Given the number of journalists that have been killed in Iraq, I have no idea what motivates American journalists to continue to don flak jackets for the purposes of ‘reporting’ whatever it is that the Pentagon wants them to report. But kudos to CBS’s Katie Couric for having the courage to point out that that was exactly what she was doing.
In an interview on Face the Nation she duly praises the marketplace that the military took her to visit,
“Well, I was surprised, you know, after I went to eastern Baghdad, I was taken to the Allawi Market, which is near Haifa Street, which was the scene of that very bloody gun battle back in January. And, you know, this market seemed to be thriving, and, uh, there were a lot of people out and about, a lot of family-owned businesses and vegetable stalls. And so you do see signs of life that seem to be normal.”
Presumably the same one that Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN) praised for looking like a marketplace in Indiana. The staged nature of the obligatory marketplace photo op bears an eery resemblance to the Nazi’s model concentration camps of WWII. But then Couric qualifies her remarks,
“Of course, that’s what the U.S. military wants me to see. So you have to keep that in mind, as well. But, there, I think, there definitely are areas where the situation is improving. But everyone agrees, Bob, that if these people, the people of Iraq, do not get basic services like electricity, like running water, it will be impossible to win their hearts and minds and have them fully support the national unity government or anything that’s going on here.”
It should be noted that $6 billion dollars later, the rebuilding of Iraq’s energy sector still needs $50 billion more to once again be functional. One wonders if before the Bush Administration bombed the country to smithereens they ever took a moment to calculate the cost of rebuilding what they had destroyed. But I digress, here is my fantasy:
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if Couric insisted on reporting the news. What if she really delved into the worsening refugee crisis that is occuring as Iraqis flee the country? What if she took the opportunity to look at the specific ways in which war impacts women and children? What if she talked about PTSD among Iraqi children or the horrendous rates of malnutrition? What if she talked to a pregnant woman who is scared that she won’t be able to get to a hospital if she goes into labor at night when ambulances are afraid to transport patients because of the violence? What if she talked to women who are being forced to turn to prostitution in order to feed their families. No doubt she will spend lots of time covering President Bush’s surprise visit to Iraq but will she mention new reports that the Pentagon has a plan to bomb Iran?
Like I said, it’s only a fantasy…
10 Responses to “My Katie Couric Fantasy”
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My Katie Couric fantasy is that she and her media whore colleagues will be at the front of the line for the guillotine after the revolution comes. Their failure has been the most egregious.
What is fantasy any more? I personally am so jaded with the MSM, that I feel Couric might have been strongly urged by the administration to say what she did re. “what the US military wants” her to see.
Doing this kind of softens the propaganda, while still getting the propaganda across. After all, the powers that be must be aware that many in the US (about 70%) simply do not believe anything the military or the WH says about how bush’s illegal holy war in Iraq is going. Softening the message is likely thought to make the bs more palatable.
Ex, I think you raise a good point and that is probably exactly how her coverage will go, judging by the preview of the rest of the week that she ran at the end of tonight’s news where they once again trotted out the market scene (apparently they have to keep recycling the same old photo ops due to that fact that the rest of Iraq actually doesn’t look like that…)
My Fantasy is that the politicians build a whore house and sell their nasty selfs out to repay the debt burden they have stuck the rest of us with. They already whore themselves out but in my plan they would actually be doing something for this nation of ours. It would take a long time at 2 bits (1 quater) a pop but most of the politicians are permanent fixtures in DC anyway so I say “let the whores start paying the debt they created.”
That’s my fantasy.
Madam Deep Thoughts is a propagandist and a shill.
She’s so stupid though that she can’t keep her scripts straight. By saying “That’s what the military wants me to see” she was probably saying to herself that she was being “pro military” by revealing this not realizing what she just admitted.
Oh well, that’s why Madam Deep Thoughts only gets a teleprompter most of the time. REmove the programmed lines and what gets revealed is a dingbat with no soul and no heart.
Admin,
I guess I will just HAVE TO watch the TV news this week (a thing I haven’t done for a couple of years, save for TDS and Olbermann), to see how the rest of it is presented :>)
Well done, Ms Marshall.
“Like I said, it’s only a …” should be “as” I said. “As” is adverbial, “Like” is adjectival and is incorrect.
Murderers, Theives, Criminals, get the heck out of Arab lands
Gummy Katy needs ratings. Her show is in the toilet. Going to Iraq and not venturing out of the safe zone, she is shown as being brave! She reports just what she is told, that the surge is working and things are somewhat normal! What absolute gall these so-called journalists have! They report what our government wants them to report, nuff said!
Back when there was a song by Don Henley called “Dirty Laundry” and a line from that song plays in my head every time I hear Couric or any of the other MSM bimbos regurgitating the neo-con spin. “See the bubble headed bleach blonde, she comes on at five. She can tell ya ’bout the plane crash with a gleam in her eye. It’s interesting when people die, give us dirty laundry”. My point is that they DON’T CARE that innocent people are dying by the thousands and that a country that posed no threat to us is a bloody, smoking ruin. If it bleeds, it leads and if it keeps them in good stead with the criminals who started this insanity to constantly keep trying to put lipstick on this pig, they’ll do so in order to maintain their “access” to the Bushista crime family. And to please their corporate masters and stay gainfully employed. Makes you wonder how they sleep (peacefully, that is)at night.