Calling all English teachers. Is the use of "good English" correct or not? It is grating on my nerves to hear media say this instead of "he spoke English fluently".
The term "speaks good English" may not win any literary prizes for accuracy, but it DOES differentiate the speaker who has a fair mastery of conversational English from the truly fluent speaker. And it does so with little repugnancy toward correct grammar, so I tend to let it pass. There are far more egregious sins committed by the media every day.
NBC's Ron Allen - and indeed the other networks' on-the-ground parrots - are useful idiots for the networks AND Iraq, as they are their at the host country's pleasure. The network HAS to have someone in Baghdad, and Baghdad wants its propoganda put out. Both sides get what they want.
This entire Iraqi episode has played thru the media with very little sense of perspective. The media never says WHY the likes of France, Chermany, China are against an armed regime change. The media continues to act as though any use of force in Iraq without the UN will be "unilateral," although we already have a sizeable coalition. And the media continues to stare the public in the face and distort and fabricate what ever they want the news of the day to be.
Last night, for instance, NBC's John Siegenthaler said there was "growing opposition among US allies" to the war. Really? GROWING opposition among our allies? The story apparently justified its headline by lumping CHINA in with the naysayers, although China is hardly a US ally. Opposition among US allies was actually the SAME as previously reported. And no one snickered at all when Hans Bix suggested that a beefed-up inspection team could complete its work quickly, in "about a year's time." Ron Allen then added, "That may not be fast enough for the Bush Administration." No shirt, Sherlock.
But if Ron Allen had told viewers how laughably woeful Blix's statement was, Allen would be on the first flight back to New York. So he mouths platitudes and stays put.
It's all one monstrous charade. Everyone knows it. France knows it. Germany knows it. China knows it. Everyone right down to the last info babe in the media knows it.
But they won't say it - because of their obsession of having Bush fail. They, of course, don't REALIZE that they have this obsession, but they do.
Michael