The Churchill Series - Nov. 5, 2005

(One of a series of daily posts about Winston S. Churchill.)

As Prime Minister, Churchill frequently questioned what cabinet ministers said and did. Why were people assigned to that place? What excuse was there for problems with tank production? And why did he first learn about them when reading a newspaper?

While often sharp and angry, Churchill's communications could sometimes reveal his great sense of humor. One such follows.

Churchill is writing to his Secretary of State for Air, Archibald Sinclair. The two had formed a close friendship during WWI, when Churchill served in the trenches under Sinclair.

A Labour Party member, Sinclair supported Churchill's opposition to Chamberlain's appeasement policy. When Chuchill became Prime Minister, Sinclair joined him in Cabinet and some months later received the following from his friend:

I am very glad to find that you are as usual completely satisfied. I merely referred the Foreign Office telegram to you in order to test once more that impenetrable armour of departmental confidence which you have donned since you ceased to lead an Opposition to the Government and became one it its pillars.

Either you must have been very wrong in the old days, or we must all have improved enormously since the change.

_________________________________________
Cited in Roy Jenkins, Churchill: A Biography (p. 644).

Blog anniversary at Confederate Yankee

Bob Owens at Confederate Yankee is celebrating his first blog anniversary. Bob's had well-deserved success: 780 posts, 2100 comments, nearly 330,000 visits and 442,000 page views.

If you haven't already done so, drop by and give him a look.

His home page is here.

Bob's bio is here along with an explanation of how he came to call his blog, Confederate Yankee.

Congratulations, Bob. I'm glad you're in the neighborhood.

Please help this New York Times reader

Not too long ago The New York Times gave us "Fake But Accurate.” This morning it gives us "second- and third-generation immigrants."

Reporting on the riots in France, the journal of record says:

France has been grappling for years with growing unrest among its second- and third-generation immigrants, mostly North African Arabs, who have faced decades of high unemployment and marginalization.

And we all thought an immigrant was someone who leaves one country to settle permanently in another country. Well, that’s what comes from believing what you read in a dictionary.

Later in the story we're told:

The cultural divide between these second- and third-generation immigrants and the native French is deeper because they come from Muslim families, but to date the violence has had nothing to do with Islam.

Hold on! I need help.

What's the difference between a second- or third-generation immigrant and a native-born French person? And why does the Times offer no evidence to support its claim that “the violence has had nothing to do with Islam?”

I'm going to contact some bloggers I respect and ask for their help. I'd like to hear from you, too.

I'm glad my parents, children of immigrants who thought they were Americans because they were born here, never lived to see this day.

The Churchill Series - Nov. 4, 2005

(One of a series of daily posts about Winston S. Churchill.)

It was May, 1936. Churchill's attacks on the government's appeasement of Nazi Germany had wearied and angered Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin who wanted to publicly denounce him.

But Baldwin knew he had to be careful. Churchill, though out of government and with but a small public following, was a fierce debater. A Baldwin attack would invite a Churchill counterattack that could leave Baldwin the loser.

So Baldwin remained publicly circumspect. But he poured out his upset in a letter to a confidant, Dr. Tom Jones. Here's part of it:

One of these days I'll make a few casual remarks about Winston. Not a speech - no oratory - just a few words in passing. I've got it all ready.

I am going to say that when Winston was born lots of fairies swooped down on his cradle [with] gifts - imagination, eloquence, industry, ability, and then came a fairy who said 'No one person has a right to so many gifts', picked him up and gave him such a shake and twist that with all these gifts he was denied judgement and wisdom. And that is why while we delight to listen to him in this House we do not take his advice."

________________________________________
Cited in Roy Jenkins, Churchill: A Biography (p. 419).

Do any Argentine protestors read USA Today?

(Welcome visitors from Michelle Malkin and Mudville Gazette open post.)

Michelle Malkin has photos of the Argentine protests of President Bush’s visit. One shows protestors carrying a huge banner with the image of far-Left hero and terrorist Che Guevara superimposed on a quilt-like background of flags of South and Central American countries.

