NOMINATIONS NEEDED: Free Republic's Peter Arnett Awards

Monday, April 26, 2004 | Kristinn

[kristinn]

Nominations are requested for Free Republic's Peter Arnett Awards 'honoring' those reporters, news organizations and public figures whose reporting and statements have given aid and comfort to the enemy and undermined morale in the war on terrorism like Mr. Arnett did last year with his infamous interview in Baghdad saying the Americans were losing the war against Saddam.

Nominations will be accepted until 6 p.m. EDT Wednesday, April 28. Voting will commence later that evening with the cutoff time to be announced when the voting thread is posted.

Please provide a source link or documentation where possible.

A couple nominees to get things started:

The Washington Post for its cheerleading of the so-called antiwar movement. Nearly every prominent antiwar leader has been sympathetically profiled in the Style section and nearly every antiwar protest, no matter how small, gets reported on in glowing terms. The Post has never reported in depth about the background, funding and true agendas of the major antiwar groups.

Senator Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) for his 'Iraq is Bush's Vietnam' speech. Kennedy's speech was used as a rallying cry by Muqtada Al Sadr who threatened that "Iraq will be another Vietnam for America."

The winners will be announced at the sixth annual freep of liberal bias in the media held outside the White House Correspondents Association dinner by the D.C. Chapter of FreeRepublic.com on Saturday, May 1.

[tgslTakoma]

late-night bump!

[tgslTakoma]

late-night bump!

[staytrue]

John Kerry, for throwing away medals, collaborating with the North vietnamese, and voting against the 87 billion, some of which was for body armor.

[Jimmy Valentine's brother]

HAHAHAHAHAHA
You think I'm up at that hour?
Have an early morning bump!

[walford]

Wanda Baucus deserves dishonorable mention:

http://www.helenair.com/articles/2004/04/22/montana_top/a01042204_02.txt

‘‘When we watch the bombing on television, we really don't seem to understand or appreciate that some of these places are sacred. . . . I disagree with those who say that Saddam Hussein doesn't think about this,'' Wanda Baucus told [Washington Post gossip columnist Lloyd] Grove [last year]. ‘‘He cares about these places and their people.''

[tgslTakoma]

Now here this!
(I always wanted to say that!)

Please, everyone who wishes they could come into DC for this FReep, just do it! You will have a great time, during the FReep and afterwards when we go into the hotel to eat dinner, relax and watch the event on CSPAN. AND you'll be the first folks to see the actual awards we will be presenting to the "winners."

Now I need you guys to bump the heck out of this thread - and this FReep announcement thread - and the voting thread when it goes up. I will be busy from 4am until 11pm tomorrow (Friday) doing Mom stuff. Right now I have to get busy making "The Arnetts"... I had a brainstorm today at lunch; now I have to make it happen.

I must be nuts...

[Miss Marple]

I would like to nominate Sports Illustrated for their loathesome coverage of the death of Pat Tillman. I do not read the magazine, but I received this note from Northern Yankee this morning, and he is an astute observer and not prone to exaggerate.

-----------------------------------------------------

I received my copy of Sports Illustrated yesterday, with Pat Tillman on the cover. My first thought was mixed of pride and sorrow. Pride for what these men and women are doing overseas, and sorrow as we grieve their losses.

Unfortunately as I read the article on Pat Tillman by Gary Smith, and the end commentary by Rick Reilly, my thoughts turned to complete disgust in regards to these articles.

Gary Smith talks about how honored we are to have men like Pat Tillman putting their lives on the line for America, but then makes our involvement in Afghanistan sound as though we are the agressors, and that the Afghans hate us being there.

It doesn't get any better as Reilly writes about Todd Bates, who was an American soldier that died over in Iraq trying to save another soldier, and Pat Tillman who would have resented all of this attention he is getting after his death. He cites the mother of Bates who says we're in another Vietnam, and that there was no good reason for this war.

Both casualties are treated with anger by Reilly as he sees them as senseless, and ending in no good purpose. He ends his column with these thoughts:

Both men did their duty for their country, but I wonder if their country did their duty for them. Tillman died in Afghanistan, a war with no end in sight and not enough troops to finish the job. Bates died in Iraq, a war that began with no just cause and continues with no just reason.

--------------------------------------------

Northern Yankee then commented:

What bothers me most about these articles is that many of our men and women will be getting this magazine overseas. I can't imagine what moral will be like for those that read these articles. I just wish that SI could be a little more sensitive when writing these pieces, knowing that thousands of our country's finest will be reading them while serving in Afghanistan and Iraq.

[Criminal Number 18F]

I would recommend Dana Milbank and Dana Priest for the April, 2003, story of Amazon Woman Jessica Lynch.

Their "story" was based on unnamed, and apparently nonexistent sources, as is extremely common for "military reporter" Priest, a lesboid who hates men (and therefore the "male-dominated" military). Milbank, a male exemplar of the transgendered name Dana, is an international fabricator, er, reporter.

The WaPo seems to have flushed the first article down the memory hole.

Here's a first follow-up, by Susan Schmidt & Vernon Loeb, repeating Priest's "She Fought to the Death" fabrication:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&contentId=A14879-2003Apr2&notFound=true

Here's a hilarious follow-up, where Priest and a couple of minders try to lie her way out of the hole her fabrication has dug for the post:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&contentId=A2760-2003Jun16&notFound=true

Here is a characteristically mealy-mouthed defence of Priest's reporting by the Post's ombudsman/apologist, Michael Getler:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&contentId=A53917-2003Apr18&notFound=true

And here is a bit more mordant self-exam by the Post's Richard Cohen:

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ideas_opinions/story/85611p-78172c.html

This might be a bit too dated, because it's a 2003 story. But it's instructive of how the media in general, and the Washington Post in particular, never fails to put agenda before truth.

d.o.l.

Criminal Number 18F

[kristinn]

Thank you. They look good. The Post could have multiple winners.

[kristinn]

Thanks. I'll have to check SI tomorrow. It's a shame the guy couldn't keep his venom to himself. It's easy to say those things from the comfort of your desk and easy chair in Manhattan.

[Doctor Raoul]

Peter Arnett? Hard to beat the biggest...

[kristinn]

The voting thread will go up tomorrow morning. Voting will be open until early Saturday afternoon. Please add nominees overnight if you think of any.

[kristinn]

The voting thread will go up tomorrow morning. Voting will be open until early Saturday afternoon. Please add nominees overnight if you think of any.

[kristinn]

The voting thread will go up tomorrow morning. Voting will be open until early Saturday afternoon. Please add nominees overnight if you think of any.

[tgslTakoma]

Hiccups?

[kristinn]

I've got another nomination: Medea Benjamin for leading military family members to Iraq last December and returned to D.C. calling for a Congressional investigation in to 'atrocities' she said were being committed by U.S. troops--and for everything else she's done against this country.

[tgslTakoma]

Don't worry... I'm hard at work here.

(Just whittle while you work...)

[kristinn]

Just wanted the notice to be noticed.

[Zuben Elgenubi]

John King at CNN.

[arasina]

I know it's way too late but my nominees would have been David Gregory and Andy Rooney, for obvious reasons. Dishonorable Mention goes to Helen Thomas (or maybe that's a Lifetime Aschreechment Award).