The Redhunter

July 21, 2010

The Shirley Sherrod Affair and "Outrage of the Day" Posts

See update with video at bottom: In an interview with CNN's Anderson Cooper, Sherrod says that Andrew Breitbart wants blacks to be slaves again.

Quite simply, the Shirley Sherrod affair is why I don't do "outrage of the day" posts; it's too easy to jump to conclusions based on initial snippets of information. Both sides do it, and both sides often come out looking bad.

I started blogging in April of 2004, and it took me awhile to figure out what type of blogger I wanted to be. I fooled around with "outrage of the day" posts, and quickly discovered that in order to make it work you had to do a lot of research very quickly. If you didn't poke around you only got half the story, and often that first half omitted important information. It took time, which i don't always have. I eventually settled on a (hopefully) more academic style that costs readers but spares me embarrassment.

I don't have a lot of time now, but two excellent posts over at NRO's The Corner summarize my thoughts on the Shirley Sherrod affair just about perfectly:

Shirley Sherrod Re-revisited: Shannen Coffin

The Sherrod episode is appalling from all sorts of angles. First, there's the kneejerk reaction of the administration to demand her resignation -- by her account, she was asked to pull over to the side of the road to resign by cellphone by a USDA official, who claimed pressure from the White House. This shows a despicable lack of respect for due process: Surely Sherrod was entitled to at least defend herself -- to produce the full text of her remarks in order to show her broader point.

Second, as I understand it, her remarks related to her conduct as a non-governmental official more than 20 years ago. She did not claim to have denied government benefits on the basis of race, which would have been a violation of the applicant's constitutional rights, but rather recounted a story of her time in, as I understand it, a non-profit organization. And it turns out that her story was merely a description of how she came to have more enlightened views on issues of race and poverty. If the government is going to fire everyone who has held conflicted views on race at some point in their lives -- unconnected from government service -- then we can thin the ranks of government employees relatively quickly. It is not surprising that a black woman growing up in the deep South might harbor some suspicions of her white brethren; it is reassuring that Sherrod was able to overcome those preconceptions, and it is refreshing that she could admit to having had them -- an honest admission that certainly doesn't cast her in the most flattering light, until you listen to her whole story.

Finally, the conservative media has some 'splaining to do. It is dangerous to run with a story based on a snippet -- and our colleagues on the right have as much of an obligation to investigate before rolling out an expose on someone (especially someone as obscure as Sherrod) as do those on the left (e.g., Dan Rather). Sherrod was a low-level bureaucrat, apparently appointed to the position of Georgia director of rural development by Tom Vilsack; it is a stretch to attribute the views of such a low-ranking functionary to President Obama.

An accusation of racism is serious business, one which neither white nor black should throw around willy-nilly. (I'll note that Sherrod herself has been willing to use those accusations to her benefit in the past. According to this website, she was at least indirectly part of the plaintiff class of black farmers in the Pigford litigation, which dealt with claims of racial discrimination against black farmers. She personally received $150,000 in a settlement for her pain and suffering associated with denial of loans.) But in this particular episode, it would appear that Sherrod is owed an apology.

And from one of my favorite authors;

Shirley Sherrod -- My Take: Jonah Goldberg

I think she should get her job back. I think she's owed apologies from pretty much everyone, including my good friend Andrew Breitbart. I generally think Andrew is on the side of the angels and a great champion of the cause. He says he received the video in its edited form and I believe him. But the relevant question is, Would he have done the same thing over again if he had seen the full video from the outset? I'd like to think he wouldn't have. Because to knowingly turn this woman into a racist in order to fight fire with fire with the NAACP is unacceptable. When it seemed that Sherrod was a racist who abused her power, exposing her and the NAACP's hypocrisy was perfectly fair game. But now that we have the benefit of knowing the facts, the equation is completely different.

In one of the recent Journolist belches we saw how creatures like Spencer Ackerman see nothing wrong with randomly charging innocent conservatives with racism in order to send a message. This is a deplorable tactic conservatives regularly and rightly deplore when used by liberals (we usually have less proof than we have in Ackerman's confession). I see no reason to emulate this tactic and I very much doubt that was Andrew's intent. Some emailers on the other hand seem to come close to making the case for this kind of thing. As I've argued countless times before, this sort of politics is almost always counter-productive and quite often grotesque. Embracing the tactics you condemn in others requires, at minimum, that you stop condemning it in others. It also has the potential to sell your soul on layaway.

Meanwhile, as a matter of politics, I think this episode demonstrates that this White House is a much more tightly wound outfit than it lets on in public. The rapid-response firing suggests a level of fear over Glenn Beck and Fox that speaks volumes.

Update

As Sister Toldjah points out, although Sherrod's been wronged and is owed apologies my many, she's no saint. She's taken a page from the liberal playbook and called Andrew Breitbart, Fox News,and Republicans in general racists. Well, what did we expect.

Update II

In an interview with CNN's Anderson Cooper, Sherrod says that Andrew Breitbart wants blacks to be slaves again. Start watching 1:55 into the segment:

How pathetic.

Posted by Tom at 9:50 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

June 22, 2010

Yes, Gen. Stanley McChrystal Should be Fired

An excerpt from excerpts from the Rolling Stone article

Even though he had voted for Obama, McChrystal and his new commander in chief failed from the outset to connect. The general first encountered Obama a week after he took office, when the president met with a dozen senior military officials in a room at the Pentagon known as the Tank. According to sources familiar with the meeting, McChrystal thought Obama looked "uncomfortable and intimidated" by the roomful of military brass. Their first one-on-one meeting took place in the Oval Office four months later, after McChrystal got the Afghanistan job, and it didn't go much better. "It was a 10-minute photo op," says an adviser to McChrystal. "Obama clearly didn't know anything about him, who he was. Here's the guy who's going to run his [expletive] war, but he didn't seem very engaged. The Boss was pretty disappointed." ...

One aide calls Jim Jones, a retired four-star general and veteran of the Cold War, a "clown" who remains "stuck in 1985." Politicians like McCain and Kerry, says another aide, "turn up, have a meeting with Karzai, criticize him at the airport press conference, then get back for the Sunday talk shows. Frankly, it's not very helpful." Only Hillary Clinton receives good reviews from McChrystal's inner circle. "Hillary had Stan's back during the strategic review," says an adviser. "She said, 'If Stan wants it, give him what he needs.'

McChrystal reserves special skepticism for Holbrooke, the official in charge of reintegrating the Taliban. "The Boss says he's like a wounded animal," says a member of the general's team. "Holbrooke keeps hearing rumors that he's going to get fired, so that makes him dangerous."

Certainly inappropriate and impolitic, but not as big a deal as some of the stories would suggest. That said, ifPresident Obama fired McChrystal I'd support the decision

The President will meet with the general tomorrow, and has said that he won't make any decision until after they talk: "I think it's clear that the article in which he and his team appeared showed a poor -- showed poor judgment, but I also want to make sure that I talk to him directly before I make any final decisions."

The most famous incident in which a president fired a general was, of course, when Truman dismissed Douglas MacArthur. The general had criticized the president's limited war strategy, particularly his desire to avoid involving China.

Forty years ago, in another incident that caused much controversy at the time, President Carter fired General john Singlaub over comments the latter publicly criticized the President's decision to withdraw troops from Korea.

MacArthur and Singlaub deserved to be fired. McChrystal's offense is different, but he deserves to be fired nonetheless. However, my guess is he'll probably survive with a reprimand. Most likely the story we'll hear is that McChrystal offered his resignation and the President refused it. Obama will calculate that he simply cannot afford for things to go any more wrong in Afghanistan.

Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit said that:

McChrystal's greatest crime is speaking the truth -- that the White House is unserious about this war, and that its foreign policy team isn't up to the job. And if he were saying this about a Republican administration, the press would be hailing him as a great hero, speaking truth to power.

Nonetheless, serving generals aren't supposed to speak this way about their civilian masters, and so if the Rolling Stone reports are true, he should probably be sacked.

Exactly correct. Singlaub was right and he still deserved to be fired. Truman was right with regards to China. Whether McChrystal is right or not is irrelevant because we simply cannot have generals criticizing their civilian bosses in public. The editors of National Review make the point that firing McChrystal will not advance us towards victory in Afghanistan. Undoubtedly true, and also irrelevant.

That said, Reynolds makes another point that is dead on correct:

Under a Republican President, it's listen to the generals. Under a Democratic President, it's all about civilian control of the military.

As always, Victor Davis Hanson has wise things to say, so I'll close with him:

Many have commented on the unfairness of it all, and made good points:

a) Obama, having demagogued the Iraq war, and campaigned on a "let me at 'em" in the "good" war in Afghanistan, has done his best to renege on his 2008 chest-thumping (e.g., not meeting with McChrystal for months; setting arbitrary withdrawal dates that turn the war into a "wait them out" process; publicly rebuking in embarrassing fashion the Karzai government; insulting the British enough so that they and other European countries will soon be leaving -- not wishing to stay on when they also know we're going to pack it up soon, and so on).

b) McChrystal has not said anything more defamatory than what Obama himself, as a U.S. senator, said about the surge or Predators, and nothing that approaches the slanders of a Sen. Durban, Kerry, or Reid.

c) We don't always fire generals who mouth off -- especially those so closely identified with the current efforts at the front. Patton was given several chances; Arleigh Burke was saved by Truman despite his campaign against the Pentagon's civilian head.

d) Obama is in a terrible dilemma. If he doesn't fire McChrystal after a second indiscretion, he perhaps looks weak. If he does, it endangers the current effort in Afghanistan and looks like he's silencing an officer for having legitimate worries.

e) The howling media is hypocritical. Yesterday's officers who took on Bush in the "revolt of the generals" were deemed courageous. Today's critics are slandered as near-treasonous when they dare reproach Him.

f) It would be very frustrating for a gifted and devoted general like McChrystal to work for Obama, given the latter's indifference, contradictions, and clear anti-war stance as a senator.

No matter, nonetheless. The issue is not whether McChrystal is a great officer (he is), but one of judgment. One does not openly criticize civilian overseers to the press, however justified (and there are plenty of justifications). Nor does one allow a climate in which subordinate officers feel emboldened enough that they loosely trash an administration to the press. If one really wishes to warn the public about a growing crisis in Afghanistan brought on by ignorance, egos, and duplicity in the administration, one surely does not talk to the likes of Rolling Stone. The proper way is to send warnings in private channels up the chain of command to the Pentagon and then to the White House. And when one feels the level of ignorance is overwhelming the chances of success, then one resigns and goes public to warn the nation. One cannot otherwise have it both ways.

No one wants to see McChrystal go, but senior officers and their staffers simply cannot ridicule civilian overseers, even if casually and in jest. We don't know all the details or the veracity of the journalists involved, so it would be foolish to rush to judgment, but something will have to be resolved within the next 48 hours or so.

Posted by Tom at 10:00 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

February 23, 2010

The "most open and transparent administration in history" sets record for avoiding press conferences

Get this:

Obama tops Bush at ducking reporters
The Washington Times
February 22, 2010
by Joseph Curl

President Obama, who pledged to establish the most open and transparent administration in history, on Monday surpasses his predecessor's record for avoiding a full-fledged question-and-answer session with White House reporters in a formal press conference.

President George W. Bush's longest stretch between prime-time, nationally televised press conferences was 214 days, from April 4 to Nov. 4, 2004. Mr. Obama tops that record on Monday, going 215 days - stretching back to July 22, according to records kept by CBS Radio's veteran reporter Mark Knoller.

The president has seemingly shunned formal, prime-time sessions since his last disastrous presser, when he said police in Cambridge, Mass., "acted stupidly" by arresting a Harvard professor who broke into a home that turned out to be his own. The off-the-cuff comment took over the news cycle for a week, overshadowing his push for health care reform, and culminated in a White House "Beer Summit," where the president hosted white police officer James Crowley and the black Harvard professor, Henry Louis Gates Jr.

"He does seem a little snakebit on the whole presser thing," said Julie Mason, a longtime White House reporter and board member of the White House Correspondents' Association.

"At his last big press conference in July, he lost control of the message with his response to the Gates question, and then returns six months later with an unannounced, five-question avail in the briefing room - on a snow day. Was it something we said?"

Earlier this month, the president did field a few questions from reporters in a "mini-presser." He dropped by the White House briefing room unannounced at midday just after Washington's second snowstorm, right when the daily briefing by the press secretary was to occur. The "press availability" lasted only 33 minutes and encompassed questions from just five reporters - plus one after Mr. Obama tried to head for the door.

In contrast, a typical White House press conference is usually announced well in advance and takes place in the far more formal White House East Room. The prime-time sessions - carried live by all TV networks - last at least an hour and include questions from 12 to 15 reporters, sometimes more.

"I don't count that five-question, surprise 'avail,' as a presser," Miss Mason said.

Still, Mr. Obama has held plenty of tightly controlled sessions with reporters. He has given 66 interviews since July 22 - including two that day, according to Mr. Knoller's records. But that doesn't satisfy White House veterans.

"The administration will point you to all the interviews he does, but that is all about control. We are naturally at cross-purposes with him, because he wants to come out with his talking points and the press wants to knock him off those talking points - so the result is he just doesn't come around anymore," Miss Mason said.

Nevertheless, Mr. Obama tops his predecessor in total output. He has given 43 press conferences of various degrees, six of which were solo White House sessions, Mr. Knoller said. During the same period, Mr. Bush gave 24 press conferences, of which four were formal, solo White House sessions.

So since the last one didn't go as he wanted it to he's not giving any more? This Administration has a penchant not only for insisting it control the message but for acting like children when they can't. Remember how they threw those reporters off the campaign airplane? They ones they tossed worked for newspapers whose editorial boards had endorsed McCain: The Dallas Moring News, The New York Post and The Washington Times. This was said to be coincidence, but I doubt it.

Anyway, it is one thing for Obama to go after Fox News. The rest of the media couldn't care less about that. But avoiding full-fledged press briefings... that could be dangerous. Most members of the media may love him, and let him get away with things that would sink a conservative, but they also don't like being "dissed." Obama's honeymoon with the media will be longer than most, but even they have their limits with him. And I think if Obama keeps this up he's going to find that out the hard way.

Posted by Tom at 8:00 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

January 21, 2010

Marc Thiessen v Christiane Amanpour and Phillippe Sands on CNN

Three days ago I excerpted Marc Thiessen article on National Review in which he summarized part of his new book, Courting Disaster: How the CIA Kept America Safe and How Barack Obama Is Inviting the Next Attack. As expected, the post generated a spirited debate among commenters. A speechwriter for President George W. Bush, to prepare for writing them Thiessen was allowed to speak with two of our top CIA agents who actually conducted interrogations and debriefings (two separate activities) of captured terrorists. Obviously he didn't put the classified information they told him in the speeches, it was rather for background information so he would have an understanding of what we were really doing as opposed to what critics said we were doing.

