This ain't Hell, but you can see it from here

Category: Media

  • Woman medevaced from wedding proposal

    The Washington Post tells the story of a man who thought proposing marriage to his girlfriend on the Billy Goat Trail here in Montgomery County, Maryland was a romantic idea. Kinda backfired, though.

    A man took his girlfriend hiking Sunday afternoon on the gorgeous — albeit rocky and rough — Billy Goat Trail, on national parkland near Great Falls. At some point, he popped the question. She said yes.

    As they continued their walk, the woman apparently slipped, fell down a rock face and was injured. With no way to reach her easily, emergency responders used a U.S. Park Police helicopter to pluck her off the path.

    Here’s the WP video of the helicopter extraction of the woman;
    (more…)

  • AP disregards family’s wishes

    This happened late last week; Lance Cpl. Joshua M. Bernard, 21, of New Portland, Maine, was struck by a rocket-propelled grenade in a Taliban ambush Aug. 14 in Helmand province of southern Afghanistan. AP photographer Julie Jacobson was on the scene and snapped a picture or two of LCPL Bernard as his team mates tried to help him during his final moments of life.

    Jacobson and AP recount the events at the end of the day;

    Later, she showed members of his squad all the images taken that day and the Marines flipped through them on her computer one by one.

    “They did stop when they came to that moment,” she said. “But none of them complained or grew angry about it. They understood that it was what it was. They understand, despite that he was their friend, it was the reality of things.”

    Associated Press then tells us they talked to LCPL Bernard’s father before they made a decision to publish the photo;

    The AP waited until after Bernard’s burial in Madison, Maine, on Aug. 24 to distribute its story and the pictures. An AP reporter met with his parents, allowing them to see the images.

    Bernard’s father after seeing the image of his mortally wounded son said he opposed its publication, saying it was disrespectful to his son’s memory. John Bernard reiterated his viewpoint in a telephone call to the AP on Wednesday.

    “We understand Mr. Bernard’s anguish. We believe this image is part of the history of this war. The story and photos are in themselves a respectful treatment and recognition of sacrifice,” said AP senior managing editor John Daniszewski.

    And then the media wonder why we got so adamant when they wanted to film returning caskets from the war during the Bush Administration. The AP says that they understand, but I wonder if they really do understand.

    ADDED: Thanks to 1stCavRVN11B who sent me a link to JammieWearingFool‘s version of events.

  • Presidents to students

    The Associated Press has the text of the speech President Obama plans to give to the nation’s student today if you’re at all interested. Oddly enough, this is the first year since 1979 that we don’t have a child or grandchild in school.

    Byron York at the Washington Examiner reminds us how the national media and the Democrats treated George HW Bush when he spoke to the nation’s students;

    Unlike the Obama speech, in 1991 most of the controversy came after, not before, the president’s school appearance. The day after Bush spoke, the Washington Post published a front-page story suggesting the speech was carefully staged for the president’s political benefit. “The White House turned a Northwest Washington junior high classroom into a television studio and its students into props,” the Post reported.

    With the Post article in hand, Democrats pounced. “The Department of Education should not be producing paid political advertising for the president, it should be helping us to produce smarter students,” said Richard Gephardt, then the House Majority Leader. “And the president should be doing more about education than saying, ‘Lights, camera, action.’”

    York, has many more quotes at the link. I respect good research – so read the article.

    Funny how attitudes change with political parties, isn’t it?

  • Towards the Edge of Sanity

    It’s a bit surprising that the notable and commendable Joe Gandelman of The Moderate Voice would play the role of liberal demagogue by blaming the current political climate on the standard boogeymen (angry geezers at Town Hall meetings, dittoheads, Glenn Beck, etc.) instead of examining why this type of discourse is occurring. A typical distraction to shame the opposition while the real people in power can’t defend their own crummy policies. From TMV:

    What has changed? The country.

