One of the more mysterious moves was the decision to appoint Marcus Gee as head of the paper's editorial board. This guy isn't very bright but he makes up for that by being an ideologue. He loves Bush and Harper and he supported the invasion of Iraq and he absolutely loves "the mission" in Afghanistan.
Time and again, Marcus Gee blindly accepts whatever nonsense comes out of Washington. He embraces it and redistributes it as truth, as though by him repeating it the message somehow became even more true.
Marcus Gee has a splendid record - of getting just about everything wrong. He's gullible and he's dim. Like the paper's Margaret Wente, Gee bought the ridiculous pap spread by the Iraqi exiles before the invasion. He bought everything Bush said before the invasion. He absolutely knew that Iraq was littered with WMDs. He knew that, thanks to the America invasion, the whole Middle East was going to be reformed and become democratic. He knows that Canada's "mission" in Afghanistan is the right thing to do.
It is sad that the Globe doesn't have enough self-respect, enough concern for its own credibility that it doesn't go through Gee's pronouncements over the past five years, see how wrong he's been again and again and get somebody intelligent in that job.
Here's an example. On Wednesday, November 16, Mr. Gee vouchsafed for the honesty and integrity of George Bush. He did this relying on comments in two studies that specifically avoided considering how the White House used (that is to say stretched and twisted) the intelligence it had on Iraq. Bush is no liar, proclaimed Gee.
A lot of us thought otherwise. This scribe saw Mr. Gee as an ever-willing dupe of the right. We didn't have trouble seeing through the claims.
Now, Bob Woodward's book, "State of Denial" demonstrates that Bush & Company haven't been telling the truth to Congress, to the American people, why they haven't even been telling the truth to their fan, Marcus Gee. They've been lying about nearly everything for six years from social security reform, to tax cuts, to Hurricane Katrina, to Afghanistan and the state of Iraq.
Even as recently as last Friday, George Bush was out proclaiming Afghanistan to be some terrific success. Huh? Is this guy drinking again, is he back on cocaine? To Bush, post Taliban Afghanistan is a "great achievement."
According to Johathan Landay:
"The president acknowledged setbacks, such as faltering police reform.
"But he made no mention of the key reasons for the Taliban's resurgence: the diversion of U.S. troops to Iraq; America's failure to make good on a promise of a reconstruction program akin to the rebuilding of post-World War II Europe; endemic corruption; and the support the Taliban receive from Pakistan. Bush instead praised Pakistan as a strong ally in fighting terrorism.
Several of the president's statements about Afghanistan's judicial and legal reforms were misleading:
-He praised Karzai for naming new Supreme Court judges. But he failed to mention that the Afghan parliament rejected Karzai's nominee for chief justice, a conservative cleric blamed for stalling reform, who favored Islamic laws mandating that adulterers be stoned to death and thieves have their hands amputated.
-He praised Italy for helping to train Afghan judges and prosecutors. Many Western officials and experts say the effort is seriously flawed and that Afghanistan's legal system is in a state of collapse.
-He said the Afghan National Police "have faced problems with corruption and substandard leadership." He contended that Karzai's government began tackling the problem after appointing a new leadership team this summer. But he didn't mention that Karzai named to his team 14 senior police generals whom U.S., European and U.N. officials opposed because of their alleged involvement in human-rights abuses and corruption."
Sorry, nope, this guy doesn't tell the truth, he may not even know what it is.
3 comments:
It perceptibly shifted from a centre or middle of the road paper and drifted to the right.
Well, I'm glad to finally see someone give voice to this. I was beginning to think I was paranoid, but I've noticed a shift. In fact, I've noticed a shift in various media and I've been trying to understand where and why this has happened.
Every time I hear the Conservatives bleat about the left-wing MSM, I roll my eyes. But, you have to admit, Harper followers buy it, so they have sold that bill of goods fairly well.
More voices of concern are in order here.
I suspect the Bell Globemedia takeover of the Globe marked the shift. I doubt this would have happened while Ken Thompson owned the paper. BGM, by the way, has proudly announced it is underwriting this year's Woodrow Wilson awards at which Stephen Harper will be honoured for his contrbution to government. The staffers are just following their leader/owner. That still doesn't explain how a dud like Gee got appointed head of the paper's editorial board.
It is as if the media has a real problem with short term memory, or that what happened 5 days ago just doesn't count. It seems to be a disease that is infecting our media and our government. We, the public have had to turn watchdog.
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