LFTC - Letter From The Capitol

Union Thugs Break Law, Helped by DC, MD Cops

Last week Service Employees International Union (SIEU) thugs trespassed on private property, terrorized a teenager, while cops not only watched--they helped.  Here's how....

LFTC - Questions for Mainstream Media, re Two Presidents

A friend sent me the following questions, which should be asked of those shilling for this President:

If George W. Bush had been the first President to need a teleprompter installed to be able to get through a press conference, would you have laughed and said this is more proof of how inept he is on his own and is really controlled by smarter men behind the scenes?

If George W. Bush had spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to take Laura Bush to a play in NYC, would you have approved?
 
If George W. Bush had reduced your retirement plan's holdings of GM stock by 90% and given the unions a majority stake in GM, would you have approved?

If George W. Bush had made a joke at the expense of the Special Olympics, would you have approved?

If George W. Bush had given Gordon Brown a set of inexpensive and incorrectly formatted DVDs, when Gordon Brown had given him a thoughtful and historically significant gift, would you have approved?
 
If George W. Bush had given the Queen of England an iPod containing videos of his speeches, would you have though this embarrassingly narcissistic and tacky?
 
If George W. Bush had bowed to the King of Saudi Arabia would you have approved?
 
If George W. Bush had visited Austria and made reference to the non-existent "Austrian language," would you have brushed it off as a minor slip?
 
If George W. Bush had filled his cabinet and circle of advisers with people who cannot seem to keep current in their income taxes, would you have approved?
 
If George W. Bush had been so Spanish illiterate as to refer to "Cinco de Cuatro" in front of the Mexican ambassador when it was the 5th of May (Cinco de Mayo), and continued to flub it when he tried again, would you have winced in embarrassment?
 
If George W. Bush had misspelled the word "advice" would you have hammered him for it for years like Dan Quayle and potatoe as proof of what a dunce he is?
 
If George W. Bush had burned 9,000 gallons of jet fuel to go plant a single tree on Earth Day, would you have concluded he's a hypocrite?
 
If George W. Bush's administration had Okay-ed Air Force One flying low over millions of people followed by a jet fighter in downtown Manhattan causing widespread panic, would you have wondered whether they actually get what happened on 9-11?
 
If George W. Bush had ordered the firing of the CEO of a major corporation even though he had no constitutional authority to do so, would you have approved?
 
If George W Bush had proposed to double the national debt, which had taken more than two centuries to accumulate, in one year, would you have approved?
 
If George W. Bush had then proposed to double the debt again within 10 years, would you have approved?
 
So, tell me again what is it about Obama that makes him so brilliant and impressive? Can't think of anything? Don't worry. He's done all this in 1 year -- so you'll have three more years to come up with an answer.

LFTC - Gray Lady Flunks Mideast Dpilomacy 101

Monday's "Diplomacy 101" editorial in the New York Times breaks old ground in media obtuseness:

We were thrilled when President Obama decided to plunge fully into the Middle East peace effort. He appointed a skilled special envoy, George Mitchell, and demanded that Israel freeze settlements, Palestinians crack down on anti-Israel violence and Arab leaders demonstrate their readiness to reach out to Israel.

Nine months later, the president’s promising peace initiative has unraveled.

The Israelis have refused to stop all building. The Palestinians say that they won’t talk to the Israelis until they do, and President Mahmoud Abbas is so despondent he has threatened to quit. Arab states are refusing to do anything.

Mr. Obama’s own credibility is so diminished (his approval rating in Israel is 4 percent) that serious negotiations may be farther off than ever.

Peacemaking takes strategic skill. But we see no sign that President Obama and Mr. Mitchell were thinking more than one move down the board. The president went public with his demand for a full freeze on settlements before securing Israel’s commitment. And he and his aides apparently had no plan for what they would do if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said no.

One source of the Gray Lady's confusion is identified by David Phillips in a Commentary article explaining why the widespread assertion that Israeli settlements are illegal is a myth.  In truth, nearly everything written and said about the Palestinians is a fictive product of twentieth century Mideast politics;.  Every state or peoples have their founding myths, but there is a kernel of truth in such historical narratives.  What makes the Palestinian saga unique is that it is entirely based upon historical myth.  Of such myths are bad diplomacy--and bad policy--born.

Bottom Line.  What the Gray Lady misses is this: There was simply no way that Israel would allow itself to be pushed into more unilateral concessions--on an absurdly peripheral issue at that, settlements within the Green Line--at a time when Palestinian aggression had started the Gaza War just prior to President Obama's taking office.  No wonder 44 is at 4 percent popularity in Israel.  Diplomacy 101 would have had Team Obama focusing on Iran, not the umpteenth round of futile high-profile efforts to "solve" once and for all the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, which will under any plausible scenario last at least another generation, probably more.  Any solution must come from the ground up, step by step below the radar screen, and not via grand bargains in high-visibility diplomacy.

LFTC - Obama's War on Fox News

This Fox News recent video clip (3:05--the real stuff starts at 1:46) recounts the confrontation between ABC News White House correspondent Jake Tapper & White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs.  Tapper pressed hard on asking since when any White House could claim the right to define who is a a bona fide news organization and who is not.  Gibbs referred to the Glenn Beck & Sean Hannity programs as evidence, but Tapper would have none of it, noting thousands of people work for Fox News.  Fox News 6 o'clock anchor Bret Baier notes that CNBC lefty opinion-meisters are welcome at the White House.  (As for Beck & Hannity, both openly state that their shows are opinion, and not news shows.)  Moderate Democrats in Congress oppose the White House's campaign too, calling it overkill.

Charles Krauthammer (who appears frequently on the weekday 6 PM Fox news program), writes that the White House has gone too far in attacking Fox.  CK writes:

The White House has declared war on Fox News. White House communications director Anita Dunn said that Fox is "opinion journalism masquerading as news." Patting rival networks on the head for their authenticity (read: docility), senior adviser David Axelrod declared Fox "not really a news station." And Chief of Staff Emanuel told (warned?) the other networks not to "be led (by) and following Fox."

Meaning? If Fox runs a story critical of the administration -- from exposing White House czar Van Jones as a loony 9/11 "truther" to exhaustively examining the mathematical chicanery and hidden loopholes in proposed health care legislation -- the other news organizations should think twice before following the lead.

The signal to corporations is equally clear: You might have dealings with a federal behemoth that not only disburses more than $3 trillion every year but is extending its reach ever deeper into private industry -- finance, autos, soon health care and energy. Think twice before you run an ad on Fox.

At first, there was little reaction from other media. Then on Thursday, the administration tried to make them complicit in an actual boycott of Fox. The Treasury Department made available Ken Feinberg, the executive pay czar, for interviews with the White House "pool" news organizations -- except Fox. The other networks admirably refused, saying they would not interview Feinberg unless Fox was permitted to as well. The administration backed down.

CK then links the controversy to the idea expressed by "Father of the Constitution" (and of the Bill of Rights) James Madison, who wrote in Federalist 10 that a multiplicity of factions would leaven governance and obviate the temptation towards tyranny, with everyone given a seat at the table, so to speak.  Wesley Pruden sees Third World governance in Team Obama's war against critics.

Mark Steyn sees Team Obama tougher on Fox than on our enemies--think Tsar Vlad the Bad, Mullah Ahmadinejad the Real Bad:

At a superficial level, this looks tough. A famously fair-minded centrist told me the other day that he'd been taken aback by some of the near parodic examples of Leftie radicalism discovered in the White House in recent weeks. I don't know why he'd be surprised. When a man has spent his entire adult life in the "community organized" precincts of Chicago, it should hardly be news that much of his Rolodex is made up of either loons or thugs. The trick is identifying who falls into which category. Anita Dunn, the Communications Director commending Mao Zedong as a role model to graduating high school students, would seem an obvious loon. But the point about Mao, as Charles Krauthammer noted, is that he was the most ruthless imposer of mass conformity in modern history: In Mao's China, everyone wore the same clothes. So when Communications Commissar Mao Ze Dunn starts berating Fox News for not getting into the same Maosketeer costumes as the rest of the press corps, you begin to see why the Chairman might appeal to her as a favorite "political philosopher".

So the troika of Dunn, Emanuel and Axelrod were dispatched to the Sunday talk shows to lay down the law. We all know the lines from "The Untouchables" – "the Chicago way," don't bring a knife to a gunfight – and, given the pay czar's instant contract-gutting of executive compensation and the demonization of the health insurers and much else, it's easy to look on the 44th president as an old-style Cook County operator: You wanna do business in this town, you gotta do it through me. You can take the community organizer out of Chicago, but you can't take the Chicago out of the community organizer.

The trouble is it isn't tough, not where toughness counts. Who are the real "Untouchables" here? In Moscow, it's Putin and his gang, contemptuously mocking U.S. officials even when (as with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton) they're still on Russian soil. In Tehran, it's Ahmadinejad and the mullahs openly nuclearizing as ever feebler warnings and woozier deadlines from the Great Powers come and go. Even Obama's Nobel Peace Prize is an exquisite act of condescension from the Norwegians, a dog biscuit and a pat on the head to the American hyperpower for agreeing to spay itself into a hyperpoodle. We were told that Obama would use "soft power" and "smart diplomacy" to get his way. Russia and Iran are big players with global ambitions, but Obama's soft power is so soft it doesn't even work its magic on a client regime in Kabul whose leaders' very lives are dependent on Western troops. If Obama's "smart diplomacy" is so smart that even Hamid Karzai ignores it with impunity, why should anyone else pay attention?

Bottom Line.  Presidents who assail media critics more often than not diminish themselves and their governance.  This goes double when the critics are presenting facts.  Fabulists can be ignored.  But it is a measure of telling and accurate criticism that Presidents open fire.  With two wars underway, a nuclearizing Iran, a renegade North Korea & Venezuela, trillions in deficits as far as the eye can see, and economy whose recovery is far from certain, one would think that President 44 has far weightier fare on his plate.

LFTC - NFL: Race Card Bum's Rush

Rush Limbaugh's Wall Street Journal op-ed neatly sums up how libel cost him a possible ownership share in the St. Louis Rams NFL franchise.  The Race Card, it seems, while of diminished utility in the Era of Obama, retains some utility.  (A white beauty queen who won a contest at a predominantly black college encountered race card protests, too.)  James Taranto's interview with Internet newsie Andrew Breitbart shows how new media can circumvent liberal bias at times--in this case, over the abuses at ACORN, an outfit that is no stranger to playing the race card.  Those who spread such racial poison seem either not to know or not to care that in doing so they poison themselves as well.  Mark Steyn compares the reaction of the mainstream media (MSM) to the quotes fabricated at Rush's expense to MSM's silence on White House communications director Anita Dunn praising Mao Zedong before a student audience, noting that praising a mass murderer--of the Left, only--is permissible in liberal quarters, but not racist statements:

Well, so what? All those dead Chinese are no-name peasants a long way away. What’s the big deal? If you say, “Chairman Mao? Wasn’t he the wacko who offed 70 million Chinks?”, you’ll be hounded from public life for saying the word “Chinks.” But, if you commend the murderer of those 70 million as a role model in almost any school room in the country from kindergarten to the Ivy League, it’s so entirely routine that only a crazy like Glenn Beck would be boorish enough to point it out.

Which is odd, don’t you think? Because it suggests that our present age of politically correct hypersensitivity is not just morally unserious but profoundly decadent.

