Newsweek and the rioters - (of all world religions, only Muslims can riot without being criticized!)

Based on an unnamed source, Newsweek informed the world that American interrogators of suspected Islamic terrorists at Guantanamo Bay had flushed pages of the Koran down a toilet.

If this were true, the interrogators would be both morally wrong and stupid. The words of the Koran and the pages on which they are written are considered intrinsically holy to Muslims.

As it happens, it was not true. Like Dan Rather and CBS News, Newsweek put politics and craving a scoop ahead of truth, not to mention ahead of America's security.

As I said on my radio show days before Newsweek revealed that its report was baseless, even if the report were true, the magazine was highly irresponsible when it published the report. It could have only one effect: inflaming the wrath of hundreds of millions of Muslims against America.

If an American interrogator of Japanese prisoners desecrated the most sacred Japanese symbols during World War II, it is inconceivable that any American media would have published this information. While American news media were just as interested in scoops in 1944 as they are now, they also had a belief that when America was at war, publishing information injurious to America and especially to its troops was unthinkable.

Such a value is not only not honored by today's news media, the opposite is more likely the case. The mainstream media oppose the war in Iraq and loathe the Bush administration. Whatever weakens the war effort and embarrasses the president raises a news source's prestige among its domestic, and especially foreign, peers.

Newsweek is directly responsible for the deaths of innocents and for damaging America. As a typical member of the American news media, Newsweek's primary loyalties are to profits and to its political/social agenda. We are very fortunate that in America, at least, we now have talk radio and the Internet; the mainstream news media are no longer Americans' only sources of news. Europe and the rest of the world still rely almost exclusively on news media for their understanding of the world, which is a major reason for their anti-Americanism.

And now a word about the rioters. They have desecrated their religion and their holy text far more than the alleged flushers of Koranic pages.

Did any Buddhists riot and murder when the Taliban Muslims blew up the irreplaceable giant Buddhist statues in Afghanistan?

Did any Christians riot and murder when an "artist" produced "Piss Christ" -- a crucifix immersed in a jar of the "artist's" urine? When all Christian services and even the wearing of a cross were banned in Saudi Arabia? When Christians are murdered while at prayer in churches by Muslims in Pakistan?

Have any Jews rioted in all the years since it was revealed that Jordanian Muslims used Jewish tombstones in Old Jerusalem as latrines? Or after Palestinians destroyed Joseph's Tomb in 2000 and set fire to the rebuilt tomb in 2003?

It is quite remarkable that many Muslims believe that an American interrogator flushing pages of the Koran is worthy of rioting, but all the torture, slaughter, terror and mass murder done by Muslims in the name of the Koran are unworthy of even a peaceful protest.

Nevertheless, one will have to search extensively for any editorials condemning these primitives in the Western press, let alone in the Muslim press. This is because moral expectations of Muslims are lower than those of other religious groups. Behavior that would be held in contempt if engaged in by Christians or Jews is not only not condemned, it is frequently "understood" when done by Muslims.

That, not phony reports about an American desecrating Koranic pages, should really upset Muslims. It won't. Just as the CBS and Newsweek debacles won't upset the American news media.

The lowest of the Muslim world and the elite of the Western world: Anti-Americanism makes strange bedfellows.

even if the report were true, the magazine was highly irresponsible when it published the report. It could have only one effect: inflaming the wrath of hundreds of millions of Muslims against America.

If an American interrogator of Japanese prisoners desecrated the most sacred Japanese symbols during World War II, it is inconceivable that any American media would have published this information. While American news media were just as interested in scoops in 1944 as they are now, they also had a belief that when America was at war, publishing information injurious to America and especially to its troops was unthinkable.

This is not a particularly good example; a better one would be allegations of war crimes by Americans in WWII. And I cannot but think of the sacking of General Patton on grounds of slapping a couple of shellshocked American soldiers at a hospital. Reporters made that a cause, and got Patton taken out of the planned landing at Anzio. As a result the landing, which achieved surprise initally, was not pressed aggressively enough and instead of being a victory the operation was allowed to degenerate into a bloody stalemate costing 100,000 American lives - as much as the whole war in the Pacific consumed.

Such a value is not only not honored by today's news media, the opposite is more likely the case. The mainstream media oppose the war in Iraq and loathe the Bush administration. Whatever weakens the war effort and embarrasses the president raises a news source's prestige among its domestic, and especially foreign, peers.

