Disturbed down to the core
Today I was watching Hardball on MSNBC and this guy Tom Fenton is being interviewed. Tom is the most senior foreign correspondent for any news agency in America. And he informs me that for the 3 major TV networks (ABC, CBS, NBC) only have 2 permanent Foriegn Offices a piece, one in London, one in Beijing. Thats nothing in AFRICA, the MIDDLE EAST, SOUTH AMERICA, continental EUROPE. So if something happens in Rome, i.e. oh I don't know, the Pope dies, our closest idea of what's going on is from London until we send some Italio-illiterate asshole with a bachelors in journalism to not really grasp the situation. No wonder we didn't really grasp that Middle-Easterns didn't like us until they killed 3,000 of us in an hour or so. We should have one permanent reporter in every country we're friends with and 5 in all the countries we aren't. Because nothing gets done till it gets in the press.