Iwo Jima As Covered by Today’s Media
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James Joyner | Tuesday, October 12, 2004 |
Senator Zell Miller has an amusing op-ed in today’s Washington Times entitled, “Iwo Jima, if covered by media today.” While not the finest parody of this type I’ve ever seen, it’s rather to the point. An excerpt:
DAY 3
Cutie [Cudley, morning show host]: “Marines continue to be locked in a life-or-death struggle over this worthless piece of real estate in the middle of the Pacific. The word ‘quagmire’ is being used in the U.S. Senate, a body very familiar with quagmires. Senator Blowhard has called it ‘a colossal military blunder.’ And Senator Bombast maintains it was a fraudulent scheme hatched while the president was on his sixth vacation at the Little White House in Georgia. “The recently organized Senate Squeakers Group may ask for the president to resign. They maintain that politics should not stop at the waters edge in times of war, calling that tradition an old-fashioned idea that has no place in the new century of dysfunctional government. Over forty special interest groups concurred and all issued identical news releases.”“We now turn to our politicalanalyst, James Crankville.”
James:”Cutie,the overnight poll numbers have hit this president right between the eyes. Nationwide, an overwhelming 98 percent said that if possible, they would like to see this country fight a war without a single American casualty. That is nearly the same percentage we saw three days ago when the American public said they would be in favor of going to war if we could win without firing a shot. So, you can see there is a trend developing here that spells trouble for this administration.”
“That this president is going ahead with this war is just unbelievable. The witty New York Times columnist, Myscream Loud, wrote in her inimitable fashion that ‘The president’s policy is as crippled as his legs.’ (giggle) Last week she said he had reached the point where no one will ‘Fala’ him. F-A-L-A, his dog, get it (more giggles)? Has that woman got a way with words! Go girl.”
Indeed.
About the Author: James Joyner is the publisher of Outside the Beltway and the managing editor of the Atlantic Council. He's a former Army officer, Desert Storm vet, and college professor with a PhD in political science from The University of Alabama. He lives just outside the Beltway in Alexandria, Virginia with his wife and infant daughter.
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Is the media insipid? Yes, but that's low-hanging fruit. Otherwise, if he thinks that America wouldn't want to stike back at Japan after they'd you know, actually attacked us and declared war on us and all that fun stuff, I'm astonished he loathes his countrymen so much.
His point, rather obvious from the article I thought, was that the media reports every setback as if it were the end of the world. Had Iwo Jima--or, goodness, D-Day--been treated that way, morale would have been much lower. And, of course, Hitler never attacked the US and was unlikely ever to do so.
Although Nazi Germany never attacked the US homeland, it did declare war on the US, and I'm pretty sure it was prior to the US declaring war on Germany.
Boyd: True. But it was pretty clear that FDR was going to make Germany the top priority, regardless. We were all but at war with them since the start of Lend Lease, after all.
Apologies for the above digression. I obviously wasn't paying close enough attention to the discussion.
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