A contingent of conservatives talk radio hosts is headed to Iraq this month on a mission to report "the truth" about the war: American troops are winning, despite headlines to the contrary.
The "Truth Tour" has been pulled together by the conservative Web cast radio group Rightalk.com and Move America Forward, a non-profit conservative group backed by a Republican-linked public relations firm in California.
"The reason why we are doing it is we are sick and tired of seeing and hearing headlines by the mainstream media about our defeat in Iraq," Melanie Morgan, a talk radio host (search) for KSFO Radio in San Francisco and co-chair of Move America Forward, said.
Morgan said the media is "imposing a Vietnam template on this war."
"This is not Vietnam," she said. "War is war, and it's dangerous, and the killing is taking place all of the time. At the same time, where there is danger, there is success and there is a mainstream media that is determined to shut out that success."
She said the group is going to Iraq to support American troops, who see a disconnection with what they experience and what's being reported in the United States. She said the incongruence is leading to "morale problems."
...
Mark Williams, talk show host for KFBK in Sacramento and a member of the delegation, said the group will report "what we see and what we are told," but their collective feeling is that there is mostly good.
"We believe that the emphasis has been placed on the negative and if Americans knew what really was going on over there they would have an entirely different picture," said Williams.
"We are Americans first and journalists second, as opposed to the crop of 'pinkos' that tell us on the news every night that America is going to hell in a hand basket," he said.
Continued on the next page Page 1 — Page 2
"A sinister cabal of superior writers."
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Dave Nalle
You sure do like to think Republicans are 'on the defensive'. Doesn't make any sense in this context, but if you say it again and again maybe someone will believe you.
As for this trip to Iraq, it sounds very proactive. They see a problem in the media, they found a way to address it. I look forward to seeing the results.
Dave
2 - Ernesto
With sincere respect, couldn't this be a similar sort of tarring with a broad brush as you are criticizing?
FAIR has an interesting commentary from last year on TNR's swing from a left-leaning pub to a more centrist position, and they agree with you that this swing is old news. To be fair to FOX, though, they aren't the only ones to imply TNR is left leaning. In the FAIR story, they describe (in order to repudiate, but nevertheless...) TNR editor Peter Beinart, saying: "Beinart explained that he sees the magazine as pursuing 'liberal values as opposed to conservative values,' but suggested that 'one of the reasons the magazine exists is to contest the definition of liberal.'"
3 - Randy Kirk
Read the blogs from the guys on the front lines and from reporters that are still over there. Their reportage is far different than the MSM.
But lets be fair to MSM. Good news doesn't sell. So even if they didn't have an anti war agenda, they do have a sell advertising agenda. Bad news, sky is falling, end of civilization as we know it sells. Same goes for conservative talk. But their current scare tactics have to do with different subjects, as has been widely noted in other threads.
The only caveat I would have is that the MSM might have some kind of need to slant towards rather than away from American interests. Reporting things that will embolden the enemy or demoralize the troops should be handled carefully, in my view.
4 - Fei
Dave Nalle: The problem is not in the media but in their world view and their refusal to grasp reality.
Ernesto: I wasn't referring to all right-wingers, but radio hosts who are the primary subject of the article. I should have reworded my sentence, and I apologize.
The New Republic is not left leaning. It's center on most issues. The FAIR article you posted has the examples. True left leaning magazines would be The Nation, Progressive, and to a degree Mother Jones.
5 - Dave Nalle
It's not a 'refusal to grasp reality', it's a firm conviction that the version of 'reality' being presented to the public is not accurate.
Dave
6 - Randy Kirk
Would we assume that everyone has a prism through which they view the world. I know I do. It is the combination of those viewpoints that add up to something approximating truth.
You may have seen some of the betting that takes place on trials and such. The aggregate of all the bets is pretty darn accurate in finding the result.
Why denegrate the excellent right wing host or even the fools like Savage before they come back with their report?
7 - Fei
Randy Kirk: A recent poll released by the Pew Research Center showed that the majority of the public believes that the media is "too critical". Now, then shouldn't the media, in order to increase ad revenue, automatically switch their coverage to more "everything is well in Iraq" themed stories?
In a democracy, the media shouldn't slant towards anything. It should be objective and critical. Unfortunately, the American media is neither.
