If Ms. Roberts, why not Ms. Grunwald?

Can a wife's views on a public issue(s) tell us anything about what her husband thinks or how he might act?

MSM news organizations seem to be saying, "It depends on who we're talking about."

How else to explain the intense attention being paid to Jane Roberts, wife of Supreme Court nominee Judge John Roberts, while Mandy Grunwald, wife of Time Magazine reporter Matthew Cooper, is virtually ignored?

On July 21, the LA Times ran a major story detailing Jane Roberts' activities as an attorney opposed to abortion. The Times told readers:

A spouse's views normally are not considered relevant in weighing someone's job suitability. But abortion is likely to figure prominently in the Senate debate over John Roberts' nomination. And with his position on the issue unclear, abortion rights supporters expressed concern Wednesday that his wife's views might suggest he also embraced efforts to overturn Roe vs. Wade.

On July 22, a Knight Ridder story about Judge Roberts said:

There are a number of clues suggesting that Roberts - a devout Roman Catholic whose wife does pro bono legal work for the Washington-based anti-abortion group Feminists for Life - personally opposes abortion.

While eager to inform and speculate concerning Jane Roberts' influence on her husband, MSM have been reluctant to even mention that longtime Democratic party activist and Sen. Clinton confidant Mandy Grunwald is Matt Cooper's wife.

I can't recall a single story about Grunwald's possible influence on Cooper in my paper, Raleigh's News&Observer. Has your paper said anything about it?

For sure, there's been no LA Times story that began:

A spouse's views normally are not considered relevant in weighing someone's job suitability. But partisan politics are figuring prominently in the Independent Council's investigation into who disclosed Valerie Palme's CIA employment, with Matthew Cooper a major figure in the investigation. And with Cooper's politics unclear, Republicans and others expressed concern today that his wife's views might suggest Cooper also embraced efforts to overturn Rove.

MSM might explain their silence concerning Grunwald's possible influence on Cooper's reporting by noting that journalists observe standards and ethics that forbid them from letting a spouse's politics influence their reporting. Hence, there's "no story to tell" about Cooper-Grunwald.

But don't attorneys observe standards and ethics that forbid letting a spouse's politics influence them when they argue or judge law? Yet MSM feel there's a Roberts-Roberts story to tell.

Why such different MSM treatment of Jane Roberts and Mandy Grunwald?

I think it’s because most MSM have one standard for reporting on Republicans and another for Democrats.

How else would you explain it?

Latest London bombings: Two questions and comments

It's good to hear the latest terrorist attack in London has done little physical damage.

There will of course be some predictable responses:

1) Who will be the first on Britain's Left to say, "See, more fallout from Iraq, and our teaming up with the Americans?"

There are so many Leftists that make those apologies, it's hard to say who

2) How long will it be before American MSM news organizations run stories quoting terror apologists touting the "Iraq made them do it. And careful not to get too close to the Americans" lines without any mention of people or facts disputing the apologists?

Well, this is Thursday. I'm guessing we'll see the American MSM carrying such stories by Saturday afternoon online and in Sunday's papers.

Stay tuned.

When Democrats demand "more information"

Most observers agree Democrats will seek to slow Judge Roberts' nomination process, hoping that someone somewhere uses the extra time to find a "nomination-killer."

One delay tactic senate judiciary committee Democrats are sure to use is a request for documents Roberts wrote while working in the White House Counsel's office during the Reagan years, and in the Solicitor-General's office during the first Bush presidency. They'll claim, "We can't really evaluate this candidate without them."

Democrats used the tactic when Miquel Estrada, who had served in the Solicitor General's office, was nominated to the appellate court. As expected the White House and Justice Department refused to release the documents, citing their privileged status.

At the time, all seven former solicitors general, four Republicans and three Democrats including Archibald Cox, sent a letter to the committee chair, Sen. Pat Leahy, expressing their opposition to the committee Democrats' request.

"Any attempt to intrude into the Office's highly privileged deliberations would come at the cost of the Solicitor General's ability to defend vigorously the United States' litigation interests -- a cost that also would be borne by Congress itself."

Their letter ended:

"Although we profoundly respect the Senate's duty to evaluate Mr. Estrada's fitness for the federal judiciary, we do not think that the confidentiality and integrity of internal deliberations should be sacrificed in the process."

With Democrats then in the majority, they were able to disregard the former attorneys general's letter and deny Estrada a vote, claiming the government's refusal to release the documents as their reason.

Estrada, who had received the American Bar Association's highest rating by unanimous vote of its committee on judicial nominations, waited 2 years for some resolution. There being none, he asked that his nomination be withdrawn.

The outcome in Roberts' case will be very different. The Democrats will make their documents requests. The White House and Justice will make no comment until they've "read and considered" the requests. There'll be some back-and-forthing which should buy the Democrats a little delay time.

During that relatively brief delay, the former solicitor generals' letter will be a great asset to Roberts' supporters as they explain to the American people why the documents should not be made public.

Then, after an exchange of letters, some press conferences, lots of intemperate speeches from certain senators, and screams from People for the American Way, Republicans will say it's time to move on. Roberts will get his vote.

Republicans are in the majority now. Elections matter.

A facsimile copy of the former attorneys general's letter is here in pdf form.

No wonder Sen. Schumer's upset

Ed Morrissey at Captainsquartersblog.com has an excellent post on the Roberts nomination. Ed notes that New York's Senator Charles Schumer is one of those especially upset with the President's nomination of Justice Roberts for the Supreme Court.

The following may help explain why. It's part of an answer Roberts gave to Schumer during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Roberts nomination to the appellate bench.

My own judicial philosophy begins with an appreciation of the limited role of a judge in our system of divided powers. Judges are not to legislate and are not to execute the laws. . . . My judicial philosophy accordingly insists upon some rigor in ensuring that judges properly confine themselves to the adjudication of the case before them, and seek neither to legislate broadly not to administer the law generally in deciding that case.

Maalox is good for heartburn, Senator

Hat Tips: Michelle Malkin.com and Captainsquartersblog.com

Powerline guys react to Robert's nomination

The attorneys at Powerlineblog.com have a lot to say about Justice Roberts' nomination.

They say it in language non-lawyers can understand. They like the man and admire his professional work. They do a great job of explaining the important cases Roberts has been involved in as a litigator and justice on the D.C. appellate bench.

In case you don't have time to go to Powerline for a while, you should at least enjoy this John Hinderaker paragraph right now:

Pop the champagne corks, conservatives. Roberts is a fantastic choice, a brilliant and bulletproof conservative. And it was fun to see Pat Leahy and Chuck Schumer on television tonight; they looked just awful. After President Bush's terrific, upbeat presentation of Roberts, and Roberts' graceful, brief talk, Leahy and Schumer sounded like they had just dropped in from another planet. They were dour, hateful, and came across as sad and pathetic minions who have been sent on a hopeless mission by their bosses at "People for the American Way.

Cheers!

An excellent Wilson/Rove summary

Looking for an excellent Wilson/Rove summary?

Then read today's lead editorial in the Washington Times. It's detailed, understandable and dispassionate.

But be warned. The editorial's headline, "Knifing Rove, whitewashing Wilson-Palme," suggests it's a fire-breather.

If you have levelheaded friends who don't care for Carl Rove or President Bush and have followed the Wilson/Palme/Rove saga with interest, ask them to read the editorial and point out anything that's not true and fairly stated.

Will it be Justice Priscilla Owen?

Tom Goldstein at The Supreme Court Nomination Blog stand by his prediction that President Bush will nominate Appellate Court Justice Priscilla Owen.

Goldstein also comments and links to an article in The Hill on likely nominees.

Today was my first visit to The Supreme Court Nomination Blog. It's first-rate with many links to sites relevant to the nomination process including The White House and Senate Judiciary sites, interest group sites categorized by Liberal and Conservative, and many more. Take a look.

Hat Tip: Michelle Malkin

Some Novak reporting goes unchallenged

At latimes.com there's a story on the Wilson/Palme tale that's a classic hit piece. Primary targets: Rove and Libby. Objective: Hurt Bush.

But the Tom Hamburger and Peter Wallstein story does provide a surely unintended laugh in this sentence:

(Wilson) said a friend who saw Novak on the street reported that Novak told him, "Wilson is an asshole and his wife works for the CIA."

When Wilson pauses for breath, do you think he'll notice no one's challenging either of Novak findings?

Grand imam's statement is newsworthy

At Gulfnews.com you'll find an article that begins:

The grand imam of Egypt's Al Azhar Mosque, the Sunni world's most prestigious seat of learning, called on the people of Iraq to unite to rid the country of terrorists and urged other countries to help.

"The Iraqis, men, women, children and elderly people should unite and work solidly together to chase those evil terrorists everywhere until Iraq's land is purged of their filth and viciousness," Mohammad Saeed Tantawi said in a statement on Thursday.

"All other countries and individuals should extend help to Iraq to enable its people to exterminate those wantons and despots," Tantawi said.

Why aren't MSM news organizations paying more attention to the grand imam's statement?

Did anyone see it reported in the Raleigh News & Observer?

You can read the whole article here.

Hat Tip: Rightwingnews.com

On Wilson's story: Malkin gives no cover to MSM

Could you believe MSM news organizations are ignoring or underreporting details of the who, how and why of Valerie Palme's outing?

