Journalists and History...

...don't mix it would seem. According to Tom Elia at The New Editor blog, the Chicago Tribune's Ron Grossman sent a copy of the photograph reproduced below to his newsroom. Recognize it?




A sample of the reactions from Mr. Grossman's supposedly elite colleagues are reproduced below:

While some instantly recognized the image, others couldn't quite place it.

"I know I ought to know it," one co-worker said. "It was in the movie, ‘Flags of Our Fathers.' " Some, seeing uniforms, realized it must be a war photo. Maybe Vietnam? One got the era right but the battlefield wrong. She guessed it was D-Day, not, as it was, the raising of the American flag on Iwo Jima.

I have said many times before. Journalists are among the least skilled professionals in the world. They are not trained in any of the arenas they purport to explain to we the people and yet they expect those same people to listen to their analysis and instruction with respect and awe. Why? Tell me why should we give any respect or credence to what journalists say when they are so clearly deficient in both knowledge and comprehension?

As a bonus question, with what side did Japan and Italy ally with during the First World War? And what were the Triple Alliance and the Triple Entente? (Hint: One included Germany). No Googling!

Hat tip to Glenn Reynolds. His money quote:

HOW IGNORANT ARE JOURNALISTS? This ignorant.

Bobby Calvan: Arrogant Idiot

I missed this story over the past week, but cannot resist posting on it. Apparently Bobby Calvan, a staff reporter for the Sacramento Bee in California had a little confrontation with an enlisted soldier in Iraq. The cause of said confrontation? Calvan did not have the proper identification to pass a checkpoint. Instead of behaving in a civilized manner, Big Man Bobby tried to pull the 'Do You Know Who I Am?' card. Not only did this card fail resoundingly, Big Man Bobby then blogged about his arrogance on his blog. Not surprisingly, his readers failed to be impressed by his 'courage' and responded overwhelmingly negatively. Bobby's reaction? He pulled the entire blog, rather than respond.

Fortunately, by the time Big Man Calvan showed the world his courage in real adversity, several other bloggers had saved the original blog, including many of the comments. They can be read at Doc Weasel's blog.


UPDATE: The original blog entry is now back up, minus the comments, along with Calvan's following note:

(NOTE: This post was previously edited, then removed. By doing so, I was informed, I have violated blog protocol. I have reposted it in its entirety, with the caveat that it was reproduced using a post from another blogger who had preserved my original post.)

Notice that Big Man Calvan is so brave when facing an American soldier trying to do his duty (protecting Calvan), but cannot even face negative comments on his personal blog. And also note how Calvan admits that he doesn't know blog protocol. This is a professional reporter? Someone paid to present the news and who is supposed to be a master of communication? Yet he cannot handle criticism and doesn't understand that he can't simply delete content that does not meet universal acclaim. Where in journalism school did he learn that? Or is this the Old Media tradition- never admit mistakes or slanted coverage and pretend that content one dislikes does not exist?

This arrogant little Mr. Big perfectly typifies all that is bad about the media, and explains why so many are abandoning the dinosaur media. As so many of the commentators wrote, this little boy is no MichAel Yon. Perhaps if Calvan spent some time with Mr. Yon, he MIGHT learn what real reporting is all about. of course, that would require him to leave his arrogant attitude at the door and also to actually report, as opposed to bloviate. Two things that I fear are beyond Calvan's capabilities. After all, he is merely a media hack, not a real journalist like Yon.

By the way- Michael Yon subsists entirely on his own resources, so drop something in his tip jar if you can. It is brave journalists like Yon that we rely on to counter the propaganda propagated by inflated asses such as Calvan.

Hat tips to Michelle Malkin and Glenn Reynolds.

To Ph.D or Not To PhD.?

Classic books of etiquette from the Victorian era are filled with tips on the precise way to address various titled members of society. Kings, Presidents, Lords, Generals, Viceroys, Admirals and country squires all have their particular little niche and proper mode of address. But what about Doctors of Philosophy, or as they are commonly called, PhD.s?

My father was for thirty-four years a full professor at a California State University. However, as he entered the teaching profession as a newly-minted Master of Science in the early 1950s, he never actually earned a doctorate, though he did complete coursework and a good portion of a dissertation at the University of Southern California in the mid-1980s. However, throughout his career, students were prone to addressing him as 'Doctor' a title he felt he did not deserve and which he did his best to dissuade said students from using. He preferred to be addressed as 'Professor' or even 'Mr.', both of which being titles he had long since earned and which he felt were more appropriate in any case.

