DAN RATHER: Part of the undertow in the coming election is going to be President Obama's leadership. And the Republicans will make a case and a lot of independents will buy this argument. "Listen he just hasn't been, look at the health care bill. It was his number one priority. It took him forever to get it through and he had to compromise it to death." And a version of, "Listen he's a nice person, he's very articulate" this is what's been used against him, "but he couldn't sell watermelons if it, you gave him the state troopers to flag down the traffic."I'm certainly no lover of extreme-left talking heads, but I don't believe Rather was being racist. I think he was stereotyping conservatives as racists. That is, he wasn't saying that Obama couldn't sell watermelons, he was saying that Republicans will say that Obama couldn't sell watermelons.
U.S. cases have been declining since October. An official with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says swine flu cases are still occurring and are likely to continue a while longer at some level.Meanwhile, the Whole Health Organization says that "pandemic activity is declining across most of the world" as deaths have topped -- wait for it -- 15,000 out of the 6.8 billion people on the planet. That translates to 0.00022 percent of the world population.
But another expert said a future large wave of cases now seems very unlikely. The expert, Vanderbilt University's Dr. William Schaffner, said the epidemic has "one foot in the grave."
Now that's funny, I don't care who y'are.
So PBS anchor Gwen Ifill will "moderate" tonight's debate between the vice presidential candidates.
Michelle Malkin notes that Ifill's book, Breakthrough: Politics and Race in the Age of Obama, will be hitting the bookshelves on the day that she believes B. Hussein Obama will be sworn in as president of the United States:
My dictionary defines “moderator” as “the nonpartisan presiding officer of a town meeting.” On Thursday, PBS anchor Gwen Ifill will serve as moderator for the first and only vice presidential debate. The stakes are high. The Commission on Presidential Debates, with the assent of the two campaigns, decided not to impose any guidelines on her duties or questions.
But there is nothing “moderate” about where Ifill stands on Barack Obama. She’s so far in the tank for the Democrat presidential candidate, her oxygen delivery line is running out.
Indeed, the liberal media strike again.
PBS, that bastion of journalism that repays taxpayers by putting a liberal spin on every story, is asking its listeners to answer a question:
Now what would be interesting is the answer to a side-by-side question, "Do you think Barack Obama is qualified to serve as the President of the United States?"
Not that I expect a reasonable answer from anyone that can stomach watching PBS "journalism". That's up to the rest of us. Go and cast your vote.
The myth that anti-Christian fanatics seem to take the most glee in is that she attempted to ban books from the town library while serving as mayor. This has been repeated often, even making a story in Time Magazine and Salon (2), and an email with a list of 90 books that Palin supposedly attempted to ban is shooting around leftist inboxes as we speak. (The list is fake, ripped off from this page.)
All this, according to the Wall Street Journal:
As it turns out, not only was the list a fake, but when the Anchorage Daily News investigated the story, it found no evidence that Palin had ever sought to remove books from the library. [City librarian] Baker (who was then named Emmons) did tell the local paper back in 1996 that Palin asked her, in the Daily News's words, "about possibly removing objectionable books from the library if the need arose." Emmons "flatly refused to consider any kind of censorship."
Kilkenny makes an appearance in the Daily News story, quoting Palin as asking Baker at a City Council meeting, " 'What would be your response if I asked you to remove some books from the collection?' " Baker's response was firm and negative, according to Kilkenny, who acknowledges that Palin did not cite any specific books for removal.
The chairman of the Alaska Library Association's Intellectual Freedom Committee tells the Daily News that there is no evidence in her files of any censorship at the Wasilla library. As for Baker's resignation, it appears to be unrelated to the putative censorship.
So not only is the book banning story patently false, but another piece of the "retribution queen" story takes a hit.
The center of useful idiots thinks that John McCain should "provide detailed, timely disclosure about his health."
So far, he has failed to meet this obligation to voters, even though he is now the presumed Republican nominee.
The Times claims McCain should reveal this information for two reasons. First, in this era of modern medical science and extended life spans, McCain could be the oldest man ever to become president. Second, he once had skin cancer -- even though he beat cancer and today is cancer free, as evidenced by his lack of stops at hospitals for radiation treatments during the rigorous months on the campaign trail.
The Red Rag goes further, declaring:
No presidential candidate should get to the point that he has locked up his party’s nomination without public vetting of his health.
And where was the NY Times when half the voting population was demanding Kerry's medical records from the Vietnam war? Ah, perhaps the Times thinks that sick people can't lead while character is unimportant.
What am I thinking? Of course they don't believe character is important. Did they even read Obama's book? I'm talking about his first one, in which he reveals his true self.
Today's quote of the day:
One day, their epitaph may read: Journalists lied, the media died.
Jed Babbin from Online Human Events agrees with my earlier assessment of the Politico hit piece:
The rumor that Fred Thompson will quit the Republican presidential race if he finishes poorly in Iowa is not only false: it rises to the level of a political dirty trick aimed at reducing Thompson-backers’ turnout in tonight’s Iowa caucuses. . . .
Sources told me that Thompson’s campaign was already moving elements to South Carolina where they expect to do very well. If Thompson finished at the bottom of the pack in Iowa -- which seems very unlikely -- he would have to reassess his overall chances. But that seems unlikely. And Iowa is not a determinative race for the Republicans. It is very likely to be of lesser importance than a host of others, as John McCain, Rudy Giuliani -- and Thompson -- are betting. A candidate could easily go from a defeat there to win the nomination. . . .
In every political season, there are dirty tricks like this. Some originate from opposing camps and some from the media themselves. The Politico story is of the sort that even the television networks have managed to avoid. Saying that Thompson is going to quit after Iowa on the morning of the caucuses there is like announcing the election night results in New York and the Carolinas before the polls close on the West Coast. If even CBS News wouldn’t pull a stunt like that, why would The Politico?
The influential web site Politico has tried discounting Thompson in the past (see Thompson is running low on options), but stooped to a new low with a hit piece titled Thompson may drop out, back McCain on the day that Iowan voters go to caucus.
Fred Thompson is experiencing a "late-breaking surge" in Iowa (according to Zogby) on the heels of his bold message to Iowa caucus goers in which he appealed to Republicans and conservative Democrats. The effectiveness of Thompson's message scares liberals, which is why he has been largely ignored by the MSM in favor of the myth that voters have only the Rudy-Mitt choice to make.
Politico claims that "officials close to Fred Thompson’s presidential campaign" revealed that Fred would drop out if he does poorly in Iowa. Only a fool would believe that anyone on or even "close" to the campaign would utter such a statement at this critical juncture. And to cite multiple sources is beyond understanding.
Thompson's actual campaign is denying the story, of course. Byron York posts on NRO that he had personally talked to Rich Galen, a top advisor to Thompson. Not only did Galen deny the story, but:
Galen also said that no one inside the campaign was a source for the story. "I can't put enough adjectives in front of the 'deny' to accurately describe how vehemently I'm denying the story," he said.
Galen said that "just to make sure," he checked with Thompson himself, who told him the story was not true. "We have the schedule for Saturday and Sunday in New Hampshire, and then we're going down to South Carolina," Galen told me.
Now, if the Politico's hit piece fails to stop the Fredmentum in Iowa, the question becomes: will it actually throw attention his way in New Hampshire and South Carolina?
As for me, I favor a class action suit on the part of all Thompson backers against the Politico for printing an obviously false story with the intent to kill our candidate's chances. Anyone want to take the case?
CNN has come in for quite a bit of criticism for allowing Democratic operatives and supporters to pose questions at the Republican debate. The most egregious plant was the Keith Kerr (BG, USA Ret.), an “openly gay man” (now that he has retired from service) who serves (or has served) on one of Hillary Clinton’s campaign task forces. He asked about the US Military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy. He was flown to the debate by CNN and allowed to ask a follow-up question.
When a “Red-faced Anderson Cooper” was told about this oversight, he sputtered that he didn’t know and if he had known, Kerr’s affiliation would have been disclosed or the question wouldn’t have been allowed. This begs the question, “If bloggers can determine affiliation within minutes using Goggle (who owns YouTube), why can’t a large professional news organization like CNN and co-host YouTube?”
CNN and YouTube characterized their questioners as ordinary and undecided Americans. It appears that perhaps a third of the questioners actively supported different Dems. Again, why can bloggers find this out, but CNN can’t?
CNN latest spin is that they focused on the questions and not the questioners, then something derogatory about anybody who questions the questioners and not the substance of the questions. Yeah, I know. This doesn’t make sense to me either. I have two problems with this line of illogic. The first is that the questions came from “undecided voters” or “ordinary Americans”. With so many democratic supporters asking the questions, this statement may be seen as a lie.
The second, and arguably the more important point of contention, was the point made by Mara Liasson on Fox News Special Report (the Panel discussion) on Wednesday. She said that she covered both CNN/YouTube debates and questions presented to Democrats were different in tone and nature from those presented to Republicans. Democratic questions were friendly and sympathetic to the Democrats, while the Republican questions were confrontational and accusatory to the Republicans.
Additional Links:
Submitted by normally non-blogging Advised by Wolves
WaPo woefully predicts A Downturn We Don't Deserve.
Meanwhile, an AP business writer says Index Points to U.S. Economic Expansion.
Each has a 50/50 chance of being right. Who has the clearer crystal ball? And when did journalism start making use of psychic predictions?
The latest act in the global comedy that is "global warming" is provided by Chris Goodall, a "leading environmentalist", author of How to Live a Low-Carbon Life and Green Party parliamentary candidate for Oxford West & Abingdon.
Mr. Goodall says that growing and raising food for human consumption has become so energy-intensive that a walk to the corner shop contributes to global warming:
Food production is now so energy-intensive that more carbon is emitted providing a person with enough calories to walk to the shops than a car would emit over the same distance.
Goodall is apparently comparing apples to oranges, or in this case olives to oil. While he counts up the carbons emitted to grow crops and raise cattle for people power, he only counts the carbons emitted by driving the car -- not those emitted in drilling, refining and transporting gasoline and diesel.
But the UK Times refers to Goodall as "the latest serious thinker to turn popular myths about the environment on their head." That is because Goodall is fighting what the UK Times likes to think is the good fight:
Cattle farming is notorious for its perceived damage to the environment, based on what scientists politely call “methane production” from cows. The gas, released during the digestive process, is 21 times more harmful than CO2 . Organic beef is the most damaging because organic cattle emit more methane.
Simply cutting out beef, or even meat, however, would be too modest a change. The food industry is estimated to be responsible for a sixth of an individual’s carbon emissions, and Britain may be the worst culprit. ...
The ideal diet would consist of cereals and pulses.
And so the spotlight shines on a nut from Oxford West & Abingdon. This is what happens when the crackpot falls on the side of the biased media.
Professional writer and admitted lefty, Dr. John Barnes, took a look at the writings of the New Republic pseudonymous "Scott Thomas". His expertise leads him to conclude:
Based on a mix of semiotic analysis and my seat of the pants experience as a frequent reader of professional and near-professional writing by new writers, my guess is this: I think "Scott Thomas" is actually an MFA writing student, or a recent graduate of such a program, probably with some military experience – he may be serving in some non-combat specialty in Iraq – probably from one of the elite MFA programs, the twenty or so from which college creative writing faculty and small-press staff come disproportionately. I also think I know how his piece came to be published in New Republic, in outline if not in detail, and that story will also be somewhat instructive and revealing.
The entire article is a little long but surprisingly interesting as Barnes deconstructs the writing style. Then he takes a look at the editor that chose to publish the unknown author. Dr. Barnes is a straight shooter.
HT to non-blogging Advised by Wolves.
. . . have never been spoken. Kathryn Jean Lopez says severed heads beat report cards to the truth:
Nailing down a clear picture of the war in Iraq is a work in progress in Washington, D.C. Making it harder is the national media, which is misrepresenting what is happening at boot level, softening the face of the enemy.
If the public cannot get a true view of the brutality and horror the enemy is capable of, then how can it be expected to reasonably assess our involvement?
Reuters whines that more "migrants" are dying because the US border security is getting so tight that they are being forced to take more dangerous routes.
In other news, "home guests" are being viciously cut because homeowners are locking their doors, forcing them to gain entry by breaking windows.
Today's must read is penned by Leo, who asks, Michael Yon is there...where are the rest of the "journalists"?
The New York Times notes (in the Politics section, not an op-ed):
The five justices who turned the Supreme Court around last week and upheld the ban on “partial birth abortion” had much in common.
All are men. All were nominated by conservative Republican presidents. And, it was widely noted, all are Roman Catholics.
Did their religion matter? Should it even be discussed?
At which point the Times dedicates the rest of the column discussing just that.
I find it interesting that the Times thinks it's OK to suggest that the religion of Supreme Court Justices may influence them, yet Gonzales firing attorneys for being political appointees is an action too horrid to consider.
Hypocrisy, thy name is MSM.
On the day after the tragic shooting at Virginia Tech, CNN poses a question on their web site. This screen shot was taken at 12:20 today (click image for full sized pop up).
The poll was gone by 2:15, but I thought that CNN polls usually stayed up a day. Why was this one taken down so soon?
The NYTimes printed pictures and posted video of a US soldier dying in Iraq, even before the family was notified. The reporters involved have lost embed status because they violated their contract with the military.
Gateway Pundit is following the entire story.
According to a Gallup Poll, 41 percent of Americans believe that the mainstream media's reporting of Iraq is accurate. Stunning.
This is why the Fourth Estate is so successful in undermining our war effort. Again.
Today's must read is American Spectator's Keith Ellison's crowd: Allahu Akhbar. With Democracy and Christianity under attack, to is a good day to reflect on double standards in the media and the fight that lies ahead of us.
It's always fun to watch journalists try to influence public opinion in the months (now years) leading up to an election. This election season's favored son is McCain, a Republican that only a liberal could love — and the press certainly loves McCain.
Deroy Murdock addresses this topic by noting how a smattering of journalists and political analysts are saying McCain is clearly in the lead, far outpacing Giuliani. He then destroys this myth by citing a series of polls and surveys, including a Rasmussen poll that has Giuliani in a clear lead and even non-candidate Rice edges out McCain for second place.
If (and this early in an election season, it's a big "if") Giuliani ends up as the Republican candidate for president, I'm going to have a very, very hard time voting for the gun-grabbing, baby-killing RINO.
But Deroy notes:
But his numbers could hold or even rise once Republicans outside Gotham learn that, as mayor, he cut the local tax burden by 19 percent, jettisoned racial and gender preferences for contracting (during his first month as mayor, no less), hunted deadbeat dads and made them pay their child support, implemented charter schools, promoted “vouchers” (always embracing that word), and hosed down seedy, crime-infested areas such as Times Square. It now is safe, literally, for Mary Poppins — a new Disney musical that opened on 42nd Street, where pornographic films unspooled prior to Giuliani’s tenure.
In all probability another candidate (can you say "Mitt Romney"?) will end up taking the big prize.
But if it comes to pass, perhaps a vote for Giuliani will be possible, but I'll have to go home and take a shower afterwards. And hide my guns.
Ann Coulter notes that Lexus Nexus has 476 articles about Pelosi's achievement of becoming the first woman Speaker, yet when Condoleezza Rice became Secretary of State there were only 77 articles written (half in Ebony, Jet, etc.).
What liberal media?
Coulter lists notable Bush appointments:
Humorous Coulter Quote:
A New York Times profile of Rice at the time waited until the last sentence to note in passing that Rice was "only the second woman, and the first black woman, to hold the job." (In a separate column by me, it was noted that Rice was the "first competent woman" to hold the job.)
The Battle for the Battle for Iraq from Guardian WatchBlog.
Technorati tags: War on Islamofacism, Media Spin, Leftist Defeatism, Fourth Estate is the Fifth Column.
After "pondering for several months", one of the editors at the New York Times has decided to apologize for committing treason revealing the administration's secret banking-data surveillance program to track down money used by terrorists to fund the killing of innocents.
The apology is based on two reasons. First, the program isn't illegal. Isn't now, never has been, and as far as we know never will be. Second, there is absolutely no evidence to suggest that anyone's private information had been misused.
Yet in the final sentence of the apology explanation for publishing the story, the Times editor says:
I fear I allowed the vicious criticism of The Times by the Bush administration to trigger my instinctive affinity for the underdog and enduring faith in a free press — two traits that I warned readers about in my first column.
That's right. It's Bush's fault he did it. [I can hear echoes Flip Wilson now: "The Devil made me do it!"]
Here's a headline for you: No charges for Texas man who fatally shot immigrant.
We have to read the propaganda news article to get the facts (from the AP, of course):
A hunter who fatally shot an undocumented immigrant on a South Texas ranch when he mistook the man for a hog should not be indicted, a Maverick County grand jury has decided.
You could argue that they were trying to save space in the valuable headline space. OK, try "Illegal". That has become the short form of illegal alien -- or, as I like to call them -- "criminals illegally invading our country".
Basically, a bunch of criminals were standing in the darkness, Gonzalez (the hunter) shot at a wild hog 150 feet away and missed, striking Lopez (one of the criminals) in the abdomen.
The criminal's brother said, "I hoped there would've been more justice."
Me too. I didn't see anything in the report about the rest of the criminals going to jail.
Yet another injustice: citizen Gonzalez and ranch owner Rodriguez was sued by Lopez's widow and five children for $8,000,000:
The case was settled out of court in November for $50,000. The settlement included legal costs for Lopez's widow and $1,800 for each of his five children. The children's money was put into U.S. savings accounts under their names, according to court records.
This has got to stop. You commit criminal trespass and something that very well could be an accident befalls you, you should have to prove malevolent intent before you or yours get a penny.
WaPo takes a stick to the Democrat Party for their latest platform in a column titled Democrats Meander in a New New Direction:
It was a handsome booklet, full of homey photographs and popular proposals, but there was a problem. Democrats have had more "New Directions" recently than MapQuest.
The article lists the seven (count 'em, seven) campaign slogans that Democrats have gone through this year (and it's only September).
For those keeping score at home, Democrats arrived at "New Direction" yesterday by downgrading one of the "Six for '06" issues (health care) and upgrading three others (honesty, civility and fiscal discipline), for a total of eight items on the contents page.
Of course, this being a paper written by those in the overwhelmingly-liberal profession of journalism, they have to make the Republicans sound even worse:
By contrast, Republicans have settled on a single, unofficial slogan, which essentially says: Vote Democrat and Die. And in politics, scary and scurrilous usually trumps elaborate and earnest -- something Pelosi has experienced firsthand in recent days.
Technorati tags: Democrats and Liberals, Democrats Without an Agenda, Democrats Searching for Answers, Directionless Democrats, Party of Paper Tigers, Media Bias.
During President Bush's Katrina anniversary speech last night on CNN, 
"Live From" anchor Kyra Phillips got up to go to the bathroom. Unfortunately, her sound man must have done the same because he didn't turn off her microphone.
What resulted was Kyra's bathroom conversation with another woman, who was complaining about not being able to find a good man, broadcast live on top of Bush's speech -- and sometimes drowning it out.
Kyra raved about her husband but somehow got on the subject of her brother, saying:
I've got to be protective of him. He's married, three kids, and his wife is just a control freak.
CNN anchor Daryn Kagan broke in just as you hear the sound of a zipper, saving Kyra from further embarrassment.
Someone should send reporters to the next Phillips family reunion!
Interestingly, Kyra's profile on Wikipedia has already been updated to reflect the gaffe.
Watch the 2½ minute segment:
Technorati tags: Bush Katrina Speech, Katrina Anniversary, CNN, Kyra Phillips, Liberal Reporter Embarrassed On Air, Bathroom Conversations Women Have.
Recently declassified documents reveal that Nixon was considering using nuclear bombs to bring an end to the Vietnam war in an operation code named "Duck Hook":
But Nixon abandoned Duck Hook shortly after Oct. 2. Both his secretaries of Defense and State, Melvin Laird and William Rogers, opposed the plan. Nixon apparently also began to doubt whether he could sustain public support for the three- to six-month period the plan might require. He also concluded that his military threats against the North Vietnamese had no effect.
Threats are rarely useful. For instance, French threats of economic sanctions against Iran. Uh, OK, French threats of anything (except surrender — those are always taken seriously).
Indeed, the time and place to use nukes in Vietnam was in 1953 in a place called Dien Bien Phu. The French were trying for a decisive military victory out in the middle of nowhere. Instead, General Vo Nguyen Giap conducted a brilliant 56-day siege that ended with at least 2,200 dead Frenchmen (including many of the elite Foreign Legion) and a French surrender of 11,000 men (of which a little over 4,000 survived captivity).
If the French had accepted the two tactical nukes that Eisenhower offered, history would have turned out vastly different.
Just as an aside, fourteen years later General Giap tried to do the same thing to an American Marine base called Khe Sanh. 205 American soldiers were killed while ten to fifteen thousand Viet Min died before they gave up eleven weeks later and trickled back into the jungle. When the NVA shut down the airstrip, the French had resorted to high-altitude parachute drops resulting in a great many supplies, ammunition and even vital intelligence landing outside the base and falling into enemy hands. At Khe Sanh, the U.S. Army 109th Quartermaster Company used the Low Altitude Parachute Extraction System (LAPES) with great success. The seige for Khe Sanh was a great American military victory (achieved without dipping into the nuclear arsenal) that was turned into a major North Vietnamese propaganda win by our Fourth Estate.
Technorati Tags: Richard Nixon, Vietnam, Nuclear Weapons, Military History, Dien Bien Phu, Khe Sanh, History, Famous French Military Defeats, Famous American Military Victories, Fourth Estate Equals Fifth Column.
New York Times photographer Joao Silva was right there in the room as a member of Muqtada al-Sadr's "Mahdi Army" tried to kill American troops: The New York Times - New York Region - Slide Show - Slide Show: Memorable Photographs.
One of the photography editors for the NYTimes is quoted to be praising the "incredible courage" of photojournalist Silva for being right there with the enemy the Mahdi army.
What about the incredible bravery of the Americans at the other end of that sniper's rifle as they try to bring democracy and freedom to the heart of the War on Islamofacism? When was the last time anyone remembers any of the NYTimes' staff commenting on the "incredible bravery" of our soldiers? ** crickets chirping **
Truth to tell, according to their own site search the NYTimes has only used the phrase "incredible bravery" six times in the past 25 years:
But wait, there's more!
LGF follows a Michelle Malkin tip to press review of the book photographer Joao Silva is selling containing the photos he shot while on the NYTimes payroll (including the one above) that sounds like it's straight out of the publisher's press release:
In the Company of God is a photographic compilation that portrays Iraqi Shi'a Muslims in a period of occupation and transition. This photographic body of work, recorded over twelve months, richly captures the Shi'as' intense commitment to their faith and their indomitable spirit of sacrifice.The agents of the New York Times are openly, proudly making heroes out of those who are killing our sons and daughters.The pictures in this book are not displayed in a chronological order but rather in a manner that best illustrates a narrative about faith, sacrifice, war and martyrdom.
Of course, this is to be expected from Joao Silva, coauthor of The Bang Bang Club, as explained by Jessica Powers in The Bang Bang Club and Journalism Ethics:
A couple of semesters ago, I led a discussion group made up of young 18 and 19 year old freshman students at the University at Albany. We were reading a book that portrayed alternate versions of American history. One young man was upset every time we met. "Why can't we just read facts?" he said. "Why can't the book just say, 'Here's the way it was' and leave it at that?" ...Kevin Carter, consumed by guilt and self-doubt, eventually committed suicide.Greg Marinovich and Joao Silva, South African photographers who depicted the secret war fought in South African townships during the four years between Nelson Mandela's release from prison and the first democratic elections in the country, depicted the internal struggle of presenting news -- or history -- in a biased manner in their book, "The Bang Bang Club." Though they were primarily concerned with demonstrating the personal moral struggle that occurred as they took photos of violence and death without lending a hand, they also demonstrated how snapshots, like articles and books, only show one aspect of the truth. This reality quickly caught up with one of the members of the "Bang-Bang Club," Kevin Carter.
Kevin Carter won a Pulitzer Prize in 1993 for his photo of a starving Sudanese child, stalked by a vulture a few feet away. The photo only shows the apparent imminent danger that the child is in, but fails to show how close the feeding center is or even that the vulture is not threatening the child in any way.
Joao Silva, evidently, has no such conscience. Having once skewed the truth through the emotive lens of his camera, he unashamedly continues the practice today.
Technorati Tags: Joao Silva, New York Times Treason, War on Islamofacism, Fourth Estate, Fifth Column, In the Company of God, Bang-Bang Club.
Then, to make you feel better, read a letter from an Army wife to 1LT Watada (who declined to go to Iraq). [HT to Castle Argghhh!]
He called the new Iraqi Defense Minister an "interesting cat" and Abu Mousab al-Zarqawi, the deceased al-Qaeda leader, "a dangerous dude." Bush had reason, finally, to strut. The al-Zarqawi raid had netted valuable intelligence data that were enabling U.S. and Iraqi forces to roll up al-Qaeda cells-the best haul since the capture of Saddam Hussein, which made it possible for U.S. forces to disable much of the dictator's inner circle in early 2004. What's more, the first elected Iraqi government was finally fully in place. Back home, Karl Rove was officially unindicted in the cia [sic] leak case, and the Democrats were busy being Democrats-divided, defensive and confused about the war, with Bush's favorite punching bag, Senator John Kerry, leading the charge.Ah, but then the spin begins as the author spends the remaining paragraphs telling Democrats that they have to stop "embracing defeat" and give the Iraqi government "one more chance to succeed". Of course, the author also sets up the scenario that if Baghdad cannot be stabilized during "Operation Forward Together" the "the war is lost".Kerry gave an eloquent speech to a group of left-liberal activists on the day of Bush's Baghdad trip. "It is not enough to argue with the logistics [of the war] ... or the manner of the conflict's execution or the failures of competence, as great as they are," Kerry said, to wild cheers. "It's essential to acknowledge that the war itself was a mistake." It was an appropriate act of contrition, but then-as is his awkward wont-Kerry overreacted and called for the withdrawal of U.S. troops by the end of the year. It was a proposition that garnered all of six votes on the Senate floor when Senate Republicans gleefully submitted Kerry's idea to a vote later in the week.
So Kerry's "cut and run" was bad because America is rejecting it, but if we don't succeed in the next few months (before the fall election) then we've lost the war and should call it quits.
How incredibly predictable.
Technorati Tags: Media Spin, Traitor John Kerry, Cut and Run Democrats, Terrorism, War on Terror, War on Islamofacism, Fourth Estate, Fifth Column, George W. Bush, Winning the War, Operation Forward Together, Liberals Suck.
