The Best Defense is a Good Offense...Oprah and Frank

I watched Oprah Winfrey's townhall show today. She had just read Frank Rich's book "The Greatest Story Ever Sold" and had him on as a guest for a townhall show. Frank works for the New York Times... one of the largest left biased papers in the US. Frank however states he is not "left" but has some "liberal views"... yeah, whatever Frank.

So, here is my take on the show. When I first started watching and saw the Frank was the main guest and the title of the book, I thought: "Oh no, another propaganda show by the media to push their left agenda". I just about turned it off because I get enough of this in the media. To my surprise, there was intelligent conversation going on. Bear with me here. It was a relief to my blood pressure levels when Oprah ran a very fair and balanced show. To balance the left spin from the guest, as a townhall, the audience participated. Although Oprah asked Americans to question whether there is critical thinking and why people aren't informed, it was apparent that many in the audience were well informed and critical thinkers. Chalk one up against Frank Rich because I guess the idea was, if they agree with the government instead of the MSM, people must not be informed or critical thinkers. The audience proved them wrong.

Frank began his spiel with the whole idea that the government "sold" America on the Iraq war by misinforming them about WMD's and misinforming America that Iraq needed to be attacked as they were responsible for 9/11. Lo and behold, thanks again to the audience and Oprah's questions, when Oprah asked the audience if they believed at the time they went to war with Iraq that Saddam and Iraq were responsible for 9/11, a huge majority of the audience did not believe Sadam and Iraq were responsible. Then Oprah asked if people had heard that Saddam was involved with Al Qaeda in the media. Again, an overwhelming majority agreed they had heard in the media that this was true. To top it off, it was agreed that the Bush administration had not said that Iraq had caused 9/11, but Frank stated that he "suggested" this by mentioning them in the same sentence sometimes, by innuendo etc. So, lets recap: Frank Rich states that Bush "sold" America by "mindmelding" (as one audience member said) and innuendo, the audience all agreed they heard from the media that Iraq was involved in 9/11, yet overwhelmingly the audience did not BELIEVE at the time that Saddam and Iraq had anything to do with 9/11. Hmmmm... sounds to me like critical thinking and being informed regardless of the media, innuendos, etc. Kind of blows the theory and his book to smithereens.

He also says that Bush scared people about WMDs and threats of a "mushroom" cloud. This is another issue and I, personally, still believe there were and they were hidden or moved to Syria. He states that Hans Blix said that Saddam was "starting to cooperate" when Bush started the war. I say, this is after 19 UN sanctions were still being thwarted by Saddam. As one audience member pointed out "what is a country to do". I agreed with this audience member. The funny thing is that Oprah just showed a program about the danger of North Korea yesterday and the scary fact that they now have nuclear capabilities. The rest of the world are in a quandary and NK is threatening the US now that it has them. Much of the US is calling for some sort of action and lamenting previous inaction. I believe Iraq could have been NK if left to their devices. Anyway, I will continue with the show...

Frank Rich proceeded to say that the media misleads and focuses on the "fireworks" of bombs going off but do not show the horror of bombs being dropped on families, etc. He talked about how they instead show a small group of Iraqis bringing down Saddam's statue for hours and that Iraqis had not truly welcomed the invasion. Again, thank heavens for the audience. Immediately, two different audience members (one a soldier who had been in Iraq and one whose cousin had served in Iraq) agreed with Frank that the media definitely misinforms. They talked about how the media focuses on the blood and the bad but never tells the stories of how over and over again, Iraqis thank the American soldiers in Iraq. They state that the media never shows all the gratefulness of many Iraqis and the positive and rebuilding going on and kids going back to school. Hmmmm.... blows Frank's theory again. On the other hand, another soldier did stand up and say some soldiers were confused.

I could go on but suffice it to say, it was illuminating. The audience was asked if they believed the media. Again, an overwhelming majority do not believe the media. Here is my opinion: the media have been overwhelmingly biased in their reporting and have been getting "bad press", particularly papers like the New York Times for pushing their agenda into stories instead of reporting the facts and a balanced approach to let readers and viewers make up their mind. Frank proceeds to write a book with the basic premise that people are believing misinformation on:

1. "suggestions" and "innuendos" from the government.
   
2. the positive slant on Iraq from media
3. are not critical thinkers and not informing themselves

Well, according to the Oprah audience at least, in an overwhelming majority, they:

1. did not believe the "suggestions" from the government
2. believe there is a much more negative slant from the media on Iraq than the reality and don't believe the media in general
   
3. are critical thinkers and trying to inform themselves
   

If the Oprah audience is any indication, Frank Rich is an idiot. Again, Kudos to Oprah for letting the audience speak. She congratulated Frank for being courageous. Yeah right.... perhaps if he was in Iraq or North Korea. In the US and Canada, it is just business as usual for the leftist main stream media.