The Discerning Texan
All that is necessary for evil to triumph, is for good men to do nothing.
-- Edmund Burke
-- Edmund Burke
Thursday, March 23, 2006
Steyn on FIRE about Big Media's betrayal of the West
Just as I got ready to settle in and watch the Longhorns, I came across RadioBlogger's transcript of Hugh Hewitt's interview of Mark Steyn today. And squarely in Steyn's cross-hairs was...the mainstream media!
And so...in all good conscience, I must make an exception to my earlier delared "evening of focus"--because this is simply too good to ignore:
HH: For two night this week on CNN, I've been told by Michael Ware, Time Magazine Baghdad correspondent, and others, that only the people with boots on the ground in Baghdad, those brave journalists know what's going on. Well now, Mark Steyn, columnist to the world, has in fact been in Iraq, dined on chicken in Fallujah, as I recall. And Mark Steyn, is the media anti-war?
MS: Well, I think the media has a herd mentality, as Christopher Hitchens was talking about in his marvelous interview with you just the other day. And I think that is the problem, that anyone who's been with large groups of journalists, whether you're at a political convention in Philadelphia, or whether you're with the foreign correspondent crowd in Kabul, knows that they all sit together in the same bar, and they reinforce the herd think. And I think the most interesting stories to come out of Iraq have been the ones from independent bloggers, sometimes with the American military, and sometimes Iraqi bloggers, or sometimes just from some fellow who happens to be in Kurdistan, and notices the big tourist boom that's going on there. They're all stories that are different stories. You know, the State Department, a lady at the State Department asked me if I wanted to go to Iraq the other day, and I politely said well, you know, I'm not thinking about it at the moment. And the reason I said that was because I think there's a difference when you go as part of a media assignment. When I was just driving around the Sunni Triangle, I was doing it pretty much as a tourist, and I think you see a different way that way. The media sitting in the same hotel bar in Baghdad, and then watching, filming the burning Nissan of the morning so it can be on the Today Show, is not the whole story about what's going on in Iraq in any means.
HH: Mark Steyn, a mil-blogger in Iraq, in Mosul, actually, named Buck Sargeant, sent me an e-amil today, which includes in part, some slams at Michael Ware and other journalists, and he says soldiers really do know what's going on, and he concludes by saying the media wants us to lose, and they're doing their damnedest to see it happen. But I have faith in the American people that they're too smart to fall for that trick twice. Do you think that attitude, whether or not justified, is pervasive in the American military?
MS: Yes, I think so. I think that is one of the big stories here, that in fact, the military, whether or not Iraq is like Vietnam, I don't think it is. That's rubbish. But clearly, the military this time around is not like Vietnam. That's the big difference. Anyone who gets e-mail from the troops knows that they're full of pride in what they're doing, and they think it's doing very well. And the way...I think the way to test this is just to try and be reasonably objective about it. When people use terms like insurgency and civil war and all this, think about the meaning of those terms. We've seen what civil war is within recent memory, in Rwanda and Bosnia and Ivory Coast, just to pick three examples. That's where the country gets split from top to toe between different ethnic groups, and they all start killing each other, and rival governments spring up, and there's massive population displacements. None of that is going on in Iraq, and it's absolute...you know, Tim Russert said today, he defended NBC, the media's Iraq coverage, by saying we capture reality. Yeah, they capture reality in the same sense that those insurgent guys capture people. They saw it's head off and shout Allah Akhbar at reality. That's what they're doing when they capture reality. The reality of what's happening in Iraq is very different from what Tim Russert thinks it is.
HH: You wrote a column up at today's Jerusalem Post. I want to quote a paragraph. "Despite the Mosque bombings," you wrote, "There's a net gain of more than 100,000 civilians alive today who would have been shoveled into unmarked graves had Baathist rule continued. Meanwhile, the dictator would have continued gaming the international system through the Oil For Food program, subverting Jordan, and supporting terrorism as far afield as the Philippines." That's the math, I say, Mark Steyn, but most of MSM will not even begin to try and do the sums.
MS: Well, in fairness to them, that's not just them. But the idea that they're...my column today was to reject the idea that there is such a thing as stability. There's no stability on the international scene. It's like a frozen lake in New Hampshire in March. Underneath, the water is on the move in that frozen river. And if it's not going in your direction, it's generally going in the other guy's, and that's basically what was happening during the twelve years under which American was containing Saddam. When George Bush I declined to finish the job, Saddam understood very well what was going wrong, that when you go to a lot of time and trouble and expense to set up, effectively, a big dictatorial management program, which is what the U.N. and America and Britain did, Saddam understood that was an act of weakness. So to think that you could have held him in that position indefinitely is ludicrous.
