Whitewash continued?

The Weekly Standard's online essays are pounding CBS, and with good reason. CBS is trumpeting the Memogate Panel assertion that the Panel could not attribute CBS's failure to follow its own standards in issuing the Bush/National Guard report to CBS's political bias.

That bias is well-established: (1) Mary Mapes' five-year quest to "get" something to prove the (false) rumors about Bush's National Guard service, (2) Mapes' use of anti-Bush only sources with various axes to grind, (3) the deceptive "authentication" process, (4) CBS's efforts to assist Bill Burkett in meeting with the Kerry campaign, (5) CBS's timing of the report, (6) CBS's ignoring of the Swift Boat vets' charges, none of which have been disproved.

Jonathan Last reiterates that the Panel report is a whitewash. He notes that:

Only on closer examination do the report's core weaknesses become clear. For while it includes quite a lot of detail, its authors decline to draw conclusions on two essential factual matters: Were the documents CBS relied on copies of authentic 1972 memos? And was the reporting of them motivated by political bias? Without a final judgment on these counts, the report is useless--or worse.

John Podhoretz is less charitable:

. . . doing a story on George W. Bush's National Guard service wasn't exactly controversial. There had been dozens of stories on the matter in the mainstream media all year. And the documents weren't the only new aspect of the CBS story. Rather and Mapes did get an influential Texas politician named Ben Barnes to say on camera that he had intervened to land George W. Bush a slot in the Air National Guard back in 1968. That was a sleazy and unverifiable claim on its own, as Barnes spent most of that year in Switzerland, is an admitted liar, and was one of the biggest fundraisers for John Kerry. But it was new for network TV.

The problem with the story wasn't that it was rushed to air. The problem with the story wasn't that it violated journalistic protocols. The problem was that the story was a lie based on a fraud, and a conveniently timed lie at that--coming as it did only eight weeks before the nation was to go to the polls. And the lie was laid out before the world for all to see in a matter of hours.

The documents weren't exposed as possible fabrications. They were exposed as undeniable fabrications. Why is this so hard for CBS and for Thornburgh-Boccardi to accept? Because once you accept their spuriousness, you can't stop there. You have to ask the question: Why would everybody at CBS fall for such crude forgeries--forgeries so blatant that a lawyer with no particular expertise in document verification could spot them a few hours after the fact?

The report reveals that Mary Mapes had every reason to be skeptical about the provenance of the documents. She procured them from a source with an axe to grind against George W. Bush. She had located the source with help from the editor of a hysterically anti-Bush website. She told her source, Bill Burkett, that she was worried the documents were a "political dirty trick." She hired two document examiners who told her they had grave misgivings about the documents. Despite all this, Mapes barreled forward.

And Podhoretz notes one fact in the production of the now-infamous report that no other commentator (that I've seen) has commented on:

Everybody else at CBS seemed to take Mapes's word for it that the documents were kosher. But here's the thing: Mapes's superiors knew before the story aired that her reporting was slanted against Bush in an obvious and undisguised manner. The evidence for this is that Mapes's superiors took the unusual step of editing the segment themselves to remove a vociferous personal attack on Bush by David Hackworth, the decorated Vietnam veteran who knew absolutely nothing about the Texas Air National Guard or the documents or much of anything else about the future president's military service.

The inclusion and removal of the Hackworth remarks is the smoking gun here. By editing Hackworth out, CBS News president Andrew Heyward (who kept his job) and his deputy Betsy West (who lost hers) were not trying to provide balance to an unbalanced report. They were trying to hide the motivating animus behind the segment. With Hackworth in, they would not have had what the CIA used to call "plausible deniability"--the ability to pretend that the only reason for doing the story was to get the facts out.

Ultimately, Terry Eastland notes that CBS's constant denial of its obvious bias may only hurt both its credibility and its ability to recover from this debacle:

The panel's no-bias conclusion has brought sighs of relief inside CBS. It shouldn't. The problem for CBS is that the panel failed to take seriously whether the many flaws it found might, when taken together, be evidence of bias. After all, in certain legal contexts, bias that is "absolutely, unequivocally" denied can nonetheless be inferred from actions that depart from normal practices and procedures. Not incidentally, CBS maintains that the segment was just such an aberration from its tradition of journalistic excellence.

Perspectives, WWII and Iraq

Victor Davis Hanson fisks the tragicomic fecklessness from both the left and the right on Iraq. Some examples:

- It was a fatal error to disband the Iraqi army.
- Yet it was also a fatal error to keep some Baathists in the newly constituted army.

- Massive construction projects were hogged by gargantuan American firms
- Indigenous contractors proved irresponsible and unreliable

- We also lost hearts and minds by using GPS bombs to obliterate houses full of killers and take out blocks of insurgents.
- We lost hearts and minds by failing to act decisively and de facto turning over large enclaves to terrorists and Saddamites whom we were afraid to root out.

- Our helmeted soldiers with sunglasses are holed up in enclaves, don't mingle, and perpetuated the heavy-handed image of snooty occupiers.
- Leaving the Green Zone is an open invitation to kidnapping and worse. So we are both too well hidden and yet not hidden enough.

- It was a mistake to postpone Iraqi sovereignty for so long
- It is an equal mistake to rush into elections while the country is so insecure.

Hanson gives a history lesson on the horrors of World War II which was replete with bad military and political decisions and where American soldiers fought with inferior materiel and equipment but yet we look upon WWII as some kind of spotless endeavor. One wonders how we could have won that war if we had to deal with the hand-wringing and ghoul journalism of today.

Still think Bush Stole Florida?

Nice nugget from Sound Politics

The New York Daily News found last August that 46,000 people were registered to vote in both Florida and New York. Of those 46,000, 68 percent were Democrats, 12 percent were Republicans, and 16 percent were neither.
...
Anyone want to guess how many fraudulent votes Al Gore received in the 2000 election from this group?

HT: Powerline

Dean campaign paid two bloggers

On the heels of the uproar over government payments to Armstrong Williams, the former chief of Howard Dean's internet operation, Zephyr Teachout, [what a name!] disclosed some interesting tidbits about paying two prominent liberal bloggers to shill for the Dean campaign.

Specifically:

On Dean’s campaign, we paid Markos and Jerome Armstrong as consultants, largely in order to ensure that they said positive things about Dean. We paid them over twice as much as we paid two staffers of similar backgrounds, and they had several other clients.While they ended up also providing useful advice, the initial reason for our outreach was explicitly to buy their airtime. To be very clear, they never committed to supporting Dean for the payment -- but it was very clearly, internally, our goal.

See the entire post here.

"Markos" is Markos Zuniga who runs the DailyKos blog. DailyKos is one the most popular and virulently liberal blogs in the 'sphere. Zuniga disclosed his relationship with the Dean campaign:

But for the record, I will not discuss my role within the Dean campaign, other than to say it's technical, not message or strategy.

Bear in mind his comment after the Armstrong Williams' revelation:

Until names are named, we can assume every conservative pundit is on the White House’s payola rolls. [courtesy LGF]

Technical indeed.

Infant mortality - another liberal shibboleth

James Taranto from Opinion Journal debunks a commonly heard refrain from liberals who lambast our health care system: how poorly the US stands in the world infant mortality tables. According to Nicholas Kristof, a liberal op-ed columnist for the NY Times:

Here's a wrenching fact: If the U.S. had an infant mortality rate as good as Cuba's, we would save an additional 2,212 American babies a year.

Yes, Cuba's. Babies are less likely to survive in America, with a health care system that we think is the best in the world, than in impoverished and autocratic Cuba. According to the latest C.I.A. World Factbook, Cuba is one of 41 countries that have better infant mortality rates than the U.S.

In reality, Taranto notes:

The United States . . . has the most intensive system of emergency intervention to keep low birth weight and premature infants alive in the world. The United States is, for example, one of only a handful countries that keeps detailed statistics on early fetal mortality--the survival rate of infants who are born as early as the 20th week of gestation.

How does this skew the statistics? Because in the United States if an infant is born weighing only 400 grams [14 ounces] and not breathing, a doctor will likely spend lot of time and money trying to revive that infant. If the infant does not survive--and the mortality rate for such infants is in excess of 50 percent--that sequence of events will be recorded as a live birth and then a death.

In many countries, however, (including many European countries) such severe medical intervention would not be attempted and, moreover, regardless of whether or not it was, this would be recorded as a fetal death rather than a live birth. That unfortunate infant would never show up in infant mortality statistics.

Taranto concludes: "Medical statistics can be tricky: An excellent hospital may have a higher death rate than a mediocre one because of differences in the patient population, with the former treating much harder cases than the latter. That is what seems to have happened here: Kristof has alighted on a statistical artifact of American excellence and misconstrued it as a sign of America's shortcomings."

Back to the future, Supreme Court edition

In 1984 the Congress, fed up with squishy Federal judges giving ridiculously light sentences to career criminals, enacted the Sentencing Reform Act. Starting in 1987 (the Act's effective date), the judges had to enter judgments for sentencing criminals based on a complex grid matrix with allowable enhancements and downward departures based upon the defendant's prior bad conduct, use of firearm, amount of drugs, cooperation, size of defendant's role in crime, and other factors.

Yesterday, the Supreme Court shot down the Federal sentencing guidelines, which was expected after it overturned the Washington guidelines (patterned on the US Federal system) last June. Andy McCarthy notes:

Bottom line: The guidelines have lost the force of compulsory law, but they have not become irrelevant — at least not yet. For now, they will continue on, but they will literally be guidelines rather than binding commands. Sentencing judges will be made aware of them and obligated to consider them but not compelled to follow them. Judges will once again be relatively free to sentence at the top or bottom of the statute of conviction, regardless of what the guidelines prescribe. But that guidelines prescription, it is clearly hoped, will have considerable influence on judges by standing as a barometer of what is "reasonable."

