Say What?!

Bill Griffeth of CNBC just said that the Bush agenda is in big trouble, in part, because of the worsening situation in Iraq. Have I missed something? What the hell is he talking about? The evidence points to the situation getting better.

CNBC seems to be getting increasingly obvious in projecting a liberal bias. I don't think that they even care about driving away half their audience.

By the way, all the CNBC anchors have been using the term "agenda" to describe policy proposals from the GOP. Am I overreacting by thinking that the term has a negative connotation?

Spineless, Worthless, Wimpy, Girlie Men of the GOP

The Anchoress has the details. They are too depressing for me to bother summarizing.

Incompetence and Bias at CNN, the Times and the Post

Ranting Profs takes three pillars of the MSM to task for their ridiculous "journalistic" efforts. The Post judges unfairly, CNN completely misses the point, and the Times' bias causes confusion on whether to blame Iraq or FEMA for all that went wrong.

Can they really be proud of their daily dose of drivel?

Three liberals discussing DeLay

I am watching CNBC's coverage of the DeLay indictment. Ron Insana, who has seemed pretty liberal in the past, interviews two liberal members of the MSM on what the indictment means. No mention of Ronnie Earle's abusive prosecution of Senator Hutchison which was thrown out by a jury immediately upon hearing it.

The whole coverage comes off exactly as if scripted by the DNC.

CNBC is becoming almost unwatchable as it becomes increasingly liberal in its coverage.

Read Barone's blog

If you don't check it regularly, you should. He has several posts that are particularly good. In this one, I was surprised out how critical he is of the MSM:

You wouldn't know any of this if all you had to rely on was Mainstream Media. They have consistently failed to report the politics of Sheehan—who calls the Iraqi insurgents who killed her son "freedom fighters"—and of A.N.S.W.E.R., the organization that cosponsored the antiwar demonstration last weekend, an organization that supports the dictatorships of Kim Jong Il in North Korea and Fidel Castro in Cuba. You would have to watch Fox News to get this information, to wit, Special Report With Brit Hume last night (transcript evidently not yet available on website). It's hard to avoid the conclusion that Mainstream Media want to promote antiwar demonstrators and that it is willing to deprive its readers/viewers/listeners of information they should have to make intelligent judgments on the movement of which Cindy Sheehan has become an icon. On Cindy Sheehan, as on abortion, Mainstream Media is more interested in promoting their own causes than in presenting an accurate view of the world.

Not much wiggle room there. The MSM is condemned for outright political partisanship and deliberately misleading propaganda. By Michael Barone. Ouch. That has to hurt.

McCain -- opportunist and fool

The Captain has this:

Ever in search of ways to endear himself to the national media, John McCain met with so-called "Peace Mom" Cindy Sheehan, who returned the favor by calling McCain a "warmonger".

And:

McCain later told reporters that he had been misled into believing that her delegation included some of his Arizona constituents. Otherwise, McCain claims he wouldn't have met with her at all.

Does anyone believe that? McCain's entire career shows him as a rank opportunist, and with his recent moves to establish himself for a run at the 2008 Presidential nomination, he figured he could score a twofer: he could embarrass George Bush and make himself a media darling by getting some friendly face time with Sheehan. Instead, she winds up, predictably, talking about him in shrill tones while he mumbles some excuse about thinking that he would meet an Arizona representative among her staff. In the end, he proved Bush's wisdom in declining a second meeting with the poster woman for the radical Left.

Once again, the rank opportunist stepped in it.

Rather and Kalb live in a world divorced from reality

I keep thinking that liberals cannot possibly go farther through the looking glass. And yet they do. Here is the transcript of Kalb's interview with Dan Rather. Clueless. Frighteningly clueless.

This is serious. These people are allowed to vote!

Power Line has the details from Buckhead on the post he made to Free Repbulic debunking the crazy lie that Kalb repeats.

Left's Big Lie Falls Short

Ben Stein sums up how the big lie of racism, injected into the coverage of Katrina, is so off base. He ends thusly:

It is just plain evil to try to divide the nation -- especially in time of war -- with false cries of racism. The response to Katrina shows just the opposite of racism -- a loving, compassionate response to victims without regard to race. One expects Al Sharpton to cry racism. He would not have a job without that phony cause. But for the media, who should know better, to try to paint such a wicked, dishonest picture -- well, Goebbels would have been proud.

