McClatchy Watch Has My Vote

for 2008 Weblogs Awards Best Up And Coming Blog.

McClatchy Watch does an outstanding job covering everything McClatchy from insider trading to the liberal/leftist bias that’s the hallmark of McClatchy “reporting.”

For example, yesterday McClatchy Watch posted - "McClatchy puff piece on Obama nominee quotes only Democrats and Obama donors -- not a single Republican."

It begins - - -

In the latest example of Obama boosterism at McClatchy, reporter Greg Gordon's piece on Obama's nomination of Dawn Johnsen quoted several sources who gave glowing praise for the nominee -- but Gordon neglected to inform readers his sources were all partisan Democrats, and in at least 2 cases, Obama donors.

Gordon did not include a single word from any Republican.

About Dawn Johnsen, Gordon noted she is a law professor who worked several years in the Clinton administration. But Gordon left out some information that McClatchy readers should know about.

Gordon forgot to mention Johnsen is on the board of directors at the American Constitution Society, a self-described "progressive organization" co-founded by Laurence Tribe.

She is also a partisan Democrat. According to this site, Johnsen donated to the Obama and Clinton campaigns. (I see nothing wrong with Johnsen's political contributions, by the way -- Obama is a Democrat so most of his appointees will be Democrats. too.)

But when a reporter presents a source as "non-partisan," readers are entitled to full disclosure. So let's take a look at Gordon's sources.

First up to sing the praises of Dawn Johnsen is Laurence Tribe, the activist law professor from Harvard. Here is Tribe's quote: "One of the refreshing things about Dawn Johnsen's appointment is that she's almost a 180-degree shift from John Yoo and David Addington and (Vice President) Dick Cheney."

According to this site, Tribe donated the maximum $4,600 to Barack Obama in 2008.

More: Tribe actually campaigned for Obama during the election. Aren't readers entitled to know Tribe is a partisan? …

The rest of the post’s here.

I hope you vote for McClatchy Watch as 2008 Best Up and Coming Blog.

You can vote here.

AND you can vote once every 24 hours. So please vote often.

You'll be helping bring about more honest journalism

Worst Duke Hoax/Frame-up Prediction So Far?

The following in Washington Post associate editor and columnist Eugene Robinson’s Apr.25, 2006 column gets my vote - - -

… The university's president, Richard H. Brodhead, may emerge from this awful mess as a true hero, because he seems to understand the need to deal not only with the specific allegations but with the context and the questions as well. (emphasis added)

In an extraordinary letter to the Duke community, . . . Brodhead wrote of "an attitude of arrogant inconsiderateness that reached its peak in the alleged event but that had long preceded it" -- an attitude that, to many outsiders, "has seemed to be the face of Duke." …

It will be fascinating to watch as Duke attempts some educating that parents should have taken care of long ago. ...

- - -

Folks, can any of you think of a worse hoax/frame prediction so far?

Robinson’s entire Apr. 25, 2006 column’s here. You’ll see its race/class/gender-obsessed and fails to confront the central issues of guilt and innocence

I encourage any reader planning to cite Robinson’s column in support of Brodhead’s and the trustee’s “Who knew?” defense of their shameful actions and inactions in response to Mangum’s and Nifong’s lies to first read Thomas Sowell’s column, "Law or Lynch Law."

It too was published Apr. 25, 2006.

Robinson should have known.

Brodhead and the trustees did know.

The Churchill Series - Jan. 7, 2009

(One of a series of weekday posts on the life of Winston S. Churchill.)

Churchill loved baths. Once, he even arranged for a train to stop in the middle of a desert while he got off and took one in a tub set beside the tracks.

Here's how that happened.

In March, 1921, Churchill, then Secretary of State for the Colonies, traveled to the Middle East.

After days of meetings in Cairo, he and his party boarded an overnight train for Jerusalem.

Early the next morning, with the train moving through the desert, Churchill summoned his bodyguard, Inspector Thompson. He wanted Thompson to arrange for his bath.

Thompson, who would become Churchill's longest serving bodyguard, had only recently been assigned to him. He wanted to oblige Churchill but didn't see how he could. He said "everybody on this hot, grubby journey wants a bath (but there is) no bathroom on the train (and) no bath for miles."

Churchill insisted there was at least a tub on board somewhere; and asked Thompson to locate it, which he finally did in the baggage car.

"(It was) a tall-backed, old-fashioned, tin-plate affair," Thompson later said. "The kind used in front of bedroom fireplaces before a bathroom became standard home equipment."

When Thompson told Churchill of his find, he added that there was no hot water on board. So how could Churchill have his bath?

