Limbaugh v. NFL, CNN, MSNBC et. al.

I have not bothered to post anything about the latest double standard inflicted on Rush Limbaugh by the news media and the NFL. Rush is a big boy and he knows how to defend himself. But when word leaked out about his participation in group of investors pursuing the purchase of the LA Rams - well, you could just see this coming.

Since the dust from the electronic lynch mob has settled and Rush is no longer an investor in the group I sincerely hope he turns his lawyers loose on every single media source that slandered him. And then finds another group of investors willing to take on the NFL.

9/12 March On Washington, DC

From The Rhetorican:

"I dunno if that’s 2 million. But really, who the hell cares? Put any number you want on them. The video speaks for itself. And this is what it says: It’s not just a Mob. It’s a popular movement."


It was easy for the administration and the MSM to dismiss the the Tea Parties because they were dispersed all over the country. But if you took the time to tally up attendance numbers you would have found 500,000 in March, over a 1,000,000 in July and the only thing I can say about the August town halls is Congress is lucky there were only 31 days in the month. EVERYDAY CITIZENS DON'T HAVE THE TIME TO TRAVEL TO DC. WE'RE BUSY MAKING THIS COUNTRY WORK AND WE ONLY WANT THE GOVERNMENT TO GET OUT OF THE WAY.

But yet here they are, and yes indeed, that is a lot of folks by any measure. As I have said from the very beginning - this administration is working overtime to piss off all the wrong people. I wish I could have been there myself but instead I am flying my Gadsden flag and am there in spirit. When you have that many everyday citizens that feel they need to march on Washington to show their disapproval for the current administration's policies, someone, somewhere had better start to pay attention. If they don't, this isn't going to end well for them.

Any other interesting side note from Instapundit:
"I’ll tell you what I find impressive. I’m watching the Fox news video about 15 minutes after the end of the event. The crowd has thinned out enough that you can see the ground and there is not a speck of trash on the grass. Absolutely clean. To contrast, google ‘pictures of litter on the mall after the inauguration.’”

Juxtapositions

Dr. Andrew Weil has an interesting article at The Huffington Post entitled Should You Get Your Drug Information From An Actor? Dr. Weil makes a fair case against direct-to-consumer pharmaceutical marketing but then goes off the rails at the end of the article when he recommends a government solution to this "problem". Not much of a surprise considering where the article is posted.

I don't know about you, but I have a hard time getting my primary care physician to do anything he doesn't want to do. A few years ago I had a much worse than usual case of the flu and my doc basically said "What do you want me to do? You're sick. You have the flu, go home, force fluids and rest. And no I won't give you any antibiotics - they're over-prescribed as it is." Now how much luck do you think I would have getting him to give me a prescription for some medication I saw pitched on television? Not that I would even ask - that's why I go to him. He's my expert and if he thinks this test or that prescription is a good idea, we talk about it and then I do it. I hired him for his expertise because I don't even play a doctor on TV.

So if direct-to-consumer pharmaceutical marketing works as well as Dr. Weil suggests there is something wrong with the medical profession and government intervention ain't going to fix it. Perhaps they should just let us self-diagnose, put vending machines in the waiting rooms and call it close enough.

But Dr. Weil's point about where and from whom we get our information is a very valid. I have repeatedly expressed the same concern in the political arena. In politics, everyone is allowed an opinion, no matter how illogical or uninformed it is. But when an opinion is given more crediance because it came from this actor or that musician we have a problem. For years I have been telling people "When I want the lastest information about geo-politics I consult the Dixie Chicks." I usually just get a blank stare.

Which leads me to the juxtaposition I found so interesting at The Huffington Post. Among their guest bloggers are Bill Maher (comedian), Larry Flint (pornographer) and Eve Ensler (playwright/actress). In addition, one of the most commented on posts was a video of Jon Stewart (comedian/news caster/comedian) and with whom I have a major problem - see here and here. I have to ask - how is this any different than Sally Fields hawking Boniva to the great unwashed? Especially if the readers are not very discerning? How does this elevate the discourse?

Send In The Clowns

Though admittedly an unscientific poll - somehow, it doesn't surprise me in the least. It also explains a lot. H/T Theo.

