We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.
Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
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Good news! The casualties are mounting …no, that does not mean what you think.
The casualties in question are Fox New Channel reporter and all round buffoon Geraldo Rivera, who has been booted out of Iraq by the military for the committing the cardinal sin of any war correspondent… he revealed sensitive information live on television. It is interesting how the CCN article I spotted this in buries the fact en-passant at the bottom of a much larger article. My Grandmother had pretty much the perfect summation of our ol’ buddy Geraldo back in December 2001.
The other casualty is Peter Arnett who has been fired by NBC/MSNBC for being a ‘useful idiot’.
The sun is shining, the birds are singing and the world is back running in well oiled grooves… now if only the same thing would happen to the odious Robert Fisk.
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Considering NBC was defending Arnett’s interview as recently as yesterday, you have to assume their phones and email exploded overnight.
Which is very, very interesting.
Oh shit that article about what your granny said is FUNNY! Particularly as she was serious!!!!! 🙂 🙂
Your Granny sounds adorable Perry!
I saw Geraldo report live in Iraq a couple of hours ago. He professed not to know what the NBC rumors were all about.
If he’s being excused from Iraq he doesn’t seem to know about it.
According to Drudge, Geraldo is blaming rival networks for spreading unfounded rumors…but subsequently links were added to both AFP and Reuters articles confirming his expulsion. Interesting that Fox’s own site makes no mention of the situation either way – I wonder if they’re franticlly horse-trading behind the scenes.
Business 2.0: 100 Dumbest Moments in Business 2001
http://www.business2.com/articles/mag/0,1640,38604,00.html
# 43: Reporting live from Afghanistan, Geraldo Rivera implies that he’s packing heat. “We refuse to be crime victims,” Rivera says. “We’re not the victim types. If they’re going to get us, it’s going to be in a gunfight.”
# 64: During his sojourn in Afghanistan, Geraldo Rivera decries the deplorable living conditions in the town of Taloqan. Standing in front of a crowd of barefoot children, Rivera looks solemnly into the camera and states, “Look at the children. They haven’t seen television or anything their whole lives.”
# 99: Geraldo Rivera informs viewers that he has visited the site of a friendly-fire incident in which three American soldiers were killed. “I said the Lord’s Prayer and really choked up,” Rivera says. When a critic for the Baltimore Sun later points out that Rivera was, in fact, more than 100 miles away from the site of the incident, Rivera claims he was actually at the site of a different friendly-fire incident, one that has escaped the attention of the military or any other journalistic source. “This cannot stand,” Rivera adds. “He has impugned my honor. It is as if he slapped me in the face and challenged me to a duel.”
Me thinks the guy is having a midlife crisis and is trying atone for shirking some perceived military duty or government service in his early days. Or at least make himself believe he is atoning…
oops, make that 101 Dumbest Moments.
Byron,
If Geraldo is suffering from a midlife crisis, then he has been in one for about twenty years. He’s infamous in the States for a live “documentary” in the early 80s in which he was supposedly digging up a secret hiding place of Al Capone. After an hour or so of dramatic buildup, he reached into this hole that had been opened and he brought out….a bottle.
That should have been a warning to every news exec alive at that time.
Just heard on the NBC Nightly News that the network had received over 8,000 emails about Arnett’s interview…”most of them negative.”
Yeah, I’d say NBC was backed into a corner…
Matt Lauer’s interview of Peter this morning was almost apologetic in tone (“hate to do this to you, old boy…”), but he still managed to nail him with some pretty direct questions, stopping just short of “what the #$%# were you thinking?!”.
“Mr. President, we love you. I want to hug you, I want to hug you, please do the right thing. This is nothing, this is nothing. Thomas Jefferson did not have this in mind, I swear to God…. I would give Ken Starr the Nobel Peace Prize were he to be man enough not to refer a sex lie to the House for impeachment.”
— Rivera urging Clinton not to cooperate, August 6 1998 edition of Rivera Live on CNBC. MRC.org
Russ:
Don’t forget that NBC was the network that rigged GMC trucks to explode for their “Dateline” program. If they’ll stoop to that, I can understand their having Geraldo on.
(I’m another “Russ”)
My friend Steve Pegram just forwarded me this promising little piece from National Geographic:
> From: National Geographic
> <nationalgeographic_communications303@nationalgeographic.com>
> Date: Mon Mar 31, 2003 7:42:23 PM US/Pacific
> > Subject: National Geographic statement regarding Peter Arnett
> Reply-To: nationalgeographic_communications303@nationalgeographic.com
>
> National Geographic has received voluminous e-mail correspondence today
> regarding Peter Arnett, which will require some time to process. We
> appreciate your patience as we work our way through it. In the
> meantime, we
> did want to make sure you were aware of our decision to end Mr.
> Arnett’s
> association with National Geographic. Here is the statement we released
> this morning.
>
> NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC STATEMENT REGARDING PETER ARNETT
>
> The National Geographic Society has terminated the services of Peter
> Arnett. The Society did not authorize or have any prior knowledge of
> Arnett’s television interview with Iraqi television, and had we been
> consulted, would not have allowed it. His decision to grant an
> interview
> and express his personal views on state-controlled Iraqi television,
> especially during a time of war, was a serious error in judgement and
> wrong.
>
Ah, the Power of One…the internet connection of thousands of ‘Ones’!!
MB has personal knowledge of Jerry Rivers perverse, nasty, and difficult behavior off-air, too, as he used to summer in her area…yucko! Arnett knows no other way to behave but badly! He’s now teamed with Pilger; what a pity they can’t be sunk together.
Arnett should have simply given his interview to American press. He would still have been hated, but I doubt he would have lost his job, considering he wouldn’t be the only one in the US press saying that stuff.
But giving such an interview to the Iraqi press was beyond stupid. I don’t think Arnett is a stupid man, regardless what he claims in his public apology, rather I suspect he knew exactly what he was doing – undermining the US war effort. Just slight encouragement is all it takes to draw thousands more fanatical Arabs to Iraq from Syria, Egypt, etc. that our troops will have to face, including my own first cousin who is with the 1st Div Marines near Qasr and Basra. Arnett’s interview clearly contributes to that, and to any additional casualties we will suffer due to it. I hope he is made persona non grata in the US for that.
News Flash! Geraldo Rivera isn’t gone from Iraq yet.