by arthur Weinreb, associate Editor,
april 8, 2004
The CBC always takes pride in reflecting Canadian values, not the least of which is virulent anti-americanism. On CBC News: Sunday, the network tried its best to show that Condoleeza Rice and President George W. Bush knew virtually nothing about Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda prior to September 11, 2001.
In her introduction to the program, a smiling Carole MacNeill said:
" It’s going to be a great show today. We have one of the few people who was in the room when the National Security advisor of the United States was getting briefed on al-Qaeda. Lee Wolosky says he doesn’t think she or George Bush knew what al-Qaeda was prior to 9/11."
and that’s just what Lee Wolosky said--it was his "opinion" that Rice, although she knew who bin Laden was, knew absolutely nothing about al-Qaeda. He gives no concrete examples of what Rice did or said that would lead to the absolute conclusion that Rice knew nothing about the terrorist organization prior to the attacks on Washington and New York.
The CBC being the CBC and putting america-bashing ahead of balance, gave no airtime to anything that would suggest the opposite. If anything, MacNeil had to prod Wolosky to get him to give more information about Rice’s lack of knowledge concerning terrorism.
For instance, no mention was made of the interview that Condoleeza Rice gave to David Newman on WJR radio in Detroit in October 2000, the month before George W. Bush was elected president. In that interview, Rice said in part:
"Osama bin Laden… Do two things, the first is you really have to get the intelligence agencies better organized to deal with the terrorist threat to the United States itself. One of the problems that we have is a kind of split responsibility, of course, between the CIa in the foreign intelligence and the FBI in domestic intelligence. There needs to be better cooperation because we don’t want to wake up one day and find out that Osama bin Laden has been successful on our own territory…"
There is recorded evidence that Rice not only knew about the threat that bin Laden posed prior to September 11, but that she was aware of the difficulties of the lack of cooperation between intelligence agencies that took place under the Clinton administration. But the CBC was only interested in those facts that show that Rice didn’t have a clue about what was going on prior to September 11.
In her efforts to show Condi Rice’s ignorance, MacNeil even raised the silly argument that is being made south of the border by some of the media. Condoleeza Rice was scheduled to make a speech on September 11, 2001 on missile defence and the fact that her speech was not on terrorism was proof positive that she and the Bush administration did not take terrorism seriously. To her undoubted sorrow, Wolosky, who seemed uncomfortable during much of the interview, didn’t fall into the trap of agreeing.
The CBC doth protest too much
Last week, Gillian Cosgrove wrote a column in the National Post critical of the CBC. Cosgrove referred to anchor Peter Mansbridge as a "newsreader", not a journalist. as well, the Post reporter stated that during the war with Iraq, more Canadians watched coverage of the war on CNN than on CBC and CBC Newsworld.
In Monday’s edition of the National Post there were two, count ‘em, two letters to the editor from CBC executives. Only the Post knows how many others they received but didn’t publish.
Harold Redekopp, executive vice-president of CBC Television criticized Cosgrove’s comparison of CNN with CBC because, well, CBC has a distinctly Canadian perspective to international news (presumably pro-Iraq, anti-United States). He then went on to say that more Canadians generally watch CBC news than CNN.
Mike Bulgutch, senior executive of CBC News and CBC Newsworld, took exception to labelling Peter Mansbridge, the guy who reads the news every night, a newsreader. Bulgutch pointed out that Mansbridge covers elections and budgets without the aid of a script. Wow! The exec also said that 20 years ago, Peter used to break stories.
It’s hard to imagine that one executive of a private broadcaster would write a letter to the editor, let alone two. after all, anything they want to say can be aired in their own media outlets. These government-funded guys seem to have way too much time on their hands.
at least we now know how many CBC executives it takes to write a letter to the editor.