The New York Times recently issued a “Libya is falling apart” editorial. As Glenn Greenwald noted, The Times failed to mention it was an enthusiastic supporter of U.S. air strikes that helped topple Moammar Ghadafi and destabilize Libya to the point where ISIS now has a foothold there. In fact, after Ghadafi fled, The Times went so far as to publish a front-page news analysis headlined “U.S. Tactics in Libya May be a Model for Other Efforts.”
Swamp Rabbit read Greenwald’s story and chuckled. “Glad them Times analysts are on the case. Without ’em, we might know what’s really goin’ on in the world.”
He scratched his mangy hide and added, “‘Scuse me fer askin’, but how come they don’t own up when they’s wrong?”
Good question. You would think The Times would not only own up to colossal errors of judgment but also fire the people responsible for such judgments, or at least demote them to the SundayStyles beat. But you would be wrong. Bill Keller, Thomas Friedman, the editorial board and so on are still going strong.
It seems the only real sin you can commit on the news side at The Times — at least when it comes to U.S. foreign policy — is to refuse to blindly accept the government’s version of events. Inaccuracies are acceptable, especially when a story is breaking. Corrections are made later, sometimes, after the bombs are dropped and thousands are dead and the government’s rationale for its large-scale act of destruction has been exposed as fraudulent. This is true not only at The Times, but at all mainstream news outlets.
We talked solutions. The rabbit proposed a self-policing system for the media run by some semi-reputable rag, maybe the Columbia Journalism Review. Stories written by Times staffers would automatically link to their other stories on the same subjects. The staffers would gain and lose points according to how accurate their stories turned out to be. Their ratings would be listed next to their bylines. For example, a reporter or pundit who was wrong on WMD in Iraq and U.S. tactics in Libya would merit a Minus 2. He or she could gain back points by admitting, in print, to previous errors. Anyone who fell to Minus 5 would be fired.
“That’s ridiculous,” I said. “Who’s going to stick his neck out writing a report that might get him fired?”
The rabbit spit on the frozen swamp and said, “That’s the point, you dummy. How else you gonna keep liars and fools out of the news business?”
Clinton strongly supported the take down of Libya’s Muammar Qaddafi. She said while chuckling “We came. We saw. We killed him.” For the record Obama was diametrically opposed to Clinton’s point of view on taking Qaddafi out. History has shown Obama to have been correct and Clinton to have been dead wrong.
Is the MSM telling that story?
WTF is “radical Islam?” Clinton and the conservatives use that phrase all the time. Obama refuses to use it.
Egypt is being run by a military dictatorship. Clinton supports it.
Saudi Arabia, Jordan, the UAE and Qatar are kingdoms run by royal dictators. Clinton supports each of them.
Libya, Yemen and Syria are being run by nobody. Clinton, as Sec. of State, had a profound influence in the destruction of each of those countries.
ISIS wants to run everyone of the aforementioned countries as part of their caliphate. ISIS was created and funded by Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar at the request of Clinton and her friend McCain.
The Sunnis (Wahhabists) and ISIS want to kill every Shiite, or at the very least, subjugate them.
Iran is a Shiite country that Saudi Arabia, a Sunni country, wants to destroy.
Clinton is opposed to Obama talking to or dealing with Iran on any level. She backs the Israeli and Saudi position of going to war with Iran.
Is the MSM giving us any of those facts?