Andrew C. McCarthy, Ef off.
Posted on 05/17/2005 10:55:48 AM PDT by xsysmgr
We're in the grips of a pathology. And it's not media bias.
No kidding. Really. If you want to throw the off-switch for the cognitive part of your brain — as many conservatives seem only to happy to do this week — then, by all means, that is the story you want to run with in this latest media scandal.
Newsweek, in reckless pursuit of a scoop that might score the daily double of embarrassing the Bush administration while heaping more disrepute on the Left's favorite punching bag, Guantanamo Bay, falsely reported a martial toilet-flushing of the Koran. Oops, I'm sorry, I mean the Holy Koran — after all, I don't want to be left out of the new, vast right-wing "we can be just as nauseatingly pious as they can" conspiracy.
The false report, according to the New York Times, instigated "the most virulent, widespread anti-American protests" in the Muslim world since...well, since the last virulent, widespread anti-American protests in the Muslim world — particularly in Afghanistan and Pakistan, where at least 17 people have been killed.
That's right. The reason for the carnage is said — again and again, by media critics and government officials — to be a false report of Koran desecration. The prime culprit here is irresponsible journalism.
Is that what we really think?
Here's an actual newsflash — and one, yet again, that should be news to no one: The reason for the carnage here was, and is, militant Islam. Nothing more.
Newsweek merely gave the crazies their excuse du jour. But they didn't need a report of Koran desecration to fly jumbo jets into skyscrapers, to blow up embassies, or to behead hostages taken for the great sin of being Americans or Jews. They didn't need a report of Koran desecration to take to the streets and blame the United States while enthusiastically taking innocent lives. This is what they do.
The outpouring of righteous indignation against Newsweek glides past a far more important point. Yes, we're all sick of media bias. But "Newsweek lied and people died" is about as worthy a slogan as the scurrilous "Bush lied and people died" that it parrots. And when we engage in this kind of mindless demagoguery, we become just another opportunistic plaintiff — no better than the people all too ready to blame the CIA because Mohammed Atta steered a hijacked civilian airliner into a big building, and to sue the Port Authority because the building had the audacity to collapse from the blow.
What are we saying here? That the problem lies in the falsity of Newsweek's reporting? What if the report had been true? And, if you're being honest with yourself, you cannot say — based on common sense and even ignoring what we know happened at Abu Ghraib — that you didn't think it was conceivably possible the report could have been true. Flushing the Koran down a toilet (assuming for argument's sake that our environmentally correct, 3.6-liters-per-flush toilets are capable of such a feat) is a bad thing. But rioting? Seventeen people killed? That's a rational response?
Sorry, but I couldn't care less about Newsweek. I'm more worried about the response and our willful avoidance of its examination. Afghanistan has been an American reconstruction project for nearly four years. Pakistan has been a close American "war on terror" ally for just as long. This is what we're getting from the billions spent, the lives lost, and the grand project of exporting nonjudgmental, sharia-friendly democracy? A killing spree? Over this?
In the affirmative-action context, conservatives have written trenchantly about the "soft bigotry of low expectations" — the promotion of a vile dependency-ethos that says "you don't need to strive for better," as a result of which many people who might, don't. Our cognate sense of the Islamic world has become the smug delusion of base expectations.
Someone alleges a Koran flushing and what do we do? We expect, accept, and silently tolerate militant Muslim savagery — lots of it. We become the hangin' judge for the imbeciles whose negligence "triggered" the violence, but offer no judgment about the societal dysfunction that allows this grade of offense to trigger so cataclysmic a reaction. We hop on our high horses having culled from the Left's playbook the most politically correct palaver about the inviolable sanctity of Holy Islamic scripture (and never you mind those verses about annihilating the infidels — the ones being chanted by the killers). And we suspend disbelief, insisting that things would be just fine in a place like Gaza if we could only set up a democracy — a development which, there, appears poised to empower Hamas, terrorists of the same ilk as those in Afghanistan and Pakistan who see comparatively minor indignities as license to commit murder.
