While the Guardian has been heavily promoting its exclusive on the Wikileaks revelations, the rest of the UK media and commentariat has varied from the disinterested to the sniffily dismissive, as might be expected, given that they didn’t get first dibs at the story.
And some over in north America are taking a thoughtful view, even telling that the whole business could be a good thing for the US in particular, especially if it makes the Obama administration think again about the wisdom of propping up the corrupt and weak Government in Kabul: this argument was put by Arianna Huffington in an appearance on Canadian TV yesterday.
But those in and around one media outlet had no thought of taking other than a black and white view of the matter: no prizes for guessing that this was the line coming out of Fox News Channel (fair and balanced my arse). Fox contributor and potential GOP Presidential candidate Sarah Palin was on the case with unusual speed (she normally takes a day or so to be prodded into action).
In actions which appear to have taken even the Daily Mail by surprise, Palin has ranted on her Facebook page that Julian Assange, founder of Wikileaks, should be pursued in the same way the US would go after an Al-Qaeda terrorist. Just to make sure nobody gets the wrong idea, she stated that Assange was “an anti-American operative with blood on his hands”.
And, in a move that suggests that Fox are in united front mode on this one, host Bill O’Reilly has called Assange a “slimeball” and has stated that “whoever leaked all those State Department documents ... is a traitor who should be executed or put in prison for life”.
Not that Fox would be trying to whip up a bit of hatred rather than take a measured and thoughtful view, of course. Perish the thought, eh, Bill-O?
A right-winger wishing his political enemy dead? Say it isn't so!
ReplyDelete