Cover-up at the NY Times

Christopher Hitchens exposes the Times' effort to cover up the pro-war, anti-American sympathies of those who organized the "anti-war" rallies this weekend.

The Times' coverage of the rallies is every bit as "honest" as the coverage of Cindy Sheehan. Or Afghanistan. Or Iraq. Or the economy. Or Katrina in New Orleans.

Or pretty much anything else they cover.

E. J. Dionne spills the beans

Via Lori at Polipundit, Musing Minds has an interesting quote on Mediacrat strategy.

The GOP fights for us in DC

The Anchoress sums up the problem.

NY Times -- never letting facts interfere with the story

Power Line has the story on how the Times libeled Geraldo, but I think the last part of the post is even more instructive:

The same Stanley column also contained a recitation of the false claims made by Aaron Broussard on Meet the Press. No correction of those fabrications yet. Heck, we'll settle for another "Editor's Note."

Let's Compare John McCain to John Roberts

I was watching CNBC this morning and they showed a clip of McCain discussing whether the baseball players union had made a sufficient offer to the baseball owners in their labor negotiations on steroid testing. He indicated that his Senate committee was going to review whatever policy emerged from the negotiations to determine if it met their approval.

Excuse me?

Wouldn't it be great if someone such as John Roberts could have a chat with John McCain to explain the basic fundamentals of our system of government? Let's compare those two. Roberts is extremely intelligent -- certainly far more intelligent than McCain. Yet he clearly understands that the first step on the path to wisdom is an appreciation for our human frailties and limitations. And he recognizes that neither judges nor senators should abuse their power by trying to impose their own "solutions" on every societal ill that comes across their radar screen.

McCain's role in pushing campaign finance reform showed us that he lacks any understanding of how our Constitution works. His eagerness to impose his views on the business/labor relationship of baseball simply confirms this again.

Unfortunately, on the scale of intellectual gravitas and wisdom, McCain seems a lot closer to Diane Feinstein than John Roberts.

Heading out of town

blogging may be light or not at all until Sat.

Econopundit has a bunch of good posts this week

He writes about How Katrina is demonstrating how much better the private sector is to the public sector;

and economics for math-challenged liberals;

and how Ira Magaziner and the Clinton Foundation are imitating a stupid movie. Specifically:

A few weeks ago we went to see this genuinely stupid movie based on a John LeCarre novel about evil drug companies cutting corners by testing drugs on unsuspecting poor African villagers. I argued testing like this was expensive and unlikely.

Oh, wait...You say testing like this is being done? By the Clinton Foundation?

Read the rest of his stuff.

New Orleans Democrats --desperate for their voters to return?

What happens if those desperately poor victims decide to find a better life in the area that they have been evacuated to? What happens to the political power of those who have built their political careers exploiting those votes? Discussion here.

Dr. Sanity blogs Able Danger hearings

Interesting stuff.

LaShawn Barber discusses the plantation

Barber has a good post. Best part:

“Undoing the progress” is code for opposing race preferences, euphemistically called affirmative action. To liberals like Weathersbee, black progress can’t occur without it. Little did our forbears realize that as they fought to dismantle government-mandated racial discrimination, to be equal before the law, and to gain the right to be judged as individuals, 40 years later their children and grandchildren would fight to maintain government-mandated racial discrimination, acquire skin color privileges before the law, and forfeit the right to be judged as individuals. It’s a well-worn cliché, but true: those who forget history are doomed to repeat it.

Beldar reminds Kerry to sue Swift Vets

Beldar has a good memo for Senator Kerry.

Able Danger was revealed a month after 9/11

The Captain has details. Scroll down to the part about Congressman Shays and his statement about Dr. Pricer's closed door testimony.

FEC sues Club for Growth

Polipundit notes that the election commissars went after the Club rather than George Soros and his obscene election violations.

How Liberals Went Insane

I want to add an important footnote to Krauthammer's axiom (that the difference between Republicans and Democrats is that the GOP thinks Dems are wrong and Dems think Republicans are evil).

