Responding to Readers & Commenters on July 1, 2008

Folks,

Recently I’ve not responded to comments as often as I’d like.

I'm sorry for that.

The past 10 weeks or so have involved heavy travel and other commitments; the next 10 or so will be the same.

I continue to read the comments and, as you’ve seen, a number of main page posts were prompted by comments one or some of you made or by heads-up you provided.

I thank you for your civil and thoughtful comments.

That said, I’ll try to comment more often on the threads.

I’ve not read all the articles, posts, etc you've linked to, but I’ve set aside time to read some of them this July 4 weekend. It will be a “quite time” for me because everyone in my immediate family except our son and youngest grandson will be out there in the “wide, wide world” far from Durham.

For those of you new to JinC, I’ll say it again: much of the best commentary at this blog is on the threads. Be sure to give them a look.

I hope you keep visiting.

John

What the Swift Boat Vets Actually Said

Jim Geraghty at NRO writes about that today. Here’s part of what Geraghty says, followed by my comments below the star line.

I'm not the first to make this point, but it seems the attacks on John McCain's war service stem from prominent Democrats completely misreading what happened with the Swift Boat Vets for Truth. The Democrats' conventional wisdom is that A) everything the group said was a lie and B) they attacked Kerry's wartime service.

Go back and reread what they charged. (Take a walk down memory lane from the Kerry Spot here, here and here and [NR White House correspondent Byron York’s] assessment of the impact here.)

A lot of [the Swift Vets] stories came down to their word against John Kerry's. Some of the points of contention were inconclusive, and some of the reactions their comments triggered, like convention delegates wearing "purple heart band-aids" on the floor of the convention, were crass. But they scored several major points.

The first was when they pointed out the impossibility of Kerry's story of "Christmas in Cambodia" that was "seared, seared" into his memory. When one of Kerry's oft-cited war stories had such a glaring impossibility at its heart (Richard Nixon wasn't president, and thus couldn't be denying bombing in Cambodia, on Christmas 1968) it raised doubts about all of his other accounts of the war.

Second, no Kerry supporter could dispute the candidate's postwar "Genghis Khan" testimony before Congress, which many Vietnam veterans saw as a betrayal. When it became clear that Kerry was referring to secondhand accounts, and had not himself seen soldiers cutting off heads and ears, many veterans saw that as reckless at best and most likely slander.

I'd argue that this was the Swift Boat Vet argument that really gained traction, and I suspect many voters saw it as a situation that revealed Kerry's character. …

Geraghty’s entire post’s here.

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Comments:

Here are four other things I feel sure helped the Swift Vets “score points:”

1) Dan Rather/CBS’s 60 Minutes episode which used the phony Texas Air National Guard documents to smear the President. Fair-minded citizens quickly understood the Rather/CBS story was a deliberate fraud.

Beside Rather and CBS, the Swiftees looked pretty good to those citizens.

2) Dan Rather’s and CBS News’ false claim, repeated for 10 days, that the anonymous source of the documents was “unimpeachable.” On Sept. 21, 2004 USA Today and other news organizations revealed what Rather and CBS had known all along: their source was long-time Bush-hater and Democratic activist Bill Burkett.

Now the Swiftees looked even better because the key things they were saying were holding up.

3) The Democratic dominated MSM’s frenzied pursuit of evidence as to whether President Bush had, as a National Guard officer during the 1970s, attended a few NG training sessions in Alabama. The Dem/MSM’s unintended message to the public: pay attention to everything these guys did in the service.

That was very bad for Kerry who wanted the public to pay attention to only some things he did in the service and said about the service of our military in Vietnam.

4) Most important of all in my opinion: Kerry’s failure to deliver on his promise to release all his Navy records. It didn’t help him that, despite a huge amount of news suppression by much of MSM, the word got out that Kerry reneaged on his promise after he’d read all his Navy records.

The Swiftees kept reminding the public of that.

That's what I think. What about you?

BTW – Kerry still hasn’t released all his Navy records, has he?

McClatchy League score: Sacbee 12 – N&O 10

Today McClatchy Watch reports “Great News! - - - McClatchy killing fewer trees.” The “A” section of the July 1 Sacramento Bee, McClatchy's hometown flagship newspaper, is “a mere 12 pages.”

McClatchy’s sister paper, the liberal/leftist Raleigh News & Observer, did better in today's "killing fewer trees" contest. It’s July 1 “A” section contains “a mere” 10 pages.

McClatchy Watch also reported McClatchy closed yesterday at a new 52-week low.

McClatchy Watch does an outstanding job tracking the decline of the once thriving and reliable McClatchy news organization that continues drifting left on its news pages while its financial troubles grow.

The Churchill Series - Jun. 30, 2008

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

On October 25, 1951, Churchill, a month shy of his seventy-seventh birthday, led the Conservatives to victory in the General Election. So for a second time King George VI asked Churchill to form a government.

