or Powell's or me• • •
"Mike and Jon, Jon and Mike—I've known them both for years, and, clearly, one of them is very funny. As for the other: truly one of the great hangers-on of our time."—Steve Bodow, head writer, The Daily Show
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"Who can really judge what's funny? If humor is a subjective medium, then can there be something that is really and truly hilarious? Me. This book."—Daniel Handler, author, Adverbs, and personal representative of Lemony Snicket
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"The good news: I thought Our Kampf was consistently hilarious. The bad news: I’m the guy who wrote Monkeybone."—Sam Hamm, screenwriter, Batman, Batman Returns, and Homecoming
June 15, 2007
Washington Post Courageously Eliminates Inconvenient History
Thanks, Washington Post, for your eloquent descriptions of what never happened:
Under international pressure, Arafat agreed to name Abbas as a newly empowered prime minister in 2003...When Arafat died at the end of 2004, Abbas won the elections to replace him as president of the Palestinian Authority. Despite deep Israeli misgivings, the United States encouraged Abbas to hold Palestinian legislative elections -- and Abbas invited Hamas to participate, believing he could beat them at the polls. But Hamas won...
Then, Washington organized a financial boycott of the government, in an effort to showcase Abbas as a moderate alternative in his role as president...The United States had just begun delivering nonlethal aid and training to security forces loyal to Abbas when Hamas decided to strike and seize Gaza.
Meanwhile, back in reality:
In the immediate aftermath of the Hamas elections, last January [2006], Abrams greeted a group of Palestinian businessmen in his White House office with talk of a “hard coup” against the newly-elected Hamas government — the violent overthrow of their leadership with arms supplied by the United States. While the businessmen were shocked, Abrams was adamant — the U.S. had to support Fatah with guns, ammunition and training, so that they could fight Hamas for control of the Palestinian government...
Egypt transfered a large quantity of arms and ammunition to PA security organizations in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday, with Israel's approval...The shipment included 2,000 AK-47 rifles, 20,000 magazines and two million rounds of ammunition.
2,000 non-lethal AK-47s. Those are the best kind!
Posted at June 15, 2007 11:51 AM | TrackBackman, I wish they would not do stuff like this! I just put hours this week in getting my elected officials up to speed on Fatah and their backers...
Posted by: Susan at June 15, 2007 12:00 PMI've known this about the media for 20 years, but I've never understood how it actually works. Do people consciously think they have to write stories in a way that fits the US storyline, unless there's enough political cover to be open and honest about what's going on? There's no political cover here--Democrats and Republicans both toe the line on Israel. Or do they do it by some unconscious instinct? Is there conscious editorial pressure?
Posted by: Donald Johnson at June 15, 2007 12:40 PMDonald: I've also been wondering. The higher-ups will do anything not to be disinvited from the White House Xmas party. But what about the mid-level stringers? Do they live in fear of getting fired? Or do they truly believe the crap they write?
Anyone knows?
Reading the Angry Arab made me notice a sentence in the NYT editorial that didn't jump out at me like it should have--
"Obviously there can be no final peace agreement until Hamas either changes its policies or is chased from power".
Chased from power is such an interesting phrase, especially when they have just spent part of the editorial singing Fatah's praises and say nothing about the arming of Fatah by the US.
Bernard Chazelle: They Believe in it. They may not believe the actual lie they are promoting, but these journalist believe that what they write promotes the OVER ALL GOOD. (which is one of the lies I personally do NOT believe) It's like ANY salesman, in order to sell successfully, you have to believe IN your product.
Posted by: Mike Meyer at June 15, 2007 09:28 PMYeah, non-lethal isn't even the correct term -- it's less-lethal. Which would make them less-lethal AK47's. Which is true, they probably are less lethal than, say, six months of carpet bombing and/or ten years of economic starvation (resulting in actual starvation.) Won't you think of the poor Palestinians? A coup is so much more humane than the alternative.
Posted by: Svlad Jelly at June 15, 2007 09:43 PMNonlethal AK-47's...you know, the ones with the rubber bullets.
Posted by: Paul Avery at June 17, 2007 09:46 AMIf you load AK-47s with paintballs, you can put two coats on a schoolhouse in thirty minutes from a distance of 300 yards.
Posted by: Kip W at June 17, 2007 07:20 PMI saw this coming from the Condi piece in The Atlantic, all laudatory praises of her from her friends while every policy she advocated was a disaster. It mentioned that the US back early this year was already arming Fatah and encouraging them to attack Hamas, which happens to be the elected majority government in an election the US supported. She also disliked the Arab Unity government plan for Palestine that was agreed to without the United States.
Posted by: Gary Denton at June 18, 2007 12:11 AM
