Howard Zinn, Iraq and the war on Big Bird

I learned something while watching the news the night America invaded Iraq for the second time. As I flipped through the channels, everyone was cheerleading the war. Of course, everyone supports the troops and will stand with their country during war. But, the reaction on TV news was a little more than that. The press had failed to challenge George W. Bush since 9/11. The media watchdog was taking a nap while a President lied the country into war. Almost nothing had been questioned and it was questioned even less once the war began.

With one exception. PBS had a news panel of three war cheerleaders who were outmatched by Howard Zinn expressing disappointment at the war of aggression. He was the one and only person on any network on any program who expressed the slightest bit of doubt that evening about whether we were doing the right thing.

When that happened I thought, "Oh no. Now the Republicans will start attacking PBS again." They did and they never let up.

I doubt that the core issue is the tiny slice of the budget used by public broadcasting. It's about the conservative ideological war against any source of education and information that doesn't mimic Fox News propaganda. It's the same reason why complaints about "liberal media bias" will never stop so long as any press outlet reports factual information that challenges the beliefs of talk-radio conservatives.

Anyway, the new Obama campaign ad about Big Bird is the funniest Presidential campaign commercial I've ever seen. It would be stronger if Obama had prosecuted a few more bankers who contributed to the financial collapse but it still makes a good point effectively.