KERRY TO THE RESCUE

KERRY TO THE RESCUE
via Instapundit

Troubled by the possible shuttering of his hometown paper, Sen. John Kerry reached out to the Boston Globe on Tuesday, then called for Senate hearings to address the woes of the nation's print media.

"America's newspapers are struggling to survive, and while there will be serious consequences in terms of the lives and financial security of the employees involved, including hundreds at the Globe, there will also be serious consequences for our democracy where diversity of opinion and strong debate are paramount," Mr. Kerry said.

Maybe Kerry should read the Internet where real diversity of opinion resides. He knows that any paper saved by the government will become a mouthpiece for government intervention and that is just what he wants.

Rashid Khalidi

The LA Times refuses release the tape.

It seems increasingly true that Chicago style politics has morphed from being merely corrupt to being quite radically anti-American. Chicago is not Obama's hometown but a place he chose and feel's comfortable with. He wasn't a crusader for change there.

As measured as he is in discourse, his political roots are with one shady character after another. These people from his past do not fit the narrative the press has written about Obama and Obama's involvement with these people is treated as peripheral part of his rise. But who are the moderates in Chicago that were a bigger influence on him?

And if Obama was not an agent for change in Chicago, isn't it possible that the Chicago model is what he wants to bring to America?

The media doesn't seem the least bit interested in how Obama might actually govern outside of the flowery talk we get on the campaign trail. This latest example of his anti-American associates brings nothing but a yawn to the media who wants to pin Ted Stevens to Sarah Palin.

Palin's name is listed on 2003 incorporation papers of the "Ted Stevens Excellence in Public Service, Inc.," a 527 group that could raise unlimited funds from corporate donors.

Palin's relationship with Alaska's senior senator may be one of the more complicated aspects of her new position as Sen. John McCain's running mate; Stevens was indicted in July 2008 on seven counts of corruption.

Palin, an anti-corruption crusader in Alaska, had called on Stevens to be open about the issues behind the investigation. But she also held a joint news conference with him in July, before he was indicted, to make clear she had not abandoned him politically.

Stevens had been helpful to Palin during her run for governor, swooping in with a last moment endorsement. And the two filmed a campaign commercial together to highlight Stevens's endorsement of Palin during the 2006 race.

But Stevens is exactly like Old Man Daley from Chicago, merely corrupt without being anti-American. Why is he such a big story? And between Palin and Obama who has stood up to that kind of corruption. Palin has not been shown to have gained personally from Stevens corruption, but their relationship remains complicated to the press.

Take Tony Rezko, the least anti-American of Obama's shady associations. The Chicago Sun Times goes to pains to let Obama off the hook in the relationship.

A few months after Obama became a U.S. senator, he and Rezko's wife, Rita, bought adjacent pieces of property from a doctor in Chicago's Kenwood neighborhood -- a deal that has dogged Obama the last two years. The doctor sold the mansion to Obama for $1.65 million -- $300,000 below the asking price. Rezko's wife paid full price -- $625,000 -- for the adjacent vacant lot. The deals closed in June 2005. Six months later, Obama paid Rezko's wife $104,500 for a strip of her land, so he could have a bigger yard. At the time, it had been widely reported that Tony Rezko was under federal investigation. Questioned later about the timing of the Rezko deal, Obama called it "boneheaded" because people might think the Rezkos had done him a favor.

The Times just lets it lie there without comment. It's not even complicated just boneheaded. Obama is just an idiot like GW Bush, so naive to the money men and terrorists in his circle, but so brilliant and nuanced at all other times.

Gee, Wally, I didn't realize that Rezko and his wife saving me $300,000 on the house was such a problem. Well, Beav, don't do it again or I'll have to slug ya, you bonehead.

THE QUESTIONS BROKAW WON'T ASK

Watch the video here.

I don't watch local news(maybe I should), but Barbara West of Orlando's ABC affiliate asks Biden the kind of questions we've been waiting for from the national media.

The Obama spokesperson issued this statement about the interview:

"There's nothing wrong with tough questions, but reporters have the very important job of sharing the truth with the public -- not misleading the American people with false information.

What part of the interview was misleading and false information? If spreading the wealth around is not Marxist who was the first to suggest it?

This is what Biden said to the Marx query?

He's not spreading the wealth around but giving the middle class a chance to get back the tax breaks they use to have?

What?!?!?!?! Obama is on record saying "Spread the wealth around." Biden is pretending it never happened thus acknowledging the political damage. What tax breaks did the middle class ever have that weren't the gift of Republicans?

People making $1.4 million dollars, good decent people, are going to get a new $87 billion tax cut, a new one on top of last year.

How could they get a new one with a Democrat Congress?

We think the people (millionaires aren't people) should be getting that tax break. Not continue to distribute that wealth up. We think middle class tax payers should get a tax break. That's what we think. It's a ridiculous comparison in all due respect.

Biden laughed off the Marxist quote and then went on to become a character in Orwell's 1984 explaining that redistribution is the act of letting people keep their own money.

Also his quote implies the logical fallacy that anything the wealthy keep prevents the middle class from keeping theirs. Why can't everyone keep what they make, Biden?

