The first time I heard the word "mendacity" was in
the film "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof." I loved the way Burl
Ives's character spits out the word as something vile and
unacceptable.
Unfortunately, we live in a society where untruthfulness is
routinely accepted and even mandated by politicians, union
leaders, and members of the press. New York is the headquarters
of the biggest producer of mendacity, the New York Times.
Fortunately, it's also the home of the antidote, Lucianne.com.
I pity the Americans who do not have the computer expertise to
access the exposes of lies of corrupt politicians and gullible
television anchors, biased newspaper headlines, and anything from
the Associated Press. If it were not for the Internet and
Lucianne Goldberg's Web news forum, I would never learn the truth
behind the Times headlines as pitched by the Drudge Report.
Matt Drudge, who may or may not be a willing accomplice to the
distortion of news reporting, must be held responsible for the
dissemination of the bias in the liberal press. Studies have
shown that the readership of the Times is down - as it is in
other liberal publications - and so are the television ratings of
the alphabet networks and CNN and MSNBC, while Fox News is up.
Nevertheless, the propaganda of the enemedia - an excellent
descriptive term coined by one poster to Lucianne.com - continues
to sully news coverage, thanks to Mr. Drudge. A study of press
bias by a professor of political science at the University of
California-Los Angeles, Tim Groseclose, listed the Drudge Report
as one of the most liberal sites on the Web because it
consistently posts articles from left-of-center sources.
My patience with the Drudge Report ended when I saw a photo of
Frank Rich of the Times posted on the site along with his words:
"We are losing in Iraq." It isn't too encouraging to
the morale of the nation, but posts like this are common on
Drudge.
The site gives top billing to every possible negative statement
about the Iraq war and the Bush administration, and it gets about
13 million hits a day. Is it any wonder that President Bush has
record low approval ratings?
The week before, Mr. Drudge posted a quote from the new secretary
of defense, Robert Gates: "We are not winning in Iraq."
Did he really say those words? No. At Mr. Gates's confirmation
hearing, Senator Levin, a Democrat of Michigan, asked him if we
were winning in Iraq, and he answered, "No."
Lucianne, of course, pointed out that Mr. Gates went on to say
we're not losing, either. His exact words were: "Our
military forces win the battles that they fight; our soldiers
have done an incredible job in Iraq. And I'm not aware of a
single battle that they have lost. And I didn't want my comments
to be interpreted as suggesting that they weren't being
successful in their endeavors."
Mr. Gates, you can be 100% certain that everything you say from
now on as secretary of defense will be misinterpreted by a
certain New York publication headed by Arthur "Pinch"
Sulzberger.
This is the man who in the 1960s, according to author Harry
Stein, when asked by his father whom he'd rather see shot when an
American soldier runs into a North Vietnamese soldier, replied:
"I would want to see the American get shot. It's the other
guy's country."
That statement is something Mr. Sulzberger appears to be proud
of, as he repeats it from time to time. Maybe he actually
believes that this lack of nationalistic empathy is necessary for
good journalism. I think the truth would be a better measure of
it, but the Times is continuing to put out news that is
completely mendacious, even when it's not about Mr. Bush or Iraq.
I was certain Pope Benedict XVI had given in to Muslim pressure.
Why? Because the New York Times reported this in a headline:
"In Reversal, Pope Backs Turkey's Bid to Join European
Union." Of course it was posted on the Drudge Report. Was it
true? Not according to Richard Neuhaus, the editor and founder of
First Things, a distinguished religious publication. On December
1, he wrote, "Even by today's standards, this is a
breathtaking instance of journalistic shoddiness, if not
downright dishonesty."
But mendacity pays in this town, whose residents survived the
worst attack on this country in history, yet they still can't
recognize the danger of lies in wartime if reported in the Old
Gray Lady.
My name, Alicia, means truth, so here it is. We are at war. Our
military is the best in the world and the smartest we've ever
had. Our enemies are barbaric beheaders who want us dead -
period. You cannot negotiate with them. They exist on mendacity.
You have been warned.