The new Prime Minister immediately set to work at his Hyde Park Gate London home in to form his government. Of course, he asked many of those who’d served with him during WWII to join the new government. One of them was Lord Hastings (“Pug”) Ismay, a close friend who during the war headed the Defense Office.

Ismay had gone to bed and was sleeping when the call came:

I was told that Mr. Churchill wanted to speak to me. There were many people sitting by their telephones that night, hoping, and perhaps praying, that the new Prime Minister might have something to offer them, but these were problems which were no concern of mine.

The conversation was brief.

“Is that you, Pug?”

“Yes, Prime Minister. It’s grand to be able to call you Prime Minister again.”

“I want to see you at once. You aren’t in bed, are you?”

“I’ve been asleep for over an hour.”

“Well, I only want to see you for five minutes.”

I put my head under a cold tap, dressed in record time, and was at 28, Hyde Park Gate within a quarter of an hour of being wakened.

Mr. Churchill was alone in his drawing-room, and told me, without any preliminaries, that he wanted me to be Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations.

I thought that the cold tap had failed to do its work and that I was still dreaming, but Mr. Churchill brushed aside my doubts and hustled me into the dining-room where I found Mr. Eden, Lord Salisbury, Sir Norman Brook, and a bevy of secretaries working away on a variety of drafts.

The years rolled back. It was like old times.

Isn’t Ismay’s account wonderful!

I’ll say more about it in tomorrow’s post.
____________________________________________
Martin Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill: Never Despair, 1945 – 1965 (pgs. 653-654)

Obama’s surrogates attack McCain’s military service

Blog friend Mike Williams writes - - -

Obama surrogate, General Wesley Clark, U.S. Army (Ret.), trashed John McCain’s military service yesterday on CBS’s Face the Nation. Ed Morrissey has the details here.

The mil bloggers are wondering, “When do you move from ‘retired senior officer’ to ‘political hack?’”

At the NRO, Jim Geraghty observes:

After statements by a half-dozen high-profile Democrats and Obama surrogates, you cannot persuade me that there is not a concerted effort on the part of Obama Democrats to criticize McCain on his war record.

George McGovern, Jay Rockefeller, Tom Harkin, Democratic congressional candidate Bill Gillespie, Ed Schultz, Tony McPeak, and now Clark.

Way too many to be coincidence.

We're seeing a lot more derisive comments about McCain's wartime service than we are about Obama's race….

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

Comments:

Senator Obama wants us all to “lay off my wife,” by which he means don’t ask her whether she ever discussed with him what the Anything for Obama media flacks call “the fiery sermons of Rev. Jeremiah Wright,” sermons most Americans would recognize as racist and anti-American.

But his surrogates can go ahead and denigrate Senator McCain’s heroic service to America.

Of course, Obama will be careful to say he has nothing to do with the belittling of McCain’s military service.

He's a new kind of politician who's above any seamy, slimey, shameful stuff.

If you don't believe that, just ask Chicago's Mayor Daley or Obama's long-time friend Tony Rezko.

Raleigh N&O Select isn’t the answer

In March 2006 when the Raleigh News & Observer “broke” what was then called “the Duke lacrosse rape story,” its parent company McClatchy’s stock traded in the mid-40s. At 1 PM ET today, June 30, AOL reported MNI was trading at 6.88. Moody rates McClatchy’s bonds as what’s commonly termed “junk.”

Like all McClatchy papers, the N&O’s engaged in a cost-cutting program which has included seventy recent job cuts, outsourcing, downsizing the paper, and combining with its sister McClatchy paper, the Charlotte Observer, on reporting in such areas as sports and state political news . The N&O’s work in tandem with the Observer is expected to lead soon to job cuts in both those news areas.

But despite all of the cost-cutting measures, the N&O’s and McClatchy’s revenues are falling faster than they can cut costs. Talk of a possible McClatchy bankruptcy is becoming more common.

What to do to stop – or at least slow - the bleeding?

I’ve heard some people at the N&O are asking why the paper should be “giving away” its content at the paper’s Internet site, newsobserver.com? Why not charge for at least some of that content, they’re asking? And why not charge people for using the N&O’s archives?

The short answer to all those questions is: It’s been tried and failed?

In 2005 the New York Times announced that henceforth readers would either have to buy the print edition or pay to read online some of its select content. And every one of us would have to pay to access the Times’ archives.

The Old Gray Lady called her “pay-for-view” program TimesSelect.

For more than a year, the Times’ assured everyone TimesSelect was a huge success.

But the Times’ hype didn’t fool informed people – including advertisers – who knew the principal effect of TimesSelect was to drive people from the Times to other news and information sources.

So it was no real surprise when in September, 2007 the Times announced the demise of TimesSelect in “A Letter to Readers About TimesSelect.” Here’s part of it:

Effective Sept. 19, we are ending TimesSelect. All of our online readers will now be able to read Times columnists, access our archives back to 1987 and enjoy many other TimesSelect features that have been added over the last two years – free.