LFTC - A Hero's Unnecessary Death

Former British Army officer Tim Wilson explores how a combination of reportorial carelessness & stupidity, a newspaper's arrogance and political meddling led to the probably unnecessary death of a British soldier in Afghanistan.  It is a sad, sobering tale, well told.  The picture of the soldier who gave his life in the line of fire  shows the character of a man whose memory deserves everlasting honor--more than can be said for the reporter whose life he saved.

LFTC - Edward Kennedy: Mainstream Media & Mary Jo

Mark Steyn rips into MSM for virtually ignoring Mary Jo Kopechne, and notes some Ted-worshipers even think Mary Jo would have been happy to drown (at 28) to create a great senator in so disappearing.  MS notes how former British minister John Profumo, after being forced to resign in 1963 for lying about an affair with a call girl, went into obscurity and did charitable penance the rest of his life:

You can’t make an omelette without breaking chicks, right? I don’t know how many lives the senator changed — he certainly changed Mary Jo’s — but you’re struck less by the precise arithmetic than by the basic equation: How many changed lives justify leaving a human being struggling for breath for up to five hours pressed up against the window in a small, shrinking air pocket in Teddy’s Oldsmobile? If the senator had managed to change the lives of even more Americans, would it have been okay to leave a couple more broads down there? Hey, why not? At the Huffington Post, Melissa Lafsky mused on what Mary Jo “would have thought about arguably being a catalyst for the most successful Senate career in history . . . Who knows — maybe she’d feel it was worth it.” What true-believing liberal lass wouldn’t be honored to be dispatched by that death panel?

We are all flawed, and most of us are weak, and in hellish moments, at a split-second’s notice, confronting the choice that will define us ever after, many of us will fail the test. Perhaps Mary Jo could have been saved; perhaps she would have died anyway. What is true is that Edward Kennedy made her death a certainty. When a man (if you’ll forgive the expression) confronts the truth of what he has done, what does honor require? Six years before Chappaquiddick, in the wake of Britain’s comparatively very minor “Profumo scandal,” the eponymous John Profumo, Her Majesty’s Secretary of State for War, resigned from the House of Commons and the Queen’s Privy Council, and disappeared amid the tenements of the East End to do good works washing dishes and helping with children’s playgroups, in anonymity, for the last 40 years of his life. With the exception of one newspaper article to mark the centenary of his charitable mission, he never uttered another word in public again.

Ted Kennedy went a different route. He got kitted out with a neck brace and went on TV and announced the invention of the “Kennedy curse,” a concept that yoked him to his murdered brothers as a fellow victim — and not, as Mary Jo perhaps realized in those final hours, the perpetrator. He dared us to call his bluff, and, when we didn’t, he made all of us complicit in what he’d done. We are all prey to human frailty, but few of us get to inflict ours on an entire nation.

Steyn has a point: The brighter side of Ted Kennedy--the master legislator--doesn't wipe away the dark side; rather, it stands alongside.  It does for all of us, and so it should for a Kennedy.  MSM is especially obligated to note this, its task being to judge at a distance, with a measure of dispassion.

LFTC - Robert Novak & Press Absolutism

The Wall Street Journal editors salute Robert Novak, a titan of political journalism for over 50 years, upon his passing last week.  Of Novak's substantial caliber there is no doubt.  I found him, in a few encounters, honest and gracious, always with something useful to say.  His major issue blind spot was antipathy to Israel.  But he also exhibited a common deformation professionelle for reporters: an abiding belief in the absolute--no exceptions--sanctity of press privilege to guard sources.

It was this faith that led Novak to remain silent after he published a column outing CIA desk jockey Valerie Plame and triggering an investigation into who disclosed her name to Novak.  He said nothing, while the Bush administration was nearly destroyed during wartime--with many senior officials devoting countless hours to dealing with this sideshow, hours better devoted to figuring out how best to fight several wars.  He stayed silent as Scooter Libby was indicted, convicted and disbarred for allegedly perjuring himself about having knowledge of the leaker (he did not).  He stayed silent all through this, knowing that former Colin Powell deputy at State, inveterate gossip Richard Armitage, had accidentally leaked Plame's name to Novak.

To be sure, there are serious arguments supporting a broad press privilege, but no privilege should be absolute.  At minimum, obstructing a criminal investigation is hard to countenance.  Will sources refuse to talk to the Robert Novaks of the world?  Some, surely; others, perhaps less frequently and more guardedly.  But this seems to me an acceptable price to pay for preventing abuse of an absolute power, leading in the Pale case to the destruction of one man's reputation and loss of professional livelihood.

Novak, a staunch conservative Republican, did not do this out of malice, but out of loyalty above all to professional duty as he understood it.  Purism comes at a high price, and it was not Novak who paid it.  That said, he was a formidable force in Washington journalism, one of the very finest of his craft in the postwar period.

LFTC - Protecing Hillary, Sarah Should Be So Lucky

Two Washington Post reporters who posted (sorry about that) a tasteless joke about SecState Hillary were told to apologize and had their online blog canceled.  Said co-blogger lefty Dana Milbank: ""I regret that we put up that image, and while I highly doubt the secretary of state has seen 'Mouthpiece Theater,' I would be honored to have the opportunity to apologize to her over a beer."

Does anyone think that a similar joke about Sarah Palin would have galvanized the WP or any other mainstream media outlet to move that drastically and rapidly?  And would Dana Milbank think himself "honored" to apologize to Palin over a beer?

LFTC - Palin Derangement Syndrome: MainStream Media Confession

Reporter Carl Cannon posted a stunning article Friday on AOL Politics Daily, conceding MainStream Media (MSM) bias against Sarah Palin versus Joe Biden during the 2008 election:

In the 2008 election, we took sides, straight and simple, particularly with regard to the vice presidential race. I don't know that we played a decisive role in that campaign, and I'm not saying the better side lost. What I am saying is that we simply didn't hold Joe Biden to the same standard as Sarah Palin, and for me, the real loser in this sordid tale is my chosen profession.

Later on in the article, after a brief historical survey, Cannon provides numerous specific examples of outrageous commentary, false accusations, disregard of contrary evidence, crude caricature, etc.  Read this astonishing admission by an MSM member, who is to be praised for coming out with the truth.

Meanwhile, California political legend Willie Brown says that the Palin-is finished pundits are wrong, and that Palin is a political genius.

Bottom Line.  Palin Derangement Syndrome will surely persist.  And harassment of her will continue after she departs the governorship.  But at least there are cracks in the facade of MSM, and in the long run perhaps more MSM types--some of whom are fair-minded--will apply a rule of reason in assessing Palin, treating her more like they treat other candidates.

LFTC - Secrets: Gray Lady Sins Again

Tuesday's New York Times featured a front-pager about our military resuming drone reconnaissance flights over Pakistan to help Pakistani troops.  Mind you, we are not talking here about armed drones that may fire & kill people, simply secret recon flights to help locate the bad guys.  Americans generally know that this kind of stuff goes on.  Putting this on the front page merely provides ammunition to Islamists who seek to discredit Pakistani troop operations by linking them to our military.  Such gratuitous disclosure adds nothing of consequence to public debate here.  Some secrets should stay secret.

LFTC - Letterman's Palin Porn

Check out this story & associated video clip (1:42) of Letterman jokes aimed at Sarah Palin and her daughters.  Then try to imagine any comedian making such jokes about the Obama family.

LFTC - Barack & Michelle: Celestial Governance

NRO satirist Rob Long hilariously profiles the Obamas with a mock Newsweek interview of them in Heaven.  It illustrates the depths to which mainstream media often sink in lionizing the First Couple and hanging on their every word.  But not always, as this NBC Today Show video clip (4:10) makes fun of 44's over-reliance on the TelePrompTer.  Enjoy a few laughs in an unfunny time.

LFTC - NSA Wiretap Abuses?

Yesterday's New York Times front-pager was breathlessly headlined: "U.S. Officials Say U.S Wiretaps Exceeded Law".  Reading into the text, regarding the National Security Agency's implementation of the Telecommunications Surveillance Program reveals this:

In recent weeks, the eavesdropping agency notified members of the Congressional intelligence committees that it had encountered operational and legal problems in complying with the new wiretapping law, Congressional officials said.

Officials would not discuss details of the overcollection problem because it involves classified intelligence-gathering techniques. But the issue appears focused in part on technical problems in the N.S.A.’s ability at times to distinguish between communications inside the United States and those overseas as it uses its access to American telecommunications companies’ fiber-optic lines and its own spy satellites to intercept millions of calls and e-mail messages.

One official said that led the agency to inadvertently “target” groups of Americans and collect their domestic communications without proper court authority. Officials are still trying to determine how many violations may have occurred.

The horror!: inadvertent NSA violations due to the difficulty of isolating specific Internet traffic--a task that is hellish, as anyone with a modicum of knowledge about modern data networks knows full well.

Team 44 Gaffe Patrol

Politico.com has Hillary's Mexico "Virgin of Guadalupe" gaffe.  This is no big deal, as public officials make bloopers by the carload, it being impossible to know everything and say everything perfectly.  But GOP officials are held to a higher standard, so LFTC will keep watch.  Recall how Dan Quayle's gaffes were fodder for Jay Leno, while Al Gore's mistranslation of E pluribus unum as "out of one, many"--the correct translation is "Out of many, one"--was ignored.  Because among MSM types, "everyone knows" that Democrats are smart and Republicans dumb.  So we will watch Team 44 in place of MSM.

Iran: Gray Lady Strikes Again

A New York Times front-pager details US - Israel dealings re Iran in the past year, with the US withholding equipment Israel wants in order to boost its capacity to strike at Iran's nuclear assets.  The details of the to-and-fro between America & Israel are of interest and worth reading.  But once gain, the Gray Lady publishes an article about super-secret goings-on, just coincidental with another major event: publication, tomorrow, of a book on Obama's foreign policy challenges published by--you guessed it--the reporter who wrote the story airing highly secret details that may help the Iranians.  National security second, Gray Lady reporter book sales first....

Iraq, Shoes and Our Media

Ralph Peters perfectly captures the real meaning of the Iraqi journalist shoe-toss at President Bush, missed by MainStream Media in their zeal to paint it as another example of how everyone hates George W. Bush.  Iraq is now a free enough society for open, even rude, public dissent aimed at a powerful leader.  Iraqi PM Maliki is proceeding in accordance with legal process, and not by Saddam's methods.  (No one, as Peters notes, would have dared throw anything at Saddam.)  In no Mideast country save Israel was this scene and response possible until the surge saved Operation Iraqi Freedom.  Iraq is being transformed from what Natan Sharansky calls a "a fear society"--a famous dissident book, written outside Iraq by Kanan Makiya, labeled Saddam's Iraq "Republic of Fear"--into what NS defines as a "free society": one in which anyone can walk into a public square and rail against the powers that be, secure that no harm will come for doing so.  Yes, too many bombs are still going off, and progress is still not irreversible, but victory appears very achievable.  It will prove, if secured, a monumental victory that might possibly change Mideast poison politics forever.

At TAS, George Neumayr argues the contrary case with his customary acuity.  He sees an Iraq rejecting modernity and America.

MSM is too addled with Bush Derangement Syndrome--blame everything on "W"--to notice.