Not too many years ago, most Democrats seemed to start from a position of policy beliefs. That is, they believed in civil rights, feminism, welfare, environmentalism, etc. because they considered their views to be grounded in moral justice. Thus, anyone who disagreed with their proposed "solutions" must be evil.

I think there has been a significant change in the internal analysis of most American liberals. Today, the starting point of liberal thought is the bedrock foundational belief that Republicans are evil. They don't oppose George Bush and the GOP because of a difference in policies. They oppose Bush on everything -- even if Bush seems to be supporting something they ordinarily support --because of this belief in the inherent evil of the GOP.

The belief in the evil intent of the opponent has become their driving force. And the extraordinary increase in ever crazier behavior seems due to this change.

Sports thoughts

Being an Indians fan right now is really, really fun.

Vandy is 3-0 and 2-0 in the SEC with road wins over Wake, Arkansas and a home win over Ole Miss. Unbelievable.

Did any Vandy fans notice that the Dores really screwed up by scoring the late TD against Miss? If Jennings had fallen down once he picked up the first down with a minute and a half left, Vandy could have taken 3 knees and run out the clock. Instead, he tried to score, but got knocked OB at the 2 (stopping the clock!). Vandy then scored to go up 8, but gave the Rebels a chance to drive for the potential tying TD and 2 pt conversion. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Every week I become more convinced that Peyton Manning is not only the best QB in the NFL right now, but the best who ever played the game. And by a wide margin. No one else is even close. Explanatory post some day.

Vandy plays I-AA Richmond and a weak MTSU in the next two games. Everyone assumes they will be 5-0. I think they have a better than 50% chance of losing one of those games. See 1984 when a 4-0 Vandy team (I think ranked 17th in the nation) got drilled at home by a bad Tulane team. They just couldn't handle prosperity.

Tennessee Vols have to change offensive philosophy from the 80s ideas that they have now. The idea that they can dominate despite only throwing outside, running inside, and refusing to run draws, play action passes or misdirection is nuts. Especially when they always snap the ball on the same count and pack the O-line in so tight that there is no place to run even when the blocking is good. It really is OK to try to fool the opponent once in a while.

Democrat lying off prepared notes for Russert

This Katrina myth was carefully prepared from notes. Read the whole thing. I wonder if Roeper will say anything more about this "defining media moment". He's right (unintentionally) about it defining the media's coverage of Katrina, however.

Journalism requires a personal presence, except for Iraq

Cori Dauber nails Brian Williams for a huge glaring inconsistency in his opinion of the requirements for good journalism. Katrina's aftermath simply cannot be convered without his presence in New Orleans. The war in Iraq and the democratic developments in Iraq and Afghanistan apparently do not require any journalists to be present in order to cover the stories.

Bill Clinton's problems

The Anchoress has an interesting analysis of why Bill Clinton would be so foolish as to undertake his recent attack of W with a potfull of lies. Worth a read.

I think that history will focus a great deal more on the twisted psychology of Bill than we have so far. Remember that his need for company was so overwhelming that he would call people at 3 in the morning when he couldn't sleep rather than be alone with his own thoughts. He chose to have phone sex in the early morning hours over unsecure phone lines despite being warned that the calls might be picked up by listening devices of foreign agents and used to blackmail him.

Think about that for a moment. He was so out of control that he willingly risked his presidency and the security of the nation because he needed some fat girl to help him masturbate over the phone.

That ain't a healthy human being.

Star Parker corrects another Krugman canard

Don Luskin has the link. One might think it difficult to cram as many errors in a single column as Krugman manages, but he does it so often that it appears to be a special talent.

Blame MSM for Clinton's Vicious Attack on Bush

Power Line has the details and an accurate assessment of just how far out of bounds Clinton is.

While the breadth and depth of Clinton's lying certainly needs to be exposed, I want to focus on the fact that the MSM is ultimately responsible for the current state of politics in the US where such an attack would be made. Imagine for a moment that Bush I had launched such an assault on the Clintons (i.e. one full of lies) during their tenure. We all know that the MSM would have instantly mobilized to expose the falsehoods, correct the record and editorialize against the outrage of it all. And they would have been right to do so. A large part of the responsibility of "speaking truth to power" and "insuring the people's right to know" is correcting the falsehoods of powerful politicians.

