Dan Rather: Mainstream US Media Are Frightened and Timid
>>> CBS News' star anchor Dan Rather appeared on BBC's Newsnight on May 16, 2002. Apparently feeling safe in Britain, Rather made some extremely candid comments about the state of the news media in his homeland:

.... There has never been an American war, small or large, in which access has been so limited as this one. Limiting access, limiting information to cover the backsides of those who are in charge of the war, is extremely dangerous and cannot and should not be accepted. And I am sorry to say that up to and including the moment of this interview, that overwhelmingly it has been accepted by the American people. And the current administration revels in that, they relish that, and they take refuge in that.
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The Return of John Rambo
Smoking Out Bin Laden
Kurt Nimmo, Counterpunch, January 22, 2003

If Bush can't kill bin Laden in real life, he might as well have Rocky do it in the movies. Showbiz reporter for the UK Sun Online, Jacqui Smith, says the 56 year old Sylvester Stallone will once again bring the Rambo character to life, this time to fight the forces of evil, namely the Taliban and Osama bin Laden. Stallone was so keen to see bin Laden brought to justice -- something Bush is unable or unwilling to do -- he wrote the script himself.

.... Stallone and Miramax, however, are a little behind the curve. In the months since 911, bin Laden has slipped under the Bushite radar screen, especially now that they have their sights fixed on Iraq and its bounteous oil fields. If Hollywood is sincerely interested in producing a topical movie, they'd have Rambo parachuting into Baghdad under the cover of darkness with a grenade launching AK47 slung over his shoulder, bayonet clenched between his teeth, and his naked chest crisscrossed with teflon hollowpoint cartridge belts (a few depleted uranium shells thrown in for good measure). Rambo would sneak into one of Saddam's many palatial residences and slit his throat while he dreams of Nebuchadnezzar.

But then, considering no intelligence service or covert op team has been able to get anywhere near the slippery Iraqi dictator -- not with Saddam's al-Bu Nasir praetorian guards lurking about -- this scenario may be even more "beyond the imagination" than the idiotic bin Laden idea. But then idiotic movies are Hollywood's stock and trade. ... (more)

- posted by ARYABHATT @ 6:28 pm