Anderson, Chris and Don and their assembled pundits are discussing the assassination of General Soleimani, the Iranian general. They all agree that he was a “bad actor”, a “bad guy”. They don’t say “bad hombre”,but it’s knocking at the door. This appears to be sufficient to warrant execution, it’s the timing and ongoing strategy they are concerned about.
Why I ask myself are they talking like characters in a 1950’s western?
Why are they talking like school kids?
Bad guys, good guys – “goodies and baddies”.
Back in the Classroom:
Teacher, by the end of the major combat phase of the Iraq war, 7,419 Iraqi civilians had been killed, primarily by U.S. air-and-ground forces, is George Bush Junior a bad guy, a bad actor, a bad hombre?
No, child, every American president is good.
Teacher, were those innocent civilians “collateral damage” or “victims of terror”?
That is a complex and morally confusing question, child. Here in America we do not like confusion.
Teacher, why do the American media continue to refer to the Canadians killed in the Ukraine Airlines crash as Iranians.
It’s less confusing that way, see above.
Teacher, is President Trump a bad guy, a bad actor, a bad hombre?
No, child, President Trump is a liar, a racist, possibly a crook and possibly a sexual predator but he is not a bad guy, a bad actor, a bad hombre.
Teacher, why are Anderson, Chris and Don so angry with him? Why the sanctimonious, po-faced editorials?
Because he is un-statesmanlike and because they have become lazy and are content to trot out the same tired outrage every day of the week. Their ambition is limited, they are happy just to be “not Hannity”.
But teacher, they seem like nice guys.
Your point is?
Stopdraggingthepanda 
The dribble does tire….what happened to fact based reporting?
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Fareed Zakaria is about the only one doing any kind of intelligent analysis.
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Agreed.
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Very true, Jim. Are our lessons done? What happens when the present is the past? What concerns me is that large populations around our 1984 world are never taught accurate historical truth and can never learn from it. When I was very young, classrooms maps showed a large West Germany with a narrow East German corridor leading to Berlin. It was quite a while before I learned this was the reverse of the truth. Out of the classroom, my father had a banned book called “The Profits of Slavery” which described Stalin’s crimes in countries like Latvia. Now it happens in other places.
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Thanks Steve…my dad used to say “one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter”!
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Great post. In trying to appear unbiased, CNN loses 90% of its credibility, and rightly so. I wish they’d wise up to it.
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Thanks M.P., you’re right CNN have been largely ineffectual because of their obsession with Trump.
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Televised media, in particular, is all about opinion, conjecture and propaganda. It’s difficult to find reliable news. However, there is clearly a double standard for international violence, i.e. the US is always right, regardless of the war crimes committed in our names.
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Very well put, Eilene, and sadly true!
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