Posted on 11/25/2005 5:03:50 AM PST by governsleastgovernsbest
by Mark Finkelstein
November 25, 2005 - 07:36.
In recent NewsBusters entries, here http://newsbusters.org/node/2923 and here http://newsbusters.org/node/2939 I described how an unexpected whiff of reasonableness overtook the Today show. On successive days, Matt Lauer criticized the Democrats for trying to make political hay out of Iraq without offering any alternatives of their own.
Strangely, sanity now seems to have a struck for a third day! And this in the most unlikely person of NBC reporter Jim Maceda, who only last week, as I reported here http://newsbusters.org/node/2743 was complaining that the French were not appeasing their Muslim rioters assiduously enough.
This morning, Maceda was in Iraq interviewing US troops. He summarized their message in this blunt and refreshing way: "these soldiers think the politicians who want to pull out quickly are dead wrong."
Maceda reported that "increasingly their role is to step back" and let Iraqi soldiers and police shoulder most of the fighting burden. Speaking of the Iraqi forces, an African-American soldier opined: "they're coming on good, they're coming on great, they're coming on faster than we could expect."
Continued Maceda, in a shot at the Murthas of the world: "These soldiers are against any kind of timetable except this one: that US soldiers go home when the mission is accomplished."
Perhaps most amazingly of all, Maceda concluded with this nugget of MSM self-criticism: "many soldiers blame reporters for what they see as a one-sided picture, saying that we tend to emphasize the violence and the death and under-report all the positive steps Iraq is taking."
I waited for a counterpoint back in the studio from Chris Matthews or some such, but it never came.
Could a warm wind of reason be blowing through NBC? Hard to imagine, but we'll certainly be watching with keen interest to see if the trend continues.
Today Show/NewsBusters ping.
Either that or they've got pods in their cellar.
Thanks for the heads up...watching now in central time zone
Please let me know what you think. I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop and it never did.
Maybe that all the NBC Managers are on vacation in Aruba this week.
Perhaps some Today Show denizens are hoping for a job with FNC.
Must be a virus or something, moonbat MSM types not lib-berating our troops?
You might be right! Could there be an announcement coming in the New Year that NBC is shutting down its news operation and will confine itself to entertainment news and sports?
Seems more likely that the Murtha episode was a trial balloon that burst and now the dems are taking another tactic.
The MSM, and their benefactors, the DNC, will now start to distance themselves from the Sheehans and the Murtha's. Hillary ROTham has already done so. Those who haven't sided with the 'cut-and-runner's' will say it was their outspoken criticism that made the difference... and FORCED the troop reductions.
These commie-pr_cks are sooooooo predictable.
I must have missed the Maceda piece...but i did see howard fineman...yuck. Says after Murtha's speech congress is now running the show, not the President. I'm gonna let you continue to watch Today...i'm out of there.
I half watched a talking head exchange the other day and the gist of it was:
Democrats know the president's long term plan has always been to pull out our troops as quickly as possible. Democrats know the deliberate pull out was scheduled to begin after successful Iraqi elections, and Democrats know this is already happening.
What the Democrats are doing, (and NBC as well, according to your observations), is to try and take credit for what is already occuring, as planned all along, by President Bush.
In other words, Democrats will try and take credit, by saying their demands forced the president to bring our soldiers home. And the MSM will gladly repeat the political spin as if it were true.
Perhaps..just perhaps... they are adjusting THEIR views to support and tract more closely with HILLARY's "moderate" postion.
Let's not say things we can't take back. ;)
This is quite positive, however, even if it is and remains an isolated incident in the short term.
Well, even a blind squirrel finds an acorn once in a while.
I'm taking note of all the theories being offered here to explain this aberrant outbreak of rationality at Today.
Frankly, I'm not buying into any of them for the time being, preferring to take a watch and wait approach. But it sure is strange!
Finishing up my thought:
So......I don't think "sanity" has hit NBC, MSNBC, or Howard Fineman! I think these MSM revisionists are just repositioning themselves on the winning side.
In that case, let me be the first to lay the blame on "the drugs". Not 'drugs', but "the drugs". NBC has definitely been taking "the drugs".
Hmmmm.... It is hard to believe but perhaps NBC has declered the treasonous Rat cause to be an unprofitable venture.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.