When the facts don’t fit the politics

Both Greyhawk of Mudville Gazaette and Dave in Texas of Ace of Spades noticed some creative editing from CNN’s online staff in regards to some eyewitness interviews about the events at the shooting last week in Fort Hood.

Pvt Joseph Foster is yet another soldier reporting that Nidal Hasan shouted “Allah Akbar” when he began firing last week – but Foster made the mistake of saying it on CNN:

Roberts: So the first moments of Thursday afternoon, can you tell our viewers, you know, where you were, what happened, how it all unfolded?

Foster: I was sitting in what they call station 13, it’s where we get, basically, our final outs of our RSP (ph) system and I was sitting in about the second row back when the assailant stood up, screamed and yelled Allah Akbar (ph) in Arabic and he opened fire.

Foster was not only there, not only sitting in the second row – he was one of those wounded in the attack. But two minutes later in the interview, Foster would try to downplay Roberts’ implication that he was a hero:

ROBERTS: So you were acting like a soldier. You were acting heroically. We should point out that you’re with the 20th Engineer Battalion and despite your best efforts and I guess the efforts of your comrades, as well, four members of the battalion were killed, 10 others were injured. And you were shot in the hip and you didn’t realize it at the time?

Foster: I had realized it at first, but with that much adrenaline, you tend to forget things.

Greyhawk mentions that CNN has since removed the article and replaced it, but the facts remain. The media would rather that this be about the “nutty GI” than the “nutty jihadist” and they’ll rearrange the facts to arrive at that conclusion.

I stand by my “pussy pogue” theory, but even to accept that theory, a person has to accept the cultural influences that pushed Hasan to his dastardly deed.

The media influences on this story have been apparent since it broke and that’s why TAH posted Hasan’s ORB – the media was pushing the “mutliple tours” story, and we decided that we needed to nip that in the bud. Within five minutes after I emailed it to the Fox News director, Shep Smith quit pushing it.

Category: Media