A daily compilation edited by Brent H. Baker, CyberAlert items are drawn from daily BiasAlert posts and distributed by the Media Research Center's News Analysis Division, the leader since 1987 in documenting, exposing and neutralizing liberal media bias.
Tracking Liberal Media Bias Since 1996
Wednesday May 05, 2010 @ 09:26 AM EDT1. MSNBC's Contessa Brewer 'Frustrated' That Times Square Bomber Is a Muslim
MSNBC host Contessa Brewer appeared on the liberal Stephanie Miller radio show on Tuesday and lamented the fact that the person arrested for the attempted Times Square bombing is a Pakistani American. She complained, "I get frustrated...There was part of me that was hoping this was not going to be anybody with ties to any kind of Islamic country."
2. ABC Sees Optimistic Terrorist: Wife Enjoys American Sit-Coms While He Dots 'i' with a Heart
Before "a disturbing change" of character in early 2009, arrested terrorist Faisal Shahzad, ABC's Chris Cuomo asserted Tuesday night, "seemed to be living the American dream" with a wife whose Facebook page "says she loves Everybody Loves Raymond and Friends" while "his signature seems to suggest optimism -- it appears a heart is dotting the 'i' in Faisal" in a job application found outside his foreclosed house.
3. On Hardball: Worried Next Terror Attack Could Strengthen Tea Party
Chris Matthews, on Tuesday's Hardball, brought on two former CIA officials to discuss the latest terror attack, and the MSNBC host agreed with Tyler Drumheller that the most recent attacker was motivated by his house being foreclosed on and also agreed with Robert Baer who feared another attack could lead to "the Tea Party being strengthened," which could lead to "people blaming the White House for a situation it didn't create." Baer also hit Matthews' sweet spot of talking points when he went on to warn that the last successful terror attack "got us into a war in Iraq we didn't need to be in."
4. MSNBC's Ratigan Worries About 'Racism' Toward Muslims After NYC Bomb Attempt
Near the top of Tuesday's Dylan Ratigan Show on MSNBC, host Dylan Ratigan fretted over American Muslims being harassed in the wake of the failed Times Square bombing: "how do you deal with these types of crimes without resulting in racism, effectively, towards people of Pakistani or Middle Eastern descent?...is there not a natural backlash to this?"
5. Misleading NYT Poll Doesn't Stop People from Favoring AZ Immigration Law
The New York Times initially spun a 60%-36% pro-enforcement gap as a "slim margin." And the law doesn't give "police the power to question anyone they suspect is in the country illegally," as the misleading poll question claims, but requires reasonable suspicion of such by a policeman, coupled with a "lawful stop, detention or arrest."
6. Lib Reporters Reminisce About Kent State on Chris Matthews Show
Tuesday marks the 40th anniversary of the Kent State shootings, and over the weekend Chris Matthews and his liberal cronies, on his syndicated The Chris Matthews Show, previewed the event as they reminisced about where they were at the time. Their memories reflect how anti-war they were back then and how that moment shaped them into the libs they are today as Matthews revealed the likes of his guests, like Newsweek's Howard Fineman and CNN's Gloria Borger, as students, were "editorializing against the war."
MSNBC's Contessa Brewer 'Frustrated' That Times Square Bomber Is a Muslim
MSNBC host Contessa Brewer appeared on the liberal Stephanie Miller radio show on Tuesday and lamented the fact that the person arrested for the attempted Times Square bombing is a Pakistani American. She complained, "I get frustrated...There was part of me that was hoping this was not going to be anybody with ties to any kind of Islamic country." [Audio available here.]
Brewer continued, "...There are a lot of people who want to use terrorist intent to justify writing off people who believe in a certain way or come from certain countries or whose skin color is a certain way. I mean they use it as justification for really outdated bigotry."
The News live host didn't explain which ethnicity or religion she had been hoping the bomber would have been affiliated with. She did defensively mention members of a Michigan militia group arrested in March and asserted that they were "from far different backgrounds than what this guy is coming from."
Attempting to understand the mind set of Faisal Shahzad, Brewer speculated, "Were there failed family ties? Did he have a strong community network here in the United States? Did he feel isolated?" She opined that these types of terrorists are "guys who are, I don't know, isolated in some ways from their families."
