Third Party & Independents: Archives

Unless you have proof that FNC didn’t show the photos at the direction of the Administration, this really is more of an editorial decision by FNC rather than censorship.

What’s censorship is the Pentagon’s stance on releasing photos of casualties in the first place.

Roger Ailes is the Chairman of the Board, Chief Executive Officer, and President, of FOX News. For his bio try: http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/A/htmlA/ailesroger/ailesroger.htm

It turns out that Mr. Ailes is “Bush seniors” former campaign strategist. A casual observer can’t help but conclude that Fox news is a 24-hour political commercial for the Bush clan. So of course they are not going to show anything detrimental to W’s re-election. I always like to say that CNN has a bias but FOXNEWS has an agenda.

Great post Edward. It just so happens that in today’s edition of my local paper a person wrote a letter complaining that the news media reports of deaths in Iraq are proof of a liberal media. It seems the reader felt that deaths in Iraq are not significant since the body count in Vietnam was much higher. Reporting soldiers killed in Iraq is just the liberal media’s way of attacking Bush. I would have just laughed that off if it wasn’t for the fact that I hear this argument regularly from Bush fans. Makes you wonder…

William, both sides in this are wrong, as they typically are. Body counts do get important when you consider that the Iraq blunder was a complete waste—no WMDs, and the people didn’t want liberation via American force to begin with. That is where the Right is wrong.

Where the Left is wrong is in the assumption that any time any single soldier dies in any conflict anywhere, OH MY GAWD we must end the war immediately!!! If a cause is JUST, e.g., the hunt for Bin Laden in Afghanistan, then casualties should not diminish our will to get the job done. Tactics should always minimize the casualty rate, but at the same time, we shouldn’t be deterred from our purpose when they happen.

Ciggy, as I’ve said before, the American people will bear any burden if the cause is just. To imply that the left wants to cut and run everytime a soldier dies is just wrong. You don’t see Democrats calling for a withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan. In fact (rigtly or wrongly in a tactical sense), we’re asking for more soldiers to be sent there to get bin Laden.

Unfortunately, some on the left and the right are politicizing the deaths of these soldiers. On the right they’re playing the “out of sight, out of mind” game to forstall questioning the occupation, and on the left they’re using the film and photos of coffins as leverage to end a bad policy.

Report the deaths, show the film, honor the soldiers who have sacrificed their lives for their country, and keep them out of the political process. Both sides! That’s just wrong.

If I catch Feinstein or Boxer trying to score political points off the bodys of US troops, they’re going to hear about it. If I catch President Bush doing it, he’s also going to hear about it.

The Memory Hole has been down due to the insane amount of traffic, but there are mirrors.

What disturbs me more than the coffins is that there is no major network following the slaughter that is raging in the Sudan.
How hypocritical that all the major networks weeped and sobbed over the 10 year anniversary in Rwanda, but now are ignoring genocide warnings once again

Let’s see, we pulled Marines out of Sudan to occupy Iraq. Who are we going to send if the American people get worked up over it?

Ciggy:
> Where the Left is wrong is in the assumption
> that any time any single soldier dies in any
> conflict anywhere, OH MY GAWD we must end the
> war immediately!!!

This is a stereotype of the left that, while true of the pacifists on the far left, is not true of the majority of us. As you said, most Americans, left or right, will support any war as long as the “cause is JUST”.

There are many in the center and on the right, however, who originally supported the war and actually beleived that there would be few casualties. For these people, the body count is starting to actually sway their opinion about the Administration, in particular since the original argument (the “just cause” of WMDs) no longer has the weight it once has.

It is this latter group that is the real and only reason why the Administration opposes the reporting of casualties. The administration doesn’t care what the left thinks at all - they are trying to manipulate the opinions of people on the right and in the center whose opinions about the war can actually be swayed by body counts. The administration thinks, and rightly so, that some of these center & right people might say to themselves “OH MY GAWD we must end the war”. No disrespect, Ciggy, but your left/right dichotomy kinda falls apart when you think about why this policy exists at all.

