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American Media Duped by McCain? |
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As is all over the news, the Colombian Army successfully rescued 15 hostages from the FARC yesterday, including well-known French-Colombian politician Ingrid Betancourt and three American contractors, all of whom have been held hostage for years.
Also of interest is that John McCain, for no obvious reason whatsoever, was campaigning in Colombia during the time of the rescue. Here is how the NY Times described the “coincidence:”
The timing of the rescue, which occurred while Mr. McCain was in Colombia, was in many ways a fortuitous turn of events for a presidential candidate who is using a three-day trip to South America and Mexico to try to show that he is a more agile foreign policy hand than his Democratic competitor, Senator Barack Obama. Although the timing of the rescue was a coincidence and Mr. McCain’s trip to Colombia had nothing to do with it, the event nonetheless put him in the middle of classified talks about covert operations with the head of another government.
I don’t believe this for a second. In fact I feel abundantly confident conjecturing that the timing of McCain’s visit had everything to do with the release of American hostages.
For one thing, the U.S. government, and most notably George W. Bush, knew of the rescue two weeks in advance, and has openly admitted to assisting with its planning (also from the Times):
“We’ve been working this very closely with the government of Colombia now for about two weeks,†William Brownfield, the United States ambassador to Colombia said on CNN’s “Larry King Live†Wednesday night.
Mr. Brownfield said that while the Colombians planned and executed the operation, the United States provided important intelligence, planning and technical assistance…President Bush was kept apprised of the planning, according to the White House.
According to news sources, McCain did not learn of the operation until the night before its execution, when he was briefed by the Colombian government.
But nowhere in its coverage did the NY Times question the likelihood that Mr. Bush would let his friend and hopeful successor plan a trip to Colombia and not have it coincide with this obscenely good publicity. (That is, of course, assuming a Colombia trip was in the works at all prior to this revelation.) After reading the Times’ coverage, I was still left asking (a) what logical purpose the McCain campaign had in Colombia and (b) what logical purpose the Colombian government had to brief someone who had “nothing to do” with it of a highly sensitive and classified military operation. The paper’s coverage answered neither question to any degree of satisfaction.
Even if we believe for a moment that the McCain campaign had no idea this was happening, the candidate still chose to mention that he will fight to release American hostages at two separate press conferences during his trip to Colombia. Both statements were made after he was formally briefed about the impending rescue, but before the news became public, indicating McCain at the very least saw the release as an opportunity to appear triumphant in his “leadership.” Surely his campaign was counting on the American media to draw everything but the obvious conclusion — it wanted voters across America to hear that hostages were rescued during McCain’s visit and (after remembering that McCain was himself a hostage and is a defacto guru on foreign policy due to his military service, though neither of those things has any relevance to Colombia whatsoever) become profoundly impressed that all McCain has to do is go to a country to beat its terrorists and drug lords!
Even the Washington Post, despite getting a little closer to stating the relevant, failed to read between the lines:
“These are very high-risk operations,” McCain said, adding that he did not know the rescue was being put together before he decided to visit Colombia. “I would remind you that these things require incredibly long planning and coordination, et cetera. There’s no way possible that it could have had anything to do with our visit that I could imagine. . . . It’s a very happy moment.”…
While in Washington a shake-up in McCain’s campaign organization focused attention on the doubts many Republicans have voiced about his strategy and message, Lieberman said the fact that Colombian officials chose to disclose their rescue plan in advance to McCain testified to his colleague’s international standing.
Oh that’s right. Signs of weakness for the McCain camp at home, combined with terrible publicity about the McCain campaign’s connections to lobbying and funding for terrorists in Colombia, were overshadowed yesterday by McCain’s apparent association with a major hostage release; one his political allies knew was coming, and one at which his presence “testified” to his international standing.
If John McCain wants to take time off the campaign trail and stand next to the Colombian army in their moment of glory, and let the American people make all kinds of meaningless connections, that is fine. But as “journalists” I believe major media establishments such as the NY Times have an obligation not to eat up the gimmicks and (flawed) cover stories. There was nothing “coincidental” or “fortuitous” about McCain’s visit to Colombia and the release of these hostages, and to complacently report otherwise is lousy journalism.
Mac is a young American female frustrated with corporate media. She lives in Miami, Florida.
