Apologizing to Mark McGwire

Alex Rodriguez, supposedly the most talented player in Major League Baseball (MLB), has admitted that he took steroids - illegal performance-enhancing drugs - during the first part of this decade, while he was employed by the Texas Rangers baseball organization. Now FoxSports columnist Mark Kriegel has written a column in which he says,

At this point, the only guy I want to hear from is that one who changed the game's culture, the prototype, the ballplayer who made people think that ballplayers could look like comic book heroes, Mark McGwire. I'd not excuse him. I didn't then, and would not now. But 11 years removed from the counterfeit glories of '98, some context is in order, and now more than ever.

My question for Kriegel and every other member of the media who have so relentlessly vilified Mark McGwire is two-fold - first, what evidence do you have that he did anything that was illegal, and second, what makes McGwire the most culpable of anyone who played in what has jusitifiably become known as the Steroids Era?

I remember the home-run campaigns of the late 1990s, and unlike Jose Canseco (his former teammate with the Oakland Athletics) Mark McGwire did nothing illegal that I am aware of. The infamous bottle of antro that was seen in his locker was reportedly out in plain view and the substance itself was not banned at that time. McGwire himself referred to it openly as a 'supplement', and it was only later that MLB banned andro and many other substances. Can Kriegel, or any other reporter, show me any evidence that McGwire EVER knowingly did anything against the rules of Major League baseball?

I am not defending the decision to take performance-enhancing substances, and since MLB later did indeed ban andro, there is no doubt that McGwire did take said substance. However, why is he being demonized for doing something that was completely legal at that time? The blame in my mind belongs more on those players who took outlawed substances after MLB banned them. People like Bonds, who was well-known to be jealous of McGwire's accomplishments, took the substances AFTER MLB banned them- of that there can now be little doubt. But McGwire retired in 2001- andro was not banned until 2004! Why is McGwire demonized for doing something that was completely legal at the time he was playing? For that matter, if Rodriguez only took steroids up until 2003, then he also did not break any rules.

In McGwire's defense, he was a power hitter from the time he was in college. Was he doing steroids in college? Very possibly. However, unlike some of the obvious steroid users - like Bonds - there is no point in McGwire's career at which he physically changed or at which he suddenly became a huge home-run hitter. His 70-home run season in 1998 came in a competition with Sammy Sosa, and McGwire has said on a number of occasions that it was the competition that enabled him to hit that many. But he had hit fifty or more home runs before- even as a rookie he hit 49. Just for comparison, Bonds never hit more than 46 until he suddenly began hammering them in 1999- coincidentally the year after McGwire's and Sosa's well-publicized home run competition.

I also think it is extremely unfair to label McGwire as the face of the steroids era. He was the only player who refused to testify at the congressional hearings, but since Congress should have nothing to do with baseball anyway, I do not see that as a problem. Congress has far more serious problems that they ought to be dealing with- looking into allegations of illegal steroid use in a sport is not one of them. However, because McGwire refused to testify, and essentially took the Fifth Amendment, he was widely vilified by both sportscasters and regular journalists alike.

Mark McGwire came into the Major Leagues in 1987, and immediately became a home-run threat. Was steroid use widespread at that time? It is impossible to know. However, as a rookie, it is very difficult to suggest that McGwire suddenly introduced a culture of steroid use to his new team. If the 1990s were indeed the 'steroid decade', then it is very difficult to say that Mark McGwire was the face of that decade. There were a number of better-known players who were tied to the steroid scandal. These included Jose Canseco, Sammy Sosa, Roger Clemens, Jason Giambi, Andy Pettite and of course Barry Bonds. Several of these players had more seniority and more fame in the league than McGwire. Therefore, to accuse McGwire of being the cause and the reason for the steroid problem seems to me to be going a bit far.

If I could give some advice to the sports columnists, it would be this- be careful to label a man you do not know. Kriegel accuses McGwire of being the problem, and basically suggests that he sold out to gain his son's admiration. I don't think so. I watched that home run too, and I saw a guy who would never have done something for a short-term admiration that would ultimately cause his son embarrassment.

I think the sports media owe Mark McGwire an apology. It is certain that he took supplements that were later outlawed. But since he didn't do anything illegal, I would suggest that reporters apologize for casting him the villain in a situation that he almost certainly did not create. In this country, a man is innocent until proven guilty. I think that the media too often forget that simple fact. And as Josephine Tey wrote in her brilliant 1936 mystery A Shilling for Candles in which her character Sergeant Williams says to the Press representative, (I regret I must paraphrase)

You know that the press is responsible for hounding more people in a day's work that Scotland Yard has in its entire existence. And ALL your victims are innocent!

Not much has changed in the intervening years since A Shilling for Candles was published. Pity.

China's Moment of Glory

China is currently putting on the world's largest propaganda show over in Beijing, following in the footsteps of the Nazi Party's 1936 Olympics, and the many Soviet-era productions. Most, if not all, of the world's media and glitterati are convinced that this is China's coming-out party, that China will soon overtake the United States in all the important categories of world dominance. And, since China is an authoritarian, one-party state built on government oppression of its people, these same glitterati are falling all over them selves to become China's friends.

But how realistic is the assumption of China's someday dominance? According to former Beijing bureau chief John Pomfret, the answer is not very. Pomfret penned an opinion piece in the Washington Post on Sunday that itemized some of his doubts about China as a long-term colossus. Writes Pomfret in his introductory paragraph,

Nikita Khrushchev said the Soviet Union would bury us, but these days, everybody seems to think that China is the one wielding the shovel. The People's Republic is on the march -- economically, militarily, even ideologically. Economists expect its GDP to surpass America's by 2025; its submarine fleet is reportedly growing five times faster than Washington's; even its capitalist authoritarianism is called a real alternative to the West's liberal democracy. China, the drumbeat goes, is poised to become the 800-pound gorilla of the international system, ready to dominate the 21st century the way the United States dominated the 20th.

Except that it's not.

Pomfret lists some of the many areas in which China, far from dominating, is in fact far behind the West. These include demographics, the vaunted economy, the horrendous state of the environment and most of all the rigid government. Pomfret says that far from dominating the 21st century he way the United States dominated much of the Twentieth Century, China has some significant hurdles to overcome before it can really be considered a superpower. And the largest of these hurdles lies in China's inability to produce inventiveness- a problem that the United States does not have. Pomfret uses the recent release of 'Kung Fu Panda' to illustrate this issue. His money quote can be found in the conclusion of his opinion piece, where he writes,

But consider the case of the high-kicking panda who uses ancient Chinese teachings to turn himself into a kung fu warrior. That recent Hollywood smash broke Chinese box-office records -- and caused no end of hand-wringing among the country's glitterati. "The film's protagonist is China's national treasure, and all the elements are Chinese, but why didn't we make such a film?" Wu Jiang, president of the China National Peking Opera Company, told the official New China News Agency.

