FoolUsOnce....Won'tGetFooledAgainVille
What?!
You don't remember the Iranian News Zombie?
Well, it was a demonstrable falsehood written by a zealot in the employ of a PR firm well known for 'planting' stories that was given credence on the front pages of the National Post. As a result, the whirlitzer cranked up to the point where literally hundreds of media outlets, both respectable and screamer, could point back at each other's reports while they rhetorically ignored the fact it wasn't true.
And don't think that the Zombie's reach was limited to the media, because even our then and current sitting Prime Minister, Mr. Stephen Harper, felt the need to lovingly caress the falsehood that would not die:
OTTAWA (CP, May 19, 2006) - Prime Minister Stephen Harper was quick to condemn Iran on Friday for an anti-Semitic law that appears not to exist.
Harper seized on a newspaper report that said Iran's hardline government would require Jews and Christians to wear coloured labels in public.
The prime minister couldn't vouch for the accuracy of the newspaper report, but he added that Iran was capable of such actions and compared them to Nazi practices.
"Unfortunately, we've seen enough already from the Iranian regime to suggest that it is very capable of this kind of action," Harper said.
But of course, no harm no foul - right?
Because the Zombie is surely six feet under by now - right?
Perhaps.
Except that, all of a sudden, Donald Rumsfeld's replacement, Robert Gates, is running around with a gravedigger's shovel in his hands while he babbles on incessantly about how it is actually Iran's fault that his own Supreme Leaders' have enabled Shiite extremists to the point that they are killing American soldiers in Iraq*.
Well, that and the fact that it appears that the whirlitzer may be cranking again, this time on the pages of Canada's other national newspaper.
How else does one explain the fact, with Mr. Gates' Supreme Leaders' obfuscatory war drums starting to beat once more, that the Globe and Mail suddenly decided, just yesterday, to devote almost their entire front page to:
"IRAN'S GROWING SHADOW"
Of course, this time around, with more on the line, the Zombie makers and Whirlitzer crankers are being more careful because the piece that the cult-obsessed headline and the scary photo of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad hide behind is actually not a bad one** by Doug Saunders that is buried within the Focus section.
Which is all the more scary - especially if Mr. Harper takes the bait again.
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*Of course, the apparently unhinged Mr. Gates has also been simultaneously berating NATO countries for not adequately cleaning up his Supreme Leaders' mess in Afghanistan.
**Actually it is a very fine piece of reportage, so much so that the story itself is actually a potent ant-whirlitzer apparatus, which makes Fast Eddie G's front page all the more troubling.
Oh, and just in case you were wondering whatever happened to the man who brought the Zombie to life in the first place? Why, he was feted for his 'hard-work' by non other than Mr. Gates' Supreme Leader #1A.
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