"Brian Williams didn’t kill anyone."

Awww, poor Brian. No one is going to bat for him because he's not opinionated enough. Excerpt:

“​The problem for Brian is that unlike an opinionated cable news host who might have an army of like-minded supporters prepared to fight the social media war, a network news anchor’s support these days is inevitably going to be far less passionate, even for Brian. They may like and appreciate him but few are going to be prepared to do ‘battle’ for him and so it’s hardly surprising that he is generally being skewered by the social media masses.”

In other words, he has no real friends because he's window-dressing.

Piers Morgan offers the best defense of Brian Williams to date: "Brian Williams didn’t kill anyone."

“We surely need to get a collective grip and gain some perspective on all this. Brian Williams didn’t kill anyone. He skewed a story about his experience in Iraq which made him sound a bit closer to the action and therefore more heroic than he actually was. It was untrue, and wrong of him to do it, but why should it be terminally so?”

Yes, that's really the only way you can lose your job: commit a murder. Nobody ever lost their job over anything less. And people who lose their jobs suffer the stigma of everyone thinking they are murderers. Please.

Mark Steyn on Obsolete Format of the TV News

The hat tip goes to Kathy Shaidle who is around my age, I think. I remember someone smuggling that Billy Idol EP Don't Stop to Summer Camp in 1984 and she was actually mentioned in that B-side interview with Martha Quinn. I guess he actually knew her; they had gone to the prom or something.

Anyway, the reason I mention her being the same age is that I think that as conservative Gen-X-ers we share a similar derision for the network TV news which is shared by a slightly older guy, Mark Steyn. I'll excerpt a slightly larger bit:

I would wager, even as Williams read his line, that most everyone who mattered on the show knew it wasn't true. And maybe one or two of them looked nervously at each other in the control room, but let it go. Hey, he's the star, right? NBC Nightly News with Walter Mitty reporting.

Hardly anything on TV at the Bryan Williams level is accidental. That riveting account of death-defying derring-do with Letterman would have been worked out during the pre-interview for the show - in other words, the misremembering was painstakingly rehearsed. Maybe Williams is delusional. Maybe he is to anchors as Anthony Weiner is to wankers - a guy so cocksure he figures he can push it a little further each time.

Thirty years ago, it would be difficult to imagine a liar or fantasist surviving in a job that supposedly depends on one's trustworthiness. Yet today Brian Williams' survival is the way to bet - because the obsolete format of Big Three "network news" is a dinner-theatre exercise that now bears so little relation to real news that Williams' ability to project the aura of authority and integrity trumps the reality that he doesn't actually have any. If you get your news from old-school "network news", you're not actually getting any news, you're watching a guy 'cause he has great hair. So getting it from a delusional narcissist is only taking it to the next level.

As I write, NBC has announced an internal investigation into Williams. We'll see. He was on the bird, he was on the bird behind the bird, but no one at NBC is gonna give him the bird.

Italics around the good stuff, bold italics around my favorite line. Nothing on TV is unscripted, and especially nothing on the TV news. Of course, I've been around people who thought the Rats and Snakes speech from the original Survivor series was, aside from being one of the great moments in human history, made up directly on the spot by Susan Hawk like she was ordering a pizza, as well as a few members of the sorry lot who claim to know that pro-wrestling is "real". So it shouldn't surprise me that most Americans don't find the TV news to be an insult to their intelligence and their credulity, not to mention their sex-drive.

Also, just to anticipate the envy objection, I think that everyone can agree that Mark Steyn has great hair for a fifty-something, so no need to go revisit the Purgatorio on that point.

Lies, Stupid Lies and Even Worse Apologies

As usual, a ridiculous situation has reminded me of one of the Deep Thoughts by Jack Handey. This time the ridiculous thing is the whole apology after the Brian Williams helicopter lie, the lie which seems to resemble the Dan Rather Bush lie, the Lena Dunham rape lie, the AP Irish nuns lie, etc. Here's the Deep Thought (source):

I guess I kinda lost control, because in the middle of the play I ran up and lit the evil puppet villain on fire. No, I didn't. Just kidding. I just said that to help illustrate one of the human emotions, which is freaking out. Another emotion is greed, as when you kill someone for money, or something like that. Another emotion is generosity, as when you pay someone double what he paid for his stupid puppet.

Like I said, ridiculous. But no less ridiculous than the Brian Williams apology. Full Text (source):

On this broadcast last week, in an effort to honor and thank a veteran who protected me and so many others after a ground-fire incident in the desert during the Iraq War invasion, I made a mistake in recalling the events of twelve years ago. . . . I want to apologize. I said I was traveling in an aircraft that was hit by RPG fire; I was instead in a following aircraft. We all landed after the ground-fire incident and spent two harrowing nights in a sandstorm in the Iraq desert. This was a bungled attempt by me to thank one special veteran, and by extension, our brave military men and women, veterans everywhere, those who have served while I did not. I hope they know they have my greatest respect, and also now my apology.