The content may be Chinese, but the irreverence and creativity of "Kung Fu Panda" are 100 percent American. That highlights another weakness in the argument about China's inevitable rise: The place remains an authoritarian state run by a party that limits the free flow of information, stifles ingenuity and doesn't understand how to self-correct. Blockbusters don't grow out of the barrel of a gun. Neither do superpowers in the age of globalization.

To me, this is very familiar. Remember the myth of Japanese superiority that was peddled by so many in the 1980s and 1990s? Remember how the United States was told ad infinitum in the pages of the Press that we must adopt Japanese methods in order to survive? This is not to say that there are certain aspects of Japanese business that could be leveraged by U.S. business. But Japan has been mired in recession (at least partly due to the incestuous relationship between government and business) for some time. Only recently has Japan been showing signs of recovering from the decade-long slowdown. I don't see too many articles in the papers these days on the superiority of Japanese business techniques. Instead, the Press is convinced that China is the new model we ought to emulate.

However, as Pomfret clearly shows, China has a long way to go before they really ought to be considered as a true equal to the United States. Militarily, they are certainly a country that bears close scrutiny, but economically, environmentally and demographically, China has some huge issues. And that is without even discussing the problems that the many differing ethnic and religious groups in China bring to the table.

So, I would certainly keep an eye on China- they are large, belligerent and convinced of their own superiority (let us not forget that China's name, in their own language translates to the Middle Kingdom- ie. the center of the world). But I would caution the Press, our politicians and our business class to remember that China, as every other country, has flaws and problems. Just because they are currently pulling out all the stops to convince the world they are Number One, does not mean that the reality matches the illusion. Until China has reached the stage where they remove the guns from the backs of their own citizens, I would count China as no more of a superpower than the old Soviet Union was. Communist regimes are all about promoting the style to naive reporters while hiding the grim substance of everyday life. And these Olympics, regardless of China's final medal count, are simply more of the same.

Hat tip to the crew over at Power Line.

Return of Nuclear Power

Nuclear power has been one of the environmentalists' main enemies for as long as there has been a modern environmental movement. The infamous movie The China Syndrome by uber-activist Jane Fonda was a dramatization intended to sway the American people (and as much of the world as they could) into an hard opposition to anything nuclear. And it worked in the United States, where no new nuclear plant has been built in over thirty years.

But the same is not true in Europe. Because in western Europe, nuclear power has long been used to create energy and there has been not so much as a single mishap. But in the United States, the environmental activists have been able to use the courts and their ignorant friends in the media to shut down plant after plant, forcing us to rely ever more on imported oil. Europe long ago figured out that nuclear power was a help much more than a hindrance. Could that view finally be coming about in the United States as well?

In an article published in the Wall Street Journal online edition on July 21, William Tucker argues that the American public's attitudes toward nuclear power may be shifting, and that for nuclear power to succeed in the US as it has in Europe, such a shift is vital, since in this country, government does not invest in such things- they are all done by private development. Writes Tucker about the future of nuclear power,

All over the world, nuclear power is making a comeback. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has just commissioned eight new reactors, and says there's "no upper limit" to the number Britain will build in the future. German Chancellor Angela Merkel has challenged her country's program to phase out 17 nuclear reactors by 2020, saying it will be impossible to deal with climate change without them. China and India are building nuclear power plants; France and Russia, both of whom have embraced the technology, are fiercely competing to sell them the hardware.

And just last month John McCain called for the construction of 45 new reactors by 2030. Barack Obama is less enthusiastic about nuclear energy, but he seems to be moving toward tacit approval.

In the U.S. at present, 104 nuclear plants generate about 21% of our electric power. Last November, NRG Energy, of Princeton, N.J., became the first company to file for a license to build a new nuclear plant since the 1970s. Almost a dozen more applications have now also been filed.

But the United States has a unique difficulty in moving forward in the pursuit of nuclear power- the question of cost. As Tucker points out, most developed countries that use nuclear power- the French, the Brit8ish, the Japanese- all rely on investment and development from their respective governments. As a result, the environmentalists cannot stop them from pursuing as the government has a great deal more power to carry out its directives- and judges are not nearly as independent.

None of this is true in the United States. Government neither invests nor directs power projects, and the judiciary is frequently at odds both with the best interests of the nation and with the objectives of the elected government. Therefore most of the heavy lifting has to be carried out by corporate entities- and they are vulnerable both to legal challenges and local government obstacles. So if nuclear power is to succeed in this country, argues Tucker, then the people must be brought around to believe that nuclear power is not an evil, but rather a force for good. On the positive side, the current high price of oil, coupled with the fact that a great deal of it resides in the hands of declared enemies to the United States, has provided a boost for alternate energy sources. And there is no single source that can match the potential of nuclear energy.

But what about safety? Americans still remember the Three Mile Island incident, which although there were absolutely no casualties- no one was even injured or diagnosed with radiation poisoning- still has an effect on how Americans view nuclear power. This despite the fact that the US NAvy, which operates one of the most extensive collection of nuclear-powered facilities in the world has virtually spotless safety receord when comes to handling nuclear power. And no American nucelar pwoer plant has ever been built along the lines of the deadly Chernobyl plant in the former Soviet Union. Even at Three Mile Island, where the plant experienced a partial core meltdown, the entire damage was contained within the reactor, and no one was injured.

But reality has always had a hard time competing with the meme favored by the media of the time. And for a long time, the media was one of the biggest enemies of any new nuclear power plant. Recall how the media did their best to encourage the forces trying to shut down Diablo Canyon in California. However, as Tucker writes, this is finally beginning to change. In the past year, there were "almost a dozen" applications to build new nuclear plants filed in the United States.

I believe that nuclear power is the best solution for all of us. Most alternative power sources are too costly to be efficient and few of them are as reliable and robust as nuclear power plants. Wind is dependent on the atmospheric conditions, as is solar. And both can be easily disrupted and require enormous amounts of real estate. Nuclear on the other hand, currently generates roughly 75 percent of France's electricity, according to Tucker. He writes, "With a fully developed nuclear cycle, the French now store all the waste from 30 years of producing 75% of its electricity beneath the floor of one room at La Hague in Normandy." So much for the waste problem.

If nuclear power is indeed on the way back, we will finally have the trump card in our oil dependency problem. If we can generate most of our electricity from nuclear, we can put our public transport on electricity as they do in Japan and Europe and release ourselves from our need for foreign oil. And for us to be truly safe (and to devalue the Middle East once again into the backwater it richly deserves to be relegated) we desperately need to find an answer to our energy problem. Perhaps we may have finally found that answer- an answer that was before us the entire time.

