Katie Couric's Iraq is the perfect symbol of the dumbing down of American journalism as her morning show persona asks cream puff questions about an out of control illegally occupied country, from her safe perch in the green Zone, while America cringes in embarrassment: Allen L Roland
Katie Couric is the wrong person reporting on a wrong war with the wrong skills to ask the hard questions ~ which should be a prerequisite for a national anchor on a major newscast.
Everytime I hear her voice I cringe and turn to another channel ~ its a crispy cream donut when I want something of substance, like Ham and eggs with tobasco sauce ~ but I am not the only columnist who sees this as just another example of the compliant mainstream media dumbing down America.
Scott Ritter rightfully defines Couric as a " struggling anchor, determined to get “the big story.”
Excerpt: " The war in Iraq has become a major generator of advertising revenue for these corporations, so there is no incentive to actually report the truth, but rather manipulate the fiction. Iraq has become a prestige destination for every aspiring journalist or struggling anchor, determined to get “the big story.” The most recent manifestation of this syndrome is CBS News anchor Katie Couric, who earlier this week travelled to Iraq because she was (in her own words), “Curious about very basic questions regarding living conditions, about how much fear there is in the street, about how the soldiers really are doing.” That the situation in Iraq has been boiled down to these three big, burning issues (living conditions, fear in the streets, and how the troops are really doing), and that CBS is sending their multi-million-dollar investment to investigate, speaks volumes about the truly degenerate state of American journalism today."
Allen L Roland http://blogs.salon.com/0002255/2007/09/08.html
Scott Ritter / Reporting from Baghdad
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/09/07/3677
It should come as no surprise that the Bush administration’s newest military-man-of-substance-turned- political lapdog, General Petraeus, maintains that the situation in Iraq is not only salvageable, but actually improving, due to the “surge” of U.S. combat troops into Iraq over the past year. All the president and his collection of GI Joe hand-puppets ask for is more time, more money and more troops.
There is no reason to believe that the compliant war facilitators who comprise the “anti-war” Democratic majority in Congress will do anything other than give the president what he is asking for. No one seems to want to debate, in any meaningful fashion, what is really going on in Iraq.
Why would they? The Democrats, like their Republican counterparts, have invested too much political capital into fictionalizing the problem with slogans like “support the troops,” “we’re fighting the enemy there so we don’t have to fight them here,” and my all-time favorite, “leaving Iraq would hand victory to al-Qaida.”
There simply is no incentive to put fact on the table and formulate policy that actually seeks a solution to a properly defined problem. Like the Republicans before them, the Democrats today seek not to govern with the best interests of the people in mind, but rather to game the system in order to consolidate political power. Political sloganeering has so trumped reality that any political backlash that is generated from the so-called “Petraeus Report” will be limited to how the Democrats could better sustain a conflict that kills American troops, since no main-stream Democratic leader has expressed a true “get out of Iraq now” policy.
Nearly 4 1/2 years following President Bush’s ill-fated (and illegal) decision to invade and occupy Iraq, few people in a position to influence policy formulation and implementation in America have actually grasped the horrible truth about what has transpired, and what is transpiring, in Mesopotamia today. As the United States places the finishing touches on Fortress America, the new half-billion-dollar Embassy complex in the heart of the Green Zone in downtown Baghdad, and more troops pour into mega-bases throughout Iraq, the reality (and futility) of permanent occupation has yet to sink in. What could be going through the minds of those members of Congress who keep signing blank checks for the president? Is there no oversight of how and why this money is spent? How can someone fund permanent infrastructure one day, then speak of the need to get out of Iraq the next?
The compliant mainstream media, of course, is no help.... Katie Couric will struggle to tell us that our kids keep dying in Iraq to “improve the quality of life” and “reduce the level of fear” on the streets of Baghdad. She solemnly informs us that “our boys and girls” are suffering, but they know it is in support of a just and noble cause. Katie will continue to report the story in Iraq from the perspective of an American political dynamic, not Iraqi reality. Click on the following link to continue ~ http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/09/07/3677
Allen L Roland http://blogs.salon.com/0002255/2007/09/08.html
Freelance columnist Allen L Roland is available for comments , interviews and speaking engagements ( allen@allenroland.com )
