No Hope In Our Time
the “I am not an ideologue” bite became a derisive staple on Fox News. And therein lies the crisis of democracy that our country faces: a moderate-liberal President, willing to make judicious compromises, confronted by a Republican Party paralyzed by cynicism and hypocrisy, undergirded by inchoate ideological fervor.
The only reason he is “moderately” anything is because he is so vociferously opposed by Republicans. As for ideological fervor, Republicans right now can’t agree on any new policy or direction– only that they don’t like this one.
But what about compromise?
He’s missing the real “crisis of democracy”: no one, including Republicans, think Obama is in charge. Why compromise with a man who doesn’t have any power to deliver? What can Obama offer Republicans over Pelosi, over the lawyers who oppose tort reform– even if he wanted to? And Democrats watch in horror as Obama, at best, seems to do nothing to control insurance companies and banks; and at worst is powerless to do so.
Carter made mistakes, but he made them. If you believe Bush wasn’t really in charge, than meant Cheney was. For the first time since Andrew Johnson, no one is in charge.
Fox Isn’t The Most Trusted Network
As everyone must have heard, an independent polling group found that Fox News is the most trusted news network: 49% of Americans.
Critics see ideological bias, but they are missing the point.
The point is that Fox wasn’t the most trusted during the Bush years, then it was CNN. The question really being asked is, “who is most trustworthy to report on what Obama is doing?”
Everyone understands Fox’s bias. But if the Obama Administration is up to any nonsense, who do you trust to report it? MSNBC? Seriously?
Consider that a popular critique of the media during the Bush years was that they were not aggressive enough in exposing Bush lies, WMD, Halliburton, etc. If CNN wasn’t aggressive then, do you really expect them to go after Obama?
We Hate George Bush. Really.
BAGHDAD (AP)– The U.S. will appeal a court decision dismissing manslaughter charges against five Blackwater Worldwide guards involved in a deadly 2007 Baghdad shooting, U.S. Vice President Joe Biden said Saturday.
Seems to have bee written wrong– why would the U.S. appeal the dismissal of charges against Americans in U.S. Courts? Dismissal may not mean acquittal, but it does mean “your case is no good.”
The Cirque d’Obama want to show that they are sensitive to Iraqi anger over the shootings. But in pursuing this appeal, dismissed for those reasons, they are showing that they think U.S. law, the very laws they want terrorists to be allowed access to, is subordinate to that anger.
…the case fell apart when a federal trial judge in Washington, Ricardo Urbina, said in a Dec. 31 ruling that the Justice Department mishandled evidence and violated the guards’ constitutional rights.
The U.S. is saying: we don’t care about the guards’ rights or how evidence is handled, these guys are guilty.
That’s exactly the wrong message you want to send a fledgling democracy, especially one that you hope will be an align itself with the values of your nation, not just the whims of a single lame duck President.
Republican Win In Mass: 2010 Is Yours To Lose
Health care reform is now dead. But before you rejoice, the disappearance of a huge political goal will leave each individual Democrat to fend for themselves. Expect more pork, more spending, higher taxes.
Certainly I didn’t want Obama to win, but he wasted a year. He thought he had four years; everyone knows a President only has 1. Now he’s a lame duck, already.
When you Republicans take Congress in 2010, don’t waste the time, don’t assume “when we get the Presidency in 2012 things will be different.” You political fortune will be established by 2011. Start Thatcherizing now.
No One Told The Pilots That There Was A Bomber On The Plane
I am a commercial airline pilot who was deep over the Atlantic… on Christmas Day following the attempted bombing on Flight 253.
I only learned about the incident after landing when I looked at the CNN Web site on my iPhone. I’m justifiably furious that I was not notified while airborne.
It can only be attributed to luck that unlike 9/11, this was not a coordinated attack involving multiple aircraft.
He’s right, but he hasn’t contemplated the real problem: this was known to be a bomb, and other pilots weren’t notified. If the plane had exploded, no one would have known why, and the likelihood that pilots would be informed would be even less.
Liberal Bias, Media Oversight, or Freudian Slip– Or All Three
Fortunately,according to the article, none of the family members were harmed during their slayings, but lawsuits against the police are inevitable.
10 Year Old Boy Refuses The Pledge Until Gays Have Equal Rights
From The Huffington Post:
Will Phillips appeared on CNN Monday morning with his father, Jay, to discuss his refusal to say the pledge of allegiance. “I’ve grown up with a lot of people and I’m good friends with a lot of people who are gay and I think they should have the rights all people should, and I’m not going to swear that they do,” the ten-year-old Phillips said.
The story appears to be about a boy expressing civil disobedience, but the real message is in the next sentence:
Jay Phillips, asked if his son was prepared for the media attention, said his son saw it as an opportunity to raise awareness.
Not just the boy; CNN and the Huffingtonpost, too. Of their own particular worldview.
There was an earlier story about David Habecker, who was voted out of office in Colorado in a recall election, because he had refused to recite the Pledge, because he objected to the “under God” clause.
Mr. Habecker, who lost by a vote of 903-605, said he is considering whether to pursue further legal action to overturn the recall outcome, arguing that the voters had infringed upon his First Amendment rights.
Of course, that story got reported in the Washington Times– “filthy pinko atheist gets what he deserves.” But there’s no such story on CNN.
This story of Will Phillips is on CNN, but it isn’t on the Washington Times.
It’s one thing for the country to be divided. It’s another thing for the media to be complicit in dividing it.
Why We Will Never Prevail In Pakistan
Seymour Hersh’s expose in The New Yorker:
Hersh interviews Sultan Amir Tarar, a Pakistani secret service officer who happily worked with the CIA in the mujahideen war against the USSR in the 1980s.
…Tarar’s view changed after the Russians withdrew and, in his opinion, “the Americans abandoned us.” When I asked if he’d seen “Charlie Wilson’s War,” the movie depicting that abandonment and a Texas congressman’s futile efforts to change the policy, Tarar laughed and said, “I’ve seen Charlie Wilson. I didn’t need to see the movie.”
Hersh actually thought he was being clever. In his mind, a Hollywood movie with an obvious leftward slant would somehow be an area of common ground to a Pakistani man who had actually been there. This wasn’t an offhand comment– Hersh thought it important enough to include in his article. This is the equivalent of asking future alien invaders what they thought of The Empire Strikes Back: “How accurate was our guess about the color of lightsabers? ” They would look at us, incredulously, right before they obliterated us.
Hersh includes this anecdote solely because he wants to be able to say this:
Tarar believed that the Obama Administration had to negotiate with the Afghan Taliban, even if that meant direct talks with Mullah Omar, the Taliban leader. Tarar knew Mullah Omar well. “…Today, among all the Afghan leaders, Omar has the biggest audience, and this is the right time for you to talk to him.”
Hersh, for all his apparent worldly sophistication, is completely unable to interpret Tarar’s statements from Tarar’s perspective. To Hersh, “negotiate” means sit down in an official boardroom with formal diplomacy on both sides. To Tarar, it means meeting him pseudo-anonymously in the back of some Peshawar cafe, with a briefcase of money, maps, and a few bottles of JW Black– the kind of negotiation of which Hersh would strongly disapprove that is going on all the time.
Hersh, and so many journalists, are unable to see that most of the world does not think like them. Unfortunately, they decide the fate of elections, and wars.
