Thursday, August 10, 2006
Mike Wallace Replaces Dan Rather
Oh my goodness yes, so it seems. Our friends at Powerline noticed that Mike Wallace expressed admiration for the current President of Iran. Yes, that President of Iran -- the one that is arming Hezbollah with rockets which rain down indiscriminately on our allied Israeli people and cities, in a war Irazbollah initiated. The one who is interested in "wiping Israel off the map." The one who it is alleged participated actively in the seizure and captivity of American hostages in the American Embassy in Iran in 1979. That President of Iran.
Read the post from our friends and you will also notice that I jumped out of my chair when I read that Wallace voluntarily referred to Israel as "the Zionist State." Now, I know an awful lot of people who talk about Israel, most who support it and accept its existence, but a reasonable number who do not. The only folks I know who refer to Israel that way mean it pejoratively; and they do so from either a Marxist, anti-imperialist perspective; a pro-Arabist perspective; or an Islamist perspective.
In this one telling quote, I think Wallace has revealed an important bias and sympathy, and we should remember that sympathy as we consider any shred of "news" which emanates from that den of journalistic iniquity known as CBS.
Happily, and again as I observed in my missive to Scott, the last time CBS conducted a televised interview of an important Middle Eastern leader, we all know how that ended up. But Saddam did look rather dashing in his double-breasted suit and slicked back hair. And I think he is taller than Ahmedinejad. And better bathed.
UPDATE (from TigerHawk): Mike Wallace, we should all recall, quite famously and explicitly takes the position that he is a journalist first, before he is an American. Wallace had the stones to make this claim (back in 1989) in front of a Marine colonel, who clarified the issue (as Marines are wont to do) for the folks at home:
I feel utter contempt. Two days later they're both walking off my hilltop, they're two hundred yards away and they get ambushed. And they're lying there wounded. And they're going to expect I'm going to send Marines up there to get them. They're just journalists, they're not Americans.... But I'll do it. And that's what makes me so contemptuous of them. And Marines will die, going to get a couple of journalists.
10 Comments:
By 
Cardinalpark, at
Thu Aug 10, 04:45:00 PM:
Wallace is devoid of intellect and ethics. He doesn't appreciate that by abdicating his citizenship of the US in the theoretical incident described in the TH attachment, he gives aid to the enemy.
Disgusting.
By Final Historian, at
Thu Aug 10, 05:25:00 PM:
By 
, at
Thu Aug 10, 05:32:00 PM:
God knows I'm not a Wallace fan, but it does look like he might just have been using the term that Ahmedinejad would have used. Either that or he's gone off the deep end because his kid works for Fox.
By , at
Thu Aug 10, 05:59:00 PM:
If it did not harm our national interest, I would just laugh at Mike Wallace, dragging a cash register and a mattress through Tehran, trolling for mullahs. Wallace is one of a long line of pay-as-you-go media whores willing to flack for America's enemies, just to appear on the screen with them, and offer some vaporous opinions. Wallace is bought and paid for with publicity. His only real link with Ahmadouchebag is BDS.
By Cardinalpark, at
Thu Aug 10, 06:23:00 PM:
Mark - I love it! As Cassandra might say, I am wiping down my screen from the coffee I just blew out.
Ahmadouchebag! Ahhhh.
By luc, at
Thu Aug 10, 06:41:00 PM:
CP: make no mistake, Wallace in not devoid of intellect only of ethics, in addition to being truly mentally ill. Some time ago I asked rhetorically if the Dan Rather fiasco had any positive impact on C-BS’s behavior. The obvious answer is NO.
I can say that since that time I have not watched a single program broadcast by them and I do not feel I have missed anything
Luc
By The Mechanical Eye, at
Thu Aug 10, 08:36:00 PM:
Wallace joins an embarrassingly long list of journalists, celebrities, and others who are overwhelmed by a dictator's charm.
Expecting some kind of bone-eating ogre, they instead encounter some smiling, friendly figure who readily talks about "dialouge" and "compromise" and says everything a reasonably decent, nice liberal fellow would say.
To read this in the best possible light for Wallace, the man was simply charmed by Ahmedinejad and hasn't shaken out of the mild hynonsis such charisma creates. I really doubt Wallace goes around in everyday life talking about "the Zionist state" like some revolutionary or college radical; he's only repeating what Ahmedinejad told him.
Which might be forgivable for a person of average willpower whisked away to Iran. But this is supposed to be (insert dramatic pause) one of America's Great Newsmen, Skeptical of Those in Power.
Instead we get a bedazzled old man who sounds like a college freshman infatuated with his super-smart professor who has all these cool things about American hegemony.
Any adults running around in CBS these days?
By Purple Avenger, at
Thu Aug 10, 09:37:00 PM:
Wallace is a senile old commie fool just like Cronkite.
By , at
Fri Aug 11, 09:32:00 PM:
I know nothing about Mike Wallace; I don't have a TV and I haven't watched TV news in many years.
So let's remove this statement from the man for a moment, and imagine, could it be ethical for someone to say that he is a journalist first and foremost, before anything else?
I think so. Taking the best possible interpretation, it sounds to me like the statement of someone who perceives that his highest duty is to the truth. I am a scientist and my personal highest duty is to scientific truth. Granted, it is not likely that the obligations of scientific integrity would come into conflict with my obligations as a citizen; as a journalist, one can more readily imagine such a conflict arising. But a man or woman who adopts this position, that the truth is not negotiable, is not unethical or a coward. You may call this person a traitor to their country or a murderer even; but they may well cleave to their code of ethics without fear. You just don't happen to like it because it puts the truth first and the well-being of other people second.
By Dawnfire82, at
Sat Aug 12, 11:56:00 AM:
Committment to journalism does not equal committment truth, as we've been repeatedly learning in the last few years. They're interested in selling stories and profiting, not in relating objective, unbiased facts, but they will say that they are because it will make people buy more stories.
