Journalists Rebuke Army General’s Christian Views as “Divisive”

Friday October 17, 2003

(Vol. Eight; No. 193)

MediaResearch.org

The 1,599th CyberAlert. Tracking Liberal Media Bias Since 1996

“And the enemy that has come against our nation is a spiritual enemy. His name is Satan. And if you do not believe that Satan is real, you are ignoring the same Bible that tells you about God. Now I’m a warrior. One day I’m going to take off this uniform and I’m still going to be a warrior. And what I’m here to do today is to recruit you to be warriors of God’s kingdom.”

MediaResearch.org
Stop the presses! A Christian man has expressed Christian views while speaking inside some Christian churches. A night after Tom Brokaw labeled the comments as “divisive” as he trumpeted how “NBC News has learned that a highly-decorated General has a history of outspoken and divisive views on religion, Islam in particular,” the other networks piled on Thursday night, treating a few remarks made months ago by Lt. General Jerry Boykin as suddenly scandalous.

ABC and CBS put up a “Holy Warrior” graphic as each teased their respective evening newscasts. Peter Jennings previewed the October 16 World News Tonight: “The holy warrior in the American Army. God, he says, has revealed the enemy.” Over on the CBS Evening News, Dan Rather teased: “God and the U.S. military: One of the country's top Generals embroiled in controversy for saying we are at war with Satan.”

Jennings set up the full story by John Cochran: “General Jerry Boykin is making headlines today because he has said so openly that the war on terrorism is God's war against Satan and he's in God's Army.”

Rather framed a piece by David Martin: “At the Pentagon today, officials from Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on down faced questions about a U.S. Army General who says publicly that God put George Bush in the White House. The issue is this: No matter how strongly he may believe it, should or should not an American General, in uniform, be publicly proclaiming it to the world?”
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Dan