Bloodthirsty Liberal

Lest there be any doubt whom the Boston Glob supports for Ted Kennedy’s seat in the Senate—and why:

Twenty-three states have sent at least one WOMAN to the United States Senate, and in three states - California, Maine, and Washington - FEMALE senators hold both seats.

But Massachusetts, a bastion of liberal politics and a pioneer in civil rights, is just now marking the milestone of nominating a WOMAN as a Democratic candidate for Senate with Attorney General Martha Coakley’s overwhelming victory in Tuesday’s primary.

“Whenever you’re talking about firsts, it’s always ironic that we’re in 2009 and we’re still talking about them,’’ said Suffolk County Sheriff Andrea J. Cabral, who is the first WOMAN elected to her position and who supported a Coakley rival in the primary. “People say there are certain jobs that are jobs for men. All that means is that a WOMAN hasn’t been hired yet.’’

Coakley has grown more comfortable openly discussing her GENDER - she used it to great effect in the one of the last debates, and then made barrier-breaking a theme of her acceptance speech Tuesday night - and the issue poses a potential challenge for her Republican opponent, state Senator Scott Brown, as he plots HIS campaign.

“They said WOMEN don’t have much luck in Massachusetts politics,’’ Coakley said Tuesday. “We believed that it was quite possible that that luck was about to change.’’

In her prepared remarks that night, the line was followed by five exclamation points.

Just five?????

What if people don’t get the point??????

“Vote for the chick, not the dick.”

“I’ve got a fever, and the cure is beaver.”

“Massachusetts already has one boob in the Senate. Let’s add two more.”

The Glob could just as easily have crafted an article about how tough it is for Republicans to get elected in Massachusetts, but I’m sure it never even occurred to them. For the record, not since Edward Brooke’s defeat in 1978 has a Republican represented the state in the US Senate. As the first African American to be elected by popular vote to the Senate, he could advise Ms. Coakley that Commonwealth voters don’t need to be patronized about prejudice.

Political affiliation, absolutely. Race or sex, not at all.

I watched another masterful performance by Obama and came away with a couple of thoughts.

He presented as an odd blend of a traditional Realist and a Neo-Con. The Realist angle is that we must do this for world security, but we won’t nation-build. That’s their problem. The Neo-Con was the guy who noticed that the United States has provided much of world security and freedom over the 20th century and we haven’t been properly thanked for our efforts. Freedom good - tyranny bad. We are a great and powerful nation and a force for good. He described September 11th in stirring rhetoric. I was surprised that he was able to recall 9/11. He worried out loud that the public won’t be roused to action. They’ve largely forgotten. It sounded like vintage George W. Bush. But, like I said, he mixed it up. This way, he will be able to pull quotes from that speech to support any future policy stance that polls well.

He also threw a bone to his base. We’re getting out soon. We need to nation-build at home. We didn’t pick this fight. He’s back to Iraq bad - Afghanistan good.

After the speech, John McCain was interviewed. Naturally, he supports the build-up of troops. I say naturally, because he’s been clear and consistent. But he sure isn’t as pretty as Obama and he doesn’t speak as thrillingly. He doesn’t stand with his chin aimed toward the ceiling. McCain repeatedly said that he supported the action but not the withdrawal plan. You either plan withdrawal around winning or around a specific date. (Maybe Obama’s birthday would be a fun withdrawal date?)

The media is still on his side, although they are getting nervous.

PS Michael Moore is unhappy And Code Pink did our work at BTL for us. Obama is the new Bush!

Obama: 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan

Obama: “We Did Not Ask for This Fight”
Bush: “We Did Not Seek This Conflict”
Obama: “New Attacks are Being Plotted as I Speak”
Bush: “At This Moment … Terrorists are Planning New Attacks”
Obama: “Our Cause is Just, Our Resolve Unwavering”
Bush: “Our Cause is Just, Our Coalition [is] Determined”
Obama: “This Is No Idle Danger, No Hypothetical Threat”
Bush: “The Enemies of Freedom Are Not Idle”
Obama: “We Have No Interest in Occupying Your Country”
Bush: “I Wouldn’t Be Happy if I Were Occupied Either”

I liked Bush and agree with Obama here; I simply don’t trust him. When it comes to Obama, as we used to say, back in ancient history: There’s No There, There.