Wwwwwoooooooowwwwwww.... Where is Michael Bloomberg when you need him?

It's what is really impressive to me, saying you got shot down, and then realizing that you just mis-remembered what actually happened. No one seems to appreciate that a lot of exciting things happen in your awesome life and, gee-whiz, why are they all upset that you can't remember small details? "Hey, I single-handedly fought off nine black-belts in that bar fight, and everyone is upset that I said it was ten! Like I was trying to exaggerate. Man, give me a break."

You have to wonder if they learn this in journalism school. I'm pretty sure they do, and they practice on town floozies in dive bars. I'll bet it works on them sometimes. Veterans on the other hand... not so much.

Looks like 2015 might be another record breaking year for lies, just like 2014.

What did ever happen to Bowe Bergdahl?

Richard Benedetto asks the question. Then he explains why we don't know: modern journalism sucks. Excerpt:

There was a time not so long ago when news editors kept what was known as a “tickler” file.  In it were reminders of certain issues, stories or personalities that needed to be updated and re-examined. In those days, Bergdahl’s name would have been high on the list.  With him out of the news since July, an editor might have said to a reporter, “Let’s find out what Bergdahl’s been doing down there in Texas for the past four months. What is his job? What does he do all day?  How do his fellow soldiers treat him?  Does he have friends?  Does he date?  Does he get any leave? Has he been home to visit his parents?”

The American public, and not just conservatives, would jump at a chance to read a story like that.
How does a reporter go about getting that story?  It’s not easy, but it is doable. It takes time, patience and a lot of shoe leather trying to find people who will talk and provide the information. That kind of reporting seems to be in dwindling supply in this New Media era where talking heads, bloggers and social media tweeters take precedence over the work of on-the-ground reporters. And the American public is all the poorer for it.

What did ever happen to Bowe Bergdahl?

There has got to be more to this story. The guy is a troublemaker and a coward by all accounts, and if he takes after his father, he's n weirdo as well. So why has he gotten such special treatment? My theory is that it has something to do with the fact that he and his father, Robert Bergdahl, are basically weak-willed numbskulls who are allowing themselves to be used as pawns by Islamists. Read this and tell me if you come to a different conclusion.

Jonathan Gruber Tries To Hide His Remarks

Props to Patrick Howley for uncovering this bit of video from Jonathan Gruber, one of the primary architects of Obamacare.

I decided to post this video, even though many people have already seen it. Shakespeare said "at the length truth will out" so we must be at the length vis-à-vis Obamacare because the truth is beginning to gush out.



Here's the text of the clip:

“Mark [Pauly] made a couple of comments that I do want to take issue with, one about transparency in financing and the other is about moving from community rating to risk-rated subsidies. You can’t do it politically. You just literally cannot do it, okay, transparent financing…and also transparent spending.” Gruber said. “In terms of risk-rated subsidies, if you had a law which said that healthy people are going to pay in—you made explicit that healthy people pay in and sick people get money, it would not have passed, okay. Lack of transparency is a huge political advantage. And basically, call it the stupidity of the American voter or whatever, but basically that was really, really critical for the thing to pass…Look, I wish Mark was right that we could make it all transparent, but I’d rather have this law than not.”

Of course there were a lot of people who predicted the truth. Avik Roy from Forbes has this to say:

Gruber made an argument that many of Obamacare’s critics have long made, including me. It’s that the law’s complex system of insurance regulation is a way of concealing from voters what Obamacare really is: a huge redistribution of wealth from the young and healthy to the old and unhealthy. In the video, Gruber points out that if Democrats had been honest about these facts, and that the law’s individual mandate is in effect a major tax hike, Obamacare would never have passed Congress.

So this is all sort of infuriating, if you have any fury left. But now we get to the fun stuff.

The University of Pennsylvania which had originally hosted and posted this has now pulled down the video from their site. But this is an attempt on the part of Jonathan Gruber and company to pull their pants up after they got caught. It's already on Youtube, and I downloaded it last night via Keepvid as I'm sure many other conservative geeks did, "just in case". I think it's comical that these people still believe they can say whatever they want in public, but then flip out if anyone quotes them. This story goes hand-in-hand with the story of Lena Dunham sexually abusing her little sister as reported by Lena Dunham in her book. (I like to refer to the incident as "Lena Done-her".)

