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

Category: Media

  • The Palin false outrage continues

    Of course, all of the anti-Palin maniacal false outrage continues, despite Barack Obama’s call for it to cease yesterday. And of course, it’s to make Governor Palin withdraw using the model of the Harriet Meirs crucifixtion. The Wall Street Journal catalogues some of the “inside the beltway” criticism;

    – Eleanor Clift, the McLaughlin Group: “If the media reaction is anything, it’s been literally laughter in many places across newsrooms.”

    – Sally Quinn, Newsweek: “It is a political gimmick . . . I find it insulting to women, to the Republican party, and to the country.”

    (more…)

  • Democrats and women

    I guess the activities of the Democrat sound machine should wake up most women to what Democrats really think of them. Heck, the sound machine of the last six months should have told them something. They’re political pawns in the game of the rich white dudes that run the party.

    As soon as Sarah Palin was named as the Vice Presidential candidate of the Republican Party, she was referred to as a “pawn” in John McCain’s quest for power. She was attacked for being a mother, she was attacked for “choosing” to keep her Downs syndrome-afflicted child, she was accused of the wildest conspiracies ever, even her family was attacked for twenty-year-old DWI cases and for having a bit of belly fat.

    She couldn’t have been choosen for non-gender-related reasons, I suppose. Even though I thought she was an excellent choice as far back as April based solely on her politics – I mean after all that’s why we choose politicians, isn’t it?

    Alan Colmes blamed Palin for her child’s afliction, and this morning, I read Washington Post’s resident partisan hack Eugene Robinson‘s bit this morning indicating that Palin’s daughter should be forced to have an abortion (I had to screen capture it because they’ve moved it around so much, it’s hard to link to it);

    I think Robinson does all of his research exclusively on HuffPo and Daily Kos. I’ve never seen him depart from the party line on any issue. I suppose that makes him think he’s smart – but actually, he’s just a useful pawn. It also makes me think he’s the affirmative action columnist for the Post, seein’s how his only talent appears to be cutting and pasting from the moonbats.

    I’d like to know how Robinson knows that keeping the baby isn’t the “choice” of Bristol. But, then the Democrats have disposable principles and they don’t understand people who live out the principles they stand behind instead of just passing out advice for everyone else to follow – like Democrats.

    Ruth Marcus, in the Washington Post, excuses the media’s overblown coverage of the 17-year-old mother-to-be;

    And it will be that much more difficult in the media glare. “We ask the media to respect our daughter and (the father) Levi’s privacy as has always been the tradition of children of candidates,” the Palins said in their statement.

    As a parent, I sympathize. But as a parent in the media, I also know that the Palins assumed this risk. Anyone who watched coverage of the Bush twins’ barroom exploits knew that the avert-your-eyes stance toward candidates’ children has its limits.

    It’s naive to imagine, in the anything-goes Internet era, that Palin’s daughter’s pregnancy would go unremarked upon. It’s also mistaken, I think, to expect it. Like it or not, Bristol Palin’s pregnancy is intertwined with an important public policy debate about which the two parties differ and on which Sarah Palin has been outspoken.

    I wonder if she was any more forgiving of the media during the Clinton years.

    I remember reading all of the venomous comments that continue to this day about Hillary Clinton from the Obamaniacs.

    Now, I’m not a woman, obviously, but I’m pretty sure if I were and I were to be a Democrat, I’d think long and hard about belonging to a political party that so willingly attacks any candidate based solely on their biological composition and uses the camoflage of a word like “choice” to dictate to candidates of a particular biological composition the future of their families. A party that hides behind a misnomer like “choice” to advocate for the cavalier termination of lives because of aesthetics and political convenience.

    When a woman makes a “choice” that doesn’t fit the narrative of Democrats, she’s shamed into thinking she’s done something wrong. Just like Hillary who decided to fight the campaign out to it’s conclusion was shamed for it. All for the rich white guys of the Democrat Party clinging to their sad little empires built on the backs of minorities and women.

    Heh! Someone just sent me an email warning me that Sarah Palin is a “redneck” whose husband works in the oil fields and races snowmobiles and she hunts beasts in Alaska. I guess because I live in the Metro DC area, this should scare me about our future VP/President. Actually, I envy them. Smoke that.

    Added: Contrast what the Washington Post said about moms in politics before Sarah Palin became the VP candidate at Michelle Malkin.

  • Left flailing around

    To continue along the same line as COB6’s post below, this is what passes for journalism at Associated Press;

    In the first few lines, AP calls Palin “inexperienced”, “risky”, “a governor for less than 20 months”, and a “darkhorse”. Obama spokespeople have been on Fox News the last hour beginning each of their memo recitations with “let’s be real”…that seems to be their line for Palin.

    They claim that Obama has “a decade” of experience. As a leader? Nope as a legislator. As a “community activist” whatever the Hell that is.

