I came across a link at Don Surber‘s place this morning to a HuffPo piece by Rachel Weiner (I don’t know if it’s pronounced “weener” or “whiner” but either would be appropriate, i suppose) entitled Right-Wing neocons Rooting for Ahmadinejad Win. It’s a pretty sad display of projection. here’s the screen capture;
Don did an excellent job of knocking Weiner down a few pegs. But I’d like to add that the American Left has been rooting for Ahmadinejad for six years. they’ve been rooting for Ahmadinejad’s new buddy Hugo Chavez for ten years.
My friends at Free Republic’s DC contingent were at the White House last Saturday bringing attention to the disparity in the reactions to the murder of the abortion doctor Tiller and Private William Long. From their after action review it sounds like they made some head way;
The freep began uneventfully with our receiving a few thumbs up here and there. A group of high school age students attending the 10th Challenge, a leadership institute, asked us for details and for us to take their pictures taken holding the signs.
An older white gentleman approached saying he didn’t understand our message. When we explained, he changed the subject or brought up irrelevant points about Blackwater and Haliburton making lots of money on the war. As the gentleman walked away and approached his wife; BufordP’s niece, who was sitting along the fence at the time, overhead him say to his wife that we had made a lot of good points.
A young man with video equipment asked to interview us. When asked why we objected to President Obama’s response to both shootings, BufordP replied that the President and Attorney General quickly dispatched federal marshals to protect private abortion clinics yet, as Commander-in-Chief, failed to protect the recruiting stations. I added that recruiters, possibly contrary to what the public might assume, are not armed while performing recruiting duty. The interviewer then asked Buford and me if we “were racists.”
Yeah, that must be the only way they’d dare to stand up the president – if they were racists. Stupid media.
I wish I could have been there, guys, a few more weeks and I’ll be out of this stupid cast.
Here’s a reminder that the DC Chapter of Free Republic stands alone every Friday night at Walter Reed to welcome the wounded troops home from the war. Since you don’t donate to me (or click the Google ads, or shop at Amazon) maybe you can see your way clear to donate to the FReepers at their website. Every little bit helps them continue doing what they do for the troops because you can’t be there.
Barney Frank, the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee and a vocal critic of Wall Street, appeared on CNBC this morning to talk about what should be done to limit executive compensation. After tossing a hissy, he storms out in a snit when they continue to hold his feet to the fire. What a drama queen;
I think Barney is realizing how hard it is to be in the majority again and actually has to have a plan instead of just mouthing pretty words for the camera. How many other news outlets will be struck from his list of potential interviews?H
Uncle Jimbo at Blackfive writes that the British media isn’t afraid to report that Afghan border police are regularly intercepting heavy weapons shipments from Iran;
Quantities regularly run into the hundreds and the weapons are usually brand new he added.
Mr Obama has been working hard to enlist Iranian support in tackling rampant arms and opium traffic across the border.
Sources said both sides were prepared for a “fresh look” at co-operation after years of hostility caused by Tehran’s nuclear programme, American support for Israel, and Iranian suspicion of the US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Of course, the American media is reluctant to report such news, lest they tip the Obama applecart a hair. So just like in the Clinton days we have to rely on foreign media.
But the Associated Press is willing to encourage the specter of blame on American soldiers for an grenade attack on a crowd which had assembled around a disabled miltary vehicle. The grenade killed two and wounded fifty, according to the account;
Some Afghan witnesses and officials, including Afghanistan’s Ministry of Education, accused a U.S. soldier on Tuesday of throwing the grenade. But U.S. military officials and the Ministry of Interior said fragments from a Russian-made grenade were found at the site, and blamed an insurgent in the crowd for throwing the weapon.
None of the half dozen U.S. soldiers in the video can be seen throwing a grenade. However, the video does not make clear who may have thrown it.
So why even mention the unlikely allegation that Americans tossed the grenade?
Several witnesses and victims wounded in Tuesday’s blast told The Associated Press that they saw a U.S. soldier fire a grenade launching weapon. Others said they saw a soldier reach into his pocket and throw a grenade.
Well, it’s easy to see why AP reported it – reaching in your pocket to pull out a grenade requires the exact same action as firing a weapon, doesn’t it? By the way, all of you military folks who carried grenades in your pockets raise your hands. Yeah, me neither.