"You're slipping, Thompson," Churchill said. "When you first came to me I thought you were a man of intelligence. Now I doubt it."

With that, he told Thompson to have the engineer stop the train. They would draw hot water from the engine.

Now, let's give the final words to Thompson:

Winston got out of bed. He put on a brightly coloured dressing gown, seized a towel, and led the way along the tracks to the front, where the steaming bathtub lay on the dusty desert.

He smiled up at the engine crew, stripped naked, and fitted himself into the bath.

As Archimedes predicted, most of the water spilled over and was swallowed up by the parched earth.

But (Churchill) got a bath of sorts, dried himself, waved to the crew and sauntered, pink and clean, back to his compartment.

_____________________________________________
Tom Hickman, Churchill's Bodyguard. (pgs. 15-16)

“Real Professional Journalists” At Work

I always smile when reading something like - - “and another reason why you should trust us more than bloggers is we have editors.”

With that in mind, I read at nydailynews.com this headline:

George W. Bush first president in history not to get lifetime Secret Service security detail

Wow!

The Secret Service wasn’t even founded until 1865 and it didn’t begin protecting Presidents until the 20th century.

But no one should blame that headline on a Duke University History Department professor.

A “real professional journalist,” most likely a headline editor, wrote it.

Wait! There’s more.

President George W. Bush’s photo does not accompany the story.

Someone, perhaps a photo editor, selected a photo of W’s father, President George H. W. Bush, to accompany the story.

Nice.

Still more.

The NY Daily News story begins:

President George W. Bush will be the first president in history not to receive lifetime Secret Service protection, according to McClatchey.

Wrong! And it's not what the McClatchy news company said. See here.

Note to “real professional journalists:” Editors don’t assure accuracy.

That job's done by informed, critical, truth-committed readers and listens of news and commentary.

Some of those people are “real professional journalists,” some are their editors, and very many are consumers who comment with corrections and added information.

That later group includes bloggers and citizen journalists.

Note to JinC Regulars: You don’t need me to tell you: “Reader/listener be alert.”

Note to people coming by JinC for the first time or who visit only now and then: I’ve many “editors” who work 24/7/365

They often point out mistakes I make or “add to the story.”

Today's Daily News story reminds me to thank them.

Hat tip: AC

Duke’s Trustee’s “continuing failure”

Duke University’s trustees are facing a series of lawsuits; part of the fallout from their disgraceful actions and inactions in response to events spawned by Crystal Mangum’s and Mike Nifong’s lies.

Their supporters say the trustees can’t be held responsible for what they did and didn’t do because, among other things, they didn’t know what was really going on.

President Richard Brodhead used the “Who knew?” defense in October 2006 during a 60 Minutes interview with the late Ed Bradley.

Remember Brodhead talking about what a confusing time Spring 2006 was because “the facts kept changing?

But by mid-April 2006 fair-minded, intelligent people recognized the lacrosse players were the victims of police and prosecutorial malfeasence. That was the point of Attorney Spilbor Proves Duke's Trustees Knew.

And that was the point of J. Swift’s outstanding comment on the thread of the Spilbor post.

Swift lists almost 30 Raleigh N&O stories that would have led anyone to question what the now disbarred Mike Nifong and certain Durham Police officers and their supervisors were up to.

Swift says - - -

Credible evidence strongly supports the accusation that Gottlieb and Himan obstructed justice, committed and suborned perjury, intimidated witnesses, and ignored, fabricated and withheld evidence.

The complete failure of their supervisors to [properly] oversee their actions in a highly publicized case belies the explanation that “rogue” investigators led by a “rogue” DA abused their authority. Moreover, the DPD’s failure to discipline any officers for their role in this case can be seen to have validated these actions.

Duke’s continuing failure—long after the case has ended and Duke need no longer be concerned about “interfering” in a criminal case—to criticize either Durham or the DPD and to demand an honest investigation of the DPD’s actions can at best be seen as its acceptance of potentially criminal acts in a deliberate frame of its students.

Even when “the facts [are no longer] changing” and Duke has had a full opportunity to consider its reaction, Duke has taken no action to defend its students’ rights.

********************************************************************

Folks, if you haven’t already done so, please take a look at J. Swift’s comment and the rest of the thread here.

Thank you, J. Swift

The Churchill Series - Jan. 6, 2009

(One of a series of weekday posts on the life of Winston S. Churchill.)

The three most powerful WW II allies: America, Britain and Russia.

The Combined Chiefs of Staff Committee: America and Britain.

Why wasn't Russia represented?

In The Grand Alliance Churchill explained it this way:

The Russians were not represented on the Combined Chiefs of Staff Committee (because they) had a far-distant, single, independent front, and there was neither need nor means of Staff integrations.