Here's the Obama Capaign weighing in:

Senator Biden handled the interview well; however, the anchor was completely unprofessional. Senator Biden's wife is not running for elected office, and there are many other stations in the Orlando television market that would gladly conduct a respectful and factual interview with her."

"This cancellation is non-negotiable, and further opportunities for your station to interview with this campaign are unlikely, at best for the duration of the remaining days until the election."

This refers to their losing an upcoming interview with Mrs. Biden as punishment implying that their interview would be disrespectful with her. Did they disrespect Biden?

The reaction demonstrates their expectations of the Main Stream Media and how one little interview makes it all unravel.

WRONG TODAY, RIGHT TOMORROW

Coming home from the gym tonight I was listening to ABC news at the convention and they actually described Sarah Palin as the VP nominee and the mother of a pregnant 17 year-old daughter. There wasn’t even any context or discussion about it. They just needed to get it in.

Is there suddenly a stigma behind teenage sex? ABC didn’t seem to have much problem showing Terri Hatcher’s teenage daughter lose her virginity on Desperate Housewives. I remember Hatcher being rather powerless and it didn’t lead to any discussion about morality. The networks don’t pass judgment on any number of shows that display casual sexuality, the kind that leads kids to think it’s glamorous and expected of them.

They save their judgment for a mother that has to deal with their sliding scale of morality.


************************TV NETWORK MEMO***************

For the week, TV networks will be adopting a Victorian morality. Beginning next week and continuing until the second Tuesday in November, the networks will be practicing a duality, in which all prime time shows will be displaying current Hollywood mores while the news divisions will remain with the Victorians. In the likelihood that the Obama or Biden families face some sort of discretion, the networks reserve the right to bounce from one morality to another.

************************END MEMO*************************

HILARY’S LOST OPPORTUNITY

With the Democrat Convention beginning tonight there is a hint of justice that hasn’t been much discussed even by political pundits. The Clintons rode into Washington almost 16 years ago. It doesn’t seem like a longtime ago, but it is the equivalent to when Barry Goldwater lost and Ronald Reagan won.

It wasn’t enough for the Clintons to occupy the White House. They also needed to occupy the moral high ground. These children of the 1960s were going to right the wrongs of their parents and grandparents except when they were useful as some sort of prop so that Clinton could refer to himself as a child of WWII or the Depression or whatever real challenge his parents generation lived through, he skipped the hard road. His cabinet would look like America, meaning that he would scrape three deep to get a female Attorney General, going all the way to a Miami prosecutor. If you were a minority and a female, the staff would refer to you as a twofer. Jocelyn Elders was the most famous of the twofers. Now it was Clinton’s right to pick who he wanted and let Congress decide if they were qualified, but it did no honor to those chosen to say they were considered for their looks. Isn’t that just what Gloria Steinem didn’t want?

The Clintons brought a lot of baggage into 2008. They probably didn’t think that their “looks like America” stance would be anything but a positive. After all, they were here to let you nominate the first female president. But what happened? Hilary has always been a smart political ideologue and she saw it as her strength. And she decided to run a campaign based on experience and the issues, two things decidedly not superficial. But along comes the guy who just looks like he should be President according to their standard. He’s warm and she’s cold. He’s new and she’d old. But even more important, he comes from a demographic background more victimized than hers, a background less represented in society.

How many times do you think during the debates that Hilary wanted to blurt out that Democrats were choosing symbols over substance? Yeah, and who taught them that? And when would Democrats ever get another chance after all these years of having the radical likes of Sharpton and Jackson and Maxine Watters spoiling things?

Hilary had her opportunity it 2004 and she skipped it hoping for a wide open race in 2008. She did everything right, even sending her operatives down to Iowa to get the dour Kerry nominated. You could make a case that Hilary’s pragmatic approach to the war could have beat Bush in 2004. She would have easily won the nomination in that crowd, but she ducked it.

The Clintons brought identity politics into the mainstream and finally poetic justice makes them a victim of it.

OLYMPICS OBSERVATIONS

Is there a better story than Nastia Liukin winning the Gold medal in the all-around? Her parents are former Soviet gymnasts who fled the country at their first opportunity. The kid looks Russian and sounds so American. They chose to be Americans to determine their own lives and their daughter honored their adopted country. Bela Karolyi has been honoring his country since his defection here in the early 1980s. I can think of no better contrast between an American-by-choice and a born-American than Bela Karolyi cheering Nastia in the studio next to an uncomfortable Bob Costas.

What’s impressive is that she won despite the bias against her. It was obvious in the first two rotations that the Chinese team only needed to show up to get a score whereas every slight American error was compounded in the minds of the judges. The uneven bars were a big frustration. And yet Nastia and Shawn Johnson came back and nailed the horse and the floor and even the judges couldn’t stop them.

I didn’t see the team Gymnastics event, but I read the stories of how the suspected gamesmanship from the Chinese. My friend Sean -- the citizen of the world guy -- felt that it was wrong of them to complain, but as I pointed out, the real mistake was allowing a totalitarian country to host the Olympics. Why should we think that they believe in any measure of equity? Oh sure, the country jails bloggers and blackmails Yahoo, but they’re choir boys when it comes to running sporting events.

