All posts by Rand Simberg

Media Criticism

Sixty Three Years Later

How would today’s media report D-Day?

SMITH: Rich, there is a growing sense of apprehension here about 40 miles away from what we assume will be the point of attack on the beaches of Normandy either tomorrow or the next day. Mayor Jacque Capituler is with me. Mayor, tell our viewers how you feel about the coming invasion.

CAPITULER: We don’t want to be liberated. We don’t need to be liberated. The Germans have established a perfectly workable government, here. The Americans should go liberate someone else, somewhere else.

RUNDLING: The thorny issue of civilian casualties and collateral damage brought onto our living room screens from right there in France, Thank you Christianne. To … where? Ok, to Edward Smith with the forces of General George Patton in Britain. Edward.

SMITH: Rich, I am here in Kent, England opposite the Pas de Calais just across the English Channel which, if the weather were better, you could see behind me. MCN can now confirm that the activity here in Kent, which has been named “Operation Fortitude” is, for want of a better phrase: A complete fake!

RUNDLING: Fake? Explain, please, for our viewers.

SMITH: MCN can now report that Patton has constructed, literally, a phony army here. The tanks are cardboard. The planes are rubber. The radio traffic is faked. Reports of troop movements are completely fabricated. This operation, clearly, is designed to fool the Germans in Europe and Americans back home into falsely believing that the attack — which we now think will come tomorrow if the weather lets up — will be aimed at Pas de Calais instead of Normandy.

RUNDLING: Excellent reporting, Edward. MCN’s Senior Ethics Advisor Emma Smith will be joining me in the studio to dicuss: What does it mean to the American way of life when their very own government engages in this kind of deliberately false and misleading information? Emma is the author of an exciting new book: “The Soviet Experience; Success, Solidarity, and Stalin.”

[Update at 2 PM EDT]

Here’s a related article: Journalists, you’re in the army now, like it or not.

Political Commentary

Get Out The Popcorn For Her Campaign

I’ve noted before how amusing I find it that people call me a “Clinton hater” or a “Bush fan,” when I think that my take on both presidents is reasonably objective. When I criticize Bill (and Hillary) Clinton as corrupt, this is the kind of thing that I’m talking about. The Clinton years were this kind of thing non stop, but it was rarely reported, or if it was, the press (who were in love with both of them) bent over backwards to excuse it.

History

Forty Years Later

And the left continues to attempt to rewrite the history of the Six-Day War. I remember the war, and some of the jokes about it afterward (it was so short because the Israelis were renting their tanks from Hertz), though it was no laughing matter at the time–I had many Jewish schoolmates. And in a sense, of course, the war goes on, because Israel’s enemies refuse to abandon their goal of destruction of the Jewish state.

[Update in the late afternoon]

And predictably, the Arabs blame all their problems on their failed attempt to destroy Israel four decades ago.

Political Commentary

Without A Fight

What was Sandy Berger hiding when he gave up his law license?

What is at stake is more than what we think and say about Sandy Berger. It is more than the legacy of Bill Clinton and of George W. Bush. It is more than the prospects for Hillary Clinton becoming the Democrats’ presidential nominee and ultimately the President. All of these, of course, are wrapped up in this story.

Our security and vitality of the rule of law in America are at stake as well. That should concern all whose lives and loved ones may be at risk if our nation follows the wrong path, not knowing everything that should inform our judgments. It should concern all who respect the law, all who have labored as lawyers and judges, as honorable government officials and voices for even-handed justice.

Sadly, this story doesn’t interest the Justice Department, which disposed of the criminal charges leniently based in part on false information from Berger. When faced with the fact that Berger had access to original documents on two occasions before Archives’ employees became suspicious enough to start marking documents, the Justice Department declared with confidence that no documents had been taken – they asked Berger if he had taken anything during those visits, he said no, and they let the matter rest.

This is just one more example of either incompetence on the part of the Bush administration, or more of the waging of war on it by the bureaucracy, or perhaps something worse.

Media Criticism

I Wish I’d Written This

What if the Israelis had kidnapped a BBC journalist?

Loud would have been the denunciations of the extremist doctrines of Zionism which had given rise to this vile act. The world isolation of Israel, if it failed to get Mr Johnston freed, would have been complete.

If Mr Johnston had been forced to broadcast saying, for example, that Israel was entitled to all the territories held since the Six-Day War, and calling on the release of all Israeli soldiers held by Arab powers in return for his own release, his words would have been scorned. The cause of Israel in the world would have been irreparably damaged by thus torturing him on television. No one would have been shy of saying so.

But of course in real life it is Arabs holding Mr Johnston, and so everyone treads on tip-toe. Bridget Kendall of the BBC opined that Mr Johnston had been “asked” to say what he said in his video. Asked! If it were merely an “ask”, why did he not say no?

Throughout Mr Johnston’s captivity, the BBC has continually emphasised that he gave “a voice” to the Palestinian people, the implication being that he supported their cause, and should therefore be let out. One cannot imagine the equivalent being said if he had been held by Israelis.

[Update a few minutes later]

And how bad are things in Iraq? Why, they’re almost as bad as they were under Saddam? What, you mean the kids aren’t flying kites? Did Michael Moore lie to us? Surely that can’t be…