Posted on 05/20/2004 4:41:55 AM PDT by governsleastgovernsbest
Edited on 05/20/2004 4:54:52 AM PDT by Admin Moderator. [history]
A solid morning of fighting the good liberal fight for The Today Show.
The opening highlighted doubts about a US bombing raid in Iraq and an Israeli attack in Gaza.
Then, in the first interview, Matt Lauer was on the attack with Rudy Giuliani. The thesis: Rudy was not treated harshly enough in his appearance before the 9/11 Commission yesterday.
Q. Do you understand the amount of anger that some of the families expressed at yesterday's hearing?
A. Yes, people have different ways of expressing themselves, but the real anger should be reserved for the terrorists that did this.
That didn't satisfy Lauer. He cut Rudy off: "but blame and anger. Blame at officials responsible for overseeing the response."
Again and again Lauer returned to the assertion that the response was imperfect and that as a result lives were needlessly lost.
Rudy readily acknowledged that the response was imperfect but made the obvious point that nothing had ever prepared America for something like this, and that while he sympathized with the pain of the families who lost people in the WTC, there were other families to be considered, the families of the fire and policemen who died saving thousands of people.
The Lauer/Today strategy seems clear. With all the doubt about Iraq, the stories of the heroism of the response to 9/11 is one of the remaining feelgood themes we have, and in some way it redounds to Pres. Bush's benefit. So that heroism must be undermined and discredited. Lauer gave his best effort this morning.
Then it was on to a Katie interview with Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller who some time ago made a number of recommendations regarding the way detainees at Abu Ghraib should be interrogated. The Gen. made the point that the abuse was the acts of a small number of people who violated orders and that there was no culture of abuse. Katie was clearly skeptical.
But the key to the inteview was that, **at three separate times during the segment**, Today displayed a series of the abuse photos that we've all seen countless times.
By the way, I also kept careful count of the number of times this morning that Today displayed photos from the butchering of Nick Berg: it was exactly . . . zero.
Finally, a Lauer love-in with John McCain, Today's favorite guest. He readily took up the invitation to dump on Gen. Miller's assertion that there was a limited number of people involved in the prisoner abuse.
But Today's obvious main purpose was to open the wounds between McCain and the GOP with the hope of driving him into the arms of John Kerry.
Apparently McCain had made a comment to the effect that Americans weren't making enough sacrifices, meaning our taxes are too low. Today showed a clip of House Speaker Denny Hastert saying that if McCain wanted to see sacrifice he should visit our wounded soldiers at Walter Reed.
McCain said that he had done that, but that we shouldn't burden those people with big deficits, and anyhow what happened to the Republican philosophy of restraining spending and smaller government? (a fair point).
Lauer let the cat slip entirely out of the bag: "with fellow Republicans criticizing you, and Dem Sen. Joe Biden suggesting that John Kerry should give you a call regarding the VP slot, has it occured to you that you might be playing for the wrong team?"
McCain said no, that he was supporting Pres. Bush, that sometimes tempers got frayed and he understood. Actually a decent statement.
But this is clearly just an opening salvo in the liberal media's effort to help convince McCain to join the Kerry ticket.
Today Show ping.
Very good analysis of the more and more obvious agenda at NBC.
As for McCain, the moment he begins to act as a republican he will no longer be the darling of the media.
McC decides what is more important to the country......his face on TV.....or re-electing President Bush.
His choice is clear.
Amazing to me how Rudy is being treated.
I'll trade McCain for Zell Miller.
I haven't had enough coffee for this one...They are without shame....I am surprised and delighted that McCain didn't add fuel to the desperate attempt to turn him.
"I'll trade McCain for Zell Miller."
I'd even be willing to throw in a RINO to be named later.
If McTimebomb were a good guy, he would turn each and every one of these "why don't you bail?" incidents into the media's biggest nightmare, going on and on about what a disaster Kerry would be, and what a terrific Pres and leader Bush is.
Dan
You ain't seen nothin' yet.
"We are PROUD, PROUD, to count among our terrorist clients Prince Mohammed al Faisal,
a major financier of the 9/11 atrocities, I mean, accident
which was caused only by the people of New York"."
Who's Who on the 9/11 "Independent" Commission
In fact, a decent and aggressive McSomebodystopme would have said, "I might ask you the same question, Matt: are you playing for the wrong team? What team *are* you playing for? Making America look weak, divided, conflicted, guilty — who do you think that helps? What do you think led to 9/11?"
Dan
Thanks for posting this. Excellent.
Thanks, as usual! It's 6:51 CDT here in Amarillo; thanks to you, at 7:00 I will ALREADY know what I'm not going to be missing when "The Today" show starts!
Rudy was just on Fox and Friends. On now, Al Sharpton and Jackie Mason.
Is there any chance that the demographics in Arizona are changing such that McCain must appeal to a more liberal constituency?
I believe there is evidence AZ is becoming more Dem/liberal, but not to the extent that it would explain McCain's antics. I chalk it up to pure ego.
Both your points are excellent! (Did you catch Krauthammer on FNC yesterday -- he thinks McCain does not at all want to be Kerry's VP, but is angling for Secretary of Defense under Kerry?)
What would they call the Kerry/McCain ticket?
CANCER AND CANCER-ER?
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