Clinton's perfidy is the direct result of his certain knowledge that he will not be called on it by the press. When one side knows it can lie and slander with impunity, it naturally results in a nastier state of affairs.

Living in an alternative universe

No Left Turns points out that some Democrats in the Senate still haven't come to grips with reality when it comes to being a minority party. Perhaps getting all their news from the MSM tends to distort their perspective.

Lost and Clueless for 10 years

No Left Turns notes that Joe Biden and Dianne Feinstein still haven't come to grips with the reality of being a minority party.

The first draft of history will be graded

The journalists of the MSM do provide the first draft of history. And there is no doubt that their biased, slanted propaganda efforts will influence future drafts when they are written. But those efforts will be graded.

Ultimately, the real story of Katrina will be known. Historians will have access to a tremendous amount of official documentation, recorded recollections and amateur video. Comparisons between what was reported and what really happened will be made. I don't think the reputations of the MSM will be enhanced in the process.

MSM partisans may try to defend the poor qualtity of their work by pointing out that the situation in a crisis is hectic, information is incomplete and uncoordinated, and access to the area difficult if not impossible. But for the blogosphere, these excuses might be persuasive.

Ever since Dan Rather's exposure as a fraud and Eason Jordan's removal from CNN, it is impossible for establishment journalists to feign ignorance of blogs. CNN runs news segments highlighting what blogs are covering and prominent bloggers routinely appear on cable news. Even those MSM news organizations which strive for a mere minimim level of journalistic competence have someone monitoring the major blogs throughout the day in order to mine them for story ideas.

So those future historians who grade the quality of the journalism produced on Katrina will be able to compare the MSM coverage to the contemporaneous blog record. Stories such as the one about the unused buses in New Orleans will be judged by how long (if ever) it took for the news organization to run it after it spread through the blogosphere. Historians will measure how well news organizations corrected their errors when the errors were exposed on the internet.

I don't think the grade will make many journalists proud. And considering how low that bar is, investors in MSM corporations will likely lose their lunches.

I often wonder if journalists ever take a moment to contemplate that their work will ultimately be graded. It sure doesn't seem like they do. History will not be kind. Perhaps we would get a better journalistic product, if we reminded them that history is watching. Lately, they've been earning an "F". And they are going to be left back.

What went right in New Orleans

Big government failed. Individuals and little government were heroic. Details here.

Read Michael Barone

Read this. It is all interesting. But the most interesting is this part:

And maybe these "common people" have some inkling of what the "people of fashion" are empowering by their votes. They are empowering the teachers' unions to drain the public treasuries and to insulate themselves from any accountability for the poor job their members are doing of educating the poor. They are empowering the transfer of billions of dollars of assets from large publicly held corporations and their shareholders—who include, through personal holdings, mutual funds, or pension plans, many ordinary citizens—to a small gaggle of trial lawyers. They are empowering trade unions who represent a shrinking segment of the labor force to block free trade agreements that make possible cheaper goods and services for us all.

Sophisticated Democrats will admit that their party truckles to the interests of teachers' unions, trial lawyers, and industrial unions because it needs their support in order to win, and they will argue that Republicans truckle to similarly nefarious interest groups for the same reason. I put that argument aside for another day. I bring it up only to suggest that, on economic matters as well as on cultural issues, the common people may have a lot more common sense than the people of fashion who revel in looking down on them.

Very interesting stuff from someone who spent a number of years working as a Democratic campaign consultant.

Interesting Able Danger Hearing scheduled

Just One Minute has this on Rep. Weldon's Pentagon witness. Sounds interesting.

9/11 Commission responds to Able Danger

According to the commission, all the people who worked on Able Danger are liars or deranged. The Captain has the story. His summary of the commission:

If one had to concoct a scenario which shows the methodology of the 9/11 Commission, it could hardly illuminate it better than this. Without hearing witnesses nor reviewing evidence, the Commission reached a hard and fast conclusion that, not coincidentally, fits within their determined narrative. They give no explanation for their blunt statement of "fact", and present no deliberation. Apparently the discovery of evidence that doesn't fit within their report makes the evidence untrue, no matter how many witnesses come forward to verify it.