Media Headlines Mislead- Again

File this under the 'Misleading headlines' category. On Drudge today, there was a link to story headlined Greenwich School Bans Desserts. Drudge's link was entitled 'School Bans Desserts; Parents Given Strict Policy For Bag Lunches'.

The only problem with this was that that was NOT the actual content of the story. According to the actual story, as reported by WCBS TV Channel 2 in Connecticut,

Glenville School in Greenwich is trying to turn things around, starting this year ice cream and cookies are no longer sold in the cafeteria. Instead they have fruit and yogurt as an option.

Parents were doing their best, sending their kids to school with healthy lunches or hoping they'd make decent choices if they were buying lunch at school. But when cookies and ice cream were offered two days a week, things changed in a hurry.

In other words, the school simply ceased selling certain desserts in the school cafeteria- they did not ban students from eating said desserts, nor are students forbidden from bringing these desserts from home. Despite the headlines, the story clearly made the point that,

Parents can pack anything they want in their kids' lunch, but they've all received the school's wellness policy that encourages them to go for healthy snacks.

Personally, I have nothing but approval for the school's actions. For too long, kids have had access to food that has essentially no nutritional value. However, the story does not agree with the sensational headline. the headline strongly suggests that the school not only forbade students from eating desserts, but also forbade parents from determining what foods to give their kids in bag lunches. To the contrary, if one actually reads the story, the school merely sent suggestions to parents- they did not ban parents from making whatever lunches they wish for their children.

To me this is a problem with the media's desire to sensationalize everything. This story is almost a non-event- a school stops selling cookies and ice cream in its cafeteria. But the headline tries to make it into a cause celebre, which in fact was not the case. And I consider that both the original news outlet- in this case WCBS TV channel 2 in Connecticut and Drudge are complicit in this.

News should exist to present real, straightforward stories. The original report had a very misleading headline, and Drudge made it even worse. yet the actual story contains virtually nothing that is cause for complaint, at least in my opinion. Yet if one only reads the headlines, as so many people do, then one would have a completely incorrect idea of the case.

Media in the United States has a very bad habit of inflaming stories with headlines that bear little resemblance to the facts. Think of the Duke rape hoax and the role media played in the inflaming of that case. Think of the Katrina reports that proved to be untrue or over-hyped. The media bears huge responsibility for this, and they need to do a better job of presenting reports in a sober, factual light.

Unfortunately, as this incident shows, the media has a long way to go. And if they cannot even do a good job on a small, local story such as this, how can Americans trust them on much bigger issues such as Presidential elections or the campaign in Iraq? Cross-posted on NewsBusters.

Media Silent on Military Good Samaritanship

Reuters is busy smearing the troops by claiming they opened fire on civilians. But while accusations of misconduct are always good for several months worth of front-page stories, somehow the media never has time to comment on the many good deeds that the United States Armed Forces perform all over the world. And unfortunately, the US military does not do as well as we would wish at getting the word out. A case in point is the story posted on the United States Navy's site today, as USS Stout (DDG 55), came to the assistance of a Tanzanian passenger ferry off the coast of Somalia. As the Navy reported,

Spice Island, which was carrying no passengers, hailed for engineering assistance when it ran out of fuel while transiting to Tanzania. Stout provided the crew with food, water and fuel and helped to get the vessel operational under its own power. Coalition forces have a long-standing tradition of helping mariners in distress by providing medical assistance, engineering assistance and search and rescue efforts.

This is worthy of being reported, and once upon a time, maybe the media might have done so, instead of spending their time bashing the forces that allow them to propagate their poisonous penmanship. But at the present time, the media is too busy tearing down to think of actually reporting something that would reflect some credit on the many men and women who take seriously the idea of actually doing something to help their fellow Americans. Most journalists, unfortunately, do not qualify for that role.

New Journalists Missing Moral Clarity

Journalists are responsible for presenting the news of the day to ordinary citizens. Their requirements include objectivity and analysis. However, they are also expected to understand the difference between a mass-murderer who espouses a form of global slavery and an elected leader of the freest country on Earth. Unfortunately, it appears that Ryan Yeoman, of the Central Connecticut State University does not have that understanding. Writing today in the opinion pages of The Recorder, Central Connecticut State's college newspaper, Yeomans states,

As of late, if you were to bring up the president in a discussion you would find that many Americans disapprove of the decisions he has made. At the same time, Osama bin Laden presents many good arguments against the president and many of his reasons for disapproving of Bush are similar to those of anti-Bush Americans. Would it be wrong to assume that there is some kind of connection between feelings of the American people and those of Osama bin Laden? As I would love to make this connection, I ultimately cannot because of the actions of our president. If I were to say I agree with bin Laden, that would mean that I agree with a terrorist; under the Patriot Act, I could be labeled a potential terrorist and my phone could be tapped, and every move I make could be watched and analyzed.

In finding myself in this predicament, I questioned myself as to who the lesser evil actually is. I ask, “Who has done more damage to the lives of the American people?” Personally, I worry more about the next bad decision Bush is going to make than I worry about a potential Osama bin Laden organized terrorist attack.

One thing I have realized from these videos is that while Osama bin Laden remains free, Americans are slowly becoming bound by the decisions of the president to remove and restrict the rights given to us by our knowledgeable forefathers, without whom we would not be here. I can only hope that Americans will open their eyes and see what is in front of them, in order to prevent things from getting out of hand any further.

This writer displays such a lack of common sense that it is difficult to know where to start deconstructing. Let's take his statement that "Americans are slowly becoming bound by the decisions of the president to remove and restrict the rights given us by our knowledgeable forefathers". Mr. Yeomans, precisely what rights has the president removed from American citizens? I cannot think of a single right enumerated in the Constitution that Mr. Bush has either removed or restricted. In fact, the courts have created new rights for our enemies that have never existed previously, such as access to the US court system.

Yeomans also complains that although he agrees with bin Laden, "If I were to say I agree with bin Laden, that would mean that I agree with a terrorist; under the Patriot Act, I could be labeled a potential terrorist and my phone could be tapped, and every move I make could be watched and analyzed." Well, actually no. Free speech is protected, though advocating the assassination or other violence against the president is a federal crime and has been since long before the Bush Administration. I have not noticed any anti-war/pro-Islamic protestors being placed in prison for speaking their minds, and certainly the MoveOn.org folks who masterminded the 'Bush-as-Hitler' campaign are still free. If Mr. Yeomans were communicating with foreign nationals connected to terror via international phone calls, then yes, those calls could be and probably should be tapped. But tapping domestic calls (those are calls with both ends within the United States, as opposed to international calls, which have at least one end in a foreign country) require a warrant- no matter how many Democratic talking points bin Laden parrots.

