Archive for the ‘Media’ Category

Jennifer Rubin:

One would think that responding to a terror attack with less moral clarity and forcefulness than that displayed after the Fort Hood attack would have taken some doing. But the Obami have managed to pull it off. Between Janet Napolitano and the president, they’ve managed to convey confusion, denial, and willful indifference to the nature of our enemies.

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I would think that Democrats must be awfully nervous. They’ve spent years and years trying to live down the reputation as being ”weak on defense” and then along comes a president who seems at best a reluctant commander in chief and at worst devoted to returning to a pre-9/11 mentality – which, after all, left us vulnerable on 9/11 in the first place.

Actually, they seem intent on a pre-9/11 mentality regarding our enemies but a post-9/11 mentality when it comes to your average American citizen.

This is from the AP, not The Onion:

Big first year leaves Obama tired
After a sleepless, overnight flight to Oslo to accept the Nobel Peace Prize earlier this month, President Barack Obama made a not altogether surprising admission. He was tired.

Who could blame him?

It goes on to talk about how hard the decisions about the recession and the auto workers union bailout and the health care bill.

Amid golf, tennis, gym workouts and dinner, Obama has been called on to monitor the airliner attack in Detroit last Friday and what appeared to be another attack on Sunday — that incident turned out to be a false alarm. On Monday, Obama worked out in the morning and played tennis before making his first public remarks on airline security, then hit the golf course.

So much for putting aside the stress of work.

Poor guy. They also seem to laud Obama for getting by on six hours of sleep or less when Bush made getting eight hours a priority. (Note that they don’t say Bush stopped working to make sure he got eight hours, they just hope you think it.)

The article reads like satire.

Poor guy got pulled away from a golf game because a terrorist attack failed. And then again, a couple of days later.

Bush only had to deal with terrorist attacks one day. No wonder he could make eight hours of sleep a priority.

Oh, yeah. Fire Janet Napolitano. The White House could at least try to look like they care. But an administration that seems to put appearance over substance can’t even be bothered to keep up appearances on the war.

I’ll start worrying more about Americans without jobs or health care when I’m confident I can worry less about Americans getting killed in the war. The White House apparently sees it the other way around.

Remember when the New York Times wouldn’t run stories on the ClimateGate emails because those were “never intended for the public eye”?

Eric Schmitt, Robert F. Worth, and the Gray Lady ran this today:

U.S. quietly takes terror war to Yemen
In the midst of two unfinished major wars, the United States has quietly opened a third, largely covert front against Al Qaeda in Yemen.

A “largely covert” war being covered in the New York Times. If global warming research funding is threatened, can’t run the story. But if it’s only US troops and foreign policy jeopardized, go with it. I mean, what’s so secret about a secret war, anyway?

Apparently the “firecrackers” a Northwest/Delta passenger lit earlier today at Detroit airport were a lot more than just firecrackers. Fortunately, the incendiary bomb fizzled.

From the AP:

U.S. officials say a Northwest Airlines passenger from Nigeria said he was acting on behalf of al-Qaida when he tried to blow up a flight Friday as it landed in Detroit.

Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., identified the suspect as Abdul Mudallad, a Nigerian. King said the flight began in Nigeria and went through Amsterdam en route to Detroit.

One of the U.S. intelligence officials said the explosive device was a mix of powder and liquid. It failed when the passenger tried to detonate it.

The passenger was being questioned Friday evening.

Both of the officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation was continuing.

The motive of the Christmas Day attack was not immediately clear.

Murdoc’s just a dumb blogger, but he wonders if the guy’s motivation may have anything to do with the war.

Every time hardcore Righties probably feel the need to manufacture lies about what lunatic Lefties said, Chris Matthews’ show is on and he saves them the trouble.

He called West Point an “enemy camp.”

Game-winning shot at The Corner:

Chris, he’s commander-in-chief.

Chris Matthews, still a suspected Karl Rove plant.

The New York times didn’t want to publish any of the scandalous “Climategate” emails because they “were never intended for the public eye” but has no problems writing about a “black jail” at Bagram.

It’s almost like they’re selective about their willingness to publish controversial items.

Three Things You Absolutely Must Know About Climategate

This may seem obscure, but the science involved is being used to justify the diversion of literally trillions of dollars of the world’s wealth in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by phasing out fossil fuels. The CRU is the Pentagon of global warming science, and these documents are its Pentagon Papers.

Here are three things everyone should know about the Climategate Papers. Links are provided so that the full context of every quote can be seen by anyone interested.

Summary version:

1. Manipulate data to get the results you want
2. Prevent publication of papers which conflict with your position and try to minimize those that get by
3. Destroy data which may undermine your position or limit its availability to others

In fact, if this were put into a movie, it would be dismissed as a skeptic’s wet dream. For those militantly opposed to global warming science (or its new hedge-your-bets name “climate change”) this seems too good to be true. We’ll see if it is or not.

Meanwhile, even if 100% true and accurate, keep in mind that these revelations do not necessarily implicate all scientists who champion global warming science and they do not mean that there is not, in fact, at least some climate change happening or that humans are not responsible for any of it.

The climate change skeptics would do well to exercise some of that same skepticism about all of this.

Do not immediately swallow data which supports your position and ignore that which contradicts it, especially to crucify people for swallowing data which supports their positions and ignoring that which contradicts it.