- Aggie

No surprise that Mark Steyn can predict the future. America Alone compared demographic trends and strength of ideology in western society and the Muslim world, and predicted some of the very reactions and convulsions we see today (I’d include Switzerland’s recent banning of minarets).

But did you know he can predict the past, as well?

Steyn on Saturday:

If you rely on the lavishly remunerated “climate correspondents” of the big newspapers and networks, you’ll know nothing about the Climate Research Unit scandals - just the business-as-usual drivel about Boston being underwater by 2011. Indeed, even when a prominent media warm-monger addresses the issue, the newspaper prefers to reprint a month-old column predating the scandal. If you follow online analysis from obscure websites on the fringes of the map, you’ll know what’s going on. If you go to the convenience store and buy today’s newspaper, you won’t. That’s the problem.

Daily Mail on Sunday:

The BBC has become tangled in the row over the alleged manipulation of scientific data on global warming.

One of its reporters has revealed he was sent some of the leaked emails from the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia more than a month ago – but did nothing about them.

Despite the explosive nature of some of the messages – which revealed apparent attempts by the CRU’s head, Professor Phil Jones, to destroy global temperature data rather than give it to scientists with opposing views – Paul Hudson failed to report the story.

This has led to suspicions that the scandal was ignored because it ran counter to what critics say is the BBC’s unquestioning acceptance in many of its programmes that man-made climate change is destroying the planet.

Quite.

The first time we’ve ever quoted Maureen Dowd!

If we could see a Reduced Shakespeare summary of Obama’s presidency so far, it would read:

Dither, dither, speech. Foreign trip, bow, reassure. Seminar, summit. Shoot a jump shot with the guys, throw out the first pitch in mom jeans. Compromise, concede, close the deal. Dither, dither, water down, news conference.

Isn’t that lovely?

Other than that, she’s full of her usual nonsense, but at least she’s getting nervous about her guy. Coupled with the young writer I linked yesterday, the one who, in an argument with Ann Althouse, compared Dreams of My Father to War and Peace, the signs of stress are showing in the Left. They doth protest too loudly.

- Aggie

Imagine Fox doing this to a democrat.

MSNBC’s Dylan Ratigan apologized this morning for photos that he used last week during what was intended to be a lighthearted segment about Gov. Sarah Palin.

On Friday, we noted that Ratigan aired doctored photos on “Morning Meeting” of Palin without identifying them as fakes.

Today, the host apologized saying:

I want to apologize to Gov. Palin and all our viewers. On Friday, in a very misguided attempt to have some fun in advance of Palin’s upcoming book, Going Rogue, our staff mistakenly used some clearly photoshopped images of Ms. Palin without any acknowledgment, and on behalf of the show I would like to say that this was completely unacceptable. We should have never used those photos in the first place

Nasty, nasty people.

- Aggie

Sit down, boys and girls, get comfortable, and I’ll tell you a story

It’s a story about how a young, idealistic, New York Times reporter learns that there are bad people in this world. And he’s is not as special as he thought.

THE car’s engine roared as the gunman punched the accelerator and we crossed into the open Afghan desert. I was seated in the back between two Afghan colleagues who were accompanying me on a reporting trip when armed men surrounded our car and took us

Another gunman in the passenger seat turned and stared at us as he gripped his Kalashnikov rifle. No one spoke. I glanced at the bleak landscape outside — reddish soil and black boulders as far as the eye could see — and feared we would be dead within minutes.

It was last Nov. 10, and I had been headed to a meeting with a Taliban commander along with an Afghan journalist, Tahir Luddin, and our driver, Asad Mangal. The commander had invited us to interview him outside Kabul for reporting I was pursuing about Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The longer I looked at the gunman in the passenger seat, the more nervous I became. His face showed little emotion. His eyes were dark, flat and lifeless.

I thought of my wife and family and was overcome with shame. An interview that seemed crucial hours earlier now seemed absurd and reckless. I had risked the lives of Tahir and Asad — as well as my own life. We reached a dry riverbed and the car stopped. “They’re going to kill us,” Tahir whispered. “They’re going to kill us.”

Tahir and Asad were ordered out of the car. Gunmen from a second vehicle began beating them with their rifle butts and led them away. I was told to get out of the car and take a few steps up a sand-covered hillside.

While one guard pointed his Kalashnikov at me, the other took my glasses, notebook, pen and camera. I was blindfolded, my hands tied behind my back. My heart raced. Sweat poured from my skin.

“Habarnigar,” I said, using a Dari word for journalist. “Salaam,” I said, using an Arabic expression for peace.

I waited for the sound of gunfire. I knew I might die but remained strangely calm.

Moments later, I felt a hand push me back toward the car, and I was forced to lie down on the back seat. Two gunmen got in and slammed the doors shut. The car lurched forward. Tahir and Asad were gone and, I thought, probably dead.

The car came to a halt after what seemed like a two-hour drive. Guards took off my blindfold and guided me through the front door of a crude mud-brick home perched in the center of a ravine.

I was put in some type of washroom the size of a closet. After a few minutes, the guards opened the door and pushed Tahir and Asad inside.

We stared at one another in relief. About 20 minutes later, a guard opened the door and motioned for us to walk into the hallway.

“No shoot,” he said, “no shoot.”

For the first time that day, I thought our lives might be spared. The guard led us into a living room decorated with maroon carpets and red pillows. A half-dozen men sat along two walls of the room, Kalashnikov rifles at their sides. I sat down across from a heavyset man with a patu — a traditional Afghan scarf — wrapped around his face. Sunglasses covered his eyes, and he wore a cheap black knit winter cap. Embroidered across the front of it was the word “Rock” in English.

“I’m a Taliban commander,” he announced. “My name is Mullah Atiqullah.”

FOR the next seven months and 10 days, Atiqullah and his men kept the three of us hostage. We were held in Afghanistan for a week, then spirited to the tribal areas of Pakistan, where Osama bin Laden is thought to be hiding.

Atiqullah worked with Sirajuddin Haqqani, the leader of one of the most hard-line factions of the Taliban. The Haqqanis and their allies would hold us in territory they control in North and South Waziristan.

During our time as hostages, I tried to reason with our captors. I told them we were journalists who had come to hear the Taliban’s side of the story. I told them that I had recently married and that Tahir and Asad had nine young children between them. I wept, hoping it would create sympathy, and begged them to release us. All of my efforts proved pointless.

Over those months, I came to a simple realization. After seven years of reporting in the region, I did not fully understand how extreme many of the Taliban had become. Before the kidnapping, I viewed the organization as a form of “Al Qaeda lite,” a religiously motivated movement primarily focused on controlling Afghanistan.

Now, I can see the old lady that lived up the street from me when I was a little girl, watch her hanging the laundry on the line on a hot summer day. This is what she is saying: “Now, don’t that just beat all? Them reporters is so gol darned foolish. All that education and they still so stupid, like they just fell off the turnip truck.”

Foolish, naive, little whiny leftists, I might add. And these people tell us what is going on in the world. This reporter thought that he was so special that no one would want to hurt him, once they understood that he was a nice guy with a family and a journalist. (Not, say, a little boy on a school trip because he won the spelling bee, back on September 11th). The surprised reporter didn’t think that the Taliban were as bad as al qaeda. But they housed and protected al qaeda. Did he wonder how the nice Taliban boys thought it was ok to execute men for shaving their beards? Or listening to music? Don’t even get me started on their treatment of women. Apparently he never thought those thoughts. Instead, I’ll bet a nickel, he thought about saving the whales.

- Aggie

This is a fascinating comparison of media coverage of joblessness under Obama and Reagan

They simply crunched the numbers:

Although there was a difference between the two presidents in how long they had been in office, the spin was still significant. Unemployment numbers rose similarly under both Reagan and Obama, but journalists continued a long-standing trend of spinning the numbers.
The Business & Media Institute analyzed network unemployment stories on the evenings that data was released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics between March 2009 to September 2009 and March 1982 to September 1982. There were 66 stories in all – 35 stories in 2009 and 31 stories in 1982.

BMI found that network reports were 13 times more negative in their treatment of Reagan than Obama. In fact, 91 percent of stories (20 out of 22) mentioning Reagan’s administration portrayed it negatively – while only 7 percent (1 out of 15) of Obama administration mentions were negative. Obama was mentioned positively 87 percent of the time (13 out of 15). There was not a single positive mention of the Reagan White House.

Blame for ‘Wicked’ Reagan, but Praise for Obama’s ‘Important’ Stimulus

In 1982, network reports showed desperation, sadness and tragedy as a result of rising joblessness. NBC pictured lines of people waiting outside a food bank and interviewed crisis counselors in Seattle on May 7.

“More callers talk of despair and even suicide,” Don Oliver reported that night, before interviewing Jim and Pam Smalls. Oliver called them “victims of unemployment depression and anger,” because Pam had to seek help from a battered woman’s shelter.

Another network showed people living under a highway overpass out of their trucks because they couldn’t find work. But under Obama the networks found a man “doing backflips” when he was asked to return to work at a Minnesota window company and another man who was thrilled to be hired by a hamburger stand in Arizona.

Network reports on unemployment were mirror opposites. They made Reagan look bad in a huge majority of stories and conversely made Obama look good.

Broadcasts journalists tied “rising” unemployment to Reagan in 1982 by mentioning him in 71 percent of stories (22 of 31), but linked Obama to the economy slightly more than half as often in 2009 – only 40 percent of the time (14 of 35).

When the respective presidents were mentioned, political attacks on the Reagan administration over job losses were commonplace in the 1982 network coverage. Union leaders, Democratic politicians and the unemployed were all quoted blasting Reagan for his economic policies.
NBC’s Irving R. Levine found a soon-to-be unemployed textile worker who “blames President Reagan” for his situation on March 5, 1982. That worker, Gene Biffle, told NBC, “When he went in there he said it, he was gonna get jobs and help the economy, but don’t look like he’s doing too much about that.”

Following Levine’s segment, anchor Roger Mudd took Reagan to task himself by responding to statements from the administration:

“Spokesmen for the Reagan White House are coming to dread each month’s unemployment numbers because it gets harder and harder for them to explain. Economic Adviser Weidenbaum says today the figures may mean the economy may be bottoming out. Communications Director Gergen says that while unemployment may get worse, the recession seems to be bottoming out. Meanwhile, more and more people are getting bottomed out.”

In August 1982, Sam Donaldson of ABC highlighted the “partisan savagery” of Congressional Democrats, including Rep. Parren Mitchell’s, D-Md., claim that Reagan was pursuing “sadistic fiscal policies.”

The dark and gloomy tone of 1982 reports was a near polar opposite of the tenor of 2009 unemployment stories.

In 2009, the networks praised Obama for merely trying to stop rising unemployment – even when he wasn’t succeeding. And month after month reporters tried to find the “good news” or signs of a turnaround.

All three nightly newscasts mentioned Obama favorably March 6, 2009, even though 651,000 jobs had been lost in February and unemployment had jumped half a percentage point to 8.1 percent from 7.6 percent. And all three of those broadcasts emphasized a mere 25 jobs “saved” by the stimulus package.

NBC’s Chuck Todd gave Obama credit that night saying, “For these 25 new police officers here in Columbus, Ohio, the president’s stimulus plan didn’t create these jobs, it saved them. Without the money these folks would be looking for a new line of work.”

CBS Anchor Katie Couric revealed her faith in Obama’s stimulus plan that night as well saying, “I know the government is going to be creating jobs, as we’ve mentioned, through this stimulus package.”

After the Bureau of Labor Statistics announced May 8 that more than a half million jobs were lost in April, another CBS anchor, Maggie Rodriguez, looked for a ray of sunshine saying, “There is new hope the sun may be starting to peek through those economic storm clouds tonight,” before delivering the news that unemployment had jumped .4 percent to 8.9 percent nationally.

Rodriguez’ optimism led into Anthony Mason’s report. Mason quoted Obama and emphasized his call for education as the solution to joblessness and request that states allow people to maintain unemployment benefits while going back to school.

It just goes on and on and on. But the most interesting fact is this: the unemployment rates were practically identical. This is a pure measure of media bias. I want to type that again. This is a brilliant way to measure media bias. Check this out:

Here are their conclusions and recommendations:

Conclusion

Despite having similar periods of rising unemployment, Presidents Reagan and Obama were treated very differently by the network news media. This fit the theme of the network news when it came to economic reporting.

Jobs and unemployment have been one of the most significant economic measures because they impacted everyone so directly. Network viewers who watched coverage of unemployment during the Reagan years were consistently told things were bad. For identical numbers under Obama, those very same networks claimed the economy was improving. That was clear-cut bias.

And it isn’t new. The Business & Media Institute released a Special Report in 2004 called “One Economy, Two Spins” which showed the way similar economic conditions (unemployment, inflation and GDP growth) were presented negatively during the re-election campaigns of George W. Bush’s Republican administration, but positively under Bill Clinton’s Democratic re-election bid.

BMI found that jobs stories in particular were positive more than six times as often under Clinton than Bush. The networks continued to distort the good economy under Bush in 2005 and 2006 giving negative stories more air time and using ordinary people to underscore those downbeat reports.

The Media Research Center also reported in 2004 that the news media sought to discredit Reaganomics with their news coverage. Virginia Commonwealth University professor Ted J. Smith III found that out of 14,000 network news stories between 1982 and 1987 the amount of network TV coverage shrunk and became more negative as the economy improved. When one economic indicator got better, the networks covered it less and focused on something unhealthy about the economy.

Recommendations

State the Facts: Unemployment data, like all economic data, should be presented as is without reporter opinions being inserted into the broadcast. Forecasting job losses or gains should be left only to the experts.

Be Consistent: If 9.4 percent unemployment is bad, then it should be treated so regardless of who is president. If the number discredits a Republican administration, it should also discredit a Democrat.

Use History as a Guide: It is up to the networks to ensure that they cover stories consistently over time. A reporter working on a story about unemployment being the worst in 26 years should consult the coverage from that time for guidance.

Don’t Spin the Economy: Reporters should be embarrassed when they highlight 25 jobs gained after telling viewers 651,000 jobs were lost. If a story is negative, then tell it that way. Don’t allow White House spin from either party to distort the final result.

So, go to the link and read it all. And let me know if you laugh or cry, will ya?

- Aggie

Poor Tom Friedman; he is but a human echo chamber

Once a rumble starts in the Left, you know, sooner or later, our Tommy will amplify it.

I hate to write about this, but I have actually been to this play before and it is really disturbing.

I was in Israel interviewing Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin just before he was assassinated in 1995. We had a beer in his office. He needed one. I remember the ugly mood in Israel then — a mood in which extreme right-wing settlers and politicians were doing all they could to delegitimize Rabin, who was committed to trading land for peace as part of the Oslo accords. They questioned his authority. They accused him of treason. They created pictures depicting him as a Nazi SS officer, and they shouted death threats at rallies. His political opponents winked at it all.

And in so doing they created a poisonous political environment that was interpreted by one right-wing Jewish settler as a license to kill Rabin — he must have heard, “God will be on your side” — and so he did.

Others have already remarked on this analogy, but I want to add my voice because the parallels to Israel then and America today turn my stomach: I have no problem with any of the substantive criticism of President Obama from the right or left. But something very dangerous is happening. Criticism from the far right has begun tipping over into delegitimation and creating the same kind of climate here that existed in Israel on the eve of the Rabin assassination.

What kind of madness is it that someone would create a poll on Facebook asking respondents, “Should Obama be killed?” The choices were: “No, Maybe, Yes, and Yes if he cuts my health care.” The Secret Service is now investigating. I hope they put the jerk in jail and throw away the key because this is exactly what was being done to Rabin.

Gee Tom, without defending the facebook poll, which is indefensible, let me pose another question. What kind of madness is it to refer to Bush-Hitler for eight years? Or to make a feature length film about the assassination of Bush? I’ll stop here because, like an alcoholic I know that if I continue down this road, there’s no stopping me. But our readers get the drift, even if the NY Times crowd pretends to be oblivious. They are not stupid; it’s all an act.

I agree with one thing that he wrote:

Our leaders, even the president, can no longer utter the word “we” with a straight face. There is no more “we” in American politics at a time when “we” have these huge problems — the deficit, the recession, health care, climate change and wars in Iraq and Afghanistan — that “we” can only manage, let alone fix, if there is a collective “we” at work.

The “we” was taken care of the way an avalanche forms, slowly at first (the Bork hearings in the ’80s) and then faster (Clinton hatred) and faster (Bush hatred). I would argue that Obama hatred is milder than Bush hatred, but I live in Massachusetts and may not be getting a good reading. We now have a split in our society to rival and possibly surpass the Vietnam era. This is not particularly the fault of Rush or that nutjob on the Left whose name I always suppress… on MSNBC… oh yeah, Olberman. It is the result of years of screaming and lying and discounting reasonable perspectives on the other side. If Friedman had written this during the frenzy of Bush hatred, I would have respected him for it. Instead, this represents more of the same.

- Aggie

We’ll all live longer

Americans appear to actually thrive on adversity, according to a study published this week that reached the conclusion after researching the nation’s biggest economic downturn.

Life expectancy during the peak years of the Great Depression increased 6.2 years — from 57.1 years in 1929 to 63.3 years in 1933 — according to University of Michigan researchers Jose A. Tapia Granados and Ana Diez Roux. The increase applied to men and women, whites and non-whites.

The team crunched data from the federal government and concluded that “population health did not decline and indeed generally improved during the four years of the Great Depression, 1930-1933, with mortality decreasing for almost all ages, and life expectancy increasing by several years in males, females, whites, and non-whites.”

For most age groups, “mortality tended to peak during years of strong economic expansion (such as 1923, 1926, 1929 and 1936-1937),” they wrote in the “Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.”

“The finding is strong and counterintuitive,” said Tapia Granados, the lead author of the study. “Most people assume that periods of high unemployment are harmful to health.”

Well, here’s a thought. People eat less during a depression. Do a study; food is hard to find when production shuts down and becomes difficult to sell, to transport, when you can’t hire help. BUT we know that calorie restriction increases longevity (another study). So the recession will help by restricting calories, hypothetically. We’ll all be skinny like Obama!

Plus, everyone knows that cigarettes are expensive and bad for health. Maybe fewer cigarettes get smoked. Less alcohol consumed.

During recessions, with less work to do, employees may work slower, sleep longer and spend more time with family and friends, he said. With less money, they may spend less on alcohol and tobacco.

Yet another reason to be thankful to Obama. I wake up each and every morning and thank our leader for all that he has done for us. Mm, mm, mm.

Oh, one other reason we are all so healthy. We can’t afford to eat out. We’re eating less meat, more beans. We’re eating seasonal veggies ’cause they’re cheaper. We are truly blessed.

- Aggie

NY Times on why they didn’t cover the ACORN tapes

Phew, this is weak. Very weak. I’ll just summarize. They were busy. They didn’t notice. Other news stories were happening. Conservatives are trying to impugn their dignity, their noble record. They got around to it eventually.

You can read it yourself for the details.

- Aggie