More coverage (including links to virtually every major newspaper's coverage of the ruling) on Howard Bashman's How Appealing.

WHAT?!?!?!? The Law & Order non sequitur

I just watched Law & Order (original version) and I'm STUNNED by the stupidity of the ending.

Thankfully, tonight was Elisabeth Rohm's final episode. She is the ABSOLUTELY the worst of the various DA sidekicks (in chronological order: Richard Brooks, Jill Hennessey, Carrie Lowell, Angie Harmon, Rohm) because she flat-out cannot act. So NBC finally decided (after three years of fans blasting her performances) to fire Rohm. In tonight's show, the DA fired her noting that her "passion" was better used elsewhere because prosecuting could not be driven by passion but by cold detached logic. So he delivered the Trump line and Rohm's character asked:

"Is this because I'm a lesbian?"

WHAT?

WHEN WAS THAT EVER EVEN HINTED AT?

That is the WORST line in the history of the show. It had no basis in anything else, no basis in the character, no basis in the case and no connection to the rest of the "reason" for the character's sacking. The DA character followed it with two stunned "no"s. He should have said "I didn't even know that until now, just like all of our viewers".

The PaMonk is right: Fire the writer.

Yuck.

On the Memogate Independent Review Panel - UPDATED

UPDATED: Tony Blankley at Townhall argues forcefully along a similar line of reasoning that the Thornburgh/Boccardi panel was flawed from the beginning.

Let's start with the title of the CBS Panel: "Report of the Independent Review Panel Dick Thornburgh and Lewis D. Boccardi; Kirkpatrick & Lockhart Nicholson Graham LLP, Counsel to the Independent Review Panel." My first question is from whom is the Review Panel and its hired lawyers independent? Who paid the law firm for its hundreds, probably thousands of hours of research? I assume CBS paid them.

Keep in mind, it was the law firm that did the actual investigation. I have already communicated with one person who was contacted by a lawyer for the firm of Kirkpatrick & Lockart and told that they were carrying out the investigation's research. And, of course, Mr. Thornburgh is a senior member of Kirkpatrick & Lockhart Nicholson Graham LLP.

So the lawyers hired to independently investigate CBS have a lawyer/client relationship with CBS. Presumably, as a senior member of that firm, Independent Review Panel Member Richard Thornburgh also has CBS as a fiduciary client. Thus, unlike similarly named government independent investigations -- this one is paid for by, and carried out on behalf of, the target of the investigation.

The foregoing is not meant to impugn the integrity of Mr. Thornburgh. He is a man of proven integrity. But it is meant to try to determine what ethical obligations are required of him. If CBS is his legal client, then he has an ethical obligation to represent CBS's best interests -- and certainly to minimize any exposure CBS might have to legal liability for their conduct.
...
Thus, the report issued this week appears to be a very thorough and accurate rendition of facts that demonstrate the bad journalism practiced by CBS. This fulfills both his ethical obligations. He has been honest with his factual report, and, by being so, he has helped CBS appear to be coming clean with the public.

But where he has boldly sought and reported the objective facts, he has been cautious and inconclusive regarding the subjective characterizing of those facts.

So, for example, if CBS's own hired lawyer, Mr. Thornburgh, had found that the document in question was actually a fraudulent Department of Defense document, or that anyone at CBS subjectively believed the document was fraudulent before they used devices of interstate commerce to broadcast it, he might have exposed CBS to criminal and civil liability on both forging government documents and wire fraud charges.
...
The two greatest dangers to CBS coming out of the Sept. 8 broadcast were that it would be found that they: 1) knowingly broadcast fraudulent Defense Department documents, and 2) were motivated to do so because they are biased against George Bush and the Republican Party. And it was on those two vital points that the Thornburgh Report failed to come to a conclusion. The Report's concession of bad journalism merely conceded the undeniable. That fact had been apparent to most of the public and virtually all of the major news outlets by about Sept. 10. Conceding bad journalism was merely a belated bow to undeniable reality. They couldn't possibly have conceded less than they did.

But the "Independent Panel" provided one more service to CBS. It showed the report to CBS executives before it released it to the public. Thus CBS was given a public relations crises management expert's dream -- the extraordinarily valuable opportunity of simultaneously announcing the report's findings and CBS's corporate response to the findings -- which was to fire or ask for the resignation of key executives and producers below Dan Rather.
...
The crisis has been defused. The damage has been limited. Kirkpatrick & Lockhart Nicholson Graham LLP have earned every last penny of the undoubtedly huge legal/PR bill that is now, presumably, in the mail to CBS.

*****************
While the results of the Thornburgh/Boccardi review of the CBS Memogate scandal has generally received grudging acceptance from MSM and the blogosphere, a lot of folks--including those who broke the story, and ourselves--are quite unhappy about the pass given to CBS on politicial bias.

While former Attorney General and Governor Dick Thornburgh and former AP head Louis Boccardi seem to have sterling credentials, I think a fundamental flaw in the panel's investigation can be found on pages 2-3 of the report (after table of contents):

On September 22, 2004 CBS announced the appointment of an Independent Review Panel...to examine the process by the which the September 8 segment was prepared and broadcast. [emphasis mine] The panel was also asked to examine the circumstances surrounding the public statements and news reports by CBS News after September 8 defending the Segment as well as to make any recommendations it deemed appropriate.

The key here is the panel was retained to look at the process. Motivation was not part of the scope of the inquiry. I think this was intentional and suited the interests of CBS and was not, ultimately, disagreeable with Thornburgh and Boccardi. For CBS, it assured that the result would not be an indictment of CBS overall but more likely the malfeasance of some limited number of staff. For the Panel, it had the advantage of directing the investigation to what physically happened and obviated the need to explore the more intricate web of motivation. It is notable, though perhaps not entirely surprising, that the Report devotes several paragraphs discussing possible bias but in the end takes a punt.

Iraqi democracy

Two good articles on Iraq and democracy.

First, Morton Kondracke argues that the Bush administration is right to push for January 30 elections.

"A delay would only reward the savage insurgents who want to reduce Iraq to utter chaos. What really counts is what happens after the election - whether majority Shiites treat minority Sunnis well and whether the Iraqi security forces fight for their country."

Exactly right. A delay will provoke an increase in violence as the butchers see encouraging results from their savagery. Kondracke also points out that the success of Iraqi democracy depends on how the Shiite majority that will be in power after the elections will treat their former masters, the majority Sunnis. I would add that the continued significant presence of the United States military will serve as an very effective guardian of the peace in the early days and months of the government.

Kondracke also takes former National Security advisors Brent Scowcroft and Zbigniew Brzezinski to task for counseling a naked sellout of Israeli interests to curry favor with Europe and the Arabs.

Second, Ralph Peters argues how democracy failed in Pakistan where tribal loyalties and corruption defeated democracy and the lessons to be learned for Iraq.

The two essential lessons are pertinent to Iraq.

• First, democracy faces an uphill struggle in tribal cultures where blood ties trump national interests.

• Second, democracy has no worse enemy than corruption.

If held on schedule, the Iraqi elections will be the most openly staged in the Arab world. But if Iraq cannot rise above the culture of corruption endemic to the region and cannot persuade Shiite and Sunni Arabs, Kurds, Turkmen, Assyrians and others to form political alliances that transcend ethnicity and religious identity, it's unlikely democracy will take root and endure.

The world doesn't need another Pakistan, where only bayonets hold the state together. If anyone dooms democracy in Iraq, it won't be the foreign terrorists, but a corrupt political elite. The politicians pave the way for the generals.

HT: Boortz

Whitewash part II

Jonathan Last is hammering the Thornburgh/Boccardi report. Today he says that the failure to conclusively state the documents underlying the false CBS news segment on Pres. Bush's National Guard story were forged is belied by the facts that the report lays out.

Why? Here is Last's summary of what the Thornburgh panel's typsetting expert, Peter Tytell, found:

Now, after careful examination, Tytell has come to three conclusions:

(1) The previously-released Texas Air National Guard documents had been created on an "Olympia manual typewriter."

(2) The four disputed Killian memos "were not produced on an Olympia manual typewriter."

(3) "The Killian documents were produced on a computer in Times New Roman typestyle."

HRC's Corruption

From one who knows her, these observations on the current "accounting mistake" from Hillary Clinton's 2000 Senate run:

Hillary has always been a detail person who kept a hawk-like focus on the cost of even her husband's campaigns. How much more involved and fixated she must have been on a major financial decision that affected her own election effort.

The federal indictment of the key financial officer in Hillary's campaign — an event The New York Times did not see fit to put on the front page — shows that Sen. Clinton has not escaped from the culture of scandal that dogged her husband's presidency.

The question of who understated the cost of the Hollywood event now joins the pantheon of questions that have haunted the senator's past — Who hid the billing records? Who ordered the travel office firings? Who helped Hillary to make a killing in the commodities market? Did the first lady know her brother was paid to secure a pardon for a major drug trafficker? Did Hillary represent the Madison Bank in a fraudulent real-estate deal? Who ordered the removal of the FBI files?

Hillary's ethical obtuseness is truly Nixonian. Usually campaign-finance filing errors are so mundane that they draw light fines from the Federal Elections Commission. That her campaign committed so important a breach of the finance laws that govern elections that her finance chairman is under a federal indictment is truly extraordinary.