But that's not all. It appears that the Snopes.com mafia has been called in to cast doubt upon the incident as conservatives have reported it. Here's how they phrase the claim:

"Obamacare architect" Jonathan Gruber recently said Obamacare only passed due to the "stupidity" of the American voter and a lack of "transparency," and video footage of his remarks was deleted from the internet.

Then they call this claim a Mixture of true and false. They accomplish this by pointing out that a Daily Signal article refers to the clip as a "newly surfaced video", which I don't see anything false about, but they paint as a mischaracterization, and refer to the clip as a "newly-circulated video" in their lame conclusion.

While the newly-circulated video of Gruber's remarks is unedited, the comments are neither recent nor complete, and whether the originating source attempted to pull them from the Internet at one point remains unclear.

What in the world remains unclear about what happened? The Snopes page, which is marked 10 November 2014, is pretty high up in the Google search results for Jonathan Gruber currently, about the 7th entry on the first page. Bing has it on the 4th page. Of course I don't have evidence, but this just feels like an attempt at damage control. Snopes has formerly been exposed as untrustworthy and biased, but hilariously the best Gruber and company can get from them is a rating of "Mixture" on the propaganda piece. It should get a rating of Mostly True which they sometimes give out if they're being generous to Gruber, but it appears that even Snopes won't damage their cred further by giving it a False. Factcheck.org doesn't have anything up yet.

Gruber is the fat kid trying to hide behind the phone pole during a hide-and-seek game. His remarks will live on and place him permanently on the elite social-planners' Hall of Shame for calling the American populace stupid, and as a leftist poster child for the ends justifying the means.

NBC gives us the bad news: We are angry haters for voting Republican

Really NBC? These are your 5 big questions after the Democrats were obliterated? What would the proverbial "Man from Mars" think if he read the following Big Question number 5? Would he really get a clear picture of why the GOP swept the floor with the Democrats?

5. Will voter angst last?

The defining characteristic of politics in 2014 is an electorate that is angry with members of both parties and dissatisfied with its leaders. Obama’s approval rating is declining, but it still remains far ahead of Congress.

There are no signs Washington will become less polarized. In fact, with two houses of Congress opposing Obama, the partisan battles there may intensify. Polls suggest Republicans are growing in their hatred of Hillary Clinton as she becomes less identified with her role as secretary of state and more a Democratic candidate. The Republican presidential candidates, particularly Cruz and Christie, are hardly conciliatory figures.

Here we go again with the anger accusation. That's from the 1994 Jennings playbook which we all remember. Because being angry with members of both parties causes people to do what? Vote for members of the angriest party they can find, the Republicans.

I'm mad at both parties, so I guess I'll vote Republican. That ought to show everybody! Yeah!

Next item of stupidity: I have to say I'm getting tired of the invalid comparison between the Presidential approval rating and the so-called congressional approval rating. "Obama’s approval rating is declining, but it still remains far ahead of Congress." This is an apples and oranges comparison that doesn't translate into any type of real action. Nobody votes for "congress", you get to vote for one member of congress. If your member of congress wins and can't get anything done you blame "congress" and give them a low rating. Then you send the same person back 2 years later.

And then we get to the topic of Hillary Clinton—the unannounced Democratic front-runner for President—who we learn isn't merely disapproved of by Republican voters but hated. In fact, we are told that we are "growing in [our] hatred of Hillary Clinton as she becomes less identified with her role as secretary of state and more a Democratic candidate." Yeah, we really liked her as Secretary of State, uh-huh. This is what passes as election analysis at NBC.

Furthering the Police Brutality Narrative

This is a pretty pointless article, and this was the most ridiculous part:

A grand jury, meanwhile, is examining evidence to determine whether Darren Wilson should stand trial for shooting Michael Brown. The grand jury, originally impaneled until this month, has had its term extended to January—a date that not only falls after upcoming elections, but well into the winter, when cold weather might diminish the likelihood of rioting if there is not an indictment. Last week, the Missouri secretary of state’s office announced that more than three thousand people in Ferguson had registered to vote in the aftermath of the shooting. The next day, officials reversed themselves and said that they’d made an error: the actual number was a hundred twenty eight. The revision, in an already tense environment, inspired suspicions that the keepers of the status quo were somehow manipulating the numbers.

Italics mine. A little poking around shows the reason for the initial mistake in the original reported number of 3,287: this number included all name and address changes, marriages plus voters tagged in some kind of recent recount.

The part that cracks me up is the part about the manipulations of the evil "keepers of the status quo". This characterization would make sense if the status quo had under-reported the number and had to correct itself upward. But if their are any suspicions to be taken from the downward correction they would properly be that the agitators are doing the manipulation. And, to my mind, it was probably just a mistake.

