A has-been that “don't get no respect” the
way that it did, is trying to revive the glory days of the Watergate era when
it was the most respected newspaper in the world, and not just in America.
This is the pathetic story of what the
Washington Post (WAPO) has become, sinking as it does an inch deeper into the
Jewish sewer, every time it tries to show its readers how tall it stands when
going after strong leaders at home or abroad, whether they did something wrong,
or they did not.
Once again, the Washington Post has tried
to stand tall, but instead of sinking an inch this time, it sank a whopping
foot … which would be twelve inches. The editors of WAPO did it to themselves
thinking they could pull a funny one by standing, or rather tiptoeing, over
Donald Trump's crack locution: “favorite dictator,” and go after Egypt's
al-Sissi.
Yes, the editors of WAPO did it to
themselves, but some of the responsibility must be shared by the deteriorating
state of civility in America. This makes it so that nobody believes what
someone else is saying. And the consequence of this condition is that it does
not matter whether or not I respond to every falsehood that the editors have
expressed deliberately, or have inserted in their piece out of ignorance.
This said, there is something I feel
obligated to clarify to the readers of my piece who will want to read what the
WAPO editors came up with –– and to the readers of WAPO who might be interested
to read my piece. Here is the WAPO passage that needs to be explained: “Mr.
Sissi has squandered billions on pharaonic projects, such as an expansion of
the Suez Canal and a new capital city.” But what the hell do these guys mean by
“pharaonic projects”?
The answer to this question is that,
whatever the WAPO editors meant by that term –– having copied something not
knowing what it stands for in reality –– the expression has actual roots in the
Egyptian folklore. To fully explain what it is for those who don't know Arabic
as well as those who know a little of it, I shall have to digress for a moment.
There is a sound in the Arabic language
that does not exist in any of the other languages I know of. Those who begin to
learn Arabic are told it is written as the number 3. For example, the word
'arab' is pronounced 3arab. And the noun 'pharaoh' is pronounced fara3on. An
adjective that is derived from that word sounds like this, 'metfar3an' and used
to describe someone who behaves with deliberate authority like a pharaoh.
Depending on the context, the word is often used as a pejorative term. But if
someone says: 'dah 3amal fara3oni,' he means it as a compliment because it
roughly translates into something that goes as follows: 'this work is of scale
that befits a pharaoh'.
The problem with the way that the WAPO
editors expressed themselves, indicates that they were confused. They said that
Sissi squandered billions, which is a pejorative thing to say. But they
specified that the billions went into infrastructure projects that befit a
pharaoh, which is a compliment given that the work on the Suez Canal has
increased the country's income in hard currency, and the new capital has helped
reduce the unemployment rate from 12 percent down to less than 8 percent. So,
the question to ask is this: Which of the two ideas were the WAPO editors
expressing?
This prompts us to ask another serious
question; this time about journalism in North America. First, we observe that
to lift the veil on the secrets that those who wield the power wish to keep
hidden, today's journalists do not bother developing the ability to do forensic
work by looking at the paper trail of a case. Instead, they rely on sources
that can at best, give only a partial account of what happened. In addition,
these sources are often unreliable because they would be grinding their ax,
something they do by unloading their gripes on the media.
This is how lazy the journalists have
become when they work on local and national stories. Now imagine what it is
like for them to report or to comment on foreign matters where the documents
that need to be analyzed forensically, are written in a foreign language.
Journalists such as the WAPO characters
don't do any of that; they don't even rely on sources that pretend to know
what's going on. Rather, the so-called journalists rely on the rebellious
opposition that has bagful of lies to tell about the governing party, as well
as rely on the local tabloids that have sensational stories with which to
embarrass the government and sell more copies of their rag. The WAPO types
repeat the garbage in their publication and tell their readers it is the gospel
truth.
And here is proof that the WAPO editors
did not even realize there was an opportunity to do forensic work that would
have improved their editorial enormously. Look at this passage: “Young
Egyptians fed up with stagnating living standards have taken to the streets ...
Though the economy is growing, so is the poverty rate.” There is an incongruity
here that begs to be explained.
Anyone that has been following the
business news even casually, would know that the widening of the gap between
rich and poor is a worldwide phenomenon that needs to be studied and explained
so as to find a workable remedy.
The WAPO editors could have contributed to
that effort but they did not. Why is that? Because it takes at least the IQ of
a baboon to realize there is an issue that needs to be studied and understood.