To put it bluntly, as Slade Gorton says, the Commission did nothing but put a quasi-official imprimatur on a series of speculations that have collapsed since the discovery of Able Danger and other revelations about what the Commission missed in its investigation. It wrote the report it wanted to write, and ignored evidence and testimony that discredited its conclusions. The board of bureaucrats recommended an expanded bureaucracy while blaming operational personnel for not "connecting the dots", ignoring the fact that the bureaucracy -- aided by one of the Commissioners themselves -- created a Byzantine legal environment which actively suppressed the data-sharing necessary to make the proper analysis.

Now they want to shade their eyes and cover their ears as the evidence they missed or actively ignored comes to light. Let them. It will only demonstrate their lack of investigatory detachment and marriage to their preconceived narratives all the more.

Note- the commission would only pull this garbage because it knows the MSM will give it a pass. In many ways, these kinds of cover-ups are more a reflection of the incompetence and corruption of the MSM than of the government functionaries who perpetrate them.

Who saved more lives -- Govt or Individuals?

Mark Tapscott makes a good point on the relative efficiency and effectiveness of the feds and private individuals in rescuing victims of the hurricane.

Dems make Katrina into Florida 2000 (part II)

I imagine that someone else has probably already made this point, but I haven't seen it. When the Dems started hyperventilating that everything about Katrina was Bush's fault, I thought to myself that this is the same game plan we saw with the butterfly ballot in Palm Beach on election day in 2000. Democrats at the local level completely screw up their jobs and national Democrats and the MSM scream that it is all the fault of the GOP.

The parallel grew when they started screaming racism and blaming Bush. In 2000, voters in black precincts in counties where the election supervisors were Democrats cast a lot of invalid votes (of the 25 counties with the highest percentages of invalid ballots, 24 were run by Democrats). Yet, the liberals screamed that somehow the GOP was responsible. Now we have seen the same reaction in New Orleans. Democrats screw up and Bush gets branded a racist.

One more note on the claim that the GOP intimidated and disenfranchised black voters. In Florida, the only "evidence" that they could come up with was the fact that a police car had pulled over a motorist over a mile from a polling place. Apparently, flashing police lights a mile from one precinct demonstrated a state-wide plan by the evil GOP to intimidate black voters. That was the only evidence the radical liberals who made up the US Civil Rights Commission could come up with to support their conclusion.

Deliberate News Media Fraud

For those of you who haven't run into this yet, David Gelernter has the story about how deliberate news fraud has helped get a lot of folks killed and maimed.

The GOP AGENDA

Have you noticed the media always uses the term "agenda" in connection to Bush (and the Republicans)? Not policies, programs, philosphy, or proposals. Always "agenda". Of course, the word is always used in such a way that it has a distasteful after taste.

I don't recall Bill and Hillary having "agendas". They just had a plan to help people.

Nordlinger on the news media

Read Jay Nordlinger on Barbara Walters and media bias in general. What becomes more evident every day is not the fact of bias. Or the blatant propaganda and partisanship.

The really interesting thing to note, is how pathetic and incompetent they are. Not just Barbara Walters, but her producers and directors and support staff. Can't any of them think at all?

Lies, Damn Lies and Media Lies

The Anchoress points out that the MSM has refused to cover the story of how the state of Louisiana denied permission to the Red Cross and Salvation Army to aid those in the Superdome. As she notes:

I’m personally feeling very pessimistic about getting ANYTHING real put through the press, anymore. They are not interested in reality, anymore. They’re interested in…something else.

Environmental politics made Katrina floods worse for N.O.

Don Luskin points us to the fact that environmentalist objections in the past kept the Corps of Engineers from building floodgates which would have alleviated a lot of the flooding.

"the mainstream media rioted"

Ben Stein issues an indictment of the media coverage of Katrina:

What is the real story of Katrina is (I suggest) not so much that nature wrought fury on land, water, people, property, and animals, not at all anything about racism, not much about federal government incompetence. The real story is that the mainstream media rioted.