Unsurprisingly, leftist critics of Bush are aghast that he would dare to write a book defending his administration. Christiane Amanpour had him on her show, and she and Phillippe Sands attacked his positions.

I think that Thiessen made Amanpour look like foolish because she clearly didn't know what she was talking about, and gets the better of Sands on the facts. Both Amanpour and Sands are determined that terrorists should have the protection of the Geneva conventions, which they either do not understand or are misrepresenting (Amanpour probably misunderstands, Sands is probably misrepresenting). See my posts here and here for information on the conventions.

But enough of my opinion. Watch the interview yourself and decide who's right (h/t Powerline)

Part two is below the fold

Posted by Tom at 8:30 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

January 4, 2010

The End of the Washington Times as We Know It

Today marks the end of The Washington Times newspaper as we have known it for 27 years. Due to financial pressures, they are stopping home delivery when existing subscriptions end, and the newspaper itself has been considerably slimmed down. Future papers will be distributed free at newsstands around the nation's capital. They have also gone from a seven day a week newspaper to Monday through Friday only. Last week they published their last sports section, and other sections are being consolidated as well.

My subscription ends in June, so I'll get it at my doorstep until then. After that, I'll subscribe to their national weekly edition, which comes in the mail, but otherwise am not quite sure what I'll do. Reading the Washington Post every day would simply aggravate me. I may subscribe to the Wall Street Journal, as I want that physical paper or magazine to read. Computers are great, but there's nothing like a physical paper every morning while I have my wake-up coffee.

I feel like I'm losing a friend .

Soon we will have no conservative alternative in our nations capital to the Post. The Times was founded a year after the Washington Star closed in 1981, but given the financial problems of newspapers around the country it's hard to see another conservative alternative starting up anytime soon.

As I suppose everyone knows, the Times was founded by and is owned by Rev Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church. Never financially profitable, the Times has been subsidized by church ever since it's founding in 1982. On Nov 30 the New York Times reported that because of some internal dispute the church had made a decision to cease funding the Washington Times, which is what forced its current restructuring.

I've lived in the Washington DC area my entire adult life, and after graduating from college in 1983 I did what seemed natural and subscribed to the Post. It quickly irritated me, but it took a few years for me to discover the Times, which was recommended to me by my brother. I can't remember exactly when I started subscribing to it, but it must have been just before the Gulf War because I remember being a subscriber when that war broke out.

Every since then the Times has been a faithful companion as I looked at the daily news and commentary. The paper underwent several changes of editors, and the look and feel of the paper changed a few times as well. Initially a Monday through Friday paper, the Times expanded to weekend coverage, adding a Saturday edition and eventually a Sunday one as well.

Throughout its existence the Times never got close to the Post in circulation numbers. The highest figure for the Times I ever heard was just over 100,000 paid, and articles today suggest it is at about 83,000. The Post is at 673,000 paid daily subscribers.

The left has always hated the Times almost as much as they hate Fox News. It is derided as a "Moonie" paper, not legitimate, all the usual.

Well, I've read just about every edition for over 20 years, and there is no "Moonie" influence, whatever that is supposed to mean. The church is rarely even mentioned in the paper, and religion in general isn't mentioned any more than anywhere else.

Besides, I think it's generally silly to obsess over who owns what media outlet or who funds what organization. In the end it's the stories that tell the tale. in the words of Washington Post writer Howard Kurtz, the Times "the Times punched above its weight class,building a nationally known brand." Indeed it was often that the Times scooped the Post.

The Times certainly attracted some top talent. Who will forget editors like Arnaud de Borchgrave, Wesley Pruden, Tony Blankley, or Tony Snow, or writers like Bill Gertz, Don Lambro, Jennifer Harper, John McCaslin, Jerry Seper or Bill Sammon? I'm not much of a sports fan anymore, but I always did read it during football season and grew somewhat addicted to some of the post-game features each Monday.

Sure, the Times leans right, as does Fox News and the Wall Street Journal. And the Post, New York Times, CNN, MSNBC, ABC, NBC, CBS, PBS, Time and Newsweek lean to the left. There is no completely objective news outlet. Such a thing, I think, is impossible. The best way to approach a media outlet is to recognize it's bias and view it's stories or articles accordingly. There are few media outlets that I completely exclude from my readership. Use the search feature on this blog and you'll find that I quote liberal news outlets quite often, for they often do good journalism.

Newspapers in general are in decline, and I know I'm not the only one who's lost their local paper. It's unfortunate, but the world moves on. The Times isn't completely going away, but it'll never quite be the same.

Posted by Tom at 10:00 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

October 31, 2009

Why I'm not Posting Much...

The reason for my lack of posting recently is that I've been working very hard in a volunteer capacity to elect conservative Republicans here in Virginia. As the election draws neared it's taken up more and more of my time, and it's at the point now where I spend several hours a day on email alone.

There have been a few dozen posts I've wanted to to put up but just haven't had the time. I'll be back to business as usual on the 4th.

Oh, and the Washington Post has once again confirmed that they're a complete disgrace. i think they're just mad because their candidates are so far down in the polls.

Posted by Tom at 10:24 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

October 12, 2009

How to Win in Afghanistan: Lara Logan

This is a must-watch.

CBS News Chief Foreign Affairs Correspondent Lara Logan speaks with Bob Orr about what will work in Afghanistan and what will not work. She absolutely eviscerates advisers such as Vice-President Biden who think that we can succeed with special forces and airpower. She also takes down those who say that the Taliban aren't a threat to the U.S. or that there are "moderate" Taliban with whom we can negotiate.

The lady knows what she's talking about.

Watch CBS News Videos Online

Principles of Counterinsurgency: What Does and What Does Not Work

I sent this as an email to a friend the other day, but it will serve our purpose here. It represents everything I have learned and posted on this blog over the past two and a half years about how to defeat an insurgency. I cleaned it up a bit but otherwise not much has changed. I'm posting it here because it serves as a nice backdrop to Ms. Logan's comments.

• The key is to protect the population. Unless the people feel secure nothing else is possible.
• You cannot protect the people with a few special forces and certainly not with airpower. It requires regular troops on the ground.
• Once an insurgency has reached a certain point, simply training the indigenous army to do the job won't work.
• Political and economic advancement can only occur after the population is secure.
• The fastest way to lose against an insurgency is the overuse of force. Killing civilians and destroying things turns the people against you, so the counterinsurgents must go out of their way to avoid civilian casualties.
• Relying on airstrikes and raids by special forces does not work.

• The insurgents must not be allowed to have a sanctuary.
• Not all insurgents are equal. Some are hard-core and must be killed or captured, but some are opportunists in it for a few bucks, because they are unemployed and need money to feed their families, or even because their family was threatened if they didn't plant a bomb or two. It is imperative that these individuals be "peeled off" the insurgency and brought into the government - even if they have killed Americans.
• In the beginning, some of the population will be on the side of the insurgents, and some on the side of the government, but most will want to "sit on the fence." The insurgency will succeed if the mass of people continue to sit on the fence. For the counterinsurgents to be successful, they must convince the people that A) the counterinsurgents will win, and B) it is in their interests for the counterinsurgents to win.
• Commanders must become expert in all aspects of the area that they are assigned to. This includes local customs, religions observances, economics, social links between families. They must know every village, road, field, business, and ancient grievance.
• It is vital for the indigenous government to be seen as legitimate by the people. If this is not achieved, the counterinsurgents will not be successful.
• In the end, the people must take charge of their own future.
• In the end, the indigenous army must take over the role of counterinsurgents
• In the end, only political reform can completely end an insurgency.
• No insurgency in modern times has been defeated in less than ten years, so patience is of the essence.
• It may be many years until you can be sure you've won. Insurgencies end with a whimper, not a bang. They aren't like World War II, which ended in dramatic fashion (low-intensity v high-intensity war).

Posted by Tom at 8:45 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

September 22, 2009

Unbelievable Video of Obama Telling ACORN They Will Help Shape His Presidential Agenda

I think that by now everyone in the universe except those in the msm are aware of the videos by James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles and which are posted at Andrew Breitbart's BigGovernment.com exposing ACORN as a criminal organization.

But hey, it's no big deal, we're told, ACORN doesn't mean anything and President Obama only had an indirect relationship with them years ago.

Uh, not exactly. On this video Obama is caught saying ACORN and friends will shape his presidential agenda.

...before I even get inaugurated during the transition we're going to be calling all of you in to help us shape the agenda. We're going to be having meetings all across the country with community organizations so that you have input into the agenda for the next president of the United States of America."

Swell.

Of course, this should be investigated to high heaven, and the WaPo and NYT should be all over it. But they'll yawn and move on because it doesn't suit their agenda.

Posted by Tom at 8:38 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

September 14, 2009

Selective Outrage at the New York Times and Their New Call for "Civil Discourse"

I've written on the selective outrage of the left regarding the issue of when they had no problem calling President Bush a Nazi, but suddenly get all indignant when someone on the right does likewise with Obama. Today, Victor Davis Hanson nails it with regard to the selective outrage of New York Times columnists

Maureen Dowd wrote another unfortunate, poorly argued, and thinly researched column yesterday. She alleges that racism is behind the growing suspicion of the Obama administration and its initiatives. But almost everything we've seen so far has a parallel with liberal attacks on George W. Bush. By 2005, Democrats were booing him openly during his State of the Union address. Rep. Pete Stark called him a liar on the House floor. In fact, the response so far to Obama is mild in comparison to what Bush endured. That does not excuse the boorishness of Joe Wilson, but his tirade is symbolic of our loss of decorum since 2002/2003.

As we all remember, novels were published outlining dreams of killing Bush; a film on that theme won an award. Al Gore, John Glenn (of all people!), and Robert Byrd compared Bush to a brownshirt or Nazi, and they were echoed in the popular culture by the likes of Linda Rondstadt and Garrison Keiler ("brownshirts in pinstripes"). There was no liberal outcry in response.

The Guardian published a sick column by one Charles Brooker, who asked out loud, "John Wilkes Booth, Lee Harvey Oswald, John Hinckley Jr. -- where are you now that we need you?" Howard Dean, head of the Democratic party, raged, "I hate the Republicans and everything they stand for." I think it was The New Republic that published Jonathan Chait's infamous "Why I Hate George W. Bush" article -- imagine the outcry should anyone now do the same reprehensible thing with Obama substituted for Bush (e.g., "Why I Hate Barack H. Obama"). A play ran in New York called "I'm Gonna Kill the President."

Michael Moore was not censured by Democratic grandees for his horrendous comments (such as describing the insurgents in Iraq as modern-day Minutemen), but was instead rewarded with invitations from top Democrats, presumably because he was deemed useful. So far, unhinged Republican senators have not blasted Obama and suggested that our troops are akin to Nazis, terrorists, Khmer Rouge killers, and Baathists (in the manner of Senator Durbin or the late Senator Kennedy).

When an Iraqi threw shoes at President Bush, there was plenty of undisguised delight among liberal columnists and bloggers. I can imagine the response had a Bush-appointed green-jobs czar said that 9/11 was a government inside job, that Democrats were "a--holes," that Obama was like a crackhead, and that black people were more prone to shoot people and pollute. He would be fired on the spot, and his insanities cited as proof of larger social pathologies.

Joe Wilson was boorish and absolutely wrong to have yelled out during a presidential speech. And a few of the signs at Saturday's march in Washington were, like their counterparts on the left during their marches, way over the top. But so far, we have seen in the opposition to Obama none of the hatred and sickness that characterized a wide swath of opinion on the left during the Bush years -- hatred and sickness that were mainstreamed by the likes of Alfred Knopf, the Guardian, and the Democratic party.

So far, the New York Times has not offered a discount to run a politicized ad like "General Betray Us" attacking Obama. I don't remember Ms. Dowd herself complaining about the tone of any the above, but I do recall her own mean-spirited offerings, like her recent silly admission that "In the past week, I've twice been close enough to Dick Cheney to kick him in the shins. . . . I didn't. It's probably a federal crime of some sort. But a girl can fantasize." Write about Obama in the manner Dowd did about Cheney, and one would of course be called a racist. This is all puerile and shameless.

The present poisoned atmosphere began in the 1980s and 1990s with virulent partisan attacks on Reagan and Clinton. But it was between 2004 and 2008 that the Left introduced a particularly sick sort of hatred to the political give-and-take, reminiscent of the lunatic right during the mid-1950s.

So far the opposition to Obama has not followed the Bush-hating exemplar, and let us pray that it does not. But there is a growing public perception that a Left that used every means to achieve its ends is suddenly terrified that others as crass might follow its own unfortunate lead. One of the most surreal developments of the last nine months has been to see Times columnists who were particularly unfair and vicious in their 24/7 attacks on the prior administration now call for more civil discourse and impugn the motives of Obama critics, apparently in bewilderment that anyone would question the president's competence or sincerity. This is all quite amazing, really.

Posted by Tom at 9:16 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

September 7, 2009

Van Jones and the Invisible Mainstream Media

Andrew Breitbart is quickly turning into one of my favorite columnists. I haven't covered the controversy surrounding Van Jones, recently Obama's "Green Jobs" czar, mainly because I don't have the time, but the situation is entirely insane. Here we have a guy who's nuttier than a fruitcake, and it took a radio talk show host like Glenn Beck to expose who he was. Major media outlets like the Washington Post have run story after story on Virginia gubernatorial candidate Bob McDonnell's 20 year old college thesis but can't find time to even take a cursory glance at the people President Obama has appointed (yes McDonnell's thesis is a story. But not at it's obsessive level and not at the expense of completely ignoring appointees like Jones).

I'm not going to bother to set up a series of links to prove it, but from what I can tell almost no one on the left sees a problem with Van Jones. The most I can get was that they see him as a bit ardent but overall not a bad guy, and this whole affair is much ado about nothing. We even see the usual (and boring) charge of "McCarthyism" thrown at people who call him what he is; a communist. The question of how in the world such a person got past the White House vetting process seems to concern no one.

It goes beyond vetting however. Does Barack Obama share Van Jones' philosophy? The former got an undeserved pass on his long association with Jeremiah Wright, and I don't see any media types clamoring to ask the president about the specifics of what he thinks about Jones. More, who in the White House chose Jones and why? What does this say about them? What does this say about an administration that would choose such a person?

But on to Mr Breitbart. From his column today:

Now that White House "Green Jobs Czar" Van Jones has resigned, what's next?

