the-media : Duthie On...

So the Pentagon released a report that says, among other things:

One question remains regarding Iraq’s terrorism capability: Is there anything in the captured archives to indicate that Saddam had the will to use his terrorist capabilities directly against United States? Judging from examples of Saddam’s statements (Extract 34) before the 1991 Gulf War with the United tates, the answer is yes.

In the years between the two Gulf Wars, UN sanctions reduced Saddam’s ability to shape regional and world events, steadily draining his military, economic, and military powers. The rise of Islamist fundamentalism in the region gave Saddam the opportunity to make terrorism, one of the few tools remaining in Saddam’s “coercion” toolbox, not only cost effective but a formal instrument of state power. Saddam nurtured this capability with an infrastructure supporting (1) his own particular brand of state terrorism against internal and external threats, (2) the state sponsorship of suicide operations, and (3) organizational relationships and “outreach programs” for terrorist groups. Evidence that was uncovered and analyzed attests to the existence of a terrorist capability and a willingness to use it until the day Saddam was forced to flee Baghdad by Coalition forces.

The New York Times headline, meanwhile, says of the report:

Study Finds No Qaeda-Hussein Tie

Of course, the first line of the article qualifies the headline significantly:

There was no direct operational connection between Saddam Hussein’s government and Al Qaeda before the war in Iraq, says a Pentagon-sponsored study.

The study, meanwhile, found clear connections between Saddam Hussein's IIS security organization and, among others, Egyptian Islamic Jihad, which was run by none other than al Qaeda #2 Ayman al-Zawahiri.

Seems appropriate somehow for the media to be in such denial about the truth of Saddam's support for terrorists, given that denial's not just a river in Egypt.

Hot Air » Blog Archive » Saddam supported at least two al-Qaeda groups: Pentagon Update: What it means

Clearly, wishful thinking does not cause hurricanes:

Unless a dramatic and perhaps historical flurry of activity occurs in the next 9 weeks, 2007 will rank as a historically inactive TC year for the Northern Hemisphere as a whole. During the past 30 years, only 1977, 1981, and 1983 have had less activity to date (January-TODAY, Accumulated Cyclone Energy). However, the year is not over...

Click through charts and more. Once again, those who predicted a worse than usual hurricane season were wrong...and this year pretty dramatically so. Which would seem to suggest that the attempts to connect global warming and hurricane frequency/intensity should be deemed thoroughly busted. But don't hold your breath waiting for the mainstream media, or the global warming alarmists, to admit that.

COAPS - Seasonal Tropical Cyclone Activity

Here's his deadpan take on the episode "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield" in which Frank Gorshin and another actor run around in half black, half white makeup on their faces for the entire episode:

Some have speculated the episode may have been a commentary on racism.

It's stuff like that that makes me so impressed with Lileks. No further commentary necessary.

James Lileks on Star Trek Weekend 2007 on National Review Online

OK, they are letting him go...but they insist on a name change: 

Who remembers playing with G.I. Joe as a kid?

For those of us who grew up with normal childhoods, instead of the moonbat-infested, politically correct childhoods forced onto kids today, G.I. Joe was the action figure to have. It was originally started in the 60s as a WWII soldier, with soldiers from other countries (Germany, England, and believe it or not, France), but saw its most successful sales during the resurgance in the 80s, with the Real American Hero, or RAH line. There was also a cartoon and a comic book series to help market the toy. The G.I. Joe team fought the COBRA Command, a terrorist organization. The man who would become Cobra Commander swore to overthrow the government and take over the world, as all good antagonists do.

...

G.I. Joe was unabashedly patriotic. Many fans were, of course, excited to hear about the new movie to be released by Paramount.

But of course, in the liberal land of Hollyweird, a Real American Hero is just unacceptable. Nope, it's gotta be a global hero. G.I. Joe will be a global operation, not an American one, and G.I. Joe now stands for Global Integrated Joint Operating Entity

Do these people have no shame at all?

G.I. Joe: "Real American Hero" no more (Wizbang)

Apparently Freeman Dyson (yes, that Freeman Dyson) doesn't buy into the hype on global warming:

My first heresy says that all the fuss about global warming is grossly exaggerated. Here I am opposing the holy brotherhood of climate model experts and the crowd of deluded citizens who believe the numbers predicted by the computer models. Of course, they say, I have no degree in meteorology and I am therefore not qualified to speak. But I have studied the climate models and I know what they can do. The models solve the equations of fluid dynamics, and they do a very good job of describing the fluid motions of the atmosphere and the oceans. They do a very poor job of describing the clouds, the dust, the chemistry and the biology of fields and farms and forests. They do not begin to describe the real world that we live in. The real world is muddy and messy and full of things that we do not yet understand. It is much easier for a scientist to sit in an air-conditioned building and run computer models, than to put on winter clothes and measure what is really happening outside in the swamps and the clouds. That is why the climate model experts end up believing their own models.

Read the whole thing. I'll just say this...when you're arguing against as prominent a scientist as Dyson, you'd better have more convincing evidence than just computer models and selective real-world data (i.e. - citing declines in specific polar bear populations without noting that globally, polar bear populations are actually rising).

I really liked this bit as well:

As a scientist I do not have much faith in predictions. Science is organized unpredictability. The best scientists like to arrange things in an experiment to be as unpredictable as possible, and then they do the experiment to see what will happen. You might say that if something is predictable then it is not science. When I make predictions, I am not speaking as a scientist. I am speaking as a story-teller, and my predictions are science-fiction rather than science. The predictions of science-fiction writers are notoriously inaccurate. Their purpose is to imagine what might happen rather than to describe what will happen. I will be telling stories that challenge the prevailing dogmas of today. The prevailing dogmas may be right, but they still need to be challenged. I am proud to be a heretic. The world always needs heretics to challenge the prevailing orthodoxies. Since I am heretic, I am accustomed to being in the minority. If I could persuade everyone to agree with me, I would not be a heretic.

Folks like Freeman actually make me look forward to being a cranky old man. Not that I would suggest that I have anything like his level of intellect, but there's definitely something admirable about the "I don't give a damn" irascibility that comes with age.