National Review's resident expert on all things linguistic, Jay Nordlinger, wrote a column back in 2002 on the New York Times and its highly inconsistent approach to calling various members of academia in strikingly different manners. As Nordlinger writes,

What’s in an honorific? Not Shakespearean, I realize, but it is our topic for today. The question came up — not for the first time — when the New York Times ran its several articles on the Cornel West controversy at Harvard. (West, a star professor in the Afro-American Studies department, was tiffing with the university’s new president, Lawrence Summers. It seems that Summers wanted West to straighten up his scholarly and professorial act. West, quite naturally, got upset.) Some of us suspicious types noticed that the Times referred to West and other Afro-Am profs as “Dr.” — “Dr. West,” “Dr. Gates,” “Dr. Wilson” — while referring to Summers as plain ol’ “Mr.” (The Times did the same with the school’s former president, Neil Rudenstine. All these people have Ph.D.’s, of course.) This was passing strange — the kind of thing that “made you go, ‘Hmmm,’” in the words of the old rap song.

Nordlinger continues by pointing out that then-Harvard President Summers is himself the possessor of a doctorate in economics and was the youngest man ever to receive tenure from Harvard's Department of Economics. Economics, unlike African-American Studies, is a discipline that actually requires real research and which does not present degrees based on racial politics. However, Summers prefers to be addressed as 'Mr.' in the pages of the New York Times, as opposed to 'Dr.' Cornel West. Seems Summers perchance is less interested in parading his credentials- perhaps because those credentials have far more intrinsic prestige and value than those of Cornel West. Nordlinger ends by writing,

For some, to be called “Dr.” is a way of saying, “I am somebody,” in the words of the Rev. Jesse Jackson. (Ah, “the Rev. Mr. Jackson” and “the Rev. Al Sharpton” — that’s “a whole ’nother” article, as we say in my family.) Many years ago, another NR senior editor, Rick Brookhiser, surveying all the mail sent to Bill Buckley, adjudged that the most interesting letters were those from prison. And the least interesting? The ones from people who signed themselves “Ph.D.” I know someone who’s a lawyer in West Virginia who has found that the surest way to rattle his opposition’s expert Ph.D. witness is to refer to him as “Mr.”

But then, I have another acquaintance who earned a Ph.D. in biochem — and he pleads for his “Dr.” because, “There aren’t many perks in this line of work, and I’d like my little payoff from polite society.” Well, at least he’s not a drama teacher. The bulk of the Ph.D.’s I know balk at being called anything but “Mr.” (or maybe “Professor,” in the case of academics), believing that “Dr.” has come to mean Marcus Welby, and that’s about it. As for those who feel slighted when they are “Dr.”-less, all we can say is, “Ph.D., heal thyself.”

The entire article is an expose both on the corrupt labelling employed by so many liberal news organs and on the general practice of modes of address as practiced in the United States. Though of 2002 vintage, Nordlinger's commentary rings as true today as it did when he wrote it. Read the whole thing.

Edwards Bloviates- Media Silent

On the MTV/MySpace Forum yesterday, Democratic Presidential candidate John Edwards stated that ,

“Pretty soon we’re not going to have a young African-American male population in America. They’re all going to be in prison or dead. One of the two.”

Edwards also said, according to the MTV/MySpace site that building prison won't deter crime.

This proves two things- one that we have sunk low indeed if a serious Presidential candidate can utter fallacies like this and two, that our media have completely abrogated any claim to both objectivity and professionalism if they are willing to let him get away with such comments.

There is much wrong with both of these statements. Firstly, building prisons does indeed deter at least some folks from committing cirmes- especially if we as a society were more willing to hold these folks up to the ridicule they richly deserve. Sheriff Joe Arpaiao has the right idea in making his inmates wear pink.

Secondly, and more importantly, Edwards' comments show both a complete lack of respect for young black Americans and a willingness to engage in racial hyperbole without any real knowledge of the facts. Much like his 'Two Americas' rhetoric, this simply exposes Edwards as the limousine liberal he is- an empty suit that has made his money on the back of ordinary Americans.

However, the deeper question is why the media is so willing to let people like Edwards get away with this kind of dissgusting garbage. If a Republican opened his or her mouth to utter this kind of derogatory speech, the media would hbe all over him or her, and deservedly so. This statement shows a startling lack of respect for blacks, both as inidividuals and aas a group. yet not a single media source has ciriticized Edwards thus far that I can see. Hat tip to NRO Online

Time Gushes Over Ahmadinejad

Does the media have any understanding at all of how important they are to terrorists and other enemies of the United States with their determined moral equivalency? When it comes to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the answer appears to be a resounding no. Time Magazine's Richard Stengel provides a glowing puff piece on the Iranian leader, entirely abrogating his responsibility as a reporter to provide any context whatsoever.

Stengel writes of Ahmadinejad,

The invitation was on creamy stationery with fancy calligraphy: The Permanent Representative of the Islamic Republic of Iran "requests the pleasure" of my company to dine with H.E. Dr. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The dinner is at the Intercontinental Hotel — with names carefully written out at all the place settings around a rectangular table. There are about 50 of us, academics and journalists mostly. There's Brian Williams across the room, and Christiane Amanpour a few seats down. And at a little after 8pm, on a day when he has already addressed the U.N., the evening after his confrontation at Columbia, a bowing and smiling Mahmoud Admadinejad glides into the room.

