The Council on American–Islamic Relations said the question was “reckless and biased” and “sounded like it could have been written by AIPAC, not CBS.”
U.S. vice presidential candidates Sen. JD Vance, Republican from Ohio, and Gov. Tim Walz, Democrat from Minnesorta, during Monday night’s debate on CBS. (C-Span grab)
By Edward Carver
Common Dreams
Foreign policy experts and civil rights groups criticized CBS News‘ moderators following Tuesday night’s vice presidential debate for asking only one narrowly framed question about conflict in the Middle East.
Co-moderator Margaret Brennan, the network’s chief foreign affairs correspondent, opened the debate by stating that Iran could develop a nuclear weapon within a week or two and asking if the two vice presidential candidates would support a preemptive strike by Israel on Iran.
“Wait. What?” Kelley Beaucar Vlahos, a senior adviser for the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, a think tank, wrote in response to the question.
Vlahos expressed disbelief that “after nearly 12 months of war in Gaza, more than 40,000 dead — mostly civilians — a spiraling humanitarian crisis, hostages dead or still in captivity, Hezbollah and Hamas leaders assassinated, a new war in Lebanon where 1 million people may be displaced, charges of genocide, and a cease-fire endlessly elusive,” this was the question CBS had chosen?
Peter Beinart, an editor at Jewish Currents and professor of journalism at the City University of New York, argued that the question should have focused on how to stop a regional war, writing on social media that CBS‘s framing “pretty much encapsulates what is wrong with U.S. media coverage of this conflict.”
The Council on American–Islamic Relations, a Muslim civil rights group, said the question was “reckless and biased” and “sounded like it could have written by AIPAC [the American Israel Public Affairs Committee], not CBS.”
Tonight's vice president debate opened with a reckless and biased question about bombing Iran that sounded like it could have written by AIPAC, not CBS. Our soldiers and taxpayer dollars shouldn’t be wasted on another futile war in the Middle East that ends with more blood on our… pic.twitter.com/jyOmgsBbm1
— CAIR National (@CAIRNational) October 2, 2024
The debate took place on the same day that Iran fired roughly 200 ballistic missiles at Israel.
Iran said the strikes were retaliation for recent Israeli assassinations of Hamas and Hezbollah leaders. The strikes followed Israel’s launch of a ground incursion into southern Lebanon. Israeli and U.S. forces intercepted the vast majority of the missiles, which were targeted at military facilities, [Israel says].
Vlahos, of the Quincy Institute, suggested that focusing on the Iran threat was a way of avoiding larger questions and that Brennan’s narrow framing was intentional.
“If the CBS moderators wanted to avoid talking frankly about the aforementioned issues which might mean — here it comes — raising criticism of Israel, this was the way to do it,” she wrote. “Make it all about Iran.”
Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH), the Republican vice presidential candidate, said that he would defer to Israel.
“We should support our allies wherever they are when they’re fighting the bad guys,” he said.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, the Democratic vice presidential nominee, didn’t directly answer the preemptive strike question but immediately invoked the Oct. 7 massacre of Israelis by Hamas and said Israel had the “absolutely fundamental” right to defend itself.
Edward Carver is a staff writer for Common Dreams.
This article is from Common Dreams.
Views expressed in this article and may or may not reflect those of Consortium News.
The views expressed are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of Consortium News.
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CBS , COMPLETE BULL SHIT, would be the tea pot calling the kettle black. Everyone knows, but won’t admit, that it is Israel that has the nukes. Always it shows its crimes by it’s accusations. But the warmongers don’t want to make it obvious because they might be accused of breaking all the US and International laws they ARE breaking, by supplying weapons to nuclear powers that are also human rights abusers. Jews, as well as all other humans are safest where human rights are a reality for ALL. And, all are safest where just laws are followed, and not thrown out the window under the guise of some crooked corrupt “rules based order” , which is anything BUT orderly, and is instead really just a way for gangsters to force everyone to abide by their rules. Because a few crazy people are at the helm, and vomiting through our mainstream media, the majority who are mostly good natured folks have to live in a completely upside down world, that is anything BUT safe.
… unfathomably incredible to see how far the US [and their close allies]
are ready to stretch israel’s “right to defend itself” and “hold iran accountable
for fanning the flames of war”, while they are “… fully, fully, fully supportive
of israel”, as we recently learned from the US rep at the UN security council.
That’s why I didn’t even watch it. I hear this and it’s like hearing that someone went out to a golf course in the middle of a rainstorm and not only did they get wet, but they got struck by lighting.
Why pretend its a heady, intellectual process. Going along with anything the media presents, or anything governments federal OR state present, is like going along with an Israeli whore and thinking you’re getting a virgin.
