Media top headlines September 7
In media news today, Rachel Maddow and other liberal media figures get slammed for 'taking the bait' on false ivermectin overdose story, CNN gets blasted for an article that claims 'Whiteness' will be expanded to 'tan' in a more diverse America, and The New York Times gets mocked for a piece that appeared to defend Biden's Afghanistan exit
Ari Fleischer, who served as former President George W. Bush's press secretary during the September 11 terror attacks, predicted that the media coverage of this year's remembrances will have to share time with a "split screen" of the chaos in Afghanistan.
President Biden withdrew all U.S. troops from the region but it was a chaotic, bloody process that resulted in over 100 Americans being left behind, breaking a promise he had made to maintain a military presence until every American had been evacuated. The deadliest day of the crisis occurred Thursday, Aug. 26, when a suicide bombing outside the Kabul airport claimed the lives of 13 U.S. service members and over 100 Afghans.
Media pundits and lawmakers broadly agreed that Biden's handling of the withdrawal was a disaster, and one which will be felt for some time.
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Fleischer regretted that the episode will cast a shadow this weekend as Americans mark 20 years since September 11, 2001.
"And now of course, we’ll have split screens on September 11, I’m sure," Fleischer told Fox News. "We’ll have the appropriate remembrance of those who lost their lives…but the Taliban celebrate in Afghanistan…We don’t know if they’ll be other names to be added on September 11."
"It doesn’t have to be this way," he continued. "It shouldn’t have been this way and unfortunately September 11, 2021 will have a split screen to it."
Fleischer, who for the past several years has shared a detailed Twitter thread recounting his experience serving alongside President Bush on September 11, said Biden's goal of ending the war in Afghanistan by the major U.S. date was tragically flawed.
"Well, first and foremost, as soon as President Biden announced he wanted to bring the troops home by September 11, my instant reaction was, ‘That’s the wrong day,'" he said. "September 11 is a remembrance day, a day of tribute to those who lost their lives, and should all be thinking of the family members of those who lost their lives in the attack on our country. It should not be clouded by any other events, no matter how meritorious they may or may not be."
A more appropriate symbolic date, Fleischer suggested, would have been October 7, the day the American counter attack in Afghanistan began.
"That would have been a more fitting day to deal with what our military posture should be," he said. "September 11 should be wholeheartedly a day of remembrance and tribute."
Asked to analyze the news networks' coverage of September 11 more generally, Fleischer said it is understandable it is longer around the clock as it was in the immediate years following the attacks.
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"I can completely understand not having 24/7 around the clock coverage anymore," he said. "That was appropriate one year after, two years after, perhaps five years after."
"But then the cycle of history repeats itself and we remember these major events – Pearl Harbor, or D-Day," he continued. "We seem to remember them at 5s, and 10s, 20s, 25s, on the 50th anniversary. And that’s because life refreshes itself. It’s not a bad thing for the American people to move forward, to go on."
But moving on, he said, does not mean forgetting.
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"But as we go on, as people resume their lives, which they did many years ago, it is always appropriate to stop and pay respect and think about the families of those who lost their lives that day and to think about the lessons for our country, about what we need to do protect ourselves going forward," Fleischer said. "Those are eternal lessons, and September 11 is the perfect day to remember them."