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Still working on this ... comments welcom
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Once again, I have seen "She sold the airplane on e-bay for a profit!" myth promoted on both MSNBC and CNN by a Republican aligned pundit. Once again, I saw a "journalist" allow that to slide right on by without refutation, despite the fact that all major news organizations have reported days ago that this is a falsehood. The plane was sold, but not on e-bay and not for a profit. So this is a lie. Pure and simple. And the press does not call the Republicans on this. You guys let it slide, again and again. How can this not be construed as enabling behavior on your part?
For weeks, Obama was hammered over certain extreme comments made by his Pastor. Good reporting has revealed that equally outrageous statements have been issued by Sarah Palin's Pastor ... but this must be OK since we are certainly not getting hammered by it like we were with the Reverend Wright story. As a white southerner, well acquainted with the subtle approach to discrimination, it is difficult to see how there is not a racial component to the editorial decisions regarding content and frequency of the related coverage.
Michele Obama makes a foolish comment, and it becomes an issue projected over a series of months. Sarah Palin and her husband have long association with a political movement advocating secession. But her patriotism is never questioned. Forgive me if I find that inexplicable in the context of a reasoned and fair discourse.
I could go on, but what is the point? We both know the pattern and what it represents. But there are consequences to this enabling behavior, my friends. And neither you nor I can put that genie back in the bottle once it is released.
Overseas, the people of our allies are shaking their heads in amusement and dismay. A grass roots consensus seems to be emerging from many of our most vital allies that the American people are foolish and irresponsible. My view is that the American people have for so long been so poorly served by news media and its government that it is difficult to imagine a different response.
But that grass roots reaction overseas will have implications to our economic and strategic posture in the near future. If a majority of European citizens believe America has become foolish and irresesponsible, how can we expect support from the governments of these people? And if our press facilitates a campaign that routinely engages in falsehood and intimidation, how can these people not conclude that freedom and democracy in America is in a deeply endangered state? And if that is the case, then how can we as a nation be trusted?
Your enabling behavior has far reaching implications promising serious harm to the American people, and I have but lightly touched on only a few of them. Many of us out here are wondering if you care, or if you are simply that unaware.
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