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buffoon of war
Don't get irate. Let him be our fool of history.
By Jeff Bercovici
Depending on your politics, you may see the war in Iraq as being about disarmament, empire building, terrorism, unilateralism, liberation or even oil.
Those interpretations are all wrong. This war is about Geraldo.
That's because every story sooner or later becomes about Geraldo. He is the pebble in every news event's tennis shoe: insignificant and peripheral, perhaps, but so annoying that he ultimately succeeds in drawing attention to himself.
This time, at least, the pebble is getting removed. The Pentagon yesterday asked Fox News Channel to order Rivera, who has been tagging along with the 101st Airborne Division, to leave Iraq.
Military officials accuse him of compromising "operational security" by drawing viewers a map in the sand of the unit's position and mentioning on air the time an attack was scheduled to begin.
In true Geraldo style, Rivera says he's not going anywhere. In fact, to hear him tell it, it's not even the Pentagon that wants him gone. It's -- you guessed it -- his enemies.
"It sounds to me like some rats at my former network, NBC, are spreading some lies about me," Rivera said on the air after being notified of reports that he been asked to leave. "You know, they can't compete fair and square on the battlefield, so they're trying to stab me in the back."
(Not to doubt Geraldo, but it looks like Fox News will announce today that it is reassigning him. Nice work, rats.)
At least the man learns from his mistakes. During the war in Afghanistan, Rivera landed himself in trouble by not telling viewers where he was -- or rather by telling them he was where he wasn't: standing on the "hallowed ground" near Kandahar where U.S. troops had recently died in a friendly fire incident.
When it came out that he had been hundreds of miles away from Kandahar during his broadcast, Rivera lied valiantly, claiming that he had mixed up two similar incidents. The excuse was an obvious fabrication, the second accident not having taken place yet at the time of his report.
That was the same war, you'll recall, during which Geraldo fantasized out loud about kicking Osama bin Laden's head in, bragged that he was carrying a gun to fend off bandits and mused idly about whether his camera crew's lights might attract artillery fire.
Geraldo sees himself as a fearless journalist and a macho killing machine. Everyone else sees him as unwanted comic relief, but the real relief will be when this comic finally gets the hook.
April 1, 2003© 2003 Media Life
-Jeff Bercovici is a staff writer for Media Life.
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