Inevitably, the American mainstream media - ABC, NBC, CBS, the New York Times, the Washington Post, Time, Newsweek, et al - must be held to account for sitting on the sidelines as this major story kept building without them, went viral on YouTube, and then became so large that a key appointee of President Obama was forced to step down.

But with their decision to ignore the Jones story, they may have actually done Mr. Obama far more harm than good: Who vetted this guy? How did he get past the FBI? What did he say, and how did he answer the infamous seven-page questionnaire that all Obama appointees were required to fill out? Inquiring Freedom of Information Act minds want to know.

For most people in this country, the resignation was the first they had heard of Van Jones. For this sin of journalistic omission, there's institutional media blame. Bias is too tame a word for the utter shamelessness on display: Only Republican scandals - real and imagined - matter.

And it's not just those the Democratic-Media Complex dub as "mobs" or "tea baggers" that are taking notice. Diminishing audience and evaporating subscribership reflect widespread consumer dissatisfaction. Eventually, the money will run out.

But until then, the growing alternative media of Internet and talk radio and a burgeoning mass of justifiably angry Americans will make every effort to expose the sham that is mainstream journalism.

Obviously, it's not that the Jones story wasn't newsworthy. His racist rants, his radical background and his membership in a 9/11 "truther" group made for heavy-rotation YouTube viewing that would have immediately destroyed other mere mortals if the shoe were on the right - or white - foot.

Compounding the problem, the Jones narrative hurts Mr. Obama because it underlines how the mainstream media helped elect the president by glorifying him instead of vetting him.

Just as Mr. Obama was not even cursorily investigated, Van Jones, a fellow "community organizer," was not given the slightest media attention when named as an unaccountable "czar" selected to oversee billions in taxpayer money for the ambiguous purpose of "green energy." And that despite having a body of damning evidence that could be found with a single Google search by an ADHD-addled high-school journalism student.

Instead, talk-radio host Glenn Beck and Jim Hoft of Gateway Pundit, as well as Breitbart.tv editors Scott Baker and Liz Stephans, led the charge forcing the mainstream media's hand while the usually reliable George Soros-funded "netroots" media defense mechanism couldn't fend off the growing body of charges.

Calling Mr. Jones' critics "racist" was their best play, and that gruel gets thinner with every passing scandal cycle. In this case, the Jones "Swift Boat" already had left the harbor.

Much of America has started to realize that not only was Mr. Obama not vetted before he became president, he and his fellow unvetted cohorts continue to be given a pass by the Fourth Estate.

Two more stories demonstrate how the Democrat-Media Complex, the natural alliance of the Democratic Party and the mainstream media, is more concerned with trying to figure out how to destroy Glenn Beck - "he's nuts!" - than to follow his methodical, accurate reporting. This dynamic - used against all potent critics and off-the-reservation journalists - shows that not only is the media ignoring all the negative things coming out about the Obama administration, it is acting like President Richard Nixon's henchmen, making life difficult for its whistleblowers.

One of the stories is that ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, a massive radical organization, is poised to receive billions from the Obama "stimulus."

ACORN's voting division is currently under investigation in multiple states for fraud. And its housing division exists to fulfill an unclear mandate that has been accused of using funds to pay for political protests. If the alternative media digs further and finds out ACORN is guilty as charged, and as corrupt as its ample critics say it is, the onus is those who didn't question when the Obama team decided to allocate billions to expand the group's reach.

Brian Williams, the ball is in your court.

Another story not making the evening news is that of artist Patrick Courrielche, who has shown that the National Endowment of the Arts is seeking to use government funds to promote Obama administration initiatives. On Sunday's "This Week," George Will pierced the mainstream media veil.

"Recently there was a conference call arranged by the National Endowment for the Arts, with a representative of the White House, for potential grantees or actual grantees of the federal government, getting subsidies - the theme of it was how the arts community could advance the president's agenda. Now I don't know how many laws that breaks, but I am sure there are some."

What are you waiting for, Katie Couric?

If the mainstream media continues down the path of covering up the sins of the Democratic Party and the Obama administration, in particular, while it continues to exert its still powerful weapons to destroy those who would dare do their jobs for them, then eventually, perhaps in the near future, those "mobs" that have befuddled the Democratic Party at health care town halls and at tea parties will take their pitchforks to media row.

When the next big scandal hits - and it will, and it most certainly won't come from traditional journalism - all eyes will be on "Pinch" Sulzberger to see if he does his job.

All eyes are on the media. We are judging them by the standard they taught us during Watergate: "The cover-up is worse than the crime."

Posted by Tom at 7:23 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

August 17, 2009

Alinsky's Rule 12: Destroy the Individual

RULE 12: Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it." Cut off the support network and isolate the target from sympathy. Go after people and not institutions; people hurt faster than institutions. (This is cruel, but very effective. Direct, personalized criticism and ridicule works.)

Saul Alinsky, Rules for Radicals

Hillary Clinton used to complain about "the politics of personal destruction," but the Republicans of the 1990s had nothing on the radicals of today. Other than the occasional observation by Rush that Chelsea Clinton wasn't going to win any beauty contests, she didn't have to worry about her child or extended family.

But these liberals today are something else. For almost eight years they say that George W. Bush is another Hitler, and then whine when anyone compares their healthcare plan to the German plan under the Nazis. We heard one despicable attack on George W. Bush after another, and all the time the media stayed silent. But anyone says anything about their messiah Obama, or puts up an offensive poster, and you'd think the world had come to an end if you watch the liberal news.

Speaking of news, these liberals can't take any dissent. On the left side of broadcast media you have CNN, MSNBC, ABC, NBC, CBS, and PBS. There's a grand total of one on the right, Fox News, and they can't stand the idea that it even exists. Sure, for decades conservatives have lamented liberal bias in the news. But I never saw the sheer hatred toward any network that I see for Fox. They want it off the air, and over at Democrats.org they're actually getting some companies to drop their advertising.

To this day they attack every single member of Sarah Palin's family with apparent impunity from criticism from the media.

We saw how after the defeat of Proposition 8 in California the brown shirts of the "gay rights" movement attacked Mormons, storming their churches and issuing the most vile slanders and attacks.

Carrie Prejean gave one of the most unoffensive and nice answers I've ever heard to a question on gay marriage, yet was subject to the most vile and insane attacks from everyone from hollywood media types to Keith Olbermann.

Even Anderson Cooper, supposedly a "serious" CNN anchor, made "tea bagging" "jokes" with his guests, referring to a gay sex practice too disgusting for me to explain here.

And all of this is considered quite normal for liberals, from what I can tell. Olbermann and Cooper are still employed at their respective networks.

As Sister Toldjah asked last week, "Since when the hell did the MSM ever give a damn about Hitler comparisons?"

Andrew Breitbart nails all this and more in his column today in The Washington Times, which I am reproducing in it's entirety:

George W. Bush-by-proxy syndrome
Andrew Breitbart

There is an extensive body of writing from both sides of the political aisle that has analyzed the extraordinary depths of hatred leveled at former President George W. Bush.

His birth into a wealthy and politically connected family is where a lot of the animus starts. His rejection of his Connecticut roots and adoption of a rugged Texan persona naturally riled his birth-constituency. His disjointed speaking style also alienated many others - especially those who covered him in the Northeastern media. Naturally, some of his initiatives were controversial. His allies say he didn't do enough.

But all presidents make mistakes, pursue unpopular ideas, possess off-putting personality traits and don't do enough to appeal to their core supporters. Something far more insidious was at work in the hatred of our most recent former president.

Now that Mr. Bush is quietly going about his retirement, this strain of rage - the GWB43 virus - has spread like wildfire, finding unsuspecting targets, each granting us greater perspective into what not long ago seemed like a mysterious phenomenon isolated only on our 43rd president.

The first person to catch the virus was Sarah Palin, whose family also was infected, including, unforgivably, her children.

Then it was Joe the Plumber, for asking a question.

Next were the Mormons.

Then it was Rush Limbaugh - who hit back.

Next, tax-day "tea party" attendees were "tea bagged."

Then there was a beauty contestant.

And a Cambridge cop, too.

And now we have town-hall "mobs."

Smile ... you've been "community organized."

When put on the media stage, these individuals and groups have been isolated for destruction for standing in the way of a resurgent modern progressive movement and for challenging its charismatic once-in-a-lifetime standard-bearer, Barack Obama.

This is their time, we've been told. And no one is going to stand in the way.

The origins of manufactured "politics of personal destruction" is Saul Alinsky, the mentor of a young Hillary Rodham, who wrote her 92-page Wellesley College senior thesis on the late Chicago-based "progressive" street agitator titled, "There Is Only the Fight."

Mr. Obama and his Fighting Illini, Rahm Emanuel and David Axelrod, have perfected Mr. Alinsky's techniques as laid out in his guidebook to political warfare, "Rules for Radicals." In plain language, we see how normal, decent and even private citizens become nationally vilified symbols overnight - all in the pursuit of progressive political victory.

"Rule 12: Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it and polarize it. Cut off the support network and isolate the target from sympathy. Go after people and not institutions; people hurt faster than institutions. (This is cruel, but very effective. Direct, personalized criticism and ridicule works.)"

With the complicity of the mainstream media and abetted by George Soros' money and netroots nation, Mr. Bush never stood a chance.

But the more the virus spreads, the more we study it and, perhaps, find the cure. The repetitive use of the same technique against anyone who would dare stand up and oppose the progressive movement and especially its leader has exposed the game and rendered its tactics less effective.

In fact, one could make the argument that the Republican Party, usually slow on the uptake, has finally figured it out. There are no major Republican targets out there opposing Mr. Obama and his aggressive agenda. The conservative movement appears leaderless, but perhaps for the best.

Maybe that is the strategy: Standing back and letting the Obama machine flail in its pursuit of its next victim.

A grass-roots movement of average Americans has stood up, making it extremely difficult to isolate and demonize an individual.

Mr. Alinsky noted in "Rule 12" that it is difficult to go after "institutions." And attacking "tea baggers" and "mobs" has only created more resistance and drawn attention to the left's limited playbook. Even Americans expressing their constitutionally protected right to free speech are open game.

Now that many people are Googling the Alinsky rule book and catching up with the way Chicago thugs play their political games, Mr. Obama and the Fighting Illini are going to be forced to create new rules - or double down on the old ones.

Worse yet, as his approval ratings descend rapidly - Rasmussen has him at 47 percent, the lowest of his presidency - angry citizens may be turning the tables on him, using Mr. Alinsky against him.

They won't have to "freeze" and "personalize" him either. He's got 3 1/2 years left with the klieg lights focused on him. And if Mr. Obama can't get the economy rolling and continues to demonize everyday folks for his failures, he will be further isolated from sympathy and even ridiculed.

Yes, it's cruel - and effective.

Ask Mr. Bush, the magnanimous guy who gave the new president a heartfelt hug the day he took office. He knows.

Boy, I wish I could see his famous smirk right about now. I always loved how much they hated that.

The Democrats made a classic error after the last election by overestimating their mandate. A majority of voters wanted the Republicans out, and thought they'd give the Democrats a chance. But they didn't buy into the entire socialist-left Democrat agenda, and they're finding this out the hard way now.

In the end, I think Andrew might be right; the left has overplayed it's hand. The American people are waking up and we're seeing it at the town halls. More, the town halls are showing that liberal-left tactics of intimidation aren't working anymore.

Posted by Tom at 9:30 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

August 15, 2009

The "Nazi/president" Selective Outrage of the Left

Sister Toldjah asks

Since when the hell did the MSM ever give a damn about Hitler comparisons?

If you're like me, you're pretty disgusted and close to nauseous over hearing the repeated "outrage" from the mainstream mediots about the alleged comparisons the "mobsters" at the ObamaCare town halls are making between Hitler and Obama. Ever since Pelosi's "swastika" crack, the MSM (and their cohorts at far left liberal blogs) have been scouring town halls across the country looking for any evidence whatsoever of signs made by alleged "conservative mobsters" featuring swastikas and/or images of Hitler and Obama together, in desperate attempts to prove how diehard conservatives have supposedly "lost it" over Obama and thus should be ignored when it comes to the discussion and debate over ObamaCare.

As the sister relates, it was Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer started all this earlier this week when she called critics of Obama's health care plan "un-American, and even accused them of "carrying swastikas and symbols like that" to meetings.

Liberals also have their panties on a wad over comments Rush Limbaugh made, and pull out the "how dare anyone call Obama a socialist!" meme.

Oh the outrage. Nevermind that Rush didn't say Obama was equivalent to Hitler or Pelosi Himmler. What he said was that socialist health care in Germany was started by Bismark and completed by the Nazis, and that the Democrats are doing the same thing. Historically he's right. But whether you like that or not, these same liberals weren't so outraged during years of "Bushitler" hate.

Like, oh, this one via Michelle Malkin:

Or these, which you can find simply by googling for "Bushitler" while set on "images:

Not to mention this video of protesters with Bush-Nazi signs at Bush's second inauguration

Recall any outrage over this?

Zombietime has about a zillion photos of Bush-as-Hitler from various leftist protests. Where was the media outrage then?

For that matter, I've seen tons of Bush-the-Nazi signs in every anti-war protest I observed in Washington DC over the past four years. Pictures are all over the internet.

Now, I'll never say that conservatives are saints. Too many buy into the Barack Obama birth certificate nonsense. And when we actly badly it is reported gleefully by the press. All we're asking for is some even-handedness.

Bill Sammon of Fox News relates how the press ignored these constant references to Bush as Hitler:

News outlets that are focusing on the incendiary rhetoric of conservatives outside President Obama's town hall meeting Tuesday ignored the incendiary rhetoric -- and even violence -- of liberals outside an appearance by former President George W. Bush in 2002.

When Bush visited Portland, Ore., for a fundraiser, protesters stalked his motorcade, assailed his limousine and stoned a car containing his advisers. Chanting "Bush is a terrorist!", the demonstrators bullied passers-by, including gay softball players and a wheelchair-bound grandfather with multiple sclerosis.

One protester even brandished a sign that seemed to advocate Bush's assassination. The man held a large photo of Bush that had been doctored to show a gun barrel pressed against his temple.

"BUSH: WANTED, DEAD OR ALIVE," read the placard, which had an X over the word "ALIVE."

Another poster showed Bush's face with the words: "F--- YOU, MOTHERF---ER!"

A third sign urged motorists to "HONK IF YOU HATE BUSH." A fourth declared: "CHRISTIAN FASCISM," with a swastika in place of the letter S in each word.

Although reporters from numerous national news organizations were traveling with Bush and witnessed the protest, none reported that protesters were shrieking at Republican donors epithets like "Slut!" "Whore!" and "Fascists!"

