Media and The War Machine
When something like the downing of the Malaysian airliner or the release of the James Foley video happens, and the media switches on its magnification glass, sanity, let alone perspective, is difficult to maintain. For governments or individuals at the center of such frenzy, about the only hope is that something else will happen to change the story.
.. On Wednesday, the Gallup tracker showed that Obama’s approval rating had risen to forty-four per cent. “It’s certainly possible the president will get a bump from this and it looks like it may be happening because his rating is a bit higher than we’ve seen before,” Gallup’s Jeff Jones told the Fiscal Times. .. I should stress again that I am not suggesting that President Obama consciously responded to the polls by deciding to expand the campaign against ISIS. He is, though, operating in an environment that rewards certain actions and punishes others.