This isn't the first time journalists have worried about the effect of Muslim extremists being responsible for terrorist acts. On November 7, 2009, Newsweek editor Evan Thomas worried:
EVAN THOMAS: I cringe that he's a Muslim. I mean, because it inflames all the fears. I think he's probably just a nut case. But with that label attached to him, it will get the right wing going and it just -- I mean these things are tragic, but that makes it much worse.A partial transcript of Brewer's appearance on the Stephanie Miller show can be found below:
CONTESSA BREWER: I mean the thing is that- and I get frustrated and there was part of me that was hoping this was not going to be anybody with ties to any kind of Islamic country because there are a lot of people who want to use terrorist intent to justify writing off people who believe in a certain way or come from certain countries or whose skin color is a certain way. I mean they use it as justification for really outdated bigotry. And so there was part of me was really hoping this would not be the case that here would be somebody who is not the defined. I mean he's accused, he's arrested you know I don't want to convict him before it's time to do so. He's the guy authorities say is involved. But that being said, I mean, we know even in recent history you have the Hutaree militia from Michigan who have plans to, let's face it, create terror. That's what they were planning to do and they were doing so from far different backgrounds then what this guy is coming from. So, the threat is not just coming from people who decide that America is the place to be and you know come here and want to become citizens. And obviously this guy did.—Scott Whitlock is a news analyst for the Media Research Center. Click here to follow him on Twitter.
09:11
BREWER: What's interesting is you know we're seeing within the boundaries of the United States it's the people that they're arresting seem to be you know- these loners, in some ways. I mean, the underwear bomber had obviously been sent. There was a network behind him. But, they're guys who are, I don't know, isolated some ways from their families. It will be interesting when we hear what is the background of Faisal Shahzad as we are, you know, of course our NBC crews are on that and looking onto more background there. We'll find out more. Were there failed family ties? Did he have a strong community network here in the United States? Did he feel isolated?
ABC Sees Optimistic Terrorist: Wife Enjoys American Sit-Coms While He Dots 'i' with a Heart
Before "a disturbing change" of character in early 2009, arrested terrorist Faisal Shahzad, ABC's Chris Cuomo asserted Tuesday night, "seemed to be living the American dream" with a wife whose Facebook page "says she loves Everybody Loves Raymond and Friends" while "his signature seems to suggest optimism -- it appears a heart is dotting the 'i' in Faisal" in a job application found outside his foreclosed house. (larger jpg image)
How heartwarming.
The "big question" for a befuddled Cuomo: "Why did someone, with apparently so much to live for, simply decide to throw it all away?"
From the Tuesday, May 4 ABC's World News:
CHRIS CUOMO: Diane, we've also recently learned that Shahzad is actually the son of a prominent member of the Pakistani military. But for all we learned, the big question remains: Why did someone, with apparently so much to live for, simply decide to throw it all away? Faisal Shahzad seemed to be living the American dream. Wife, two kids, nice house in the suburbs, an immigrant from Pakistan bettering himself through education and hard work.
NEIGHBOR: They had little picnics in the backyard. They were always to themselves. The wife looked happy.
CUOMO: Her Web page, filled with baby photos, says she loves Everybody Loves Raymond and Friends. Under the photo of her husband, the caption: "He is my everything."But in this pile of trash left outside his former home, we found traces of a life left behind. This job application lists primary school in Saudi Arabia, and several schools in Pakistan. There are signs of his efforts to learn the English language, as well. He lists the "University of Auston Taxes" -- as in Austin, Texas. Yet, Shahzad would go on to earn a BS and MBA at the University of Bridgeport. Even his signature seems to suggest optimism -- it appears a heart is dotting the "i" in Faisal....— Brent Baker is Vice President for Research and Publications at the Media Research Center. Click here to follow him on Twitter.