Priceless

This must be seen to truly be believed. Is this the beginning of the Washington Press Corps reawakening? Not that it matters. They are "shocked" to find out that some of them have been manipulated by the White House.

I personally have no use for Helen Thomas strictly because of her unabashed liberalism. But you have to give the old girl credit - she really gives Gibbs a beating. Though if she doesn't get with the program I predict Obama will accomplish what the Bush White House could not - she will be drummed out of the press corp while all of her colleagues watch.



Update: CNSNews.com - Following a testy exchange during Wednesday’s briefing with White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, veteran White House correspondent Helen Thomas told CNSNews.com that not even Richard Nixon tried to control the press the way President Obama is trying to control the press.

“Nixon didn’t try to do that,” Thomas said. “They couldn’t control (the media). They didn’t try.

“What the hell do they think we are, puppets?” Thomas said. “They’re supposed to stay out of our business. They are our public servants. We pay them.”

Thomas said she was especially concerned about the arrangement between the Obama Administration and a writer from the liberal Huffington Post Web site. The writer was invited by the White House to President Obama’s press conference last week on the understanding that he would ask Obama a question about Iran from among questions that had been sent to him by people in Iran.

“When you call the reporter the night before you know damn well what they are going to ask to control you,” Thomas said.

“I’m not saying there has never been managed news before, but this is carried to fare-thee-well--for the town halls, for the press conferences,” she said. “It’s blatant. They don’t give a damn if you know it or not. They ought to be hanging their heads in shame.”

No Doubt Left

ABC will air programming about government run health care from inside the White House next week without a dissenting opinion in sight. Apparently, ABC has been given access to government health care and opted for a collective lobotomy. The debate over health care, like the debate over global warming, must have already been decided; I missed the memo again.

This is the last nail in the coffin of the MSM. Most certainly they will not disappear after this programming is aired but their credibility is already gone and they have exposed themselves in all their glory as the propaganda machine of the Obama White House.

Clown Nose Off, Clown Nose On

Wading through these videos will take some time but consider it a teachable moment.

Jon Stewart would have been exposed as a fool and a knave to his audience by now were it not for the fact that they are more historically illiterate than he is. Let this then be a lesson about why it is dangerous to get your "news" from the "pseudo-news comedian" who in the process of crossing the lines between news and nonsense irreparably blurs them. In what appears to be a serious conversation about torture Cliff May and Stewart bring up the atomic bombings during World War II around the 5:50 mark. Stewart then professes that he thinks President Harry Truman was a war criminal.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	M - Th 11p / 10c
Cliff May Unedited Interview Pt. 2
thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Economic Crisis First 100 Days

A few days later after presumably digesting the fact that he called President Harry Truman a war criminal and perhaps a couple of e-mails calling on him to do so, Stewart does the honorable thing and apologizes on air for his comments.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	M - Th 11p / 10c
Harry Truman Was Not a War Criminal
thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Economic Crisis First 100 Days

And now the historical facts behind the decision to drop the atomic bombs courtesy of Bill Whittle. If Jon Stewart had a working knowledge of these facts he could have saved himself a great deal of trouble and would not have misinformed his audience.

But I doubt he would have been as hip and cool.

Tea Party Update

CNN reporter Susan Roesgen gets a talking to after the camera stops rolling. It's nice that someone set her straight but it's quite obvious she wasn't there to cover the story - she was there to do a drive-by hit piece.

Too Little Too Late

From Deborah Howell, The Washington Post ombudsman:

"The Post provided a lot of good campaign coverage, but readers have been consistently critical of the lack of probing issues coverage and what they saw as a tilt toward Democrat Barack Obama. My surveys, which ended on Election Day, show that they are right on both counts."

Is it just me or would it not have been better to correct the reportage before Election Day since you knew you were providing biased coverage? Only unbridled arrogance can account for this.

If nothing else, this election cycle has proven that the MSM have no credibility left and are most certainly not a source of unbiased information. Coupled that with their current financial difficulties and circulation declines it can only hasten their eventual demise.