However to people determined to create conspiracies and the perception of victimization from an unfortunate event, everything which happens plays into the grand narrative of police brutality and the attempt to cover it up. If there was any violence on the part of Officer Wilson the public has yet to see evidence of it.

Toobin makes two large errors

“You’re entitled to your own opinion, but you’re not entitled to your own facts.” This quote is attributed to Daniel Patrick Moynihan, and it's true no matter who said it first. With that in mind, we have to make some corrections to Jeffrey Toobin's article praising Ruth Ginsberg for being, oh, so smart and prescient in her Hobby Lobby dissent.

There was an exemption already for religious institutions. Hobby Lobby, a closely held corporation, is a secular, for-profit business, but the Court held that because the owners of Hobby Lobby held a sincere religious belief that certain forms of birth control caused abortions, they could deny employer-paid insurance coverage for them.

Is this just bad writing? Unclear. It's not a "religious belief" at all that "certain forms of birth control caused abortions" or, I think he means to write cause abortions. But syntax errors aside, there are certain forms of birth control which cause abortions. The links here would be useful to Mr. Toobin as sort of a science primer.

One of the problems with the whole debate and discussion is that "birth control" is somewhat of a misnomer. Birth prevention is really the goal of both contraception and abortion. The latter is more morally egregious than the former, but those who approve of contraception but are against abortion may want to consider the continued use of the softer phrase "birth control" as something which dilutes the strength of pro-life/pro-child argument against the anti-child mentality, or the contraceptive mentality as it is sometimes called.

Here's the next "mistake":

What about religious individuals who say that they have sincere objections to conducting business relationships with gay people or immigrants?

Oh stop it. You obviously mean, Mr. Toobin, to indicate illegal immigrants, so why not use the word? The use of the single, neutral word "immigrants" is meant to suppress or diminish the amount of eye-roll from the general public who are tired of the gay whining.

This line should offend legal immigrants tremendously because it implicitly lumps them together with illegals. Why? Because no mainstream religious denomination objects to legal immigration. This article is obviously written from a biased point-of-view, but these errors are either due to sloppiness and laziness or malevolence and they need to be pointed out whichever is the case.

Investment Bonanza

About a week ago, The Man From K Street pointed out a funny Onion piece, and I just got a chance to read it. It does always seem like the "experts" called on by the media are pretty much in agreement with the media's point of view. I wonder why that is? Excerpt:

Experts went on to tell reporters that not only is there no safer place to invest than print media, there's also no sector of the economy with more promise for growth. Urging investors to diversify their stock portfolio among national and regional newspapers as well as dailies and weeklies, they said print media will be a "bonanza" for shareholders, even as the economy as a whole flounders.

"Print media is a cash cow that will multiply an investment over and over," said the experts. "Other products fail, real estate bubbles burst, but print media is here to stay. The only retirement strategy anyone needs is as close as their local newsstand."

And I loved this paragraph:

"No matter how tough times get, people will never turn their back on their newspapers," said every media expert in the nation, adding that newspapers would likewise never, never, never take their readers for granted, because it is readers that the print media industry depends on, and the nation's newspapers and magazines have always, without fail, worked tirelessly to provide readers with the highest-quality product possible. "They wouldn't desert their trusted print media outlets like that. Besides, everyone knows that new media technologies come and go, and that newspapers are an indispensable part of our national identity that must be protected by all of us, and chiefly by shrewd investors or even ordinary business owners who take out a very reasonably priced quarter-page ad. Or something smaller. You'd be surprised how much mileage you can get out of even a tiny little classified."

Lest a gullible passer-by think this is serious investment advice, I will merely remind all readers of the old maxim: "Past performance is no guarantee of future results."

The Left: Still obsessed with sodomy, rape, etc.

What else can be concluded from the evidence presented by Ms. Malkin here? Excerpt:

Sexual vulgarity is a common theme in the left's self-styled "solidarity" movement. Among the Madison pro-union signs the national media chose not to show you: "Buttholes for Billionaires" (complete with a photo of Walker's head placed in the middle of a graphic photo of someone's posterior) and "If teabaggers are as hot as their Fox News anchors, then I'm here for the gang bang!!!"

Last month, GOP Lieutenant Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch was subjected to similar misogyny for her outreach efforts to private businesses. Liberal WTDY radio host John "Sly" Sylvester accused her of performing "fellatio on all the talk-show hosts in Milwaukee" and sneered that she had "pulled a train" (a crude phrase for group sex).

Yeah, rape is so funny. Demeaning a woman by calling her a whore is such a civil way to get your point across.

It gets worse on the next page of the piece.

