Ben Bradlee

Would you sell out the American soldier for a Pulitzer Prize? No? Ben Bradlee would.

My friend Gary Bauer tells this story:

A number of years ago at the National Press Club I had the opportunity to ask Ben Bradlee, then executive editor of The Washington Post, what he would have done if he found out ahead of time about the D-Day invasion to liberate Europe.

Would the Post have printed the story?

Bradlee’s answer took a while, but the bottom line was . . .

“yes.”

I think this story is important for what it tells us about American media culture. Ben Bradlee is the godfather. And he set the bar for the Linda Foley's -- and the Newsweek editors -- who have followed him.

D-Day at Normandy, picture credit: Chief Photographer's Mate Robert F. Sargent

Update: Tim Schmoyer's Sysiphean Musings has a must read at Patriotic Journalism. He writes, "Let's face it, calling a journalist patriotic is an insult, a casting out term among the tribe, in the same vein as "true believer". See more on the "tribe" -- his excellent word -- at "And the Left Wonders Why the Country Thinks They Are Anti-Military?

Thanks to Greyhawk for Open Post at Mudville Gazette. . .

Learn what the commo officer said on a Pont du Hoc progress report at Daisy Cutter

Eric's Grumbles Before the Grave honors the Greatest Generation without politics

other links to:
TMH Bacon Bits

RightWingNutHouse

Update: Jackson's Junction has more choice words on journalists.

Update: Media Slander has letter to The Newspaper Guild

Posted at 11:44 PM | Permalink
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Rudyard Kipling had Linda Foley's number.

Linda Foley

For God and the soldier we adore,

In time of danger, not before!

The danger passed, and all things righted,

God is forgotten and the soldier slighted.

~Rudyard Kipling

Linda Foley is the President of the Newspaper Guild, 35,000 member union of "media workers." On Friday the 13th in St. Louis, she gave a speech in which she accused the United States military with targetting and murdering journalists:

Journalists, by the way, are just being targeted, ah, verbally or, ah, or, ah, politically. They're also being targeted for real. Um…in places like Iraq. Ahn and, ah, what outrages me as a representative of journalists is that there's not more outrage about the number, and the brutality, and the cavalier nature of the U.S. military toward the killing of journalists in Iraq. I think it's just a scandal.

Here's the insight Rudyard Kipling gives us into Foley's speech: the liberals still don't understand that we are at war.

After slandering our military, she has the temerity to talk about the need to defend free speech, the free press and the freedom of association:

And so as you go forward on this struggle, keep in mind that the other part of the First Amendment, besides the free speech and the free press part, also talks about the freedom of association. And I'm telling you right now, . . .the ability of workers in media and elsewhere to form free trade unions, is imperiled as it's never been imperiled before. . . there never has been a democracy, in this world, that has not had both a free press and a free trade union movement.

Does she think we keep those freedoms, for free? Our military is busy defending her freedoms -- while she is self-righteously safe here at home.

Unbelievable. Just as Kipling said: the soldier is slighted . . . because she thinks the danger is passed.

Thanks to the Dusty Attic for a full transcript, which puts the lie to Foley's "I was taken out of context" defense. And, even better, hear it for yourself! Trey Jacksons has a 3:22 minute video up, so you can parse her speech, word for word.

Worst of all, you can hear the laughter from her audience when she gets snarky about Republicans, and the applause when she insults the military.

A great roundup today over at Word Unheard, who pointed me toward the transcripts and video. See also his indispensable Foley fisking here.

LaShawn Barber also has extensive coverage and links.

Posted at 01:37 PM | Permalink
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