The coverage of Ted Kennedy’s death is preventing the claims of Mohammed Jawad from getting wider media coverage in the US. Jawad states that he was sent to Guantanamo at the tender age of 12:
In December 2002, when he says he was only 12, he was arrested on suspicion of throwing a grenade into a Jeep carrying US special forces soldiers through Kabul, wounding two of them and an interpreter. He was taken first to an airbase north of Kabul, then to the US prison in Guantánamo Bay…
He has a bit of a credibility problem though – he claims his father died in the 1980s while fighting the Soviets, and the Pentagon claims that bone scans indicate he was 18 when arrested.
According to the article he’s a minor celebrity in Afghanistan, but he’ll have a hard time getting broad-based sympathy in the US. A recent Gallup Poll reported that 45% of Americans favor keeping Guantanamo open:
President Obama’s most loyal supporters — Democrats and liberals — do lean decisively toward closing the U.S. prison there. But Americans overall do not express such a clear preference, and in fact are more likely to prefer keeping the prison open.
Closing Gitmo would further alienate a broad segment of voters that Obama needs if he is to salvage his presidency. The groups that want to pressure the US to close it need to do a lot better than this obvious falsehood if they expect to change US public opinion and get President Obama to act.
No wonder their programs are consistently last in the ratings. Maybe they know their target demographic and are content to appeal only to moonbats. I’m sure GE’s shareholders must be thrilled with the performance of this business unit.
Update:Allahpundit at Hot Air makes this point about MSNBC’s round-the-clock commitment to the truth:
For all the well-deserved heat that MSNBC’s primetime line-up has taken for its demagoguery — Maddow has been notably egregious during the health-care blowup — this proves that they’re not above pulling this crap during their daytime “hard news” segments either.
When you’re done with the clip, scroll through the new photo gallery Zombie’s put together of the many, many, many “Kill Bush” signs at leftist protests over the past eight years. Thank goodness outlets like MSNBC and the Huffington Post took such “blunt, no-argument stances” against that sort of insanity at the time.
Congressional democrats are almost frozen like a deer in headghts. In his Washington Examiner column Democrats flummoxed by health care protests, Michael Barone describes the condescending attitude among Congressional leaders pushing health-care reform. Referring to USA Today op-ed by By Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer that includes the sentence “Health care is complex,” Barone writes:
To paraphrase another common saying: It’s a complex thing; you wouldn’t understand. You should listen docilely and take instruction from your betters. Or as Senator Clair McCaskill said at the beginning of a town hall meeting in Poplar Bluff, Missouri today (I was listening to the audio while preparing to appear on Fox News, asking members of the audience, “How many of you are so angry you can’t think straight?” The condescending implication is that if you could think straight, you’d support my position. Or recall what Barack Obama said campaigning in Virginia August 6: “I don’t want the folks who created the mess to do a lot of talking. I want them just to get out of the way so we can clean up the mess.”
As Ring Lardner once wrote, describing a flummoxed father. “’Shut up,’ he explained.”
They really do think we’re incapable of understanding the issues, so they cling to the ridiculous myth that the protests are un-American, hoping their friends in the media will pick up the message and use it to calm the disturbed public. Barone suggests it won’t work this time:
The Democrats are spoiled because they are used to a mainstream media who spin things their way and a general public whose only expressions of spontaneous enthusiasm in 2006-08 were opposition to (if not hatred of) George W. Bush and support of Barack Obama and other Democratic candidates. Now the spontaneous enthusiasm is all on the other side, with the Democratic astroturf efforts producing pathetic turnouts and largely spontaneous opposition to the Democratic health care plans producing large turnouts.
Is there a graceful way out for congressional democrats and the president? You can bet they are looking for some means of saving face. Maybe a watered-down bill with some reforms, either without the public option or one that is curtailed. One thing is for sure – the desire to be re-elected will trump any policy initiative.
I think it’s increasingly accepted by most conservatives that the President meets the birthplace requirements stated in the US Constitution.
So who stands to gain from perpetuating the story? Liberal bloggers of course. A liberal blogger has posted an on-line video featuring interviews with multiple Republican (of course!) congressman regarding Obama’s citizenship. According to Jillian Bandes : Liberal Bloggers Perpetuate Birther Conspiracy, the usual far-left “Obama-puppets” have once again have resorted to twisting the statements of those with whom they disagree:
For example, Rep. Dave Reichert (R-Was.) was put in the video for 25 seconds, giving an unclear answer to the question posed by Stark as to whether or not Obama is a citizen.
“If we’re in America and we are free, and we allow people to say – I mean, people stand on the sidewalk, and this gentleman gets to show” – Reichert gestured towards a protester on the sidewalk where the filming was taking place – “gets to stand for what he believes in in the way he decides to, because we’re in America.”
However, Stark’s unedited interview with Reichert lasted almost 5 minutes, during which he gave a definitive answer as to whether or not he believes Obama is a citizen: “I believe he is, because I haven’t seen any proof that says that he’s not.”
Once again, the far left displays their intellectual dishonesty. Only people who are unsure of their positions and can’t argue rationally need to engage in high-school trickery like this.
These groups use strategic camera shots, a largely disinterested local press looking for local color, and a general lack of counter-protesters to come across as more powerful and effectual than they actually are. Right now they can get away with getting twenty people out to a local event and calling it “grassroots activism.” Make it clear that they’re ridiculously outnumbered, and they’ll have to start spending more and more resources to accomplish their goals, such as they are.
He’s absolutely right: Groups such as ACORN and their thinly veiled fronts (like Act Now) effectively exploit local media. Speaking of which, the NY Gathering of Eagles successfully demonstrated the rules’ effectiveness in Commack, NY.
Time to deliver some well-deserved verbal smackdowns and to counter the effects of lies and agitprop.