If you are a paying TimesSelect subscriber, you will receive a prorated refund. For more information, please go to our TimesSelect FAQ.

Why the change?

Since we launched TimesSelect in 2005, the online landscape has altered significantly. Readers increasingly find news through search, as well as through social networks, blogs and other online sources.

In light of this shift, we believe offering unfettered access to New York Times reporting and analysis best serves the interest of our readers, our brand and the long-term vitality of our journalism. We encourage everyone to read our news and opinion – as well as share it, link to it and comment on it.

The Times being the Times, it couldn’t resist ending the letter without some self-flattering claims about itself, including its ill-conceived TimesSelect:

This month we mark the 156th anniversary of the first issue of The New York Times.

Our long, distinguished history is rooted in a commitment to innovation, experimentation and constant change. All three themes were plainly evident in the skillful execution of TimesSelect; they will be on full display as NYTimes.com becomes entirely open.

If Raleigh N&O Select won’t help the paper, are there things the N&O can do to stop – or at least slow – the bleeding short of the job cuts and other draconian measures its been taking?

I think there are. In the coming days and weeks, I’ll be posting on many of them.

The first two posts will examine 1) why it’s to the N&O's benefit for it to decide whether to remain a liberal/leftist oriented publication or become a centrist, straight news reporting organization rather than being the former while claiming to be the latter; and 2) how N&O journalists, particularly editors, should respond to readers with access to the information and transparency the Internet and bloggers have made available to them.

What Justice Scalia had in mind

Excerpts from a crime story at chattanoogan.com:

…The woman said she was driving on E. 17th Street when Beard came riding up on a bicycle and pulled a gold handgun on her. When she refused to get out of the car, he began hitting her in the head with the gun.

He then pulled her out and drove off with her gold 2001 Toyota Corolla.

Police found the woman semi-conscious with severe head injuries. She had to have eight stitches in her head and 10 stitches in her leg, where she was also hit.

Police located Beard at 4724 Tomahawk Dr. and arrested him as he walked out of the residence. He told officers the stolen car was being driven "by one of my goons."

Officers located the vehicle a couple of blocks away on Bella Vista Drive. Blood was found inside the vehicle, and the woman's purse was also inside.

Beard said he threw the gun out of the window while driving through Highland Park. ….

When setting bail for Beard:

…..General Sessions Court Judge Bob Moon said Friday that crime in Chattanooga "has become so rampant that it is no longer possible for the police department to protect our citizens."

He told [the] woman who had been pulled from her car and beaten in the head that she or her mother needed to "purchase a weapon, obtain a gun permit and learn to protect yourself." The woman moved back in with her mother after the May 4 incident on E. 17th Street.

Judge Moon said, "The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that all citizens have a right to purchase a weapon to defend themselves, their families and their homes - unless there is some disqualification that prevents them from owning a weapon." ….

What Judge Moon said reflects an important aspect of what Justice Scalia had in mind when he wrote the Heller decision: The founders wanted innocent citizens to have the means to protect themselves from criminals and others who’d take away their rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

The entire chattanoogan.com story’s here.

Hat tip: Instapundit.com

Dem Rep. Delahunt's "glad [Al Qaeda] can ...see you"

From Gateway Pundit - - -

Ouch!... Major Eric Egland Blasts Al-Qaeda Supporter Bill Delahunt

Major Eric Egland, the founder of Troops Need You, responded to the outrageous remarks by Representative Bill Delahunt (D-Mass), who said on CSPAN that he was "glad (Al Qaeda) can finally see" a certain White House official.

Egland says, "Our troops are risking their lives around the world to fight Al Qaeda, so our government should support them by taking the threat seriously."Amen.

This weekend Major Eric Egland who has gone after Al-Qaeda in places like Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bosnia released this important message responding to Democrat Bill Delahunt:

"I was angry when I heard a US Congressman tell a White House official how glad he was that Al-Qaeda could finally see him on TV. You know, inviting Al-Qaeda to target a fellow American, even sarcastically, is wrong, let alone from the very capital that Al-Qaeda targeted on 9-11. Have we forgotten who the real enemy is?"

Please take action: Call your representative in Congress and demand that Delahunt apologize from the floor of the House for what he did.

Please call now: (202) 224-3121.

Previously:It's Settled Then... Rep. Delahunt (D-MA) Finally Proves That Dems Are Not Just Anti-American-- They're Pro-Al-Qaeda

Newsweek polls now and in 1984

The WSJ’s John Fund the other day:

…Some Democrats claim new polls by Newsweek and the Los Angeles Times showing Sen. McCain trailing by 15 points in each seal the deal on an Obama presidency. But both polls appear to be outliers. Other polls show the race to be close.

Both surveys polled registered, not likely, voters. Normally, only two-thirds of those end up casting ballots, and nonvoters lean Democratic.