Guess what? More press coverage appeared to result in increased terrorst attacks:
"Both the media and terrorists benefit from terrorist incidents," their study contends. Terrorists get free publicity for themselves and their cause. The media, meanwhile, make money "as reports of terror attacks increase newspaper sales and the number of television viewers." ...The statistical test used does not prove causality, as economist John Lott points out. However, that such a correlation exists is hardly surprising. Terrorists are trying to advance a sociopolitical agenda and they do this by killing people and garnering the attention and support of a sympathetic populace. People think, "At least they are doing something."The results, they said, were unequivocal: Coverage caused more attacks, and attacks caused more coverage -- a mutually beneficial spiral of death that they say has increased because of a heightened interest in terrorism since Sept. 11, 2001.
If the media did not give the terrorists coverage then their actions would become almost meaningless. However, as we all know, if it bleeds it leads. The press will not change, even though thier reporting directly leads to more attacks and more deaths among civilians, more murdered women and children, more dead sons and daughters of American families.
One could easily conclude that the media is only interested in dollars, and thus can be forgiven their sins because we are a capitalist society. After all, blood sells copy. Upon inspection, however, this does not hold up. Otherwise there would be more coverage of successful military missions in which dozens of terrorists end up dead. Which is more sensationalist, an IED hitting a Humvee or a sweep through a dangerous section of town during which a firefight erupts and ten terrorists are left with a large number of ventalation holes in their bodies? Yet which receives coverage?
Which is why, in the end, the Fourth Estate is synonomous with the Fifth Column.
Hat tip to The Corner, which opines:
You would think this would prompt editors and producers to think hard about how they cover terrorism. I'll bet you a good single malt Scotch that doesn't happen.InstaPundit observes:
Yet the press -- which can be exquisitely sensitive about being manipulated when it cares -- isn't worried about the way it's being used here, at least not enough to matter in its coverage. But why should it be? Ethics might cost money.Outside the Beltway offers:God help 'em if the trial lawyers get ahold of this information. . . .
While I've never heard of Rohner, I'm quite familiar with Frey's work in political economy; he's highly regarded. The Granger Causality Test is well outside the scope of my methodological expertise but its creator won a Nobel Prize, which leads me to think there's something to it.Say Anything chimes in:This is a case where sophisticated research produces results that match up with our intuition. It's no secret that media coverage is a prime motivation of terrorists, if not the primary motivation at the tactical level. It's hard to sow terror if the results of one's carnage are only known by eyewitnesses. Nor is it surprising that, as terrorist strikes increase, coverage goes up.
Obviously, the point of taking/beheading hostages (among other acts of violence) is to make a statement for your cause. If you deny the terrorists the audience for their deeds (or at least shrink it) you limit the effectiveness of their tactics.Economist John Lott warns:The problem I see is balancing this with the need to keep the public informed of current events. Any law requiring the media to refrain from reporting on certain things in Iraq would probably be unconstitutional, and the media isn't likely to do something like this themselves given the amount of money they get when they can splash headlines like "Hostage Beheaded In Iraq" around.
I know Bruno and he is a good, well known economist. Despite its name however, the Granger Causality test doesn't really test causality. It just says that if there is a change in one variable, there is a change after that in the change of some other variable. That is interesting, but it isn't a test of causality. It would have been nice to have more media covered than just two newspapers, though I presume that there is a lot of correlation between coverage in the NY Times and the rest of the media. My work with Kevin Hassett, however, indicates that there are significant differences across even just newspapers.Brothers Judd have a great idea:
But their study strongly supports the idea that media coverage inspires the terrorists to further attacks. As penance for its last 7 years of terrorism-promoting publicity, I suggest that the publisher and editors of the New York Times let us test another proposition for the next 7 years: that publicizing heroism by the U.S. military, and death and destruction among terrorists, will decrease terrorism.
Technorati Tags: Bruno S. Frey, University of Zurich, Dominic Rohner, Cambridge University, Terrorism, War on Terror, War on Islamofacism, Granger Causality Test, Fourth Estate, Fifth Column, Word.
Five: Finally, doesn't it seem a rather small-minded, racist way of thinking to equate "tar baby" with a smear against blacks since tar is, you know, so black? That's as stupid as suggesting the term "sugar daddy" ought to be regarded a smear against whites, since refined sugar is so white.Now that's funny.
Since starting his job Monday, Snow has challenged five major news outlets in a clear signal that he will be more aggressive than his mild-mannered predecessor, Scott McClellan. ...Hmmm. Someone actually trying to keep the press honest. Shocking.Until this week, Bush administration officials rarely issued detailed rebuttals of articles they considered unfair. But Snow, who is expected to give his first public briefing Monday, has taken a more combative stance.
This week he has hit back at The New York Times and USA Today. On Thursday, he criticized the AP for a story headlined: “Army Guard, Reserve fall short of April recruiting goals.”
The White House countered: “The Army National Guard, Air Force Reserve, and Marine Corps Reserve all have exceeded or achieved their year-to-date recruitment goals.”
Technorati Tags: Media Lies, Fourth Estate, Fifth Column, Tony Snow.
Kerry Watch: The hubris of a billionaire's self defense fund.
Economy Watch: US Steelmakers are expecting robust demand for the rest of the year, making it the third year in a row that demand has remained strong.
Tax Watch: It looks like Republican lawmakers will succeed in extending some of the tax cuts for another year or two.
UN Watch: U.N. peacekeepers, aid workers and teachers are having sex with Liberian girls as young as 8 in return for money, food or favors.
MSM Watch: The New York Times has once again been caught plagerizing.
Illegal Alien Watch: An Arizona sheriff is using an old tactic to find and arrest those entering our country illegally: posses.
Health Watch: Cancer resistant mice have been discovered. "When white blood cells from the mice are injected into other mice, they eradicate advanced tumours and provide lifetime protection against the disease. ... Even highly aggressive forms of malignancy with very large tumours were eradicated."
Looney Watch: PETA has launched an ad campaign in which PETA President and co-founder Ingrid Newkirk is quated as saying, "Even if animal research resulted in a cure for AIDS, we'd be against it." [One supposes the same goes for cancer.]
Fun Facts for Lefties: Fidel Castro is apparently worth $900 million and ranked seventh on the Forbes magazine list of wealthy heads of state.
CENTCOM announced today that they had captured al-Qaeda correspondence in Iraq that discusses the state of the insurgency, especially around Baghdad but also around the entire country. Far from optimistic, the documents captured in an April 16th raid reveal frustration and desperation, as the terrorists acknowledge the superior position of American and free Iraqi forces and their ability to quickly adapt to new tactics.Read it all.
I especially love the part about the insurgency in Baghdad being a "media oriented policy", i.e., a sensationalist battle designed to manipulate public opinion via the fifth column fourth estate:
... the significance of the strategy of their work is to show in the media that the American and the government do not control the situation and there is resistance against them.Don't look for in depth analysis of this point or any subsequent soul searching on the part of the NYTimes.
Technorati Tags: al-Qaeda, Iraq, War on Terror, War on Islamofacism, Zarqawi.
An article in The Metro Section on March 8 profiled Donna Fenton, identifying her as a 37-year-old victim of Hurricane Katrina who had fled Biloxi, Miss., and who was frustrated in efforts to get federal aid as she and her children remained as emergency residents of a hotel in Queens.And the Times even mentions their error in a new article about the woman, on page B1:Yesterday, the New York police arrested Ms. Fenton, charging her with several counts of welfare fraud and grand larceny. Prosecutors in Brooklyn say she was not a Katrina victim, never lived in Biloxi and had improperly received thousands of dollars in government aid. Ms. Fenton has pleaded not guilty.
For its profile, The Times did not conduct adequate interviews or public record checks to verify Ms. Fenton's account, including her claim that she had lived in Biloxi. Such checks would have uncovered a fraud conviction and raised serious questions about the truthfulness of her account.
Ms. Fenton was the subject of an article in The New York Times on March 8, more than a month after Brooklyn prosecutors, prompted by suspicious officials at the city's welfare agency, began investigating her.Yet this calls into question why the "paper of record" would fail to perform a routine check on the subject of a story. If they don't check on the people they are writing about, do they check their
And considering the amount of scrutiny that corrections like this receive these days, is sloppy fact-checking something new or has this been going on for decades? If sloppy reporting is not a new phenomena (which I suspect), then why the new-found scrutiny? Blogs?
I'd like to ask you, Mr. President, your decision to invade Iraq has caused the deaths of thousands of Americans and Iraqis, wounds of Americans and Iraqis for a lifetime. Every reason given, publicly at least, has turned out not to be true. My question is, why did you really want to go to war? From the moment you stepped into the White House, from your Cabinet -- your Cabinet officers, intelligence people, and so forth -- what was your real reason? You have said it wasn't oil -- quest for oil, it hasn't been Israel, or anything else. What was it?The president handled the batty Thomas with all the grace one can muster under those conditions. If you haven't seen the exchange, you should. The Poltical Teen has the video.
Why they keep letting Helen Thomas near a press conference is one of the most puzzling questions of today.
As for the rest of the press conference and how the president handled himself, this highlights column is worth a read.
Image from AFP.
Technorati Tags: Moonbats,
Helen Thomas,
Press Conference.
Not As Pessimistic As UsualNew York Times Baghdad bureau chief John Burns has long been highly pessimistic about the war in Iraq from the start. In an interview with TV host Bill Maher Friday night, Burns remained pessimistic, but he also said that now "U.S. military and political diplomatic leadership in Iraq ... is about as good as you could possibly get." And he said the U.S. team there has "got the formula more or less right."
But by the time the trade publication Editor and Publisher had edited and published the Burns interview you wouldn't have known any of that. The magazine ignored it all instead claiming that Burns for the first time was predicting failure.
Technorati Tags: Media Spin, Fourth Estate, Fifth Column, Editor and Publisher, John Burns, Iraq, War on Terror, War on Islamofascism.
Several new sources have come to light to indicate that Saddam probably did have WMD, at least chemical and biological weapons, and that a nuclear program had not been entirely discontinued. And they also suggest a substantial relationship between Saddam and al Qaeda.What follows is a great roundup of recent news stories and ongoing investigations.
I wonder, after the "Bush Lied" myth is exposed for what it is (a lie), will anyone utter an apology?
Technorati Tags: WMD, Iraq, Saddam Hussain.
HT to Donald Luskin.
- 5:30 p.m., Saturday (all times Central Standard Time). Mr. Cheney sprays Harry Whittington with birdshot, and the Secret Service immediately informs local police. Who is Harry Whittington and whom does he lobby for? Does he know Scooter Libby?
Technorati Tags: Cheney.
But the plain fact is that in Kashmir, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Israel, the prospects are all a great deal more promising than they were at the beginning of this year. It is no longer fanciful to dismiss as wholly unrealistic President George W. Bush's grand strategy to modernize and bring democracy to the Middle East. And at this time of year, it is important to recognize that the rosy scenario now exists.Hmmm, it seems to me that given the apparent results it was never unrealistic to believe in the Bush Doctrine.
Meanwhile, the Arab News lists some of the accomplishments made in Iraq:
Money quote:
- The Baathist regime has been toppled and its apparatus of repression dismantled. ...
- The sapling of democracy has been planted in Iraqi soil and seems to be flourishing after several local elections, a constitutional referendum, and two general elections. ...
- A one party system has been replaced with a pluralist one with more than 200 political groups and parties representing every imaginable strand of ideology and opinion. ...
- Baghdad, which once hosted the headquarters of some 30 international terror organizations, is now one of the few capitals in the Middle East in which terrorists are no longer welcome, let alone protected.
- Iraq’s economy, modeled on Soviet-style central planning and control under Saddam, has been opened up with over 18,000 new small and medium companies registered across the country during the past three years. Iraqi agriculture, moribund in the last years of Saddam, has been revived and is now providing the bulk of the nation’s food for the first time since the 1950s.
The US-led coalition came to Iraq not to impose democracy by force but to use force to remove impediments to Iraq’s democratization. That task has been achieved in record time.Nicely put.
Subversion, divulging state secrets and acting against the interests of the state were the most common charges lodged against the media worldwide, the organization said. The number of jailed journalists around the world rose from 122 in 2004.Ah yes, let's be "particularly upset" with the US, which has four journalists in Iraqi imprisoned and one at Gitmo. That is, five suspected terrorists who happen to be using journalism as a cover for their activities. Never mind China (with 32 in jail) and tiny Cuba (with 24). Let's be upset with the US."We're disturbed to see the number of jailed journalists rise, and we're particularly troubled that the list of worst abusers now includes Ethiopia and the United States," Ann Cooper, the committee's executive director, said in a statement.
After all, that was the country that stuck Judith Miller in prison — which merited more headlines than all the "good news" stories coming out of Iraq combined. Like the news that 753 "insurgents" have been killed and another 1,978 captured in Iraq in recent weeks.
No, let's write about about the mythical Plame scandal instead.
When today's patrol ended, one of the soldiers said to me, "Sorry it wasn't more exciting for you." I told him I wasn't looking for excitement, and in fact, I was glad the day unfolded as it did.It reminded me that life in Iraq is never what you expect it to be. The situation here is far more complex and the fight far more nuanced than it is often portrayed.
At a certain point in the near future, if the current oligarchy cannot be removed via the ballot, direct political action may become an urgent and compelling mission. It may then be necessary for many people in many walks of life to put their bodies on the line. For the moment, however, although pressing and profound questions have arisen about whether the current government is even legitimate, i.e., properly elected, there still remains a chance to remove this government peacefully in the 2008 election. (Or am I living in a dream world?)This bit of verbal offal caused someone to ask (via email): "To engage in a new civil war, wouldn't they have to shoot guns?"I do think this regime's removal is the most urgent matter before the country today. . . . This is all terrible and rather fantastic to contemplate. But what assurances have we that it is not all quite plausible? Having discarded the principles that Jefferson & Co. espoused, the current regime seems capable of anything. I know that my imagination is a feverish instrument. But are we not living in feverish times, in times of the unthinkable?
I cannot resist sharing non-blogging but frequent source Advised by Wolves' response:
Generally, no. The weapon of choice for Leftest (remember the Weathermen) is the bomb. Bombing doesn't take a lot of training and the bomber is long gone from the area when the device detonates. When a leftest uses a gun, he runs the risk of return fire. Standing firm is not a character trait for these people.Nail on the head.
On another note, when Salon first started going under and started asking for donations I actually sent them money. I thought that having a professional left-wing internet site added value to the discussions taking place in the blogosphere as the articles were usually thoughtful and sometimes even insightful.
But the article referenced above is an example of how far they've had to move left in order to appeal to a set of readers dedicated enough to support them. My first thought was to exclaim, "Shameful!" Then I reconsidered, thinking about the trend that is occuring in the MSM as a whole.
The WaPo, once a solid paper, has moved farther and farther left in the face of declining circulation. The LA Times, once the most respected paper on the left coast, has been forced to cut staff and are increasingly anti-Bush and even anti-Schwarzenegger (as if you can call him a Republican). The NYTimes, once the paper of record, has been forced to cut staff and put much of their online content behind pay-for-access walls, seemingly moving left with each passing day and appealing to a smaller and smaller audience.
Which begs the chicken-and-egg question: which came first, left-biased journalism or a smaller audience?
We have become a country of horrible wussies, rationalizers and apologists. ...There's more. Nice job.The Pentagon says it doesn't use white phosphorous against Iraqi civilians and there is no -- repeat, no -- verified case of it being used that way in Iraq, directly or in an ancillary fashion. (The Times attempts to make a weak case for the latter but swings and misses. Badly.) ...
This from the newspaper that steadfastly uses the term "insurgents" for terrorists who strap bombs to their bellies, hit a button and mix their bastard innards with those of American soldiers and little Iraqi children.
"It did give me a little more resolve than I already had. I'm kind of glad that the rest of the country gets to hear about the good things going on here." - 1st Lt. Dane Kappler of Amarillo, Texas, after listening to Bush's speech while eating dinner in a mess hall in Baqouba, Iraq.
I believe what we are seeing in Iraq is the Afghanistan Effect in reverse. Only this time, it's the lies of the liberal elites that are being exposed, as more and more soldiers and Marines return home from the war. In response to ludicrous fairy tales of bitter defeat, the troops are educating their families, friends, and neighbors about the tremendous victories we've won: the terrorists killed, the territory captured, the schools, dams, and generating plants rebuilt. They're telling everyone about the joyous Kurds and Shia, so glad to be rid of that vontz who lorded it over them for so many decades. Even many of the Sunni have embraced the Americans, thankful for the end of the monster and his spawn.Interesting theory, but I have my doubts. Says Advised by Wolves via email:
But I am not sure I buy into this. He postulates that the soldiers returning from Iraq and telling the truth to the MSM distortions. But I am not seeing this effect in the polls of the general public or the voting public. It appears to me that the constant drum beat from the Dem-wits and their allies in the press are having an negative effect. And if we lose our will in Iraq, then Al-Queda will step up their attacks on embassies, ships, and even in CONUS once again.I agree — somewhat.
Under the Soviets, the general populace knew that the politburo lied as a matter of policy and the media was a front for the government whose only purpose was to hide the truth from the citizenry. Thus the public grapevine was deemed to be a more reliable source than whatever was being spouted by the government-owned talking heads.
That is not so here, where the press continues to wield enormous power in spite of low reliability ratings in public opinion polls. We saw the effect of the fifth column on Vietnam, a war we were clearly winning until the press and the politicians tied our military's hands and ruined moral. No matter how many soldiers are returning home from Iraq, their numbers remain woefully small — far too inadequate to overcome the volume and persuasive influence of the media.
The difference, of course, is that this time we have the Internet. Through the power of Milbloggers and the echo chamber of the blogosphere, the truth is getting out. Further, conservative powerhouses like Power Line, PoliPundit, Captain's Quarters and Wizbang, as well as a number of liberal bloggers have gained notoriety by being reasonable in their arguments; rather than routinely parroting the party talking points they apply their beliefs in a reasonable fashion. When an MSM story is questionable, at least some respected citizen-pundits on both sides can be relied upon to point it out.
Further, just as talk radio and then Fox News came into being because news and entertainment was so persistently slanted to the left, the Internet has made distribution of right-wing news more cost effective. Thus sites like NRO, Weekly Standard, American Thinker and NewsMax all have risen in prominence, garnering thousands of hits per hour and providing an alternative view of the world.
So in the end, the national consciousness is not deluged with French-friendly, terrorist-sympathetic, everything-in-Iraq-is-a-disaster "news" stories. Rather, a number of additional perspectives are available, resulting in a more informed populace that can intelligently debate matters with each other.
And that is what will change the face of MSM for a few decades, and what will kill the Democrat party if they don't get their act together.
Now if we can only get those damn yankees in the northeast to stop electing RINOs . . .
As Chandler would say, "Could you be more biased?
Over the past weeks, the media’s judgment of what stories deserve front page news coverage has been controversial to say the least. One such story takes place in Austin, Texas. The district attorney for that area, a hopelessly partisan Democrat named Ronnie Earle, indicted House Majority Leader Tom Delay for conspiring to break Texas election laws with little or no evidence to make his case. Once he realized that he had no chance in court, he re-indicted Delay with the new and more serious charge of money laundering. The media, of course, was all over the story. ...Indeed, you have to dig deep to follow the Schumer scandal — or read conservative-leaning blogs, of course.Michael Steele is the lieutenant governor of Maryland and a rising star in the Republican Party. As the first African American to hold statewide office, he has proven himself to be a charismatic leader and a strong politician. Before winning statewide as Governor Robert Ehrlich’s running mate, he was chairman of Maryland’s Republican Party. He was even chosen by the national party to be the deputy permanent chairman of the 2004 Republican National Convention — an unquestionable vote of confidence in a talented elected official. Most political pundits expect him to be the Republican nominee for retiring Senator Paul Sarbanes’ seat in 2006.
Chuck Schumer is the senior senator from New York and chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. His job is to recruit candidates for the Senate and monitor the races that are in play for his party. Two of his campaign committee members — research director Katie Barge and junior staffer Lauren Weiner — apparently obtained Steele’s private credit report by using his social security number. Under the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act, knowingly and willfully obtaining a credit report under false pretenses is a felony with a maximum sentence of two years in prison.
Unless you are lucky enough to come across a relevant cartoon:
Shortly after Hurricane Katrina slammed into the Louisiana coast, flooding the city of New Orleans, journalists began reporting on a “toxic soup” of chemicals and dangerous microbes bathing the city. Based on no reported data, these stories nevertheless seemed reasonable; the city’s sewer system had flooded, and thousands of cars, houses, and chemical storage tanks lay beneath water, which in part of the city reached more than 3 meters in depth. In addition, 24 Superfund sites are in the affected area, and the U.S. EPA and the U.S. Coast Guard have tallied more than 400 oil and hazardous chemical spills.However, research posted to ES&T’s Research ASAP website (es0518631) finds that the water that drowned New Orleans was no more toxic than typical floodwater washing down an urban street after a hard rain.
The difference of a "timeline" vs. a "plan" is vitally important. Dean and his liberal cronies want to know, right now, exactly when our last troops will be pulled away from protecting the fledgling democracy in the heart of the Middle East.
The president, of course, has a "plan" which sets out a series of events that take place, one building on the other, until the country has a good chance of standing on its own. Unlike the frequently fickle and factious left, the president put his plan into place way back in 2003 and is still following it today. Iraq is getting quite close to completing step 5 (write a constitution) and step 6 (ratification) is scheduled for Saturday.
If the constitution is not ratified, then the Iraqi people must return to step 5 and do it again until step 6 is successful. A plan allows for that — a timeline would become nonsensical in that event.
Meanwhile, al-Qaida is hoping that Dean is successful and the United States cuts and runs according to a timeline rather than a plan:
In a letter to his top deputy in Iraq, al-Qaida's No. 2 leader says the U.S. "ran and left" in Vietnam and the jihadists must have a plan ready to fill the void if the Americans suddenly leave Iraq.The similarity to Vietnam is of paramount importance in this debate. In Vietnam, the press waged a sociopolitical war on the war effort and the military and forced the withdrawal from an engagement that we were winning. They are attempting to do the same in Iraq. To allow them to succeed will be to show the United States is a paper tiger after all, to be dismissed as a gutless adversary in the drive to establish a Muslim state."Things may develop faster than we imagine," Ayman al-Zawahri wrote in a letter to his top deputy in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. "The aftermath of the collapse of American power in Vietnam - and how they ran and left their agents - is noteworthy. ... We must be ready starting now."
Further, al-Zawahri's letter shows the geopolitical importance of Iraq:
"It has always been my belief that the victory of Islam will never take place until a Muslim state is established ... in the heart of the Islamic world," al-Zawahri writes.Replace a few words and you will see an eerie echo of the president's vision. It would be perfectly natural for the president to say,: It has always been my belief that the victory of freedom will never take place until a democratic state is established ... in the heart of the Islamic world. This is our long-term plan: expel the terrorists from Iraq, establish an democratically elected authority and take the gift of freedom to Iraq's despotic neighbors, including Lebanon, Jordan and Syria.The letter lays out his long-term plan: expel the Americans from Iraq, establish an Islamic authority and take the war to Iraq's secular neighbors, including Lebanon, Jordan and Syria.
Thankfully, the president will remain president long enough to see the first fruits of his plan — before the left and their media mouthpieces can make the American public "go all wobbly" on the war on Islamofacism.
Update: The Director of National Intelligence has published al-Zarqawi's letter in its entirety.
Update: Powerline weighs in on the letter from al-Zawahiri.
But the New York Times is shocked to find that To More Inmates, Life Term Means Dying Behind Bars.
But now, driven by tougher laws and political pressure on governors and parole boards, thousands of lifers are going into prisons each year, and in many states only a few are ever coming out, even in cases where judges and prosecutors did not intend to put them away forever."Life" means life. Even if:Indeed, in just the last 30 years, the United States has created something never before seen in its history and unheard of around the globe: a booming population of prisoners whose only way out of prison is likely to be inside a coffin.
Fewer than two-thirds of the 70,000 people sentenced to life from 1988 to 2001 are in for murder, the Times analysis found. Other lifers - more than 25,000 of them - were convicted of crimes like rape, kidnapping, armed robbery, assault, extortion, burglary and arson. People convicted of drug trafficking account for 16 percent of all lifers.Rape and kidnapping deserve life. The rest are habitual offenders: those who have been given a second chance or even a third, but proven that they don't have what it takes to respect the rules of civilized society.
Life sentences certainly keep criminals off the streets. But, as decades pass and prisoners grow more mature and less violent, does the cost of keeping them locked up justify what may be a diminishing benefit in public safety? By a conservative estimate, it costs $3 billion a year to house America's lifers. And as prisoners age, their medical care can become very expensive.Precisely. So why aren't they earning their keep? I'm not talking slave labor. But I am talking about being productive if you want anything more than a cell and an hour in the yard every day. You want television? Better food than the gruel you should be getting if you just sit on your ass? Then work for it and pay your way.
By the end of the Times article you feel like the story of Jackie Lee Thompson is a real injustice. Poor guy, can't get parole even though he's earned an associate's degree and learned several trades. He could be a real asset to the community.
Until you remember that at the first of the article you learned that he had pumped three shotgun blasts into his pregnant 15-year-old girlfriend before drowning her in Pine Creek.
I don't believe in the death penalty. I do believe removing creatures like this from our society.
I hope some day somebody writes all this down, because the whole story is unbelievable. Miller never writes a story about Plamegate, but insists she must keep her sources secret, even though the name of her primary source, Cheney chief of staff Scooter Libby, has long since been a matter of public record -- and has publicly released her from her pledge of anonymity. She decides to go to jail to protect the principle of source anonymity, and is only weeks away from being sprung (because the grand jury she was refusing to talk to will go out of business in Ocrober) before she abandons her stand on principle and decides to talk. And all this in relation to a matter that may well not have been a crime to begin with. Weird wacko crazy bananas.
We regret that we will see many of our colleagues leave the Company; it is a painful process for all of us.I'm thinking it's only painful if you lose your job. But moral equivalence reigns supreme in the land of liberal journalism: losing your job is as bad as knowing someone that loses their job.
The memo also promises that the quality of journalism that the paper produces would not be impacted. I suspect this is true unless the cuts include Krugman and Dowd. Then the quality would go up. But to hope for that is as futile as hoping that Democrats won't politicize a national disaster before the umbrella dries.
Meanwhile, Philadelphia Newspapers Inc., publisher of The Inquirer and Daily News, is cutting 75 reporters and newsroom personnel, or about 16% of the newsroom jobs. This is a case of liberals creating their own defeat:
Henry Holcomb, president of the Newspaper Guild, blamed PNI's owner, Knight Ridder Inc., based in San Jose, Calif., for demanding profits that all but guarantee problems.Of course, it could have something to do with the fact that people aren't buying your product any more due to alternative sources of information. But you always have to look for someone else to blame.
However:
Keep speechifying, Dean. The Republican Party can use your help.