The Bush Doctrines

Charles Krauthammer sets the record straight in today's Washinton Post:

Charlie Gibson's Gaffe

By Charles Krauthammer
Saturday, September 13, 2008; A17

"At times visibly nervous . . . Ms. Palin most visibly stumbled when she was asked by Mr. Gibson if she agreed with the Bush doctrine. Ms. Palin did not seem to know what he was talking about. Mr. Gibson, sounding like an impatient teacher, informed her that it meant the right of 'anticipatory self-defense.' "

-- New York Times, Sept. 12

Informed her? Rubbish.

The New York Times got it wrong. And Charlie Gibson got it wrong.

There is no single meaning of the Bush doctrine. In fact, there have been four distinct meanings, each one succeeding another over the eight years of this administration -- and the one Charlie Gibson cited is not the one in common usage today. It is utterly different.

He asked Palin, "Do you agree with the Bush doctrine?"

She responded, quite sensibly to a question that is ambiguous, "In what respect, Charlie?"

Sensing his "gotcha" moment, Gibson refused to tell her. After making her fish for the answer, Gibson grudgingly explained to the moose-hunting rube that the Bush doctrine "is that we have the right of anticipatory self-defense."

Wrong.

I know something about the subject because, as the Wikipedia entry on the Bush doctrine notes, I was the first to use the term. In the cover essay of the June 4, 2001, issue of the Weekly Standard entitled, "The Bush Doctrine: ABM, Kyoto, and the New American Unilateralism," I suggested that the Bush administration policies of unilaterally withdrawing from the ABM treaty and rejecting the Kyoto protocol, together with others, amounted to a radical change in foreign policy that should be called the Bush doctrine.

Then came 9/11, and that notion was immediately superseded by the advent of the war on terror. In his address to the joint session of Congress nine days after 9/11, President Bush declared: "Either you are with us or you are with the terrorists. From this day forward any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime." This "with us or against us" policy regarding terror -- first deployed against Pakistan when Secretary of State Colin Powell gave President Musharraf that seven-point ultimatum to end support for the Taliban and support our attack on Afghanistan -- became the essence of the Bush doctrine.

Until Iraq. A year later, when the Iraq war was looming, Bush offered his major justification by enunciating a doctrine of preemptive war. This is the one Charlie Gibson thinks is the Bush doctrine.

It's not. It's the third in a series and was superseded by the fourth and current definition of the Bush doctrine, the most sweeping formulation of the Bush approach to foreign policy and the one that most clearly and distinctively defines the Bush years: the idea that the fundamental mission of American foreign policy is to spread democracy throughout the world. It was most dramatically enunciated in Bush's second inaugural address: "The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands. The best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world."

This declaration of a sweeping, universal American freedom agenda was consciously meant to echo John Kennedy's pledge in his inaugural address that the United States "shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty." It draws also from the Truman doctrine of March 1947 and from Wilson's 14 points.

If I were in any public foreign policy debate today, and my adversary were to raise the Bush doctrine, both I and the audience would assume -- unless my interlocutor annotated the reference otherwise -- that he was speaking about the grandly proclaimed (and widely attacked) freedom agenda of the Bush administration.

Not the Gibson doctrine of preemption.

Not the "with us or against us" no-neutrality-is-permitted policy of the immediate post-9/11 days.

Not the unilateralism that characterized the pre-9/11 first year of the Bush administration.

Presidential doctrines are inherently malleable and difficult to define. The only fixed "doctrines" in American history are the Monroe and the Truman doctrines which come out of single presidential statements during administrations where there were few other contradictory or conflicting foreign policy crosscurrents.

Such is not the case with the Bush doctrine.

Yes, Sarah Palin didn't know what it is. But neither does Charlie Gibson. And at least she didn't pretend to know -- while he looked down his nose and over his glasses with weary disdain, sighing and "sounding like an impatient teacher," as the Times noted. In doing so, he captured perfectly the establishment snobbery and intellectual condescension that has characterized the chattering classes' reaction to the mother of five who presumes to play on their stage.

Pink Slip Nation

From Powerline:

"That's how the Minneapolis Star Tribune headlined its story on last month's decline in payroll jobs in its print edition:

It's no longer a question of recession or not. Now it's how deep and how long. Workers' pink slips stacked ever higher in March as jittery employers slashed 80,000 jobs, the most in five years, and the national unemployment rate climbed to 5.1 percent. ***

The grim picture described by the Labor Department on Friday provided stark evidence of just how much the jobs market has buckled under the weight of the housing, credit and financial crises.