However, the most startling aspect of this opinion piece is the complete lack of understanding betrayed by the writer. This is someone who will be entering the journalistic world and will be responsible for portraying the news to his fellow Americans. Yet, he displays the most astonishing lack of ability to differentiate between an elected leader who is bound (and who has followed) the law, and who has two other branches of the government overseeing him as well, and an unelected terrorist who wants a global Islamic caliphate, containing no rights whatsoever for non-Muslims. A leader who masterminded the attacks on September 11, 2001 that killed over three thousand American citizens. And Yeomans appears to be ignorant of how bin Laden's videos have increasingly adopted Democratic Party talking points, as he tries to elect a party that would be much easier to defeat than the current Adminstration.

It used to be that college students were taught the difference between murderous barbarians such as bin Laden and elective republics such as we. There is a difference between forces that refuse to wear uniforms, who hide amongst civilians and who behead and torture their enemies (the Muslims) as opposed to a society that adheres to a rule of law, wears uniforms, fights under a flag, and who actually provides their captives with food, Korans and exercise (the United States)- none of which privileges are granted to those unfortunate enough to fall into the hands of the Islamists. Mr. Yeomans has an understanding neither of history, which provides the context for bin Laden and his allies, nor for the proper use of force, which is often the only resort against aggression such as that espoused by bin Laden and his allies. Proper use of force saved Europe from Islamic aggression many times, beginning in 732 at the battle of Tours, and most recently in 1683 in the siege of Vienna.

If Mr Yeomans is the future of American journalism, then American journalism has fallen a long way since the days of Ernie Pyle. Cross-posted on NewsBusters.

Media- Liberal Brains Better Than Conservatives

Yet another story is in the media highlighting the supposed superiority of liberals' brains to those of conservatives. Not long after the president of the American Publishers' Association claimed that liberals were simply more intelligent, based on a poll that showed liberals tend to read more books (one a year) than conservatives, a new study is highlighted by the Agencie France-Presse claiming that liberals and conservatives brain functions differ.

The story waits only four short paragraphs beofre focusing on the supposed superiority of liberals by claiming that,

Conservatives tend to crave order and structure in their lives, and are more consistent in the way they make decisions. Liberals, by contrast, show a higher tolerance for ambiguity and complexity, and adapt more easily to unexpected circumstances.

So, liberals show a 'higher tolerance for ambiguity and complexity'? I guess we poor conservatives simply can't deal with complex and ambiguous issues. The story continues to point out the liberal advantage in dealing with change, stating,

The match-up was unmistakable: respondents who had described themselves as liberals showed "significantly greater conflict-related neural activity" when the hypothetical situation called for an unscheduled break in routine.

Conservatives, however, were less flexible, refusing to deviate from old habits "despite signals that this ... should be changed."

So I gather that conservatives cannot change even when it is necessary. To do it credit, the study does admit that these results could be seen in different ways, pointing out that,

Whether that is good or bad, of course, depends on one's perspective: one could interpret the results to mean that liberals are nimble-minded and conservatives rigid and stubborn.

Or one could, with equal justice, conclude that wishy-washy liberals don't stick to their guns, while conservatives and steadfast and loyal.

However, the main thrust of the story leaves no doubt of the writers' opinions- liberals are superior to those poor, plodding, inflexible conservatives. The repeated references to the supposed adaptability of liberals to 'unexpected situations' is one example. The equally repetitious nature of the authors' references to conservatives' 'refusal to deviate from old habits'. The point is made- adaptability and flexibility in reacting to conflict is good, steadfastness is bad.

This story is amusing on a variety of fronts. Firstly, the story assumes that change is a good thing, but history shows that change is not always for the best. Who can deny that the change to Communism was disastrous for millions in Russia and China (and we won't even mention the bloodletting upon the fall of South Vietnam)? Who can deny that the change in the educational system here in the US over the last forty years or so has had disastrous effects as the once-accepted concentration on classical liberalism and core skills (the three 'R's) has degenerated into a potpourri of multiculteralist garbage and a loss of some of our best and brightest with the de-emphasizing of mathematics, reading and writing. Today's students are indoctrinated- not taught to think for themselves. And who can deny that the so-called welfare society has been an unmitigated disaster, destroying the economies in Europe, while potentially also causing huge problems here in the US with the imminent insolvency of Social Security?

And that brings us to the second howler in this story. Liberals in fact are not known for their adaptability. In both higher education and in politics, liberals who are faced with a new situation- the loss of the once-monolithic liberal press voice- are reacting by trying to silence their opponents, not adapt to the changed playing field. Case in point is Dartmouth's recent decision to pack the board of trustees with appointed members so as to silence the voice of the alumni-elected members. On the current battlefield, liberals are unable to concoct a strategy to fight the Muslim imprialists who are trying so hard to kill us either, though conservatives have been willing to change strategies as events on the ground have changed. Liberals still are calling for a withdrawal of forces, irregardless of the actual conditions. They seem unable to embrace change and adapt to it.

So once again the media take a study that could be interesting, depending on the criteria used, and twist it into yet another 'liberal brain better' story.There may indeed be a difference in the way that liberals and conservatives think. but I serioiusly doubt that one is superior to the other. And certainly based on current events, to suggest that liberals are somehow more flexible is a laugher. You would think that after liberals and the media have been proven wrong on so many fronts- from socialism to communism to the war on paverty to their hopes for a defeat in Iraq- they might take stock of the fact that conservatives seem better able to actually analyze events and make the right calls on a more regular basis. Instead of actually taking stock and analyzing events however, the media is still pushing stories on why those poor conservatives are just dumb reactionaries. Media bias? Oh, you mean that media bias....

Hat tip to Power Line for the stories on Dartmouth College and the Democrats' pre-emptive attacks on General Petraeus. Cross-posted on NewsBusters.

Kucinich Kraziness

Congressman Dennis Kucinich, who is apparently running for President, though his chances are only slightly better than mine, appears to have a very strange view of what is and what is not illegal. During his current visit to the Mideast, he found time to visit the dictatorship of Syria, and praise them for taking in Iraqi refugees. According to the Jerusalem Post,

Kucinich, who accused the Bush administration of policies that have destabilized the Mideast, met with Syrian President Bashar Assad during his visit to Damascus. He said Assad was receptive to his ideas of "strength through peace."

He also praised Syria for taking in Iraqi refugees.

However, at the same time, Kucinich exposed his limited understanding both of international law and of the real facts of the Middle East. He reportedly refused to visit Iraq due to his dislike of the Bush Administration and his possibly sincere though naive and ignorant belief that the United States' overthrow of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein is illegal. As the Post wrote,

Kucinich, a strong anti-war opponent who trails far in the US presidential polls, also said he won't visit Iraq on his trip to the region because he considers the US military deployment there illegal.