If you were to be honest, you wouldn't repeatedly say that Cindy Sheehan deserves a meeting with the president. Rather, you would say that she deserves another meeting with him because most of your readers don't know that she already talked to him, was already comforted by him, already expressed satisfaction with his genuine compassion, as have so many others. They don't know because journalists like you hide that fact from them.
It would be nice if you went on to explain just how many meetings the president should hold with those who lost loved ones in Iraq and Afghanistan. Is two enough? If not, and they decide to camp out on the White House lawn, should he continue meeting with them? Would weekly be enough? When should the president be running the country? In his spare time, perhaps?
Wickman (I feel that I can call you Wickham, giving you the same level of respect that you show for President Bush), by putting scare quotes around the phrase "working vacation" you deliberately imply that he is not working. As a journalist, is it really enough to put the talking point out there? Do you really feel that only those in the legislature should be allowed to leave Washington during the August recess? Don't you feel the need to justify your doubts that the president is "working"? Don't you believe that the president's daily briefings on national security, meetings with his economic and foreign policy teams, frequent trips, signing of legislation, communicating to the American people through speeches, and welcoming of foreign dignitaries does indeed fit into the category of "work"?
I realize that it is hard for you to avoid doing so, but do you have to propagate the "lied about WMD" lie? Is it because you are a writer that your listening skills are so underdeveloped? How did you possibly hear the president say that? Many on the left have finally admitted that he never said it, so why can't you?
And of course you had to throw in a favorite lefty delusion, the only reason that President Bush liberated the Iraqi people is to get back at the man who tried to "kill his dad". I wonder, Wickman, how many people you have tried to run over with your car because they said something derogatory about your mother? Is that how you live your life? Or do you only think other people do so? Perhaps on Republicans because, after all, Liberals are from Venus and Conservatives are from Mars. Or so it must seem to you.
I knew you couldn't resist the "timetable" dig. You must feel pleased that journalism school trained you so well in military strategy that you feel confident that such a timetable can be accurately laid out, that promises to a shattered people and a wrecked economy can be made without influencing the plans of terrorists. I understand the exit strategy. I understood it when the path was clearly laid out in 2003. Why can't you?
The only DNC talking point you seem to have missed is the "stole the election . . . twice!" fable. I wonder you thought that this went too far or if you just missed it. Given your muddled thinking, I'm thinking it's the latter.
Q: Many pundits and news organizations are focusing attention on John Roberts' links to the Federalist Society. Do you remember any such focus or concerns expressed about Ruth Bader Ginsburg's overt activism on behalf of one of the most controversial groups in America, the ACLU? And do you see a double standard here in the media? And I have a follow-up.Speaking of humor, check out the political cartoon over at Dr. Sanity.MR. McCLELLAN: I wasn't following her confirmation process that closely at the time. I was back in Texas. But you're welcome to point those things out if you so choose.
A really bold newspaper editor (any out there?) might send out two reporters of opposite ideological persuasions to cover one day of the confirmation hearings. Have each write a news story, and run them side by side, labeled as to leaning. Leave off the bylines, if you like. This idea may seem a little cute and professionally self-absorbed, but you know what? People would read it, and be impressed that you were wrestling with the bias question, instead of pretending it isn't there.A darn good idea.
The second is not to fear the high availability of news and opinion made possible by the internet:
It's also wrong to assume that the profusion of sources diminishes the mainstream media's importance. It does exactly the opposite. One of the most useful functions of establishment outlets today is the way they vet and organize all the stuff flying around at the lower tiers, particularly among the blogs and the ideo-lobbies.Exactly! As good and succinct opinion as I've seen on the subject.
One end note: I disagree with Powers on using the abbreviation "SCOTUS". It's been around for more than a hundred years and it reminds me of the word "scrotum" every time I see it, which is, I think, often very appropriate.
The Congressional Budget Office estimated last week that the deficit for the full fiscal year, which reached $412 billion in 2004, could be "significantly less than $350 billion, perhaps below $325 billion."Of course, maybe the NYT took the extra five days to come up with ways to pooh-pooh the concept:The big surprise has been in tax revenue, which is running nearly 15 percent higher than in 2004. Corporate tax revenue has soared about 40 percent, after languishing for four years, and individual tax revenue is up as well.
Other financial hurdles may be down the road. Mr. Bush's intention to extend his tax cuts indefinitely, and to add new ones, would drain more than $1.4 trillion from government coffers over the next 10 years.Liberals just can't see that tax cuts are good for Americans, even though Kennedy started the tradition in 1964.
Throughout the Middle East, attitudes toward the United States are often far more nuanced than the images suggested by images often played on evening television news programs of protesters burning American flags or effigies of President George W. Bush.Many people who want more democratic governments in this region, whether on the left or the right, say, however reluctantly, that they view the United States as an effective vehicle to force change in regimes unwilling to yield power.
In Iran, attitudes toward the United States are even more positive, in part, it seems, because so many Iranians know someone living there.
Oh, Jesus, another barrage of emotional tripe about sons. From every quarter, one hears that the willingness to donate a male child is the only test of integrity. It's as if some primitive Spartan or Roman ritual had been reconstituted, though this time without the patriotism or the physical bravery. Worse, it has a gruesome echo of the human sacrifice that underpins Christian fundamentalism.A new media guideline must read, "Any chance to slam fundamentalism must be taken".
I feel compelled to point out that Abraham, who was asked by God to sacrifice his son, was the first Jew and is revered by those of the Islamic faith as well.
Hitchen seems to be out to insult just about every monotheist on the planet.
That must mean that a "centrist" is a gun-grabbing, baby-killing, gay rights RINO.
Gee, I must be a right-wing extremist with Nazi-like tendencies almost indistinguishable from the Taliban.
One shouldn't wonder why, as the Media Research Center informs us:
The CBS Evening News has yet to inform its viewers about Democratic Senator Dick Durbin's comparison on June 14 of interrogation techniques at Guantanamo to those employed by "Nazis, Soviets in their gulags," nor his June 22 apology...This is supported by:
"Most of the major broadcast networks didn't report on the original comments by Durbin," said Roger Aronoff, a media analyst for Accuracy in Media.What liberal media?
A different omission marred the reporting of Amnesty International's report charging torture in U.S. detainment camps. The group didn't just call Guantanamo a "gulag," an over-the-top remark that was universally reported. In a press release that most reporters ignored, the group also invited foreign governments to snatch certain visiting American officials off the streets and bring them to trial for crimes against humanity.As long as we are talking about Amnesty International, did you see that William Schulz, the head of the American branch of the organization, has conceded that they have no evidence to back up their outrageous claims that Gitmo is the modern equivalent of a Russian gulag?
"We don't know for sure what all is happening at Guantanamo and our whole point is that the United States ought to allow independent human rights organizations to investigate," Mr. Schulz said, adding that Amnesty International was careful to use the word "alleged" when accusing high-level Bush administration officials.
Now the parent company has announced that 190 jobs will be cut:
In a statement, the company said the reductions will include "fewer than two dozen" employees in The New York Times newsroom. About two-thirds of the reductions will occur at the Times, with the rest coming from the company's New England Media Group, which includes The Boston Globe.Meanwhile, the Washington Times is celebrating substantial gains in circulation numbers:
The Washington Times celebrated its 23rd anniversary yesterday with cake and champagne served to its employees at a midafternoon assembly, as its executives announced a substantial gain in audited circulation in the face of a national trend of declining U.S. newspaper numbers.
Ted Koppel's news program will pay tribute to the more than 900 U.S. servicemembers who have died in Iraq and Afghanistan over the past year in a special Memorial Day broadcast Monday at 11:35 p.m., ABC said Tuesday.Chrenkoff has the best response I've ever seen on this topic:"Nightline" will show photographs of each of the war dead as their names are read. ...
"Too often we simply report casualties in terms of numbers," said Tom Bettag, "Nightline" executive producer. "`The Fallen' is our way of reminding viewers, regardless of their feelings about the war, that the men and women who have given their lives in our behalf are individuals with names and faces."
I've got a modest proposal to Ted Koppel and "Nightline": why don't you read one day the names and show the pictures of the 170,000 or so American servicemen and women stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan who every day are working their hardest to ensure that democracy takes root, terrorists are defeated, and these two countries have a chance to build a better future for their people. That might convince a cynic such as myself that you really care for the troops generally, and not just only when they can be cynically used to embarrass the Bush Administration.
Run, don't walk, to Riding Sun's post on the latest edition of Newsweek and the differences between the American and Japanese editions.According to an LGF reader:
The red text at the left just above the “Newsweek” logo says:Much more over at Riding Sun.“America forsaken.”
The big white and yellow text says:
“The Day America Died — The ideal of ‘freedom’ falls to the ground due to Bush continuing in office.”
Count this page on the side of conservative social activists who are pushing Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist to "nuke" the filibuster.We don't share these activists' enthusiasm for the White House judicial nominees triggering the current showdown. But we do believe that nominees are entitled to a vote on the floor of the Senate. The filibuster, an arcane if venerable parliamentary tactic that empowers a minority of 41 senators to block a vote, goes above and beyond those checks on majority power legitimately written into the Constitution.
But I have to admit that this makes a good point:
When ace reporter Michael Isikoff had the scoop of the decade, a thoroughly sourced story about the president of the United States having an affair with an intern and then pressuring her to lie about it under oath, Newsweek decided not to run the story. Matt Drudge scooped Newsweek, followed by The Washington Post.Oh yeah, it's from Ann Coulter so read it all.When Isikoff had a detailed account of Kathleen Willey's nasty sexual encounter with the president in the Oval Office, backed up with eyewitness and documentary evidence, Newsweek decided not to run it. Again, Matt Drudge got the story.
When Isikoff was the first with detailed reporting on Paula Jones' accusations against a sitting president, Isikoff's then-employer The Washington Post -- which owns Newsweek -- decided not to run it. The American Spectator got the story, followed by the Los Angeles Times.
CBS canceled the Wednesday edition of "60 Minutes," saying the decision was made because of poor ratings and not last fall's ill-fated story about President Bush's military service. ...Once you lose credibility, people stop watching, ratings fall. How can anyone say that memogate had nothing to do with the cancellation and maintain a straight face?But Leslie Moonves, the CBS chairman who has the final call on the network schedule, said the story didn't figure in the cancellation -- "not even slightly."
"This was a ratings call, not a content call," he said.
Or, as Outside the Beltway puts it:
A news program simply can not exist without believability.But I like the way Say Anything puts it:
Of course, the poor ratings are probably indicative of the public’s lack of interest in a news program that engages in smear campaigns based on forged documents in a blatant attempt to influence an election, but its not like CBS is going to admit that.BuzzMachine notes that Rather will continue to contribute to 60 Minutes Sunday. I wonder if he'll take that down too?
Reading the latest public polling on filibusters convinces me that media polling is becoming something like blogging, only without the wit and delightful cynicism.
Arabic satellite television news channel al-Jazeera has hired the former Tribune editor Mark Seddon to be New York correspondent for its new 24-hour English-language station.Speaking of Arab television, many in Iraq are concerned about Arab and Western "poison" being beamed into the country via satellite:
Oprah has a fan base in Iraq. Iraqi mothers fret about the amount of time their teenagers spend watching "Star Academy," an Arabic-language cross between "American Idol" and "The Real World." ...Given the moral and spiritual decline in America that is promoted by a steady stream of left-wing propaganda wrapped up in the guise of "entertainment" from Hollywood, I think that the clerics in Iraq have something to worry about."My husband says it's like Satan in the house," she said. "It makes people tempted."
- "What blogging has created is a million eyes watching over the shoulders of journalists," Matthew Felling, media director of the Center for Media and Public Affairs in Washington, told UPI.
- "Blogs are the ultimate reason we are seeing journalism clean house nowadays," Felling said. "If some questionable news-gathering behavior had grown to be tolerated, the blogosphere has put an end to that."
- ... 6 percent of the entire U.S. population has blogged -- or 11 million people -- and 32 million adults, or 16 percent, read blogs.
The Left, of course, loves it, as illustrated in this opening paragraph from a "critic":
"Kingdom of Heaven" is probably about as good a movie as anyone could make about the Crusades. This was a ghastly though vitally important stretch of history when Western civilization, whipped up by religious fervor and bitter poverty, confronted the Muslim world with both the sword and cultural arrogance.The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee is equally supportive:
"It's one of the better representations of Muslims we've seen out of Hollywood," said Laila Al-Qatami, a spokeswoman for the Washington-based group. "We thought that he did a good job tackling a potentially volatile subject and avoided doing a simplified, stereotyped story of Muslim vs. Christian."This was not, of course, a "ghastly" period in history any more than any other period of warfare (and there has been a lot). For a surprisingly even-handed lesson, I recommend an article by author Thomas F. Madden:
Pope Urban II called the First Crusade in 1095. Despite modern laments about medieval colonialism, the crusade's real purpose was to turn back Muslim conquests and restore formerly Christian lands to Christian control. The entire history of the crusades is one of Western reaction to Muslim advances. The crusades were no more offensive than was the American invasion of Normandy. As it happened, the First Crusade was amazingly, almost miraculously, successful. The crusaders marched hundreds of miles deep into enemy territory and recaptured not only the lost cities of Nicaea and Antioch, but in 1099 Jerusalem itself.The Muslim response was a call for jihad, although internal divisions put that off for almost fifty years. With great leaders like Nur ed-Din and Saladin on the Muslim side and Richard the Lionheart and St. Louis IX on the Christian side, holy war was energetically waged in the Middle East for the next century and a half. The warriors on both sides believed, and by the tenets of their respective religions were justified in believing, that they were doing God's work. History, though, was on the side of Islam. Muslim rulers were becoming more, not less powerful. Their jihads grew in strength and effectiveness until, in 1291, the last remnants of the crusaders in Palestine and Syria were wiped out forever.
It's also known for refusing to carry Nightline a year ago when Ted Koppel spent the entire show reading the names of soldiers killed in Iraq.
In February of this year, the Rolling Stone said SBG is "to the right of Fox News" and accuses it of being a cheerleader for Bush.
In spite of a number of Sinclair boycott initiatives, the Sinclair Broadcast Group posted gains in net income:
Sinclair, owner of the largest group of TV stations in the United States, said it is off to a better-than-expected start in 2005. The company said it beat its prior expectations for broadcast revenue and that it cut TV operating expenses by a greater amount than forecast.You'd think that the Left, being masters of the boycott, could do better than that.
US News has a great article that details bias and calls for Full Disclosure.
UPI takes apart various polls dealing with Social Security in A Skunk in the Polls.
The Australian digs into history and publishes six myths about the Vietnam War.
He then writes a comprehensive refutation of that view. Nicely done.
Anderson gives some reasons why liberal radio is failing while conservative radio continues to thrive. My favorite is this:
Liberal bias in the old media. That's what birthed talk radio in the first place. People turn to it to help right the imbalance. Political scientist William Mayer, writing in the Public Interest, recently observed that liberals don't need talk radio because they've got the big three networks, most national and local daily newspapers and NPR.How true.
HT to Advised by Wolves.
81% of Spaniards think Europe should be more influencial than the U.S., as do 79% of Germans.
On the other hand, only 34% of Americans think that Europe should be the world leader. I surmise that these were all Californians, but I haven't seen the raw data.
As I recall my history, the last time that Europe as the only super power in the world they were taking slaves in Africa, killing Aztecs in the new world, filling up Australia with criminals and building global empires ("sun never sets" and all that).
Yeah, let's put the French in charge. They already think they are.
In Baghdad, hundreds of power workers marched through the streets shouting "No, no to terror!" to protest terrorist attacks that have been targeting those rebuilding Iraq's infrastructure.
Even Reuters is forced to report some successes:
Gee, would those be the ones that the INS catches and the authorities put back onto the streets after telling them to show up for a court date in a few months, or the ones streaming across the border that we never know about at all?
The nomination of Bolton should be viewed not as a slap in the face of the United Nations but as a symbol of the importance the Bush administration attaches to reforming the world's largest multilateral institution. His nomination is also a recognition of the need for strong American leadership at the United Nations....It must be "International Be Kind to Conservatives Day".Bolton is a heavyweight figure in Washington and is respected among many lawmakers on Capitol Hill. His views are in sync with the growing calls from Congress for the United Nations to be held accountable to the American taxpayer. There are at least five major congressional inquiries into the United Nations's management of the Iraq oil-for-food program as well as a wide-ranging investigation by the House International Relations Committee into international UN operations, including peacekeeping.
Bolton's appointment should be seen as a signal by the White House that the role of the United Nations will be central, not peripheral, to America's strategic thinking over the next four years. It is in the U.S. national interest for the United Nations to be an effective, accountable and credible world body.
Stalin mounted a brutal starvation campaign against Ukranians killing upwards of 7 million people, and New York Times journalist Walter Duranty received a Pulitzer Prize for defending Stalin with such infamous phrases as "you can't make an omelet without breaking eggs".
Saddam Hussein used Oil for Food monies to build palaces and finance weapons research while children died from lack of nutrition or basic medical care. While the blogosphere decried the horror, mainstream journalists decried the "rush to war" during the months that led to Iraq's liberation.
Kim Chong-il has starved North Koreans until women eat their own children and then executed starving citizens for stealing food to survive. He has packed pregnant women into jail cells so overcrowded that everyone else must stand to make room for a woman in labor. His regime operates slave labor camps where prisoners are tortured, raped and murdered. He has reintroduced gas chambers and monstrous human experimentation to our world.
And yet the LA Times has the audacity to try put a benign face on life in North Korea by interviewing a North Korean "businessman" (as if there can be anything except a government stooge in the communist country). The LAT printed the interview because he "offered rare insight into the view from the other side of the geopolitical divide."
"We Asians are traditional people," he said. "We prefer to have a benevolent father leader."A benevolent father that starves and tortures his children, and yet the LAT prints the interview with no counterpoints, no mention of the proofs of horrific abuses, no hint that life in North Korea is indistinguishable from that of a country-wide gulag.
The article ends with:
"There is love. There is hate. There is fighting. There is charity…. People marry. They divorce. They make children," he said.A disgustingly feckless quote, as meaningless as saying that grass attempts to grow in the crevasses of rock cliffs. Life will try to survive no matter what the surrounding conditions. Men and women meet and fall in love and little girls try to live a normal life while hiding from Nazis. Politics rule the cruelest prison yard as men fight for advantage. Babies are born to those who live the most miserable of existences."People are just trying to live a normal life."
Life will go on. It does not excuse the barbarity of Kim Chong-il's reign of terror.
This is a country where sixty percent of the children are dying from neglect (three of every five!), yet the LA Times prints what amounts to nothing more than communist propaganda.
Hugh Hewitt is outraged, as every person who reads this rubbish should be. Furthermore, Hewitt notes that the LAT hasn't printed any of the emails that they have been flooded with in response to the "news article" nor do they comment on their decision to behave as a communist mouthpiece.
I've seen low in American journalism, but this is beyond the pale.
Hat tip to Bill Hobbs.
This morning, for example, I baited an anonymice trap by querying Nexis for all stories containing the words "senior administration official" and "President Bush" over the past week from America's top dailies. As you may recall, the president toured Europe last week and met with state leaders.I figured a Nexis dump would trap a few of the contemptible rodents, and I was right. The worst offender over this interval was the Los Angles Times, followed by the New York Times, the Washington Post (owned by the company that owns Slate), the Chicago Tribune, and the Boston Globe. The good news is that I found no infested clips in USA Today, which is more vigilant than most papers in eradicating anonymice, and none in the Wall Street Journal via its subscription site.
You must read the article to discover that the sticker in question has the "F word" prominently displayed. The officer gave the woman a warning for the profanity, not the political statement.
One of those quaint Italian towns held a parade that featured this float. We can actually thank that staunch defender of liberalism, USA Today, for providing the shot (sixth picture in the slideshow).Of course, USA Today has only this to say:
A giant mask representing U.S. Sen. John Kerry, parades through the streets of Viareggio, Italy, during a traditional carnival parade.It takes a professional blogger like Little Green Footballs to notice the chicken feet, wings and cocks comb.
Last Wednesday, USA Today covered the story with a decidedly negative spin. Headlined Lengthy ballots, ad blitzes contribute to confusion, the story concentrated on the confusion among the newly-liberated citizenry and states:
Iraqis have no experience with free elections. The last ballot, in 2002, had one choice: Saddam Hussein. On Jan. 30, they'll confront a lengthy and potentially mystifying ballot. Violence and security concerns have added to the confusion. Most voters seem to have a muddled view of how to vote.Yes, "potentially mystifying" is the news here, with violence somehow equating to voter confusion. USA Today seems to be trying to make the Iraqi citizen seem like a caricature of a thick-skulled red-stater.
Compare and contrast the reporting by the Washington Times last Thursday, in a story headlined 80 percent say they plan to vote:
A clear majority of Iraqis said they plan to vote in the Jan. 30 elections and remain hopeful about their country's future despite a murderous insurgency, according to a poll to be released today.While the USA Today ignored most of the pesky facts in the poll results, the Washington Times published quite a number. I, of course, went to the source (requires Microsoft Powerpoint to view) and pulled some results of my own:The countrywide survey, conducted by the Washington-based International Republican Institute (IRI), also found increased popular awareness of the election, closer identification with political parties and a growing level of trust in Iraqi institutions such as the interim government, the police and the election commission.
Also, while USA Today cited one statistic and filled a column with dour predictions and gloomy prognostications, the Washington Times cited actual results of the survey. Nor can I find any other story in the USA Today that covers this poll.
USA Today should be ashamed but I doubt that shame is to be found anywhere in those offices.
Knowledgeable readers will recognize this as the 10 January post from the essential Cox and Forkum.
In media, truth is the goal, but how to get there?The truth according to who? The journalist or the editor? Because it is evident that the AP pushes their own particular brand of "truth"!
Imagine a Democratic presidential candidate and his allies assailing the character of the Republican nominee in ads and speeches every day for eight months.Excuse me? Excuse me!?Having trouble? That's because Democrats generally don't have the stomach or the discipline to do it. Often they don't even effectively fight back when under attack themselves.
The party that invented the myth of the "vast right-wing conspiracy" to divert attention away from a beleaguered president? The party that turned "Bork" from a proper noun to a verb as they savagely attacked everything the man had done or said since he was about three years old? The party that calls Clarence Thomas the "antichrist"? The party that successfully painted Judge Pickering as a bigot even though he had the backing of African-American politicians from his home state of Mississippi and courageous opposition to the KKK in the 60s? The party that carries placards that equate Bush and Hitler? The party whose favorite president was a draft-dodger but attempted to attach the "coward" label to man who volunteered for duty flying in the Reserves? The party that invented and refined the politics of personal destruction over the past two decades?
Excuse me?
The entire article is filled with distortions and concepts that can only be the result of extreme ideological tunnel vision. The one instance of truth comes from the success of the effort of labeling Kerry as a flip-flopper:
And many agree with McInturff that the flip-flop attacks worked in part because "the guy was all over the lot. There were some elements of truth to that."When the guy flip-flops on virtually every issue it's not a bad thing to call voter's attention to it!
And what picture of conservative chicanery does USA Today choose to prove the point of this story? Why, a pair of evil protesters wearing *gasp* flip-flop costumes!
How awful! How dispicable! How detestable! How malicious! How loathsome! How downright abhorrent, wicked and evil! Bad Republicans! They should be torched just to teach them a lesson!
I suppose USA Today would be far more pleased if Republicans followed the lead of the kinder, gentler, more caring party of protesters:
It's hard to believe that this was once the party of hippies. It's harder to believe that I was once one of them.
But hardest of all is to believe that USA Today is still one of them. And yet it is obviously so.
A military rifle capable of piercing armor from over a mile away is too readily available to civilians, and could end up in terrorists' hands, say critics of the .50-caliber weapon that is for sale in 49 states.The Barrett .50 cal is 29" long, weighs between 22 and 30 pounds, and has a long and distinguished ancestry:Correspondent Ed Bradley reports on the big gun that was recently banned in California for 60 Minutes, Sunday, Jan. 9, at 7 p.m. ET/PT.
"I think it's a great thing on the battlefield," says one of the weapon's chief critics, Tom Diaz of the Violence Policy Center in Washington, D.C.
"I just think there are certain occasions when we say in our society, this product is such a threat to our health and safety...our national security, we will not allow it," he tells Bradley. "Thousands have been sold to civilians and, as far as federal gun laws go, it is treated like any other hunting rifle."
Update: Reader and friend Patriot Pat sends the link to the NRA Factsheet on Sen. Feinstein's proposed .50 cal ban.
Why was 2004 a great year?"I’m thinking about putting up a reward on my Web page for any liberal who will mention either Afghanistan or the Kurds," she said. "I mean, 85 percent of Iraq is free, it’s beautiful—we have about 300 troops patrolling the entire Kurdish area. These poor beleaguered Kurds are free, are happy, are dancing in the streets, and liberals simply won’t mention them. I certainly thought Afghanistan was going to be a tougher nut to crack than Iraq—the Russians couldn’t take Afghanistan! They’ve basically been at war for a hundred years—even when nobody’s there, they’re at war with one another. We took Afghanistan in a month, and now they’ve had elections and women vote, and they didn’t vote for some crazy lunatic mullahs. So that’s a pretty good year."...
Do you have a perverse admiration for [Hillary Clinton]?
"Ewwww, no. As with John Kerry, I generally don’t admire people who get ahead on somebody else’s coattails. She’s like the anti-feminist. No, except she isn’t—because all feminists behave that way and pretend to be, ‘Oh, I’m a strong woman.’ They’re all weak and pathetic. Have you ever seen Citizen Kane? You know, he marries the nightclub singer and then wants to make her a great opera singer, because he controls all news in America; even though the audience is booing and throwing paper airplanes, all the headlines on every newspaper is ‘Susan Alexander Sweeps Chicago!’ That is what it’s like to be a liberal in America, whether you’re Susan Sontag or Hillary Clinton. No matter how pathetic and useless and everyone can be booing you, throwing paper airplanes—you can be incomprehensible like Susan Sontag, a ‘genius,’ a ‘public intellectual’! Did you try reading anything she’s ever written? What was the point of it? And Hillary, constantly voted the most admired woman."
In addition, the reporting of the report is already late. Hmmm, seems CBS doesn't really believe that transparency engenders greater trust.
While some predict that it will be January before the report comes out, I disagree. I think it will come out the week of Christmas -- the slowest news time of the year. Who wants to think about a lying liberal commentator when there's ham and presents?
Blogger underscorebleach.net emailed Google pointing out that Daily Kos is "an oft-cited, oft-disproved radical lefty blog written by one person" and asked that it be removed.
Now comes the surprising part: they did!
I did a search on "Rumsfeld Iraq" and not one Kos (or DU) story came up.
Congratulations to underscorebleach.net!