Mumbai & More Media Murders

Chalk up another one for mass media.  This harrowing eyewitness account by tourist Michael Pollack tells how heroism by Taj Hotel staff saved lives at cost to their own is mostly an uplifting tribute to the spirit of everyday folks who rose to the occasion.  But then there are folks in the media who, at one point, reported the location inside the Taj where he, his wife, friends and others were hiding.

After about 20 minutes, other staff members escorted us down a corridor to an area called The Chambers, a members-only area of the hotel. There were about 250 people in six rooms. Inside, the staff was serving sandwiches and alcohol. People were nervous, but cautiously optimistic. We were told The Chambers was the safest place we could be because the army was now guarding its two entrances and the streets were still dangerous. There had been attacks at a major railway station and a hospital.

But then, a member of parliament phoned into a live newscast and let the world know that hundreds of people--including CEOs, foreigners and members of parliament--were "secure and safe in The Chambers together." Adding to the escalating tension and chaos was the fact that, via text and cellphone, we knew that the dome of the Taj was on fire and that it could move downward.

At around 2 a.m., the staff attempted an evacuation. We all lined up to head down a dark fire escape exit. But after five minutes, grenade blasts and automatic weapon fire pierced the air. A mad stampede ensued to get out of the stairwell and take cover back inside The Chambers.

More:

The 10 minutes around 2:30 a.m. were the most frightening. Rather than the back-and-forth of gunfire, we just heard single, punctuated shots. We later learned that the terrorists went along a different corridor of The Chambers, room by room, and systematically executed everyone: women, elderly, Muslims, Hindus, foreigners. A group huddled next to Anjali was devout Bori Muslims who would have been slaughtered just like everyone else, had the terrorists gone into their room. Everyone was in deep prayer and most, Anjali included, had accepted that their lives were likely over. It was terrorism in its purest form. No one was spared.

The next five hours were filled with the sounds of an intense grenade/gun battle between the Indian commandos and the terrorists. It was fought in darkness; each side was trying to outflank the other.

By the time dawn broke, the commandos had successfully secured our corridor. A young commando led out the people packed into Anjali's room. When one woman asked whether it was safe to leave, the commando replied: "Don't worry, you have nothing to fear. The first bullets have to go through me."

Read the entire beautifully-written account.  Then read Bret Stephens's Global View column recounting other media atrocities regarding terrorism.   Perhaps most infuriating of all is how terrorists can allege anything against America & Britain and are presumptively accorded credence by media types, while conversely they direct corrosive scorn on what those government say in reply.  Stephens writes:

Of course, it's always possible to fall for a well-told lie. But it's worth wondering why a media that treats nearly every word uttered by the U.S., British or Israeli governments as inherently suspect has proved so consistently credulous when it comes to every dubious or defamatory claim made against those governments. Or, for that matter, why the media has been so intent on magnifying genuine scandals (like Abu Ghraib) to the point that they become the moral equivalent of 9/11. Some caution is in order: Terrorists, of all people, might actually believe what they read in the papers.

Amen.  and Amen as well to Ralph Peters, who skewers the NY Times reporter who did a front-page hit piecce on war hero Gen. Barry McCaffrey:

WHEN New York Times "investigative reporter" David Barstow was in kindergarten, a young Army officer lay in a hospital bed recovering from one of the three grievous wounds he would suffer in the course of four combat tours in our nation's service.

Barstow never felt compelled to serve his country in any capacity. Instead, he dedicated his life to that godlike calling, journalism, in which those who never actually do anything are empowered to attack those who get things done.

That wounded officer, Barry McCaffrey, would rise from his hospital bed and, despite losing most of the use of one arm, go on to wear four stars. Then, at a president's request, he took off his uniform to become our nation's drug czar.

Peters concludes that the greatest oxymoron is not "military intelligence" but "journalistic integrity."

PALIN WATCH: Counsel From Katie

The New York Post's Page Six column quotes Katie Couric offering friendly advice to Sarah Palin.  Says Katie, "I think she should keep her head down, work really hard and learn about governing. But I'm not anyone to give advice to anyone about anything,"  Ummm, Katie, you just did what you said you weren't gonna do.  Movin' right along....

Now, governing is one thing Palin manifestly has done, something neither of the pair on the winning ticket, nor her own running mate, has on their resume.  Palin has run for nearly two years the country's largest land mass--1/6 the geographic US area, with a small population, to be sure, but a budget this year three times Governor Bill Clinton's last Arkansas budget.  Palin's is $12B, and Clinton's was $3B in 1992 dollars--adjusted for inflation, Bill's was $4B.

Now, Palin has received lots of fire for not being what few Governors are: foreign policy whizzes.  Barack Obama is hardly such a whizbang, having but a few months briefings head start on Palin, yet escaped most media criticism.  Hillary and Big Mac tried but failed to put the issue at the top.  But Commanders-in-Chief have more often been Governors than Senators, and part of being a C-in-C is knowing how to govern.  Plain has "walked the walk" here.

Seems Katie needs a civics course.  She can start with this question: What do Governors do?  Answer: Governors govern!  Next question: Among those you interviewed during Campaign 2008, which candidate saw FDR on TV in 1929?

Special Ops: Gray Lady Goes "Bombs Away!"; MSM's Obama Tank

How nice of the New York Times to spring another secret operations front-pager just the day before Veterans' Day.  It reveals that since 2004 the administration has worked on speeding up its ability to respond quickly to actionable intelligence on al-Qaeda operations in 15 to 20 countries, moving still further in 2006.  Operations in countries like Somalia require that the Secretary of Defense approve; those in highly-sensitive countries like Pakistan require Presidential approval in addition to SecDef sign-off.  About a dozen more missions than previously known were conducted.  Some were scrapped due to diplomatic risk or uncertainty about the quality of the intel.  Sounds like careful planning and execution to me.

But what of the Gray Lady's act in printing this stuff?  What public interest is served by this?  At most, it confirms that the administration acted more times inside certain countries than was publicly known, and more times in countries like Syria, where it was thought we had not done anything of consequence.  That is nice to know.  But cataloging on the front pages a list of special operations informs our enemy, provides clues as to where and when we struck, and also what considerations we take into account.  This stuff does not belong out in the open.

Wars involve secrecy at times.  These kinds of operations can be expected to be carried out by the Obama administration.  They are essential in wars fought mostly in the shadows.  Military operations in shadow wars, with very rare exceptions for something awful or evil, should be left in the shadows.  Judgments on disclosure are better left to elected officials rather than unelected reporters and editors.

Meanwhile Wes Pruden acerbically notes that Washington Post ombudsman Deborah Howell recently documented that the WP went in the tank for Barack Obama.  As British editor Harold Evans put it, MSM voted "early & often" for The One.

Media Electioneering: A Remedy?

Voters get their final say--after weeks of voting--at the polls today.  But whatever the result, in many respects it has truly been an historic election: The greatest war hero ever to win a presidential party nomination, two iconic female candidates, a tumultuous season of epic length, with endless twists on which issue ranked first--from Iraq to the economy to Iran to energy to Russia, and back once again with a vengeance to the economy via the worst financial meltdown in 75 years.  Plus, of course, the first-ever viable African-American candidate.

Yet this election cycle marks another milestone.  The so-called MainStream Media--MSM--crossed a political Rubicon as well.  Though exhibiting for forty years a pronounced bias in favor of liberals and the Democratic Party, this time MSM outdid itself.  Far more than bias, this time MSM knowingly and purposefully acted as an active advocate for a preferred candidate.  Advocacy goes beyond mere bias, to deliberately and actively favoring one candidate at the expense of others.

In effect, MSM spent hundreds of millions of dollars seeking to help elect a chosen candidate: Senator Barack Obama.  Liberal bias alone does not account for this.  In the Democratic primary season MSM promoted Obama over Senator Hillary Clinton.  MSM's favoritism was so strong and obvious that Saturday Night Live parodied it in February, so effectively that a few MSM journalists did finally step up to the plate and ask a few non-softball questions of Obama--a sin for which they were excoriated by numerous MSM cheerleaders.

It all amounts to an illegal campaign contribution by MSM, masquerading as news coverage.  A Federal Election Commission that took its statutory mandate seriously would institute an investigation and impose the maximum permissible fine.  And a Federal Communications Commission that took its statutory obligations seriously would start a proceeding to take away the broadcast licenses of four networks--ABC, CBS, NBC & CNN--for violating their licensee obligations to operate in accordance with the "public interest, convenience and necessity."

Naturally, neither of these, both richly deserved, will happen.

PALIN WATCH: Free At Last!

An eleventh hour report clears Sarah Palin in "Troopergate" (in which it was alleged that Palin used her official power to assist her in a personal matter)--concluding that her conduct did not in any way violate state ethics laws.  Media hype here probably did no real harm.  Many voters know they'd have done anything they could to help protect their family, including using any official influence they could muster.  Palin, however, did NOT do this.  Sarah, you're a better person than I am, Gunga Din.

Meanwhile, on the O'Reilly Factor last night I learned that Team McCain turned down interviews for Palin with Fox's Bill O'Reilly & Chris Wallace--both offerings being for unedited interviews with notably fair interviewers.  Instead they gave three edited interviews to NBC torpedo Katie Couric.  I think the math is Dumb x Dumber x Dumbest-Squared....

Powell's Rabbit Punch; MSM Out to Lunch

WSJ editor Bret Stephens offers questions that Mainstream Media (MSM) in pundit parlance) declined to ask Colin Powell, notably Tom Brokaw's Sunday puffball interview.  Ace journalist Claudia Rosett took time out from keeping UN bureaucrats quaking in fear to add more detail on Powell, as in his ignoring massive evidence of French & Russian collusion with Saddam re the oil-for-food mega-scam.  Jeffrey Lord adds a dash of real wit by lethally comparing Powell to a famous film character in a famous film.

I start by acknowledging that Powell served his country in Vietnam, for which he merits lasting respect.  Since that time, however, this most political of generals has burnished his own reputation with MSM and like-minded, even at the expense of former friends and administrations.  It is not a pretty sight.  The picture Stephens includes with his column explains it all: Powell gyrating with a couple of rap stars.   This "Colin Cool" byplay lends Powell's celebrity prestige to purveyors of cultural raw sewage.

Colin Powell is Washington's premier pre-Barack Capitol Celebrity, his brand protected in a way Bill Clinton, formerly holder of that title, can only envy.  His sterling silver reputation survives disloyal undermining of a President who hired him and whose policies he tried to sabotage repeatedly; cold-blooded silence by keeping to himself the truth that his pal leaked Valerie Plame's name, while a former colleague was wrongfully convicted of perjury arising out of a leak he did not commit, and the entire administration was turned upside down as lives were wrecked by a runaway prosecutor; and casual criticism on subjects--like who should sit on the Supreme Court--about which he knows far less than Obama does about national security.

Did race have anything to do with a retired general who strongly favors affirmative action, endorsing a candidate of his own race?  One poll of military voters suggests it does: While 76 percent of whites & 63 percent of Hispanics favor McCain, 60 percent of blacks favor Obama.  There is as well a gender divide, but the numbers--men 70-22 for McCain, women 53-36 for Obama--are far narrower.  Especially compelling in suggesting race as a factor is that McCain is not simply a GOP white candidate; McCain is a certified war hero whose courage is an inspiration to many people, in and outside the military.  It would be wrong to conclude that Powell's primary motive was race--politics probably dominates, plus the general's antipathy to the administration whose President rejected much of Powell's advice and declined to invite him to serve a second term as Secretary of State.