"I feel the United States is engaging in an illegal occupation ... I don't want to bless that occupation with my presence," he said in an interview in Lebanon, after visiting Syria. "I will not do it."

In these two statements, Kucinich showed clearly why he should not even be consdiered as a serious contender for the nation's highest office. Firstly, his refusal to visit Iraq showed his disdain for the men and women of the UNited States Armed Forces. Democrats like to say they support the troops but not the mmission. However, visiting Iraq to get an actual picture of how conditions are for many fellow Americans could be accomplished whether one supports the rationnale for sending them or not. Kucinich showed that for him, military servicemen and servicewomen do not count. How then can he consider himself qualified to ask to be their Commander-in-Chief?

Secondly, Kucinich apparently has no problem with Syria's far longer occupation of Lebanon, judging by his willingness to visit. He accused his own country of acting 'illegally' in occupying Iraq- a nation whose leader representeed a clear threat to the United States, yet showed no concern with a much longer, far more brutal and continuing pressuring of Lebanon by Syria. If the US occupation of Iraq is 'illegal' according to Kucinich, how can Syria's occupation fo Lebanaon not be 'illegal'?

Of course, the media did not appear to be interested in asking those questions. Even the Jerusalem Post, which one would have thoughb aware of the inherent contradiction in Kucinich's comments, failed to ask the congressman of how he could determine one occupation illegal and one not. Especially since the Syrian occupation was condemned by the United Nations as well.

Fortunately, Kucinich's chances of becoming President are slim. But it is worrying that a candiadte for the Presidency in this day and age should display such shocking ignorance and disdain his fellow countrymen and women as blatantly as did Kucinich. And it is also worrying that the media do not call him on this, though their role as watchdog seems to occur to them only when a Republican might be embarrassed.

Media Bias On Display In San Francisco

In San Francisco's liberal Ninth Circuit Court today, a three- judge panel heard arguments in the strange case of Al-Haramain v. Bush. And the members of the media gathered in San Francisco showed their ideological colors afterwards. 

To those who may not be familiar with the case, this is essentially a test case as to whether the United States government has the legal authority to perform secret surveillance on anyone. The plaintiff is a Muslim organization called Al-Haramain that has been linked to a variety of Muslim terrorist organizations and has been shuttered in many countires for its unabashed laundering of money to said terrorists. Even the United Nations has placed Al-Haramain on its list of banned organizations. The organization was also concluded to be a terrorist organization here in the U.S. but somehow managed to gain posession of a document showing that they were the subject of surveillance, and thus sued the US government, claiming that the U.S. government does not have the authority to do such surveillance. The superb photo-journalist Zombie covered the day's action in exquisite detail, so I shall not recap here. Suffice to say that after the testimony was finished, many of the media gathered outside the courtroom in San Francisco gave one of the most damning demonstrations of bias that I have ever had the displeasure to see. 

The Muslim organization is being defended by an attorney whose name one might recognize- Jon Eisenberg, who represented Michael Schiavo in Schiavo's quest to have his wife Teri killed. As one might guess, he is an outspoken opponent of conservatism in general and the Republican Party and the Bush Administration in particular. His opponent representing the United States government was an attorney named Thomas Bondy. They received very different treatment from the gathered media once they had emerged from the courtroom. To quote Zombie,

Then Jon Eisenberg, the main attorney for Al-Haramain who had just argued the case, emerged from the building and let out a greeting of camaraderie and relief when he spotted his buddies in the media. Needless to say, they surrounded him and eagerly let him tell his side of the story. Jon Eisenberg pontificated for quite a long time.

...

Finally, Thomas Bondy -- the attorney for President Bush who was arguing the government's case against Eisenberg -- came out the courtroom door. He and his team of lawyers walked right past the reporters who had just interviewed John Eisenberg (including one who was still interviewing him, on the left of this picture). But not a single reporter showed the slightest interest in questioning him or interviewing him. When Bondy got to the bottom of the stairs, he heard something behind him and turned around, perhaps thinking it was a reporter asking him a question -- but no, it was just one of his colleagues. They stood there all by themselves, with at least 15 media members nearby, and no one approached them. So, they decided they might as well just leave. I don't know if they even wanted to give interviews -- perhaps they were glad they didn't have to repeat "no comment" over and over. But either way, no one in the media even tried. Why was Eisenberg treated like a superstar, while Bondy was totally ignored by the media?

Interspersed with Zombie's commentary were several pictures of the entire affair. I regret that Zombie was unable to identify any of the media organizations present, but all of them ought to be ashamed of their unprofessional behavior. I don't know what qualities are required of a 'professional reporter', but I would guess that objectivity, honesty and a passsion for accuracy and fairness should be featured prominently amongst them. Based on Zombie's pictures and commentary, there was no one who matched that description at this hearing today. Thus, I can offer some advice- if the media truly wants to shake its richly-deserved reputation for biased and unreliable reporting, they might want to minimize such scenes as this where they gather around their preferred side like groupies, while entirely ignoring the other side. Hat tip to Michelle Malkin. Cross-posted at NewsBusters.

The Decline of the Media

At The Today Show, Katie’s success was primarily engineered by another man, her whiz-kid producer Jeff Zucker, the now president of NBC. The biggest splash in her early career, the serendipitous White House interview with president George H.W. Bush, was among those orchestrated by Zucker. While conducting a live TV tour of the White House with Barbara Bush, the President joined in, probably expecting a few moments of genial chit-chat. Instead “Couric grilled him for nineteen minutes on topics from tax policy to Iran-Contra…Bush seemed frazzled.” Katie’s reputation was thereby established as someone who could handle both morning-TV fluff and more substantive journalism. What was not known at the time was the important role Zucker played; he remained outside parked in a satellite truck in the White House driveway, shouting questions in her ear piece.

This quote, written by Myrna Blyth of the National Review in a review of the new book by Joe Klein about CBS News anchor Katie Couric, has some interesting possibilities to explain the decline of the media from it's once-respected position to the point where supposed "anchors" like Couric are actually more news-readers than real journalists.

Once upon a time, reporters were true experts about the topics they covered. From world-news to sports, the beat reporters were veritable encyclopedic references on their areas of coverage. A classic example is the famous time when Ronald Reagan, bereft of his ticker-tape stats, called a baseball game sight-unseen, using only his knowledge of the players and their teams. These weere the days when a reporter quite often had a solid calssical education, so was comfortable challenging leaders who had no more than the same. But those days are gone.

