Resist, comrades!

The mission statement of the Rambix and the Red Star blog is to expose how our local propaganda sheet shades the news in furtherance of their agenda (see previous entry) in subtle ways. We look at placement of articles, headlines, photos, editing, etc. We look at what is included, and especially what is missing. For these reasons, we don't focus on the editorials, for the reason that the editorials are consistently and unabashedly leftist. You won't see any pro-Bush editorials, for example. They are open in their liberalism, and thus it isn't newsworthy. Its also a waste of time to read them.

Today is the exception. We note a particularly egregious writing in the 5/18/05 edition titled "Newsweek: It doesn't deserve the diatribes". In one short, unsigned editorial the editor(s) lay evidence for the world to see that they are completely out of the mainstream, and a journalistic embarrassment. Here's a sample:

"White House spokesman Scott McClellan flat-out said Newsweek was responsible for causing the rioting in Afghanistan that led to at least 17 deaths. Newsweek editors appear to have accepted that responsibility. They shouldn't have; the White House is simply changing the subject from abuse at Guantanamo to Newsweek's journalism."

How, exactly, is holding Newsweek responsible for death and destruction based on shoddy and potentially malicious reporting related to Guantanamo? Is every occurrence and action of the administration related to Guantanamo, from now until the end of time? Is that really all the leftists have to hang their hat on? Here's an idea: get over it. The White house said Newsweek is responsible, because, well, Newsweek is responsible. There's more:

"Besides, the White House itself committed much more egregious errors in the way it so casually used dubious intelligence to make a case for going to war in Iraq. As the blog Daily Kos pointed out Tuesday, McClellan seems to have a double standard. In his discussion with reporters on July 17, 2003, he was asked: Bush is "president of the United States. This thing he told the country on the verge of taking the nation to war has turned out to be, by your own account, not reliable. That's his fault, isn't it?"
McClellan responded: "No.""

Spin. Propaganda. And for crying out loud, quoting the Daily Kos? You know the Red Star has hit bottom when they quote from a trash site like the Daily Kos. Read on if you have the stomach:

"The White House response fits a pattern of trying to intimidate the press from exploring issues the administration doesn't want explored. Compare it, for example, to the Dan Rather report on President Bush's military service. To this day, we don't know if what Rather reported was accurate or not, or to what degree it may have been accurate. Nor do we know whether the documents he cited were genuine. All we know is that CBS can't verify that they were genuine."

The press is intimidated? Then the media's presidential witch hunt is just a bad dream. And the Red Star doesn't know the president's military documents presented by CBS were forged? Are you kidding? Why is the Red Star the last outfit on the planet that doesn't know the documents were fake?

"Yet the hullabaloo caused by that incident appears to have intimidated other journalists from trying to pin down the full truth about Bush's military service. And now there will probably be less enterprise reporting on prisoner abuse or anything else that might embarrass this administration. It also fits neatly in with the Corporation for Public Broadcasting's effort to muzzle public television and radio. This behavior seems so Nixonian, except that the current crew is much better at the press-intimidation game than William Safire and Vice President Spiro Agnew were. For Newsweek and other media that come in for this treatment, we have one word: Resist."

Resist, comrades, resist! We shall overcome!