Go Nuclear for the love of the Constitution

I've discussed this before, at least twice, and it is about two years late, but the Senate may finally implement the long overdue rules change that would prevent the 60-vote filibustering of judicial nominations. See former Judiciary Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch's article linked above.

FYI, here is my rejoinder to the Dems' case defending their filibustering on the basis of "Republicans squashed Clinton's nominees too".

What about what Republicans did to Democratic judicial nominations?

Let's look at the record that Dems continually point to:

1. Filibustering the nomination of Abe Fortas for Chief Justice of the Supreme Court -- back in 1968, the filibuster could be broken by a regular majority of 51 votes, not 60; furthermore, Fortas was filibustered by Democrats, not Republicans, and the Democrats had more than 60 Senators in their majority so they had actual control of the Senate if they so chose.

2. Voting down Ronnie White -- the Missouri Supreme Court Justice was disapproved of by John Ashcroft, and with good reason -- go find some of White's more controversial opinions and read them (The Monk already has); they veer from incoherent to illogical to just plain senseless. But at least White got an up-or-down vote.

3. Not voting on Clinton appointees in late 2000. This is rubbish because the Democrats in the Senate prevented MORE George H.W. Bush appointees from getting floor votes in 1992, AND more Reagan appointees from getting floor votes in 1988 (in the hopes of a Dukakis win) than the Republicans prevented Clinton nominees from getting voted on in 2000.

So it has been time to go nuclear for more than two years. Never before have appellate and district court nominees been filibustered by the Senate. The Republicans must be tough for once and actually get something done. Otherwise, there's no value in having them in charge.

German Court approves Muslim fundamentalist classes in school

An excellent Cantonese proverb says that causing trouble in your own house is "like catching a tapeworm and shoving it up your [hindquarters]."

Admittedly it loses some of the mellifluity in the translation but it applies to the decision by a German court that allows Muslim fundamentalists to teach religion classes in Berlin's public schools.

BERLIN--Told that she couldn't sit in on religion classes for the Muslim students at Rixdorfer Elementary School, Marion Berning went into the classroom anyway on the pretext of fixing a window. What she found stunned and angered her. The teacher was saying that "women are for the house, for the children. And the girls were sitting like this," she says, placing her hands in her lap, slumping her shoulders in an imitation of a meek posture, and casting her eyes downward. "While all of the boys," she is yelling now, "they were talking and playing. This is fundamentalism."

Berning isn't a nosy meddler. She is the principal at Rixdorfer school in the Berlin neighborhood known as Little Istanbul, where Turkish markets line the streets and Muslim worshipers file into discreet prayer rooms down back alleys. And these days her job is complicated by a widening gulf among her students. There have been more fights and more name-calling incidents at Rixdorfer, Berning says, since a German court granted an umbrella group called the Islamic Federation the right to teach religion classes in Berlin schools--where 8 percent of students are Turkish Muslims. Muslim girls are dropping out of sports classes and field trips, she says, and there are fewer friendships between Muslim and non-Muslim students.

So it isn't enough that intolerance and hatred be taught at madrassas or at home but it should be enshrined in schools as well? And in the meantime the English want to 'protect' fundamentalism with anti-hate speech legislation...

HT: Discarded Lies

To sum up . . .

Yup.

Shufflin' off the rails?

Apple (not Gwenyth Paltrow's poor daughter) announced two new products at its Macworld expo today, one is a necessary addition to its line that is about 15 years overdue, the second will need to be revamped soon.

I own a Mac PowerBook and like it alot (Free Plug!). I also have an iPod (excellent, more Free Plug!) and bought one for the Monkette2B for Xmas/birthday (whatever, they're only 11 days apart in her case). Apple has always been criticized for being relatively too expensive relative to PCs, so it finally bit the bullet and created the Mac Mini entry-level CPU at two price points, $499 and $599. The MM has the basics that a computer user needs and looks like a pretty good competitor to Gateway, HP, etc.'s various budget models (ignore the clock speed differentials, they're irrelevant in comparing Mac speed to PC speed). I hope it catches on for Apple.

The other item looks cute but needs to be revamped. It's called the iPod Shuffle and is available in 512MB or 1GB size at $99 or $149. It's the answer to flash memory mp3 players -- really small, iPod-esque design but nowhere near the interactivity of even the iPod mini. Why? You can hold about 250 per gig on an iPod so the Shuffles hold either 125 or 250 songs. But because there is no screen, track listing or way to switch tracks other than the FF and REW buttons, you cannot easily access the songs lower down on the playlist (e.g., add 10 12-song CDs to the Shuffle, and you have to scroll through about 60 songs to get to the tracks on CD 7). This will change by Apple adding a status screen or the Shuffle will flop.

Upon further review: the Memogate report is . . .

. . . a whitewash, according to Jonathan V. Last. He notes the basic acceptance of the report by right-wingers in the blogosphere like Jim Geraghty, Capn Ed and even Hinderaker, which I noted yesterday (see next item down). But Hugh Hewitt and Last both disagree:

One of the only bloggers raising his voice against the report was Hugh Hewitt, who observed that the panel had abdicated the central question put to it.

HEWITT couldn't be more correct. Surely the blue-ribbon report had the responsibility not merely to critique CBS standards and practices, but to help us find out the truth about the incident at hand. To return to the New York Times analogy, it would be like judging the Jayson Blair case without knowing what he had and hadn't made up. By assiduously avoiding conclusions of any kind, the report has left only one possible conclusion: The Thornburgh-Boccardi panel believes that the way in which CBS went about its business may have been improper, but that the story they produced wasn't necessarily wrong. If anything, this represents a step backward in the
official reckoning of the case.

Dan Rather understands this. On page 208 we learn that "Rather informed the Panel that he still believes the content of the documents is true because 'the facts are right on the money,' and that no one had provided persuasive evidence that the documents were not authentic."

And Mary Mapes understands it, too. "Indeed, in the end, all that the panel did conclude was that there were many red flags that counseled against going to air quickly . . ." she says now. "I am heartened to see that the panel found no political bias on my part, as indeed I have none."

Forget Rather's statement, it is sheer lunacy and comes from the panel report itself, not post-report fallout (although he undoubtedly believes that today). But what Last points out is worrisome: the panel report's failure to find that the documents were fake and motivations of CBS were wrong are both usable to defend CBS from charges of the bias it displayed by airing the piece in question based on obviously fake documents handed to it by a tainted source.

Understand this: the mere fact that CBS commissioned this outside investigation is a tacit admission of wrongdoing because news organizations are NOT open books regarding how they put stories together and get them to air or print. The panel report also contains tremendous evidence both of bias and the fake nature of the documents. But regardless of the actual mandate of the panel, its failure to ultimately issue the j'accuse at the end means that leftist nutters like Daily Kos and Atrios can claim there is no bias at CBS. No, the Mapes quote is not a joke, even though it is about as true and accurate as 1 + 1 = 3. But the fact that she can use the report as a shield against both her own improper motivations AND to defend the false documents she championed means that her "fake but accurate" defense is alive and well. Indeed, Powerline's Scott Johnson notes Mapes' use of the gaps in the report to make her case.

Here is more on that vein, this time from Hewitt:

With a punt on the central question of the controversy[,] CBS got what it wanted --a slap on the wrist, an apparent wrap-up with the dismissal of some underlings. The culture of undisclosed bias gets a pass, and the obvious corruption of the "news" process in the service of the Democratic Party is classified as "unknowable" because Dan Rather and Mary Mapes said they weren't partisans? What a joke, as transparent a whitewash as the documents were forgeries.

Indeed, as Captain's Quarters notes, the full report contains a 17+ page section detailing Mapes' willingness to proceed to air the piece with documents that were easily discoverable as fakes. The Capn has two main conclusions. First:

. . . we have CBS producers lying, management AWOL, and the entire enterprise embarassing itself. These aren't minor points, and admitting them doesn't make this a whitewash. The executive summary reads like a deposition in some sense, and while it gives a good overview of the conclusions Thornburgh-Boccardi were willing to unequivocally reach, the report itself contains much more meat, and many revelations that CBS will not find particularly complimentary in any journalistic or management sense.

And second, don't discount the reality of both bias and falsity:

. . . there are many more instances of [CBS's] carelessness, prevarications, and corner-cutting in this report. But the substantial representation made by the Thornburgh-Boccardi report demonstrates beyond any reasonable doubt that CBS allowed Mapes to run wild with this story, that it followed none of its own internal checks and balances, and that CBS management simply allowed Mapes to put whatever she wanted on the air. It is impossible to imagine that CBS would have done anything like this on a story about John Kerry or anyone else other than George Bush.

Whether the panel wants to state it specifically or not, political bias is at the heart of this scandal. CBS undermines its own rehabilitation by attempting to pretend otherwise.

And for more fun, David Blum says Rather's and Heyward's heads should have rolled too.

MEMOGATE: CBS fires four, including three execs

For their roles in producing, airing and covering up the problems with the Dan Rather 60 Minutes II false segment claiming Pres. Bush was absent from his National Guard duty, CBS has put four major news personnel on the chopping block. CBS sacked Mary Mapes, the producer of the segment and the person who obtained the forged documents that comprised the basis of the story, and effectively fired (by requesting their resignations) three major executives: Senior Vice President Betsy West, CBS News primetime program supervisor; 60 Minutes Wednesday Executive Producer Josh Howard; and Senior Broadcast Producer Mary Murphy. The false report on Bush's National Guard service was exposed by Little Green Footballs and Powerline.

