The Shame that is Our Local Newspapers

http://www.nationalledger.com/artman/publish/article_27261872.shtml

Al Gore's 'Invention' Exposes Anti-War Media
By JB WilliamsNov 29, 2005

Elected representatives in Washington are intended to be the mouthpieces of the people who elect them. Though they are constitutionally obligated to the will of the people, most Americans feel unrepresented by either political party today. That’s because politicians are no longer beholden to the people who elect them. They are instead, beholden only to those who control their power (their money), namely the two major political parties, their respective political platforms and their agendas of division.

The press is supposed to be the eyes and ears of the people, keeping a close watch on our elected officials and reporting unfettered facts so that the people (our real government) can keep those elected mouthpieces doing the peoples work in the interest of those people. Instead, we have a press operating with its own agenda and the people’s eyes and ears on Washington are failing us miserably as a result.

We hope the press will help keep politicians honest, at least as honest as any politician is capable of being. Help us rid ourselves of the dishonest politicians from time to time in order to assure the interest of the people. But it turns out that the one group we can trust less than politicians is the so-called mainstream press. Both make trial lawyers seem like decent folks. So who keeps the press honest?

EXAMPLE: Who made this case for forced regime change in Iraq? “In the four years since UN inspectors left [were thrown out] of Iraq, intelligence reports show that Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapons stock, his missile delivery capability, and his nuclear program.”

“It is clear, however, that if left unchecked, Saddam Hussein will continue to increase his capability to wage biological and chemical warfare and will keep trying to develop nuclear weapons. Should he succeed in that endeavor, he could alter to political and security landscape of the Middle East, which as we know all too well, effects American security.”

“This much is UNDISPUTED!”

According to the lame-stream press, this was in a nutshell, the pack of “lies” told by the Bush administration leading us wrongly into war with Iraq; WMD remember? But these are not the words of George W. Bush or any member of his administration, though they do mirror those words almost to a letter. These are the words of a prominent Democrat senator from New York who had just spent the previous eight years of her life reading intelligence reports in the White House. These are the words of Hillary Clinton, as she made her case for voting to authorize military action in Iraq in 2002. Did she tell a lie?

The once mainstream press would have once told the American people this important tidbit of information, particularly once anti-Bush partisans began accusing the administration of “misleading” us into war. But not today… The press has an anti-war, more accurately, an anti-Bush agenda of its own and telling the people these facts won’t help that agenda at all.

The press actively promotes the false idea that the Bush administration used faulty “manipulated” intelligence to secure congressional authorization for action in Iraq. But the press has not told the American people that Democrats demanded an updated intelligence briefing of their own during the debate to authorizing action in 2002.

They have not told the American people that the Clinton appointed Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet, delivered that updated report, known as the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) concerning Iraq in October of 2002, which indicated that the intelligence against the Hussein regime was as Tenet put it, a “slam dunk”.

They have not told the American people that literally none of the Democrats currently critical of pre-war intelligence bothered to even read that report before casting their vote to send American troops into harm’s way.

When asked in a recent press briefing if he had read the NIE before casting his pro-war vote in October 2002, Senate Democrat Harry Reid said “The answer is - if you ask me, I didn’t read it.”

When Senator John Kerry was asked the same question, he answered “I got briefings.” (Which means no, I didn’t read it.)

When prospective Presidential candidate Senator Hillary Clinton was asked, she responded “I’m not going to say anything about that. Just let the intelligence committee do their work, okay?” (Which translates to, my answer won’t help the Democrat agenda to regain political power, so I have nothing to say about that.)

It was only a 92 page detailed summary which was issued at the demand of senate Democrats and according to their own admissions, few of today’s Iraq war critics bothered to even read it… In fact, according to Senate Democrats, only six did read it and they all voted to support the action in Iraq.

You would think that congressional Democrats now critical of pre-war intelligence, voting to send troops into harm’s way without even reading the special intelligence reports they demanded, would be headline news. Not in today’s news rooms it isn’t.

