5 of the Worst Pundits Spreading Propaganda About the Middle East

[xchrom]

http://www.alternet.org/media/5-worst-pundits-spreading-propaganda-about-middle-east


Bill Kristol, a top neoconservative.
Photo Credit: Gage Skidmore/Wikimedia Commons

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1. Bill Kristol. The neoconservative scion and 2003 Iraq war booster—who is editor of the Weekly Standard, and a frequent TV pundit on Fox and ABC—is back at it again. Mainstream television networks are all too happy to hear what Kristol has to say, despite his role in constructing the intellectual scaffolding that led to the U.S. war.

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2. Paul Wolfowitz. Bill Kristol isn’t the only neoconservative Iraq war booster to get air time in recent weeks. Wolfowitz, as deputy secretary of defense under Donald Rumsfeld, was a key architect of the war. Wi th Iraq in crisis, news outlets have had Wolfowitz on repeatedly, despite his direct role in the mess. On June 15, NBC's “Meet the Press” had him on, with Wolfowitz claiming a U.S. troop presence would have prevented the Iraq violence. On June 24, he was on Fox News, where both he and host Brian Kilmeade referred to ISIL as Al Qaeda. In fact, Al Qaeda has disavowed ISIL for being too extreme. Wolfowitz also suggested that the U.S. should intervene more in Syria, where ISIL has also seized territory.

3. Michael Crowley. On June 19, Time magazine’s cover story, “The End of Iraq,” was published. Crowley, a foreign affairs correspondent for the magazine, set out to explain the roots of the fighting in Iraq. But as Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting’s Peter Hart pointed out, Crowley’s piece obscured more than it explained.

4. Wolf Blitzer. The bearded, bespectacled CNN host of the "Situation Room" has been on top of the recent crises in the Middle East. But he’s had on the people who got Iraq wrong--and has also framed fighting in the country as a blow to the U.S., rather than a byproduct of wrongheaded U.S. policy.

[malaise]

1. Good read

Scumbags all

[xchrom]

2. indeed. nt

[Arkansas Granny]

3. I just knew that Kristol would top the list.

[KG]

4. kristol needs to be punched in the face, hard and frequently