LAST weekend's news coverage of our veterans was welcome, but deceptive. The "mainstream media" honored aging heroes and noted the debt we owe to today's wounded warriors - but deftly avoided in-depth coverage from Iraq. Why? Because things are going annoyingly well.Read the whole thing.
All those reporters, editors and producers who predicted - longed for - an American defeat have moved on to more pressing strategic issues, such as O.J.'s latest shenanigans.
Oh, if you turned to the inner pages of the "leading" newspapers, you found grudging mention of the fact that roadside-bomb attacks are down by half and indirect-fire attacks by three-quarters while the number of suicide bombings has plummeted.
Far fewer Iraqi civilians are dying at the hands of extremists. U.S. and Coalition casualty rates have fallen dramatically. The situation has changed so unmistakably and so swiftly that we should be reading proud headlines daily.
Where are they? Is it really so painful for all those war-porno journos to accept that our military - and the Iraqis - may have turned the situation around? Shouldn't we read and see and hear a bit of praise for today's soldiers and the progress they're making?
The media's new trick is to concentrate coverage on our wounded, mouthing platitudes while using military amputees as props to suggest that, no matter what happens in Iraq, everything's still a disaster.
God knows, I sympathize with - and respect - those who've sacrificed life or limb in our country's service. I just hate to see them used as political tools.
How many of you really believe that those perfectly coiffed reporters care about our soldiers and their families? Does anyone think those news anchors will invite any Marines in wheelchairs home for Thanksgiving?
Still, for the 100-proof nastiness of the intelligentsia, you have to move to the "entertainment" world. Hollywood declines to make a single movie about any of our Medal of Honor winners in Iraq - but has deluged us with left-wing diatribes, as activist actors and directors parade by with their limp bayonets fixed.
"Stars" who enjoy incredible privileges that our troops will never experience treat us to vicious propaganda - such flicks as "In The Valley Of Elah," "Rendition" and the released-on-Veterans'-Day-weekend (gee, thanks) "Lions For Lambs."
And then there's the forthcoming "Redacted," which wants us to grasp that our psychopathic military's basic skills are the rape and murder of innocent civilians.
Immeasurably self-important, Hollywood tells itself these movies are acts of courage.
In some of the films, the victims - of their own leaders - are our troops. In others, the victims are innocent Muslims falsely linked to terrorism. But the unifying thread is that the only heroes are stay-at-homes who bravely fight for the truth.
A number of critics have noted that the American people refuse to pay an hour's wages to see these films. Last weekend's release, "Lions For Lambs," earned less than $7 million, despite starring Tom Cruise, Robert Redford and Meryl "America's in Peril" Streep. And that was the big-bucks earner so far.
Scriptwriters, directors and vanity-project actors (how many have been to Iraq?) scratch their heads and deplore our apathy. They fail to grasp what's truly happening: We, the citizens and moviegoers, simply reject these films' underlying message.
Because the real message of all of these in-the-toilet flicks isn't just that the war in Iraq or the struggle against Islamist terrorists is bad - it's that America is evil. At best, we're the moral equivalent of our enemies.
Peters' point reminds me of a post by Angevin13 over at The Oxford Medievalist on Brian De Palma's moviemaking (and anti-Americanism).
But back to the war: AJStrata over at The Strata-Sphere reports on the new media argument that it's too late to report the good news out of Iraq:
In the continuing joke of denial by the liberal left that things are turning around in Iraq we now have a new spin: it is too late for success to be recognized, even if it is happening. This comes from one of those liberals who cannot emotionally face the fact that (a) Iraq was tough fight (like Bush and others said it would be) and (2) we are succeeding.I'm sure we'll be seeing more left-wing press denials of military success. Or we'll see additional partisan attacks on the war's management (the New York Times) or calls for a precipitous withdrawal after conceding progress (the Los Angeles Times).
Check out Jules Crittenden for more media insanity.
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