Now China did a fine job with opening ceremonies, the facilities look great, and the Chinese athletes have been much more gracious than the Soviets of old, but they haven’t earned the honor. Yes we do business with them, but like that scene in Godfather II where the old guy tells Michael – “Your father did business with Hyman Roth, but your father never trusted Hyman Roth!” You invite them to the Olympics so that their people can get a glimpse of freedom, but you don’t reward a country with full membership to the International community until they respect the rights of their own citizens.

One more thing on gymnastic scoring . . . How does a person with a daughter stand it? The kids have been doing gymnastics since they could walk and it all comes down to some anti-American bias. I think it would be my tendency to push them toward a sport with an objective winner.

But what makes the Olympics great is that we get to meet such great Americans. You certainly don’t meet them in the media. And you wouldn’t even meet them now except NBC paid a ton of money to televise the Olympics and can only make that money back by showcasing American contests. I can almost hear crotchety old Frank Deford bemoaning it on his Wednesday NPR segment.

THE OLYMPICS THUS FAR

I had no plans to watch the Olympics, but I tuned into the opening ceremonies for the heck of it. Nothing else was on TV. Part pageantry and part Triumph of the Will. It was both an impressive demonstration and a reminder of how China wants to be a worthy rival on the world stage. The way the Chinese have been competitive in so many events shows the determination. And yet, how much of their prowess is the vacuum left by the Eastern Block nations?

During female gymnastics on Sunday, Romania was competing and they showed Nadia in the stands all grown up. The commentator lamented that the Romanian program was no where near as good as it used to be. They have lost their greatness and such. A girl on the team made a pretty big mistake on her routine and when she returned the coach hugged her. The announcer said that they never would have hugged her for that routine in the old days. Yeah, in the old days it was off the gulag. Imagine a couple of Mississippi farmers lamenting in the 1880s that they use to have a great cotton picking program here some years back and they can’t figure out what happened.

Sports are great. Life is tough and sports teach that there are winners and losers. But the Soviets and their allies used sports as a form of war. That they could create and train the world best athletes was supposed to represent how greatness could only be achieved through the loss of personal freedom. Jimmy Carter made us wonder if the Soviets were right. It took the 1980 U.S. Hockey team to teach us differently. The former satellites have different priorities today. The kids on that team have no memory of communism or the collective mechanism that delivered Nadia. To a person so focused on gymnastics it probably looks like a great loss. But a great many Romanians are better off as a result of the same thing that makes their gymnasts stink. The Romanians could be great once again, but it’s not the same priority anymore. It will take individuals in that nation who can step up. If they were to do so it would be more significant than any medal they won before.

I like the production that NBC is putting on. Bob Costas is underused at NBC with no baseball and seeing him is always a pleasure. I suspect too that it was his idea to bring Cris Collinsworth over for feature stories. Collinsworth is a unique guy who always seems happy and yet pulls no punches when talking about football. It was a pleasure to see him show up. It has also been a pleasure not to see Keith Olbermann. I cringed when Costas invited him into the Sunday night broadcasts and maybe I wasn't the only one. I thought Costas was great in his interview with Bush too. For a guy who covers sports he seemed quite knowledgeable about the issues and he asked Bush questions that were tough yet respectful. Bush too was at his best. He is not a good speech maker but he quite good off the cuff. For instance, Costas asked if he pressed the Chinese on their human rights record. Bush replied that he doesn't need the Olympics for that. He presses them every time he sees them.

I have been staying up too late and watching every event. Phelps is a great story and that relay win on Sunday was tremendous. I wanted to jump off the couch.

I watched volleyball, cycling, gymnastics, fencing, basketball and even soccer. I have already watched more than Athens and Sydney combined. It somehow seems important since China is an up and coming nation and potential rival. The Chinese athletes themselves have been quite gracious unlike the Soviets and that has made the whole thing more enjoyable too.

It was another great night for the Americans. Despite losing two big players to injury, the men's gymnastics team won bronze in the all-around. And Natalie Coughlin's teary singing of the National Anthem after winning gold in the backstroke was the most touching Olympic moments I have seen this time around.

BARACK CAN SAY, BUT CAN YOU?

It is interesting to listen to Barack Obama discuss a subject that when others have brought it up, they have been called "racist" or "traitors." From the Associated Press:

CHICAGO — Barack Obama celebrated Father’s Day by calling on black fathers, who he said are “missing from too many lives and too many homes,” to become active in raising their children.

“They have abandoned their responsibilities, acting like boys instead of men. And the foundations of our families are weaker because of it,” the Democratic presidential candidate said Sunday at a largely black church in his hometown.

Reminding the congregation of his firsthand experience growing up without a father, Obama said he was lucky to have loving grandparents who helped his mother. He got support, second chances and scholarships that helped him get an education. Obama’s father left when he was 2.

“A lot of children don’t get those chances. There is no margin for error in their lives,” said Obama, an Illinois senator.

“I resolved many years ago that it was my obligation to break the cycle — that if I could be anything in life, I would be a good father to my girls,” added Obama, whose daughters, Sasha and Malia, and his wife, Michelle, watched from the audience.