At an AFSCME rally in Providence, R.I., on Tuesday, an unhinged pro-union supporter picked an unprovoked fight with a citizen journalist taping the event for public access TV. His eyes bulging, the brawler yelled: "I'll f**k you in the a**, you faggot!" After several unsuccessful minutes of trying to calm their furious ally down, the solidarity mob finally started chanting, "Hey, hey, ho, ho, union-busting's got to go" to drown out his intimidating vow to follow the cameraman outside the building. Criminal charges are now pending against him. None of the local media who covered the event thought to mention the disruption in their coverage.

The reason the media will not report on this behavior is two-fold. First, it makes their chosen side look bad. Secondly, it's not really news any more than kids splashing each other in the pool is news. This behavior is the norm for the creatures which they've become. The effect is that they are encouraged to persist in their beastly conduct.

"This feels real good"

Emphasis mine. It's from a guy named Bob Kloos from Cleveland Heights mentioned in this article about a new micro-schismatic group in the Cleveland Diocese, and the line pretty much sums up the justification for defying an order from Bishop Lennon. Excerpt:

Defying the authority of their bishop, parishioners and their priest from the closed St. Peter Catholic Church in downtown Cleveland celebrated Mass Sunday in leased commercial space they transformed into a church independent of the Cleveland Catholic Diocese.

The move by the new Community of St. Peter puts members in danger of excommunication because they had been warned by Bishop Richard Lennon, who shuttered St. Peter's in April, not to hold worship services in places without his approval.

Still, about 350 people, joined by their spiritual leader, the Rev. Robert Marrone, gathered for their first Mass and communion in their new home ― a newly renovated, century-old building on Euclid Avenue and East 71st Street.

"This feels real good," said parishioner Bob Kloos of Cleveland Heights. "This is the handiwork of hundreds of people over many, many months."

Uh, huh. The article gets even goofier. These people are called traditional Catholics several times, which makes these two paragraphs fairly laughable:

At the opening hymn, the standing-room only crowd, joined by a choir and classical musicians, sang "Christ be our light. Shine in your church gathered today. . ."

Following the closing hymn, the crowd burst into an extended applause as the faithful hugged each other and cried tears of joy.

I must be losing my memory. In my many years attending a traditional Latin Mass I don't recall group hugs afterward nor ever once singing "Christ Be Our Light." The photo further down in the article of a smiling lady "pass[ing] out communion" was also a sight I missed in my old Trad circles.

Also, check out this related morsel from a sidebar about schismatic groups on the same page by the same author:

The irony is most who splinter off are actually more Catholic in their beliefs than main-stream Catholics.

Well, yeah, this is what I've had preached to me over and over again ever since running into my first schismatic acquaintance years ago. He also informed me that everything the Church has taught for the last 60 years is untrustworthy and the Pope is probably a phony. Plus I heard from another that the authority of the bishops doesn't exist and that all Novus Ordo Masses were invalid. And from a third I learned that anyone not folding their hands properly at Mass is going to hell. We used to call this "more Catholic than the Pope"; I'm guessing he qualifies as "mainstream".

Then we get some more "feelings" from Ms. Joseph of Shaker Heights:

"I feel wonderful at this moment," said parishioner Suzanne Joseph of Shaker Heights. "It's a little scary. We're kind of going into a new way of being within the Catholic church, but I'm very happy we're on this journey."

It's called a honeymoon, sweetie. Wait until the arguments begin about what to do next. Then everyone will really be feeling the love.

The St. Peter rebellion is unique because unlike in Boston, where five congregations, in defiance of the archdiocese, have been illegally occupying closed churches for up to five years, the Cleveland group has created its own worship space complete with a new altar, baptismal fount and sacred icons.

Like the coining of "St. Peter rebellion". Kind of Star Wars-y. Note the absence of the word "protest" in the article. Advice: call these people "protestants" at your own peril. My friend did this once; I don't think the guy ever talked to him again. It's funny―they don't know anything more about what Protestants believe than what the Catholic Church teaches about it's own authority. What they do know is that they are most definitely not Protestant―that is NOT cool, whatever it means.

The new space, unlike the classic cathedral structure of the closed St. Peter's, is a huge, brick-walled room painted white and lighted with rows of overhead spot lights and glass sky lights above exposed steel rafters.

It is very sad to note that the writer of this piece, Michael O'Malley, is the Plain Dealer religion writer. Seriously, does he know that the word "cathedral" does not designate a type of architecture? Must have gone to school with Nancy Pelosi.

I don't suppose there will be any weddings at the newly formed St. Peter More-Catholic-Than-You church. Brides favor that "classic cathedral" look over the "steel rafters".

