August 20, 2005

Hi! I'm Randolph Dudetooth

Hi! My name is Randolph Dudetooth. You might remember me . . . ok, perhaps not. I’ve recently started reading through blogs (when time permits), but don’t really have the gumption to start my own. GroovyVic and I go way back, and since we share similar interests and views on many things, she graciously offered me the opportunity to post on her blog. As she mentioned, I was debating on what I should post about, and luckily enough, it came to me last night.

I am guilty of stereotyping, especially when it comes to politicians. So, I normally take anything they say with a grain of salt. But, last night I heard a speech by a member of Congress that really struck a chord with me. Representative Murphy (PA) spoke of a familiar topic, the media, and began with a neat little story from history (you can’t go wrong with that). He related how in the midst of WWII, as the Germans were lobbing their V1 and V2 rockets on the city of London, they had no way of tracking their weapons to see where they were going. So they listened to British radio and had their spies in England read the papers. They knew the media would tell them exactly where there rockets were hitting. However, the British media of the day voluntarily cooperated with the government and ran false stories to deceive the Germans. If the V2 hit a farmer’s field they reported that it barely missed Parliament, and with this seemingly small thing they helped to lessen the effectiveness of the enemy’s attacks and helped to win the war.

Representative Murphy noted that you don’t see this today. In fact, it appears as though the opposite is true. It seems as though the biased mainstream media is not only watching and waiting for us to loose, but they are damn near aiding and abetting the enemy. He relayed how he had recently returned from Iraq and while he was there he was interviewed by Fox News. They asked how it was going and he said it was going surprisingly good and he began to relate to them all of the good things he had just witnessed there. Then he abruptly quit the interview because he knew it would receive no air time in the US since he was not trying to pump the “acceptable� doom and gloom that the media wants when they talk of Iraq. Needless to say, that interview never aired.

We don’t get to see the evidence of this to often, but the recent live interview by Matt Lauer over in Iraq was a great example. He asked some soldiers about morale, to which they responded that it was good. It wasn’t what he wanted to hear, so he followed up with: “Don’t get me wrong, I think you’re probably telling the truth, but there might be a lot of people at home wondering how that might be possible with the conditions you’re facing and with the insurgent attacks you’re facing. What would you say to those people who are doubtful that morale could be that high?�

The soldier responded, “Well sir, I’d tell you, if I got my news from the newspapers I’d be pretty depressed as well!�

Lauer, not satisfied, then tried to bait him into saying that we should leave Iraq, but Capt Powell socked it to Lauer once more: “For those of us who have actually had a chance to get out and meet the Iraqi Army and Iraqi police and go on patrols with them, we are very satisfied with the way things are going here and we are confident that if we are allowed to finish the job we started we’ll be very proud of it and our country will be proud of us for doing it!�

Recent polls (I know some of you just love polls) by the Pew Research Center show that 60% of Americans (count me in) believe that news organizations are "politically biased in their reporting." I don’t think any discerning person who sees what is reported and does a little digging would disagree with that. I mean if Iraq is as bad as the picture they paint why didn’t Capt Powell say so, why don’t we hear most of the soldiers returning from Iraq saying so? If the anti-war movement is gaining such strength why were there only 1600 vigils with perhaps tens of thousands of people the other night, not 16,000 vigils with millions of people?

I’ve held the opinion for some time that the mainstream media is biased, but Congressman Murphy made me start to consider that perhaps some of these folks aren’t much different than propagandists/traitors like Lord Haw Haw. I mean you’ve got Geraldo drawing out battle plans, special reports “exposing� weaknesses and showing how easy it would be for terrorists to hit our vital infrastructure (and damn near planning it out for them), and headlines showing how each terror attack comes closer to wrecking our economy. Can they be so dense not to think that terrorists are watching and listening to everything they report, just like the Germans in WWII (I mean where else are the terrorists going to get their info folks)? And if they are conscious of this, are they not aiding the enemy? What about the reporters who were detained by Coalition Forces in Iraq because of their apparent outright cooperation with the insurgents (their uncanny ability to show up 10 minutes prior to, and in the exact location where attacks against Coalition Forces occurred). I know, they’re out there reporting the “truth,� but I doubt anything other than ratings and political agenda guides the media outlets these days (so much for any kind of moral conviction, let alone patriotism). I’m just a little sick of the mainstream media trying to loose this war and brainwash us- this isn’t Vietnam. Too many in the media are guilty of being propagandists if not outright treason. They hung Lord Haw Haw, but I doubt anything will be done to those in the media helping the enemy today. If nowhere else, perhaps history will see these traitors for what they are and give them their just reward.

There’s a lot more I’d like to jump into, like the whole absurd idea of cutting and running out of Iraq, but I will save that for another time. Until then . . .

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