    We are now seeing the triumph of the talk radio political culture — a politics that now is framed in terms of high-concept sound bites, trying to affix labels to those who disagree on an issue, trying to push emotional hot buttons so that the political target is hated enough to serve as a catalyst for a goal (in the case of talk shows to grow and maintain an outraged audience; in the case of politics, to mobilize one side).

    Despite the punditocracy best attempts to portray rubes in fly-over land not onboard the Obama express as racists, nihilists, etc., Obama’s approval rating is dropping faster than a pair of panties on prom night. Joe seems to miss the real story that the level of outrage might be peaking because the President is fast putting the country on the path to massive deficits and European-style socialism. One needs only to look at state governments that overspent their budgets to understand where our country is headed (at least the feds can always print more money!). The Obama Administration rammed through a stimulus package to create jobs and we got more unemployment (especially for vets), he tried Cash for Clunkers which was a major dud, and now they want to seriously intervene in the health care industry (even more than they already do)? Anyone, else seeing a trend here on the level of competence when the federal government attempts to subvert market forces.

    So, it’s difficult to be completely preoccupied with all the birthers and people pounding on windows at Town Hall meetings when there’s stuff going in Washington that is truly frightening. Glenn Beck isn’t going to run the country so badly into debt that the dollar become worthless, Obama might.

  • NYT’s James Glantz’ smoke and mirrors

    James Glantz who was New York Times’ Baghdad Bureau chief in 2007, writes a clearly misleading article today in the Times related to contractors in Afghanistan. The misperception begins in the title “Contractors Outnumber U.S. Troops in Afghanistan“;

    Civilian contractors working for the Pentagon in Afghanistan not only outnumber the uniformed troops, according to a report by a Congressional research group, but also form the highest ratio of contractors to military personnel recorded in any war in the history of the United States.

    Of course the illusion here is that these “contractors working for the Pentagon” are all security personnel ranging the countryside fighting the war our soldiers won’t fight. Glantz perpetuates his illusion;

    What is clear, the report says, is that when contractors for the Pentagon or other agencies are not properly managed — as when civilian interrogators committed abuses at Abu Ghraib in Iraq or members of the security firm Blackwater shot and killed 17 Iraqi citizens in Baghdad — the American effort can be severely undermined.

    You have to read every line of the article to find out that he’s not talking about just private security contractors. Buried in the middle of the article is a single line;

    The 68,197 contractors — many of them Afghans — handle a variety of jobs, including cooking for the troops, serving as interpreters and even providing security, the report says.

    So basically, Glantz is worried because uniformed troops aren’t cooking their own meals, hauling their own trash, doing their own laundry and sewing. Our soldiers are doing more trigger pulling operations while locals are doing the mundane functions that we’ve had to retain active duty people to accomplish through the centuries. Not to mention local interpreters who don’t have to be trained (like the troops whom it costs thousands of dollars and many months to train).

    dicksmith at VetVoice recognizes Glantz’ mischaracterization of the situation but can’t avoid a reflex reaction;

    Simply put, having more contractors than uniformed troops on the ground in a combat zone is unacceptable. We need to ween ourselves off the use of contract labor in combat all together.

    Of course, that’s easy for dicksmith to say, he doesn’t much care that all of those dreary tasks would have to be accomplished by someone – and so what if it drains manpower. He’s not going back, so what does he care?

  • George Will is wrong, wrong, wrong

    Last night, I wrote briefly about the impending George Will column in the Washington Post in which Will says we should withdraw from Afghanistan. I have nothing against George Will – in fact he and I had a nice short chat one night at the National Press Club several years back and I found him to be an affable and brilliant fellow. But, this is way out of his lane, as Uncle Jimbo wrote last night.

    Will wrote;

    So, instead, forces should be substantially reduced to serve a comprehensively revised policy: America should do only what can be done from offshore, using intelligence, drones, cruise missiles, airstrikes and small, potent Special Forces units, concentrating on the porous 1,500-mile border with Pakistan, a nation that actually matters.

