October 24th, 2003, 8:00 P.M., OPB’s Washington Week in Review -- David Sanger of the New York Times, America’s former newspaper of record, described the Bush visit to the Australian parliament as remarkable in that it is “rare to hear an American president shouted down” in such a venue.

Know the following about that statement, readers of Oregon Magazine.  Like the work of the New York Times New Orleans bureau chief and the black staff reporter in the home office, this is a manufactured story.  It is made of pure leftist spin.  If, as I highly doubt, Sanger has a brain, then, unfortunately, It is a lie.

Gwen Ifill, the award-winning moderator of the panel either was happily ignorant of the inaccuracy or intentionally let the misinformation stand.

Here is the truth.

On two occasions during the Bush speech, he was interrupted – not shouted down -- by individuals.  The ‘shouting down’ that was done came from the members of the Australian parliament, and the leadership.  They noisily and with gusto told the interrupters to shut the hell up.

The real story in that event was not that Bush was interrupted, but how gracefully he responded.  It brought cheers from the parliamentarians this idiot Sanger of the disgraced New York Times said were jeering Bush.  In other words, the actual facts of the event were the exact reverse of Sanger’s WWR report.  That is not unusual for either the New York Times or Washington Week in Review.

They screwed up the matter of the Rumsfeld memo with equally upside down analysis.  It is quite obvious that nobody at that table has worked at the top level in a corporation. If any of them have, it was a sinecure, most probably of the PC variety. They had no real responsibilities and learned nothing about how such operations work. Thus, their memo interpretation was garbage.  William Safire, one of the last actual journalists in the employ of the New York Times, got it immediately on the News Hour which preceded WWR.  He said it was a classic example of a good executive trying to shake loose the hide bound minds in a giant organization.  That is precisely what it was. 

It’s the first step a good exec takes to rattle bureaucrats.  Get them to try thinking outside the box.  The liberal press, unable to think outside their liberal box, made a weeklong fuss about a good move by a great executive who is trying to upgrade the performance of a critically important government agency.   

I have told you all many times that PBS dishes out a pack of crap almost every time they do a program.  Their leftist blather infuses virtually everything they put on the air.  Just a few days earlier PBS referred to Christian beliefs as “myth,” then followed in the very next program with a loving, deeply respectful episode about a religious journey to Mecca by Moslems.  Both of those  religions, and Judaism, have an Adamic root.  All claim the ancient prophet Abraham as a progenitor in one way or another.

Just based on seniority, the Jews have the original title.  The Christians are a more recent religion by an amount of time that spans the years between the Iron age and the reign of Augustus Caesar.  Islam popped up around 600 A.D., so it is the youngest of the three. If you have read the holy books of all three, as I have, you find the PBS approach described above as laughable.  Angels and devils and miraculous events that fly in the face of science are recorded in them all. To call Christianity a myth and in the next breath not to do the same with respect to Islam is ridiculous. Only the PR flack for a scum philosophy would do something like that.

Washington Week in Review with its distortion of the Bush Asian tour is just another example of the fatal inconsistencies that float across public broadcasting like flies over fresh animal droppings. 

It is my suggestion that you never donate money to these people at either the national or local level.  If you discover that a charitable agency like United Way contributes to these people, stop giving money to them.  If you notice that a company with which you normally do business supports public broadcasting, stop doing business with them as soon as you can find a substitute.  If you usually support some foundation (MacArthur or Ford, for example) which regularly funds PBS programming, break your connection with them.  Never volunteer to work the phones during a public broadcasting pledge break, never again vote for any politician at any elective level who supports public broadcasting and if you happen to live in a neighborhood where public broadcasting employees reside, urge them to get in a recovery program that converts liberals back into sentient lifeforms, then help them find an honest job in a decent profession.

Shoveling manure out of a dairy barn is a good transition job for people like that.  It involves familiar procedures, but is much cleaner work.

(LL).  

© 2003 Oregon Magazine