On Hardball: Worried Next Terror Attack Could Strengthen Tea Party
Chris Matthews, on Tuesday's Hardball, brought on two former CIA officials to discuss the latest terror attack, and the MSNBC host agreed with Tyler Drumheller that the most recent attacker was motivated by his house being foreclosed on and also agreed with Robert Baer who feared another attack could lead to "the Tea Party being strengthened," which could lead to "people blaming the White House for a situation it didn't create." Baer also hit Matthews' sweet spot of talking points when he went on to warn that the last successful terror attack "got us into a war in Iraq we didn't need to be in." [audio available here]
ROBERT BAER, FORMER CIA FIELD OFFICER: But what I'm really afraid, Chris, is the next time one of these guys are going to get through. And what's it gonna do to this country? It's gonna rip it apart. Because people are gonna be looking for quick, immediate answers.The following exchange was aired on the May 4 edition of Hardball:
MATTHEWS: How so?
BAER: You know, they're gonna, they're gonna look, you know, crack down on, you know, who knows where it's gonna to end up? You're gonna see the Tea Party being, you know, being strengthened. You're gonna see people blaming the White House for a situation it didn't create.
MATTHEWS: Yeah.
BAER: It could affect the, you know it could affect the United States for a long time. Look, it got us into a war in Iraq we didn't need to be in...
MATTHEWS: Yeah well I agree.
CHRIS MATTHEWS: You know, Roger Cressey made a point earlier, Tyler, along the lines you're talking about, about how they recruit overseas. We've been very successful in American and I know we are, about assimilating people, it's our great strength. You can become an American in very few years. You learn a bit of the language, you make an effort to really become an American, you get into our culture, you get into our values, you're an American damn quick. And the danger, of course, is some people don't have that motive. That they may be doing all kinds of things to us. In this case, this guy radicalized, how do you figure? How do you figure the radicalization occurred?—Geoffrey Dickens is the Senior News Analyst at the Media Research Center. You can follow him on Twitter here
TYLER DRUMHELLER, FMR CIA EUROPE OPERATION CHIEF: Well I think this is, I think the, the assimilation of, of the Islamic community in the United States has protected us to this point. But I think as things go along. I mean in his case it could be, it could be an economic problem. It could be, it could be all sorts of things.
MATTHEWS: Yeah I think you're onto it. I think you're on to the economic problem.
DRUMHELLER: And, and he, his house was being foreclosed on. It's the same thing if you, what you saw in Europe. And I keep going to that because that's what I - I think that's an important lesson to learn. You have a group of disgruntled people or a disgruntled guy and all they need to do is run into one person that's a serious recruiter or a trainer or something like that. And then like Bob said, they end up in a camp, they get a, they get a degree of training, they go back. And for the Pakistani, and for the people in Pakistan there, they see this as a war with us. I mean we, we, we should not think that we can attack them and they're not going to retaliate. And so this, it's, I think it would be a mistake to think that we're looking for a specific plan. Like go to Times Square and blow it up. But I think the, what they said was, probablytrain him and said, at an opportunity do something like this. Which makes it much more dangerous. It would be easier if it was a highly-organized thing because that's easier to penetrate.
MATTHEWS: You know Bob everybody knows about people that emigrate, some successfully, and others not. A lot of people came here from Ireland, for example, and most made it in America and some had to go home. They didn't make it here, they didn't fit in. Is this an opportunity for recruitment?
ROBERT BAER FMR CIA FIELD OFFICER: Oh absolutely! With the, immigration is going up, we're getting a lot more people. The State Department effectively does not screen people immigrating to this country. And it's barely cursory. We don't know who's inside our borders. We're nothing like Israel who keeps track of people for obvious reasons. We're still very non-militarized, liberal country. But, you know, we simply don't know who's within our borders. A lot of people still don't speak English. And their primary loyalties are outside the country.
MATTHEWS: Yeah but people coming from Pakistan, generally do speak English. That wouldn't be the problem here, would it?
BAER: A lot of them don't. A lot of them just speak Urdu and Pashtun. They don't speak it very well. And they're not integrated. They're moving out into communities in Connecticut and New Jersey, and they're, they're, they're sticking together, and we don't really know who they are. This is a, this is a big statement. But we, the FBI, let's put it this way, cannot keep track of every immigrant in this country. What happened in Times Square was not an intelligence failure. In fact it was, it was a brilliant wrap-up of this guy and - but, but what I'm really afraid, Chris, is the next time one of these guys are going to get through. And what's it gonna do to this country? It's gonna rip it apart. Because people are gonna be looking for quick, immediate answers.
