If you're not convinced that Rupert Murdoch is a miracle
man, he is providing you with proof that he is. He did so using both sides of
the mouth to argue that the coin has only one side. In the final analysis,
whether or not you consider this to be a miracle is up to you. But the one
thing to which you must admit, is that for someone like him to be and to
thrive, is in itself a miracle.
As executive chairman of News Corp., which owns the Wall
Street Journal, Murdoch delivered a speech at the Hudson Institute on November
30, 2015, excerpts of which were published in the Journal the next day. They
came under the title: “America
the Indispensable” and the subtitle: “Like so many naturalized citizens, I felt
that I was an American before I formally became one”.
After mocking “college students, progressive academics and
all other deeply sensitive souls” whose prejudices he warned might be
challenged by his words … and after paying long homage to Henry Kissinger who introduced
him to the guests, Murdoch set out to argue that everything America did –
whether they turned out to be good or bad – were actually good things. Needless
to say, he also implied that everything good in the world could not have
happened were it not for America – even when America opposed it strenuously and
lost to those who made the thing happen. That's talking from both sides of the
mouth to tell that the coin has only one side.
The puzzling part about the Murdoch dissertation is that he
ended it with these thoughts: “We are here … to celebrate America … The
world, as we know it, depends upon our great country.” But what exactly does he
say America
did that is worth celebrating? And what does he say America can still do … upon which
the world may depend? Well, this is where his ability to fashion a miracle
comes through. Watch him and marvel.
To highlight and amplify the glory of America 's
pre-Obama past, Murdoch begins by taking a swipe at the current President,
Barack Obama. He does that by telling Henry Kissinger who was in the audience,
“your insightful volumes have taught us much on leaders and leadership, a
quality in short supply today, an age defined by narcissism … Moral relativism
is morally wrong.” How is that for poetic flight?
But the truth is that Murdoch has always exhibited a
dogma-like absolutism of the most rigid kind – something that Kissinger never
was. For him to say now that he learned dogma or absolutism from Kissinger –
reputed to be the consummate diplomat – is to misunderstand the man or to
insult him in the face. Kissinger was also reputed to be a narcissist. In fact,
a revealing cartoon showed him kissing himself in the mirror. Too absorbed with
himself to pronounce his name in full, he keeps repeating: Kiss, Kiss, Kiss.
Having mocked college students and progressive academics,
the people who will soon be running the country, Murdoch takes up the notion of
America
being an exceptional nation and accuses those same people of being embarrassed
by that fact. He laments that they have no sense of direction because, he says,
they suffer from an identity crisis. And this is where he invokes a past whose
glory he amplifies. He says that during WW II, America
saved Australia
from the Japanese. A few years later, it saved South Korea from the North.
So far so good, but the problem is that he now moves into
the realm of fantasy ... again using both sides of the mouth to argue that the
coin has only one side. To this end, he says that South
Korea served as “the buffer that Japan needed to
rise and be a great economy.” What was that again, Rupert? Did you check with
the Japanese?
He also suggests that America
was exceptional when it intervened in Vietnam . He doesn't explain how or
why that is, but lashes out at the 'left' which he says was “happy for the
incarceration of millions in Vietnam
and China .”
What? What's the logic here, Rupe?
Guess what he does next. Having given credit to America for the economic success of Japan , he now does the same thing with China . Instead
of telling the truth about America
having opposed China every
step of the way till President Nixon realized it was a futile exercise and
worked to reconcile his nation with the “Rising Dragon” of the East – Murdoch
says that in the era of Ronald Reagan “the U.S.
provided a stable background for the rise of China .” Wow! What this man, the
Rupert, can do using both sides of his mouth!
To that, I can only say this: don't tell it to the Chinese
who hold two trillion Yankee dollars they can use to punish America for
exhibiting insolence and lack of scruples.
Still, to reiterate his views with regard to China 's rise,
Murdoch attacks the 'left' once more with this: “The Chinese appreciate the
efficacy of American influence. The left cannot countenance that remarkable
human success.” That amazing one-sided coin!
Finally, the Rupe has one more swipe to throw at the left.
He attacks it for not embracing the fracking revolution.