Category: Media Malpractice (Page 3 of 5)

Not to be missed: The Death of the Individual — an excellent short piece by Hot Air blogger “Doctor Zero”, on individual liberty vs. collectivism, in the context of recent journalistic attempts ascribe political value to Mary Jo Kopechne’s life and death:

The meme floated by the Left over the past few days, that Kopechne’s death was a reasonable price to pay for Ted Kennedy’s wonderful political career, is a brutally candid expression of the principle that even an individual’s right to live is negotiable — a commodity to be measured against the “needs of the many,” which the Left believes were far better served by Kennedy’s politics than Kopechne’s insignificant little life.

Read the whole, concise thing.

Another great Chesler article at PJM:

Western liberals — and in the past I have been a very good one — still refuse to describe any culture other than their own as “barbaric” lest they be maligned as “racists.” Now, America’s first (half) African-American president, whose first order of business was to reach out to the Muslim world on Al-Arabiya, has said he will actively negotiate with the Iranians, Afghans, Pakistanis, and Saudis.

I wish him well. But I also fear for him and hope he reads what I have to say.

He must understand that he will be dealing with barbarians. Like all good liberals, he may not understand what that means. But what word other than “barbaric” describes the systematic incitement to violence that takes place in mosques and on television and which has led to mob rampages and episodes of “wilding” against Muslim girls and women who are group-groped, gang raped, kidnapped into sexual slavery, set on fire, buried alive, blinded by acid for daring to go to school, work as a newscaster, a hairdresser, or for a foreign company, refuse to wear a shroud, or choose to marry someone of their own choice. Few Muslim clerics and even fewer fabled Muslim “moderates” have loudly and perilously condemned such behavior towards their sisters–or towards Christians, Jews, and other infidels who routinely fall prey to such mobs.

President Obama is in favor of women’s rights as is his Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. How in God’s name do they think they can persuade barbarians who behave in such ways to change their behaviors?

…

The western liberal media is not so much reluctant as it is terrified to further offend the rampaging Muslims whose religion is, presumably, one of peace. But not telling the truth, keeping one’s head deep in the sand, does not abolish the barbarism. It only makes it more difficult for us to name it and to defend ourselves against it.

…

“Barbarism” is not only a mob or youth-gang phenomena. It defines the very nature of Muslim religious law.

For example, on February 11, 2009, a Saudi judge ordered that a young woman who was gang raped and impregnated be imprisoned for one year. He also ordered that she be given 100 lashes after she gives birth, (which is often a death sentence), because she talked with and followed a man who was not her relative and who turned out to have planned the attack.

Read the whole thing.

Unbelievable … painful to watch … and frankly infuriating given the serious consequences for our country. A must-see video from www.HowObamaGotElected.com:

Ample material for ten insightful articles, condensed into one. Don’t miss Victor Davis Hanson’s latest: “Ten Random, Politically Incorrect Thoughts”.

Victor Davis Hanson hits it out of the park again, reflecting on a variety of post-election topics. To quote any one part risks overlooking other truly excellent bits, so by all means go read it all.

There is now no journalism as we knew it. It died during the campaign. And so we have no mainstream media audit of politics other than the vestigial shrill warnings about the last three months of the dangerous Bush administration. From the New York Times, NPR, PBS, or Newsweek, we will hear little whether Obama is choosing a good or bad team, or said silly things or contradicts what he promised. They simply have lost all credibility and now the republic is left largely with bloggers, talk radio, and a few newspapers as mostly partisan auditors. This puts the mainstream media in a terrible bind. If Gitmo is not closed immediately, are the victimized detainees there suddenly redefined as terrible killers who can’t be let out? If adhered to, does the Petraeus-Bush withdrawal plan to leave Iraq by 2011, suddenly become sober and judicious? If not tampered with, do FISA and the Patriotic Act morph into reasonable measures? Does the economy suddenly improve on January 21, and Afghanistan become stable? Will anyone believe a Katie Couric, Chris Matthews, the front page of the New York Times, or listen to Andrea Mitchell when they speak of Obama? The media has bet that there was no efficacy to Guantánamo, the Patriot Act and similar provisions, and Iraq. But the fact is in the same period we were not attacked. If there were a connection between the two (and many of us think that there was), then shutting down Gitmo, repealing the Patriot Act, and getting quickly out of Iraq could be done within the first year easily and without risk. But will it happen, and if so, what would be the reaction following another 9/11-like attack?

This is not my concern, but rather what advisors to Obama are currently mulling out. Again, traditional journalism as we knew it —the big dailies, the weekly news magazines, the networks, public radio and TV—no longer exists. Death by suicide. RIP—around March, 2008.

Monster at The E3 Gazette::

Joe the Plumber wasn’t the first person to get Barack Obama to admit his position on wealth redistribution….

The referenced excerpt from a 2001 radio interview with Senator Obama, now on YouTube (follow the above link), is the lead story on Drudge today too.

Somehow Obama’s condescending mockery of “Joe the Plumber” seems less surprising now, though no less troubling.

Update:

Glenn Reynolds comments:

Maybe it’s just because I’m a law professor who’s followed Obama, but this is no surprise to me. Or to Jennifer Rubin. In fact, this is pretty standard stuff in large parts of legal academia.

Bill Whittle responds to the story with a short essay, “Shame Cubed”:

We have, in our storied history, elected Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives and moderates. We have fought, and will continue to fight, pitched battles about how best to govern this nation. But we have never, ever in our 232 year history, elected a President who so completely and openly opposed the idea of limited government, the absolute cornerstone of makes the United States of America unique and exceptional.

If this does not frighten you – regardless of your political affiliation – then you deserve what this man will deliver with both houses of Congress, a filibuster-proof Senate, and, to quote Senator Obama again, “a righteous wind at our backs.”

Comment thread for Bill’s post here.