Our Worthless Media

Posted on | March 3, 2014 | 72 Comments

Ace highlighted this Saturday, but in case you missed it, here’s Walter Russell Mead at the Public Interest:

A Politico report calls it “a crisis that no one anticipated.” The Daily Beast, reporting on Friday’s US intelligence assessment that “Vladimir Putin’s military would not invade Ukraine,” quotes a Senate aide claiming that “no one really saw this kind of thing coming.”
Op-eds from all over the legacy press this week helped explained why. Through the rose tinted lenses of a media community deeply convinced that President Obama and his dovish team are the masters of foreign relations, nothing poor Putin did could possibly derail the stately progress of our genius president. . . . Headlines like “Why Russia Won’t Invade Ukraine,” “No, Russia Will Not Intervene in Ukraine,” and “5 Reasons for Everyone to Calm Down About Crimea” weren’t hard to find in our most eminent publications. . . .
American experts and academics assume that smart people everywhere must want the same things and reach the same conclusions about the way the world works.
How many times did foolishly confident American experts and officials come out with some variant of the phrase “We all share a common interest in a stable and prosperous Ukraine.” We may think that’s true, but Putin doesn’t.

One hates to wear out the Munich analogies by overuse, but this was in fact exactly the attitude of British supporters of appeasement in the 1930s: Reasonable civilized people simply cannot get it through their heads that there are people in the world who are neither reasonable nor civilized, and who can only be deterred by force.

The elites who run our government and the elites who run our media share the same kind of blindness, an acquired blindness that one can only obtain by attending the finest universities.

Category: Media Bias, Russia, Ukraine

Comments

72 Responses to “Our Worthless Media”

PATR2014
March 3rd, 2014 @ 8:38 am

RT @smitty_one_each: TOM Our Worthless Media http://t.co/i23HNzpLZh #TCOT
Political Rift » Our Worthless Media
March 3rd, 2014 @ 7:45 am

[…] Robert Stacy McCain Ace highlighted this Saturday, but in case you missed it, here’s Walter Russell Mead at the […]
Liberalism is Nonsense
March 3rd, 2014 @ 8:16 am

The guy assaulting our press, using the power of centralized government to attack US citizens, undermining our sacred Constitution, attempting to impose communistic “health care”, seeking “fundamental transformation” and imposing unilateral dictates isn’t Vlad Putin.

The domestic enemies of our sacred Constitution are an order of magnitude greater threat than the foreign ones.

Focus.
jakee308
March 3rd, 2014 @ 8:27 am

At least Chamberlain got a piece of paper for selling out the czechs. Kerry got bupkis. (although he may try to claim a shrapnel wound from and exploding soda can)

All Putin wanted was some zhiloy ploshchadi (Lebensraum)

He had to protect those Russian Citizens. (all those soldiers and sailors in Sevastapol).
RS
March 3rd, 2014 @ 8:30 am

One of the innumerable problems with Progressives, is that the are so blindly convinced that Man is inherently good, that they are incapable of acknowledging evil when it’s right in front of them. Instead, they focus their energies on creating Evil where it doesn’t exist, i.e. in a bakery where the owner refuses to celebrate gay “marriage.”
Severian
March 3rd, 2014 @ 8:49 am

Orwell nailed these people back in the 40s – they’re power worshipers. They assume that all present trends must continue forever. Hitler was a clown with a papier-mache army… right up to the time the blitzkrieg started, when he instantly became a military genius with an unstoppable juggernaut war machine. No mea culpas, no reevaluations, no quitting the public opinion business to take up work as a janitor (which is the least of what we’d have to do after being so hilariously wrong)… just an instantaneous flip of the switch, and a million “ZOMG we need to start learning German!” columns.

Which is why we can confidently expect a rash of “it’s good that the Ukrainians have been forcibly reunited with the Motherland” columns here in about a week, from the exact same people who insisted it’d never happen.
Neo
March 3rd, 2014 @ 8:57 am

The take-away … Think of the commercial for Prego spaghetti sauce. A woman wonders what other bad decisions she’s made (like the 70?s).