In a recent USA Today op-ed, Ryan Clancy reminded us:

Che demanded worldwide revolution, even if it meant a stream of death and misery. He said the utopia that could be built on the ashes of the old world would make the suffering worthwhile. That's why he advocated a nuclear exchange during the Cuban missile crisis.

In fact, if you read through Che's speeches, with his constant refrain of glorious martyrdom, they're remarkably similar to another well-known "revolutionary" — the tall, bearded one holed up somewhere on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.

Che hated the United States and the global free market system that sustained it. Just ask him. "Let us sum up our hopes for victory: total destruction of imperialism by eliminating its firmest bulwark, the oppression exercised by the United States of America."

If Che's world vision had prevailed, it's safe to say that Apple founder Steve Jobs would have never brought us the iPod. After all, it's tough to innovate when you're stuck behind a donkey farming turnips for the proletariat.

USA Today is distributed worldwide. Didn't any of the Leftists in Argentina read Clancy's op-ed?

Or maybe the problem is that when your other heros are Stalin, Fidel, Mao, and Kim Il Jong, you won't believe anything bad someone says about Che.

Are you keeping up with ACLU?

Remember the American Civil Liberties Union's support of a Florida Muslim woman's refusal to remove her veil for her driver's license photo? Muslim countries that allow women to drive require them to remove their veils for license photos.

But Florida's ACLU Executive Director Howard Simon condemned what he said was the "government's tendency in the aftermath of September 11th to restrict numerous freedoms."

Just this week the ACLU's New York chapter has taken New York City to court over the city's subway-terror prevention program involving random searches of passengers bags and other items at subway entrances.

So is there any identity or security search program the ACLU will support?

Before you answer, take a look at John Byrnes' post here.

Guns in your home

To have or have not a gun in your home?

Some people say you're safer if you don't have a gun when someone tries to break into your home, but I've never heard of anyone throwing their gun out the window when they knew their house was being broken into.

The Churchill Series - Nov. 3, 2005

(One of a series of daily posts about Winston S. Churchill.)

Below is the opening paragraph of John Lukacs’ masterful, The Duel, 10 May – 31 July 1940: The Eighty-Day Struggle Between Churchill and Hitler. For ease and comprehension, I’ve segmented the paragraph into four shorter ones. Otherwise, it's unaltered.

If you're new to theThe Duel, it’s a study of Churchill and Hitler’s leadership during the time Britain was first driven from the European continent, and then stood alone on its home islands and fought the Nazi horde.
_____________________________________________________________

In June 1940, a few days before Paris fell, Premier Reynaud broadcast to the French people: if Hitler wins the war, “it would be the Middle Ages again, but not illuminated by the mercy of Christ.”

A few days later, on 18 June, in his “finest hour” speech Churchill evoked the prospect, not of a return to the Middle Ages, but of a lurch into a New Dark Age.

If Hitler wins and we fall, he said, “then the whole world, including the Untied States, including all that we have known and cared for , will sink into the abyss of a New Dark Age, made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science.”

That was a more precise statement than Reynaud’s - and perhaps more apposite now, fifty years later, when within and without the great conurbations of the Western world many of the signs and symptoms of a New Dark Age are rising. (p. 222)

The CBS producer who used forged documents has written a book.

Remember Mary Mapes? She was Dan Rather's producer for the 60 Minutes II episode that used forged documents in an attempt to smear President Bush eight weeks before the 2004 election.

CBS, with Rather and Mapes blessings, told us for days the anonymous source of the documents was "unimpeachable." Then we came to learn what they knew all along: Their "unimpeachable" source was long-time Bush hater and Democratic Party activist Bill Burkett.

Now, Mapes has a book out. David Boyd posts on National Review Online contributor Jim Gehaghty's take on excerpts in the current issue of Vanity Fair (Yes, Vanity Fair is the same magazine on whose cover Joe Wilson and his wife Valerie Plame posed in a convertible.)

With respect to Gehaghty, I think David gets off the best line of the post:

Thank God for Mapes's book. We get to relive the whole glorious episode all over.

Take a look.

