Letter to the AP: Tempest in a Hot, Dry, Little, Texas Teapot [View All]

[Ready2Snap]

8/22/05

To the editors at The Associated Press:

I empathize with Ms. Angela Brown becoming the story, instead of reporting it.
I endured a similar incident years ago while the op-ed editor of a college newspaper.
And just as it was with that episode, the world is better off because of her faux pas.
It was unfortunate, however, her editor did not catch
what I believe was the unintentional slight and breach of journalistic equanimity.
And certainly the indignation of Ms. Sheehan’s supporters is genuine and heartfelt,
but that’s not her problem it’s theirs.

The liberals are just now warming to the idea that
they aren’t the anti-Americans they’ve allowed themselves to be labeled,
but regard themselves as the true defenders of the nation’s principles and conscience,
and therefore equally qualified to claim “the stars and stripes” as their standard.

Ms. Brown finds herself the object of righteous anger from left-leaning citizens
for referring to the counter-protester’s hastily pitched response to Sheehan’s Camp Casey as patriotic,
whereas that modifier has not been applied to Sheehan’s bivouac.
Oh, the insult and humiliation!

Oh, gimme a break! The liberal/progressive movement allowed the right to claim the flag as their own, as if it were a trademark.
But, the right’s exclusive claim to the national banner, begun during the culture wars of the ‘60s and ‘70s
and grounded in the Viet Nam war, simply no longer applies in these times.

A Google search of “Angela K. Brown” reveals she’s been covering the Crawford phenomenon from the beginning,
and her stories appear in a variety of websites and newspapers, the majority of which any liberal would consider friendly.
Her articles have been exemplary of the journalistic standard so woefully missing in much of today’s subjective news reporting,
and altogether absent from a large part of the internet, especially the blogosphere.
Her faithful representations of what has been taking place in Crawford have, expectedly so, raised conservative's hackles.
But, as with the liberals, that’s not her problem it’s theirs.

I hope an apology is not forthcoming, nor Ms. Brown’s reputation sullied for using a single word.
As I said, the world is a better place for her having used it.
On such words the history of our country turns.