I’m only now reading last year’s Guests of the Ayatollah by Mark Bowden. It’s a fantastic book so far, but two little things struck me that relate to current news. Regarding Katie Couric’s post-Americanism:
Thomas Fenton, a CBS correspondent, was confronted once outside the embassy by an Iranian who shouted at him accusingly, “CIA!”
“No, CBS!” Fenton retorted, which got a laugh.
My initial reaction may not be fair to Fenton, but that laugh at the end especially ticked me off.
And then this tidbit that reminded me of another shameful ad that ran more recently in the New York Times:
She and the other hostage takers had been mystified by the lack of American support for their action, particularly the lack of sympathy from American blacks and other “oppressed minorities,” and had concluded that their problem was media censorship in the United States. The American government was blocking and distorting their message. One effort to break through this supposed censorship was a half-page ad in the New York Times (the Washington Post refused to run it) calling on Americans to “Rise Up Against Oppression,” referring to the hostages as “spies” and placing Carter in “the vanguard of the world’s oppressors.”
I wonder if the Times gave them a discount, too.