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06.14 Public Can Make Summer 'Historical' at “Chautauqua 2007: Food for Thought”
06.01 Fixing Our Broken Food System
Ref. : Environmental Health News
Ref. : What is Global Warming, and what can citizens do about it?
Ref. : Global Warming Links
Ref. : Health & Nutrition Links
Ref. : Letters to the editor
07.02 Will the Press Idiocy Ever Stop?
07.02 Blacked Out by the Corporate Media, Impeachment Advances
06.30 USA Today's 'Sicko' Debate
06.28 Slandering the Dead: The American Massacre at al-Khalis
06.25 The Iraq-gate Cover-up Continues
06.19 Sunday Sun Hits New Low
06.19 Alliance With Atrocity: Bush's Terror War Partners in Ethiopia
06.12 Things Your Media Mama Didn't Tell You
06.12 Incendiary Weapons Are No 'Allegation'
06.11 Powell Belies 'Commander Guy' Bush
06.11 THINKING FLUFF
06.09 Romney's Iraq Gaffe Ignored
06.08 GOP/Media Rewrite Iraq War History
06.05 The New Assault on Al Gore
06.02 Bush's Global Warming Foot-Dragging
06.02 Can Democrats End the Iraq War?
06.01 Treated Like a Democrat
06.01 Journalists' Group Unmasks Sen. Jon Kyl as “Senator Secrecy”
07.03 Terrorism As a Virus: Baudrillard's Post-2001 Significance
07.03 "Justice for All": Just a Sop for the Masses
07.03 Pelosi on Impeachment and Defending the Constitution: It's Just Not Worth It
06.28 Congress Needs to Stop Playing in Bush's Court
06.28 Next Generation of 'Family Jewels'?
06.28 Why They Hate Us
06.28 One More Good Reason Why Rupert Murdoch Should Not Get Dow Jones
06.26 Research on Human Nature is Cause for Optimism
06.16 Dare We Call It Tyranny?
06.14 Unintended Uighurs
06.12 War Foretold
06.08 Impeachment on a Roll
06.01 The Hariri Case & Double Standards
07.03 The Libby Cover-up Completed
07.03 Beyond Recklessness
06.26 Nancy & Harry: Bringing Down the House (and Senate)
06.26 Thinking About Baggage
06.25 Goodbye to the city upon a hill and to its fabled economy
06.25 Is Obama Getting 'Colin-ized'?
06.22 Sen. Levin's False History & Logic
06.22 Which Candidate Do You Support?
06.21 Slap Doesn't Stick: Corrupted Congress Will Help Bush Escape Court Ruling
06.20 Bush's Mafia Whacks the Republic
06.20 Iraqi Labor Leaders Blame US for the Bloodshed in Iraq and say Get Out!
06.19 The Reign of the Tyrants is at Hand
06.19 Democrats in Congress: The Wheels are Coming Off
06.13 America's Fragile Republic
06.12 Congressional Failure and the Democrats' Last Chance
06.12 The Neocon Threat to World Peace and American Freedom
06.12 Sic Semper Tyrannis: A Slap in the Face of the Crawford Caligula
06.11 Everything They Say About Promoting Democracy Is, And Always Has Been, A Damnable Lie
06.09 Losing Iraq, Nuking Iran
06.07 Last Plamegate Worry for Bush-Cheney
06.06 Some democracy, America
07.02 Thinking Upside Down
06.20 Reader response: Inflation? You'd Better Believe It!
06.18 THINKING INFLATION
06.11 Losing the Economy to Mythology
06.04 Thinking About Budgets—the “La-La” Land of Governmental Accounting
06.13 'Kill Anyone Still Alive': American Special Ops in Somalia
07.02 Killing Time: Countdown Quickens for Bush War on Iran
06.30 The New Bush-Blair Vanity Play
06.19 Newly Discovered Nuances to the Camp David Accords
06.19 Crocodile Tears
06.07 Brothers in Arms: Bandar Bush Took a Billion in Bribes to Push UK Weapons Deal
MEDIA ADVISORY:
Treated Like a Democrat
GOP candidate Ron Paul's "unorthodox" 9/11 theory
By contrast, the inclusion of Republican candidates polling near the bottom in the debates was mostly cheered; a Los Angeles Times editorial (5/4/07) called the presence of such candidates "a sign of intellectual ferment." When three of the GOP contenders signaled their doubts about evolution, the Washington Post helpfully noted (5/6/07) that "a look at public polling on the issue reveals that the three men aren't far from the mainstream in that belief."