There's also this:

When I listen to the public debates about climate change, I am impressed by the enormous gaps in our knowledge, the sparseness of our observations and the superficiality of our theories. Many of the basic processes of planetary ecology are poorly understood. They must be better understood before we can reach an accurate diagnosis of the present condition of our planet. When we are trying to take care of a planet, just as when we are taking care of a human patient, diseases must be diagnosed before they can be cured. We need to observe and measure what is going on in the biosphere, rather than relying on computer models.

I think that captures the essence of the problem rather well. We have, today, a group of scientists, and the politicians who agree with them, who are demanding that we take draconian action on the basis of their asserted predictions of doom. Predictions which are based on computer models that do not adequately model real processes on our real planet, and whose inputs are based on a comparatively limited set of data. If it weren't for the fact that the liberal media agrees with them, these folks would've been laughed off the stage years ago.

Edge: HERETICAL THOUGHTS ABOUT SCIENCE AND SOCIETY By Freeman Dyson via BoingBoing

James Hansen, of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, has been a major critic of the Bush administration's response to global warming. Hansen has repeatedly claimed that he's being silenced for his outspoken views on the subject. Given that he's not an official spokesman for the government on climate change, it's not surprising that his public assertions that climate change is man-made and heading towards a point of no return would be viewed by the administration as unacceptable freelancing, not to mention scientifically dubious.

Now comes evidence that Hansen was, to be charitable, relying on data that was incorrect at best:

Last week's revelation by Climate Audit's Steve McIntyre of a serious mistake and subsequent changes made by NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies in the temperature history of America has created quite a debate in the new media.

While conservative bloggers were quick to point out the hypocrisy regarding the lack of an official announcement from GISS chief James Hansen as well as the possible significance to the entire global warming debate, alarmists such as RealClimate and TNR's The Plank viewed McIntyre's discovery and GISS's alterations less than earth shattering.

Is anyone at all surprised that Hansen has failed to make the same amount of noise about the errors by GISS, given that they tend to undermine his alarmist views? Or that the media has largely ignored the story? No one should be...it's just more evidence that climate change isn't about science, and making sure we have the best evidence. It's about politics, and burying any story that doesn't serve the preordained end.

Much more here.

How Important Was NASA’s Change to Historical Climate Data Last Week? | NewsBusters.org

It's so hard to find good help any more. First The New Republic has difficulty finding a decent embed for Iraq, and now Reuters gets pwn3d by a 13 year-old kid:

The top-quality fact-checking that can only be achieved by large media corporations is on fine display today, as Reuters is caught by a 13-year old Finnish schoolboy representing still photos from the movie “Titanic” as pictures from the Russian North Pole expedition: Reuters gets that sinking feeling.

lgf: Reuters Busted by a 13-Year Old

Clearly, the network news folks need a remedial course on conducting intelligence gathering operations…either that, or they need to get out of the spy business.

Apparently, a reporter for NBC attempted to go undercover to secretly record attendees at the DefCon security conference, and apparently did so even after having been asked when she arrived if she wanted a press pass, or to review the rules and regs of the conference for press. She refused both, then excused herself to go to the bathroom and set up a pinhole camera in her purse, which she was later seen “panning…around the room.”

Nothing like a little subtlety to help you blend into the background, eh? Full story here:

http://blogs.pcworld.com/staffblog/archives/005078.html

Regardless of your opinion of such events, the reporter clearly broke the rules here, and did so in a pretty obvious way. The reporter got off pretty easy with just the humiliating escort out (which you can see in the video link in the above story).

And now that I think about it…wasn’t it NBC’s Dateline that was sued for fraud relating to their show about exploding GM pickup trucks. Oh yes:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journalistic_fraud#.22Waiting_to_Explode.22.2C_Dateline_NBC_.281992.29

Always good to see when people learn their lesson.

Today @ PC World Undercover Reporter Outed, Flees DefCon Conference

So The New Republic's anonymous correspondent from Iraq is no longer anonymous:

My Diarist, "Shock Troops," and the two other pieces I wrote for the New Republic have stirred more controversy than I could ever have anticipated. They were written under a pseudonym, because I wanted to write honestly about my experiences, without fear of reprisal. Unfortunately, my pseudonym has caused confusion. And there seems to be one major way in which I can clarify the debate over my pieces: I'm willing to stand by the entirety of my articles for the New Republic using my real name.

I am Private Scott Thomas Beauchamp, a member of Alpha Company, 1/18 Infantry, Second Brigade Combat Team, First Infantry Division.

My pieces were always intended to provide my discreet view of the war; they were never intended as a reflection of the entire U.S. Military. I wanted Americans to have one soldier's view of events in Iraq.

It's been maddening, to say the least, to see the plausibility of events that I witnessed questioned by people who have never served in Iraq. I was initially reluctant to take the time out of my already insane schedule fighting an actual war in order to play some role in an ideological battle that I never wanted to join. That being said, my character, my experiences, and those of my comrades in arms have been called into question, and I believe that it is important to stand by my writing under my real name.

--Private Scott Thomas Beauchamp

Neither Beauchamp's letter, nor TNR's accompanying statement, resolves the basic issue of credibility, however. Yes, it demonstrates that the correspondent is indeed a soldier serving in Iraq. But it does nothing to address the numerous questions about his reporting, including:

• The expert statements that driving a Bradley Fighting Vehicle in the way described by Beauchamp is essentially impossible
• The description, by Beauchamp, of a situation requiring soldiers to change a flat tire in a river of sewage, despite the fact that the only vehicles used by the military that have tires use run-flat tires so that they can be driven out of harm's way if necessary. One could be forgiven for assuming that any soldier would drive out of the sewage on the run-flat tire rather than change it in the muck.
• Beauchamp's description of a 9mm "shell casing" "with a square back," followed by a claim that only Glocks use such casings, and only the Iraqi police use Glocks. Not only has the existence of "square back" 9mm casings been widely disputed, but the notion that only the Iraqi police use Glocks doesn't pass the laugh test.