The firings were the CBS reaction to the report promulgated by the independent panel headed by former AG Richard Thornburgh and Louis Boccardi that CBS asked to investigate the "Memogate" story. The report, in 224-page pdf format, is here. More concise, and equally harsh, is CBS President Leslie Moonves's statement that explains the failure of each person CBS fired (although it covers a bit for Rather). [HT: QandO]

From the credit where it's due department: (1) CBS did not leave this story out in the wash with a Friday 5pm release like many bloggers anticipated, it publicized the report and released the results on a Monday morning; (2) sacking three senior execs and the producer who did the background work on the piece is a significant reaction; (3) the real story of why Rather took an earlier than anticipated retirement is still unwritten.

Here are some highlights, from the CBS story linked in the title:

After a stubborn 12-day defense of the story, CBS News conceded that it could not confirm the authenticity of the documents and asked former Attorney General Dick Thornburgh and former Associated Press President Louis Boccardi to conduct an independent investigation into the matter.

Their findings were contained in a 224-page report made public on Monday . . .

The panel identified 10 serious defects in the preparation and reporting of the story that included failure to obtain clear authentication of the documents or to investigate controversial background of the source of the purported documents, retired Texas National Guard Lt. Col. Bill Burkett.

The producer of the piece, Mary Mapes, was also faulted for calling Joe Lockhart, a senior official in the John Kerry campaign, prior to the airing of the piece, and offering to put Burkett in touch with him. The panel called Mapes’ action a “clear conflict of interest that created the appearance of political bias.”

* * *
A key factor in the decision to broadcast the piece was a telephone conversation between Mapes and Maj. Gen. Bobby Hodges, Killian’s commanding officer during the period in question. Mapes told the panel Hodges confirmed the content of the four documents after she read them to him over the phone.

Hodges, however, denied doing so. He also told the panel he had given Mapes information that should have raised warning flags about the documents, including his belief that Killian had never ordered anyone, including Mr. Bush, to take a physical. Hodges said that when he finally saw the documents after the Sept. 8 broadcast, he concluded they were bogus and told Rather and Mapes of his opinion on Sept. 10.

* * *
After rushing the piece to air, the panel said, CBS News compounded the error by blindly defending the story. In doing so, the news organization missed opportunities to set the record straight.

* * *
The panel believes a turning point came on Sept. 10, when CBS News President Andrew Heyward ordered West to review the opinions of document examiners who had seen the disputed documents and the confidential sources supporting the story. But no such investigation was undertaken at that time.

“Had this directive been followed promptly, the panel does not believe that 60 Minutes Wednesday would have publicly defended the segment for another 10 days,” the report said.

TKM's coverage, with links to ABC's work uncovering CBS's imcompetence and our own commentary on CBS's complete malfeasance is here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.

Other reactions include: Cap'n Ed, The Kerry Spot -- which includes the 10 key defects in producing the segment, and QandO (with a great "translation" of the Moonves statement's position on Dan Rather. Powerline had not taken a bow when I prepped this entry, and LGF is overloaded with hits.

In addition, Tim Graham says the panel's failing to find a political motivation to "Get Bush" is equivalent to failing to find that humans would die if the Earth had no oxygen. Wongdoer agrees (see the comments to this post). Vodkapundit's Will Collier (who doesn't understand that Auburn couldn't beat USC even after getting a 21-point spot) is perspicacious in noting the dogs that did not bark and that "Rather Lied, Careers Died." And Soxblog says the report is a very GOOD half a loaf.

UPDATE: Powerline has John Hinderaker's response to the Panel report. He finds it condemns CBS but that it falls short on two fronts: (1) pulling up short on the question of actual political bias, and (2) CBS's coordination with the Kerry campaign. Here is the salient part on point #2:

The second issue that the report fails to address is the communication and apparent coordination between 60 Minutes staff and the Kerry campaign. We now know that there was more communication than had previously been acknowledged. In addition to Mapes's famous phone call to Joe Lockhart, asking him to talk to Bill Burkett, she had several conversations with Chad Clanton, who also worked for the Kerry campaign. Clanton told the panel that Mapes asked him what information the Kerry campaign had gotten from other reporters about the National Guard story, and also told him about the story she was working on for 60 Minutes. So at a minimum, we know that the Kerry campaign knew about the 60 Minutes story while it was in preparation. And it is fair to assume that Clanton put the most benign interpretation on his several conversations with Mapes.

UPDATE II: Hinderaker mentioned Rather's stance on Memogate on Powerline but did not mention that he took his information straight from the Thornburgh panel report. Here, from the Panel report, is what Rather said to the Panel (and it shows why Rather should have come in for more hostile treatment from both the Panel and Les Moonves):

The Panel asked Rather about his interview with Marcia Kramer [on CBS News]. Rather said that he did not want to do the interview or the apology on September 20, but [CBS News Pres. Andrew] Heyward and Schwartz asked him to do so. Rather said that he made his case as to why an apology was not appropriate and that management did not agree with him. Rather agreed to do the apology on September 20 and the Marcia Kramer interview because he is a “team player.” Rather informed the Panel that he still believes the content of the documents is true because “the facts are right on the money,” and that no one had provided persuasive evidence that the documents were not authentic.

It is clear that Rather’s joining in the apology given his role as the correspondent on the Segment and his status as CBS News’ most visible presence was critical to its acceptance. The Panel finds his comments disavowing the apology to be troubling, notwithstanding that he said he regarded himself as carrying out what CBS News felt was in its best interest on September 20.

Hinderaker is completely correct: Rather's statement that no one provided persuasive evidence that the documents were false is pure lunacy -- by Sept. 20, it was clear that no one could provide even a scintilla of evidence that the documents were authentic; indeed, as I noted here on September 17, the "facts" that allegedly corroborated the fraudulent memos had been disproven. Because the documents were the SOLE evidence for the story (all the interviews with "witnesses" were based upon the accuracy of the documents themselves), the facts were not only NOT "right on the money" they were pure fantasy.

BTW, Charles from LGF is over here b/c LGF crashed.

Bad Math at the Grey Lady

The folks at Powerline cut the NYTimes a new one today. Columnist Edmund Andrews made an extremely egregious error in an article on Social Security in the January 2nd edition of the Times. This correction was printed yesterday:

Correction: January 9, 2005, Sunday:
The Economic View column last Sunday, about the Bush administration's economic proposals, misstated a projection by the Congressional Budget Office about Social Security benefits. Under current law, a median-income worker who retires today can expect an annual benefit of $14,900, not $26,000.

The problem is this inaccuracy completely guts the central point of the article:

That raises basic questions of fairness, but also of practicality. The risk is that people will glide along for the next several decades, but then rebel when growing numbers of them experience a huge drop in their standard of living as soon as they retire. They might then use their political power to reverse the cuts.

And the Times doesn't tell you that. And, of course, hardly any notices Corrections.

All over but the cryin'

The Ukrainian Central Election Committee will declare Yushchenko the president-elect of Ukraine. In an effort to make Al Gore look magnanimous, Yanukovych continues to challenge his 52%-41% loss:

Yanukovich has said he will appeal the official results to the supreme court once they are announced, although even he has admitted that the justices are unlikely to satisfy his complaints.

The high court has already thrown out several Yanukovich appeals over the December vote, with the justices turning down four complaints on Monday morning and four more in the afternoon.

European failure in Iran

This is what happens when the US leaves important matters up to the talk-talk-talk Europeans who don't care a whit about whether actions speak louder than words on paper:

Iran may resume uranium enrichment -- which can be used to make atomic bombs -- in March if talks with the European Union (news - web sites) fail to yield satisfactory progress, a senior Iranian security official said Monday.

If the talks go well, Hossein Mousavian told Reuters Tehran was prepared to extend until June the enrichment freeze it began in late November in an effort to disprove U.S. accusations it is seeking nuclear weapons.

In other words, if the Euros cave in to Iran's next set of demands, the Iranians will deign to halt enrichment for all of 90 days.

The US needs to take over this situation because the Europeans will never get anything useful accomplished other than "assurances" worth no more than the air exhaled to provide them.

Why the CIA still sucks

In the face of Libya's backdown, Pakistan's about face, Afghanistan's transformation and Iraq's impending exercise of the franchise, ousted CIA executive director (the #3 person in the agency) Buzzy Krongard said the US may be better off with Bin Laden at large:

If the world’s most wanted terrorist is captured or killed, a power struggle among his Al-Qaeda subordinates may trigger a wave of terror attacks, said AB “Buzzy” Krongard, who stepped down six weeks ago as the CIA’s third most senior executive.

“You can make the argument that we’re better off with him (at large),” Krongard said. “Because if something happens to Bin Laden, you might find a lot of people vying for his position and demonstrating how macho they are by unleashing a stream of terror.”

This is just stupid, and shows why CIA has been such a failure at combatting international terrorism. Kill OBL, cause chaos, let the others kill themselves in the fight to succeed him, and start rounding up the terrorists as they lose confidence in their ability to sustain the fight. OBL's "escape" is a HUGE boost to the terrorists. Whacking him would be both just and devastating to their cause.

Must read: how Iran and Syria are working with Iraqi terrorists

Here is the beginning of the important column by Michael Ledeen linked in the title:

Last week, Alhurra — an Arabic-language television station that is funded by our government — broadcast a taped interview with a terrorist named Moayad Ahmed Yasseen, the leader of Jaish Muhammad (Muhammad's Army). He was captured nearly two months ago in Fallujah during the liberation of the city.

