Ricks on Fox
Oops, I forgot to thank Valerie for the link.
Yesterday, Washington Post’s Thomas Ricks was on Fox News to talk about the deaths of four Americans at the Benghazi consulate, but instead he decided to make his appearance about the only network who has had the testicular fortitude to report to Americans about those deaths and the circumstances that resulted in those deaths.
The UK’s Daily Mail says that Rick’s appearance was cut short because of his verbal attacks on Fox News, the network he was on;
Ricks, a respected journalist who has won two Pulitzer Prizes, responded that few people knew how many U.S. security contractors were killed in Iraq and compared that to the attention paid to ‘what was essentially a small firefight’ in Libya.
‘I think that the emphasis on Benghazi has been extremely political, partly because Fox was operating as a wing of the Republican Party,’ Ricks said.
Yeah, given the current crop of Pulitzer awardees, I don’t think that gives him much credibility. During the interview, Ricks says that he’s “covered” numerous firefights. What he fails to mention is that he’s covered those firefights after they were over and from afar – he’s never heard a shot fired in anger. As I pointed out once before, Ricks has absolutely no military experience beyond his reportage. He’s so inexperienced that he has called for the return of a draft. He once put Kayla Williams’ book “Love My Rifle More Than You”, a book based on her experiences as a promiscuous female soldier, on the same level as David Belavia’s House to House.
Says Fox News;
‘When Mr. Ricks ignored the anchor’s question, it became clear that his goal was to bring attention to himself and his book,’ Fox News executive Michael Clemente said.
There have been a few times that my participation in an interview was abbreviated when it was clear to the interviewer that I wasn’t going to say what they wanted me to say. So, it’s not a rare practice. But, then, I never attacked the network I was on as a wing of any particular party.
If Ricks had any respect for the profession of journalism, such as is it these days, he’d recognize that Fox News is informing the public, and just because that reportage makes Ricks’ political party uncomfortable, that doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s biased. Wasn’t it Hillary Clinton who said that Fox was the fairest of the networks when they were covering the 2008 Democrat primaries?
Ricks also makes a quixotic comparison of the contractors killed in Iraq to the four Americans killed in Benghazi. As if one had something to do with the other. The American contractors killed in Iraq were killed in an actual war. The Americans killed in Benghazi were killed in our consulate, ostensibly US territory, not during a war. Their deaths were a result of failed security planning.
When Ricks said “Nobody cares” about the contractors in Iraq, he’s insinuating that Fox News doesn’t care because the deaths happened under the Bush Administration. But there was a war and although tragic, they weren’t killed by any failures of security planning by the Bush Administration – and the Bush Administration didn’t try to cover up the facts surrounding the deaths. Unlike the Benghazi deaths.
By the way, I talked to someone who works at Landstuhl Hospital in Germany this weekend where all of the casualties from Benghazi were taken and I was told they treated more than thirty casualties – something else we never heard here in our media.
Anyway, I’m putting the video of Rick’s appearance on Fox below the jump if you’re at all interested in watching Ricks hawk his book instead of informing the public;
Category: Barack Obama/Joe Biden, Media
“If Ricks had any respect for the profession of journalism,”
I think he’s very representative of the mainstream sources of journalism.
Ricks trivialized the Benghazi incident without a doubt…though I don’t hold Fox as being any better than their competitors.
Just another Douche with his ass on his neck.
30 casualties in Benghazi (rounded down to four, because we majored in journalism, not math). Oh wait, and one of them was a SITTING UNITED STATES AMBASSADOR. Maybe that’s why Benghazi’s a big deal? Maybe that’s why we need answers?
How many ambassadors have been killed in Iraq along with those contractors “no one cares about?”
And I’m really not sure if anyone who’s ever even imagined a 7-hour firefight would call it “small.”
Meh. Douches talking to douches.
Journalism in this century (yes, I do mean century) has descended to the level that tabloids and pulp rags used to occupy.
Until that ends, until sensationalism is replaced by real in-depth reporting from an unbiased viewpoint, we’ll go on seeing the likes of self-serving people with a computer and access to the internet spouting loads of hogwash.
You know why no Ambassadors died in Iraq? Because the best (military trained) Contractors the State Department (under Bush) could find were protecting them. And many of those contractors gave their lives to keep those Diplomats safe.
Yeah, Mitt Romney’s dog Seamus was so consequential that it got more airplay and print than that nuisance story Benghazi. I mean “only” 4 Americans got rubbed out and first diplomat since’79…yawn. Priorities are in order…dog getting stuck on car roof & GOP VP candidate’s daughter getting banged & prego’d far more consequential in the world of lear jet over “flyover country” liberals like Tom. Of course if Benghazi happened on Bush’s watch, Tom Ricks would be pounding the table screaming coverup, investigate, impeach.
Isn’t Tom curious about how many different versions of Benghazi incident had been trotted out by this administration, only to be walked back? About who wrote the talking points for Susan Rice? Where is the alleged video recording from the drone flying overhead during the incident?
Where is the execute order from BO to the SECDEF & CJCS? Little stuff like that…
Straight from MSN: MSNBC more biased than Fox News according to Pew
http://now.msn.com/msnbc-more-biased-than-fox-news-according-to-pew-research-center-study
Journalism as a job that looks at the world and writes what is seen without varnish or bias is a myth.