We all know this won’t occur to anybody at the White House, but perhaps they have made other bad decisions.
Charles
March 3rd, 2014 @ 9:11 am

Unless you can answer the question, what happens to the Russian naval base at Sevastopol when Ukraine joins the European Union, you can’t claim to have this one figured out.
Neo
March 3rd, 2014 @ 9:23 am

Naval base ? The NYT editorial board has a different take …

There was a lot to criticize about the way President Viktor Yanukovych’s government was thrown out in Ukraine and hurriedly replaced with an interim team. The victorious opposition should have known how critical it was to reassure all groups in that country that their rights would be respected in any new order; instead, one of the Parliament’s first actions was to abolish a law that ensured a legal status for Russian and other minority anguages, thus raising fears among Russian speakers that Ukrainian nationalists were taking over.

… thank God that we never made English the official language of the US, as we might get invaded by Mexico (wait a second .. that is happening now).
JeffS
March 3rd, 2014 @ 9:32 am

Putin is trying to rebuild the Soviet Union under another name. The Ukraine, with all its natural resources, is a key element of that. Stalin showed why way back when.

Should the Ukraine join the EU, Putin loses much of his economic power base. Further, the Ukraine is a direct access to the European markets for Russian businesses.

The naval base is only part of the issue in this matter, and a relatively small part at that.
Liberalism is Nonsense
March 3rd, 2014 @ 9:39 am

Partly true, but the Russian flag is not the Soviet flag.

Today’s Russian flag is the Russian White Army flag, of the counter-Bolshevik forces.

Here’s a brief primer, to be taken with a grain of NaCl, regarding the factions involved in the civil war that engulfed Russia about a century ago:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Civil_War
Finrod Felagund
March 3rd, 2014 @ 9:45 am

Sarah Palin and Mitt Romney were right.

Not that you’ll hear that from the MSM.
JeffS
March 3rd, 2014 @ 9:59 am

No, there’s not much difference between American liberals and old school Communists.

OTOH, there’s not much practical difference between Communists and fascists either. They compete for exclusive control of the same geography under different brand names, is all. And fascist is pretty much what Putin is acting like; maybe he’ll haul out the hammer-and-sickle flag someday, for old times sakes.

And what happened a century ago in Russia is immaterial, save for historical context and “lessons learned”. Modern Russia is no more a “counter-Bolshevik force” today than Italy was counter-fascist back when Mussolini took charge.

On a side note, you are the second commenter here, in recent days, to paint Russia (and by extension, Putin) as some sort of force for freedom. Just where did this meme crop up from?
StrangernFiction
March 3rd, 2014 @ 10:03 am

No kidding. The truly sad part of all this is the inability of most conservatives even, to see this regime for what it is. But it’s not too surprising. People believe what they want to believe.
Liberalism is Nonsense
March 3rd, 2014 @ 10:05 am

My overall point is that the domestic enemies of our sacred Constitution are an order of magnitude greater threat than foreign adversaries.

As a social conservative of European descent, I like what Putin’s doing in terms of shutting down sodomite propaganda, defending the family, fighting the ideology of socialism, and embarrassing our resident marxist agitator daily.

Putin seems to be the only guy with the courage and ability to actively take on the foul and toxic ideology that is liberalism/Bolshevism.
Liberalism is Nonsense
March 3rd, 2014 @ 10:06 am

Considering that Hussein Obama’s criminal marxist regime can’t even stop mestizos from invading this country, it’s no wonder that it’s not taken seriously anywhere in the world.
Liberalism is Nonsense
March 3rd, 2014 @ 10:08 am

I’ll be the first to admit that I’ve been wrong before on some of this stuff, but it seems obvious to me that ethnic groups have a right to self-determination.

The Ukrainians and the Russians are clearly incompatible and it doesn’t make any sense to force them to intermingle.