Indeed, the boost Powell gives Obama enhances Obama's aura emanating from what might be called the Powell Effect: A personable, attractive liberal African-American--either a Democrat or a RINO (Republican In Name Only)--whose public posture is post-racial gets a magic carpet ride from MSM.

Testing Obama: Madeleine Albright Backs Joe Biden: Media Passes

Asked by a CNN interviewer if what Joe Biden said Sunday about Obama being certain to face a test in the form of an international crisis early in his term, Clinton era Secretary of State Madeleine Albright (whose father mentored Condi Rice) answered: "It's just a statement of fact, frankly."  Democratic pundit Kristen Powers, a truly intellectually honest voice, slams the media for "incredible bias" in not covering Biden's Bomb.  Powers nails the roots of media tilt for Democrats:

Part of the problem is their "Obama love," but we're also seeing the media elite's belief - prejudice - that anyone with an R behind their name is dumb. So, if they say something dumb, they must be dumb. A Democrat, like Biden, can make wildly inaccurate or outrageous comments and they are ignored because the TV and press insiders feel they "know who he really is."

On the stump recently, Sen. Biden declared he had "three words" for what the nation needs: "J-O-B-S."

Lucky for him, his name isn't Dan Quayle, or that would have followed him for the rest of his career.

MSM adoration boosts Barack globally.  Polls taken outside the US show Obama up nearly 4:1 over McCain, and up 64-4 in France.  The map at the poll website is great, with color coded country-specific numbers for two questions: preference and "makes a difference."  Checking page 2 of the site to look at the full 70-country breakdown, I found only 3 where McCain is favored: Cambodia, Philippines and Georgia.  Attribute the first two to America's Pacific wars, and the last one to August 2008, when McCain stood strong while Obama initially equivocated.

If Obama is elected, folks overseas may come to regret their rock-star infatuation with The One.

Campaign Homestretch: Media "Big Mo" for "O"

Samuel "Joe the Plumber" Wurzelbacher is the latest target to learn what happens to those who dent the aura of THE ONE: His media legions, the Toledo Blade reports, delve with unseemly alacrity into the background of the offender, searching for every instance of imperfect conduct, going all the way back to pre-natal sins.  The upshot: (1) Joe is not yet a licensed plumber, does not make enough to meet Obama's $250k threshold, and faces tax liens; (2) in May 2000 his Arizona driver's license was suspended for failure to pay civil fines:  Joe responded:

"It actually upsets me. I am a plumber, and just a plumber, and here Barack Obama or John McCain, I mean these guys are going to deal with some serious issues coming up shortly. The media's worried about whether I paid my taxes, they're worried about any number of silly things that have nothing to do with America. They really don't. I asked a question. When you can't ask a question to your leaders anymore, that gets scary. That bothers me."

Mind you, Joe is a plumber.  He simply does not have a license.  Classical economists consider licensing a state-sponsored impediment to full market competition, used by entrenched rent-seeking interests to keep out competitors and thus enhance the income (a/k/a economic rents) they reap.  Think "gypsy cabs" in big cities: Are they licensed?  No.  Are they cab drivers?  Yes.  But for liberals, you are not anything until the government says you are.  Put simply, government determines reality.  Joe's customers don't agree.  They measure reality by whether Joe provides service they value sufficiently to pay Joe's going rate.

Enough with the economics of Joe.  Back to the politics of Joe.  Compare Joe's treatment by reporters to coverage by the media of Obama and ACORN.  Obama has represented ACORN as a lawyer, worked with them in Chicago.  His campaign paid ACORN over $800,000 for "lighting and site preparation."  He and domestic terrorist Bill Ayers sat on a charitable board that awarded over $200,000 to ACORN.  Thirteen states are investigating ACORN for vote fraud.  ACORN has been found guilty of committing fraud in past elections.  Of 666,000 Ohio new voter registrations, there have been 200,000 "discrepancies" unearthed.  In 2004, there were 1.9 million "provisional" votes cast--votes by voters who did not present adequate proof of ID, but were allowed to vote pending subsequent verification of their legal entitlement to do so.  700,000 of those ballots--more than the 500,000 popular votes Al Gore officially won by in 2000--were subsequently found to be invalid.  If ACORN's 1.3 million new registrants turn up the same 35.5 percent invalidity rate, 461,500 of ACORN's registrants will prove invalid.  If ACORN's fraud rate in other jurisdictions proves again the case, anywhere from 60 to 99 percent could prove invalid.

See a problem?  Where are the massive resources of Mainstream media delving into every nook and cranny of ACORN?  Delving into Obama's relationship in detail, and accepting no evasions from the candidate?  Delving into the broader question of how, in a close election, the margin could easily be decided by fraud.  Would any GOP candidate have survived reneging on a pledge to take public funds in the general election, against a Democrat who had made--and stuck--to a similar pledge?

In 2004, Evan Thomas, Newsweek bureau chief, famously boasted that the media would be worth 15 points to John Kerry in the election.  That probably was 10 points, high.  This time, figure that at least 10 points, maybe even the 15 Thomas boasted of, will go to Obama, thanks to selective reportorial aggressiveness in coverage.  The stories MSM declines to cover may prove far more significant than those they actually cover.

Monday's RCP presidential poll nationwide average of seven major polls has Obama +5-1/2 points, 15 days before Election Day.

Palin Watch: Gibson's (1001 - 999) ABC Nights & Palin's 50

ABC News anchor Charlie Gibson interviewed (website to access videos) Sarah Palin last Thursday and Friday: Part I = 6:18 + II = 5:27 + III = 10:11 = 21:56 total--labeled "Full Interview" (after the first segment it continues with two more fresh video loads, so stay tuned).  A separate segment, labeled "Does Gov. Palin Agree With the Bush Doctrine?" (7:21--making for 29:17 in all) contains some foreign policy stuff--some of what was aired on Russia, though not the part on Georgia, Ukraine & NATO, plus some on Israel & Iran.

Omitted are four key segments: (1) There is nothing posted of the much-criticized exchange on the Bush Doctrine: (2) nor is the part on Georgia, Ukraine & NATO posted; (3) nor is the exchange on Pakistan included, which has received little notice but on which Palin was right, as noted below; (4) nor is the exchange on the Iraq War, God & Abraham Lincoln posted.  Based upon my original 9:35 & 3:00 clips for Thursday night, no longer available in that form, I estimate that 2 to 3 minutes was deleted.  What follows includes discussion of those segments ABC deleted from its "Full Interview" and "Bush Doctrine" video clips online.  James Taranto of WSJ's "Best of the Web Today" posted a partial transcript that includes omitted excerpts of the Thursday night interview, that ABC later sub silento deleted.

ABC also posted a "True?  False?  The Palin Fact Check" video (2;36) featuring online reporter Jake Tapper.  Tapper's points: (1) Palin would be the first VP in 32 years not to have met a foreign leader;  Yet Tapper blew it, too.  He cites Dick Cheney, George Bush Sr., Dan Quayle & Walter Mondale as examples.  Mondale became VP in 1977.  So actually one has to go further back.  I have not time to check, but perhaps Spiro Agnew (VP 1969 - 1973) had not met any before becoming VP.  Ironically, JT's error made Palin look less unusual in that respect.  What Tapper omits is that governors frequently have not met heads of state.  And governors are more typically elected presidents than senators.  (2) Tapper says Palin's "You can see Russia from Alaska" statement is true, and shows the picture.  (3) He marks her false on her statement that she has not modified her climate change position, with regard to man-made causes, and cites an Fairbanks, Alaska paper's quotation from 2007 as proof.  Assuming the paper got it right--in other words, was more careful than Gibson & Tapper--award a point to ABC here.

Palin, while shaky at times, showed a better understanding of security matters than did Charlie Gibson Thursday night.  She did better than Barack Obama could have done, given a comparably aggressive interview just a fortnight into his own candidacy.  Let's start with ABC's performance, then go to Palin's.

More on ABC and Other Media Matters.  Chris Wallace criticized ABC's editing, and noted that Charlie Gibson, with his glasses perched on the bridge of his nose, acted like teacher grilling a student in an examination.  Apparently, Team McCain fumbled, not insisting on a live interview, with full transcript aired--a mistake Team Obama did not make with Bill O'Reilly.  Kirsten Powers, a moderate pro-Democratic pundit and an honest one, exposes more ABC sins, in misrepresenting several matters by cropping context.  Gibson made other glaring errors re "facts" he cited, noted below in the appropriate section.

Bill Kristol tallies MSM misses and concludes, in essence, per the Greeks, that those whom the Gods would destroy they first make mad.  Tod Lindberg recounts an oldie to expose media hypocrisy: when a son of Al Gore's was busted with dope at his high school, Gore called around and asked that the papers leave the kid alone; they complied, a courtesy that Bristol Palin did not get for becoming pregnant.  Michelle Malkin skewers "media moms" for attacking Palin's super-mom role.

Highlights:

National Security.  Gibson pressed Palin on the Bush Doctrine, a term Palin did not clearly associate with pre-emption, which Gibson dated to Sept. 2002 and said that is the Doctrine's holding.  But that Doctrine is broader, being in fact quadripartite.  Palin's initial response, "In what respect, Charlie," was thus absolutely on point.  It includes democracy promotion, from a June 2002 speech.  It includes chasing those who harbor terrorists, from Bush's Sept. 2001 post-9/11 speech to Congress.  Gibson himself is misinformed on this, as Palin may be also.  And Charlie, listen up!  Charles Krauthammer, perhaps first to use the label--in 2001, not 2002--adds a fourth pillar: unilateralism: the Bush administration's rejection of the Kyoto Treaty on climate change, and the ABM Treaty on arms control.  More accurately, the fourth pillar might be called conditional unilateralism: America prefers to act in concert with allies, but is prepared to go it alone if need be.  In the event, Professor Charlie needs to study up before he gives his next foreign policy history lecture.

N.B., Doctrines are never proclaimed formally as such by presidents; they are named by journalists and/or pundits, and then picked up by historians.  The important point is does a candidate know the underlying concepts: Plain surely grasps the four pillars noted above.  Palin set "legitimate and enough" intelligence as the predicate for a pre-emptive strike.

Palin sidestepped saying that she would "support" an Israeli strike on Iran.  Such a direct answer would have caused a hornet's nest overseas--especially, in Israel, where the governing party holds a primary election Wednesday, to select its new Prime Minister.  Palin properly, each time she was pressed by Gibson, answered that Israel as a sovereign nation is entitled to decide what best serves its needs for self-defense.  That is always the answer any candidate or elected leader should give to any hypothetical question.  Endorsement comes, if at all, after Israel takes a given action.

Gibson asked three times point blank whether Palin would go into Pakistan after terrorists, without Pakistan's consent.  Palin wisely danced around this.  Obama got into hot water in summer 2007 when he said that he would, if necessary, invade Pakistan to go after bin Laden; the statement caused a furor in Pakistan.  Palin could not say "no" either, as such would contradict the covert policy that the Bush administration is conducting now, which no doubt has McCain's support.  ("Covert" doesn't always mean truly secret--a covert policy may be known to all who follow the issue in the press--but rather means that there is no official acknowledgment of the policy.)  A candidate cannot prudently advocate openly going into the territory of a country nominally allied with us, without that country's consent--especially a nuclear-armed Muslim nation.  Not unless, that is, you wish to see riots in Pakistan and surging anti-Americanism.  As to Georgia & Ukraine, in saying that they should join NATO, and that we would thus have to be prepared to go to war if they are attacked, Palin follows McCain's policy.  (NATO signatories must go to war to help a member who is attacked.)

