Welcome to a Citation's Needed News Brief.

I am Neema Shirazi.

I'm Adam Johnson.

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So all your support through Patreon is incredibly appreciated with these news briefs in between

our regularly scheduled full-length episodes when there is something breaking in the news

that we feel like we just really want to talk about Adam, you and I oftentimes when big

personality, often war criminals die, we see tons of hagiographies in the press.

This week is no different on October 18th, 2001.

General Colin Powell, former Secretary of State, died at the age of 84 of complications

from COVID-19 and of course immediately the press was awash with glowing obituaries for

of course the soldier, the warrior, the diplomat, the so-called great American.

Yeah, I mean this is very similar to John McCain, which of course we also commented on.

Again, we don't necessarily, we don't enjoy the grim process of like ragging on dead people,

but of course you're allowed to comment on the legacy and the ideological implications

of that legacy from the media then therefore it becomes a story worthy of comment, right?

It's sort of a classic like you're allowed to sort of compliment but not criticize which

is always a very suspect rhetorical arrangement where you can give this kind of a fuse and

kind of pat fray praise about diplomat, statesman, first African-American to do this and

this, which is you know that's fine and I understand why there's a reason we do that.

...