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Pundit Pap
for Sunday, April 28
Tim Russert -- the new "Church Lady"? Judge for yourself
by Dash Riprock
April 28, 2002 -- Washington/Chicago (APJP) -- A brief note from the editors: both Dave Gonzo and JJ Balzer were called out of town to deal with private matters, and Donna Wynner was distracted from their usual Pundit Pap this week by a "labor" of love -- she went into labor early Sunday morning and late in the day gave birth to a healthy son, named Stuart. Congratulations to Donna!
This left Dash Riprock to contend with the Papal Pundit, ultra-Catholic Tim Russert...here's what he saw.
The Church Today
...er, excuse me, make that..
Meet the Press
This week Tim rehashed the crisis in the Catholic Church -- and spoke to that ray of sunshine, Benjamin "Bebe" Netanyahu.
When we last spoke weeks ago, Timmy had devoted the lion's share of his show to the problem of sexually abusive priests and the Catholic church's tepid response.
It was déjà vu all over again this week. Tim had on a duo of priests, including one from the previous show on this subject, and it was pretty much a rehash of the same thing.
With that in mind, I'll fast-forward to the second segment, in which Tim interviewed another "man of peace", Bebe Netanyahu.
Netanyahu, who apparently was born pissed off and just stayed that way (which doesn't seem fitting for someone having "Yahoo" as part of his name), was true to form today.
The local station broke late from a commercial so that one heard Russert start off with "Yahoo, good morning and welcome."
That was the only yuk of the segment.
Bebe started off by saying they couldn't have a bigger friend than Smirk in the White House.
Russert, always eager to start strife between two politicians, mentioned Shimon Peres having said that to exile Arafat would be a foolish idea. This pissed Yahoo off, but then everything does. He said he thought it was foolish of Peres to "bring Arafat in" and supposedly give him weapons, strategic land, and international recognition.
One is hard pressed to imagine the Israelis arming Arafat, and I guess no one would even know who Arafat is if Peres hadn't given him "international recognition." As with most statements by rabid partisans on any issue, I greeted this one with skepticism.
Netanyahu is a seething mass of hatred and aggression. He looks like he'd kick a stray dog if it crossed his path. Anyone this consumed by hatred is likely to be deluded himself and it's only prudent to treat them with high suspicion.
Will Sharon exile Arafat? Bebe said, "I don't know, I think he wants to." He then explained that even when he talks to non-Jewish audiences, he gets his biggest applause when he says that what they should do to Arafat is "what you did to the Taliban and what you're gonna do to Iraq." He then offered to produce videotape to prove that people even stood on their chairs to applaud this statement.
This is not a good sign for the future of humanity. Either that or he was speaking to a Soldier of Fortune convention when he got the ovation.
Apparently, there are a lot of people that just get aroused at the thought of squandering a huge chunk of national wealth on bloody, violent, and endlessly traumatic wars. Woo-hoo! Kill 'em all! It's clear we've not evolved much since the caveman days.
Netanyahu has been on an almost ceaseless P.R. campaign from September 12th until today. He's criss-crossed the country again and again in a non-stop effort to accomplish two goals:
For a mission to spread hatred, they couldn't have picked a more qualified spokesman. Bebe has taken to it like a duck to water. He seems in his element.
Defending the idea of first spreading hatred and reducing entire groups to sub-human status ("evil"), and then using billions of dollars of killing technology to simply overwhelm your enemies, Netanyahu states "American people instinctively realize that... this is what you do!"
Boy, it sure seems that way. The people sometimes have instincts like dumb animals.
I wonder if the American people would also instinctively realize that suicide bombings would be "what you do" if you were being threatened with genocide by a vastly superior military force. Guess it just depends on where you're standing at the moment.
Would the Israelis be willing to give back Palestinian territory in order to promote peace?
Bebe says glibly that he doesn't make concessions before he negotiates, that's why he always gets a better deal when HE negotiates. (Look for Bebe's big comeback in Israeli politics.)
Then a bald-faced example of what happens when some folks go to Pluto for their logic.