Today's reporters are usually graduates in journalism- a 'discipline' that has few similarities to true academic disiplines such as engineering, Latin, computer science, or history. Journalism requires merely the abilkity to write- it does not teach students to do intensive research, nor does it teach analysis, as the classic liberal education of yesteryear did. As a result, reporters think that they can pass judgement about many areas in which they know little or nothing. A case in point is the Iraq campaign. i recall hearing the cries of the media after merely a few weeks that the campaign was a 'quagmire'. Since none of these so-called expert reporters had any training in military science, nor had they any real familiarity with historical campaigns, they were ill-equipped to pass judgement on this campaign, and they were shortly proven to be fools azs the military adjusted and crushed Iraqi forces in less than three weeks.

I remember wathcing a reporter once on a television news show. She was supposedly a technology reeporter and she was discussing a new Palm handheld, which she calimed had something made by a company called 'Bluetooth'. I worked for Palm at the tim, and I remember my colleagues and I nearly flaling out off our seats, we laughed so hard. Regrettably, this is not uncommon. Many reporters are assigned to areas that require great understanding- understanding that few reporters have, as they are simply not qualified by their majors to make any kind of analysis on those areas.

Today's reporters, like Katie Couric on that day at the WHite House, have people in trucks shouting the questions they should ask into their earpieces. But yet they expect the subjects of their reporting, who do not have the advantage of instant research, to know everything. They forget that once, they too wre restricted by what they could carry in their head. To consider Couric, or any other current anchor an expert on anything would bee a grave mistake. And becasue they have lost the individual expertise, and are merely spoon-fed it as needed, they consider them selves experts and savagely diss their subjects when said subjects cannot come up with the exact figures they are expecting.

Perhaps reporters need to lose some of their technical advantages and go back to the days when their own minds were their most important weapons. If so, they might once again learn some compassion for the people on whom they report, and they might learn objectivity. that is a tall task, but it is one that the current jet-setting, wired group of edgy, oh-so-progressive know it alls seem to have forgotten.

Vick Done- But NAACP Calls For Rehab

The National Football League has finally acted, suspending Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick indefinitely without pay after Vick admitted that he did after all,

bankroll gambling on dogfighting and helped kill some dogs not worthy of the pit.

Vick's guilt was never seriously in doubt as proof after proof emerged from the mounting pile of evidence against him, and in fact this merely puts the official seal on a case that has been pretty much moot since all of Vick's co-defendants agreed to plead guilty and give evidence against Vick. This, however, has not stopped the local NAACP and a number of columnists, including the New York Times's Selena Roberts from calling for Vick to be granted a second chance in the NFL. In fact, Roberts was very passionate in stating that this was not Vick's fault. She seems to believe that his friends ought to have stood up for him and not agreed to testify against him. Roberts wrote that Vick was "abandoned by his friends", as though Vick was somehow a victim.

Meanwhile, the NAACP is still trying to convince anyone who will listen that Vick is simply someone who "made a mistake". The also think that he ought to be allowed to resume his career without a single hiccup once he serves his time. According to one of their officials,

"As a society, we should aid in his rehabilitation and welcome a new Michael Vick back into the community without a permanent loss of his career in football," said R.L. White, president of the NAACP's Atlanta chapter. "We further ask the NFL, Falcons, and the sponsors not to permanently ban Mr. Vick from his ability to bring hours of enjoyment to fans all over this country."

White said the Falcons quarterback is a human being who has made a mistake and should be allowed to prove that he has learned from that mistake.

Funny- I don't recall either the NAACP or Roberts arguing for the Duke students accused of rape. I don't recall either of them making the case that since the worst that the students could possibly be accused of was holding a party where drinking took place and two srippers were hired. In fact, Roberts called for other students to step forward and incriminate their fellow teammates by telling the police and prosecutors stories of a rape that quite simply never occurred. However, she was strangely advocating the exact opposite position in respect to Vick- calling for his fellow criminals NOT to break silence and testify against him. Yes, Vick was clearly guilty and the Duke trio proved almost immediately that they had a strong case in favor of their innocence.

Roberts and the NAACP have proved once again that they are simply interested in advancing their own agendas- not in providing accurate or objective commentary on the subject of face in these United States. It would be nice if they would have given this much attention to the damage they did to innocent people falsely accused, and not to guilty people who will have to earn their way to redemption. But of course, that might mean actually being color-blind- something neither the NAACP nor Selena Roberts (despite the lily-white community where she lives) appears able to do.

MSNBC Reporter Links to Parody Blog

I missed out on this story as it was occurring, but couldn't help but comment. Apparently those "layers of editors and fact-checkers" the mainstream media likes to boast of were insufficient in preventing MSNBC report Alex Johnson (assisted by two other NBC reporters from realizing that the ">Al Sharpton blog he linked to in a story about Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick was a parody.

Although MSNBC is now claiming that the parody blog was a hoax, this doesn't explain how their "professional reporter" missed seeing the clearly marked words "fake parody blog" on the titlebar. It also doesn't explain why MSNBC is unaware of the difference between a hoax and a parody. In case anyone from MSNBC would care for some elucidation on the subject, here is Webster's definition of each term:

Main Entry: 2hoax
Function: noun
1 : an act intended to trick or dupe : IMPOSTURE
2 : something accepted or established by fraud or fabrication

Main Entry: 1par·o·dy
Pronunciation: 'per-&-dE, 'pa-r&-
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural -dies
Etymology: Latin parodia, from Greek parOidia, from para- + aidein to sing -- more at ODE
1 : a literary or musical work in which the style of an author or work is closely imitated for comic effect or in ridicule
2 : a feeble or ridiculous imitation
synonym see CARICATURE
- pa·rod·ic /p&-'rä-dik, pa-/ adjective
- par·o·dis·tic /"per-&-'dis-tik, 'pa-r&-/ adjective

Note to MSNBC- the fake Al Sharpton blog is clearly a parody- it was not designed to try to fool anyone, and it is clearly marked as a parody. But this does bring up another point. If MSNBC cannot tell the difference between a hoax and a parody, especially when the latter is clearly marked, then how can we trust them to report on anything, let alone something as potentially divisive as the Michael Vick situation?

AP Muddies Waters on New Poll

Is the Associated Press trying to muddy the campaign waters to benefit Senator Hillary Clinton? The AP just reported on a new poll, titling their story Intensity Differs for Clinton, Giuliani.

The AP begins their story by stating,

Rudy Giuliani's support is broad. Hillary Rodham Clinton's is intense. Among voters of all parties with an opinion, Clinton is viewed favorably by 55 percent, the lowest of all major candidates, according to a Pew Research Center poll released Thursday.

So instead of headlining about intensity, why didn't the AP headline the real story- that wile Senator Clinton has intense support among her faithful, she does not have broad support like that enjoyed by the former New York mayor. The AP goes on to try to build up Clinton's support, stating,

Yet the New York senator is viewed favorably by 88 percent of her fellow Democrats, including 38 percent with a very favorable opinion of her - the highest rating of that intensity for any leading candidate. Such support is good news for her effort to win her party's nomination.

