Dan Drezner notices an interesting surge of pro-U.S. sentiment in the far east.
BEGALA AWARD NOMINEE: “‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ describes a totalitarian future in a fundamentalist America, where young women are kept as reproductive slaves by aging patriarchs of the religious right and their barren wives, and ritually raped by both spouses. (The conceit seemed flimsy to me when the book was first published. Recent history has given it a faintly prophetic glimmer.)” – Judith Thurman, “The Wolf at the Door,” New Yorker, March 17.
THE SPIN FROM JENNINGS: A useful report from the conservative Media Research Center on the differences between ABC News’ coverage of the build-up to war with Iraq and that of CBS News and NBC. No surprise that Peter Jennings is clearly hostile to the Bush administration. But a bit of a surprise that he has had such a hard time concealing it. One simple example: a comparison between the networks’ description of the British Marxist Tony Benn’s fawning interview with Saddam Hussein:
CBS’s Bob Simon stood apart by describing Benn as “a 79-year-old British politician and lifelong left-wing activist.” NBC’s Andrea Mitchell explained Saddam “told an anti-war British politician he has no links to al-Qaeda and no illegal weapons.” But ABC tried to disguise Benn’s left-wing perspective as Peter Jennings intoned: “The Iraqi President, Saddam Hussein, has given his first television interview today, to a non-Iraqi, in 12 years. It was conducted by a former member of the British Parliament, Tony Benn, one of Britain’s most famous and outspoken politicians.” He couldn’t even identify Benn with the Labor Party, which would have informed at least the political junkies. Only late in the story did reporter Dan Harris reveal that Benn “said he conducted this interview to stop the war.”
I’m sorry to say I can’t watch Peter Jennings any more. But Nightline has been, in contrast, consistently superb.
The Dish 