Michelle Malkin posts this morning with a link to an Andrew McCarthy article at NRO online: "Did the CIA 'Out' Valerie Palme?"

McCarthy points to important information regarding Palme that should be getting lots of MSM attention.

Malkin urges us to ask NY Times public editor Byron Calame why the Times isn't reporting on the information McCarthy provides.

Malkin's post has Calame's e-mail and snail mail addresses and phone number. Take a look. Then I think you'll go straight to McCarthy's article.

Outing of Time reporter's wife upsets many

(Welcome Mudville Gazette readers and others. This is a humor piece with some stuff made up. But the matter of Matt Cooper's wife being a Democratic activist and confidant of Senator Clinton is absolutely true; hence the links. I hope you enjoy my "reporting.")

Major MSM news organizations and Democrats are expected to demand an independent council investigation to determine the identity of the person or persons who outed Time Magazine reporter Matt Cooper's wife, Clinton advisor and Democratic strategist Mandy Grunwald.

Neither Cooper nor Grunwald, described by the Washington Post as a "confidante" of Senator Hillary Clinton, was available for comment.

But highly placed MSM reporters and editors, who asked to remain anonymous, say they are shocked and outraged that Cooper's wife's identity was made public.

"We're not dealing here with a case of the public's right to know," one editor said. "Leaking Grunwald's name has jeopardized Cooper's credibility. And there's never a public right to know when what becomes known could hurt a reporter's credibility. Period. End of story."

One person who agreed to comment on the record was former Ambassador Joseph Wilson. He spoke following a news conference held in Senator Charles Schumer's office to announce Wilson's terms for book and movie rights to his autobiography.

"The deliberate and malicious leaking of this now irreparably harmed woman's name is nearly as great a crime as was the leaking of my wife's name," said Wilson.

Wilson pledged to do all he could to assure the appointment of an independent council, adding that if he was not selected for the post, a good choice would be New York Times columnist Paul Krugman.

Hat Tip: Powerlineblog.com

NYT public editor ducks op-ed problem

Michelle Malkin links to NYT public editor Byron Calame's July 17 column which begins:

Upholding the journalistic integrity of The New York Times requires a lot of care.

That care apparently doesn't include responding to e-mails noting factual errors in a NYT op-ed column and requesting an explanation.

I've twice asked Calame to read and respond to my post: New York Times op-ed makes false claims.

The false claims appeared in a June 28 op-ed by Lucian K. Truscott IV in which he agrues that the Army lies to young officers, and therefore has trouble retaining them.

There was a time when the Army did not have a problem retaining young leaders - men like Dwight Eisenhower, George Patton, George Marshall, Omar Bradley and my grandfather, Lucian K. Truscott Jr. Having endured the horrors of World War I trenches, these men did not run headlong out of the Army in the 1920's and 30's when nobody wanted to think of the military, much less pay for it. They had made a pact with each other and with their country, and all sides were going to keep it."

Truscott’s claims that the five future generals “endured the horrors of World War I trenches” and “made a pact with each other” are false, something he, as a West Point grad and grandson of one of the officers who was a friend of the other four, surely knows.

If you're saying to yourself that Eisenhower, Bradley and Lucian K. Truscott Jr., one of World War II's great corps commanders, never went overseas during World War I; and that Marshall never saw combat while he was in France during WWI; and that their biographers have never said the five officers made a pact with one another, you'd be right on all counts.

So how can I get Calame and the Times to acknowledge the false claims presented as facts in an op-ed column?

Please take a look at my post and send along your suggestions.

Thanks, John

Iraq-Al Qaeda connections

NBC News is reporting that Iraq has today taken the first legal step to begin Saddam's trial. The trial will surely involve evidence of Saddam's contacts and cooperation with Al Qaeda.

The current Weekly Standard has a special report, The Mother of All Connections, detailing extensive Saddam-Al Qaeda connections going back to the 1980s. The connections were so strong that the Clinton administration, for example, publicly accused Saddam's Iraq of supplying Al Qaeda with chemical weapons expertise and material.

Palmetto Pundit posts concerning a report ABC News aired in the late 90s detailing Saddam-Al Qaeda connections. He links to audio and video versions as well as related posts by other bloggers.

Unfortunately, the Clinton administration's Saddam-Al Qaeda findings and the ABC News report are now ignored by most MSM news organizations.

Why doesn't ABC's News do an updated report on the Saddam-Al Qaeda connections? It would be timely given that the connections will be brought up during Saddam's trial.

In the meantime, take a look at Palmetto's post.

NBC's Russett plays softball with Time's Cooper

Just watched Tim Russett's NBC Meet the Press interview with Time reporter Matt Cooper concerning Wilson/Plame but mostly Rove. (Transcript will be available later.)

Russett first gave Cooper an open mike. He invited Cooper to read from a story he's written that will appear in tomorrow's Time magazine.

Then Russett began tossing softball questions. For example, "Where do you think this is leading?" He followed that up with other equally challenging questions: "How did you find the grand jury?" and "Will this effect your career?"

I think if Russett had had more time, he might have asked Cooper: "So Matt, will what's happening force you to change your vacation plans?"

MSM interviewer: Maybe we provoke them

Following Australia's announcement that it would send another contingent of military personnel to Afghanistan, Prime Minister John Howard had this exchange with Maxine McKew.

MAXINE McKEW: Prime Minister, if as you say you can't rule out that possibility that we could have potential bombers right here in Australia, what if today's announcement, this redeployment to Afghanistan and our continued presence in Iraq is all the provocation they need?

JOHN HOWARD: Maxine, these people are opposed to what we believe in and what we stand for, far more than what we do. If you imagine that you can buy immunity from fanatics by curling yourself in a ball, apologising for the world - to the world - for who you are and what you stand for and what you believe in, not only is that morally bankrupt, but it's also ineffective. Because fanatics despise a lot of things and the things they despise most is weakness and timidity. There has been plenty of evidence through history that fanatics attack weakness and retreating people even more savagely than they do defiant people.

McKew's question is so naive that you might think Howard was responding to a student's question during a ministerial visit to Outback Intermediate School or some such place.

Alas, Maxine McKew is really a grown-up journalist. Her question was part of an interview aired by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. You can read it here.

As the interview ended, McKew seemed no more aware than when it started. Howard was strong, clear, and smart throughout.

Hat tip: Instapundit.com

London and our real enemies

London Sunday Telegraph editor Matthew d'Ancona reminds us of how some have resisted fighting this war, even claiming Bush and Blair were the "real problems."

The low point was the moment in March when the Tory whips, having forced the Government to insert an automatic expiry date into its Prevention of Terrorism Bill - the "sunset clause" - brayed that they were off to uncork the champagne. To celebrate what, I wondered at the time. Who was their real enemy? Bin Laden - or Blair?

Of course, some are still resisting. But in the aftermath of the London bombings, it's harder to resist.

This week, there were no champagne toasts in the Commons, no games or cheap shots or debating flourishes; only a collective flinch at reality's harshest smack. As the death toll clambered over 50, and the perpetrators were revealed to be British-born suicide bombers, the decadence drained from the system. The political consensus will not last, of course.

But the arguments that follow will be conducted in a new and awful context: namely, the absolute, incontrovertible knowledge, spelt out in the blood of Londoners, that this war is now being waged in our very midst. "It is a war," one Cabinet minister said to me. "People didn't believe that till last Thursday. But they do now."

d'Ancona outlines what needs to be faced by all of us as we prosecute a new kind of war. Here's the start of his outline:

This war, of course, is like nothing that has preceded it, which is why it is so tempting to call it something else: a criminal conspiracy, or a series of isolated atrocities carried out by psychopathic mavericks. And yet the analysis that the President and Prime Minister offered after 9/11 now seems more pertinent than ever.

We face three, inextricably linked threats: from Islamist fanatics, from the rogue states that harbour them, and from the deadly weapons which they seek to acquire. Only three months ago, Kamel Bourgass was jailed for 17 years for plotting to unleash ricin on London's streets. Bourgass failed. On July 7, Hasib Hussain, Shehzad Tanweer, Mohammed Sadique Khan and another man succeeded with conventional explosive. What if it had been the other way round?

Denial's not an option for sensible people, is it?

d'Ancona's column is here. I hope you read it all.

Hat tip: Realclearpolitics.com

Here's The News & Observer

The lead headline in today's Fayetteville Observer:

Car bomb kiiis 18 children

The lead headline in today's Charlotte Observer:

"They are killing children." Outrage, grief follow Iraq blast that kills 27 - mostly kids - as GIs give out candy, toys.

The lead headline in today's Raleigh News & Observer:

Can Canes win fans back? The NHL and players are close to settling pro sports longest labor dispute.

The N&O doesn't mention the terrorist car bombing anywhere on page 1.

Blogger Hugh Hewitt debunks MSM "reporting."