Newmark's Door: A blog to knock

Craig Newmark at Newmark's Door has a lot to offer. Here are a few samples:

Supposedly, Microsoft, Yahoo, and Goggle are hot to acquire AOL. Other than there being possibly--possibly--some value in AOL's IM network, I don't get this. Haven't we been through this "portal" stuff before? Late 90's? When almost everything on the Net is a click or two away, how important can portals be? (More discussion here.)

But I'll readily concede that I'm not as smart as Bill Gates and the guys at Goggle.

This post looks like a real money saver:

Newer cars--'96 and later--have computer chips that can be read by special instruments. Instead of paying an auto mechanic a bunch of money to read them, you can buy a machine, the Car Chip E/X, to read them yourself.

But the E/X costs about $150. So, this tip from a reader is potentially valuable: he claims that most Autozones, as well as other car-part chains, will read the chips for free.

There is always a lot to read once you knock on Newmark's Door.

Visit often and keep scrolling.

Palmetto Pundit is a good as ever

A few weeks ago I welcomed Palmetto Pundit back to blogging. Since then, he's been turning out one fine post after another. He's as good as ever.

A bonus for visiting: He has a beautiful sea scene framing his blog. It's so peaceful, it's got to drop your BP at least 20 points or so.

It happened yesterday in a coffee shop

Yestersay I had a brief, polite conversation with a fellow in a coffee shop. I’d never met him but he saw me reading a paper that headlined Scooter Libby’s indictment.

“That’s awful what he did,” the fellow said. “I hope he gets jail time.”

“We’ll see,” I replied.

“You don’t think he deserves to go to jail?”

“Well, he hasn’t been found guilty of anything. Innocent until proven guilty, right?”

Reader, I’ll bet you have a pretty good idea of what the fellow said next.

“Are you a conservative?”

I started to explain I wasn’t but the look on the fellow’s face convinced me it would be better to move on and say I bet we could both agree the weather was great.

We did, and he was on his way while I returned to my newspaper.

I doubt it occurred to him that what I said about Libby is what most Americans are taught to say about anyone who’s been indicted but not convicted.

But he thought that made me a conservative. Hmm.

"A Rosa Parks moment" for conservatives?

(Welcome visitors from Mudville Gazette open post. )

Washington Times editor Tony Blankley calls the successful opposition to the Miers nomination a “Rosa Parks moment” for the “conservative opposition.” Conservatives:

refused to give up our seat on the bus even for a Republican president. Something important happened last week for conservatism -- and thus for the broader political scene.
<….>
(Such) broad, shoulder-to-shoulder conspicuous conservative opposition to a Republican president advocating a not liberal nomination or position is, I think, without precedent.
<…>
Whenever a seminal political event such as this happens, politicians and activists rush in to try to publicly explain and exploit it in a manner useful to their political objectives.
<…>
From the unctuous, faux-humble, faux-everyman Sen. Harry Reid, to the ever clever, ever-striving Sen. Charles Schumer, to their automaton stenographers in the mainstream media, this event was characterized as the triumph of the hard-right, extreme, radical, fundamentalist Christian, anti-abortion, doctrinaire, out-of-the-mainstream right wingers.
<…>
But in fact, the conservative coalition that defeated Miss Miers' nomination last week is the same broad based movement that has elected its candidate president in five of the last seven elections, elected 28 currently sitting governors and a Republican congress for the last decade.

Today, 34 percent of Americans are self-described conservatives, while only 19 percent are self-described liberals. When one adds only the most conservative third of the remaining 47 percent of self-identified moderates to the self-proclaimed conservatives, one has a voting majority in an American election.

So when they say we are out of the mainstream, they are using words in a manner inconsistent with reality. (Not for the first time, Tony. – JinC)

If there was a uniting theme to the conservative opposition, it wasn't anti-abortion, or any particular substantive issue.

Rather, conservatives respect the law. We have deeply resented its misuse for the last 70 years by clever and willful liberals who would usurp the law for their own policy purposes.
<…>
This was a revolt for excellence. It was a revolt for a faithful scholar of the law. It was a moment of high faith in reason, and in the blessings that will flow from a fair and wise reading of our founding document.

