The American Spectator

p> WOEFULLY DUMB br> Re: Patrick O’Hannigan’s A Pineapple or a Grenade? : /p> p>Would any news agency send a reporter who didn’t understand the Infield Fly Rule to cover the World Series? Yet, that is what is happening in the Middle East and at the Pentagon. Many reporters do not know the basic terminology of military hardware, let alone doctrine and tactics. Reporters with military experience tend to be taken into the confidence of soldiers (Band of Brothers syndrome). When an ignorant reporter shows up, two things can happen, both bad. The reporter will inaccurately report what is going on. Or the soldiers will execute a snow job on the reporter in much the same manner as they will initiate a new recruit by sending the recruit out for 50 feet of shore line, a bucket of muzzle grease or a Number Seven Skyhook. In local discussions about the Operation Tailwind fiasco, a colleague of mine figures that the reporter went looking for a scandal by talking to some Special Forces troops. The SF guys, seeing that the reporter was ignorant of military matters, concocted the story and fed it to the reporter. The reporter fell for it, hook, line and sinker. Apparently, nobody else in the reporter’s chain of command was any more knowledgeable of military matters so the story went on the air and quickly blew up in their faces. DOD used to offer orientation courses (“Military 101 for dummies”) for reporters but these were often refused because the reporters thought the course would spoil their “objectivity.” br> — John Manguso br> San Antonio, Texas /p>

A line from a modest hit by the pop group The Fifth Dimension stated, “I won’t study war… no more!” While the MSM seems to wear that declaration proudly (putting it on display with every report from the field), this is hardly the only subject that reporters and editors are adverse to studying.

How about economics? We’re still hearing that “Big Oil” is making record profits. Yes, there were record profits — for one quarter. With gasoline back to $2.30, the profit margin is once again under 5 percent, hardly the stuff of robber barons. It’s still BILLIONS, the MSM exclaims, never bothering to note that those billions are built on TRILLIONS of gallons (that cost consumers a whopping 15 cents a gallon).

p>Whether it’s the myth that America “consumes” 40 percent of the world’s wealth (actually, we GENERATE 40 percent of the world’s wealth), or that the gap between rich and poor is a calamity in the making, or that money spent is money destroyed, it’s obvious that the MSM refuses to study much of anything. br> —