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August 08, 2005

NYT Mystified at Purported Lack of War Heroes In Iraq

Apparently Forgets That Heroes Need To Be Mentioned In Large, Influential Newspapers For Anyone To Read About Them

Nice for the NYT to even bother to write an essay about looking for heroes. They're not actually looking for them; but they are writing about looking for them, which is a start.

RCL, on f'n' fire today, notes:

Numerous blogs are properly incredulous that the left wing NYT's would dare ask this question. To understand how galling this truly is, I used the NYTs "site search", entering first "hero" and then "heroic". I received only one hit refering to the current war in Iraq, namely the above article. The NYT, which prints "All the News That is Fit to Print" has not seen fit to publicize a single person or action from the Iraq war which they described as a "hero" or characterized as "heroic". Death, Gitmo, Halliburton, they all go page one, above the fold. Yet, a single "hero"? A "heroic" act? Not in Bush's War.
On the plus side, they did manage to criticize the White House.

Fancy that!

John Burns is one NYT reporter who isn't overcome with left-wing bias and anti-war zealotry. But he's just one voice among hundreds.

It's not precisely difficult to find heroes in Iraq. They're not hiding. Every man and woman over there is serving heroically, exposing themselves to death and maiming in order to bring democracy and stability to a nation long-accursed by vicious despotism.

And then of course there are the superheroes that make the heroes look like slackers. Guys like Timothy Haag, for example.

The NYT can't find any heroes in Iraq because it has decided, as editorial policy, that Iraq is an unheroic war. Talk about killing your parents and then whining to the judge that you're an orphan.

More Heroes So Secretive About Their Heroism They Only Write Books About It and Appear on FoxNews: No wonder the news-sleuths at the New York Times can't find these stealth heroes!

Via Megan:

Wow. Fox just had a brief spot with the author of this book [Facing Terror, by Cathie McDonnall].
Carrie took 20 bullets and lost her husband while trying to help the Iraqis. Asked what she thought of the Iraqi people now, who had cost her what most people would consider pretty much fucking everything, and if she'd ever go back, she said (paraphrasing from memory):

"The Iraqis were very welcoming people, very friendly to us, and they were eager to receive the help they needed, the help we were there to give them. I'm going to stay faithful to God's plans for me. If He wants me to go back and help the Iraqis again, I will."

It's hard to find heroes in Iraq. Why, you'd have to go to the bother of looking up a publisher on Amazon and then you'd actually have to call the publisher to get the author's number, or the number of her press agent.

What sort of newspaper has time or resources for that kind of tedious detective-work?

posted by Ace at 04:53 PM

Comments

Yes, the sheer incredulity with which the dextrosphere greeted this has impressed me. I hope that the serving military understands that we've been outraged by the way they're being ignored and mistreated by the press, and that we really do care.

I'd like to see this pushed, hard, in the next few days, before it fades from public consciousness and the latest outrage takes over.

Posted by: Dianna on August 8, 2005 05:00 PM

Oy, Ace. Isn't this the perfect place to mention Carrie and David McDonnall as well? Or haven't you read my email yet? :P

Posted by: Megan on August 8, 2005 05:01 PM

The Pentagon got badly burned by touting Jessica Lynch as a war hero. And their Tillman lies didn't help.

Still, it wouldn't hurt to have some award ceremonies for bravery. With live soldiers. Not posthumous awards.

Posted by: Cedarford on August 8, 2005 05:12 PM

Cool. :) Thanks Ace.

Posted by: Megan on August 8, 2005 05:34 PM

Sounds like you've got a potential guest for your radio gig, eh?

Posted by: fat kid on August 8, 2005 05:56 PM

Talk about killing your parents and then whining to the judge that you're an orphan.

Damn ACE - You're on fucking fire!

I saw Pissy Pelosi on TV for a few seconds yesterday saying: right after 911 we were united as a nation, but due to George Bush's policies this nation is divided ... At that point I had to say as Popye used to say: that's all I can stand, I can't stands no more!

Posted by: 72 dogs on August 8, 2005 05:58 PM

A quick visit to any one of about 50 blogs will find more than enough heros to fill the NYT pages for a year.

The real question of course - is would actual heros want to be written up in such a fish wrapper anyway? The people who really care about what's going on already know.

Yon alone could provide them with more than enough materiel.

Posted by: on August 8, 2005 06:03 PM

"What sort of newspaper has time or resources for that kind of tedious detective-work?"

Yeah, that would be almost as hard as, like, fact checking and stuff.

Posted by: Dacotti on August 8, 2005 06:09 PM

Neil Prakash - a nice kid from an immigrant ethnic minority who one day decides that commanding a platoon of a 65 ton killing machines would be a lot cooler than med school. I agree.

Silver Star - and not the cheap-ass John Kerry kind for (maybe) being a lifegaurd at best.

Posted by: holdfast on August 8, 2005 06:37 PM

Nice post, but it and the comments are I think "missing the forest for the trees":

The nyt is Quisling Central - it wants the US to lose PERIOD and will do nothing to support our efforts against terrorists.

For the nyt the enemy is not Osama or Saddam or any number of mad mullahs or North Korea - the enemy is Republicans, Christians, right-to-lifers and people who believe in fighting back. This post just highlights one of the countless ways the nyt has undermined our efforts.

Since at least Walter Duranty on, when it has really counted the nyt has objectively been on the side of evil. Why should it stop now?

Posted by: max on August 8, 2005 07:52 PM

I did a search on one of the heroes mentioned in the Times piece.

The Times ran the story of the first Medal of Honor Winner on page 13 of the late edition.

Posted by: Stephen Macklin on August 8, 2005 08:24 PM

Did you even read the article? Obviously not.

Posted by: Thomas on August 9, 2005 10:55 AM

The problem of course is that the Paper of Record hasn't found any soldiers who are both heroes and willing to denounce Chimpy. I'm sure once they find one, the entire world will know about him/her.

Posted by: Mark on August 9, 2005 02:46 PM

I suspect that Damien Cave knows perfectly well where the blame lies. He also knows that if he puts the blame where it belongs in a story, the NYT will never print the story. So he writes a story with an obvious NYT-shaped hole in it, and lets the readers figure it out.

Posted by: Bob Hawkins on August 10, 2005 11:14 AM