By Andrew Baker
I wanted to take a moment to share how displeased I am with former senator, presidential candidate, and actor Fred Thompson. According to The Admonition, a blog that touts itself on being politically incorrect (its sub-headed this way: "Political Correctness + Lack of Common Sense = Demise of This Republic") Thompson, in what appears to be some type of pod-cast, said that "the war in Afghanistan has been lost." I won't waste the precious space on the inter-web going on about Thompson's reasoning behind his claim, I've embedded the video below for the purpose of providing context to the situation. What I would instead like to focus on is two things: (1) the difference between the right to dissent and the good judgment of knowing when to keep your mouth shut, and (2) the coverage (or lack thereof) of these comments.
First of all, I don't wish to claim that Thompson was some foaming-at-the-mouth loony that supported execution and escalation of our war efforts in Viet Nam, the scope of this blog doesn't afford me that ability (read as: I'm too damn lazy to do the research). But being a Republican who grew up during the Viet Nam era should afford enough evidence to say that he was probably on the right side of the left-right Viet Nam argument that pitted an anti-war left against a right that was very concerned about winning military campaigns in Southeast Asia and protecting the region from the threat of communism. The question that I have to ask at this point is: what is the difference between how the left of the 1960's sabotaged (in a sense) our war effort in Viet Nam and the comments of Thompson today? The simple fact of having this type of sentiment being fomented damages public opinion and harms the war effort. It did in the '60s (although their tactics were more advanced) and it does today.
Secondly, why the hell isn't anyone covering this? I'll excuse the Times and Post, they tend to be late to the party on these matters. But, there is not a byte of coverage of this on Politico (at the time of draft) nor on the Huff (they seem to be too busy covering transsexual prostitutes and "Boobs and Balloons At the Victoria Secret Fashion Show"). Get with it! I can't be the only one who can smell this stinking pile of hypocrisy. Aside from the lack of coverage this has garnered thus far, I was pretty frustrated trying to source this (I usually like to source these post's with reputable journalism and good reporting). Googlenews' primary link for this is the one I provided above to The Admonition. We'll discuss the issue of how Google provides news later on today in class but I just wanted to get the first couple punches in on this issue. Prioritizing smaller outlets is absolutely a noble goal for Google to strive for but it may end up yielding a harvest of uninformed, misinformed, or opinion based content that undermines some important tenants of journalism.
P.S: Googlenews' is really struggling finding a picture of Fred Thompson to place with the link. The pic has changed twice and it still doesn't show Fred Thompson (I think they have Gordon Brown on there now).
