Moyers On PBS

Jack - Bill Moyers was White House Press Secretary for LBJ during the years when over 19,000 US soldiers died in Vietnam. That's the fact. What we are seeing is an attempt to re-write history.

Bill Moyers had a very prominent platform from which to decry the rush to war if he thought the country was being pushed in a direction that was not right. Bill Moyers remained silent. What we are seeing now is an attempt to re-write history.

The inclusion of Donahue in this show is both misleading and dishonest. Its as if Moyers is saying "I wish at least I did as much as Donahue." It is an attempt for Moyers to re-write his cuplapbility in another war.

If there was some sort of collusion to "cover-up" a run-up to war - you would think that there would be more information and proof than just a couple of KR guys. To anyone paying attention - there is no surprise that the press could miss this big a story. Just as they missed the fall of communism, the fall of the Berlin wall, the burst of the Internet bubble, accurate reporting from Katrina and almost any other major story that has broken in the past 50-years.

 

Jesus wept.
The press missed the fall of Communism and the Berlin Wall?
It did?
I could have sworn it was in all the papers.
Now, if what this means is that everybody missed the story that the Soviet bloc was an empty shell and ready to crumble - and not everybody did: that pesky BBC did some great work -- well, the CIA under Ronald Reagan, and an awful lot of Reagan's fans in the conservative press, missed it, too. (Go back and read George Will and Krauthammer on Gorbachev some time. Laff riots ensue!) This was possibly because the elite press was listening to sources within a Republican administration that were lying their asses off about Soviet military might for political purposes and that the elite press got nervous and took a dive. (In the documentary, you may recall, Moyers helps assuage his own guilt over Vietnam and obscure his involvement in Operation Phoenix by getting Walter Pincus to admit that the WaPo stopped "truth-squadding" kindly ol' Dutch because people complained.) There are compelling modern parallels.
(And nobody alleged collusion, Chris, just ensemble lassitude. The proof is in the fact that there were people in the press who got the story about the war right.)
The press missed "honest reporting on Hurricane Katrina."? I don't know where we're going here, although I'm sure it has something to do with preliminary death tolls, flooded schoolbuses and Ray Nagin.
To be fair, Chris has decided which horn of the dilemma he's going to dance upon. He has decided on his role as citizen-journalist, criticizing the MSM for their lack of due diligence in a) hanging the Vietnam war around Moyers's neck and b) pointing out that the elite press fell down on the job of informing the country what a lying sack of hair Ronald Reagan was. Now, it would be unkind of anyone at this late date to ask how much citizen journalism Chris has done in support of either proposition. This - The Press Sucks -- is one of two things he believes. The other has cost 3000 American lives and counting and he doesn't talk about that much any more. The elite press, as illustrated in this special, helped give him his pet war. He's ungrateful, is all he is.

 

Lord, love a duck.

Rewrite history, indeed.

The only rewriting of history that's going on around here is Chris's pathetic attempt to justify the lies of his gang of thugs.

Oh, and Chris, "the conservatives" have not been discredited.

The people who have been discredited are Fredo, Cheney, Rumsfeld et al and the slimy sycophants like yourself who have been prattling on here for over four years now since the bully boys invaded Iraq.

And, true to your muddled little mind, you conveniently change the subject--which is NOT about Moyers and Vietnam. And your silly little obsession with the inclusion of Donahue in the program is typical Chris. When all else fails, pull a red herring out of your derriere.

Oh, here's some binder twine. Try stringing an argument together

 

Cue the embattled lone voice of dissent speech.
3...2...1...

 

Yes, we're taking away Chris's constitutional right to be a sucker.

 

I wasn't aware of the program before it was on. I recorded a later showing and finally had the chance to watch it last night.

I think what stuck with me most, basically due to its continued existence, is the perceived notion of questioning the president = unpatriotic.

 

JR - I'm afraid as per Godwin's Law - this discussion is over. Once you compare someone to the Nazi's - then you lose.

You probably don't realize how heinous it is to compare people to Nazi's because - well just because you are ignorant.

Fenian - I've asked time and again - what other rational explanation is there for Moyer including the "Donahue was fired because of his views on the war" canard unless he was purposefully trying to mislead the audience? You have consistently tried to avoid the question by substituting an insult of me for an answer.

I'm afraid my patience for this thread is done. The journalism board was supposed to be the one board where issues can be discussed and debated like adults. But Fenian and JR feel it necessary to substitute discourse with Nazi comparisons (and yes Fenian - I'm lumping you in with JR on the Nazi thing because you should have told him it was wrong). What's next with these two? Mother jokes?

Fenian's dancing on the grave of Ronald Reagan is just another display of how closed minded he can be. Reagan saved the country from the malaise of Jimmy Carter and the Democrats but in Fenian's twisted world he was some sort of tyrant. That just shows how closed minded and myopic Fenian truly is. It is sad.

 

You didn't post indecent swill about my marital history, either. Apologize to JR.
(And JR, Chris isn't a Nazi. Bad, Jr. Bad, bad Canadian. Go stand in a corner of Alberta until dinner.)
I didn't say tyrant.
I said, "lying sack of hair." Which he was.
There is a difference.
(See this marvelous WSJ piece today for details. THIS is how you get a tyrant.
http://opinionjournal.com/federation/feature/?id=110010014)
I -- and Moyers -- didn't say Donahue was fired for his conservative views. (My first post when all this began was that it wasn't "all about ratings." And, pace Jack, I stand by that.) We said it was a factor. By all subsequent indications, it was.

 

I take away the Nazi reference.

I'll stick with a fascist one instead. Because you know, if it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck.....you pretty much have all the characteristics.

Oh, and Chris, you came on here not to engage in discourse whatsover but to pull some silly, stupid argument out of your ass about the presence of Donahue in the Moyers programme.

And, as FB patiently tried to point out to you the possible reasons why Donahue was fired, you were standing in the corner, holding your breath with your fingers in your ears.

And once again, you should be ashamed to even particpate in this discussion since you've been fellating Fredo and his cronies from Day One.

Go back to live blogging your Red Sox games. It's about all the intellectual challenge you can handle.

 

Your marital history? When have I ever said anything about your marital history? Or are you saying that you are married to JR or that you and JR are the same poster (because that would explain alot).

You should take that stopwatch of yours and time out one minute to take some deep breaths before posting next time because that way what you write may make more sense.

 

Sorry, Elliotte.
The above bespeaks a complete inability to read.
You posted indecent swill about JR's marital history. You asked me to take him to task for the "Nazi thing." In reply, I said that you should apologize to him for what you did. This is reading comprehension 101.
I am now going to begin serving my suspension.