Hillary and the Times
While perusing the New York Times today (yes, I go there) I note with great interest that the two most emailed pieces in today's paper were editorials that were pretty unfavorable to Hillary. Maureen Dowd asks "Hillary or Nobody?" and hints that Hillary will wreck the other Democrat's chances.
David Brooks weighs in with "The Long Defeat" meaning Hillary is just going to drag things out unnecessarily, thereby hurting the Democrats' chances in November.
I suspect that she probably will drag it out, and that it will hurt Obama's chances in November. But not as much as the Reverend Wright will.
This is going to get more interesting as time moves along.
Iraq
Also in the Times is an article on Iraq. Apparently the Iraqi government is undertaking to look out for itself more strongly. They are attacking Shiite militias in Basra (where the Brits pulled out) and have given them an ultimatum to lay down their arms or face the consequences. These are the militias controlled by Moktada al-Sadr, who has long been a thorn in everybody's side, and who I thought the US should have taken out years ago. No American forces are involved on the ground except as advisors. Air cover is being provided. But this is an Iraqi operation. Good for them. The sooner they can handle their defense, the better.
Nancy Reagan
Mrs. Reagan publicly endorsed John McCain this week. That reporting was noticeably absent in the New York Times. Guess it wasn't news. And the Times' shareholders wonder why the newspaper is losing circulation and ad revenue.
Clicking on Links
Better be careful what you click while surfing. It seems the FBI, having nothing else to do, I suppose, is putting up links that purport in some way to be links to porn. If you just click on the link, get ready for a raid on your house. Read the whole post by Eric at Classical Values blog. (via Instapundit) In my day (long ago) we called that sort of thing fishing expeditions. Sigh. Well, you shouldn't be clicking on porn sites, anyway.
More Hillary Stuff
I now see on Real Clear Politics that our old Texas Democrat Bob Beckel is joining Dowd and Brooks and urging Hillary to cool it and take the Veep slot. Seems nobody thinks Hillary can win. What should she do? Please, Hillary, don't spoil the fun!
There is also a piece referenced by Dick Morris, the old Clinton hand, who must really hate Hillary. Its called "Hillary's List Of Lies" and therein he proceeds to name some of them. This must be shoot Hillary day in the media. He does have an unkind thing to say about Obama as well:
"...Obama has looked weak handling the Rev. Wright controversy. His labored explanation of why he attacks the sin but loves the sinner comes across as elegant but, at the same time, feeble. Obama's reluctance to trade punches with his opponents makes us wonder if he could trade them with bin Laden or Ahmadinejad...."
And then compliments McCain:
"...We have no doubt that McCain would gladly come to blows and would represent us well, but about Obama we are not so sure."
Will There Always Be an England?
Don't be too sure. Political correctness and worship of "diversity" is doing them in. Read the excellent article by Tony Blankley of the Washington Times. His conclusion:
"...England, in her tolerance, has admitted into her midst -- and given succor -- those who loathe her. But more loathsome yet are the natural born Englishmen -- most in high places -- who have forgotten the simple truth of another World War II song:
"There'll always be an England,
And England shall be free,
If England means as much to you
As England means to me.""
Hillary, the Gift That Keeps on Giving
Now its the AP on her case over the "exaggerations" about her trip to Bosnia some years ago. Ron Fournier says:
"Why wasn't the truth good enough for Hillary Rodham Clinton?
That's a question worth considering as the former first lady tries to contain damage to her credibility after getting caught exaggerating the danger of her 1996 trip to Bosnia......"
Maybe Dick Morris is on to something.
More later.
Showing posts with label Iraq. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Iraq. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
Why don't we get the truth on Iraq?
Michael Yon has a new report out, entitled Resistance is futile: You will be (mis)informed. Yon is an independent reporter and blogger who has embedded with US Army and Marine units in Iraq, and sent firsthand reports back to his readers for quite some time.
He was recently home for a few days, and the report describes what he found here in the US:
"....I was at home in the United States just one day before the magnitude hit me like vertigo: America seems to be under a glass dome which allows few hard facts from the field to filter in unless they are attached to a string of false assumptions. Considering that my trip home coincided with General Petraeus’ testimony before the US Congress, when media interest in the war was (I’m told) unusually concentrated, it’s a wonder my eardrums didn’t burst on the trip back to Iraq. In places like Singapore, Indonesia, and Britain people hardly seemed to notice that success is being achieved in Iraq, while in the United States, Britney was competing for airtime with O.J. in one of the saddest sideshows on Earth.
"No thinking person would look at last year’s weather reports to judge whether it will rain today, yet we do something similar with Iraq news. The situation in Iraq has drastically changed, but the inertia of bad news leaves many convinced that the mission has failed beyond recovery, that all Iraqis are engaged in sectarian violence, or are waiting for us to leave so they can crush their neighbors. This view allows our soldiers two possible roles: either “victim caught in the crossfire” or “referee between warring parties.” Neither, rightly, is tolerable to the American or British public......"
He is being kind and generous to our mainstream media. They have ignored good news and magnified bad news from Iraq from the beginning. Is it deliberate? Pehaps. Most people, even journalists, tend to view events from the perspective of their experience and beliefs. Something that might seem credible to one person, may not seem so to another. The same goes for a determination of what is important or not. What we do know is that most journalists are quite liberal. The result is that the news we get is tilted in that direction, whether intentionally or not.
A pretty good example of this is the current reporting out of Iraq. Has anyone noticed that the number of stories reported has gone down? Seems so to me. It also seems that the news, if reported, would mostly be good. Perhaps that is why it is not reported.