Second, Democrats had a 14-point advantage in Newsweek's sample, and a 17-point advantage in the Times poll, with Republicans making up only 22% of respondents. That's an unusually low number. Most other polls have the party ID gap with a significantly smaller Democratic edge. …

Red State reminds us:

The day the Democratic convention ended in San Francisco in 1984, the Newsweek poll showed Walter Mondale 18 points ahead of President Ronald Reagan.

Some people have used the 1984 Newsweek post-convention poll finding to question the current Newsweek and LAT polls.

BUT

From the Sept. 17, 1984 NY Times:

President Reagan and Vice President Bush lead their Democratic opponents, Walter F. Mondale and Geraldine A. Ferraro, by 18 percentage points, a Newsweek magazine poll released Saturday showed.

Among those polled, 57 percent said they will vote for Mr. Reagan compared to 39 percent who prefer Mr. Mondale. (emphasis added)

Some 81 percent of those polled agree with Mr. Mondale that taxes will have to rise next year, but 57 percent say the Republicans will be better able to keep the country prosperous. Only 30 percent believe Mr. Mondale could do the job.

For the Newsweek poll, the Gallup Organization interviewed 1,055 people nationwide by telephone. The margin of error is plus or minus 4 percentage points.

And from uselectionsatlas.org the actual 1984 presidential popular vote:

Reagan 59 percent – Mondale 41 percent (percentages rounded to the nearest whole number)

So what to make of Newsweek’s and the LAT’s recent poll findings?

I’ll go with what Fund said at the start of his column:

Some pundits claim John McCain has no chance of beating Barack Obama. "The current bundle of economic troubles should doom any Republican hoping to succeed George Bush," says NBC's Chris Matthews. "It's almost impossible to believe that another Republican could get elected," insists Katty Kay, the BBC's Washington-based correspondent.

They need to better understand the rhythms of presidential campaigns and show more humility in a year that's been chock full of political surprises.

What about you?

Fund’s entire column’s here; here’s the Red State post; the NYT article; and the uselectionsatlas.org page for the ’84 presidential vote.

Schumer and Scalia on moderation

The following post was first published in Sept. 2005 with the title "The real reason Schumer opposes Roberts?"
_____________________________________

Among my favorite Roberts nomination op-eds is one I read today by Raymond J. Keating, chief economist for the Small Business & Entrepreneurship Council.

Here's part of what Keating says:

New York's senior senator [Chuck Schumer] portrays himself as moderation's great defender.

In a 2003 letter Schumer arrogantly advised Bush on how to pick a Supreme Court justice: "I start by encouraging you to use the same principles that guide me in evaluating judicial nominees. I consider three criteria: excellence, diversity and moderation."

Speaking in California last week, according to The Associated Press, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia made an excellent point:

"Now the Senate is looking for moderate judges, mainstream judges.

What in the world is a moderate interpretation of a constitutional text? Halfway between what it says and what we'd like it to say?"

Is it any wonder Schumer will oppose Roberts, someone he fears may turn out to be another Scalia.

None of us like people who call attention to our arrogance and ignorance.

Keating's entire op-ed is here.

Hat Tip: Realclearpolitics.com

Scalia cited ancient British right

A friend emailed:

There’s an interesting dimension to the 2nd Amendment arguments that unfortunately I can’t find the link to. Briefly, the thread goes that an individual’s right to bear arms (hunting and self-defense I’d guess) predates the Constitution, and that the Founding Fathers were very particular about protecting what they called inalienable rights (like life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness) from infringement by government.

I think that is what this OP-FOR blogger is getting at here.

In his latest column George Will notes Justice Scalia cited what my friend most likely had in mind when he referred to "an individual's right to bear arms [that] predates the Constitution[.]

...In an opinion written by Justice Antonin Scalia, who believes that construing the Constitution should begin, and often end, with analysis of what the text meant to its authors, the court affirmed the individual right. Scalia cited the ancient British right -- deemed a pre-existing, inherent, natural right, not one created by government -- of individuals to own arms as protection against tyrannical government and life's other hazards. Scalia also cited American state constitutional protections of the right to arms, protections written contemporaneously with the drafting of the Second Amendment. (emphasis added)...

Will's entire column's here.

Comments, anyone?

McClatchy reporter leaves out important Obama statement

McClatchy reporter Margaret Talev begins “Is Obama turning out to be just another politician?”

From the beginning, Barack Obama's special appeal was his vow to remain an idealistic outsider, courageous and optimistic, and never to shift his positions for political expediency, or become captive of the Inside-the-Beltway intelligentsia, or kiss up to special interests and big money donors.

In recent weeks, though, Obama has done all those things.

He abandoned public campaign financing after years of championing it. Backed a compromise on wiretap legislation that gives telecom companies retroactive immunity for helping the government conduct spying without warrants. Dumped his controversial pastor of two decades — then his church — after saying he could no more abandon the pastor than abandon his own grandmother. …

The rest of Talev’s article is here.