I would agree that her fervent followers in the ranks of the Democratic Party make it virtually impossible for her to lose the nomination, but her chances in a general election are much less favorable. Her negatives, as has been reported on before, are much higher than any of her potential competitors, and a general campaign does not usually lower those negatives- it sends them higher.

But all of this is known already. And in any event, polls this far in advance of a general election are essentially meningless, as many Americans have not even begun paying attention to the various races. Only after the nominations are set will the general public begin to take an interest. that is when polls become useful. The AP appears to be merely trying to bring down the Republicans, and make Hillary seem much stronger than she is with this "news" story.

Columbia Journalism Review Whines About Drudge

Has the Columbia Journaism Review (CJR) taken umbrage with Matt Drudge's choice of headlines? After Drudge posted the "Obama Wife Slams Hillary" headline across his site, CJR ran an article complaining Drudge Barks, TV News Bites.

It seems the CJR is upset that Drudge's headline sparked a media feeding frenzy in which the major news sources all picked up both on the original story in the Chicago Sun-Times and on the interpretation that Michelle Obama's remark constituted an attack on Senator Hillary Clinton. Now for anyone who read the original story, there seems little doubt that Mrs. Obama's remark really was a thinly-disguised dig at Hillary. The Sun-Times wrote,

At another stop, in Atlantic, Michelle said she travels with her husband in part "to model what it means to have family values," adding "if you can't run your own house, you can't run the White House." She didn't elaborate, but it could be interpreted as a swipe at the Clintons.

Taken in context, it would seem to be a pretty fair interpretation that Mrs. Obama was indeed making a direct comparison betwewen her own travels with her candidate husband, and Hillary's very noticeable distance from her own philandering spouse, former President Bill Clinton. Not to the CJR, however.

The CJR article proceeded to spend the majority of its space trying to refute the idea that Mrs. Obama was talking about Senator Clinton. The main thrust of its article seems to be that Drudge induced the media into a needless spate of stories that carried no real value, and existed only to titllate the reading public.

Of course, when the media was obsessing over former Seantor Fred Thompson's lovely (and younger) wife Jeri, there was no lack of stories musing about "trophy wives" and their effect on the American public. Never mind that Jeri Thompson is far from being a "trophy wife". And when Rudy Guilani's family was dragged into view last week, I do not recall the CJR complining about those stories, though they have even less journalistic vaslue than does this one. It seems that the CJR only complains about journalitic value when it is Democrats who are being displayed in a negative light.

Hat tip to Matt Drudge.

NY Times's New Line on Iraq

Now that the military surge led by General Petraeus is clearly succeeding in lowering the violence level in Iraq, the liberal media cheerleaders for defeat are scrambling for a new strategy to convince Americans that Iraq is a disaster. But what line will they choose?

The New York Times has apparently decided that since success on the military end of things is now fairly evident, that it is time to begin chipping away at the poilitcal side. To this end, they have once again utilized their favorite tool, the anonymous source, to try to destroy Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

The Times story, posted on the front page of their web site, is entitled Report Cites Grave Concerns on Iraq's Government. Once a reader gets past the scare-mongering headline, the report continues to cast doubt on the Iraqi government in every way it can, stating,

The administration is planning to make public today parts of a sober new report by American intelligence agencies expressing deep doubts that the government of the Iraqi prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, can overcome sectarian differences. Government officials who have seen the report say it gives a bleak outlook on the chances Mr. Maliki can meet milestones intended to promote unity in Iraq.

Naturally, the Times used an anonymous official to reinforce their position. "“The report says that there’s been little political progress to date, and it’s very gloomy on the chances for political progress in the future,” said one Congressional official with knowledge of its contents."

It is no surprise that the Times uses "an anonymous Congressional offiical". During the course of their campaign for defeat in Iraq and the destruction of President Bush's Adminstration, the Times has rarely dared to actually quote from true named experts, and many of the anonymous experts they have used in the past, such as Michael Scheuer, have been easily discredited once their real names and positions became known. Whereas, by using an "anonymous" expert, the actual espertise fo thier chosen commentator is difficult to discern.

It appears that the Times has decided that since military success is virtually impossible to deny, that it is time to attack the civilian authorities, despite the fact that they too have made great strides since the beginning of the campaign. al-Maliki has managed to reach out to Sunnis and hang on to his own Shi'ite support as well, in the process marginalizing the Moqti al-Sadr forces as well. In the Times's view, any American defeat that hurts the Administration is apparently better than a victory that actually strengthens America.

Hat tip to Matt Drudge.

Selena's Revisions

Isn't it interesting how many media outlets seem to employ two different sets of standards regarding athletes accused of criminal behavior? Selena Roberts wrote passionately (if incorrectly) regarding the three falsely accused Duke lacrosse players in the once-august pages of the New York Times. One of her main themes was that the lacrosse players were engaging in a wall of silence designed to protect the guilty. She condemned this behavior in very strong terms, even using the illustration of a gang member wearing a "Stop Snitching" T-shirt on her first article, published on March 31, 2006. In this she portrayed them as equally despicable and in fact equivalent to those gang members who discourage snitching to the authorities with threats of physical violence.

So, how did Ms. Roberts react to the news that Michael Vick's co-defendants had snitched on him, revealing his leadership and his financial bankrolling of the dog-fighting gang? Surely she was happy that they had not engaged in the behavior she had previously ascribed (falsely) to the Duke lacrosse team?

Not exactly. It turns out that Ms. Roberts only approves of snitching in cases where the defendants are white and innocent of the crimes they are accused of. If the defendant is black and guilty, then apparently it is not acceptable to snitch on the ring-leader. As KC Johnson wites of Roberts' column,

In her column for today’s Times, however, Roberts takes a far different view of “snitches.” Her commentary deals with the Michael Vick case, and the parade of friends or relatives of the quarterback cooperating with the government—or, in Roberts’ parlance, “snitching.”

How does Roberts describe their behavior?

Vick’s cousin was “the first to fail” him. Then a friend with whom he had a falling out, Tony Taylor, was “the first to flip” on him. And finally, another old friend, Quanis Phillips, who pled guilty to dog-fighting charges on Friday, was “the latest to betray” Vick. [emphasis added in each sentence]

Fail him? Flip on him? Betray him? What happened to Selena Roberts, the arch-crusader for justice, who argued that friends and teammates needed to “come forward to reveal an eyewitness account,” and smash the culture in which “any whisper of a detail [is] akin to snitching?”

