The Evansville Courier Press sees the need to provide health insurance to children. That’s good. The Evansville Courier Press seems to be holding both the Democrats and the Republicans equally to blame for failure of the SCHIP bill that would have accomplished this goal. That’s stupid. First of all, it needs to be made abundantly clear this wasn’t a Republican and Democratic schism. Plenty of Republicans were in support of this version of the SCHIP bill. The Evansville Courier Press says that the Democrats need to go back to work and prepare a compromise bill. They fail to mention that this was a compromise bill.
This wasn’t R v. D. This was supporters of a children’s health insurance policy versus the President’s men. And The President’s Men haven’t come up with a convincing explanation of why they opposed this version. They complained about the expense, and it’s nice for legislators to be mindful of expenses, but The President’s Men are willing to spend plenty of money for other purposes — Iraq being the waster in chief of American treasure. So they need to explain why Iraq and not children’s health. Congressman Pete Stark used intemperate language to put this choice in harsh relief.
You don’t have money to fund the war or children. But you’re going to spend it to blow up innocent people if we can get enough kids to grow old enough for you to send to Iraq to get their heads blown off for the president’s amusement.
Rather than address the substance of this statement, the Courier Press instead blanches at its harshness and uses it as an excuse to blame each side equally. This tendency of the news media to cast blame equally is degrading our political discourse more than over the top language like Starks. In the name of objectivity, newspapers have a tendency to say Side A says, “X” and Side B says “Y,” rarely trying to enlighten readers as to where the truth might be. I wouldn’t be surprised one day to see reporting to the effect of Incumbent Smith says the sky is green, Challenger Jones disagrees.
And so, you get milquetoast editorials like the one in the Evansville Courier Press that casts blame equally, regardless of the actual culpability of each side. Now here is an editorial:
I am aware that many object to the severity of my language; but is there not cause for severity? I will be as harsh as truth, and as uncompromising as justice. On this subject, I do not wish to think, or to speak, or write, with moderation. No! no! Tell a man whose house is on fire to give a moderate alarm; tell him to moderately rescue his wife from the hands of the ravisher; tell the mother to gradually extricate her babe from the fire into which it has fallen; — but urge me not to use moderation in a cause like the present. I am in earnest — I will not equivocate — I will not excuse — I will not retreat a single inch — AND I WILL BE HEARD. The apathy of the people is enough to make every statue leap from its pedestal, and to hasten the resurrection of the dead.
Maybe Pete Stark was familiar with the abolitionist editorials of William Lloyd Garrison.
Do we still remember the president’s men’s assurance that the Iraq war would pay for itself? We would simply take over the Iraqi oil production and use it to rebuild a better Iraq.
It was a war that was going to bring us nothing but good things,wipe out terrorism and fill our coffers. Where was the balanced news reporting then?
Lou –
I missed that one – source?
Parker,
It was part of the over all justification of the war,coming from conservative think tanks and blogs,and broadcast widely on AM RW chat programs.. Otherwise I don’t have a specific source.But the case was made many times that the war would be paid for by Iraqi Oil,and so would be the rebuilding.It would be a short war and democracy would reign quickly as we would be welcomed with open arms.That’s what the Iraqi expatriots told Wolfowitz and others.Bush in fact declared the war ended May 1st 2003 on the deck of a carrier. Little did we know it had barely started.Probably they expected to start rebuilding by summer 2003 after democracy was declared..
The reality of the Iraq war was unveiled very slowly.The Bush administration kept insisting for 2 years or more that there were WMD hidden somewhere.We gradually learned that the oil infrastructure was in bad condition even before the war and that sabotage kept destroying it from then one.There was no way oil was going to be used for profit in Iraq,but that was the plan.. My one consistent source for news has always been NPR,and the Iraqi war was constantly dissected.The Iraqi Constitution that Bush administration widely praised for being approved for political reasons was debunked on NPR,stating that it wouldn’t work because so many of the delegates were expatriots and had no credibility with the Iraqi people and the best solution would be to redo the constitution with contemporary delegates.This has been now widely accepted,but Shiites and Kurds will not agree to give up power,so there continues to be an impasse. So, Parker, I guess my source has been listening to NPR day after day with special mention of Diane Reems program 10-11 am ET.
Andrew Natsios, who was head of USAID, had given a rebuilding pricetag of $1.7 billion in an interview on Nightline in April, 2003 (thanks Google). To give an idea of this guy’s thought processes, Natsios also said that giving antiretroviral therapies to African AIDS victims didn’t make sense because they couldn’t take the complicated therapies in the proper sequence due to lack of clocks or watches. I guess it shouldn’t be a surprise that there has been about a 30,000% cost overrun in the cost of the war.
In fact, on that Nightline interview, Natsios basically said that reconstruction would basically stop if the price tag exceeded $1.7 billion.
Haliburton was originally appointed to be in charge of reconstruction in Iraq because they were ‘the only company capable of successfully completing such a large undertaking’.Have they given their report before Congress yet?