Frank Dulcich, president and CEO of Pacific Seafood Group, had a cup of liquid thrown into his face, and then was surrounded by a group of menacing protesters, including several who wore masks. Donald Tykeson, 75, who had multiple sclerosis and was confined to a wheelchair, was blocked by a thug who threatened him.

Protesters slashed the tires of several state patrol cruisers and leapt onto an occupied police car, slamming the hood and blocking the windshield with placards. A female police officer was knocked to the street by advancing protesters, badly injuring her wrist.

The angry protest grew so violent that the Secret Service was forced to take the highly unusual step of using a backup route for Bush's motorcade because the primary route had been compromised by protesters, one of whom pounded his fist on the president's moving limousine.

All the while, angry demonstrators brandished signs with incendiary rhetoric, such as "9/11 - YOU LET IT HAPPEN, SHRUB," and "BUSH: BASTARD CHILD OF THE SUPREME COURT." One sign read: "IMPEACH THE COURT-APPOINTED JUNTA AND THE FASCIST, EGOMANIACAL, BLOOD-SWILLING BEAST!"

Yet none of these signs were cited in the national media's coverage of the event. By contrast, the press focused extensively on over-the-top signs held by Obama critics at the president's town hall event held Tuesday in New Hampshire.

The lead story in Wednesday's Washington Post, for example, is headlined: "Obama Faces 'Scare Tactics' Head-On."

"As the president spoke, demonstrators outside held posters declaring him a socialist and dubbing him 'Obamahdinejad,' in reference to Iran's president," the Post reported. "People screamed into bullhorns to protest a bigger government role in health care. 'Nobama Deathcare!' one sign read. A young girl held up a sign that said: 'Obama Lies, Grandma Dies.' Images of a protester wearing what appeared to be a gun were shown on television."

On Sunday, The New York Times reported that a Democratic congressman discovered that "an opponent of health care reform hanged him in effigy" and was confronted by "200 angry conservatives." The article lamented "increasingly ugly scenes of partisan screaming matches, scuffles, threats and even arrests."

No such coverage was given to the Portland protest of Bush by The New York Times or the Washington Post, which witnessed the protest.

But if anyone shows up at a conservative protest with one sign that's out of place, and the media and liberal politicians go nuts.

Sorry, but I'm having a hard time taking the liberal outrage seriously.

Posted by Tom at 9:00 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

June 12, 2009

The Sweet Vulgarity of David Letterman

I never really did like David Letterman, and here's more confirmation as to why:

What a guy.

Can you imagine him saying these things about Barack Obama or Joe Biden's daughters? Neither can I.

And he wouldn't say those things because he'd be driven off TV if he did. He'd never work again in Hollywood. But Sarah Palin, she's fair game for the most vulgar attacks .

This in the same way that Carrie Prejean was fair game for the most vile insults, even though her position on gay marriage mirrors that of Barack Obama and Joe Biden precisely.

Of course all this created a huge firestorm. And so of course Letterman issued a non-apology:

Victor Davis Hanson has the best response:

Smug, hip David Letterman offered a smirky non-apology about his ongoing class and sexist slurs against the Palins, his apparent social inferiors.

"We were, as we often do, making jokes about people in the news and we made some jokes about Sarah Palin and her daughter, the 18-year-old girl, who is -- her name is Bristol, that's right, and so, then, now they're upset with me . . ."

"These are not jokes made about her 14-year-old daughter. I would never, never make jokes about raping or having sex of any description with a 14-year-old girl. I mean, look at my record. It has never happened. I don't think it's funny. I would never think it was funny. I wouldn't put it in a joke..."

Examine the logic. First, Letterman makes a gutter joke about Palin and her unnamed 14-year-old daughter attending a NY Yankees game. Then when a bit of outrage follows, he apparently claims he really meant to slur the other 18-year-old daughter who, back in Alaska, of course did not attend the game but was not named by Letterman. That would be okay, you see.

Second, then he evokes the now common straw man "they" who are apparently "upset" with him, hoping to play the victim card. Then he dribbles out something about his "last show" as if we are to weep that some mob is out to silence him. (But the reason he picked the Palins, and not the Obamas, Gores, Bidens, or Kerrys, was precisely because he knew it would not equate to his "last show").

Third, he strangely amplifies his joke by confessing it really was about "raping" and "having sex of any description," but just not with a "14-year-old girl," suggesting it would have been okay had he just been more explicit and named Bristol, the 18-year-old. In Letterman's world, because Bristol is 18, she is a year past most statuary rape clauses and thus the joke would have only been about "raping or having sex of any description with a [18-year-old] girl."

Nothing offered about his slurs against airline attendants and Governor Palin herself, when he sneered that she had a "slutty flight-attendant look," or his remark that Palin "was keeping Eliot Spitzer away from her daughter."

The self-serving, creepy apology was as bad as the initial slur. Letterman is emblematic of an aging, baby-boomer culture, that dresses up street vulgarity with a tie and coat. The only thing that saves him is his care to do this with the Palins from Alaska who don't figure into the usual no-go race/class/gender paradigm.

We know the type, don't we? We've all met them; they dress well and have good office jobs that pay good money. Speak to them in the office and they appear decent enough. But hang out with them for ten minutes outside of work and suddenly a new person emerges. Vulgarities emerge that can be quite shocking. Letterman is of that sort, but he does it on the job. Either way, it's pathetic.

Posted by Tom at 7:30 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

June 10, 2009

Our Glorious Media

Newsweek editor Evan Thomas on President Obama:

TWS has the transcript

MATTHEWS:...Evan, you remember '84. It wasn't 100 years ago. Reagan and World War II and the sense of us as the good guys in the world, how are we doing?

EVAN THOMAS: Well, we were the good guys in 1984, it felt that way. It hasn't felt that way in recent years. So Obama's had, really, a different task We're seen too often as the bad guys. And he - he has a very different job from - Reagan was all about America, and you talked about it. Obama is 'we are above that now.' We're not just parochial, we're not just chauvinistic, we're not just provincial. We stand for something - I mean in a way Obama's standing above the country, above - above the world, he's sort of God.

MATTHEWS: Yeah.

Newsbusters reminds us that when George W. Bush was President Thomas had a different view of his job:

Gordon Peterson: "What do you think, Evan? Are the mainstream media bashing the president unfairly?"

Evan Thomas: "Well, our job is to bash the president, that's what we do almost --"

My, how times change.

Peter Wehner does the ultimate takedown:
These comments reveal several notable things.

The first is that it is now impossible to mock the media's adoration for Obama. In the past, if conservatives had said that MSM commentators viewed Obama as God, people would have assumed they were exaggerating in order to make a point. But in this instance, there is no exaggeration; Thomas stated that Obama is "sort of God." It appears as if in their unguarded moments, Thomas and those like him really do view Obama as the Anointed One, a political Messiah, not only a gift from heaven but the Creator of Heaven and Earth.

Keep in mind that Thomas is viewed as a serious journalist for what was once seen as a serious mainstream publication: Newsweek. Now Newsweek long ago set aside any pretense of objectivity when it came to Obama; every week it takes up palm branches for him. Still, it is a bit jarring to see the bias so obvious, so up front, so proudly out in the open. In that respect, Thomas's comments are useful; they reveal a cast of mind that no one can now deny.

No political figure in modern American history has been so adored by the press. JFK came closest -- but even he was not deified, even in death. The depth and intensity of the passion for Obama among the press is something young children need to be shielded from.

A second thing to note in Thomas's comments is his assertion that "we [the United States] were the good guys in 1984, it felt that way." Well, it might have felt that way to many conservatives. But to many liberals, it was actually something very nearly the opposite. It's worth reminding those on the Left with selective memories that Reagan was mocked and ridiculed as a dangerous figure, trigger-happy, a war-monger, reckless and provocative. His support for the Nicaraguan contras, his build-up of America's defense, the installation of Cruise and Pershing missiles in Europe to counteract the Soviet deployment of SS-20s, and Reagan's talk about the Soviet Union as an "evil empire" unnerved and infuriated liberals.

"I wonder how many people, reading about the ["evil empire"] speech or seeing bits on television, really noticed its outrageous character," Anthony Lewis wrote in the New York Times in March 1983. "Primitive: that is the only word for it. ... What is the world to think when the greatest of powers is led by a man who applies to the most difficult human problem a simplistic theology -- one in fact rejected by most theologians?... What must the leaders of Western Europe think of such a speech? They look to the head of the alliance for rhetoric that can persuade them and their constituents. What they get from Ronald Reagan is a mirror image of crude Soviet rhetoric. And it is more than rhetoric: everyone must sense that. The real Ronald Reagan was speaking in Orlando. The exaggeration and the simplicities are there not only in the rhetoric but in the process by which he makes decisions."

Commentators like Lewis and magazines like Newsweek had contempt for Reagan's approach; it is only now, after history has vindicated him, that we're supposed to believe we all supported Reagan and that Americans were seen as "the good guys."

A third important thing to take away from Thomas's comments is why Obama is so beloved by some reporters and commentators. Reagan, Thomas says, was "all about America." But Obama is "above that now." He is "standing above the country" he was elected to represent. And in doing so, we're not just "parochial, we're not just chauvinistic, we're not just provincial."

That is an extremely and probably unintentionally revealing set of comments by Mr. Thomas. For the president to speak on behalf of his nation as Reagan spoke up for America is viewed as unsophisticated, narrow-minded, and bigoted. Obama, in the eyes of his supporters, has transcended such things. According to the logic of Thomas, Obama deserves to be praised precisely because he does not, in the first instance, represent America. At his best, Obama is a "citizen of the world," standing "above the country."

Some of us have a different, quainter notion of such things. We believe America is, in the words of Lincoln, an "inestimable jewel" -- an imperfect and extraordinary nation that deserves our affection and deepest attachment. We believe, as Lincoln and the founders did, that the fate of this republic is inextricably tied to the principles upon which it was founded. We actually do not want our President to "stand above the country." And we do not believe it is particularly sophisticated to disparage as chauvinistic and provincial those who speak up for her. Nor, I might add, do we view Obama as "sort of God," or anything close to God. The fact that Evan Thomas and those who view the world as he does, do see Obama in supernatural terms tells you everything you need to know, and probably nothing you didn't know.

Ditto that.

Posted by Tom at 9:02 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

December 26, 2008

Obamamania - Soft Porn from the Washington Post

Yesterday I spent a wonderful Christmas Day with family. Then, sometime after opening gifts my brother showed me this story in the Washington Post:

As Duties Weigh Obama Down, His Faith in Fitness Only Increases

By Eli Saslow
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, December 25, 2008; Page A01

Being elected president forces a man to take inventory of his life, so Barack Obama has trimmed his schedule to the bare essentials. He's not in the White House yet, but gone are the hours he once spent reading novels, watching television and obsessing over the daily transactions of Chicago's sports teams. He eats out only once every few weeks. He visits friends rarely, if at all.

But one habit endures: Obama has gone to the gym, for about 90 minutes a day, for at least 48 days in a row. He always has treated exercise less as recreation than requirement, but his devotion has intensified during the past few months. Between workouts during his Hawaii vacation this week, he was photographed looking like the paradigm of a new kind of presidential fitness, one geared less toward preventing heart attacks than winning swimsuit competitions. The sun glinted off chiseled pectorals sculpted during four weightlifting sessions each week, and a body toned by regular treadmill runs and basketball games.

There is a term for this, and it's "soft porn."

Note that this was a page 1 story, with the section quoted on the front page. Below the fold, but page 1.

It is good that we have a president who keeps himself in shape. It lessens the chance that he will die or become disabled in office. It's also a positive example for the rest of us. Further, I go to the gym three days a week when I can (although I've hurt my knee so am staying away for a few weeks).

Bu this "sun glinted off chiseled pectorals" business is messiah cult-of-personality worship. One doesn't comment this way on someone's body, at least not publically, and certainly not in a news story. It is weird and it is creepy.

Democrats cannot at once complain that the right is not respectful of our new president (ok, president-elect) and turn their heads at this type of story. Conservatives can often go too far with the Reagan this, Reagan that, and "what would Reagan do," . We've also seen it with John F Kennedy. But in the end there is just no comparison to what we're seeing today with Obama.

The rest of the story isn't any better. A few more excerpts:

"He does it every day like clockwork," said Marty Nesbitt, one of Obama's closest friends from Chicago. "He doesn't think of it as something he has to do -- it's his time for himself, a chance for him to reflect. It's his break. He feels better and more revved up after he gets in his workout." ...

Ubermenschen Obama!

"That's one of the first things you learn working for him: You better make sure he gets his workout," said Jim Cauley, who managed Obama's 2004 U.S. Senate campaign. "If there isn't any time, he's not going to feel his best that day. If he only gets 30 or 40 minutes, he's still not really happy.

His physical prowess exceeds that of the average human!

"It's something he takes seriously, and that's why he's in great shape," said Alexi Giannoulias, a friend of Obama's and a former professional basketball player. "When people picture him running or whatever, they might think he's just going through the motions. But he goes hard. He's fit. He could convince you he's half his age."

Age does not affect him as it does others!

Even Obama's closest friends said they marvel at how he has maintained his commitment.

He even amazes his friends, who no doubt are used to being amazed!

For the small group of reporters tasked with following Obama's every move, his fitness has become a running joke repeated in the stories they file. They sit at McDonald's while he exercises in Hawaii. They eat calorie-rich scones while he sweats at Regents Park. One reporter for the Christian Science Monitor, filing his report about one of the president-elect's gym trips last month, noted: "While Mr. Obama worked at maintaining his lithe look, your pear-shaped pooler spent quality time at a local coffee shop."

The reporters are amazed!

Obama still suffers from one vice -- smoking -- although he has worked hard to quit since he started the presidential campaign. He's down from three or four cigarettes each day to what he terms the occasional "slip."

He is working to eliminate his one small vice with a will of steel!

Oh my heavens. I thought I'd seen a lot but this story just about takes the cake. This Eli Saslow has a man-crush on Obama that is embarrassing.

One can say none of this is Obama's fault, as he neither wrote the story nor has issued any press releases about "chiseled pectorals." But neither has he dissuaded anyone from writing this type of story. Indeed, as Mark Levin pointed out a few months ago, it's just this cult worship that "his campaign has carefully and successfully fabricated."

This is cult-of-personality stuff. It's the type of thing we used to see about the great dictators of the 20th century; not only did they espouse great ideas and were great leaders, their personal qualities exceeded those of their subjects. Any faults are minimized and they are working successfully to overcome them.

I am not saying that Obama is or wants to be a dictator. But it's getting hard to deny that the cult of personality that is building up around him does bear similarities to what we saw during the last century.