In my first child development class in my Doctoral program we read a terrible book entitled, "There are No Fathers Here" about the plight of two young boys in the intercity Chicago housing projects (now which have been torn down). After reading the book and being a new father I simply asked myself, "Where is their father?" It seemed to me that my own sons would have been in an equally dire situation had I abandoned them at birth. However, through hardwork, family support and committment to my responsibilities, my sons are thriving. When I brought this fact up in class, I was nearly kicked out of school for my obvious "racist" ideas. Wow! It's nice to be proven correct, even if it is 15 years after the fact. What I was saying and what Barack is saying now, are about the same, in fact Barack Obama is even more harsh than I was.

Recently, Juan Williams NPR commentator in his book "Enough: The Phony Leaders, Dead-End Movements, and Culture of Failure That Are Undermining Black America--and What We Can Do About It " comments about this issue. Bill Cosby also had much to say on this subject at the NAACP meeting last year and was labeled a "traitor."

So how is it that Obama is now being cheered for his "leadership" on this issue?

THE NOBLE SAVAGES

One of South America's few remaining uncontacted indigenous tribes has been spotted and photographed on the border between Brazil and Peru.

The Brazilian government says it took the images to prove the tribe exists and help protect its land.

Survival International says that although this particular group is increasing in number, others in the area are at risk from illegal logging.

Isn't the real risk that they are living in the stone age?

They show tribe members outside thatched huts, surrounded by the dense jungle, pointing bows and arrows up at the camera.

"We did the overflight to show their houses, to show they are there, to show they exist," the group quoted Jose Carlos dos Reis Meirelles Junior, an official in the Brazilian government's Indian affairs department, as saying.

"This is very important because there are some who doubt their existence."

We're treating them like some rare animal instead of human beings.

He described the threats to such tribes and their land as "a monumental crime against the natural world" and "further testimony to the complete irrationality with which we, the 'civilised' ones, treat the world".

I love the quotes around civilized. We're the strange ones getting the most out of natural resources and curing diseases and such. Ah, if we only had the vision to live naked to the elements with our bows and arrows.

REGULATE MY RIGHTS

Hilary Clinton was asked about the D.C. gun ban and whether she agreed. She said that local areas should be able to make their own regulations. Her answer needed a follow-up. Senator Clinton, do you think that localities should also be allowed to regulate 1st amendment rights or other rights protected in the constitution? Stephanopolis and Gibson didn’t think to ask it.

SUB PRIME EDUCATION

The clamor is getting louder for the federal government to “fix” the sub-prime loan problem. Somehow an arm of the government is to order mortgage companies to extend the introductory rates. That such a solution is even discussed is an example of how poorly our populace is educated in economics.

A co-worker told me about a report on TV saying that minorities were sold a greater percentage of sub prime loans, proving that corporations are not only evil but racist. Sub prime loans were created in the first place because companies were coming under fire for not loaning to minorities. The lower introductory payments qualify more people and thus make the numbers look better.

The other result of these loan packages was that everyone could suddenly afford a bigger house up front. And since mortgage brokers and realtors make their commissions as a percentage of the contract price, the two most influential professionals in home sales were pushing their customers down that road. The up-front commission structure for salesmen created an incentive for big loans. The salesman isn’t responsible for the re-payment. No CEO said lets start making bad loans. It happened as a result of the reward structure.

The real culprit in the sub prime fiasco, the real villain is the Department of Education. We pay bureaucrats billions to create an education policy in this country and kids graduate high school without the vaguest idea of why sub-prime loans are risky. Why are we sending kids to school for 13 years on the dime of the tax payer and not teaching them about dimes?

The main reason is that schooling has become a form of social policy, trying to shape society through the minds of the young rather than teaching practicality. A secondary reason is that the education bureaucrats see the world in terms of the academic subjects that led them to Harvard and then to the cushy chair in Washington. Bureaucrats have the luxury of being bad with money because it is easier for them to make money. These kinds of people don’t understand the practical needs of Americans. They are occupied with trying to turn every youngster into a philosopher-king.

There are two chances in life for education, first formally when nothing is at stake but your own time and attention, and secondly in the school of life where decisions have real outcomes. For as much as people will be hurt by the sub prime reality, the lesson of pain will ensure that others wake up and pay attention to their own future economic decisions. It’s the only hope for a better future, because the Department of Education isn’t changing for anyone.

POLITICAL LANDSCAPE

What really spurred this recent recession is the amount of GDP that has been poured into Iraq War movies with no box office results. John Cusack was on Bill Maher Friday. He has an Iraq movie. He calls it “War Inc.” At least this one is a comedy. Cusack spent most of his interview complaining about war profiteering and corporations in general. We all know Cusack to be a man of integrity because he never takes money from corporations. Maher asked Cusack why this movie would work when the others fizzled and Cusack said that people are starting to pay attention to what is happening.

I’ve spent my whole life hearing members of the Left say that people are really starting to wake up and listen to what’s going on. The reality is we’re living in a conservative country. The Presidential campaign demonstrates this every four years. In the Republican primary, each guy tries to portray himself as the conservative and his opponent as the more liberal. You never hear Democrats trying to be the liberal candidate and you never hear them criticize their opponents for being conservative. Instead they do everything they can to make their campaigns about personalities.

I suppose none of this really needs to be said, but wouldn’t it be fun to hear MSNBC ask Obama or Hilary in the next debate if they are more liberal than the other one. Or do you think your opponent is too conservative?