In short it is not “both sides” who are wrong when it comes to reporting the truth about what any given military action is costing the American people. It is the Administration who is wrong, and those who support the Administration’s policies (FOX) are wrong, too. This is not an issue of what people think about casualties, the issue is whether or not people should be told the truth about the casualties at all.

John:
> Unless you have proof that FNC didn’t show the
> photos at the direction of the Administration,
> this really is more of an editorial decision by
> FNC rather than censorship.

What FOX is doing is censorship, insofar as the Bush administration is well-known, indeed notorious, for punishing reporters and news organizations for being critical (for example, by never answering their questions at press conferences or kicking them out of the White House press corps entirely) and for rewarding those whose “reports” simply parrot the Administration’s line (for example, by granting exclusive softball interviews or by leaking critical information long in advance of leaking it to other news outlets). If a news organization omits certain facts from their reports because they know that they will be punished for reporting the truth, then it is censorship. Just because the Administration doesn’t use guns or the courts to acheive this doesn’t mean it’s not censorship.

-Cf

Hmm, FOX News showing 9/11 victims jumping to their deaths—exploitation. Choosing (not refusing, is there some sort of Show the Flag Draped Coffin Coalition) not to show pictures of the US troops in coffins is an editorial choice not censorship.

I would show them. I think their are more Americans who will think that we ought not let them die in vain by losing the war in the Middle East than their are those on the left who think it is proof that the Middle East is no threat.

There is a confusion here between what is censorship and what is not. The gov is not obliged to publish those fotos, those fotos are property of the US government. You can file a Freedom of Information Act pretition to have them released legally. She had no right to publish those pictures because they were not hers to give. The government has the right to control what soldiers say because being a soldier you have much less freedom of speech rights than civilian.

With reguard to fNC “censoring” those photos, it was a choice, like it is a choice for the other news channels to show those picture. It is not Free Speech if they HAVE to show those pictures.

Give me a brake about the bush administration “punishing” confrontational reports, there is nothing extrodinary about that. You dont help out people you feel have it out for you, that is just the dynamics of any relationship.

I think their are more Americans who will think that we ought not let them die in vain by losing the war in the Middle East than their are those on the left who think it is proof that the Middle East is no threat.

You’re right Sebastian. Far more. In fact, there aren’t any on the left who don’t think the Middle East is a threat.

Speaking of that, why are we so cozy with the Saudis? They are the main sponsor and exporter of militant Islam, and yet we’re their buddies. That was probably OK when exporting Taliban style Islam to Afghanistan coincided with our goal of driving out the USSR, but those days are long gone.

And while I’m in an agreeable mood, Publius, I agree with you about the censorship, too. It’s a shame a FOA request had to be filed, but they were made public. If FOX News doesn’t want to show them, they don’t have to. And they can keep in step with the administration calling suicide bombers, “homocide bombers” all they want, too. If people don’t want that kind of spin, they don’t have to watch. I rarely hear anyone (except FOX) make the claim that FOX is “fair and balanced” anymore, so I think people are smart enough to know what they’re getting when they turn it on.

After all, it’s just as much fun for us to bash the fascists on Air America. Why deny the right a guilty pleasure. :)

Okay, maybe it’s not censorship insofar as there probably isn’t a representative or employee of the Administration on-site reviewing all of the reportage coming out of the various news agencies… but the Bush Administration certainly practices what could fairly be called “extraordinarily heavy-handed news manipulation”.

And Roger Ailes, while not a paid employee of the Bush Administration, can easily be called a “representative” of the Administration - and he almost certainly had to personally approve the decision not to show the pictures. Maybe he wasn’t under orders from the President, but he knew full well that he was doing the President a favor.

-Cf

Lee, excellent point about the Saudis. I think that boils down to oil policy. If we run into a conflict there, OPEC might go haywire and play hell on the gas prices. It’s one more reason we should be on alternative fuels so that we won’t be the crack whore to a handful of Gulf oil sheiks.

Ciggy, at the risk of generating some incestuous amplification, you’re absolutely right. And it won’t be the fist time OPEC shut the taps. I still remember spending hours in long lines every Saturday morning with my Dad, waiting to put gas in the car.

For Bandar Bush to say that OPEC doesn’t use oil to interfere in other countries politics is just a flat out lie.