Yasseen had been a colonel in Saddam's Army, so he was a fighter of some importance. He told Alhurra that two other former Iraqi military officers belonging to his group were sent "to Iran in April or May, where they met a number of Iranian intelligence officials." He said they also met with Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and were provided with money, weapons, "and, as far as I know, even car bombs" for Jaish Muhammad.

Yasseen also said he was told by Saddam himself, after the liberation of Iraq in the spring of 2003, to cross into Syria and meet with a Syrian intelligence officer to ask for money and weapons.

So here we have a high-ranking member of the "insurgency," a textbook case of the sort of Saddam loyalist said to compose the bulk of those fighting against the Coalition. And what does he tell us? He tells us that he has been working closely with Iran and Syria, and that this close working relationship was directed by Saddam. Moreover, his organization, Jaish Muhammad, is an ally of Abu Musab al Zarqawi, himself a longtime resident of Tehran.

In other words, while there are certainly plenty of Saddam loyalists among the terrorists fighting against us, they are receiving support from Damascus and Tehran. Yasseen's testimony is one of the first bits of intelligence from the Fallujah campaign to reach the public. If we had truly investigative journalists out there, they would be all over this story, which is only one of many that came out of Fallujah. About a month ago, a letter from an Army officer who had fought in Fallujah circulated on the net, and, like Yasseen's tape, it helps dispel some of the myths clouding our strategic vision.

The Abbas Pander

After pandering to the terrorists, declaring Israel the Zionist Enemy, calling for the release of terrorists held in Israeli jails, refusing to de-Hamasify the PA, and running only against a mass murderer who would never be let out of his jail cell in Israel to take over the PA, Mahmoud Abbas won the PA "election".

The man is a terrorist who said "'I present this victory to the soul of Yasser Arafat and present it to our people and to our martyrs,'" according to the article linked above. The article also said Abbas is "widely known" as Abu Mazen. Actually, that is his warrior name -- a tradition of the Arab militants. His war? Killing innocent Jews as a member of the PLO.

Bret Stephens has a look at the election from the West Bank here. The Cap'n takes issue with Western press coverage, and Fatah efforts to rig a higher vote turnout, here.

A strong Taiwan declaration needed

John Tcacik from the Heritage Foundation argues that an 'anti-secession' law that Beijing has put on the legislative agenda for March is in reality the construction of a legal framework for the invasion of Taiwan.

It's clear that there are two main reasons why China has not invaded and reclaimed Taiwan. First, without the use or threatened use of non-conventional weapons, it's far from clear that they could. A successful invasion would require an amphibious assault that would in all probability have to dwarf Normandy. One wag commented that a Red invasion would require "a million man swim". And the Taiwanese have been dug in for 50 years. Second, the all but explicit threat that such an invasion would draw Washington and the US Navy into the fray.

The Bush administration, either out of miscalculation, disinterest or realpolitik with China has been a bit wet on Taiwan as Tcacik's article indicates. A clumsy statement of legality from Colin Powell and Bush's coolness toward Taiwan only encourages the Red Chinese and may slowly reinforce the impression that Washington may let a provocation go especially since the Middle East and China's 'help' in North Korea might be considered more important. An invasion won't happen tomorrow and probably won't happen soon but a strong statement by the President that we have a moral and legal obligation to maintain the political, economic and social integrity of Taiwan would go a long way to dissuading Red Chinese adventurism especially if the internal situation in China ever goes south and Beijing needs a distraction.

Cisneros for Gonzales

Henry Cisneros is a prominent Democrat, mayor of San Antonio 1981-1989 and secretary of HUD under President Clinton. He contributed an exceptionally well written piece in the Opinion Journal on the Gonzales nomination.

In the 36 years that I have voted, I have supported and voted for only one Republican. That was when Alberto Gonzales ran for election to the Texas Supreme Court. I messaged friends about this uncommonly capable and serious man, I urged them to support his campaign financially, and voted for him. He is now President ush's nominee to be Attorney General of the United States and I urge his confirmation.
...
Of all the positions in the cabinet, it has been traditionally understood both by the Senate and by the American public that the president needs a trusted adviser in the attorney general's job. That was understood when President Kennedy named his brother Robert to the post. The Senate has in practice respected the fact that if the president wants a key individual to anchor his inner circle of cabinet advisers, he should be allowed to have that person. The public also accepts the fact that if the nominees have proven capabilities and have no egregious disqualifying attributes, the president should get to name his team.

In this case, Judge Gonzales is better qualified than many recent attorneys general. He was general counsel to Gov. Bush in Texas, secretary of state of Texas, a member of the Texas Supreme Court, and for the last four years counsel to the president in the White House. Many of the challenges and decisions he will confront as U.S. attorney general he has seen in some form in these important legal positions.

The last four years have posed harrowingly difficult dilemmas, especially those related to the 9/11 terrorist attack on our nation and the military and security actions that resulted from it... The American people decided in November, for better or for worse, to see this conflict through. It would be unseemly at this juncture to use the forum of a Senate confirmation process to try to find a scapegoat for a war that is at a very difficult stage. In any event, Alberto Gonzales has done nothing to alter the basic facts that he is a seasoned legal professional, is needed by the president, and is person of sterling character.

As an American of Latino heritage, I also want to convey the immense sense of pride
that Latinos across the nation feel because of Judge Gonzales's nomination. I had the high honor of serving in a president's cabinet, as have five other American Hispanics, but we all served in what might be called "outer circle" departments. The historic character of this nomination is that Judge Gonzales has been nominated to one of the big four--State, Defense, Treasury and Justice. This is a major breakthrough for Latinos, especially since it is so important to have a person who understands the framework of legal rights for all Americans as attorney general.

Judge Gonzales has demonstrated a nuanced understanding of the struggles people face as they try to build a life for their families in our country. Perhaps that appreciation comes from remembrances of his own family's struggles. In the Commencement Address at his alma mater, Rice University, earlier this year, he recalled: "During my years in high school, I never once asked my friends over to our home. You see, even though my father poured his heart into that house, I was embarrassed that 10 of us lived in a cramped space with no hot running water or telephone." On another occasion, he said: "My father did not have many opportunities because he had only two years of formal schooling, and so my memories are of a man who had to work six days a week to support his family. . . . He worked harder than any person I have ever known."

It will be good for America to have an attorney general who has memories like those, because he can rely on those memories to understand the realities many Americans still confront in their lives. I believe he will apply those life experiences to the work ahead. His confirmation by the Senate can be part of America's steady march toward liberty and justice for all.

Hope in Washington?

For all you loyal TKM readers out there who have been following the Washington gubernatorial postings, John Fund of the Opinion Journal says despite Democrat Christine Gregoire's inauguration scheduled for Wednesday, don't count Republican Dino Rossi out yet.

The new media--talk radio, bloggers and independent watchdog groups--have followed up their success in exposing Dan Rather's use of phony memos by showcasing another scandal: Washington state's bizarre race for governor, which features a vote count so close and compromised it allows Florida to retire the crown for electoral incompetence. If Democrat Christine Gregoire, who leads by 129 votes and is scheduled to take the office Wednesday, eventually has to face a new election, it will have been in large part because of the new media's ability to give the story altitude before it reached the courts.

When the idea of a revote was first broached three weeks ago by a moderate Republican former secretary of state, Ms. Gregoire's reaction was swift: "Absolutely ludicrous." With Republican candidate Dino Rossi filing a formal court challenge last Friday alleging a massive breakdown in the vote count, she may still think the idea of a court-ordered revote is laughable, but her legal team is taking it seriously. "There's not even a 50-50 chance a court would rule with Republicans to set aside the election," says Jenny Durkan, a Gregoire confidant who is representing state Democrats. Hardly an expression of supreme confidence.

The feeling that a revote is possible is buoyed by polls showing the public still thinks Mr. Rossi, who won the first two vote counts before falling behind in the third, actually won. His legal team has also compiled a strong body of evidence showing irregularities, certainly one far more detailed than that which North Carolina officials used last week to order a statewide March revote of the race for agriculture commissioner after a computer ate 4,438 ballots in a GOP-leaning county. Without those votes, the GOP candidate was leading by 2,287 votes out of 3.5 million cast.

Facts about Abu Ghraib

While Messrs. Kennedy and Leahy try to tar Alberto Gonzales with engendering a permissive atmosphere that led to 'abuses' at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay, click on the title for a link to a quiz about Abu Ghraib. Very surprising.

HT:

Washington Gubernatorial Watch

The dead have voted in Washington. At least eight dead folks have voted in King County, the heavily Democratic county where Democrat Christine Gregoire scrounged up an extra 200 votes to win a second recount. But it isn't fraud, according to Bill Huennekens, the King County elections supervisor.

HT:

Andy McCarthy's razor-sharp logic

Andy McCarthy is the pizza cutter of NRO and the erroneous circular reasoning of the liberals is the victim of his slicing. Today he cuts the Left a new one on its fatuous and legally erroneous opposition to the nomination of Alberto Gonzales as Attorney General. Here's the key nugget of his defense of the proffered AG:

But the critics should do us all a favor: . . . Be ready to tell Americans exactly what protections you want to give to the terrorists. Be ready to tell Americans that you would prohibit coercive interrogation even if it were the only way of saving a hundred thousand of them.

If you're not ready to do that — because you full well understand that your position is not one even you can defend when the questions get hard — then don't waste our time. Get out of the way of serious people like Judge Gonzales. People who don't pretend to be perfect, who don't claim to have all the answers, and who are not so smug that they think they can afford to take life-and-death options off the table — even as they pray they will never have to use them.