“Dan Rather did not get what he deserved in this case,” O’Reilly’s column continues. “He made a mistake, as we all do, but he is not a dishonest man. Unfair freedom of speech did him in. This is not your grandfather’s country anymore.”Hat tip to Advised by Wolves.No it isn’t, and a good thing too when it comes to how we get the news. Because no longer do three networks and a limited number of other establishment media outlets have a monopoly on deciding which information the public will be allowed to see.
“Bill O’Reilly is defending the indefensible, and it looks an awful lot like the Old Boy network closing ranks, with more than a hint of fear,” comments Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs, who typed up those CBS “memos” in Microsoft Word and displayed the damning result at the top of his blog for weeks.
Bloggers began needling O’Reilly last year, after his original anti-Internet tirade. Instapundit’s Glenn Reynold’s responded that “the blogosphere is a no-weenie zone.” UCLA law professor Eugene Volokh sarcastically suggested that books are “a menace and a cesspool. They’re just an appalling, awful technology; and the worst of it is no one is controlling them.” Jim Treacher pointed out that O’Reilly’s tantrum may have at least contributed a new word to the online vocabulary: O’Reilled-up.
A friend of mine that we call Patriot Pat caught yet another example of this in a recent CSI episode and took action by writing the station.
Dear CBS:You have to admit, the man's got a point.I'm writing to ask you to help me to help you. I would prefer to continue to watch your three CSI programs, however, that will not be possible if you continue to insult your audience. In last night's CSI Miami, you predictably had "evil white supremacists" committing acts of terrorism against Hispanics. As a White, patriotic, Conservative, American man, who is happily married to a wonderful, Asian, patriotic, Conservative, new American citizen, woman, I was insulted at the tired, old, boring, bigoted, stereotype your left wing writers used. I don't have anything against Hispanics. Especially the Miami Cuban community, which by the way, votes mostly Republican, just like we do. By the way, militia isn't a dirty word, the RICO comment was ludicrous!
Let's see; what group loves to blow people up and decapitate them? Hmmm, I believe that would be radical muslims! But you continue to use your main demographic viewership as a doormat to wipe your bigoted, marxist feet on. That's just bad business guys! I used the title "Strike 2" because you used bad judgment interrupting CSI NY to announce the death of that terrorist. To your credit, your fired the idiot responsible for the mistake, but then, you continue to write improbable stories like this. Also, you made the shooters of the rockets a little too stupid. The eye thing was weak and them leaving the window up behind the launcher was totally unbelievable.
Please clean your act up and get over the election. If you continue down this path with your propaganda that reflects your bigoted, racist hatred of Conservatives, we will turn your shows off and contact your sponsors to inform them of a boycott until they stop advertising with you. Have you learned nothing from Red Blather's ratings?
USA Today wonders if Fox News Channel’s success will “force competitors to take sides”.
Meanwhile, Online Human Events notes how two stories were covered side-by-side in the NYTimes — Aschcroft’s resignation and Arrafat’s death:
On Nov. 10, the New York Times front page put the two stories side by side in the top left-hand corner. Reporter Elisabeth Bumiller told readers the "polarizing" Ashcroft was resigning after a "tumultuous tenure" in which he was praised for his aggressive fight against terrorists but "assailed by critics who said he sacrificed civil liberties" in the wake of Sept. 11. Bumiller noted Ashcroft was praised by President Bush, then added his critics were "caustic," citing the radical-left Georgetown professor David Cole, who strangely called Ashcroft "a disaster from a civil liberties perspective but also from a national security perspective."
But right next door on the front page, reporter Elaine Sciolino found far less controversy in the camp of Arafat. The dying terrorist has accumulated a long and blood-spattered resume of violence that fills a cemetery, a filthy legacy of innocent Olympic athletes, airplane passengers and Israeli schoolchildren massacred. But the Times didn't even use the word "terrorist." Instead, Sciolino referred to Arafat as a cult hero, "the guerrilla fighter and Nobel Prize winner who has symbolized the Palestinian struggle for statehood for four decades." Of his potential successors, Sciolino warned they had "little of the street credibility and aura that surrounded Mr. Arafat." A big chunk of that aura is created in Western capitals by left-wing correspondents.
An unbiased reporter would note that the big guys chose sides long ago which is what made FNC possible in the first place. After all, Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism found that liberals outnumbered conservatives by nearly 5 to 1 in the national media and the trend is growing.
Ah well, one can hardly blame a USA Reporter. Way back in 1998 a survey of business reporters from newspapers such as USA Today, the NY Times, and even magazines such as Money, Fortune and BusinessWeek found that Democrats outnumbered Republicans by 6 to 1. Imagine how much worse it is today, especially among those that cover politics.
Rall said he thinks the site dropped his work because of a Nov. 4 cartoon he did showing a drooling, mentally handicapped student taking over a classroom. "The idea was to draw an analogy to the electorate -- in essence, the idiots are now running the country," he told E&P.Had Ralls' slant been towards the conservative end of the spectrum he would never have been picked up in the first place. That he has been dropped by the left-leaning WaPo speaks volumes about his work. That it took so long for the "cumulative" effect to build speaks volumes about WaPo."That cartoon certainly drew a significant amount of negative comment from our users," said WashingtonPost.com Executive Editor Doug Feaver when contacted by E&P. But he added that the decision to drop Rall was a "cumulative" one that had been building for a while.
"Ted Rall does very interesting work," Feaver said. "Some of it is not funny to an awful lot of people. We decided at the end of the day that it just did not fit the tone we wanted at WashingtonPost.com."
Rall was dropped effective Nov. 15, according to Feaver.
Hat tip to Captain's Quarters
Arthur Weinreb from Canada Free Press demonstrates that he is one of the sensible ones as he writes about the hypocrisy of CBS for firing the producer who broke into the end of CSI to announce the non-event of Arrafat's death -- just minutes before the news show:
But CBS’s action’s on this occasion stands in stark contrast to how they treated their star, Dan Rather. They seemed to see nothing particularly wrong with Rather bringing forth a forged document concerning George Bush’s National Guard service and refusing to acknowledge that it "might" have been forged, even as evidence was building up that it could not have been genuine. The network refused to take action against Rather even when Rather announced that it really didn’t matter whether or not the document was a forgery as long as the information that it contained was true (the fact that the information could only be proven true by the forged document seemed to escape the Dan). In their rush to take George W. Bush down, accuracy in reporting didn’t matter.Well said.There is a moral to all this: you can present false and forged documents as fact; just don’t interrupt a popular program to do it.
“We have checked with people representing the Swift Boat Veterans and they confirm they used the actual Kerry testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in their ads. This nonsense in Newsweek about how an actor’s voice-over was used instead of the authentic Kerry tape is misinforming the public, as much of the media did during the entire campaign when it came to covering the Swift Boat Veterans. Newsweek still has it wrong and must correct the record with an apology to the Swift Boat Veterans in its next issue,” Bozell said.“Newsweek should apologize, not just issue a ‘correction,’” added Bozell, “as it is now known that Newsweek didn’t even telephone the Swift Boat Vets to ask whether a voice-over was used. They just ran a false story without checking with the people responsible—and that is irresponsible journalism.”
After clinching the Democratic nomination, Newsweek reports, John Kerry was so desperate to enlist GOP Sen. John McCain as his running mate that he made an "outlandish" offer: He'd expand the role of vice president to include the duties of secretary of Defense.Moreover, Kerry — seeking the presidency in a time of grave international danger — promised to put McCain in charge of all U.S. foreign policy should they win.
"You're out of your mind," McCain reportedly told Kerry. "I don't even know if it's constitutional."
John Kerry clearly is not out of his mind — and nobody will ever confuse him with a constitutional scholar.
No, one lesson here is that he is so utterly devoid of moral fiber that he'd trade away the heart and soul of the presidency in order to win the office in the first place.
Faustian doesn't begin to describe the rank ambition behind this proposed bargain: Kerry simply had no soul to sell in the first place.
Truly, America dodged a bullet this past Tuesday.
But how close would that election have been had the voters known that such an offer had been contemplated — much less made?
More than 40% of those who use the internet have gotten political material during this campaign, according to the Pew Research Center for The People & The Press, more than 50% higher than the number who had gotten such information in the 2000 campaign....The study shows that few have totally abandoned MSM, but rather turn to the internet as a way to supplement the information the get from newspapers and/or TV. But the lesson here is that MSM is no longer considered a viable sole-source of information. The bias is known and consumers are taking steps to counter it.The internet is contributing to a wider awareness of political views during this year's campaign season. At a time when political deliberation seems extremely partisan and when people may be tempted to ignore arguments at odds with their views, internet users are not insulating themselves in information echo chambers. Instead, they are exposed to more political arguments than non-users.
While all people like to see arguments that support their beliefs, internet users are not limiting their information exposure to views that buttress their opinions. Instead, wired Americans are more aware than non-internet users of all kinds of arguments, even those that challenge their preferred candidates and issue positions.
Some of the increase in overall exposure merely reflects a higher level of interest in politics among internet users. However, even when we compare Americans who are similar in interest in politics and similar in demographic characteristics such as age and education, our main findings still hold. Internet users have greater overall exposure to political arguments and they also hear more challenging arguments....
Internet use is not the only factor associated with exposure to a wide range of political arguments. Education levels, interest in the campaign, and age are among the other factors tied to the number of points of view people encounter.
Read the study to determine if you are an Omnivore, Selective Reinforcer, Contrarian or a member of the Tuned Outs.
Hat tip to the Volokh Conspiracy.
Practicing cheap and dirty politics, playing fast and loose with the facts and even lying: Accusations like these, and worse, have been slung nonstop this year.The implication, of course, is that journalists are not partisans -- a absolutely stunning thing to say given the events of this campaign season.The accused in this case are not the candidates, but the mainstream news media. And the accusers are an ever-growing army of Internet writers, many of them partisans, who reach hundreds of thousands of people a day.
Hey MSM, I got a scoop for ya: talk radio, Fox News, blogging -- all reactions to your openly partisan reporting and ideologically-driven attempt to subvert the will of the people by pulling the wool over their eyes.
Journalists covering the campaign believe the intent is often to bully them into caving to a particular point of view. They insist the efforts have not swayed them in any significant way, though others worry the criticism could eventually have a chilling effect.What "others"? Why would the musings of some pajama-clad non-professional writer sway a journalist, much less have a "chilling" effect? What a silly accusation to throw out. The NYT attempts to make its readers believe that they shouldn't listen to bloggers because they are nothing but big bullies. Bullies armed not with guns or even clubs -- these are cyber-bullies armed with aging computers and an online thesaurus.
"The traditional players, including the press, have lost some of the control or exclusive control they used to have," said Jay Rosen, chairman of the journalism department at New York University, who keeps his own Web log, or blog.A campaign is under way to de-politicize journalism, you totally thick moron! It is you who have caused this with your stories attacking Bush's service and ignoring Kerry's communist connections, your endless beating of the prison scandal and ignoring of the mass graves, your "just because the memos are fake doesn't mean the story isn't true" insult to our intelligence, your 2000 rosy economy stories and 2004 economic doom-and-gloom, your lauding of Fahrenheit 9/11 and smear-campaign against decorated Swift Boat Vets instead of investigating the claims, your ignoring 20 years of liberal voting and refusal to sign the Standard Form 180, your Jason Blairs, your press conference attacks on the president during prime time.But, he added, "I think there's a campaign under way to totally politicize journalism and totally politicize press criticism."
Bloggars are politicizing journalism? Plu-eaze! That ship has sailed and you are the crew!
"It's really an attack not just on the liberal media or press bias, it's an attack on professionalism itself, on the idea that there could be disinterested reporters," he said.No idiot! It's disgusting that there aren't disinterested reporters!
"Some of the stuff includes very personal and nasty things about people - they go after people's physical characteristics, they'll say somebody's ugly - and you just have to ignore that."Aww. Poor little writer got his feelings hurt because of some unknown person wrote bad things about you? Gad! Get over it.Still, he said, "I would be lying if I didn't say it could be hurtful."
Of course, every example that the paper then cites were done by lefties (Kos and friends), validating the perception that Lefties are crude, foul-mouthed beings while Righters are morally and ethically superior folk. This is the closest to reality that this column gets.
It goes on to say that the Times was criticized by the Right in reference to the timing and inaccuracy of the NYTroGate story, and by the Left for being "too easy on Bush" [*snort*] -- the implication, of course, is that they must be fair and balanced 'cause both sides are out to get them, a weak effort at best.
Most political reporters interviewed for this article insisted that outside forces did not sway them from being fair, though a couple admitted they could not rule out having pulled punches in small and even subconscious ways."Help me, I'm being persecuted and oppressed!" the journalist cries. By who? People like me? Get real!
The NBC anchor Tom Brokaw recently likened the tone of the Internet coverage of the CBS National Guard report, presented by the anchor Dan Rather, to a "political jihad." In an interview last week Mr. Brokaw said CBS News had clearly made mistakes. But, he said, "I think there were people just lying in the Internet bushes, waiting to strike, and I think that particular episode gave them a big opportunity.Again, no hint of remorse for not having done due diligence on an obvious forgery. Not even a suggestion that perhaps a decade of ideologically-driven reporting is just deserts for those who attempt to fool and persuade rather than inform.
"Political jihad". There's that emotive rhetoric that MSM has become so well known for.
Hypocrisy, thy name is Journalist.
"I'm a little concerned about this notion everybody wants us to be objective," Jennings said.Gee, Peter, I'm a little concerned that you think people should accept that you get to shove your left-wing political beliefs down our throats by shading every news story that comes out of your mouth with the hues of your liberal ideology.
"If you tailor your news viewing, as some people are now doing, so that you only get one point of view, well of course you're going to think somebody else has got a different point of view, and it may be wrong," Jennings said.If you hadn't of tailored your news in the first place this wouldn't be a problem. Try reporting the news without the emotive phrasology and reporting all the news, not just that which supports your view of the world, and maybe in six or seven years we'll start trusting you again.
RNC Research has a list that Paul Krugman should take a quick looksee:
WHAT KRUGMAN FORGOT TO READ AND WRITE ABOUT …
Multiple States
"Man Arrested After Voter Forms Turned In For Mary Poppins, Michael Jordan, Ohio Officials Say," The Associated Press, 10/19/04
Terrence Scanlon, Op-Ed, "Democratic Deception," The Washington Times, 10/19/04
John O'Sullivan, Op-Ed, "Democrats Prefer Exploiting Voter Fraud," Chicago Sun-Times, 10/19/04
Joyce Howard Price, "Man Charged In Vote Fraud Says NAACP Paid In Crack," The Washington Times, 10/19/04
James Dao, "As Election Nears, Parties Begin Another Round Of Legal Battles,"The New York Times, 10/18/04
John Fund, Op-Ed, "We May HAVA Problem," The Wall Street Journal, http://www.opinionjournal.com/diary/, Accessed 10/18/04
Moni Basu and Julia Malone, "Last Election's Crisis Raises Stress In 2004," The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 10/17/04
Jerry Seper and Donald Lambro, "Anti-Bush Registration Drive Stirs Fraud Concerns," The Washington Times, 10/15/04
Julia Malone, "Political Parties Are Claiming Voter Registration Fraud In Several States," Cox News Service, 10/15/04
John H. Fund, "The Man With The Most Lawyers Wins," Wall Street Journal, 9/22/04
Jo Becker and Dan Eggen, "Voter Probes Raise Partisan Suspicions," The Washington Post, 9/20/04
Jeff Jacoby, "Op-Ed, How To Steal An Election," The Boston Globe, 9/16/04
Colorado
Deborah Sherman, "I-Team: Attorneys Are Preparing For Legal Battle Over Voter Registration Fraud," http://www.9news.com, 10/18/04
Steven K. Paulson, "State Officials Try To Reassure Voters Of A Clean Election," The Associated Press, 10/18/04
Susan Greene Erin Cox And Jim Hughes, "Legal Eagles Will Eye Voting," The Denver Post, 10/17/04
Deborah Sherman, "Team Investigation On Voter Registration Problems Finds 'Vanishing Voters'" http://9news.com, 10/16/04
Gabrielle Crist, "Faulty Voter Applications Are Blamed On Workers," Rocky Mountain News, 10/15/04
Steven K. Paulson, "Colorado Democrats Say Voting Manual Was Poorly Worded," The Associated Press, 10/15/04
Peggy Lowe, "Democrat Playbook Opened To Criticism," Rocky Mountain News, 10/15/04
Jon Sarche, "Colo. Elections Chief Says AG Lax On Fraud," The Associated Press, 10/13/04
Nicole Vap, "Colorado Secretary Of State Reacts To 9NEWS Voter Registration Fraud Story," http://www.9news.com, 10/13/04
Paula Woodward, "I-Team: Talks With Groups That Submitted Fraudulent Forms," http://www.9news.com, 10/13/04
Deborah Sherman "I-Team Report On Voter Registration Fraud - Part II," http://www.9news.com, 10/12/04
"Investigation Reveals Potentially Fraudulent Voter Forms," The Associated Press, 10/12/04
Deborah Sherman And Nicole Vap, "I-Team Investigation Uncovers Voter Registration Fraud,"http://www.9news.com 10/11/04
Susan Greene And Jeffrey A. Roberts, "6,000 Felons On Voter Lists," The Denver Post, 10/10/04
John Sanko, "3 Prosecutors Join Voter Fraud Probe," Rocky Mountain News, 8/7/04
John Ingold And Susan Greene, "Voter Applications Eyed In Fraud Probe," The Denver Post, 8/5/04
Gabrielle Crist And John Sanko, "Paid Workers Eyed In Suspect Voting Applications," Rocky Mountain News, 8/5/04
Susan Greene And John Ingold, "Possible Voter Fraud Has AG's Office On Hunt," The Denver Post, 8/7/04
John J. Sanko, "State Investigates Voting Requests," Rocky Mountain News, 8/4/04
"AG Investigation Allegations Of Voter Fraud," The Associated Press, 8/3/04
Florida
Lucy Morgan, "Manual Reveals Voting Tactics," St. Petersburg Times, 10/15/04
Brendan Farrington, "Fla. Officials Asked To Probe Voter Fraud," The Associated Press, 10/7/04
Dara Kam, "Voter Registration Process Causes Concern," The Palm Beach Post, 10/7/04
Brendan Farrington, "FDLE Investigating Suspicious Leon County Voter Applications," The Associated Press, 10/5/04
Tom Zucco, "Activist Group Blamed For Voter Roll Goofs," St. Petersburg Times, 10/4/04
Paige St. John, "Rumors Of Vote Fraud Rampant," Florida Today, 10/2/04
Mary McLachlin, "Lawyer Urges Snowbirds To Cast Their Votes In Fla," Palm Beach Post, 9/19/04
Erika Bolstad, "Snowbirds Urged To Switch," The Miami Herald, 8/30/04
Editorial, "Democratic Double-Voting," The Washington Times, 8/30/04
Lucy Morgan, "State Asks U.S. To Help Ferret Out Double-Registered Voters," St. Petersburg Times, 8/28/04
Editorial, "Fraud Alert," Florida Times-Union, 8/26/04
Editorial, "Double Voting Demands State Action," Tampa Tribune, 8/26/04
Russ Buettner, "Thousands Illegally Register In Both New York City And Florida," [New York] Daily News, 8/24/04
"Voter Registration Up In State But Fraud Suspected," The Jackson Citizen Patriot, 10/1/04
Michigan
Editorial, "Voter Fraud: Phony Registrations Are Yet Another Blow To System," Detroit Free Press, 9/27/04
Kelly Hassett, "Ingham Co. Probes Vote Form Fraud," Lansing State Journal, 9/25/04
Dawson Bell, "Campaign Workers Suspected Of Fraud," Detroit Free Press, 9/23/04
Minnesota
Patrick Sweeney, "Voter Registration Cards Bring Felony Charge," Saint Paul Pioneer Press, 10/16/04
Patrick Sweeney; "Stash Of Voter Cards Probed," Saint Paul Pioneer Press, 10/16/04
Missouri
Stephanie V. Siek, "Allegations Of Voter Registration Fraud Rankle Nonprofit Voter Groups," The Associated Press, 10/12/04
Jamie Allman, "Investigation Reveals Phony Registration Cards," KMOV-TV, 10/7/04
Greg Reeves, "Prosecutor Urged To Examine Reports Of Double Voting," The Kansas City Star, 9/9/04
Editorial, "Vote Once And Stop," The Kansas City Star, 9/8/04
Greg Reeves, "One Person, One Vote? Not Always," The Kansas City Star, 9/5/04
Steve Kraske, "GOP Chief Warns Of Potential For Vote Fraud," The Kansas City Star, 6/29/04
David Twiddy, "Republicans Call For Bipartisan Teams To Watch For Voter Fraud," The Associated Press, 6/28/04
David A. Lieb, "Political Groups Using Incentives To Encourage Voter Registration," The Associated Press, 6/27/04
David A. Lieb, "Nearly Three-Fourths Of St. Louis Registrations Valid From Voter Drive Groups," The Associated Press, 6/25/04
Jo Mannies, "Voter Group Will Recheck Felons' Backgrounds," St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 6/25/04
David A. Lieb, "Political Group To Run Background Checks On Employees," The Associated Press, 6/24/04
David A. Lieb, "Political Group Paid Felons For Door-To-Door Voter Registration Drive," The Associated Press, 6/24/04
Jo Mannies, "Independent Group's Canvassers Sign Up Voters In Poor Areas Of City, At Colleges," St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 3/15/04
Jo Mannies, "Groups Push For New Voters," St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 2/18/04
Jo Mannies, "Election Board Will Investigate Carter's Role In Vote Case," St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 11/19/03
"Voter Registration Fraud Dogs St. Louis," The Associated Press, 9/19/03
Nevada
Adrienne Packer, "Voter Fraud Allegations: Judge Denies Request," Las Vegas Review-Journal, 10/16/04
Kirsten Searer, "President Concerned About Possible Nevada Voter Fraud," Las Vegas Sun, 9/15/04
Brendan Riley, "Nevada Democratic Voters Outnumber Republicans," The Associated Press, 8/13/04
Adrienne Packer, "County To Require Voters To Provide Identification," Las Vegas Review-Journal, 8/3/04
Jane Ann Morrison, "Signers Of Petitions Register Surprise At Having Party Affiliations Switched," Las Vegas Review-Journal, 7/31/04
Kirsten Searer, "Extent Of Voter Fraud In County Unknown," Las Vegas Sun, 7/21/04
Editorial, "Voter Fraud," Las Vegas Review-Journal, 7/20/04
Adrienne Packer, "County Battling Voter Fraud," Las Vegas Review-Journal, 7/17/04
"Clark County Election Official Sees Increase In Fake Voter Sign-Ups," The Associated Press, 7/9/04
Erin Neff and Brian Haynes, "Fake Voter Sign-Ups Increasing," Las Vegas Review-Journal, 7/9/04
New Mexico
Dan McKay and Andy Lenderman, "County's Early-Polling Places 'Slammed' With Voters, Calls" Albuquerque Journal, 10/19/04
Andy Lenderman and Dan McKay, "Police Find Voter Registration Forms During Drug Search," Albuquerque Journal, 10/19/04
"Albuquerque Police Find Voter Registration Forms At Albuquerque Apartment," The Associated Press, 10/16/04
"Activist Reports Theft Of Voter Forms," The Associated Press, 9/23/04
Andy Lenderman, "Fight Over Voter ID Heats Up" Albuquerque Journal, 9/19/04
Mary Perea, "Candidates Seek Voter Forms Of Woman Who Registered Teen," The Associated Press, 9/15/04
Editorial, "Fair Vote Matters Above All, Regardless Of Party," Albuquerque Tribune, 9/13/04
Shea Andersen, "Official: 'Mischief' Reports Justify Probes," Albuquerque Tribune, 9/9/04
Dan McKay, "Judge Saw Risk In Voter ID Plan," Albuquerque Journal, 9/9/04
Ed Asher, "Task Force Will Eye Voter Fraud," Albuquerque Tribune, 9/8/04
Dan McKay, "Request to ID All First-Time Voters Denied," Albuquerque Journal, 9/8/04
Mary Perea, "Voters Testify There Was No Fraud In Second Registrations," The Associated Press, 9/2/04
Andy Lenderman, "112,000 Voters May Be Carded," Albuquerque Journal, 8/31/04
Shea Andersen, "More Glare On Voter Sign-Ups," Albuquerque Tribune, 8/25/04
Dan McKay, "Too Young To Vote," Albuquerque Journal, 8/20/04
Shea Andersen, "Clerk: Voter Forms 'A Mess,'" Albuquerque Tribune, 8/17/04
Abortion might be a crime in most states. Gay people could be thrown in prison for having sex in their homes. States might be free to become mini-theocracies, endorsing Christianity and using tax money to help spread the gospel. The Constitution might no longer protect inmates from being brutalized by prison guards. Family and medical leave and environmental protections could disappear.That is the opening paragraph! Such poisonous rhetoric is usually only thrown about by fear-mongering Democrats. I guess we can now add the editorial staff to that group. They should be ashamed -- but I doubt that they are.
I have taken the liberty of asking you to imagine America if John Kerry chose the Supreme Court:
Schools might be required to provide on-site abortion service, eliminating the need for those anxious trips and worrisome parental notification (never mind parental consent). The culture of political correctness could become so pervasive that children are arrested for normal playground taunts and the bumper-sticker industry folds. The Constitution might no longer allow law-abiding citizens to defend themselves, even in their own home. Family and medical leave, "living wage" legislation and environmental "protections" might become so burdensome that a majority of small businesses must close and most large organizations move their operations off shore.Imagine.
If it is to Bush, it goes like this: Life has gotten worse over the past four years. It sucks! What did you do?
If it is to Kerry, it goes like this: Some people are saying [insert Kerry weakness here]. Take the next minute and a half to say anything you want to convince the viewers why that isn't an issue.
Update: Daly Thoughts has a great take on the biased questioning.
USA Today publishes the results of an analysis of the post-debate commentary of the broadcasting networks, counting the number of positive vs. negative comments made by the talking heads on each:
| Network | First Debate |
Second Debate |
| ABC | Kerry: 82% | Kerry: 86% |
| Bush: 24% | Bush: 71% | |
| CBS | Kerry: 81% | Kerry: 60% |
| Bush: 45% | Bush: 44% | |
| NBC | Kerry: 55% | Kerry: 74% |
| Bush: 52% | Bush: 31% | |
| Fox News |
Kerry: 51% | Kerry: 48% |
| Bush: 52% | Bush: 46% | |
| CNN | Kerry: 55% | Kerry: 68% |
| Bush: 57% | Bush: 56% |
"The Big Three networks have Kerry winning both debates, but the oft-maligned cable news networks have been more balanced," center chief Robert Lichter says. "And the stereotypes against cable news don't necessarily hold. In the debates, Fox has been 'fair and balanced' and CNN has not been 'liberal.' "Imagine that.
