June 05, 2009
How to tarnish a reputation: Tom Brokaw edition
I remember Tom Brokaw before he was an NBC Nightly News anchor, way back when he was on KNBC-4, the Los Angeles station's local rush hour show in the late '60s and early '70s.
During his years with the network, Brokaw garnered a reputation for being a thoughtful guy -- or at least appearing to be thoughtful. He was, after all, a blowdried newsreader. Still, I can't remember him saying anything particularly partisan or stupid. In later years, he became something of a gravitas-laden spokesman for the network, lending his midwestern-inflected, somewhat mush-mouthed voiceover work to a number of documentaries. He also wrote bestselling books about the Greatest Generation who fought and won World War II.
Today, though, Brokaw said something so offensive, so remarkably wrongheaded and idiotic, that even Pres. Obama, the king of moral equivalence (see his Cairo speech), was forced to slap him down.
During an interview with the president on this morning's Today show, the TV journalist asked about Obama's visit to a concentration camp. The question comes at the 4:05 mark.
BROKAW: What can the Israelis learn from your visit to Buchenwald? And what should they be thinking about their treatment of Palestinians?
Hmmm. What can the Israelis, a nation born from the ashes of the Holocaust, a nation of Jews the victims of Hitler's genocidal obsession, learn from Obama's visit to a Nazi death camp?
What a great question! Because, you see, it wasn't until the Obamassiah visited Buchenwald, 66 years after the killing stopped, that those darned Jews thought there was anything to learn from the Holocaust.
And, of course, when it comes to dealing with the Palestinians -- who have been dedicated to the destruction of Israel itself, much as the Nazis were dedicated to the destruction of the Jews, it's only appropriate to draw a parallel between the Israelis and their Nazi oppressors, casting the Arabs in the role of put-upon victims.
Power Line's John Hinderaker -- no fan of Obama -- gives credit where credit's due, noting that the president pointedly disagreed with the moral equivalence propounded by Brokaw.
Still, how bad do you have to be to draw Obama's disapproval?
Tom Brokaw bad.
Posted by Mike Lief at June 5, 2009 06:32 PM
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