The children all tucked into bed, the dishes done and the coffee-maker stoked I settled down to watch a bit of war porn and to incidentally try to get through a chapter of two of the gripping saga, "IP Routing." After about 5 minutes I rejected Fox with their shouting (why must all the male anchors on Fox have football-coach-like voices?) talking heads and gravelly voiced, gung-ho veterans. Besides, their live footage was with the 3rd Inf. trailing 30 miles or more behind the "tip of the spear" of the 7th Cav., who were on CNN as they flew through the desert like it was Paris-Dakkar. Doing color was Gen. Wesley Clark (Ret.) who commanded I Corps in GWI, and had a soft-spoken, easy manner. At one point (about 2300 CDT) they went to a split screen with the 7th Cav. racing along and a reporter in N. Iraq using a long lens to show a small squad of Iraqi soldiers loafing about while supposedly doing something to improve their hopeless defensive positions. Gen. Clark critiqued them by scathingly pointing out how they were just loafing around, "Like if we waste enough time here we won't have anything to do when we get back." He also saw that they lacked any small arms or any defensive posture whatsoever even though they were only a few hundred meters across the river from hostile positions and allied aircraft were clearly audible above. Brave but stupid guys. Before, during, and after this admittedly technologically astounding vignette all CNN anchor Aaron Brown could do was marvel at how wonderful, how unprecedented, how inspiring all of this coverage was. “The first time in history…” “Awe inspiring...” “I just can’t get over it...” Frankly, when he wasn’t getting teary-eyed talking to the wives of those selfsame soldiers being shown haul-assing across the desert -- the reporter reporting the war live, talking to the wives of the soldiers watching their men live, "Wow, wow... (wipes a tear)" -- about all he did was say how wonderfully the technology was. Admittedly, it was a pretty tame day for war porn. Apparently the Marines were having a hotter time of it down around Basra but either the CNN or Fox reporters “embedded” with the 1st MEF were blacked out or those two networks didn’t have whiz-bang web-cams with those units. Aside: WTF is wrong with ”assigned to” or “traveling with?” Embedded sounds like they’re wood ticks or something. Oh… I get it. Haha, joke’s on the media I guess. I see the military’s strategy for this unprecentented “open” access to the military is to only let them broadcast when absolutely nothing is happening. Admittedly there wasn’t much to show. Which begs the question of why were we treated to three (and more, I finally shuffled off to bed at about 0030) hours of Aaron Brown oohing and ahing like a 12 year-old at his first Blue Angels show? Contrast that to the BBC -- let us not forget, their people also have a horse in this race -- who interspersed live updates from the front where absolutely nothing was happening with interviews with a number of commentators offering interesting analysis of the future of both US and UK foreign policy and a truly stunning overview/expose of the USAID draft call for contracts for the reconstruction of Iraq. (More on this anon.) Sadly, my BBC America feed only looped the 90 Minute BBC World News show from 1800 GMT, and I had to go back to CNN. VLAN configuration was looking positively titillating by comparison. Oh, and don’t even get me started on how the reporters on ALL the U.S. networks are incessently whining because they haven’t gotten their “shock and awe.” No matter that conditions on the ground have changed and the utter destruction of the Iraqi infrastructure is no longer operationally required. The media was promised “shock and awe” and now they want to see some ************ blow up, dammit! Meanwhile, I’ll just conclude my morning rant with a quote from today’s “Note.” Quis custodiet ipsos custodies?
C-man!!!! I am beginning to become a BIG fan of yours! Excellent post! Too bad others are not as thoughtful as you.
Speaking Jo Moore.... Say what you will about judicial nominees, but this is TRULY OUTRAGEOUS if true. No person, not you or me, should be treated this way.... read here... "Although it was overshadowed by the beginning of war, on Capitol Hill Wednesday there was a major escalation in the conflict between Senate Democrats and the White House over the president's judicial nominees," Byron York writes at National Review Online (www.nationalreview.com). "The escalation had nothing to do with the ongoing Democratic filibuster over appeals-court candidate Miguel Estrada. Instead, it involved a Democratic decision to block, and, at least for the moment, kill a total of four Bush nominees to the federal courts of appeals," Mr. York said. "Acting in concert, Michigan Democratic Sens. Carl Levin and Debbie Stabenow told the Judiciary Committee they will block the nominations of Richard Griffin, David McKeague, Susan Bieke Neilson, and Henry Saad to the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals. In addition, Levin and Stabenow said they will block the nomination of Thomas Ludington to a seat on the U.S. District Court. That means the two senators are attempting to kill every Bush nominee from the state of Michigan. "Levin and Stabenow stopped the nominations by returning negative blue slips, which are the documents in which senators indicate approval or disapproval of judicial nominees from their home states. "Blue slips are a Senate custom with a long and controversial history, but both parties concede it is nearly impossible for a nominee of either party to win confirmation over the objections of both of his or her home-state senators. That means the nominations of Griffin, McKeague, Neilson, Saad and Ludington are effectively dead. "It was an extraordinary move on the part of Levin and Stabenow, a kind of Wednesday-night massacre that sent Republicans scrambling to research whether such wholesale obstruction had any precedent in Senate history, and what a GOP response might be." Mr. York added: "The move suggests that the Democratic strategy to block Bush judges extends far beyond selected targets like Miguel Estrada and Priscilla Owen. Indeed, it appears that Democrats may plan to use a variety of techniques to try to block every, or nearly every, Bush nominee to the federal appeals courts."
Alan Moore? I thought it was Rasputin! Edit: (Smacks forehead!) Ohhh. Alan Moore of "The Watchmen"? Ozymandias, Rorschach, Dr. Manhattan? Sweet!
Pot, kettle, six years of Clinton Admin vs. Republican Senators, black. As far as Aaron Brown goes, all of CNN's coverage of this war has been terrible. Blitzer and Amanpour are in Kuwait where nothing is happening, there's the woman on the aircraft carrier who never has any real news, there's those god-awful stationary cameras in Baghdad that show nothing, and -cman- is right that the Cavalry Cam is interesting for about 10 seconds and then doesn't tell us anything. Without any real news to report and without any real insight into the long-term strategic or diplomatic repurcussions of all of this, they are reporting on their newest tech gadgets. The whole war should be sponsored by Tech TV.
Actually, it got moved over to Iraqi Military Action. And it wasn't a comment about this thread, except to agree 100 percent with you that Aaron Brown is a drivelling idiot.
With OJ? Last night, he was interviewing the woman on the aircraft carrier (or some boat) and she told the world how the military got their damage reports from CNN! No lie! Then, as Mr. Brown does so well, he said, "Well, we won't use this in any CNN promo...". He then leans over to Gen. Wes and asked, "Did you get your status reports from CNN, too?" But of course! Old Wes says YES! To be fair, that is his job after all. He is the CNN yes man. Great. The military intel is actually CNN!
Speaking of funny things uttered by news anchors: I SWEAR ... earlier today at lunch watching the war coverage, I heard Peter Jennings (ABC) respond to someone's statement with the words "okie dokey" Just can't picture a professional anchor, on the air, using such a phrase
Aaron Brown was on CNN LIVE when the Twin towers fell...his lack of emotions made it seem like he was calling a 0-0 baseball game on a lazy summer sunday afternoon. I still cant forget him doing what seem to be casual interviews with the buildings collapsing behind him. He has no urgency whatsoever. PS: Larry King is the biggest idiot of all. I must say CNN really sucks.