Crooks and Liars:
In his closing commentary, host Bob Schieffer reminds us that too many people are busying themselves with celebrity news and political horse races and not enough with the very serious subject of our endless occupation in Iraq.
A new Pew Foundation poll found that more than 1/3 of the American people are closely following this campaign. I’m not surprised, this campaign in creating interest in a way that we haven’t seen in years. But here is what really bother’s me. Twice as many people, 12%, had more interest in the death of movie actor Heath Ledger, than were following developments in Iraq. Only 6% said they were closely following the war news. Only 28% knew the death toll in the war has risen to nearly 4,000. There are reasons. The elections and the shaky economy and the fact the war zone is quieter now has pushed the war off TV and front pages, and for many it has become ‘out of sight, out of mind.’ With an all-volunteer military made up of only ½ of 1% of us making the sacrifices in this war, it’s easy for the rest of us to forget the war still goes on.
Certainly there have been few reminders from the campaign trail. John McCain says it is still winnable, but he hasn’t said what “winning it” will take. The
Democrats haven’t said much beyond we have to withdraw at some point. As long as Iraq is relatively quiet, the candidates would rather not talk about it, it puts people in a bad humor.
But it is still there and we can’t ignore it forever. It won’t let us.
1 comment:
Bob is again right on. Most of the news stations aren't reporting what the troops are saying and Americans really don't care as most are waiting for their hand out rebate check. We have lost more soldiers this week but it's more important to hear about Spitzer and of course attack his wife. We have a CFO from Time Warner, a Federal Judge and the Duke of England as clients in the Sex Scandal but don't look for them to have charges the Republicans only wanted Sptizer. This shows just how much the American people have lost it, when they pay more attention to garbage then our troops or the Economy.
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