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August 10, 2005
Peter Jennings May Not Belong on Fast Track for Sainthood
It's sad when people die, but I'm still grateful to Israpundit for interrupting the hagiographies of Peter Jennings long enough to point out that the man was hardly a paragon of journalistic objectivity. In fact, he was a moonbat. While he may not have been any more left-wing than his rival network anchors, his anti-American and anti-Israel proclivities were more overt. Here are a few nuggets of the wisdom the Canadian Jennings dispensed to his American audience, via Discover the Networks:
My mother…was pretty anti-American. And so I was, in some respects, raised with anti-Americanism in my blood, or in my mother's milk at least.
I'm a little concerned about this notion everybody wants us to be objective.
On shipping Elian Gonzalez back to the totalitarian hell from which his mother died to rescue him:
In Miami today, immigration officials met with the Miami relatives of Elian Gonzalez again. And once again the government has failed to get the kind of cooperation from the relatives that might allow the case of this young boy to end in a civilized manner that is best for him.
More on that workers' paradise to our south, where the hospitals normal people use look like this:
Some of Cuba's health care is world class. In heart disease, for example, in brain surgery. Health and education are the revolution's great success stories.
In November 1994, after the Republicans took control of both houses of Congress:
Ask parents of any two-year-old, and they can tell you about those temper tantrums: the stomping feet, the rolling eyes, the screaming. It's clear that the anger controls the child and not the other way around. It's the job of the parent to teach the child to control the anger and channel it in a positive way. Imagine a nation full of uncontrolled two-year-old rage. The voters had a temper tantrum last week…. Parenting and governing don't have to be dirty words: the nation can't be run by an angry two-year-old.
On September 11, 2001:
It is certainly a motivating factor that the hatred of the United States, and the hatred of the United States as a patron of Israel, whether you're from Afghanistan, or whether you're from Iran, Iraq, or inside the Palestinian territories is so intense at some levels, and has become more intense in recent months, that nobody will be, very many people will not be surprised at this attack today though like everybody else will be amazed at the magnitude and success of it.
Jennings was actually romantically involved with a Palestinian radical who went on to become a top henchwoman of Yasser Arafat, Hanan Ashrawi. This relationship apparently had a lifelong influence on him, cementing his anti-Israel and often pro-terrorist point of view.
It must be granted that Jennings was a pioneer. Way back in 1972, when Palestinian terrorists murdered 11 Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics, he refused to call the terrorists "terrorists" — putting him a generation ahead of the lapdog dhimmis at Reuters, the BBC, and CBC.
Posted by Van Helsing at August 10, 2005 5:11 PM
Comments
Everything you say about PJ is 100% true, Van. I paid an "RIP" to him on my site, only relating to his torturous ending (via cancer). Cancer has personally affected me, claiming my dear grandmother and a family friend. I sympathize with his family, and am glad his suffering is over.
Having said that, I also can never regard him as a beacon of journalistic integrity, for many of the same reasons you pointed out here.
Posted by: Jonathan at August 10, 2005 9:04 PM
May he rest in peace and I hope his family does well. Now that he is gone and people examine his past, I have the feeling that some people will consider that to be taking a cheap shot at the departed. He was a public person, in his public life as a professional newscaster, he was able to influence the opinions of many viewers. Sure, he was certainly entitled to personal views and political opinions, no one quesions that. Many people people thought his personal views influenced his role as a professional newscaster, as witnessed by the comments in the above article. The significance of his passing is that he is probably the last of the major newcasters who reigned in an era when the networks lost a lot respect and creditbility. Part of that decline was because the networks and individuals such as Jennings let thier personal views and political opinions influence the content and presentation of thier newscasts. I consder him him neither Saint for the left or Sinner for the Right. An honest debate can take place about his public role and the part he played in the decline of TV network news. I do not think it to be unfair to examine his role in public life as a professional newscaster from a historical perspective.
Posted by: Eneils Bailey at August 10, 2005 9:07 PM
Well put, Eneils.
Posted by: Jonathan at August 11, 2005 10:27 AM
