CNN's latest defamation of America

"A typical day in America" was the way the BBC announced the massacre in San Bernardino. When CNN let us in on that, Wolf Blitzer asked Fareed Zakaria how the rest of the world looked upon America. "You're a world traveler, Fareed," said Wolf. "What are they saying about us?"

Before Fareed said a word I sensed he loved the question. His body language and facial flash seemed to say, "Thanks for inviting me to shout forth America's shame!" Zakaria then began to lacerate, excoriate and strip the hide off the USA, insinuating that our many mass shootings had made us the world's most hopeless and dangerous mental patient. Fareed Zakaria was peddling the message that America had removed itself from the roll call of civilized nations.

"Paris had one attack," said Zakaria, apparently aiming to contrast the "many" shootings of America against the lonely one in Paris. Wolf Blitzer, showing himself to be a journalist and not an anti-American agenda-crat, (but not by much!) managed to say, "Don't forget Charlie Hebdo," another Islamic massacre, against the staff of a French magazine.

I stood there feeling like a cannibal they were trying to pacify with a new breakfast cereal supplemented with riboflavin. "So America is dis-fellowshipped from civilization," I thought. "And you guys expect me to be satisfied with the reminder that along with the more recent Paris massacre there was Charlie Hebdo?"

At that point I lost control. "What about the Jewish children shot down by Islamic terrorists in Toulouse? And the Paris subway bombings? And the 77 Norwegian teenagers massacred by a demented Norwegian on an island where the Labor Party was having its summer camp?"

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At that point I felt an internal dam break. The CNN narrative of an American monopoly on massacres was washed away. "As long as you're in reminding mode, fellows, how about those shot down at the Jewish Museum in Brussels, the attacks in Madrid, the attacks in London? And let's not forget Lee Rigby, the British soldier who was hacked to death on a Southeast London sidewalk! Do you guys remember Mumbai? How about the attacks in Germany, Finland, or the fire-bombing of the Danish Embassy in Islamabad, Pakistan because of some drawings by Danish cartoonist Kurt Westergaard in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten?"

If I may organize my rage, speaking directly to Fareed Zakaria and Wolf Blitzer, please consider this from the Global Terrorist Database: Since 2005 there have been terrorist incidents in every country in Europe, Eastern and Western, with notably high numbers in Ukraine, Russia and Greece.

Since 2005 there have been 3,900 terrorist incidents in Europe. America is roughly the size of Europe (subtracting Russia). Have there been 3,900 American breaches of civilization since 2005? I don't have to get my hands dirty. The math alone will denude their attempted defamation of the United States.

We have here the Big Lie –- "'Bang, Bang, Bang' is only in America!" – but I'm not accusing Fareed Zakaria and Wolf Blitzer (for condoning Zakaria's outrageous allegations) of being "Big Liars." They should know of all the outside-America attacks I've pinpointed here. No matter how much they hated America, they're smart enough to know they could never get away with the narrative that horrid shootings are strictly an American pastime.

If I were defending them instead of raging at their misguided high-mindedness, I'd invoke the "Hollywood" defense. I grew up in a town of fewer than a hundred-thousand people in North Carolina. From childhood, I remember hearing the grownups muttering, "Wow, alcohol is taking over Hollywood!" followed by, "Wow, divorce is taking over Hollywood!" followed by "Wow, drugs are taking over Hollywood!"

Our region was home to the major furniture industry of America. We were also the center of the cotton and tobacco industries and the major center for marinated pork barbecue. The incidence of alcoholism, divorce and drugs may have been no higher – or even lower! – in Hollywood than in my hometown. But guess what! For some reason the tics and antics of the film industry attracted more attention and excited more interest than did the furniture, the cotton, the tobacco or the barbecue industries!

I sense we have the same thing working here. There are obviously many more guns and bombs going off against innocent people outside America than inside.

However, we are the "movie stars" of the world!

The slaughter at a Jewish center in Argentina may get fewer column inches than the daubing of swastikas on a synagogue in New Jersey. The Fareed Zakarias and the Wolf Blitzers may well be subconsciously guided by, "Sorry about the terrorist attacks in Latvia, Bulgaria, Algeria, Tunisia. Wake me when it explodes in Charleston. Or San Bernardino!

"They're all nice countries. I like the way they fit into the map and help hold the world together. But they're not movie stars!"

If my "defense" of Zakaria and Blitzer works, I won't go to bed happy. It's a damnable thing to have unfair anti-American narratives reinforced by CNN. But I don't need the late Josef Goebbels to know that it's much easier to believe a lie you've heard a thousand times than a brand new pro-American truth.

Media wishing to interview Barry Farber, please contact [email protected].