I’m with Blankley on a lot of what he says. But I wish he had spoken more in terms of conservatives having led a broad coalition which included independents and liberals who respect the law every bit as much as conservatives.

Independents and liberals for whom fairness and constitutional principles trump partisanship are often ignored in discussions of political and social issues.

I’ll say more soon about why I think that happens.

The Churchill Series - Nov. 2, 2005

(One of a series of daily posts about Winston S. Churchill.)

When Churchill addressed Parliament on Dec. 11, 1941, the British public knew America had suffered a great defeat at Pearl Harbor and Japan's military forces were advancing throughout the Pacific.

The preceding day, Churchill had been shocked to learn that in a single engagement lasting but a few minutes, Japanese bombers had sunk two of Britain's great warships: the battleship, HMS Prince of Wales, and the battle cruiser, HMS Repulse. Most hands were lost, including Churchill's close friend, Admiral Sir Thomas Phillips.

In those circumstances, Churchill told Parliament:

Victory is traditionally elusive. Accidents happen. Mistakes are made. Sometimes right things turn our wrong and wrong things turn our right. War is very difficult, especially to those who are taking part in it or conducting it."

___________

Churchill's speech cited in Martin Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill: Road to Victory, 1941-1945, (p. 3).

A spotlight on MSM’s Iraq War reporting

(Welcome visitors from Mudville Gazette open post.)

What was the most important news out of Iraq last week? Boston Globe columnist Jeff Jacoby says it depends on what you consider "important."

You want radical Islam and Ba'athist fascism defeated? You think democratic governments in the Middle East will make it less a breeding ground for terrorism and the world a safer place?

In that case, Jacoby says you’ll say the landslide Iraqi vote for their new Constitution was the most important news from Iraq last week.

But he notes others disagree with you:

That isn't how the mainstream media saw it.

Consider The Washington Post. On the morning after the results of the Iraqi referendum were announced, the Post's front page was dominated by a photograph, stretched across four columns, of three daughters at the funeral of their father, Lieutenant Colonel Leon James II, who had died from injuries suffered during a Sept. 26 bombing in Baghdad. Two accompanying stories, both above the fold, were headlined ''Military Has Lost 2,000 in Iraq" and ''Bigger, Stronger, Homemade Bombs Now to Blame for Half of US Deaths." A nearby graphic -- ''The Toll" -- divided the 2,000 deaths by type of military service -- active duty, National Guard, and Reserves.

From Page 1, the stories jumped to a two-page spread inside, where they were illustrated with more photographs, a series of drawings depicting roadside attacks, and a large US map showing where each fallen soldier was from.

<...>
There were many more stories and, of course. a photo of liberal MSM's current favorite "anti-war symbol," Cindy Sheehan.

Jacoby continues:

The Post didn't ignore the Iraqi election results. A story appeared on Page A13 (''Sunnis Failed to Defeat Iraq Constitution"), along with a map breaking down the vote by province. But like other leading newspapers, including The New York Times, The Boston Globe, and the Los Angeles Times, it devoted vastly more attention to the 2,000-death ''milestone," a statistic with no unique significance apart from the fact that it ends in round numbers.

Every death in Iraq is heartbreaking. The 2,000th fatality was neither more nor less meaningful than the 1,999 that preceded it. But if anything makes the death toll remarkable, it is how historically low it is. Considering what the war has accomplished so far -- the destruction of the region's bloodiest dictatorship, the liberation of 25 million Iraqis, the emergence of democratic politics, the withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon, the abandonment by Libya of its nuclear weapons program -- it is hard to disagree with Norman Podhoretz, who notes in the current Commentary that these achievements have been ''purchased at an astonishingly low cost in American blood when measured by the standards of every other war we have ever fought."

