… And it's Killing American Journalism
I got an email from a journalist friend this morning, about the big news of the day, the massacre at Fort Hood in Texas. Here’s what it said:
“While the mainstream media is busy downplaying the shooter’s religion, just think if an O’Reilly or Goldberg book was found in his home or, God forbid, there was a talk station pre-set on his car radio or he once knew a guy who had a cousin who attended a tea party. There would be endless, mindless speculation and convoluted banner headlines about [how] the evil right-wing is sowing hatred and inspiring death.”
He’s right, of course. A lone gunman kills a late term abortion doctor in Kansas and if you watched liberal television or read liberal papers you’d think Bill O’Reilly pulled the trigger. When Timothy McVeigh blew up the Federal Building in Oklahoma City, liberals blamed conservative talking radio for fomenting an anti-government frenzy. Now we have another catastrophe, but this one is a tad inconvenient for liberals in the media. It turns out the gunman was a Muslim. Uh Oh!
This particular Muslim was a psychiatrist in the United States Army, whose name appears on comments posted on a radical Muslim Web site waxing favorably about suicide bombings; and who allegedly told a friend -- as a retired army colonel told Fox News -- that, “Muslims had a right to rise up and attack Americans in Iraq and Afghanistan.” So, what’s the storyline? Muslim fundamentalism? Try, Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome.
You see the media don't want to jump to any conclusions in this case, especially when they’re politically incorrect conclusions. But they’d jump to conclusions, wouldn’t they, if a white guy with a crew cut and overalls from the rural south walked into a local NAACP office and shot up the place. They’d conclude the guy was a racist. And they’d almost certainly be right. With the Fort Hood story there was sound reason to suspect the killer’s religion played a part in the massacre, and all we got was drivel about how stressed out soldiers are these days.
Never mind that Major Nidal Malik Hasan had never been deployed to either Iraq or Afghanistan. His stress, we are asked to believe, came to him second-hand, from the soldiers he counseled when they got home. As the headline in the New York Times put it: “Told of War Horror, Gunman Feared Deployment.”
Newsweek was just as bad. It began a piece about stress and the military with a question. “What if Thursday’s atrocious slaughter at Fort Hood only signals the worst is yet to come?” Why examine the Muslim angle when you can blame the carnage on a couple of wars the media never liked in the first place.
And then there’s the blog by Mimi Swartz, the executive editor of Texas Monthly, who seems to be blaming crummy hotels and restaurants for the massacre. “Killeen is a sea of chain hotels and chain restaurants,” she writes. “The place reflects all too well the state of today’s military, which means the people you see on the streets, almost always dressed in fatigues, are young, poor, uneducated and, invariably, stressed to the max ….”
I guess if Killen had been located in lovely Vail, Colorado Hasan would never have done what he did.
But what about that pesky religious angle? According to CNN, Major Hasan had shared some thoughts about being a Muslim in the army with a convenience store clerk he knew. “But as a fellow Muslim and someone of faith, he had a problem with having, perhaps, the opportunity in the future to have to shoot or kill or injure or fight fellow Muslims,” the clerk told a reporter. “And that is something that was weighing heavily on him. “
So, if it turns out that the motive behind the massacre had more to do with Hasan’s religion than his stress, the media once again will look foolish – and worse, untrustworthy. Political correctness is a virus running through our culture. And it is killing American journalism.
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Hi again, Bernie,
What a tragic shame it is to see American journalism “die” in this manner! I used to respect them- but that was way back! Thank God, we have people like you, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly and Rush Limbaugh to balance off that trend to the left! This, then is known as fair and balanced repoting at it’s best! It’s now wonder the NY Times is losing circulation as well as NBC!
People, luckily so, are just right of center- this gives us hope! Hopefully, the main strem media will “wise up”- this still the greatest country in the world! Let’s not lose it!
I try to do my bit- by pasing along by group e-mail, anything of a conservative nature- whether I write it or pick in my e-mail. That, so far is one way to pass our message to many people!
Many thanks for your time’
Wally Flint- Boonville, NY
Bernie,
I just want to say how much I enjoy listening to you on Fox News, and I applaud your down-to-earth and right-on-target comments. I wish there were more people like you out there. I have lived in Peru for the last 30+ years, and I can truthfully say that when I do return to the U.S., it hurts me to see what has happened to the country I love.
Politicians are more rotten than ever. The “lame stream” media, as you so well call it, is not interested in the truth anymore. Traditional values and virtues have all but disappeared. Can you imagine wanting to call a Christmas tree a “Holiday tree.” Or taking “In God we trust” off the currency. How ridiculous can you get? What will they do with Thanksgiving. Who are we to “thank”? Our founding fathers wanted to leave us a nation where God could be worshiped freely–liberty FOR religion, not FROM religion.
And look at the outcome of all these changes: What is happening to young folks–the violence, ignorance, lack of culture and morals, the loss of traditional values and service to others. From a recent survey on Fox, young Americans knew the names of the latest movies and Hollywood stars, but didn´t even know the name of the VP of the United States. Unbelievable! And if Obama continues to lead us to the far (socialist) left, they won’t even know who George Washington was a few years from now. In fact, I sometimes wonder if Obama studied traditional American history. After all, he grew up in Indonesia during his formative years.
I feel like the girl without a country!
Bernie
I watch you on the Orielly show all the time. I hear you asking why Journelists are not speaking up. But I noticed that all of you dance around the fact that our President is a Muslim. Afraid that you would be accused of saying that he is capable of doing the same as the Muslim did in Fort Hood. Maybe he is a card carrier of the SOA also.
You should try and get on the Glenn Beck show. At least there you can say what is on your mind.