My biggest gripe is that the American public seems to be more interested in stories about celebrity trials and missing white women than the issues which can affect out lives such as Iraq, medicare, social security etc.
Dave Nalle: Their view is being prestented. FOX News, the biggest cable news network right now is clearly a supporter of the Bush administration. Right-wing radio ois immensly popular and is listened to by millions of people. The problem is not that their version of "reality" is not being presented, but that they detest any opinion which opposses their world view.
The conservatives before invading Iraq claimed that the Iraqis will welcome us with garlands, which has not been the case. That is why I have a hard time accepting their view of "reality" anymore.
8 - Fei
Should I take this person's coverage of Iraq seriously?
"We are Americans first and journalists second, as opposed to the crop of 'pinkos' that tell us on the news every night that America is going to hell in a hand basket," he said.
9 - Fei
The right-wing radio hosts are going to Iraq with an agenda: to prove that the liberals are wrong about what's happening Iraq. Could a report produced through such convictions be objective?
10 - Randy Kirk
Garlands -
Check out the current public opinion polls and the poll that really counted. The folks coming out in the face of bullets to vote.
If we're going to keep mentioning garlands, should we bring up the lefts long list of catastrophic predictions that didn't come true 10,000 or more soldiers dying in the initial take over. No vote. No constitution. The list would be very long indeed. So I guess the Kennedy view of "reality" has some problems, too.
11 - Fei
I will give you the part about the 10K soldiers dead (although such a number is possible in the near future) but, you have to provide link that the left said that there would be no vote and no constitution. The left was right that the there were NO WMDS, that it wouldn't be a quick victory (mission accomplished?) that there would be an active insurgency, and, again, that we wouldn't be showered with garlands. Also there is definitely something wrong with you if you are insuniating that Kennedy was part of the left.
What has the right been right about? (no pun intended)
12 - Randy Kirk
Kennedy not left? Help me on that.
Just before the vote the left was saying that it would be a disaster. It needed to be moved to another date, etc.
Little too much work for this weekend to get links on the many statements about the fact they would never be able to get the factions to agree on a constitution.
The left actually said that there were weapons before the war. Only a very few who self congratulate themselves today said there weren't. France, Germany, everybody (almost) said there were weapons.
The strength of the insurgency was not expected. It should have been. A quick look at Germany, Japan, etc would have shown the liklihood. Big mistake.
13 - Thad Anderson
". . . from a marketing point of view, you don't introduce new products in August."
- White House chief of staff Andy Card, when asked why, if the Iraq threat was as immediate as the Bush administration claimed it was, we weren't going ahead and invading them, on September 12, 2002.
"Marketing Iraq: Why now?," CNN.com, 9/12/02
14 - Randy Kirk
Card. It may be true and in context, but we can't tell from that link. A biased opinion peace with no context at all for the comment.
15 - Dave Nalle
>>that it wouldn't be a quick victory (mission accomplished?)<<
I really get tired of seing people on the left bringing up this stupid 'mission accomplished' pseudo-point. The mission accomplished banner on the aircraft carrier clearly referred specifically to the initial invasion and removal of the Ba'athist government and was an appropriate recognition of that success. Bringing it up again and again as if it was innacurate is a completely bogus device which I find personally offensive.
Dave
16 - RJ
If you don't believe that TNR is Left-leaning, then you either have not read it, or are so far to the Left yourself that you cannot detect their obvious anti-GOP and anti-Bush bias...
17 - RJ
"True left leaning magazines would be The Nation, Progressive, and to a degree Mother Jones."
No, those are anti-American Leftist rags that no one takes seriously. They are NOT merely "Left-leaning"...
Most of the media (including TNR) leans Left. Most Americans realize this. Only some on the Left dispute it, for obvious reasons...
18 - RJ
"I will give you the part about the 10K soldiers dead (although such a number is possible in the near future)"
If by "near future" you mean a decade from now, if everything possible goes wrong, sure...
19 - RJ
"The left was right that the there were NO WMDS"
The Left said this? Hardly...they were more concerned that tens of thousands os US troops would be killed or injured by WMDs...
20 - Shark
This shit is so tired.
Iraq? Who gives a shit.
Gay marriage and flag burnings are much more important.
As far as Iraq, Bush and the GOP made their bed, now they're forced to lie in it.
