media bias

[waider]

Mostly I find that the Beeb is pretty fair in its reporting, but today's article on the Bush/Zapatero phone call was intially headlined, "Bush rebukes Spain for Iraq pull-out" before being somewhat toned down to "US chides...", if you could even call that toning down. Mostly there doesn't seem to be any direct indication that any rebuking or chiding took place, just that much-quoted line about giving the terrorists a false sense of comfort which, well, I don't see what's false about it.

Comments

[anavolena.livejournal.com]

bush's call just stuns me in its unabashed hypocrisy and disingenuity. there's nothing sudden about spain's withdrawal - if memory serves, zapatero ran on the promise to get spanish troops out. it was phrased in a slightly more sophisticated tone, but that certainly seemed the intent.

but what really disturbs me is this new "wisdom" that whatever the terrorists say they want, we must do the exact opposite, just to spite them. wanna pull your soldiers out of a stupid war? well, ya can't because the terrorists want you to do that, so it doesn't matter how good your reasons for wanting to leave are, if you do leave, they WIN!

wanna vote for kerry? well, guess what! the terrorists want bush out, they want kerry to win, so to vote for kerry is to be pro-osama!

it's right up there with the stupidity of the israel position that they can't make peace with the palestinians until there are absolutely no more terror attacks. all the most radical elements -- who want no peace with israel because they want no israel -- have to do is pull off one suicide bombing, and the latest round of talks are all off. talk about incentive.

basically, in our desperation not to "let the terrorists win," we're handing over all our policies and decision making directly to them.

didn't anybody ever tell the neocons that the best way to defeat a bully is to ignore him?

[waider.livejournal.com]

Yes, Zapatero ran with the promise of pulling the troops out, but popular wisdom (hah!) suggests that he got into power on the strength of the incumbents being a bunch of liars who tried to pin the Madrid bombings on ETA when all the circumstantial evidence pointed elsewhere. Zapatero's threat (if that's the right word) was that he'd pull the troops out if there was no increased UN involvement in Iraq's future.

Regarding foreign policy decisions being made as counteractions, well, yeah. It sort of reflects what I was saying a few weeks back about the opposition parties in this country looking stupid because their only course for differentiation is to oppose whatever the incumbents suggest. Only in the case of Irish politics, it just looks a bit silly. In the case of US politics...

petard.hoist

[eejitalmuppet.livejournal.com]

wanna vote for kerry? well, guess what! the terrorists want bush out, they want kerry to win, so to vote for kerry is to be pro-osama!

Actually, there was a weird little snippet in one of those tapes that Bin Laden and his cronies (can't recall if it was ObL himself, alas) periodically release to Arabic TV stations (IIRC, this one came very shortly after the Madrid bombings), in which they mentioned that they hope Bush will win the next election. The argument went something along the lines of, "Bush is a militaristic idiot who will create many more Islamic extremists by ensuring that US troops kill lots of Muslims. Kerry, on the other hand, might be smart enough to cause problems for us."

Using the current Republican arguments, the conclusion is obvious.