Yon has in the past offered his columns free to the mainstream media, but, of course, they would not accept. They wouldn't be caught dead printing or reporting the true story, when a bad news story fits their political leanings much better.
To try to get the real story out, Yon has offered his reports to the National Newspaper Association at no cost. Will anyone print them? We will see.
In the meantime, we are stuck with having to ferret out the truth from disparate sources, and piece it together for ourselves.
Yon's perception of what we have now is pretty good:
"......Clearly, a majority of Americans believe the current set of outdated
fallacies passed around mainstream media like watered down drinks at happy hour.
Why wouldn’t they? The cloned copy they get comes from the same sources that
list the specials at the local grocery store, and the hours and locations of
polling places for town elections. These same news sources print obituaries and
birth announcements, give play-by-play for local high school sports, and
chronicle all the painful details of the latest celebrity to fall from
grace.
"To illustrate the absurdity to which this conceit of the collective has
grown, I’m tempted to borrow from the boy in the fairy tale, only this time
pointing to and shouting at the doomsday-sayers parading by: “Hey, they aren’t
wearing any clothes. . . . ”............."
How sad. You should read all of Michael Yon's reports, along with those from Michael Totten, and Bill Roggio. They have been there, are beholden to no one, and one can get a good idea of the real truths in Iraq from them.
UPDATE: The United Nations reports good news from Iraq:
"Taxi driver Ahmed Khalil Baqir used to station himself outside Baghdad's main morgue, waiting for grieving families who went there to claim their relatives’ dead bodies.
"I was totally dependent on them for my living," Baqir, a 44-year-old father of four, said." I never thought about picking up people in the street as I was being hired five to eight times a day by these families. But now it is a waste of time to wait there and these days I wait only for about three hours in the morning and I continue my work picking up passengers in the street.”
Read the whole thing.
Via: Instapundit
He was recently home for a few days, and the report describes what he found here in the US:
"....I was at home in the United States just one day before the magnitude hit me like vertigo: America seems to be under a glass dome which allows few hard facts from the field to filter in unless they are attached to a string of false assumptions. Considering that my trip home coincided with General Petraeus’ testimony before the US Congress, when media interest in the war was (I’m told) unusually concentrated, it’s a wonder my eardrums didn’t burst on the trip back to Iraq. In places like Singapore, Indonesia, and Britain people hardly seemed to notice that success is being achieved in Iraq, while in the United States, Britney was competing for airtime with O.J. in one of the saddest sideshows on Earth.
"No thinking person would look at last year’s weather reports to judge whether it will rain today, yet we do something similar with Iraq news. The situation in Iraq has drastically changed, but the inertia of bad news leaves many convinced that the mission has failed beyond recovery, that all Iraqis are engaged in sectarian violence, or are waiting for us to leave so they can crush their neighbors. This view allows our soldiers two possible roles: either “victim caught in the crossfire” or “referee between warring parties.” Neither, rightly, is tolerable to the American or British public......"
He is being kind and generous to our mainstream media. They have ignored good news and magnified bad news from Iraq from the beginning. Is it deliberate? Pehaps. Most people, even journalists, tend to view events from the perspective of their experience and beliefs. Something that might seem credible to one person, may not seem so to another. The same goes for a determination of what is important or not. What we do know is that most journalists are quite liberal. The result is that the news we get is tilted in that direction, whether intentionally or not.
A pretty good example of this is the current reporting out of Iraq. Has anyone noticed that the number of stories reported has gone down? Seems so to me. It also seems that the news, if reported, would mostly be good. Perhaps that is why it is not reported.
Yon has in the past offered his columns free to the mainstream media, but, of course, they would not accept. They wouldn't be caught dead printing or reporting the true story, when a bad news story fits their political leanings much better.
To try to get the real story out, Yon has offered his reports to the National Newspaper Association at no cost. Will anyone print them? We will see.
In the meantime, we are stuck with having to ferret out the truth from disparate sources, and piece it together for ourselves.
Yon's perception of what we have now is pretty good:
"......Clearly, a majority of Americans believe the current set of outdated
fallacies passed around mainstream media like watered down drinks at happy hour.
Why wouldn’t they? The cloned copy they get comes from the same sources that
list the specials at the local grocery store, and the hours and locations of
polling places for town elections. These same news sources print obituaries and
birth announcements, give play-by-play for local high school sports, and
chronicle all the painful details of the latest celebrity to fall from
grace.
"To illustrate the absurdity to which this conceit of the collective has
grown, I’m tempted to borrow from the boy in the fairy tale, only this time
pointing to and shouting at the doomsday-sayers parading by: “Hey, they aren’t
wearing any clothes. . . . ”............."
How sad. You should read all of Michael Yon's reports, along with those from Michael Totten, and Bill Roggio. They have been there, are beholden to no one, and one can get a good idea of the real truths in Iraq from them.
UPDATE: The United Nations reports good news from Iraq:
"Taxi driver Ahmed Khalil Baqir used to station himself outside Baghdad's main morgue, waiting for grieving families who went there to claim their relatives’ dead bodies.
"I was totally dependent on them for my living," Baqir, a 44-year-old father of four, said." I never thought about picking up people in the street as I was being hired five to eight times a day by these families. But now it is a waste of time to wait there and these days I wait only for about three hours in the morning and I continue my work picking up passengers in the street.”
Read the whole thing.
Via: Instapundit
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