Talev’s sentence:

"Dumped his controversial pastor of two decades — then his church — after saying he could no more abandon the pastor than abandon his own grandmother."

is of course a reference to what Senator Obama said in his March 18 speech in Philadelphia about no more being able to disown his grandmother who made racists remarks that had made him cringe than he could disown his pastor of 20 years, Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

But it wasn’t only his grandmother Obama said he could no more disown than Wright. Just before describing his grandmother as a racist, Obama said he could no more disown the black community than disown Wright. (emphasis added)

From the full text of Obama’s speech, here’s the paragraph in which he speaks about his inability to disown the black community, Wright and his grandmother:

I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother - a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.

What if instead of referencing his grandmother, Talev and her McClatchy editors reference Obama’s statement he could no more disown the black community than disown Wright.

In that case, in place of:

“Dumped his controversial pastor of two decades — then his church — after saying he could no more abandon the pastor than abandon his own grandmother.”

Talev's article would have read:

“Dumped his controversial pastor of two decades — then his church — after saying he could no more abandon the pastor than abandon his own black community.”

I think there’s quite a difference between the impact those two sentences would have on most readers.

If you told me Talev and her editors thought of that, I wouldn’t doubt it.

Final thought - It's so ironic Talev's article is titled “Is Obama turning out to be just another politician?” given Obama finally "dumped" Wright after he said Obama was "just another politician."

Dem congressman's disgraceful conduct. See it yourself.

What follows are parts of Powerline's Scott Johnson's post "Delahunt's Disgrace."

John
________________________________________

Here is the exchange between Rep. William Delahunt (D, Mass.) and Cheney chief of staff David Addington at the House committee hearing broadcast live on C-SPAN on Thursday as accurately recounted by CNN:

Delahunt asked repeatedly whether the topic of waterboarding, a controversial interrogation technique that simulates drowning, ever came up.

Addington replied that he could not discuss that because "al Qaeda may watch C-SPAN."

"Right," Delahunt responded. "Well, I'm sure they are watching, and I'm glad they finally have the chance to see you, Mr. Addington."

"Yeah, I'm sure you're pleased," Addington shot back.

"Given your penchant for being unobtrusive," Delahunt said of Addington's ability to stay behind the scenes.

In this exchange, Delahunt identifies himself with a vicious enemy of the United States, implicitly acknowledges the danger they pose to officials such as Addington and professes his satisfaction that he has helped set the enemy's sights on Addington. Delahunt is both a fool and a reprobate. He does not understand that his good will toward al Qaeda means nothing to them, and his encouragement of their mission is simply vile.

As FOX News reports, Delahunt claimed that "under no circumstances" was he implying during the hearing that al Qaeda may target Addington. "That’s absurd. That was not my intent," he told FOX News. "And I’m sure Mr. Addington knows that was not my intent." Addington, however, knows no such thing. He knows that Delahunt was freely expressing his hatred of the Bush administration in a manner that was both disgusting and disgraceful. ...

Johnson's entire post's here.

______________________________________

Now, folks, thanks to You Tube you can see and judge what Delahunt did for yourselves:

Hat tip: Mike Williams

On D. C. gun ban, news orgs tank for Obama

Major news organizations continue to work hard to help elect Senator Barack Obama President.

The following excerpts are from Washington Post media critc Howard Kurtz’s “Pretzel Logic” report. My comments follow below the star line.

… Regardless of what you think of the merits of yesterday's Supreme Court ruling overturning the capital's handgun law, it seems to me we're entitled to a clear position by the presumed Democratic nominee. And I'm a bit confused about how the confusion came about.

Here's how the Illinois senator handled the issue with the Chicago Tribune just last November:

"The campaign of Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama said that he ' . . . believes that we can recognize and respect the rights of law-abiding gun owners and the right of local communities to enact common sense laws to combat violence and save lives. Obama believes the D.C. handgun law is constitutional.' " (all emphasis added)

Kind of a flat statement.

And here's what ABC reported yesterday: " 'That statement was obviously an inartful attempt to explain the Senator's consistent position,' Obama spokesman Bill Burton tells ABC News."

Inartful indeed.

But even though the earlier Obama quote and the "inartful" comment have been bouncing around the Net for 24 hours, I'm not seeing any reference to them in the morning papers.

Most do what the New York Times did: "Mr. Obama, who like Mr. McCain has been on record as supporting the individual-rights view, said the ruling would 'provide much-needed guidance to local jurisdictions across the country.' "

Supporting the individual-rights view? Not in November.

Even the Tribune--the very paper that the Obama camp told he supported the gun ban--makes no reference to the November interview. Instead: "Democrat Barack Obama offered a guarded response Thursday to the Supreme Court ruling striking down the District of Columbia's prohibition on handguns and sidestepped providing a view on the 32-year-old local gun ban. Republican rival John McCain's campaign accused him of an 'incredible flip-flop' on gun control."

So McCain accuses Obama of a flip-flop, and the Trib can't check the clips to tell readers whether there's some basis in fact for the charge?