Patriotism is another great issue. After Obama gave the race speech, James Taranto quoted Obama from October telling us why he doesn't wear a flag lapel pin anymore. Flags are a substitute for the real patriotism of discussion. Taranto then points out that Obama had 8 American flags on stage with him when he gave the speech about race. Democrats want to live in this Ivy League world where traditional patriotism is dead and people are starting to pay attention to the evil nature of corporations, but they aren't above running to the flag to save themselves.

Remember that next time you hear the self-righteous lecture on alternate forms of patriotism.

William F. Buckley 1925-2008
















I was first saw Buckley in a TV ad plugging National Review magazine. Rather than use the word “conservative” he said the magazine approached the news from a decidedly different perspective, one that might be like my own. What struck me most was how intelligent he seemed. I was in my last year of college and felt that I didn’t really get much of an education. My time inthe library was spent reading about the Marx Brothers and Alfred Hitchcock.

I went to this newsstand on Palafox Street a few doors down from the PLT and they had the magazine. Buckley had stepped down as editor the year before but still owned and wrote for the magazine. The new editor, John O’Sullivan, dedicated the totality of this particular issue to an essay (later a book) by Buckley about anti-Semitism and whether certain public figures or organizations were anti-Semitic. The essay made me think harder and consider ideas at a time when I was really in need of it. It wasn’t a few months before I was subscribing.

Before National Review my conservatism was based on lessons from my father running his business and the problems he ran into placating the government. National Review explained how the Federal Government was still at it and worse than ever. It also taught me language. I had to read it with a dictionary to understand it back then.

Soon I began watching Firing Line. I still have a few episodes on tape. He would interview thoughtful people and talk about ideas. Like the magazine he was frequently funny. I remember he hosted a lady who wrote a book about what women should know about their husband’s money. He ended the show by saying the title “What every woman should know about their husband’s money” and then threw in, “except my wife.”

The first time I saw Peggy Noon was on Firing Line. I had an immediate crush on her. They talked about her book “What I Saw at the Revolution” and Bill asked her to contrast the Reagan and Bush White Houses. I went out and picked up the book that week and I’ve read it several times since. Peggy wrote in the book about how her friend’s mother subscribed to National Review. Her reaction to it mirrored my own.

Another guest was Mortimer Adler, the editor of the Great Books of the Western World. I read a few of his books and bought a set of the Great Books a few years later.

I also started buying and reading Bill’s books. I counted this evening and I have 29 books by Bill Buckley, the most of any author on my shelf. Some are on politics, some are autobiographical and others are novels. My favorites are his books from the 1960s. I particularly like his memoir “The Unmaking of a Mayor.” Another book, “Cruising Speed” documented a single week in his busy life. Rush recommended a Buckley book this afternoon and Amazon is now sold out coincidently. You'll find my review from 2000 if you scroll down that page.

This past weekend I remembered a column collected in REFLECTION FROM A LIBERTARIAN JOURNLIST called "What if they were Nazis?" It was a cold war column about how the liberal media forgives every Marxist dictator now matter how brutal while patting itself on the back for opposing Hitler. I took the book up to the night shelf on Sunday meaning to re-read it, but got caught up in something else.

One of Buckley’s first accomplishments was being named editor of the Yale Daily News, a position that his younger brother Reid held a few years later. Reid now runs a school in South Carolina that teaches public speaking. He offered a bi-yearly course a few years ago meant to teach media professionals to be better communicators. I wrote the school to get the materials and tried to get my company to pay for me to attend. It was just too soon. The show was too new and I didn’t have enough support back then to pull it off.

Surprisingly one day I got a call from Reid personally asking me to attend. He sounded just like Bill without the stutter. He was warm and funny and I couldn’t believe that I was speaking to an actual Buckley. I told him that I was working on the powers that be to send me. He said that they should take into account that he had just recently been to Disney with all of his grandchildren and spent a great deal of money and that should count for something. We laughed together and I told him that I was working on it. He called a month or so later and left me a message. I had to call him back and say that I didn’t have any luck. I should have just paid for it myself, but I thought I could talk them into it in two years once our show was more established. The class was never presented again.

I would often get National Review offers to attend seminars where Bill was speaking, but I could never justify the travel and seminar cost and I now regret being so cheap. I did write Bill a few times though and he did once send me an autographed photo.

I remember reading last year that Buckley had said that he had done everything he could in this life and he was ready to die. I don't think I heard anyone ever say such a thing publicly. He was unique in many ways.

Despite all the moves in my life I have kept my old National Review magazines. They’re everywhere in the house now and too precious to ever let go of. I can thank Bill for teaching me to love learning and showing me the political light. I didn’t know him and yet he meant so much to me. God Bless you, Bill Buckley.

CASTRO IS OUT

Media Research Center has a great collection of video clips with U.S. reporters fawning over the dictator through the years. Here's their synopsis of a 2002 Report:

In May 2002, CNN sent correspondent Kate Snow to anchor an hour-long prime time Live From Havana, timed to the visit of ex-President Jimmy Carter. Snow fretted about the "hard line" policies and views of President Bush and exiled Cubans in Miami while hoping Carter’s visit might "moderate" the Cuban-Americans. She also touted the "successes" of life under Fidel Castro, admiring how, "according to a United Nations study, Cuba’s regular schools rank at the top in Latin America" and how "every Cuban has a primary care physician" who gets "to know their patients and even make house calls." She conceded that "Cuba may not have the nicest facilities or equipment," but she noted in praising the socialist ideals, "everyone has access and the concept of paying is completely foreign."