This is now an annual ritual for the President of Iran. Every year, during the U.N. General Assembly in New York, he plots out a media campaign that — in its shrewdness, relentlessness, and quest for attention — would rival Angelina Jolie on a movie junket. And like any international figure, Mr. Ahmadinejad hones his performance for multiple audiences: in this case, the journalists and academics who can filter his speech and ideas for a wider American audience.

This is appalling on a number of fronts. Stengel admits right at the beginning of his puff piece that this entire event is a media opportunity for one of America's greatest enemies to use the American press to get his message out to the American public. He understands exactly what Ahmadinejad is trying to do and enables it anyway! This is the same press that continues to preface United States military announcements of progress with the word 'claim', yet they have no compunctions whatsoever about swallowing Ahmadinejad's propaganda whole. During the event, Stengel writes of Ahmadinejad,

When it comes time for him to address the comments, he does so by citing each speaker by name — 23 in all, he notes. In contrast with what he calls the lack of respect and dignity accorded to him at Columbia — where, he says, he found it odd that an academic institution which prizes tolerance would treat him without any — he addresses each person carefully and patiently. Some highlights
- The US and Iran can play a positive role together in Iraq. "If the US withdraws from Iraq, good things will happen," he says. "I believe that the Iraqi people can rule themselves."
- In the Middle East, Ahmadinejad says the world must allow the Palestinians to decide their future for themselves: "That is the human solution to sixty years of instability." He refers to Israel only as "the Zionist regime" and does not mention the Holocaust.
- Ahmadinejad claims there are thirty newspapers published in Iran that are opposed to his government, citing that as evidence of press freedom in Iran.
- In answer to a question about how he viewed Hitler's legacy, he says, "I view Hitler's role as extremely negative, a despicably dark face."
- He notes that Americans don't understand Iranian history, saying that the movie 300 — with which he seems intimately familiar — was a "complete distortion of Iranian history." Iran, he says, has never invaded anyone in its history.

Stengel allows Ahmadinejad to state each of these ridiculous propositions, and does not question a single one, though his profession is one that seems to demand confrontation, especially in the case of U.S. Republican office-holders. Can anyone imagine an allied foreign leader receiving a similarly approving reaction from the press? Of course not. In fact, as reported by NewsBuster Geoffrey Dickens, Afghani President Hamid Karzai certainly did not receive a friendly welcome from the U.S. press corps, as Meredith Veiera asked repeatedly what was won in Afghanstan. Yet many of the press' major figures allowed Ahmadinejad to make his statements with not so much as a single challenge.

For example, if Stengel and his colleagues were honest reporters, they could have challenged Ahmadinejad on his statement that Iran has never invaded anyone by asking about the ten-year war with Iraq, when both nations did indeed invade the other at times. And the fact that Persia (the ancient name for Iran) did indeed invade a number of other countries (including Greece) is a matter of historical fact. In addition, since Islam's conquering of Persia, Iran has been involved in a number of Islamic invasions of the West, including 1683 at Vienna. And Islam has the most comprehensive record of invasion and destruction of other cultures in history. Yet no reporter asked Ahmadinejad about that.

In addition, Stengel or one of his counterparts (perhaps Christiane Amanpour of CNN, who is so concerned about God's Warriors) could have asked for clarification on Ahmadinejad's comments about allowing Palestinians to decide their future for themselves. Isn't that precisely what Israel is doing? And allowing the Palestinians to decide their own future does not allow them to decide Israel's as well, which has been the sticking point- both Hamas and Fatah call for Israel's destruction as a prerequisite for a Palestinian state. Yet not a single reporter asked Ahmadinejad about that small problem- which the Iranian did not address.

Finally, why did not a single media member at the event ask Ahmadinejad about his comment that if the U.S withdraws from Iraq "good things can happen". What good things, Mr. Ahmadinehad? Good things for whom? Why did not a single reporter try to get clarification?

Stengel ended his piece by writing of Ahmadinejad,

Finally, in response to a question about whether war with Iran was growing more likely, he says, "Mr. Bush is interested in harming Iran. But I believe there are wise politicians in America who will prevent such a war. We hate war. We would not welcome it. But we are prepared for every scenario. Yet I don't think war will happen."
With that, Ahmadinejad says he has an early morning appointment the next day, and that he welcomes greater dialogue like this evening. And then, still composed, and with the same slightly mysterious smile that never leaves his face all evening, he bows deeply and heads upstairs.

I can well imagine he smiled. He had just succeeded in presenting his version of events to a group of American media sheep, and knew that he would receive valuable media time for his propaganda. The American media should be ashamed of themselves. Once, this kind of thing would have been unthinkable. Would the U.S. press have interviewed Adolf Hitler in 1943? Or Tojo Hideki in 1942? Of course not. Why then are the U.S. media so willingly compliant in allowing a man who espouses the destruction of a free Jewish State, whose government is actively engaged in killing American soldiers in Iraq and whose government is attempting to gain nuclear weapons to use them to advance his horrific goals? The only answers I can think of are either political partisanship or simple naivete. Neither bodes well for the future of American journalism. Cross-posted on NewsBusters.

