<sarcasm>Cindy Sheehan is an anti-war protesting nutball. She is part of some radical fringe group in the United States that will do anything to spin our victory in Iraq into a defeat.</sarcasm>
I believe this is the message the MSM would like you to believe about Ms. Sheehan, and other war protestors. Forget the fact that she has lost a son. What she does amounts to no more than sloganeering.
The lead in CNN's coverage of the arrest is where I start:
Peace activist Cindy Sheehan was arrested Tuesday in the House gallery after refusing to cover up a T-shirt bearing an anti-war slogan before President Bush's State of the Union address.
Emphasis mine.
So what was "the anti-war slogan." Well, we here a dKos need look no further than the top of the recommended list to read the "slogan." Cindy explains that the t-shirt said, "2245 Dead. How many more?"
I'm no English major, but my analysis of the message on the t-shirt is this. It is a statement of verifiable fact. Followed by a legitimate question that has yet to be anwered by the administration who dragged us into this war. One fact and one question. Items the MSM seems to want to ignore.
I always assumed that reporting facts and asking questions were the province of journalists. Now, I understand their true role. Take facts and legitimate questions, and when people are arrested for stating them, call the facts and legitimate quetions "sloganeering."
Meanwhile, when the President (a man responsible for a fraudulent and illegal war, for a secret prison system, for arrests without charges, for prisoners held without access to courts or lawyers, for prisoners being tortured, and for spying on American citizens in contravention of our laws) gives a speech asserting an unrealistically rosy international picture, filled with fluffy statements of future intent -- you ignore as many facts and questions as possible, and simply report the script written by the Presidential speech writers.
Here is CNN's coverage of the President's SOTU address:
"Tonight, I announce the Advanced Energy Initiative -- a 22 percent increase in clean energy research at the Department of Energy, to push for breakthroughs in two vital areas," Bush said. "To change how we power our homes and offices, we will invest more in zero-emission, coal-fired plants; revolutionary solar and wind technologies; and clean, safe nuclear energy.
"We will increase our research in better batteries for hybrid and electric cars, and in pollution-free cars that run on hydrogen. We will also fund additional research in cutting-edge methods of producing ethanol, not just from corn but from wood chips, stalks,or switch grass."
Emphasis mine
Hmmm. As a partisan, I'd characterize this as a cheerleading statement of future intent, from a President who has done nothing to address a crucial problem for five years, and has in fact allowed the energy sector to pollute more. Didn't Hummers become all the rage during this administration's real focus on creating a conservation economy. I wouldn't call these statements by the President "sloganeering" exactly. I'd call them bullshit. But CNN just reports what he said. They do not report what Cindy's shirt said. That is a slogan. The President's statements about what he might do. Those are reported as facts. Unchallenged facts.
To produce the technicians that might bolster such energy research, Bush also called for a federal education initiative "to double the federal commitment to the most critical basic research programs in the physical sciences over the next 10 years."
"This funding will support the work of America's most creative minds as they explore promising areas such as nanotechnology, supercomputing, and alternative energy sources."
That commitment would also make "permanent the research and development tax credit, to encourage bolder private-sector investment in technology," he said.
Yes. The education President. You get the point. These are unchallenged assertions. Not sloganeering.
On the international front, Bush invited Americans to choose action over isolationism in his policy against tyranny and to strengthen U.S. economic ties with other nations.
"We will choose to act confidently in pursuing the enemies of freedom -- or retreat from our duties in the hope of an easier life," Bush said. "We will choose to build our prosperity by leading the world economy -- or shut ourselves off from trade and opportunity."
Nope. No sloganeering here. Not in CNN's take on it. Not in the lead of their news story covering the President's drivel. Nor in the details of the story.
Then there is this laughable bit of journalism in the SOTU coverage:
The president was optimistic about the war in Iraq that has claimed more than 2,200 U.S. troops since March of 2003. (International points)
"The road to victory is the road that will take our troops home," Bush said. "As we make progress on the ground, and Iraqi forces increasingly take the lead, we should be able to further decrease our troop levels -- but those decisions will be made by our military commanders, not by politicians in Washington, D.C."
And the president also focused attention on Iraq's neighbor Iran, which U.S. and European officials suspect is using a civilian nuclear power program to develop nuclear weapons.
Iran is "defying the world with its nuclear ambitions -- and the nations of the world must not permit the Iranian regime to gain nuclear weapons," Bush said. (Transcript).
Emphasis mine
First, Bush is allowed a pass on arguably the worst foreign policy disaster in U.S. history. He can just say: "Rah team fight" and that is not sloganeering.
Second, did CNN think they were sloganeering by pointing out the number of dead troops in juxtaposition. Or do they not hold themselves to the Sheehan standard of propaganda.
Third, doesn't any journalist in the world have a strange sense of deja vu. I'm getting really creepy flashbacks from 2002, where we were lied to for an entire year by our President, his cronies, and our media. Where public fear and furor were whipped into shape lickety-split so that Americans could sleep at night as we rushed off 2,000 plus of our young men and women to be killed, over 15,000 of them to be wounded, and bombed the shit out of somewhere between 30,000 and 150,000 innocent Iraqi men, women and children (and by "bombed the shit out of," I mean burned, mutilated, annihilated and ultimately fucking killed). Nope. No sloganeering here.
For insightful analysis of how the speech was received by a Congress, we get this:
According to a CNN count, the president was interrupted by applause 64 times, one of those interruptions coming from the Democratic side of the aisle when he said:
"Congress did not act last year on my proposal to save Social Security. ..."
Bush's longest applause lasted 52 seconds, for his mention of war veteran Daniel Clay. The speech lasted about 50 minutes.
Emphasis mine
Holy shit. He was interrupted by a body controlled by his own party 64 times. Once for almost a full minute to honor one of our proud veterans. Get that man a yellow ribbon. And even the Democrat's applauded his moves on social security? What the fuck kind of reporting is this? I know readers of dKos realize that the Democratic applause must have been derisive. But aren't their some people out their who might mistake this written bit as actually meaning the Democratic Party supports the President on Social Security reform. Anyway. At least he was not sloganeering. And it was well received, as the statistics show.
Hats off to CNN for such wonderful journalism. I wrote them a love letter. Just on the Cindy "sloganeering" characterization. Won't you join me.