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.