If you read the rest of the article it gets more and more depressing. This thing has been done so many times before. Of course it's schismatic. Of course it will be short-lived. And, of course, it is an example of blatant ignorance and naivete on just about everyone's part except for the priest. Father Marrone likely knows better; hopefully he will repent of this action.

Update: What do you know? Huffington Post reports that Bob Kloos gave $325 to Barack Obama's Presidential campaign in 2008 and $765 to Dennis Kucinich's 2004 campaign. Thanks for the clarification, Arianna.

Thanks for reading my blog. For current commentary and what-not, visit the Est Quod Est homepage

Hell-in, Hell-out

Blogger was down earlier, and I was busting to post all this great Helen Thomas stuff. First the viral video:

Thank you RabbiLive.com for giving us the unvarnished truth, not that any amount of varnish would help in Helen's case. Here are some more tasty factoids posted on the RabbiLive site:

Helen Thomas has been dropped by her speaker’s agency, Nine Speakers, Inc for her comments posted on RabbiLIVE.com.

Craig Crawford also refuses to work with Helen on any future book projects.

Additionally, Helen has been dropped from a High School graduation key note speaker position.

Ari Fleischer, former White House Press Secretary, and Lanny Davis, former White House counsel, both are calling for Hearst Corporation to fire Helen immediately.

Of course, this was before she was retired.

Someone set up a Twitter page to channel the old gal's thoughts. Too funny. My favorite:

You call them terrorists, but some people call them freedom fighters. I call them all Achmed because I'm bad with names. What's a twitter?

Jonah's piece is good. Like this line: "Suddenly, all of these people and groups are stunned to discover that Helen Thomas is . . . Helen Thomas."



Did the President leave out the "...and many more" on purpose?

Mark Shea Deserves Praise

In a post which could have been penned by our good friend, Diane, Mark Shea writes:

Rod, Rod, Rod:

Last week you ran the grossly inaccurate and inflammatory headline "Ratzinger: Bishop, take your time with that pedophile" and encouraged your readers to make plenty of false assumptions about a case against Ratzinger that, once again, turned out to be utterly insubstantial. You also encouraged your readers to assume that Ratzinger's language about the "good of the universal Church" was code for "don't let anybody know about the pervert" when it was, in fact, boilerplate, mid-1980s form letter bureaucratese for "Hey! We aren't handing out laicizations like Pez dispensers here. These priests who are all bailing on their vows need to slow down and think about the people of God they made promises to." In short, the guy was following basic procedures over which he had little control, not trying to cover anything up and not endangering any kids. Despite your reader Roland de Chanson's quite clear case for the sloppiness of this lazy act of defamation ("contumelious", what a cool word), I've seen no retraction from you on this, just more vaunting of how we all need to be grateful to the media for this grotesque feeding frenzy on Benedict.

Now you hold up Peggy "Keep walking. Some things should be a mystery" Noonan as our paradigm of moral courage in media in yet *another* entry in the ongoing Benedict Media Slamfest?

Seriously, Rod. You have battened on every rumor, every craptastic piece of reportage in the Get Benedict campaign for the past month. Ocassionally, you've been forced to dial back when it became overwhelmingly evident that, for instance, the Times reportage on the Murphy case was crap. But mostly, you've promoted the Benedict bashing far beyond the merits of the evidence and lectured us on our debt to the press while that press has been engaged in gross violations of decency and honesty. And now this encomium to Peggy Noonan, Voice of Transparency and Reform?

Please. When you were Catholic, there was call for you to crusade against corruption in the Catholic Church (though I would hardly say that "following a slow and dumb bureaucratic procedure in laicizing a priest who had been removed from ministry" is "corruption"). But you bailed on the Church and found a new spiritual home in the OCA. It's not my job to judge you for that and I wish the best to you and your family there. However, when you make that choice, it is rubbish to then invoke your duties as a crusading journalist dedicated to the public welfare to make Benedict-bashing mountains out of evidential molehills like the Kiesle case while studiously ignoring the log in your very own communion's eye. If you feel you need to write highly inflammatory headlines based on hair trigger assumptions of bad faith against good men, you might look closer to home at the story of how one of your bishops once received into the OCA a monastery crawling with pederasty (the "abbot" and his right-hand guy apparently imported young Ukrainian novices for all their on-site molestation needs). When this happened, it was under police investigation because one of the young Ukrainian kids, after years of sexual abuse, had stabbed a young nun 97 times.

There's actually a book about the whole depressing mess: Murder at Holy Cross. Is the book biased? You bet. Sort of like Castrillon Hoyos, under the gun from Benedict's Vatican for his stupid behavior, claiming that he had John Paul's full approval. But since there seems to be no problem instantly crediting Hoyos as a proof of JPII's perfidy, I don't see why you shouldn't turn to this book as proof for putting the darkest construction on the heirarchs in your communion too.