For more on the "torture" false controversy and how it harms US efforts in the war against terrorists, read Heather MacDonald's excellent piece in City Journal.

A Michael Moore moment

A very funny post from Bill Whittle whose anthology - Silent America, Essays from a democracy at war - has gotten wide acclaim on his run-in with Michael Moore. A touch long but Whittle is brisk and funny:

I mentioned a few weeks ago that Michael Moore was a guest on SUNDAY MORNING SHOOTOUT, for which I am the editor. I recused myself from that taping. There are, to my knowledge, only five people that I fear may cause me to lose control enough to become (progressively) embarrassed, fired, arrested or executed. O.J Simpson is one; the second is the absolutely execrable Ted Rall, and the final three are Michael Moore.

Tucked into a post was a pearl of wisdom. Apparently in the Moore interview, Moore contends that the Republicans have been very successful running actors for political office and that the Democrats need to do the same. Whittle goes into a list of conservative Hollywood actors who have made it to political office: Reagan, Arnold, Fred Thompson, Sonny Bono and then makes the point that they were all miserable actors...

No, some are great movie stars, but generally speaking they’re miserable actors. But in person, truly great personalities. Which tends to confirm a theory of mine, which is that people who are really terrific actors are some of the most boring, colorless, hollow people you would ever be unfortunate enough to meet. I have met a few, and by and large they are simply empty vessels into which better, brighter people – the scientific term for them is writers – pour intelligence, wit, courage and character. That’s why these fictional creations are called characters. They’re the people actors want to be – but due to some defect, some lack of inherent character, these actors cannot go out and actually become such characters: soldiers, astronauts, cowboys – you know, interesting people. People they make movies about. Actors have to pretend to be them. Actually, first writers have to pretend to be them, then the actor takes these written-down make-believe instructions and then adds their own Eye Crinkles, Thoughtful Stares and Charming, Boyish Grins and viola! It’s a lot easier than actually becoming such a person, so you must admire the strategy, at least from a conservation of energy point of view.

There is very little in our safe, sanitary, prosperous world more disappointing than listening to an in-depth interview with a favorite celebrity and discovering, to our growing then endless dismay, that there is a long, long, looooooong way between Gillian Anderson and Dana Sculley. Or to see how far Jack Ryan is from Alec Baldwin. Or from Ben Affleck.

No, these conservative actors did not get elected because they were great actors. They got elected because they grew up. They all went out and had to deal with reality, and the possibility that things might not turn out according to the script. They had the guts to run, which means they had the guts to risk losing.

You know. Being unpopular and all.

I think that there are no liberal actors being elected because none of them have the inner character to take that risk – the risk of unscripted reality. The great actors just don’t seem to have the chops off the set.

Wow. I think I should go out and buy Silent America.

HT:

Will Kane = Uncle Sam

Victor Davis Hanson compares the role the US has been playing in recent years to that of Marshal Will Kane, immortalized by Gary Cooper in High Noon.

He begins by asking where would the world be the last 15 years without the United States:

Iraq, Iran, and Libya would now have nukes. Afghanistan would remain a seventh-century Islamic terrorist haven sending out the minions of Zarqawi and Bin Laden worldwide. The lieutenants of Noriega, Milosevic, Mullah Omar, Saddam, and Moammar Khaddafi would no doubt be adjudicating human rights at the United Nations. The Ortega Brothers and Fidel Castro, not democracy, would be the exemplars of Latin America. Bosnia and Kosovo would be national graveyards like Pol Pot's Cambodia. Add in Kurdistan as well — the periodic laboratory for Saddam's latest varieties of gas. Saddam himself, of course, would have statues throughout the Gulf attesting to his control of half the world's oil reservoirs. Europeans would be in two-day mourning that their arms sales to Arab
monstrocracies ensured a second holocaust. North Korea would be shooting missiles over Tokyo from its new bases around Seoul and Pusan. For their own survival, Germany, Taiwan, and Japan would all now be nuclear. Americans know all that — and yet they grasp that their own vigilance and military sacrifices have earned them spite rather than gratitude. And they are ever so slowly learning not much to care anymore.

The Will Kane parallel:

In fact, an American consensus is growing that envy and hatred of the United States, coupled with utopian and pacifistic rhetoric, disguise an even more depressing fact: Outside our shores there is a growing barbarism with no other sheriff in sight. Any cinema student of the American Western can fathom why the frightened townspeople — huddled in their churches and shuttered schools — almost hated the lone marshal as much as they did the six-shooting outlaw gang rampaging in their streets. After all, the holed-up 'good' citizens were always angry that the lawman had shamed them, worried that he might make dangerous demands on their insular lives, confused about whether they would have to accommodate themselves either to savagery or civilization in their town's future, and, above all, assured that they could libel and slur the tin star in a way that would earn a bullet from the lawbreaker. [emphasis mine]

and, for those of you who remembers who that movie ends: (if you don't, skip Spanglish and go rent High Noon)

...We will finish the job in Iraq, nursemaid democratic Afghanistan through its birthpangs, and continue to ensure that bandits and criminal states stay off the world's streets. But what is new is that the disenchanted American is becoming savvy and developing a long memory — and so we all fear the day is coming when he casts aside the badge, rides the buckboard out of town, and leaves such sanctimonious folk to themselves.

Click the title and read the whole piece.

UKRAINE UPDATE

Viktor Yanukovych, corrupt outgoing PM of Ukraine, lost his appeal against the fair election of December 26 and the Ukrainian Central Election Commission will likely certify the result, Yushchenko by nearly 8%. Masha Gessen's two dispatches on Slate.com, here and here, describe Ukraine's societal outlook on New Year's.

Meanwhile, Discoshaman also reports that outgoing mini-Putin Leonid Kuchma sacked Yanukovych as PM and his entire Cabinet.

In other news, Discoshaman and Dan McMinn, the two most prominent and influential bloggers of the Ukrainian Orange Revolution, are working on a book about the Yushchenko victory and the people's movement that brought it about. McMinn worked in Yushchenko HQ and has a bunch of Orange Revolution swag for sale here, with links to more.

Ghoul Journalism

Jay Nordlinger at NRO called Sowell's piece article of the month.

"Can you name any heroes of the war in Afghanistan and Iraq?"

Chances are you cannot - not if you rely on the mainstream media. You may be able to name someone from the little band of people involved in the prison scandal in Iraq or perhaps Jessica Lynch who was rescued, but not those who rescued her.

There apparently are no heroes among the more than 100,000 men and women fighting for us overseas - only victims. At least, that is how the news gets filtered and spun in most of the media.

Any reservist whose life is disrupted by being called to active duty has a good chance of making the front page of the New York Times with his laments. But 99 fellow reservists who are focused on their duty are far less likely to be featured.

...A whole ghoul school of journalism was preparing for the thousandth death among American troops in Iraq, so that they could run big features on it. [emphasis mine]

The New York Times covered page after page with the names of those thousand dead. The television wing of the ghoul school did similar things in their broadcasts. The rationale for this is that they are "honoring" the dead troops and perhaps showing that the media, too, are patriotically "supporting our troops."

The fraudulence of this can be seen in the fact that Ted Koppel, who sneered at those journalists who wore little American flag lapel pins after 9/11 as people who were "flag waving," has made the display of American dead a feature of "Nightline."

Why is it that the New York Times, which has been against this war from day one, and against the military for decades before that, is spearheading this way of "honoring" our troops? What they are in fact doing is rubbing our noses in the casualties at every opportunity. [emphasis mine]

People have every right to be for or against this war or any other war. That is what editorial pages, newspaper columns, and radio and TV talk shows are all about. But pretending to be reporting news and "honoring" the troops is dirty business.
...
Anyone who was serious about honoring the fallen troops would honor what they accomplished, not just the price they paid.
...
Those who are busy "honoring" the deaths of American troops in Iraq seldom have much to say about what those troops accomplished. The restoration of electricity, the re-opening of hospitals and schools, and all the other things being done to try to restore a war-devastated country get little attention, and everything that has gone wrong makes the front pages and TV news for weeks on end.

This is the approach that gave the media their biggest triumph and ego boost - the discrediting of the war in Vietnam. [emphasis mine]

More than 50,000 Americans died trying to save that country from Communist attacks. Their achievements included victories on the battlefield that were negated politically by the way the American press reported the war.

In recent years, Vietnam's Communist leaders themselves have admitted that they lost that war on the ground but hung on because the American anti-war movement gave them hope that they could win it politically. It was a well-founded hope that the American media helped make come true when we withdrew both our troops and our financial and political backing for the Vietnamese under attack.

At that time, the media had not yet come up with the gimmick of "honoring" American war dead but they nevertheless were able to throw away the victory for which those men sacrificed their lives.

Will they repeat that heady achievement a second time in Iraq? They certainly seem to be trying. And it is no honor.

Newsweek- Mouthpiece of the Left

Brent Bozell at townhall.com blasts Newsweek for the year end issue which profiled in a "Who's Next 2005" series both newly-elected Senator Barack Obama of Illinois and Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum.

After the loving cover story on staunchly liberal Obama, a "news" report authored by Jonathan Alter (usually their predictably leftist in-house columnist), Newsweek reporter Howard Fineman profiled staunchly conservative Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania. The contrast between the two stories, both in tone and in content, could not be more obvious.

Well as a fellow blogger once declared: "Always check the transcripts!", I did and the articles bear out exactly what Bozell has to say.