Talk radio host and blogger Hugh Hewitt picked up on a MSM attempt to make the London bombings seem the result of our overthrow of Saddam. Here's part of what Hugh said:

The (Washington)Post report tries to cover for the inane "Iraq is at fault" caucus by noting that:

"Still, the profile of the suspects suggested by investigators fit long-standing warnings by security experts that the greatest potential threat to Britain could come from second-generation Muslims, born here but alienated from British society and perhaps from their own families, and inflamed by Britain's participation in the Iraq war." (This and other bolds by Hewitt)

There is no evidence offered for this astonishing assertion that the Iraq war has anything to do with the massacre. Zero! And none is needed for the true-believers in the MSM. Is this "reporting?" Or cheerleading for an alternative reality where writers feel free to ascribe to murderers their motives?

On Monday, when he was undressing Ron Reagan as the dilettante that young RR is, Christopher Hitchings scolded him:

"I thought I heard you making just before we came on the air, of attributing rationality or a motive to this, and to say that it's about anything but itself, you make a great mistake, and you end up where you ended up, saying that the cause of terrorism is fighting against it, the root cause, I mean." (emphasis added)

Until the MSM grasp this point, they are worse than useless in the GWOT.

Too bad MSM news organizations won't examine what they're doing to imflame people inclined toward sympathy with the terrorists.

Hewitt's July 13 post provides links to the Post and Reagan/Hitchings pieces.

N&O editors' nonsense and others' good sense.

Following the London bombings, the News and Observer editorialized that "deprivation and suffering ... in Palestine and Africa ... feeds terrorism."

Deprivation and suffering feeds terrorism? Nonsense!

Deprivation and suffering don't feed a desire to kill children sitting beside their grandparents or asleep in their beds.

Deprivation and suffering don't feed a desire to kill homosexuals or Christians or Hindus or Muslims.

Deprivation and suffering don't lead people to time bombs so that one explodes minutes after the other, and just as rescue workers arrive to help victims of the first bomb.

Didn't the N&O's editors ever learn about Osama and Arafat's wealth; or that Atta came from a well-to-do family and had a university degree; or that America's best known terrorist, John Walker Lindh, was raised by an upper-middle class California family proud of its liberal orientation?

What would the editors think of a claim that wealth, formal education, liberalism or some combination of the three feeds terrorism? I hope they'd dismiss it as nonsense.

I could say more but I'll spare you for now, and instead offer links to the kind of great good sense I've never found in N&O editorials.

The first link is to Mark Steyn's 7/12 column in London's Daily Telegraph. Here's part of it:

Terrorism ends when the broader culture refuses to tolerate it. There would be few if any suicide bombers in the Middle East if "martyrdom" were not glorified by imams and politicians, if pictures of local "martyrs" were not proudly displayed in West Bank grocery stores, if Muslim banks did not offer special "martyrdom" accounts to the relicts thereof, if schools did not run essay competitions on "Why I want to grow up to be a martyr."

At this point, many readers will be indignantly protesting that this is all the fault of Israeli "occupation," but how does that explain suicide bombings in Afghanistan and Pakistan, where there's not a Zionist oppressor for hundreds of miles? Islam has become the world's pre-eminent incubator of terrorism at its most depraved. Indeed, so far London has experienced only the lighter items on the bill of fare - random bombing of public transport rather than decapitation, child sacrifice and schoolhouse massacres.

The second link is to a London Times report of post-bombing British public opinion survey results on some security issues. The Times speaks of "variations," but it seems to me that British opinion is overwhelming in a one direction.

Here's a bit of the Times article. I hope you read the whole thing.

Those living the furthest away from London were the strongest supporters of tough action. While 95 per cent of Scots support security checks and baggage inspections at stations, 84 per cent in London and the South East back this measure.

Working-class respondents were stronger supporters than the middle classes of giving the police new powers. While 93 per cent of unskilled workers wanted the police to have new powers to arrest people suspected of planning terrorist acts, 79 per cent of professionals and managers did so.

Yes, there's 93 per cent here and 79 per cent there but it all adds up to the Brits, like most of us, not wanting to be killed. And they want their government to make sure their not.

Now if we could only convince some folks here that Americans feel the same way...

Is there bias at the News & Observer?

Raleigh News and Observer editors admit the paper tilts left on its editorial page.

How about its news coverage?

"No tilt or bias there," the editors claim. "Or at least hardly ever."

And what happens when an editor spots something in story selection or reporting that even hints of bias? We're assured the N&O quickly corrects the problem.

But if that's the case, why did the N&O run many stories, including a front-pager, about trips which may have violated U.S. House rules that Republican Rep. Tom DeLay took, without ever running a single story about similarly questionable trips Democratic Rep. Nancy Pelosi took?

Pelosi filed documents about her questionable trips with the appropriate U.S. House agency on June 30, years after she took the trips, and only after they became the subject of speculation in Washington.

The Washington Post has reported on Pelosi's trips but the N&O so far remains silent.

Why does the N&O give Republican DeLay's trips its front page treatment while giving Democrat Pelosi's trips its silent treatment?

And why was there no N&O coverage for almost two weeks of Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin's speech on the U. S. Senate floor comparing America's military serving at Guantanamo to Nazis, Stalinists, and Pol Pot's genocidalists?

The N&O only reported Durbin's remarks as part of an apology he was forced to make two weeks after his initial smear of our military. The N&O ran the story on the last page of the A section.

That from a newspaper whose circulation area includes some of our major military bases.

Is there bias at the News and Observer? The editors say no.

Sure, and I'm a 5 time Olympic gold medalist.

Washington's Times and Post: A difference

Let's compare The Washington Times' and Washington Post's July 11 covererage of The Center for Media and Public Affairs' study of the 3 major TV networks' coverage of President Bush during the first 100 days of his second term.

The Center's study is titled: "No Second Term Media Honeymoon for Bush." Its major finding: By a 2 to 1 margin, network coverage of Bush was negative.

With the lead, Bush finds no friends at networks, The Washington Times ran a 475 story that began:

President Bush just can't win with the broadcast networks.

More than two-thirds of the news stories on ABC, NBC and CBS covering the first 100 days of Mr. Bush's second term were negative, according to an analysis released today by the District-based Center for Media and Public Affairs (CMPA).

It's actually a slight improvement: During the first 100 days of his initial term in office, the coverage was 71 percent negative, according to a similar CMPA study conducted in 2001.

In comparison, President Clinton's first-term news coverage was 59 percent negative in 1993.

The Times provided comments by the center's director, specific examples of negative network coverage, and placed the study's findings within the context of past media Bush-bashing.

But Bush-bashing seems to be entrenched. The press "battered" the president during the 2004 election season, according to a Project for Excellence in Journalism analysis of 817 print and broadcast stories that ran in October.

Mr. Bush "suffered strikingly more negative press coverage than challenger John Kerry," the study stated. "Overall, 59 percent of Bush-dominated stories were clearly negative in nature," while "just 25 percent of Kerry stories were decidedly negative."

The Post, on the other hand, didn't run any news story. But Howard Kurtz did mention the study at the bottom of his Media Notes column. Here's all of what Kurtz said:

President Bush got better network news coverage of the first 100 days of his second term than the first time around -- but only by a hair.

The Center for Media and Public Affairs says that 33 percent of the comments about Bush on the CBS, NBC and ABC evening news were positive earlier this year, compared with 29 percent during his first 100 days. ("NBC Nightly News" was kinder and gentler this year, with 43 percent positive evaluations.) In neither period, the center says, did the president approach the positive coverage accorded Bill Clinton (43 percent) or Bush's father (63 percent).

Findings such as those of the Center for Media and Public Affairs and Project for Excellence in Journalism are extremely important.

The Washington Post should report them more fully and fairly.
___________________________________________________________

There's an excellent blog, PostWatch, that reports on the sort of tilted Post coverage described here. Let's hope PostWatch can help improve the Post. Visit PostWatch regularly to see how they're doing.

Study confirms networks are anti-Bush

The Center for Media and Public Affairs (CMPA) self-describes as "a nonpartisan research and educational organization which conducts scientific studies of the news and entertainment media." It's just released a study of the 3 major TV networks' coverage of the first 100 days of President Bush's second term.

The study's title: "No Second Term Media Honeymoon for Bush." Its major finding: By a 2 to 1 margin, network coverage of Bush was negative.

While disturbing, the study's finding comes as no surprise. Nevertheless, it's important to have MSM's anti-Bush bias documented so data are there to refute people like Sen. Clinton, Bill Moyers and Paul Krugman when they whine about "vast right-wing media conspiracies."

Here's a link to CMPA's home page where you'll see a place to access the study. It's in pdf form.

Advice to the AP on false report corrections

The AP has issued the following correction:

LONDON - In a July 9 story about Prime Minister Tony Blair's comments on overcoming global terrorism, The Associated Press erroneously reported that he spoke of easing the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. Blair did not specifically mention the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in his interview with the British Broadcasting Corp.

Instead of using a weasel phrase like "Blair did not specifically mention the Isreali-Palestinian conflict," the AP should just say, "Blair never mentioned the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The Associated Press made that part up and sincerely regrets having to acknowledge that."

The AP's correction's here.

Hat Tip: Littlegreenfootballs.com

Dennis coverage up to the minute

Mudville Gazette has some of the best Dennis coverage.

Up to the minute reports, interactive graphics, information from weather stations hit by the storm: they're all at Mudville.

Just keep scrolling.

Having tech problems. Hope to be up by Sunday.

The lead pretty much says it.

But I'm putting posts together offline.

If things go well, I'll be up in proper form by Sunday afternoon.

