Monday, February 14, 2011

Egyptian change, and ignoring the inconvenient

Well at least most of the MSM has been:

Krauthammer Tells Inconvenient Truth About Egypt and Muslim Brotherhood Media are Ignoring
[...] CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER: Everything said about Egypt - the educated population, the proud history, the long civilization - all of it applies to Iran in 1979 as well, and it ended up hijacked by the Islamists. That’s the threat in Egypt today. The Brotherhood wants the institution of Sharia law. On its website it says that no Christian or woman can be the president of Egypt.

This is not the Salvation Army as described by our director of National Intelligence who ought to be canned for the testimony he gave the other day about how benign and secular an organization it is. It wants the institution of Sharia law. Our job is to strengthen the democrats, of which there are many in Egypt but who need help, organization and assistance so they can challenge the Brotherhood and create a democracy that is actually going to live and not be one man, one vote, one time.

Rather than share this real threat with their readers, listeners, and viewers, America's Obama-loving media have castigated those that have as being right-wing extremists and fear mongers.

But the job of a journalist should be to explore all possibilities of a developing situation rather than just those they either hope will happen for the good of the society or wish for in order to assist a president they support.

For the most part, the coverage of this crisis since the moment it began a little over two weeks ago has been deplorable. From blaming it on former President George W. Bush to tying the unrest to global warming, what we've witnessed from our press has been laughable.

But on the deadly serious side was their almost universal misrepresentation of the Muslim Brotherhood and the real risk of Egypt becoming a radical Islamic theocracy.

However small that risk might be - and there are many that believe it to be extremely possible - the media's responsibility was to constantly explore it. [...]

The media gave up exploring possibilities a long time ago. They seem more interested in trying to make the news than reporting it.

I'd like to say that Egypt isn't Iran, and that this isn't the 1970's. That even though there are many similarities with Iran's Islamic revolution, there are differences too, and that those differences may win out in the end.

No doubt the outcome will not be exactly the same. But how much will it be the same? Or not? And is there anything we can do to help the process along, in a positive way? To help the Egyptians create a multi-party democracy, instead of a theocratic dictatorship? And will the Obama administration do it? Or just sit on their hands like Jimmy Carter did with Iran, and let whatever would happen, happen?

We shall see.
     

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