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Rush Limbaugh ^ | 02-23-02 | Rush Limbaugh

Posted on 02/23/2002 4:47:09 AM PST by cody32127

We now have confirmation that Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl is dead. Terrorists - who are sympathizers and compatriots to prisoners of the kind we have in Guantanamo Bay - murdered him in cold blood. Terrorists who are one with the Taliban and with the very Al-Qaeda people we're told we must "understand" and not call "terrorists," reportedly slit Mr. Pearl's throat after making him declare his Jewish heritage before a video camera.

The media's reaction to this murder has been wall-to-wall coverage, sadness and outrage that one of their own has been killed. They're even talking about the "unborn child" Pearl left behind. It's a complete 180-degree change in their attitude. I played examples of this change from CNN, but I don't want to single them out. Everyone in the press reacted this way.

I played clips of Judy Woodruff, Jeff Greenfield, Aaron Brown and Christine Amanpour reporting on the death of Pearl, and I don't recall them ever having been this upset about the war. They did, I guess, set themselves apart from the rest of America. I never have ceased being amazed at Bernard Shaw refusing to be debriefed by American intelligence during the Gulf War because it would "compromise my journalistic principles." I've asked, "Doesn't Bernie know that it is the United States guarantees his freedom to indulge those principles?"

I don't want anybody to misunderstand me here. I join the members of the journalist community being outraged by Daniel Pearl's murder. I support President Bush coming out and saying, "All Americans are sad and angry to learn of the murder." I'm not at all suggesting that media members shouldn't feel outrage, nor am I suggesting they shouldn't discuss it. It's just that I don't recall this level of sorrow even when September 11th hit or when Mike Spann was killed, or when Al-Qaeda ambushed and murdered that U.S. soldier in Afghanistan.

Just look where the New York Times positioned their story on Pearl's death versus the one on the dozen troops aboard that deadly Chinook helicopter crash in the Philippines. You have to go down to the bottom of the front page and practically get a magnifying glass to find the chopper crash, but Pearl is right above the fold on the front page. There's a focus here that is easily noted. Before this, there'd been more sorrow for Johnny bin Walker than there was for our men killed in action. Not anymore. Maybe I'm being a little too sensitive, but it will be the first time I'll have been accused of that.

There's a profound new awareness of just how mean our enemy is, of just what a bunch of thugs they really are. Up to now, they were portrayed as misguided souls that might be being mistreated in a prison. Now? Whatever they get, they deserve. They have confirmed how rotten to the core they are because they've killed a journalist who wasn't taking up arms. Although we did have Geraldo admitting he worked with the U.S. government in a drug sting and that (his feelings on your right to own a gun aside) he packs heat in Afghanistan. That endangered all journalists, I believe.

The Wall Street Journal and any other news organization is always going to assign journalists to risky spots on the front lines. I can't believe that the media truly didn't know what we're dealing with in this current enemy before Pearl's death. They seem to have been awakened by this, and to no longer be acting in their usual manner.

The media's reaction is that it Pearl's death was so brutal, they're not reporting the details. But the brutality of the death of others doesn't stop them from rolling tape, does it? An e-mailer to my super-secret Rush 24/7 subscriber address reminded me that the media has no trouble showing U.S. soldiers being dragged through the streets in Somalia, either. Has the brutality factor stopped them from replaying video such as the collapse of the Twin Towers over and over and over? Of course not. We're told then we have a "right to know" when they show us those kinds of footage, which some have described as "snuff films."

So maybe we should see the video, if only to remind us of their evil. A friend of mine sent me an e-mail saying, "When the emotion of this dies down, I think the video of this ought to be played for the American people. It would bring home just who we're up against, so that people never forget that this is who our enemy is." He equated it to making sure that we don't forget the Holocaust by showing video of the camps.

The media shows the video of American forces liberating the camps of National Socialism, as they should, so why not show this video. I don't know if "hypocrisy" is the right word, but there is definitely a double standard.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial
KEYWORDS: danielpearl; rushlimbaugh
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front yard live

The media NOW is outraged!


