Lefty journalist thinks President Bush more evil than terrorists
Gerard Jackson
Matt Price of The Australian provides us with more evidence that Bush-hating journalists seem be a bunch of pathological liars. Not for them such niceties as so-called journalistic ethics. Facts for them are only there to serve their ideology. When there are no facts to support their arguments they do not hesitate to invent them
Price's Politics infused with fear and uncertainty (6 November) did precisely this when it tried to pass off leftwing slanders against President Bush as irrefutable facts.
Obviously put out by Bush's electoral triumph Price started with this little gem: "Those appalled at the deceit and manipulation employed to prosecute the war in Iraq…"
In other words, Bush is a liar. But what are these lies? Price chose not to tell us. Was he referring to the leftwing canard about WMDs? If so then it can be easily disposed off. Democrats, including Kerry and Edwards, shared the same intelligence on WMDs as did Bush and they, like Bush, agreed that the intelligence assessments were correct.
In fact, it was Edwards, not President Bush, who called Saddam an "imminent threat".
Furthermore, every Western intelligence agency supported the belief that Saddam had WMDs. In the light of these facts how can any honest journalist accuse President Bush of lying?
It strikes me that the only "deceit" being practised here is by the Bush-bashing Matt Price. As for "manipulation", what exactly did Bush manipulate? Once again Matt Price plays coy.
According to the self-righteous Price, Bush needs to be "punished" for his "sins". What "sins'? Perhaps he means the "tens of thousands of deaths" that Price apparently thinks Bush caused, except that this is another leftwing canard. But passing off lies as facts seems to be second nature to journalists like Price.
That the alternative was leaving the sadistic Saddam and the murderous Taliban in power was not even considered by Price. Why? Because in Price's Bush-hating mind that would lend justification to the liberation of Afghanistan and Iraq. Perhaps that's why he didn't tell readers that both Kerry and Edwards voted for the war.
To justify his argument he calls Iraq "a cot case". Under Saddam that hapless country was both "a cot case" and a charnel house, not that I ever read anything by Price that would have even suggested this fact.
Like the vast majority of lefties Price lacks historical perspective. For example, Both Japan and Germany were basket cases for years after hostilities ceased. Their plight was so dire many commentators at the time deeply doubted that they could be rescued. These same countries went on to become "miracle" economies.
It is not until we reach Price's fifth paragraph that he reveals why the liberation is "madness". There is no terrorist threat. It is all a media beat-up. This brilliant observation is based on the fact that the threat of international terrorism is not as dangerous the threat that Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan once posed.
That the only reason these regimes became a threat is because the Western powers refused to act against them when they had the strength. This is something else that Price managed to overlook. But we I suppose we must be charitable: bigots are notorious for their sloppy thinking.
According to Price "The trespasses of Western leaders pale alongside the unalloyed evil of these Islamic mutants." Get it? No matter how evil terrorists are Bush, Blair and Howard are even worse. This is moral equivalence with a vengeance and is a clear statement of the left's utter moral bankruptcy.
He accused President Bush of making a "commitment to making everyone safe" from terrorists. Well, what was he supposed to do, Mr Price? Didn't Churchill and Roosevelt essentially make the same commitment with respect to the Nazis and Imperial Japan?
Price would have us believe that President Bush "isolated the US and created a seething maelstrom of hatred and criminality in Iraq…" What utter tripe. The so-called world-wide outbreak of America-bashing was a vicious example of simmering anti-Americanism that had been building up for decades.
I still remember the anti-American demonstrations in the sixties and the eighties. Moreover, Price deliberately ignored the role leftwing journalists have played in inciting hatred against the US. The Daily Mirror, the Guardian, the BBC and the Independent are just four British news outlets that peddle vicious anti-American propaganda.
Bush caused "criminality in Iraq"! What does Price think Iraq was under Saddam? This butcher murdered hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and buried them in mass graves. Is Price suggesting that this was not criminal behaviour?
To accuse Bush of being the cause of "criminality in Iraq" is just another vile example of Price using moral equivalency to attack the case for overthrowing Saddam's murderous regime.
Perhaps readers are wondering whether Price made any mention or even hinted at Saddam's crimes. The answer is no. To the leftwing mindset President Bush is the real criminal, not Saddam and his terrorist friends.
The left has always attacked the right for being callous and ruthless, of always sacrificing the freedom of others to serve their own goals. But a casual look at Price's article, which is only an echo of what other lefty journos are writing, tells us that these charges fit the left perfectly.
So now that we have shown that the cap fits, isn't it time Mr Matt Price starting wearing it?
Gerard Jackson is Brookes' economics editor
BrookesNews.Com
Monday 15 November 2004