EU says "EU!" to Rice

"The European Union said yesterday it was moving ahead with plans to lift an arms embargo on China despite hearing a raft of reservations from the new American Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice." - The Independent

Wouldn't it be nice if we had a real press?

The coverage of Rice's trip in the U.S. has been totally obsequious. Reading it, you would think that the Europeans had NO CHOICE but to simply fall in love with this woman and kowtow to her amazing charms.

They just don't get it.

Outside of America, some things are actually more important than advertising. Like reality.

You can't insult people, dis them, and hold them up to public humiliation for the crime of disagreeing with you and being right - and then think you can fix it with a speech. Just because the American press refuses to ask hard questions, it doesn't mean that the REST of world stops asking hard questions. The American Media flooding the American airwaves with pre-digested, approved spin does NOT cause the rest of the world to stop thinking critically.

In SOME countries, reality trumps a PR offensive. The Bush White House doesn't reside in the Reality-Based Community. God knows that the American Media is downright hostile to the very idea that there IS such a thing as reality. Their whole BUSINESS is the business of manufacturing a false reality.

But in the rest of the world, war is NOT glorious just because enough ads say so. The spilling of blood does not become acceptable just because there are no pictures of it.

In the rest of the world, truth is truth and falsehood is falsehood, and press coverage can't make a lie the truth.

And once you've spent three years lying to people, they stop believing you.

That's reality.