1 posted on 02/23/2002 4:47:09 AM PST by cody32127 (cody32127@hotmail.com)
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To: cody32127
I would like to believe that this horrible atrocity will open the media's eyes, but somehow I doubt it will last.
2 posted on 02/23/2002 5:12:18 AM PST by backhoe
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To: cody32127
Has the brutality factor stopped them from replaying video such as the collapse of the Twin Towers over and over and over? Of course not.

I won't look at pictures of 9-11. I won't watch any videos. If I see any, I switch it off immediately. And I don't want to see that video when it is broadcast. What it the point? Is there some reason why folks should re-traumatize themselves again and again? Perhaps I am too sensitive about it because I was in lower Manhattan that day. I don't know. But I know the buildings went down, I know who did it, I know a lot of people died, I know that some brave fireman willingly died that day. I know all that. Why on earth would I want to watch it once, let alone a dozen times. No thanks. I don't see that as doing any good. In my mind, we should look ahead. We should look at what we can do now. What we should do tomorrow. But hey, that's just my opinion, off topic as it may be.

As for the rest of this stuff, Rush has some good points. The media definitely feel it when its one of their own. That's probably natural. But it also exposes the phoniness of their supposed objectivity. And their selective sensationalism.

3 posted on 02/23/2002 5:13:48 AM PST by Huck
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To: cody32127
The elite media only sees what they want you to see. People in the military are not really human. Just stupid people who cannot get a real job and are a bunch of rednecks.
4 posted on 02/23/2002 5:18:44 AM PST by Piquaboy
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To: Huck
"In my mind, we should look ahead. We should look at what we can do now. What we should do tomorrow."

How manly? Here are some pretty flowers for you to look at. Hope they help:


5 posted on 02/23/2002 5:47:24 AM PST by isthisnickcool
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To: cody32127
I played clips of Judy Woodruff, Jeff Greenfield, Aaron Brown and Christine Amanpour reporting on the death of Pearl, and I don't recall them ever having been this upset about the war.

I don't recall any of them being as upset over the deaths of thousands of Americans on 9/11 as they seem to be over Mr. Pearl (especially Cristiane Amanpour).

6 posted on 02/23/2002 5:52:01 AM PST by mountaineer
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To: isthisnickcool
How manly? Here are some pretty flowers for you to look at. Hope they help:

That's pretty funny, loser. If you want to watch Faces of Death videos to make you feel tough, go ahead.

7 posted on 02/23/2002 6:01:08 AM PST by Huck
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To: isthisnickcool
And btw, where were you on 9-11? I was on Church St.
8 posted on 02/23/2002 6:02:14 AM PST by Huck
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To: mountaineer
I do not remember them being real upset by the MURDER of the media workers...you know the camera man, the hairdresser and other such folks, when nato/hato bombed the TV station in downtown Belgrade in 1999.

But, hey...they were JUST "common-worker media folks" and it was nato/hato doing the deed...klintoon and his henchmen/women could do now wrong....remember?

9 posted on 02/23/2002 6:03:30 AM PST by crazykatz
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To: isthisnickcool
HEY! How's you get a picture of my back yard?!!!
10 posted on 02/23/2002 6:05:50 AM PST by piasa
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To: Huck
Has the brutality factor stopped them from replaying video such as the collapse of the Twin Towers over and over and over? Of course not.

Rush writes as though the media has splashed the horror and gore of the WTC all over our TV screens and newspapers. This is nonsense. We have seen only images that are antiseptic compared with the reality. And that's appropriate. Only a psychotic would want to see EVERYTHING at the WTC just as it actually was. The media, in not showing us the Pearl beheading, is being perfectly consistent with their treatment of the WTC. Sometimes Rush strains to make a hit on the liberal media, and it's just a cheap, and unsound, point.

11 posted on 02/23/2002 6:23:42 AM PST by Arthur McGowan
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To: cody32127
I watched a silly, inane woman on Fox relate how we should "sit down and talk to the terrorist and reach an agreement with them not to attack the olympic games", then trust them not to do so. When Hannity pointed out how unreasonable this was and risky, she said "like Ghandi said if you want peace you must be peace, we all owe it to our country to put our lives at risk to show trust".

