The Today Show did a feature on the "Raging Grannies", a self-styled anti-war group in Arizona. The selling point of the story--the reason this is news, if you will--is that this group is made up exclusively of women 70 or older.

The feature was dripping with vacuous and positive statements about the group but I believe it missed the most basic rules of journalism--questioning what you're being told.

First, the group's rhetoric is nothing more than recycled sixties radicalism (which most of the grannies probably experienced firsthand) repackaged for Iraq. How many times did we hear the mantra "illegal and immoral war" or "Bush lied" during this piece? People generally equate age with wisdom, but this is not always the case, as this group certainly shows. Since their reason for being on the show was their age, why didn't a reporter ask them whether they thought the US should have gotten out of Germany before the job was done? Should we have retaliated against Japan after being attacked at Pearl Harbor? Should we have stopped Hitler's death camps even if we weren't directly threatened by his regime? If the elderly have wisdom, please ask them what an appropriately waged war on terror would look like. Was the campaign in Afghanistan justified? If you did ask these questions, you would expose them as the loony fringe-left group that they are. Instead they are praised for their "tenacity" and "spirit" in the cause of "educating the public about our viewpoint" and "empowerment."

Second, several of the Grannies have been arrested. They entered a military recruiting office and refused to leave. They claim they are seeking to enlist so that some of the troops in Iraq can come home. They claim they were honestly trying to enlist and not engaging in civil disobedience. Base10 says, this is a great idea. Let's have them sign waivers and put them through boot camp until are capable of going to Iraq. I'm sure they're willing to die trying.

Finally, the Grannies claim that "they're fighting for the people who are fighting for them." I suppose undermining the war effort is one way to help our soldiers. Why didn't any of the journalists ask them this? A simple question: Do you realize that thousands of soldiers over there think you're stabbing them in the back by doing this? How about interviewing a soldier in Iraq or a recently returned veteran and ask his or her opinion of the Grannies?

- posted by Base10 @ 2:25 PM