But that isn't a message Big Media cares to emphasize. Hostile to the war and to the administration conducting it, the nation's leading news outlets harp on the negative and pessimistic, consistently underplaying all that is going right in Iraq. Their fixation on the number of troops who have died outweighs their interest in the cause for which those fallen heroes fought -- a cause that advanced with the ratification of the new constitution.(bold added -JinC)

Jacoby concludes:

Poll after poll confirms the public's low level of confidence in mainstream media news. Gallup recently measured that confidence at 28 percent, an all-time low. Why such mistrust? The media's slanted coverage of Iraq provides a pretty good clue.

Who are the 28% who Gallup reports have confidence in MSM news? The Democratic base? Moveon.org? People who like their news "fake but accurate?"

The Churchill Series - Nov. 1, 2005

(One of a series of daily posts about Winston S. Churchill.)

In late December, 1941 Churchill arrived in Washington to meet with Roosevelt and begin joint Anglo-American war planning.

With the exception of a brief trip to Canada, Churchill remained in America for almost four weeks. While in Washington, he stayed at the White House.

The British government and people were understandably very interested to know what was transpiring with the Americans.

When Churchill flew back to England, landing at Plymouth on Jan. 17, 1942, a train was waiting to take him to London where at 10 PM that evening, the War Cabinet assembled to hear his report.

The minutes of that meeting include this:

The Prime Minister thought that (the Americans) were not above learning from us provided we did not set out to teach them.

Cited in Martin Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill: Road to Victory, 1941-1945, (p. 43).

Associated Press liberal bias - 11/1/05

Under Deb Riechmann's byline, an Associated Press story, Bush Expected to Name New Nominee Monday, contains this sentence:

Conservatives revile O'Connor for staking out moderate and practical positions on controversial issues.

Reichmann doesn't name a single conservative who reviles Justice O'Connor, nor does she or her AP editors provide one example of O'Connor's "moderate and practical positions on controversial issues."

But providing such information would get in the way of the AP's reason for running that sentence: To tell readers conservatives are people who revile a public figure who is moderate and practical concerning controversial issues.

If you doubt that, read the sentence again:

Conservatives revile O'Connor for staking out moderate and practical positions on controversial issues.

It reads like a cut-and-paste from a Moveon.org attack ad. It does nothing but tell people what the AP wants them to believe about conservatives.

The AP could have told readers of conservatives' recent praise for O'Connor's dissent in Kelo and for much else. But that, as the pols say, "gets off message."

So the liberal journalists at the AP campaigned their way.

A wonderful day to visit Confirmthem.com

At Confirmthem.com, they do great job keeping us up on matters judicial, especially Supreme Court nominations.

Today, with Judge Alito's nomination, is an especially wonderful day to visit.

Here's a sample of what you'll find:

Judge Alito in his own words, from the Newark Star-Ledger, May, 2005:

“Most of the labels people use to talk about judges, and the way judges decide (cases) aren't too descriptive. …Judges should be judges. They shouldn't be legislators, they shouldn't be administrators.”

Gotta love it…

Judges judging and legislators legislating sure sounds wonderful. It's also constitutional, isn't it?

Go visit Comfirmthem.com

Hugh Hewitt has misjudged Sen. Schumer

Hugh Hewitt says, "Schumer Hits Bottom"

Chuck Schumer just argued that it is possible that Judge Alito, as Justice Alito, would roll back the achievements of Rosa Parks. That can only be understood as Schumer's belief that Judge Alito could find segregationist policies acceptable under the constitution. While it is undeniable that the nomination of Robert Byrd would have raised such a question, it is preposterous and indeed base to even hint at such a thing about a distinguished judge and public servant.

Hewitt is just wrong about Schumer. As low as his remarks today are, Schumer can easily go a lot lower.

So I'm sending Hewitt this email:
_____________________________________________________

Dear Mr. Hewitt:

I have a lot of respect for you, but you're wrong about Sen. Schumer hitting bottom.

Schumer can go a lot lower, and surely will before the nomination fight is over.

You're a fair-minded person. I'm confident that when Schumer goes lower than he did today, you'll offer a prompt and gracious admission that you misjudged him.

Sorry it has to turn out that way, but Schumer is Schumer. And the folks he fund-raises from make him even worse.

