Before Hurricane Katrina, the MSM (mainstream media) seemed on the run, if not finished.
But it’s an ill wind that blows nobody good: Katrina rejuvenated the MSM, which turned the hurricane into a raging anti-Bush story.
And Katrina isn’t the only recent story that has been driven by Bush hatred.
As columnist John Leo notes:
“[Washington Post columnist Harold] Meyerson celebrated Cindy Sheehan ‘whose down the line dovishness is more than offset by her standing as the mother of,’ etc. etc. Actually, Sheehan was more or less a summer-long anti-Bush media construct, kept aloft by withholding the news that she regards ‘insurgents’ in Iraq as ‘freedom fighters,’ hates her country (America ‘is not worth dying for’) and thinks Lynne Stewart, the lawyer convicted of aiding terrorists, is a real-life Atticus Finch, the heroic attorney of ‘To Kill a Mockingbird.’ She’s a loony Michael Moore clone, protected by the media’s ‘bereaved mom’ image.
“The major papers pulled all of our string with stories, mostly played big on page one, about the 2000th American soldier killed in Iraq. Every military death is a tragedy, but more than 58,000 died in Vietnam and almost 7,000 in a single World War II battle, Iwo Jima, all without front-page anti-war articles posing as compassionate news stories. The modern front-page editorial is easy to find these days. On November 21, the NY Times felt it had to run FOUR, page one photos of Bush trying to exit a Beijing meeting though a locked door. What a doofus! First he doesn’t listen to us, now he doesn’t even know how to leave a room!”
As much fun as this is for the MSM, it could (Leo notes) have a damaging effect on our future:
“Can it be that many national reporters are so afflicted by Bush hatred that they can’t let go long enough to report stories straight? Could be. Consider the entire backward-looking thrust of so much reportage, focusing sharply on what happened in 2002 and 2003, less on the stake we have in prevailing in Iraq. If we lose in Iraq, it will be the first great victory for global jihad, with tremendous consequences for the U.S. Can the media get over their obsession with Bush and focus on that?”