Tim read a clip from the NY Times saying that the Israeli actions have only bred among young Palestinians a more virulent and committed new crop of terrorists. Recent suicide bombers were young boys who all went to the same school and were all top students. Palestinian parents are "bewildered" by this phenomena.
Does Bebe think that Israel's aggression may be only exacerbating the problem by slaughtering kid's parents and bulldozing their homes, thus radicalizing a new generation that will be committed to killing Israelis?
Any sane person would recognize that this is of course a logical consequence of this action. But not our man Yahoo. He immediately said that it's not Israel's actions that are breeding desperation to the point where the only thing people have to fight back with is their own lives.
No, it's not Israel's fault at all. They're not creating future terrorists. I'll give you ten guesses who's fault it is. You're right! It's the Palestinians themselves. Bebe says it's because of the inculcation that these kids get. Of course, why they get this inculcation is not discussed.
Guess if you're a kid who's spent his entire life trying to live with occupation, smelling the stench of dead bodies, and seeing your community reduced to ruble really has nothing to do with breeding hatred. You're right Bebe. Righto.
He then brought up a rather curious argument for condemning the Palestinian resistance. He said that anyone who thinks that terrorism is only the natural result of years of oppression doesn't understand history "further back than last week." (This should be good)
Yahoo then went on to say that there have been THOUSANDS of cases of brutal repression in the last century (thus tacitly admitting that this is what Israel is engaged in) and that not all the oppressed have resorted to terrorism in response. He cited Martin Luther King Jr, Gandhi, the fall of the Berlin wall, and Poles as examples of struggles that didn't resort to terrorism.
It doesn't take much thought to realize how lame an argument this is. Each of those situations were quite a bit different than the current one. For instance, the Soviet Union collapsed financially and politically, largely due to being bled dry by their military spending in trying to keep up with the U.S.
So from that, if Israel couldn't afford all it's massive military (3rd largest in the world) say, if the US taxpayer were to stop sending billions, then yes, perhaps terrorism would not be a necessary response of last resort. Why fight an enemy that is no longer fighting you? To do so would be suicide, and invite universal condemnation.
And yes, atrocities were committed during the civil rights struggle in this country, but the federal government belatedly stepped in with the force of law to protect civil rights. Somehow I don't see the Israeli government stepping in to protect the rights of the people they portray as "animals." The argument is a crock of BS, but I guess Netanyahu gets points for effort. He's only trying to do his job and spearhead a PR campaign to defend Israel, which isn't easy.
Tim mentioned that the UN wants to send in investigators to document and collect evidence of what many observers have said was a massacre that occurred in Jenin. What does Yahoo think about that?
"It's a joke. It's a BAD joke," said Bebe. Spoken in true statesman style, huh? Something tells me that Bebe doesn't know any more than you or I the truth of what happened there. Yet any attempt to merely investigate and find out is condemned as a "joke" by this guy.
I really would have been more impressed had he said, "I think that's great! Bring it on. We have nothing to hide. The idea of a massacre is ludicrous and we're sure that the evidence will bear that out."
But instead, they're trying to get out in front and prevent and/or denigrate any efforts in this area before it even begins. They've got bloody hands and don't want anyone to see it. Any party that expends energy to suppress the truth loses moral ground in a hurry.
That's like someone telling Arafat that there have been many innocent Israelis slaughtered by bombers, and his replying that those reports are a joke.
When you have UN observers seeing with their own eyes the utter devastation wreaked by the conflict, and describing the unbearable stench of rotting corpses, even thought the Israelis prevented them from arriving on site for several days, during which they could attempt to sanitize the worst of it, one finds it just a teensy bit disingenuous to characterize an effort to investigate it as nothing but a "joke."
But a common thread running through the Israeli PR effort is that ANY questioning of their actions or motivations is out of line. Any at all. Anything less than total acceptance of their version of events is treated as an attack. (Blatant anti-Semitism) Anyone that so much as wonders if any of what they did or are doing might not be right are met with mindless dismissal and fierce condemnation.