HH: Now Drudge has obtained from inside ABC e-mails, a particularly provocative source on the web today. One of them, from a senior producer for one of the weekend shows reads, are you watching this? Bush makes me sick. If he uses the mixed messages line one more time, I'm going to puke. He's now had a friend go out and say he feels very, very bad about this, he's a straight shooter, a great producer, he's always fair. What does the John Green e-mail tell us, Mark Steyn?
MS: Well, I think the fact of the matter is, I wouldn't put Bush makes me...you know, a lot of people make me nauseous, but I wouldn't put it on an e-mail, because I wouldn't assume that everyone who saw that e-mail agreed with me. What is reveals is that what the media think of as their impartiality is in fact rather a bland assumption that they all think the same way. And that's what's revealing about this, that he knew he could send that e-mail to all his chums at ABC, and that they would all agree that Bush makes them puke. And the difference is, you know what I think, and I know what you think. And why doesn't...I'm happy that this has come clean, that Bush makes him puke.
HH: Yup.
MS: That's great. Now if he can only say where ABC, where the network thinks Bush makes us puke, that would be one step to a kind of greater honestly and straightforwardness in dealing with the public.
HH: And I think that is the bottom line, that the appearance, or the assertion of objectivity...and I just ran into it so often with Michael Ware over the last two days. And he's an Aussie, and he has the old standard we understand better than Americans do, because it's not our fight, blah, blah, blah. It's just maddening to Americans when they can smell the anti-Bush aroma in the room. Mark Steyn, let's talk a little bit about the documents that are coming out. You referenced one of those with Saddam's connection to Philippines terror. Another one revealed that he was holding onto hundreds of Kuwaiti hostages ten years after the war. What's the effect of these documents on the left's sort of acquittal of Saddam campaign?
MS: Well, the left's argument has always been that Saddam was a secular dictator, and therefore he would have nothing to do with a bunch of theocrats like Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda. Well, you know, the left themselves refute that argument, because they're essentially secular leftists, and they are happy to make alliances of convenience with the Islamists who hate gays, and hate women, and all the rest of it, if it means...because they both happen to be anti-American. So I think they left themselves as self-refuting on that argument. But there's no doubt that when you look at these documents, that there are all kinds of small links that emerge between, explicitly between Iraq and their contacts with al Qaeda going way back into the early 90's. And there are also links with all kinds of other terrorist groups across the planet. And this is why I think it's so absurd to pretend to use that as an argument for not getting rid of Saddam. The point of the matter is that Saddam was someone who had been allowed to mock American victory in the 1991 Gulf War, and been allowed to mock it for 12 years. And so he was part of the September the 10th world, and needed to be removed on those grounds alone.
HH: Mark Steyn, you and close behind you, Christopher Hitchens, are the two people I think have been thinking clearly and, a long record of thinking clearly about the war. You referenced the interview I did with Hitchens two days ago. There's a note of pessimism in his voice about the ability to rally the West to this long war. Do you share that pessimism?
MS: Well, I think what Christopher Hitchens said, he used an expression which I think is correct, this passivity that you know, essentially the left's arguments, the non-deranged, America-hating left. Put them aside, the America-haters, for a bit. And the argument of a lot of the mainstream of the Democratic Party is this passivity. Oh, we can't do this, and we can't do that, because something may go wrong, and it may not be easy, and this will happen, and that will happen. And we don't understand any of these strange, wacky foreign places anyway. That passivity will end freedom in the world. It won't end freedom in the world in America, it won't end it in Iowa and in Massachusetts tomorrow. But it will end it in a lot of the borderline jurisdictions around the world very quickly. You cannot be that feeble in the face of an existential threat. Christopher Hitchens understands that. I don't agree with him when he starts talking about Mother Teresa and the Royal Family and all his other bug bears, but I respect him because on this issue, he shows a clarity that should be obvious to everybody of left or right.
HH: I think you're right about that. Robert Kaplan has written extensively. The American military gets it at the lowest level, Mark Steyn. It's just a question of whether or not the media will ever catch it from them.
MS: Well, I think you should ignore the media, and find out for yourself. You know, Glenn Reynolds has a marvelous new book out called An Army of Davids. And he promotes this idea he's had on his website, a pack, not a herd. The media are the herd. And the way to beat the herd is with a fast-thinking pack that draws in all kinds of resources, and uses them to the full.