"Minor indignities? How can you say something so callous about a desecration of the Holy Koran?" I say it as a member of the real world, not the world of prissy affectation. I don't know about you, but I inhabit a place where crucifixes immersed in urine and Madonna replicas composed of feces are occasions for government funding, not murderous uprisings. If someone was moved to kill on their account, we'd be targeting the killer, not the exhibiting museum, not the "artists," and surely not Newsweek.
I inhabit a world in which my government seeks accommodation with Saudi Arabia and China and Egypt, places where the practice of Christianity results in imprisonment...or worse; in which Jews have been driven from almost every country in the Middle East, and in which the goal of destroying their country, Israel, is viewed by much of the globe as legitimate foreign policy; and in which being a Christian, an animist, or the wrong kind of Muslim in Sudan is grounds for genocide — something the vaunted United Nations seems to regard as more of a spectator sport than a cause of action.
In my world, militant Muslims, capitalizing on the respectful deference of others, have been known tactically to desecrate the Koran themselves: by rigging it with explosives, by using it to secrete and convey terrorist messages, and, yes, even by toilet-flushing parts of it for the nuisance value of flooding the bathrooms at Guantanamo Bay. Just as they have used mosques as sanctuaries, as weapons depots, and as snipers' nests.
There's a problem here. But it's not insensitivity, and it's not media bias. Those things are condemnable, but manageable. The real problem here is a culture that either cannot or will not rein in a hate ideology that fuels killing. When we go after Newsweek, we're giving it a pass. Again.
Andrew C. McCarthy, a former federal prosecutor, is a senior fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.
Thanks.
Similar issues abound with regard to the infamous "racial slur" defense.
According to this theory, a black man who is called an offensive epithet, perhaps during a confrontation such as a traffic accident with no real racial content, is more or less justified in killing the name-caller, anybody standing nearby and perhaps the entire city block. Creating an entire new category of "justificable homicide."
Justificable = justifiable.
Sorry.
I disagree with the author.
News-tweek deliberately published a weak story with a poor source of information. They didn't bother to confirm it. Whether Muslims rioted or not is secondary to the real crime.
Newsweek published this story out of their rabid anti-American viewpoint. The goal wasn't to inflame Muslims - it was to embarrass the United States to its enemies.
Newsweek is guilty of treason. It is guilty of betraying the very same country that protects its right to publish this trash. This is far worse than the deaths of the Muslims. A consequence of this treason will undoubtedly be the death of more Americans.
Are we angry at Jane Fonda, or the North Vietnamese that allowed her to sit behind an anti-aircraft gun? We're angry at Jane Fonda, of course. Likewise, we should be angry at Newsweek.
Their paths intersect when one used the other to further an agenda. newsweek published an article they were unable to back up for whatever ill purpose. Militant islam shown the spotlight on that article when they used it as their newest reason to riot. Both are to blame and both should be dealt with accordingly.
The above article smells of fear, referring to conservatives as smug and pathological in their actions. I know several liberals he can add to his list. mr. smug delusion wants out? Fine the guy is out till we say he can come back in.
My tag's a quote from Heinlein's "Stranger in a Strange Land" which I am about to finish for the second time - great reading even the second time around!
Good article. Thanks for posting it.
This is perfect.
I'll go along with that point, however isn't McCarthy saying, when he says ..."There's a problem here. But it's not insensitivity, and it's not media bias. Those things are condemnable, but manageable." ... that "media bias is manageable", therefore no big deal?
Isn't he saying we are wasting our time castigating the wrong people? Is he not saying it's only terrorism we should be concerned with? Don't worry about the press, we can "manage" that?
Thank you for the thoughtful questions.
Yes, we can manage the press AND still be concerned over militant islam. It is very simple to want to hold accountable both militant islam and newsweek. Mr. smug delusion (mccarthy) realizes this and fears the reaction this article has produced. He and his kind now have millions of editors peering over their shoulders. And so he refers to those that want to take action as smug, delusional, pathological conservatives. This is more than just an issue for conservatives. I know several liberals (many have family working or serving in the middle east) that are upset over this issue.
