Bunker Mulligan "Let us endeavor so to live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry." ~Mark Twain

“The Media” is not a phrase I relish putting down. I do so because it is simple. It covers a lot of territory and, as with everything, lumping people into groups does some of them a disservice. But I do it here as a convenience, not as an indictment of an entire group of people with that single trait in common. I will offer a single caveat in this instance: I am speaking of those who generate the newscasts and morning shows for CBS, NBC, and ABC. I’ve overdosed on their version of news this week because that’s what my father watches.

They smell blood. They want someone from the Bush Administration to be fired or to resign in disgrace. They don’t care who it is, but somebody needs to go down. And they don’t care what the reason. They first wanted Ashcroft. They tried to get Rove with the Plame investigation (Where did that eventually lead?) Then they hoped Powell would resign over differences. Then they tied their hopes to Rice. Today it is the biggest prize of all–Rumsfeld.

Like many, I am disgusted with people who claim to support the troops, but do everything in their power to undermine what those troops are trying to accomplish. That is not supporting the troops. I don’t know what their definition would be because I’ve never heard it explained. If their thought is that pulling troops out of harm’s way is supporting them, they have no clue why we even have a military and what those folks have sworn to do. They said the same thing during Vietnam, then spit on those who wore a uniform. So, I don’t believe a single word. It is the same group and their younger disciples. Listen to the words they use, and the recordings could have been made in 1969. They want another Vietnam because it was their single accomplishment in life.

We have congressmen and senators complaining they weren’t kept informed. Actually, Congress has no oversight power or control of the military except through the budget. The military is a function of the Executive Branch. It doesn’t surprise me they were not kept informed. But something like this gets them face time on television. And it’s a reelection year.

Bush was not told of the abuse photographs. The only reason to keep him up on something like this is to keep him from being embarrassed. It is an issue which should have been, and was, dealt with at a much lower level. But someone passed along classified information to a writer for New Yorker magazine who “broke the story of a new My Lai.” What a coincidence–he reported on that story 30 years ago. I have yet to hear any news outlet scream for an investigation of this leak. They were certainly eager to see someone in the White House brought down for the Valerie Plame outing. Why not now?

Every soldier being prosecuted is being stalked by television “news” reporters. I say that with some confidence because this morning alone I saw the parents of two of them being interviewed. Of course, their children “had no specific training and constant asked their superiors to give them guidance on how to handle POWs.” MPs have a pretty narrow job description, and handling prisoners is one of the primary tasks. For an E7 to say he had no training tells me he was pretty much on the “show up and draw a check” mode in the Reserves. And the young woman in all the photos “was always a sweet girl who never would have done such a thing. But going to Iraq changed her.” Going to Afghanistan and Iraq has surely changed my sons, but I don’t think they lost their common sense in the transition. But they’re boys…I think that’s what the non-judgemental diversity crowd would respond. And white, too.

And Brigadier General Karpinski is another piece of work. She has been on television for the last three days complaining that she is a scapegoat. I haven’t heard her say that word yet, but the implication is emphatic. A scapegoat is someone of lower rank being singled out for punishment by some wrong-doer higher up. By definition. So if she was completely unaware of the goings-on, how would someone higher up be aware of them? Nobody has asked that question. Her imitation of an 8-year-old with his hand in the cookie jar would be amusing if it weren’t for the fact she is a brigadier general in our Army.

The real story is that some MPs did some absolutely stupid things for reasons known only to themselves. And they went a rung higher on the stupidity ladder by taking photographs of their stupidity so they could (I assume) show their stupid friends back home how they spent the war. At some point during all this, a female MP complained up the chain that she didn’t feel comfortable escorting naked prisoners between interrogation and their cells. This complaint apparently made it as high as Karpinski who, I assume once again, dealt with it. How, she doesn’t say. Another soldier sees photographs and reports up the chain. Right now, we don’t know how or to whom, but the Army immediately took action. Several months into the investigation and court-martial proceedings, someone gives a classified document to a journalist. Someone also provides copies of the photos to, at a minimum, CBS. Now “the Media” feel they should be in charge of the investigation. They assume the military can’t be trusted to investigate this.

And their assumption is one based on ignorance. They have no knowledge of the workings of a court-martial investigation. And they are sure military will close ranks because that’s what they would do, and have done repeatedly.

Professionals close ranks to assault from outsiders, but are more than capable of handling an internal issue. And, I would bet my life on it, they will do a better job, in true objectivity, than that which would be done by those now harping that “Rumsfeld is under considerable pressure to step down.” What they don’t say is that the pressure is being applied, primarily, by the media themselves. They smell blood, and they want it. Now.

UPDATE: I don’t listen to Rush. I find him amusing, but can’t take the littany. Today, though, I listened to him while I was on I-10 between Houston and San Antonio. He made many of the same comments I’ve made.

But he also played some sound clips of reporters wanting Republicans to distance themselves from what Rush said about this issue. One of them asked the White House Press Secretary if Bush agreed with or condemned what Rush, the spokeman for conservatives, had to say. I wish McClellan had responded, “I thought you were the spokesperson for conservatives,” just to hear the response!