Still Rather Complaining

Dan Rather apparently cannot tell when he crosses from simple hilarity to the realms of ridicule. Apparently not content with suing CBS, claiming that the network scapegoated him after he presented a false story that sought to impugn President George W. Bush's Vietnam-era Texas Air National Guard service, Rather made the astonishing claim today that government and large corporations were the primary reasons that he was removed as anchor of CBS Evening News. As reported by the Associated PRess, Rather told CNN's Larry King that government and large corporations have influence in newsrooms. According to the AP story,

Dan Rather said Thursday that the undue influence of the government and large corporations over newsrooms spurred his decision to file a $70 million lawsuit against CBS and its former parent company.
"Somebody, sometime has got to take a stand and say democracy cannot survive, much less thrive with the level of big corporate and big government interference and intimidation in news," he said on CNN's "Larry King Live."

So government has influence in newsrooms? Government was unable to prevent the New York Times from spilling national security secrets on at least two separate occasions last year, despite requests from elected officials on both sides of the aisle. And government certainly has not been able to influence the remorseless and uncalled for attacks on this Administration, nor has government managed to halt the relentless one-sided reporting engaged in by all the major networks on the campaign in Iraq. Nor has government been able to make the media wake up and cover events that actually deserve coverage, such as the Holy Land Foundation trial ongoing in Dallas, nor the case of the Flying Imams, nor the close ties of an elected official, Keith Ellison, to the Nation of Islam and the Council of American Islamic Relations (CAIR)- the latter of which is an organization that has been named an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land case.

Big corporations? Of course news outlets are corporations that exist, in the infamous words of the Harry Potter journalist Rita Skeeter, 'to sell themselves". And there is no questions that they are always trying to better their sales. But the ideological content of the newsrooms- proven time and again to be far to the left of the general public has also caused these organizations' sales to fall, and not one of the news organizations in questions has tried to determine why their sales are constantly falling, though it has been posited in many places that the lack of balance in most if not all the so-called mainstream media. Certainly business decisions can affect coverage, but the wrioters seem oblivious to how their out-of-touch opinionating has causede their employers' stock to suffer. So we can discount this as well.

In short, Rather seems to have finally slipped over the edge into true paranoia. Regarding the panel that investigated his work on the fake Guard story, he told Larry King,

"This was in many ways a fraud. It was a setup," he told King.

It was Rather's own attempted setup of a sitting President and the blind ideological focus of his team, especially his producer Mary Mapes, who had been apparently chasing this non-story for five years, that caused Rather's fall. Yet he cannot even admit that he was wrong- all he can do is cast paranoid theories to his sympathizers. Nor can he take responsibility for his own actions. Rather and Mapes tried to take down a President and ended up ending their own careers. That is no one's fault but their ownm, and their sad attempts to blame other simply reveal their lack of maturity and ability to take responsibility for their own actions. This lawsuit and the wild claims accompnaying it are just the latest attempt to shift the blame for something that was entirely of Rather's own making.

Rather Whiny

Dan Rather stepped down as anchor of CBS Evening News due to his complicity in a report thatused forged and falsified documents to accuse George W. Bush of neglecting his duties as a member of the Texas Air National Guard. Although Rather was not fired, he was forced to step down as anchor by the public fallout, and his career came to a fairly ignoble end.

One would think that Rather might have understood that one does not make provably false claims against a sitting U.S. President in the heat of an election and hope to come out looking good. One would be incorrect. The New York Times is reporting today that Rather has filed suit against CBS for 70 million dollars. According to the Times,

Mr. Rather, 75, asserts that the network violated his contract by giving him insufficient airtime on “60 Minutes” after forcing him to step down as anchor of the “CBS Evening News” in March 2005. He also contends that the network committed fraud by commissioning a “biased” and incomplete investigation of the flawed Guard broadcast and, in the process, “seriously damaged his reputation.”

The suit, which seeks $70 million in damages, names as defendants CBS and its chief executive, Leslie Moonves; Viacom and its executive chairman, Sumner Redstone; and Andrew Heyward, the former president of CBS News

.

So Dan Rather, after trying to use the power of the media to falsely accuse a President of something that he did not do, and using shoddy an biased source material, which even CBS had to admit was not authenticated, he has the gall to accuse his network of using bias against him! This, while he stands as one of the most, if the the most, biased reporters in the sad history of the portwar American media. Only the false stories filed by Walter Duranty in Ukraine and Walter Cronkite on the Tet can surpass Rather's years of biased reporting.

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.

