Thursday Revelations

Two stories this morning that reveal how we should be taking the news we receive through our media with far less than automatic acceptance.

Research: Radio talk show host Hugh Hewitt interviewed MSNBC journalist Lawrence O'Donnell in the first hour of his radio program. As O'Donnell started gearing up for his criticism of former Vice President Dick Cheney, Hugh got the network news analyst to make some startling admissions about the priorities on his reading list in this post-9/11 world...: [my transcript]

[22:43] Hugh Hewitt: Did you read The Nuclear Jihadist by Douglas Franz...
Laurence O'Donnell: No.
HH: ... and Kathleen Collins.
LO'D: No.
HH: He's John Kerry's senior investigator on the foreign affairs committee, does he sound reputable to you?
LO'D: Keep going.
HH: The AQ Khan network is gone.
LO'D: I know they're gone, I know... and that's a great thing. But let's just get a couple of things straight: Cheney did nothing about it, not one meeting. From the day he was sworn in, until September 10th, he did NOTHING about Al Qaeda, NOTHING about the AQ Khan network, NOTHING. The guy wants you to rate his job starting on Sept 12th; do you want to start rating the Obama presidency on September 12th 2009?
HH: Larry, that's a specious argument, but I want to get one more piece of data out there... Have you read The Looming Tower yet?
LO'D: No.
HH: What was the last book you read about terrorism?
LO'D: The last... I don't think I've read a book about terrorism.
HH: Ever??
LO'D: [thinking] N-n-n-no.
HH: About Al Qaeda?
LO'D: No.
HH: About... How about the Mullahs in Iran?
LO'D: No.
HH: [pause] I'm... I'm just stunned!
LO'D: Well, I'll tell you, I've read Bob Woodward's books about the accounts inside the Bush administration, from what they were doing, from the day they got sworn in. Okay?
HH: You've never read a book about terrorism??
LO'D: There is no, there is absolutely no evidence, and I defy you... I defy you to point to me...
HH: Larry, You've never read a book about terrorism?
LO'D: ...point to me a citation, of one memo, or one meeting, that Dick Cheney was having, where he said anything about Al Qaeda...
[bumper music starts, signaling the end of the segment and the approach to a commercial break]
HH: Larry, I've got to go lie down. I really do. Do you think you're well-informed MSNBC, by MSNBC standards? Do you think you're above the grade of people at that network?
LO'D: That's a trick question, Hugh.

Context: TV talk show host Bill O'Reilly is so internet-savvy that he doesn't know the technical difference between a blog post and a comment left at one, as he refers to commentors as "bloggers".

It's sad to see guest Amanda Carpenter's non-reaction to O'Reilly's sarcastic comments about Hot Air.com, the second conservative site whose comment threads were quoted from in the segment. Amanda Carpenter isn't just any Washington pundit, she also happens to be a frequent guest on Hot Air's Ed Morrissey's daily blog talk radio show. (In case Bill O'Reilly stops by to read this: this is a call-in show done over the internet) Come to think of it, it has been a while since she's made an appearance on Ed's shows; maybe her indifference to O'Reilly's smear comes from agreement, and she really believes that one of the blogosphere's most polite, fair-minded, and cheerful political bloggers could actually have written something as purile as what was quoted by O'Reilly. Maybe she had a tiring day, and out of exhaustion simply didn't hear what O'Reilly was actually saying. Either way, Amanda Carpenter owes Ed Morrissey a big apology.
With friends like these...

The Other War On Christmas

With apologies to Bill O'Reilly and John Gibson, I wish that some of the energy devoted to the annual focus on retailers wishing us "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas", as well as the attention given to accounts of Nativity scenes being replaced with Frosty the Snowman in public spaces, could instead be re-directed towards the violent and far more fearsome wars on Christmas taking place around our world at this time every year.

For instance, it looks like there's another bloody Christmas in the works for the besieged Christians in the north-east state of Orissa, India. From Compass Direct News:

Christians in Orissa state are anticipating Christmas with fear as Hindu extremists have called for a state-wide bandh, or forced shut-down on all sectors of society, on Dec. 25 – a move that could provide Hindu extremists the pretext for attacking anyone publicly celebrating the birth of Christ.

The state’s chief minister has said there should be no such shut-down but stopped short of prohibiting the Hindu extremists’ plan, and the Hindu extremist umbrella organization Sangh Parivar has vowed to press ahead with it, reported newspaper Outlook India on Nov. 20.

... Ratnakar Chaini, president of SLSSS [Laxmanananda Saraswati Condolence Society], called for the shut-down in a massive rally in Delhi on Nov. 15. Inflammatory speeches at the rally by Chaini and others led Christians to believe the shut-down would serve as the pretext for another spate of violence against those publicly celebrating Christmas. At the same time, in Orissa’s Kandhamal district, more deaths of Christians have been reported in the past two weeks.

Many tens of thousands of Orissa's Christians will be spending Christmas away from their homes, seeking refuge in the squalor of emergency relief camps set up by the state government as a result of the violence waged in as many as 300 villages, seeing 4,000 houses and 157 churches burned down since August 2008.

The Times of India recently tried to call attention to one especially heartbreaking consequence of the hard life the Christian refugees must deal with in these relief camps: unsafe deliveries for pregnant women.

...
Stranded without access to doctors, hospitals or medical kits, most women are delivering in relief camps with the help of fellow refugees and — if they are fortunate — some anganwadi workers.

But not all have been lucky to be able to give birth. "There have been 10 miscarriages in the past week," said Jyotirmoy Naik in Cuttack. "Nirmala Digal, Mita Digal, Ranju Naik, Padmini Naik, Mithila Naik — all miscarried because there's no help for expecting women at the camps."
...
Rev Prakash Naik, who's active in the Raikia camps, said even if women do manage to give birth, the conditions in the relief shelters are so bad that mortality is a big fear. "Just look around Vijaya school camp and you'll see what I mean. Survival is a huge factor. Water has gathered in dirty, mosquito-infested puddles and people are defecating in the open."

Many other miscarriages took place as Christians fled to the jungles and stayed there for days with attacks against them showing no signs of abating. "Pregnant women suffered as they hid in the forests. While lack of food hindered healthy deliveries for the emaciated, others slipped and fell while running for their lives," said Krishna Kanta Naik, a social worker in Baliguda. "Nine women have delivered at the camps in the past week, but the children are very unhealthy."

We've got it sinfully easy if our personal experiences of "persecution" involve debates over whether to listen to "Oh Little Town Of Bethlehem" or Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer at office parties, or if someone should or should not wish us a Merry Christmas when we shop at their store. For too many, Christmas will bring an entirely different perspective to the idea of a Silent Night:

Silent night, holy night
All is calm, all is bright
Round yon Virgin
Mother and Child
Holy Infant so tender and mild
Sleep in heavenly peace
Sleep in heavenly peace

The Persecution Report (December 2008)
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