Of course there was more to it than that, but in this brief post we won't get into whys and wherefores historians have disputed for more than half a century.

We'll move along to something else Churchill said about the Combined Chiefs:

The enjoyment of a common language was of course a supreme advantage in all British and American discussions.

The delays and often partial misunderstandings which occur when interpreters are used were avoided.

There were however differences of expression, which in the early days led to an amusing incident.

The British Staff prepared a paper which they wished to raise as a matter of urgency, and informed their American colleagues that they wished to "table it."

To the American Staff "tabling" a paper meant putting it away in a drawer and forgetting it.

A long and even acrimonious argument ensued before both parties realized that they were agreed on the merits and wanted the same thing.

Whatever the case with Russia, any historian questioning Churchill's "table it" story, need only look up table in The Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary:

table verb [T]

1 UK to suggest something for discussion:

An amendment to the proposal was tabled by Mrs. James.

2 US to delay discussion of a subject:

The suggestion was tabled for discussion at a later date.

With that now cleared up, what do you say to tabling further discussion?

_________________________________________________

Winston S. Churchill, The Grand Alliance. (pgs. 686-689)

The Democrats’ Franken-fraud

Statistician John Lott & Fox News called it on Nov. 10, 2008, less than a week after the election, when they told readers - - -

When voters woke up on Wednesday morning after the election, Senator Norm Coleman led Al Franken by what seemed like a relatively comfortable 725 votes. By Wednesday night, that lead had shrunk to 477.

By Thursday night, it was down to 336. By Friday, it was 239. Late Sunday night, the difference had gone down to just 221 -- a total change over 4 days of 504 votes.

Amazingly, this all has occurred even though there hasn’t even yet been a recount. Just local election officials correcting claimed typos in how the numbers were reported. …

Correcting these typos was claimed to add 435 votes to Franken and take 69 votes from Coleman. Corrections were posted in other races, but they were only a fraction of those for the Senate. … (If you were thinking Democrats and Franken-fraud, isn’t that just what you’d expect? No wonder NPR, the NYT and other Democratic organizations went along with it. – JinC)

Virtually all of Franken’s new votes came from just three out of 4130 precincts, and almost half the gain (246 votes) occurred in one precinct -- Two Harbors, a small town north of Duluth along Lake Superior -- a heavily Democratic precinct where Obama received 64 percent of the vote.

None of the other races had any changes in their vote totals in that precinct. (Does this surprise or upset any Franken supporter? – JinC)

To put this change in perspective, that single precinct’s corrections accounted for a significantly larger net swing in votes between the parties than occurred for all the precincts in the entire state for the presidential, congressional, or state house races. (Well sure. Isn’t that how you steal elections? - - JinC)

The rest of the story’s here.

The Churchill Series - Jan. 5, 2009

(One of a series of weekday posts on the life of Winston S. Churchill.)

Readers Note: Welcome back. I hope you all had a very nice holiday season.

I was delighted recently to hear from Corwin, a long-time friend of this series I hadn't heard from in many months.

Some of you have asked about Defender of the Realm, the working title of what's to be the third and final volume of William Manchester's life of Churchill, which before his death Manchester arranged for another author to complete. I'll have more to say about the work in progress Friday.

The short answer is don't look for Defender's publication any time soon.

To start the 2009 Series with a smile, I've picked a post first published three years ago. I hope you enjoy it.

John
_______________________________________

Did you know Churchill disliked whistling? His aides did and made sure not to whistle when he was around.

But there was a London newsboy who didn’t know about Churchill’s dislike. What’s more, when he learned of it from Churchill himself, the boy didn’t care.

The incident happened one day as Churchill and his bodyguard, Detective Inspector Walter Thompson, were making the short walk from Parliament to 10 Downing Street. As Thompson tells it:

Approaching …(us) was a boy of about thirteen years of age, hands in pockets, newspapers under his arms, whistling loudly and cheerfully.

When the boy drew near, Winston hunched his shoulders, walked towards the boy and said in a stern voice: “Stop that whistling.”

The boy looked up at the Prime Minister with complete unconcern and answered: “Why should I?”

“Because I don’t like it and it’s a horrible noise,” growled Winston.

The boy moved onwards a few steps, then turned round and called out: “Well, you can shut your ears, can’t you?”

With that he walked on.

Winston was completely taken aback , and for a moment he looked furious. Then, as he crossed the road, he began to smile and quietly repeated to himself the words “You can shut your ears, can’t you?” and followed it up with a hearty chuckle.

