The surrender of former Iraqi foreign and deputy prime minister Tariq Aziz to US forces took me back almost 20 years to my own meeting with the man, who for decades was Iraq's main representative to the world.

On a warm night in November 1984, I walked up the path of a luxurious house in northwest Washington that served as the Iraqi ambassador's mansion. That very day, the two countries had announced the resumption of diplomatic relations and the Iraqi flag flew outside for the first time in many years. The charming, worldly ambassador, Nizar Hamdoun, had invited a small group to dinner to meet then foreign minister Aziz. It was a time when many in Washington wanted to ingratiate themselves with that government. Robert Hunter, later president Bill Clinton's ambassador to NATO, shocked me when he told Hamdoun to beware of me because I had written articles critical of Iraq.

Aziz's strong resemblance to the late British actor Peter Sellers softened his menacing presence as representative of a gangster regime. He had an engaging way with his Cuban cigars and fondness for Johnny Walker black label scotch of hinting at cosmopolitan proclivities and implying that he was more civilized than the tough guys who were his colleagues. Aziz had also perfected one of the great diplomatic skills: he could lie persuasively "Oh, no," he said, "Iraq has never used chemical weapons" while his eyes conveyed a world-weary, sophisticated regret at uttering such falsehoods.

Aziz was visiting Washington to secure more US help in Iraq's war with Iran. Significantly, the main course included a garnish of bacon and a generous supply of fine wine, a culinary gesture of militant secularism, since both violated Islamic law. Aziz made a strong pitch for the United States to support Iraq in the Gulf.

At that point, though, Helen Thomas of UPI interrupted him, "Why didn't you retaliate" against Israel, she asked, "when [it] destroyed your nuclear reactor?" The foreign minister tried to brush away the question. Thomas did not find the response acceptable, "Just yellow, I guess," she complained.

Hamdoun looked uncomfortable. Insulting the foreign minister might have been a capital offense in Baghdad.

But Aziz soldiered on. He was just explaining why the Iran-Iraq war was the most important issue in the Middle East when Rowland Evans, co-author of the famous Evans & Novak column, interrupted him. "You must not talk like that!" he lectured the startled Iraqi foreign minister. Evans instructed Aziz to tell the US government that the Arab-Israeli conflict was the Middle East's central issue and that the lack of peace was all Israel's fault.

Unaccustomed to being attacked for excessive softness on Israel, Aziz looked astonished....

     END of Excerpt

     For Rubin's piece in full: www.jpost.com

NBC Distances Itself from Banfield's
Attack on War Whitewashing

     NBC News is trying to distance itself from remarks made last week by Ashleigh Banfield in which she expressed her disgust with how U.S. TV networks did not show the "horrors" of war and so Americans are not sufficiently anti-war for her.

     As recounted in the April 28 CyberAlert, in remarks last Thursday at Kansas State, Banfield rued: "I'm not sure Americans are hesitant to do this again -- to fight another war, because it looked to them like a courageous and terrific endeavor." She also complained about "cable news operators who wrap themselves in the American flag."

     Banfield also denounced MSNBC for giving an hour a week to radio talk show host Michael Savage.

     The Hollywood Reporter on Monday relayed how NBC News, which runs MSNBC, a network that prominently displayed the flag, issued a statement declaring: "We are deeply disappointed and troubled by her remarks, and will review her comments with her."

     Romenesko ( www.poynter.org ) highlighted the April 28 Hollywood Reporter story by Andrew Grossman. An excerpt:

NBC News correspondent Ashleigh Banfield has ripped television news networks, including her own, for their "glorious" coverage of the Iraqi war and a lack of focus on international news overall.

In a speech Thursday at Kansas State University, she also attacked NBC News for hiring right-wing radio talk-show host Michael Savage to do a show on MSNBC. Savage recently called Banfield a "slut" after her reports portraying the radical Arab point of view.

Banfield, who won her first notoriety for her coverage from the World Trade Center on 9/11, might be in some trouble for her comments. In a statement issued on Friday, NBC News said, "Ms. Banfield does not speak for NBC News. We are deeply disappointed and troubled by her remarks, and will review her comments with her. In the meantime, we want to emphasize how proud we are of the journalism produced by NBC News and of the men and women who worked around the clock, even risking their lives, to bring this story to the American public."...

Banfield, who hosted an unsuccessful talk show on MSNBC last year and is now reporting for both MSNBC and NBC News, criticized the networks for showing a bloodless war that gave a skewed picture which glossed over the horrors of battle. She did not report from Iraq during the war, but has been stationed overseas in the past.

"It was a glorious and wonderful picture that had a lot of people watching and a lot of advertisers excited about cable news," she said at the college's annual Landon Lecture in Manhattan. "But it wasn't journalism because I'm not so sure we in America are hesitant to do this again, to fight another war...because it looked like a glorious and courageous and so successfully terrific endeavor."

What was wrong with the coverage?

"You did not see where those bullets landed. You didn't see what happened when the mortars landed. A puff of smoke is not what a mortar looks like when it explodes, believe me," Banfield said.