Perhaps even more importantly, Beauchamp doesn't address, nor does TNR ask him to, whether or not he reported the events he "witnessed" to the appropriate authorities. If he did not, why not? This question also goes unanswered. And given that most of his accounts have him participating in some of the abhorrent behavior he describes, why would we trust his account to be accurate? Someone willing to describe himself taunting and insulting a disfigured victim of an IED attack is hardly someone whose character I'd be willing to rely on.

So great, now we have an actual name...which should help resolve at least some of the questions above, since now other media outlets will be able to find and talk to his comrades-in-arms. And until we hear from them, it seems to me that it's a little early to be simply taking TNR or Beauchamp at their word that these stories are true.

The Plank via NRO Media Blog

If you haven't been keeping up with it, the New Republic is under fire for some stories that they published by "Scott Thomas," who's supposedly a soldier serving in Baghdad. Thomas recently wrote a piece called "Shock Troops" that described soldiers engaging in a variety of abhorrent behavior, from mocking a woman disfigured by an IED, to running down dogs with a Bradley Fighting Vehicle. The Weekly Standard's Michael Goldfarb has kept an impressive roll call of the soldiers and bloggers calling BS on various parts of the story. One of the things he notes:

The blog at the American Spectator has some great stuff on "Shock Troops." John Tabin finds more suspect information in a previous story by "Scott Thomas". In his second piece for the New Republic titled "Dead of Night," "Thomas" had written,

Someone reached down and picked a shell casing up off the ground. It was 9mm with a square back. Everything suddenly became clear. The only shell casings that look like that belong to Glocks. And the only people who use Glocks are the Iraqi police.

Now I won't claim to be a firearms expert by any means, but it just so happens that I fired a Glock 9mm not two weeks ago at a pistol range, and unless my eyesight is completely busted, the shell casings were round. Given that I reloaded the magazine several times in a row, I'm pretty sure that's the case. Now I suppose it's possible that the Glock 9mm I rented was the round casing model, while the range keeps the square casing model for the more regular customers, but does anyone think that's the likeliest explanation?

The silence from TNR management, particularly given their past experiences with their staff making stuff up, is deafening.

The Weekly Standard

D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty on the decision to appeal the U.S. Court of Appeals ruling overturning the D.C. handgun ban:

"We have made the determination that this law can and should be defended and we are willing to take our case to the highest court in the land to protect the city's residents," Fenty said in a press release. "Our handgun law has saved countless lives -- keeping guns out of the hands of those who would hurt others or themselves."

Someone should remind Mayor Fenty of a couple of things...one, the second amendment, which protects the right to keep and bear arms, making an outright ban rather difficult to defend, despite Fenty's assertion to the contrary, and two, the District's rather sorry record of protecting the city's residents from being murdered by...three guesses, and the first two don't count...handguns!

Of course, the timing of the appeal makes one wonder even more about the veracity of the recent Washington Post story I blogged about in which an upscale dinner party defended itself from an armed attacker with wine, cheese, and hugs.

Mayor To Appeal Gun Ban Ruling - News Story - WRC | Washington

Bob Novak:

I never spoke to Armitage again about Wilson. But he acknowledged to me nearly three months later through his political adviser, lobbyist Ken Duberstein, that he was indeed the primary source for my information about Wilson's wife. Shortly thereafter, he secretly revealed his role to federal authorities investigating the leak of Mrs. Wilson's name but did not inform White House officials, apparently including the president.

After Patrick Fitzgerald, the U.S. attorney in Chicago named as a special prosecutor in the case, indicated to me he knew Armitage was my source, I cooperated fully with him. At the special prosecutor's request and on my lawyers' advice, I kept silent about this -- a silence that subjected me to much abuse. I was urged by several friends, including some journalists, to give up my source's name. But I felt bound by the journalist's code to protect his identity.

So now that the columnist whose column began the whole sordid affair that has resulted in the perjury conviction of Scooter Libby has publicly acknowledged what we've all known to be the truth for months, namely that Richard Armitage, not Scooter Libby, leaked Plame's name, and did so in a meeting that was scheduled before Joe Wilson's Times op-ed criticizing the administration appeared, can we expect the Left to drop the baseless assertion that Plame was outed by the Bush administration to punish Wilson?

Of course not...because this was never about the truth. It was about attempting to destroy the Bush administration at any cost. Never mind that the cost increasingly appears to be defeat in Iraq (a defeat that was not inevitable), if the democrats have their way, and possibly defeat in the war on terror. If that's the way it truly shakes out, the price Libby is paying for the left's obsessive Bush Derangement Syndrome is nothing compared to the price the country will likely pay in the future, in lives lost to Islamist terrorism.

CIA leak: Now it can be told :: CHICAGO SUN-TIMES :: Metro & Tri-State

The Times editorializes on the President's commutation of Libby's jail sentence: 

Mr. Libby was convicted of lying to federal agents investigating the leak of the name of a covert C.I.A. operative, Valerie Wilson. Mrs. Wilson's husband, Joseph Wilson, was asked to investigate a central claim in Mr. Bush's drive to war with Iraq whether Iraq tried to purchase uranium from Africa. Mr. Wilson concluded that Iraq had not done that and had the temerity to share those conclusions with the American public.

It seems clear from the record that Vice President *** Cheney organized a campaign to discredit Mr. Wilson. And Mr. Libby, who was Mr. Cheney's chief of staff, was willing to lie to protect his boss.

Read the whole thing...mostly to verify that not once does the Times mention Richard Armitage, the person who actually leaked Plame's identity. One assumes this is because that would make the theory that Libby was lying to protect Cheney look rather silly. Given that it wasn't Cheney's people who leaked Plame's identity, the whole whackjob conspiracy theory that her identity was leaked to "punish" Joe Wilson sort of falls apart.

Soft on Crime - New York Times

Really good question:

Forecasts for a busy hurricane season in 2006 were all dead wrong. This year, forecasters predicted a really busy year again. But with just two storms to date, and neither one a hurricane, you might wonder where all the action is.

Although the article goes on to suggest that it's too early to tell how busy this hurricane season will be, it's still an important reminder that prediction ain't all it's cracked up to be. And it should remind us that if some of the best forecasters in the business can be so wrong on the limited subject of hurricane number and strength, we should be extremely wary of those who claim to be able to tell us how high the average global temperatures will be a hundred years from now.