    Sarah Palin’s 20 months as governor is more experience than Obama’s 3 years in the Senate – half of which he’s been campaigning for the presidency. Sarah Palin has commanded her own state’s National Guard and she’s been to Iraq as many times as Obama – visiting her own troops and not on a campaign swing.

    Will men jump to Obama? The men who end up the subject  of a Lifetime Channel movie, maybe. No conservative I know would jump to a socialist just because they won’t vote for a woman. How many times have you heard men admit that they’d “vote for a woman, just not that Clinton woman”? No thinking independent would jump to Obama just because of gender issues – that’s shallow.

    How does McCain choosing Palin negate the McCain line that Obama is inexperienced? Obama is running to be President – he’s admitted that he doesn’t have time for on-the-job training. Palin is ready from day one – she’s had more experience leading our largest State, operating the same mechanisms of our federal government on a smaller scale…she’s already had her on-the-job training. She’s no less experienced than Bill Clinton or Jimmy Carter were on their first respective day. Obama, on the other hand, is less experienced than Clinton or Carter.

    Palin and McCain compliment each other…each fills the other’s shortcomings. All of this flailing around the Left is doing is just throwing stuff against the wall hoping to find something that sticks. But it makes them look foolish while they highlight the shortcomings of their own ticket.

    UPDATE: And that excitement thing for the McCain ticket that our resident troll, has been flapping his gums about for the last several months. Well, now it’s there. I’ve been getting emails from bloggers and others expressing the same level of excitement as Rachel Lucas.

    Michelle Malkin asks her readers if they’re pumped for McCain now. The results will send a certain troll to his closet rocking in the fetal position in the dark.

  • Shiftless hippies unimpressed by IVAW

    Photo from People’s Press Collective

    Readers may remember back in March the IVAW put out a call to ANSWER, World Can’t Wait, Code Pink, et al. to hold off their protests on the March 15th anniversary of the Iraq War so that the IVAW/VVAW/VFP/SEIU could conduct their Winter Soldier II theater at Silver Spring, MD without competing for the attention of the media. WSII fizzled and got virtually no attention from the media (despite a large presence of media) and a result, the protest against the war which happened five days later, on a Wednesday, drew less than a thousand protesters and, in turn, fizzled out, too. Many of the non-IVAW protest organizations blamed the IVAW for their piss poor performance.

    Well, that bit of history seems to be repeating itself. According to one of the shiftless hippies caught in the theater of the IVAW yesterday;

    It was at this point I started to wonder that we’re doing as well in Iraq as we are.  If these tactical geniuses are any indication of the military resources we have at our disposal, it’s a wonder every one of them hasn’t been slaughtered.

    Anyway, back at Larimer and Speer, the I.V.A.W. negotiated some more (with someone), declared that the delegates had heard their message (somehow), and disbanded.

    […]

    The problem is that the I.V.A.W. assholes had put a call out to the more militant protesters, claiming that they were gonna end the march by breaking through police lines and doing their damndest to confront the delegates face to face.   As such, they had a few hundred folks in the march who were ready and willing to put their bodies on the line for the assholes, and ended up wasting the entire day being herded around by police and ordered about by Medea Benjamin types.

    I guess, I’d  point out to this shiftless hippie that these are largely the military’s rejects. Their tendancy to lie and their inability to lead is generally a result of living among the American population, not a result of their training.

    I’d also pass along a warning to the Minnesota law enforcement – since Kokesh and Millard are there getting ready for next week’s protests, I’ll be betting they’re going to try and bulid their reputations up a bit. This may be their last chance. Kokesh has been willing to get arrested on countless occasions in the last year and he has yet to pay a price…he keeps testing his boundaries and since this war is winding down, he’s losing his cachet. I’d expect a grand last gasp gesture next week.

  • IVAW, police face-off

    Photo from Reuters

    While the Democrats were enjoying their convention last night, IVAW was leading an estimated crowd of 3500 protesters (varying sources put the number at 5000 and 7000, so you tell me) and demanded they be given time at the DNC podium to read Barack Obama their three aims. Those aims being;

    Removing U.S. troops from Iraq immediately, providing full health care benefits to returning veterans, and paying reparations to Iraqis for the damage done during the war.

    According to the Denver Post, there was a “tense stand off” between police and the veterans;

    The veterans were arrayed in formation and in uniform, marching slowly toward a line of police, who had warned them they could be pepper sprayed and arrested. They were being watched by a crowd estimated by police at more than 5,000, many of whom had marched with the veterans from the Denver Coliseum.

    As the vets got within a few yards of the police, the cavalry arrived in the form of two white-shirted Obama staffers who asked a representative of the veterans to be escorted inside the security zone.

    After a brief conversation, a veteran’s representative said they had been promised a meeting with Obama’s liason for veteran’s affairs. A cheer went up, the veterans did an about face, and the Democrats appear to have avoided providing John McCain with some very unflattering video footage of veteran’s being pepper-sprayed hogtied and handcuffed outside their convention.

