« Fiscal conservatism doesn't live with the GOP | Main | One Great Evil »

April 03, 2006

Truth: that thing which makes Bushies turtle

Denial is one of those defense mechanisms that allow some folks to keep themselves intact. To hold their world together means to filter out anything that squares with objective reality.

One such individual is Dennis Byrne, who declares in today's Chicago Trib that the New York Times should accept "off the record" remarks from Bush because it uses anonymous sourcing.

To make this declaration, Byrne would have to believe that all sourcing is equal, as are all sources.

In Byrne's little world, the Times is the pariah because it accepts this anonymous sourcing for the expressed purpose of bashing the Bush Administration. Conveniently lapsing from Byrne's memory is the Judith Miller fiasco, in which the Times allowed Miller to essentially regurgitate their talking points in her "news" pieces about Iraq before the invasion.

Were Byrne to square this up, this would shatter his thesis. Can't have that, don'tcha know.

Were this the end of Byrne's tripe this might not even warrant a comment. But he can't leave well enough alone. He's got to dig himself into an irretrievable ditch:

Yet, the Times and others continue to embarrass the business with this kind of transparent nonsense. It's one reason that newspaper circulation and the viewership of evening network news are declining. Like a gravely ill patient that refuses to listen to a glum diagnosis, too many of my colleagues greet criticisms of a liberal media bias with a closed-minded, "I'm sick of hearing it."

Just like they did after Bush recently joined in the criticism. "The kind of progress that we and the Iraqi people are making in places like Tal Afar is not easy to capture in a short clip on the evening news," he said. "Footage of children playing, or shops opening, and people resuming their normal lives will never be as dramatic as the footage of an IED explosion, or the destruction of a mosque, or soldiers and civilians being killed or injured."

Byrne fails his readers immensely here. Since when do stories of children on playgrounds or shop openings trump murder and mayhem on the evening news, even when its US based? In addition, Bush's shiny, happy picture of Tal Afar turned out to be not so rosey. Or in other words..Bush cherrypicked what he told us in his speech. Yeah..I'm shocked too.

Byrne doesn't want to know what's actually happening in Iraq. He wants to hear what will make him feel warm and happy inside. Unfortunately that isn't reality.

And this isn't the first time that Byrne has gone out of his way to blow sunshine up people's skirts.

Give it a rest, man.

Posted by Carla at April 3, 2006 01:52 PM