Sincerely,

John
www.johnincarolina.com

When Casey exercised his right to choose

( Welcome visitors from Mudville Gazette open post )

Betsy Newmark alerts us to “a very substantial analysis” of Judge Alito's dissent in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, a case involing a law that required spousal notification before an abortion.

The analyst, attorney and blogger Patterico, says Alito’s dissent will be the Democrats’ primary talking point against Alito.

No doubt Democrats and their MSM and interest group allies will make loud claims that Alito does not understand and respect “choice.”

Their claims should remind us of how the Democrats treated the Casey in Planned Parenthood v. Casey when he exercised his “right to choose.”

Robert Patrick Casey (1932-2000) was a life-long Democrat who rebuilt the party in Pennsylvania and served as that state’s governor from 1987 to 1994.

Shortly after Casey’s death, civil libertarian and writer Nat Hentoff called Casey:

"arguably the most liberal and efficient Democratic governor in the nation. Casey put millions of dollars into job training, helping over 330,000 people, most of them single mothers, out of welfare into solid jobs. And according to Dr. T. Berry Brazelton, a much respected pediatrician and professor, Casey's prenatal and child health care programs were 'a model for the rest of the country.’
<…>
Nonetheless, Casey's party treated him with disdain. As the 1992 Democratic Convention in New York approached, Casey told me he expected, in light of his policy accomplishments and political loyalty, to be a speaker.

But the Democratic Party refused to let Casey speak, because in exercising his right to choose he failed to choose the party line. Hentoff explains:

Casey was not asked to speak. In fact, he and his Pennsylvania delegation were exiled to the farthest reaches of Madison Square Garden--because Casey was pro-life.
<…>
Ron Brown, chief convention organizer and the Democratic Party's symbol of minority inclusion, told Casey, "Your views are out of line with those of most Americans."

Casey had the misfortune of being present during a great shift in the Democratic Party. A mere six years earlier, on September 26, 1986, then-Governor Bill Clinton of Arkansas had assured the head of his state's chapter of the National Right to Life Committee, "I am opposed to abortion and to government funding of abortion." But, by the early '90s, the Democrats, seeking the votes of upper-middle-class Republican women, were de-emphasizing economic protection and stressing cultural libertarianism.

Clinton along with almost all other Democratic Party officeholders shifted to the "choice" position.

Clinton was nominated by New York’s Governor Mario Cuomo who brought the crowd to its feet when he declared:

"Bill Clinton believes, as we all here do, in the first principle of our Democratic commitment: the politics of inclusion."

The Democrats missed the unintentional irony of Cuomo's inclusion claim.

Casey would later ask publicly, "What has become of the Democratic Party I once knew?"

The Democratic Party Casey once knew has, for the most part, morphed into the collection of office holders, MSM claques and interest groups we're about to watch tear into Alito in hope of destroying his reputation and chance to serve on the Supreme Court.

Here's news for NY Times editor Bill Keller

( A special welcome to visitors from Betsy's Page and Mudville Gazette open post )

Do bloggers report news or just recycle it?

An MSM journalist recently gave readers New York Times executive editor Bill Keller’s answer: "Bloggers recycle and chew on the news. That's not bad. But it's not enough."

Keller’s answer may be genuine, but it’s hardly accurate.

Bloggers were the lead reporters on the Jayson Blair/ Howell Raines scandal, one of the worst to hit journalism in the last 50 years. And Dan Rather admits bloggers took the lead on what just about everyone but Rather calls “the discredited” CBS 60 Minutes II Texas Air National Guard memo story.

Blog reporting happens every day. It’s often ahead of MSM and more comprehensive as well.

A recent example involves racist and genocidal statements delivered by a scholar at an Oct. 14 forum sponsored in conjunction with Minister Louis Farrahkan’s “Million More Movement” march in Washington. The forum was held on the campus of Howard University and broadcast live by C-SPAN.

MSM appears to have largely ignored the story.

