One by one, media pundits have been lining up all week saying Cheney waited four days to say this. The White House waited too long to tell them that. Democrats want an investigation as to why the Vice-President waited four days to tell the press this. The media wants to know why no one wanted to tell them what happened when it happened and in the end, Cheney opted to spill his guts to Brit Hume at the dreaded, biased Fox News Channel.

As some point, someone on Capitol Hill will initiate long-winded hearings on hunting safety and propose some bill to re-regulate the sport. We’ll actually get in writing that it’s illegal to point a shotgun at another person’s head while engaged in quail hunting.

Needless to say, other things were happening while the media was trying to get us all riled up, demanding the indictment of Vice President Cheney for reckless endangerment, attempted murder, and the celebrated cover-up.

Some of those happenings are ugly….

Gumbel, Dammit
I never thought there could be someone in the media as angry as Tavis Smiley. It would appear I forgot about ol’ Bryant Gumbel. True, he’s been banished to HBO hell, which must suck when he was once employed by a major network, but now he’s lashing out in ways most in his profession could not. During the latest episodic of “Real Sports With Bryant Gumbel”, he closed out commenting on the latest installment of Winter Olympics. Among other things, he said…

“Finally, tonight, the Winter Games. Count me among those who don’t like them and won’t watch them… Because they’re so trying, maybe over the next three weeks we should all try to. Like, try not to be incredulous when someone attempts to link these games to those of the ancient Greeks who never heard of skating or skiing. So try not to laugh when someone says these are the world’s greatest athletes, despite a paucity of blacks that makes the Winter Games look like a GOP convention. Try not to point out that something’s not really a sport if a pseudo-athlete waits in what’s called a kiss-and-cry area, while some panel of subjective judges decides who won… So if only to hasten the arrival of the day they’re done, when we can move on to March Madness — for God’s sake, let the games begin.”

Clever, Bryant. You called Republicans racists. You’re so clever, original, and insightful…! You probably did think that up all by yourself. No wonder you’ve descended from a network morning show to a cable monthly.

Now while I don’t care much for the Winter Games myself, it’s for entirely different reasons. I remember back in the day when the Olympics were part of ABC’s Wide World of Sports. During the days of rawer video, ABC just ran the events as they happened, no matter where in the world they were held, no matter what time zone. There was none of this crap we have now where the games are played and later re-run on primetime.

We tuned in to watch the games and that’s all we got. Today, we get pre-recorded preludes of individual athletes and their “adversity” stories, complete with soft, sad piano music added to pull a tear or two from the more sensitive viewers. Aside from the Olympics, are there any other sporting events aired after the box scores are available? No, and NBC will continue to repel sports enthusiasts again during the next Olympiad because of this continued, failed format.

Gumbel is insinuating that the reason the winter games are lousy is because there aren’t enough black people participating. Anyone who has read any of my columns during the last few months know that Bryant’s stupid GOP comment shows the very ignorance that’s resulted in his banishment from the big show, and it’s not worthy of rebuttal.

If Gumbel were white and said that the reason he doesn’t watch March Madness was because there were too few white people participating, he would’ve been pulled from the air faster than Shannen Doherty. But is Gumbel also implying that the games are of no interest to him because he believes white athletes suck?

As I wasn’t a fly on the wall during the Gumbel years at NBC, I have no idea why the network felt comfortable going on without him. Aside from his calling a Christian conservative an asshole when he thought his live mic was off, there must have been other juicy incidents we’ve not heard of.

For Bryant Gumbel, the worst has yet to come….

Farris Hassan’s Day Off
During the latest Cheney-shooting coverage, which incidentally the media will attempt to milk for another week, many of us observers have accused today’s so-called reporters as being lazy. Allow me to make another point in that direction.

We had this story a few weeks ago of Farris Hassan, a Pine Crest journalism student, who traveled to Iraq on his own to perform a kind of “immersion journalism” (whatever that is…) in an attempt to get the real story of the war-torn Iraqi people. When he somehow wound up stranded in Kuwait and emailed his parents, the media fawned over this naïve, but good-intentioned young man, who was met by caring parents upon his safe return to the United States.

The media was lazy on this story because there were a few things they left out, upon the necessary, but incomplete follow-up. As far as they were concerned, Farris was a nice boy and accepted his account of the trip. In a January 9 “exclusive” interview on MSNBC, “Farris Hassan is back from his adventure in Iraq and in his first interview he tells Rita Cosby how and why he made the daring trip to Iraq.”

COSBY: Was this about publicity? Did you want all the attention, 15 minutes of fame?

HASSAN: No. I felt so guilty on when I was returning to the United States and I saw on the news two soldiers had been killed in Iraq, and they were sidelined. And my story was in the headlines, in the center.

I thought about the soldiers in Iraq, a soldier just watching what‘s going on, and he‘s thinking, you know, I‘m here, risking my life every day to help these Iraqis rebuild their lives, and my friend was just shot the other day, and this 16-year-old—this rich 16-year-old comes to Iraq, nothing happens to him, we go through a lot of trouble to get him back to the U.S., and he‘s getting all the press coverage, and no one‘s giving us attention.

COSBY: And it turns out that Farris Hassan is very lucky. Just this weekend, an American journalist was kidnapped. Jill Carroll—she‘s a freelancer for “The Christian Science Monitor”—was kidnapped, her Iraqi translator killed. Their car was ambushed in Baghdad. And they were apparently trying to meet with a Sunni politician. “The Christian Science Monitor” says that, so far, no one has claimed responsibility for her abduction.