I'm sorry to see unemployment climb to 5.1%, but by historic standards, that's not exactly a "grim picture." For example, nothing like the unemployment rates that, along with runaway inflation, propelled Ronald Reagan to the presidency in 1980. But I wondered about a more recent comparison. Do you remember 1996, when Bill Clinton swept to an easy re-election victory over Bob Dole, on the basis of what pretty much everyone in the press considered a near-perfect economy? No "pink slip nation" in 1996!

Actually, though, the unemployment rate in November 1996, when Clinton rode a soaring economy to victory, was 5.4%. That's right--three tenths of a percent higher than the "grim picture" of a "pink slip nation" painted by this month's unemployment report.
To be fair, the unemployment rate in November 1996, while higher than the current rate, was essentially flat, while March's 5.1% unemployment represented an increase over the extraordinarily low rates that have characterized George Bush's presidency. Still, it makes you wonder: is the current hysterical treatment of economic news the product of a rational evaluation of the data, or is it just one more sign of the media's desire to put a Democrat in the White House in 2009?"

CWCID: Instapundit.

Living Large

Is the middle class getting screwed or is the MSM just stirring the pot? Would Drew Carey lie to you?

Liars, Damned Liars And Pollsters

Karl Rove, in a Wall Street Journal article this morning, has this to say about the recent spate of highly inaccurate primary polls:

"The dirty secret is it is hard to accurately poll a primary. The unpredictability of who will turn out and what the mix of voters will be makes polling a primary election like reading chicken entrails -- ugly, smelly and not very enlightening. Our media culture endows polls -- especially exit polls -- with scientific precision they simply don't have."

I agree; and then the media quickly decides who should and should not be in the race based on those very polls. It certainly seems like wish fulfillment of the Fourth Estate kind.

Getting The Story Straight

Fred Thompson posted this at RedState yesterday. This is why Fred is my guy (emphasis added):

"Every once in a while I am more thankful than ever for today’s technology which allows me to talk to you directly instead of having to go through the filter of the main stream media.

Some of them are intent on making the outcome of the campaign dependent upon their pre-conceived notions. Every once in a while their incomplete and slanted coverage makes this clear.

Today I had this story written about me regarding what I said at a Town Hall event in Burlington, Iowa by a reporter who wasn’t even at the event. Incidentally, I declined to be interviewed by this particular reporter yesterday for reasons which will soon be apparent.

In referring to me, she reported “he doesn’t like modern campaigning, isn’t interested in running for President, and will not be devastated” if he doesn’t win.

Below is a transcript of what I actually said in response to a question by a local Burlington resident which was the basis of the reporter’s story.

It is clear that there are those in the media who will exact a high price for candor and from those whom they consider to be insufficiently ambitious. But it is with increasing amazement that we see that those who are willing to slant or leave out important parts of a story to make their point.

If a candidate succumbs to this he will be reduced to nothing more than a sound bite machine.

As for me I am going to continue to say exactly what is in my heart and is on my mind and give straight and honest answers to those who ask straight and honest questions.

Incidentally, the audience in Burlington broke into applause in the middle of my answer. The reporter wouldn’t know that because she wasn’t even there.

The transcript is below the fold . . .

Q: (Courtesy ABC News) My only problem with you and why I haven’t thrown all my support behind you is that I don’t know if you have the desire to be President. If I caucus for you next week, are you still going to be there two months from now?

A: That is a very good question, not because it’s difficult to answer, but I’m gonna answer it in a little different way than what you might expect.

In the first place, I got into the race about the time people normally get into get into it. The fact of the matter is people get into it a lot earlier than they used to. For some of them, they were juniors in high school.

The first place, I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t. I wouldn’t be doing this. I grew up in very modest circumstances. I left government and I and my family have made sacrifices to be sitting here today. I haven’t had any income for a long time because I figured to be clean, you’ve got to cut everything off. I was doing speaking engagements and I had a contract to do a tv show. I had a contract with abc radio…and so forth. A man would have to be a total fool to do all those things and to be leaving his family which is not a joyful thing if he didn’t want to do it.

