Oprah and the Truth About Those Who Define the Truth
Oprah's website read last week:
"The New York Times columnist Frank Rich's new book, The Greatest Story Ever Sold: The Decline and Fall of Truth, takes a controversial look at the Bush administration, challenging the reasons America went to war with Iraq."
"Among the topics covered in the book, Rich asks why the White House suggested al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein were connected and takes the news media to task for not asking the hard questions after September 11.
"'I love America.' My feeling is that America can only function if there's truth and facts at its core,' Frank says. 'The whole point of a democracy is to make decisions based on real evidence. And if that well is polluted, we're in trouble.'"
"Frank argues that our 24/7 "infotainment" culture has made America stop thinking critically and become a society that rarely questions what it is told. "I think there's been a rise in 'truthinesss,'" as Stephen Colbert says, and a decline in truth and it's not just about war and politics," Frank says."
Frank insists that he's not a liberal, but there are few people on full time payroll at the New York Times that are anything but such, in my opinion. Frank insissts on defining the truth and it appears to be anything that is contrary to the views of President Bush. His primary focus is the war in Iraq, where he says the President "lied" about the weapons of mass destruction (WMD).
I want to recap what happened that led to the war in Iraq. Following the first Iraqi war in the early 1990s, that regime was required to submit to unfettered inspections from the UN to make sure it wasn't developing or using WMD. That regime was required to comply and failure to do so was the same as having such weapons in the eyes of the international community. After 10 years and continued roadblocks being thrown up by the regime to pursue true inspections, the allies had every right to invade. Period. Failure to do so was making the entire region vulnerable to Iraq's escapades.
Furthermore, there were locations found that indicated that they were developing chemical weapons and they had photos to validate such views. Unfortunately, the regime would not allow inspections to prove the status of the sites either way. Therefore the allies had no choice but to assume the worse.
Finally, no one knows if such weapons were moved somewhere else (we know they at least had weapons at some point and that they used them on their own citizens, the Kurds), I believe they are likely in neighboring Syria, in my opinion, though we may never know.
If the allies didn't invade, we could only expect Iraq to continue to be destabilizingng in the region. In sum, it is just as easy for me to conclude that Frank's view of truth is deceptive. The evidence certainly points in that direction.
The thing that sent me over the edge in disgust was a little conversation between Frank and Oprah on how divided the country has become. Oprah said something to the effect that "Americans are more divided now than any time in US history, isn't that correct?" Frank, in turn said something like "that's right, according to our polling." This statement, again, was left as fact. The fact is that such polling didn't even take place with any level of accuracy before the 1950s and so it is impossible to say such with any honesty (since we didn't have polling for the period before). Furthermore, historians of every stripe believe that during the Revolutionary war period, early Americans fell into three groups: pro-Revolution, anti-Revolution, and those who simply wish the fighting would stop. People were helping soldiers literally "tar and feather" their neighbors based on the views they held. Pretty divisive indeed.
The thesis of Frank's book is that people tend to blindly believe what the media conveys. I argue that he is right, I'm sure very few questioned his "truths" as presented on Oprah. I believe seriously evaluating his statements would make most of us come to different conclusions from him.
"The New York Times columnist Frank Rich's new book, The Greatest Story Ever Sold: The Decline and Fall of Truth, takes a controversial look at the Bush administration, challenging the reasons America went to war with Iraq."
"Among the topics covered in the book, Rich asks why the White House suggested al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein were connected and takes the news media to task for not asking the hard questions after September 11.
"'I love America.' My feeling is that America can only function if there's truth and facts at its core,' Frank says. 'The whole point of a democracy is to make decisions based on real evidence. And if that well is polluted, we're in trouble.'"
"Frank argues that our 24/7 "infotainment" culture has made America stop thinking critically and become a society that rarely questions what it is told. "I think there's been a rise in 'truthinesss,'" as Stephen Colbert says, and a decline in truth and it's not just about war and politics," Frank says."
Frank insists that he's not a liberal, but there are few people on full time payroll at the New York Times that are anything but such, in my opinion. Frank insissts on defining the truth and it appears to be anything that is contrary to the views of President Bush. His primary focus is the war in Iraq, where he says the President "lied" about the weapons of mass destruction (WMD).
I want to recap what happened that led to the war in Iraq. Following the first Iraqi war in the early 1990s, that regime was required to submit to unfettered inspections from the UN to make sure it wasn't developing or using WMD. That regime was required to comply and failure to do so was the same as having such weapons in the eyes of the international community. After 10 years and continued roadblocks being thrown up by the regime to pursue true inspections, the allies had every right to invade. Period. Failure to do so was making the entire region vulnerable to Iraq's escapades.
Furthermore, there were locations found that indicated that they were developing chemical weapons and they had photos to validate such views. Unfortunately, the regime would not allow inspections to prove the status of the sites either way. Therefore the allies had no choice but to assume the worse.
Finally, no one knows if such weapons were moved somewhere else (we know they at least had weapons at some point and that they used them on their own citizens, the Kurds), I believe they are likely in neighboring Syria, in my opinion, though we may never know.
If the allies didn't invade, we could only expect Iraq to continue to be destabilizingng in the region. In sum, it is just as easy for me to conclude that Frank's view of truth is deceptive. The evidence certainly points in that direction.
The thing that sent me over the edge in disgust was a little conversation between Frank and Oprah on how divided the country has become. Oprah said something to the effect that "Americans are more divided now than any time in US history, isn't that correct?" Frank, in turn said something like "that's right, according to our polling." This statement, again, was left as fact. The fact is that such polling didn't even take place with any level of accuracy before the 1950s and so it is impossible to say such with any honesty (since we didn't have polling for the period before). Furthermore, historians of every stripe believe that during the Revolutionary war period, early Americans fell into three groups: pro-Revolution, anti-Revolution, and those who simply wish the fighting would stop. People were helping soldiers literally "tar and feather" their neighbors based on the views they held. Pretty divisive indeed.
The thesis of Frank's book is that people tend to blindly believe what the media conveys. I argue that he is right, I'm sure very few questioned his "truths" as presented on Oprah. I believe seriously evaluating his statements would make most of us come to different conclusions from him.
posted by Kevin Price at 4:43 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home