What good is literacy if the Cuban people are banned from ideas?

The last part about Cuba's fair medical system is unintentionally honest. Having nice facilities and equipment is the point of health care. Trading that for access is exactly what the Democrats want to do in America.

For a May 2002 Special Report, MRC analysts examined five years of CNN’s Cuban coverage. They found CNN aired six times more soundbites from communist leaders than from non-communist groups such as the Catholic Church and peaceful dissidents. Only about three percent of CNN’s Cuba coverage focused on Cuban dissidents, and less than one percent dealt with the harassment and intimidation of independent journalists in Cuba. Fidel Castro himself was treated more as a celebrity than a tyrant, with stories about his 73rd birthday party and an in-depth look at his office furnishings in a segment called "Cool Digs."

What a disgrace. Bush wants to listen to terrorists making phone calls and it's an end of liberty as we know it. Castro intimidates and jails journalists to the delight of CNN.

If we ever see a free Cuba CNN will disclose how they hid the real Cuba from the world in order to have access. I stopped watching CNN after they admitted doing that in Iraq during Saddam.

THE NEW YORK TIMES NEEDS MONEY

Beleaguered by hedge fund shareholders angry at the dismal performance of the New York Times Company, Pinch Sulzberger has opted to nominate two new directors for the company's board. Unfortunately for him, the paper is already on the record savaging companies on whose boards these two directors have already served. The New York Sun has a brilliant editorial this morning pointing out Pinch's proclivity for hypocrisy:

One director worked for Wal-Mart, the other Chevron. What they have in common is making money, something the Times hates, except in their own case.

THE MEDIA WRONG AS USUAL

In the seven days before Super Tuesday, Mike Huckabee was featured in a grand total of 2 percent of presidential campaign stories.

The media -- that is, the same media that all but ignored him before he won the Iowa caucuses in January -- were selling the Republican race as a two-man showdown. John McCain was a significant presence in 37 percent of stories and Mitt Romney in 21 percent, says a study of newspaper, television, radio and online coverage by the Washington-based Project for Excellence in Journalism.

Talk about betting on the wrong horse. Huckabee won five states -- which anchors and pundits treated as a stunning development -- and took Kansas and Louisiana on Saturday, while Romney abruptly dropped out.

Time and again, the media's preferred narratives for this campaign have collided with reality. Remember when journalists repeatedly declared that both nominations would be settled by Feb. 5? Scratch that. How about the blowout television and print coverage of Ted Kennedy anointing Barack Obama as the crown prince of Camelot? Hillary Clinton showed how little it mattered in the heart of Kennedy country, taking Massachusetts by 15 percentage points.

And the whole "back from the dead" story line for McCain exists mainly because journalists all but buried him when his fundraising collapsed last summer. (It would "take a miracle" for McCain to win the early primaries, CBS's Bob Schieffer said then.) Now he's made them look foolish by virtually wrapping up the GOP nomination.

Reporters consistently overestimate the importance of money in presidential campaigns: McCain was out of cash, and Huckabee never had any, so their chances were drastically downgraded. Romney gave his own campaign $50 million and his chances were constantly talked up.

But talk radio and the blogosphere are the dangerous ones because they don't share our rigorous journalistic standards.

TALK RADIO

You should hear Senator George Voinovich on Hannity’s radio show. Voinovich really sounds out of his league. First, he doesn’t even know what the fairness doctrine is and Hannity has to explain it before Voinovich remembers to oppose it. Then he tries to hang up when Hannity asks tough questions about the Immigration Bill. I’m impressed with Hannity here who is usually too deferential to Republicans even when he disagrees with them. Voinovich is obviously voting for the bill, but he keeps telling Hannity that he’s reserving judgment until it’s all together, although he won’t read the bill before the vote. Coward!

UPDATE: Voinovich flips. Was it Hannity or was it the reality that it would fail with or without him?

PBS - FRONTLINE

It was once said that a conservative is a liberal that was mugged. It’s easy to conclude that no one at the PBS show FRONTLINE has been mugged. Tuesday’s show was on the injustice of sentencing Juvenile murders to life without parole. Ten years ago they would have produced a show on juvenile murders getting the death penalty and had experts tell you why they should instead get life sentences.

The parents and siblings of the perps are shown distraught that their loved one will spend the rest of their lives behind bars. One rich Denver couple cannot even take a winter home in the sunshine because they will miss their Sunday prison visits. A sister of another shooter cries on camera, “why would they do this, it was an accident?” Defense attorneys have never seen such a sad kid as the defendant. Calm law school professors say that it serves no purpose other than vengeance.

On the other side, we have the vindictive parents that insist no matter how many tears or law professors they produce, their son’s killer is not getting out of prison. You see not an ounce of warmth from any of them.

Then the tears from the murderer’s sister again and then law professor again saying that victims have a lot of political power although these tough laws are unjust.

They interview the perps in jail, some of them 8 or 10 years after their crime. They were only 16, how did they know what they were doing? We’re made to feel claustrophobic in their prisons and we’re made to feel lucky that justice didn’t strike down on us so unfairly. It’s tough on their family. It’s cruel. Ah, it’s cruel.

