CHRENKOFF FIXATION

Doctor Downer, aka Tim Dunlop, is having another of his regular sads:

Lest we remember

Seems Dr Feelgood, Arthur Chrenkoff, has had another moment of media influence. You'll remember he suggested that ABC not bother to commerate [sic] the dead on the grounds that the media didn't pass his sincerity test:

Make no mistake, tributes and remembrance of the ultimate sacrifice paid by the troops to bring freedom and democracy to the peoples of Iraq and Afghanistan are all very worthy things, but - call me cynical - coming from the mouths of the mainstream media they ring neither true nor sincere. Since the MSM as a general rule doesn't believe in our mission in Iraq (less so in case [sic] of Afghanistan), its remembrance then is at best that of a futile sacrifice, at worst of a criminal one.

So rememberances [sic] are okay if he endorses them, but the ABC [sic] in particular and the mainstream media in general shouldn't do them because that would be criminal. (And really, just reading that para again, it has to be one of the most equivocal, mealy-mouthed paragraphs trying to justify his war on reality that you could imagine.)

Anyway, as I say, another member of the mainstream media has taken Arthur's advice and has stopped commemerating [sic] dead soldiers. Atrios notes that Fox News stopped updating their fatality list a month ago. So good work, Arthur. Keep this up and it will be just like nobody died.

When I first read Dunlop's post I just shrugged my shoulders – this is typical whiny Dunlop stuff – and moved on. After thinking about it for a while I went back and reread the post. It's more than whiny, it's complete bullshit.

Chrenkoff's paragraph is unambiguous. Anyway, "equivocal" and "mealy-mouthed" have essentially the same meaning in the context in which they are used. There was no need to use both.

At no point does Chrenkoff suggest MSM efforts to remember soldiers killed in the war on terror are "criminal". Rather, he sees them as point-scoring exercises.

Dunlop has now added a gratuitous sic to Chrenkoff's paragraph, in an apparent effort to embarrass Chrenkoff. I've done the same for Dunlop, he's an academic, right?

Finally, Dunlop suggests that unless the fallen soldiers are remembered in a fashion he thinks appropriate, they will not be remembered at all. That's typical self-centered-lefty thinking.

If Dunlop's so concerned with the appropriate remembrance of fallen soldiers he should do something about it and post their names and biographies as a public service. But, since the real point of his post is to generate controversy and increase his hits, that isn't going to happen.