Marshall Prof: Media Not Liberal

Marshall University psychology professor W. Joseph Wyatt should probably stick to psychology as opposed to attempting media analysis. However, he has decided to write an op-ed in the West Viriginia Herald Dispatch claiming that media bias is a myth.

Professor Wyatt begins by claiming that,

However, a 2002 Gallup poll showed that slightly more than a third of journalists describe themselves as Democrats, meaning that the vast majority are something else, and unlikely to be liberal.

Unfortunately for the good professor, a 2007 Gallup poll as reported in the American Journalist actually found that,

When it came to the subject of party affiliation, 36% of the journalists said they were Democrats in 2002 compared with 44% in 1992. (That’s the lowest percentage of self-proclaimed Democrats since 1971.) The percentage of Independents dropped slightly from 1992 to 2002 and the ranks of Republicans grew incrementally from 16% to 18%.

So we have 36 percent Democrat, 18 percent Republican and 40 percent 'independent'. Since reporters tend to think that 'independent' usually means 'progressive', we can safely asssume that most ofd these self-described 'independents' actually vote mostly or entirely Democratic. And there is no doubt, as the poll concludes, that journalist are much more liberal than the general population. The same poll reported that, "If newsrooms have moved slightly rightward, the research shows, however, that journalists are still more liberal than their audiences. According to 2002 Gallup data in “The American Journalist,” only 17% of the public characterized themselves as leaning leftward, and 41% identified themselves as tilting to the right. In other words, journalists are still more than twice as likely to lean leftward than the population overall."

Professor Wyatt continues by claiming that the media gave an equal amount of time and space to Bill Clinton's well-documented lie about having sex with intern Monica Lewinsky annd what he characterizes as Bush's "lie about wiretapping. Wyatt writes,

Over the next 66 days, his lie was replayed on the major news networks (CNN, Fox, ABC, CBS, NBC) five times as often as was Bush's lie about wiretapping ("Any time you hear the United States government talking about a wiretap, it requires ... a court order.") in the 66 days after it had been revealed.

This would be interesting, but the facts are that President Clinton did indeed lie. However, to characterize President Bush's wiretap comment as a lie is to betray a misunderstanding of truth and falsehood. Bush's statement was made in the context of discussing roving wiretaps- he was also specifically discussing domestic comunications. What he actually said was,

Secondly, there are such things as roving wiretaps. Now, by the way, any time you hear the United States government talking about wiretap, it requires -- a wiretap requires a court order. Nothing has changed, by the way. When we're talking about chasing down terrorists, we're talking about getting a court order before we do so. It's important for our fellow citizens to understand, when you think Patriot Act, constitutional guarantees are in place when it comes to doing what is necessary to protect our homeland, because we value the Constitution.

But a roving wiretap means -- it was primarily used for drug lords. A guy, a pretty intelligence drug lord would have a phone, and in old days they could just get a tap on that phone. So guess what he'd do? He'd get him another phone, particularly with the advent of the cell phones. And so he'd start changing cell phones, which made it hard for our DEA types to listen, to run down these guys polluting our streets. And that changed, the law changed on -- roving wiretaps were available for chasing down drug lords. They weren't available for chasing down terrorists, see? And that didn't make any sense in the post-9/11 era. If we couldn't use a tool that we're using against mobsters on terrorists, something needed to happen.

I remind the good professor that the widely misunderstood NSA program (which he does not directly mention but to which he is clearly alluding) focused on calls one end of which was in a foreign country. By definiteion, those are not domestic calls, not matter how hysterical the media wants to get. So Bush's statement, taken in context, was not a lie, whereas Clinton's clearly was. In that context, to state that the media gave as much attention to Bush's statement as Clinton's actually reinforces the fact that the media focused more on Bush's comments, which were not lies, than Clinton's which clearly were. And I don't see Professor Wyatt even discussing the furor over the famous 'sixteen words' which were by no stretch of the imagination a lie. And those sixtenn words received far more attention than Clinton's provable falsehoods.

Professor Wyaatt then proceeds into the realms of hysteria, claiming that,

Last October, President Bush signed the controversial Military Commissions Act. That new law allowed the president, free of oversight, to order any American citizen to be snatched off the street, imprisoned without being charged, held without notice to his family, without hearing evidence against him, without access to a lawyer -- forever. The law was a shot across the bow of Americans' rights like no other in memory.

The good professor completely mis-states what the Act does. It does not apply to American citizens, who remain unaffected by the provisions of the act. It specifically applies only to aliens who are unlawful combatants. The summary of the Act itself clearly states that,

Amends the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) to codify and establish procedures governing the use of commissions to try alien unlawful enemy combatants (combatants) engaged in hostilities against the United States for violations of the law of war and other offenses specifically made triable by commissions under this Act. Defines an "unlawful enemy combatant" as a person who has: (1) engaged in or supported hostilities against the United States or its co-belligerents who is not a lawful enemy combatant; or (2) been determined to be an unlawful enemy combatant by a Combatant Status Review Tribunal or other tribunal established under the authority of the President or the Secretary of Defense (Secretary). Defines a "lawful enemy combatant" as a person who is a member of: (1) the regular forces of a State party engaged in hostilities against the United States; (2) a militia, volunteer corps, or organized resistance movement belonging to a State party engaged in such hostilities, which are under responsible command, wear a fixed distinctive sign recognizable at a distance, carry their arms openly, and abide by the law of war; or (3) a regular armed force who professes allegiance to a government engaged in such hostilities, but not recognized by the United States.

