Today I heard Chris Matthews say about the first Russian bombing raids in Syria, "They're bombing the good guys." I listened to his program for a couple years in the afternoons when there wasn't anything interesting to me on C-Span, until I couldn't bear to hear his ignorance on "my" issues. Now he declares the Nusra Front, an Al-Qaida offshoot, allegiance sworn, and Ahrar-as-Shams are "good guys." How is that not support for terrorism?
I didn't expect the same from Ph.D. Rachel, but she's hopped on the bullshit bandwagon without a fare-thee-well in regards to Syria and Iran, for some time now. She sometimes issues corrections, but never about the obvious mistakes and preconceived narratives for Middle East matters.
The Pentagon whispers in her ear and she puts it on the air. Often, as today, a diligent amount of research would have turned up some large holes in her so-called reporting.
Examples from tonight's program: the faux contempt that the U.S. military has been bombing terrorists in Syria for a year and the Russians are late to the party. Perhaps she was unaware that we and the others were not invited in but the Russians were. Minimally, she or her staff could have looked at the headlines in Google News. Perhaps if they'd clicked on a few articles, that simple fact would have become clear.
Perhaps it didn't occur to her that the U.S. doesn't get to choose targets for the Russians.
Perhaps it didn't occur to her that the U.S. drones can see the convoys of terrorists moving towards Damascus, and saw them moving towards the ancient Palmyra, but somehow forget to send target data to our bombs.
Does she really believe our lack of success is because the lousy Syrian dictator won't give up power?
I watch her show, have done since the beginning and whilst she subbed for Keith Olbermann. I will continue to watch her show because she covers D.C. politics from a progressive POV and I'm interested in that, but I'm not just going to growl at the tube all the time when I hear rubbish.
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