"You broke it -- you own it." ~ahahahaha.
I actually wish Bush could serve a third term just so the he could suffer the full consequences of his historic blunder. Iraq is nothing more than a useless drain on American lives and funds. The only thing we've accomplished is to create a training ground and recruiting center for future Islamic urban terrorists.
========
And Dave "Polly" Nalle, you talk about offensive!?
If you keep parroting the Bush jingoisms and bullshit like "...The mission accomplished banner on the aircraft carrier clearly referred specifically to the initial invasion and removal of the Ba'athist government..." then we're gonna have to lock you in a birdcage and start feeding you crackers.
Jeez, man, don't you have a Libertarian rally to attend?
Can you spend just a few NANOSECONDS of your time online talking about trying to slow the growth of Bush's massive deficit?
Do you give a shit that your prodigy are being sold down the river by these Democratic-looking wolves in GOP sheep clothing?
Do you have a fucking ounce of personal integrity when it comes to your avowed "*political party"?
*Libertarian
=======
PS:
re the Right-Wing "good news" from Iraq -- look for weepy, sappy, emotional heart-string pullers focused on some individual in Iraq who used to be blind, deaf, and walk with a limp -- who's now got 20/20, hears like a jackrabbit, and can run like a gazelle thanks to the American Faith Healers in camo outfits.
Or we'll hear about folks who used to eat sand and talk to each other using tin cans and string -- who've now got High-Def sattelite TV and picture phones with which to upload their **photos of beheaded Americans.
**Okay, maybe they'll leave out that part.
Gotta run; I feel I'm about to squirt a few just thinkin' about all the good news our $250 billion + has bought.
Feh.
Goebbels woulda been proud.
21 - Shark
"We are Americans first... as opposed to the crop of 'pinkos' that tell us on the news every night that America is going to hell in a hand basket..."
These people not only HAVE NO SHAME, but they're proud of it.
They also have no sense of IRONY. Wasn't Right-Wing Radio built on the assumption that America was going to hell in a hand basket?!
PS: the above statement -- proudly quoted in public (!) -- sounds like they're only about two clicks away from suggesting concentration camps for those pesky liberal pinkos.
22 - dietdoc
My only observation would be is that if Sean Penn can serve as a reporter in Iran (and, he, himself, used that term) and writes (report?) his viewpoint, then why not others, equally less qualified, from Iraq? Just asking....
Cheers,
Ron
23 - MDE
We need to get reports on positive developments in Iraq if there are any.
Maybe these guys will have the balls to get out of the hotel and do some reporting.
Hope they find positive stuff.
Hope they don't get their heads cut off.
Mark
PS Does anyone know the total number of our soldiers who have died as the result of wounds received - not just the number who have died 'in country'?
24 - Dave Nalle
Snark, nice to see you finally getting away from the WMD party line for a change and acknowledging that some of these domestic issues are more important.
>>If you keep parroting the Bush jingoisms and bullshit like "...The mission accomplished banner on the aircraft carrier clearly referred specifically to the initial invasion and removal of the Ba'athist government..." then we're gonna have to lock you in a birdcage and start feeding you crackers.<<
Snark, if that's the party line, then for once it's right. Any sensible person realized that the banner business was strictly about the invasion.
>>Jeez, man, don't you have a Libertarian rally to attend? <<
No, there are too many deluded folks like you at them.
>>Can you spend just a few NANOSECONDS of your time online talking about trying to slow the growth of Bush's massive deficit? <<
I write articles about that, not comments.
>>Do you give a shit that your prodigy are being sold down the river by these Democratic-looking wolves in GOP sheep clothing? <<
It's 'progeny' not 'prodigy', though I appreciate the suggestion that they are remarkable.
>>Do you have a fucking ounce of personal integrity when it comes to your avowed "*political party"?
*Libertarian<<
Actually, I'm a Liberty Republican. That means I subscribe to the original libertarian principles of the Republican party as opposed to the extremist libertarianism of the LP, which I stuck with for 30 years until it became totally clear they were going absolutely nowhere.
Dave
25 - Dave Nalle
>>We need to get reports on positive developments in Iraq if there are any.<<
We don't actually need them to give us the positive news. Just go read some Iraqi blogs or military blogs which come direct from Iraq.
Dave