This is not usually the stance of an innocent party. When you occupy the moral high ground, you don't attempt to bluster and bully your way past serious and relevant questions, and to manipulate public opinion. Facts should speak for themselves. One should welcome the press and anyone else investigating and the opportunity to lay out your case in a positive way. But a campaign that consists largely of finger-pointing and bombastic vilification of their opponents rings very hollow.
This style is gaining popularity however. Both the US and Israel, and no doubt other states, have all attempted to do the bloody work of war, yet tightly control having the ugly truth of these actions shown to the public at large. It's a massive attempt to sanitize the shocking gore and large-scale human slaughter that they are trying to justify.
Of course, they encourage showing over and over and over the death and destruction done to their side, (such as the endless coverage of 9-11, and coverage of bombings in Israel) but then turn around and say it's nobody's business and "a joke" when anyone wants to document and record the slaughter your side has caused.
It's all a massive insult to our intelligence, no matter what side or what party is attempting this. It's lying and unjust. But then again, I suppose most people are too ignorant and susceptible to the massive propaganda campaigns, or are just so used to it that they can't be aroused to be indignant about it.
Then Bebe took us for even greater idiots. He whined that the UN hasn't investigated any of the "real" massacres committed by the Palestinians against Israelis. Can you BELIEVE the childishness? The world has seen the total destruction in the Palestinian occupied territories. Surely there was large scale death of innocent people, that almost goes without saying. Yet can't be a massacre.
But, Yahoo tries to tell us, when Palestinians killed our citizens, THAT was a "real" massacre.
Then he continued to slap us in the face and take us for fools by saying (with a straight face) that his government says the number of civilians killed in Jenin is -- and I'm not making this up -- seven.
Well? Bebe wouldn't say that if it weren't true, right? This is the guy that just called any attempts to actually find out the truth about the situation as "a joke." I'd humbly suggest that expecting us to believe that only seven civilians were killed in Jenin would be considered a joke in anyone's book.
I think this is the definition of chutzpah.
Mr. Sunshine then said that he would not let the UN come into Jenin "anymore than I would let them go into Kanduhar."
Hmmm. What does that mean? I guess he's got the goods on the sainted US of A. Maybe he figures that we would have our own massacres of innocent civilians to explain. But one fears it's simply another knee-jerk resort to "They do it too.", this time, aimed at the U.S.
But again with the endless "he did it first" and "he did it too" crap. It's like a kid setting the cat on fire and then expecting to not get in trouble because Tommy down the street set his cat on fire too. Just lame as can be.
Russert then read a statement from a Saudi official saying that the U.S. would face grave consequences if it didn't stop standing around sucking it's thumb and get Israel to stop it's actions.
This gave Yahoo a chance to launch a vitriolic attack on Saudi Arabia, which again was only terribly lame and hypocritical.
He said it was the "definition of chutzpah" for them to "threaten" the U.S. (I swear I wrote that phrase above BEFORE playing this part of the tape.)
Talk about the pot calling the kettle black!
Then he proceeded to note that Saudi Arabia bankrolled bin Laden, and terrorism all over the world. I was hoping that perhaps the perpetually pissed off Netanyahu would finally get so pissed that he'd spill the beans on the long-standing Bush-Saudi love fest, but it was enough to hear him identify them as tacit supporters of the enemies of Israel.
He said it's the Saudis that are responsible for the "madness" in the area. Of course, Israel bears absolutely none of the blame. Good thing finger pointing isn't an Olympic event. One suspects that Israeli officials would have a lock on all the gold.
Does he think that a U.S. effort to topple Sadaam Hussein is a doable operation? "Yes", said Bebe.
Here Mr. Warmth revealed the agenda that he and others are laboring mightily to impose on the United States. Of course, there's a large faction of hawks in the Smirk gang that are salivating to invade Iraq, but Bebe wants to egg them on.
He said that Hussein is "feverishly" trying to develop atomic weapons.
What about the opposition of European governments?
