Letters to the Editor
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The endless loop of conservative lies
It would be kind of fun if something different were happening in politics or society, but it seems we are caught in an endless loop these days. We hear the same sorts of stories with the same sort of spin from conservatives and the main stream media, week after week. This Modern World reflects that. This week's humor is subtle and took me a moment. The “why do you hate America” line from conservatives has gotten old and tired, and is easily countered with: Why do you hate the Constitution and the Bill of Rights so much? Still the main stream media persist in reporting the spin rather than the facts. I guess it is easier to draw a six figure paycheck by just reporting what others say than by doing any real research.
The “mistakes were made” punch line was interesting, because TT was ahead of the curve on this. Given the deadline for the toon I don’t imagine he had heard the dueling “Mistakes Were Made” stories on 2 NPR programs this weekend prior to “phoning it in”. Bob Garfield did very funny piece on this first, for On the Media. In his piece Garfield traced the history of the “Mistakes were made” statement through successive Republican Presidents beginning with Regan. He ended his piece with the punch line: (to paraphrase) If you noticed that all the presidents quoted were Republican, let me assure you, NO mistakes were made. On Weekend Edition Saturday, Scott Simon, did a much more “serious” piece on the same subject. A piece who’s purpose seemed to be only to counter the piece by Garfield, and by golly, they found some snippet of Clinton uttering that same phrase. Of course, unlike Garfield who explained the context of every quote, Simon could not be bothered to give us that. His purpose being to show that Clinton had said it too. No matter that Clinton may have been giving a talk on the Treaty of Versailles.
Oh but you would have to be a tin foil hat wearing, conspiracy nut, to believe the main stream media, and the “ultra left wing”, NPR, are complicit in spreading the conservative line, wouldn’t you? Did anyone happen to catch NPR’s coverage of the weekend's anti war protests? One would think there were an equal number of pro war protesters given NPR’s coverage. Not even Fox can lie like that, because they have to show pictures.