Brit Hume must have read Michael Ledeen’s piece in today’s Wall Street Journal, because he just had him on for an interview about the civil unrest in Iran. Ledeen said nothing new that he didn’t say in his article, but hopefully by saying it on Special Report, more Americans will become aware that the Iranian people are, for the most part, our friends, probably more so than any other regime in the area right now other than Israelis. The mullahs are clearly very worried, they know that people aren’t buying the “soccer riot” story any more, and they’re starting to confiscate satellite dishes. The story that, for some reason, the American press continues to ignore, is that Iran may be on the verge of another revolution, this time pro-western, because they’ve had more than their fill of living under a Taliban-like regime. If this can happen successfully and quickly, it will be the best news yet in terms of starting to establish reasonable regimes in that part of the world.

What is the deal with these people? Do they really believe that most Americans get their news exclusively from CNN, or that they get any of their news from that source? Even in the last few weeks, which has been a period of the highest ratings the channel has had since the Gulf War, fewer than two million people were watching it during prime time–it momentarily pulled them back ahead of Fox, the new kid on the block. I would venture to say that CNN still falls far behind ABCCBSNBC as the main source for Americans’ news. (My primary source is actually periodicals on the net–the only dead-tree news source that I read regularly is the Economist.)

I don’t have the data handy, but I’d be willing to bet that many more people overseas get their news from CNN than Americans, both in absolute terms, and on a percentage basis. I suspect that what’s happening here is projection–since they get a lot of their news from CNN, and it’s the only American news outlet that they regularly see, they assume that Americans do as well, and that our opinions are formed by the contents of that source. What I find amusing about this, and the only reason that I’m ranting about it, is that this implies that they are apparently as pig-ignorant about Americans as they claim that we are about them and events overseas in general.

What is the deal with these people? Do they really believe that most Americans get their news exclusively from CNN, or that they get any of their news from that source? Even in the last few weeks, which has been a period of the highest ratings the channel has had since the Gulf War, fewer than two million people were watching it during prime time–it momentarily pulled them back ahead of Fox, the new kid on the block. I would venture to say that CNN still falls far behind ABCCBSNBC as the main source for Americans’ news. (My primary source is actually periodicals on the net–the only dead-tree news source that I read regularly is the Economist.)

I don’t have the data handy, but I’d be willing to bet that many more people overseas get their news from CNN than Americans, both in absolute terms, and on a percentage basis. I suspect that what’s happening here is projection–since they get a lot of their news from CNN, and it’s the only American news outlet that they regularly see, they assume that Americans do as well, and that our opinions are formed by the contents of that source. What I find amusing about this, and the only reason that I’m ranting about it, is that this implies that they are apparently as pig-ignorant about Americans as they claim that we are about them and events overseas in general.

What is the deal with these people? Do they really believe that most Americans get their news exclusively from CNN, or that they get any of their news from that source? Even in the last few weeks, which has been a period of the highest ratings the channel has had since the Gulf War, fewer than two million people were watching it during prime time–it momentarily pulled them back ahead of Fox, the new kid on the block. I would venture to say that CNN still falls far behind ABCCBSNBC as the main source for Americans’ news. (My primary source is actually periodicals on the net–the only dead-tree news source that I read regularly is the Economist.)

I don’t have the data handy, but I’d be willing to bet that many more people overseas get their news from CNN than Americans, both in absolute terms, and on a percentage basis. I suspect that what’s happening here is projection–since they get a lot of their news from CNN, and it’s the only American news outlet that they regularly see, they assume that Americans do as well, and that our opinions are formed by the contents of that source. What I find amusing about this, and the only reason that I’m ranting about it, is that this implies that they are apparently as pig-ignorant about Americans as they claim that we are about them and events overseas in general.