Instead, the press helps Democrats promote yet another investigation into DNC alleged “misleading” pre-war intelligence for political purposes. The press has not told the American people that such investigations have already been performed or what those investigations concluded.

The press doesn’t want the people to know that two investigations into pre-war intelligence have already found no evidence of any manipulated, invented or even exaggerated intelligence concerning Iraq. They don’t want the people to know what the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence did find in their 2004 investigation. Proof of why the Clinton administration was wrong in assuming we no longer needed intelligence assets on the ground, wrong to limit our intelligence to that provided by the United Nations, as the Clinton administration had once thought adequate.

The press hasn’t and won’t tell the American people that to the extent we had any pre-war intelligence failures - it was the direct result of degrading our intelligence community throughout the 90’s and not the result of anyone’s efforts to intentionally mislead anyone. Telling the truth is not helpful to the anti-war anti-Bush agenda prevalent in today’s news rooms. So you won’t find this story in any lame-stream headlines today.

The American people are losing their will to win the war on international terror as a direct result of intentional disinformation in the press. The same thing happened regarding Vietnam and in that respect alone, it is a déjà vu experience for many Americans, soldiers in particular, who have seen this tactic before.

Forget what political party you thought you belonged to, would any real American support an elected official who voted to send American troops to war without even reading the special intelligence reports they requested first, no matter what party they belong to? Apparently, some Americans would…because some do.

Americans see hospitals and schools reopening in Iraq. They see Iraqi citizens thanking America for freeing them from the world’s most brutal regime of our time. They see children once imprisoned for their parents’ anti-Hussein speech, released and returned home by American soldiers. They watch as more Iraqis turn out to vote than do in America today, even though they risk life and limb to do so. Yet some still buy the media propaganda that the mission in Iraq is some sort of monumental failure. Why?

The average American does not have international experience, a depth of knowledge concerning world history in the Middle East, a direct understanding of terrorism or any direct expertise concerning issues of national security, foreign policy or military planning. Yet most of them are very opinionated on all of these topics, and their opinions are derived from media assessments alone, almost all of which are agenda driven reports based on disinformation or at best, selective information.

Many Americans sense that their system of self-governance is failing them. But few realize how they have contributed to that failure, or at least accepted the media’s contribution.

The people’s eyes are blinded by socialist liberal ideology; - their ears deafened by the drumbeat of anti-American sentiment above the fold right here at home. They no longer believe in their leaders, or their country. They no longer believe in true American principles because those principles have been under attack in the American press and on American campuses for more than 40 years now.

The level of disinformation delivered by today’s lame-stream press is unconscionable and everything America is or has ever been is in jeopardy as a result.

Some Americans have figured it all out and they are tuning out ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS, CNN, NPR and MSNBC as well as canceling their subscriptions to old media news rags in numbers that threaten the future viability of all mighty media. They are turning more and more to the internet as a means of researching and cross-referencing information on their own in order to find the truth that no longer exists in the once mainstream outlets.

One would think this would drive the old media to rethink its agenda of socialist anti-American propaganda, but it hasn’t. It has only served to increase the venom with which they seek to deliver the disinformation. People who don’t like America much are all too happy to drink from the poisonous trough set before them by the old media. They too work to undermine everything American.

Where will it all end? When will enough Americans get their fill? What disaster must to happen before the people will take back their press, their politicians and their government? Only time will tell. But those once counted upon to be the eyes and ears of the people are counted upon a little less with each passing day.

Taking America back from blind partisans begins with first taking the flow of real fact based information back. I trust the majority of Americans will always do the right thing once armed with the real information. The old media must reform to reality or it will continue to die a slow but certain death.

America’s future hangs in the balance. The American people are slowly catching on and they don’t like what they see. Al Gore didn’t invent the internet, but Thank God he did help make it available to every individual.
Little did he know it would become the catalyst for his political undoing.
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JB Williams is a business man, a husband, a father, and a no nonsense commentator on American politics, American history, and American philosophy.