He goes on about the MSM:

They used the storm and its attendant sorrows to continue their endless attack on George W. Bush. Wildly inflated stories about the number of dead and missing, totally made up old wives' tales of racism, breathless accounts of Bush's neglect that are utterly devoid of truth and of historical context -- this is what the mainstream media gave us. The use of floating corpses, of horror stories of plagues, the sad faces of refugees, the long-faced phony accusations of intentional neglect and racism -- anything is grist for the media's endless attempts to undermine the electorate's choice last November. It is sad, but true that the media will use even the most heart breaking truths -- and then add total inventions -- to try to weaken and then evict from office a man who has done nothing wrong, but has instead turned himself inside out to help the real victims.

They really are pathetic.

A look inside the mind of a liberal law professor

Beldar has a good long post on the advice liberal law professor Mark Tushnet is giving Senate Democrats. In essence, he advises them to vote against John Roberts because the nominee isn't a liberal Democrat.

How much do they get paid for this stuff? (II)

Only got to watch a couple of minutes of Titans-Steelers, but caught this howler from the analyst. Steelers were up 17-7 and Titans QB McNair had botched the play clock twice in the last 3 plays, costing his team a timeout and a 5 yard delay penalty. So immediately after watching McNair lose his poise and pull two bad gaffes, we are told that the Titans don't need to worry about being down 10 points as long as they have a QB with the poise of Steve McNair. At that point I had to go take care of fatherly duties, so I didn't see anymore of the game. I was not surprised, however, that (with the help of McNair's poise) the Titans come out on the short end of a 34-7 final score.

How much do they get paid for this stuff?

Watching the first quarter of the Patriots-Raiders. Tom Brady has tried 9 passes. He has had absolutely all day to throw. His protection is perfect. His receivers have been totally wide open on 8 of the passes and slightly open on the first one. Brady badly missed two throws that any decent QB should make and overthrow the first one (although arguably he might have been throwing it too far on purpose).

So he should be 8 of 9, but is only 6 of 9.

John Madden is talking about how cool he is. No KIDDING! No one on the defense has gotten withing 5 yards of him. How could he not be?!

Brady has to be the most overrated athlete in the history of sport. And no one else is even close.

He grades out worse than mediocre in the first quarter. Nothing exceptional. Nothing even noteworthy. Just 2 bad pass plays that any ordinary NFL QB should be expected to deliver easily when the protection is great and the receiver is wide open. And 6 really easy completions.

Answering the finger-pointers

Jim Geraghty sets Anne Rice straight.

The NY Times slants another story

Via Glen, Austin Bay reports that the Times put out two versions of the same story on Houston's role in helping Katrina victims. The international version is so snarky that the essential message is changed.

The tradition of Eugene McCarthy and Howard Dean

Jayson at Polipundit gives a great rundown on the great tradition of lefties in the Democratic Party and speculates as to why MSM reporters may not understand that "tradition" in the same way the voters have.

LA Times mangles truth in Rehnquist obit

Patterico hammers the Times for the departure from truth on Justice Rehnquist.

No Idea Too Stupid

I suppose that most of us think that are some ideas which are so clearly stupid that not even a Democrat could support them. And on a regular basis, Democrats prove us wrong. Carl Levin, the Democratic senator from Michigan, was just on CNBC advocating the imposition of price controls for gasoline.

John Leo on the MSM

Is it incompetence or corruption? John Leo points out that the news media completely shut out any coverage of the real Cindy Sheehan. As I see it, there are only 2 possible explanations for their failure to do their jobs properly -- either they are incompetent or they are corrupt. Leo surmises that complete coverage of Sheehan's bizarre comments would have conflicted with the original media narrative. So what? Any competent, professional journalist is capable of shifting gears when the facts require it.

This is the question that Howard Kurtz and other journalists who pretend to cover the news media ought to be asking -- incompetence or corruption?

More Pathetic Drivel from the NY Times

Don Luskin points out that the Times can't seem to remember much. The Army Corps of Engineers' proposals were all wasteful boondoggles. Until now. Now, they were critically important but the mean, nasty Republicans and Bush didn't fund them.

Pathetic.

