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"Mainstream
U.S. reporters rarely apply an adjective like 'petulant' to petulant
administration officials like, say, Ari Fleischer. But then again,
Fleischer doesn't challenge U.S. foreign policy."
"Dennis
Kucinich does. The four-term U.S. representative from Ohio is now running
for the Democratic presidential nomination. And some media pundits find
his anti-war views outrageous."
"Washington
Post columnist Richard Cohen declared his own war on Kucinich. Cohen
claimed to be shocked shocked shocked."
"'The
giant corporate owner of more than 1,200 radio stations, Clear Channel,
syndicates talk radio host Glenn Beck to scores of stations nationwide --
and Beck is enraged about Kucinich. Days before the all-out war on Iraq
began, Beck discussed spontaneous combustion and then said: 'Every night I
get down on my knees and pray that Dennis Kucinich will burst into
flames.'"
"Beck
has been a chief on-air organizer of de facto pro-war rallies promoted by
Clear Channel, a monopolistic corporation with close ties to President
Bush. Those rallies included vilification of the Dixie Chicks."
"While
the controversy did not do much harm to sales of their music, the Dixie
Chicks have suffered a sharp drop in air play. Most fans don't seem to
mind the anti-war sentiment, but some radio industry executives sure do."
"Rarely
have major media powerhouses in the United States been so eager to dismiss
thoughtful opinions with the wave of a patriotic wand."
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Hans Blix, Dennis Kucinich and the Dixie
Chicks are in very different lines of work --
but they're in the same line of fire from big
media for the sin of strongly challenging the president's war agenda.
Let's start with Blix, who can get respectful coverage in American
media -- unless he's criticizing the U.S. government. Belatedly, in
mid-April, he went public with accusations that the Bush
administration faked evidence on Iraqi weapons
of mass destruction. And Blix declared that the
United Nations -- not the U.S. government -- should deploy arms
inspectors in Iraq now.
But presidential spokesman Ari Fleischer retorted: "I think it's
unfortunate if Hans Blix would in any way criticize the United
States at this juncture." The White House
message was clear -- and it reached the media
echo chamber.
So, on the April 22 edition of CNN's "Moneyline" program, host Lou
Dobbs (with an American flag pin in his lapel) summed up a news
report this way: "Blix appearing for all the
world to look like a petulant U.N. bureaucrat
about a month to go before his retirement."
Mainstream U.S. reporters rarely apply an adjective like "petulant"
to petulant administration officials like, say, Ari Fleischer. But
then again, Fleischer
doesn't challenge U.S. foreign policy.
Dennis Kucinich does. The four-term U.S. representative from Ohio
is now running for the Democratic presidential nomination. And some
media pundits find his anti-war views outrageous.
A few weeks before President Bush launched an undeclared war on
Iraq, "liberal" Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen declared
his own war on Kucinich. The main trigger for
Cohen's wrath was that the member of
Congress had dared to identify oil as "the strongest incentive" for
the impending war.
Cohen claimed to be shocked shocked shocked. The first word of his
column was "liar." From there, the Post columnist peppered his
piece with references to Kucinich as an
"indomitable demagogue" and a "fool" who was
"repeating a lie." But Cohen would have done well to re-read a
front page of his own newspaper.
Five months earlier, on Sept. 15, a page-one Post report carried
the headline "In Iraqi War Scenario, Oil Is Key Issue; U.S.
Drillers Eye Huge Petroleum Pool." In the
article, Ahmed Chalabi, the leader of the
U.S.-backed Iraqi National Congress, said that he favored the creation
of a U.S.-led consortium to develop oil fields in a post-Saddam
Iraq: "American companies will have a big shot
at Iraqi oil."
The same Post article quoted former CIA Director James Woolsey -- a
Chalabi supporter who, according to a Legal Times story, has been on the
payroll of Chalabi's group. Woolsey said: "France and Russia have oil
companies and interests in Iraq. They should be told that if they
are of assistance in moving Iraq toward decent
government, we'll do the best we
can to ensure that the new government and American companies work
closely with them. If they throw in their lot with Saddam, it will
be difficult to the point of impossible to
persuade the new Iraqi government to work with
them."
As many business pages have long highlighted, it's actually quite
reasonable to identify oil as key to U.S. policy toward Iraq. But
such talk from a
presidential candidate causes some people to become
incensed. That hardly makes Kucinich a "liar." On the contrary, it
simply makes him a pariah in the media realms patrolled by the
likes of Richard Cohen.
Similar media gendarmes are on patrol over the airwaves. The giant
corporate owner of more than 1,200 radio stations, Clear Channel,
syndicates talk radio host Glenn Beck to scores of stations
nationwide -- and Beck is enraged about Kucinich. Days before the
all-out war on Iraq began, Beck discussed spontaneous combustion
and then said: "Every night I get down on my
knees and pray that Dennis Kucinich will burst
into flames."
Beck has been a chief on-air organizer of de facto pro-war rallies
promoted by Clear Channel, a monopolistic corporation with close
ties to President Bush. Those rallies included
vilification of the Dixie Chicks, a country
music group that earned the wrath of hyper-patriots several
weeks ago when lead singer Natalie Maines, a Texan, said she was
ashamed to be from the same state as Bush.
While the controversy did not do much harm to sales of their music,
the Dixie Chicks have suffered a sharp drop in air play. Most fans
don't seem to mind the anti-war sentiment, but
some radio industry executives sure do. "What's
clear is that in these days of highly concentrated
media ownership," says the Chicago area's Daily Herald, "there is
an immense amount of pressure to not make
waves."
In a new statement that voiced support for the Dixie Chicks as
"terrific American artists expressing American values by using
their American right to free speech," rocker
Bruce Springsteen condemned "the pressure coming
from the government and big business to enforce
conformity of thought concerning the war and politics."
Being a dissenter from conventional wisdom has always involved
risks -- but rarely have major media powerhouses in the United
States been so eager to dismiss thoughtful
opinions with the wave of a patriotic wand.
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