    Another story, however shows up on the Indypendent;

    The march was met with a line of more than 100 Denver Police Department officers clad in riot gear and armed with batons and pepper ball guns at the intersection of Market and 17th Streets. The police refused to let IVAW or the thousands of antiwar demonstrators closer to the convention. After long moments of contention between the demonstration and the police, finally one IVAW representative, former U.S. Marine Liam Madden, was allowed to cross police lines to meet with representatives of the Obama campaign.

    As Madden left on his mission, it seemed as if more than 50 IVAW members were prepared to engage in non-violent civil disobedience and likely arrest. Less than 10 minutes later, at approximately 7:40pm (CT), an announcement was made by IVAW to the crowd, indicating that Obama had endorsed their three points of unity, causing the crowd to uproar in applause.

    Some veterans were visibly emotional by the end of the march. In a highly stirring and symbolic moment, members of IVAW gave a peace salute towards the direction of the Pepsi Center. There was then a moment of silence for casualties of the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan.

    “Sen. Obama, we won’t forget this,” said Jeff Engelhart, IVAW member who served in Baquba, Iraq, with the U.S. Army 1st Infantry Division, to the crowd via microphone and loud speakers. He went on to indicate that if Sen. Obama did not make good on his endorsement, more antiwar protests would come.

    Well, there’s no confirmation that Obama endorsed their three points, in fact his website hasn’t changed one word of his plan for Iraq. The Rocky Mountain News confirms the Denver Post story that all the veterans got was a meeting, no endorsement of their three points;

    Iraq War veterans who led a march through the streets of Denver won a meeting with a liaIson from Sen. Barack Obama’s campaign.

    The news ended a tense standoff between the veterans and riot police near and entrance to the convention, and brought tears to the eyes of several vets.

    So, the Leftist independent media either got it wrong, or they intentionally lied. If they honestly think that Obama will ever agree to reparations to Iraq or immediate withdrawal from Iraq, they’re seriously deluded. I wonder if John Solz is taking notes on the people in the picture above and getting ready to dress them down for expressing political views while wearing a uniform.

    I have yet to see the big guns of the IVAW in Denver, yet. Apparently, they’re in Minnesota for the Republican convention.

  • Beauchamp lives

    Its been a year since I first wrote about the now infamous fablist Scott Thomas Beauchamp, and now he figures it’s safe to stick his head up again. Spencer Ackerman, a former writer for The New Republic tries to lend credence to Beauchamp’s fables and to defend The New Republic at the same time. I guess they both figured no one was paying attention anymore when Radar Magazine agreed to publish “Notes on a Scandal“. I’d take the time to slice it up, but Bob Owens did such a fine job at Pajamas Media ahead of me.

    In “Notes on a Scandal,” Ackerman interviews Scott Beauchamp and Elspeth Reeve — and no one else — and shockingly comes to the conclusion that the magazine that fired Ackerman for his anti-war views was wrong to pull its support for a series of articles (”Shock Troops” was just one of three Beauchamp stories) that reinforced those views.

    How did Ackerman conduct this investigation? He hung out with Beauchamp and Reeve at a bar and later communicated with them via email. What he did not do is present any evidence to support the contention that Beauchamp’s claims are true, or that Franklin Foer was wrong to pull support for stories that still lack on-the-record evidence of any kind.

    Ackerman still relies on everyone to stop paying attention so he can get away with lying and not presenting any new evidence to support his side. It’s beyond me why they still think they can hide behind their “evil Army bullies” story that supposedly prevents them from proving their side. I’ll also never understand why they’re so willing to defend this single liar and continue throwing themselves on the grenade for him. Beauchamps certainly didn’t do them any favors.

    Last October, on the word of Michael Yon, I gave Beauchamp a free pass because his chain of command said he was soldiering. Well all bets are off, since he wants to stand by his stories again. (h/t Ace of Spades)

  • They’re paying attention now

    In today’s Wall Street Journal, Peggy Noonan, in an opinion piece entitled “They’re paying attention now” explains why John McCain has suddenly surged ahead of Barack Obama in the polls;

    There are many answers, but here I think is an essential one: The American people have begun paying attention.

    Despite the year-and-a-half of the media showing us snippets of Obama from his carefully scripted and directed speeches, Americans really didn’t care – certainly not as much as the rest of us who tear apart every word spoken by any politician.

    (more…)

  • Freudian or editorial slip?

    This AP story is the latest in a loooonnnngggg series of articles from the Associated Press about the impending announcement of Obama’s VP choice. But what makes this one different is that AP decided that Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman was “the Democratic vice presidential prick in 2000”. I guess now he’s just an independent prick.

    In case they decide to fix the error, I screen capped it;

    prick.jpg

    H/t to AP Check