Monday 6 February 2006

Joint Chiefs Release Other Complaint Letters

American Idol, Oprah Targeted For Criticism Over National Defense, Recruiting, Intelligence Issues

The White House, this morning, released new information that the Joint Chiefs of Staff also sent out additional complaint letters last week, to the producers of American Idol and Oprah Winfrey.

Previously, it was only disclosed that a letter was sent by the Joint Chiefs to The Washington Post, to protest the editorial cartoon of Tom Toles published Sunday.

The Toles cartoon depicted a heavily bandaged soldier in a hospital bed as having lost his arms and legs, while Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, in the guise of a doctor, says: "I'm listing your condition as 'battle hardened.' Earlier last week, Rumsfeld had answered critics, rejecting warnings by a Pentagon-sponsored study that the Iraq war risks "breaking" the Army. Secretary Rumsfeld said the U.S. military is "battle hardened" and an "enormously capable force."

The caption for the cartoon, in smaller type, had Rumsfeld saying: "I'm prescribing that you be stretched thin. We don't define that as torture."

White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan, responding to reporters questions in a Press Briefing this morning, announced that additional complaint letters were sent.

"The Joint Chiefs had some additional concerns, beyond the Washington Post cartoon," said McClellan.

In the producers of "American Idol", the Joint Chiefs are concerned about that overall "mean-spiritedness of the program this year" and that "these men and women and their families are owed the decency".

"These contestants, brave men and women with a sense of purpose and selfless commitment, deserve better treatment".

The Joint Chiefs also expressed concern the harsh, mean-spirited treatment of contestants mimics basic training rituals and is having an impact on the U.S. Military's recruiting efforts.

They also chided the American Idol producers to have "more contestants singing patriotic songs" and have the would-be stars "give an occasionally shout-out to the troops"

The letter to Oprah Winfrey was more confrontational,

Now that letter James Frey is working for the Department of Defense, the Joint Chiefs were forced to defend his work, saying that Oprah is a "defeatist" and that her grilling of Frey falls into the category of "second-guessing" which President Bush in his State of the Union Address clearly indicated "this was not a strategy"

"As the joint chiefs, we rarely put our hand to one letter," they wrote to Ms. Winfrey, "but we cannot let this reprehensible action you undertook to go unanswered."

Both letters were signed by all five Joint Chiefs of Staff.

McClellan said that he could not "rule out" more complaint letters from the Joint Chiefs of Staff and would not confirm or deny that the complaint were written by James Frey or the Lincoln Group

Thousands of Muslims are flocking to art schools, to learn the trade so they can return the favor and defame and insult Denmark's Queen Margrethe II