Captain destroys the MSM

Read each of the posts The Captain put up on Katrina today. This one discusses how badly local and state govt screwed up in New Orleans. They not only failed to follow their own plan, but also failed to learn anything from the dry run provided by Hurricane Ivan a year ago. He also nails the NY Times for the ridiculous coverage it has today which praises Mayor Nagin and blames the feds.

The Times isn't simply biased. It is a pathetically incompetent pretense of journalism.

Political ideology trumps God

From No Left Turns, this gem was highlighted from an article on evangelical growth in the Ivy League:

According to Ivy League campus ministers, politics has become a stumbling block in evangelism. Craig Parker, staff leader for Navigators at Dartmouth, says his ministry does not use the term evangelical, due to its "political and moralistic connotations." Jimmy Quach says Harvard students loathe the Religious Right. He said, "One student told me, ’I love everything I’ve learned about Christianity. I love the community. I love what I’ve learned about Jesus. But if I were to become a Christian, I’d have to consider those in the Religious Right in my family. And I can’t stand that idea.’"

Let's see if I got that right -- the student would love to commit his life to the lordship of Jesus Christ, if only he didn't have to love anyone who voted for Bush?

That reminds me -- whatever happened to Hugh Rodham's cash for pardons?

I meant to blog on this a few months ago. Ronald Wieck's piece in The American Thinker reminded me. He wrote:

Imagine (the effort might require straining) a reporter forgetting that his job requires sensitivity to the needs of the Democratic Party above all, and summoning up the temerity to eschew the soft lob in favor of a hard slider: Senator Kerry, you talk constantly of your own bravery and express enormous pride in the exploits of your “Band of Brothers.” If the war was immoral, and you participated in actions that violated the Geneva Convention, burning villages and all that—making you, by your own lights, a war criminal—can you tell us what, exactly, you are proud of?

Oh, yes, that could happen. It could happen on the planet where Dan Rather spearheads an investigation into Hugh Rodham’s refusal to return the four hundred grand he charged to obtain presidential pardons from his Bubba-in-law.

Whatever happened to Hugh's ill-gotten gains? How about Roger Clinton's even larger stash of pardon-purchasing cash? I recall that Hillary once announced that the money was going to be returned and the MSM accepted, as fact, that it had been. But was it? If it wasn't returned, why not? Inquiring minds want to know. What about the status of Hugh's ethics investigation by the Florida Bar?

I wonder -- if W had a brother and a brother-in-law who had raked in serious money selling presidential pardons -- would the MSM be interested in seeing the matter to a conclusion?

Why we fight (and right now)

An excellent example of why it is critically important to get the truth out ASAP (rather than wait as counseled by Hugh Hewitt and others) can be seen in this post last night by David Bernstein at Volokh. Although David seems to be a bright and reasonable person, he is clearly ignorant of the facts. This is what happens when someone gets his news from the MSM. As a blogger himself, he should have known better.

Prize-winning artwork from the Left coast

Via Dr. Sanity, Tigerhawk has the rundown on this lovely piece of art that won first prize at a California art show. Living in an alternative universe must be difficult. It would be nice if those in the "reality-based community" would visit reality once in a while.

Which one is the Democrat?

Bill Hobbs has a post on the differing responses of two members of the Tennessee congressional delegation to Katrina. Marsha Blackburn went to Mississippi with members of her family to help in the relief effort. Harold Ford? The candidate for Senate:

issued a stream of press releases criticing the Bush administration and calling for President Bush to call Congress into session to deal with the disaster. And then, when President Bush did exactly that, so the House could pass legislation allocating $10.5 billion to Katrina disaster relieve, Ford didn't show up for work.

Never let anyone get away with saying that there isn't any difference between the political parties.

Why Dems are angry at Landrieu

Dr. Sanity is on the case. But the preliminary diagnosis sure ain't pretty.

Defending the President Supports Relief Effort

Hugh Hewitt advises us not to respond to the vicious lies that the Democrats are hurling at the president:

The temptation to start swinging back at the entertainers, the Jack Cafferty caucus, and the long list of politicians asking for rebuke has been too much to resist completely this week, but I think W's course is the right one. The energy of a political battle is energy not going into rescue and relief support. It is perhaps, in Christian terms, the exact time to turn the other cheek.

