Video: Bob Schieffer says we need to hear more about them dead GIs
posted at 5:15 pm on December 3, 2007 by Bryan
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Here’s the video, courtesy Stop the ACLU:
Now, let me cleverly turn Schieffer’s argument back on him and agree with him: We do need to hear more about Iraq, but not just about the dead US troops. Specifically the media needs to report that things are improving, that US combat deaths are down and that Iraqis from al Anbar to Adamiyah have turned on al Qaeda and driven them out of their lairs. The media needs to report on the schools that our troops have rebuilt, the towns our troops have put back together and the Iraqis who are returning to their homes. We need to hear about al Qaeda’s slaughterhouses in Fallujah and the village that al Qaeda wiped out. We need to hear about our enemy’s atrocious conduct and contrast that with the overwhelmingly professional conduct of our own troops. We need to hear about the enemy’s plans for Iraq in contrast to the freedom that our troops are fighting to establish for Iraq. We need to hear less about Abu Ghraib and Gitmo and more about how the lives of average Iraqis, and Afghanis for that matter, have improved since the US drove out the Taliban and kicked over Saddam’s regime. When we do hear about the negative stories and when the media does report on Gitmo and Abu Ghraib, they need to put those stories into some proper factual and historical context instead of just sensationalizing everything in ways that smear our country and our military. Anytime the media reports on the claims of captured terrorists, it needs to fill in with a paragraph or two about the fact that terrorists are trained to manufacture claims of abuse to manipulate the press and public opinion. That’s all factual, and ought to be reported.
Bob Schieffer wants to hear more about Iraq? Fine. But if he just reports US combat deaths and stops there, he’s omitting the broader picture that’s available and therefore distorting the reality of the war. He’s omitting reporting on what the troops are fighting and dying for. That’s what the media has been doing almost from the beginning, and it’s past time they stop.
You’re a major media maven, Bob. Make it happen.
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“I am Bob Schieffer and this commentary was brought to you by the DNC. Vote Democrat in ‘08.”
Drew on December 3, 2007 at 5:19 PM
…I know I shouldn’t be by this time, but I’m stunned that they actually have the balls to make that hypocritical a statement. We should keep quiet about it being good because it might go bad later? However, we still need to report the bad?
…and people watch that network? STILL?
MadisonConservative on December 3, 2007 at 5:21 PM
I think Schieffer would go into an epileptic seizure if he even considered presenting all sides of a story.
What I wonder is more important to Schieffer – actually caring about the soldiers or the perception of caring about the soldiers.
.
GT on December 3, 2007 at 5:22 PM
Mr Schieffer, how about revealing the skeletons in the closets of the antiwar nuts, politicians and such. Oh, such effort would preclude you from trashing our efforts in Iraq? I thought as much.
MNDavenotPC on December 3, 2007 at 5:23 PM
Translation:
Democrats, please don’t loose hope we still may be defeated.
TheSitRep on December 3, 2007 at 5:23 PM
Hey, Bob. You want to hear about our soldiers? Start HERE. And then after you are done reading about ALL of them there, continue on HERE.
I expect you to do full reports to the American people about our soldiers based on those tributes.
(Actually, no, I won’t be holding my breath, you effing bastard. You and your cohorts disgust me, Bob. Utterly disgust me.)
Michael in MI on December 3, 2007 at 5:24 PM
It must be election season.
SoulGlo on December 3, 2007 at 5:26 PM
The new Baghdad Bob! Dye his hair black and put a beret on him.
iurockhead on December 3, 2007 at 5:26 PM
Pathetic.
The Race Card on December 3, 2007 at 5:27 PM
I saw this yesterday, and I am not the least bit surprised this old fool is following in the footsteps of Dan Rather & Walter Cronkite….He’ll ramble himself right into total obscurity and inanity too. Another self important half senile ratchety old f%$@k with out enough oxygen.
commonsensehoosier on December 3, 2007 at 5:27 PM
Well, if anyone’s an authority on dead people, it’s gotta be that ashen-faced corpse. Come on, let’s give credibility where credibility’s due.
Rational Thought on December 3, 2007 at 5:31 PM
Yes, it is hypocritical. The good news shouldn’t be reported yet because it may still be bad, but when the bad news comes it should be reported like there’s no tomorrow.
amerpundit on December 3, 2007 at 5:32 PM
Funny, seems like just a few months ago, he was yammering about how Iraq has not lost its power to shock. Now it just sounds like he’s miffed he has been proved wrong.
Karl on December 3, 2007 at 5:33 PM
Well said Bryan. Bob is a major irresponsible maven alright.
Everyone visiting here should e-mail ‘bob’ a message about their feelings or a copy of Bryan’s post > >
ftn@cbsnews.com
That ought to help inform them about what ‘we’ want to hear. After all, what he wants is irrelative altogether. Not to mention biased, unimportant and meaningless.
Griz on December 3, 2007 at 5:35 PM
Andy Rooney syndrome……..too many perks and you loose your marbles.
