Rumsfeld Blasts Media

This is overdue, and should continue fervently. In a speech yesterday the Defense Secretary lambasted the Old Media for wanting to believe any bad news about America in the War on Terror, whether its true or not, and whatever the consequences to the nation:

Rumsfeld, speaking at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University's campus here Dec. 5, said troops frequently ask him why the American people aren't getting a more accurate picture of what's happening in Iraq. They question why violence seems to get the heaviest coverage, while "good news" stories about successes tend to go unreported...

"We've arrived at a strange time in this country, where the worst about America and our military seems to so quickly be taken as truth by the press and reported and spread around the world," the secretary said...

Rumsfeld cited the recent example of the widespread media coverage of two Iraqis' claims that U.S. soldiers had attacked them with lions. These claims are still without substantiation, he said.
In May, rioting and several deaths resulted from what Rumsfeld called "a false and damaging" news story about a Koran being flushed down a toilet at the detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. In yet another instance, a recent New York Times editorial implied that the U.S. armed forces were using tactics Rumsfeld called "reminiscent of Saddam Hussein."

Read the whole thing and judge for yourself, but I believe most Americans agree the press is out of control and hurting the war effort.