Descriptions of/related to Santorum:
- Mister Right
- professions of belief have been his ticket to the top
- point man on hot-button issues
- his shock troops
- combatively devout
- knee-capping style
- cultural militant
- heat-seeking missile

Descriptions of/related to Obama:
- Audacity of Hope
- electrifying speech
- uniquely qualified
- incredibly pragmatic
- confident, not cocky
- a gentleman and a scholar
- honest, God-fearing man
- transcending our often narrow-minded past

Perhaps Jonathan Alter is just a much better writer than Howard Fineman but the characterizations are spectacularly biased. Fineman, in addition, takes a snide swipe at Benjamin Franklin - the "bibulous deist" whose " picture appropriately hangs in the reception area." Read the original profiles online here.

I didn't see the hard copy but according to Bozell the photos that accompany the profiles are deeply skewed as well.

HT: Boortz

I don't hear violins

Jerusalem (CNSNews.com) - There was a substantial increase in the use of Palestinian women and children to carry out terror attacks in 2004, the Israel Security Agency said on Wednesday. And while suicide bombings were down, mortar and rocket attacks rose.
...
In 2004 - the fourth year of the intifada, the Palestinian armed conflict - 117 Israeli civilians and soldiers and a handful of foreigners were killed and 589 were wounded in Palestinian terror attacks. That compares with 214 killed and 1,004 wounded in 2003, the ISA (Shin Bet) report said.
...
The ISA credited the controversial security fence as a key tool in thwarting terror attacks. Last summer the International Court of Justice in The Hague issued an advisory opinion declaring that Israel's security fence was illegal and should be dismantled and that those who were impeded by it should be compensated. Israel rejected the opinion, saying that the fence had drastically reduced the number of terror attacks and terror murders.

In the northern West Bank - Samaria - where construction of the fence has been completed, terrorists succeeded in perpetrating only two large-scale terrorist attacks, killing 14 people and wounding 106 last year. That compares with 12 large-scale attacks in that area in 2003, which killed 74 people and wounded 374 others, the ISA said.
...
Another trend in attempting to bypass the fence has been to use the "weaker" elements of society. "The terrorist organizations have increasingly used minors and women to perpetrate suicide attacks by exploiting their innocent appearance, in an attempt to fool security force personnel at the various checkpoints," ISA said. Between 2003 and 2004, there was a 64 percent increase in the number of minors involved in terrorism. One hundred sixty-eight minors were involved in terrorism in 2004 compared to 102 in 2003.

"The innocent appearance of children and young people arouses less suspicion and enables them to more easily blend in crowded places. Moreover, children and teenagers are seen by the terrorist organizations as more easily influenced and constitute an easier recruitment base for suicide attacks," the report said.

"Women are also seen as arousing less suspicion than men," the report said. Women were disguised to allow them to blend in with Israeli society, changing their appearance by wearing non-traditional, short clothes, maternity outfits and stylish hairdos.

I think pressing concern for life outweighs inconvenience and humiliation -- hopefully the bleeding hearts remember that next time someone is forced to play a violin at a border crossing.

Bonus: A lovely picture from LGF.

Douglas Johnson - Lover of Mankind?

Shannen Coffin at NRO has a quick profile of Douglas A. Johnson, the executive director of the Center for Victims of Torture, who is one of the three named witnesses for the Democrats who are looking to make a huge fuss over if not derail Bush's proposed appointment of Judge Alberto Gonzales as Attorney General.

Johnson is a pacifist who opposed the US invasion of Afghanistan. Today's proceedings will be interesting to see whether the Democrats are serious about fighting Bush nominations tooth and nail.

Here's Byron York's piece on Gonzales' chances: difficult but probable.

Law school affirmative action hurts blacks

William Voegeli at the Claremont Institute has an excellent piece describing the results of a study done by a Professor Richard Sander of UCLA published in the Stanford Law Review. It concludes:

"Blacks are the victims of law school programs of affirmative action, not the beneficiaries." According to Stuart Taylor, Jr.'s summary of Sander's research, preferences do such a thorough job of placing black students in law schools where they are unlikely to succeed, that abolishing affirmative action in admissions would decrease the number of blacks admitted to law schools—but increase the number who graduate and pass the bar exam.

The second half is an excellent discussion of liberalism and its addiction to compassion and charity expressed in issues like affirmative action

This one is worth your time.

The media: Anti-semitic, anti-Israel

Courtesy the Powerliners and Cornerites, The Monk found Melanie Phillips' tremendous speech about media bias against Israel and how it has infected her home country of the UK, formerly Israel's second-best friend. (For more on the virulent anti-Israel sentiment in the UK, see here).

The Powerliners note that: "Phillips' article is titled: 'The Reporting of Iraq and Israel: An Abuse of Media Power.' Her focus is Great Britain, but what she says is also applicable to the American press."

And here is her thesis:

How has Middle Britain come to applaud the view – hitherto confined to the most extreme left-wing circles -- that the President of the United States is more of a danger than an unbalanced dictator with a terrorist history? How have such solid citizens come to view a democracy – Israel – that has been under attack since its foundation as the greatest threat to world peace? And how has the ancient libel of sinister global Jewish power been allowed to rear its head so openly once again?

Britain is gripped by an unprecedented degree of irrationality, prejudice and hysteria over the issues of Iraq, the terrorist jihad and Israel. All three are intimately linked; all three, however, are thought by public opinion to be linked in precisely the wrong way. This is because all three have been systematically misreported, distorted and misrepresented through a lethal combination of profound ignorance, political malice and ancient prejudices.

This systematic abuse by the media is having a devastating impact in weakening the ability of the west to defend itself against the unprecedented mortal threat that it faces from the Islamic jihad. People cannot and will not fight if they don’t understand the nature or gravity of the threat that they face, so much so that they vilify their own leaders while sanitising those who would harm them.

Read the whole piece.

Noteworthy 05-Jan-05

Happy New Year folks. Good to be back in the saddle again. I have to say that having been at home and only intermittently on the computer that I've been on a (light) MSM-only diet and greatly missed the commentary of the blogosphere. Whilst I clear my voluminous hate-mail from the in-box here's some good lunchtime reading:

1) There has been much chatter over Alberto Gonzales' involvement in the a memo written by the Office of Legal Counsel of the Justice Department that the Left has decried created an atmosphere which encouraged torture. OpinionJournal has a good short piece from a former OLC head putting the matter in perspective.

2) NRO is on-fire today.
- Mac Owens goes over Rumsfeld's record.
- Jonah Goldberg on why the UN is an odious institution. Bonus: Nice lambasting of Clare Short.
- David Frum on why we should NOT cancel the inauguration. Bonus: Scroll to the bottom and read "Tears for the wounded"

3) Jonathan Last and Powerline rip the Columbia Journalism Review a new one over "Blog-Gate". Inexplicably, Corey Pein of the CJR is STILL trying to defend MSM.

Here's LGF's Charles Johnson's reply. LGF's 'throbbing memo' was instrumental in crushing CBS/Rather.

4) Diplomad, a blog of US Foreign Service officers, has a great post on tsunami relief from the coalition of the willing vs. the UN.

5) Mark Steyn on tsunami, Jan Egeland and Clare Short.

6) Washington gubernatorial watch: Looks like the forces of light have lost this one. Powerline has a great summary here. Democrat Christine Gregoire finally emerged as the winner after the second recount after trailing in both the first and second with heavily Democratic King county contributing entirely to her margin. The rub: King County ended up with 3,500 MORE BALLOTS THAN THERE WERE REGISTERED VOTERS. Reminds me of the old Boss Tweed proverb, "In counting there is strength."

Tsunami relief: who's carrying the ball?

The Galley Slaves blog notes an article that lists the countries that have stepped up and provided massive relief to the SE Asia tsunami victims, led by Japan's 1/2 Bil and the US's $350M. Check out who's not helping their fellow Muslims: Iran (under $650K), Saudi ($10M), Kuwait ($2M), Oman and the UAE gave nothing.

And the French are griping and moaning about the US's primacy in the relief efforts. Here's an observation from Greg Djerejian on articles in Le Monde denigrating the US relief efforts:

Rather than commend the U.S., if just for a moment in the midst of this immense tragedy, Le Monde's journalists and cartoonists prefer to insinuate that the U.S. has nefarious motives in Indonesia, or make crude fun of the difficulties in Iraq having 'prepared' us for Indonesia's blight. Such sad fare isn't just wrong, tasteless, petty and rancidly provincial. It speaks of a society, like contemporary Germany, that's ails and needs scapegoats. It's not politically correct to look internally for them anymore. So everyone loves to beat up that favorite bogeyman--the U.S.--out of a mixture of incomprehension, envy, fascination, stupidity and crude stereotyping. It's sad really.

Tsunami relief efforts

There's not much for a commentator to say about the tsunami relief or the whole Southeast Asian tsunami crisis. This is not a political event, it is an act of G-d situation. It is also not a history-changing epochal occurrence like 9-11-01 because it is a random tragedy that is part of the hazards of living on this planet. Simply stated, it is what it is: a sad event that has harmed millions, killed over 100,000 and destroyed parts of at least four countries.

