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« Supporting the Troops | Main | They Killed Kenny! » February 16, 2007Arkin FalloutRetired Colonel Ken Allard will no longer serve as a military consultant for NBC News, in no small part because he's disgusted by NBC's decision to retain William Arkin as a military analyst. It's hard to blame him; having Arkin as a military analyst is a bit like having a Shia imam as your Islam analyst. Funny how the media works that way. If you're a hard core Democrat, it's assumed you can be objective easily. Tim Russert and George Stephanopolous both get to host Sunday morning talk shows where they are nominally an objective observer, but I can just imagine the screams if someone who had formerly worked for Republican Senator and Governor or in a Republican White House were suddenly tapped to serve as host of a Sunday morning show. And with Arkin it's the same thing: his anti-military views in no way serve to disqualify him from the title of analyst, while a reporter with pro-military views would quickly be dumped for a more 'objective' viewer. Good thing conservatives control the media. Presumably Dr. Terpstra would be NBC's military analyst if the media didn't have such a conservative tilt. Note: Yes, I opened the door on the whole media bias issue, but let's not waste much time arguing, as there's no evidence on Earth that's going to convince anyone they're wrong on this issue. Those on the left are going to continue to point to corporate ownership of the media as proof the media leans right and those on the right are going to continue to highlight the preponderance of Democrats in the media as proof it leans left. And nobody is moving an inch from those positions, so there's little point in arguing about it. Note 2: So why did I write this post? Because it's my blog and I can write about whatever I want to. And by turning the question to media bias I hope to elide the fact I broke my promise about not mentioning Arkin again. Pretty clever, eh? Posted at February 16, 2007 06:32 AM
Comment policyI apologize for only allowing authenticated commenters, but comment spam overwhelms the site if I don't use those measures to prevent it. I reserve the right to delete any comment, although generally comments will only be deleted due to use of profanity or personal attacks on people. I have no objection to vigorous argument, but when name-calling begins, I'm putting a stop to it. In the immortal words of Eugene Levy, "People, people, let's stop this before somebody says something untrue!" If you want to call people names, I recommend you get your own blog. Trackback PingsTrackBack URL for this entry: CommentsYour first Note comes across as "Don't confuse me with facts." Nevertheless, here's one fact: This is how much of a Democrat Russert is: when the staff in the White House wanted to get their POV across during the Plamefest, one of the first proposals for the media pushback was to put Cheney on Meet the Press. Posted by: Nell Perhaps that's because a) it was intended to be humorous and b) because the facts tell people what they want to believe. You believe that the fact they wanted to put Cheney on Meet the Press proves Russert is a rightwinger. I believe that the fact Russert worked for such conservative icons as Mario Cuomo and Daniel Patrick Moynihan suggests that perhaps he's a bit further left than you're willing to admit. And since there's no way to prove the case to our mutual satisfaction, arguing about it is a waste of breath. (Or pixels.) Why get all worked up over something like that? It's like arguing about religion. Or global warming. (That's intended humorously. Don't throw anything at me.) Posted by: Andrew Post a commentThanks for signing in, . Now you can comment. (sign out) (If you haven't left a comment here before, you may need to be approved by the site owner before your comment will appear. Until then, it won't appear on the entry. Thanks for waiting.) |
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