Not content with mis-stating the purpose of the Military Commissions Act, Professor Wyatt then descends into the fever swamps, claiming,

DeLay, under indictment for money laundering, recently told the NBC "Today" show audience that the media frenzy relative to Sen. Larry Craig's public bathroom activities are never cast on Democrats. Really? Maybe DeLay somehow missed the media feast on the Clinton-Lewinski matter.

The Clinton-Lewinsky matter, if the good professor recalls, was broken by Matt Drudge, at which point the mainstream media could no longer ignore it. They did do their best to avoid reporting on it. And can anyone claim that Democrats receive the same treatment as Republicans? Senator Craig's party identification was blazoned from every headline. Does the professor remember how the Swift boat vets, who had legitimate questions about John kerry's fitness to be Commander-in-Chief, and all of whom were willing to be identified, received far less favorable media attention than an anonymous source with forged docuemnts puporting to prove that George Bush did not fulfill the conditions of his National Guard service? And I am still waiting for most of the mainstream media to include Representative William Jeffferson's (Democrat) in most stories. I also don't recall Rhode Island Democratic Representative Patrick Kennedy's DUI getting anywhere near the Craig-level coverage from the mainstream media.

Wyatt's op-ed is merely the childish complaints of the neighborhood bully who no longer has his uway uninhibited by countering forces. Hat tip to NewsBuster reader Michael Fidanza. Cross-posted on NewsBusters.

Most Americans Believe Iraq Victory Possible: Press Misses Story

A new Zogby Poll says that 54 percent of Americans believe Iraq is not a lost cause. However, the mainstram media have so far not managed to report much if anything on the startling new poll.

A majority of Americans - 54% - believe the United States has not lost the war in Iraq, but there is dramatic disagreement on the question between Democrats and Republicans, a new UPI/Zogby Interactive poll shows. While two in three Democrats (66%) said the war effort has already failed, just 9% of Republicans say the same.

Many Democrats, seeing the fact that the surge appears to be working, have realized that their defeatist attitudes and willingness to surrender may cost them dearly in the enxt election, have changed their tune somewhat, or, like the New York Times, have merely moved the goalposts of what constitutes victory. However, the major media, who have been overwhelmingly in favor of a precipitous defeat seem to be a little slow in reporting that their years of negative reporting and defeatism have not yet managed to dissuade a majority of their countrymen from wanting to win.

As of 1637 Pacific time today, the New York Times had still not put the new poll on its front page. ABC News seems to think that audio of Senator Craig's police interview is more compelling- they also have not yet mentioned the new poll. MSNBC also has not yet posted anything regarding the new poll; neither has CBS News, which has had time to post a top story about a teenager who posted a nude picture of his ex-girlfriend on MySpace. CNN also has the Senator Larry Craig story front and center- not a mention of the new Zogby poll.

So let me recap- bad news about how Americans view the Iraq conflict gets front page coverage. The news that most Americans believe the United States can win is ignored? Just another day for the liberal media, I gather. Cross-posted on NewsBusters.

Economy Good: Media Disregards Story

The Drudge Report has a front-page headline about the good news from the economy this morning. The headline links to an extensive story in Bloomberg News covering the economic news in detail. But it seems that for the majority of the media, this is not news that they wish to highlight.

While the New York Times did not appear to consider this news as important as the report on the Viriginia Tech shootings, they did place a link to a short summary of the news on their front page in the 'Other News' section. On the other hand, CNN has so far not even mentioned the good economic news. ABC News has the Chinese toy-recall story placed prominently on their main page, but also seems to have missed the economic news as of 0825 hours Pacific time.

As for the other major news networks, MSNBC does have a link on their front page, stating the 4 percent growth that is the heart of the eceonomic report. Unlike the times, MSNBC did consider the economic news to be one of their top stories.

CBS News considered the Virginia Tech report, a story on an audit of Iraqi leaders and a record temperature in Phoeniz all important enough to be top stories. However, as of 0832 Pactiic time this morning, one had to scroll down to 'Economic News' in order to discover that Economy Grows Despite Housing Woes. There is not a single mention of the 4 percent growth numbers.

Fox News has a link under "Latest news' that announces the 4 percent growth numbers. Surprisingly for a "right-wing" news outlet, Fox also do not have these numbers as their main headline- that honor was reserved for the GAO Iraq progress report and a story on Senator Hillary Clinton's Chinese money. However, their story was fairly detailed, unlike that of the New York Times.