MATTHEWS: How so?
BAER: You know, they're gonna, they're gonna look, you know, crack down on, you know, who knows where it's gonna to end up? You're gonna see the Tea Party being, you know, being strengthened. You're gonna see people blaming the White House for a situation it didn't create.
MATTHEWS: Yeah.
BAER: It could affect the, you know it could affect the United States for a long time. Look, it got us into a war in Iraq we didn't need to be in...
MATTHEWS: Yeah well I agree. And by the way, I think coming up on airplanes, I thought this with the Christmas bomber. Tyler, you on this. I thought there was gonna be, well I'll predict it right now. We get a real bad airplane situation in the next couple of years, we're gonna have all kinds of stuff going on about who gets on airplanes, we're gonna be so close to Israel in the way that they do it, don't you think?
DRUMHELLER: I think it's gonna...
BAER: Oh absolutely! People are gonna demand it.
MATTHEWS: Your thoughts Tyler?
DRUMHELLER: I think it's gonna go more and more in that direction. And I think the other thing to worry about is the reaction. Again this is going back to your. This is the reaction of the extreme right to the, where you have a counter reaction against these communities. And that just adds to bring in more recruits for these-
MATTHEWS: Yeah explain how that happens?
DRUMHELLER: Well it's because, as, as, as these attacks occur, it feeds a certain, a certain part of the, of the extreme right that looks on immigration as a threat to the American identity and then they react, and a violent fringe of that reacts violently against Moslems in some part of the country. And the next thing you know, then the recruiters or the people on the Internet, who if they're doing it remotely, play on this and say "See, this is America, hates Moslems." I mean you hear that more and more when you talk to young, to young Moslems. That it's not, it's not a majority, but it's and Bob knows more about this, about that part of the world than I do.
MATTHEWS: Yeah I know, I know. You know Bob, the problem is really not so much people who have a lot of contact with people from the Middle East or from South Asia, like I do. It's, it's people who don't meet anybody. So they make the generalization, I assume.
BAER: Yeah.
DRUMHELLER: Yeah.
MATTHEWS: Obviously they can't differentiate among the 99 percent that are wanting to become Americans and the, and the small element is just are misfits, basically and are open to recruitment. It's a, it's a situation that takes a little bit of thought to put into it. But I'll tell ya, when it comes to airplanes, people aren't gonna be so discriminating. They're gonna want to know who's going to be getting on that airplane if we another problem like Christmas.
MSNBC's Ratigan Worries About 'Racism' Toward Muslims After NYC Bomb Attempt
Near the top of Tuesday's Dylan Ratigan Show on MSNBC, host Dylan Ratigan fretted over American Muslims being harassed in the wake of the failed Times Square bombing: "how do you deal with these types of crimes without resulting in racism, effectively, towards people of Pakistani or Middle Eastern descent?...is there not a natural backlash to this?"
Ratigan asked that of Sofian Zakkout, the director of the American Muslim Association of North America, who replied: "We should calm down, it's – thank God nobody got hurt. We all know – and also I spoke today, this morning, with CAIR and other Islamic organizations....we denounce what was going to happen." Zakkout's organization has had links to questionable Islamic organizations on its website and has voiced support for the terrorist organization Hamas.
Ratigan seemed to be following the lead of his MSNBC colleague Contessa Brewer, who appeared on Tuesday's Stephanie Miller radio show and lamented the ethnicity of the would-be bomber: "I get frustrated...There was part of me that was hoping this was not going to be anybody with ties to any kind of Islamic country."
Here is a transcript of Ratigan's exchange with Zakkout:
4:06PM—Kyle Drennen is a news analyst at the Media Research Center. You can follow him on Twitter here.
DYLAN RATIGAN: Sofian Zakkout is the director of the American Muslim Association of North America. Sofian, welcome to the conversation. How do you – how do you deal with these types of crimes without resulting in racism, effectively, towards people of Pakistani or Middle Eastern descent?