If you know someone at Blogger who can help, please ask them to contact me.

Thanks.

I'll be back.

John

Urgent Request to the Left

STOP FEEDING THE ALLIGATORS!

Powerline's tribute to Admiral Stockdale

While working on a memorial to Admiral James Stockdale, I read Powerlineblog.com John Hinderaker's July 5 tribute.

I can't improve or add to what Hinderaker said. In the circumstances, I doubt he'll mind if I quote him in full. For those wanting to book mark, the link's here.

Readers who go to Powerline will see I added a few paragraph breaks. That was done to provide "pause moments." Also, I didn't reproduce Powerline's photo of Admiral Stockdale because I don't know how to do that.
____________________________________________________________________________________

A Hero Passes

Admiral James Stockdale died today at age 81.

Most people remember Stockdale, if at all, for his performance in the 1992 Vice-Presidential debate with Al Gore and Dan Quayle. At one point Stockdale yielded the floor, confessing that he was "out of ammunition."

Many thought the aging veteran a bit odd. But he was one of this country's great military heroes. In his forties, he flew more than 200 missions in Vietnam before he was finally shot down and captured. He was the highest ranking Naval officer captured by the North Vietnamese.

Stockdale was imprisoned for more than seven years, four of them in solitary confinement, two in leg irons. But while he was imprisoned in the Hanoi Hilton, he became the leader of the American POWs, devised communications systems, and encouraged resistance to the Communists' propaganda efforts.

For this he was tortured repeatedly.

Stockdale was awarded the Medal of Honor. His citation reads, in part:

Citation: For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty while senior naval officer in the Prisoner of War camps of North Vietnam.

Recognized by his captors as the leader in the Prisoners' of War resistance to interrogation and in their refusal to participate in propaganda exploitation, Rear Adm. Stockdale was singled out for interrogation and attendant torture after he was detected in a covert communications attempt.

Sensing the start of another purge, and aware that his earlier efforts at self-disfiguration to dissuade his captors from exploiting him for propaganda purposes had resulted in cruel and agonizing punishment, Rear Adm. Stockdale resolved to make himself a symbol of resistance regardless of personal sacrifice.

He deliberately inflicted a near-mortal wound to his person in order to convince his captors of his willingness to give up his life rather than capitulate. He was subsequently discovered and revived by the North Vietnamese who, convinced of his indomitable spirit, abated in their employment of excessive harassment and torture toward all of the Prisoners of War.

By his heroic action, at great peril to himself, he earned the everlasting gratitude of his fellow prisoners and of his country.

Admiral Stockdale was a student of Greek philosophy and the author of four books. He returned to the Republican Party after his uncharacteristic venture into public life in 1992.

Never has anyone displayed more courage in the service of his country. RIP.

MSM v. Blogger

At Mudville Gazette, Greyhawk calls our attention to two demonstrations, and compares MSM coverage of one with blogger coverage of the other.

It's one of those posts that upset MSM fans for being nothing more than the truth.

Two thoughts on the Supreme Count nomination

The other night I heard "an expert" on TV whose name I didn't catch say:

I think all those people talking about the short list and who's on it don't really know much, and the few people who do know about the list aren't talking.

That sounds about right. Let's nominate him for the short list of "Experts Worth Listening To"

The Democrats keep saying they want the new justice to be just like Justice O'Conner. The President, they claim, has "a responsibility" to appoint someone who will rule on cases as she has and presumably would continue to rule had she stayed on the court.

Well, what if we were already doing what the Democrats are asking, replacing one justice with another likely to be very similar when making decisions? And suppose we had been doing that for more then a 100 years; and, sure enough, one justice was a lot like the justice he or she replaced.

Wouldn't that mean that with the court deciding 8-1 in the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson case to uphold the doctrine of “separate but equal,” that we would still have segregation today, with the court upholding it by an 8-1 vote?

MSM editor on bloggers "who... hate" MSM

In his July 3 column, Raleigh News & Observer public editor Ted Vaden said:

Let's don't get so spooked by the current animus against anonymous sources, much of it fanned by talk show hosts and bloggers who love to hate the "mainstream media," that we deprive readers of information that can't be obtained any other way. (Bold mine)

What Vaden calls "the current animus against anonymous sources" is actually a well-founded and growing public distrust of how MSM sometimes use anonymous sources.

Remember the anonymous source Dan Rather and CBS used as the basis for a story about the President's National Guard service? The public was told by CBS its source was "unimpeachable."

Then, thanks primarily to bloggers' reporting, we learned who CBS's "unimpeachable" source was: longtime Bush-hater and Democratic Party activist Bill Burkett.

We also learned that as a condition of providing what turned out to be fake documents, Burkett demanded CBS arrange for him to speak to Joe Lockhart, a high-ranking staffer in Sen. Kerry's campaign. CBS quickly complied; and Lockhart made sure to call Burkett.

"Unimpeachable" indeed!

The public isn't growing distrustful of MSM's source use because of "bloggers who love to hate" MSM. It's growing distrustful because its watching and listening to both MSM and bloggers, sifting through the facts, and behaving reasonably.

Blogger Ed Driscoll has a terrific post detailing MSM's often testy and defensive animus toward bloggers who are just providing facts MSM should have provided in the first place.

Hat Tip: Glenn Reynolds.

G 8 Summit reporting cum Live-blogging

Powerlineblog says the place to go for G 8 reporting and analysis, including live-blogging is Charmaine Yoest's Reasoned Audacity.

Take me to Gleneagles, Charmaine.

Kelo's Song: "Your Land Is My Land

Reacting to the recent U. S. Supreme Court Kelo decision, the NY Times' John Tierney writes today about what happened over the decades in his native Pittsburgh when government condemned land and neighborhoods for "renewal."

Pittsburgh has been the great pioneer in eminent domain ever since its leaders razed 80 buildings in the 1950s near the riverfront park downtown. They replaced a bustling business district with Gateway Center, an array of bland corporate towers surrounded by the sort of empty plazas that are now considered hopelessly retrograde by urban planners trying to create street life.

At the time, though, the towers and plazas seemed wonderfully modern. Viewed from across the river, the new skyline was a panoramic advertisement for the Pittsburgh Renaissance, which became a national model and inspired Pittsburgh's leaders to go on finding better uses for private land, especially land occupied by blacks.

Bulldozers razed the Lower Hill District, the black neighborhood next to downtown that was famous for its jazz scene (and now famous mostly as a memory in August Wilson's plays). The city built a domed arena that was supposed to be part of a cultural "acropolis," but the rest of the project died. Today, having belatedly realized that downtown would benefit from people living nearby, the city is trying to entice them back to the Hill by building homes there.

Did the government learn anything? Well, Tierney gives us the thinking of Pittsburgh's Mayor.

Yet the mayor still yearns for more acquisitions. He welcomed the Supreme Court decision, telling The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that eminent domain "is a great equalizer when you're having a conversation with people." Well, that's one way to describe the power to take people's property.

The right to confiscate private property gives politicians enormous power and sets developers to currying favor with them. No wonder most politicians are so eager to see their confiscatory power increased.

Tierney hopes a future Supreme Court justice will take a trip to Pittsburgh.

But I think a future Supreme Court justice would have a different view of eminent domain after touring Pittsburgh's neighborhoods, especially those that escaped urban renewal: the old-fashioned business districts with crowded sidewalks and the newly gentrified neighborhoods with renovated homes and converted warehouses. The future justice would quickly see what sets the success stories apart from Gateway Center and East Liberty. No politicians ever seized those homes and businesses for a "better use."

It's a great column. And don't you just love the lead: "Your Land is My Land?"

Michelle Malkin is too kind

New Republic editor Peter Beinart says conservative talk show hosts headed to Iraq are not "real journalists."

Michelle Malkin sets Beinart straight on that, and reminds him of what some "real journalists" at his own magazine have done, including an associate editor fired for fabricating stories.

I think Malkin was too kind. She could have reminded Beinart of journalist Eason Jordan and CNN's deal with Saddam's regime: Access for CNN in exchange for softball reporting.

Who's not qualified to provide coverage from Iraq?

And Malkin didn't mention Dan Rather and CBS's statement that their then anonymous documents source was "unimpeachable," even as they knew Bill Burkett was a longtime Bush-hater and Democratic activist who had demanded access to a top Kerry aide, Joe Lockhart, before turning over the documents to CBS.

How many hundreds of journalists "reported" the Jennin massacre that never happened?

I could go on but today's a holiday.

For Mudville Gazette: No better day

"Happy Fourth of July," to the Greyhawks at Mudville Gazette.

24/7/365, Mudville Gazette serve the needs of our troops, their families and friends, and the rest of us looking for practical ways to support the troops and get information on the war on terrorism free of MSM leftist spin.

One of the Greyhawks' most valuable services involves giving voice to troops in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere through posting. Today, for instance, there are many posts from troops in Iraq discussing their feelings about the Fourth, their activities today, and in one case, setting NBC's Brian Williams straight on America's history.

On Mudville's main page it says:

The Mudville Gazette is the on-line voice of an American warrior and his wife who stands by him, that prefers to see peaceful change render force of arms unnecessary. Until that day they stand fast with those who struggle for freedom, strike for reason, and pray for a better tomorrow.