Limerick on December 3, 2007 at 5:36 PM
They won’t change, it’s time to just turn them off altogether.
bbz123 on December 3, 2007 at 5:37 PM
I knew Scheiffer was a democratic stooge when I watching an election back in 1988 and Schieffer was giddy that a democrat had won a senate seat in North Carolina to the point that Dan Rather had to calm him down.
William Amos on December 3, 2007 at 5:38 PM
“Those troops deserve great credit – but…”
Everyone I know has a big “But…? C’mon, Simone, let’s talk about *your* big “But”.
Ugly on December 3, 2007 at 5:39 PM
Can you imagine what their parties are like?
LtE126 on December 3, 2007 at 5:41 PM
Bob Shafter.
Credibility heading to the Rather Zone.
profitsbeard on December 3, 2007 at 5:44 PM
Still not giving up on defeat.
Prayer is not an option.
It’s not the Democrat way.
Kini on December 3, 2007 at 5:45 PM
Do you know what I wish I’d hear on this topic more than any other single thing?
Simple: perspective.
Perspective is always painfully absent from the mainstream media.
Bryan has the right places to start. If 10 soldiers died this week … how about telling us what was accomplished? Perspective! What else happened? Both the good and the bad. All of it. Just give us perspective. Let us decide whether those deaths were a tragic waste … or a heroic sacrifice for a worthy cause.
You report. We decide. The facts. Remember?
Or how about broader perspective? When you report troop casualties – how do they compare to other conflicts? Other battles? There have been single days in American history when as many died as have died during ALL of the Iraqi conflict.
Single days. One. Day. In fact, if you count only combat deaths, we still lost more Americans on 9/11 than during all of the Iraq conflict (this may have changed recently) … but the numbers are still very close.
Shouldn’t the limousine liberals marching on campuses know this stuff? I mean, they’re given plenty of phony or partial information – shouldn’t they, shouldn’t all of us, benefit from a little perspective?
How about comparing casualty statistics to peacetime statistics? Most people seem completely unaware that people die at Camp Pendleton or Camp Lejeune or Fort Bragg … even during peacetime.
When you bring hundreds of thousands of people together, accidents happen. Car accidents. Training accidents. Bar brawls. Tennis elbow. S*it happens. So give us that information, too. Okay, say 30 soldiers died this month. Now how many soldiers in a comparable population die sitting at home stateside?
It ain’t ZERO, no matter what the media implies.
Speaking of statistics … how about general population statistics. There will be more preventable car accident deaths in December 2007 alone than ALL the combat deaths in Iraq to date.
More people will be killed in their swimming pools and on their skateboards and by their worn-out Christmas lights TODAY then they will in Iraq. I freaking guarantee it.
Sorry for the rant.
It just seems such a little thing to ask. Just some perspective. Please.
Professor Blather on December 3, 2007 at 5:48 PM
A polite, older “major media maven”, but still a biased liberal one. The New Year is nearing – resolutions are possible…then again, they’re easiest to ignore…
Entelechy on December 3, 2007 at 5:51 PM
We should all know more about the Soldiers and Marines who have died while the rest of us have been “out shopping”.
I know a currently serving Army Infantry Officer who says that one of the best ways that Americans can support the troops and their families is by going to the funerals of the fallen. Some of them do not have that many attendees.
He says that when state side he goes to any that are within driving distance and brings a clean dress uniform with him while traveling to do the same.
He says that it is the least that he can do.
MB4 on December 3, 2007 at 5:52 PM
Right Bob you blithering jackass . . . let’s just fill the air with negativism and defeatism. This bum hung around Rather too long.
rplat on December 3, 2007 at 5:55 PM
Wait, you mean Bob Scheiffer’s not dead? Isn’t he like 120?
CP on December 3, 2007 at 5:57 PM
If Gillian Gibbons, the British schoolteacher, was not incarcerated somewhere in Sudan, the whole Teddy Bear called Mohamed incident would be comical. But it serves to remind us once again that fundamentalist religion and Western values do not sit together. And it rubs in that we should spend more time promoting secularism around the world and worry less about spreading democracy.
The rise of the West had much less to do with democracy than with the rise of secularism. The West’s advance was chiefly related to the decline in the influence of religion that sought the truth by “looking in” to see what God had to say, and its replacement by looking out, deriving authority from observation, experimentation and exploration.
The original figures to draw attention to this were Bishop Robert Grosseteste, early in the 13th century, the first person to imagine the experiment, and his contemporary, St Thomas Aquinas, the first man to imagine a secular world, a world without God directing everything. Secularism is not the same as atheism, of course, both Grosseteste and Aquinas were priests. But they helped us to escape from the overbearing medieval view that the world has meaning and pattern only in relation to God [or Allah].
The inconvenient truth is that the West should be exporting secularism around the world before it exports democracy. Democracy implies not just one person one vote, but no less important, that the political process proceeds by rational means, by argument, by persuasion, and is based on knowledge that is as objective, as scientific, as one can make it. The objective knowledge has to come first.
- Peter Watson
*
States that rise quickly, just as all the other things of nature that are born and grow rapidly, cannot have roots and ramifications; the first bad weather kills them.
