Thursday, August 29, 2002

Things sure are getting weird. Jude Wanniski is starting to sound like Jeff Koopersmith.


Roger, I’m beginning to think that if we check your DNA we would find a fit with the exhumed corpse of William Randolph Hearst. You are absolutely not going to let any other network out-jingo FoxNews. After this week’s rendition of FoxNewsSunday with Tony Snow, I’ve decided to simply label FoxNews the “War Network.” Tony himself somehow manages to stay above the fray, but the rest of the line-up cannot wait to start bombing Iraq, or anyone or anything else that gets in its way. Juan Williams has become the token dove on the show, which means he wants to get rid of Saddam Hussein, but maybe not this week, and with a smart bomb that spares innocent civilians.

Brit Hume, your Washington editor? Forget it, Roger. He has started foaming at the mouth, so eager to send several hundred thousand American troops into a Baghdad cakewalk. When Tony took a vacation day yesterday, Brit had the brass to devote an entire segment to criticisms of the New York Times for running a front-page piece last week about Republican critics of the war. No criticism of a war with Iraq is permitted, he said, except on the editorial page! Heck, Brit is all editorial page. He has not done any reporting for you guys in years, but is spoon fed by the GOP War Party. And who did he arrange to be the chief witness for the prosecution? Paul Gigot, the fledgling editorial-page editor of The Wall Street Journal, who has turned that illustrious space into a bulletin board for Richard Perle, the egomaniac who runs the War Party and has Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld dancing on his string. It’s not enough that Gigot gets a regular fee for being a guest commentator on FoxNews, Brit had to invite him to speak as a principle! And all Gigot had to say was, yes Brit, you are right, the NYTimes should not have mentioned on its front page the opinion of Brent Scowcroft that we should not bomb Iraq unless we see it is a genuine threat to someone, somewhere, not maybe several years from now, but now!

You can’t fool me, Roger, as you know I was once part of Perle’s act, when we had a genuine Cold War. I know how he operates. And I know you are only concerned with FoxNews’ ratings and your conviction that people only tune in to FoxNews bigtime when there are bombs falling somewhere. Rupert Murdoch only gives bonuses for big wars! That plays right into Perle’s hands, as he is only too willing to provide big war, in Israel, in Iraq or if (alas) peace breaks out in the Middle East, in China. If the truth be known, Richard was part of the scheme (conspiracy) to unravel the Soviet Union after Mikhail Gorbachev came out with his hands up, and was also a player in busting up the Yugoslav Federation, with enormous human cost. Collateral damage as far as he is concerned, Roger. His miscalculation gave us 9-11, I hope you know, but it was good for FoxNews’ ratings. Peace is boring.



And another from Patricia W. And another from Jude.


Perhaps someone more well-versed in the taxonomy of the right can explain it all to me...