In this little exercise Andrew McCarthy sought to bring rational analysis to the subject of Newsweeks latest shame. Sadly about all he achieved was to provide a fine example of moral equivelancy on steroids.
Newsweek isn't getting a pass on this latest example of the absolute worst a news organization can cause, at least from true conservatives. It shouldn't. What I have seen in the media though, is that there are excuses for Newsweek. "Oh, if you think this is bad..." Misdirection is being employed also. All the little media conastogas are circled. The big bad boogie man is sure to attack at any moment. "How unfair!"
In this offering McCarthy actually excuses Newsweek. Newsweek didn't cause anything! Heck, it was the nasty middle-eastern mindset that caused this. Andrew McCarthy, BULL-PUCKY!
Who doesn't know what we are dealing with in the middle-east? Andrew, do you seriously think it rational to pound out articles that forgive people for lighting a match in this 'fire season' tinderbox?
In a perfect world McCarthy's article might make some sense. Folks, we don't live in a perfect world. The radical Islam element is going to capitalize on anti-American rhetoric and we all know it. In this environment Newsweek chose to print an article that was incredibly inflamitory. I take issue with that, and that doesn't begin to describle my anger at Newsweek.
Newsweek didn't have a story, but let's pretend they did. Was the subject of this story really newsworthy? Seriously, we're in the middle of a war with people we're trying to win over to western ways of leadership. Switching them to republics is a wise idea. Is this the evironment in which to publish a non-event, knowing full well the only effect it will have will be to cause more distrust and hatred against the U.S.? In Newsweek's mind it does. And there's the problem.
If Leonard Lipshank in Possom Bottom, Kentucky got juiced up on moonshine and flushed a King James version of the Bible, would Newsweek publish an account of it? The answer is no. It would be a non-story.
The Koran story was also a non-story. Newsweek did publish their account, but not to enlighten. It did it solely for the commotion it would raise. It did it so Newsweek's name would be lofted in conjunction with the story. If it would have been true, Newsweek would have been ever-so-proud of itself for destroying just a little more U.S. credibility. If people died, so what!
McCarthy says we shouldn't blame Newsweek because it can't control what middle-easterners do. "If Newsweek lied, is it any worse than Bush lying and people dying?" What a moronic question.
Before the War with Iraq, everyone thought Hussein had WMDs. His denials of access, his past history, his hatred for the U.S., his oil for food billions, it was all indicative of a serious problem.
Bush did not make up a whopper to invade a peaceful nation and cause needless deaths without a hope and a cause. His hope was to rescue the Iraqi people. His causes were to put an end to the evil dictatorship of Hussein, to cut the incidence of terrorism and bring western governance to Iraq and hopefully other M/E nations. That plan is well on it's way.
What did Newsweek desire? To deliver news? Brother McCarthy, if you don't see a little bit of a difference here, perhaps I'm wasting my breath. Seventeen people are dead today because this story was published and distributed. We all know what the radical element in the middle east is, but if this lie hadn't been developed, published and distributed, those seventeen people would be alive today, radical M/E element or not!
What most people don't quite understand today, is that we have our own radical element in the United States that is just shy of the evil that is perpetrated in the middle east. No they don't physically kill people, but they sure as hell don't mind prividing the canon fodder to do so.
Well, Newsweek got it's name out there alright. How fitting, them being outed for what they are! Obfuscating with regard to this story is disgraceful. We should be so lucky that Newsweek sales would colapse and it have to close it's doors.
This 'still another' example of 'fourth estate' Royalty, does the 'let them eat cake' comment one better.
"Die you unfortunate peasents, nothing touches us!"
wow
Andrew C. McCarthy, Ef off.
For any of you who might be interested.
See 53
That is a very good sign. Good out of bad. There is hope. ;)
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