Oh, and one other thing...can we PLEASE outlaw the use of the word decimate by ignorant journalists:

Some seasons have seen unusually late starts. The 1992 season, for example, didn’t start up until August. And boy did it start with a bang: Hurricane Andrew decimated South Florida.

Even if one does not insist on the original meaning of the word, the more modern usage does not apply. Hurricane Andrew did indeed cause a great deal of damage ($26 billion, according to Wikipedia), but using sloppy language to describe the damage doesn't facilitate understanding of the scope of that storm. Perhaps this seems a bit pedantic, but is it too much to ask that those whose job it is to inform their readers excercise a little care with the language?

Source: Where are All the Hurricanes? | LiveScience

The only surprise here is that a report commissioned by the Beeb came to this conclusion:

The BBC has failed to promote proper debate on major political issues because of the inherent liberal culture of its staff, a report commissioned by the corporation has concluded.

The report claims that coverage of single-issue political causes, such as climate change and poverty, can be biased - and is particularly critical of Live 8 coverage, which it says amounted to endorsement.

I wonder if any of the U.S. networks would subject themselves to similar scrutiny?

Another interesting angle:

The report concludes BBC staff must be more willing to challenge their own beliefs.

It reads: “There is a tendency to 'group think’ with too many staff inhabiting a shared space and comfort zone.”

This highlights an important aspect of media bias across the board...it's probably not either conscious or intentional. When conservatives speak of liberal bias in the mainstream media, too often that's interpreted as an accusation of deliberately shutting out opposing views. But really it's more a matter of so many in the newsrooms having a limited worldview, so much so that they can't conceive of covering things in a more balanced way.

Source: BBC report finds bias within corporation | Uk News | News | Telegraph

Please tell me this is a joke: 

LOS ANGELES (AP) - Bob Barker endorsed his friend Rosie O'Donnell as a possible successor on "The Price Is Right," although the newly retired host isn't sure CBS wants a woman to take over the game show.

"I believe they're going to have a meeting with Rosie," Barker said backstage Friday night at the Daytime Emmy Awards, where he won his 19th trophy.

So from attempting to bully and shout down the lone conservative on "The View", Rosie might move to "The Price is Right"? What's she going to do, say idiotic things like "Never in the history of 'The Price is Right has the big wheel landed on $1.00 twice in a row!" and accuse the contestants of being involved in a conspiracy?

I like Bob Barker, and his cameo in Happy Gilmore demonstrated that in addition to being a nice guy, he had a good sense of humor about himself. But if he's seriously endorsing Rosie O'Donnell as a host for "The Price is Right" I have to wonder whether senility is catching up with him. Ugh!

 

Source: Barker Says O'Donnell Could Replace Him

Time to fire up the fear engine:

With another summer upon us, the media is again abuzz with news about the West Nile virus. News agencies across the nation are offering tips and advice on how to avoid contracting the disease. Advice ranges from the pragmatic (drain water on your property) to the impracticable (limit time outside at dawn and dusk, when mosquitoes are most active). Innumerable experts have been consulted and their consensus is clear: be afraid, very afraid.

So begins a column from AFF Brainwash that provides a critical reminder that what the media tells us to fear isn't always so fearsome:

If you get bit by a mosquito infected with the West Nile virus, there’s a 20 percent chance that you’ll develop West Nile fever. Even if you bit by a mosquito infected with the West Nile virus (not likely) and you develop West Nile fever (even less likely), there’s just a one in 150 – .67 percent – chance of developing a severe illness!

Doesn't sound so scary now, does it?

The problem, of course, is that the media fear machine leads to expensive attempts to mitigate this miniscule threat, diverting resources that would be better used to deal with real threats (or...shocking thought...perhaps government could let us keep our money instead of spending it on attempting to eradicate vanishingly small risks). According to the article, federal and state officials spent tens of millions of dollars last year, between efforts towards a human vaccine, and mosquito control.

Is that a good use of funds? The article never answers yes or no, but rather points out that there are clearly less expensive ways to do more to save lives:

Unfortunately, a limited budget means doing finite good in society. Each lifesaving technique has a different cost-effectiveness: it costs just $39 per life saved to install defibrillators in emergency vehicles for resuscitation after cardiac arrest, but it costs $18 million per life saved to strengthen buildings in earthquake-prone areas. While it's easy to say which costs are worth it, it can be hard to say which are not.

Is WNV intervention worth it? Perhaps, the answer pivots on information that we don't have. To know if we’re making any progress we need to know how many mosquitoes are infected in the general population. At $20 a pool, taking samples is cost prohibitive. So instead, we test what we can and hope that the millions of tax dollars spent on public intervention is doing something.

Unfortunately, one of the consequences of a population that is generally ignorant of both basic economics and statistics and probability is that it makes it much harder to recognize government spending that sounds good (eradicate West Nile risk), but may turn out to be a very poor bargain, particularly given what we're not doing with the resources spent.

Source: AFF's Brainwash :: Not Just A River In Egypt

This is an amazing story about a brilliant maneuver pulled off by one of the amazing folks serving in Iraq to avert a bloodbath in Anbar:

The Final Option

Read the whole thing, because it's surely a story that won't be told in the mainstream media.

Source: Michael Yon : Online Magazine » Blog Archive » The Final Option

Apparently now we're to be scared of the common soda. In addition to scares about benzene formed by the combination of ascorbic acid (vitamin C) and sodium benzoate, apparently the sodium benzoate itself is dangerous:

...an expert in ageing at Sheffield University, who has been working on sodium benzoate since publishing a research paper in 1999, has decided to speak out about another danger. Professor Peter Piper, a professor of molecular biology and biotechnology, tested the impact of sodium benzoate on living yeast cells in his laboratory. What he found alarmed him: the benzoate was damaging an important area of DNA in the "power station" of cells known as the mitochondria.

Of course, what's interesting is that the article notes that sodium benzoate "is used in large quantities to prevent mould in soft drinks such as Sprite, Oasis and Dr Pepper." Perhaps the reporter is unaware that, like mold, the yeast Professor Piper used in his experiments is a fungus. Should we really be surprised that a substance used to prevent the growth of one kind of fungus in soft drinks could be damaging to another kind of fungus?

