…Every time you hear Bush say he’d rather fight them “over there” than here, do you cringe at the effect these words must have on every Iraqi who hears them? I mean let’s just come right out and say to these people who have lost thousands of friends and family members — not to mention life as they knew it — that it’s better to destroy their lives and their country than ours. Jeez.
…Does it seem like there are a lot more books exposing the dirty workings of the Bush administration than any other, including Nixon’s and Clinton’s? Hardly a day goes by that someone doesn’t publish a new tome. Do you, like me, suspect that people are writing books instead of news stories because news stories get no play?
…Do you have trouble finding the patriotism in boycotting Citgo, which employs 4,000 Americans, because it’s owned by Venezuela? “Yeah, we’ll show those Bush-hatin’ commies. We’ll buy more oil from the Middle East. ‘Cause they love us over there!”
I was wondering about why it is that all the best political reporting comes from books (and blogs.) Browsing a bookstore last week, I was struck with the thought that we are being asked to pay for a book in order to learn the “real story.” I remember when newspapers practiced investigative journalism, not just shallow cheerleading for the administration. God help us.
Not all newspapers are cheerleading for Bushco. Most are under incredible pressure to make a profit and they do that by cutting costs in production and the newsroom. I read about a reporter at a medium-sized newspaper who said the editor expected every reporter to turn in six stories a day. Doesn’t leave much time for doing the Woodward and Bernstein thing.
“OVER THERE”
Ever since Dubya came out with this
pathetic line I’ve wondered why
Democrats haven’t made more of its
controversial implications.
It shows just how little compassion
this administration has for other
human beings. Why is it okay to
destroy another country and kill
innocent people to further an
agenda? Is this “winning hearts
and minds”?
Is it me, or, every time Bush says he’s bringing freedom and democracy to the Iraqis, do you wonder if maybe the hundred thousand dead Iraqis we’ve murdered would have liked the freedom to have had a say on whether they wanted us to kill them?
I’m betting most of them would have said, “thanks, but no thanks”.
I know what you mean. It’s like someone tells you, “Hey, we’re going to have a big old party and get into a brawl, break everything we touch, tear the roof off the place and shoot anyone we don’t like, and ..oh.. by the way, we’re going to have it at your house.”
And the Iraqi people can’t call the police, can’t appeal to anyone to stop the madness and the madmen who have chosen to their country as their Imperial playground.
Speaking of books that tell a real story, check out Sarah Chayes new one,”The Punishment of Virtue” - for a time she was a reporter for NPR, so from the inside, so to speak, she saw what was happening.
As Bob Woodward said this week, the only people who don’t know the truth are the American people.