I think Churchill chuckled because in his mind’s eye he saw something of himself in the boy.
______________________________________________________
Tom Hickman, Churchill's Bodyguard. (pgs, 116-117)

Thr Biggest Problems With Minnesota’s Fraud "Recount"

JinC Regular Ken in Dallas nails two of them when he comments on the thread of Minnesota “recount” looks like a fraud - - -

The two biggest problems with the Minnesota recount is the lack of a verifiable chain of custody and lack of consistency.

You simply cannot have canvassing boards in precincts heavily favoring one candidate all of a sudden finding hundreds of ballots that were "mistakenly" rejected. It’s laughable. There are rules for a recount.

The canvassing board changed from a recount board to a "voter intent" board.

The idea of counting votes without ballots is also a novel idea.

I think most people believe a recount should correct mathematical errors and machine malfunctions. This exercise goes light years beyond that.

There’s another problem I’d add to Ken’s two - - -

The Founders feared and hated what they called “party interests” because, among other things, they knew without ever meeting Sens. Harry Reid, Dick Durbin, Ted Kennedy, Chris Dodd and the like, that such “party before country” Senators would abuse the Senate’s Constitutionally granted powers in order to advance their party’s interests.

And that's just what Reid and his Democratic Party Senators are planning to do in the Frankenfraud case.

Thank you, Ken.

Duke Trustees Watching Larry King On Apr. 10, 2006

would have seen and heard noted defense attorney Paul Geragos tell Larry and his viewers---

GERAGOS: What more do you need. They have pictures and a timeline, they have DNA that says it's not there. The defense lawyers tell you there's not any DNA. They know the fact the women lied through their teeth. Why is this an issue? This is a reject.

(snip)

GERAGOS: The opposite -- I think the idea that they suspended this lacrosse program, that the coach was forced to resign and these three students were presumed guilty, I think it's outrageous.

I don't know why anybody would want to go to a school where the president took that kind of outrageous action, as opposed to getting to the bottom to of this.

What happens -- you know, what if it turns out that this is a false allegation?

What do you do with the coach?

What do you do with the program?

What do you do with the three students?

Who do you go at that point to say, hey, I'm sorry, we just destroyed all your lives?

____________________________________________________

My Comments:

The above is from a transcript of King’s Apr. 10, 2006 Larry King Live.

A few hours before King's show aired, attorneys for the 46 white students on the 2006 Men’s lacrosse team announced the State lab results of DNA testing were negative for all the students.

Nifong’s office, when requesting the DNA testing, had told the court the results would immediately identify those innocent of what we now know was a false charge.

Nifong ignored the DNA results and said he was going on with the case anyway.

On Apr. 17, one week to the day the DNA results were made public (Nifong had known them since Mar. 28), Nifong arranged to have two Duke students indicted in what by then was a transparent frame-up attempt.

Did Duke’s trustees know what was going on by Apr. 17?

They had to unless they were willfully blind.

Hat tip to Anon @ 6:44 on the thread of Attorney Spilbor Proves Duke's Trustees Knew.

Anon provided both the transcript link and Geragos excerpt.

Minnesota “recount” looks like a fraud

An editorial in today’s WSJ begins - - -

Strange things keep happening in Minnesota, where the disputed recount in the Senate race between Norm Coleman and Al Franken may be nearing a dubious outcome.

Thanks to the machinations of Democratic Secretary of State Mark Ritchie and a meek state Canvassing Board, Mr. Franken may emerge as an illegitimate victor.

Mr. Franken started the recount 215 votes behind Senator Coleman, but he now claims a 225-vote lead and suddenly the man who was insisting on "counting every vote" wants to shut the process down.

He's getting help from Mr. Ritchie and his four fellow Canvassing Board members, who have delivered inconsistent rulings and are ignoring glaring problems with the tallies.

Under Minnesota law, election officials are required to make a duplicate ballot if the original is damaged during Election Night counting. Officials are supposed to mark these as "duplicate" and segregate the original ballots.

But it appears some officials may have failed to mark ballots as duplicates, which are now being counted in addition to the originals. This helps explain why more than 25 precincts now have more ballots than voters who signed in to vote. By some estimates this double counting has yielded Mr. Franken an additional 80 to 100 votes. (emphasis added)

There’s more to the editorial before the WSJ concludes - - -

Meanwhile, Minnesota's other Senator, Amy Klobuchar, is already saying her fellow Democrats should seat Mr. Franken when the 111th Congress begins this week if the Canvassing Board certifies him as the winner.