The Greyhawks do all of that and more.

Visit Mudville Gazette at least once a day.

Owen: Five reasons in 49 words.

I hope President Bush's Supreme Court nominee is current Appellate Court Justice Priscilla Owen.

Here are 5 reasons why:

1) She'll judge; not legislate.

2) As Appellate Court nominee, unanimously awarded ABA's highest rating.

3) Has impressive bipartisan support from home state legal community.

4) Composed and articulate during four years of Democratic attacks.

5) Recently confirmed for an Appellate Court seat, so Senate delay should not be an option and confirmation assured.

What do you think?

Historian Sends Birthday Card to U. S. A.

George Will's column today concerns David McCullough's recently published, 1776, a military history of the American Revolution. McCullough has enormous appreciation for what the revolution's success meant for America and the world. Will calls McCullough's book a birthday card "to his country on this Independence Day"

Here's part of what Will says:

Solid, unpretentious narrative history like "1776" satisfies the healthy human thirst for a ripping good story. McCullough says E.M. Forster, the novelist, efficiently defined a story: If you are told that the king died and then the queen died, that is a sequence of events. If you are told that the king died and then the queen died of grief, that is a story that elicits empathy.

McCullough's two themes in "1776" are that things could have turned out very differently, and that individuals of character can change the destinies of nations. There is a thirst for both themes in this country, which is in a less-than-festive frame of mind on this birthday. It is, therefore, serendipitous that "1776," with 1.35 million copies already in print, sits atop The New York Times best-seller list on Independence Day

Will's columnm also a birthday card to the nation, is here.

The Danger of the Kennedy Quagmire

In a LA Times Op-ed Yale professor David Gelernter says Sen. Ted Kennedy is hurting U.S. resolve (to win in Iraq) by pushing the Vietnam button. Gelernter explains what we need to do to avoid defeat. Part of it is debunking liberal myths about Vietnam.

Gelernter begins:

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy has announced that the Iraq war "has been consistently and grossly mismanaged," and our troops "are now in a seemingly intractable quagmire." "Quagmire" is not a state of war but a state of mind. So the senator's words aren't necessarily wrong, they are merely irresponsible and potentially deadly — to U.S. interests and Middle East freedom.

When U.S. troops landed on Omaha Beach on D-day, they were pinned down by heavy fire and couldn't move. If some wiseguy had grabbed a megaphone and announced, "I hate to tell you, but this invasion has been grossly mismanaged and we are now stuck in a quagmire," he would not have been wrong. But luckily those soldiers decided that Omaha Beach was no quagmire. They fought their way inland and helped liberate Europe.

The U.S. has been stuck in countless potential quagmires in many wars. Each time, we could have announced "this is a quagmire and we're going home." Thank God we didn't — usually.

Granted, Kennedy isn't urging us to run away. He thinks we should switch strategy, make a success of Iraq and then go home. So we tell our troops that Iraq is a quagmire — and expect them to fight on bravely and win nonetheless, as various geniuses futz with the war plan until the senator is satisfied? Not even a Massachusetts liberal could believe that. (I think.)

There's lots more.

Read the whole thing. It's here.

Hat Tips: Betsy's Page and Powerlineblog

More Molly Math Mishaps

This from Bush-hating Molly Ivins' June 28 column:

I think we have alienated our allies and have killed more Iraqis than Saddam Hussein ever did.

No, Ivins' claim can't be true, can it?

So Michelle Malkin posted, "Molly Ivins Said What?" Malkin was sure Ivins made her calculations using Ivins' unique Molly Math system, which treats numbers the same way the Mad Hatter treated logic.

Sure enough, Malkin was right.

Using conventional mathematics, bloggers Arthur Chrenkoff and Confederate Yankee confirmed that Ivins' claim was only possible if Molly Math was used.

Here's some of Chrenkoff's finding:

Really? More than all those dead Kurds of the Anfal Operation and the Shia of the '91 uprising, more than all the other domestic opponents butchered over the years? And I'm not even counting the hundreds of thousands of lives wasted by Saddam in his two wars of aggression

And some of Confederate Yankee's finding (CY contacted Malkin by e-mail so no link. Text at Malkin's post):

Take estimates of 500,000-1 million soldiers and civilians killed in the Iran-Iraq war triggered by Saddam Hussein, add the 400,000 dead Iraqi civilians USAID estimates to be in at least 53 mass graves found in Iraq so far, and then add the very conservative estimate of 22,000 dead as a result of Saddam's invasion of Kuwait=1,422,000.

So much for Ivins' America-bashing claim.

Molly's America "killed more Iraqis than Saddam" hokkum is only the latest example of Molly Math in action.

There are some choice examples at a Powerlineblog post, More Social Security Follies.

Here's one: In September 2003 Ivins' informed her readers that "the economy is in the toilet." At about the same time, the government reported that GDP growth was at 7.2%, the highest rate for any quarter in 20 years.

Be sure to read the whole Powerlineblog post. It will cause everyone but Ivins' devoted readers to laugh and groan.

MSM ignores NBC anchor's remarks while bloggers report and comment

Once again bloggers are covering an important news story MSM news organizations are ignoring. As with Eason Jordan and Linda Foley, this story reflects poorly on one of MSM's own.

In this instance, it's NBC anchor Brian Williams' remarks equating the leaders of the American Revolution with Islamic hard-liner and alleged hostage taker, Iran's president-"elect" Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

For those new to the story or wanting reference points as the story develops and Williams' apologists try to fog over what he said, the following 3 posts provide a mix of fine reporting, commentary that's thoughtful and properly outraged, and links to other bloggers contributing to the story.

At Betsy's Page, she details the story's development leading to Williams' on air remarks. She then provides some historical information Williams either doesn't know or chose to ignore. And she has a pointed question about a "source" Williams used.

Michelle Malkin, along with reporting and commentary, does her usual outstanding job linking to seemingly everyone with something to contribute to the story. Her site must be causing a lot of pain right now at NBC.

Ed Morrissey at Captain's Quarters has the reporting but it's his commentary that really stood out. Here's part of it:

Did Washington bomb women and children indiscriminately in order to chase the British out of North America? Did John Hancock send teenagers with bomb belts into marketplaces to kill as many people as possible to destabilize colonial society? This comparison insults the intelligence and the memory of those who fought on both sides of the Revolutionary War, which (despite what's commonly thought) mostly saw European-style, set-piece combat between uniformed forces.

Williams indulges in the same, tired moral equivalency that led Michael Moore to declare Zarqawi as the Iraqi version of the Minutemen from our war of independence. This minimizes the cruelty and inhumanity of the enemies of freedom that use civilians as their targets while trying to impose tyrannies far worse than anything George III could ever have dreamed in his most feverish illusions. It also continues the generation-long effort to rewrite American history to eliminate the idea of American exceptionalism, where all forms of government are relatively equal and democracy is simply another choice with no special moral value over monarchies or autocracies.

Shame on Brian Williams, and shame on NBC.

Shame indeed.

Palmetto Pundit questions court decision.

If you like bloggers who are civil, thoughtful, and literate, you'll like Palmetto Pundit.

Here's a sample of his work, part of his post on the recent U. S. Supreme Court decision on the Ten Commendments case from Kentucky.

Has a decision really been made here? Displaying the Ten Commandments on Government Property should either be constitutional or unconstitutional, not "it depends". It seems as if the decision whether they are permissible or not depends a great deal on whether the Supreme Court itself would have to be remodeled as a result of the decision.

Palmetto then quotes from the AP account of the decision:

The justices voting on the prevailing side in the Kentucky case left themselves legal wiggle room, saying that some displays inside courthouses - like their own courtroom frieze - would be permissible if they were portrayed neutrally in order to honor the nation's legal history.

The Supreme Court's frieze depicts Moses as well as 17 other figures including Hammurabi, Confucius, Napoleon and Chief Justice John Marshall. Moses' tablets do not have any writing.

Palmetto really cut to the chase, didn't he?

Enjoy your visit with him.

Did News & Observer reporting favor a Democrat?

Scott Pierce at Right in Raleigh is back from vacation and blogging up a storm. Go visit.

Among Scott's many fine posts, my favorite is the one below. I reproduced the whole post. It's short and a "must read" if you're a North Carolian who cares about fair press reporting.

Price vs. Delay

Tom Delay took overseas trips that were paid for by nonprofits with backing from lobbying interests. The N&O ran articles 9 consectutive days on the subject, including front page coverage.

We now learn that Dem. Congressman David Price from N.C. did the same thing. The N&O calls it a "loophole" and buries the article on 5B. And I seriously doubt that they will run anything tomorrow.

No bias there.

The N&O's editors often say, "We cover local news more than national news."

So why is it that Texas congressman Tom Delay's overseas trips are front page news in the N&O while news of similiar overseas trips by its own congressman gets buried in the B section?

I hope Scott e-mails the N&O's public editor, Ted Vaden, and asks about the N&O's reporting on the congressmen's trips.

How about it, Scott?

Raleigh News and Observer Watch - 6/29/05

On June 26 the N&O editorialized concerning North Carolina's high school dropout rate. Here are the first two paragraphs:

North Carolina education officials reported to the federal government that the state's graduation rate for 2002-2003 was 97 percent, the best in the nation. How nice for us.