Favorite son Rep. Richard Gephardt was surrounded nearly everywhere he went by U.S. senators and lawmakers, reporters and former staffers, all wanting to wish him well. A high point of his popularity was evidenced after the debate when ABC newsman and debate moderator Charles Gibson said to Gephardt in a private moment: "It should have been you up there - things would have been different."
House Republicans forced a vote on a measure sponsored by House Democrats that would reinstitute the draft:
"For two months -- especially on college campuses -- they've used the draft as a fear tactic to get people to vote against George W. Bush," House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, Texas Republican, said of Democrats.To a man, every Republican voted against the measure, effectively squelching the rumor that this is a Republican initiative.
"This issue is not going away," said Rep. Jim McDermott, Washington Democrat. "Nobody trusts them. ... It's pretty clear, if George Bush is re-elected, there is going to be a draft."Every single vote to reinstate the draft were cast by Democrats!Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee, Texas Democrat, said, "There is a secret plan for a draft."
Warn your friends that if Kerry wins he will prosecute the war on terror with the involuntary enslavement of our youth!
"Rallying supporters in Tampa Friday Kerry played up his performance in Thursday night's debate in which many observers agreed the Massachusetts senator outperformed the president.Carl's usually much funnier than this . . . I hope he doesn't get fired for his error."'Didn't my nails and cuticles look great? What a good debate!' Kerry said Friday.
"With the foreign-policy debate in the history books, Kerry hopes to keep the pressure on and the sense of traction going.
"Aides say he will step up attacks on the president in the next few days, and pivot somewhat to the domestic agenda, with a focus on women and abortion rights.
"'It's about the Supreme Court. Women should like me! I do manicures,' Kerry said."
The item also quoted Kerry as saying of himself and President Bush: "I'm metrosexual - he's a cowboy."
Hat tip to Say Uncle.
The checkpoints, which allow officers to demand licenses and proof of insurance, are an effective way to get drunken drivers off Oakland's streets, city leaders agree. But the checks also have ensnared dozens of illegal immigrants who are not licensed to drive yet otherwise obey the law.Illegal aliens who are here illegally and who drive illegally should be left alone because they otherwise obey the law?
Egad!
The good news is that the roadblocks have now resumed.
"We're providing all the networks' coverage and we're not going to follow directions from outside sources," said Paul Schur, Fox News Channel spokesman.Fox is expected to provide each network with feeds from several different cameras, giving them each discretion on which shots to air.
First, CBS News got booted off the airways in Rather's near-hometown of Houston:
"I felt no anchor ... should ever be the story or bigger than the story," Ken Charles, program director of the news-talk station, said Monday. "I thought it was appropriate to take him off the air."...Second, Republican businessman Doug Forrester is funding a media campaign calling for Rather's departure:"For right now, I'm not convinced there's any reason to put him back on the radio station," said Charles, whose station lineup includes opinion-based talk shows of Rush Limbaugh and Michael Savage. "Until CBS or somebody is able to do that, I feel like there's no place for Dan Rather on KPRC."
Forrester's campaign is to be waged on radio, television and the Internet starting Tuesday. Advertisements have been submitted to air in the Philadelphia and New York markets for the next several weeks on the major networks as well as cable channels, including CNN.Forrester is also the force behind DanRatherMustGo.com.
And how did I miss the story about a Texas Republican that's trying to oust a Democrat incumbent using Rather in his ad campaign:
The spot makes references to Sandlin's "negative" ads. The narrator says about the ads, quote: "They've got more holes than a CBS News story by Dan Rather."Now that's funny, I don't care who y'are.The ad then shows a newspaper clipping with Rather's photo and the headline "CBS apologizes for Bush Guard story."
Right on. Keep up the pressure. NRO provides this template in case you want to cut and paste rather than compose an original:
I have been a viewer of WGCL 46 and CBS's news programs. I have been watching CBS Evening News and 60 Minutes for years. I regret that I will no longer be able to watch any news programs on WGCL until Dan Rather and Mary Mapes no longer work at CBS News, and a full apology has been issued (not the half hearted apology already issued). They have abused the trust that I and the rest of the public have put in them. They have either accepted as fact documents of dubious origin out of incompetence, or they accepted them for ideological reasons. Either case is unacceptable.In case you need it, here is a list of C-BS affiliates across the nation with phone numbers, fax numbers, email addresses, mail addresses and zip codes.Yours Sincerely,
But I thought it was the conservative bloggers that had foreknowledge of these memos!
Hat tip to PoliPundit.
This is a ludicrous hypotheses.
Google includes sources that aren't really "news" sites in their hit lists -- like blogs. The article only covers two topics in the article, "John Kerry" and "George Bush". For Kerry, they say:
In addition to mainstream news outlets from both sides of the political fence (say, NPR and The Washington Post on the left and The Washington Times and New York Post on the right), there were 34 anti-Kerry screeds from the second-tier websites. There was only one pro-Kerry item, from CommonDreams.org.If you go to Google News today, enter "John Kerry" and click "Search", one of the first five hits Daily Kos -- hardly a "news" site. Also in the first 100 hits are leftist sites like AlterNet, DisInfo.com, truthout, Democratic Underground, Common Dreams, Proud Parenting, and another six Daily Kos stories. Looking further we see Socialist Worker, Dissident Voice and USAbroad.org -- all listed as if they were valid sources of news.
Want to guess the very top hit when searching for "losing Iraq"? Would you believe Daily Kos?
How about the opposite term, "winning Iraq"? The first four hits are indeed valid news sources. The fifth is Axis of Logic.
Conservative bias from the organization that allows ads for porn but refuses ads for gun-related services -- or even knives? Yeah, I don't think so!
Go read. And BTW, I saw him on Fox yesterday and he really did praise them for being up front with their bias "perspective". Heh.
If a reporter, anchor and/or news provider cannot be trusted to deliver factual information, let alone news without bias, the entire industry is in jeopardy. Some may say this is melodramatic but do the names Jayson Blair and Rick Bragg, not to mention the string of journalists accused and terminated for plagiarism in the past two years, ring a bell? Many of the occurrences were detected because of the Internet. All one has to do is use the Google search engine, put in a quote, and odds are it will appear and the author will be named as well.Hat tip to Bill Hobbs.One can only wonder if webloggers had not questioned the authenticity of the document obtained by CBS whether viewers would have ever been told the truth. This is of the greatest concern and media credibility depends on the response. How CBS handles this international debacle will inevitably have an impact on the attitude toward and practices of newsgathering and dissemination in the 21st century and beyond.
Reuters defended its position by saying that using the word "terrorist" might make some Middle East people angry and so endanger thier reporters.
Scott Anderson, Editor-in-Chief of CanWest, clearly articulates why Reuters is dead wrong:
...Reuters is violating the most basic concepts of journalistic integrity and ethics. “If you’re deliberately couching language are you telling the truth?” he asked rhetorically.Exactly.He spelled out the issue extremely clearly in an editorial in the Ottawa Citizen. “Terrorism is a technical term, describing a tactic. We agree with security professionals who define terrorism as a deliberate and indiscriminate targeting of civilians in pursuit of a political goal. People who plant bombs in a Bali nightclub are terrorists. Those who commit suicide by detonating heavy charges of explosives wired to their bodies in busses and pizza parlors in Jerusalem are terrorists. People who take an entire elementary school full of children as hostages in Russia are terrorists. We, as journalists, violate neither our impartiality nor our ethics by labeling them as such”.
“Ironically it is supposedly neutral terms like militant that betray the truth and journalistic ethics. By sanitizing terrorism they generate and create bias, the ultimate enemy of objective impartiality. Political activists can be militant, but that does not mean they kill children or take them hostage”.
Hey, when you're right, you're right.
Whichever "truth" you choose to believe, Blue Truth, Red Truth, one thing is clear: After Blogs Got Hits, CBS Got a Black Eye. And it is just CBS' latest black eye with no end in sight because with CBS, Sitting Between Fiasco And Fallout we can now see that CBS just doesn't get it.
Now that The CBS Hoax has been exposed, CBS admits memo fraud. But The real story in Rather ruckus remains untold as Conspiracy theories are flying around faster than a duck jumpin' on a Junebug. Was there a motive behind CBS' botched story on George W.? Tell us Dan, what's the frequency?
Of course, GOP, Dems swap charges over CBS documents. CBS colluded with Democratic campaign, GOP says and then pens a GOP 'memo' to Kerry: 'Fess Up! Meanwhile, Vexed, lies & videotape: Kerry blasts GOP on CBS ploy.
Because a Kerry Aide Spoke with 'Memogate' Figure, some question if Kerry's link to CBS a danger, prompting Kerry camp rejects CBS link at the same time as Kerry Camp Describes Contacts With Source of CBS Papers. "Link" vs. "Contact" -- evidently the Kerry disease of overnuancing everything is spreading to his campaign staff.
But back to CBS: Is 'Rathergate' a Watershed Moment for U.S. Media? Whatever you call A Ms. Mapes Mystery, It Is Watergate (or the journalistic equivalent thereof).
The question on everyone's lips is, Will mistake hasten Dan's departure? I predict that it will not.
As CBS Names Panel To Review Report On Bush Guard Service, we learn that Rather's producer assured CBS execs on Guard papers and that CBS Says Producer Violated Policy by Putting Source in Touch With Kerry Aide.
You see CBS to investigate producer Mapes because she will be the designated scapegoat. Dan's attempt to destroy a president will only destroy his friend and trusted producer, yet Dan will feel no shame.
Some have a Memo to Rather: Out-Fox the Critics—Go Left, Old Man! Others tell him, "Say Goodnight, Dan."
But hopefully Dan has learned at least one lesson: Bloggers keep eye on the news and the bottom line is, you must always Beware bloggers in pyjamas.
Slap delivered:
Ms. Heselius:
I found your response to my inquiry disappointing. You offered platitudes and regurgitated the prepared statement from CBS News and 60 Minutes. This statement included 4 attachments. Each attachment contains significant errors of omission and commission that I will address.
Statement by Marcel B. Matley, Examiner of Documents and Handwriting: Mr. Matley states that the signature on the documents is consistent with the known signatures of Jerry Killian, Lt Col, TANG. Omitted from this statement is the fact that Mr. Matley only examined photocopies of the disputed document. Relevant to this authentication of signature is the fact that Mr. Matley has written in his book Using and Cross-Examining Handwriting Experts." He wrote, “In fact, modern copiers and computer printers are so good that they permit easy fabrication of quality forgeries. From a copy, the document examiner cannot authenticate the unseen original but may well determine that the unseen original is false. Further, a definite finding of authenticity for a signature is not possible from a photocopy…” yet authenticity from a photocopy is precisely what CBS is attempting to portray.
Statement of James J. Pierce: Mr. Pierce clearly states that he only examined photocopies. As noted in my critique of Mr. Matley’s statement, authentic signatures may easily be placed in photocopies. The signature does not authenticate the document.
Quotes from Interview with Richard Katz, Software Designer dated 9/13/04: Mr. Katz states that the disputed documents could not be reproduced on a modern computer “a month ago”. This is false. I have been able to reproduce these documents using my computer with Word© and my Brother printer and I haven’t updated either with new software of firmware within the last 30 days. Mr. Katz also states, “…normal T-H at the top. To produce that in Microsoft Word, you would have to go out of your way to type the letters and then turn the T-H setting off or back over them and type them again.” This is also false. By leaving a space between the squadron number “111” and the “TH” the superscript function is not activated. (Examples “111 TH” and “111TH”) This is the technique that I used to replicate the disputed document and it matches.
Quotes from Interview with Bill Glennon, IBM expert and technology consultant, 9/13/04: Mr. Glennon stated, “…the IBM model executive D Executive or the C Executive did proportional type spacing from line to line. And it also would do superscript printing for like the “th”, which you could, you could have ordered.” This statement is in dispute. I refer you to the Selectric Typewriter Museum at http://www.selectric.org/selectric/indexold.html where Jim Forbes states, “For those who want my opinion...the documents appear to be done in Word, and then copied repeatedly to make them "fuzzy". The IBM Executive has proportional spacing, but used fixed type bars. The Selectric has changeable type elements, but fixed spacing (some models could be selected at 10 or 12 pitch, but that's all). The Selectric Composer was not an office typewriter, but apparently did use proportional spacing. These were very expensive machines, used by printing offices, not administrative offices.”
Bottom Line: The disputed documents can easily be replicated on modern computers. To date, a replication of these documents using equipment existing at the time of the “date” of these documents has not been provided.
Let us now look at the body of the CBS statement. The second paragraph states, “The CBS News report was based on a preponderance of evidence: many interviews, both on an off camera, with individuals with direct and indirect knowledge of the situation, atmosphere and events of the period in question, as well as the procedures, character and thinking of Lt. Col. Killian, Lt. Bush’s squadron commander in the Guard, at the time.” But this “preponderance was evidence” on air was only provided by Ben Barnes in the original “60 Minutes II” program who stated that he helped get G. W. Bush into the Guard at the behest of a family friend. This “friend” was not identified and the individual to whom Mr. Barnes interceded was not identified. There is no corroborating chain of evidence, just Mr. Barnes verbal statements. We now learn that Mr. Barnes has previously stated that he did not help G. W. Bush get into the Guard, a contradiction not aired by CBS News.
In last week’s program of “60 Minutes II”, Mrs. Knox stated that the documents were not real. She also stated that she believed that the “sentiments” within the disputed documents reflected Lt Col Killian’s feeling at the time. This statement is not corroborated by any other individual or any written record. This is the “fake but real” defense.
Additionally, Gary Killian disputes this claim, as does Lt Col Killian’s wife of that time. Gary Killian was interviewed by CBS and he provided names of other individuals in the 111th Fighter Interceptor Squadron, but he was not used for the on-air report and the individuals he referred were not interviewed. Statements from CBS news indicate that Gary Killian and the people he referred were “Pro-Bush” and their testimony was discounted and ignored while partisan democrats Ben Barns and Mrs. Knox were granted on-air interviews and their partisan sentiments downplayed.
The statement from CBS News misrepresents their discussion with Major General Hodges. Maj Gen Hodges states that he never saw the disputed memos, was lead to believe that these were hand-written by Lt Col Killian, and his response was “If that is what he said”. CBS also states that Gen Buck Staudt remained a powerful figure after he retired, but never provided any verifiable documentation of this assertion. My experience with the National Guard also conflicts with this notion.
I served in the United States Army for 20 years. For three of those years (January 1982 until December 1984), I was assigned to Readiness Group Sheridan at Fort Sheridan, Illinois. In this assignment, I was an advisor to Army Reserve and Army National Guard units located in Northern Illinois and Southern Wisconsin. Everything that I hear from CBS News concerning the 111th FIS, TANG strikes me as false. I am to believe that a Squadron Commander gave a “Direct Order” to a subordinate, which was disobeyed, and action under the Uniform Code of Military Justice was not initiated. This is so highly improbable as to be unbelievable.
The conclusion of CBS News was stated as, “The editorial content of the report was not based solely on the physical documents, but also on credible sources who supported what the documents said”; however, supporting witnesses (other than partisan democrats Ben Barnes and Mrs. Knox) and other documentation was not provided.
My conclusion is that CBS News, abetted by the transmission facilities of KTVT, perpetuated a fraud on the American public designed to influence an election to the office of President of the United States.
name withheld by editor
Major, United States Army (Retired)
-----Original Message-----
From: Heselius, Holly [mailto:hollyh@ktvt.com]
Sent: Friday, September 17, 2004 12:39 PM
Subject: CBS News Statement
Thank you for your comment to CBS 11. We certainly respect your concerns. This is a difficult story for CBS 11. While we are part of the same company, CBS News and CBS 11 News are independent of each other. We don't tell them what to report and they don't tell us what to report. From time to time, we will collaborate on coverage. We do appreciate your comments and we are grateful you chose to share your concerns. We hope you can appreciate the position we are in here at CBS 11 News.
The following statement was most recently released by CBS News & 60 Minutes.
Holly Heselius
KTVT - CBS 11 / KTXA - UPN 21
In light of the questions about the original 60 MINUTES Wednesday report, CBS News states that it will redouble its efforts to continue reporting aggressively on all aspects of the story, in an effort to resolve those questions. This week's 60 MINUTES interview with Ms. Knox was part of that effort.
The CBS News report was based on a preponderance of evidence: many interviews, both on and-off-camera, with individuals with direct and indirect knowledge of the situation, atmosphere and events of the period in question, as well as the procedures, character and thinking of Lt. Col. Killian, Lt. Bush's squadron commander in the Guard, at the time.
The report also included the first television interview with Ben Barnes, a Democrat and current fundraiser for John Kerry, who said he helped get Mr. Bush into the Texas Air National Guard at the request of a Bush family friend.
Numerous questions have been raised about the authenticity of the documents. CBS News believes it is important for the news media to be accountable and address legitimate questions.
Procurement of The Documents
The 60 MINUTES Wednesday broadcast reported that it obtained six documents from the personal files of Lt. Col. Killian, four of which were used in the broadcast. In accordance with longstanding journalistic ethics, CBS News is not prepared to reveal its confidential sources or the method by which 60 MINUTES Wednesday received the documents. CBS News' reporting determined that the source of the memos had access to the documents he provided and an opportunity to obtain copies of them. Our sources included individuals who had first-hand knowledge of the events in question.
Additionally, Mary Mapes, the producer of the report and a well-respected, veteran journalist whose credibility has never been questioned, has been following this story for more than five years. She has a vast and detailed knowledge of the issues surrounding President Bush's service in the Guard and of the individuals involved in the story. Before the report was broadcast, it was vetted and screened in accordance with CBS News standards by several veteran 60 MINUTES Wednesday senior producers and CBS News executives.
Authentication of the Documents
Four independent individuals with expertise in the authentication of documents were consulted prior to the broadcast of the story regarding the documents 60 MINUTES Wednesday obtained: document examiners Marcel B. Matley, James J. Pierce, Emily Will and Linda James.
As CBS News has publicly stated, the documents used in the report were photocopies of originals.
Two of the examiners, Mssrs. Matley and Pierce, attested and continue to attest to their belief in the documents' authenticity. (See attachments 1 and 2) Two others, Ms. Will and Ms. James, appeared on a competing network yesterday, where they misrepresented their conversations and communication with CBS News. In fact, they assessed only one of the four documents used in the report, and while one of them raised a question about one aspect of that one document, they did not raise substantial objections or render definitive judgment on the document. Ultimately, they played a peripheral role in the authentication process and deferred to Mr. Matley, who examined all four of the documents used.
Additionally, two more individuals with specific expertise relative to the documents - Bill Glennon, a technology consultant and long-time IBM typewriter service technician, and Richard Katz, a computer software expert - were asked to examine the documents after the broadcast for a report in the Sept. 13 CBS EVENING NEWS. They, too, found nothing to lead them to believe that the documents did not date back to the early 1970s. They strongly refuted the claim made by some critics that there were no typewriters in existence in the early 1970s that could have produced such documents. (See attachments 3 and 4)
CBS News Experts' Conclusions About the Documents
Other Issues
Maj. Gen. Bobby Hodges, who was group commander of Lt. Bush's squadron, has stated to The New York Times and Los Angeles Times, among others, that he believes the documents are not real, but also told The New York Times, in an article that appeared on Sept. 12, that the information in the CBS News report "...reflected issues he and Col. Killian had discussed-namely Mr. Bush's failure to appear for a physical, which military records released previously by the White House show, led to a suspension from flying." That is consistent with what he told CBS News off-camera as part of the research for this report.
A reference in one memo to Gen. Buck Staudt applying pressure on behalf of Lt. Bush raised questions because Staudt had left his job 18 months before the memo was written. But CBS News' background reporting determined that Staudt remained a powerful figure in the Guard for years after his retirement, a fact that is confirmed by Ms. Knox in a newspaper interview. More importantly, the same memo referred to unhappiness in Austin, an obvious reference to Staudt's successor at the Austin, Texas, headquarters of the Texas Air National Guard.
Conclusions
The editorial content of the report was not based solely on the physical documents, but also on numerous credible sources who supported what the documents said.
Through all of the frenzied debate of the past week, the basic content of the 60 MINUTES Wednesday report - that President Bush received preferential treatment to gain entrance to the Texas Air National Guard and that he may not have fulfilled all of the requirements - has not been substantially challenged.
CBS News will make every effort to resolve the contradictions and answer the unanswered questions about the documents and will continue to report on all aspects of the story.
-----Original Message----- Sent: Thursday, September 16, 2004 7:59 PM To: ktvt@ktvt.com Subject: Comment about CBS 11 General Comments
I'd Rather Not Watch CBS
Dear Sir or Madam:
Since I wrote to your station last week concerning the fraud perpetuated by Dan Rather on CBS 60 Minutes, I have not watched any programming on KTVT. I did not watch last Sunday's Football game and won't watch next Sunday. The attitude of CBS appears to be "We know the Truth and the Proof doesn't matter", and, apparently, neither do the viewers.
Ouch! Slap delivered.
| Anti-Bush Stories | Anti-Kerry Stories |
| #1: The Killian Memos A set of memos that were clearly forgeries, yet CBS defended them for how many day? |
#1: Unfit for Command A book that is actually published as opposed to being whipped out on word processor in an afternoon. Furthermore: "No one has been able to discredit this book, though the Left and their leader John Kerry are fond of calling it a "pack of lies" without offering any sort of evidence that such is the case. This book is backed up heavily with research, including affidavits, sworn testimonies, interviews, and FBI surveillance reports." |
| #2: Ben Barnes Interviewed by 60 Lies to give him a platform to switch his story from "I didn't" to "I did" get W into the National Guard as a favor to the family. Oh, and Barnes is a life-long politician, a Democrat, and a Kerry supporter. And his daughter thinks that he is lying. |
#2: John O'Neill Not a politician, and not even a Republican. But: "He has not equivocated on his opinion of John Kerry over the last 30-plus years and has consistently countered Kerry's many claims about Vietnam. But, contrary to Ben Barnes, CBS apparently considers him too partisan to be worthy of a "60 Minute" feature." |
| #3: Bill Burkett Crazy Bill, whose stories have changed over the years and whos paranoid delusions about a mysterious illness is the source of his inconsistent rantings. |
#3: Swift Boat Veterans for Truth 254 veterans with a plethora of decorations, including a whole mess of Purple Hearts and silver and bronze stars. They range from fellow boatsmen to admirals, yet the only attention given to the group was to smear them and their intentions -- not to mention trying to tie them directly to the White House while ignoring far less tenuous connections between Kerry's campaign and the anti-Bush 527s. |
What liberal media?
That's right, it seems that people that participate in the conversations over at FreeRepublic.com are both conservative and involved in the political process. Who knew?!
The LAT is rumored to be preparing to do some hard-hitting investigative journalism that will expose for the first time that posters to Democrat Underground are (1) liberals and (2) involved in the political process. What a coup that will be!
Back in the real world, the New York Post actually does investigative journalism (well, they quote PoliticalMoneyLine.com who actually did the investigation) and finds that Dan Rather's news staff almost exclusively contributes to Democrats:
So there you have both sides of the story: a private citizen that is a conservative that challenges the memos as obvious forgeries and a once-respected news organization that has a duty to report the news fairly yet employs only partisans of the liberal persuasions.
Where does the outrage belong?
There is only one Kinko's in Abilene, and it is 21 miles from the Baird, Tex., home of retired Texas National Guard officer Bill Burkett, who has been named by several news outlets as a possible source for the documents.Bill Burkett is a disgruntled former Texas National Guard officer that has been lobbing unsubstantiated accusations at Bush for the past six years.
Ken Charles, the program director of KPRC radio in Houston, told the Kerry Spot Wednesday evening that he has notified CBS Radio news that he will be switching to Fox News feed for their Friday evening news, instead of using the Dan Rather-anchored CBS feed.Charles is making this move in spite of the fact that it will hurt him financially in the short-term. He recognizes that staying with CBS will lose him more in the long run."Dan has been doing the Friday 4 P.M. slot for about three or four years, and this is the first time Dan Rather has been the story," Charles said. "I have a problem with my news people being the story."
Charles said that his station is under contract with CBS, and that the move is unlikely to have a financial impact for CBS. The public-relations damage, however, could be significant.
"We're the number-seven market in the nation, and I would hope it would send a message to them about how serious this is," Charles said. "I announced at 5:10, and since then (about an hour and a half) we've gotten 150 e-mails from listeners, all supportive.
I particularly like the 150 emails, all supportive of the move to Fox.
Nice.
Oh, wait a minute. It's the BBC that stands accused.
Gotcha, didn't I. But really, wouldn't you have believed it if I had put in the New York Times? Or the Boston Globe? Or the LA Times?
I'm sure there's a lesson in there somewhere.
Think CBS will be interviewing that guy?
What's the modern conservative equivalent of believing the Rathergate documents aren't forgeries?Only one suggestion so far and I think it's way off (not the same thing at all). Go see if you can help him out.
CONSUMER ALERT: Know of a scam that needs investigating? Tell us about it! Email us at scams@cbsnews.com.Unsurprisingly, I took them up on thier kind offer and asked them to investigate the scam that CBS' 60 Minutes II is attempting to perpetrate on the American news consumer.
I encourage everyone to do the same.
Then jump over to Free Will's place and take a look at his post asking everyone to contact the companies who choose to support yellow journalism by advertising on 60 Minutes II. The goal, Aaron says, is to get "60 Minutes II to embrace a little bit of journalistic ethics".
A very fine goal indeed.
The Washingtonian says:
There once was a line between those who worked for politicians and those who worked for the media. You were a flack or a hack. That line has all but disappeared.Indeed, at least Ra
Rem Reider, editor of American Journalism Review:
This is an outrageous conflict of interest. Working as a commentator and advising a campaign at the same time is a really bad idea.Brian Kelly, managing editor at U.S. News and World Report:
This to me crosses a line beyond belief.The New York Times says G.O.P. Riled by 2 CNN Hosts but offers not objections itself. Yet one cannot help but think that it would be front page news if Fox went so far as to hire Bush advisers to host any of the nightly talk shows.
Speaking of Fox, Bill O'Reilly makes this point:
Keeping the press and political campaigns apart is what the Founders had in mind when they granted us special First Amendment privileges. Thomas Jefferson & Co. hoped the press would keep an eye on those seeking power - not try to help them obtain it. Editorial endorsements of candidates are fine, and there's nothing wrong with former political operatives being hired to analyze the news. However, there is plenty wrong with CNN's present situation.Precisely.
Last week Cheney gave a speech and talked about how Kerry would react to a terrorist track. As a result:
Vice President Cheney warned on Tuesday that if John F. Kerry is elected, "the danger is that we'll get hit again" by terrorists, as the Bush campaign escalated a furious assault on the Democratic presidential nominee that has kept Kerry from gaining control of the election debate.
Because if we make the wrong choice, then the danger is that we'll get hit again, that we'll be hit in a way that will be devastating from the standpoint of the United States, and that we'll fall back into the pre-9-11 mind-set, if you will, that in fact these terrorist attacks are just criminal acts, and that we're not really at war. I think that would be a terrible mistake for us.And they call themselves journalists. Disgusting.
What I don't understand is why ideology is not debated in the New York Times' influence in the U.S. coastal regions as well as Europe. Perhaps because the answer is obvious?
See if you spot the same pattern that he does.
Hat tip to Resplendent Mango.
What I find interesting is that the media seemingly have started to realize that they've been shamelessly backing one horse in this race - and the wrong one. I think it started when reporters realized they had to cover the Swiftboat Vets story, albeit dismissively at first. But since then they have written stories about how Kerry is "off-message" and how his staff needs to be shaken up, although these stories are written with a slightly funereal tone. Albert Hunt of the Wall Street Journal refers to the "faltering Kerry campaign." Dan Rather reports that campaign leaders say there's "no need to panic" - always a sign of panic.Journalists are a herd species. Why didn't I think of that?Why the change of heart? The obvious answer is that five major polls show Kerry slipping. But a larger dynamic is that journalists are a herd species. The media move in large packs, capable of suddenly switching directions due to the spooking of just a few critters up at the front. Individuals of the species may be susceptible to traits such as courage and integrity, but as a group they are power-worshippers. Nothing to them is more powerful than popularity - and nothing more popular than power. When you gain it, the press tends to go soft on you, regardless of the merits. When you lose it, they tend to pounce.
Television viewership remains a topic of concern for big media as the public turns away from the traditional move towards cable news, but even more importantly is the discussion of why more viewers are choosing Fox News over CNN. The theory de jour has been that conservatives are rejecting liberal media, but Noel Holston watched both and noticed a striking difference:
The difference between cable-news arch-rivals CNN and Fox News Channel couldn't have been more obvious during Monday's prime-time hours of the Republican National Convention. It's not really a matter of which is more conservative or liberal or which is more "fair and balanced." It's a matter of Old School vs. New Wave, Superman vs. the Hulk, Roy Rogers vs. Clint Eastwood, Pespi vs. Jolt.He gives solid examples (the NYTimes could learn something about journalism from reading this guy).The analogies could go on and on, but you get the drift. One network is into 'tude, the other isn't.
On the other hand, one cannot discount the fact that liberal reporters are inserting tremendous bias into their "news" and that is driving away consumers. American Thinker puts it this way:
I have earlier argued that the anti-Bush monomania of the left-leaning press is destroying not just their credibility, but the commercial value of their enterprises. Both newspapers and the broadcast networks are losing news consumers, who are the real product that they sell to their real paying customers, their advertisers. By driving away their audience, they are slitting not only their journalistic throats, but also their business throats. Sooner or later, the "suits" are going to wake up and demand their journalistic staffs "think like America" (to borrow and modify a slogan popular on the left). But the very tradition of journalistic independence, so dear to members of that profession, ensures that this transition will take so long that it won't stop the bleeding while there is a chance of recovery."Media" is an awfully big giant to take down and I don't think they will be. But that the landscape has changed forever is becoming more obvious every day. Convenience and choice, the driving factors of a solid consumer economy. Thanks to technology advancements we now have cable and the internet.
An estimated 3.9 million viewers watched the GOP's gathering on Fox in prime time on Monday, almost twice the audience for its two rivals -- CNN and MSNBC -- combined, according to Nielsen Media Research.A couple of other ways to look at this:On a night that ABC, CBS and NBC didn't cover the convention live, CNN had 1.3 million viewers and MSNBC had 854,000, Nielsen said.
It was a lot different a month ago in Boston. During the one night that the three big broadcasters didn't cover the Democratic convention live, CNN had 2.9 million viewers, MSNBC had 1.854 million and Fox had 1.845 million, Nielsen said.
Does a news story like this really qualify to wear the label "news"?
In a related story, a poll shows that Republicans believe the economy is improving by a margin of 2-1 while Democrats don't (4-1). This is in spite of the fact that the Consumer Comfort Index is virtually even with it's lifetime average.
Could it be because Republicans aren't being manipulated by the dour predictions of the NYT and CNN?
In 1980, 53.8 percent of black households made less that $25,000 (in 2003 dollars), which fell to 43.4 percent in 2003. The ranks of the black middle class ($25,000 to $75,000) increased from 40.5 percent to 42.9 percent. And the percentage of black families falling into the Times' definition of rich (over $75,000) rose from 5.8 percent to 13.7 percent.For more and to see how he got there:
The clear implication is that the middle class has suffered under Republican policies -- why else start in 1980, the year Ronald Reagan was elected? If the chart had started in 1992, the year Bill Clinton was elected, it would have shown the exact same trend. In 1992, those earning between $25,000 and $75,000 constituted 47.9 percent of all households. By 2000, this fell to 46.1 percent. I don't remember the Times calling attention to this fact.The reason is quite simple: This is actually good news, not bad news, as the Times report strongly implies.
First, it is important to know that the data in the Times story are adjusted for inflation. This is mentioned in a footnote to the chart, but nowhere else in the article. It might be useful to know that those with an income of $11,825 in 1980 now make $25,000, or that an income of $75,000 last year is the same as an income of $35,475 in 1980.
In other words, the data take account of increased prices on everything from gasoline to college tuition. Yet the article implies that increased costs for these things has taken place without a concomitant increase in household income. The effect is to make middle class families appear worse off, when in fact most are far better off than they were in 1980.
The most egregious error in the article is the clear implication that the percentage of those defined as the "middle class" has fallen because many of those who used to be considered middle class have become poor. This is totally untrue. In fact, the ranks of the poor have fallen along with those of the middle class.
Using the Times' characterization of any household with an income below $25,000 in 2003 as being poor, what do the data show? We see that this group fell from 33.1 percent of the population in 1980 to 29 percent in 2002. Looking at the data from the other end, we see that the percentage of those making more than $75,000 has risen from 14.9 percent of the population in 1980 to 26.1 percent in 2003.
In other words, the ranks of the poor and middle class have shrunk for one reason only -- more of them are rich! How can it not be a good thing for society that fewer people are now making low incomes and more are making high incomes?
Just to show that the income gains have not been confined to those who were relatively well-to-do to begin with, there has also been an impressive increase in the percentage of black families with middle- and upper-class incomes.
In 1980, 53.8 percent of black households made less that $25,000 (in 2003 dollars), which fell to 43.4 percent in 2003. The ranks of the black middle class ($25,000 to $75,000) increased from 40.5 percent to 42.9 percent. And the percentage of black families falling into the Times' definition of rich (over $75,000) rose from 5.8 percent to 13.7 percent.
Have you ever seen a headline like that about any of the unsubstantiated garbage spewed by Kerry/McCain/Dean and/or other left-wing bedlamites?
Our choice wasn't between a benign status quo and the bloodshed of war.The CBS affiliate in Denver: McCain Slams Michael Moore.It was between war and a graver threat. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. Not our critics abroad. Not our political opponents.
And certainly not a disingenuous film maker who would have us believe that Saddam's Iraq was an oasis of peace when in fact it was a place of indescribable cruelty, torture chambers, mass graves and prisons that destroyed the lives of the small children held inside their walls.
New York Daily News: McCain mauls Moore.
Obviously these reporters (and editors) have never been slammed nor mauled, or they would know how ridiculous their assertions are.
But wait, there's more:Moore faces Republicans' wrath says UK's Times. I would expect someone who lives in the land that once faced Nazi wrath to be a little more familiar with the concept. Ah well, time heals.
Thankfully, most headlines only dealt with the subject of Moore being enthusiastically booed by the GOP faithful. The NY Times, however, choose the headline, "Loud Boos for the One They Love to Hate."
I find this the most offensive of all -- it suggests a sporting rivalry, such as loving to hate the Philadelphia Eagles or Washington Redskins (did I mention I was from Dallas?). It's fun (especially when bantering with fans of those teams) and it adds to the enjoyment of the overall football experience.
I find nothing to love about the despicable Michael Moore, certainly not the loathing and utter contempt I feel for the creature. He is a disgusting liar, a horrible being that does not rate the label of "sub-human". I feel somehow contaminated just thinking about him and am certain that many in the crowd feel the same way. How could this emotion possibly be described as "loving to hate" that putrid excuse for a life form?
"The speeches in Madison Square Garden affirmed the great truths now routinely preached from the pulpits of Fox News and the Wall Street Journal -- government the problem, not the solution; the social contract a dead letter; the free market the answer to every maiden's prayer -- and while listening to the hollow rattle of the rhetorical brass and tin, I remembered the question that [Richard] Hofstadter didn't stay to answer. How did a set of ideas both archaic and bizarre make its way into the center ring of the American political circus?"Jacob Sullum of Reason observes:
True, the issue is dated September, but I got my copy in early August, and Lapham must have written those words in July. Didn't it occur to him that his readers might notice he was claiming to have witnessed an event that had not occurred when the magazine went to press? Evidently, Republicans are not the only ones Lapham thinks are stupid.The best response is from Nick Schulz over at Tech Central Station, who lists numerous columns by Lapham that were written with a predetermined storyline in mind -- a practice that he immediately dubs "Laphams":
Facts that undermine the storyline are ignored or explained away as aberrations to The Truth. For the editor of Harper's and other establishment press figures, it really makes no difference to them what will be said at Madison Square Garden because the Laphams are already set, loaded in the scribblers' word processors and television anchor tele-prompters and ready to go.
Reading the article you find that 52% wished some other city had been picked, so shouldn't the headline have read "Half of New York Awaits Republicans with Unease"? It's more accurate and seven characters shorter.
Furthermore, 53% say they are at least somewhat worried that a terrorist attack will happen during the convention, yet 65% said that they feel uneasy or in danger in post-9/11 New York. Extrapolating one would think that this means 12% feel safer with Republicans in town!
Also, the Times had the gall to print that 18% of Manhattanites and 13% of New Yorkers in general were planning on leaving the city during the convention, yet "it was unclear how many would have done so without the convention." Come on! New Yorkers flee the city during August like the French abandon their elderly during hot summer months.
Certain elements of Kerry's Christmas in Cambodia story were incredible on their face. Kerry attributed responsibility for his illegal 1968 mission to Richard Nixon, despite the fact that Lyndon Johnson was president at the time. The Khmer Rouge who allegedly shot at Kerry during his "secret" mission did not take the field until 1972.They then take the media to task:Moreover, there is no record that Swift boats -- the kind of boat under Kerry's command -- were ever used for secret missions in Cambodia. Their size and noise make them unlikely candidates for such missions. Indeed, the authorized biographer of Kerry's Vietnam service -- historian Douglas Brinkley -- omits from his book, "Tour of Duty," any mention of a covert cross-border mission to Cambodia during Kerry's service.
Over the past few weeks, the Christmas in Cambodia tale, a keystone of John Kerry's Vietnam autobiography, has been revealed to be fraudulent. On Christmas 1968, Kerry was docked at Sa Dec, 50 miles from Cambodia, in an area from which the Cambodian border was inaccessible.
Last week, after the falsity of Kerry's Christmas in Cambodia account became public, the Kerry campaign issued a statement "correcting" the story. According to the Kerry campaign, the mission referred to took place in January 1969, when Kerry "inadvertently or responsibly" crossed the border into Cambodia. However, three of Kerry's Swift boat crewmates have denied entering Cambodia at any time, and no one has corroborated Kerry's claim.
Given the attention lavished on President Bush's service in the Air National Guard earlier this year, we thought that newspapers such as the Washington Post and the New York Times would want to devote comparable attention to John Kerry's Christmas in Cambodia story. We also thought they would want to consider what the falsity of Kerry's story might have to tell us about the uses to which Kerry is putting his Vietnam service in the current presidential campaign.Well said.To date, however, we have been wrong. Neither the influential mainstream newspapers nor the broadcast television networks have reported the meltdown of Kerry's Christmas in Cambodia story. Only readers of Internet blogs such as ours have kept current on the exposure of Kerry's tall tale. Or on the Kerry campaign's lame efforts to resurrect a version of the story that contradicts what Kerry has said for the past 25 years, but allows Kerry to continue using his Vietnam experiences, real and imagined, for his own political purposes.
Whatever the reason -- and we have our suspicions -- when it comes to scrutiny of Sen. Kerry's veracity, the mainstream media are saluting, but they are decidedly not reporting for duty.
A must read that you'd better get to before his server goes down under the load: he is the "Blogtruth for the Day" posted on the front page of Lucianne.com and got an Instapundit mention.
Then if you have time, you can read my post from yesterday on the subject, Swift Boats vs. the Media.
Boy, where they wrong!
The press has made every attempt to tie the veterans to Republicans, repeatedly noting that it got started with a generous gift from Republican donor Bob Perry:
Swift Boat Veterans for Truth is registered with the Federal Election Commission as a so-called 527 organization, not affiliated with any party. It got off the ground with a $100,000 donation from Texas homebuilder Bob J. Perry, a prominent Republican donor.A search of Perry's donations for the last three election cycles shows that he is indeed generous, giving a total of $188,000 to various Republican candidates and causes.
And yet I never seem to read that MoveOn.org is a Democrat organization. I wonder why.
And calling Perry a "generous donor" is really a matter of perspective. Take a look at the top 25 contributors to 527s for the 2004 election cycle. Who do you think tops the list? George Soros?
No, Soros is second with a measely $12.6 million, well behind Peter Lewis who has thrown out over $14 million.
How far down the list must you go to find a conservative? Carl Lindner is tied for tenth place just a little over one million dollars. Paul Singer is tied for 22nd with half that.
Together, they account for just 2.6% of the $57,713,283 donated to 527s by the top 25 donors.
Liberals account for 97.4% of the top donations to 527s, giving over $56 million.
Yet they myth continues that it is the Republican Party that is the party of the rich.
Roy F. Hoffman, a retired admiral and chairman of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, said the first TV ad, which ran for one week in Ohio, Wisconsin and West Virginia at a cost of $550,000, got so much national news attention that it generated an additional $400,000 from 8,000 donors around the country.Doing the math, the average donation from these 8,000 people is $50.
To match the donations made by 23 rich liberals, 1,123,865 people would have to donate $50 each.
As soon as I make this post I'm going to go change that number to 1,123,864.
If you click here to go to the Swift Boat Vets, we can change that number to 1,123,863.
Making a difference, $50 at a time. Ain't no rich liberal commie bastard gonna buy an election in America while the heartland is still American.
Update: Say Anything has more on a related matter: in a transparent society one would expect full disclosure of campaign donations. Go see the numbers.
Update: Truth Laid Bear finds a neat graphical display of the disclosure stats for all the candidates. Kerry ranks last save for Gen. Clark. I wonder what these guys are hiding?
The show was, unsurprisingly, a total failure. It consisted mainly of Carville shouting down O'Neil while Novak tried to get Carville to shut up long enough for a debate to happen.
My observations of the transcript: of the intelligible (i.e., documented) parts of the transcript, Carville got in the most words (610), O'Neil was next (589), Davis followed (416), and Novak hardly spoke at all (336). While the conversation appears balanced on paper (52.6% for the left and 47.4% for the right), content is far from even.
Every word spoken by Carville and Davis counted, except for the three times that Davis said, "May I answer your question?"
A sample of O'Neil's contribution:
And this is what passes for journalism on the Communist News Network.
| News Source | Conservatives | Liberals |
| Local TV news | 66% | 54% |
| Daily newspaper | 61% | 56% |
| Network evening news | 34% | 36% |
| Fox News Channel | 41% | 29% |
| CNN | 24% | 30% |
| Morning news shows | 26% | 28% |
| Network news magazines | 23% | 24% |
| National Public Radio. | 13% | 33% |
| News pages of ISPs | 12% | 22% |
| Weekly news magazines | 12% | 16% |
| Network TV Web sites | 10% | 16% |
| Religious radio shows. | 20% | 7% |
| "The O'Reilly Factor". | 21% | 2% |
| "Rush Limbaugh" | 20% | 5% |
| "The Daily Show" | 2% | 14% |
Consider this lead from a "news" article titled Group Runs Anti-Kerry Ads on Black Radio Stations:
A group financed by a major Republican contributor has begun running radio ads in about a dozen cities, many in battleground states, attacking Sen. John F. Kerry as "rich, white and wishy-washy" and mocking his wife for boasting of her African roots.They could have focused on the novelty of a conservative African American group -- instead they focus on the fact that the major contributor is white. They could have focused on the the substance behind the ads -- instead the paper defends Kerry. They could have focused on the effectiveness of the ads -- instead they focus on how the major contributor made his money.The D.C.-based group, People of Color United, has substantial financial backing from J. Patrick Rooney, the former chairman of Golden Rule Insurance Co. and the founder of a new firm, Medical Savings Insurance Co. Both firms specialize in medical savings accounts, created by Republican-backed 1996 legislation, and health savings accounts, which were created by President Bush's 2003 Medicare prescription drug legislation.
Now consider this column by David Broder called Turncoat Politics. Broder says Democrats have good reason to be mad at Rodney Alexander, a freshman congressman who recently switched from Democrat to Republican in the run-up to election. Broder quite rightly brings up Jim Jeffords, who gave the Senate back to the Democrats in 2001, and scold both men for not having the honesty to resign their posts and run again, ala Phil Gramm of Texas all those years ago. But where was Broder when Jeffords did the switchero? What was he talking about back then?
The defection of Sen. Jim Jeffords ... is the most glaring example of the difficulties facing the Republican Party in its struggle to hold together a fragile coalition under a party leadership dominated by conservative white southern males.Otherwise, he was remarkably mute on the subject.
I say again, WaPo should register as a 527.
So where will it end? I suspect that in the future, the bloggers -- who are to journalism what the VCR was to porn, the harbingers of continuing cost-crash -- will inherit much of Planet Media. That is, a lot of "journalism" will be done by anyone and everyone, reporting on whatever he or she sees while looking out the window. And if the window happens to overlook Iraq, or Laci Peterson, or anything else that could be construed as man-bites-dog, then that'll be the "news" that's available to us on the Internet, the new global common. Moreover, since everyone will be online with a computer, then "blogger" will become an even less exclusive term than it already is; it will be a synonym for "minimally media-savvy observer who can type or stream video." Now that's democratization of the media. And then there'll really be no such thing as a free lunch for reporters.This has got to be said with tongue planted firmly in cheek.
I have 3 libs that work in my office. They all agree that there wont be another terror attack like 9/11 for at least another 40 years.Amazing! The New York Observer asks, Did Threat Fatigue Lull Us Into Denial Of Another 9/11?I just shake my head.
Another 9/11? For a long time, nobody wanted to talk about it aloud, but there are only two alternatives, arent there? You believe its likely to happen in your lifetime, or you believe it wont. Mr. Hanson believes that we know, on some level, that its likely to happen, but that weve buried thoughts of it in layers of denial. And that were suffering from what someone called "threat fatigue," that we, in effect, sleepwalk toward Ground Zero II with what Hanson calls a "scary mood of fatalism."There are tose who believe that 9/11 changed everything, and those who have a 9/10 mindset -- which should be impossible given reports like this:Some decry the fact that we have been warned about its "inevitability" so many times that the warnings themselves have become part of the apparatus of denial. Its easy to mock the color codes and the Keystone Cops impression our Homeland Security guardians give us. But the moral of "the boy who cried wolf," youll recall, is that there really was a wolf.
Michael Wagner, 44, of San Diego, said he had knowledge of terrorist activities and people and groups tied to al-Qaida and the Taliban. Wagner also said that he knew about things in the Muslim communities in San Diego that would interest federal authorities.Federal prosecutors declined to comment on the case, and it was not immediately known whether they were able to corroborate his claims or determine his motivation for carrying the manuals and documents....
A state trooper stopped the sport utility vehicle Wagner was driving on July 14 after the trooper noticed he was not wearing a seat belt. Wagner told the officer he had no identification and gave a false name. The vehicle license number was "suspicious," court documents said.
The officer called a canine unit to search the SUV and found flight-training manuals, flight-training software, three bulletproof vests, night-vision goggles, a night-vision scope for a rifle, a telescope, a 9mm semiautomatic pistol, a bag of ammunition and marijuana residue in the ashtray.
Also found in the vehicle were numerous pages of literature and documents with Arabic printing, court papers said.
Some of the items were hidden inside a hollowed-out computer hard drive, the papers said.
Says USA Today:
We had a disagreement over editing. We worked diligently to resolve the differences and couldn't, so we decided to part ways.A "Disagreement over editing" means that they didn't like what she wrote and asked her to change it.
Says Ann Coulter:
USA TODAY doesn't like my 'tone,' humor, sarcasm, etc., which raises the intriguing question of why they hired me to write for them.Indeed.
USA Today replaced Ann with the just-as-conservative-but-less-rhetorically-incendiary Jonah Goldberg. That's OK -- I like Jonah too.
USA Today still plans on having left-wing nutbag and proven liar Michael Moore submit a daily column during the Republican convention. Anyone want to be that they won't have any problems with his submitted content, no matter how outrageous?
Back to Ann: if you want to read the stricken column, she has it posted on her website. Read it, it's funny.
Oh, and you can read Jonah's column too.
Update: Liberal blogger Tone the Man points to this article that details USA Today's objections to Ann's column. The "editor" shows an extreme liberal bias in the fact that he/she just doesn't "get it" when it comes to Ann's jokes. It's not that this person has no humor, it's just that their world view is so skewed to the left that he/she is unable to fathom the humor exhibited by Ann. Example editor comments:
In the meantime, I present the following for your reading pleasure.
First, who is to blame? Is it the whole government?
Now maybe we should figure out why it all happened:
Then, of course, the thanks of the press who are no doubt grateful for the months of columns and partisan debate that the 9/11 report will engender:
Of course, you could just go and read it for yourself.
Update: By far, the most outrageous headline award goes to this entry:
Update: My new favorite:
Word that Bremer actually gave the speech is something of a collector's item among American reporters. The Washington Post said Bremer left without giving a talk. The Los Angeles Times did worse. It missed the speech, then insulted Bremer for not giving it. A July 4 Times "news analysis" said: "L. Paul Bremer III, the civilian administrator for Iraq, left without even giving a final speech to the country--almost as if he were afraid to look in the eye the people he had ruled for more than a year." This is a good one-sentence example of what readers object to in much Iraq reporting--dubious or wrong information combined with a heavy load of attitude from the reporter.Read the whole thing -- it's short.
She goes on to talk about the horrible injustice that the press is doing to our troops:
I met Jerry when the visiting Vietnam Wall came to South Beach last year. He and several other vets wore Operation Iraqi Freedom patches on their leather jackets and did not hide their disdain for journalists.Did you know we won the Tet offensive in 1968? Bet you thought Vietnam was a lost cause after you saw all those dead soldiers on Channel 2? We beat them, but youd never know it from TV.
That was a long time ago, I told him. Wasnt it time to move on? He looked at me as if I was crazy.
Why? Theyre trying to do it all over again. Look at what you read in the papers about Iraq and on the network news. Theyre only reporting the bad, not the good. Theyre encouraging the enemy all over again. If it werent for Fox News and the Internet, wed probably lose this one, too.
I remember 1968 and Jerrys right. For the longest time I was under the impression that we had lost the Tet offensive and I will never forget watching Walter Cronkite, the most trusted man in the U.S.A., give an impassioned broadcast in which he said we were mired in a stalemate.
He said Who won and who lost in the great Tet offensive against the cities? Im not sure. The Viet Cong did not win by a knockout, but neither did we.The referees of history may make it a draw.
A draw? The final statistic tallied the Tet U.S. dead as 1,864.That was a terrible toll, but it should have been put in the context of the 45,000 enemy killed. The Cronkite broadcast did a great disservice to the valiant soldiers who repelled the enemy forces.
In his Memoirs of a North Vietnamese Colonel, Bui Tin confirms that the North Vietnamese suffered a devastating defeat in the Tet offensive in 1968. But they had an ally in journalists who opposed the war and knew they could win on the home front.
When David Letterman asked Michael Moore where he got his information for his Fahrenheit 9/11, he answered the New York Times. The audience burst into laughter and Letterman couldn't keep a straight face. Moore asked, What's so funny?
Bet he answered the Pace poll.
But more rewarding to him is the reaction from the hospital's doctors and staff.Once again it is up to a small town paper to carry the real story of Iraq:"When we delivered the equipment, the deputy medical officer was so happy," he said. "She kept explaining to us that the new equipment would help them service their people better. This, in turn, really had an impact on me."
But Hassig's favorite projects are the ones that deal with the children. He said that Blountstown residents have sent donations to Baghdad since his arrival in January and that everything he receives from them goes to the schools.
"My favorite thing is being around the children and hearing them say, 'Thanks, mister,' " he said.
Hassig acknowledged that there are some who are not satisfied with what they are doing. But it is only 10 percent of the population, he said.
"I think 90 percent or more are absolute wonderful, good people. They want their children to grow up and be secure just like you and I, and they love ice cream," he said. "That's why I refuse to let the little bit of problems with bombers affect our job," he said. "We have to do our job and do the best that we can and make an impact every day."
"Today's news is about today's bombing," Matson said Friday from Tampa. "No one is covering how there is an enormous effort to get this country on its feet. There are a million stories, such as those represented by Maj. Hassig, and the average American doesn't know it. A great country is going to emerge and people are going to wonder, 'How did that happen?'"
Wow! How long would that take? Even with a speed loader it would have to take a few months -- or years. And they had to trade off shooters -- your trigger finger is bound to get to tired to twitch eventually.
The Browning pistol that killed Archduke Franz Ferdinand and sparked the crisis leading to World War I has been discovered gathering dust in a Jesuit community house in Austria.Stunning! A pistol started WW I? I thought it was some guy named Gavrilo Princip.
Silly me. I should have known to blame the inanimate object.
In the end, the authors of the study were "astounded by the degree" of left-wing bias:
Our results show a very significant liberal bias. All of the news outlets except Fox News Special Report received a score to the left of the average member of Congress. Moreover, by one of our measures all but three of these media outlets (Special Report, the Drudge Report, and ABCs World News Tonight) were closer to the average Democrat in Congress than to the median member of the House of Representatives. One of our measures found that the Drudge Report is the most centrist of all media outlets in our sample. Our other measure found that Fox News Special Report is the most centrist.
If I'm reading the chart correctly (last page of the study), the study found that Dr. Frist is more conservative than the average Republican, Fox News is more liberal than the average Republican and even a couple of southern Democrats, CBS Evening News is more liberal than either LA Times or the NY Times, but Tom Daschle, the "average" Democrat and Ted Kennedy are more liberal yet.
Fascinating stuff. Wish I understood more of it.
Hat tip to Half-Bakered.
