The American Spectator

Washington Prowler

p> Live at Eleven (posted 4/4/03 2:02 a.m.) br> Is there a more hopeless institution than the 11 o'clock evening news? Apart from "your" weather, "your" sports, "your" weekend, and other news "you" must use, it offers next to no news that matters -- yet still manages to be an unthinking font of bias. Too much niceness and your critical facilities turn to mush, apparently. /p>

In the DC area, if I watch it'll be the local ABC affiliate, mainly because it comes in best on the tiny black and white TV next to my computer. Some months back it did a special report on Johnnie Cochran and the new cause that had brought him to Washington: slavery reparations. My, was it respectful. After the segment the entire Channel 7 crew, including anchor Kathleen Matthews, wife of Hardballer Chris Matthews, exchanged comments of deep concern and respect for Cochran's new cause.

A few hours ago the program highlighted the return of a pacifist from Baghdad. It interviewed the feisty woman, and showed her in deep prayer at Dulles airport in a circle of pacifist friends who had come to greet her on her return. Think this same channel will ever show football players at prayer, say, during one of the many games it televises? The woman expressed concern for her friends back in Baghdad. She expressed open disdain for U.S. policy. No one asked her if Saddam's regime maybe deserves overthrowing. That would have been impolite, and let's not complicate things. But just so you know, the pacifist insisted on not being called a "human shield." She's a "human being," that's all.

To be honest, though, she didn't seem too upset about being back. Clearly she seemed in better shape than an actual shield who told his story in last Sunday's New York Times Magazine. "I went all the way to Baghdad, hoping to help, but in the end I was too scared to stay," the kicker line reads. The fellow was 68, a Brit, and was put up at a power station, with 15 sundry shields in his dorm. The thudding from the power station seemed to unnerve him. As he explained, "I'm literally a bit of a punch-drunk boxer, having been banged about the head when I was young, so I don't even like the radio on loud in the background." It was downhill from there, and soon he would take his leave, remembering all the family he'd left behind in the U.K. Mind you, as a "universalist" he believes everyone will be saved in the end, "even Donald Rumsfeld." He just wasn't ready to die yet. Can't say I blame him.

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p> The Two-Week Anniversary (posted 4/3/03 1:11 a.m.) br> Two weeks into the war and the nation's jitters are behind us. Above all there seems to be a clear sense that Saddam's regime is worth toppling. Even ABC News seems to agree, or at least its "Nightline" show does. I just caught the tail end of its interview with one of the Newsday reporters recently released after eight days of imprisonment. He described the unspeakable beatings and tortures he and his colleagues heard and apparently saw performed in Saddam's most horrid prison. Which brings to mind the Stalin-WWII analogy we've heard so much about of late, namely that a populace would rise against an invader even if that meant defending the totalitarian ruler. The analogy is laughable on its face. For one thing, Stalin was known to release prisoners in order to involve them in defense of Mother Russia. Saddam seems to have responded by ordering news rounds of beatings in the prisons.

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