The Other McCain

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UKRAINE: No, Thanks, Fox News, I Don’t Want to Hear Geraldo Rivera’s Opinion

Posted on | February 25, 2022 | Comments Off on UKRAINE: No, Thanks, Fox News, I Don’t Want to Hear Geraldo Rivera’s Opinion

This morning I got up at 6 a.m. to work on my job (that I never discuss) and turned on my home-office TV. Fox News was actually reporting news, but after a while, they brought on Geraldo Rivera and I wish I had video of his appearance, to explain why I switched my TV to CNN. As it is, you’ll have to take my word for it, how awful and inappropriate it was to have that Bozo blathering nonsensically on Fox & Friends. Like, why do we need to hear your take on this, Geraldo? When did you become an expert on Ukraine? What is your value-added in this discussion?

There is a war going on, and when I turn on a TV news channel, I’d like some news about the war. Is this too much to ask? Like, could I get some footage of military action? Some confirmed reports of where the troops are fighting, who’s winning, that kind of stuff? It’s a war, after all.

Elizabeth Nolan Brown makes a relevant point:

Now is not the time for petty culture war grievances and personal grifts. Yes, life—and news—in America goes on, but maybe the day Russia starts bombing Ukraine isn’t the time for your critical race theory rant or your masculinity-crisis paranoia, you know? And it certainly isn’t the time for you to try and tie whatever you would be on about anyway into the war news cycle.
I promise, the culture war and all its brave keyboard warriors will still be there next week. So will COVID-19, and climate change, and border battles. Just let it go for a minute.

Thank you for saying this. I don’t need to be told — because it is obvious enough — that this war highlights Biden’s incompetence. Just about everything that has happened since Jan. 20, 2021, has highlighted Biden’s incompetence, and so there is no need for anyone on Fox News (or anywhere else) to feel the need to repeat what everybody with two eyes and a brain already knows. Give it a rest.

Most of the day Thursday, I was trying to figure out what was going on at Gostomel (or Hostomel) airport in the Kyiv suburbs. Wednesday, it was reported that Russian paratroopers had taken the airport, but then the Ukrainians claimed to have retaken it in a counterattack. Could anyone confirm this? Well, you wouldn’t know a damned thing from most of what was on the so-called “news,” so I found myself searching Twitter for Ukrainian-language accounts about the fighting, by plugging in the name of the airport (in Cyrillic letters) and then running the text of various tweets through Google translation. This didn’t do much to clarify the situation, but it was at least better than being completely in the dark, which is what I’d have been if I’d relied on TV news.

What I eventually concluded was that Russians were still in control at Gostomel or, at least, that the Ukrainian counterattack had not “destroyed” the Russian paratrooper force (as had been claimed), and when I woke up Friday, it was clear that not only had the Russian paratroopers held on, but that they were being reinforced, as helicopters were seen flying in low over the area. The most definitive report I found was from the Wall Street Journal:

Russian forces pouring in from neighboring Belarus through the Chernobyl nuclear disaster exclusion zone reached the outskirts of Kyiv. They took over the Hostomel airfield following an airborne assault on Thursday, and by Friday morning Russian armored forces reached the area. Heavy combat continued through the day, and Ukrainian troops blew up several bridges leading into Kyiv from the northwest.

If this is correct, then a Russian armored column has now reached Gostomel, so it’s no longer just paratroopers holding the airfield, which means that soon the Russians will be flying in all kinds of equipment, and this is less than 20 miles from downtown Kyiv. Very grim, indeed.

So that’s the news, it seems, and having updated you on that, now we can turn to domestic politics. Ace of Spades went thermonuclear:

This is what neocons always do — they have no plans, they have no solutions, so they just smear opponents as Traitors.
What are they actually arguing for? They do not say. They obviously do not want war with Russia. (I… hope? I admit, a lot of them are positively deranged — I can’t say for certain. Maybe some do now want the Cleansing of the Unclean World With Nuclear Fire. We have sinned, Trumpishly; we must be made pure again.)
So what do they actually want? They claim that anyone who does not join them in Uncritically Supporting Brandon is Undermining the Unified US Front and stopping them from executing their great plan, whatever that is.
So what is that plan? When I’m not clapping hard enough for Brandon, what is the great plan I’m actually blocking from taking effect?
They never say. Because there is no great plan. And because there is no great plan, they have nothing to sell, except for smearing their opponents as Traitors and Foreign Spies.
You know, like people really committed to democracy and Civil Discourse always do.
If we gave you all the “support” you require for your great plans, and all the political power you so obviously crave, what exactly would you do?!?
You never say, because you don’t know! You have no ideas! You have nothing! You have literally no thoughts, no plans, no ideas, no solutions except the one Guiding Holy Writ:

ORANGE
MAN
BAD

That’s literally your only stock in trade. If you have anything more than that — prove me a liar right now by telling me what exactly you would do if you had carte blanche.
Crickets. Silence.

Yes, indeed. Having gotten us into this mess, they have no plan to get us out, and instead spend their time spewing rage at Trump, or Tucker Carlson, or anyone else who points out how disastrously wrong they’ve been about everything. It may be that Trump or Carlson deserve to be criticized for some of their statements, but what does that have to do with the actual war in Ukraine? About as much as the gibberish Geraldo was babbling this morning. The Ukrainians made the mistake of believing what they were told about Trump being a villainous Putin ally, and Biden being the hero who would protect them from Putin. So it looks as if Hunter Biden will have to find somewhere else to hustle for corrupt cash, and I hope nobody invested their savings in Burisma stock.




 

Category: Joe Biden, Russia, Ukraine

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