Palin stressed that energy is integral to national security.  Asked if she had ever met a head of state, she indicated no, but noted that governors rarely do.  Asked about travel, she added Canada & Mexico to her travel list (Kuwait & Germany).  Gibson challenged her re Russia.  Palin responded that Russia wrongly invaded a small democratic Georgia.

Asked about her 2007 statement re not focusing the surge in Iraq, Palin noted that she was focused on governing her state; the query came from a reporter for a state business publication.  Her answer was reasonable.  Asked about sanctions against Iran not working, she said we should continue them.

God--and Saddam--re the Iraq War.  Gibson tried to nail Palin on having claimed that the Iraq War is one in which God is on our side, pursuant to God's plan.  Their exchange:

Gibson: You said recently, in your old church, "Our national leaders are sending U.S. soldiers on a task that is from God." Are we fighting a holy war?
Palin: You know, I don't know if that was my exact quote.
Gibson: Exact words.
Palin: But the reference there is a repeat of Abraham Lincoln's words when he said--first, he suggested never presume to know what God's will is, and I would never presume to know God's will or to speak God's words.
But what Abraham Lincoln had said, and that's a repeat in my comments, was let us not pray that God is on our side in a war or any other time, but let us pray that we are on God's side.

Sound familiar?  Think of Obama's "God's, guns..." crack in San Francisco, that torpedoed his Pennsylvania primary chances.  MSM types like Gibson think the same way, and the mask drops from time to time.

Re Saddam, Laurie Mylroie notes Sarah's comment about fighting in Iraq enemies who killed thousands on 9/11, and cites evidence that connections between Saddam and 9/11 may have been indirect: clandestine assistance.  Millions of documents seized in Iraq may offer further clues, as time passes.

Biden.  Palin on the election and experience: "It is for no more politics as usual and somebody's big, fat resume, maybe, that shows decades & decades in that Washington Establishment where yeah, they've had opportunity to meet heads of state."  Point to Sarah.

Environment.  Gibson pressed Palin about changing her position on whether global warming is man-made, Palin having answered partly so, when before, apparently, she said it was not man-made.  Voters do not care much about this one, and Gibson can commiserate with Al Gore.  She answered perfectly on her pro-drilling stance in Alaska, that she intends to persuade McCain to reconsider his opposition to drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR).  Palin noted the cyclical warming and cooling trends on our planet--"an inconvenient truth" Greens often elide.  She attributed "some" climate change to "some" human activities.

Earmarks: "Bridge to Nowhere".  Gibson pushed the "Bridge to Nowhere" controversy.  Palin had initially supported it, then changed her mind.  She explained that state officials often, in effect, play by the rules that exist, and apply for federal aid, but that the bridge became too much--a bridge too far, if the reader will excuse a pun.  Gibson archly asked if Palin wanted to "revise and extend her remarks."  That phrase is familiar to those who know how Members of Congress amend or add remarks never made or made awkwardly on the floor ("My opponent, a prize putzhead if ever there was one...." becomes, with editing, "My distinguished, honorable opponent....").  It is Beltway Lifer-speak only political junkies with Hill experience know.  But it no doubt played well as inside baseball to media pals of Charlie.  Palin explained that the $223 million Congress sent anyway (an extra $223 million was buried in the Federal Highway Trust Fund allocation for Alaska, rather than sent as a visible earmark) was applied to other purposes.  Gibson pursued the matter, stating that Palin had not simply returned the extra FHTF dollars; Palin replied that she had accepted the money, as locals do, but put it to better use.  Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK), chief opponent of the B-to-N, praised Palin for killing it back home.

Gibson asked Palin about the 2008 earmark for her state, of $155 million, $231 per capita for the state's 670,000 residents; he noted that Barack Obama's state, Illinois, got only $22 per capita in earmarks.  With 12.8 million people, it got $282 million.  At Alaska's level it would have gotten just shy of $2 billion.  But this is always the case in Washington; small states have equal suffrage in the Senate, and can band together to veto any allocation they dislike.  This is garden-variety federalism.  Federal spending reform, if it comes, will be in sending fewer earmarked dollars back to the States, and/or in collecting fewer tax dollars in the first place, not in how those dollars are apportioned.

In all, Palin used her state's line-item veto (the power of the chief executive to veto specific line items in a bill, without vetoing the entire bill) to cut 10 percent of the spending proposed by the state legislature.  There is no Federal line-item veto, so McCain would have to kill entire bills, a costly tactic if earmarks are attached as "riders" on a bill McCain might otherwise wish to sign.  (Re earmarks, Obama has gotten a total of $936 million during his 4-year Senate tenure.)

Social Issues.  Abortion, stem cells, guns, raising kids and holding high public office, were all covered.  Palin's strongest answer came on why she opposes a semi-automatic (rapid single-shots) assault weapons ban.  She ignored issues of defining such weapons for purposes of a useful law, or the improbability of keeping AK-47s out of the hands of anyone nastier than Grandma.  Instead she explained how guns and their use, for protection and sport, are woven into the fabric of Alaskan life.  An elegant answer elegantly given.

Economy.  Asked the three Bush administration things to be changed: (1) reduce taxes; (2) control spending; (3) reform agencies. OFF THE TABLE FOR CUTS: Veterans; efficiencies only re entitlements.  Fred Barnes points out that Palin has governed--like Reagan--as a pragmatic, not doctrinaire, conservative, even raising taxes (in her case, on oil companies).  Gibson pressed Palin on becoming mayor of a debt-free Wasilla and departing with millions in red ink.  Palin countered that she had put the $13 million bond issue for a new stadium on the ballot and voters approved it.  Asked about what she would change in the Bush program, Palin said more oversight, as with Fannie & Freddie.  Gibson challenged Palin on taxes, asserting that Obama's plan would cut taxes for 91 percent of taxpayers (Obama says it's 95), so how can the McCain - Palin ticket plausibly poses as tax cutters?  Palin replied that given 94 votes to either cut taxes or oppose raising them, Obama voted every time with the higher-tax side.

"Troopergate" & Other "Gates."  Plain was asked about the allegation that she improperly pressured the state to fire her former brother-in-law, a state trooper who had tasered her nephew (10 or 11 years old, not sure) and threatened her father.  Palin said she welcomed the investigation.  Voters will not penalize her if she leaned a bit, so long as no law was broken.  And who, in a position of power, would not bring every lever to bear against someone who committed violence against a child nephew, and, owning a gun, threatened to kill her father?  Let anyone who would be without sin in such a situation cast the first stone....

Gibson also asked her about the state paying a lobbyist $30k to represent Alaska's interests; Palin answered that it would be more expensive to fly across the continent.  $30k?  Sounds dirt cheap by Beltway standards: There are lobbyists who make that much in a week.  The New York Times examines Todd Palin's role in Alaska politics and governance.

The Times also examines examples of cronyism in Palin's Alaska career.  Of the first article, nothing jumps out as unusual for a political couple; of the second, even reformers have cronies.  Cronies are OK if they are qualified.  In political real-life, even unqualified cronies are often rewarded for years of loyal service; while not a good thing, if they are put in positions of little importance the damage can be limited.  In truth, no one, in or out of politics, can meet a standard of perfect fairness as between friends and outsiders.

Spoofing Sarah.  You knew it would happen: Saturday Night Live spoofed (5:10--link in middle of article) Palin.  SNL pairs Amy Poehler reprising her dead-on Hillary with ex-SNL head writer Tina Fey playing Palin.  It is quite funny, and spoofs Hillary equally as much as Palin.  Enjoy dead-on mimicry by two real talents.  The article includes, as well, a hilarious one-liner by Poehler, that recent polls show McCain--yes, McCain!--"only 6 points behind Sarah Palin."

"Palin Power" Politics.  Gallup shows the generic gap between the parties, 55-40 in February, after Tsunami Tuesday, and 51-40 after the Denver Convention, to now be 48-45, a fortnight after St. Paul.  Tod Lindberg cites a CNN poll showing Palin up 53-44 over Biden.  Equally indicative may be the progress that GOP Senator John Sununu (NH) has made in his bid for re-election: Down under 40 percent a few months ago and labeled "the most endangered man in the Senate," Sununu is now running just two points--yes, only 2!--behind Gov. Jane Shaheen, whom he beat in 2002; Big Mac is running two points behind Obama in NH, but is popular in the state.  Here is more evidence of Democratic panic.  Here is added anecdotal evidence of Palin's galvanizing impact upon women.  Dick Morris & Eileen McGann cite more evidence of Palin Power: on empathy with problems of average voters, it's Palin 33, Obama 32, Mac 17 & Biden 10, a 50-42 GOP ticket edge; moreover, 45% of voters think Palin has been hit with sexist attacks, versus 33% who think Obama has been racially attacked.  Here is more material on lefty-feminist assaults on Palin.  Michael Barone concludes that Palin has, to borrow fighter-jock parlance, gotten "inside the loop" of the Obama campaign.

Palin communicates well on television, with a plain-spoken clarity whose genuine flavor will make for mellifluous music in the ears of many ordinary voters.  Given that the GOP stands accused--with some justification, to be sure--of having lost touch with ordinary Americans, and also given that Big Mac is a fighter-jock whose verbal formulations are scatter-shot, Palin adds much to the GOP ticket.  She is a fresh face, a kind one, and yet there is a solid core.  She'd probably give Mac a match in a marksmanship contest.

Back to Gibson Nights: Palin seemed ill at ease, understandable given the high stakes, on the first night, for the foreign policy session, issues largely new to her.  But she was poised and chipper the second night.  Her goal was not to hit a home-run, as at the convention last week; it was to avoid hitting into a double-play.  In that, she succeeded the first night, having passed the first part of a far tougher test than Barack Obama, at a comparable stage of his own candidacy, had been subjected to.  The second night, she hit a double.

Will Big Mac Sink Palin?.  There is a video clip (not online, to my knowledge) from one of the GOP primary season debates that has McCain denigrating the credentials of those who have been mayors or governors for a short time.  Which goes to show that in the age of universal recording, no one is likely to look pristine in the end.  Then again, no one ever looked pristine to contemporaries in earlier times.  Perfection is for the Next World.

Return of the Dragon?  In the primary's Michelle Obama won from reporters the nickname of "the Closer"--she spoke effectively to undecided women.  But she also spoke resentment-speak, and has been hidden in cold storage since the primaries, trotted out only for the Denver Convention scripted speech and Cosby-family shtik.  Could the 1972 film "Return of the Dragon" foretell a titanic Palin-Michelle clash?

A Pre-October Surprise.  Politico.com sees the weekend's Wall Street calamities--which Alan Greenspan calls the worst financial crisis in perhaps a century, a span that encompasses the Great Depression of the 1930s--upending both campaigns.  An epic financial meltdown likely helps Democrats, although there is much reason to blame it on their protection of Fannie & Freddie, plus pushing subprime lending on lenient terms on reluctant financial institutions.  This is the kind of tectonic event that could rapidly eclipse Sarah Palin's Meteor Moment.