This contradicts Minnesota law, which says the state cannot award a certificate of election if one party contests the results. (emphasis added)

Ms. Klobuchar is trying to create the public perception of a fait accompli, all the better to make Mr. Coleman look like a sore loser and build pressure on him to drop his legal challenge despite the funny recount business. …

But we can't recall a similar recount involving optical scanning machines that has changed so many votes, and in which nearly every crucial decision worked to the advantage of the same candidate.

The Coleman campaign clearly misjudged the politics here, and the apparent willingness of a partisan like Mr. Ritchie to help his preferred candidate, Mr. Franken.

If the Canvassing Board certifies Mr. Franken as the winner based on the current count, it will be anointing a tainted and undeserving Senator.

The entire editorial’s here.

**************************************************************

Comments:

JinC Regulars know that since Election Day I’ve been warning about Minnesota Democratic Secretary of State Richie’s fierce partisanship. He’s been elected with the help of ACORN and George Soros. (See here and here)

It looks like they’re about to get a return on their investment.

I don’t know whether Coleman and his people underestimated the shameless “any means, to hell with the rules” approach Ritchie, Franken and their people would take to what no longer deserves to be called a “recount.”

But it seemed to me that right from the morning after Election Day Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty was either a babe in the woods or willfully blind to what it turned out happened during the “recount.”

For a while there Pawlenty couldn’t seem to say enough nice things about Ritchie, including how “nonpartisan” he was.

Stay tuned.

NYT writer rationalizes for Caroline Kennedy

In today’s NYT Magazine Lisa Belkin engages in a series of rationalizations to convince us Caroline Kennedy is ready to be New York’s next U. S. Senator. Among other things Belkin says:

… Caroline Kennedy is opting in, and as a result, she faces a magnified version of the eyebrows raised whenever women try to return (or, in her far more unusual case, to first enter) the paid work force full time.

Take away the part about her father the president and her uncles the senators, ignore for the moment her Park Avenue address, peel away the talk of the dangers of dynasty and the power of privilege, don’t even touch the question of whether anyone would be picking apart her credentials if it were a male Kennedy who was under consideration — and what is at the core of all this shouting is what, nowadays, counts as experience.

Belkin’s entire column’s here.

**********************************************************

My Comments:

For Belkin to tell readers what Caroline Kennedy is doing is “return[ing]” or seeking to enter “the paid work force full time” is like telling readers a guy who used to play on the office baseball team and now wants to be named Opening Day pitcher for the Yankees is “merely seeking to get back in baseball.”

Kennedy’s not asking to be hired as a law school lecturer or an attorney for the NYT Corporation. She wants to be made a U. S. Senator, one of only two from a state with 20 million people.

If, as Belkin mentions, we take away “the part about her father the president and her uncles the senators,” Kennedy wouldn't be seriously considered as a possible U. S. Senator.

We'd have something like the following:

Staff aide: “Governor Paterson, this resume’s from a woman named Caroline Schlossberg. She’s a law school grad but she’s never practiced. Wealthy. Sent her kids to private schools, but she’s raised lots of money for public schools. Written some books. None of any outstanding law, history or political distinction. Says she’s very interested in politics but she’s often failed to vote.”

Gov. Paterson: “What about the next resume?”

Belkin mustn’t know much about NY politics because she plays the gender card this way: “don’t even touch the question of whether anyone would be picking apart her credentials if it were a male Kennedy.”

But of course some would.

That’s why Caroline’s controversial cousin, the environmentalist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. who’s fighting the green Cape Wind Project that would be built within sight of property he owns, withdrew his name from consideration for the Senate appointment despite being very politically ambitious.

Robert's possible appointment would surely have drawn more fire than Caroline's.

There's something else to keep in mind in terms of criticism of Caroline. I don't think her backers had any idea how poorly she'd perform once she announced she was interested in being appointed.

Her obvious lack of knowledge of issues and her failure to speak out on matters of current public importance are what've drawn so much criticism.

It's not been - you know - because of her gender.

Hat tip to cks who has an excellent response to Belkin on the thread of Write off Caroline's chances? I vote "No"

Atlanta Journal Constitution v. Marietta Daily Journal

In response to Liberal/Leftist Editor Meets Citizen Journalist, RNB commented - - -

In the Atlanta area, we have a de facto competition between these two approaches. The Atlanta Journal Constitution, the 'big' (but rapidly shrinking) metro daily generally allows no comments on articles. When comments are enabled, they are tightly moderated. Letters to the Editor are confined to 150 words.

With the much smaller Marietta Daily Journal, you can comment on ANY article that appears on their site. Comments are moderated but very lively.

Guess which one I look at first in the morning?

*************************************************************

Thanks, RNB, and a question: Can you buy Marietta Daily Journal pom-poms?

A lot of us want to cheer for it.