She ripped NBC for putting Savage on the air saying, "He was so taken aback by my daring to speak to martyrs...for being prepared to sacrifice themselves, he chose to label me a slut on the air, and that's not all, as a porn star and an accessory to the murder of Jewish children. These are the ramifications for simply bringing the message in the Arab world."

Banfield said it was vital to present the Arabs' viewpoint because of a lack of understanding among them and Americans in what has driven them to such violence....

Banfield also criticized Fox News Channel for merging entertainment value with news, saying the network has risen to the top by targeting conservative viewers. "Fox has taken so many viewers away from CNN and MSNBC because of their agenda and because of their target marketing of cable news viewers. I'm afraid there's not a really big place in cable for news," she said.

She added that networks like MSNBC have tried to compete by aping Fox's format. "You can see the big hires on other networks, right-wing hires to try and chase after this effect," she added....

     END of Excerpt

     For the story in its entirety: story.news.yahoo.com

     I'm not sure I'd want to defend her Middle East coverage from last year, but I certainly don't want to get anywhere near Savage's over the top and crude comments. From my listening to his radio show, he's less any kind of a genuine conservative and more of an actor playing out a liberal's caricature of how conservatives are hateful, mean, ill-informed, prejudiced and immature, a stereotype he regularly fulfills.

Actors Grammer, Priestley and Duvall
Denounce Anti-War Celebs

     At Saturday's White House Correspondents Association dinner, actors Kelsey Grammer, Jason Priestley, Robert Duvall and Ron Silver all told CNSNews.com reporter Marc Morano how they disagreed with Michael Moore's anti-Bush rant at the Academy Awards and wish their fellow celebrities would refrain from making comments about politics.

     Priestley, Morano relayed, "lamented the excessive coverage of anti-war celebrities by what he termed the 'liberal media.'" And, Morano learned, "CNN's Bob Franken did not like Fox News's use of the phrase 'we' when covering the U.S. armed forces during the war."

     An excerpt from Morano's April 28 story about what the actors told him before the April 26 dinner at the Washington Hilton:

Hollywood celebrities attending the 89th annual White House Correspondents Association Dinner in Washington on Saturday night made it a point to condemn celebrity anti-war activists.

Actor Kelsey Grammer, who plays the lead role in NBC's "Frasier" sitcom, said he refused to watch this year's Academy Awards because of the anti-war "crap" that fellow celebrities spewed.

Grammer said he was spared filmmaker Michael Moore's anti-war acceptance speech and attack on the Bush administration at the March 23rd Academy Awards. "I didn't hear it because I didn't watch [the Academy Awards], Grammer told CNSNews.com.

"I wasn't interested. I knew that that kind of crap was going to be there and I thought, I am not interested," Grammer added.

While accepting an Oscar for his anti-gun documentary "Bowling For Columbine," Moore said, "We live in a time where we have a man sending us to war for fictitious reasons...Shame on you, Mr. Bush, shame on you."

Grammer called Moore's movie "a one-sided film" and blamed the media for giving so much publicity to Moore's anti-war speech.

"The media just loves to pay attention to whatever is happening that makes the most noise," Grammer explained.

Jason Priestley of "Beverly Hills 90210" television fame, agreed with Grammer and lamented the excessive coverage of anti-war celebrities by what he termed the "liberal media."

"I think more people should keep their opinions to themselves," Priestley said. He was particularly incensed by Moore's acceptance speech.

"It was shocking. I did not believe that was the forum to voice your opinions. Michael Moore is allowed to have opinions and his opinions are valid like everyone else's opinion, but I just didn't think the Academy Awards were the place to voice them in that manner," he explained.

'Keep their mouths shut'

Actor Robert Duvall said he is not a fan of Michael Moore, and he lashed out at Hollywood political activists.

"They should keep their mouths shut," Duvall said.

Asked if the media over-emphasizes celebrity opinions, actor Ron Silver emphatically agreed.

"I do, because at the end of the day, who cares? There are more important things on the table. But if they wanted to use Natalie Maines (of the Dixie Chicks) or Tim Robbins or me, or whomever, that is their business," Silver said.

Silver, a cofounder of the Creative Coalition, a generally liberal Hollywood activist organization, was an ardent supporter of the war in Iraq.

Asked if he has received any flak from other celebrities such as fellow Creative Coalition founder Susan Sarandon for his outspoken support of the war, Silver quipped, "Absolutely none, absolutely none, we just don't talk anymore."

Silver also dismissed Moore's acceptance speech,, saying, "I don't listen to Michael Moore...I didn't agree with him."...

CNN's Bob Franken did not like Fox News's use of the phrase "we" when covering the U.S. armed forces during the war.

"I disagree with the Fox approach to it. I believe it was jingoistic, but that's their approach to it. They would disagree with me, I suspect," Franken told CNSNews.com.

"We have to be remember and even those of us who are in the embed [program] have to remember, it is 'they,' not 'we'. It's just an important distinction. We serve our country by doing that," Franken explained....