SOFIAN ZAKKOUT: You know, how I – how I deal with that?
RATIGAN: How do you suggest it be dealt with? In other words, is there not a natural backlash to this? That variable?
ZAKKOUT: Yes, yes, yes. We should calm down, it's – thank God nobody got hurt. We all know – and also I spoke today, this morning, with CAIR and other Islamic organizations of Florida. We all understand, we denounce what was going to happen. Thank God there is nobody got hurt. Thank God the authority was open-eyed and took the car away from the people – from the surrounding population.
And we have to wait to see exactly the motives of – of this kind of act, terrorist act that was going to happen on our soil. We have to know who's behind it. What's the reasons. Then, you know, we all should also listen to all Muslim leaders around the nation.
Because it's very important to send a message from the Muslim leaders, around the nation. From California, New York, Miami, Washington, Chicago, that we – to show that we all – we've been denouncing all acts of terrorism and to condemn it strongly to send a message to the Muslims and to the non-Muslims all around the world that we are working closely with our authorities in prevention. And to try to stop any future – may Allah forbid – any future terrorist acts or terrorist activities.
As a matter of fact, we just came from Haiti, we put our life in danger for non-Muslims. We went to Haiti. We went to Katrina, we've been working to save lives. And we are against any, any terrorist attacks from any places in our soil or any Americans here or abroad. As clear as it sounds.
Misleading NYT Poll Doesn't Stop People from Favoring AZ Immigration Law
The latest New York Times/CBS News poll focused on Arizona's tough new anti-illegal immigration law, summarized in a story by Randal Archibold and Megan Thee-Brenan that only made the top of the National section, not the usual front-page placement for a poll story.
At least the print headline was strong: "Poll Finds Serious Concern Among Americans About Immigration." Here's the lead, slanted toward the protesters point of view:
The overwhelming majority of Americans think the country's immigration policies need to be seriously overhauled. And despite protests against Arizona's stringent new immigration enforcement law, a majority of Americans support it, even though they say it may lead to racial profiling.
When the poll was first posted at nytimes.com Monday evening, a teaser headline claimed that only a "slim majority" favored the immigration law, but that was misleading if technically accurate. There was nothing "slim" about the actual results.
51% say the law "is about right," while only 36% said it "goes too far," while another 9% said it "doesn't go far enough." In other words, 60% agree with the thrust of the law, with only 36% thinking it goes too far. (The "slim" modifier was dropped from Tuesday's print edition.)
Not even the liberal slant of the question posed by the Times and CBS stopped the public from showing strong support for Arizona's law. (There's a .PDF version of the poll here.)
Here's question 67:
67. As you may know, the state of Arizona recently passed a law that gives police the power to question anyone they suspect is in the country illegally, requires people to produce documents verifying their status if asked, and allows officers to detain anyone who cannot do so. Do you think this law goes too far, doesn't go far enough, or is about right?
Actually, the law doesn't give "police the power to question anyone they suspect is in the country illegally." It requires reasonable suspicion of such by a policeman, coupled with a "lawful stop, detention or arrest." Even with the slant, people favored tougher enforcement by a substantial margin. One can't help but suspect the poll would have gotten front-page play if the numbers had been reversed.
Clay Waters is editor of Times Watch. You can follow him on Twitter.
Lib Reporters Reminisce About Kent State on Chris Matthews Show
Tuesday marks the 40th anniversary of the Kent State shootings, and over the weekend Chris Matthews and his liberal cronies, on his syndicated The Chris Matthews Show, previewed the event as they reminisced about where they were at the time. Their memories reflect how anti-war they were back then and how that moment shaped them into the libs they are today as Matthews revealed the likes of his guests, like Newsweek's Howard Fineman and CNN's Gloria Borger, as students, were "editorializing against the war."