The Russians from Russia have not only the right, but the moral obligation, to defend the Russians in Ukraine.
Liberalism is Nonsense
March 3rd, 2014 @ 10:09 am

One of the things I like about Putin is his no-nonsense defense of the family and his ability to put the foul and toxic pox of liberalism in its place without reservation or hesitation.

Banning all sodomite propaganda, as the Russians have done, seems like a good idea to me.
Liberalism is Nonsense
March 3rd, 2014 @ 10:14 am

For whatever reason, it tends to take time for people to cut through cowardice and finally take a stand against evil.

The marxists that we’re dealing with in this situation aren’t in Vlad Putin’s regime. While Hussein Obama’s criminal marxist regime is embracing socialism, Vlad Putin is actively warning against it:

http://www.therightperspective.org/2009/02/11/putin-warns-us-about-socialsm/
Dave Mears
March 3rd, 2014 @ 10:20 am

credible threat of force also works. But if you say “I’ll bomb your capital if you do A” and they do A, you have to follow through no matter what. There are no mitigating circumstances.
Daniel
March 3rd, 2014 @ 10:37 am

I find myself rooting for Russia honestly. I hate Communism so much that I have 2 T-shirts which jarringly proclaim the reality of 100 million Communist deaths. But the Communist era is over.

It is now America that is the evil empire, exporting sexual liberationist rot and mockery of Christian religion, social and culturalist marxism, tarring of good people as bigots, replacement of civilized peoples with the third world all while invariably supporting the less civilized side in recent world conflicts — Libya, Egypt, Syria, Israel/Palestine etc.

Russia’s leadership lately stands against all of our evils, trying to protect religion, trying to protect culture, trying to protect good ethnic peoples who should be protected.

Free press? Our media is evil to the core, lying in concert and acting like a propaganda machine for the administration and the left that Pravda would have envied. But Pravda didn’t actively seek new ground to destroy the culture and undermine the existing population at every turn.

But Democracy!! He is a dictator! Putin’s approval rose to near 70% in Russia after the Olympics, after hovering in the low 60s for a long time. Obama’s approvals have been half of that, and Congress is probably something like 10%. I’d do a presidential trade with Russia in the blink of an eye but there aren’t enough draft picks in the world to make that a fair trade for Russia.

Our democracy is dead in any event when minorities vote out of racial loyalty and not on the basis of any issues, when Congress and the president ram through an unpopular health care bill in the face of overwhelming opposition from the public. Opposition to intervention in Syria was running 100 to 1 over support on the Washington phone lines and that was apparently barely enough to avoid another war.

I don’t speak a word of Russian, and haven’t a drop of Russian ancestry, but I was sincerely glad when they kicked our butts in the winter Olympics. A win for good over evil. Our President literally made the Olympics a platform for more propagation of evil.
JeffS
March 3rd, 2014 @ 11:20 am

Putin might be anti- liberalism/Bolshevism, but he is not pro-freedom. He is pro-Putin, period. As I noted to another commenter recently, he’s former KGB, which is telling unto itself.

And from what you are posting on this thread, I can only conclude that you are either an apologist for Putin and his thugocracy, or you are a sock puppet for some pro-Russian organization.

The Ukrainians do not need Russian boots on their necks again. Between you, your ilk, Obama, and the Lame Stream Media, there isn’t much of a chance of them keeping their liberty.
JeffS
March 3rd, 2014 @ 11:22 am

“Liberalism is Nonsense” is either a Putin apologist, or a sock puppet for some pro-Russian cyber operation. Or just a troll looking to mess with people.

I recommend ignoring this creature.
pabarge
March 3rd, 2014 @ 11:40 am

Walter Russell Mead voted for Barack Obama.

Remember this when you read anything this man writes.
Liberalism is Nonsense
March 3rd, 2014 @ 11:44 am

Let’s go through some simple questions:

Who is using the coercive power of centralized government to attack those who support our sacred Constitution? Not Vlad Putin.

Who is actively attacking the press outlets that do not support his homosexual, marxist agenda? Not Vlad Putin.