I am not consumed by personal ambition. I will not be devastated if I don’t do it. I want the people to have the best president they can have.

When this talk first originated from people around the country both directly and through polls, liked the idea of me stepping up and of course, you always look better from a distance.
But most of those people are still there. I approached it from the standpoint of a deal. A kind of a marriage. If one side of a marriage really has to be talked into the marriage, it probably ain’t going to be a good deal. But if you mutually decide it’s going to be a good thing. In this case, if you think this is a good thing for the country, then we have an opportunity to do some wonderful things together.

I’m offering myself up. I’m saying that I have the background, the capability and concern to do this and do it for the right reasons. I’m not particularly interested in running for president, but I think I’d make a good president.

Nowadays, the process has become much more important than it used to be.

I don’t know that they ever asked George Washington a question like this. I don’t know that they ever asked Dwight D. Eisenhower a question like this. But nowadays, it’s all about fire in the belly. I’m not sure in the world we live in today it’s a good thing if a president has too much fire in the belly. I approach life differently than a lot of people. People, I guess, wonder how I’ve been as successful as I’ve been in everything that I’ve done. I won two races in TN by 20 point margins in a state that Bill Clinton carried twice. I’ve never had an acting lesson. I guess that’s obvious by people who’ve watched me…

When I did it, I did it. Wasn’t just a lark. Anything that’s worth doing is worth doing well. But I’ve always been a little more laid back than most. I’m only consumed by very, very few things. Politics is not one of them. The welfare of our country and our kids and grandkids is one of them.

If people really want in their president super type-a personality, someone who has gotten up every morning and gone to bed every night and been thinking about for years how they win the presidency of the United States, someone who can look you straight in the eye and say they enjoy every minute of campaigning, I ain’t that guy.

So I hope I’ve discussed that and didn’t talk you out of anything. I honestly want – I can’t imagine a worse set of circumstances [than] achieving the Presidency of the United States under false pretenses. I go out of my way to be myself. "

Thank You

Apparently NBC, MSNBC and CNBC have declined to run this paid ad from Freedom Watch because it mentions the groups web address. Please ....

Could it be that they really don't support the troops? Watch it and decide for yourself.

CWCID: Power Line.

Update: According to Drudge, after considerable feedback from viewers NBC may be reconsidering it's stand.

The Return Of Helen Thomas

Helen Thomas, my favorite White House press corp reporter, had this to say about bloggers in a Huffington Post interview the other day (emphasis added):

Q - Do you think technology is changing that? That a good reporter will always find a venue because there are so many media outlets now?

A - No, but I do think it is kind of sad when everybody who owns a laptop thinks they're a journalist and doesn't understand the ethics. We do have to have some sense of what's right and wrong in this job. Of how far we can go. We don't make accusations without absolute proof. We're not prosecutors. We don't assume.

Q - So if there's this amateur league of journalists out there, trying to do what you do...

A - It's dangerous.

What a deluded, self serving, sorry excuse for a reporter this woman is. If only she would hold herself to these ethical ideals.

The MSM In One Easy Lesson

Helen Thomas is a fool. And her day, if she ever had one, has long since passed.

As proof, I offer the exchange she had with Dana Perino at the White House press briefing yesterday. The "him" she refers to is General Petraeus:

Q Why should we depend on him?

MS. PERINO: Because he is the commander on the ground, Helen. He's the one who is making sure that the situation is moving —

Q You mean how many more people we kill?

MS. PERINO: Helen, I find it really unfortunate that you use your front row position, bestowed upon you by your colleagues, to make such statements. This is a — it is an honor and a privilege to be in the briefing room, and to suggest that we, at the United States, are killing innocent people is just absurd and very offensive.

Q Do you know how many we have since the start of this war?

MS. PERINO: How many — we are going after the enemy, Helen. To the extent that any innocent Iraqis have been killed, we have expressed regret for it.

Q Oh, regret. It doesn't bring back a life.

MS. PERINO: Helen, we are in a war zone, and our military works extremely hard to make sure that everyone has the opportunity for liberty and freedom and democracy, and that is exactly what they are doing.

I'm going to move on.

CWCID: NRO.