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Staged Outrage.

by John F. Tamburo, Editor in Chief, Publisher
Originally Posted: 10/14/2005 9:52:37 AM

The news media has gone full-throttle into a phony "outrage" mode.  Why?  They claim that a conference between our President and his troops was wholly "staged."  The network evening news programs all ran long segments that appear to prove that the troops’ statements of support for the war were staged.  They showed the President’s aides informing the soldiers the order of who would be asked questions, and the questions that were to be asked.

"Significantly, none of the soldiers were told what to say, nor was indirect pressure applied to them to shape their answers.  Of the putatively-outraged network news programmers, only Andrea Mitchell of NBC managed to vomit out that truth, as a four-second aside in a piece that ran over three minutes (an eternity for a network news segment)."

Significantly, none of the soldiers were told what to say, nor was indirect pressure applied to them to shape their answers.  Of the putatively-outraged network news programmers, only Andrea Mitchell of NBC managed to vomit out that truth, as a four-second aside in a piece that ran over three minutes (an eternity for a network news segment).  So, this begs the question:  What was staged?  The conference or the outraged news coverage?

White House events are routinely organized, precisely in the manner that this event was.  Remember that this conference was transmitted via satellite.  You’ve seen live satellite interviews on the networks before.  There are delays because the signals need to travel about 45,000 miles from source to destination.  Satellite links are sensitive to many things, from sunspots to clouds.  Careful co-ordination avoids awkward moments, the very moments the Bush-hating hostile media would seize upon in order to denigrate the event.  Since the event went smoothly, and other news of the day was also favorable (Iraqi Constitution progressing smoothly; significant Sunni agreement acquired), the networks went fishing for something with which to bludgeon our President.  Hence, we have this facially ridiculous "staging" accusation.

When the leftist media protests its neutrality, these kinds of stories give lie to their statements.  Extreme leftists, who hate our President, called this conference "scripted."  Again, the troops’ answers were sincere and not provided for them!  Was the media "staging" the soldier’s impromptu armored vehicles question to Don Rumsfeld last year, when it put the soldier up to asking the question?

"These hypocrites ignore the obvious truth about the war, and then move rapidly to try to sell the people a package of lies.  The first lie that they are selling is that Iraq is going badly.  They are selling a second lie, that our troops don’t even support the war."

Advance work is the norm in the television era.  The media, however, see this as the only major bad news of the day that can be packaged against our President.  These hypocrites ignore the obvious truth about the war, and then move rapidly to try to sell the people a package of lies.  The first lie that they are selling is that Iraq is going badly.  They are selling a second lie, that our troops don’t even support the war.  Why?  They want the GOP out of power at all levels, and are willing to do anything, no matter how dishonest or evil, to make it happen.  The people, however, are wiser than the Left.  I wholeheartedly agree with Rush when he says that the Left’s overconfidence over our President’s low (but not that low) approval numbers will cause their downfall in 2006 and 2008.

The only thing that was "staged" yesterday was the outrage of the news media.