60 Minutes Leslie Stahl: Perfect Shill for the Eternal Imperial War Machine

Eye on the media
Patrice Greanville

Excerpts from 60 Minutes interview with Donald Trump, 10.14.18. (TGP screengrab)

Simply put, 60 Minutes and the rest of the media are alarmed at the prospect of peace breaking out in the Korean peninsula

Dateline: Oct 14, 2018
[dropcap]I[/dropcap]n but the lastest major display of media dishonesty, and dripping hypocrisy and sanctimony from every pore, Leslie Stahl, a veteran disinforming agent with the CBS 60 Minutes (pseudo) news stable, pressed Trump from the right last evening to force him to reafirm his commitment to the official Russiagate narrative, everlasting hatred for Russia, North Korea, constant wars, and so on.

Stahl, who, like the rest of the press has drunk the Democrats' Kool Aid and obviously serves as an eager vector for the imperial disease, knew well what she was doing. As noted in many articles posted on this site, this is the Wall Street/CIA/identity politics Democrats' favorite self-serving tack, pretending to care about human rights, peace, democracy ("they meddled in our sacrosanct elections!"), and the rest of the American exceptionalist bunk, so loyally disseminated by the mainstream media. The double standards are glaring. Stahl and her ilk are always ready to remind Trump of Moscow's putative attack on "our democracy" (itself a laughable myth) but would never dream of attacking Israel for the same sin, despite the fact that both Israel and the Saudis, to mention just two notorious and demonstrable power players in US politics, meddle constantly in the shaping of US foreign policy to the risk and expense of countless lives around the globe, including Americans themselves. Too bad that Trump, a willful captive of the Israeli lobby, and certainly no debating champ, could not seize this splendid occasion to shut his inquisitor up, showing her up for the undeniable double standard she represents, but of course, with Zionism running deep in his family, this was not to be.

Stahl: (Feigning outrage and despair) "Do you agree that Putin is engaged in poisonings, assassinations..."

The exchange should be studied in J-schools for what it shows, but am sure it won't, as it is in this morally twisted fashion that the American press—and the nation's journalism schools—discharge their duties to the American population and the rest of the world. For while humanity—to mention another low point in the interview— has welcomed the relaxing of tensions in the long tormented Korean peninsula and the brotherly rapprochement between North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and South Korean President Moon Jae-in (this is a region where, for those living under a rock, due to longstanding US machinations, only a few months ago the world stood on the edge of the nuclear abyss),  the Pentagon and braying media assets like Stahl are apparently not happy, as the system rests on a deeply entrenched, bloated and utterly corrupt military Keynesianism for its economic stability and international supremacism. Acting according to her careful prepping, it's obvious the vainglorious Stahl entered the arena with Trump determined to score "professional dignity" points with the national "ogre", to the assured cheers of her complacent peers in the liberal peanut gallery. That Stahl was also making a bad situation worse by prodding Trump into more inflammatory and essentially mendacious statements about Russia, Korea, China and other nations, never occurs to these dangerous imbeciles who pass for journalists in this benighted culture. —PG