In reality, the actual graduation rate was a far more modest and worrisome 64 percent. What North Carolina really had was not the nation's best graduation rate but the highest discrepancy between what was reported and what was factual.

No doubt North Carolina's claimed 97 percent graduation rate is inflated.

But how did the N&O determine the state's "actual graduation rate was ...64 percent?"

With students moving in and out of state and country, and some graduating in 3 years while others graduate in 5 or more years, and no national tracking system, how was "old reliable" N&O determine the state's "actual graduation rate?" The editor didn't say.

And how did the N&O determine that among states reporting, North Carolina had "the highest discrepancy between what was reported and what was factual?"

The N&O didn't cite a source for that claim. Readers were left to wonder.

Further into the editorial there was a reference to an education advocacy group, The Education Trust, which "more accurately estimates graduation rates." For North Carolina, it estimates a rate of 64 percent.

Could The Education Trust's estimate of a 64 percent rate have been cited by the N&O as the state's "actual" rate?

If the state's 97 percent claim is inflated and state's "actual" graduation rate is unknown, then what should we make of the N&O's claim that North Carolina had "the highest discrepancy between what was reported and what was factual?"

I'm going to send this post to N&O editorial page editor Steve Ford, and invite him to respond.

I'll also send it to some educators, and invite their responses.

The N&O ended its editorial with this:

The truth, no matter how grim, is what is needed to solve problems. Feel-good fantasies do no one any good.

I know we all agree with that.

Now, let's see what happens. I'll keep you posted.

New York Times op-ed makes false claims

(Reader Note: On July 6, 2005, the New York Times' acknowledged that one of its editors had inserted false information into an op-ed that ran that day in some editions.

My post below also deals with false information in another Times' op-ed.

For clarity's sake, I'll refer to the op-eds by their author's last names: Carter, the op-ed about which the Times has made an acknowledgment; and Truscott, the op-ed about which it has yet to acknowledge and correct the false information it contained.)
__________________________________________________________________________________

Lucian K. Truscott IV is a novelist, screenwriter and West Point grad (’69) who resigned his commission at the time of the Vietnam War.

In a June 28 New York Times op-ed, The Not-So-Long Gray Line, Truscott argues the Army is about to have trouble retaining recent West Point grads for the same reason it had trouble retaining them at the time of Vietnam: The Army lies.

Here's how Truscott puts it:

“The mistake the Army made then is the same mistake it is making now: how can you educate a group of handpicked students at one of the best universities in the world and then treat them as if they are too stupid to know when they have been told a lie?”

He ends with this sentence:

But if you peddle cleverly manipulated talking points to people who trust you not to lie, you won't merely lose them, you'll break their hearts.

With one exception, Truscott seeks to sustain his charge with a mix of impressions and incidents that can't be checked because no names are used.

The exception comes near the end of his op-ed.

There was a time when the Army did not have a problem retaining young leaders - men like Dwight Eisenhower, George Patton, George Marshall, Omar Bradley and my grandfather, Lucian K. Truscott Jr. Having endured the horrors of World War I trenches, these men did not run headlong out of the Army in the 1920's and 30's when nobody wanted to think of the military, much less pay for it. They had made a pact with each other and with their country, and all sides were going to keep it."

Truscott’s claims that the five future generals “endured the horrors of World War I trenches” and “made a pact with each other” are false, something he, as a West Point grad and grandson of one of the officers who was a friend of the other four, surely knows.

Eisenhower, Bradley and Lucian K. Truscott Jr., one of World War II's great corps commanders, never went overseas during World War I.

Eisenhower's lack of combat experience is well-known. Historians who have discussed it include Steve Ambrose in Eisenhower.

Bradley and Truscott’s services during World War I are described in many sources including an Army publication, U. S.Army World War II Corps Commanders: A Composite Biography, which states: "To their dismay… Truscott served in Texas and Arizona along the Mexican border, while Bradley trained troops in Washington state."

Marshall served overseas as a staff officer with the American Expeditionary Force, but did not fight in the trenches. Forest Pogue’s George C. Marshall: Education of a General is an excellent reference.

Patton was the only one of the five to see World War I combat, but it was almost entirely as a tank officer, not in the trenches. Carlo D'Este's Patton: A Genius for War details Patton's World War I service including his being wounded and earning the Distinguished Service Cross.

As for the five having "made a pact with each other," I know of no historian who has ever made that claim. The three generals whose careers I know best - Eisenhower, Patton, and Marshall - were certainly never part of such a pact, formal or informal.

I'm surprised Truscott would make false claims, especially when he's accusing the Army of lying.

And why did the New York Times publish claims that a summer intern with a decent knowledge of U. S. History would immediately question; and then with an hour or so of Internet searching prove false?

I plan to e-mail this post to the Times' public editor, and invite him to respond here.

I'll keep you informed.

UPDATE July 7, 2005: When I wrote the above post on June 29, I obviously didn't consider the possibility that a New York Times' editor would insert false information into an op-ed, as happened with the Carter op-ed.

Now that I know a Times' editor can do such a thing, I acknowledge that the statements in Truscott's op-ed, while still false, may not have been his.

The Times' has a responsibility to tell the public whether the false statements in Truscott's op-ed are his or someone else's.

And if someone else's, whose?

And why were they made?

Since sending my initial post with a request for response to NYT public editor Byron Calame, I've heard nothing from him or the Times' other than a formal acknowledgment.

I'm sending this post with note added to Calame with another request that the Times' respond, now not only to the false information in the Truscott op-ed but to the questions of who put it there, and why.

I'll keep you posted

Anti-military media bias. Copy and save.

A June 28, 2005 Washington Times editorial begins:

When will the network media and other "mainstream" outlets finally stop pretending to be balanced?

The editorial continues:

Last week, for instance, the Big Three -- ABC, NBC and CBS -- had a wonderful time covering White House adviser Karl Rove's remarks at a conservative gathering in New York. As the Media Research Center reported, the day after Mr. Rove gave his talk, ABC's World News Tonight was on the story. CBS and NBC, both on their respective morning and evening shows, joined in a day later.

However, the same three networks didn't bother to mention Sen. Dick Durbin's Senate floor comments from June 14. It wasn't until Mr. Durbin apologized June 21 -- seven days later -- for equating American soldiers to Nazis and other barbaric regimes that ABC's and NBC's evening news programs first aired the original comments. CBS didn't do so until Friday, and then only on its morning program.

Major newspapers weren't much better. While The Washington Post gave front-page coverage to Mr. Rove's comments the day after he said them, it took three days to give an inside story to Mr. Durbin's. The New York Times, USA Today and the Los Angeles Times performed even worse.

The suppression of Mr. Durbin's remarks might come as a surprise since lately the media has been all too eager to publish every outlandish criticism of the American military. But the exception also proves the rule: His indefensible comparison strengthens the critics' point that the left's anti-military bias has reached absurd levels. To publish it would only undermine the media's contention that its own anti-militarism is balanced and refined.

You can read the entire editorial here. It's a copy and save for the next time a well-meaning friend asks, "What anti-military bias?"

Let's end this post by attempting to answer the editorial's question: "When will the network media and other "mainstream" outlets finally stop pretending to be balanced?

My best guess is about the same time the National Council of ChurchesUSA and the National Education Association hold a joint news conference to announce they've been preaching and teaching leftist ideology for decades.

What's yours?

I thought Bill and Hillary. Can you blame me?

I'm scanning and spot a post: The Lincoln Bedroom. Ah, Bill and Hillary; they charged $75 thousand per night, didn't they?

They did but I was wrong about the post. I'll explain.

Who forgets that when then President and Mrs. Clinton occupied the White House, they "rented" the Lincoln bedroom at a $75 thousand per night rate to campaign contributors.

That came to mind when I first saw The Lincoln Bedroom post at Powerlineblog.com.

Reading on, I learned the post concerned a critical symposium The Claremont Review of Books recently sponsored on C.A. Tripp's, The Intimate World of Abraham Lincoln, which claims Lincoln was homosexual.

I should have read more than the post's title before jumping to the Bill and Hillary conclusion. But can you blame me?

Powerline's Lincoln Bedroom Post is here.

The Claremont symposium is linked here.

Traveling today. No blogging 'til Tuesday.

No blogging today but tomorrow I'll post on an error-plagued Raleigh N&O editorial concerning the high school dropout rate in North Carolina.

Also, I'll post concerning some questionable statements the N&O's public editor made about Iraq and Afghanistan war reporting.

Another post will look back at some of the issues raised in prior years be UNC-CH's summer reading program for incoming freshmen.

And there'll be more if I've recovered from travel by then.

Have a nice day.

John

William F. (Bill) Buckley: A Greatest American

Many bloggers recently put together lists of Greatest Americans. Some listed only a few names, others 20 or 25. John Hawkins at Right Wing News put together a list of 100.

Elvis, John Wayne, Davy Crockett, Sam Houston and Steve Jobs all made at least one Greatest list. But William F. (Bill) Buckley didn't.

Bill Buckley’s contributions to America span more than half a century. In 1950, he wrote God and Man at Yale which warned of the growing substitution of ideology for scholarship on university campuses.