UPDATE: The New York Times suddenly developed some sort of a conscience and won’t stoop to publishing “Statements that Were Never Intended for the Public Eye”

Possible evidence that at least some scientists have been faking it when it comes to climate science? Can’t publish. Wouldn’t be prudent.

Stories, fake or otherwise, that put US troops in danger and directly hinder our military campaigns? It’s our responsibility to get it all out for discussion. The public needs to know.

If this wasn’t so serious, it would be hilarious.

Palin angered by ‘sexist’ Newsweek cover

Though Murdoc thinks this is just another example of how shallow and entertainment-driven the news media has become, I wonder if Newsweek’s attempt to marginalize Palin with this (if that was their intent) doesn’t net her MORE fans in the end.

When I saw the headline my initial thought was “If she doesn’t want pictures like that, why’d she pose for them?” But then I saw the photo, and immediately realized it was from the Runner’s World story on her last year.

For the record, Murdoc would be lukewarm toward Palin as a presidential candidate if she threw her hat into the ring today. I think she’s got a lot to prove. But I’m also not buying the idea that she’s hurting the GOP. At least not hurting the GOP any more than the GOP hurts itself already.

Andrew Bast has a story on the Newsweek blog asking Is Fort Hood a Harbinger?

Of course, being Newsweek, the worry is that Nidal Malik Hasan May Be a Symptom of a Military on the Brink.

It’s hard to draw too many conclusions right now, but we do know this: Thursday night, authorities shot and then apprehended the lone suspect, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan. A psychiatrist who was set to deploy to Iraq at the end of the month, Hasan reportedly opened fire around the Fort Hood Readiness Center, where troops are prepared for deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan. And though this scene is a most extreme and tragic outlier, it comes at a time when the stress of combat has affected so many soldiers individually that it makes it increasingly difficult for the military as a whole to deploy for wars abroad.

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Hasan’s perspective is unknown. He had yet to fight abroad. But the accusations against him can’t help but bring to mind the violence scarring military bases all over the country after the duration of two long, brutal wars.

So after spending some time making the case that soldiers who have spent too much time in the combat zone on repeated deployments are close to the breaking point, he finally mentions that Hasan has never deployed.

He then goes into the whole “transferred PTSD” thing. Sure, we get it. Counselors are not immune to the horrible stories they hear.

None of the following words appear in the article:

• Muslim
• terrorist
• militant
• extremist
• religion
• I gave up trying at that point

And no mention is made of reports that Hasan shouted “Allahu Akbar!”, confirmed or otherwise.

He concludes by suggesting that by deploying more troops to Afghanistan like Gen. McChrystal has requested, the military may be inviting more shooting rampages.

Of course, the vast majority of those under that stress, no matter how brutal, will not pick up a gun and shoot indiscriminately, like Hasan did.

The “vast majority.” Is he saying that 9 in 10 won’t become mass murderers? 99 out of 100? 99,999 out of every 100,000? Hmm. Let’s see. How many troops that have deployed so far have become mass murderers? Only one?

Oh, no. That’s not right either, is it?. So far NO US troops that have deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan have become mass murderers. Zero. “Vast majority” my ass.

But the situation is bad, and getting much worse. From there, it isn’t much of a leap to argue that to further tax our military would do as much as anything to guarantee that the homegrown terror on display today could well repeat itself in the future.

Whoa, buddy. If we’re going to talk “isn’t much of a leap,” there are a few other leaps that should be in the conversation. Leaps involving religion. Leaps involving diversity policies and political correctness concerns that allowed a guy with what appear to have been fairly obvious issues to stay in the system. Leaps involving self defense on military installations. Leaps involving people seeming to hope for another Timothy McVeigh homegrown terrorist. Leaps involving the media actively working to distort the facts.

As I noted earlier somewhere, if this turns out to be a simple case of a PTSD case “just snapping”, it will be used as a broad brush to paint the entire military as a bunch of loose cannons “on the brink.”

If, on the other hand, this turns out to be a simple case of religious jihad, it will be portrayed as one lone nutjob and anyone who thinks otherwise is probably a racist and a bigot.

I thought the old look was fine, but the new style is also good.

And yes, I realize that my sites are sort of jacked up on IE8, even in Compatibility View. I’m working on new templates for both MO and GunPundit. Hopefully, they’ll be ready shortly.

CNN interviews Pvt Joseph Foster, a soldier who was wounded at Fort Hood. Here’s part of the transcript:

I was sitting in about the second row back when the assailant stood up, screamed and yelled Allah Akbar (ph) in Arabic and he opened fire.

A couple of minutes later, the interviewer wonders at the fact that Foster, kept soldiering on, not even realizing that he had been shot in the hip. Foster responds:

I had realized it at first, but with that much adrenaline, you tend to forget things.

Here is how CNN wrote up its own interview:

He said he “was sitting in about the second row back when the assailant stood up and yelled ‘Allahu akbar’ in Arabic and he opened fire,” Foster said Monday on CNN’s “American Morning.”

Foster, 21, said he wasn’t clear about whether the gunman said those exact words, noting that “with that much adrenaline, you tend to forget things.”

ABC has Keara Bono, also wounded in the attack, also saying that Hasan shouted “Allahu Akbar” before opening fire. There seems to be no dispute. Anyone who says it’s unconfirmed is either misinformed or lying.

That includes CNN, even if they are considered a real news orgainization.