Journalism has never been about Truth, Justice, and the American Way. Oh sure, kids were sold that pablum when Nixon flew away from the WH, but Journalists then and now simply saw the results of exercising power.
Thomas Ricks couldn’t work at the WAPO if he wasn’t 100% Establishment. He’s not about truth in any form, he’s about selling his employer’s product, and where possible his own dreck.
Time to call Journalism what it is in a language we understand: Information Operations.
I am pretty sure those 4 contractors deaths were part of the reason we engaged in the heaviest urban combat since Hue City.
What I’d love to know is when’s the last time a conservative of any strip has been allowed on MSNBC, and then claimed that the network in question is a propaganda arm of the DNC?
Sauce, goose, shit like that.
And I’m sure the families of those four dead and thirty wounded would like to cheerfully kick Mr. Ricks in the nuts for trivializing what they and their loved ones went through.
You had better coverage in SEA. You can thank the embedded crap DoD pulled. the O-7s and up won.
Yeah, Fox is the problem Turn off MSNBC and slowley back away
Besides the obvious of an Ambassador getting killed the question I have about this is why no support was given once it was learned that the attack was ongoing.
Other contractors have been in firefights and I know of at least one where naval gunfire support was called in to cover a withdrawal, which is practically unheard of in this day and age.
So either the Admin denied support or is completely out of their league. I want to know which.
Edward…as I’ve said before, why either/or when they’ve demonstrated both?
“Ricks, a respected journalist”?? By who? The DNC?
I have to go along with Sparky, in #15, it’s both, it sure isn’t either/or.
Yeah that liberal media has to go, I mean remember all those liberal poll results they had before the election and Nate Silvers liberal 538 blog? I mean they were only 99% right and those guys on Fox News completely nailed the election results when they called a landslide..
What a surprise Lilyea rushing to defend FOX News the network that tells him what to think.
I read his blog everyday. It does a good job of raising issues facing the Army. Its also liberal as hell. From defending DADTs repeal to slobbering for the continued failures of Obama. Ricks has spent zero time discussing how the drones and kill instead of capture is hurting us in Af/PAk…but he sure as hell jumped in with both boots when he wrote off Iraq in “Fiasco”. He blasts Fox continually so they knew what they were getting. He thinks he’s cool because he knows some guys in the Pentagon that leak him shit. They think they’re cool because they know Ricks. I’m glad that prick got some negative air here.
I like how that fat fuck made it sound like he was on the ground covering firefights…
He’s gotten worse as he gets older. His blog “Best Defense” does a good job of highlighting issues within the services but any chance to slant things for Obama, he does.
F–k that guy.
What is worse than giving this hack a Pulitzer is how he has seemingly become Professor Emeritus at the Pritzker Military Library. Everytime authors speak at the Library about their latest tome and it’s on CSPAN, there is Ricks hogging their ait time talking about the subject he knows best, Thomas E. Ricks.
FOX News the network that tells him what to think.
Like MSNBC/CNN/ABC/CBS/NBC/NPR/NYT/WAPO/etc don’t have an agenda to push… /sarc
Tell ya what, Dude–the next time any of the above mentioned networks raise the bullshit flag on the Democrats will be the first time. Please correct me if I’m wrong, but be sure to cite specific instances, won’t you?
Ricks is a classic American Journalist, the longer they hang around the more corrupt they become. Much like the politicians they cover.
Ricks has been a low talent hack for his entire career, he quickly learned that using the Post to legitimize his weak 4ss skill set would make him a nice living. Now that he’s become a sad, irrelevant old man he’s struggling to find any means possible to remain on stage.
Tommy, it was time to go 25 years ago….now, well it’s just sad old man.
Hey, watch that “old” shit! Ricks is two days younger than me. Although he looks about ten years older.
Bottom line, Ricks is the kind of “journalist” who thinks Yon is still relevant.
Yeah, I went there, Yawnbots.
JL, if you brow a beard, you’ll look ten times smarter than Ricks.
He’s a skate and a bottom feeder. OK, OK, Sparky, I know they’re the same thing. I just felt like using both of them.
We used contractors because the entire military has been pared down to a silly level…. all the “peace dividends have done is pushed the burden of active duty war off on the Reserves and the hired contractors who fill in the gaps. Just another way to be politically correct…. hire “the help” to do the dirty work.
David: I’d have to agree in general. But I don’t think it’s based on strength concerns as much as I think it’s based on pure politics.
My impression is that the public just doesn’t seem to care as much about US civilians getting killed in a war zone as they do about those in uniform. Ergo, sending a govt civilian or contractor – though often much more costly – is also more politically palatable.
I’d love to see that changed; I’ve felt for years that if we were going to fight a war, those going should be in uniform with only rare exceptions due to unique skill requirements unavailable in uniform. But I’m not holding my breath for that to change any time soon.
I really hate the term ‘contractors’. They’re still Americans, hired by our government. Every time someone uses that term, they make it sound like they’re dirty mercenaries who don’t deserve any backup or rescue.
The four ‘contractors’ in Iraq, did they even have names? Not that I’ve heard. I did some digging and finally found their names here:
http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2007-06-10-fallujah-deaths_N.htm
An article written 3 years after their deaths.
We have almost as many contractors overseas as we do military. Just like any service is honorable, SOF or cook, contracted service is honorable and the people should be treated the same.