In the absence of more convincing evidence of damage to more complex organisms, particularly organisms that aren't a part of the same scientific kingdom, I think I'll keep my soda habit, thanks all the same.

Source: Caution: Some soft drinks may seriously harm your health - Independent Online Edition > Health

While celebrating this weekend, don't forget to take time out to remember the reason we celebrate Memorial Day...all the men and women who have sacrificed to make the United States what it is, and who continue to sacrifice to protect our lives and our freedoms.

Day By Day cartoon has some observations on the subject, too:

 In an otherwise fairly balanced Time piece on Fred Thompson, Mark Halperin had this to say:

Thompson is most often compared to Ronald Reagan, and the comparison is apt. Neither would be mistaken for an intellectual, but both got plenty of mileage out of regularly concealing their smarts. Both placed an emphasis on grand, classic American themes, and both offered a folksy way of describing the holy trinity of conservative dogma (lower taxes, less government and a strong national defense).

But unlike the genial Reagan, Thompson's manner can be brusque and his most natural expression is a scowl. Critics question his endurance: he has a reputation for resisting a demanding schedule and is undisciplined as a campaigner. In a recent speech to California Republicans, Thompson began with some jokes that were well received but then abandoned his carefully written text and rambled through remarks that left many in the audience underwhelmed. His high school football coach in Lawrenceburg, Tenn., told the Nashville Tennessean, "He was smart, but he was lazy. He probably could have been a straight-A student if he'd applied himself." With eight years in the Senate, his legislative record was thin. Says a former adviser: "While the Senate is filled with ambitious men who aren't in a rush to get home at night, Senator Thompson kept a lean formal schedule, did the bare minimum to get by and then hightailed [it] to the Prime Rib or the Capital Grille."

[emphasis mine]

I guess I shouldn't be surprised, and actually this stuff is pretty mild compared to what's coming if and when Thompson actually gets into the race. But I think this can be seen as a preview of how the media will frame the Thompson stories.

What's particularly funny about this is that many in the media saw Reagan as anything but "genial" back in the day. But history has treated Reagan far more kindly than the pundits of the 80s, so I suppose Halperin could be expected to engage in a little revisionism in support of his critique of Thompson.

Here's a question...is there any Republican for whom the "most natural expression" isn't a scowl, in the eyes of the liberals in the media? Just askin'...

Source: Has Fred Thompson Found His Role? | TIME

The Associated Press demonstrates once again the serious bias on the part of the mainstream media when it comes to abortion, in a story that suggests the existence of a rift among pro-life groups on whether the ban on partial-birth abortion was a victory for pro-life advocates:

Anti-abortion leaders are accusing one of their own, Focus on Family founder James Dobson, of misrepresenting a Supreme Court decision that upheld a ban on late-term abortions.

In a full-page ad in Wednesday's editions of The Gazette newspaper in Colorado Springs, the heads of four anti-abortion groups said Dobson wrongly characterized the court's April ruling as a victory for abortion foes.

The ad said the ruling will actually encourage medical professionals to find "less shocking" methods than late-term abortions, which abortion opponents call "partial-birth abortion." [emphasis mine]

Apart from the evident glee with which the author reports these groups criticizing Dobson, what's striking about the story (though no longer shocking) is the description "late-term abortions" AP uses to describe the banned procedure, and the usual "which abortion opponents call" phrase before the only mention of the accurate description of the procedure. What's remarkable about this is that AP doesn't even bother to be medically accurate and use the medical term intact dilation and extraction, rather substituting a generic and sanitized term that is neither accurate nor descriptive of what actually takes place during the procedure.

I won't describe the procedure graphically here...you can read Wikipedia's description for yourself. Suffice it to say, I think that the procedure is gruesome, and is a particularly abhorrent way to abort a child, though I personally oppose all abortion procedures, not just partial-birth abortion. AP's reporter would clearly prefer that readers who aren't already aware of the realities of this horrific procedure remain ignorant, and instead focus on reported infighting among abortion opponents. Nothing like honest reporting.

Source: My Way News - Abortion Foes Criticize One of Their Own

Rich Karlgaard, in Forbes.com, discusses one of the most egregious cases of unintended (but utterly predictable) consequences in the brief history of the environmental movement, that of the banning of DDT in the wake of the release of Silent Spring, the book that is credited with starting the whole movement. It's author, Rachel Carson, has the status of a saint on the left, is lionized in the media, and even has schools named for her, such as this middle school in Herndon, VA (ironically, the location of a recent GOP primary for the Virginia State Senate).

As Karlgaard notes, the CDC estimates that malaria, which was nearly eliminated thanks to DDT, but has experienced a resurgence after the ban of DDT in the wake of Silent Spring, kills more than 800,000 children under the age of five each year. Which makes the naming of elementary and middle schools for Carson all the more ironic. The impact of the ban on malaria deaths merits just one line in the Wikipedia hagiography of Carson.

Karlgaard also notes the lack of interest by The Washington Post in this aspect of Carson's life and impact in their story today on her struggle with cancer:

Buried in paragraph 27, and paraphrasing the Congressman, The Washington Post concedes that "numerous" deaths might have been prevented by DDT.

Let's stop here. Any curious reader would ask, Just how "numerous" is numerous? Wouldn't you ask that question? The Post never asks that question. Why?

Because the answer devastates Rachel Carson and her followers. According to these CDC figures, malaria kills more than 800,000 children under age five every year.

Even acknowledging that there is some dispute about whether that entire figure can be laid at the feet of Carson and Silent Spring, it's simply astonishing how little desire for self-examination and reflection exists on the left. This makes it all the more clear that the environmental movement is not about the actual results...it's about feeling good about yourself, even if the actual result is other people suffering.