HH: Mark Steyn, well put. Always a pleasure. Steynonline, America.
And so...in all good conscience, I must make an exception to my earlier delared "evening of focus"--because this is simply too good to ignore:
HH: For two night this week on CNN, I've been told by Michael Ware, Time Magazine Baghdad correspondent, and others, that only the people with boots on the ground in Baghdad, those brave journalists know what's going on. Well now, Mark Steyn, columnist to the world, has in fact been in Iraq, dined on chicken in Fallujah, as I recall. And Mark Steyn, is the media anti-war?
MS: Well, I think the media has a herd mentality, as Christopher Hitchens was talking about in his marvelous interview with you just the other day. And I think that is the problem, that anyone who's been with large groups of journalists, whether you're at a political convention in Philadelphia, or whether you're with the foreign correspondent crowd in Kabul, knows that they all sit together in the same bar, and they reinforce the herd think. And I think the most interesting stories to come out of Iraq have been the ones from independent bloggers, sometimes with the American military, and sometimes Iraqi bloggers, or sometimes just from some fellow who happens to be in Kurdistan, and notices the big tourist boom that's going on there. They're all stories that are different stories. You know, the State Department, a lady at the State Department asked me if I wanted to go to Iraq the other day, and I politely said well, you know, I'm not thinking about it at the moment. And the reason I said that was because I think there's a difference when you go as part of a media assignment. When I was just driving around the Sunni Triangle, I was doing it pretty much as a tourist, and I think you see a different way that way. The media sitting in the same hotel bar in Baghdad, and then watching, filming the burning Nissan of the morning so it can be on the Today Show, is not the whole story about what's going on in Iraq in any means.
HH: Mark Steyn, a mil-blogger in Iraq, in Mosul, actually, named Buck Sargeant, sent me an e-amil today, which includes in part, some slams at Michael Ware and other journalists, and he says soldiers really do know what's going on, and he concludes by saying the media wants us to lose, and they're doing their damnedest to see it happen. But I have faith in the American people that they're too smart to fall for that trick twice. Do you think that attitude, whether or not justified, is pervasive in the American military?
MS: Yes, I think so. I think that is one of the big stories here, that in fact, the military, whether or not Iraq is like Vietnam, I don't think it is. That's rubbish. But clearly, the military this time around is not like Vietnam. That's the big difference. Anyone who gets e-mail from the troops knows that they're full of pride in what they're doing, and they think it's doing very well. And the way...I think the way to test this is just to try and be reasonably objective about it. When people use terms like insurgency and civil war and all this, think about the meaning of those terms. We've seen what civil war is within recent memory, in Rwanda and Bosnia and Ivory Coast, just to pick three examples. That's where the country gets split from top to toe between different ethnic groups, and they all start killing each other, and rival governments spring up, and there's massive population displacements. None of that is going on in Iraq, and it's absolute...you know, Tim Russert said today, he defended NBC, the media's Iraq coverage, by saying we capture reality. Yeah, they capture reality in the same sense that those insurgent guys capture people. They saw it's head off and shout Allah Akhbar at reality. That's what they're doing when they capture reality. The reality of what's happening in Iraq is very different from what Tim Russert thinks it is.
HH: You wrote a column up at today's Jerusalem Post. I want to quote a paragraph. "Despite the Mosque bombings," you wrote, "There's a net gain of more than 100,000 civilians alive today who would have been shoveled into unmarked graves had Baathist rule continued. Meanwhile, the dictator would have continued gaming the international system through the Oil For Food program, subverting Jordan, and supporting terrorism as far afield as the Philippines." That's the math, I say, Mark Steyn, but most of MSM will not even begin to try and do the sums.
MS: Well, in fairness to them, that's not just them. But the idea that they're...my column today was to reject the idea that there is such a thing as stability. There's no stability on the international scene. It's like a frozen lake in New Hampshire in March. Underneath, the water is on the move in that frozen river. And if it's not going in your direction, it's generally going in the other guy's, and that's basically what was happening during the twelve years under which American was containing Saddam. When George Bush I declined to finish the job, Saddam understood very well what was going wrong, that when you go to a lot of time and trouble and expense to set up, effectively, a big dictatorial management program, which is what the U.N. and America and Britain did, Saddam understood that was an act of weakness. So to think that you could have held him in that position indefinitely is ludicrous.
