The Negative News

Vice President Spiro Agnew once referred to those in the media as “nattering nabobs of negativity.” It wasn’t just alliteration and wit he was conveying, he had a point. In addition to craving sensationalism, scandal, and stories about missing white women from suburban Modesto, the mainstream media persists in portraying domestic and international events as being worse than they actually are. Take, for example, Walter Cronkite’s role in losing the Vietnam War from his perch on the CBS Evening News. Indeed, his reports- which run the gauntlet between half-truths and blatant lies- are still influential even today as no one in America realizes that we actually won the Tet Offensive. Sorry Uncle Walter, that wasn’t the way it was.

Cronkite’s trademark style of turning victory in to defeat can still be seen today in a media that is still somehow considered “mainstream”- CNN, the New York Times, broadcast television, and other outlets which haven’t been relevant since 1996. Over the past twenty-five years, their attempts to mold reality in to their pessimistic perceptions have been met with mixed results. Their efforts to pin something- anything- on Ronald Reagan were an unmitigated failure, seeing as how “the Teflon President,” as Congresswoman Pat Schroeder (D-CO) once begrudgingly called him, was recently voted the Greatest American of All Time. Leading up to Gulf War I in 1991, those in the media predicted a Vietnam-style quagmire, complete with American servicemen coming home in body bags and Jane Fonda committing treason. A more accurate assessment of the fighting was offered up by Kevin Pollack in Canadian Bacon: “four days after we invade, they’re begging for a Big Mac.” Of course, once they succeeded in ousting President George Bush the Elder everything was rosy again.

Fast forward eight years to the presidency of George Bush the Younger and the media’s unrelenting and vicious assault on him and this country. From watching CNN or the network news, reading the New York Times or Washington Compost, or listening to NPR, one would think a deep recession began in this country on January 20, 2001 and has yet to be remedied, since President Bush is still in office. Indeed, during the 2004 presidential campaign, many opinion columnists wondered why popular perceptions of the economy- propagated by a media desperate to oust Bush- didn’t match the actual economic reality. In any event, despite the media’s best attempts otherwise, America quickly rebounded from a brief recession thanks in large part to Bush’s much-vilified tax cuts which have since resulted in increased tax revenue and massive reductions in the federal deficit (not meaning to sound at all like Ken Mehlman, let me remind everyone that I don’t pretend to be an impartial reporter).

Supplement that with the current coverage of the Iraq War by a media that seems to want us to lose, just as they made us think we did thirty years ago. Every day produces another ridiculous attempted parallel to Vietnam and another treasonous and asinine comment from America’s most famous unemployed woman, Cindy Sheehan. The media would have you believe that America is losing this war, even though to date America has yet to lose a single military engagement since the war began in spring 2003. The media would have you believe that American servicemen and women are dying in droves reminiscent of the First Battle of the Marne, when in fact more American servicemen and women died accidentally from 1983-1996 per year than in this current conflict. Besides, more Americans are dying per day in Los Angeles, Philadelphia, and Detroit than in Baghdad, Fallujah, and Mosul. Should we pull out of there too?

Perhaps Sean Hannity said it best; Iraq is just like Vietnam, except for the fact that we’ve captured Ho Chi Minh, occupied Hanoi, and held free elections. Indeed, the only people who are saying Iraq is like Vietnam are aging former hippies who actually want Iraq to be like Vietnam so that they can watch America lose as well as revisit the days of their youth, right down to the acid tripping, draft card burnings, communism, and treason. Honestly, listening to some of the squatters in Crawford makes you think these midlife crisis-types are stuck in 1969. Soon these imminent pensioners will be growing their hair out, wearing beads and tie-dye, and moving to Wasco County, Oregon. Personally, nothing makes me happier to have missed the sixties than to see 50-somethings joining hangs singing Kumbayah, and teaching that sort of incoherent drug-educed psychobabble to kids named Moon Beam.

Be advised, Americans, don’t blindingly believe everything you read in the Washington Compost. Just because they claim US Army recruitment is down and our forces are running thin doesn’t make it so. In fact, this blatant lie was refuted by- of all sources- the French, who cited the fact that Army re-enlistment is through the roof. Just because CNBC says the economy is in the tank doesn’t mean it is. If anything, rising employment, continued job growth, and a housing boom prove the economy is kicking butt. Just because CBS News reports Iraq as being a mess and an unsolvable quagmire doesn’t make that the case. Infrastructure is being rebuilt, vital services have returned to the cities, and new hospitals and schools are being built. You don’t know that because Bob Schieffer didn’t report it. And just because Cindy Sheehan refers to President Bush as a “filth-spewer,” a “fascist,” “the fuehrer,” and “the world’s number-one terrorist” (among other more colorful, unprintable descriptions) doesn’t mean he is. President Bush may not be a media darling (maybe that’s a good thing), but he is doing something the democrats aren’t: providing leadership. Don’t be surprised if that doesn’t get reported either.