Of course, the ecclesial authorities in this matter might be as innocent as Benedict was in the Kiesle case. My money is on the truth that they are. But don't consider that. Your Abp Dmitri lives in the same geographical area. He apparently had nothing to do with it and even opposed it, and we don't really know that the people who did have something to do with receiving the monastery had evil intent, but don't bother with those distinctions. Just write a headline like "Local OCA hierarchy to pervert murder monks: Welcome aboard!" It will be as just and fair to Dmitri as that headline was about Ratzinger.

So: fine. Cardinal Law, I agree, needs to be doing something besides padding around some Church in Rome, doing nothing. Personally, I think we laity should have put him behind bars. You are unhappy that he has not been punished to your satisfaction. Duly noted.

But you aren't Catholic anymore. What's it to you? And before you say something with the phrase, "My sacred duty as a journalist" in it, lemme ask you again, what service to journalistic truth was done by publishing a headline like "Ratzinger: Bishop, take your time with that pedophile" on a hair trigger and inflaming people to mob hatred against a guy who is, as I do not doubt your own bishop is, a good man struggling to purify the filth in the Church? If your sacred duty impels you to send the torch and pitchfork wavers off to crucify Benedict as a guardian of pedophiles on evidence with all the strength and stability of wet toilet paper, why does it not likewise oblige you to crucify your own bishop and local hierarchy on equally dubious grounds?

Alternatively, you could take my suggestion: at the very least, retract and apologize for that headline and for the "Benedict thought pedophiles should be hushed up for the good of the universal Church" analysis that went with it. Cut him the same slack you cut Dmitri and your own bishops, Rod. That's only fair.

I've been hoping for this post for some time, and I firmly believed that it would have to be written if Rod kept up the Catholic bashing. While I disagree with Mark on some issues–especially with regards to how much attention certain topics deserve–I think he really tries, as an apologist, to get to the truth of a matter without counting the cost. I know that Rod and Mark are friends, but Mark laid out pretty clearly and bluntly what was wrong with Rod's arguments for leaving the church way back when and reiterated these points as necessary. And for Mark to be true to his "So That No Thought of Mine...Should Ever Go Unpublished Again!" motto he simply had to write something mentioning Dreher's unretracted defamation of the Pope, his mountains from molehills propensities, his hypocrisy vis-à-vis the OCA scandals and his overall delusions as some type of crusader when he isn't even Catholic.

I hereby echo Mark's call for an apology "for that headline and for the 'Benedict thought pedophiles should be hushed up for the good of the universal Church' analysis that went with it."

Update: Well it seems I've been accused of really, really hating someone―which is a mortal sin AFAIK―in a national publication no less. If y'all are wandering over here from there, first of all a hearty welcome to all y'all. Secondly, check out this post and you can decide for yourself whether or not we hate each other or if it's plain that we just really, really, really disagree about things.

We sort of knew this

Reports that U.S. soldiers damaged Iraqi antiquities turn out to have been media hype. "Media hype" is nice-speak for lies. Excerpt:

In recently reviewing the Unesco report, which came out after his book, Chaplain Marrero said to me that the cracks in the ancient bas-reliefs were already there when the U.S. came in. He doesn't believe that the helicopter base could have caused any damage because it was "up to two football fields away." The choppers rose vertically upon lift-off and the ancient remains are located in an excavation considerably below ground level.

The accusations about cracks in the paving stones caused by allied tanks rumbling over the Royal Way don't make sense, he says, because it was already encircled by iron railings with no access to vehicles. A narrow pedestrian path outside the railings barely allowed enough room for light Humvees to drive around to keep the area secure.

Finally, he notes that the Unesco report's details of defensive trenches dug by subsequent occupation forces, such as the Polish troops and defense contractors, occurred in areas beyond what was always considered the site proper, even in Saddam's time. It was in those areas, he says, that sandbags were filled with local earth and the ground leveled.

Why do the media always go out of their way to smear the military?

Hitler loses it over the "Balloon Boy" hoax

As always, it helps if you don't understand German.

Andrew Breitbart: ACORN videos = "the Abu Gharib of the Great Society"

I didn't know how to embed this video, nor whether it's possible, so I'm just linking to it here. But I agree with Andrew Breitbart. There is a war going on with the media. We must use the weapons at our disposal to fight it. And Breitbart has got the mojo to run the dojo.

Someone said "A lie will go around the world while truth is pulling its boots on." There's not much you can do about this velocity disparity since fallen humans often wish lies to be true more than they want to accept the truth.

