Monday, January 01, 2007

Belly Laughs All Around

Did anyone else catch this weekend's Meet The Press? William Safire was confronted with the following prediction he made in January 2005:
I think we're going to win in Iraq. I think by the end of next year, we'll have begun to withdraw our forces. We won't have them out, but we'll have begun to withdraw...I don't see a long civil war there.
For the latest example of the media's abdication of seriousness, watch the panel's reaction to Safire's self-defense (just before they make new predictions about Iraq in a breezy "Office Pool"). It reminded me a bit of the 2004 Correspondents' Association dinner, when Bush's parody about the failed search for WMD's elicited uproarious laughter.

On the same weekend when the death of a 22-year-old from Spring, Texas marked 3,000 KIA's in Iraq, the knee-slapping on MTP struck me as a poignant example of the separation between the tenured class of Beltway pundits/politicos and those who actually do the fighting and dying for this country.

The link to the tape is here. The pathologically dissociative festivities begin at the 35 minute mark.

22 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

When I was a teenager I used to watch the Sunday news shows. They were edifying in their way and I thought they were honest debate. But 20 years ago I realized the honesty was that they reflected the delusions and vanities of the smug and privileged media and political classes. Arrogant, ignorant courtiers.

1/01/2007 3:45 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"pathologically dissociative"

Well said!

Paul Levy described the phenomena as "malignant egophrenia," which has the potential for epidemic episodes much in the same vein as described in MacKay's "Extraordinary Popular Delusions and The Madness of Crowds"

1/01/2007 4:51 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I had the same reaction. The panel seemed to have a lot of fun with it all. It was distasteful.

1/01/2007 6:12 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Why the surprise?

Did anyone really think that these high paid pseudo journalists would take the nightmare that Iraq has become seriously?

This is not journalism but journalistic theater, to entertain the masses, until Bush brings forth the "new course" for Iraq that will achieve nothing but more death and mayham.

1/01/2007 6:26 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Mockingbird

1/01/2007 11:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

They're laughing to show The Terrorists that we haven't given up our Way Of Life. Otherwise, all the deaths will have been in vain.

Or something like that.

1/02/2007 7:53 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

First of all, it isn't a 'surge'. Its escalation. Secondly, does anyone else want to retch everytime someone tries to compare bush favorably to people like Truman...a smart man who used every possible means...like negotiating with the enemy, instead of merely being stubborn. Lets not forget Truman fought in World War One. He lead men into combat. He knew what it meant to be in a war and not just 'play war' the way bush is doing. Truman was a lot of things, not all of them comendable...but he wasn't a fool.

1/02/2007 8:28 AM  
Blogger Bravo 2-1 said...

Great way to put it. Those people were disgusting. Safire still thinks it's all going to work out in the end. Good thing he's relegated to his weird etymologies.

1/02/2007 11:02 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

None of those pundits has been to a VA Hospital to meet any of the young men and women who are missing limbs thanks to the Iraq War, so it is all a big joke to the pundits.

1/02/2007 2:47 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Saw it, was also disgusted.

1/02/2007 7:33 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I'm so sick and tired of all this madness. When will we learn that violence, no matter what the justification may be, is always wrong??

1/03/2007 7:54 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Fred Reed has a similar thought in his article Life is not an embassy party

http://www.lewrockwell.com/reed/reed117.html

1/03/2007 12:01 PM  
Blogger DED said...

the knee-slapping on MTP struck me as a poignant example of the separation between the tenured class of Beltway pundits/politicos and those who actually do the fighting and dying for this country.

I wish our men and women in uniform were aware of the difference. Maybe our military wouldn't be so willing to die for a political party's gain.

As for the Anonymous guy who retches at the Truman - Bush comparisons, I'm right there with you.

1/03/2007 6:49 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

On 20 June 1951 Harry S. Truman signed a directive establishing the Psychological Strategy Board. The directive read, "Directive to: the Secretary of State, The Secretary of Defense, The Director of Central Intelligence: It is the purpose of this directive to authorize and provide for the more effective planning, coordination and conduct, within the framework of approved national policies, of psychological operations. There is hereby established a Psychological Strategy Board responsible, within the purposes and terms of this directive, for the formulation and promulgation, as guidance to the departments and agencies responsible for psychological operations, of over-all national psychological objectives, policies and programs, and for the coordination and evaluation of the national psychological effort...

1/04/2007 6:17 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

On 2 April 1958 a St. Louis Post-Dispatch reporter caught President Eisenhower by surprise when he asked, "Mr. President, has any thought been given to the re-establishment of the psychological warfare board which would give you more flexibility than the National Security Council?" Five years after an uneasy public and press questioned their leaders about the psychological warfare board a member of the press called for its re-establishment...

http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/2807/Jefferson.html

1/04/2007 6:56 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=CHO20070104&articleId=4347

1/05/2007 3:26 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Of course they are laughing. They are still getting paid big bucks to spew their crap. The joke is on us.

1/05/2007 5:19 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

The Republicans remind me of the prognosticators on NBC sports (Dan Marino, et al). They are wildly wrong every week but yet, there they are..still getting a chance to be wrong.

I've been right 90% of the time on Iraq matters. I've simply picked against the Republicans each time. I think the trend will continue ad infinitum.

1/10/2007 11:04 PM  
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