Wounded Vets Support Iraq War: Mike Wallace Astonished

From the Media Research Center:

Appearing by phone on Friday’s Imus in the Morning radio simulcast on MSNBC, to plug his then-upcoming Sunday night 60 Minutes report on the struggles and achievements of some military members severely wounded in Iraq, Mike Wallace admitted he was “astonished” at how “almost all of them support the war despite the fact that it’s taken such a toll on them.” He elaborated, “We asked them flat out: What about should we be there? And the ones that are the most severely hit believe yes, we should have been there. They are not angry at the President. . . .” Indeed, in Sunday’s 60 Minutes piece, Wallace gave four wounded vets a total of 45 seconds to express support for the war -- but then allocated twice as much time to a wounded vet to denounce the war. Over video of Tomas Young with Cindy Sheehan, Wallace note how he “has become an anti-war activist since he was paralyzed in Iraq.” Young recalled how he heard President Bush “standing on the rubble of the World Trade Center with a megaphone saying that we were going find the people that did it and smoke them out of their caves and all that rah rah. And so I wanted to go to Afghanistan to seek some form of retribution on the people that did this to us.” Instead of Afghanistan, Wallace pointed out, “he found himself in Iraq, which he considers the wrong war in the wrong place.”

This, of course, is how the Mainstream Media operates. If you want to be quoted, tell them what they want to hear.

Thus people who have had a loved one brutally murdered who say they don’t want the killer executed can expect to become the darlings of the media, no matter that they are grossly atypical. If 70% of Catholics happen to like a conservative Pope, count on the media to showcase voices from the other 30%.

Wallace has previously made clear his disgust with the war. In late November on FNC, he contended that “Iraq is becoming a kind of Vietnam” and asserted that “we should never have gone into Iraq. We were sold a bill of goods.” Back in 2004 at a Smithsonian forum, Wallace argued that “this is not, in my estimation, a good war” and declared that “it sure is not a noble enterprise.”

During the 8:30am EST half hour interview on the February 10 Imus in the Morning, Imus asked Wallace: “Did any of these kids get into the politics of the war?” Wallace replied, by phone:

“Indeed they did. And I was astonished: Almost all of them, almost all of them are, support the war despite the fact that it’s taken such a toll on them. We asked, we asked them flat out: What about should we be there? And the ones that are the most severely hit believe yes, we should have been there. They are not angry at the President, they’re not angry at the establishment. I promise you you’ll be astonished if you’re up that late on Sunday night.”

Wallace is here admitting that he is simply out of rouch with the troops and indeed with middle America. Why would he think that those who have made large sacrifices want the terrorists to win in Iraq?