Five years later, Buckley founded National Review at a time when, as former NR staffer Chris Weinkopf said, “the world considered conservative intellectuals a genetic impossibility. Just nine years later, NR would prove instrumental in Barry Goldwater's rise to the GOP nomination for president. In 1980, Goldwater protégé Ronald Reagan won the White House, and made National Review mandatory reading for his entire staff."

President Reagan often said it wouldn't have been possible for him to become President without Bill Buckley and NR.

Except for far-right extremists who still resent Buckley's attacks on the conspiracy-driven John Birch Society, is there a conservative or libertarian group active today that doesn't acknowledge a debt to Bill Buckley? Young Americans for Freedom was literally founded in his home. The important research and policy proposals of The Heritage Foundation and American Enterprise Institute are part of Buckley’s legacy. The list can go on.

With words, ideas, and actions, Buckley has unapologetically championed the American creed, often at times when few others were doing so. Boston Globe columnist Jeff Jacoby recently wrote an appreciation of Buckley which included this:

I was a 17-year-old college sophomore when I discovered National Review. A quarter-century later, I no longer recall where I came across my first issue, or what was on its cover. What I do recall, vividly, is the thrill of encountering words and arguments that gave shape and coherence to my own inchoate political beliefs. The importance of individual freedom, the dangers of a too-powerful government, the blessings of a free market, the imperative of fighting communism, the indispensability of faith -- these were themes I encountered again and again in the pages of NR. And, in those pre-Reagan days, almost nowhere else.

Bill Buckley: A Greatest American

I hope visitors will comment on some of Buckley's many other contributions which I've neglected because of time and other tasks.

I previously posted on Buckley's humor. It's here. Others added wonderful comments.

John Hawkins post with his list of 100 Greatest is here.

Below are links to other bloggers who posted lists.

Betsy's Page
Bookworm Room
Conservative Response
Don Singleton
Iowa Voice
Isaac Schrodinger
Res et Rationes
The Daily Blitz
Villainous Company

Raleigh News & Observer Watch - 6/25/05

Today's N&O runs an AP story concerning a U.S. House vote involving funding for The Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), the agency responsible for allocating public funds to PBS and NPR.

The House voted to restore some CPB funding cuts but left a few others in place.

Any error and bias in the story? Read on.

We're told:

The corporation's chairman, Kenneth Y. Tomlinson, a GOP appointee, has contended that public broadcasting is too liberal.(Bold added)

Tomlinson was appointed to the CPB's board of directors in 2000 by then President Clinton. You can check that at CPB's website here. He was elected chairman by his fellow board members. You can check that here.

The story runs with the CPB/PBS/NPR spin that any government funding cuts mean less Bert and Ernie and what some liberals call "informed broadcasting."

"(CPB) still might end up with less money than in its current budget. The legislation would eliminate $23 million for the Ready to Learn program, which subsidizes children's educational programming and distributes learning materials."

There's no mention of why public broadcasting executives say they'll need to cut Ready to Learn while they have enough funds to sponsor the America-bashing BBC's World News on both PBS and NPR.

Here's the story's closer:

Opponents of the cut say public broadcasting provides programming not available elsewhere.

"Do we want to live in a society where pop culture dictates all that is offered on the airwaves?" said Rep. Nita Lowey, D-N.Y.

Pop culture's "all that is offered on the airwaves?"

How about C-SPAN, The History Channel, Arts & Entertainment, The Learning Channel, The Discovery Channel, and North Carolina based WCPE-FM, a 24/7 all classical music station available worldwide on the net?

But the story doesn't mention those stations or many others that broadcast similarly worthwhile programing.

Will we ever read a news story in the N&O that gets beyond a CPB "don't let them take Bert and Ernie away" promo and looks instead at why public broadcasting gives us the BBC and so much other leftist tilt?

The N&O's AP story is here.

For more on BBC bias, including anti-American go here and here.

The Washington Post's two-speed spin cycle

Did you know the Washington Post has a two-speed spin cycle?

Postwatch compares and contrasts WaPo's treatment of Durbin's abominations and Rove's remarks.

It's a don't miss post and all here.

Hat tip to Glenn Reynolds.

Senate Democrats now want "consultation"

Senate Democrats want the President to consult with them on any Supreme Court nominee. They say they want a "fair and reasoned confirmation process."

Really? What happened when the President nominated Miguel Estrada for an Appellate Court seat?

With a few exceptions, Senate Democrats claimed they didn't have enough information to give him an up or down vote. So, they wouldn't allow one.

But the American Bar Association had enough information on Estrada to give him its highest rating, Highly Qualified. The vote by the ABA's committee on judicial nominations was unanimous.

For years, the Democrats refused to confirm Justice Priscilla Owen, even though she too had the ABA's highest rating with a unanimous vote.

A senior Senate Democrat, Tom Harkin, said he couldn't vote for Owen becasue she was "a whacko."

Based on their record, expecting Senate Democrats to respond to consultation in a "fair and reasoned" way is like expecting Senator Clinton to take good care of your law firm's records.

NY Times cheers Kelo. Blogger analyzes.

In yesterday's Kelo decision, the U.S. Supreme Court made it easier for a local government to take away a person's property when the government feels it has a better use for the property than the individual. Here's how CNN began it's Kelo report:

The Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that local governments may seize people's homes and businesses -- even against their will -- for private economic development.

The New York Times editors cheered the Kelo decision which only affects the rights of law-abiding Americans, not terrorists.

But Ed Morrissey at Captain's Quarters isn't cheering. He's provides background to the decision and eviscerates the Times' editorial. Here's part of what Ed says:

I suppose I should not be surprised that the New York Times argues that the ends justify the means, but the fact that they so baldly buy into this shows just how badly they've slid into the statist mindset. What they endorse is the notion that people must live in their homes at the whim of city governments, who only have to justify their seizure by creating a plan that asserts that another private developer will put their land to better use than the homeowner.

Because of Kelo, it's now much easier for developers, ever generous at campaign time, and local pols to cozy up and declare an individual's property is needed for "the public good."

The Times tries to reassure readers by telling them that Justice Anthony Kennedy said Kelo can't be used just to make a "developer or other private party become richer."

Really? Here are two questions for Justice Kennedy and the Times' editors.

Do you know of a single instance of a developer saying the purpose of his development project involving condemnation of private property was only to make him rich or richer?

Aren't such projects always done to make the community more beautiful, provide employment, encourage tourism and strengthen the tax base?

Ed Morrissey's post is here. He links to the NYT editorial.

The CNN report's here.

William F. (Bill) Buckley Greatest American post set for Sunday

I'm sorry I didn't get the Bill Buckley post up this week.

Regulars know that Durbin's abominations and some Raleigh News and Observer nonsense needed quick response posts.

The post putting the case for Buckley's place on a Greatest American list goes up by noon Sunday or my name is Howard Dean.

Meanwhile, if you're a Buckley admirer or just someone with a good sense of humor (Could they really be exclusive categories?), I think you'll enjoy a recent post on Buckley's humor. Vistiors have added some great comments.

Rove only said what Dean and Kerry wanted

(Welcome visitors from Captain's Quarters, Michelle Malkin, Mudville Gazette and other blogs. Look around all you like.)

Some Democrats have worked themselves into a lather over a New York Times report that Carl Rove, Bush's chief political adviser, said in a speech Wednesday that "'liberals saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers.'"

The Dems are demanding Rove "either apologize or resign."

But their Chairman, Howard Dean, said he wanted a jury trial for Osama bin Laden and wouldn't believe him guilty of planning and ordering the 9/11 attrocities until he was convicted by a jury.

And their most recent presidential candidate, Sen. John Kerry, said that the fight against terrorism was "primarily an intelligence and law enforcement operation."

And don't Sens. Kennedy and Durbin and Reps. Pelosi and Conyers believe Americans won't be able to relax until our military does a better job of handing out Korans and serving rice pilaf at Guantanamo?

Rove just spoke the truth.

Raleigh News and Observer columnist gets facts wrong and leaves others out (Part 2)

I posted here concerning some errors of commission and omission in News and Observer political reporter and columnist Rob Christensen’s June 12 column. This post concerns his June 19 column.

According to Christensen, North Carolina Republican U. S. House Rep. Walter B. Jones, who last week co-sponsored a resolution calling for the President to begin troop withdrawal from Iraq beginning no later than October, 2006, is “now questioning the wisdom of the war.”

“Speaking out against the war is a politically risky move for Jones, a six-term congressman representing a district that includes the Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune.,” Christensen says.

Jones has a different view of what he’s doing. He expressed it in a June 15 press release which he posted on his web site. Jones said in part:

In recent days there has been considerable press coverage on my position on America’s presence in Iraq. Despite what some media accounts have said, I want to make it crystal clear that I am NOT in favor of any immediate withdrawal nor do I support setting an end date at which time all troops must be out of Iraq.

That doesn’t sound like someone “speaking out against the war,” does it?

Christensen says nothing about Jones’s press statement. But he does use Jones’ sponsorship of the resolution to suggest Vietnam redux: “When U.S. Sen. B. Everett Jordan of Alamance County turned against the Vietnam War, you knew the tide of public opinion was shifting.”

And that may be the point of the column. But if that is the case, Christensen should make it in his own name, not Jones'.

Christensen’s column is here.
Jones’ June 15 press statement is here.
The resolution Jones’ is co-sponsoring, H. R. Res. 55, is here.

