A Blog by the Editor of The Middle East Journal

Putting Middle Eastern Events in Cultural and Historical Context

Wednesday, March 2, 2011

Qadhafi and Blaming the Messenger

Colonel Qadhafi, even more than Ben Ali and Mubarak before him, has been blaming the media (ad especially Al Jazeera) for "telling lies." His ongoing and on-air denials that he has used aerial bombing (there were good shots of a Libyan Air Force jet dropping a bomb on a beach at Brega today), that there are demonstrations going on (plenty of pictures of that), and that Zawiya had fallen (he even sent a press trip out to prove it; they found it in rebel hands, to the surprise of the official handlers) suggests he really is delusional, as Susan Rice put it. Doesn't he realize the "lying" media are showing pictures? Or is he just hoping brazenness will sell his own people, forgetting they have phones and other ways of learning what's going on? Or are we reliving the famous scene in the Marx Brothers' classic Duck Soup?:
Margaret Dumont: But I saw you with my own eyes!

Chico Marx (disguised as Groucho):
Well, who you gonna believe, me or your own eyes?
I suspect the end is inevitable, but he can take a lot of Libyans with him. Duck Soup featured a much funnier kind of war, though the battle scene, where Groucho's uniform and hat keep changing from shot to shot (picture, right), might appeal to the colonel's love of varied uniforms.

No comments: