I hate misinformation.
I guess because I spent many years of my life thinking that our society was built of segments that all worked together to benefit of all. Our defense industry was there to save us. Our politicians cared about us. Our media informed us.
Then 2002 hit. I knew enough about the region to know what was being said by our 'leaders' was not quite reality. Bush came up with a long list of issues against Saddam prior to the 2002 elections and it was obvious he was using the election to go to war. I wrote the only Dem in Georgia at the time (Cleland) debunking all the points. He (or more likely a staff member) responded with the catch-all 'he supports terrorists' because his policy of giving money to Palestinian families that had that house leveled if their kids conducted a terrorist act. Yes it was tip-toeing the line, but I doubt many moms and dads would send a kid off to blow himself up, then have their house leveled, just to get 25 grand. Needless to say, while Bush pushed the hell out of war, I don't have a lot of respect for many of the cowards that sat back and excused it.
I like to focus on the media. If the media did its job, we would know that a minor thing like what Michelle wears is not near as important as the sad fact that a large segment of our society believes Obama is not an American. And that high-ranking political officials egg this on. Granted a few articles of late have actually brought this up, but since this has been blatantly going on for over a year, you think our crack media would catch on. Maybe it has, between the attacks on too many vacations....
So with that as my backdrop, I would like to present the WaPo's finest...
George Will goes to Jerusalem! (Redux of George Willl goes to Coal Country).
He arrives and starts writing article after article from Jerusalem with a right-wing Jerusalem point of view. Not a Netanyahu point of view, a Washington Post right-wing point of view.
Netanyahu, the former commando and fierce nationalist, and Barack Obama, the former professor and post-nationalist.
George Will
Nothing like a pundit going to a foreign nation and fawning over their leader while slamming his own leader.....as long as you are a right-winger that is. I doubt this would stand if someone went to say Venezuela.
If Israel strikes Iran, the world will not be able to say it was not warned.
George Will
That makes it all right. They have been warned. I never knew wars were so simple.
In 1936, when the British administered Palestine, the Peel Commission concluded that there was "an irrepressible conflict" -- a phrase coined by an American historian to describe the U.S. Civil War -- "between two national communities within the narrow bounds of one small country." And: "Neither of the two national ideals permits" a combination "in the service of a single state." The commission recommended "a surgical operation" -- partition. What followed was the Arab Revolt of 1936 to 1939.
Here the idiot getting facts backwards. Commission -> Revolt in Will's false world. Revolt -> Commission in reality:
In their Report of July of 1937, the Peel Commission attributed the underlying cause of the Arab revolt to the desire of the Arabs for national independence and their hatred and fear of the establishment of a National Jewish Home. The Commission recommended freezing Jewish immigration at 12,000 per year for five years and that a plan for partition of the land be developed.
link
As an aside, here is a really neat thing in the Peel Commission that modern people don't bring up:
Chapter X. - Immigration
The problem of immigration has been aggravated by three factors:-- (1) the drastic restrictions imposed on immigration in the United States, (2) the advent of the National Socialist Government in Germany, and (3) the increasing economic pressure on the Jews in Poland.
The Peel Commission
Since many tell me how instrumental the damn Mufti was in forming anti-Semitic policy, how the hell did the Mufti get to America in the early '30s to make America so anti-Semitic?
Anyway, back to George Will's idiotic attempt at his one-sided view of the world. For this, I am going to do the same thing I accuse George Will of, but I think my attempt will be a tad more informative.
Syria's Bashar al-Assad, a dictator buttressed by torture, recently called Israel a state "based on crime, slaughter." Imagine what Israelis thought when, at about the time Assad was saying this, a State Department ninny visiting Syria was tweeting to the world, "I'm not kidding when I say I just had the greatest frappacino [sic] ever."
This is in his latest begfrom the right-wing faction in Jerusalem.
Read that. Then go to the BBC and watch the video on Syrian Ramadan soap operas. (Yes, they even bring up homosexuality). So is Bashar torturing directors to make soap operas condemning radical Imams and to bring homosexuality to light? How evil of him!
Will does not mention that Jordan and Egypt are even more oppressive states. He doesn't care. Saudi Arabia has chop chop square in Riyadh and chops peoples limbs/heads off each Friday.....he doesn't care. He has a narrative to tell.
Methinks George Will is doing the Middle East what he did to Global Warming. Finding the most politically powerful group and sticking to them. Does he really think that Israel is not a grown up country? Why does he think the needs to stick his nose in something he only vaguely knows about? Israel can't politically take care of itself without him?
Then we get to Krauthammer'slatest. His attacks on Obama and liberals is just as psycho.
What's a liberal to do? Pull out the bigotry charge, the trump that preempts debate and gives no credit to the seriousness and substance of the contrary argument.
But this paragraph really sums up his intentionally irrational argument:
As for Proposition 8, is it so hard to see why people might believe that a single judge overturning the will of 7 million voters is an affront to democracy? And that seeing merit in retaining the structure of the most ancient and fundamental of all social institutions is something other than an alleged hatred of gays -- particularly since the opposite-gender requirement has characterized virtually every society in all the millennia until just a few years ago?
He blames this on Obama and liberal overreach. The following facts are ignored in his argument: A right-wing judge overturned the law and Obama actually holds the opinion that there is a difference between Marriage and civil union. The fact that Obama agrees with the ass on what 'Marriage' means means nothing to this cold-hearted pundit. He'd rather lie about Obama than actually state the obvious that homophobia exists. (as an aside, given how lousy our media is, I don't know why Obama does continue to hold that distinction, but that is another argument.)
These are entrenched media figures. Their ability to lie about basic facts is accepted. Why?