All in all, it seems that the New York Times, ABC, Fox and MSNBC found the economic news worthy of reporting in some manner, though none of them made it their leading story. However, CNN did not even have a link and CBS buried it as far as they could. One would almost think that the media had some interest in not reporting this news. It is a pity that good news does not get the same press as bad news, but then it would seem that as long as George W. Bush occupies the White House that the media in this country will do their utmost to downplay any postitives.

Cross-posted at NewsBusters. Hat tip to the Drudge Report.

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.

Religious Censoring: Editors Admit Bias

It is becoming ever more obvious that the press treats cartoons poking fun at Islam in a much different manner than those poking fun at any other religion. One might even say there is a double standard, and why not, since the media themselves acknowledges that it is true.

After running a warning to the client newspapers about the content of Berke Breathed's Sunday cartoon 'Opus', comics editor Amy Lago said,

"The strip came in and I knew we would have to send out an alert to all the newspapers," Lago said. "I do that fairly regularly with materials that might pose issues for local areas. ... We knew that because it was a sex joke, it could raise issues. And there is another client that has issues with any Muslim depiction whatsoever." ... But she did alert newspapers about the Muslim-themed cartoon because there was a question about whether Muslim readers would be offended. "I don't necessarily think it's poking fun [at Islam]," Lago said. "But the question with Muslims is, are they taking it seriously?"

 

So apparently flagging potentially offensive cartoons is "standard practice"? No, it is only for Muslim-themed cartoons- Christian, Jewish and [insert religion of choice here] apparently don't warrant this practice no matter how offensive they may be perceived as being. A case in point is the fact that one week before the censored 'Opus' cartoon, the same cartoonist wrote an 'Opus' strip which lampooned deceased Christian leader Jerry Falwell in terms at least as strong as the Islamic strip. Not only were no warnings sent out regarding that strip, no newspaper apparently felt the need to worry about its (mostly Christian) readers' reactions.

Speaking in regards to the recent decision of the Washington Post and several other newspapers not to run cartoonist Berkeley Breathed's 'Opus' strip due to concerns about how Muslims might view it, King Syndicate editor Brendon Burford said of his competitors,

As far as whether the Post and the Post Writers Group syndicate treated content about conservative Christians differently than it did content about conservative Muslims, it certainly could be taken that way. "It appears on the surface to be a double standard," Burford said, "but at the same time, the climate of the world probably informs their decision with how to go forward with it."

 

I see. So "the climate of the world" is what they take into account when determining what cartoons to censor. Whatever happened to the First Amendment that reporters like to hold up anytime something offensive to Christians is published, or when reporters like Eric Lichtblau and James Risen bend the law in order to warn our enemies about secret programs designed to protect us? I suspect that this is reporter-speak for "they were afraid of Muslims, since only Muslims have a propensity to kill people with whom they disagree".

It would appear that there is indeed a double standard- and journalists are among the forefront of those pushing for a new dhimmitude. Too bad they can't seem to understand that the very forces they are trying so hard to appease now are the same forces that hold the least respect for their most dearly-held beliefs.

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?

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.

Honesty About Chavez

The left-leaning political circles in the United States (and around the world as well) have a long-standing love affair with authoritarian, anti-American dictators such as Fidel Castro, Hugo Chavez and Saddam Hussein. However as we have long thought, despite the fever swamps, there are some honest, objective liberals who are courageous enough to admit when they are wrong. One such is Jeb Koogler, who writes for the The Moderate Voice. I regret to say that I have no previous experience reading Mr. Koogler, but I shall be making him a regular stop from now on.

In today's Moderate Voice, Koogler writes of his disenchantment with Presidente-for-Life Chavez, saying,

For a long time, I’ve defended Hugo Chavez. I thought that he was fighting a worthy battle against greed and corruption, against years of foreign domination and cronyism. I thought he was trying to improve the lives of poor people, while establishing a strong economy, an independent and self-respecting nation, and a vibrant democracy.

But now, after watching events unfold in the past few months, I’m ready to admit that I was mistaken.

Koogler is one of a very few members of the liberal and Leftist political persuasion who is both honest and principled enough to write something like this, and he should be applauded. Chavez' reign of terror in Venezuela should have been obvious from the very beginning, but his strident anti-Bush rhetoric and his claims to act "for the people" have understandably blinded many. However, it is time to cast off the blinders and see Chavez for what he is- a tinpot dictator who entertains visions of regional hegemony and cares not a whit for the actual people who voted him into power.

As Captain Ed writes,

Koogler's reconsideration is well worth reading. It's not easy to admit error as Koogler does in this piece, and he explains his change of heart very clearly and rationally. The sooner that the American Left follows Koogler's advice, the sooner we can start working to help the Venezuelan people free themselves from Chavez' megalomaniacal grip on power. Be sure to read it all.