I heard it reported that Danny Pearl wanted to "Tell the terrorist story", to make the world understand what they are trying to communicate to us and why they have lowered themselves to communicate in terroristic terms. Well, he did. He got his wish, and in terms no one can misunderstand exactly what the terrorist are trying to communicate to us. They just want us to die. The common sense American already understood this before Danny ever took that fateful step out his front door on his risky journey to death. Danny's liberal thought processes must not have understood it.

In his wife's letter to the public she basically stated that we should continue to try to understand the terrorist and why they do these things. Do I think Danny deserved his horrible death? No one deserves to die the way he did, no one has the right to inflict death like that on another. And we will kill all those worthless dog's to prove that very point.

What has jarred the press is that no longer does their pandering to animals reward them by allowing them to be safe from being savaged. They have finally run into an evil that has no respect for their intellectual sensibilities, and has only on thing to say, "Death to Infidels". Now, for the first time they are swinging from the horns of a delima, how to defend the indefensible.

12 posted on 02/23/2002 6:32:02 AM PST by MissAmericanPie
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To: MissAmericanPie
Someone on this forum got it so right when they said Islam is the "Borg" of today, or something to that effect.
13 posted on 02/23/2002 6:41:38 AM PST by Taiwan Bocks
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To: Huck
That's pretty funny, loser. If you want to watch Faces of Death videos to make you feel tough, go ahead.

I don't need to watch TV or some video to know what death looks like. And none of the death I've ever seen or touched ever made me feel tough. Just the opposite.

There are a lot of folks that need to see this kind of death. Then maybe they might understand that you can't "deal" with these types of devoids that walk the Earth. Those that look human but are not. Types like those that were involved in 9/11 and slit Pearl's throat. The same types that kill in this country ever day. The types that butcher little kids for fun.

I took your post to be from someone that thinks that if we don't look at horrors and those that do horror then horrors don't exist. If I was wrong about that I apologize.

The real unvarnished images of what happened on 9/11 and the carnage afterwards should be seen and understood by every adult in this country. And they should see what they did to the WSJ reporter too. And if the little girl in CA comes up dead, and it's likely she will, they should see what was done to her.

Sorry if I misunderstood you. Your comment about the "faces of death" videos shows you certainly misunderstand me.

14 posted on 02/23/2002 6:46:16 AM PST by isthisnickcool
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To: MissAmericanPie
..."like Ghandi said if you want peace you must be peace,...

On Friday, January 30, 1948 Gandhi was "assassinated" on his way to the prayer ground.

And a very peaceful assassination it was too I understand. < /sarcasm>

15 posted on 02/23/2002 6:50:42 AM PST by sinclair
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To: Huck
The image of the burning ships in Pearl Harbor was produced over and over again until the war was over and the Japanese defeated. Traumatized? War is hell, and we are at war.
16 posted on 02/23/2002 6:54:49 AM PST by gaspar
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To: cody32127
what the?.. front yard live??
17 posted on 02/23/2002 6:57:38 AM PST by GeronL
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To: cody32127
The media has always stampeded to cover the tragedies of others. It was only a matter of time before they showed their elitist hypocrisy when it comes to covering the tragedy of one of their own. That said, the WSJ has been least guilty of this kind of thing, and it is a cruel twist of fate that it was one of their reporters that was selected for this grotesque exhibit. I hope our Special Forces take some pig entrails with them to bury the perpetrators with.
18 posted on 02/23/2002 6:59:44 AM PST by ctonious
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To: MissAmericanPie
wasn't Ghandi also pro-gun?? he used peaceful means against the British, not the radical muslims and communists after all
19 posted on 02/23/2002 7:00:20 AM PST by GeronL
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To: Taiwan Bocks
yup. Borg sounds about right
20 posted on 02/23/2002 7:01:34 AM PST by GeronL
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