There are naturally the whack jobs and fools who gripe about "stinginess" or the President not popping in front of the TV cameras to publicly feel the pain of the Indians/Thais/Sri Lankans/Indonesians, etc. Such complaints are the stuff of small minds and petty people. The American public gives 10 times more money to charity than the UN receives in its annual budget. The Diplomad blog (link in title) notes how American and Australian armed forces have done the heavy lifting in providing medical services and food to tsunami-affected people whilst the UN bureaucrats have wandered around holding conferences in five-star hotels with no European or UN "boots on the ground." The EU has not helped in large part because it lacks the military infrastructure to transport the materials needed by the tsunami victims. Other countries have simply failed to do anything -- from Sweden's late response (many Scandinavians vacation in the Thai/Sri Lankan/Indian resorts hit by the tsunami, Denmark, Norway and Scandinavian neighbor Finland all responded by sending relief to their citizens and giving frequent updates on governmental websites on efforts, Sweden failed to do this) to Canada's inability to respond.

Both the Internet and the blogosphere have answered. Amazon.com's portal for the Red Cross has collected (at the time of this posting) more than $14,000,000 from more than 170,000 contributors; not bad, that's more than 14 Sandra Bullocks (who dropped $1,000,000 on the Red Cross and deserves more praise than she'll get). I couldn't get through to Oxfamamerica.org's donation portal because it's overflowing. Cap'n Ed has even set up a blog portal to raise contributions that is exceeding his expectations.

Media bias evidence

Alan Greenblatt reports on the rousing reception lefty author Norman Mailer received from an audience at Harvard chock full of journos. Mailer and anti-Bush nutter Sy Hersh were among the keynote speakers at a Cambridge, Mass., journalism conference sponsored by Harvard's Nieman Foundation for Journalism.

Reading material

A couple of noteworthies for your perusal:

First, this column by an Iraqi incensed at the international Left's betrayal of his country. (HT: Powerline).

Second, it's Tuesday, so that means Mark Steyn has a column in the Daily Telegraph.

And third, Michael Barone on the prospects for Social Security reform in this Congress.

Abu Mazen's true colors

Mahmoud Abbas is a Holocaust denier, terrorist and the US's preferred candidate to take control of the Palestinian Authority now that Arafat has died 25 years too late.

Here is Abbas' reaction to Israeli attacks on terrorists who had fired rockets into a Jewish settlement in Gaza, targeting Israeli civilians:

"We are praying for the souls of our martyrs who fell today to the shells of the Zionist enemy," Abbas told a rally in the south Gaza refugee camp of Khan Younis, a hotbed of militants.

* * *
"They are freedom fighters and should live a dignified and safe life," Abbas said on Monday in a campaign tailored in part to defuse the distrust of gunmen who branded him a stooge of Israel when their revered ex-guerrilla leader Arafat was alive.

Caroline Glick, the Cassandra* of the Israeli Right, notes:

The residents of Gaza themselves are at their wits' end. Over the past several weeks they have been absorbing volley after volley of rockets and mortar shells, antitank shells and rifle fire. Their homes and synagogues have been bombed. Their children's nurseries and community centers have been hit. Their hothouses have been shelled. . . Speaking to Ynet [an Israeli network], Yaki Yisraeli, treasurer of the community in Gush Katif, said, "If there isn't a suitable response to the mortar fire, people will start defending themselves. The residents serve in all the IDF units and the fear is that they will take the law into their own hands. If the IDF evacuates positions, the residents will take them over."

There are two issues in the "Roadmap" that are never discussed in Western media. First, is Abbas merely a wolf in sheeply clothing? Daniel Pipes, whose accuracy in reading the Middle East political tea leaves is notable, says yes:

. . . no less than his mentor Arafat, Abbas remains intent on eliminating Israel. This is evident, for example, from his recent comments insisting that millions of Palestinian "refugees" be permitted to enter Israel so as to overwhelm it demographically; or from his keeping the virulent content of the Palestinian Authority's media in place.

Second, why is it an acceptable resolution to any "peace process" to make Gaza Judenrein? Why are Arabs allowed to enshrine their prejudices in policy in a way that any Western country would decry if a fellow First-World nation took the same actions? Caroline Glick again:

The moral dimension of the proposed destruction of Israeli communities in Gaza and northern Samaria is one that has received scant attention over the past year since Sharon adopted the Labor Party's plan of retreat and expulsion as his own. Indeed, although it was one of the implicit assumptions of the 1993 Oslo process, the fact that a precondition for a final peace accord with the PLO was that all Jewish residents of Judea, Samaria and Gaza would be ethnically cleansed has rarely been mentioned. As for Sharon's withdrawal plan for Gaza and northern Samaria, everyone from US National Security Council Middle East Adviser Elliott Abrams to Labor Party leader Shimon Peres to Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak to British Prime Minister Tony Blair have all noted that the plan, if enacted, will provide a precedent for the destruction of all or most of the remaining Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria with their population of some 250,000 Israelis.

* * *
Gaza residents caused a public outcry when they taped orange Stars of David to their clothes this week. The hue and cry of the politicians on the Right and on the Left said that in using symbols from the Holocaust they were besmirching the memory of the victims of Europe's genocide of its Jews. It would seem that those who decried the residents' symbol have forgotten what a metaphor is.

The point was not that Sharon is Adolf Hitler or that Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz is Adolf Eichmann. The point of the protest was that Israel is the first Western state to call for the forced removal of Jews from their homes, simply because they are Jews, since the Holocaust and that there is something morally atrocious about the notion that for peace to come — to Israel and to those bombing Israel — it is necessary for entire regions to be rendered Judenrein. And again, as leaders in Israel and throughout the world have stated, the expulsion from Gaza and northern Samaria is simply a preview of coming attractions for what awaits those who live in Judea and the rest of Samaria.

The West has been morally obtuse about the Middle East for decades. Unfortunately, that doesn't seem to be changing.


* - From Greek mythology: Cassandra was one of the daughters of King Priam of Troy. The god Apollo cursed her after she refused his advances: she would have the gift of fully accurate foresight, but no one would believe her. Thus, she foresaw the Trojan War, its turning-point events and eventual outcome but her siblings and parents never heeded her prophecies. The Trojans lost.

Happy Birthday Prof. Tolkien

Today is the 113th anniversary of J.R.R. Tolkien Birthday, January 3, 1892. The professor may have been horrified at the sissified version of The Return of the King and the semi-wimpified version of The Two Towers that Peter Jackson made (although both were good movies and better DVDs in their extended versions, but Frodo's movie wimpiness was very disconcerting in comparison to the dogged determination he showed in the book). I'd hope he would have loved The Fellowship of the Ring, which is easily the best movie of the millenium so far. Thanks to Tolkien's gift to literature, January 3 is always a somewhat special day.

To celebrate: here are the NY Times's classic reviews, from 1954, 1955 and 1956, of the three Lord of the Rings books.

How to become an illegal alien, by the Mexican government

The Mexican government has published a comic book that gives tips for "migrant" workers on how to cross into the US and remain here. Check out the article linked in the title, and see this excerpt:

The book is being distributed as a free supplement to El Libro Vaquero, a popular cowboy comic book, in five Mexican states that send many migrants to the United States: Zacatecas, Michoacán, Puebla, Oaxaca and Jalisco. The government plans to print 1.5 million copies.

The book comes with a yellow disclaimer saying it does not promote undocumented immigration, and it repeatedly warns against crossing illegally. But it gives no information about the steps for seeking a U.S. visa.

Former MI5 head, on homeland security

Interesting column by an Opinion Journal guest. The guest, former MI-5 head Stella Rimington. Here's her take:

. . . we are more likely to get hold of the end of a planned terrorist attack if we have our ear to the ground in the right places and that means human sources of information in, not the caves of Afghanistan but the Islamic bookshop in downtown New York, the extremist mosque in North London or perhaps the college in Paris. It means sensitizing the public to be alert for the sort of thing to look out for--comings and goings at night at the lock-up garages, the apartment occupied by a group of young men where the blinds are always kept drawn. There may be perfectly innocent explanations, but the public needs to know how to report its concerns and to be made to feel welcome when it does. From just those humble beginnings many a successful counter-terrorist operation has resulted.

Back to work

The Monk has returned from his anniversary vacay with the Monkette2B -- a pleasant stay in Taos, New Mexico. We hiked, skied and bounced -- M2B hiked whilst The Monk attempted to remain upright on skis, and she bounced in the passenger seat whilst The Monk drove a snowmobile through an icy and extremely bumpy set of paths near Red River, NM. Nice trip, pretty area, and a good time.

But back to blog, so here are a couple of things to get us started while The Monk begins catching up at work:

First: an anti-eulogy for Susan Sontag. This one is pretty dang funny, so you get excerpt:

I ran into her once . . . in Sarajevo, during the siege in 1993, and she had arrived to stage a Bosnian version of Waiting for Godot. If memory serves – and possibly it doesn't, no doubt clouded by guilt that I failed to put the wretched woman over my knee and give her a sound spanking – she had each of Beckett's characters played by a Bosnian Muslim, a Bosnian Serb, and a Bosnian Croat.

By my personal reckoning, the performance lasted as long as the siege itself. It was mesmerisingly precious and hideously self-indulgent. As inexcusable as the pretentious twaddle she had mounted on-stage were her manners off it. I have occasionally seen egregious examples of de haut en bas, but I have never seen anything as degrading and insufferable as her conduct towards the Sarajevans. And as far as I could judge, she never listened to any of them, but only uttered lordly pronouncements as she held court in the Sarajevo Holiday Inn, while outside scores daily died.

Second, this column from Ross Clark of the Daily Telegraph noting that the magnitude of the Sri Lankan/Thai/Indian tsunami tragedy is exponentially worse thanks to the abject poverty of those nations.

Third, Stanley Crouch notes the abuses glorified by hip-hop music, and one notable voice speaking out against them.

This should get you started, with more to come.