USA Today takes the same tack:

"In a conference call put together by McCain's campaign, Republican Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas said . . . that Obama has been changing his position on the gun issue and said the Democratic senator has done some 'incredible flip-flopping' on key issue."

And? And? That's all we get? He said/he said journalism?

Even if you wanted to maintain that it wasn't really a flip-flop, what about giving the readers the facts?

The rest of Kurtz’s report is here.

Star line

Comments:

So what about giving readers the facts? Don’t news organizations like the NYT, Chi. Trib. and USA Today insist that’s what they do?

Yes, that's what they claim. But as Kurtz’s report makes clear, they didn’t report Obama’s unequivocal support last November for the D. C. hand gun ban.

The reason seems obvious: Obama’s support for the ban will hurt him in the presidential election.

For months now "Elect-Obama" news organizations have been ignoring, downplaying and distorting news which will hurt the Senator's election chances.

Kurtz's report calls attention to only latest examples of “Anything for Obama” journalism.

They’re part of a long series which include reporting Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s history of racist and anti-American pronouncements as mere “snippets” Obama’s opponents were “taking out of context.”

Has an MSM reporter ever asked Obama: “Senator, we all know you say you were never in church anytime Rev. Wright made one of his ‘controversial’ sermons. But you’ve never explained how you could be a member of the church for 20 years and not hear from other church members, including, Sir, Ms. Obama, what Rev. Wright was saying. When are you going to do that?”

I commend Kurtz for calling attention to the failures of major news organizations to report the simple truth about Obama’s position on the D. C. gun ban.

Hat tips to: Realclearpolitics.com, Archer 05 and AC.

The Churchill Series - Jun. 27, 2008

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

In yesterday’s post I asked if anyone knew about whom Churchill said: “If you wanted nothing done, he was your man.”

I thank a knowledgeable commenter who provided the answer:

On Conservative politician and Prime Minister 1902-06 Arthur Balfour: "If you wanted nothing done, Arthur Balfour was the best man for the task. There was no equal to him."

Balfour held a number of government offices including the premiership. We remember him today mostly for his issuance when Foreign Secretary in 1917 of what we call the Balfour Declaration, which promised Jews a homeland in Palestine.

The commenter provided a link to a Churchill site where you can find many Churchill quotes.

It was at that site I found the following:

On the deeply religious, teetotal, austere and clean living socialist Chancellor of the Exchequer, Stafford Cripps, after being told of Cripps's decision to give up smoking: "Too bad - that was his last contact with humanity."

And on another occasion: "He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire."

From memory I’ll offer a few other barbs Churchill tossed Cripps way. I’ll put them in quotation marks and am confident of their substance, but I wouldn’t bet the ranch I have Churchill’s words exactly as he said them.

Nodding in Cripps direction Churchill once told a companion: “There but for the grace of God goes God.”

During WW II an equipment problem forced Churchill and his party to make an emergency landing at a remote airfield in the North African desert. Perspiring in the intense heat and surveying the desert landscape, Churchill remarked: “God, how Cripps would love this place.”

I hope you all have a nice weekend.

John

Hat tipping JinC Heller commenters

All of you who’ve been commenting here pre- and post-Heller on our Second Amendment right to bear arms will see in George Mason University School of Law Professor David E. Bernstein's post below concordance with the central point you've all made.

Bernstein published his post at Volokh Conspiracy this afternoon.

I’m posting it in full because of its intrinsic value, the interest it'll have for many JinC visitors, and as a “hat tip” to those of you who commented re: Heller.

You’ve added to the blog, and provided much of value to others who’ll visit and read here.

Now Professor Bernstein’s post - - -

LIBERAL AND CONSERVATIVE JUSTICES ON INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS:

The Supreme Court's decision in District of Columbia v. Heller, upholding the Second Amendment right of individuals to own firearms, should finally lay to rest the widespread myth that the defining difference between liberal and conservative justices is that the former support "individual rights" and "civil liberties," while the latter routinely defer to government assertions of authority.

The Heller dissent presents the remarkable spectacle of four liberal Supreme Court justices tying themselves into an intellectual knot to narrow the protections the Bill of Rights provides. Or perhaps it's not as remarkable as we've been led to think.

So begins my opinion piece published at Cato.org. I then discuss areas in which the conservative Justices have taken a broader view of individual rights than the liberal Justices--commercial speech, expressive association, election-related speech, property rights, racial preferences, free exercise of religion, "hate speech"--and conclude:

There are many ideological differences between the conservative and liberal justices on the Supreme Court. But a consistent, stronger liberal devotion to supporting individual rights and civil liberties against assertions of government power isn't one of them.

Can Obama make the Clintons look scrupulous?

First, the beginning of Charles Krauthammer’s column today; then my comments below the star line.

Krauthammer begins - - -

"To be clear: Barack will support a filibuster of any bill that includes retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies."

