I guess Tom Shales’ ideas about what’s news are different than mine. In today's Post, the gross Shales ridiculed Katie Couric and the CBS Evening News for leading with a report on the Taliban in Afghanistan, calling the report a sign of a “no-news day.” Said Shales:
Yesterday, though, was apparently a no-news day in the opinion of Executive Producer Rome Hartman, the staff and Couric herself, since the half-hour began with a "60 Minutes"-style piece on the resurgence of the Taliban in Afghanistan.
In fact, the report packed a punch, showing as it did an armed phalanx of 100 Taliban fighters, replete with heavy weapons and rocket-propelled grenades, strutting their stuff just ten miles from a U.S. base. Thanks to Alternet, the whole report, by Lara Logan, can be seen here.
I’m not sure what Shales considers news. But this report certainly qualifies. Logan showed a clip from a 2004 visit to the same region that she undertook, accompanied by U.S. troops, who were showing off the great U.S. victory in Afghanistan. Ooops!
Especially in the context of yesterday’s other news, that Pakistan signed a deal to halt its military actions against the Taliban in North Waziristan, a deal it signed with a seven-member Taliban council there, the CBS report hit Americans in the face with another big failure by the Bush administration.
Comments (1)
I wonder if you would be this content of another failure by US policy, not just Bush's. This is a war that we are all in - if the administration fails (Bush or whoever gets voted into office in '08), then we all fail.
Instead of reveling in the failure of others, maybe you should run for office and offer up some alternatives. All I see is you chuckling to yourself while you pen another column for Mother Jones or Rolling Stone and delighting in our slow decline.
Where was your sharp sabre of wit when Clinton was in Washington and doing even less then Bush is now to fight a global jihadism?
Posted by R. Smith | September 6, 2006 5:05 PM
Posted on September 6, 2006 17:05