But the second Republican debate (5/15/07) flipped this media script, when Republican candidate Ron Paul dared to raise a taboo subject: Al-Qaeda's statements about the September 11 attacks. "They attack us because we've been over there, we've been bombing Iraq for 10 years," Paul said. "We've been in the Middle East.... Have you ever read about the reasons they attacked us?"
GOP front-runner Rudy Giuliani responded by saying he'd never heard such an "absurd explanation" for the September 11 attacks, "that we invited the attack because we were attacking Iraq"—a response that got sustained applause from the audience, and much the same from the press corps.
Appearing on MSNBC's Hardball (5/16/07), Washington Post editorial board member Jonathan Capehart called it "a big moment, a home run for Rudy.... I knew that what Rudy was saying was heartfelt, and he meant it, because, when you look at his eyes, you have never seen him more serious, more focused." Capehart added that Giuliani "was upset. He was angry. And I think he tapped into not only the mood of the crowd, but also the mood of the country, in a sense."
The media reacted strongly in support of Giuliani. Fox News Channel's John Gibson scored a twofer (5/17/07) by mangling Paul's words ("Paul suggested that the U.S. actually had a hand in the terrorist attacks") and then linking him to the Democratic Party, citing a poll that claims many Democrats "think President Bush knew about the 9/11 attacks beforehand.... It wouldn't have stunned me had it come up in the Democratic debate, but it's a jaw-dropper to see it in the Republican debate." Time magazine's Joe Klein declared it to be Paul's "singular moment of weirdness," and that Giuliani "reduced Paul to history."
Lost amidst the media excitement over Giuliani's response was whether or not Paul was correct. The Nation's John Nichols wrote a column (5/16/07) pointing out that Paul's argument more or less echoed the findings of the 9/11 Commission, which noted that Osama bin Laden had called in 1996 for Muslims to drive U.S. troops out of Saudi Arabia—whose mission there was largely to support air patrols over Iraq—and that subsequent statements rallied followers to oppose U.S. policy in Israel-Palestine and Iraq. Such discussions are common in academic and policy circles, but not so in the mainstream media.
Such evidence was rarely even considered. MSNBC host Chris Matthews declared (5/16/07), "Ron Paul has a big problem, by the way." While Matthews granted that it was important for Americans to "understand the simmering hatred and the hostility, the sea of hostility, over there," Paul's comments were unacceptable on factual grounds: "You can't say it's because we put troops in Iraq, over the no-fly zone, because they tried to blow up that same building back in '93, before all these skirmishes over the no-fly zone. You can't say that particular argument."
Paul actually made no reference to the no-fly zones in his debate remarks. But if that's what Matthews thought Paul was referring to, the cable news host should be aware that the no-fly policy was first declared in 1991, and that there was an extensive series of air raids in support of the no-fly zones in January 1993—a month before the 1993 attack.
When Paul convened a press conference on May 24 at the National Press Club featuring former CIA terrorism expert Michael Scheurer, the press ignored the event, although reporters have interviewed Scheurer regularly for several years. The fact that Scheurer essentially agrees with Paul's premise, as he explained to AntiWar radio (5/18/07), might explain the media's ambivalence.
CNN host Howard Kurtz (5/20/07) slammed Paul's "unorthodox theory" about the 9/11 attacks, declaring that "news organizations are allowing ego-driven fringe candidates to muck up debates among those with an actual shot at the White House." The real problem isn't that Ron Paul can't win the White House, or that he might "muck up" a debate; if anything, he started a debate the media don't want to have.
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This story was published on June 1, 2007.