Who is attempting to impose marxist-inspired, coercive, centralized, apparatchik-driven “health care”? Not Vlad Putin.

Who has described their presence as a god-like presence destined to “fundamentally transform” our country? Not Vlad Putin.

The neo-Bolshevik ideology of liberalism that is responsible for the likes of Hussein Obama is an existential threat to our sacred Constitution.
richard mcenroe
March 3rd, 2014 @ 12:37 pm

The hell of it is while the press will rush to throw the intel community under the bus over this, you know damned well the spooks would have, routinely, prepared a range of estimates for probable Russian responses.

What I want to know is who decided to pass along the Care Bears evaluation to President Chamberlain.
richard mcenroe
March 3rd, 2014 @ 12:38 pm

And now you understand the Democrats’ immigration policy.
richard mcenroe
March 3rd, 2014 @ 12:39 pm

The NYT failed to reassure all groups when it did not print that column in Spanish alongside the original.
Liberalism is Nonsense
March 3rd, 2014 @ 12:40 pm

I’ve a great idea – why don’t we import 30 million mestizos so we can test the delusion that ‘diversity is strength’.

If we don’t get our sh*t together ASAP, the ideology of liberalism will destroy this country.
RS
March 3rd, 2014 @ 12:57 pm

So, your argument is:

1. Putin isn’t exercising his power adversely in the USA.

2. Obama is.

3. Ergo Putin is good; Obama is bad.

Guess what? Both can be evil. In point of fact, Putin is a tyrant. I desires to reassemble a Russian Empire. He’s a bad, bad dude and our enemy.
Liberalism is Nonsense
March 3rd, 2014 @ 1:09 pm

I don’t buy the assertion that Putin is evil because I think that claim originates from fundamental confusion over the genesis of the Soviet Union and of the marxist ideology that was imposed upon Russia.

Keep in mind – the Russian flag today is the White Army flag, not the Bolshevik Red Army flag of the hammer and sickle.

Bolsheviks ≠ Russians.

In fact, Marxism/Bolshevism, what we call liberalism, was never a Russian idea outside of minor tactical contributions made by Vlad Lenin and Lev Bronstein.

It mostly originated in France and Germany before being systematically organized by Karl Marx, in Germany.

(Engels’ contributions are fairly minor, IMO.)

As well, keep in mind that Russia was consciously picked as a target for overthrow by the Marxists. Myriad reasons for that, I think To The Finland Station goes into more details on the genesis of the decision-making process for attacking Russia.

Here’s a brief intro to the factions of the Russian civil war:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Civil_War
Adjoran
March 3rd, 2014 @ 1:17 pm

Nonsense. He was KGB and acts like it.
Liberalism is Nonsense
March 3rd, 2014 @ 1:22 pm

If you want to understand the origins of the ideology of Marxism, you can find a brief introduction in To The Finland Station.

http://www.amazon.com/To-Finland-Station-Writing-History/dp/0374533458/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1393870820&sr=8-1&keywords=to+the+finland+station

A more thorough account is Kolakowski’s Main Currents of Marxism:

http://www.amazon.com/Main-Currents-Marxism-Founders-Breakdown/dp/0393329437/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1393870854&sr=8-1&keywords=main+currents+of+marxism

MCoM is a bit of a slog, so I’d recommend Wilson’s book first.

The point is – these are complicated ethnic, ideological, and religious conflicts that trace back to the Russian civil war, and before:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Civil_War

Keep in mind – the Russian flag today is not the hammer and sickle of the Bolsheviks, it’s the anti-Bolshevik White Army Flag.
Adjoran
March 3rd, 2014 @ 1:23 pm

The so-called “thinkers” in Obamaland and the media and academia (to the extent there is any division among them) believed Putin would not invade because of his own shaky economy, the falling ruble (declining at the rate of Argentina’s peso, which is not good), and the diminishing long term revenue streams from oil and gas.

The truth was evident to any observers of the old Soviet Empire: these factors were the very reasons in favor of him acting as he has. The tradition was always to distract from domestic failures with foreign enemies, intrigues, and adventures to stir up nationalism and obscure the economic realities.

