Overhead this morning on the (local Colorado Public Radio voice-over lead-in to NPR’s “Morning Edition”): “After some quick successes, American forces are bogged down outside of a northern Afghanistan city. More coming up on Morning Edition.”
Now, I’ve always felt that these local folks were dimbulbs of the dimmest kind. This compulsion (whether it be their own idea or the local management’s) to try to sum up what’s coming up is always filled with goofs, gaffes, and gulps. I don’t know if they have a summary from NPR or are making things up as they go, but it’s nearly always a distortion of what’s to follow.
This one was particularly egregious.
1. American forces are not besieging Kunduz. Those are Northern Alliance forces there. We’re just bombing the snot out of the front lines there.
2. Those “quick successes” were after American progress in the war was soundly criticized in the media for lack of success. Can anyone say “groundwork”? Calling them “quick successes” now is not only self-contradictory, it’s simply not true.
3. Conversely, the “Q” word has clearly fallen back out of fashion, so we’ll say “bogged down” instead. Never mind that we’re talking about a period of days since the fall of Kabul, et al. The NA hasn’t blitzed its way across the whole of Afghanistan (which would have drawn different criticism), so clearly they (and we) are “bogged down.”
Feh. There are reasons I don’t contribue to Colorado Public Radio. These chowderheads are one of them.