In his teasers for the segment Matthews set the table by claiming Kent State marked the time when "The sweetness of the anti-war movement turned sour" and "in the eyes of many the government lost moral authority." While the Chicago Tribune's Clarence Page was actually serving in the Army at the time, the other panelists had already begun their journey towards becoming elite members of the liberal media as Howard Fineman remembered the day this way:
"But I had just finished a year of being editor of the Colgate newspaper, and I'd written editorials questioning the war and so forth. And we reviewed a lot of the violent history of the '60s, we'd lived through it, the civil rights movement, people dying. That night, the night of Kent State, there was a mass gathering in the Colgate chapel, and I remember standing next to one of the few African-American students at Colgate at the time, and he was reflecting on that civil rights history. And he just said - out of nowhere, he said, "Man, they're killing white kids now."Borger, still an impressionable high school student then, revealed Kent State also was a watershed event for her:
"We were against the war, we were editorializing against the war. But Kent State really turned things around for us. And as somebody who was going to college the next year, I remember getting in a car with my best girlfriend and driving from New Rochelle to New Haven to go to a rally at Yale and thinking, gee, what is my college life going to be like because students were shot at a liberal arts college, that, that sort of said, wait a minute, is it dangerous?"The following teasers and segment were was aired on the May 1, Chris Matthews Show:
CHRIS MATTHEWS IN OPENING TEASER: And finally, 40 years since Kent State. Four decades ago this week the shots fired at Kent State turned the country's heart. The sweetness of the anti-war movement turned sour. The '60s gave way to the '70s. Where were you that May?—Geoffrey Dickens is the Senior News Analyst at the Media Research Center. You can follow him on Twitter here
...
MATTHEWS: Welcome back. Forty years ago on May 4th there were campus protests around the country against President Nixon's decision to invade Cambodia. But when the Ohio National Guard opened fire at Kent State and four students died, in the eyes of many the government lost moral authority. Here were Vice President Agnew's prepared remarks that same day.
SPIRO AGNEW: (From May 4, 1970) They make no bones about their hatred of our society, their contempt for traditional morality and their delight in the unbridled passions that lead them to their orgies of violence.
MATTHEWS: Well, after Kent State the fight against the war took on a darker, more violent dimension. On May 14th, two students at Jackson State in Mississippi were shot dead by police, and later that summer came the bombing of the science research lab at the University of Wisconsin. In '71, someone planted a bomb right in the US Capitol.
Forty years ago, Gloria was a high school senior. Here she is editing the school paper. Howard Fineman was a senior at Colgate - he was an Amish person then. Here's his yearbook photo. Andrea Mitchell was a local news reporter in Philadelphia. There she is in London. And recent Army inductee Clarence Page was training in good old Fort Dix, New Jersey.
CLARENCE PAGE, CHICAGO TRIBUNE: Mean green fighting machine.
MATTHEWS: And I was over in Africa in the Peace Corps in Swaziland. There I am with some pals. Clarence, you talk about that time all -and I was just thinking, you were there right in the Army. You were on furlough, I guess, at the time.
PAGE: I haven't changed a bit, have I? No, that's true. I was, I had gone back to Ohio U. just to visit. I was heading west, thinking I was going to Vietnam. And when I got to, to my old campus, everybody was watching TV. Nixon was announcing the invasion of, or the incursion into Cambodia. And, and Ohio U., Kent State, University of Toledo, Ohio State, everybody just kind of took to the streets. It was really that kind of a time. And we avoided that Kent State tragedy because the National Guard never came onto the campus. They stayed out at the county fairgrounds.
MATTHEWS: Good move. Andrea, you were on a beat already in Philly.
ANDREA MITCHELL, NBC NEWS: I was on the beat in Philly, and I remember with the incursion – incursion, not invasion – my younger brother called me from the Penn campus and said, 'Hey, we're all going down to Independence Hall. There's a protest against Richard Nixon.' And I said, well, I'm sort of curious, and I went down and started talking to some cops that I knew, whom I knew, and they said, "Are you here covering it?" And I realized I was watching my brother and all of these college kids, many of whom I knew, were graduate students I'd gone to school with, and all of a sudden that's when I realized I had crossed a divide, I was on the opposite side. I'm an observer. And from, since then...
MATTHEWS: And you'd gone to Penn.
MITCHELL: I had gone to Penn. And from then on I was an observer of events, never again a participant.
MATTHEWS: Howard. I love the beard, by the way.
HOWARD FINEMAN, NEWSWEEK: Well, thank you very much. I was thinking of bringing it back.
GLORIA BORGER, CNN: No, no, no.
FINEMAN: It'd look a little--it'd look a little different now. But I had just finished a year of being editor of the Colgate newspaper, and I'd written editorials questioning the war and so forth. And we reviewed a lot of the violent history of the '60s, we'd lived through it, the civil rights movement, people dying. That night, the night of Kent State, there was a mass gathering in the Colgate chapel, and I remember standing next to one of the few African-American students at Colgate at the time, and he was reflecting on that civil rights history.
MATTHEWS: Yeah.
FINEMAN: And he just said--out of nowhere, he said, "Man, they're killing white kids now."
MATTHEWS: Having gone through all the rioting in '68.
FINEMAN: Having gone through all the rioting and all that in '68. "They're killing white kids now." And, and I, my reaction was one of emotional solidarity. And what that did for a whole generation of kids, or at least some of them, is made them think that they were outsiders. Agnew had it exactly backwards. It wasn't that we thought we were better than America or
different from America, we felt that America was leaving us.
MATTHEWS: Gloria, you were still in high school-
BORGER: Sort of like the Tea Party.
MATTHEWS: -editorializing against the war as the editor of the paper.
BORGER: I was. And, and mostly, I went to a very diverse high school-
MATTHEWS: New Rochelle.
BORGER: -in New Rochelle, New York, where Andrea Mitchell went. I also ended up at Colgate University, where Howard went.
MATTHEWS: Yeah, there's a lot of poor kids up in New Rochelle, weren't there?
BORGER: New Rochelle, New York, was very diverse.
MITCHELL: Actually, it was. It was very diverse.
MATTHEWS: Was it really?
BORGER: Very, very diverse high school. Civil rights had really been our focus.
MITCHELL: Yep.
BORGER: We were against the war, we were editorializing against the war. But Kent State really turned things around for us. And as somebody who was going to college the next year, I remember getting in a car with my best girlfriend and driving from New Rochelle to New Haven to go to a rally at Yale and thinking, gee, what is my college life going to be like because students were shot at a liberal arts college, that, that sort of said, wait a minute, is it dangerous?
MATTHEWS: Wow.
MITCHELL: You know, and I remember only two years later I was covering the Republican National Convention, the renomination of Richard Nixon in Miami, and I guess because I was the youngest person who worked for the company then, they sent me out to cover the protests in Flamingo Park with pepper spray and all that.
MATTHEWS: Sure.
MITCHELL: And so what it started with Kent State as a candlelight vigil at Independence Hall for me with speeches and a quiet protest, by two years later it was all-out hell breaking loose in Flamingo Park.
PAGE: Yeah.
MATTHEWS: You know, I was away, out of the country from '68 to '71 in the Peace Corps in Africa, and the big difference you're talking about that happened at that moment I noticed when I came back. When I left in '68, the anti-war movement was sort of positive, upbeat, a lot of--and by the time I came back, it was very sour and angry and bitter. And I think Kent State had a lot to do with that.
PAGE: One thing about Kent State. Yeah one thing about Kent State, though, it did, that was where the rubber met the road, when kids realized, like Howard said, you can get killed doing this.
BORGER: Right.
PAGE: It wasn't just a lark to go out and demonstrate against the war or burn your draft card.
It got serious at that point. But also, Nixon ended the draft.
MATTHEWS: You were in the Army.
PAGE: Yeah...Kent State.
MATTHEWS: You got sent to Germany.
PAGE: Yeah, I wound up in Germany, yeah. But I was surrounded by Vietnam vets who were short timers waiting to get out. The military was sour by then too, really. The original mission of Vietnam had gotten all muddled. And for the troops, for us grunts, it was just, you know, protect your buddies, watch out for each other.
MATTHEWS: That was the mission.
Mr. PAGE: That was what it was about.
MATTHEWS: Thank you. We gotta go.
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
Fwd: MRC Alert: MSNBC's Contessa Brewer 'Frustrated' That Times Square Bomber Is a Muslim
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