I cannot agree more- both with Mr. Koogler's eloquent disavowal of Chavez' ambition and Captain Ed's excellent analysis. If only the socialist sycophants within academia, the so-called "mainstream" media and the Democratic Party on Capitol Hill could display similar moral fortitude.

Hat tip to Ed Morrissey.

Media Mistruths

There have been a number of media malfeasances in the past few years, including Dan Rather and Mary Mapes' attempt to throw the 2004 election to John Kerry, Jayson Blair's racially-protected reign of falsehood at the New York Times and most recently Scott Beauchamp's anti-American propaganda for the New Republic. However, that is not all, by far. The American Thinker's Randall Hoven has done a yeoman's job of digging and has come up with a list of most of the recent offenders. And a very interesting thing is that almost all of them are of liberal or Leftist political views.

I'm not sure whether the preponderance of Leftists on this list speaks to an essential disdain for truth or whether it speaks to Leftists' well-documented belief that the ends justify the means. In either case, it is instructive that the Right seems to respect truth more than the Left, if these examples are any guide.

Hat tip to Glenn Reynolds.

UPDATE: The always-wise Victor Davis Hanson has weighed in on the online pages of the National Review, advising the media mavens that "anonymity is a vicious but seductive Siren that lures its heedless listeners to shipwreck on the shoals".

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.

Journalism 101

Reporters are not known as experts in much of anything. This lack of knowledge is increased by the fact that many journalism departments are esentially places for honing one's writing skills at the expense of analysis and hard study in more demanding areas. Reporters-in-training take little or no mathematics, statistics, history or any discipline where actual research and analysis is required. With such a weak background, is it any wonder that so few reporters, unless they are among the few who have trained in a real discipline, can actually report complex stories with both accuracy and objective analysis?

The Washington Post newspaper provided a perfect case study with their July 5th article claiming that the body count in Baghdad has increased during the surge. Unfortunately for the Post and their incompetent staff, the real numbers do not support this story at all. In fact, as documented by John Wixted at Back Talk, the numbers clearly show that the body count among civilians has dramatically dropped since the surge began. And the Post itself published a story contining completely different numbers.

This is yet another example of reporters who understand neither statistics nor military strategy taking numbers from a non-official source that happen to support their particular agenda. While this behavior is understandable in the context of the Press' blind hatred of Presiden Bush and their desire to see his Administration destroyed, it is neither professional nor is it good business. This kind of pseudo-reporting is easy to debunk, and Wixted does a fantastic job, with plenty of corroborative evidence.

This is simply another nail in the coffin for the reputation of the mainstream media. They have shown us their bias, their incompetence and their unprofessionalism too many times. The only question remaining is why anyone still actually buys their increasingly pathetic product.

Hat tip to Power Line.

The Continuing Role of the Press in War

The Associated Press showed once again why the mainstream media is losing readers in droves and why they are rapidly gaining a reputation of being in league (either formally or informally) with the enemies of the free world. Amnesty International threw a protest in Budapest, Hungary against the Guantanamo Bay prison. A grand total of seven people showed up- all of them Amnesty International workers! Not ONE single supporter showed up. And yet the AP ran a big front-page story about the protest, not forgetting to mention the 'horrible conditions" faced by the prisoners at Guantanamo. I think that Amnesty International would have had MUCH more success if they had thrown their protest in Germany or France. Of course, as Glenn Reynolds already noted, we are still waiting for AI to protest the cruel and inhuman treatment meted out by Muslims to the American servicemen (and Iraqi civilians) murdered by Muslim terrorists in Iraq.

*SIGH* These ridiculous Guantanamo claims have been debunked SO many times. Apparently it isn't enough that all the prisoners in Gitmo have plenty of food, their own Korans and are even free to worship at the appropriate times, but the Press seemingly are convinced that the Muslims- the same people who really DO torture, murder and rape innocent civilians- are the good guys in this war. We shall see how they feel if the Muslims win and the Press finds themselves living under Sharia law. They might re-think their protestations and claims of religious intolerance. Of course, by then it will be too late.

The US Press Corps (whom Rush Limbaugh has fittingly dubbed the 'Drive-By Media') will some day have to face up to their shameless and borderline treasonous behavior in this war. I hope that it comes sooner than later. The First Amendment does not protect treason, and the behavior of the Press is getting closer and closer to that as this war progresses. The New York Times's decision to publish yet another leaked story damaging our national security is just another example. Why doesn't the White House start putting these traitors in prison? Despite the Pentagon Papers decision, reporters are NOT exempt form national security laws. If necessary, we need to take this back to the Supreme Court and get the Pentagon Papers decision overturned. As the infamous Dred Scott decision showed, Supreme Court decisions get overturned all the time. Only liberals seem to think that THEIR favorite decisions should be exempt for reconsideration. We also need to start enforcing the treason and sedition laws against this arrogant and traitorous Press. Soon.

Hat tips to Glenn Reynolds and Matt Drudge.