The founders in the constitution came out against “cruel and unusual punishment” and yet the death penalty was legal, because they thought life in prison was cruel not death. I don’t think that was the point FRONTLINE was were trying to make, but they made it anyway.

FRONTLINE took the classic ideological track by finding the most sympathetic convicts they could dig up. The first guy had been in prison for 10 years, he with the Denver parents. He seemed smart and in a bad situation when his friend killed his mother and he said that he was so shocked that he passed out and fell into her pool of blood. Maybe. Another dude who helped the murderer move the body fingered our convict to lighten his own sentence. Mitigating circumstances, I suppose. But what can we really believe? All convicts are innocent, right? They didn’t interview any jurors to get that side.

The second fella shot a high school classmate when he was supposed to sell him his gun. The convict never planned on selling the gun and he even admits it. He was says that he was going to get the money and then skedaddle, but that doesn’t ring true. The victim was an athlete and the thief wasn’t just going to go quietly without chin music. He obviously had to shoot the guy in order to get away with the money. We see him in prison as a religious person who turned a new leaf. The victim’s mother said that he should have found religion earlier.

The third guy is described as a pipsqueak who was ratted out by two confederates after their carjacking escapade resulted in the gunshot death of a 17 year old kid. FRONTLINE was appalled that he was kept in a badass prison in solitary, but even angrier that they weren’t allowed to interview him. They didn’t seem so angry that they couldn’t interview the people who were killed. They did show an older interview taped by Human Rights Watch where the little darling explained that the government’s trump up charge that he was a gang leader got him the tougher prison facility.

We hear psychobabble throughout about how these kids are too young to understand what they were doing. Were interviewers never 16? Did they think that murder was no big deal when they went to school? What is this Leftwing compulsion to write everyone a pass for their abhorrent behavior?

It didn’t work for me. Even the most sympathetic murderers they could find coupled with the coldest victim’s mother couldn’t convince me that the law was wrong. That liberals are quacking means just the opposite, the system is running better than I thought.

James Taranto posted an editorial from the New York Times in which they insisted that terrorists be given a jury trial through our judicial system with lawyers, witnesses, discovery and all the accoutrements crime suspects are use to in our system. Taranto said that he was too lazy to look it up, but he bets he could easily find dozens of cases where the New York Times is indicting our judicial system as unfair and they only prefer it now because it will treat these terrorists easier than a military tribunal.

This is kind of the heart of everything we’re dealing with in the world. There are no bad people to the Left, just opportunities for rehabilitation. That’s why when one of them becomes a victim of terrorism they can’t fathom it. Michael Moore asked why would the terrorists hit blue state New York. They can’t imagine that the angry Islamists are anything but disgruntled liberals taking capitalist injustice into their own hands.

Liberals exist to shake their head at wrong-doing and explain that it’s due to lack of funding to education, job training etc. They can’t be held responsible is either overt or covert, but it’s there time and again. The liberal media is using the historically low casualty rate in Iraq to make the case that we can’t win. They cannot bring themselves to fight or root for their country because they are torn about what their country stands for. A Bush victory anywhere is one point against their world view.

We were hearing a different tune right after 9-11 when liberals had been mugged. They did become conservatives for a short time. But once the heat of the moment wore off, they went back to explaining away all the uncomfortable things that contradict their views of multiculturalism and the military industrial complex. They who were once ready to fight and urged the fight ahead, we’re finding bogeymen in Haliburton and conspiracy theories about how Bush wanted to remake the world. They started saying that he either used Iraq as an excuse or let 9-11 occur so his nefarious plan could move forward.

However you slice it, PBS needs to be kept on the air so we can continue to see where the heart of liberalism lies. Without that pocket of Jacobins, I would hold the belief that we can win this war together when, in truth, too many don’t mind losing.

STOCKHOLM SYNDROME

I’ve been watching Tucker Carlson this morning filling in the Imus time slot. If you didn’t follow politics and parties and you had to form an opinion about things from watching MSNBC, the conservative commentators Tucker Carlson, Joe Scarborough and Pat Buchanan would convince you that the Iraq war was begun by a liberal because they all see it as a disaster and they see the President as a bungler.

I’ll admit that I’ve never liked Carlson and enjoyed that moment where Jon Stewart ragged on him about Crossfire. I would have rather seen him do that to James Carville, but you can’t have everything. It does say a lot about the state of the media when a liberal goes on a liberal network to attack a token conservative about being a punching bag on a liberal network.

Scarborough no doubt sees opportunism in his criticism of Bush. He’s always been that way. It’s hard to know what his true convictions are in general. I’m sure he could have been elected to Congress in a liberal district had he run there instead of Pensacola. Having met him on three different occasions when he was running the first time back in 1994, he was nothing but pure ambition. He was a lot like Bill Clinton and there were many a rumor that he would only be able to go so far in politics because of Clinton-like bimbo eruptions that would dog him at some point. The ambition had to take him in a different direction and it did. If Keith Obermann can stay on the air with his dismal ratings, Scarborough doesn’t mind playing into the same prejudices.