- Niccolo Machiavelli
MB4 on December 3, 2007 at 6:00 PM
As a news man Mr. Scheiffer SHOULD appreciate the mission described by President Bush was, in FACT, accomplished.
oakpack on December 3, 2007 at 6:02 PM
There is not just one enemy of freedom in Iraq.
Islamic allegiance, except for apostates, is with Allah and Mohammad and the Koran and the Hadiths, not with freedom and liberty.
Therein lies the problem.
MB4 on December 3, 2007 at 6:05 PM
Schieffer was in a box until IMUS went back on the air. Now the old vulture is out and trying to make points over our dead.
Scumbag……
Hening on December 3, 2007 at 6:18 PM
Scheiffer gives ’scumbag’ a bad name! Why is this creature news? He’s even left handed! He has to keep making left turns with his car till he gets anywhere because he can’t turn right! This creature has been a bolshevik his whole life. He represents everything that is wrong with the MSM and our country. Does anyone with a thinking process take anything this goof says seriously?
countywolf on December 3, 2007 at 6:33 PM
Well said, BP.
As Jim Rome is wont to say: “Rack ‘Im!”
Mike D. on December 3, 2007 at 6:46 PM
Someone needs to put Bob Scheiffer on a flight to
Afgahnastan,for a fact finding mission,haha,and go
on a few patrols,high up in the mountains,nice and
cold.AH Bob,this is John,he will be responsible for
your sorry !ss,oh Bob,John is the only one here who
doesn’t watch the news!
If Bob Scheiffer doesn’t come back a changed man,
then he will forever be lost to that great abyss
of Liberalism!
canopfor on December 3, 2007 at 7:01 PM
This guy is like the [Anti Vince Lombardi],
Losing isn’t everything it is the only thing.
TheSitRep on December 3, 2007 at 7:06 PM
Bob Schieffer:
Here’s an idea for you: Let’s run an expose of each and every slanted, silly, and outright wrong “news” story run by the MSM and call the series “The death of Mainstream Journalism”.
You can list the “casualties” every night: failed newspapers, TV stations which are dead or wounded, etc, etc. And to be “fair”, you should start at the beginning of the list each and every night….and don’t forget to mention what killed each one at least twice.
landlines on December 3, 2007 at 7:07 PM
Landlines: best idea yet! You got my vote.
countywolf on December 3, 2007 at 7:39 PM
During the 2004 campaign, when it wasn’t IMMEDIATELY obvious who was going to win the Democratic primary, Bob Schieffer goes on Imus, and says there’s a 50/50 chance there’s going to be a brokered convention, and Hillary will get the nomination. I sent him an e-mail, and respectfully said his idea was absurd, and that there’s a difference between thinking something is going to happen, and WANTING something to happen. To his credit, he did answer me back, with an innocuous acknowledgement.
That’s one of my pet peeves during the primary season. The news media thinks it would be so fun for there to be a brokered convention, that everytime there’s not a clear winner, they start talking it up. I don’t know if this’ll come up again this year, but if it does, you’ll know there will be at least one person out there seething at their lack of objectivity.
asc85 on December 3, 2007 at 8:16 PM
Thanks, Bob. Now go take two Geritol and put on the Lawrence Welk.
Black Adam on December 3, 2007 at 8:20 PM
Lame
SouthernGent on December 3, 2007 at 8:46 PM
Old. Stupid. Leftist. Irrelevant.
Jaibones on December 3, 2007 at 9:10 PM
Bob Schieffer…
The perfect face for Old Media.
eanax on December 3, 2007 at 10:35 PM
Bad news = good
Good news = bad.
Headlines from Baghdad 2014:
Iraq Parents Outraged
Thousands of Baghdad students today are forced to use textbooks from 2006. Democrats say GOP Secretary of Education
should resign.
12 Killed On Bus
12 innocent Iraqi citizens were killed today when an airport bus crashed on the Bush Freeway north of Baghdad. Horrified witnesses said the bus hit a donkey, an ongoing crisis that the administration seems unable to deal with. “Guillian said he was going to take care of these asses last year and they are still wandering all over the country side”, said Senator Clinton. “We’ve wasted millions on the Iraq infrastructure and this is proof we need to get our workers out. Now”
DisneyIraq Construction Threatned.
Democrats today called for impeachment of President Guilliani over questionable construction loans for the DisneyIraq theme park.
Senator Clinton: Impeach Traffic Czar
Senator Clinton stated today in a hastely called new conference that Presidents Guilliani’s Trasportation Czar should be tried for manslaughter over last week’s Bagdad Bus Crash.
Rod on December 3, 2007 at 10:41 PM
Is he still alive or, just propped up against a TV screen to give his weekly “wisdom”…
Babs on December 4, 2007 at 12:35 AM
If Schieffer wants to complain about a government not meeting goals and accomplishing anything, he needs look no farther than our democrat controlled houses of congress.
Talk about your underachievers, sheesh!
leanright on December 4, 2007 at 2:24 PM
Excellent post, Bryan… (as usual).
MsUnderestimated on December 4, 2007 at 8:30 PM
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