Ed Murrow of our times!

Over the last few years, I have become quite disappointed about the Main Stream Media (MSM) in this country. Instead of providing a critical and unbiased view of the current events, as it should, it often plays safe by giving both sides of a story, however wrong one side may be. During the 2000 President election, it was quite obvious to anyone, who was knowledgeable about world affairs, that George Bush was no match to Al Gore for his knowledge and experience. (I remember Bush embarrassing himself by not knowing the names of political leaders of India and Pakistan). But it was gleefully ignored, and the focus was on how 'likable' the candidates were, and how stiff Gore looked! The MSM again gave a pass to President Bush on his justification of Iraq war, without doing any critical analysis of his strategy against the lessons from past history. In 2004, the New York Times sat on their story on Karl Rove being a leaker of the cover of CIA agent Valerie Plame, waiting for the Presidential elections to be over! My list of complaints against the news media can go on like this.
Anyway, last week I found someone in the MSM who is refreshingly different and blunt. It is Keith Obermann of MSNBC. He gave a six-minute speech rebutting Secretary Don Rumsfield’s assertion that people who criticise the Iraq war are like the ‘appeasers’ of the Nazis before World War II. Obermann speech was stunning and brilliant. I loved his opening statement, “The man who sees absolutes, where all other men see nuances and shades of meaning, is either a prophet, or a quack. Donald H. Rumsfield is not a prophet.” His assertion that, “His (Rumsfield’s) government, absolute and exclusive in its knowledge, is not the modern version of the one which stood up to the Nazis. It is the modern version of the government… of Neville Chamberlain!”, was logical and well thought out. I am sure that this speech will be referred and quoted years from now, like Edward Murrow’s speech during the McCarthy era criticizing the witch-hunt for communists. Thank you, Keith. You give me hope!