This is not “appeasement” in the Munich sense, though. At least Chamberlin got a commitment from Hitler, worthless as it was. Putin is just being waved in by the West. And his paid Western pundits like the traitorous David “Spengler” Goldman argue that partition of Ukraine isn’t a bad idea.
Dana
March 3rd, 2014 @ 1:28 pm

“A crisis that no one anticipated?” Mitt Romney anticipated it indirectly, and Sarah Palin anticipated it, five years ago, directly.

Every President faces crises, some anticipated, but most not. Of course, our friends on the left have insisted that September 11th happened because President Bush didn’t stop it, even though all we had were vague warnings that al Qaeda was going to try to do something, but, for them, this crisis, well no one could have foreseen it!
Dana
March 3rd, 2014 @ 1:42 pm

If only Vladimir Vladimirovich had just told us, in advance, about his concerns for the poor Sudeten Russians, we could have gotten that piece of paper saying that it’s OK for the Red Army to move in; then it wouldn’t be a crisis! http://thepubliceditor.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Obama_Chamberlain_Peace_In_Our_Time-150×150.jpg
Liberalism is Nonsense
March 3rd, 2014 @ 1:43 pm

While Putin warns these states of the dangers of socialism, Hussein Obama’s criminal marxist regime openly wages war against Christians and Christianity:

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2014/03/03/team-obama-wins-fight-to-have-christian-home-school-family-deported/
Dana
March 3rd, 2014 @ 1:47 pm

How is it that that absolute idiot, Sarah Palin, managed to call this one, directly, five years in advance, while all of the super-geniuses in the White House and the State Department, couldn’t figure it out two days in advance? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=STeVTzWelns
Dana
March 3rd, 2014 @ 1:48 pm

There’s really no reason for the word “when.”
JeffS
March 3rd, 2014 @ 2:08 pm

The same cretins who edited the Benghazi talking points, no doubt.
Jeanette Victoria
March 3rd, 2014 @ 2:18 pm

Putin is a despot who has done good things Bust was a good man who did evil things (homeland security)

And the Ukraine situation more complicated that what the idioictc in the press reports. There is more information in VK.com (Russian Facebook where I have an account) than in the western news media
Jeanette Victoria
March 3rd, 2014 @ 2:18 pm

Having lived there let me tell you the Ukrainians really hate the Russians
Liberalism is Nonsense
March 3rd, 2014 @ 2:33 pm

IMO, the intellectual vanguard in the West is so infatuated with the fantasies of marxism that it has completely forgotten that ethnic incompatibility exists.

In other words, the notions of “tolerance” and “human uniformity” that are drowning the West may yet finish it off under the ever-encroaching tide of the third-world.
Adjoran
March 3rd, 2014 @ 3:14 pm

Thanks, but I studied the Soviets under Dr. David Powell back in the day, and don’t need any advice from little Putin punks like you.
Liberalism is Nonsense
March 3rd, 2014 @ 3:37 pm

Of the facts I’ve presented, which one do you take issue with?
Oscar Slam Dunk: Because Slavery or Something | Regular Right Guy
March 3rd, 2014 @ 5:22 pm

[…] Our Worthless Media […]
Bob Belvedere
March 3rd, 2014 @ 6:38 pm

It is your kind of thinking that led many conservatives in the 1930’s to conclude that Hitler and Mussolini could be valuable allies against Stalin.

Putin is a Totalitarian of the Fascist variety.

Wake up.
Bob Belvedere
March 3rd, 2014 @ 6:40 pm

Mussolini made the trains run on time and they were clean.

Putin must be stopped now.
Bob Belvedere
March 3rd, 2014 @ 6:42 pm

PUTIN IS A LEFTIST, you fool.
Bob Belvedere
March 3rd, 2014 @ 6:47 pm

It cropped-up in either his misreading [to be kind], or ignorance of [to be not kind], the History of Leftism and of Russia.