Dave Reid
Defuniak Spirgs Fl.
As a Christian and a veteran I swore loyalty to my country, I don’t remember any clause in there about not having to go to a war zone where our enemies might be Christian also.
And to think I wouldn’t have had to go to Viet Nam, I could have claimed Pre-Post Traumatic Stress Disorder before I went.
Hey Bernie, On his Fox News show, Sean Hannity misleadingly aired video from the 9-12 March on Washington while discussing Rep. Michele Bachmann’s (R-MN) much smaller November 5 anti-health care reform rally to claim that “twenty-thousand plus” people showed up to Bachmann’s protest. Hannity’s video switch-up — which Jon Stewart highlighted on The Daily Show — is just the latest example of Fox News hosts’ extensive history of deceptively using video and photos to advance a false or misleading story line.
Fox News has history of deceptively using video to advance dubious storylines, but you are indifferent, when Fox News does it. How come?
Bernie,
You are a straight shooter and a refreshing light on the “lame media”.
Political Correctness was a bad experiement that does not work. You are absoltuley right on when say that PC is killing the press; and it is killing Americans.
I hope people will stop and think out this issue. When they do they will see that the clarity of a Politcal Correctness posture is wrong; and the truth of that is blinding!
You are a great balance to the Fox News Shows you appear on; and tighten the focus of each the those shows commentators who are equally enlightening.
Keep it going.
Steve
Having almost been killed on 9/11/01 by muslim jihadists, I take GREAT offense to the way the media is spinning the Fort Hood attack. These media whores could care less about the safety and security of this country. And don’t tell me they aren’t taking their marching orders from the terrorist loving White House. Wasn’t there speculation just a few weeks ago about “the media showing signs of nobility?” HA! That’s the funniest thing I’ve heard in months. I’m not stupid, even though the Ivy League, liberal elitists in the media think I am. I know the difference between peaceful, law-abiding muslims and criminal, psychopathic jihadists who use religion as an excuse to commit murder. How about the geniuses who make millions of dollars in the media doing their jobs and informing the American people of the facts and stop providing cover for both Obama and his policies and the Islamic terrorists who are killing our people? Is that too much to ask? You should all be ashamed of yourselves.
I’m also disgusted with the Army and our intelligence agencies, who knew well in advance that this guy was communicating with an Al-Qaeda recruiter in Yemen and still allowed him to remain in the Army. The guy had an announcement on his business card, SOA, soldiers of Allah and still nothing was done. I’m telling you, this attack was just a warning. I give it one more year and we’re really gonna get hit with the big one. And when it happens, the media and the government will have blood on it’s hands. It really makes me sick.
What he did was domestic terrorism. That’s simple fact. However, Islam doesn’t have a lock on killing people based on religion. Dr. Tiller was killed by a “pro-life Christian” (in quotes because I believe he was neither) in a terrorist attack. Both showed signs of what they were going to do and both were ignored.
Noticed another subtle example of bias on the weekend. Starting Saturday afternoon, everyone on CNN started pronouncing Hasan’s name as “Howsen”, rather than “Hassan”. Wonder why they’d do that? (Tongue firmly planted in cheek). It’s amazing how these people operate.
Mr. Goldberg:
Where were you when Barook Goldstein, a NY Emergency Room physician, opened fire on innocent Muslims who were praying at the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Israel, killing several of his victims? The fact is that all the terrorism problem that the United States is facing stems from the criminal acts of Israel.
It is in Israel’s interest that American Muslims be demonized which will help it influence American opinion for the expansion of its illegal Settlements. Israeli agents like yourself are given a certain role to play which you play in your own subtle ways.
All that anti-Muslim propaganda in the U.S. is not by mainstream Americans. One can always trace it to people with extra-territorial loyalties. It is the Israeli agents who got America involved in the Iraq War under false pretense killing more than 5,000 Americans. Now Senators Joe Lieberman and Arlen Specter want another 5,000 American heads blown by attacking Iran so that Israel could feel better. Do you or your Israeli mentors ever think in America’s interest?
There is a Nidal Hasan listed on Obama’s Thinking Anew – Transition Team Roster page 29 – listed as “Uniformed Services University School of Medicine” Nidal Hasan. Is he someone Obama knew? Is it just a coincidence or an error or a fake? Anyone know?
Fort Hood Police Sgt. Kimberly Munley deserves the Presidential Medal of Freedom…or at least a visit by Barack Obama. How long do you think we’ll have to wait for either? (Way longer than breath can be held, I’m guessing.)
Mr. Goldberg,
The President should have gone to Fort Hood. Any use of the word orator applied to him is wrong, for oratory requires memory, not a teleprompter. It also requires the ability to persuade people. For all the Pesident’s pandering and placating I have not heard of an increase of American Arabic speakers joining the military, FBI, and CIA.
We are not getting support from Muslims in America. A previous writer is correct in that Muslims (I believe it is apparently the majority) want to enjoy the benefits of this country, but not make the sacrifices.
Compare the Muslim in America of the present to the Nisei of World War II. They saw their people incarcerated and property confiscated, yet they earned the most combat decorations in the European Theater.
(If you allow this on your site, please use my full name.)
Will the Lame Stream Media take responsibility for mainstreaming radicals like Hasan?
First it was Bill Ayers – MSM portrait him like a college professor instead of unrepentant terrorist.
Coo-coos like Wright and Farrakhan who MSM portrait as religous philosophers instead of calling them for what they are – hatemongers.
Anderson Cooper referred yesterday to Hasan as “Doctor Hasan” every time he mentioned his name – almost leaving the impression Hasan was giving flu shots to the solders not shooting bullets at them.