White House? The majority of Americans did not vote for him. Why is he there? And I tell you this morning that he’s in the White House because God put him there for a time such as this.”
Myers concluded: “General Boykin tells NBC News quote, 'I don’t want to be misconstrued. I don’t want to come across as a right-wing radical.' He says given his new assignment, he is curtailing such speeches in the future.”Too late. NBC has already smeared him.
For a picture of Boykin and Windows Media Player video of the Myers story: www.msnbc.com
For the collection of quotes from Boykin in churches: www.msnbc.com
For a Boykin bio collected by NBC’s liberal analyst Bill Arkin: www.msnbc.com
“General Casts War in Religious Terms” declared the headline over a front page story in the October 16 Los Angeles Times. The subhead: “The top soldier assigned to track down Bin Laden and Hussein is an evangelical Christian who speaks publicly of 'the army of God.'” For the story in full: www.latimes.com