The symbols created of him are cultish: the Obama "O" sign, the special Obama flag and presidential seal, the weird picture that I've seen in all sizes, one at least 8 feet tall:

There are all of the songs sung to Obama, some by children, some by adults, one by kids in camouflage marching military style.

All of this has got to stop.

One more thing. If his duties are weighing him down, how it it that he's on vacation and going to the gym 90 minutes a day? Didn't George Bush get in trouble when he went or stayed on vacation during a time of national emergency? I thought we had a financial crisis going on. Oh that's right, he is Ubermenschen, who will unite and save us all. He can do all this and more while on vacation and going to the gym regularly. And don't you dare say otherwise.

Sunday Update

Michelle Malkin points out media hypocrisy in comparing how journalists treated George W Bush's workouts with how they treat Obama:

...For adoring journalists, you see, Obama's workout fanaticism demonstrates his discipline and balance in his life. Apparently, what's good for Obama's glistening pecs is good for the country. Zaslow quoted Obama Chicago crony Marty Nesbitt, who offered this diagnosis: "He doesn't think of it as something he has to do -- it's his time for himself, a chance for him to reflect. It's his break. He feels better and more revved up after he gets in his workout."...

Former Washington Post writer Jonathan Chait famously attacked Bush three years ago in an opinion piece for the Los Angeles Times headlined, "The (over)exercise of power." Recounting how President Bush ran 3 1/2 miles a day and preached more cross-training to a federal judge, Chait fumed: "Am I the only person who finds this disturbing?...What I mean is the fact that Bush has an obsession with exercise that borders on the creepy."

Chait argued that Bush's passionate devotion to exercise was a dereliction of duty. "Does the leader of the free world need to attain that level of physical achievement?" he jeered. "It's nice for Bush that he can take an hour or two out of every day to run, bike or pump iron. Unfortunately, most of us have more demanding jobs than he does."

Can you imagine any member of the Obamedia mocking the incoming gym rat-in-chief this way?

No.

Posted by Tom at 1:00 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

November 9, 2008

Affleck Parodies Olbermann

Ben Affleck captures Keith Olbermann perfectly in this SNL skit. Wherever you are on the political spectrum I think you'll find it hilarious. What's ironic is that Affleck probably agrees with him on most of the issues.

Posted by Tom at 9:22 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

October 19, 2008

Joe Biden, Sarah Palin, Dan Quayle, and When a Gaffe is not a Gaffe

Oct 20: Updated at bottom with today's Biden gaffe

And to think that they crucified Dan Quayle because he spelled "potato" wrong.

Unless they do the same to Joe Biden, the media and late night talk-show hosts who made so much fun Dan Quayle need to send him a letter of apology.

Anyone who follows politics knows that Senator Biden is a walking gaffe machine. Consider this small collection of his wit and wisdom:

If you're not sure, Roosevelt was not president when the stock market crashed and TV hadn't been invented in 1929.

And then we have his debate with Alaska Governor Sarah Palin:

" When we kicked -- along with France, we kicked Hezbollah out of Lebanon, I said and Barack said, "Move NATO forces in there. Fill the vacuum, because if you don't know -- if you don't, Hezbollah will control it."

Now what's happened? Hezbollah is a legitimate part of the government in the country immediately to the north of Israel."

Huh?

"Pakistan already has nuclear weapons. Pakistan already has deployed nuclear weapons. Pakistan's weapons can already hit Israel and the Mediterranean."

Pakistani missiles barely have the range to get halfway to Israel, much less hit anything in the Mediterranean.

We could go on and on listing Biden's gaffes, see here and here for material. Joe Biden says stupid things every single week. The man is an absolute walking gaffe machine. But listing them is not my purpose, and would take too long.

The True Story of the Potato

Did you know that the reporters who were in the room with Quayle when he misspelled "potato" didn't know how it was spelled either? It's true. Not only that, but the school had prepared flash cards with the words that were used in the spelling exercise, and the one for the word in question had it spelled as "potatoe"

Bet you didn't know that, either.

In fact, when Quayle noticed the discrepancy between the flash card and the way the student spelled it, he showed the card to the other adults standing with him, and they nodded in agreement that the student had spelled it wrong.

That little fact wasn't reported by the media either.

The true story of what happened can be found in many places, but perhaps the most comprehensive is by Quayle himself in his 1994 memoir Standing Firm. He devotes an entire chapter to the incident.

I'm not going to do a book review here, but suffice it to say that if you think that Quayle uses the book as an opportunity to settle scores, lash out at the media, or engage in bitter "I didn't deserve it," you'll be disappointed. Quayle is the opposite of the stereotypical politician; humble, candid, and amazingly hard on himself.

When Is a Gaffe not a Gaffe?

So why is it that Joe Biden does not suffer the same fate as Dan Quayle? Why is it that Sarah Palin is seemingly held to a higher standard than other Biden? These are not easy questions to answer, but let me take a shot at it.

One is simply how you look and come across. Joe Biden looks and sounds like a senator or professor. He also looks his age. Dan Quayle has a boyish look that chronological age will never wear away. Sarah Palin sounds like a midwestern "everywoman," and makes no attempt to act or talk Washingtonese.

Another is how you handle the aftermath. Quayle admits that he screwed up the press briefing that immediately followed the incident. At this point neither Quayle or anyone in his entourage knew anything was amis (recall that no one in the room challenged the "e" and many thought it correct). When a reporter slyly asked "so how do you spell "potato" again?" he should have realized his earlier mistake and made a joke about it. Unfortunately, he was caught off guard and unsure what the reporter was talking about. It was this "deer in the headlights" part of the incident that made a small mistake into a career defining event more than the incident itself.

All this, remember, according to Quayle himself. I told you he was hard on himself in the book.

The media is on the lookout for anything Sarah Palin might say that is slightly wrong. Rest assured that if she said that "jobs" was a three letter word it would be the subject of late-night jokes for the rest of her life.

Biden, on the other hand, seems to skate along making gaffe after gaffe without anyone other than us nasty right-wing bloggers seeming to care. There is no aftermath for him to deal with because most of the press simply ignore his gaffes.

Therefore, another part of the reason for the disparity of treatment is that Joe Biden is a liberal and Dan Quayle and Sarah Palin are conservatives. The media and comics are overwhelmingly liberal and use their platforms to push their cause, and this means highlighting gaffes by people they don't like and ignoring those of people they do like.

So in the end, I conclude that there are three reasons for the disparity in treatment. Not in order of importance, they are: Image and how you present yourself, how you handle the aftermath, and media bias.

Monday Evening Update

No sooner do I write the above post than Senator Biden proves the case. Via ABC News (H/T NRO)

"Mark my words," the Democratic vice presidential nominee said at a Seattle fundraiser Sunday, "it will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy. The world is looking. We're about to elect a brilliant 47-year-old senator president of the United States of America. Remember I said it standing here if you don't remember anything else I said. Watch, we're gonna have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy."

Wait a second. I thought that with the ascendancy of The One the rest of the world would all like us again? Isn't that why we are supposed to elect him?

But now "the world" will test Obama with an "international crisis, a generated crisis"? Why would they generate a crisis, if he's the one we've all been waiting for?

But wait, it gets better. Biden continues:

"I can give you at least four or five scenarios from where it might originate," Biden said, including the Middle East and Russia as possibilities, "and he's gonna need help. And the kind of help he's gonna need is, he's gonna need you - not financially to help him - we're gonna need you to use your influence, your influence within the community, to stand with him. Because it's not gonna be apparent initially, it's not gonna be apparent that we're right."

What in the world does that "not gonna be apparent initially...that we're right" bit mean? That he's going to screw it up initially?

Don't leave me yet, there's more:

"Gird your loins," Biden told the crowd. "We're gonna win with your help, God willing, we're gonna win, but this is not gonna be an easy ride."

Do what?

The garrulous Biden...

or rather, "The blithering idiot"

...said that he's "forgotten more about foreign policy than most of my colleagues know, so I'm not being falsely humble with you."

Oh yes that was certainly humble of you.

"I think I can be value added, but this guy(Obama) has it. This guy has it. But he's gonna need your help. Because I promise you, you all are gonna be sitting here a year from now going, 'Oh my God, why are they there in the polls? Why is the polling so down? Why is this thing so tough?' We're gonna have to make some incredibly tough decisions in the first two years. So I'm asking you now, I'm asking you now, be prepared to stick with us. Remember the faith you had at this point because you're going to have to reinforce us.""

Or maybe he'll be down in the polls because people will come to their senses and realize that he has no idea how to handle international crises, and that his blithering idiot of a vice president is of no help whatsoever.

Posted by Tom at 8:45 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

August 2, 2008

Rush at Twenty

Today marks twenty years of Rush Limbaugh's radio show. I offer him my sincere and heartfelt congratulations.

I remember the first time I heard of Rush. It was a few months before the Gulf War, and I was driving to a sales call. I heard another commentator on a radio show remark that WMAL 630AM had started to carry this revolutionary broadcaster, someone whose style was completely at odds with the type of programming normally heard on the station. I heard mention that this new guy was a - gasp - conservative.

Intrigued, the next day (or later that day, I forget) I tuned in and got my first taste of Limbaugh. I was immediately hooked and have listened to him when I can ever since.

I am not the one to write the history of AM or talk radio, but it's no news to anyone that Rush revolutionized the dial. AM was said to be a dying medium. A few years earlier, while working at Radio Shack, for a short time we carried an AM stereo receiver, as there were tentative plans to save that spectrum by introducing stereo. It didn't take any great genius to figure out that static in stereo was no great benefit, but I guess they were desperate.

Then along came Rush and everything changed.

I remember reading William F Buckley Jr's account of when he first heard Rush; "I couldn't believe that such a thing was allowed." After years of either bland or left-leaning radio, that a such a talented conservative could go on the air and mock liberals in such an entertaining way was almost too much to believe.

Liberals were stunned. They didn't know how to handle this new phenomenon.

Many others have followed Rush, but none have been able to match his popularity. It is a tribute to his skill and talent that after so many years he has consistently maintained the number one position among radio talk show hosts. Often it is that the pioneer is eclipsed by someone who arrives on the scene a short time later. Not so with Rush.

His detractors in the media try to dismiss him by saying that he is simply an entertainer, while they, sniff, are journalists. What they miss is that Rush Limbaugh and other radio talk show hosts are neither journalists nor entertainers; they are something new under the sun. It speaks to their narrow thinking that they are unable to conceive of anything other than "journalist" or "entertainer."

Again and again the left has thought it has found its own Rush Limbaugh. Their list of failures is long; Mario Cuomo, Jim Bohanon, and Al Franken, just to name a few. Air America fails while Rush continues to enjoy stratospheric ratings.

It is the very success of "el Rushbo" that has driven liberals to resurrect the Fairness Doctrine, which is not called the "hush Rush" bill for nothing. Liberal hosts fail time and again, and driven to fits of rage, the only thing they can think of is to change the rules.

That they want to do this is no big surprise. The left has tried to get him off the air from day one. The liberal group Media Matters apparently spends much of its time monitoring all conservative talk show hosts in an attempt to catch them saying something that they deem inappropriate, and then create a media campaign to have that person removed from the airwaves. If you can't join 'em, beat 'em down.

I wish Rush Limbaugh the very best in all that he does. I'm sure he'll remain #1 on the radio.

Update: President George W Bush just called in to congratulate Rush! Also on the line were George H.W. Bush and Jeb Bush. While it's hard to call any of the Bush's true conservatives, it speaks to his influence that the President of the United States, an ex-President, and an ex-Governor would call him at the start of his show.

Posted by Tom at 12:15 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

December 20, 2007

Person of the Year - General David Petraeus

Since TIME did the wrong thing by awarding it's Person of the Year to Vladimir Putin, I'm going to do my small part to make up for it.

The Redhunter hereby awards it's first Person of the Year award to

General David Petraeus

At least TIME made him a runner-up. And, to be fair, the jury is still out on whether his new strategy will ultimately succeed, something Petraeus admits in the story.

Further, in my attempt to give TIME every benefit of the doubt, they do make it clear that

Person of the Year is not and never has been an honor. It is not an endorsement. It is not a popularity contest. At its best, it is a clear-eyed recognition of the world as it is and of the most powerful individuals and forces shaping that world—for better or for worse. It is ultimately about leadership—bold, earth-changing leadership

That's fine. I just don't agree that Putin was the most influential person of the year. At least they didn't sucumb to the narcissism of last year, when they made "you" the winner.

Certainly by October of last year, with the failure of General Casey's Baghdad Security Plan (Operation Together Forward), it was ever more painfully clear that what we were doing was failing. By December, even I was calling for Generals Abizaid and Casey to be replaced. Like our president, I'd stuck with them for far too long.

The political situation at home had seriously deteriorated. The elections had dealt the Republicans a huge loss, with both houses of Congress going to the Democrats. While the war was only one of several issues, it was an important one, and Bush finally got the message.

The new plan for Iraq was drafted by a variety of people, and I'm not sure I have the entire story straight, but in the end the best plan will not work unless the right person is in charge.

Then Lt Gen Petraeus had spent most of 2006 editing the U.S. Army/Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual. This book has been the "bible" of our troops who are charged with executing what was termed the "surge" plan.

It took almost six months to get the 5 new "surge" brigades into place, but kinetic operations kicked off June 15 with the start of Operation Phantom Thunder.

We have since seen a dramatic turnaround in Iraq. Violence is down throughout the country. Al Qaeda, the greatest threat to stability, is on the ropes.

Much remains to be done, and even the most optimistic generals caution that "the progress that we've made thus far is fragile and not guaranteed."

True enough, but it is also accurate, I think, to say that without Petraeus and the new plan we'd only be talking about pulling out of Iraq today. By late 2006 the situation was untenable, and the public at the end of it's rope. General David Petraeus has given Iraq a chance for success.

It's more than that, though. Failure in Iraq would have had been devastating to all people around the world who care about liberty. Anti-war types delude themselves by thinking that it would only be a defeat for the Bush/neo-con/Republicans. It is vital that we win, and as such must pursue victory until all reasonable hope is lost.

For all these reasons and more, General David Petraeus is my Person of the Year.

Posted by Tom at 7:50 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack

June 29, 2007

Quote of the Century

Michael Ledeen says this is the quote of the century, and it's hard to disagree with him other than to ask why we should limit it to one century

It appears we have appointed our worst generals to command forces, and our most gifted and brilliant to edit newspapers! In fact, I discovered by reading newspapers that these editor/geniuses plainly saw all my strategic defects from the start, yet failed to inform me until it was too late. Accordingly, I'm readily willing to yield my command to these obviously superior intellects, and I'll, in turn, do my best for the cause by writing editorials - after the fact.