You probably watched the media swallow hook line and sinker that idiot line from the President yesterday about the 600,000 jobs he was going to “save or create”. And the 150,000 jobs he’s already “saved”. The Wall Street Journal weighs in today;
[Bush Administration staffer, Tony] Fratto sees a double standard at play. “We would never have used a formula like ‘save or create,’” he tells me. “To begin with, the number is pure fiction — the administration has no way to measure how many jobs are actually being ‘saved.’ And if we had tried to use something this flimsy, the press would never have let us get away with it.”
Of course, the inability to measure Mr. Obama’s jobs formula is part of its attraction. Never mind that no one — not the Labor Department, not the Treasury, not the Bureau of Labor Statistics — actually measures “jobs saved.” As the New York Times delicately reports, Mr. Obama’s jobs claims are “based on macroeconomic estimates, not an actual counting of jobs.” Nice work if you can get away with it.
Yeah, I remember the Left complaining that the only jobs the Bush Administration was creating was at McDonald’s for eight years, but they’re perfectly content to hear ambiguous and imprecise language from their guy.
“The expression ‘create or save,’ which has been used regularly by the President and his economic team, is an act of political genius,” writes [Harvard economist and former Bush economic adviser Greg] Mankiw. “You can measure how many jobs are created between two points in time. But there is no way to measure how many jobs are saved. Even if things get much, much worse, the President can say that there would have been 4 million fewer jobs without the stimulus.”
Mr. Obama’s comments yesterday are a perfect illustration of just such a claim. In the months since Congress approved the stimulus, our economy has lost nearly 1.6 million jobs and unemployment has hit 9.4%. Invoke the magic words, however, and — presto! — you have the president claiming he has “saved or created” 150,000 jobs.
But MSNBC is ready to drink the Koolaid;
Just how much of an impact Obama’s recovery program had on the pace of job losses is up for debate.
Obama has claimed as many as 150,000 jobs saved or created by his stimulus plan so far, even as government reports have shown the economy has lost more than 1.6 million jobs since Congress approved funding for the program in February.
Republicans remain critical of the stimulus spending, slamming it as a big government program that ultimately will do little for recovery.
With only a fraction of the federal money actually spent thus far, it’s premature to give the stimulus plan credit for economic trends, congressional Republicans said last week.
Of course, if the media is just going to take everything that Obama says at face value, why do we have a media? Just turn over MSNBC to the White House.
ADDED: The folks at Newsy read my post and sent this video to accompany it;
This morning, ABC News is running with a story of a former Guantanamo detainee who was held there for seven years by the name of Lakhdar Boumediene who claims he was innocent of any wrong-doing;
In an exclusive interview with ABC News, Boumediene said the interrogators at Gitmo never once asked him about this alleged plot, which he denies any part it.
“I’m a normal man,” says Boumediene, who at the time of his arrest worked for the Red Crescent, providing help to orphans and others in need. “I’m not a terrorist.”
But, Jammie Wearing Fool and Pirates Cove write this morning that at least 74 detainees who were released from the island prison have returned to the business of terror;
Such recidivism points up an alarming intelligence failure.
These dangerous prisoners should never have been cleared for release. Why did interrogators fail to find the cracks in their stories and alibis?
Why wasn’t more intelligence gathered to predict they’d rejoin al Qaeda or the Taliban?
In a word, politics. Gitmo interrogations have been emasculated to placate critics of waterboarding and other “torture,” say two senior officials there.
Yeah, well, I’d blame journalists to a point, too. Articles like the one in ABC News seem to fill the news organizations’ reporting. Rather than telling us about the real terrorists that fill the cells in our resort hotel on the Cuban coast, they seem more interested in reporting on the clowns that claim they are innocent. After all, only an innocent man would proclaim his innocence, right?
The prisoners in Guantanamo use our own judicial system against us, and we happily give them lawyers and rights (rights the detainees would deny anyone in their charge if roles were reversed) and access to a system that they don’t even believe in. And the media, more interested in the few mistakes of government, make it seem as if we only detain innocent people and release the criminals.
Stars and Stripes, has characteristically done a great job of covering the D-Day event yesterday in Normandy. There’s nothing for me to add except the links to some outstanding journalism.