There is no doubt that if Scarborough and Carlson were on Fox they would be singing a different tune. They know they’re marginal characters on MSNBC with no constituency among the news executives. By taking the PC route on the war they make themselves palatable. Identifying with your captors gets you a warm meal and makes you feel a part of something.

Pat Buchanan is a different story. He’s a man of real conviction that was against the war from the beginning. That has certainly helped his airtime, but it’s not why he espouses what he does.

Fox found a way to differentiate itself in the marketplace and all of the other outlets can’t compete because they cannot get beyond their world views. For instance, Dan Rather wants in his heart to be the most objective journalist that he can be. But he’s predisposed to see conservatives as people of privilege and when documents surface that show Bush in this light he cannot see that it’s too good to be true, because it confirms truth as he knows it. How else could someone remark, “fake but accurate”?

Chris Mathews hated the Swift Boat Veterans and wouldn’t give them the time of day. He would go on about what a hero Kerry was and how patriotic his service was, but didn’t see the contradiction of how the same could be said of all the Swfites that he discounted. That he wouldn’t even give these veterans time on his show to debate the matter shows a worldview again. Do you think the media would have taken the same approach had a group of oilmen come forward to say that Bush was a terrible driller who overstated his business acumen? Or more currently, do you think that Mathews will eschew people who take issue with the “America’s Mayor” reputation of Guliani? Do you think people who come forward with examples of how Guiliani embellished his importance in NYC will be banned from the Mathews show?

What it demonstrates is the problem that other news networks have in gaining a foothold on Fox. They thought that they could mitigate the popularity of the conservative approach by adding token conservatives to their lineup, but in practice it has been like adding a cup of hot water to the polar ice caps. At first it feels a little different and then the new water is assimilated with little effect.

Fox is in the enviable position of being the only alternate to the Eastern Establishment view of the country and world. Fox welcomes more liberal dissent on their network than conservative dissent that you are likely to see all day on the other networks combined. Mara Liason, Juan Williams, Morton Kondracke, Susan Estrich, Alan Colmes, Greta Van Susteren, Harold Ford, Bob Beckel, Jeff Birnbaum, Gerladine Ferraro, Eleanor Clift and Geraldo Rivera are all paid Fox News contributors. It actually helps the channel quite a bit because it’s cathartic to hear conservatives finally get to refute liberals after being helpless for so many years. I don’t think the channel would work nearly as well if it were merely bobbleheads. We tune in to hear the calm ACLU man get yelled at by O’Reilly.

It’s harder to enjoy the channel as a liberal not because their side doesn’t get a dog in the fight, but that they hate to hear the other side getting equal footing in the discussion, think the Swifties. To them it’s like a step back in time before they had all of these issues worked out for themselves. To liberals debate is whether the government should control the price of gasoline or just give it away free to people who make less than a certain amount of money. The idea that some wildcatter is risking everything to find oil would never occur to them. Or that the money that Exxon makes is dwarfed by the amount of taxes that gasoline brings the government is insignificant to them.

Without the premise of corporate evil and sectarian overreach much of the major media would not even know how to write a news story and the liberal audiences wouldn’t even think they were hearing actual news. And we’re the simpletons.

THE STATE OF THE UNION IS STRONG

Bush's speech, while not rich on content, was at least sincere and specific. The rebuttal delivered by Sen. Webb was bitter and vague -- more of the same complaining with no competing ideas. The media has cooperated with a relentlessly constant and consistent effort to beat Bush down and erode his support, even to the point where they could beat his something with their nothing. That is their right to do, and I have to admire their resolve and their success. But that doesn't make what they say true. Ben Stein offered this evaluation:

The truth is that we are in a huge economic boom. We are coming off a mammoth real estate explosion that put the most Americans in history in their own homes. We have totally full employment. After decades of stagnation, real wages are rising. Gasoline prices are way, way down. The nation is wealthier than it has ever been (although this is very unevenly distributed). Opportunities for subsidized higher education are better than they have ever been.

Most important of all, who would have ever been rash enough on September 12, 2001 to say there would not be one major or even minor successful terrorist incident against the U.S. homeland in over five years? Who would have thought we would escape without more massive terror? But we have, and it is a foolhardy person who would say that's an accident. Bush may not have done it by himself, but he had something to do with it.

True, we are mired in a war without end, costing us far too may great young and old Americans and too many limbs and wrecked families and vastly too much money. But we all know we're getting out soon. It was a huge mistake, but I'd like to see a President who did not make huge mistakes. Compared with the mistakes of Truman and FDR and Kennedy, Iraq is a mistake, but not worse than theirs.

True, we have virtually no federal oversight of corporate looting and executive suite misconduct, but we didn't have any under Clinton either. The rich get away with murder. That's what happens in the real world. Bush is to blame, but all politicians cater to the rich, as Hillary will and Barack Obama will. It's nauseating and I fight it constantly, but that's life.

My point: let's be aware that Bush has presided over a lot of success in addition to substantial failure. My second point: no one elected the media to anything. If we let them lynch the man we elected as President we are throwing out the Constitution with the war in Iraq. In the studios and newsrooms, there is a lynch mob at work. Let's see it for what it is. We have a good man who has made mistakes in the Oval Office. He's the only President we have, and I trust him a lot more than I trust unelected princes of the newsroom.