"No one wanted to show the truth"

Babe agrees with Ronald Reagan that "There is no limit to what you can accomplish if you don't care who gets the credit." Whether it's his relentless campaigning, his sister's or some unknown magical force that moves Grandma to head for the kitchen, what counts is who gets the puddie treats.

"But why when anything good happens, they show the bad side of it too in their stories, but when any bad thing to happen, they only write about it and not the good sides around it?" asks Iraqi journalist/blogger 24 Steps to Liberty [via the glittering eye via neo]:

I was amazed how only the provocative and civil-war-style quotes were published today in the newspapers. Almost no newspaper showed how great, it appeared to us, the solidarity among Iraqis was yesterday. It is true that Sunni mosques were attacked by unknown men yesterday, and some Sunnis were killed. But that wasn’t the only thing happened as a reaction. Newspapers should have been neutral, as we were taught, and show both sides. Sunnis, Shiites, Kurds, Arabs, Christians, Sabians, Turkumans, and others publicly condemned the attack, but no one wanted to show the truth. I am not saying there will be no riots in Iraq to react to the shrine attack. I am not saying there weren’t mosques that were attacked yesterday and burned down. I am not saying that Shiites and Sunnis kissed and hugged after the attack yesterday. All what I am saying is that the news made Iraqis look like if they were fighting each other widely in the streets, which is not true. The news only made Iraqis sound like barbarians killing each other. There are barbarian Iraqis, like other people in the world, I am not saying all Iraqis are perfect and compete with angels in their manners.

Welcome to the Wild, Wild West, Steps to Liberty. If the local Iraqi papers are as sensationalistic, agenda-driven, reflexively Bush-bashing and truth free as ours here stateside -- which your post suggests -- maybe there really is hope, after all. What it took us decades to accomplish, Iraq has achieved in only a handful of years. If you keep up the pace, we will happily look to you to lead us out of this desert of suicidal pap.

On this side of the pond, it has taken an unholy alliance of rightie Bill Bennett and left-of-center Alan Dershowitz -- Bill was "the first student I ever had in my class, this was 42 years ago," Alan tells Hugh Hewitt -- to perhaps open the eyes of them that sleep. Neo's take on Portgate resonates with the cluelessness of media types -- yes, you, David Gregory -- who fuss over their coiffure even as they are being swept into the dustbin of history:

And so the inexperienced pundits pronounce, predict, and pontificate -- while the caravan moves on.

Bennett and Dershowitz? We loved Lucianne's take: "Here's an Oscar and Felix act for you with some telling insights." Whatever it takes. As Ronnie said, "There is no limit to what you can accomplish if you don't care who gets the credit."

Update:  Speaking of Felix, head on over to the Friday Ark at Modulator for some telling insights.

Comments

[goomp]

Alan's recognition of the facts of what is happening in the real world is a ray of hope that the West may awaken to the horrendous peril which appeasement of the dark side of human nature can lead to. The Chambelains of my youth awoke late but in time to avert annihiliation. Late awakening in the nuclear age may be too late.