Robert E. Lee, 1863

Posted by Tom at 8:25 AM | Comments (5) | TrackBack

March 25, 2007

When All Else Fails, Blame American Capitalism

This morning I'm flipping through the paper, and come across an AP article titled "Youngsters in Britain Seen as Menace to Society". Ok, I think, another article about how the country is going to pot. More about crime, juvenile delinquency, and the general decay of manners.

And that's pretty much how the story started out. Pretty soon, however, the political correctness started in. The Institute for Public Policy Research, described as "center-left", decided that it's all the fault of the complainers, terming it all "pedophobia". "There has always been a culture in Britain that's a bit anti-children," said one of the researchers.

Standard stuff, however regrettable. Then came this:

Britain's poor performance may be one of the downsides of the country's embrace of American-style free-market competition -- a move that has unleashed enormous economic energy since the 1980s, but widened inequalities and left many without a safety net.

I had another drink of coffee to make sure I wasn't dreaming.

So it's American-style capitalism then, that has caused all these poor "youths" go commit crimes? A lack of welfare checks causes them to join gangs?

You don't have to have all of the figures in front of you to know that Western countries have been spending more and more on the social welfare "safety net" and less and less on the military. I recall some figures recently published in the Washington Times in which during most of the Cold War the United States spent 8-10% of GDP on its military, and the UK over 5%. Today the US is at 4% and the UK 2.3%. During the height of the Cold War in the 1950s and 60s 50% of the Federal budget went to the military. Today it's 19%. I'm sure the figures are similar for the UK.

No safety net? What do people like Jill Lawless and the people at the Institute for Public Policy Research think the rest of the money was spent on?

Posted by Tom at 9:10 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

October 29, 2006

Correcting The Record

Stung by what they believe to be factually inaccurate reporting in the media, the Department of Defense is fighting back. There is a new section on the Defenselink website called For The Record devoted to challenging press accounts of recent events.

Here is a recent entry:

The New York Times on “Real Terrorists” A “lighthearted” matter?

Oct. 27, 2006 —This week’s exchange with the New York Times isn’t the first time the Department of Defense has expressed concern about inaccuracies in a Times editorial.

A September 7 editorial (“A Sudden Sense of Urgency”) asserted that, with the transfer of 14 high-value terrorist suspects to Cuba, “President Bush finally has some real terrorists in Guantánamo Bay.” In fact, those held prior to the transfer included personal bodyguards of Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda recruiters, trainers, and facilitators. Another individual held at Guantánamo was Mohamed al-Kahtani, believed to be the intended 20th hijacker on September 11th.

The Times declined to issue a correction, noting that “the phrase in question was meant to be somewhat lighthearted in tone and not literal.”

Read the full exchange here.

Read the full exchange here.

I say good for the Department of Defense. We're in an information war, and unfortunaly many in the press have acted quite irresponsibly and deserve to be challenged.

Posted by Tom at 8:58 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

October 28, 2006

Hanson Demolishes the Washington Punditry

Via Instupundit, here's Victor Davis Hanson on the chattering class:

Watching and reading the recent Washington punditry, whether in print or on television, is a depressing spectacle. Almost all—Charles Krauthammer is the most notable exception—have somehow triangulated on the war, not mentioning why and how in the B.C. days they sort of, kinda, not really called for the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. For some the Road to Damascus was the looting or Abu Ghraib, for others the increasing violence. Still more now say the absence of WMD did the trick.

But almost none of the firebrands of 2003 speaks the truth behind the facade: They supported the war when it looked like few casualties and a quick reconstruction and thus confirmation of their own muscular humanitarianism—and then bailed along the way when they realized that wasn’t going to happen and the unpopular war might instead brand them as “war mongers”, “chicken-hawks” or just fools.

Instead of that honest admission, we get instead either cardboard cut-out villains of the “my perfect three-week war, your screwed-up three-year occupation” type—a Douglas Feith, Gen. Sanchez, or Paul Bremmer—or all sorts of unappreciated and untapped brilliance: from trisecting the country to “redeploying” to Kurdistan, or Kuwait, or Okinawa?

Exactly right.

Posted by Tom at 10:00 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

June 17, 2006

Flag Officers Conference on Iraq at Ft Carson CO

C R Mountjoy, author of the The Neo Con Blogger, has a fascinating post about a Rear Admiral (unnamed) who attended a flag officer conference at Fort Carson, Colorado. Mountjoy received his report via email from a retired US Army Colonel.

The conference took place last Saturday, June 10. . The conference was hosted by Major General Bob Mixon, Commanding General of Seventh Infantry Division, and " featured a panel of officers who had either very recently returned from commands in the combat zone or were about to deploy there in the next two months. Three of the recent returnees (and panelists) were Colonel H.R. McMaster, Colonel Rick S., and Captain Walter Szpak.." Some 54 generals and admirals were in the audience.

Col McMaster is famous for retaking Tal Afar back from the insurgents last September. At a press conference after the operation, when a reporter accused him of painting too rosy a picture, he responded that "Nothing's rosy in Iraq, okay?" but that "the enemy's on the run." That the operation was a success was attested to by the Mayor of Tal Afar who wrote an amazing letter that he addressed "to the Courageous Men and Women of the 3d Armored Cavalry Regiment, who have changed the city of Tall’ Afar from a ghost town, in which terrorists spread death and destruction, to a secure city flourishing with life."

"Colonel S" was with the Special Forces, this his anonimity. He is described as having "headed up all of the 31 special forces A-teams that are integrated with the populace and the Iraqi Army and national police."

Captain Szpak was the head of all the Army explosive ordnance teams in Iraq. His team studied the IEDs the enemy planted, and devised ways to disarm them before they went off. They also trained combat teams in recognizing and avoiding IEDs.

Although the obective of the conference was to discuss the modular brigade concept, it turned into a discussion on Iraq. The panelists held a Q & A with the audience members, and according to the Rear Admiral who sent the email, a summary of the discussion is as follows

· All returnees agreed that “we are clearly winning the fight against the insurgents but we are losing the public relations battle both in the war zone and in the States”. (I’ll go into more detail on each topic below.)

· All agreed that it will be necessary for us to have forces in Iraq for at least ten more years, though by no means in the numbers that are there now.

· They opined that 80% to 90% of the Iraqi people want to have us there and do not want us to leave before “the job is done”.

· The morale and combat capability of the troops is the highest that the senior officers have ever seen in the 20-30 years that each has served.

· The Iraqi armed forces and police are probably better trained right now than they were under Saddam, but our standards are much higher and they lack officer leadership.

· They don’t need more troops in the combat zone but they need considerably more Arab linguists and civil affairs experts.

· The IEDs and EFPs continue to be the principal problem that they face and they are becoming more sophisticated as time passes.

You'll want to go to the Neo Con Blogger and read the whole thing, but here is an important excerpt on the issue of Public Affairs:

We are losing the public affairs battle for a variety of reasons. First, in Iraq, the terrorists provide Al Jazeera with footage of their more spectacular attacks and they are on TV to the whole Arab world within minutes of the event. By contrast it takes four to six days for a story generated by Army Public Affairs to gain clearance by Combined Forces Command, two or three more days to get Pentagon clearance, and after all that, the public media may or may not run the story.

Second, the U.S. mainstream media (MSM) who send reporters to the combat zone do not like to have their people embedded with our troops. They claim that the reporters get “less objective” when they live with the soldiers and marines – they come to see the world through the eyes of the troops. As a consequence, a majority of the reporters stay in hotels in the “Green Zone” and send out native stringers to call in stories to them by cell phone which they later write up and file. No effort is made to verify any of these stories or the credibility of the stringers. The recent serious injuries to Bob Woodruff of ABC and Kimberly Dozier of CBS makes the likelihood of the use of local stringers even higher.

Third, the stories that are filed by reporters in the field very seldom reach the American public as written. An anecdote from Col. McMaster illustrates this dramatically. TIME magazine recently sent a reporter to spend six weeks with the 3rd ACR as they were in the battle of Tal Afar. When the battle was over, the reporter filed his story and also included close to 100 pictures that the accompanying photographer took. TIME published a cover story on the battle a week later, allegedly using the story sent in by their reporter. When the issue came out, the guts had been edited out of their reporter’s story and none of the pictures he submitted were used. Instead they showed a weeping child on the cover, taken from stock photos. When the reporter questioned why his story was eviscerated, his editors in New York responded that the story and pi ctures were “too heroic”. McMaster had read both and told me that the editors had completely changed the thrust and context of the material their reporter had submitted.

Two conclusions from this. First, while it is tempting to blame the whole thing on the liberal msm, we can't do that. Part of the problem is on our side. Second, if true it is disgraceful that stories are being changed because they are "too heroic".

The question now is one of time. The point that Col Nagl made in his 2005 book Counterinsurgency Lessons from Malaya and Vietnam: Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife, we screwed up in our first two years in Iraq but we've got it right now. Whether the troops will be allowed to complete their mission before political circumstances force a pullout remains to be seen.

Posted by Tom at 12:19 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack

June 5, 2006

Paul Ray Smith and the Shame of Hollywood

Does the name "Paul Smith" ring any bells with you?

How about "Sergeant First Class Paul Ray Smith"?

He should be a household name, but of course isn't.

The shame is on Hollywood and our mass media.

If you want to know why, go here.

If you didn't already, now you know that Sergeant First Class Paul Ray Smith was awarded the Medal of Honor for valor in Iraq.

They don't hand out Congressional Medals of Honor to anyone. As the US Army website explains, "Medals of Honor are awarded sparingly and are bestowed only to the bravest of the brave; and that valor must be well documented." Since Vietnam, only two have been awarded, those to Army Master Sgt. Gary I. Gordon and Army Sgt. 1st Class Randall D. Shughart for valor in Somalia in 1993. Most, like those to Sgt's Gordon and Shughard, are awarded posthumously.

Sgt Paul Smith is no exception; he gave his life in defense of his country while fighting in Iraq. He rests at Arlington National Cemetary.

Go and read the citation for his actions.

And make sure you view the interactive feature which details his valor.

Of course, Sgt Smith isn't the only one who has received honors for valor in the War on Terror. The Centcom website has entire section devoted to all of them. There are other websites as well dedicated to telling their stories.

And in a larger sense every single one of our troops fighting the War on Terror, whether in Afghanistan, Iraq, the Horn of Africa or elsewher is a hero.

The Shame of Hollywood

There should have been at least a few movies about Sgt Paul Smith by now. A few of those "made for TV" insta-movies should have come out in late 2003. And a full-length feature movie could have been in the theaters by 2004 or 2005 at the latest.

But unless I am severly mistaken, Hollywood has produced nothing about Sgt Smith.

Yet they claim that they "support the troops".

I don't think so.

Posted by Tom at 8:32 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

March 14, 2006

Media Memes of the War on Terror

Chester posts on his blog some media memes of the War on Terror and asks how they might be categorized or classified. The ones he came up with are

-the US is disrespectful of Islam (the Newsweek story)

-the US routinely violates human rights (Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib)

-the Iraq war is analogous to the Vietnam war

-Iraq is perpetually on the brink of civil war

-extreme Islam should be tolerated (the refusal to publish cartoons)

-Iraq grows more violent by the day

Commenter El Jefe Maximo adds a few more

The US has driven Iran to build a bomb.

The Islamicist movement is a defensive response to US led globalization.

The Iraqi "resistance" is a legitimate response to foreign occupation.

The Iraqi government has no legitimacy because it was planted by a foreign occupation.

Saddam governed Iraq in the only way possible.

Al Sadr is a true Iraqi nationalist: he's uniting Sunni and Shia Iraqis against the Americans.

Islam good, Neocons bad.

Our overreaction to 9/11 feeds violence and Al Qaeda.

Peace only when we bring the troops home.

Violence in Iraq result of too few troops.

Pro US government in Iraq oppresses women and minorities.

Pro US government in Iraq tortures its opponents.

Dangerous if Iraqi government succeeds, because US may try this kind of intervention again.

Bush responsible for Katrina, Rita, Wilma and for too much/little rain and the crops not growing (okay, that was a joke...I think).

All this illustrates perfectly why I watch virtually no TV news anymore(including Fox). Newspapers are better, and readers of this blog know that I quote both the Washington Times and Washington Post regularly. But for the most part if you want to find out what's going on you'll have to visit the blogosphere, especially the sites I link to at right.

Chester is an Iraq war vet and his blog is a must-read. You'll find it as "The Adventures of Chester" at right under "War on Terror Analysis"

I'd send him a trackback but in order to try and get a handle on spam he's turned them (and comments) off for now.

Posted by Tom at 9:15 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

February 1, 2006

The Washington Post Goes Too Far

Everyone knows that the Washington Post is a left-of-center newspaper, just as we know that the Washington Times is right-of-center.

But there's the loyal opposition, and then there's this:

I don't know which is worse, the cartoon of the little guy at bottom making his oh-so-clever reference to the issue of how we interrogate terrorist suspects.

But don't think this is just me and other right-wing bloggers upset at the latest stupid cartoon.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff are mad as well. And they've written a letter to the Post expressing their dissatisfaction (Hat tip Michelle Malkin)

Here's their letter:

You can download the letter as a pdf here:
Download file

Thursday Morning Update

The letter from the Joint Chiefs of Staff is in today's Post.

The Post has an article up about the controversy, but it's not really an editorial response. Here's an excerpt:

In an interview, Toles called the letter "an understandable response" but said he did not regret what he drew. In thinking about Rumsfeld's remarks, he said, "what came soon to mind was the catastrophic level of injuries the Army and members of the armed services have sustained . . . I thought my portrayal of it was a fair depiction of the reality of the situation.

"I certainly never intended it to be in any way a personal attack on, or a derogatory comment on, the service or sacrifice of American soldiers."

As for the Joint Chiefs' letter, he said: "I think it's a little bit unfair in their reading of the cartoon to imply that is what it's about."

Oh please.

Amy Ridenour posts on her blog an email from a person who says that no, the cartoon isn't making fun of the soldiers, that "It's very clearly pointing out how disgusting it is that the military neglects soldiers once they're damaged goods"

Amy responds that "it seems that the Post cartoon is criticizing the Administration's Iraq war policy." I think she's right.

Besides, people who say that the military "neglects" the wounded simply do not know what they're talking about. People who make this claim are using wounded troops to advance their political agendas.

Posted by Tom at 9:16 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

December 29, 2005

Will the Real Journalist Please Stand Up?

It has become a staple of conservatives that "you can't trust the msm and the best information about Iraq is on the Internet". I keep looking for something to prove that proposition wrong, but the harder I look the more it is confirmed.

Last month a blogger by the name of Bill Roggio went to Iraq to report on the war as an imbed with the US Marines. Most readers are, or should be, familiar with Roggio, who's work initially appeared on his site The Fourth Rail and now appears at ThreatsWatch.