Last spring, Roberts described the lacrosse team as “a group of privileged players of fine pedigree entangled in a night that threatens to belie their social standing as human beings.” How does she describe Vick? As a person of “disarming charm” who “employed friends and housed pals.” He has, she laments, been “abandoned, left to contemplate a plea deal that could imprison him and ruin his N.F.L. career.”

The incompetence and flat falsehoods employed by many of the members of the Press in dealing with these two cases is equalled only by their hypocrisy. Hat tip to Durham-in-Wonderland.

AP Slants Again

The Associated Press is following their long-standing habit of presenting any news that the White House or its components are claiming executive privilege by presenting it as "obstruction". In an article posted on the Yahoo News site today, Pete Yost intially plays it straight by saying that the Justice Department says the White House Office of Administration is not subject to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

However, Yost then proceeds to quote from no one who might be able to support the Justice Department's claims. Instead, he quotes the Administration spokespeople, then immediately focuses on groups that are hostile to the Administration, such as the Reporters Committee for the Freedom of the Press and the National Security archive. Both of these groups are offered free space to attack the Administration, though no countering information is presented. Both of these groups are clamoring for unfettered release of information that has not been tied to any criminal issues, such as the federal prosecutors' firing, but were strangely silent when it was the Clinton White House claiming executive privilege. I don't recall them pressing for more information regarding Democratic Rep. William Jefferson's bribery issues either, though Jefferson has been caught literally red-handed.

For myself, I do not know whether the Justice Department's claims are meritorious or not. However, for the AP to publish a piece offering only one side of the story is shameless and only provides more evidence that the AP is not providing journalism, but propaganda.

More Liberal Obfuscation

The liberal media is at it again. The meme of "liberals are smarter than conservatives" has been a constant for some time, especially since the election of George W. Bush, whom liberals like to portray as an idiot. Now the Associated Press has decided to try this one more time, running a story that claims liberals read more than conservatives because they are "want the hole picture".

The story quotes the president of the American Association of Publishers on the topic, and her words are unkind at best and insulting at worst to conservatives.

The Karl Roves of the world have built a generation that just wants a couple slogans: 'No, don't raise my taxes, no new taxes,'" Pat Schroeder, president of the American Association of Publishers, said in a recent interview. "It's pretty hard to write a book saying, 'No new taxes, no new taxes, no new taxes' on every page."

Of course, Schroeder's comments should be taken with a large grain of salt- she used to be, as even the AP has to admit, "one of Congress' most liberal members" during her time as a democratic Representative from Colorado. The White House was quick to fire off an amused response, saying that Schroeder confused "quantity with quality". And the AP also admits that Karl Rove is known as a prodigious reader.

As a voracious reader myself, I have to laugh a the entire "news story". Liberals may indeed read more than conservatives. However, just because one person reads more bulk than another carries absolutely no significance as to intelligence, wisdom or any other meaningful markers of personality. I have read Kipling, Shakespeare, the Bible, a great deal of literary fiction, and a fair amount of science fiction from the Golden Age. However, the only books I have read in the past year are the Harry Potter books and a few old favorites by Douglas Reeman, CS Forester, Dick Francis and Ngaio Marsh. Although I have re-read some of the classics, such as Mahan's Influence of Sea Power Upon History and Plato's Republic (in translation- my Greek is nonexistent).

My wife on the other hand has confined her reading to several Japanese novels by Miyabe Miyuki (宮部みゆき). Does this mean she is less intelligent? Of course not. The volume of one's reading is immaterial to one's intelligence.

One can also make the argument that conservatives read less because thy have actual jobs and families to occupy their attention, while liberals tend to be children of privilege (meaning no nine-to-five job to keep them busy) and less inclined to have children (which may come back to haunt them one day at the ballot box).

However, in the main this is merely more evidence that the Left has become the party of elitism and privilege, while the conservatives (should be) the party of normal people. If only the black vote could figure this out, Democrats might actually have to enunciate a real policy as opposed to tired old bromides like this one.

Dhimmis at the BBC

The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), like many other so-called "mainstream media" outlets, has been one of the worst offenders in groveling to anything Muslims wish, while doing their utmost to assist in the defeat of the Western culture that they exploit and which pays their bloated salaries.

Today, the BBC made yet another step toward dhimmitude, as they cancelled a proposed fictional terror attack in order to avoid offending Muslims. According to the This is London entertainment guide at the Evening Standard,

The first show of the hospital drama's new series was to have featured a storyline about an explosion caused by Islamic extremists.

Now the bomb will be set off by animal rights campaigners instead.

It appears that the BBC caved due to fears of Muslim's reactions to the proposed show. One wonders if they would have had the same reaction if the proposed show had featured Christian extremists setting off a bomb?

The BBC is well on the way to full dhimmitude. It only remains for them to follow Dutch Bishop Tiny Muskins and call God "Allah" in their public pronouncements. Or maybe they can wear large crosses on their raiment as Muslims have traditionally required non-Muslims to do. Surely the fine progressives at the BBC would not protest- after all, they have already surrendered in the culture war between Islam and the West.

Media Distrust

The mainstream media has been beset for some time with attacks of partisanism and inaccurate reporting. Incidents such as CBS' use of forged documents to attempt to throw the 2004 election to John Kerry and The New Republic's recent use of false reports from a soldier in Iraq merely accentuate the Press' many problems both with accuracy and with objectivity.

A new Pew poll is a real eye-opener, however. The poll reports that well over half of Americans believe the US Press Corps is biased, inaccurate and uncaring. The poll reports that,

More than half of Americans say US news organizations are politically biased, inaccurate, and don't care about the people they report on, a poll published Thursday showed.

And poll respondents who use the Internet as their main source of news -- roughly one quarter of all Americans -- were even harsher with their criticism, the poll conducted by the Pew Research Center said.

More than two-thirds of the Internet users said they felt that news organizations don't care about the people they report on; 59 percent said their reporting was inaccurate; and 64 percent they were politically biased.

More than half -- 53 percent -- of Internet users also faulted the news organizations for "failing to stand up for America".

To me, this is vindication. The MSM has done an abysmal job over the past few years, and their uncalled-for attacks on the current Administration are of a viciousness heretofore unseen in American politics. I also find the report that 53 percent are unhappy with the media's stand toward their own country interesting. It seems that these oh-so-clever members of a "world citizenry" are joining a world citizenry at the expense of the respect of their fellow Americans. And no member of the Press can claim that the media coverage of US efforts anywhere in the world ahas been favorable at all. MSM outlets are always happy to interview high-ranking terrorists, or people who shout "Death to America", but are strangely afraid to publish reports that reflect well on the US troops who are so bravely protecting these reporters.

Maybe this will being to make these false reporters think about where their true loyalties lie. And maybe they might even rethink how they report events to more accurately portray their fellow countrymen and women.