The Ultimate October Surprise?  As we enter the 2008 campaign season's final 50 days, every season Republicans worry about an October Surprise that shakes up the race.  A faithful and perspicacious LFTC reader suggests one for 2008: Democrats, trailing badly after Biden gets creamed by Sarah come the Oct. 2 debate, decide to pull "a Bob Torricelli" and dump Biden in favor of Hillary, to reclaim defecting female voters.  The scenario collapses if Biden wins the debate big, but he seems as likely to commit a mega-gaffe as does she.  Why, though, would Hill take the spot if offered?  Because, my sharp-witted LFTC reader says, Hillary would rather try to rescue a losing ticket in 2008, than face first-ever female Veep Palin from scratch in 2012 or 2016, when a victorious Palin likely will have supplanted Hill as the national female political icon.  So Hill tries gamely to save the ticket.  If Hill succeeds, she is the iconic Comeback Kid(ette); if she loses, it's Barack's fault, and thus Hill emerges with her standing intact.  And thus would be set up 2012 or 2016's "Penthiselia Election," per Virgil's epic (lost to me since high school, 'til today), as the post-Big Mac presidential winner would then become America's

Penthisilea there, with haughty grace,
Leads to the wars an Amazonian race:
In their right hands a pointed dart they wield;
The left, for ward, sustains the lunar shield.
Athwart her breast a golden belt she throws,
Amidst the press alone provokes a thousand foes,
And dares her maiden arms to manly force oppose.

Bombs Away: The Islamist Body-Count PR War

Ralph Peters asks "Where are the bodies?" re the latest allegation that an American air-strike killed gazillions of Afghan civilians.  And, he writes, it always seems as if we blew up a wedding party. Yet there are never bodies to prove this.  I wonder what is the Isalmist term for dezinformatsia ("disinformation": deliberate planted lies ISO geopolitical gain).  Alas, the media accept the terrorist version as presumptively true:

Our military is the most scrupulous in history. War is terrible. Mistakes are made. Civilians do die. But our commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Dave McKiernan, is an honorable soldier who'd be the first to tell the truth if we accidentally killed 90 civilians.

But we didn't kill them. They never existed - except in the Taliban's propaganda dispatches and in the subsequent delighted news reports.

Many in the media simply despise our troops - and downright hate them for achieving success in Iraq and spoiling the Democrats' planned election theme. Now that Iraq's going embarrassingly well, the media have launched their own "surge" to portray Afghanistan as failing.

Those irresponsible reports are recruiting ads for the Taliban. They encourage violence against our soldiers. They undermine the elected government in Kabul. And they work against the welfare of the Afghan people.

This is the climate in which our forces must fight.  They need help from a more vigorous challenge by this--and the next--administration.

Wikipedia's Big Apple

Steve Cuozzo's New York Post column reveals that Wikipedia asserts David Dinkins solved the Apple's crime mess, not Rudy.  More absurdities are contained in the online encyclopedia's entry.  After reading this, I will be extra careful about posting Wiki entries, which are submitted by online volunteers whose credentials are not vetted.

Russia: Gray Lady, Almost Perfect

The NY Times is not a favorite of LFTC.  But every now and then they surprise.  Their Aug. 12 editorial on Russia's aggression against Georgia and the West is almost letter perfect.  But for a swipe at European missile defense, the Gray Lady nails it: Putin is the bad guy; America + Europe need to buck up, protect Georgian sovereignty & freedom, and let Russia know its behavior is unacceptable, period.  Take a bow, folks.

France-2 TV's Palestinian Coverup Definitively Exposed

Remember the name Charles Enderlin, of France-@ TV.  This superlative Weekly Standard article details how finally, due to a court ruling, the full story of France-2's collaboration with the Palestinians in fabricating the story of Israeli soldiers killing a 12-year-old boy, Muhammad al-Dura.  The incident, in September 2000, outraged the world, Israel having foolishly stated at the time that maybe its soldiers had killed the boy.  The phony story mints jihadists around the globe.  The real scandal is, however, that virtually all footage from the Palestinian side is directed by either the terrorist groups or their sympathizers.  And Western media keep largely silent on this.

The Gray Lady's Latest War Scoop

The long NY Times Monday front-pager tells us the Earth-shaking news that there have been strong disputes within the administration about whether putting special forces clandestinely inside Pakistan to hunt for bin Laden offers sufficient chance of success to justify the political risk of inflaming Pakistanis against America and thus increasing support for the Islamists.  Nothing new.  Both sides have merit.  One strike in 2005 was aborted because the risks of attacking seemed too high--the intel source was a sole source.  Remember "Curveball" and his dead-wrong intel re bio-weapons supposedly still inside Iraq?  The Gray Lady has forgotten that one.  Remember the sole source intel that told us Saddam was at Dora Farms on the eve of the March 2003 start of Iraqi Freedom, and our strike that missed him because he wasn't there?  The Gray Lady pitched that one, too, down the Mainstream Media Memory Hole.

So we learn, so far as I can tell, only one thing new: the name of the plan to insert teams: Operation Cannonball.  Who might that help?  Not American readers.  Perhaps Pakistani ISI (Inter-Services Intelligence, riven with pro-Islamist people) readers might learn something, though.

Intifiada Poster Boy No More?

The Jerusalem Post reports that a French appellate court has thrown out the libel conviction of a skeptic who accused France-2 and its cameraman staged the infamous September 2000 Muhamad al-Dura incident, in which a 12-year-old Palestinian boy was shown on camera, huddling against a wall and partly sheltered by his father, when the report said, the Israelis shot him, having shot at him for 45 minutes.

The whole thing has long been proven by independent investigation to have been a hoax, one that enraged the Muslim world.  Daniel Pearl's killers held a photo of the boy aloft as they beheaded the WSJ reporter.  The Second Intifada was galvanized into high gear by the incident.  Israel's IDF foolishly initially apologized, then later proved it cold not have done it, as later did outside investigators.

Iraq: MSM's Blackout

Soldier-author Ralph Peters neatly eviscerates MSM for its keeping abundant news of progress in Iraq secret.  Read his acerbic, powerful take on MSM's biases.

Saint Barack: Our 21st Century Saint Jimmy?

Gerard Baker, across the pond, counsels that the media's canonization of Barack Obama--and demonization of former media saint John McCain--carries grave risks:

The idolatry of Mr Obama is a shame, really. The Illinois senator is indeed, an unusually talented, inspiring and charismatic figure. His very ethnicity offers an exciting departure. But he is not a saint. He is a smart and eloquent man with a personal history that is startlingly shallow set against the scale of the office he seeks to hold. It is not only legitimate, but necessary, to scrutinise his past and infer what it might tell us about his beliefs, in the absence of the normal record of achievement expected in a presidential nominee.

If the past 40 years have taught us anything they have surely taught that premature canonisation is an almost certain guarantee of subsequent deep disappointment.

I cannot get out of my head what Jimmy Carter said while running for President, in his bid for early sainthood: "I will never lie to you."  He had to settle, later on for self-canonization in retirement, as he travels around the globe sucking up to any terrorist he can find--especially if they target Israel.

St. Barack of Trinity: The Resurrection

Charles Krauthammer, a trained psychiatrist, diagnoses three cross-cutting psychological phenomena in the 2008 race: Hillary's penchant for what shrinks call "confabulation"--adopting fish stories as remembered pseudo-reality, with Hill, CK writes, doing so "on a pathological scale"; Barack's post-Philadelphia resurrection by a mainstream media (MSM) determined to save his candidacy; and MSM's penchant for diving sainthood and virtue in Democratic candidates, especially, presidential aspirants.  Put simply, MSM is back in the tank for Obama, Hillary's Bosnian misadventures having given MSM the opening to put Obama's Pastor of Disaster into the MSM Memory Hole.

The New York Times reports that 81 percent of Americans think America is headed in the wrong direction.  This is just the kind of sentiment that can lead voters en masse to seek a savior--in 2008, either The Soldier or The Saint.  In a Wall Street Journal op-ed Juan Williams, whose book "Eyes on the Prize" sparked an award-winning PBS series on the civil rights movement, brilliantly impales Obama for abandoning post-racialism since the Ghost of Pastors Past appeared.  After noting that Obama at first appeared to be breaking away from "the merchants of black grievance and victimization, Williams writes:

But as his campaign made headway with black voters, Mr. Obama no longer spoke about the responsibility and the power of black America to appeal to the conscience and highest ideals of the nation. He no longer asks black people to let go of the grievance culture to transcend racial arguments and transform the world.

He has stopped all mention of government's inability to create strong black families, while the black community accepts a 70% out-of-wedlock birth rate. Half of black and Hispanic children drop out of high school, but he no longer touches on the need for parents to convey a love of learning to their children. There is no mention in his speeches of the history of expensive but ineffective government programs that encourage dependency. He fails to point out the failures of too many poverty programs, given the 25% poverty rate in black America.

And he chooses not to confront the poisonous "thug life" culture in rap music that glorifies drug use and crime.

Instead the senator, in a full political pander, is busy excusing Rev. Wright's racial attacks as the right of the Rev.-Wright generation of black Americans to define the nation's future by their past. He stretches compassion to the breaking point by equating his white grandmother's private concerns about black men on the street with Rev. Wright's public stirring of racial division.

Author Virginia Postrel fears that voters seduced by Obama's glamour will elect someone who cannot meet inflated expectations (even pundit David Brooks, normally level-headed, sees in St. Barack the chance for America's racial redemption).  She sees Obama's "aspirations and character" as formed by his racial consciousness, and thus Obama is unlikely to prove a post-racial candidate: “It was into my father’s image, the black man, son of Africa, that I’d packed all of the attributes I sought in myself, the attributes of Martin and Malcolm, DuBois and Mandela.”  Militants W.E.B. Dubois and the far worse Malcolm X, who openly preached hatred of whites, mix with heroic martyrs Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King like mustard and blueberry pancakes.

The April 4 video clip of members of a Memphis crowd booing John McCain during his mea culpa on originally having opposed King's holiday, shows how entrenched the canonization of America's first black saint is; will St. Barack become the Second Saint if elected?  To date, the only president to achieve true full saintly status had been Abraham Lincoln, who can be criticized far more safely than can MLK.

When plaster saints fall of the mantelpiece, the maids have a mess to clean up.

Mainstream Media's Semi-Spike Fails

A "spike" in media parlance refers to a deliberate decision of news organizations to decline to report a story, often for political, reasons.  MSM has tried a semi-spike on the Obama reverend story.  But has it worked?

Jeremiah Wright's jeremiads test the media power: dreaded "MSM"--Mainstream Media, which adds the national daily USA Today and the post-Watergate powerhouses, the New York Times & Washington Post (only partly countered by the Wall Street Journal and quality local papers like the New York Sun), plus the Big 4 TV networks: CNN + ABC, CBS & NBC.  Can they spike a story--keep it from most of the American public?