But once truth does pull on its boots, hopefully the boots will be used to crush skulls and break limbs of the falsehood generators. In this regard, Andrew Breitbart is a fighter to emulate in this war. Thanks to him, ACORN is now toxic to politicians, even if the organization is not completely neutralized. Another guy mentioned here in the past who knows how to wield media weapons is John Ziegler, who commissioned that Zogby poll about how ignorant Obama voters actually were. And, of course, Roger Simon and all the folks over at PJTV.

Stay Classy, Sarah Palin Hataz

From My Fox Illinois:

The Fairbanks Daily Cage-Liner published a story about Palin's speech at a Hong Kong investors conference on Wednesday. The caption that appeared with the photo for the story read, "A broad in Asia."

The Cage-Liner's managing editor Rod Boyce published an apology later in the afternoon for the paper's "terrible mistake."

The News-Miner is the actual name of the publication, but I think it would be more accurate to refer to its best use, i.e., lining the birdcage.

Media Ratings in the Crapper

Pew Reports that Americans think the news media is a joke.

The public’s assessment of the accuracy of news stories is now at its lowest level in more than two decades of Pew Research surveys, and Americans’ views of media bias and independence now match previous lows.

Just 29% of Americans say that news organizations generally get the facts straight, while 63% say that news stories are often inaccurate. In the initial survey in this series about the news media’s performance in 1985, 55% said news stories were accurate while 34% said they were inaccurate. That percentage had fallen sharply by the late 1990s and has remained low over the last decade.

Similarly, only about a quarter (26%) now say that news organizations are careful that their reporting is not politically biased, compared with 60% who say news organizations are politically biased. And the percentages saying that news organizations are independent of powerful people and organizations (20%) or are willing to admit their mistakes (21%) now also match all-time lows.

I don't know why they don't boost their ratings with stuff like this:


Plenty of skin and great copy containing words like "prostitute", "pimp" and killer lines like "sex is like dancing". Plus it's a good in depth look into our current President's background. Then there are all the controversial angles, like black women promoting "white slavery". I think they call that reparations if I'm not wrong.

Hat tip Get Liberty.

Photographic Analysis Reveals Real Number of Protesters at the 9/12 March

Here's a link to the source of this report. The short answer that Zac Moilanen's research supports is that there were about 1.8 million people at the 9/12 March on Washington, DC.

The Real Number of Protesters - Zac Moilanen

Here's one for the cry baby file

I'm on the email lists of several leftist organizations whose emails I gladly receive and sometimes read. It's good to know what the enemy is thinking and saying, and ofttimes amusing. Yesterday I received an email from Josh Silver, Executive Director of the the oxymoronically-named association Free Press.

Dear Paul, [ed: I was surprised to discover that we're on a first-name basis.]

I can't believe what I'm watching.

Fox News Channel headliner Glenn Beck has turned his nightly program into a megaphone of misinformation. He just took down presidential adviser Van Jones, one of our most visionary and principled young leaders. [ed: FTR, Van Jones took himself down by his own assclownishness.]

What happened to Jones is outrageous. President Obama should have ignored the media's smear campaign and rejected all calls for Jones' ouster.

This madness is a failure not only of the media, but of our president to stand up against modern-day McCarthyism.

Emboldened by their success, Glenn Beck and other right-wing blowhards have begun media witch hunts against people in all aspects of public life. If we don't speak out now, the champions of the issues you care about will be run out of Washington.
Surveys show that most Americans want health care reform, good schools and clean air. But if you watch Glenn Beck's show, you would think the opposite is true: that the only proponents of these ideas are dangerous, anti-American radicals operating out of the White House basement.

I'm urging you to take a stand with me and sign this open letter to the president. Glenn Beck's fear-mongering is endemic to a media system that cares more about ratings than about the truth. We need President Obama to take a stand against such hysteria, which only distracts us from the real issues at hand.

President Obama Must Stand with Us for More Diverse Media. Beck has a First Amendment right to stoke fear and prejudice -- and we're not asking for him to be censored or silenced [ed: riiiight....]. But we all have a responsibility to condemn his behavior and defend the public servants and innocent people who are being attacked. This is not about censorship... It's about sanity.
Mainstream media have failed. Too many of our leaders have stayed quiet. We must speak out now.

Thank you,

Josh Silver
Free Press

Well, I would also urge you to go to the link my old buddy Joshy provided. You can change the subject and message body to whatever you'd like it to say. For example, you could put "Thanks, Mr. President, for sacking Comrade Jones" in the subject, then in the body you could write. "Mr. Jones can now go back to the hood to smoke crack with Pookie and the boys." That's just an idea; by creative!