When I look at the current debate on global warming, it's utterly clear to me that those who advocate hugely expensive cutbacks in energy use and/or carbon taxes are utterly indifferent to the suffering that this would likely cause to those least able to afford it. Those who cannot, like Al Gore, simply buy carbon offsets and continue to consume far more than the average family, will be the ones who bear the brunt of the next set of unintended consequences. And as with Rachel Carson and Silent Spring, years from now when these consequences become obvious, few if any on the left or at The Washington Post (but I repeat myself) will be interested in examining how this came to pass.

via Instapundit

In the absence of an announcement by Fred Thompson that he's running, the candidate I've been most interested in for the GOP presidential nomination is Mitt Romney. Alas, he's not been doing so hot in most polls, and this statement, in response to a question from Mike Wallace on 60 Minutes, isn't going to help:

I must admit, I can't image anything more awful than polygamy.

While I get that he feels the need to distance himself from the former Mormon practice of polygamy (mostly because the media keep obsessively bringing it up), this is one of the dumber things any candidate has said recently. If his imagination is that limited, perhaps I need to re-think my support for him. I'm with Jonah Goldberg:

Golly, I can think of a long list of things worse than polygamy. Hundreds involving pointy sticks alone. Which is not to say I favor polygamy. But still...

Run, Fred, Run!

OK, at the risk of giving him more attention than he deserves, I have a question...

Is there anyone on the PLANET who was surprised that Alec Baldwin would shout nasty things at someone...even his daughter?

I mean, NEWS FLASH!!! ALEC BALDWIN IS A JERK!

For this, we interrupted coverage of Anna Nicole Smith? Oh wait, that was last week. This week was Rosie. Jeez, I love popular culture.

...as if any more were necessary. Behold...Cooking with Bubba!

And as a side note, has there ever been another former elected official who was more of an attention junkie than Bubba? Really, I think he was always more interesed in being the Celebrity in Chief (thus the "boxers vs. briefs moment, playing sax on Arsenio, etc.) than in actually running the country. If only that were the case with Hillary...then we could just get her Rosie's slot on The View, and not have to worry about the disastrous effect her policies would have on the country. But Hill's always wanted power more, while Bill loves the spotlight.

Is it the elite New Yorker, with the clipped, shrill phrasing, or the down-home Southern girl on display here?

Well, I guess since her husband has been lauded as the first black president, perhaps she feels entitled to insult a black audience with a little put-on drawl. Don't hold your breath for statements of outrage from Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson on this one. Hill will get a pass on this, thanks to her impeccable liberal credentials.

Not to mention a clever way of recapping the week's news.

Jonah makes some similar points to my post from yesterday, but says it better than I could.

Jeez, I'm not sure which of these guys is more irritating, but the specter of Imus apologizing on Sharpton's radio show was bad enough...now Imus is chiding Sharpton for not apologizing to the Duke Lacross players.

While I'd certainly agree (and pointed out earlier this week) that Sharpton is hardly a model of racial probity, for Imus to be the one pointing this out after having attempted to use Sharpton to mitigate the effects of his foot-in-mouth disease is kinda pathetic.

In fairness, Imus is spending a lot of time noting that none of this would be happening absent his saying something stupid. Still, I personally wish they'd both shut up and go away, as I have little patience for either of their antics.

OTOH, I have a buddy who is a big radio fan who found the whole thing immensely interesting and fun (in an "inside baseball" kinda way). More power to him, but it's because of guys like Sharpton and Imus that the media got away with abusing the truth in the Duke non-rape case. That's where the real harm comes in...not with the hurt feelings of some college athletes, but in the continued poisoning of our society that allows three young men (no angels, given having hired strippers for a party, but not rapists either) to have their lives destroyed on the unfounded accusations of a single person, with a presumption of guilt because of the color of their skin and their social status.

Isn't that what the civil rights movement was supposed to end?

I haven't settled on who to support among the GOP contenders yet. Unfortunately, for someone like myself who identifies as a conservative first, and a Republican a distant second, the current field is largely disappointing.

Giuliani, as I've noted in previous posts, probably won't stick with the race, as his negatives will weigh down his candidacy, and I don't think he'll want to stay in if he sees he won't win. Even if he does stay in, I don't see him winning, and I'd have trouble voting for him for President. If he wants to run for Mayor of my town, I'll vote for him in a heartbeat. President? Not so much.

Romney is the closest thing to a conservative in the currently announced field. Whether he's electable (the Mormon thing, which shouldn't matter, but which the media will harp on endlessly), and whether his rightward movements are genuine remain to be seen.

Thompson is very interesting, seems to be a real conservative, but hasn't announced. It's interesting that he's putting the word out that he had lymphoma (now in remission), and I agree with suggestions that this indicates he's serious about getting in. But he's not in...yet.

Gingrich, another not-in-yet, is very smart, and great if you want a wonk-in-chief. We had one of those in Bill Clinton (albeit from the other side of the aisle), and I don't think it was that great.

Which leaves us with McCain. McCain, like Giuliani, is an incredibly mixed bag. His current stand on the Iraq war is courageous and I think probably sincere, though it's hard to be sure because other times (more in a moment) that he's taken positions more based on politics than sincerity.

But McCain is terrible on immigration, was the force behind a draconian imposition on the first amendment that goes far beyond any supposed depredations of the PATRIOT act in its curtailing of our Constitutional rights, and was instrumental in preventing the use of the so-called "nuclear" option in the Senate to forestall unprecedented Democratic filibustering of Bush administration judicial nominees. That's a pretty terrible record in and of itself.

But of greater concern to me is his record of taking positions that seem more tailored to garner lionization from the mainstream media than to principle. As John Hood observes in NRO's The Corner:

...I happen to believe that the national McCain boomlet in the late 1990s and his candidacy in 2000 were based on the reverse—cynical politics instead of political principle. The cynicism wasn't all, or even mostly, McCain's. He was used by the political establishment to advance their own interests and bash Republicans. But he allowed himself to be used.

This report about McCain's upcoming Michigan swing underlines an important point: he is courting GOP conservatives this year in part by necessity, as he will not be able to pull Democrats in open primaries as he did in 2000.

Unfortunately, McCain's past positions don't lend themselves to trusting him as a conservative standard bearer. So while I'm pleased to see his steadfast support of the war effort, and want to believe that it's sincere, it's not nearly enough to make up for years of slapping conservatives in the face.

You be the judge.

