Latest catch: The setback for women the Coalition caused in Iraq, courtesy of NBC:
On the one hand, Saddam Hussein’s “regime brutalized
women” with “rape, torture, even beheadings,” but on the up side,
reporter Mike Taibbi contended on Tuesday’s NBC Nightly News,
Hussein was a feminist pioneer in the Middle East since “his
secular government also gave women more rights than their
counterparts in many other Islamic countries.”
Following the media habit in the early 1990s of lamenting the
negative impact of the fall of communism on women because of the
loss of the “safety net,” including day care service and abortion
access, NBC News seems to be first out of the box in fondly
recalling the wonders Hussein bestowed upon women — at least
those he did not have raped, tortured or beheaded — a feminist
nirvana in the sand that could soon end thanks to Shiite religious
fervor unleashed by the U.S. invasion.
Taibbi’s story, based around the fears of a Western-dressed
woman who runs an Iraqi telecommunications firm, also aired on
MSNBC’s Countdown with Keith Olbermann. Taibbi failed to address
the wealthy woman’s complicity or ties to the Ba’ath party, a
connection or approval that must exist at some level given her
high position and wealth.
NBC Nightly News anchor Tom Brokaw teased at the top of his
April 22 program: “The women of Iraq: With Saddam out of power why
are some worried a new government could set them back?”
Read the transcript (should be up shortly) here.