From Jonah Goldberg at the National Review:
I was reading through a very interesting discussion at Instapundit on how the media is obsessed with Abu Ghraib, while Americans are concerned with Nick Berg — and it got me thinking…. when I look at the coverage — or lack thereof — of Nick Berg’s murder versus the coverage of Abu Ghraib, I can’t help but shake the feeling that the American press thinks Arabs are savages and therefore it’s not a big deal — or a good idea — to remind Americans of that fact.
This accusation is maddening on so many levels, and a continuation of Bush’s implication that critics of the war are racist. And for prominent conservative bloggers to be livid at too little coverage just 24 hours after the complaint was of too much coverage (see Kevin Drum on this) adds a layer of surreality. But the most maddening thing about this rhetoric is its assertion that we need to choose between being concerned with Abu Ghraib photos and the Nick Berg photos/video. They’re both horrible events that have shaken the nation collectively, even if the symbolic resonances and political implications of each differ. Beyond the political valence, surely the general public is bothered by both.
In fact, the right’s denial of the seriousness of Abu Ghraib - and let me just acknowledge that more thoughtful conservatives like David Brooks and Andrew Sullivan have taken the torture photos seriously - points to a pattern of rash political rhetoric on their part lately.
Take the outcry over Dateline’s naming of fallen American soldiers. The PBS NewsHour runs its Honor Roll every night, in essentially the same format, and it’s quite effective and touching. Yet the conservatives complaining argued themselves into a corner: the implication was that they were so concerned about polls in support of the war and the President that they wanted no national recognition of the individual lives, no matter how well done, since bad news was biased.
Similarly, they can only impute ill will to the airing and discussion of the Abu Ghraib photos. The media is biased, they say, determined to undermine the Iraq project. Liberals are seeking narrow pot shots at the President and Rumsfeld. But the more they complain of media bias on this, the more callous they look. People are disheartened by the photos. They’re sickened by the actions shown. They’re shocked by the surreal sexuality of them. They’re aware. They don’t know what to make of those smiles - gleeful and discongruous. The actions don’t represent what’s in almost all Americans’ hearts, to be sure. If they did there would be no outrage over them whatsoever. But they do coalesce a conflicted symbolism of occupation gone wrong, as Josh Marshall puts it an unwitting “parody of Chomskian screeds against American villainy.”
This is all nothing new. I just can’t believe that after all the lectures on moral clarity that so many - thankfully, not all - conservatives and GOP politicians are so tone deaf on this. This is not about keeping score or counting air time of atrocity coverage.
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