And:

I do not doubt that the full-throated attack on president will continue over the long weekend. But perhaps it will grow just a bit less hate-filled, and the recovery effort a bit more energetic, if the center-right just refuses to return fire on a Labor Day weekend which occurs just as a very long labor comes into focus.

I have all the respect in the world for Hugh, but I think he is wrong. Every time the Democrats try to weaken and diminish the nation's leader with lies and vile slanders, we have an obligation to defend him in order to help him lead the relief efforts. His effectiveness at this critical time will be diminished, if liberals succeed in bleeding away his moral authority and the people's respect for his leadership ability. Perception becomes reality.

We owe it to the victims to speak the truth. It is a crucial part of the relief effort.

Update -- greetings to Polipundit readers. Thanks Lori.

Good Summary of Katrina

In a post titled "How We Got Here", D. J. Drummond does a good job of chronicling the storm and providing perspective.

New Orleans was a disaster and then Katrina hit

Will Collier tells us why.

"Americans ...humbled by failures in Iraq"

The New York Times gets curiouser and curiouser. Bulldog Pundit peers through the looking glass at the bizarre world inhabited by the Times.

Corruption of Tennessee's Democratic Lt. Gov.

Bill Hobbs has a post on it. It follows up an earlier post from yesterday.

Note, while there are members of the GOP who have gotten in ethics trouble, the vast majority of corruption and criminality in Tennessee (as everywhere else in the US) involves the Democrats.

Cindy Sheehan -- terrorist?

Via Econopundit, the Arab News has an interesting op-ed piece on Cindy Sheehan. It includes this:

Ms. Sheehan and other appeasers around the world provide the fuel that feeds the fire of terrorism. If not for this fuel, terrorists would realize that they do not have a chance to sway the minds of people and would end the bombing. Terrorists are not stupid, they understand that bombing innocent civilians will not change the minds of the strong, but will break the will of the weak. So they attack the weak and the weak fold.

Spain is a good example of this reasoning. Would the terrorists have attacked Spain if the whole population stood strong against terrorism? No. What would be the point?

Every time an appeaser voices his or her opinion against the war in Iraq terrorists gain hope that they can change the will of the people. So whether they want to admit it or not, appeasers protesting the war in Iraq are indirectly responsible for the death of the innocent. And the death of our soldiers.

In fact appeasers are directly responsible for the death of Ms. Sheehan’s son, not George W. Bush. If the whole country was united for the war in Iraq, I doubt if the terrorists would have started their suicide bombing campaign.

Using this logic Ms. Sheehan has become the biggest terrorist in the world, not George W. Bush as she so eloquently stated. And the liberal media has become her ally by spreading the word of her protest to the terrorists.

LA Times -- going the extra mile to lie to its readers

Via Glenn, Patterico has this. They edited the wire story from AP in such a way to make Bush look bad. In the process, they told a lie.

Dr. Sanity takes on our most significant enemy

Here.

Our nation will not endure, if we fail to win the battle against this foe.

"You heroes saving my stupid ass are too slow!"

There are a bunch of people in New Orleans who were too stupid to get out of the way of a hurricane. Now a whole lot of people are working incredibly long hours to save them from their own stupidity. I find that I am having difficulty working up a lot of sympathy for those who appear on TV bitching and moaning that the heros trying to save them are too slow.

[Note- I am only referring here to those who are complaining and criticizing the heros; not to all who are victims.]

By the way, isn't there something wrong with this picture? TV crews are getting in and out of the Superdome. Anyone want to bet that they have transportation, food, water, etc. Why don't they put down the damn microphones and cameras and start helping folks? If the situation is that bad, why not use their transportation to get some people out?

Hate is not a family value -- it is a Democratic value

Patrick Ruffini has a sample of the incredibly sick garbage that the Democratic National Committee is spewing against the President.

Regardless of one's political philosophy, no sane, rational, moral and ethical person can remain so and be a Democrat any more.

Power Line has more on the sickness that Democrats have become.

Dr. Sanity had this yesterday on the sickness that is Cindy Sheehan.