Posted on 02/27/2005 10:58:24 PM PST by Trochilus
One of the truly funny "street" gags about the Soviet press, was a fairly commonplace play-on-words that spread throughout the old Soviet block of nations many, many years ago. It went something like this:
"There is no Pravda in Izvestia, and no Izvestia in Pravda," which meant, ”There is no Truth in the News; and no News in the Truth."
Well, First Amendment fans -- apparently not much has changed!
During his recent demi-summit with Valdimir Putin, when President George Bush raised free press issues and other democracy-related issues with this former head of the KGB, Putin actually brought up the "firing" of Dan Rather at CBS, as if that was an effective counterpoint argument to recent ham-fisted Russian governmental actions to place severe limitations on press freedoms!
This is what happened, according to two stories, one from Time and the other a Newsweek story posted on MSNBC. Here they are:
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1032354,00.html
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7037620/site/newsweek/
And -- I kid you not -- Putin even planted a question about it with one of the Russian "reporters," who he "cleverly" called on during their subsequent press conference.
In other words, Putin thought Bush and the American Government somehow fired Dan Rather! Is this frightening, or am I missing something here?! Putin's intelligence briefers somehow convinced him of this version of events, when what really happened is pretty much a matter of public record, to the ultimate and on-going humiliation of CBS/Viacom.
One might ask, what else does this guy believe? What else will he be told by ill-informed and maladroit aides as he willy-nilly acts to undermine, and then explain away, or negotiate away, limitations on any fundamental freedoms in the former Soviet Union?
No wonder they screwed up and exposed their own brazen culpability in the still-born attempt to poison Viktor Yuschenko during the recent Ukrainian election cycle.
Hey, I don't know about you folks, but I have a sneaking hunch we can and will work this one to our ultimate advantage, no?
But, as usual, pity the poor Russian people.
(Both of these links were posted today on Drudge.)
If only...
Much of the world relies on the lying media to learn about the US, its really sad.
So true... But Histroy has shown that Liberty connot be denied
Already posted four or five times.
BUCKHEAD fired Dan Rather!
Putin is a joke. Everyone knows that one day the Chechen running dogs will succeed in sneaking a nuke or chem-weapon into Moscow and then Putin will be lucky to even have a job as dog catcher.
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