1 - Please remember to tune in to the half hour broadcast of "The Coral Ridge Hour" this and every Sunday (5 pm, channel 40.1 in Orlando) You will never be disappointed with its balance of a great gospel message and a commentary as well of a current issue our country faces.]
2 - Be sure to check: http://www.worldmag.com/editorialcartoons Talk about how one picture can communicate a thousand words. Great stuff each Friday!
1) The Dismissal of General McCrystal [The Obligatory Disclaimer – Of course, there is no disagreement that a soldier never publicly says anything critical of his commanding officer or his policies. And for his two statements in the Rolling Stones article (one of his impression of the President on their first meeting and the other of the Vice-President), the General did deserve to be dismissed. (The other disparaging comments about other members of the President’s Afghanistan civilian team were by unnamed sources on the General’s staff.)]
However, there are 2 significant points that has rarely been mentioned regarding what transpired:
a) It’s been reported that the article was read and approved of by the General for printing. Therefore, the General was not really surprised by its contents and we are left to conclude he wanted it released. The question that should have been asked by the media and the public is what was it that so frustrated the General about the President’s Afghanistan civilian leadership team that caused him to resort to do something that was blatantly insubordinate. It should be noted that the media – who almost always shapes (and not simply reports on) any debate in this country – never once queried how much of such criticism and frustration is prevalent throughout the military. insubordinate action. You can be sure that if it was a General under President Bush or some other President not favored by the media that was the subject of such frustration it would be the General’s views which would have received media scrutiny and the debate not merely confined to the of the General.
b)The General may never reveal and thus we may never know what caused him to allow that article to be published. But to whatever degree it causes some attention to be drawn to the Truths imbedded in the article that might not have otherwise been known, we may one day have to look back and give thanks to the General for the courage to put his career on the line to at least try to focus the nation's attention on those views.
P.S. - By the way, do you remember at the State of the Union address in January when the President (with 7 of the Justices sitting in front of him on national television)criticized their recent ruling on campaign finance reform? Historians all agreed that the President - representing one branch of the government - never uses such a forum to criticize those of the Judicial Branch of the federal government. And was he criticized? Not only was not, but those of his party present actually gave him a standing ovation. Talk about speaking out of turn and getting away with it? Hmm.. do you think maybe the President gets a free pass when his General doesn't? Can you say, "double standard?"
P.S.S. - Check out this article as well on the growing rift between the President and the Military:http://www.newsmax.com/Headline/mcchrystal-petraeus-obama-afghanistan/2010/06/23/id/362888?s=al&prom
2) The Demonization of British Petroleum and Its CEO. [The Obligatory Disclaimer - No one can argue that what has happened with the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is an incredible tragedy – for the environmental damage and the cost to the livelihood of those who live in the region. HOWEVER, you have to wonder if the nightly new coverage with obligatory pictures of oil soaked birds and endless interviews with local people who’ve been affected is just meant to stoke our emotional fires to demonize British Petroleum.]
Take, for example, when the two different heads of the company have spoken, there have been instances where their English and Sweedish (respectively) phrasing has been used to criticize them. When CEO Tony Hayward said that he wanted to “get back to his life,” why is it no one bothered to understand him to mean that he was just tired of being away from his family for so long. Why did people just see it as an insensitive statement regarding the people in the Gulf?. Then, when the President of the company used the phrase “the little people” to refer to the people who live in the Gulf, why did people jump on him as well without considering that it was just the way Sweedish people expressed themselves and was also not a denigration of the people in the Gulf. I wish that someone, anyone, in U.S. leadership would have asked people to take a deep breath and not be so caught up in their emotions that they were not so quick to turn blame into mindless demonization.
Speaking of which, how about that Congressional Inquisition several weeks ago? Those representatives called them an investigative group but all any of them did was verbally abuse that BP executive and ask him questions that they probably knew he could not answer. They just refused to believe that BP still hadn’t finished their evaluations of what could have caused the spill even though the representatives had no evaluations of their own to prevent from any experts. In fact, they kept pressing the executive to say that BP had been reckless when there was no way for him to state any such conclusion if they had not finished their evaluations. It was so obvious that the congressmen merely wanted a venue to show themselves being “tough” on BP for the voters back home – voters they would each face in the upcoming elections in November. The most outrageous was a congressman from Louisiana suggesting that the CEO should consider committing hara kiri or Japanese ritual suicide!
Ordinary citizens have also been acting in ways that are simply silly. Did you hear how early on a minor league baseball team in Florida announced that they were so mad at BP that they were no longer going to call their baseball practice sessions “BP” but would begin to refer them as “game rehearsal.” How silly!
Then there are the people who want to boycott BP gas stations even though they are aware that the local station owner would suffer and not BP. That also points to what is not often reported: BP is a corporation and thus is owned by tens of millions of shareholders, many of who have their pension funds in BP stock. Also, 40% of these are fellow Americans and so as the company has lost at least 50% of its stock value as a result of this oil spill, so have these Americans seen their savings severely hurt.
In trying to demonize BP, the media has also shined little spotlight on the government’s failures in helping to clean up the oil seepage. For example, sixteen barges sat stationary at one time although they had been sucking up thousands of gallons of BP’s oil. So why did these barges stop sucking oil? Because the Coast Guard needed to confirm that there were fire extinguishers and life vests on board. (Were the firemen who rushed up the Twin Towers before they crashed held back until it was verified that they were rightly outfitted or didn’t the urgency of the moment simply override such a consideration?)
Another equally frustrating situation occurred when Louisiana Gov. Jindal requested that small “sand islands” be constructed to prevent oil from washing ashore. He was told by the government that his plans would have to wait until the Army Corp of Engineers did an environmental impact study first. As Newt Gingrich remarked, “It would take them longer to do the environmental impact study then it would take the oil to get to shore to impact the environment that they’re studying!”
I don’t know about you, but what really had me screaming at the television was when the lead off story last Saturday was that the CEO of BP had gone yachting after he had been removed from being the on-site spokesman for the company. In railing against his “insensitivity to the people in the Gulf,” the media’s reaction merely fueled sentiments against those who are wealthy capitalists. Never mind that the President himself hosted a Father’s Day Barbecue, played a round of golf, and flew to Chicago to watch the White Sox play. Wasn’t he also supposed to be focused on the oil spill? And how was the President’s actions explained: it was “good for the country” that the President took time to relax! Gee, can anyone say media bias and hypocrisy?!!!
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