This pretty much sums up my take on Imus' stupid and offensive remarks.

H/T Instapundit

...and other tactics to discredit those who don't toe the catastrophic global warming line:

PowerLine blog has a great example of the full range.

It says something about the poverty of argumentation on the side of the supporters of catastrophic global warming theory that they, and the media, must distort the views of those who oppose their doom-mongering. And worse, these tactics make it harder to have a reasonable debate on reasonable steps we could be taking today, at significantly less cost than things like Kyoto, to improve the lives of real people, right now (note that which steps should be taken by whom...and whether by private parties or government entities...is the subject of a separate, though related, debate).

Folks like Bjørn Lomborg are to be thanked for trying to focus the debate on where we can best use resources, rather than on hyperventilating about CGW and carbon emissions. I may not agree with all of Lomborg's priorities, but at least he recognizes that wasting hundreds of billions of dollars to prevent a miniscule amount of warming is a phenomenally stupid choice, and one that will inevitably result in more deaths and misery than would otherwise be the case.

Not surprisingly, political hacks like Al Gore have steadfastly refused to have a head-to-head debate with Lomborg, perhaps because they're well aware that it would highlight the weakness of their arguments, and in Gore's case, his rank hypocrisy in being a prolific energy consumer while urging the rest of us to life a more austere lifestyle.

H/T Planet Gore

This story is pretty nasty. You have to wonder (or perhaps the answer is obvious) whether the cloak of anonymity (or even semi-anonymity), combined with a level of remove from the impact of one's actions, leads people who normally wouldn't think of threatening or attempting to intimidate others into doing so online.

Regardless of the cause, it's foul, and I hope those responsible end up prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. As with the now-infamous Deb Frisch, who inadvertently made herself into an internet buzzword (along with losing her job, and probably any prospect of a future career) by threatening the child of a blogger she disagreed with, these sick pups should suffer some consequences for what should be, in a decent society, actions that are completely out of bounds.

Although I wasn't able to make it, my mother and brother attended the Gathering of Eagles counter-protest to the usual moonbattery organized by International ANSWER and funded in part by George Soros.

Although many of the MSM stories would lead one to believe that there were either only a few hundred counter-protestors, or that the anti-war folks outnumbered those who rallied in support of our troops, the folks who were actually there say differently...and their story is bolstered by unofficial park service estimates of 30,000 participants. Not bad for an effort that was organized in a matter of a few weeks.

Michelle Malkin has the best coverage of the event.

If you live in Loudoun County, VA, you should be aware of the activites of a group calling themselves "Mainstream" Loudoun.

This is a group that fought against internet filters in Libraries (because we all know that the Constitution protects our right to download porn in public places), and is currently fighting tooth and nail to prevent abstinence from being a part of the sex ed curriculum in Loudoun County public schools.

Barbara Curtis, who writes a monthly column for the Loudoun Times-Mirror, has been writing about Mainstream Loudoun, and also about how they're discussed in the local news.

Loudoun residents who are truly in the mainstream would do well to follow Barbara's blog for the latest developments.

Victor Davis Hanson has some choice words for John Edwards' attempt to co-op Jesus in the service of his "two Americas" class warfare rhetoric. My favorite graf:

Still, at the very least when Edwards says the following: "I think that Jesus would be disappointed in our ignoring the plight of those around us who are suffering and our focus on our own selfish short-term needs. "I think he would be appalled, actually," he could at least offer the homeless shelter for a few cold nights in his sports and entertainment annex or a cot in something in the palatial residence apparently called "John's Lounge."

If it weren't for the obviousness of liberal bias in the media, it would be baffling why no one in the mainstream media has picked up on this theme. Even more than Gore's hypocrisy on energy use, the idea of a trial lawyer who recently had build the largest home in his state campaigning as a champion of the downtrodden is a joke.

...not As I Do.

Another fine example is Al Gore, who according to this post on the Planet Gore blog (referring to an item from the Tennesee Center for Policy Research), uses more than 20 times the national average in electricity. One assumes that at least some of that is not from renewable sources.

Ah, but according to Greenhouse Gasbag Al, the rest of us plebes must conserve, conserve, conserve if we are to avoid the dire calamities of global warming.

Thanks for the warning, Al. And for doing your part.

UPDATE:
This post, via Instapundit, is not only a devastating takedown of Gore's exuses for his energy gluttony, but also highlights an unexpected "inconvenient truth" for Al...his 2000 opponent, George W. Bush, has a model of environmental responsibility in his Crawford, TX ranch. Naturally, the media's completely ignored this information.

John Podhoretz thinks so. If it's not the worst, it surely must be in the top 5. It's just awful, featuring a live-action Snow White, Rob Lowe singing, and Lily Tomlin being unfunny.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=MC6Teda0y8A

Once again, the New York Times demonstrates that they have no scruples, nor any sense of loyalty towards the country that makes their work possible. And that they have contempt for the armed forces that protect their rights.

In this photo, the Times shows "[a] sniper loyal to Shiite cleric Moqtada al Sadr" firing on U.S. troops. Apparently photographer Joao Silva and the editors at the Times think it's just fine to allow someone to attempt to kill our troops while they go for a good picture.

Even worse is the caption of the photo, which includes the description "Right there with the Mahdi army. Incredible courage." Um, no. As Jeff Goldstein at Protein Wisdom observes, "...it seems to me that actual 'incredible courage' would have entailed, say, Joao Silva getting word to US troops, or bumrushing the sniper and beating him unconscious with a heavy telephoto lens."

Yep. But such is the measure of "courage" among journalists. I mean, didn't all these folks get their definition from Dan Rather using it as a sign-off on the CBS Evening News? No wonder they think they're more courageous than HDDan...at least they're out of the studio, right?

UPDATE: It gets even worse...according to LGF, the photographer in question is currently flacking his hagiographic book compilation of photos of the Iraqi Shi'a, where one can no doubt find more examples of his "incredible courage". Ugh.

Discover Magazine has a list of five lessons we should learn from the Avian Flu outbreak. Strangely enough, "don't buy into pseudo-scientific hype and doom-and-gloom stories" doesn't appear in the list.

