Ain't no Big Deal
Reported by Melanie - September 24, 2004 -
Neil Cavuto opened Your World today (September 24, 2004) with this:
"Busy hour coming up ahead. He's met anybody who's anybody in this country but this could be his toughest crowd before he leaves this country. The United Nations. Iraqi interm Prime Minister Allawi is there and so are we. When he speaks we watch, they watch, you watch and judge just how receptive are these UN guys to this guy."
At 4:07 p.m. ET Allawi began speaking before the General Assembly and Fox carried it live until the end, at 4:27 p.m. ET. (Neither CNN nor MSNBC aired any of it.)
Afterward, Cavuto introduced Neil Gardiner from the Heritage Foundation. Gardiner said it was a "tremendously powerful speech," a "very strong defense of the rightness of the cause," and a "reminder" to the UN that Saddam brutalized his people. He said it "powerfully refuted" Kofi Annan's argument that the war was illegal, it asserted the Iraqi government's determination to hold elections in January, and was an appeal for help with reconstruction and security.
Gardiner said there are "about" 35 countries "already on the ground in Iraq," and Allawi "laid down the gauntlet" to countries such as France and Germany, this being the beginning of "starting to shame those countries" into doing something.
Cavuto wondered whether it was a "waste of time for him to appear before the General Assembly," and Gardiner said no, they "needed to listen" to Allawi's message, saying some did and some didn't, but the UN is a "declining organization on the world stage" but does need to do more to help in Iraq.
COMMENT: With this segment, Fox killed several birds with one stone: Present Allawi as a symbol of Bush's "success" in Iraq; remind the viewers of the "rightness of the cause" Bush took on; prove Kofi Annan doesn't know what he's talking about; highlight what awful countries France and Germany are; imply that though the UN is a "declining organization," it can redeem itself by falling into line (our line, that is) on Iraq, and if we have to, we'll "shame" countries into helping. Pretty simple huh? Sometimes, the only thing to say is: what an embarrassment.