-- Obama spokesman Bill Burton, Oct. 24, 2007

That was then: Democratic primaries to be won, netroot lefties to be seduced. With all that (and Hillary Clinton) out of the way, Obama now says he'll vote in favor of the new FISA bill that gives the telecom companies blanket immunity for post-Sept. 11 eavesdropping.

Back then, in the yesteryear of primary season, he thoroughly trashed the North American Free Trade Agreement, pledging to force a renegotiation, take "the hammer" to Canada and Mexico and threaten unilateral abrogation.

Today the hammer is holstered. Obama calls his previous NAFTA rhetoric "overheated" and essentially endorses what one of his senior economic advisers privately told the Canadians: The anti-trade stuff was nothing more than populist posturing.

Nor is there much left of his primary season pledge to meet "without preconditions" with Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. There will be "preparations," you see, which are being spun by his aides into the functional equivalent of preconditions.

Obama's long march to the center has begun.

The rest of Krauthammer’s column is here.

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Comments:

Senator Obama’s supporters seem to be taking his contradictions and reversals of things he’s previously said in stride. It’s as if they expect him to be duplicitous even on some of the most important matters in his life and in public governance.

So they’re not upset he said he could no more disown Rev. Wright than he could “disown the black community” just a few weeks before he disowned Wright. Not even the black community’s upset.

Obamaites who a few months ago hailed Obama’s pledge to use public financing of his presidential campaign so he wouldn’t be beholding to special interests now cheer Obama’s decision to take hundreds of millions from those special interests.
And on it goes.

Obama’s supporters remind me of those Duke professors who supported for more than a year Mike Nifong and his transparent frame-up attempt.

Like Obama’s supporters , each time Nifong flip-flopped his supporters continued to cheer him on. DNA would prove who was guilty and who was innocent. But wait! That was last week. This week its “they used condoms.” Well, whatever it takes to keep Mike going.

It’s the same with Obama.

Krauthammer ends his column with:

Not a flinch. Not a flicker. Not a hint of shame. By the time he's finished, Obama will have made the Clintons look scrupulous.

Make the Clintons look scrupulous?

A year ago – even three months ago – I wouldn’t have believed that possible.

But now? Who knows?

They say Obama can do things no other Chicago politician’s ever done.

If Obama can sit in Wright’s church for 20 years without hearing Wright’s racism and anti-Americanism, maybe he really can make the Clintons look scrupulous.

What do Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton think? And are they next in line for makeovers?

Justice Scalia and my wife’s aunt

When I think about our Second Amendment right to bear arms, I often think of one of my wife’s aunts.

I thought of her especially yesterday when I read accounts of the Supreme Court’s Heller decision which contained the following from Justice Scalia’s opinion for the majority:

“The handgun ban amounts to a prohibition of an entire class of ‘arms’ that is overwhelmingly chosen by American society for that lawful purpose. The prohibition extends, moreover, to the home, where the need for defense of self, family, and property is most acute.

Under any of the standards of scrutiny that we have applied to enumerated constitutional rights, banning from the home ‘the most preferred firearm in the nation to ‘keep’ and use for protection of one’s home and family,’ would fail constitutional muster.” (56,57)

Aunt Amy was 80, a widow, and living alone. One night she was awoken by what sounded like broken glass. She realized someone was entering her home.

As she later recounted, she was terrified but able to reach for the pistol on her bedside table. She heard footsteps coming down the hallway that led to her bedroom. She remembered hollering something, but she couldn’t recall what.

The footsteps kept coming, She fired a bullet through her bedroom door and heard someone running away down the hall.

Then she called the cops.

They came, as did some of her children and grandchildren who lived nearby.

There was the usual police search for evidence of the break-in and Aunt Amy had to give a statement to police, provide proof of her right to have the gun, etc.

The officer in charge didn’t know Aunt Amy personally, but he knew she was well known in the moderate size city where she’d lived all her live and been a community leader.

The officer, who Aunt Amy said was "very nice," told her that while the incident report was a public document, he felt sure he’d be able to persuade the media to ignore it.

Aunt Amy told the officer she didn’t want that. She wanted the incident to get as much attention as possible. She wanted everyone to know she had a gun by her beside and could use it. She said the press and TV could come and take pictures if they liked.

The officer said OK, that’s how it would be. He also told her he didn’t think she’d have to worry about any break-ins for quite a while.

And it turned out that way. Aunt Amy lived on another five years in her house without incident.

If she was here, Aunt Amy would be cheering Justice Scalia today.

Zimbabwe this fraud “election day”

The AP reports on what it calls "Zimbabwe’s 1-candidate runoff."

VOA ledes with “EU: Zimbabwe's Runoff Vote a Meaningless Sham."

BBC World News just headlined: "Voters snub 'sham' Zimbabwe poll"

At the WaPo-Newsweek blog PostGlobal under the lede "Hold South Africa responsible for Zimbabwe’s mess," journalist Njoroge Wachai posted today an op-ed which friends pointed out to me as making more sense about Zimbabwe’s problems than most of what we read in the Western press. Here’s some of what Wachai’s saying, followed by my brief comments below the star line.