Roggio isn't just any blogger, however, for his daily reporting on the details of our operations in Iraq far surpasses anything I've seen elsewhere. He became a must-read for me last spring when I was looking for information about the war, and simply could not find such reporting elsewhere. His work has attracted much attention, and his website(s) receives a far amount of traffic, as he well deserves.

Roggio's articles, or posts, describe the various campaigns and battles in a matter-of-fact way. Analysis is done only after facts are presented, and the tone of his prose is measured, never shrill or harsh. He believes that we are winning the war, but is no chearleader for the administration.

Because Roggio does not make his money from writing, but does this as a hobby, taking time off work, and paying the expenses necessary to travel to Iraq, was quite an undertaking. To help raise the $30,000 necessary for the venture, he asked his readers to help. Like so many others, I contributed a few dollars.

The good news is that the msm noticed Roggio. The bad news is that they decided to attack him.

The title of Monday's Washington Post story on Roggio sets the tone for the rest of the article:

Bloggers, Money Now Weapons in Information War

U.S. Recruits Advocates to the Front, Pays Iraqi TV Stations for Coverage

In other words, Roggio is a propagandist, and what he does is no different than the US Military paying Iraqi TV stations to run certain stories. To the Post it's all part of a larger propaganda war, and apparently only they count as objective observers.

To be fair, they do give Roggio his due, quoting him on why he went to Iraq:

"I was disenchanted with the reporting on the war in Iraq and the greater war on terror and felt there was much to the conflict that was missed," Roggio, who is currently stationed with Marines along the Syrian border, wrote in an e-mail response to written questions. "What is often seen as an attempt at balanced reporting results in underreporting of the military's success and strategy and an overemphasis on the strategically minor success of the jihadists or insurgents."

Unfortunately, the article got many of it's facts wrong on Roggio, which he subsequently pointed out in a response posted on ThreatsWatch:

There are three problems with this article which require a response: the use iof incorrect facts which could have been easily checked; the portrayal of my embed as an information operation; and equating U.S. military information operations with al-Qaeda propaganda efforts.

Readers should go to both the Post article and Roggio's response as I cannot recap the entire debate. However, he did contact the Post writer to set the record straight:

In an email to Mr. Finer expressing my displeasure with being labeled a military information operation, Mr. Finer suggested I read the entire article. I assured him I did. The title and subtitle are not meaningless to the context of the article; it is implied I was a tool of the military, when in fact the military had no influence whatsoever in what I said from Iraq.

The details of my embed are then followed with a discussion on military information operations, the Lincoln Group’s activities in paying for positive articles to be published in Iraqi publications, and the military funding Iraqi radio stations. The implication is clear: a blogger embedding in Iraq must be part of a nefarious scheme by the military to influence the perceptions on Iraq.

The truth is far more mundane. I wasn’t paid a dime to report from Iraq by the Marines, nor was I influenced in any way in what I could or could not write about. I had full control over the where and when of my embeds. Never once was my work subject to the approval or review of the military. I wrote what I experienced, both the good and the bad.

Interviewed by Hugh Hewett on his radio show, Roggio said that in other conversations with Mr Finer, the latter said that he couldn't understand why Roggio "might be upset" with the Post article. Talk about a difference in perspectives.

Journalism in America

The other day Belmont Club posted excerpts from an opinion piece that appeared in the Louisville KY Courier-Journal last May.

In the unsigned editorial, the journalist "urges Americans to search for truth, freedom." He or she spent 10 months in Iraq, and would like to share what he believes are some "revelations" about the United States. Excerpts follow:

Lesson One: Many journalists in Iraq could not, or would not, check their nationality or their own perspective at the door.

One of the hardest things about working on this story for me personally, and as a journalist, was to set my "American self" and perspective aside. It was an ongoing challenge to listen open-mindedly to a group of people whose foundation of belief is significantly different from mine, and one I found I often strongly disagreed with.

Lesson Two: Our behavior as journalists has taught us very little. Just as in the lead up to the war in Iraq, questioning our government's decisions and claims and what it seeks to achieve is criticized as unpatriotic.

Along these lines, the other thing I found difficult was the realization that, while I was out doing what I believe is solid journalism, there were many (journalists and normal folks alike) who would question my patriotism, or wonder how I could even think hearing and relating the perspective "from the other side" was important.

Certainly, over the last three years I've had to acquire the discipline of overriding my emotional attachment to my country, and remember my sense of human values that transcend frontiers and ethnicity.

Lesson Three: To seek to understand and represent to an American audience the reasons behind the Iraqi opposition is practically treasonous.

Every one of the people involved in the resistance that we spoke to held us individually responsible for their security. If something happened to them -- never mind that they were legitimate targets for the U.S. military -- they would blame us. And kill us.

And many American journalists often refer to those attacking Americans or Iraqi troops and policemen as "terrorists." Some are indeed using terrorist tactics, but calling them "terrorists" simply shuts down any sense of need or interest to look beyond that word, to understand why indeed human beings might be willing to die in a violent struggle to achieve their goal.

Lesson Four: The gatekeepers -- by which I mean the editors, publishers and business sides of the media -- don't want their paper or their outlet to reveal that compelling narrative of why anyone would oppose the presence of American troops on their soil. Why would anyone refuse democracy? Why would anyone not want the helping hand of America in overthrowing their terrible dictator?

Wouldn't we as women be joining with them in any way we could? Wouldn't the divisions between us -- how we feel about President Bush, whether we're Republican or Democrat -- be put aside as we resisted a common enemy?

Lesson Five: What it's like to be afraid of your own country.

Once the story was finished and set to come out on the street, I was rushing back to the States -- mostly because we could no longer work once the story was published -- and I found I was scared returning to my own country. And that was an amazingly strange and awful feeling to have.

We need to begin to be able to look again at our government, our leadership and ourselves critically.

Unbelieveable.

The Courier-Journal piece contains so much moral relativism, is just so...horrible, that to disect it is not even necessary. It is almost at the level of self-parody, a caricature of the most gross and insulting sort. Yet somebody wrote it, a reporter hoping to influence our opinion of the war in Iraq.

To be sure, it would be an error to automatically assign the views of the Courier-Journal reporter to all journalists, including Mr Finer at the Washington Post. Yet who can really doubt that such thinking is all too common among members of the Fourth Estate?

And this is exactly why people such as Bill Roggio and Michael Yon are so valuable. While I would never issue a blanket statement like "you can never trust anything in the mainstream media", I will certainly say that between Bill Roggio and the Washington Post, Roggio is the real journalist. And he stands tall indeed.

Posted by Tom at 4:56 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

July 15, 2005

What we Don't Hear

Is it just me? Am I the only one who does not see this type of reporting on the TV or in the newspapers?

July 14, 2005: A senior aide to Al Qaeda leader Abu Musab al Zarqawi, Abu Abd al Aziz, was captured. Interestingly, no details of the capture were released. Al Aziz is second in command of al Qaeda forces in Baghdad, and a key organizer of terrorist attacks. For many Iraqi police, shutting down al Qaeda has become something of an obsession. Iraqi television and radio cover this battle with the terrorists intensely. The deaths of Iraqi civilians and security troops are given front page coverage, as are the operations against the terrorists. Much to the dismay of Iraqi Sunni Arabs, the media keeps pointing out that nearly all the Iraqi supporters of the al Qaeda terrorists are Sunni Arabs. The leaders of the Iraqi Sunni Arab community are working hard to prove their loyalty, before popular opinion against Iraqi Sunni Arabs gets out of control, and widespread attacks on Sunni Arabs begins.

Iraqi police obsessed with shutting down Al Qaeda? I thought they all turned and ran. Television and radio covering the battle? "Deaths of Iraqi civilians and security troops ... given front page coverage, as are the operations against the terrorists"? I didn't even know they had newspapers, radio or TV over there (joke...).

I swear I have not seen this stuff in the Washington Post, Washington Times, Fox News, CNN, or any of the other places I look.

Now maybe it's been there and I've missed it. But I doubt it.

I got the above from the daily briefing over at StrategyPage. Without it, Belmont Club, Chrenkoff, and three of four other sites I wouldn't know what was going on at all in Iraq.

Just thought I'd share that with you. Now have a good evening.

Posted by Tom at 9:44 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

July 5, 2005

If you're not Making them Mad....

There comes a certain point where if you're not driving the liberals nuts you're not doing your job.

For example, if President Bush's nominee to the Supreme Court does not generate howls of rage from NOW, the People for the American Way, and all the other assorted leftie groups, we'll know it was a bad choice.

Likewise with the media. If the guardians of the traditional media aren't mad at us, we're doing something wrong.

For the fact is that the reporting on the War on Terror in general and Iraq in particular is abysmal. You are simply not going to find out what is going on if you limit yourself to the TV news channels (Fox News included, the newspapers, and especially newsmagazines. What passes for analysis there is pathetic.

I set up a sidebar link with some sites that I think are particularly useful in understanding what is going on. They're not all neoconservative, btw. But I'm getting off topic.

You see, several of the dreaded radio talk show hosts are making a trip to Iraq to find out what is going on. They are calling it a "truth tour" and will be live-blogging it at VoicesOfSoldiers.com You'll want to bookmark it.

The talk-show hosts will be broadcasting their shows from Baghdad, and will be traveling with the troops daily. In addition, two writers from David Horowitz' FrontPage Magazine are going, which is guaranteed to drive the left to fits of apoplexy.

I heard about this will scanning the Fox News website, and then while listening to Michael Graham, a local talk show host (Washington DC area) will is going on the trip.

So how have the liberals in the press reacted? Predictably, that's how.

Let's just observe a sampling of their reaction:

"This is the most pathetic thing I've heard in a long time. They should be ashamed of themselves," Peter Beinart, editor of left-leaning The New Republic magazine, said.

"They have no idea what journalism is, and to pretend they are journalists is laughable," Beinart said. "You do not achieve victory by not facing reality. I think these are the kinds of people that will lead us to lose there."
...

"I think they are going to discover very quickly that Iraq is an extremely dangerous place," Joe Conason, editor for American Prospect magazine and author of "Big Lies: The Right-Wing Propaganda Machine and How It Distorts the Truth," said. "The realities of the war zone are likely to intrude on whatever ideological disposition they have going in there."
...

one of them even pulled out the "Arstrong Williams" canard:

Steve Rendall, senior analyst for Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting and author of "The Way Things Aren't: Rush Limbaugh's Reign of Error," said with an attitude like that, the trip will probably be useless in terms of real news-making.
...

Rendall noted it "bears comparison to the Armstrong Williams and the other instances" of government payment for good news, referring to conservative talk show host Williams, who was paid by the Department of Education to pump up school choice on his radio show in 2004.

(Just for the record, the talk-show hosts are paying their own way)

But we know the drill: "How dare these, these radio talk show hosts attempt to report on their own! Why, they didn't go to the right school! They don't have the right degrees! They didn't worship er, sit, at the feet of Bob Woodward!"

The parody is too easy. And I'll leave the humor to sites that are a lot better at it.

So much is wrong with what Beinart and Rendall say that it's hard to know where to start. I'll just point out what has become obvious, and that is to the liberals who make up most of the mainstream press, if you're not anti-Bush and against the war in Iraq you're not "objective"

And the reason for this is simple. People like Beinart and Rendall want to bring back the glory days of Vietnam.

Melanie Morgain, a talk-show host who is going on the trip, countered the liberal criticism:

Morgan, a former television reporter, said she and the others are tired of "hotel journalists" from "the mainstream media" who "sit around in a hotel bar" cribbing other writers' quotes and clips "so they don’t have to go out and cover the war."

"We are not going to engage in hotel journalism," she said.

Oh, and if you want the scoop on Beinart (and more info on the trip), Michelle Malkin has it all.

Stay tuned. I've added Voices of Soldiers my blogroll and will try and follow their reports as best I can.

Posted by Tom at 8:38 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 22, 2005

"It's Not Just Newsweek"

As Michelle Malkin says in her latest column, "It's not Just Newsweek".

Michelle rocks, of course. Her TV career has taken off, too. She guest-hosted O'Reilly (again) on Friday and did an excellent job. Of course the fact that she's awefully darn cute has nothing to do with my admiration of her. But I digress.

Back to her column:

If you want to hear an earful, ask an American soldier how he feels about our news media. You will invariably hear an outpouring of dismay and outrage over antagonistic and reckless reporting. I have stacks of letters and e-mails from soldiers and their families sharing those frustrations. During the Vietnam War, such sentiments would get packed away private hurts to be silently borne for decades.

But today the Internet has allowed soldiers on the front to disseminate their viewsbreaking through the media's entrenched anti-military bias— in unprecedented ways. In the wake of Newsweek's publication of its unsourced, mayhem-inducing, and now-retracted item about Koran desecration by U.S. military interrogators at Guantanamo Bay, a sergeant in Saudi Arabia immediately responded on a blog called The Anchoress (theanchoressonline.com):

I have placed my life and the life of my fellow soldiers in danger in order to achieve a measure of the freedoms we enjoy at home for the Iraqi and Afghani people. As soldiers, we all understand that we may be asked to participate in wars (actions) that we (or our countrymen) don't agree with. The irresponsible journalism being practiced by organizations such as Newsweek, however, [is] just inexcusable. At this point, because of their actions and failure to follow up on a claim of that magnitude, they've set the process back in Afghanistan immensely…

I don't regret serving my country, not one bit, but to have everything I'm doing here undermined by irresponsible journalists leaves me disgusted and disappointed.

Here, here.

There was an airshow this weekend at Andrews Air Force Base (which is just outside of Washington DC). They hold it every year, and I've been maybe fifteen times in the past twenty years. I'd have gone yesterday or today (the weather was great so it was tempting) but I just had too much else to do. Besides the pure thrill of seeing high-performance aircraft do their stuff (which like a hockey game is quite different live than on TV) I figure it's a way to show the military that I care enough and respect what they do. The pilots love to answer your questions, too. But again here I go off on a tangent.

Who's Side Are They On?

Malkin reminds us of all the lies, distortions, and misrepresentations we've had to put up with over the past few years from the mainstream media.

The members of our military are more than just an expedient means to a titillating magazine cover or juicy scoop or Peabody Award. Too often since the "War on Terror" was declared, eager Bush-bashing journalists have forgotten that the troops are real people who face real threats and real bloodshed as a consequence of loose lips and keyboards.

She then (on her regular blog) provides links to some of the other media misrepresentations. Remember these?

We heard that the military stood by while thousands of priceless Iraqi artifacts were stolen from museums. Then, oops, it wasn't really that way.

They tried to tell us that there was this big problem with desertions. But the photo that they used wasn't of any deserters.