An Associated Press survey of 788 registered voters conducted Monday through Wednesday shows that while they may be gaining confidence in the economy and Bush's performance, 57 percent said the nation has lost jobs in the last six months. The Labor Department has reported just the opposite nearly 1.2 million jobs gained in half a year.The media is engaging in a distraction campaign by focusing on the actions of a handful of soldiers in a prison, terrorist attacks and the Scott Peterson case. The closest they come to discussing jobs is articles giving legs to the offshoring myth.
This is in spite of the fact that in this highly polarized and politicized day and age, more Americans are paying attention to "hard news":
Overall, 31 percent of Americans pay "high attention" to hard news a genre which includes international issues, politics and business up from 24 percent in 2000. Fifty-six percent pay "moderate" attention to hard news, compared to 63 percent four years ago.Mainstream media had best be careful, however. The same poll showed that liberals, moderates and conservatives are all growing "increasingly cynical towards the news media".
Contrary to popular belief, Americans are not stupid.
Since they began clustering against the conservative counter-reformation that Ronald Reagan inaugurated 24 years ago, lefties have developed a self-destructive streak of blind hatred.Vilification of John Howard is probably without Australian historical precedent. Castigation from the Left of the government's Nazi persecution of illegal immigrants surely takes some of its inspiration from Howard hatred. Gough Whitlam stirred little passion when, as Indo-Chinese refugees fled south, he declared that Australia would not tolerate an invasion of "Asian Balts".
I believe some of the biased reporting of the Iraq war is motivated by non sequitur leftie hatred of George W. Bush for supporting prayer in schools, opposing affirmative action and abortion, cutting taxes instead of increasing government services.
He went on to say he wished the current president, George W Bush, had died instead, according to the paper.This remark sparked a flurry of internet activity, including a record number of hits on the local paper that reported the incident. Americans are, understandably, a little outraged. Well, most Americans.
Morrissey has not issued any comments but his spokesman said that the show was not recorded so the remark could not be confirmed and
But as far as we can tell, Morrissey was just alerting the audience to the fact that Ronald Reagan had died. He then simply followed that up with his comment about George Bush, which was his own opinion. He is no stranger to controversy.Story 2: Comedian and late-night talk-show host Jimmy Kimmel was on the half-time show of the Detroit Piston's NBA finals game to plug his show. Talking to ABC sportscaster Mike Tirico, Kimmel joked:
"This is just a plug. I have nothing really to say. I'm glad the Lakers are winning (at the half) because besides the fact that I'm a Lakers fan, I realize they're gonna burn the city of Detroit down if the Pistons win, and it's not worth it."Evidently, a lot of people are still touchy about the 1967 12th Street Riot, 5-day, $22 million affair in which 43 people died, 1,189 were injured, 7,000 were arrested and more than 1,400 buildings were burned. Or maybe the rioting/burning/looting that took place after the 1984 Tigers won the world series.ABC broadcaster and Ann Arbor resident Mike Tirico objected immediately, saying, Hey, hey, hey, be careful. That's my home state.
Kimmel looked a bit stunned at Tirico's objections, then backtracked a bit by saying analyst Tom Tolbert's eye-popping plaid suit should instead be burned.
The news director of the local ABC affiliate WXYZ is Andrea Parquet-Taylor (is that part French?) piled on the outrage bandwagon with:
An apology is not going to cut it at all. We're not going to accept that from him. He owes this community much more.No word on what that "much more" would entail. Perhaps crawling over broken glass ala Garofalo? Never mind -- she never fulfilled that promise.
What is Kimmel's punishment for joking about a city that regularly engages in rioting and mayhem? His show is pulled from ABC coast-to-coast.
ABC made the decision to pull Wednesday night's "Jimmy Kimmel Live" from affiliates nationwide shortly after the program was taped that night in California.Kimmel dutifully hung his head and issued an apology:Grace Gilchrist, general manager of Detroit ABC affiliate WXYZ, said the taped show featured more disparaging remarks about the city.
"Frankly, we were shocked. We thought it was uncalled for," Andrea Parquet-Taylor, WXYZ's news director, said of Kimmel's remarks.
"What I said about Pistons fans during halftime was a joke, nothing more. If I offended anyone, I'm sorry," he said. "Clearly, over the past 10 years, we in L.A. have taken a commanding lead in post-game riots. If the Lakers win, I plan to overturn my own car."The French chick is incorrect -- Kimmel followed up a funny joke with another funny joke. Still, Kimmel issued yet another apology:Parquet-Taylor said Kimmel's apology wasn't an apology at all.
"He tried to turn it into another bad joke," she said.
When you're 2,000 miles away from a city you've never lived in, it's hard to understand the sadness people feel from something that happened in their town -- even if it happened many years ago. It was never my intention to cause anyone pain. I was trying to make a joke and I'm sorry it resulted in anything other than laughter.USA Today covers the story of not one, but two apologies with the headline: Kimmel apologizes for Detroit remarks ... sort of.
And how do they cover the story of an unrepentant celebrity singer that wished our president dead? With the headline: Morrissey's alleged Bush remark sparks Internet furor.
What liberal media?
The U.N. Security Council voted unanimously on Tuesday to adopt a U.S.-British resolution that formally ends the occupation of Iraq on June 30 and authorizes U.S.-led troops to keep the peace.The world press is all abuzz about the "unanimous vote":
| Votes Cast | Number of Occurances | |
| 10-1-4 | Once | |
| 11-1-3 | Once | |
| 12-0-3 | Twice | |
| 13-0-2 | Once | |
| 14-0-1 | Once | |
| 14-0-0 | Once | |
| 15-0-0 | 62 times |
This is not an unusual amount: 62 resolutions were passed unanimously in 2002 and 51 were passed unanimously in 2001 So the longer Bush has been in the White House, the more international cooperation there has been!
It sounds like Bush is doing pretty well, but many resolutions are about things not concerning terrorism and US security. I don't remember reading about too many "Bush victories" in the UN, so what were some of these "unanimous votes"?
Read it and be enraged!
The "rampaging mob" was armed only with wooden clubs, while the U.N. has over 10,000 troops stationed in the tiny nation.
"They entered, and there were very many of them," Toure said. He said U.N. forces fired in self-defense, adding: "We regret this deeply because our mission was to establish peace in the country but we were left with no choice."Whether or not the action was necessary is not the issue here. Imagine the outcry if American forces were to shoot at a mob in Iraq. The press would be all over it and world leaders would loudly and repeatedly denounce our actions. John Kerry would be shouting that Bush should be held personally responsible for the murder of innocent civilians.State radio put the death toll at the U.N. base at five.
Yet what do we hear about the U.N.'s actions? [crickets chirping]
Just an observation . . .
Since that time they've tried such high-profile names as liberal wacko Phil Donahue (who lasted a mere six months), newly-conservative funny-man Dennis Miller (who is still on but struggling), and loud-mouth tennis great John mcEnroe (who has yet to start).
But now MSNBC sinks to a new low, a low so incredibly low that no one can possibly climb out:
Rev. Al Sharpton is joining CNBC as a political commentator for its coverage of the upcoming Democratic and Republican National Conventions, the network announced Thursday.Look for the entire network to be on the auction block before the end of the year.The outspoken civil rights leader and former candidate for the 2004 presidential nomination will share his views on "Capital Report," "Dennis Miller" and the new "McEnroe" (scheduled to premiere in July), among other CNBC shows.
According to a new survey, only 12 percent of local reporters, editors, and media executives are self-described conservatives, while twice as many call themselves liberal. At national news organizations, the gap is even wider - 7 percent conservative vs. 34 percent liberal.Self-description is a minor point; the real disconnect is evident when comparing the social values that journalists have with those of the general public:
The sample of 547 journalists and executives in a wide range of print and broadcast organizations, found that 88 percent of those surveyed at national media outlets think society should accept homosexuality; about half the general public agrees. And while about 60 percent of Americans say morality and a belief in God are inexorably linked, only 6 percent of national journalists and executives surveyed believe that.Jeff Dvorkin, the NPR Ombudsman, takes a gander at the poll and comes out with some very predictable rhetoric:
Not surprisingly this has been grist for conservatives because it confirms the impression that journalists are overwhelmingly liberal compared to the public in general.Ah yes, it can't be the fault of media for failing to hire conservatives. After all, they are working so hard to encourage minorities (remember Jason Blair?) so it is obvious that diversity is a sought-after goal.This is only a small portion of the study. But it is likely to follow news organizations around for the rest of the political year like Marley's ghost. For some, Bush's rise or fall in November will be inextricably linked to this poll.
And that leads to some serious concerns about the Pew poll as well.
No, the results are hard to swallow so it must be the poll that is flawed, not our hallowed institution of journalistic integrity (now there's an oxymoron for you).
This poll seems to me to be an example of how to keep journalists on the defensive in an election year. That may not have been the intention of whoever commissioned this study. But it certainly will be an outcome -- unintended or otherwise.Here it comes, whining as familiar as "I can hate America but still be patriotic!" Poor journalist -- he's going to be so restrained as a result of this poll!
This "ombudsman" continues to say that Pew is a "highly respected polling organization" and then turns around and begins telling Pew how to do a better study! The arrogance exhibited in this piece of writing is almost beyond comprehension!
The media and its management have an obligation to maintain a skeptical and adversarial role to whatever party is in power. This poll could discourage that by implying that journalists will always let their personal politics trump their professional obligations.Yes, and what about when Clinton was playing "hide the cigar" with an intern in the oval office? Remember that behavior much less objectionable than his would have landed any Marine corporal in Leavenworth, and one would expect to hold the Commander-in-Chief to a higher standard. Where was this "adversarial role" then?
Oh yes, it was towards the congressmen that sought to hold that man to a standard befitting the office.
NPR should lose its status as a tax-deductible institution immediately.
In one of the most underreported stories of the presidential campaign, a group called Swift Boat Veterans for Truth held a press conference on 4 May. The location was, ironically enough, the National Press Club in Washington.
Investor's Business Daily interviewed O'Neill, who is the force behind the group and main spokesperson. Buried in the interview is this tidbit:
IBD: Did The Associated Press cover the event?That's right -- a "news" association doesn't cover a news event because -- in their opinion -- it doesn't "add to the dialogue". There is so much rank hypocrisy tied up in that statement that I am left sputtering without words to express the true extent of my outrage.O'Neill: A reporter from The Associated Press attended the news conference and then refused to write a story on it.
AP received many inquiries asking, "Why have you not run a story on it?" They simply issued a statement saying they didn't believe it added anything to the dialogue between veterans and John Kerry.
By the way, if you want to see a video of the press conference you can find it on the C-Span website as well as on SwiftVets.com.
An article on Monday about the 50th anniversary of the Supreme Court ruling that ended school segregation misstated a word in a paraphrase from President Bush, who attended a ceremony in Topeka, Kan. He called for a continuing battle to end racial inequality not equality.Watch for this misquote to be repeated until it is a truth in the eyes of the left.
Despite strong economic growth figures and a falling jobless rate, a majority of voters doubt the economy has improved much. A Gallup Poll of 1,000 Americans earlier this month found that 51 percent think "the economy is getting worse." Just 43 percent said it was getting better.What liberal media?An American Research Group poll of 1,100 people (including 770 registered voters) showed that 47 percent believe the United States is still in a recession. When asked to "rate the national economy these days," 58 percent said it was bad, very bad or terrible, while only 40 percent said it was good to very good.
The price of a gallon of regular gasoline yesterday hit an average of $1.95 nationally and $1.92 in the Washington area, according to AAA, formerly the American Automobile Association. In dollar terms, those are the highest levels ever, but adjusted for inflation, they are still well below the $3 reached in March 1981.I hate the WaPo.
[Emphasis added]
Still, one might think that gas is getting pretty expensive when you hear about thieves resorting to stealing 5,000 pounds of used cooking oil and grease. I wonder if they've already converted their cars?
One wonders why you never saw a headline in the 90's that read "The Perils of an Immoral President".
Ted Koppel dedicated a show to reading the names and flashing a picture of each of the soldiers that have died in freeing Iraq -- two seconds for each person. There was no framing of the issue, no discussion of the necessity or fatuity, just a reading of names.
Chris Wallace joins the ranks of those offended by the transparent use of a "news" show to make a political statement:
"If you want to pay tribute to the troops, talk about what they fought and died for not just that they died. It should be more than just a telephone directory,"The single most outrageous outcome from this has got to be that he actually got 29% more viewers.
Wallace plans to counter with a segment of his own during his next Fox News Sunday show:
"We're calling it 'What We've Accomplished,"' Wallace said. "We're going to talk about some of the success stories in Iraq, from the end of the oppressive regime of Saddam Hussein, to the building of schools and infrastructure, to the rebuilding of the economy."Given the contemptible behavior of American media as they continue to focus on everything that is going wrong in Iraq while totally ignoring the monumental gains made by our hard-working military men and women, it would make a strong statement if this show gained viewership. Perhaps then our media would see the light -- telling us about the good things will sell commercial airtime as well.
Meanwhile, lefty publications didn't fair so well: the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and the Houston Chronicle were up a half of one percentage point or less. The Washington Post lost 3% of its circulation.
Then again, liberals aren't helping themselves as Air America Becomes Laughing Stock.
In a story May 2, The Associated Press reported that financially pressed consumers were willing to spend less on food in order to pay for gasoline, according to a survey by the Food Marketing Institute. The institute's report said that high oil prices, both at the pump and for home heating, were depressing consumers' ability to spend more, but did not specify where that added spending would have occurred. The institute said it had no evidence that consumers were choosing to spend less for food in order to pay for gasoline.The New York Times ran the story in their most highly read edition on Sunday. Of course, they have yet to add this to their corrections.
Surely, the Red Rag wouldn't want to think that people are going hungry in order to pay for gasoline because there's a Republican president, would they?
If that doesn't quite have the sweeps-month ratings appeal ''Nightline'' is looking for, since Ted has now established himself as a $6 million list reader he might like to remind people of the comparative costs of war. At two seconds per name, to read out the combat deaths of the War of 1812 he'd have to persuade ABC to extend the show to an hour and a quarter. To read out the combat deaths of the Korean War, he'd need a 19-hour show. For World War II, he'd have to get ABC to let him read out names of the dead 24/7 for an entire week. If he wants to, I'd be happy to fly him to London so he can go on the BBC and read out the names of the 3,097,392 British combat deaths in World War I, which would take him the best part of three months, without taking bathroom breaks, or indeed pausing for breath.
Update: Dave from Opinari points out that Snopes has done the research and validated the email's origin.
Ray Reynolds, SFC
Iowa Army National Guard
234th Signal Battalion
"Despite the denials by a spokeswoman for the show, the action appears to be motivated by a political agenda designed to undermine the efforts of the United States in Iraq,'' the company said in a faxed statement. Sinclair, which owns 62 U.S. television stations, said ABC is disguising political statements as news content.This is hardly news -- ABC has been doing this for years.
FOX News Channel (FNC) beat CNN and MSNBC combined in viewership and demographics in the Prime Time and 24-Hour time periods for April '04, according to Nielsen Media Research.No word on when Canada will be able to view FNC.In addition, FNC continued its dominance capturing ten out of the top eleven shows in cable news.
One of the most intriguing questions during this very political year is what President Bush's national security team will look like if the president manages to defeat his Democratic challenger in November."... if the president manages to defeat his Democratic challenger ..."
I'm stunned. They don't even try to hide the propaganda anymore.
Sometimes, at least, they can say that they made a mistake. Like when they ran GOP Senate candidate Pete Coors' picture with a story about a Ku Klux Klan member Ernest Avers who murdered a black sharecropper:
The story indicated the accompanying photo was of Avants. But the picture actually was of Coors on the day the Golden beer baron announced he was running in Colorado's open Senate race.
Oh my! What VRWC plot is this? Has shrub gotten his lackeys at the FCC to jerk their license? What does the story actually say?
After just two weeks of broadcasting, Air America Radio, the fledgling liberal talk-radio network featuring Al Franken and Janeane Garofalo, was pulled off the air this morning in Chicago and Los Angeles, the network's second- and third-largest markets, in a dispute over payments for airtime.So it's not so much that someone silenced the liberal radio initiative as much as it is they just can't hire decent accountants (what would you expect from a bunch of coddled Hollywood Richie-riches that don't know what a loaf of bread costs, as if you would find anything but fresh-baked French bread from that exclusive little deli down on Rosemont . . .).Arthur Liu, owner of Multicultural Radio Broadcasting, which owns Air America affiliates WNTD-950 AM in Chicago and KBLA-1580 AM in Los Angeles, said Air America bounced a check and owes him more than $1 million.
Another case of purposely misleading headlines.
How about a simple "Liberal's Bounce Check"? Or if you want to get fancy, "Plug Pulled on Plethora of Pedantic Prattle over Payment Problem"?
Of course, the tinfoil hat crowd is all aflutter over at the always-amusing DU:
Refreshingly, there is the occasional flash of sanity:
I am a lifelong Democrat and an Air America listener since it went on the air. I am a supporter of John F Kerry. If this venture fails it will be for one reason, and one reason only. The shows are boring. They drone on and on without much substance or humor. As Democrats we can do much better. Being killed by an outside force is bad enough. What is happening to AA now is a form of suicideAnd my favorite:
It is the medium chosen by our ideological leader, Barbra Streisand, for delivery of the liberal agenda for the day.Never fear little liberal -- the Chicago Tribune has its instructions and is spreading the misinformation, one headline at a time.Now go do what you have to.
Did the press demand an apology from Roosevelt for the deaths of 2,390 servicemen and the crippling of the Pacific Fleet?
Did the press demand that Woodrow Wilson apologize for allowing the Lusitania to leave New York for Liverpool in 1915 in spite of a warning from German authorities published in U.S. newspapers the very morning of her departure?
The badgering and accusatory questions of the press White House press corps last night was shameful.
Through it all, Bush managed to stay "on message":
He's not aiming to please the Washington crowd--the political elite. His audience is outside the Beltway--the mass--and he does surprisingly well in appealing to it. How does he do it? By being plain spoken and amiable and down to earth. By sounding more like Midland, Texas, than like Georgetown or Chevy Chase. By honing in on a single message and not giving reporters much else to write about. Bush tried Tuesday night to dictate the lead of stories.Today is Wictory Wednesday, the day that bloggers ask readers to volunteer time or donate money to the Bush-Cheney '04 campaign:If one was expecting a Kissingerian strategic case for America's intervention in Iraq, one wasn't going to get it from Bush. His argument was simple. Freedom in Iraq is good for Iraqis, good for America, and good for the world. And though we've had some tough weeks recently, we're sticking in Iraq and with our plan to turn over sovereignty to Iraqis on June 30.
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With:
The Artful Dodger (Salon.com)
Clarke's View: 'A Massively Different Interpretation' (New York Times)
While it is laudable that Anne Applebaum, who serves on the liberal Washington Post editorial board, won for documenting the terrors of the Soviet Gulag, it should be recalled that Solzhenitsyns monumental work on the same subject appeared in the 1970s. Likewise, the award given to William Taubman for his Khrushchev biography comes long after the Soviet Union itself had admitted to the crimes and repression documented. It has apparently taken the liberal and leftist establishment decades to accept and document crimes that many anti-communists were assailed for daring to mention back in 1940s and 1950s.There is much more; a well-researched, well-documented piece of journalism. Too bad the liberal media won't take any notice.
The press corps top priority, it seems, was getting out word that Clarke implicitly blames President Bush for 9/11. But somehow his confession that Bush would have had virtually no way of preventing 9/11 was not only not urgent - it wasn't even important enough for most media outlets to mention.
Gallup found that the public seems to believe Kerry and the Democratic party have, at least so far, conducted a dirtier campaign than Bush and the Republican party.I've accumulated the stats York provides into this table:
| Yes | No | |
| Would you say that George W. Bush and the Republican party have - or have not - attacked John Kerry unfairly? | Total: 21% Dem: 33% Ind: 21% Rep: 9% | Total: 67% Dem: 53% Ind: 65% Rep: 85% |
| Would you say that John Kerry and the Democratic party have - or have not - attacked George W. Bush unfairly? | Total: 35% Dem: 13% Ind: 35% Rep: 59% | Total: 57% Dem: 80% Ind: 55% Rep: 35% |
York's wrap-up:
In all, it appears that Republicans feel more aggrieved at the moment not surprising, given the months of Democratic campaigning and the Bush campaign's belated counterattacks. But perhaps more importantly, more independents seem to believe that Kerry and the Democrats have been unfair than believe that Bush has been unfair.Finally, the poll had one more unpublicized finding. Gallup asked respondents, "Regardless of whom you support, and trying to be as objective as possible, who do you think will win the election in November?" Fifty-two percent said Bush, while 42 percent said Kerry. Six percent had no opinion.
Out of the hundreds of countries in the world (the CIA has statics for 278 countries in their World Factbook), the BBC asked people in ten countries about their religious beliefs. With this solid statistical sampling, they were able to draw this conclusion:
The highest levels of belief were found in some of the world's poorer countries, as well as in the US.Although factually true, the wording suggests that religious beliefs only belong in ignorant countries. You know -- America and places where they can't afford to better educate their citizens.
But back to the article. Brits seem to be religiously-challenged:
In most of the countries covered, well over 80% said they believed in God or a higher power. In Nigeria the figure was 100% and in the US 91%, with the UK scoring lowest at 67%.But by far my favorite statistic has got to be this (emphasis obviously added):
Those saying they never prayed included 29% of Israelis and 25% of Britons. But across the entire sample, almost 30% of all atheists surveyed said they sometimes prayed.
Yet there was hardly a peep from "mainstream media" when the professor's work did not stand up to peer review, the prize was rescinded, said professor was asked to return the prize money and subsequently forced to resign. For instance, the New York Times covered the events this way:
The number of words in the two articles covering the downfall of the widely-trumpeted book and its author combined do not equal the number in the article heralding its being published. Both of these articles appeared in the least-read edition -- Saturday. There were no articles about a highly-respected, prize-winning professor being forced to resign in October 2002. No apology for repeatedly pushing a book whose very foundation was being questioned since the first month that it was published. No ongoing coverage about the lies, cover-ups and fabrications.
It just didn't fit the ideological bent of the paper, so they ignored it until they couldn't do so any longer.
Now take the case of a book called Separation of Church and State by Philip Hamburger, a legal scholar at the University of Chicago. Published in June of 2002, this work shatters modern perception of this issue. Hamburger shows that this issue has grown out of anti-Catholicism in the 19th century and the KKK in the 20th, which is surely a revelation that is every bit as momentous as that asserted by Bellesiles -- more so, since Hamburger's methods or results have not been embroiled in controversy.
As Accuracy in Media pointed out back in August of 2002:
However unpalatable such findings might be to the Times and other liberal opinion makers, to its credit the Times has discussed Prof. Hamburgers startling findings. Not on its front pages or prominently displayed in its Sunday book review section, however. The Times only mention of the book, thus far, came in a Saturday piece in its Metropolitan section two days after the Fourth of July. Hamburger clearly picked the wrong topic.It was true then, and it remains true today -- it was the Times' only mention of the book.
Connect the liberal dots.
A review by the Project for Excellence in Journalism of 10 popular Web sites that carry political news found they contained less original reporting and fewer links to external sites than in 2000. Web surfers also had fewer opportunities to interact with the sites, the study said. ...The study examined the political front pages of the eight most popular Web sites that carry news: ABC, AOL, CNN, MSNBC, The New York Times, USA Today, The Washington Post and Yahoo. The study also reviewed the online magazine Salon.com and the conservative National Review Online.
While many of the sites offered more stories than four years ago, the survey found that the amount of original content had declined and the sites were using more copy from wire services. About 63 percent of the front-page stories constituted original staff reporting, down from 75 percent when a similar study was done in 2000.
But even content that appears unique to a Web site often seems to involve modifying wire copy rather that containing truly original work, the study found.
The Arabic satellite TV channel al-Jazeera says its editor-in-chief has submitted his resignation. According to an al-Jazeera spokesman, Ibrahim Helal said he had had "a tempting offer" from the BBC.The charity BBC World Service Trust confirmed that Mr Helal was joining to work on a variety of media training projects over the next two years.
Al-Jazeera has been criticised by the US for airing recorded messages from Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden.
The New York Times posts a very short story about an upcoming fiscal policy from the White House.
The headline reads, "White House Wants to Restrict Some Corporate Tax Shelters". Yet the very first sentence reads, "The Bush administration will propose measures in its coming budget proposal to block a number of corporate tax-avoidance tactics..."
While the headline (which is all a lot of people will read) soft-pedals the real story by saying there will be "restrictions", the text says that the corporate tactics will be "blocked", i.e., taken away, done away with, eliminated. Eliminated is not a "restriction".
Later the article says, "The administration will also propose new restrictions on tax breaks associated with certain kinds of charitable donations, including the donation of used cars that are valued at far above their true market value." Again, the White House is proposing ways to stop abuse of the tax system. It is not a restriction except in the eyes of a ranting liberal.
Also, "The new proposal will be part of a broader package of proposals aimed at corporate tax shelters that will be in President Bush's budget plan, due out in early February." Seems innocent enough. But then, "Though the administration has silent on most details in the budget plan, it appeared to be responding to growing election-year anger about the apparent proliferation of corporate tax shelters."
Appears to be responding? That is a subjective statement made by a liberal reporter. It is a thinly veiled attempt at portraying opinion as news. That sentence had no place in a "news" article unless there is some basis for making it. The author didn't even get a quote from an "informed source" -- he just made it up himself.
It is no wonder that every time I finish reading the New York Times I feel a strong urge to go take a shower.
Andrew Dismore, a very alert Labour MP, is questioning why the BBC didn't take the same action against poet and regular BBC contributor Tom Paulin:
Mr Paulin made his comments in the Egyptian weekly newspaper Al-Ahram almost two years ago, saying that US-born settlers in the occupied territories should be shot dead. "I think they are Nazis, racists. I feel nothing but hatred for them," he said, adding: "I never believed that Israel had the right to exist at all."Within days of the article appearing, a number of academic institutions, including Harvard, cancelled planned readings by the poet. The BBC, however, did not seek to remove him from Newsnight Review. Mr Paulin subsequently denied accusations of anti-Semitism.
By contrast, Mr Kilroy-Silk, a former Labour MP, was suspended by the BBC on Friday, five days after he wrote an article in the Sunday Express. He described Arabs as "suicide bombers, limb amputators and women repressors", and said they contributed nothing useful to the world - comments that outraged race campaigners and some Muslims and for which he later apologised.
The corporation said it was suspending his BBC1 weekday morning chat show, Kilroy, until it had "investigated the matter fully".
"This past year has in my view seen for the first time in BBC history a campaign waged by the corporation against the Government and its policies," he said.And in an ironic twist of fate, the BBC has been selected to replace Saddam's broadcast propaganda machine:"I feel that the extent of the bias in BBC current affairs coverage of the major policy areas, not just on Iraq, but in health, education and public services generally, merits a full and independent public inquiry."