I am put in mind of Michael Medved's point about Hollywood: Hollywood feigns cultural innocence on the one hand, and on the other hand it glories in making films hostile to American tradition and culture. Hollywood would rather give an Oscar to an R-rated flop than a G-rated profitable hit.
The obvious point of drawing that parallel is that "the media" - but not including "talk radio" and the Internet - promotes an external rationale and an internal rationale, and the two are different and inconsistent. The external rationale of journalism is "satisfaction of the public's right to know," and the external rationale of Hollywood is "satisfying the public demand for entertainment." But those turn out to be half-truths; "the public" doesn't have a "right to know," there is only a right of individuals to hold and promote their ideas, beliefs, and ideals without discrimination by the government.
And examples keep cropping up - CNN's "Tailwind" and its admittedly propagandistic coverage of Saddam's government, CBS News' use of obvious forgeries purporting to be TANG memos (and its earlier hit pieces on the US military in Vietnam), an intentionally sabotaged exploding truck gas tank in another famous network hit piece, you name it - that journalism "would rather climb a tree to tell a lie than stand on the ground and tell the truth." That is what it means to "make a difference."
The Republican Party is slandered as "the party of the rich" but it is not really that; the Republican Party is the party of responsibility and of bottom lines. The rich (and, as Eliza Dolittle's father in My Fair Lady illustrates, also the poor) can in their own ways evade responsibility; it is the middle class which is driven by hope and fear to adhere to self discipline and the discipline of the bottom line. The Republican Party is the party of the military officer who must make life-or-death decisions in the fog of war, and of the entrepreneur and the small businessman - and of everyone who respects the discipline and value that such professions represent.
The Democratic Party is the party of the second guess, the party of symbolism over substance, the party of PR. It is the party of the natural allies of establishment journalism. And of those who, for whatever psychological or seemingly practical reason, are willing to be patronized by them.

Why Broadcast Journalism is
Unnecessary and Illegitimate

even if the report were true, the magazine was highly irresponsible when it published the report. It could have only one effect: inflaming the wrath of hundreds of millions of Muslims against America.

In recent memory Bob Packwood was the last senator to be forced to resign for ethics violations. He was, for a Republican at least, far too sexually aggressive with his female staff. He was - please sit down before reading this - a kisser. In the pre-Lewinski era, that was enough (tho more was piled on for window dressing) to drive him from the Senate.
Harry Reid has made reference to the FBI file of a judicial appointee, in a way that insinuates strongly that he has improperly had access to that confidential, and potentially highly prejudical, file. The stricture against accessing such files is such that - at least if he were a Republican - Senator Reid would be in danger of expulsion from the Senate. Especially since the governor of his home state is of the same party that holds the majority in the Senate. But then, Senator Reid is after all a Democrat.
Speaking of Democrats, there was a huge scandal in the treatment of people's FBI files in the first year of the Clinton Administration. With a resume as a barroom bouncer and an opposition researcher, a man named Craig Livingstone assumed the position of White House Security chief. And in that capacity Mr. Livingstone legitimately requested FBI files for the numerous candidates for employment in the Clinton White House. Now, it would be an exceptional case if Mr. Clinton actually considered hiring a single Republican - but Mr. Livingstone requested and received the FBI files of about 900 Republicans! Additionally Mr. Livingstone requested and received 1100 FBI files of Democrats whose names were in continuous sequence in the FBI files. There is no rational probability that all of those people were being considered for employment, either.
Mr. Livingstone, by accessing those files, committed about 2000 counts of a felony. This was so serious that, Democrat or no, Congress (then in the last of 20 consecutive Democrat-majority congresses) investigated. It was so serious that Mr. Clinton and his White House stonewalled all inquiry as to who had hired Mr. Livingstone for such a sensitive post. It was so serious that Mr. Clinton had to announce that Mr. Livingstone had been fired. Notice, dear reader, the passive voice in that last statement: Mr. Livingstone "was fired" - but, consistent with the refusal to confess to "Who hired Craig Livingstone?" Mr. Clinton and his White House likewise stonewalled all inquiry as to who had fired Mr. Livingstone.
By responding on this particular thread, and quoting the discussion of the damaging nature of the fraudulent Newsweek "revelation" of "American Koran desecration," I promised to tie those points together. And here is the point: journalism actively works against responsible government. Senator Bob Packwood - a moderate, no less - was driven from the Senate for boorish lout behavior. It was loutish behavior - but that is all it was. In contrast a Democratic senator can indicate that he has committed a felony worthy of expulsion from the Senate, and business proceeds as usual in Washington.
And we know that that will continue, and nothing will come of it. Because the Clinton White House committed 2000 counts of the self-same crime in 1993 without so much as having to fire a senior staffer. Let alone having the president resign, as would have been inevitable if a Republican president had allowed 2000 felonies to be perpetrated in his office without credibly assigning responsibility to anyone other than a flunky and not even prosecuting him.

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