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Saturday, March 29, 2008

While I Was Away


"Attention all passengers on the sundeck- be on the lookout for sniper fire"


This past week, I was off on a cruise to Mexico with my wife. I won't bore you with the cruise details, but I did manage to keep up with current events on the cabin TV. That was the good news. The bad news is that all I had was CNN, CNN Spanish and CNN International. That meant I had to get the liberal, Democratic slant on everything.

And the sports news! (CNN International) Check this out:

"Sri Lanka in command in opening test"
"Sidebottom fires England with 7 wickets"

As for the political news, I was able to learn that Hillary got caught with her foot in her mouth talking about braving sniper fire in Bosnia. (I will deal with that in my next posting.)

* No sooner did I hear that news than our ship struck an iceberg off the coast of Mexico. With a couple of other passengers, I managed to go below the hull and seal the leak-after getting all the passengers into life boats as a precaution. In the end, we were able to continue our journey.

But I digress. Once I got back into our cabin, I continued to follow the Clinton BS controversy. Of course, CNN's panel of liberal Democrats tried to downplay the incident. Candy Crowley dismissed it as no biggie, as did the "Anonymous" author, Joe Klein. Lanny Davis called it an "honest mistake". Yeah right, Lanny- just like when John Dillinger robbed those banks-that was an honest mistake too. Just like when Bill got caught with Monica-a lapse of judgement I think he termed it. Poor Anderson Cooper kept wondering why he had to report this story-as well as the Jeremiah Wright story.

* Then our ship was attacked by pirates about 10 knots off Acapulco. Me and a couple of other passengers grabbed our rifles and drove them off.

But I digress. Once we got things back to normal, I watched a couple of episodes of Larry King on Life Support. Interviews with Katie Couric, the widow of John Ritter, whose name escapes me-and of course, the big interview with Barack Obama (a re-run). It was the usual Larry King fare, only with re-runs and more re-runs ("That's why I wrote this book, Larry.")

Then there was the CNN presentation of "Shock and Awe", a hit piece on the Iraq War featuring their anti-American correspondents, Michael Ware and Nic Robertson. Ware described how he was with Baathist fighters when it was announced that Saddam Hussein had been captured. He described their heartbreak and sadness at the terrible news. He also recounted the battle of Fallujah, describing how heroic the resistance of our enemy was-a true inspiration to the Islamic world.

* After Apapulco, we arrived at Zihuatenejo (under a hail of sniper fire). Unperturbed, I walked ashore and proceeded to buy a couple of souvenirs before enjoying a Bohemia or two. Then back to the boat (past the same snipers).

But I digress. On a serious note, one of the highlights of the cruise was an informal event whereby veterans and active duty military could get together and chat. There were three generations of veterans present: one WW2 vet who participated in the Battle of the Bulge and the taking of the Bridge at Remagen, a few Viet Nam vets/Viet Nam era vets, and 6 active duty folks, including two young ladies. All were Iraq vets. It was an honor to meet these fine young men and women and tell them how much we appreciate their sacrifices. Since they were active duty and Iraq veterans, they got the most questions. Of course, they had to speak carefully about anything that smacked of policy, but they were unanimous that the news media was not reporting things accurately.

So that was it. The wife and I made it home alive. Now I can turn on Fox News and my "Hate Radio" shows and find out what really happened while I was away.

PS- I wonder how many "Worst Person in the World" awards Bill O'Reilly got from Krazy Keith Olbermann last week.

* (BS)

3 comments:

Lance Christian Johnson said...

Find out what "really happened" from Fox News? Surely you jest! (Which isn't a defense of CNN, by the way. One lump of BS does not negate the BS of the other.)

Gary Fouse said...

I knew that would get a rise out of you, Lance.

Actually, my main complaint, though not stated , was that I did not have a choice of channels-and viewpoints.

Lance Christian Johnson said...

Drat! I'm getting predictable!

Fair enough.