What Universe is this guy living in?

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This isn't really apologetics related, but when I read the following in a story entitled A hurricane strips off Bush's teflon by Marvin Kalb for the International Herald Tribune dated Wednesday, September 28, 2005, I was astounded.

Suddenly, as if the flood waters had smashed not only the levees in New Orleans but the teflon-protected presidency of George W. Bush, networks and newspapers have again found their voice. An embarrassing four-year period of media deference to the president and his policies has ended.

For the first time since the 9/11 terrorist attacks, when an understandable feeling of patriotism induced timid coverage of White House policy in Afghanistan and Iraq, journalists have now returned to their traditional role as fearless chroniclers of the passing parade, blasting the administration for its tardy, ineffective response to the hurricane. Indeed, they have even gone beyond their traditional role.

Instead of acting like deferential, yet objective stenographers of administration briefings, they have adopted a new, angry, emotional style that has surprised and stunned the usually masterful spin merchants at the White House.

Deferential press? Timid coverage of the Bush White House? Good grief. If Mr. Kalb thinks that the press has been deferential to Bush, he needs to read some more newspapers and news magazines. He certainly hasn't been reading the papers I read.

Comments

James said…
Hi BK,

I've got to say that this post really does not belong on this blog. It may be true and reasonable, but it is a piece of political comment sympathetic to Republicans that has no business on a blog supposedly just doing apologetics. Just MHO.

Best wishes

James
9/28/2005 10:41:00 PM
BK said…
Hello James,

I largely agree with you and was originally not going to put this on the CADRE site, but then I started thinking about it. I think that the view being expressed by this author is part of the larger world view war that is going on. Worse yet, this author is a member of the press influencing people in a way that is simply inexcusable. You can disagree with Bush, but to say that the press has been deferential to him is not only wrong, it is on the verge of fantasy.

The press has been far from deferential to Bush. The press has sought every opportunity to scandalize his presidency and openly advocated the election of John Kerry in 2004. So the question is: why are they doing this? I think that the answer is, in part, that they don't like his social stands on issues like abortion which is clearly an apologetics/worldview related issue.

So, is this a political issue? Yes. Is it completely divorced from apologetics? I don't think so. Still, I agree that this is the outer bounds for this site, and I wouldn't have posted this if the claim hadn't been so obviously ludicrous in the first place.
9/29/2005 08:55:00 AM
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