But on Wednesday, Oct. 19, Jon Sanders, an editor at The John Locke Foundation, a center right think tank in Raleigh, North Carolina posted at The Locker Room, the foundation’s blog. Sanders began:

I'm hearing about comments made by a Kamau Kambon on C-SPAN for the "Millions More Movement." Nothing in any mainstream media that I can find so far, but the Freepers are among those discussing it.

In that post and another the following day, Sanders reported that Kambon, a Raleigh bookstore owner and recent faculty member at North Carolina State University, had made a number of racist and genocidal statements. Among them, that black people needed to decide:

how we are going to exterminate white people because that in my estimation is the only conclusion I have come to. We have to exterminate white people off the face of the planet to solve this problem.

Throughout Thursday, Oct 20, Sanders did what good reporters are supposed to do: he got out front on the story and dug. Sanders learned that Kambon had taught at the university as recently as the Spring ’05 semester. Sanders subsequently posted a statement from the university Provost, Larry Nielsen:

"The remarks recently attributed to one of our former employees do not in any way represent the values and standards of the university. This type of speech is counter to any reasoned discussion on the issue of race relations, and is absolutely unacceptable in the NC State community."

On Thursday evening, Mike Adams, a University of North Carolina – Wilmington professor published an online column at Townhall.com in which he summarized the story and gave readers contacts.

On Friday, Oct. 21, MSM was still silent but bloggers were covering the story.

Michelle Malkin told her readers what had happened in a post: "WE HAVE TO EXTERMINATE WHITE PEOPLE".She linked to Sanders and Adams.

Bloggers who live in the Raleigh area joined Sanders on the story. Besides providing excellent summary reports, they added important depth to the story.

For example, while as far as I know Kambon has never publicly made the sorts of statements he made at Howard, it’s widely known in Raleigh that he rejects racial reconciliation. Kambon views race relations in America in terms of blacks versus whites.

So at Betsy’s Page, she asked some very “to the point questions” about how and why NC State hired Kambon.

The Pirate Cove urged readers to contact Raleigh’s major newspaper, The News & Observer, which had failed to report anything on the story.

Right in Raleigh reported that Kambon, in addition to advocating racial genocide was an opponent of the death penalty.

Friday evening, Fox News became the first MSM news organization I’m aware of to report on Kambon’s remarks, something I'm sure will come as no surprise to Bill Keller.

On Saturday, Oct. 22, Confederate Yankee told readers he was sorry to be late getting to the story. He then provided a fine service: A survey of Raleigh area news organizations’ coverage of Kambon’s racist and genocidal remarks.

Also on Saturday, Raleigh’s N&O finally reported the story. But unlike Confederate Yankee, The N&O didn’t tell its readers it was sorry to be late doing so.

The N&O's news story, the only one on Kambon's call for racial genocide it has published, began:

Political Web sites throughout the country are crackling this week in response to statements by a former instructor at N.C. State University, who said blacks must "exterminate white people off the face of the planet."

No explanation was offered for why The N&O and the MSM had been so silent.

There’s more that can be said about blogger reporting on this important story.

But this post, which I’m sending to Editor Keller, ought to give him enough to chew on for now.

If Keller responds, I'll publish his reply in full.

A very good Libby reaction roundup

The Florida Masochist's roundup of newspaper and blog reactions to Scooter Libby's indictment is concise while offering a broad range of opinions.

One of the best lines is William's opener:

After two years of hoping to see Karl Rove frog-marched in a perp walk, liberals got the veep's chief of staff hobbling on crutches.

Take a look at the whole thing. One sharp quote follows another; and they come from left and right as well as some newspapers that still insist their "objective."

MSM influences opinion, policies and war outcomes.

David Boyd linked to military analyst Victor David Hanson's Oct. 27 New York Times op-ed, 2000 Dead, in Context.

Among other things, Hanson notes the influence of war reporting on public opinion which in turn influence war policies and outcomes:

It is conventional wisdom now to praise the amazing accomplishment of June 6, 1944. But a few ex tempore editorial comments from Geraldo Rivera or Ted Koppel, reporting live from the bloody hedgerows where the Allied advance stalled not far from the D-Day beaches - a situation rife with intelligence failures, poor equipment and complete surprise at German tactics - might have forced a public outcry to withdraw the forces from the Normandy "debacle" before it became a "quagmire."

