| THE
BLUE RED
COLUMN
The Mountain Press
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| By: JIM ANDERSON April, 2006 Your neighbor's house is ablaze on fire. So you call 911. Before fire trucks arrive, you hear crazy pounding on your front door. It's your neighbor, and he shouts: “Why the hell are you spreading negative rumors about my house?!” That's George Bush's reality: If facts disturb you, attack the people who report the facts. Americans are brainwashed, see, by evil media-doers who cover up “positive” news! Either you're for the spin or against it. Suppose 40 people got killed in Wal-Mart by a suicide bomber, 16 killed by a militia attack on the First Baptist Church, and 30 bodies appeared in Pigeon Forge--beheaded. Wouldn't the Mountain Press call that “news”? Very similar events happened in Iraq recently. Journalist Lara Logan said she reported only the truth: “Who says things are NOT falling apart in Iraq?” Bush entered the White House, January 2001, with a low approval rating already--only 55%. For the next eight months, not much changed: his approval hovered around 56%. Bush's big spike came from the terrorist attacks, September 11, 2001. His approval skyrocketed quickly from 51% to 90%, highest recorded for any President. After 9/11, Bush's approval steadily dropped, with two brief up-ticks when he invaded Iraq and when Saddam was captured. In February 2004, though, Bush's approval fell below 50% and now flutters around 37%. Bush's problem is not the media, it's his own tragic mistakes: Abu Ghraib, Halliburton, Social Security, CIA spy outing, Katrina and FEMA, Harriet Miers, illegal wiretapping, spendthrift deficits, Arab Ports deal, White House leaks, Iraq-Iraq-Iraq. Five years of failures! Words don't burn people; fires burn people. Honest folks who report the fires are not to blame. The real guilty culprit is the firestarter himself, who struck a big match in the Middle East--and now can't put it out. -Jim Anderson is president of the Sevier County Democratic Club (www.sevierdemocrats.com). ©The Mountain Press 2005 |
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