What's more, many of their "lessons" (#5 starts out "We are at the mercy of viral evolution.") could be construed as buying into the notion that we barely dodged a bullet in avoiding a major avian flu pandemic. The subhead of the article, "Work, Watch, Wait, Worry, and Wonder," only reinforces this impression.

But the article does contain the illuminating fact that fewer than 150 people worldwide have died as a result of the H5N1 strain of avian flu, making avian flu even more ridiculously overhyped than SARS was in its day (something I noted here, and here).

One would have hoped that a magazine purportedly reporting on science would have turned a little more skeptical eye on the subject, but perhaps that's just too much to hope for these days.

A must-read on media bias from Michael Barone.

In a post on the ever-obnoxious Ted Kennedy, I shared the Media Research Center's Quote of the year from 2003, which featured Boston Globe columnist Charles Pierce opining on Kennedy's career and Mary Jo Kopechne:

“If she had lived, Mary Jo Kopechne would be 62 years old. Through his tireless work as a legislator, Edward Kennedy would have brought comfort to her in her old age.”

Pierce's response, in the American Prospect, makes a pretty convincing case that he was taken out of context in a fashion that completely reversed his meaning. That is, in context, it's fairly clear that he was jabbing at, not lauding, Kennedy. Assuming that Pierce is being honest, one would have to conclude that this quote is not particularly outrageous after all, although it is still arguably in poor taste.

Anyway, if you're so inclined, read Pierce's response and judge for yourself.

 

Question...why is it that it was imperative that we find out who in the White House "leaked" the identity of Valerie Plame to the media (I use the quotes because left unresolved has been the question of whether Plame actually had covert status at the time, and because of the fact that no crime has been alleged in the case relating to illegally leaking classified information), and yet attempting to discover who at the CIA leaked uncontestably classified information regarding the NSA wiretapping program is labeled a "witch hunt" in an ABC news story?

Anyone with a trace of honesty should be able to grasp that the latter leak has caused actual damage to our national security, while no one has managed to demonstrate any damage from the former, despite the assertions of Patrick Fitzgerald during a news conference...assertions which, notably, are not backed up in any way by the indictments he brought against Scooter Libby.

So what gives? Well, the obvious answer is that in both cases, the media treats the story in the way that will cause the most harm to the Bush administration. When it comes to protecting national security interests, it's apparently only important to the media if that also serves to embarrass our president. Meanwhile, when leaking a story clearly provides aid to our enemies by informing them of our intelligence-gathering methods, the folks at the New York Times, et. al. argue that it's critical to protect the "whistleblowers" who provide them the information that they subsequently use to undermine our ability to find out the terrorists are up to.

Julian Bond is a disgrace, and has an ugly soul. He should resign as chairman of the NAACP. If he won't do it voluntarily, honest people should demand it.

Why do I say this? Because of the latest in a series of tirades Bond has aimed at conservatives and the GOP. I have no problem with critics who attack on the issues, and who disagree vehemently. But for Bond to assert that "The Republican Party would have the American flag and the swastika flying side by side" is simply disgusting, defamatory, and should be disqualifying for one who leads a group which is supposed to be a defender of civil rights. Bond's remarks are anything but civil, including the assertion that Condoleeza Rice and Colin Powell are "tokens," a racist remark if I ever heard one.

It's interesting (and appalling) that the head of the NAACP can get away with asserting that blacks who work for conservatives couldn't possibly be there because of merit and/or because they believe in the policies they're supporting. No, according to Julian Bond, black opinion on policy is apparently so monolithic that anyone who diverges from his opinion is a "token" or, as Harry Belafonte has put it in similarly ugly statements, a "house slave," a phrase Belafonte used to describe both Powell and Rice.

On a positive note, the story linked above does report that at least one family walked out on Bond's speech, and good for them. But as long as people like Bond, Belafonte, and shysters like Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson are allowed to continue to say that they represent black America, while they attack both white and black Republicans in language as ugly or uglier than what real civil rights leaders once fought against, it will be that much more challenging for this country to heal and eliminate what remains of racism. Understanding that racism exists on both sides, and must be addressed by all of us, would be a step in the right direction. Allowing Bond and his ilk to spew their venom unchallenged gets us nowhere, other than further poisoning the debate.

Here we go again. The New York Times (motto: All the Bush-bashing fit to print), published a silly global warming hit piece today featuring a NASA climate scientist whining about being warned not to make policy speeches or discuss policy with the media. The scientist, one James Hansen, has called "for prompt reductions in emissions of greenhouse gases linked to global warming," according to the article.

Well, color me shocked. Hansen's supervisors have asked him to desist from making such calls publicly. Given that Hansen's role is not as a policymaker, this should come as a surprise to no one. Clearly, the New York Times is invoking a major double-standard here, given the frequent episodes of circling the wagons and telling staffers not to comment about the various scandals they've dealt with over the past few years. The Times was certainly within their rights to do so (although it looks rather shabby for a media outlet that relies heavily on anonymous sourcing and leaks to tell its people to clam up), and this is standard operating procedure for most businesses.

With few exceptions, both companies and governments have people who are designated and assigned to speak to the press, and in the case of government, to make policy. Hansen, from what I can gather in the article, is designated and assigned to do neither. I work for a large corporation. It's standard policy that requests from the press for information are, as a general rule, to be referred to the persons responsible for those inquiries, rather than answered on a freelance basis. This limits the possibility of an uninformed (or misinformed) employee causing major problems for the company and its shareholders by inadvertently spreading incorrect information.

In Hansen's case, there's pretty good reason to suspect that whether intentionally or not, Dr. Hansen is making policy recommendations based on information that is, at best, not settled, and at worst, completely overblown. There's also the question of whether there is a partisan motive. As with much of the leaking that's occurred at the CIA, Hansen's appears to be motivated in part by frustration at his perception that the Bush administration doesn't take his concerns seriously. That's a bummer for him, but it still doesn't give him the right to attempt to be a freelance policy maker.

Perhaps the Bush administration could pull a few strings and get Hansen a job at the IPCC. I'm sure they'd love to have him, and he'd fit right in there. Meanwhile, the Times should reconsider throwing stones in this particular glass house.