Hanson reminded me of a post I put up following this year's D-Day observances.

Other than a little tweaking to shorten it, here it is.
_____________________________________________

The D-Day anniversary reminded us of what we owe the extraordinary men and women who made our success possible.

It also led me to ask how today's media would have reported the invasion and some other WWII events.

Below is a satire of many MSM news organizations’ contemporary war reporting. All historical references are accurate save two. One, the report of the success of Enigma project which in fact remained a secret until many years after the war. The other is the work of the "peace activist" who ends our "news report."

Now here’s ABC’s Evening News – June 8, 1944

Charles Gibson: “Good evening. We begin tonight with the war news. And there’s plenty of that, including reports of a serious split in the ranks of Allied military leaders.

When we first reported the D-Day invasion, we believed Americans and British military leaders had agreed on the invasion plan. Now we learn that was not the case.

We go first to Linda Douglas at the War Department. Linda, we’re hearing rumors of serious disagreements among Allied military leaders? Any truth to them?”

Douglas: “There certainly is, Charles. A source, who must remain anonymous, told me Eisenhower’s air chief, Leigh-Mallory, strongly opposed the plan to drop paratroops into Normandy during the early hours of D-Day. He feared they couldn’t achieve their objectives and would suffer massive casualties.

Eisenhower, not an airman and with no experience commanding paratroops, went against Leigh-Mallory’s advice and ordered the drop anyway.

Now, although the paratroopers achieved their main objectives, even Ike’s headquarters is admitting many lives were lost.

Gibson: “Well then, Linda, do we know yet who will replace Eisenhower?”

Douglas: “No.”

Gibson “Well, do we at least know when he'll be replaced?”

Douglas: “I’m afraid that might not be soon, Charles. Ike’s boss, General Marshall, is solidly behind him.”

Gibson: “That’s really not too surprising since Eisenhower is a Marshall protégé. Well, thank you, Linda.

Now we go to Terry Moran at the White House. Terry, do we know why President Roosevelt has failed to tell the American people anything about this major split in Allied leadership? He spoke to the nation on D-Day and said nothing about it”

Moran: “That’s right, Charles. And he’s still said nothing. And I’ve got to tell you that just from where I’m standing here on the White House lawn that looks like a really huge blunder.”

Gibson: “And why is that, Terry?”

Moran: “Because it makes you wonder if Roosevelt really knows what’s going on in Normandy.”

Gibson: “Indeed, Terry. ABC News will continue to follow this story.

Now we bring you another report in our series, Your Right to Know. This one concerns a top secret effort to decode German military and diplomatic communications. It’s called the Enigma project.

. George Stephanopoulos is here to explain it to us.

George, can you tell us first whether this Enigma matter is really as important as it seems, or are the Allies exaggerating its importance in order to draw attention away from the quagmire that’s developed in Normandy?

It’s almost 48 hours since the invasion began and they're still not in Germany.”

Stephanopoulos: “Charles, Enigma is really big news. The allies are intercepting and reading communications the Germans thought were secure. They’re doing it in almost real-time”

Gibson: “Thank you, George. Now we go to Berlin where Admiral Karl Donnitz, in charge of German submarine warfare, is standing by.

First, Admiral, thank you for taking time to be with us.

Donnitz: “A pleasure, Mr. Gibson.”

Jennings: “Admiral, I don’t know whether you’ve heard yet, but ABC has just reported the Allies have for some time been intercepting and reading German communications, including those of your submarine fleet.

So if I may, Admiral, I’d like to begin by asking if you would be good enough to give us your reaction to the news. …..Admiral?….We seem to have lost our contact with Berlin.

Well, we’re almost out of time.

Tomorrow night we’ll bring you our Person of the Week. She’s a peace activist who wants the schools in her town to let children wear swastika armbands and learn to goose step so they can better understand children in Germany. But some angry parents and a hostile school board don’t share her dream of a more peaceful world.”