Post Drops Support For Troops and 9/11 Victims

The Washington Post finally has succumbed to anti American activists by pulling out of the Freedom Walk, which is sponsored by the Department of Defense.

Post Pulls Out Of Pentagon Event

The Washington Post is withdrawing its offer of free advertising for an organized event by the Defense Department to memorialize the victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, the newspaper announced.

The Post backed out of the agreement after critics said the event, scheduled to take place four years after the attacks that hit New York and Washington and resulted in the crash of a commercial airliner over western Pennsylvania, would have a pro-war slant and that support of the event by the newspaper would compromise the Post's journalistic integrity.

"The Post has a code of conduct that says employees should avoid a conflict of interest or the appearance of a conflict of interest," said Rick Ehrmann, a Local representative for the Washington-Baltimore Newspaper Guild. "In this case The Post was sponsoring the Pentagon's Freedom Walk, which ties the attack on Sept. 11 to the Iraq war, and of course, The Post's reporters have proven ... that there is no connection between the two, that that link is false."

First of all, the Washington-Baltimore Newspaper Guild is the local chapter of the Newspaper Guild. That organization is headed by Linda Foley, who famously said:

"It's not just U.S. journalists either, by the way. They target and kill journalists from other countries, particularly Arab countries, at news services like Al Jazeera, for example. They actually target them and blow up their studios, with impunity."

If the Post really wanted to avoid the notion that they are political (which we know is a joke) they would disassociate themselves from that organization altogether.

Secondly, according to the Department of Defense, the purpose of the walk is “to honor the victims of 9/11 and America's military personnel, as well as to celebrate freedom.”

It just so happens that the building that was attacked houses the organization that is administering the War in Iraq. Is the Post in agreement with the fringe left that DoD is a Republican organization, and therefore does not deserve its support? That department defends all of us, no matter what political stripes we wear or who is Commander in Chief. And if it is a political organization, would it matter? If a plane had flown into DNC headquarters, would it have been wrong to comemmorate the event?

Now, whether you support the war in Iraq or not, those troops are, in fact, American Troops. Some of them happen to be in Iraq. Does that fact mean that they do not deserve the support that would have otherwise been given to them? Have we become so blind to politics that we can’t make the simplest of patriotic gestures without getting caught up in the political bloodletting?

And need I remind the powers that be at the Post that many of their readers are in that very same military that they are so quick to abandon? I suspect some of those that died in the Pentagon read the Post on a daily basis. But let a fringe left anti-Bush group accuse the Post of taking sides, and they run. And what logic is this action based upon?

Critics of media support for the event also pointed to the free concert by Clint Black that is to take place at the end of the march route. Black's Web site features lyrics to his song entitled "I Raq and I Roll," including "Our troops take out the garbage/ for the good old U.S.A."

Because a singer at the end of the event supports the War in Iraq, which, I will remind you again, happens to be where some of those troops that are being supported reside at the moment. Would the Post have pulled out if the Dixie Chicks had headlined the event? Not a chance. I'm trying to imagine a 'support the troops' event during wartime where we were not allowed to mention that same war in a way that might have insinuated that we wanted to win it.

As a community newspaper (which for those of us in the DC area, the Post qualifies) it is sad that the Washington Post has taken the side of extreme left wingers at the expense of our troops. The Post has been a liberal rag for quite a while, but I can’t believe that they would pull their support for an event to commemorate the greatest tragedy of the city since the War of 1812.

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