…Considering the manner in which Mugabe is thumbing his nose at the international community, including the UN, it’s unlikely that Zimbabweans, who are already terrified of challenging this dictator, can sort out the mess in their country on their own. International intervention is necessary, from anyone who purports to care about democracy and human rights.

This possibility, unfortunately, is being fervently opposed by none other than Zimbabwe’s powerful neighbor - South Africa. South Africa stands accused of deliberate dereliction of its duty to solve the Zimbabwe crisis.

South Africa has betrayed Zimbabweans by handling Mugabe with children’s gloves. Its president, Thabo Mbeki, has refused to speak forcefully and firmly against Mugabe even while he encourages his supporters to kill and main innocent Zimbabweans.

South Africa’s soft handling of the Zimbabwean situation is perplexing. South Africa has time and again demonstrated its readiness to pick fights with countries willing to speak for millions of Zimbabweans, whom Mugabe and his thugs continue to terrorize.

Mbeki has been massaging Mugabe to talk peace instead of demanding that he stop making a mockery of democracy. He has adopted a wink-wink strategy in resolving the Zimbabwean crisis. At one time, he discounts the existence of a crisis in Zimbabwe. At another time, he lies to the world that he’s doing everything he can to bring peace to Zimbabwe.

When countries such as the U.S., Britain, Italy, France, Germany, Canada, and Australia demand Mugabe respect the Zimbabwean people’s right to choose a president, Mbeki declares they’re ill-suited for the job because they’re outsiders.

When outrage towards Mugabe reaches a crescendo, South Africa -- through the African National Congress (ANC) -- warns against international intervention. It goes further to tie such calls to the dark era of colonization. This is how the ANC puts it: “No colonial power in Africa, least of all Britain in its colony of ‘Rhodesia’, ever demonstrated any respect for these (democratic and human rights) principles.”
What a flawed argument.

What do relics of colonialism have to do with Mugabe’s refusal to accede to an electoral defeat?

Invoking “colonialism” is a diversionary ploy. South Africa and Mugabe hope this colonial legacy will force other African countries to temper their criticism of Zimbabwe. But the world isn’t full of nincompoops. (Let’s hope not. - JinC)

Had the world listened to Mbeki and Mugabe, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Liberia, Sierra Leone, Bosnia, and Haiti -- all of which owe their political stability to outside intervention -- would still be burning today.

Perhaps the world is mistaken to think that South Africa is a model of democracy in Africa. Fourteen years is too short a time to make such a conclusion.

South Africa, through its discredited and ineffective quiet democracy, has failed to persuade Mugabe to postpone elections. Now that Mugabe has defied Mbeki, what next?

Grass will certainly grow beneath our feet if we wait for Mbeki to produce a resolution to the Zimbabwean crisis. It’s time the world looked elsewhere.

Already, many African countries have condemned Zimbabwe. The African Union (AU), still, can move mountains without South Africa. It can, for instance, refuse to recognize Mugabe. Countries disenchanted with Mugabe can even severe diplomatic ties with Zimbabwe until a free and fair election is held.

Now is the time to remind Mugabe that he’s a dark horse.

Njoroge’s entire op-ed post’s here.
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Comments:

Given my limited knowledge of “the situation on the ground,” Njoroge’s words can speak here for themselves except I’ll add people who I respect and who know something about “the ground” say Njoroge’s gotten to the heart of the matter by pointing the finger at Mbaki and South Africa.

They also say he’s performing a brave and crucial service for Zimbabweans by tossing down the gauntlet to those African leaders who shout “colonialism” as an excuse to keep Western nations from joining with those African nations which have the will and ability to bring about desperately needed changes in Zimbabwe.

More soon on Zimbabwe

Hat tip to you all who have provided information and commentary on Zimbabwe, most especially Danvers who’s “on the ground.”

The Churchill Series - Jun. 26, 2008

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

The barbs went back and forth during Churchill’s public life.

Remember this well known one he tossed in the direction of Labour Party leader and his successor as PM Clement Attlee: “A very humble man with much to be humble about?"

His friend F. E. Smith (later Lord Chancellor) said: "Winston spends half his days preparing his impromptu remarks.

When Churchill heard it, he laughed and for years afterwards repeated it to others.

Of Prime Minister Ramsay Macdonald, Churchill said: "He has the gift of compressing the largest number of words into the smallest amount of thought."

About Lawrence of Arabia: "He had the art of backing uneasily into the limelight"?

Churchill often got as good as he gave. About his history of the First World War, a political opponent, Sir Samual Hoare, said: "Winston's written an enormous book all about himself and called it "The World Crisis"?

Now a question - who was Churchill referring to when he said: "If you wanted nothing done, he was your man.

The barb is unforgettable, but for the life of me I can't remember its target.
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The Attlee quote and "he was your man" are from memory. The other three are found here at the Churchill Centre