    Oh, Pakistan matters because it has nukes? How very Cold Warrior of you, George. Afghanistan sure mattered in September 2001, didn’t it?

    That’s typical inside-the-Beltway drivel. The best way to get some political cover is to send in some SpecOps guys occasionally to score cheap and meaningless victories against a burgeoning threat just to get the ruling party through the next election. It’s reminiscent of the Clinton aspirin factory/Bedouin tent attacks of the late 90s. Big flashy explosions that shifted little mounds of sand around the desert.

    We’re dealing with an enemy that declares a victory every time one of them successfully farts without getting a Hellfire shot up his bum. Our withdrawal from Somalia is what precipitated this war on terror – pulling our forces “off-shore” (anyone who saw a shore in Afghanistan, please tell us about it) will only embolden those stone age cretins and encourage even more attacks against our interests.

    How many times during the Bush years did we suffer the slings and arrows from the Left about how we didn’t fix Afghanistan in 1988 – now twenty years later, they’re ready to follow the same strategy. And George Will is giving them the political cover to set us up for the next attack as well as rebuild support with Democrats’ far Left constituents just as they are beginning to oppose Obama. Good one, George.

  • WaPo warns of tax hikes

    Lori Montgomery of the Washington Post demonstrates her keen eye for the obvious this morning as she warns that tax hikes are on their way;

    During last year’s campaign, President Obama vowed to enact a bold agenda without raising taxes for the middle class, a pledge budget experts viewed with skepticism. Since then, a severe recession, massive deficits and a national debt that is swelling toward a 50-year high have only made his promise harder to keep.

    The Obama administration has insisted that the pledge will stand. But the president’s top economic advisers have refused to rule out broad-based tax increases to close the yawning gap between federal revenue and government spending and are warning of tough choices ahead.

    Of course, it’s Bush’s fault, and although Republicans warned during the campaign that Obama couldn’t keep his myriad of patronage purchasing promises without raising taxes, Montgomery writes that Republicans are “already on the attack”. Um, most of Republicans have been on the attack since the campaign. Why do you think Republicans, with the exception of a spineless few, have generally opposed Obama’s budget-busting “stimulous” packages and oppose the healthcare proposal?

    Democrats say Obama is highly unlikely to break the pledge before next year’s congressional election and observe that it would be safer to wait until his second term if a tax increase becomes unavoidable.

    Of course, Montgomery includes that line to demonstrate the Democrats’ political adeptness at fooling voters just one more time. But, most voters know that tax hikes are coming, it doesn’t matter when. We know Democrats won’t make the politically tough decisions – like cut spending – we all know that they’re so good at raising taxes.

    But poor Obama is a victim of the Bush boom;

    Obama not only faces the fallout from the worst economic downturn in 30 years, but also inherited the debt piled up by his predecessor, Republican George W. Bush. Bush invaded Iraq and approved an expensive new prescription drug benefit for the elderly while pushing through one of the biggest tax cuts of the post-war era — worth an estimated $1.6 trillion in foregone revenue by the time the provisions expire next year.

    So the Washington Post, obviously, is wishing that Saddam Hussein was still in Iraq instead of under Iraq and the Washington Post wishes seniors would pay more for their drugs. And I guess the Washington Post wasn’t elated that they kept more of their money during the Bush boom.

  • Richardson investigation dead

    I’m reading Michelle Malkin‘s Culture of Corruption on my way to work every morning. It’s a good way to prepare for my occupation in downtown DC by getting my blood pressure and my brow furrowed. It’s also why I’m not surprised by things like the pay-for-play case against New Mexico’s governor Bill Richardson dropped at the highest levels of the Justice Department – with barely a whisper from the media;

    The decision not to pursue indictments was made by top Justice Department officials, according to a person familiar with the investigation, who asked not to be identified because federal officials had not disclosed results of the probe.

    “It’s over. There’s nothing. It was killed in Washington,” the person told The Associated Press.

    Can you imagine the hue and cry had the Bush Administration’s Justice Department done the same thing in similar circumstances?