The BBC has been awarded the first contract to help get Iraqs television and radio stations back on air.It will set up a media headquarters in Basra to train Iraqs new generation of journalists.
Last weeks award by the UKs Department of International Trade & Development is part of the plans by the CPA, the US-led administration in Iraq, to win the hearts and minds of the Iraqis, seen as a crucial part of the reconstruction effort.
It will overhaul the Iraqi Media Network (IMN), which Saddam used as a propaganda mouthpiece, and turn it into a "world class radio and television broadcasting and newspaper publishing organisation".
I wonder if we'll see any difference in NPR?
It wasn't reported in any Texas newspaper, but earlier this month, Stanford professor David Brady and economics student Jonathan Ma released another glaring report on media bias.Reviewing news stories over a 12-year period -- from 1990 to 2002 -- Brady and Ma found that The New York Times and The Washington Post were far more likely to label a U.S. senator "conservative" than "liberal."
According to the Stanford study, the "conservative" label tagged U.S. senators three, four or five times as often as the "liberal" label was applied to the other side.
The researchers note that they are finding similar patterns in the ideological labeling of U.S. senators in other newspapers. Even The Wall Street Journal, which published Brady's findings, described senators as conservative almost twice as often as it describes them as liberal.
They swept across Iraq and conquered it in 21 days. They stand guard on streets pot-holed with skepticism and rancor. They caught Saddam Hussein. They are the face of America, its might and good will, in a region unused to democracy. The U.S. G.I. is TIME's Person of the Year.
Headline from Reuters, Dec 16: Bush Appears to Open Door to Same-Sex Unions
That'll build confidence in the accuracy of our news media.
That rocked me back on my metaphorical heels, so I rewound and listened to it again. Yep, that's what was said. So I went looking and found this:
Edwards said he would also put a cap on the profits of companies with no-bid contracts in Iraq , such as Halliburton, adding that he would require lobbyists to disclose their clients every two weeks instead of every six months.And that sounds like a damn fine idea to me.
Don't get me wrong -- there are times when no-bid contracts make sense. We know a company that has expertise in what we need and we need it right now, so we bypass all the bureaucracy and get them in to get it done.
But a no-bid contract handed out by the coalition should not be a license to rape the Iraqi people.
The Fox blurb was as big a lie as any told by Maureen Dowd. I'm very disappointed and the email to Fox has already been sent.
CNN features Protests ahead of Bush's UK visit and buries Bush unfazed by UK protests.
ABC News proclaims British Protesters Prepare for Bush Visit.
MSNBC puts Fortress London ahead of Bush trip on the front page of their website while little brother Newsweek posts Poll: British Say Bush Is Foolish (with a picture designed to support the outrageous claim).
The top stories in the "World" category at CBS News is Brit Envoy: We Warned U.S. and Blair Defends Bush Invite.
The NY Times can only manage Blair Says Bush's State Visit Comes at 'the Right Time' even as it goes on to talk about the upcoming "week of scheduled protests".
Every single one of these stories is designed to bring attention to the protesters, although in fairness the NY Times article only devoted a third of the column to this topic.
But just how much do the "British street" hate us in general, and Bush in particular? It should come as a great shock to American journalists that it isn't as bad as they make it out to be.
A Guardian/ICM poll shows that 43% of British voters supported Bush's visit, compared to 36% who said that the president should stay away. The president enjoyed support from Conservatives, Labor, and "Other", losing only in the Liberal Democrat block (no surprise there).
More importantly, 62% of respondents thought American is a force for good in the world while only 15% thought it is a force for evil (don't forget the large Muslim population in Britain).
And although only 47% thought the Iraq Liberation was justified and 41% percent thought it was not, support for staying the course has climbed in the wake of terrorist bombings in Iraq, with 67% saying military forces should stay until the country is more stable and only 25% wanting to pull out now.
What came as a complete surprise to me is a Sun article about their interview with the president:
ONE thing comes over loud and clear from the remarkable interview George W Bush has given to The Sun.One can question the reliability of The Sun's news sources, but their editorial writers are more cognizant of the real world than the ideologically-driven left-wing media here in America.He is not the ignorant, trigger-happy warmonger that protesters will claim he is.
Bush is an intelligent, thoughtful and compassionate man for whom war is the last resort.
His enduring love is peace and the freedom it can bring.
The President is positive the world is a safer place than it was before America and Britain took action against Saddam Hussein.
He will tell the families of British troops killed in Iraq that their loved ones made a sacrifice for a noble cause.
They have made it safer for our grandchildren to grow up in a free and peaceful world, says Bush.
He answers those who question the need for war on Saddam by saying it would have been much worse to have sat and done nothing in the face of threats from cold-blooded killers like him.
Panhandle kindergartner sneaks from school, gets killed by SUV
No word on whether the SUV was arrested and if the DA will push for the death penalty. Where do you put the needle in an SUV?
It seems that the deal has been done:
Veteran ABC News reporter Chris Wallace is rejoining the Sunday talk show wars, replacing Tony Snow as host of "Fox News Sunday" starting in mid-November.
I'm going to miss Tony's soliloquy at the end of every show.
For as long as I can remember, I've been scared of guns. Terrified might be a better word. I didn't want to hold one, see one, hear one.What follows is an honest (albeit probably over-dramatized) account of her experience taking a gun safety class. It wraps up with her experience in the range:Guns kill. Or as some say, people with guns kill. Either way, I wasn't getting close to a gun.
That all changed when I met Mike Roy of the DeSoto Arms Shooting Center.
Holding all that power in my hand is intimidating. But once I get used to the sound, firing the gun gives me a rush.It's then that I remember what Roy stressed in class: Once you pull the trigger and the bullet leaves the gun, you can't take it back.
And that's when I know I could never own a gun.
I'm not against the right to bear arms. But for me, having a gun says something. It says I don't completely trust God to protect me. And I do.
It says that I'm prepared to use it, maybe kill someone. And I'm not.
But I can say, thanks to Roy, I'm not as scared of guns as I once was.
And for me, that's enough.
Many in the "mainstream" news media have decided that their principal job is to elect Democrats. If some facts must be ignored, and others distorted in order to bring this about, so be it.Investor's Daily puzzles over the media's treatment of the Kay report in Spin And Omit:The Los Angeles Times discarded what shreds remained of its reputation for journalistic integrity in its efforts to keep Gov. Gray Davis from being recalled... The story was criticized less for its content than for its timing, and for the clear double standard the LA Times employed. California's largest newspaper had downplayed much more serious -- and better factually grounded -- allegations of sexual misconduct by President Clinton, and had ignored altogether credible charges of (nonsexual) abuse of female staff members by Davis.
The groping story wasn't the lowest blow delivered by the news media in the waning days of the campaign. The dubious distinction belongs to ABC News and The New York Times, which reported an unsupported allegation by a single source that, some 30 years ago, Schwarzenegger had had some kind things to say about Adolph Hitler. The story was quickly rebutted and its source retracted it, but only after the bogus claim was given widespread publicity.
The media's spin-and-omission effort puzzles Kay. He said on that same Fox show that he was "sort of amazed" that "powerful information about both (Iraq's) intent and (its) actual activities that were not known and were hidden from U.N. inspectors seems not to have made it to the press. This is information that, had it been available last year, would have been headline news."Would have been, should have been. With the major media determined to dump on the Bush White House, it's not surprising.
This is probably because the US is widely seen as weak. The Iraq story and domestic political troubles are allowing Chen to come out strongly, at a time when the US is deeply focused on the middle east, North Korea, and a political firestorm.This goes to show just how damaging the
What the report actually says is:
We have discovered dozens of WMD-related program activities and significant amounts of equipment that Iraq concealed from the United Nations during the inspections that began in late 2002.In addition, Mr. Kay reports that there was a systematic effort to conceal active weapons programs from the UN before the liberation, and a highly effective effort to destroy evidence before facilities fell into the hands of the coallition. But much is being discovered, and much was reported by David Kay:
Biological Weapons Program:
With regard to biological warfare activities, which has been one of our two initial areas of focus, ISG teams are uncovering significant information - including research and development of BW-applicable organisms, the involvement of Iraqi Intelligence Service (IIS) in possible BW activities, and deliberate concealment activities. All of this suggests Iraq after 1996 further compartmentalized its program and focused on maintaining smaller, covert capabilities that could be activated quickly to surge the production of BW agents.Chemical Weapons Program:
While searching for retained weapons, ISG teams have developed multiple sources that indicate that Iraq explored the possibility of CW production in recent years, possibly as late as 2003.Nuclear Weapons Program:
The Iraqi Atomic Energy Commission (IAEC) beginning around 1999 expanded its laboratories and research activities and increased its overall funding levels.... Starting around 2000, the senior Iraqi Atomic Energy Commission (IAEC) and high-level Ba'ath Party official Dr. Khalid Ibrahim Sa'id began several small and relatively unsophisticated research initiatives that could be applied to nuclear weapons development... The ISG nuclear team has found indications that there was interest, beginning in 2002, in reconstituting a centrifuge enrichment program. Most of this activity centered on activities of Dr. Sa'id that caused some of his former colleagues in the pre-1991 nuclear program to suspect that Dr. Sa'id, at least, was considering a restart of the centrifuge program.Delivery Systems:
With regard to delivery systems, the ISG team has discovered sufficient evidence to date to conclude that the Iraqi regime was committed to delivery system improvements that would have, if OIF had not occurred, dramatically breached UN restrictions placed on Iraq after the 1991 Gulf War... ISG has discovered evidence of two primary cruise missile programs. The first appears to have been successfully implemented, whereas the second had not yet reached maturity at the time of OIF.These quotes do not support the headlines of Draft Report Said to Cite No Success in Iraq Arms Hunt or The Failure to Find Iraqi Weapons from the New York Times.
The media is lying, undermining support for the war, the rebuilding effort, the establishment of a secular democracy in the heart of the Islamic world, and a president with moral clarity and the conviction to do what must be done.
Why is the search taking so long? David Kay addresses that question in his report as well:
Any actual WMD weapons or material is likely to be small in relation to the total conventional armaments footprint and difficult to near impossible to identify with normal search procedures. It is important to keep in mind that even the bulkiest materials we are searching for, in the quantities we would expect to find, can be concealed in spaces not much larger than a two car garage.Keeping that fact in mind, consider this excerpt from the Chemical Weapons section of the report (emphasis added):
In searching for retained stocks of chemical munitions, ISG has had to contend with the almost unbelievable scale of Iraq's conventional weapons armory, which dwarfs by orders of magnitude the physical size of any conceivable stock of chemical weapons. For example, there are approximately 130 known Iraqi Ammunition Storage Points (ASP), many of which exceed 50 square miles in size and hold an estimated 600,000 tons of artillery shells, rockets, aviation bombs and other ordinance. Of these 130 ASPs, approximately 120 still remain unexamined. As Iraqi practice was not to mark much of their chemical ordinance and to store it at the same ASPs that held conventional rounds, the size of the required search effort is enormous.Consider that the day that Mr. Kay delivered his report was 154 days after the declaration of the end of major hostilities in Iraq. 154 days in which Mr. Kay found evidence of weapons programs and missile development. Yet after 12 years the comedy team of Blix and company was unsure of anything, and as late as just 16 days before Mr. Kay's report Hans Blix asserted that Iraq had destroyed its weapons ten years ago.
One final point: Mr. Kay addresses the need to continue the search:
Second, we have found people, technical information and illicit procurement networks that if allowed to flow to other countries and regions could accelerate global proliferation. Even in the area of actual weapons there is no doubt that Iraq had at one time chemical and biological weapons. Even if there were only a remote possibility that these pre-1991 weapons still exist, we have an obligation to American troops who are now there and the Iraqi population to ensure that none of these remain to be used against them in the ongoing insurgency activity.I will go further: even if there is only a remote possibility that chemical or biological weapons exist in Iraq, or were moved out of Iraq in the days leading up to the war while the French diddled precious time away, we owe it to every citizen of Western civilization to find and destroy them. Homeland security demands it. That was one reason for this war. It is still valid, as David Kay told us. No matter what the fifth column would have us believe.
So why are stories killed? One theme woven through the essays in the book is a culture of fear in American newsrooms: Fear of contradicting highly placed government spokespeople and compromising access in the future. Borjesson remembers sitting in an FBI press conference about the TWA flight. One man asked an FBI agent why the Navy was involved in the flight investigation when it was a possible suspect. The agent's response? "Remove him!"
"There were correspondents who thought it appropriate to seek the approbation of the people who governed their lives. This was the ministry of information, and particularly the director of the ministry. By taking him out for long candlelit dinners, plying him with sweet cakes, plying him with mobile phones at $600 each for members of his family, and giving bribes of thousands of dollars. Senior members of the information ministry took hundreds of thousands of dollars of bribes from these television correspondents who then behaved as if they were in Belgium. They never mentioned the function of minders. Never mentioned terror."
"We have the lure of a spectacular reward. That draws us on. I got a Pulitzer Prize in Sarajevo, which was awarded for "bravery" or something somewhere in the citation. I said, and I absolutely meant it, "I assume that we are talking here about chronicling the bravery of the people of a city that was being murdered. That was where bravery came into this. Then there were no rewards save the possibility of surviving." So I don't want to present myself here as anything like that. No, I don't. As a matter of fact, I think this vainglorious ambition is part of the same problem really. It is the pursuit of power. Renown. Fame."There is corruption in our business. We need to get back to basics. This war should be studied and talked about. In the run up to this war, to my mind, there was a gross abdication of responsibility. You have to be ready to listen to whispers."
A Sept. 15 article on Vice President Cheney's appearance on NBC's "Meet the Press" mischaracterized the vice president's response to a question about releasing information on Saudi Arabia's ties to al Qaeda and the Sept. 11 hijackers. The article quoted Cheney as saying, "I don't want to speculate" about the ties, and said that the vice president went on to say that Sept. 11 is "over with now, it's done, it's history and we can put it behind us." The article implied that Cheney agreed with this point of view. In fact, in his full remarks, the vice president took the opposite view and argued that it is important, in discussing alleged Saudi connections to the hijackers, not to release information that would jeopardize the United States' ability to fight terrorism.Emphasis added (obviously).
When I first saw this story on The New York Times Web site, I knew it was bound to run on that newspaper's front page, and it did:"MONTGOMERY, Ala., Aug. 20 -- They came streaming in from all directions, wearing their crosses and Confederate T-shirts, carrying dog-eared Bibles and bottles of water and enough power bars to last a siege."
But I was immediately skeptical about this "color story," every sentence written as if a punch line lurked just around the corner. I had seen endless TV footage of the Montgomery protests, and I had noticed not a single Confederate T-shirt, nor any other Confederate memorabilia, for that matter. Some of the protesters did wear shorts and T-shirts beneath the infernal August sun, but they were mostly middle-aged and elderly people, neatly groomed and, frankly, kind of dull.
Next time I have a surly crowd chasing after me, this is exactly the kind of mob I want it to be.
Mark Steyn takes the BBC to task in a hilarious parody:
Good evening. Reports that the former Italian leader Benito Mussolini is "dead" and "hanging" "upside down" at a petrol station were received with scepticism in Rome today. Our "reporter" - whoops, scrub the inverted commas round "reporter", the scare-quotes key on the typewriter's jammed again. Anyway our reporter Andrew "Gilligan" is "on" the scene "in" Milan. Andrew...
Andrew Gilligan: I'm leaning on a lamp post at the corner of the street in case a certain little duce swings by, and I don't see any dead dictators, John. But then the Allies have a history of making these premature announcements...
Hat tip to Dean's World
"CBS Evening News" marked a low point in a storied history - its smallest average audience in at least 10 years, perhaps ever. The evening newscast with Dan Rather, for several years third in the ratings behind NBC and ABC, has lately been losing even more ground.Ah, but how bad can it be?
Ratings for these flagship newscasts have been steadily eroding, so you would probably have to go back to the early days of television to find a lesser-watched week.Back to the days when there was almost a TV on every block, instead of one in every bedroom, portables taken to the park, mounted in minivans . . .
What steps are being taken?
"Clearly, we want to reverse that trend," CBS News President Andrew Heyward said July 1. "I don't think it's something to be overly concerned about. ... It's an issue but not something I want to overreact to. I think the program itself journalistically is as good as it has ever been."Ah, step one from the TV Executive Handbook: Place Blinders Firmly On Head.
Step two is usually Blame the Anchor:
His job is not in any danger, according to his boss, who praised Rather as "full of energy and enthusiasm for the program."Unless, of course, the anchor has more friends in high places than JC. So the most biased news anchor in television"He's one of the best broadcast journalists ever," Heyward said. "I don't think he's the issue."
Pity.
For several years, CNN has been fighting, and falling behind, Fox News Channel in the ratings, and the cost has gone beyond ratings to include top network executives.The latest to exit the Turner all-news cable network is is Larry Goodman, CNNs longtime president of sales and marketing, after two decades with the network.
Goodman's exit comes as the cable upfront wraps up with word that Fox News was the hotter ticket among media buyers, garnering both larger overall sales and higher CPM increases.
Danny Seaman, the head of the Government Press Office, has been saying for some time that the BBC has a clear anti-Israel policy, bordering on anti-Semitism. Seaman told Army Radio on Sunday that the BBC broadcast was an attempt to tarnish Israel.Update: British Army joins assault on BBC's war:
Last night, an army spokesman said: "We are disappointed that the BBC attributes our reporting of the incident that happened on the bridge into Basra as propaganda. What we believe to have happened on the ground was as reported. This was nothing to do with the propaganda value or otherwise."Privately, senior army figures are less diplomatic. "I do find it very depressing the way the BBC are heading," said one senior officer, speaking on condition of anonymity. "I think this is part of the wider problem that the BBC has at the moment.
"This documentary series is getting more and more negative and seems to imply that everything that we do is for propaganda purposes. The BBC are determined to paint the war in a negative light."
Biased toward what? I just read three major stories on Reuters which covered Hamas and Terrorist and Al Queda there were no quotations.I, being a balanced and open-minded guy, decided to give the Boz-man the benefit of the doubt and check things out for myself. First I clicked on the link he left.
http://asia.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=2992011
Reuters is a straight forward news agency.
Barry's right - not a set of scare quotes in the whole article, which happens to be about the trial of the person accused of being the leader of the group that performed the Bali bombings:
Amrozi is a militant on trial over last October's bomb attacks on Bali island, which killed 202 people, mostly foreign tourists.Notice that? He's a "militant", not a "terrorist". He blew up 202 people that were on vacation, drinking and dancing, with a big, honkin' bomb, but Reuters calls him a "militant".
Sickened, but undetered, I decided to press on and give Reuters a chance. I went to their front page and clicked on the top story, Riyadh Bombing Mastermind Said in Saudi Custody.
Saudi officials said the suspect, Ali Abdulrachman Saeed al-Faqa'asi Al-Ghamdi, also known as Abu Bakr al-Azdi, a senior Saudi-based al Qaeda operative, surrendered to the Saudi assistant minister of interior for security affairs. But the U.S. official said the man was "captured."The first use of scare quotes is to repudiate the American position. Pressing on:
More than 40 suspected "terrorists" have been arrested in the kingdom since the May 12 Riyadh bombings, Saudi officials say.One can only speculate that 'suspected militants' would not have required scare quotes, but one cannot imagine a situation in which any police organization would arrest members of 'an unarmed cell' after a shootout.Last week, an Arab newspaper reported that Saudi police arrested four members of "an armed cell" after a shootout in Mecca, hours after suspected Islamic militants were killed in a police raid in the Muslim holy city.
Yo Bozster, try looking up from the New York Times/WaPo/CNN/BBC/Reuters every once in a while and you'll see that there are other ways a story can spin. I will be the first to admit that FNC, Washington Times, Wall Street Journal Opinion and Jewish World Review are all conservatively biased. I know that when I read/view/listen and take that into account. I also know that virtually every other news source is liberal. That's OK - I even sent money to Salon.com when they were hurting because I figured the world needed them and am glad to see that they are still up and running.
Barry, it is you who is suffering from tunnel-vision. In the venacular of Cool Hand Luke, "Boy, go here and get your mind right."
I have asked employees all over the company to make sacrifices over the past months. We are making 3000 staff redundant ? most of them dedicated and hard-working employees. I do not feel it right for senior management to remain immune: if we can run leaner and more efficiently, we should do so.Although I hate to see anyone losing a job, I love to see extreme left-wing news organizations suffering.
Fallujah today has none of the anti-American graffiti found in southern cities dominated by fundamentalist Shiites. Produce and meat markets are open well into the night, and some shops are filled with tires and plastic chairs already being imported from China."The Americans are keeping their promises," said Sheik Hasna al Bouaifan, leader of one of the top tribes in the region. "They are patrolling the town to keep peace. One of the clerics who met with them said: 'They must secure themselves before they can secure us.'"
I predict more about this story will be revealed in the coming days. In particular, I predict the subject matter will prove to be overwhelmingly anti-Bush and the audience's reaction to be stronger than documented in initial reports. And I submit to Mr. Hedges, commencement is about the students, not taking advantage of a captive audience to spew liberal ideologies.
In the first of the two segments that aired Thursday, a Broward County detective fired the AK-47 in semiautomatic mode, and the camera showed bullets hitting a cinder-block target. The detective then fired a legal semiautomatic weapon, and CNN showed a cinder-block target with no apparent damage. On Friday, CNN admitted that the detective had not been firing at the cinder block.
Bill Clinton famously lied about his affair with Monica Lewinsky, while earlier philandering US presidents never had to lie about their affairs, because nobody ever asked.
"Welcome home, Texas heroes," one sign read as the lawmakers, all from the Texas House, arrived, smiling and waving to a cheering crowd.The Washington Times presents a more even account:
A few dissenters booed and motioned with thumbs down. "I drove all the way from Waco to be here," said one gallery spectator, Edith Grimsley. "You can be sure I won't vote for my cowardly representative again next year," she snapped . . .But only WaPo can put the French spin on it:
"We've weathered some troopers, we've weathered a tornado and we weathered Denny's," said Rep. Jim Dunnum, the group's ringleader. "No matter what happens, democracy won."No Dunnum, democracy was shut down by the minority party, just like in the federal Senate.
This is what talking to Ann Coulter is like: she flits from one rightwing prejudice to another, taking not so much as a gasp for oxygen. In a couple of sentences, she can play with overt racism, soften it with a line so provocative she could only be kidding, then round off the performance with a sweeping smear of the liberal enemy. Coulter has turned riffs like that into an art form.There's a list of "Coulterisms" at the end of the article, a couple of which are worth reading. But before you get there is this little tidbit (emphasis mine):
Scan the top-selling books in Britain and it's all gardening and cookery. Look at what America's buying and it's non-fiction books of argument. Every new Bob Woodward tome on the US government becomes a smash hit, while slash-and-burn polemic - whether it's Coulter on the right or Michael Moore on the left - sells by the crateload. Maybe it's to compensate for the cautious style of US newspapers or the bland, neutered language of mainstream US politicians. A gap has opened in American political culture and motor-mouths like Ann Coulter are filling it.So in an article that firmly established the liberal tilt of the mainstream American media and the resulting rise of Murdoch-owned conservative news sources (Fox and the NY Post), our newspapers are "bland"? In a land of brash and rude Americans, our politicians are "neutered" in their speech? Ah yes, having seen debates on the floor of the House of Commons wherein catcalls frequently interrupt speakers, and having read the blatently biased "news" of the Guardian and seen the open anti-Americanism displayed by the BBC, I can see their meaning. So the next time you get mad at the biased American media or troubling rhetoric of an American politician just remember that it could be worse. You could live in England. Or worse yet, France. Strike that - if I were French I would do the world a favor and commit suicide.
At this hour an agreement has been reached to free the hostages, yet the top story on the CNN website concerns the murder trial of Scott Peterson, a man who alegedly killed his wife and unborn son. While this is tragic, America breathlessly and endlessly follow these "human interest" stories while ignoring world events.
Come on, people! There is civil war in Uganda, Burundi, Liberia. and the Ivory Coast. Al-Qaeda lives and grows in Zanzibar, and the slave trade thrives in west Africa. Tyrants reign in Zimbabwe and Cuba. There are pirates, ailing economies, elections of great portent, and nuclear standoffs in the world today.
But if the media hasn't sensationalized it, if it isn't close to home, if it isn't a little bit silly, then we don't hear about it. The media sells advertising space, and the American people are cheated.
"In light of recent alarming events in Cuba, [the network decided] not to air Oliver Stone's film in May as scheduled. Had we aired the film in March, I don't think we would have had an issue with it. But now, the arrests and trials are an important piece of what's going on in Cuba, and the film's incomplete."So the issue is not that the obvious left-wing agenda of portraying a communist tyrant as a "good guy" has been found out, but that they must give poor Oliver time to put the correct spin on recent events. Barf alert.
Consider the greatest military collapse of modern times, the infamous French fold at the start of World War II. Germany invaded France on May 10, 1940, didn't get to Paris until June 14, and didn't get a French surrender until June 22.
Even the French--the French!--were able to hold out for 44 days. If Saddam prolongs the fighting for another 5 weeks, all he will be doing is rising to the level of military competence set by France.
Today is Day 8 of the war. Let's try to keep some perspective.
Speaking of French-like publications, Chirac continues his infantile stance against all things bright and beautiful by issuing this statement to the press corps regarding rebuilding post-war Iraq: "This idea of a resolution seems to me to be a way of authorizing military intervention after the fact, and so is not, from my point of view, fitting in the current situation." The problem, however, is that no such resolution has been offered. So Chirac is again vowing to veto something which does not yet exist.
After the speech, however, ABC ran a special called "When Diplomacy Fails". In spite of the incendiary name (and the fact that it was hosted by Jennings), it was a rather good 2 hours. Of particular interest was the segment dealing with the press being so embedded with the military forces. The military's position is that mistakes will be made, but the world should know the impact of what happens - the good and the bad. Very impressive.
This is a particularly uninspiring piece of reporting - even for the New York Times. I too am very concerned about the governments expansion of powers. While I applaud the intent of the Patriot Act, greater power should only be granted in conjunction with greater oversight - whether it be judicial or congressional. Somewhere, a check must be put into place to maintain the delicate balance our founding fathers put into place (and has since been upset by an activist judiciary, but that is another conversation).
What I find particularly uninspiring about this article is the source of the opposition: the ACLU, the Violence Policy Center, and the Council on Arab-Islamic Relations. Couldn't they get some time with Ralph Nader and Phil Donahue while they were at it? Maybe a quick call to Babs Streisand and any other radical nut they could dig up.
The old gray lady is fading fast. It is past time to put her in our past, kinda like we are with the whole 'listening to France' thing.
