Saturday, October 1, 2016

Clinton, Johnson, and media hypocrisy

The media's hypocrisy on Gary Johnson - CNN.com - Matt Welch:

September 30, 2016 - "Two weeks ago, the foreign affairs select committee of the British House of Commons released a detailed, damning report about one of Hillary Clinton's signature achievements as secretary of state: The 2011 US/UK/French-led military intervention into Moammar Gadhafi's Libya....

"'This policy,' the conservative-led committee concluded, 'was not informed by accurate intelligence. In particular, the [British] Government failed to identify that the threat to civilians was overstated and that the rebels included a significant Islamist element.... The result was political and economic collapse, inter-militia and inter-tribal warfare, humanitarian and migrant crises, widespread human rights violations, the spread of (Gadhafi) regime weapons across the region and the growth of ISIL in North Africa'....

"Aside from a handful of mostly ideological outlets, the US news media declined to even note that the Democratic presidential nominee suffered a comprehensive rebuke to her oft-repeated assertion that Libya represented American 'smart power at its best'....

"Ah, yes, but did you hear the one about Gary Johnson not being able to come up on the spot with the name of his favorite foreign leader? Disqualifying! And also, oddly, nearly ubiquitous in the same media that couldn't be bothered to reexamine a Hillary Clinton policy that has adversely affected countless human lives.

"We have come to expect a certain unseriousness from a press corps that spent several weeks in 2012 snickering over Mitt Romney's 'binders full of women.'

"What's new this time around is the add-on concern-trolling aimed at those of us who have no intention of voting for either of the most hated of modern major-party presidential nominees. It must be so hard for you, our well-meaning friends say, that your candidate turned out to be such a flake.

"I have no problem saying the Libertarian Party nominee screwed up in this or any other interview. But if there's anything more obnoxious than cheerleaders for Donald 'bomb-the-sh—out-of-ISIS' Trump mocking Johnson for foreign-policy ignorance, it's supporters and enablers of Hillary Clinton rolling their eyes theatrically at a presidential candidate who was against the Iraq and Libyan wars in real time, who wants to pardon rather than imprison Edward Snowden, and who comports himself with occasionally awkward humility rather than with the polished and delusional omniscience that we've unfortunately come to demand in our presidential candidates."

Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2016/09/30/opinions/hypocrisy-about-gary-johnson-welch/
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