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Yesterday's press conference in Ankara where President Obama was peppered with hostile questions by a few armchair generals in our corporate media was telling. Whenever we have members of the media urging immediate military action after a terrorist attack, we should recall their role in promoting Dumbya's misadventure in Iraq which set the current jihadist extremism in motion. Some of the 101st Chairborne journalists could barely conceal their anger at Obama's refusal to go all "shock and awe" on ISIS…now, dammit, NOW!!
Michael Tomasky has observed the same syndrome:
"That press conference was a disaster. Not for Barack Obama. He did fine. It was a disaster for the press, for America, for the world. The media are going to help push us back into war. That was a disgraceful question from CNN’s Jim Acosta about why can’t we take out 'these bastards.' Who is he, William Randolph Hearst? And then the next questioner, Ron Allen of NBC, asked Obama if he “understand(s) this enemy well enough to protect the homeland.” It was about the third or fourth question along those lines."Obama properly chafed at the faux-belligerence of people that see wartime coverage as a boost in ratings and their careers. Certainly, some of them must realize that ISIS is counting on -- even begging -- the U.S. and the West to make this a major war that would ultimately devolve into a war of religions. (Their ideology includes the precise spot where the "infidels" will be drawn to and slaughtered - Dabiq, in Syria. Can't telegraph your strategy better than that.) We expect the right-wing to go off the edge -- as we've already noted -- but the corporate media might want to consider their own sorry record in war boosting, and its lasting consequences.
BONUS: Digby has more on the media's vicarious blood lust. Good read.
(cartoon: Tom Toles, via Gocomics.com)
