Memo to the American Media: Get a Grip



The terrorists have succeeded in making the American media do a bang-up job of transforming itself into the cowering mouthpieces of unreasoning, disproportionate, over-the top fearmongering and unthinkable reprisal.

Let us, just for a moment, clear our heads and consider the facts. So far the dread Anthrax Plague of '01 has killed exactly three (3) victims. This happened because the victims did not know they had anthrax and therefore went untreated. More people will die today from high cholesterol than from anthrax exposures throughout the course of this war. Why? Because anthrax is a lousy weapon. It's easily treatable, hard to inflict on large populations without a sophisticated delivery system (and the US Mail ain't it), everybody is on hyper-alert for it, and you can even vaccinate against it.

I will say it again: Anthrax is a tempest in a teapot.

But the teapot happens to include several figures in American media and government who have a vastly disproportionate influence on American public life. Send anthrax mail to Cedar Rapids, Iowa and you've worried people for a day. Send it to Tom Brokaw, the New York Times, and a few selected drama queens in Congress, give a secretary a minor skin infection which is easily treatable, and voila! You've got everybody in the American media (who already believe the world entirely revolves around them) talking as though American Civilization is doomed and doing a sterling job of scaring the daylights out of the people (for a day or two anyway) with a media feeding frenzy.

Let's have some perspective shall we? The Blitz in London killed 40,000 people. The English responded with iron resolve and even good cheer and courage as they faced down the foe. Churchill's response was famous:

We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and the oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.

Weenie media types, in contrast, find that, a month into the war, some cowardly little creeps out there are conducting mildly unsettling attacks that are easily foiled or repelled. Instead of keeping their heads level under those expensive hairdos, they start writing execrable stuff like “America has entered the season of the witch. From his jagged lair, Osama Bin Laden was summoning up a swarm of demonic creatures to invade our brains. It will take more than the power of good, or the power of bunker busters, to knock this lord of evil off his Bald Mountain” (Maureen Dowd) or declaring a little poison in an envelope “the ultimate nightmare” (Tom Brokaw).

Message received: “Be afraid. Be very afraid.” Thanks guys. Who needs a Taliban Ministry of Propaganda when ninnies like Mo and Tom are ready to cave to the cave dwellers?

Worse still, the counsels of cowardice provoke the equal and opposite reaction of grotesque over-response from some quarters. The other day, I turned on the radio to hear voices suggesting that because “biological warfare” (that would be the first death in Florida) is being conducted, we are now completely justified as a nation in firing nuclear missiles at the offending state that provided the anthrax to the terrorists. I personally have little doubt that Iraq is probably going to be found to be involved in this before it's over and I have no problem with the idea of finally destroying the regime of Saddam Hussein and jailing or killing him and his henchmen. But to say that a couple deaths and some mildly dangerous envelopes sent to a few media types and government officials justifies turning large portions of Iraq (and its civilian population) into radioactive waste is what Catholic theology, I am confident, would describe as a “disproportionate response.” There is no way to justify such a position from a Catholic perspective.

What is needed here is plain and simple calm and courage. Calm allows something called “thought” to take place. Courage allows us to look evil in the eye and do our job without yammering out stupid things that are either defeatist or evil. And when that happens, we find several things emerge.

First, as I have already said, I think that on September 11, the enemy hit us with their best shot and that this is, in the long run, good news. It's now going to be much more difficult to steal airliners, hijack tanker trucks, or acquire the means to perform some spectacular act of destruction. The odds of mass death by anthrax are very unlikely (as this and as this article show). Meanwhile, we are pounding the living daylights out of the Taliban and al-Quaeda and coordinating a massive and unprecedented worldwide dragnet for the bad guys. Does this mean that they can't hit us again? Of course not. But it does mean that we are fighting men, not some quasi-mythical omnipotent and omniscient “lord of evil.” So our talking hairdos in the media should shut up and stop talking that way.

The bad guys are, I think, sending little envelopes full of poison because that's about the best they can do. As each day passes, we get a little closer to figuring out who and where they are and either locking them up or killing them. As each day passes, their ability to gain access to the technology necessary to deliver another devastating blow decreases. As each day passes, we come to realize more and more the need to prepare and the ways in which to do this well. And as each day passes, we get closer, not to the End of Civilization As We Know It, but to the destruction of the terror networks we have tolerated for too long. As John O'Sullivan points out:

In making war on modern civilization (a.k.a. “the West”), Osama bin Laden has taken on two forces that together are probably invincible — the first is the patient, methodical, bureaucratic procedures of the modern state, the second the spontaneous organizing power of ordinary people in a democratic society.

What took Osama years of meticulous planning in his remote cave was rendered obsolete within minutes by the courage of a randomly selected group of American travelers. He may not know it yet; he may even score a few more victories; but the Cave Man is already extinct.

So instead of having hysterics and shouting out in panic or insane bellicosity, let's keep our heads, put one foot in front of the other, and do our work. Victory in this war is virtually assured, so long as we fight it to the end. Hysterics (and grotesque evil done in imitation of the enemy) is practically the only thing that can keep it from happening.

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Mark P. Shea is a popular Catholic writer and speaker. The author of numerous books, his most recent work is The Work of Mercy (Servant) and The Heart of Catholic Prayer (Our Sunday Visitor). Mark contributes numerous articles to many magazines, including his popular column “Connecting the Dots” for the National Catholic Register. Mark is known nationally for his one minute “Words of Encouragement” on Catholic radio. He also maintains the Catholic and Enjoying It blog and regularly blogs for National Catholic Register. He lives in Washington state with his wife, Janet, and their four sons.

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