Eight days before our presidential election they tried to tell us the we let insurgent terrorists loot a big cache of explosives because dumb 'ol Rumsfeld didn't send enough troops to invade Iraq. It wasn't true, of course. But hey, the timing was coincence, right?

Most don't even have the decency to call the bastards what they are; TERRORISTS.

Some are even more creative, they lie outright and fabricate stories about how we are targeting journalists.

Another big-name newspaper was so eager to smear the military that it fell for fake gang-rape photos.

And don't even make me bring up that windbag from CBS.

Posted by Tom at 9:25 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

They Shoot Reporters, don't They?

Check out The Fourth Rail for the link they posted to a Powerpoint presentation that the insurgent terrorists in Iraq made for their snipers.

They, uh, target reporters. Get that, Eason Jordan and Linda Foley?

Posted by Tom at 9:11 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

A Headline You'll Never See

From Dr Sanity's blog:

Here's a headline from the NY Times (I don't really care about the story, the thoroughly obnoxious headline says it all for me):

"Guantánamo Comes to Define U.S. to Muslims"

Here is a headline I would like to see:

"Beheadings and Insanely Violent Behavior Define Islam to Americans"

Do you think we will ever see that? No, I don't either.

Posted by Tom at 9:06 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 19, 2005

Press Irresponsibility

It's bad enough that Newsweek Magazine printed an inflamatory story using shoddy research, and does either not realize the damage they have done or do not care. Their sort-of apology isn't much.

But predictably many other pressies do not get it either. Take this exchange between White House reporters and presidential spokesman Scott McClellan (Drudge report, originally, hat tip Wretchard).

Q With respect, who made you the editor of Newsweek? Do you think it's appropriate for you, at that podium, speaking with the authority of the President of the United States, to tell an American magazine what they should print?

MR. McCLELLAN: I'm not telling them. I'm saying that we would encourage them to help --

Q You're pressuring them.

MR. McCLELLAN: No, I'm saying that we would encourage them --

Q It's not pressure?

MR. McCLELLAN: Look, this report caused serious damage to the image of the United States abroad. And Newsweek has said that they got it wrong. I think Newsweek recognizes the responsibility they have. We appreciate the step that they took by retracting the story. Now we would encourage them to move forward and do all that they can to help repair the damage that has been done by this report. And that's all I'm saying. But, no, you're absolutely right, it's not my position to get into telling people what they can and cannot report....

Q Are you asking them to write a story about how great the American military is; is that what you're saying here?

MR. McCLELLAN: Elisabeth, let me finish my sentence. Our military --

Q You've already said what you're -- I know what -- how it ends.

MR. McCLELLAN: No, I'm coming to your question, and you're not letting me have a chance to respond. But our military goes out of their way to handle the Koran with care and respect. There are policies and practices that are in place. This report was wrong. Newsweek, itself, stated that it was wrong. And so now I think it's incumbent and -- incumbent upon Newsweek to do their part to help repair the damage. And they can do that through ways that they see best, but one way that would be good would be to point out what the policies and practices are in that part of the world, because it's in that region where this report has been exploited and used to cause lasting damage to the image of the United States of America. It has had serious consequences. And so that's all I'm saying, is that we would encourage them to take steps to help repair the damage. And I think that they recognize the importance of doing that. That's all I'm saying.

Q As far as the Newsweek article is concerned, first, how and where the story came from? And do you think somebody can investigate if it really happened at the base, and who told Newsweek? Because somebody wrote a story.

These reporters know no shame. They don't get it. They think that the only two options are to report "how great the U.S. military is", or completely trash it. How about the truth, guys?

That one of their own is responsible for undermining the United States in one of the most vital regions of the world through shoddy reporting concerns them not at all. And they wonder why newspaper circulation is dropping off (except with the Washington Times, where it is going up!).

Then we have this in this morning's Washington Times:

(well I was going to copy the whole thing but their links are all screwed up)

Essentially the story in the Times (look under "Inside Politics" and maybe the link is fixed) is that "...Linda Foley, international president of the Newspaper Guild, has accused the U.S. military of targeting journalists for death 'in places like Iraq'"

"Journalists, by the way, are not just being targeted verbally or politically," Miss Foley said Friday in St. Louis. "They are also being targeted for real, in places like Iraq. What outrages me as a representatrive of journalists is that their is not more outrage about the number, and the brutality, and the cavalier nature of the U.S. military toward the killing of journalists in Iraq."

Yeah well what outrages me, Miss Foley, is that we have to put up with whackos like you who make wildly irresponsible charges. I don't have time this morning to research this Newspaper Guild group, and if anyone has any info please send it to me.

Don't you think that this war would be a bit easier if we had more of the press on our side? One cause, I think, is moral confusion caused by a misunderstanding of "neutrality" versus "objectivity" in reporting. I did a post on this subject on my other blog site, take a look if you have time.

Evening Update

Sometime today the Times fixed the link, so you can get to the entire story here.

Friday Update

LaShawn Barber has details on Linda Foley (hat tip Michelle Malkin). She's even nuttier than I thought. How do people like this get to be president of anything?

Worldnet Daily has the text of Foley's remarks:

According to a tape of her remarks, Foley said: “Journalists, by the way, are not just being targeted verbally or … ah, or … ah, politically. They are also being targeted for real, um … in places like Iraq. What outrages me as a representative of journalists is that there’s not more outrage about the number, and the brutality, and the cavalier nature of the U.S. military toward the killing of journalists in Iraq.”

Foley continued, “They target and kill journalists … uh, from other countries, particularly Arab countries like Al -, like Arab news services like al-Jazeera, for example. They actually target them and blow up their studios with impunity. …”

Posted by Tom at 7:46 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 2, 2005

Casualties of War

Yesterday I caught Liz Trotta for a few minutes on Fox News during their 10-12am show. The issue being discussed was war casualties. (I can't find a link to the show on the Fox site so if someone can send it to me I'd be obliged)

The question was whether the war was being "sanitized" by the mainstream media. The charge is that by not showing "enough" U.S. casualties Americans are developing a "video game" mentality towards war.

Liz thought the charge to be utter nonsense and so do I, for two reasons.

First, I think that if anything, American's have a more realistic view of war than ever before. There are several trends in our culture that I believe support this view.

Movies and Television are more violent and realistic. Movies such as Saving Private Ryan went to lengths never before imagined in showing war. Not just the "blood and guts" aspect, but the general view that from a soldier's perspective fighting is not all about patriotism and glory. It is a terrible, dirty, frightening business. Soldiers fight for their buddies.

The culture in general has "accepted" a higher level of violence. This is a bad thing, and one can argue that we have been "desensitized", and perhaps so. However the fact remains that violence per se is not unknown to Americans.

There is also my own general anecdotal experience. I just do not get the impression that Americans in general "don't know what really goes on in war." I think higher of us. I think they do.

So what about the "video game" mentality? It certainly exists. One problem with movies and TV is that they are a step or two ahead of what real show weaponry and technology can actually do. And of course it rarely shows "collateral damage". One of the most egregious examples is when people fire multiple rounds in closed environments (in a house for example) with no apparent effect on their hearing. Anyone who has actually fired a gun knows how incredibly loud they really are.

Of course, when I speak of "Americans" I generalize. Yes there are always exceptions.

Problems of the Past

I've read many times of guys who joined the military in the 50's or 60's who admitted that they had a "John Wayne" view of warfare. Then came Vietnam.

A quick perusal of the war movies of the time quickly demonstrates how such views came into being. While a few showed the horrors of war most, as I recall, really did not. Titles do not quickly come to mind, and I don't have time right now to research, but I think my statement stands up.

The Real Motive

Some who complain that our media does not show "enough" American body bags have good intentions. I'm not going to tar everyone.

There are some, however, with more sinister motives.

They want to demoralize us. They want us to call it quits in Iraq and pull the troops out. They are part of the Fifth Column that I have written about and we need to call them what they are.

These people claim that we are "hiding" our casualties. This commentary, by one Gail Vida Hamburg, linked to on antiwar.com is typical. The author claims that Italy properly honors its war dead while American "pays little attention to its war dead":

America, on the other hand, with 1,516 U.S. fatalities in Iraq as of March 16, 2005, pays little public attention to its war dead. Indeed, aside from the printed obituaries in metro sections of dailies, there is little acknowledgment by the government or substantial reporting in the media of the soldiers who perish in Iraq and the families they leave behind. We do not see or hear them. They die alone on the hot sands of Iraq and their survivors grieve privately on American soil.

The Pentagon does not allow photographs of coffins, something that bothers the author. She also condems the President for not attending the funerals of soldiers killed in action:

If he believes our military is fighting for noble ideals, if he admires, as he says, their valor and sacrifice, why must he absent himself from their funerals or prevent our witness of their final return? Why must our war dead come home like thieves in the night?

Besides the fact that she is utterly wrong in her assertion that we "pay little attention to (our) war dead", there is the question of motivation.

They couldn't care less about the sacrifices made by our military. Too many photos and reports of anti-war protestors have dispelled that notion.

No, they want to demoralize us and change public opinion. They want us to call it quits in Iraq and bring the troops home (or better yet, disband the whole military). As shown by the inaction during the mass murders committed by the communists in south-east Asia after their take-over in 1975, they also couldn't care less about the people involved. Whether the Iraqis live in freedom and prosperity or under the heal of a dictator of whatever stripe concerns them not at all.

So What Should We do?

Continue current policies.

The left wants to make a spectacle of solumn funeral services, as they do with arrivals of caskets from Iraq. They will not be allowed to succeed.

The reality is that innumerable weblogs and news reports (I see these on Fox and other msm outlets) honor our troops who have fought bravely and made the ultimate sacrifice. The idea that all this is somehow "hidden" is B.S. of the first degree.

The idea that the president should attend all funerals is also nonsense. Besides the fact that he does not have time, it would really accomplish nothing. No one in their right mind believes that President Bush (or any past president, for that matter) does not care. Of course, leftists who make these charges are not in their right mind, but we knew that already.

Posted by Tom at 10:03 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

April 7, 2005

"Non-Fake, but Inaccurate"

It turns out that the Schiavo "talking points" memo was not a fake, but was in fact drafted by a GOP staffer. However, it was not the "GOP talking points memo" that so many in the media told us it was.

In the words of Mickey Kaus, it is "Non-Fake, but Inaccurate"; this in Slate, not exactly a bastion of right-wing opinion:

WaPo's Mike Allen reports that the now-famous Schiavo "talking points" memo came from freshman GOP senator Mel Martinez's office. So that mystery is cleared up. The memo wasn't a fake. But Allen doesn't come off looking too good in this latest account. a) The memo was apparently not "distributed to Republican Senators by party leaders," as Allen's initial story, sent out through the Post news service to other papers, reported. It was--at least judging from today's account--handed to one Democratic senator, Tom Harkin, by one freshman Republican senator (who isn't in the party leadership); b) Allen doesn't explain why he told Howie Kurtz he "did not call them talking points or a Republican memo" when he had in fact done just that in the news service draft; c) Even the later, more "carefully worded" account Allen published in the Post itself was apparently wrong. Allen wrote

In a memo distributed only to Republican senators, the Schiavo case was characterized as "a great political issue" ...

This is almost the reverse of what Allen now reports. We know the memo was distributed to at least one Democratic senator. We don't know whether it was distributed to any Republican senator other then the senator whose staffer wrote it (although it's hard to believe it wasn't given to at least some other GOP lawmakers). Allen's story left the now-unsupported impression that Republican senators were conspiratorially reading the memo amongst themselves; d) The whole "memo" fuss, as played up by WaPo and ABC's Linda Douglass, was wildly overdone even if the memo was a GOP leadership document--as if senators never consider what is a good political issue, as if that's a no-no in a democracy.

The whole thing was suspicious from the beginning. You had the fact that the memo wasn't on official letterhead and was rife with spelling errors. It was "unsourced". Yet many seemed to take it for granted that it was an official memo distributed to all Republican Senators. In fact, as the Washington Times has reported, not a single GOP Senator had seen the memo.

Did these people learn nothing from Rathergate? "Trust us" is not acceptable from major news organizations.

And, once again, it took bloggers to set the MSM straight. As Mick Wright puts it

I should note that we would know nothing more about this if not for the blogs. As we find in today’s WaPo story, the Senate investigation had turned up nothing. The media was stonewalling. Little came of individual calls to Senate offices and emails to reporters.

If not for a handful of blogs, a few rightwing pundits and some media watchdogs, the Washington Times probably would not have published their article, in turn putting the pressure back on the Senators and the reporters who first reported on this.

If not for the blogs, we would still be under the impression that GOP party leaders drafted that ridiculous memo and that all the Republican Senators received, read and approved of it.

As I said during Rathergate, what stories over the past thirty or forty years do we "know" to be true that aren't?

Michelle Malkin has a great roundup on the issue, as does Powerline, here and here.

Posted by Tom at 9:40 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

October 21, 2004

More Media Bias

Today we have this revealing conversation between CNN's Howard Kurtz and Newsweek's Evan Thomas, first sent to me courtesy of a friend in NJ.

CNN's HOWARD KURTZ: "It is a tight race. Do you believe that most reporters want John Kerry to win?"
NEWSWEEK'S EVAN THOMAS: "Yeah, absolutely."
KURTZ: "Do you think they're deliberately tilting their coverage to help John Kerry and John Edwards?"
THOMAS: "Not really."
KURTZ:"Subconsciously tilting their coverage?"
THOMAS:"Maybe."
KURTZ:"Maybe."
THOMAS:"Maybe."
KURTZ:"Including at Newsweek?"
THOMAS:"Yeah."
KURTZ:"You've said on the program 'Inside Washington' that because of the portrayal of Kerry and Edwards as young and optimistic, that's worth maybe 15 points. That would suggest."
THOMAS:"Stupid thing to say. It was completely wrong. I do think that the mainstream press, I'm not talking about the blogs and Rush and all that, but the mainstream press favors Kerry. I don't thin k it's worth 15 points. That was just a stupid thing to say."
KURTZ:"Is it worth five?"
THOMAS:"Maybe, maybe."
(CNN's Reliable Sources, October 17, 2004)

No "maybe" about it, folks. And as I wrote yesterday on my other blog site, "yes there is a liberal media, Virginia." Sorry, but Fox News, the WSJ, NY Post, and Washington Times are still a drop in the bucket. We're making a lot of progress, yes. The situation is nowhere near as bad as it was even 10 years ago, and we as conservatives need to recognize this. Yet as the above conversation makes clear, Republicans in general and conservatives in particular do have the vast majority of the media against us. It makes winning all that more difficult, though hardly impossible.

Posted by Tom at 9:45 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack