Tuesday, December 10, 2002

Darn media bias alert!
Kathleen Parker has a few words on talking hairdo Connie Chung's dictator love-in on CNN via the St. Paul Pioneer Press in Secrets to making your dictatorship last and last:
I often ask myself: How did we get so stupid? And then I turn on Connie Chung and answer myself. "Oh, yeah."

Wednesday night I tuned in just in time to hear Connie and her guest Jane Franklin, author of "Cuba and the United States," discussing the longevity of some of the world's most successful tyrants - Saddam Hussein and that perennial favorite, Fidel Castro.

Given the way Connie posed questions, you'd have thought we were discussing Mahatma Gandhi. Here's how she set up the segment:

"Saddam is hardly the first dictator to outlast a U.S. president. The champion in that regard is Cuba's Fidel Castro, which is why we've chosen him as part of our weeklong series, 'The Iron Fist,' looking at other rulers who have clashed with the U.S. How has Castro outlasted 10 presidents?"

Gosh, right off hand, I'd have to guess that Castro has outlasted 10 U.S. presidents by killing, imprisoning or deporting anyone who disagreed with him.
Now that's a "chilling effect". Somebody call the Goron.