Bebe asserts that the dim bulb in the White House should press ahead with this war, no matter what Europeans might say. (To hell with them, I guess. This is another dangerous attitude that seems to be spreading.)
What about the fact that an invasion of Iraq could align literally the entire mid-east against the U.S.?
Then in another deft stroke of diplomatic genius, Yahoo replied, "Is it important?"
He might as well have said, "Who the hell cares?"
How can you lose with an attitude like that? Maybe a few hundred million Arab citizens might care. Maybe a dozen or so Arabian states might care a teensy bit. But I guess they're all animals that can be safely ignored with impunity.
After all, he seems to be saying, we've got nuclear missiles, thousands of fighter aircraft, and all the advanced weaponry that U.S. tax dollars can buy. Who give a shit what they think? We'll slaughter them like no one's ever slaughtered anyone before! We'll make the holocaust look like child's play. Only this time, no trains and incinerators. Just clean bombs and missiles. When you blow bodies to tiny pieces, it's much more efficient. When we're done, they'll be reduced to such poverty and ruin that we'll not have to worry about them. (for a while.)
This is why we have this crisis.
But he continued with this rationale: "Can the Arab world stop you?", he asked rhetorically, again displaying his utter incapability to comprehend how having the capability to obliterate entire nations or people, doesn't make it right to do so.
This is the rationale used by schoolyard bullies since time immemorial. "I beat him up and took his lunch money because he's a weenie and couldn't fight back much. He had something I wanted, so I used violence and intimidation to take it from him. I mean, I'm bigger, so it's my right."
Of course, maybe this type of thinking by the bullies at Columbine led the two dweebs at Columbine to carry out their twisted mission.
"Are they that indispensable in material terms, in physical terms? Probably not. You can do it!" was his next gem.
This is like some crafty kid that doesn't want to get in trouble trying to get back at his enemies by talking some bigger classmate to fight for him. Of course, he first tells the big kid that it's really in HIS interest to do so, and flatters him by assuring him that he could take this guy with his hands behind his back.
"Come on! I heard him say you're a dork! You can do it! Just go ahead! You won't get in trouble!"
Why do I get the feeling that someone is trying to talk us into something that's not too bright, either in the short or especially in the long term?
"The mission is more important than the coalition.", says Bebe.
Hmmm. Should we take this rabid hawk's word for it? He only has OUR best interests at heart, right? It's not like he has an agenda.
I'm sorry, but it's pretty tough to swallow what the Bebe is cookin'. Then he tossed this big chunk of gristle our way: "It doesn't matter what calumny and condemnation will be heaped on you."
OK, again, I guess you know best Netanyahu. This must be the part where he tells the kid that will be doing the fighting that it doesn't matter if everyone thinks he's a bully.
I mean, he's saying that sure, the rest of the world will absolutely hate you and you'll be a pariah, and surely it will create legions of people sworn to fight you at every possible chance. It will increase exponentially the likelihood of further terrorist attacks on the you and your citizens, of course. You'll become even more isolated and hated by Europe and the mid-east too. (Gee, I'm sure we can find a way to get all of Asia aligned against us and make it a clean sweep.) But fuggedaboutit!!
Bebe tells us not to worry. Just do it!!! Come oooooonnnnn!
OK Bebe, if you say so.
Then in another salute to hypocrisy, he said that if people say that Israel shouldn't be so secretive about their actions, then why don't they look at Saudi Arabia, which is an even more closed society.
What will it take for the defenders of Israel to EVER come up with an argument that isn't based on "They did it too!" or "They did it first!!" ?? It's annoying to hear it from small children, and it's even more annoying hearing it from supposed statesmen and world leaders.
Those who find Israel's actions to be appropriate and justified will no doubt blame any dissent on the success of the Palestinian PR effort. However, that's almost non-existent. The fact is, that people like Bebe are the ones doing the most damage to their cause. But they would never be able to see that.
Blindness seems to be epidemic.
-- Dash Riprock
Dash Riprock is a freelance smart aleck based in Moline, IL. Send your cheerful comments, joyless rants, or other debris to dashriprockapj@hotmail.com
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