* “The earth was born in a storm. The waters receded, the mountains were formed. The universe loves a drama, you know; and, ladies & gentlemen, this is the show,” (IMO), Project 2024, “Keep America Dumb!”
……. “Never have so many been manipulated by so few,” Aldous Huxley. For example, the papers’ report, Forty-Three Million (43M) people watched CBS’ V.P.’s “Debate,” i.e., “Lionel Messi” vs. “Ronaldo McDonald” aka JD Vance vs. Tim Walz.
No doubt, “Hollywood, the DNC, MSMedia, print & T.V.’s, NBC, ABC, CBS’ “News” Anchors, & DEMOCRATS, everywhere, are “Freak’n Out!” Weeks away from “The 2024 Election;” & Biden’s-Harris’-Walz’ “opposition,” is NOT a FREAK; but, a FORCE! The “weirdos,” Biden’s-Harris’-Walz’, Opposition is NOT only, Trump-Vance; BUT, Dr. Jill Stein & Rudolph “Butch” Ware, are coming in “HOT!”
……. And, “I DON’T BELIEVE,” we were born to be sheep in a flock, to pantomime prayers w/the hand’s of a clock.” *Paul Simon.
TY. Onward & Upwards. Ciao.
Accusing a proxy of mainstream corporate media of dastardly deeds is nothing more than APACK of lies; “don’t you know”?
How many times over the last few months have we heard this absurd claim that Iran could develop nuclear weapons in ‘a couple of weeks’?
Apart from the obvious thought that if this were true, then Iran would have them by now, there is the inconvenient truth that it actually takes years to develop them. And even if Iran were to buy them ‘off the shelf’ from Russia or elsewhere, it would certainly take a lot more than a couple of weeks to deploy them ready for use!
When will the MSM networks hire people with brains, who can actually think before they speak?
@willd:
is it really MSM people’s task to think before they speak?
is it not rather to keep us in MSM = Manifest Sleep Mode?
Unbelievable how the media promotes war in this country!
“Co-moderator Margaret Brennan, the network’s chief foreign affairs correspondent, opened the debate by stating that Iran could develop a nuclear weapon within a week or two and asking if the two vice presidential candidates would support a preemptive strike by Israel on Iran.”
What?
Doesn’t CBS remember how the U.S. administration back in September, 2002, prepared the world to accept the U.S.-led war with Iraq on the basis of false scares? So you had National Security Advisor Condaleeza Rice saying, with regards to Iraq, “We don’t want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud.” Or Vice-President Dick Cheney, “The United States may well become the target.” Secretary of State Colin Powell added his own encouragement with “I don’t think we should just sit around and wait.” To top it off Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said, “Our task is to connect the dots before the fact.”
With that propaganda precedent, why should anyone with a sense of history believe it when the U. S. makes comparable claims about Iran’s “within a week or two” nuclear weapon capability. What is the basis for such a seemingly precise assertion?
Exactly right! The 2003 ‘Iraq War(crime)’ was such a BLATANT example of a phony, manufactured episode of propaganda and aggression — even the MSM felt it necessary to issue a half-hearted apology/mea culpa and a vague promise to be more responsible that was promptly forgotten. And this wasn’t just some little minor skirmish, it was eventually reported that there were conservatively 100,000 people killed, and numbers approaching 1,000,000 were also mentioned, as well as 2-3 million displaced, all due to the US ‘shock and awe’ (ie: bombing the piss out of a smaller adversary). How my US countrymen can just forget that and nowadays blindly accept the US version of things indicates to me that the problems in this country are by and large due to an uncritical populace.
And I would be very skeptical of the statement that Iran could develop a nuclear weapon in 2 weeks. From what I’ve read, it takes hundreds of centrifuges running for weeks or months just to get the necessary radioactive material in a usable state. Maybe she got that info from Judith Miller..?
The vulgarity of such a question has escaped Western Minority World media functionaries. If an equivalent question had come up in a similar debate in an unapproved nation, it would have been front page news
I remember about eight years ago over at CommonDreams I used to post quite a bit under CD articles, I’d very often ardently complain about the overwhelming influence the Zionist Power Configuration in America has over our socio-politico-economic reality. I recall getting mocked and ridiculed relentlessly at CD for addressing the power of the ZPC.
Today anyone who has seen what’s been going on in America or Southwest Asia over the past few years would have to be a complete imbecile or bought off blatant liar to deny that a ZPC exists and to deride anyone who expounds about it at length.
Pox on all their houses and shame on the gatekeeping propagandists (they were fellow commenters) who deliberately ignored reality and had the gall to criticize those of us who didn’t!
America is in decline. Serious decline. That is all I can think of to say. oh, and that Israel is the American prick shoved into the middle east.