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Guess who? We Have Met the Enemy, and...By Rick Horowitz
Kevin is going on, as Kevin can. He used to be in journalism, but now he's in message massage -- working his magic for the Republicans in our state senate, and filling a weekly chair on one of our local talking-headfests. He's pugnacious, our Kevin is, and occasionally even more than that, which makes for some bruised feelings -- and some lively television. But he's also a perfect mirror (megaphone?) of the latest thinking along the right arm of the body politic. Which makes listening to Kevin an excellent use of time; it's like one-stop shopping for the Daily Spin. And when it comes to the war with Iraq, Kevin is spinning like a ceiling fan. He knows exactly what the problem is with this war. The problem is: the media! "If you just watch American television," Kevin announces, "you'd think that we're behind, and we're losing, and it's all grim, and the prospects aren't good." And also... "I think things are going very well, but you wouldn't know that by watching the American press." And for that matter... "It is going well, despite what you're seeing in the American press." Kevin always stays on message. And sure enough, within hours of Kevin's declarations, we're hearing the very same thoughts expressed by plenty of others who slide right for a living. The war is going swimmingly, they want us to know -- no surprises, no disappointments. It's all proceeding precisely according to plan. Trouble? Nothing that couldn't be fixed by sticking a cork in Peter Jennings and the rest of those America-bashers. I paraphrase, but you get the idea. Ladies and gentlemen, let the scapegoating begin! We're going to win this war and win it big, yes indeed, but if something somewhere somehow goes wrong, we know exactly who's to blame. The media. The media, who are always painting such a dark picture of everything. The media, who always see the glass as half empty. Which does raise the question: If the media are doing such a great job of accentuating the negative, then how do Kevin and the rest of the critics know that the war is going so well? Where are they getting their news? Through their fillings? Or -- I'll bet this is the answer -- are they just more sophisticated than everyone else? Everyone else turns on the radio, watches the TV, picks up the newspaper, clicks on the Internet, and gets bamboozled into thinking this Iraqi campaign, however it eventually turns out, is several crumbs short of a cakewalk. But not the critics -- they're the only ones clever enough to see through the vast left-wing media deception! Or at least the only ones clever enough to find Fox. "The enemy we're fighting is different from the one we war-gamed against." That's the quote that got the stomach acid roiling -- from Lt. Gen. William S. Wallace, the commander of the V Corps, who also had the temerity to suggest that this war might last longer than many of the planners had figured. Gen. Wallace's comments were quickly followed by others from current and former high-ranking military types, raising concerns about the strength of the Iraqi resistance, about the proper deployment of coalition forces, even about the overall war plan itself. All of which were hardly what the president and his strategizers wanted to hear. Hardly what the president and his strategizers wanted anyone else to hear. Kevin and his buddies certainly knew that. And those current and former high-ranking military types must have known it, too. So we can only imagine the media pressure they must have been under, these brave, loyal, patriotic Americans, to say the things they said, to let their comments be recorded and reported. We can only imagine how painful the torture must have been, how brutal the interrogation, to get them to crack. "So, General, how's it going?" Posted 4/1/03. For
a fresh look at the war, the world, whatever, click to "Rick's"!
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Rick Horowitz