His tirades were given wide coverage on Fox.  They were largely ignored by MSM networks, played down.  Put simply, had Obama's halfway answers been given a fraction of the harsh media scrutiny given Geraldine Ferraro for observing that as her gender put her on the Mondale 1984 ticket, Obama's race helped catapult him to national prominence despite a resume far too thin to have done same for a white candidate.  Fox established that Obama admitted before the tapes were aired that he was aware of Wright's views, but dismissed him as "an old Uncle" who said silly things.  Only after the tapes surfaced did Obama strongly condemn the remarks.  Juan Williams, creator of the acclaimed PBS series on the 1960s civil rights movement, Eyes on the Prize, said on Fox that Obama is playing both sides, using Wright's militant rhetoric for black nationalist street credentials among blacks, while playing trans-racial for whites.  Williams also said that Wright's views, which Williams termed "outlandish," were well-known within the community--and thus, by implication, well-known to Obama all along.  NPR's Michele Norris said on Tim Russert's Meet the Press that the reverend's tone "resonates" with black parishioners, is "not unusual" and reveals a "chasm" between the races.  On ABC News Sunday, Donna Brazile tried to make less of it, asserting that it showed historical context.  Brazile then termed Wright "one of the more moderate black preachers."  MODERATE??????????

How about if the press asks for the release of all his sermon texts, so we can (a) see if he gave us other spicy moments, and (b) see if Obama was registered on such occasions as attending?  Won't happen, but it is a neat thought.  Next best: a Rolling Stone 2007 article that explores Obama's radical roots, adds a little more quotational juice, and describes the church as promoting a black nationalist, Afro-centric theology.  WSJ pundit John Fund told Fox News that Oprah Winfrey, a former congregation member there, left the church, while Obama stayed.  More: Newsbusters reports that Rolling Stone's website now has changed the article's title from "Obama's Radical Roots" to "Destiny's Child."  Wonder why.

James Taranto's Best of the Web cites a quotation from theology professor James Cone, whose brand of black liberation theology Pastor Wright subscribes to:

Black theology refuses to accept a God who is not identified totally with the goals of the black community. If God is not for us and against white people, then he is a murderer, and we had better kill him. The task of black theology is to kill Gods who do not belong to the black community. . . . Black theology will accept only the love of God which participates in the destruction of the white enemy. What we need is the divine love as expressed in Black Power, which is the power of black people to destroy their oppressors here and now by any means at their disposal. Unless God is participating in this holy activity, we must reject his love.

Want more.  How about these talking points posted at the website of the Trinity United Church of Christ (homepage here).  One point states, referring to whites: "Oppressors do not like 'others' defining themselves."

Well, well.  MSM is a diminished Big Media Kahuna.  Their spike neither prevented results from a Rasmussen poll showing an 8 percent favorable rating of Wright's trash nationwide, and 73 percent unfavorable--77 percent of whites and 58 percent of blacks. More: 56 percent of voters say they now are less likely to vote for Obama, including 44 percent among Democrats; 11 percent of voters say they now are more likely to vote for him.  African Americans split: 50 percent said it had no impact on their vote, 29 percent are now more likely to vote and 18 percent are now less likely to vote for him.  So, while most African-Americans disapprove of Wright's tirades, most are also not troubled enough to reconsider their vote.  Put another way: 2/3 of blacks are either not bothered sufficiently to change their vote, or positively reinforced by the pastor's Afrocentric black nationalist rantings.  This sobering reality may prove in the long run more significant for America's future than the impact of the pastor upon Obama's candidacy.

So how did MSM's attempt to spike the Big Barack Story fare?  According to Bill O'Reilly, polls show that two-thirds of Americans have heard about the controversy.  The one-third, it is fair to say, are mostly folks who will not vote come November.  MSM's semi-spike has, on the fair evidence of it, failed.

Gray Lady's "Mac" Grenade Explodes Early

The New York Times front-pager alleging ethics violations by John McCain comes weeks after the Gray Lady endorsed him for the Republican nomination, in a January 25, 2008 editorial praising him as a coalition-builder who "has the character to stand on principle."  The paper recounts the reprimand McCain received for writing letters on behalf of Charles Keating, the central figure in the Keating Five scandal.  But McCain and John Glenn never crossed the line in their efforts.   Three other senators did: Alan Cranston, Donald Reigle and Dennis De Concini, all Democrats. They actively tried to pressure regulators to go easy on their S&L pals, for which Cranston was censured by the Senate, and the latter two nailed for "questionable conduct."  To drag a GOP senator in, the Democrats had to name Glenn as well--Glenn, like McCain, had merely met with constituents and written a latter or two, without trying to ward off the regulators.  McCain and Glenn paid the price of cynical Democratic politics, because the Democrats feared the S&L scandal would be used against them in 1992 if Democrats alone were fixed in the public mind as guilty in the S&L mess, which had cost taxpayers $250 billion.

The Gray Lady's second item was an allegedly improper relationship McCain had with a comely lobbyist who represented Paxson Communications, a broadcasting firm under McCain's jurisdiction as Senate Commerce Committee chairman.  McCain wrote a couple of letters to the FCC, doing nothing illegal or improper; he merely urged that the FCC act on a matter that had been pending too long--expressly declining to recommend how the FCC decide the matter.  The Times is left with the old chestnut "appearance of impropriety" as its big gun.  Incredibly, the Times began requesting interviews with McCain on this in December 2007--before the editors endorsed the senator as the GOP nominee.

In sum, a 7-page bucket of slime.  True, it could have been worse.  The Times could have aired this days before the November vote.  It seems that the reason they released the story now was because The New Republic was about to release a story of the in-fighting at the Times over the McCain story; TNR released "The Long Run-Up" at its website yesterday, in response to the Times having gone forward with its article.  The Gray Lady, it seems, cared more about being partially scooped than in being fair to the GOP's 2008 presidential nominee.  Said Times executive editor Bill Keller: "On the substance, we think the story speaks for itself."  Indeed, Mr. Keller, it does.

Leaks: Full Court Press

NY Times reporter James Risen, who broke the NSA surveillance story, faces a grand jury investigation.  It is a mystery, one Gabriel Schoenfield tries to unravel on The Weekly Standard.  Either the Iran or domestic terror issues are involved.  Read this fascinating article.  Proposals for a federal "shield law" would virtually immunize reporters from violation for disclosing secrets.  In a war of survival, this is absurd.

Chelsea's MSNBC Mauling

Chelsea Clinton (named for the song "Chelsea Morning") is out campaigning for her mom.  A leftie MSNBC reporter said that Chelsea was "sort of being pimped out" by Hill's campaign.  Crude & rude--and WRONG.  He has apologized, but Hill wants him fired.  Two thoughts: (1) Chelsea is 27, and thus old enough to be the target of CIVIL criticism, as an advocate for a presidential candidate.  Once out there on the hustings, her familial status is not a grant of full immunity.  (2) Had the Bush 43 twins campaigned for their dad in 2000 or 2004, and had a rightie accused them in similar language, would the mainstream media have reacted the same way?  Methinks not.

Daniel Pearl's Mother: Murder by Camera

In a stunning op-ed published in Wednesday's Wall Street Journal, Judea Pearl, mother of journalist Daniel Pearl, murdered six years ago this week by al-Qaeda butchers in Karachi, takes the media to task for reporting the news in ways that foster terrorism.  Specifically, footage of Muhammad al-Dura, supposedly murdered in September 2000 by the Israelis, was played at the time of Daniel Pearl's videotaped beheading.  The boy's "murder" now is known to have been a hoax perpetrated by the Palestinians, in collaboration with the French TV station, France-2, that took the footage.

Here are the money paragraphs:

Ironically, the increase of independent news channels in the Arab world, a process which is generally considered a positive step forward, has contributed significantly to this spread of hatred and violence. On the one hand, this process has led to the democratization of the media, for it allows viewers to examine alternative viewpoints, occasionally opposing the official party line. On the other hand, democratization has led to vulgarization. Competition has forced news channels to echo, rather than inform, viewers' sentiments -- to reinforce, rather than examine, long-held prejudices.

Eager to satisfy their customers' appetite for self-righteousness, these channels have not thought through the harmful, in fact lethal, long-term effects of choreographing victim-victimizer narratives as news coverage.

Surely they have an obligation to expose villainy and excess. This is what journalism is all about. But in a world infected with fanatics who run around with lit matches, journalists cannot simply pour gasoline into the street and pretend they bear no responsibility for the inevitable explosion.

But read the entire article.  It is truly eloquent and compelling.

Republican Debate: CNN's Vast Left-Wing Conspiracy

As a Washington Times story and NRO editorial detail, CNN got caught with its (liberal) pants down at last Wednesday's Florida CNN/YouTube debate, emceed by Anderson Cooper, which got the largest audience of any debate to date, at 4.3 million, better than the 4.9 million for the Nov 15 Democratic debate, as this 2007 debate tally shows.  It seems that 9 of 34 questions came from Democrats with ties to the campaigns--activists posing questions designed to trap Republicans and thus make them look bad.  Incredibly, CNN stands by its choices, with one exception (a Hillary campaign figure who asked about gays and the military), calling them a way to widen the debate.  right.

WSJ's Peggy Noonan captures CNN's hit job perfectly:

I will never forget that breathtaking moment when, in the CNN/YouTube debate earlier this fall, the woman from Ohio held up a picture and said, "Mrs. Clinton, Mr. Obama, Mr. Edwards, this is a human fetus. Given a few more months, it will be a baby you could hold in your arms. You all say you're 'for the children.' I would ask you to look America in the eye and tell us how you can support laws to end this life. Thank you."

They were momentarily nonplussed, then awkwardly struggled to answer, to regain lost high ground. One of them, John Edwards I think, finally criticizing the woman for being "manipulative," using "hot images" and indulging in "the politics of personal destruction." The woman then stood in the audience for her follow up. "I beg your pardon, but the literal politics of personal destruction--of destroying a person--is what you stand for."

Oh, I wish I weren't about to say, "Wait, that didn't happen." For of course it did not. Who of our media masters would allow a question so piercing on such a painful and politically incorrect subject?

In the event, CNN has good company on this: Hillary has been caught planting questions.

France-2's Palestinian Hoax: Sharansky Speaks

Natan Sharansky calls for full disclosure of France-2's 27-minute unedited footage of the Muhammad al-Dura Palestinian hoax that so harmed Israel at the start of the second intifada.  He recounts how deeply it affected attitudes on college campuses he toured.  Will the global press corps, ever eager for full disclosure by non-press organs, public and private, call for one of its own to surrender the evidence for public inspection?  To do so would reveal their collective gullibility (complicity?) in swallowing whole the Palestinians conveniently timed--irresistible--fable, that put Israel on the defensive at the outset of the Palestinians major military assault on Israel.  As Dan Rather would say (of 43's alleged default on National Guard service obligations): "Fake but accurate."  Or Newsweek editor Evan Thomas (of the Duke non-rape case): "The narrative was right but the facts were wrong.")

NY Times: Subsidizing Moveon's McCarthyism

The New York Post reports that its rival, the Times, gave Moveon.org a steep discount in running the "Will Petraeus Betray Us?" obscenity on Wednesday.  A Post staffer anonymously called the Gray Lady and was given $167,000 for a comparable ad.  Moveon paid $65,000, roughly a 60 percent discount.  The original, odious Senator Joseph McCarthy earned his place in history by accusing people of being Communists, without regard to who was guilty (some were) and who was not (some were indeed innocent).  Moveon has gone a step further, and leveled totally egregious, false charges against a man who is revered in military circles for his character and well as his competence.  Civilians owe him no less.

