Imagine my surprise when I got this in my e-mail:
The truth trickles out. “It now appears that the premise of the question that caused an uproar around Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was, so to speak, off base,” FNC’s Brit Hume noted Tuesday night in reminding viewers how two weeks ago National Guardsman “Thomas Wilson said to Rumsfeld, quote, ‘our vehicles are not armored, we do not have proper armament vehicles to carry with us north,’ into Iraq.” But, Hume relayed, “according to senior Army officers, about 800 of the 830 vehicles in Wilson’s Army regiment, the 278th Calvary, had already been up-armored” at the time of his widely publicized question. Some Hearst newspapers reported that fact last week and since then it has trickled up the media stream into NewsMax, the Washington Times and FNC, but not the other networks or major newspapers.
Wow. And you know what? I got this yesterday. Since I got this I have heard…
Wait for it…
Wait for it…
ZERO corrections, clarifications, or explanations.
We all know the Humvees aren’t as armored as they should be, and we should be doing more to fix the problem. Apparently, however, we are doing more, including to the unit of PFC Wilson, whose heart wrenching question warranted one of the most assinine responses any politician has ever given ever.
Maybe it was a twinge of anger I felt when I went off on Rumsfeld. Maybe hearing the soldier ask a very simple question and getting a flippant, stupid answer set me off. Maybe I knew the problem all along existed and was tired of ignoring it. Hell, I even ignored that the question was planted, because I figured the cheering soldiers, all 2300 of them, knew that the question was a true one.
Apparently, it isn’t necessarily as bad as it was made out to be.
Most of the Humvees in Wilson’s unit had already been up-armored at the time he asked the question. Apparently, at the time he asked it, Wilson most likely wasn’t digging for anything to armor his vehicle:
“According to the Maryville, Tenn., Daily Times — a rival to Pitts’ paper — Army Maj. Gen. Stephen Speakes and Army Brig. Gen. Jeffrey Sorenson said during last week’s Pentagon briefing that routine pre-deployment preparations before proceeding to Iraq included adding protective armor plates to the last 20 vehicles of the Tennessee-based 278th Regimental Combat Team’s 830 vehicles.
“‘When the question was asked, 20 vehicles remained to be up-armored at that point,’ Gen. Speakes said, in comments completely ignored by the major media.
“‘We completed those 20 vehicles in the next day,’ he said. ‘In other words, we completed all the armoring within 24 hours of the time the question was asked,’ Gen. Speakes added.
“The eye-opening revelations by Gen. Speakes and Gen. Sorenson first gained national exposure on FreeRepublic.com late Friday.”
Wow. So Hearst Newspapers, Fox News Channel, and the Washington Times found the story newsworthy, but Dan Rather, who went to bat with tenuous memoes fabricated by DNC operatives didn’t think he had enough evidence to put this story out there.
I’ve been flip flopping lately on what I think of the media; whether I think their bias is intentional or laziness, and I think I’ve come to a conclusion. Their bias is the result of intentional laziness. The original story was all over the media. It set off a firestorm of emotion. It sent me into a frothing rage the likes of which I haven’t been in in years.
Why?
Because I believed what I saw and heard, and that was stupid, because of all things I should know better than to trust anything the media says about anything.
I guess you watch and read the media you have not the media you wish you had…
So tonight I eat crow…
Geoffrey, Chet, Gordon and Dave: Sorry…
Donald Rumsfeld: I’m not exactly thrilled with the fact that soldiers went to war without enough armor, and that they still aren’t all armored, and I haven’t agreed with every move you make, but that in itself is not enough of a reason for me to go off on you. I apologize.
I’m not perfect, and I readily admit that my anger was based almost totally on emotion. That isn’t a smart way to think when you’re in the public eye like I am.
I’d still like to see armor on every single Humvee that’s in the field in Iraq and see our soldiers get the best protection available, but it’s apparent that at least the issue isn’t being ignored, and seeing as there’s no way of going back in time, that’s as much as I’m comfortable asking for right now.
Also, seeing as this is the Christmas season, maybe you can find it in your heart to donate to Soldiers Angels. Couldn’t hurt, right?