And we‘re going to have much more of our exclusive interview with Farris Hassan Tuesday at 9pm ET. Find out if he‘s getting punished by his school for skipping classes and going to Iraq, and what his parents had to say to him when he landed back in the U.S. Plus, why is he worried that his story may inspire copycats? Here‘s a preview of tomorrow‘s interview.

COSBY: What would you say to another kid who says, Look, Farris went there. He got all of this press attention. Why shouldn‘t I go?

HASSAN: I want to tell them that I came this close on several occasions to being kidnapped and dying.

As it turns out, Farris Hassan was not enrolled in any journalism class at Pine Crest College. The college’s president Lourdes Cowgill was quoted as saying that Farris was thereby given no such “immersion journalism” assignment. Pine Crest revealed that Farris’ dad, Dr. Redha Hassan, knew about his son’s trip and sanctioned his absence from school. So the parents’ acting all shocked and surprised at their son’s trip was a load of bull. Dr. Hassan, as it turned out, later admitted to booking Farris’ flights.

Cinnamon Stillwell of Newsbusters threw a handful of salt on the MSM’s open wounds:

“Perhaps most importantly, research and investigation into Dr. Redha Hassan found that he was arrested by the FBI in 1985 for forging 2000 Iraqi passports and military I.D. cards and seeking to forge 2,000 more. Dr. Hassan asked his next-door-neighbor and print storeowner Joel Feinstein to make the passports and IDs. According to Feinstein, Dr. Hassan claimed the documents were for his family in Iraq. Feinstein reported the request to the FBI, and became an operational asset for the federal government, leading to Hassan’s arrest.”

I don’t know a lot of people, and I’ve not heard of any family that has over 4000 members in it. I wonder what 4000-plus Iraqi passports and military ID’s would’ve been used for? Too bad the mainstream media never bothered to dig that deep.

As it turned out, Farris hung out in Beirut for more than a week and met with a media relations officer for the terrorist crew Hezbollah. So, what was Farris really going to do in Iraq?

These are questions the mainstream media should have been asking. But this, like many other stories, have been spiked by the “professionals” who whine when people don’t call them up and spoon-feed them news.

Ever wonder why we only get shots of reporters from the chest up? It must be so we don’t see how fat their asses are from sitting on them all day.

Review
While the media is all up in arms over the delay in information forthcoming from the White House with whom they have an adversarial relationship with, let us not forget, the media does withhold stories to White Houses they are cozy with.

Newsweek sat on for months, and eventually spiked, a story about some young ditzy intern at the White House, who was reportedly delivering more than pizza to the President of the United States.

If not for a White House whistleblower that leaked the escapade to some unknown blogger named Matt Drudge, the whole Monica Lewinski episode may not have been revealed to this day.

Remember that when those self-serving leeches called the Washington Press corps go off in a hissy fit when they aren’t given the facts they want, when they demand them.

Cartoon, Cartoon!
I was watching a Trading Spouses-type show last week and they had this woman on who was a loony, Bible-belter. She came off as closed-minded, over zealous, fanatical, and unwavering in her God-before-everything world. Despite all the little curves thrown at her during the back-to-back episodes, I sincerely doubt she entertained the thought of blowing all the heathens she came in contact with to smithereens.

Slow-talking Hollywood actresses and liberal college professors love to insult Christians. Maybe it’s because you can insult a Christian and your life insurance policy will hold its value. Can’t say the same if you piss of a Muslim. Heather Graham, got any public words of criticism of the intolerant Muslim religion as you did for Catholics?

Anti-war types in this country demand everyone else be tolerant and inclusive. They demand we understand those people whose land we invaded in an illegally initiated war for oil. These anti-war types have the privilege of condemning their countrymen and women without fear of retribution. Secular types in this country feel free to insult those of faith, as this is the gift our founders left us called “freedom of speech.”

It’s funny how we seldom hear the anti-war types say anything negative about the Islamic terrorists. I’d love to see one of them attempt to shout down an Imam as they do conservatives. That would take guts. It’s much easier to bash intolerant Christians.

Ever notice how we haven’t seen much substance in the news about the Cartoon riots? That would make the Islamic fanatics look bad. After all, these poor people are only fighting back against the evil George Bush. As for the carnage over printed caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad by Danish publications that’s sparked worldwide rioting by Muslims, just who were the insulted here?

When and if the media ever runs any stories on the rioters, let’s see if they can stomach issuing some of the following rioter quotes to the American people, courtesy of Andrea Peyser of the New York Post….

“If anyone disrespects the prophet, it’s our duty to kill him.”

“One drop of Muslim blood is worth all the blood in the world.”

“You insult the prophet, and you will pay.”

“I’d like to kill every single person who does like that. I want him six feet under the dirt!”

“They should apologize, that’s all we want.”

“Most Muslims will tell you (the cartoonists) will be judged in the afterlife, that’s all.”

“We don’t need their apologies!” His sign read, “Hell with your freedom of speech. Hell with your freedom of expression. We will stand for our values with our blood and body.”

The liberals in this country declare that we need to be more understanding of Muslim culture. According to them, it’s always us that need bend and accept the intolerant, murderous words of those the left considers the innocent victims.

Tell you what: when they grow up and stop killing each other over cartoons, stop issuing fatwas on people who don’t believe in the same deity they do, when they stop kidnapping civilians and cutting off their heads with dull kitchen knives, I may be interested in hearing their side.

Until then, I’ll contend that these protests are as stupid as the name they’ve been given. The “Cartoon Riots” say it all.

This entry was posted on Monday, February 20th, 2006 at 8:36 am and is filed under Bob Parks. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.