In placing such an appalling, defamatory ad, Moveon has given top Democrats a serious headache.  Either they disavow an ad most Americans find repellent, and hurt themselves in raising funds from Moveon and like-minded givers, or they fail to condemn, and anger lots of voters.  For the General the ad is an injustice that slights his decades of distinguished public service.  For the Democrats and their media allies this is truly poetic justice, as this hit was planned with knowledge of Democratic Party leaders, who figured that they could not risk directly attacking Petraeus this way (though some came close), but could smear him by proxy and escape accountability.  Rest assured that Mitch McConnell and his merry men will not let this happen.  Republicans running for the Presidency have already brought it up.   They must continue to do so during the campaign, so that the full price for McCarthyism from the Left is exacted from the Left's chosen candidates.

Democrats point to a 30-second ad run by Republican Senatorial candidate Saxby Chambliss in his 2002 race against Max Cleland, in which they allege Chambliss questioned Cleland's patriotism.  The ad does not question Cleland's patriotism, but it does question his judgment (OK) and his courage (NOT OK).  Cleland, a triple amputee, made an extraordinary life for himself.  He deserved better from his opponent.  But the ad, unlike Moveon's outrage, does not accuse Cleland of betrayal, which implies treason.  The ad, in sum, is unfair, but not obscene.  This website has the ad.  Simply scroll down a few paragraphs.

Media Data Mining

NY Times reporter Eric Lichtblau, who, along with his colleague James Risen has spent nearly two years trying to out every surveillance technique used by the feds, regardless of its effectiveness, has another front-pager in Sunday's edition, portentously headlined "F.B.I. Data Mining Reached Beyond Initial Targets."  The story explains that the Bureau extended monitoring of calling patterns to those "once removed" from targets of interest, in search of terror cells and plots.  You have to get to the middle of the story to learn two things: (1) "link analysis" often yields data more important than the contents of conversations; (2) the technique is routinely used by the telecom firms themselves, to learn more about their customers.  Should the Administration have told Congress?  Arguably.  It would not have been allowed to do it then, because the privacy hawks would have screamed "1984 is here!"  The Administration chose to try to protect lives for as long as it could keep the story out of the New York Times.  Right on!

Media Double-Standards: Causes Trump Cases

Media critic John Leo compares two sets of cases: the Duke rape charges with a Knoxville rape + torture + murder, and a notorious torture + murder of a gay man with an equally heinous torture + murder of a straight teen by two gay men.  Result: guess which stories make national news and which ones go instantly down the mainstream media (MSM) Memory Hole?  The reason, given in a quote Leo got from a Washington Post editor, is simple: Cases that advance causes favored by MSM are a Big Story; cases that run contrary to MSM's causes are No Big Deal.  White oppression of black, straight oppression of gays, both advance hate crime laws; converse cases do not.  This re-affirms a truism about MSM today: Reporters, in today's world, are not observers who report what they see; they are advocates who use MSM's immense reach to promote causes they prefer.

Media Mayhem: Terror 's Nuclear Weapon

An NRO article details how mainstream media (MSM) sensationalism distorts to Afghanistan stories, to the advantage of the terrorists.  One involved a two-year-old incident of German troops desecrating graves, and the other involved an air strike where 20 to 200 "civilians" were killed.  Reporters, it seems, routinely presume allegations by the Taliban to be true, and answers from Coalition spokesmen "claims" that presumptively are dubious.  And if after a long investigation original atrocity allegations are refuted, it is at most a one-day story.  By then, as reporters fully understand, the damage has been done.  Asking reporters to hold a story until it is verified or debunked is, for the media, nearly always a non-starter.

Add to this a juxtaposition: (a) the wall-to-wall months-long media saturation hysteria over Abu Ghraib, which was stupid pet tricks by a bunch of jerks left without adult supervision on the night shift; versus (b) the Palestinian jihadist Mickey Mouse video, a two-day story by now fully flushed down the memory hole.  Which was worse, some obscene pranks by a few retarded renegades, or the appropriation and stomach-turning perversion of a beloved global symbol of childhood fun?

But were MSM to air this last story for two months Americans might decide it is crazy to ask Israel to parley with the Palestinians.  And this MSM will never let happen.  We are, it is clear to all, losing the information war.  Administration ineptitude partly explains this, but MSM perversity explains much more.

IMUS = I-Mussed-Up

Manhattan Institute scholar John Leo, who made a career lampooning political correctness in his former US News & World Report column, smacks pols and celebrities who have appeared on Don Imus's radio show, despite knowing full well that the hugely popular Imus is an exemplar of the sewer of vulgarity into which our public discourse has fallen over the past generation.  Imus's racial crudity was thus no surprise.

But in addition to the redundant proof of how degraded much of America's public discourse is, there is another point, made when race hustlers Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton took center stage to demand abject apologies, etc, from their targets.  Jackson and Sharpton have committed vastly greater sins over the years, without getting in any comparable measure of hot water from the media.  In 1984 Jackson, making his first run for President, called New York City "Hymietown."  A black using the "H" word for a place where Jews live was forgiven; any white using the "N" word to describe Harlem would have been instant history.  Sharpton in 1987 concocted the infamous Tawana Brawley hoax about the alleged kidnapping and rape of a young black woman.  In 1995 he harangued a crowd in front of a Jewish-owned store in Harlem, Freddie's.  The place was torched shortly thereafter, killing eight.  Columnist Kathleen Parker notes two of these episodes and asks if America's premier race-hustle tag team will gang up on black hip-hoppers they way they did on Imus.

Blogger & columnist Michelle Malkin offers samples of lyrics from the top rap hits, asks if America is turning into Tourette Nation and wonders where the outrage is.  Real-life LA cop-blogger Jack Dunphy (his nom de cyber-plume) compares the bi-coastal MSM elite's saturation coverage of the Duke rape charges with a virtual MSM blackout of a recent Tennessee case where four inner-city black defendants are accused or murdering a young white couple.  Dunphy presents the stark facts of LA's  inner-city minority crime and minority victims as well.  He notes that the LA Times has begun to publish a homicide report that presents facts MSM usually ignores. One small step for MSM, one giant leap for truth in reporting.  Echoing this from "across The Pond," British PM Blair yesterday blamed "black culture" and P.C. for a murder wave in London.

But still predominantly, in MSM's America, minority race-hustling is permissible; white boorishness is not.  Are we a better society for such double standards?  MSM seems to think so.  Do you?

Income Inequality: Fact or Fiction?

NY Times columnist David Brooks says income inequality is growing.  But Brooks cites data from the late social scientist Seymour Martin Lipset showing that Americans, unlike Europeans and Japanese, believe that individual effort is the largest factor in one's success, and that individuals are responsible for their welfare, not the state.  Americans value equality and achievement, compressing the two concepts of equality and freedom into "fair opportunity."  But economist Alan Reynolds, on this and many other economic issues a one-man truth squad,  once again debunks data that purport to show widening inequality.  Actually, the Bush tax cuts helped the middle class more than the upper class.  one way to skew data to avoid this is to use average rather than median income data, because with average income the huge gains of the zillionaire class (think soccer star David Beckham singing a five-year $250M contract with the LA Galaxy) skew the data upward for the top quintile, thus giving a false picture of the top fifth as a whole.  MSM reporters are in the top quintile, but guilt trumps all for our elites.

Politically Incorrect Racism

A recent column in the LA Times discusses escalating Latino versus Afro-American violence in Los Angeles.  The author notes that over 90 percent of the 10 million slaves imported into the Western Hemisphere went to either the Caribbean or to Latin American countries, including Mexico; only 4.6 percent came to the US.  The author's view is that Latinos are more to blame.  Whether he is right on this I cannot say.

But I can ask this: Where is MSM on this?  There is hardly a report on the subject, even though Hispanics are now the nation's largest minority.  We have been treated to all sorts of stories about how Americans are learning to like Ricky Martin and living la vida loca.  Fair enough.  But why nothing in the problems between our two most populous minorities?  Try this: It simply is politically incorrect for reporters to cover any racism that reflects adversely on either of our two largest minority groups, lest it diffuse focus from white racism, the prime politically incorrect racism target. (Targeting Asians, for allegedly taking college slots from our two largest minority groups, is OK by MSM.)  This is obviously a touchy issue, but it also is important.  The sins of omission committed by MSM are inexcusable.

Sanitzing the Genocidal

Time's editors said that had they picked a single person as Person of the Year they would have selected..Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, whose they describe in a photo essay as an "Iranian Paradox."  The 14 photos presented make a magnificent montage for any politician in the West, running for elective office--a shot of young adulthood, meeting with leaders, seated in the UN General Assembly (where truly he belongs, all the time) addressing students, etc.  My personal favorites are #5, #8 and #12, all taken in August 2006.  It seems that Ahmadinejad had a stellar month in August 2006.

#5 shows him visiting an Iranian town, Ardabil.  He is standing up in an open-top car, waving to crowds lining a boulevard.  Time's caption describes him as having "fashioned himself into an Iranian Everyman"...by focusing on "economic issues" and "vowing to fight corruption."   #8 shows him on the airport tarmac, after arriving by helicopter in West Azerbaijan, just, Time informs us, "after he defied the UN Security Council deadline to halt uranium enrichment."  And #14, taken at a public meeting in Ardabil, shows him standing before his fellow citizens, with hand on heart, a reverential expression on his face. Time's caption tells us that at that event he "vowed to stand by Iran's nuclear work, saying the UN cannot deprive Iran of its rights."

Now one cannot expect Time to capture all the events and statements that Ahmadinejad, or anyone else, makes in a lifetime. Fair enough.  But what did they miss?  Well, for starters, how about MA calling for Israel to be "wiped off the map?"  How about his calling for "death to America?"  How about his presiding over a monster global Holocaust denial event in Tehran?  Or his presiding over a Holocaust and Jew-mocking cartoon contest, also in Tehran?

In a companion interview with "Iran's agitator" (for what, social justice?  global understanding and tolerance?) Time notes MA's Holocaust denial, but then says: "His denials of the Holocaust and his threat to destroy Israel cause shudders in the West but have made him an icon throughout the Muslim world."  An icon.  The scary part: That much is indeed true.  But my favorite MA quote is this gem: "People should be talked too with reason."  Gotta give it to the guy--he has a sense of humor.  Of the Tehran Holocaust-denial hate-fest, asked by Time why, instead of holding the confab, he doesn't press for a "dialogue" between Israel and the Palestinians, MA responded: "As a matter of fact, this conference was in line with peace."

Let's assume that MA really intends to push economic development and fight corruption.  Are those goals more important than MA's Hitlerian anti-Semitism, threats to vaporize a UN-member state, resurrection of Nazi-like demonizing and ridiculing of the Jews?  In the wild, weird world of MSM, apparently so.  And that bodes ill for everyone who cares about the survival of Western civilization--even for the survival of the MSM types who seek peace by sanitizing our mortal enemies to the point of hagiography.

For the truth, kudos to NRO's David Frum for pointing me me to a story in the Dec. 18 Guardian Unlimited, telling how Iranian students who vigorously protested against MA last week are now in hiding, as MA's thugs hunt for them.  Freedom of dissent, it seems, is the "corruption" MA intends to root out.  Meantime, the latest Mossad estimate is that Iran is 3 to 4 years away from a  nuclear bomb.  Ahmadinejad, in a masterpiece of timing with Time's obtuseness, proclaimed publicly today that Iran is a "nuclear power" for having completed the nuclear fuel cycle, enabling civil nuclear power generation, and a key step on fabricating bombs.  Come to think of it, a nuke can rid the world of lots of "corrupt" folks (albeit, there is a collateral damage issue as to folks not corrupt, but when you make an omelette...).