HH: Now Drudge has obtained from inside ABC e-mails, a particularly provocative source on the web today. One of them, from a senior producer for one of the weekend shows reads, are you watching this? Bush makes me sick. If he uses the mixed messages line one more time, I'm going to puke. He's now had a friend go out and say he feels very, very bad about this, he's a straight shooter, a great producer, he's always fair. What does the John Green e-mail tell us, Mark Steyn?
MS: Well, I think the fact of the matter is, I wouldn't put Bush makes me...you know, a lot of people make me nauseous, but I wouldn't put it on an e-mail, because I wouldn't assume that everyone who saw that e-mail agreed with me. What is reveals is that what the media think of as their impartiality is in fact rather a bland assumption that they all think the same way. And that's what's revealing about this, that he knew he could send that e-mail to all his chums at ABC, and that they would all agree that Bush makes them puke. And the difference is, you know what I think, and I know what you think. And why doesn't...I'm happy that this has come clean, that Bush makes him puke.
HH: Yup.
MS: That's great. Now if he can only say where ABC, where the network thinks Bush makes us puke, that would be one step to a kind of greater honestly and straightforwardness in dealing with the public.
HH: And I think that is the bottom line, that the appearance, or the assertion of objectivity...and I just ran into it so often with Michael Ware over the last two days. And he's an Aussie, and he has the old standard we understand better than Americans do, because it's not our fight, blah, blah, blah. It's just maddening to Americans when they can smell the anti-Bush aroma in the room. Mark Steyn, let's talk a little bit about the documents that are coming out. You referenced one of those with Saddam's connection to Philippines terror. Another one revealed that he was holding onto hundreds of Kuwaiti hostages ten years after the war. What's the effect of these documents on the left's sort of acquittal of Saddam campaign?
MS: Well, the left's argument has always been that Saddam was a secular dictator, and therefore he would have nothing to do with a bunch of theocrats like Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda. Well, you know, the left themselves refute that argument, because they're essentially secular leftists, and they are happy to make alliances of convenience with the Islamists who hate gays, and hate women, and all the rest of it, if it means...because they both happen to be anti-American. So I think they left themselves as self-refuting on that argument. But there's no doubt that when you look at these documents, that there are all kinds of small links that emerge between, explicitly between Iraq and their contacts with al Qaeda going way back into the early 90's. And there are also links with all kinds of other terrorist groups across the planet. And this is why I think it's so absurd to pretend to use that as an argument for not getting rid of Saddam. The point of the matter is that Saddam was someone who had been allowed to mock American victory in the 1991 Gulf War, and been allowed to mock it for 12 years. And so he was part of the September the 10th world, and needed to be removed on those grounds alone.
HH: Mark Steyn, you and close behind you, Christopher Hitchens, are the two people I think have been thinking clearly and, a long record of thinking clearly about the war. You referenced the interview I did with Hitchens two days ago. There's a note of pessimism in his voice about the ability to rally the West to this long war. Do you share that pessimism?
MS: Well, I think what Christopher Hitchens said, he used an expression which I think is correct, this passivity that you know, essentially the left's arguments, the non-deranged, America-hating left. Put them aside, the America-haters, for a bit. And the argument of a lot of the mainstream of the Democratic Party is this passivity. Oh, we can't do this, and we can't do that, because something may go wrong, and it may not be easy, and this will happen, and that will happen. And we don't understand any of these strange, wacky foreign places anyway. That passivity will end freedom in the world. It won't end freedom in the world in America, it won't end it in Iowa and in Massachusetts tomorrow. But it will end it in a lot of the borderline jurisdictions around the world very quickly. You cannot be that feeble in the face of an existential threat. Christopher Hitchens understands that. I don't agree with him when he starts talking about Mother Teresa and the Royal Family and all his other bug bears, but I respect him because on this issue, he shows a clarity that should be obvious to everybody of left or right.
HH: I think you're right about that. Robert Kaplan has written extensively. The American military gets it at the lowest level, Mark Steyn. It's just a question of whether or not the media will ever catch it from them.
MS: Well, I think you should ignore the media, and find out for yourself. You know, Glenn Reynolds has a marvelous new book out called An Army of Davids. And he promotes this idea he's had on his website, a pack, not a herd. The media are the herd. And the way to beat the herd is with a fast-thinking pack that draws in all kinds of resources, and uses them to the full.
HH: Mark Steyn, well put. Always a pleasure. Steynonline, America.
