Posted on 06/10/2004 5:43:57 AM PDT by SB00
Media has Reagan myopia
ANTONIA ZERBISIAS
On Monday, only one "Canadian" network provided extended live coverage of former U.S. president Ronald Reagan's casket being moved into the Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California.
That network, deprived of its usual afternoon delivery of U.S. soaps, was, of course, CanWest's Global.
On the same day, only one of the papers which thump on my doorstep completely ignored Sunday's moving D-Day 60th anniversary commemoration on its front page. While both the Globe and Mail and the Star published a poignant photo of a Canadian vet wiping away a tear on the beach where his comrades fell, the National Post saluted the Gipper. Inside, six pages-plus of Reaganmania, complete with an encomium by David Frum who last year noisily vacated the Post after its founding editors were fired.
That paper's ownership? CanWest.
That both the company's network and flagship paper would so shamelessly mirror the U.S. mournathon is hardly surprising. After all, both pander to the neoconned who, like their cohorts south of the border, can't seem to recall any Reagan misstep.
Well, here's a partial list, cribbed from a 1998 column by The Nation's David Corn: Winnable nuclear war, recallable nuclear missiles, trees that cause pollution, colluding with Guatemalan thugs, voodoo economics, budget deficits, toasts to Ferdinand Marcos, getting cozy with Argentine fascist generals, tax credits for segregated schools, "homeless by choice," Manuel Noriega, "constructive engagement" with apartheid South Africa, the invasion of Grenada, assassination manuals, silence on AIDS, tax cuts for the rich, massacres in El Salvador, Iran/Contra, laying a wreath at a German war cemetery where SS soldiers were buried ...
And here are two more of my own: Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden, two monsters who flourished under Reagan's foreign policy.
Yet the neocon ululaters tell us on CNN, he was the planet's salvation, thanks to his destruction of the empire of the last batch of evildoers, the Soviets.
Never mind that Russkies were collapsing under the weight of their military spending and imploding agro-industrial (such as it was) infrastructure. According to the talking heads, it was Reagan, with Britain's Margaret Thatcher as leading lady, who slew the Red Menace, as if former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev, Poland's Solidarity movement, and other factors had nothing to do with it.
Judging from mainstream media coverage, Reagan was the guy in the white hat — both Time and Newsweek ran the identical photo — beloved by all, even though his approval ratings consistently ranked below Bill Clinton's.
Over the weekend, "(H)agiography displaced journalism," noted MediaChannel's Danny Schechter on Monday. "Like praise singers in ancient cultures, our modern-day alchemists, went to work transforming a sick and aging political leader into a demi-god."
TV has been especially slobbering.
It seems that every politician who ever enjoyed a jelly bean with Reagan, or every kid he ever patted on the head, has been booked to share their heart-warming recollections. (Even former Canadian prime minister Brian Mulroney was interviewed by CNN's Larry King who referred to him as "the prime minister of Great Britain.") And Alzheimer's, which claimed Reagan long before he died, is the disease of the week on the health segments.
But nowhere to be found are witnesses to Reagan's ugly legacy: the massacres in Central America, the AIDS epidemic, the un-avenged Hezbollah attack on sleeping U.S. Marines in Lebanon, to name just three.
Any politician or pundit who even fleetingly mentions these matters hastens to apologize for "speaking ill of the dead" for fear of invoking the wrath of the mindless Reaganauts who have condemned truth to the memory hole.
Trust The Daily Show With Jon Stewart to finger the essence of the "Ronald-tastic" coverage which, according to polls, is benefiting George W. Bush.
As Stewart pointed out, pundits are being asked if Reagan would approve of the war on terror. Of course, the answer from the right is a resounding "Yup."
Observed Stewart: "It's almost as if they waited for him to die so he couldn't go ... `shut the f--- up, that's not what I think.'"
And it likely wouldn't be. That's because, for all the real nuclear warheads aimed this way, Reagan offered his nation hope.
Bush and his neocon posse, on the other hand, want to terrify the people with "nukular threats" by "shadowy networks" "who hate our freedoms."
All of which might explain Reagan's media beatification: It's an expression of numbed nation's longing for a Great Communicator to be back in the saddle.
Or maybe it's more evidence the so-called liberal media aren't liberal at all.
This poor woman. It's like watching someone chew on her own leg.
They're only preaching to the choir, anyone with any sense doesn't read this commie rag. The ones who do already believe what they print.
Imagine if the Canadian welfare state had to make it's own way in the world instead of leaching off the US. For God's sake, they can't even win the Stanley Cup, let alone defend Western Civilization.
Yes, but she is a reminder that Marxism does not die easily. We have the same sort of rabid haters still living in 1917 in the USA.
laying a wreath at a German war cemetery where SS soldiers were
buried ...
And here are two more of my own: Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden, two monsters who flourished
under Reagan's foreign policy.
Is any of this true ? Did he support Osama Bin Laden at any time during his presidency ?
I am not a woman beater but if i met this woman...I may just have to change my stance...A nice smack right in the kisser and while she is down I would OK Never mind...I am sick of this..Every example she gave of reagans misteps are right out of the loony lefts play book... She is a true useful idiot...
For the Biatch To mention placing a wreath at a german cemetary i think she is talking about the 84 normandy rememberance...And why wouldnt we give honor to the german soldiers that fought and died in the battle of Normandy..Of course there will be SS in the cemetary but he was more then likely just paying respect to the soldiers that died... This woman is beyond belief.. Liberalism is a mental disorder.
Thanks for the reply. She did not mention that he was there to pay respect to the soldiers of Normandy.
she should marry scott peterson.
the AIDS epidemic,-does she mean the one spread by clinton to the canadians when he sold tainted prisoner blood?
Hahaha...I enjoy watching/reading them burn.
No no Oj Is going to have a Reality TV show.. It will be him dressed in Bruno Maglia Shoes and pair of Isotoner gloves... And the Object is to escape the house of OJ..He will be chasing the contestants around the house with a huge knife and the one that gets away to the end wins...I want her to go on this show... But to actually get caught.EVIL WINK!
One wonders how such an uninformed person could read a newspaper, much less write for one.
Morons like Zerbisas make me so glad that I left Canada. People like her completely control the discourse there.
a new SURVIVOR show. you better copyright that!
Gosh, but I thought Jon Stewart was an independent -- that's what he always claims whenever he's interviewed. And he claims to skewer both sides. Of course, the actual numbers on that turn out to be about 98% skewering against the Republicnas, but hey, he's an "independent"!
And as for Saddam, its a mantra of the brain dead liberal masses that the US was somehow responsible for Saddam's power, despite extensive evidence that the largest suppliers of arms to Saddam were the very ones opposed to his overthrow, i.e. France, Germany, Russia, China etc.
Don't know about you, but I didn't notice too many M-16s and M1-A1 tanks in Saddams arsenal? Of course the lamestream media and the unwashed lefties wouldn't have a clue on the difference between russian/chinese armour and American stuff anyway...
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