     END of Excerpt

     For the story in full: www.cnsnews.com

     For more about the celebrities quoted, see their bios on the Internet Movie Database site:

     For Kelsey Grammer: us.imdb.com

     For Jason Priestley: us.imdb.com

     For Robert Duvall: us.imdb.com
    
     For Ron Silver: us.imdb.com

     Before the Screen Actors Guild Awards in early March Grammer told Access Hollywood that he supported the war: "I'm pro, that simple." See: www.mediaresearch.org

     CyberAlert readers should be familiar with Silver, who has an ongoing role as a political strategist on NBC's West Wing, from his frequent pre-war cable appearances going head-to-head with anti-liberation of Iraq celebrities like Ed Asner.

     As recounted in the February 11 CyberAlert, on FNC's Beltway Boys actor Ron Silver recounted his negative reaction to anti-Americanism in Europe and rejected the idea that it's Bush's fault. He even suggested that imposing U.S. values on the world isn't "a bad idea by the way, I kind of think our values are fairy universal and might be helpful." See: www.mediaresearch.org

     For Silver's debate on CNN with Asner last November, see: www.mediaresearch.org

     For the MRC's "Celebrities on Politics and War" collection of the few quotes from pro-war celebrities and many quotes from anti-war celebrities, see: www.mediaresearch.org

NBC More Interested in Santorum Than
Murray's Osama Remarks

     Senator Rick Santorum versus Senator Patty Murray. Both made comments which brought condemnation from political activists, but NBC News only considered the harangues of liberals against Santorum to be newsworthy.

     Tim Graham, the MRC's Director of Media Analysis, filed this item for CyberAlert:

     The hubbub is over surrounding Sen. Rick Santorum's remarks to AP reporter Lara Jakes Jordan on a Supreme Court sodomy-law case. In retrospect, the storm was fairly mild on the broadcast television networks, mostly contained to a series of stories and interviews on NBC. But NBC didn't find an occasion for news when Sen. Patty Murray compared U.S. foreign aid unfavorably with the philanthropy of Osama bin Laden.

     Reporter Joe Johns did news reports on the Santorum hubbub on both Today and NBC Nightly News on April 23. The next morning on Today, Katie Couric plugged an upcoming set of segments on Santorum: another news report from Johns, and an interview with Tim Russert to assess "the fallout from these comments."

     NBC wasn't creating any "fallout" for Democrats last December, when Sen. Patty Murray, like Sen. Santorum a party leader in the Senate as head of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, said something that would have clearly made her an object of national derision. On December 18, 2002, Sen. Murray told a group of high school students in Vancouver, Washington that Osama bin Laden had "been out in these countries for decades building roads, building schools, building infrastructure, building day care facilities, building health care facilities, and the people are extremely grateful. It made their lives better. We have not done that." NBC coverage was zero, as it was on ABC and CBS.

     END Submission by Graham

     This finally give me an opportunity to run something long ago forgotten in my pending file: Back on January 9 FNC's Special Report with Brit Hume, but anchored that night by Tony Snow, played home movie-type video of Murray's remarks in a high school classroom.

     Snow recalled, as taken down by MRC analyst Brad Wilmouth:
     "Last month we told you about comments made to high school students in Washington state by Democratic Senator Patty Murray. She appeared then to compliment Osama bin Laden for building schools and roads in various countries. Well, Fox News now has obtained the tape from the school's video department. Senator Murray was asked why bin Laden is so popular in some places, and here is her unedited answer, and then later her defense of those comments, the defense made today."
     Senator Patty Murray (D-WA) in video of her at the high school: "We've got to ask why is this man so popular around the world, why are people so supportive of him in many countries? Well, he has been in many countries that are riddled with poverty. People don't have homes, no sewers, no roads, no schools, no health care, no facilities just to make sure that their daily lives are okay. He's been out in these countries for decades building schools, building roads, building infrastructure, building day care facilities, building health care facilities, and the people are extremely grateful. He's made their life better. We have not done that. We haven't been out in many of these countries helping them build their infrastructure. How would they look at us today if we had been there helping them with some of that rather than just being the people who are gonna bomb in Iraq or go to Afghanistan.
     "Now, the argument back is that's going to cost a lot of money. Absolutely, right. And the second argument is, but we have schools here and health care facilities here that are really hurting. Should our tax dollars go to pay for facilities in Third World countries? Not easy answers, expensive both ways. But war is expensive, too. Right now we've decided that war is the way we're gonna go. But your generation ought to be thinking about whether or not you believe that perhaps we should be better neighbors out in other countries so that they have a different vision of us."
    
     FNC then played a fresh clip of Murray from earlier in the day on Capitol Hill: "I have to tell you that it is really important that people don't twist or construe marks that were made to an AP student group in a Vancouver high school. We all know, everyone in this country knows that Osama bin Laden is an evil terrorist, and in my remarks I told the students we're taking the right steps now. The question is what do we do next, and it's an important question. That's what it was about."