Anchoress quoted, but carefully…carefully

This is pretty funny – Ms Musings points to an article in the Chicago Tribune which quotes little ol’ me, and my piece on the London attack.

Christine writes, I give the Trib points for finding a relevant response to a current issue — and for publishing a coherent excerpt — but the minor edits still reveal the Trib’s other problem with “Blog Spotting”: a discomfort with real language…the paper drew the line at terms and phrases it considered too inflammatory to include. Turning “Islamofascists” into “Islamic attackers” waters down the writer’s reactionary response quite a bit — as does deleting the phrase “an enemy so cowardly they refuse to wear a uniform.” Though it may seem a minor point, I think the Trib excerpt obscures the emotional resonance. And, as before, readers are left with an incomplete, sugar-coated view of blogs.

Here’s what the paper published:

“You ask, what is our policy? I will say: It is to wage war, by sea, land and air, with all our might and with all the strength that God can give us: to wage war against a monstrous tyranny … That is our policy.”

— Winston Churchill, May 1940

Perhaps if, in the 1970s (when [Islamic attackers] took and held hostages for 444 days), Churchill’s policy had become our policy, 3,000 Americans would not have been killed on 9/11, Bali would not have exploded, Spain would not have capitulated and England would not today be in mourning.

Perhaps if, in the 1980s (when [Islamic attackers] had bombed soldiers barracks in Lebanon …), Churchill’s policy had become our policy, 3,000 Americans would not have been killed on 9/11, Bali would not have exploded, Spain would not have capitulated and England would not today be in mourning. …

Churchill’s necessary policy of 1940 is the necessary policy of today. Fighting against an enemy … so bereft of shame that they revel in the shedding of innocent blood, there can be no other policy but war and victory.

I am happy to have discovered Ms. Musing’s post – it IS interesting to see how I was edited. Why, exactly did they need to edit out “so cowardly they will not wear a uniform…?” Seems true enough, to me.

Even more interesting, I think, that the paper printed my thoughts on the 1970’s and 1980’s and omitted the whole part about the 1990’s. In case you don’t remember, it went like this:

Perhaps if, in the 1990’s, (when Islamofascists had bombed the WTC, then the Khobar Towers, then the US Embassies in Nairobi, then the USS Cole – among other worldwide bombings) Churchill’s policy had become our policy, 3000 Americans would not have been killed on 9/11, Bali would not have exploded, Spain would not have capitulated and England would not today be in morning.

Quite an interesting omission, don’t you think? Ah, the press does do what it can to erase what they’d prefer we not consider. Particularly when it may affect their golden couple.

Still…I guess it’s kinda neat that my deathless words were featured at all – in a feature about women and blogs, no less! :-)