How to Turn the News to Your Favor — No Matter What It Is

A Brief Guide for the Leftist Media

Janet Daley hits one out of the park in The Telegraph, Dec. 17:

I am stunned with admiration at the mental agility of the anti-war lobby. Having spent months taunting George W Bush and Tony Blair for their failure to capture Saddam Hussein, and thus accomplish one of the most fundamental aims of the "illegal war" in Iraq, it was able to recover its composure almost instantaneously when the worst happened.

Within minutes of Paul Bremer pronouncing the words "We got him" to ecstatic cheers from Iraqi journalists, there were solemn-faced experts crowding on to my television screen to proclaim that the capture was largely irrelevant, or positively counter-productive, to the present difficulties in Iraq.

The very same interviewers who had once invited their interviewees to prophesy endless anarchy as a consequence of America's inability to locate this man were now asking more or less the same people if his arrest was not pretty useless after all. Or (better yet) if it might not "inflame" the situation even further....

So, being as resourceful as it clearly is, the anti-war (which is to say, the anti-American) party may not need any help at all. But, in the seasonal spirit of good will, I offer a guide to Guardian comment writers, BBC interviewers and Labour backbenchers on how to deal with any foreseeable circumstance that may arise from the current state of emergency.

What To Say If:

Saddam refuses to co-operate with his interrogators.
The arrest of this man is a sideshow. He clearly knows nothing about the current state of resistance and has played no role in the planning of insurgency. His trial will simply be an exercise in vengeance with no constructive outcome for Iraq.

Saddam sings like a canary, identifying the perpetrators of insurgency.
Saddam is obviously being tortured by his American captors. Or else, they are lying about his testimony and justifying their own persecution of innocent Iraqis on the basis of his alleged "confession". (Note to broadcasters: these hypotheses need not be stated baldly. They can simply be hinted at or implied by leading questions and incredulous facial expressions.) ....

The Blog from the Core has quoted Janet Daley before: From California to London and Why They Hate Us — the Europeans, That Is.

(Thanks, Charles.)

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Sat. 12/20/03 11:09:18 AM
Categorized as International.