Blogger clips preening Byrd

With the release of his autobiography, Sen. Robert Byrd is trying once again to clean up and fluff the facts of his KKK membership. Sunday, The Washington Post lent a hand with a sympathetic page one story.

But blogger Betsy Newmark at Betsy's Page wasn't taken in by Byrd's' "I had no idea" and WaPo's "We understand" pas de deux. Instead, she clipped the preening Byrd. Here's a sample:

"My only explanation for the entire episode is that I was sorely afflicted with tunnel vision -- a jejune and immature outlook -- seeing only what I wanted to see because I thought the Klan could provide an outlet for my talents and ambitions," Byrd wrote.

Yup, just like joining the Rotary Club. He's just trying to sell his membership as what any ambitious up-and-coming young man would do in the West Virginia of his time. All that racist stuff was besides the point and not really an attraction for young Bobby Byrd.

Yet, he was a leader of the organization. You don't achieve that without being on board with the purpose of the organization. And that was racism, pure and simple. And Byrd flourished in that organization. First he was the "Exalted Cyclops" of his local unit. I kid you not. These names are priceless. Then he became a Kleagle, one of the KKK's leaders in West Virginia.

Betsy's post is here. She links to the WaPo story.

Will the Raleigh News ad Observer review its election endorsement policies?

A Raleigh News and Observer editorial expresses dissatisfaction with the NC General Assembly's budget and tax plans.

Current plans call for increases in both spending and taxes, but not enough to suit the N&O. So it calls for the Governor to ride to the rescue:

When Governor Easley, who should take an active leadership role here, first confronted a multibillion-dollar budget crisis soon after taking office, he set a standard for budget-writing, which was to protect working families. The budget proposals as they now stand are just unacceptable when it comes to meeting that standard, or any standard of common sense and compassion.

At the last election, the N&O enthusiastically endorsed many of the legislators who support the proposals it says are unacceptable by "any standard of common sense and compassion."

Will that cause the N&O to review its election endorsement policies?

The editorial's here.

Would you have quessed right?

Instapundit asks if you can quess who said:

"I call on those who question the motives of the president and his national security advisors to join with the rest of America in presenting a united front to our enemies abroad." (Bold added)

He then links to Ed Driscoll's blog where you'll qet the answer at the June 20 Quote of the Day. There's much more at Ed's blog so be sure to look around.

Pundit says Durbin's critics are the problem

In today's Washington Post, pundit Richard Cohen thinks Sen. Durbin's remarks are maybe a bit poorly phrased but certainly nothing we should get upset about. But he does see one big problem:

The practice of the Bush White House and its supporters is to go right at its critics -- to hell with fairness -- and shout them down. This is what the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth did to John Kerry and this is what the White House itself did to Newsweek. That magazine's story about reported abuses of the Koran at Guantanamo was admittedly wrong on one specific, but we did learn later that the military itself had investigated reports of Koran abuse. There's smoke, if not fire, there.

A few more columns like today's and Cohen will find himself invited to sit with Jimmy Carter and Michael Moore at the '08 Democratic convention.

And he'll belong there.

Raleigh News and Observer columnist gets facts wrong and leaves others out (Part 1)

Raleigh News and Observer political reporter and columnist Rob Christensen's last two columns (June 12 and 19) contain errors of both commission and omission. Today I'll post on his June 12 column; in a few days I'll post on his June 19 column.

Christensen begins his June 12 column with a reference to the U.S. Senate's apology for its failure to ever enact anti-lynching legislation, an action both North Carolina Senators, Elizabeth Dole and Robert Burr, supported. He then discusses lynching and some matters related to it.

Christensen says that because "of opposition from Southern Democrats over the years, the Senate failed to pass about 200 anti-lynching bills." But he fails to mention the legislative form their opposition took: filibusters and threats of them.

He also fails to say that, unimpeded by a filibuster option, the U.S. House of Representatives three times passed anti-lynching legislation which Presidents were willing to sign into law, if only the Senate agreed to the legislation.

But for the use of the filibuster, America would have had anti-lyching and much other civil rights legislation well before World War II. Christensen should have told his readers that.

Christensen did say this: "(North Carolina), a border state with a reputation for moderation, had 68 lynchings, far fewer than most Southern states."

North Carolina a border state? That needs only a one-word response: Virginia.

A "reputation for moderation?" In a discussion of lynching in a state whose history also includes slavery, race riots, and segregation, using the noun "moderation" is inappropriate and insensitive.

North Carolina's history with regard to lynching and race hasn't been "moderate;" it's been terrible.

When telling his readers about NC Democrat Party icon Governor Charles Aycock (1901-05), Christensen says only:

(The Governor) was continuously frustrated by his failure to stop 11 lynchings during his term. He ordered two companies of militia to the town of Emma near Asheville to prevent a lynching and offered rewards for information leading to the conviction of a lyncher.

Christensen tells readers nothing about how, at the turn of the last century, Aycock and N&O editor and owner Josephus Daniels led a white supremacy movement on behalf of the NC Democratic Party. Their goal was to seize power from the then politically dominant alliance of Republicans and blacks who, despite being only a generation removed from slavery, held many public offices and voted in significant numbers, with their vote almost always overwhelmingly Republican.

The strategy Aycock, Daniels, and others devised to seize power had two main thrusts. One involved disenfranchising blacks by legal means when possible, by physical intimidation when necessary. The other involved playing on the racial fears of whites. Aycock ran for Governor under the banner: White Supremacy-Protect Us.

I've one final criticism regarding Christensen's column. It has to do with the column's lead: Free at last from grim past

Perhaps Christensen didn't select it. But whoever did needs to be told the lead just isn't true.

In preparing this post I found Philip Dray's book, At The Hands Of Persons Unknown: The Lynching Of Black America, a reliable and useful history of events that still shock and pain.

Christensen's June 12 column is here.

Downing Street reporter claims he copied, burned and retyped memos. No kidding.

Here we go again. Another MSM story meant to question the credibility of the Bush and Blair administrations is instead raising questions about MSM's competence and integrity.

Captain Ed at Captain's Quarters and Marc at USS Neverdock are on top of the latest twists and turns in the Downing Street memos story, including a reporter's unbelievable claim that he got the original memos from a government source, photocopied them, returned them, had a secretary type copies of the photocopies, and then burned the photocopies.

And then there's the reporter's claim he had the secretary retype the memos not on a computer but on "an old typewriter." I'm not kidding.

Besides reporting, Captain Ed and Marc ask the kinds of questions MSM editors are supposed to ask.

The decision to go to war in Iraq.

In today's Washington Post, national security expert and Carnegie Endowment for International Peace senior associate Robert Kagan offers an informed and carefully reasoned case for the decision to go to war in Iraq. Here's part of what he says:

A more intriguing question is whether a decision not to go to war in 2003 would have produced lasting peace or would only have delayed war until a later date -- as in the 1930s. There is a strong argument to be made that Hussein would have pushed toward confrontation and war at some point, no matter what we did. His Hitler-like megalomania does not seem to be in question. He patiently, brutally pushed his way to power in Iraq, then set about brutally and impatiently making himself the dominant figure in the Middle East and the Persian Gulf, using war and the threat of war as his principal tools. In the early 1980s he invaded Iran and fought it to a bloody standstill for the better part of a decade. No sooner had that war ended than he invaded Kuwait. He fancied himself the new Saladin, much as Napoleon and Hitler had fancied themselves the new Caesar.

Many argue that, even if all this is true, Hussein was nevertheless contained through sanctions and no-fly zones and therefore could be deterred. Many advanced this argument before the war, too, even when they believed with as much certainty as the Bush administration that Hussein did have stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction. And, indeed, although for most Americans the question of whether the war was "worth it" revolves around the failure to discover the stockpiles that most believed he had, nevertheless the key issue, I believe, remains the same as before that failure: whether Hussein could have been contained.

For another fact not in dispute is that Hussein remained keenly interested in and committed to acquiring weapons of mass destruction, that he maintained secretive weapons programs throughout the 1990s and indeed right up until the day of the invasion, and that he was only waiting for the international community to lose interest or stamina so that he could resume his programs unfettered. This is the well-documented, unrefuted -- and unnoticed -- conclusion of both David Kay and Charles Duelfer. Whether Hussein would have eventually succeeded in acquiring these weapons would have depended on other nations' will and ability to stop him.

That is a question to which we will never have a definitive answer, and yet it is critical to any judgment about the merits of the war. The most sensible argument for the invasion was not that Hussein was about to strike the United States or anyone else with a nuclear bomb. It was that containment could not be preserved indefinitely, that Hussein was repeatedly defying the international community and that his defiance appeared to both the Clinton and Bush administrations to be gradually succeeding. He was driving a wedge between the United States and Britain, on one side, which wanted to maintain sanctions and containment, and France, Russia, and China, on the other, which wanted to drop sanctions and normalize relations with him. The main concern of senior officials in both administrations was that, in the words of then-national security adviser Samuel "Sandy" Berger, containment was not "sustainable over the long run."

While Kagan notes that the Bush administration has made mistakes in Iraq, he's clearly not a member of the "It's Nam redux. Blame Bush." club.

You'll find Kagan's article here.