Throughout Bush’s presidency the liberal media howled about censorship and lobbied heavily for the right to film the flag-draped caskets of dead soldiers as they returned home. President Bush was accused of “hiding” the realities of war from the American people.
As soon as Obama took office he promptly lifted the ban on filming as long as the family of the deceased approved it. Since that time, more often than not the families have given the go ahead to film their deceased loved ones coming home — but the media is nowhere to be found.
According to the Washington Examiner, the media showed up in force the first couple times after the ban was lifted, but not so much after that.
When the casket bearing Air Force Tech. Sgt. Phillip Myers, of Hopewell, Va., arrived at Dover the night of April 5 — the first arrival in which press coverage was allowed — there were representatives of 35 media outlets on hand to cover the story. Two days later, when the body of Army Spc. Israel Candelaria Mejias, of San Lorenzo, Puerto Rico, arrived, 17 media outlets were there. (All the figures here were provided by the Mortuary Affairs Operations Center.) On subsequent days in April, there were nearly a dozen press organizations on hand to cover arrivals.
Fast forward to today. On Sept. 2, when the casket bearing the body of Marine Lance Cpl. David Hall, of Elyria, Ohio, arrived at Dover, there was just one news outlet — the Associated Press — there to record it. The situation was pretty much the same when caskets arrived on Sept. 5, 9, 10, 12, 13, 14, 16, 22, 23 and 26. There has been no television coverage at all in September.
This proves what most of us always knew about this issue from the very beginning. The media was only interested in photographing dead soldiers when it served to damage President Bush. With Obama now in charge of the war, the media has zero interest in showing the “realities of war” because it would only serve to damage their man. It’s truly despicable.
-Chris Jones
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