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What the Washington Post Missed
Townhall.com ^ | May 15, 2012 | Ken Blackwell

Posted on 05/15/2012 6:08:57 AM PDT by Kaslin

Last week, the Washington Post produced a front-page story intended to shock readers with the news of Mitt Romney’s leading fellow preppies in cutting the bleach-blond hair of a student at their school. The incident in question took place in 1965, some 47 years ago. The news that Mitt Romney did dumb things in high school was played as if it was most revealing. But, unconnected to anything else, it leaves the reader puzzled? Why this story? Why now?

Liberal commentators are quick to respond: It’s all part of the narrative (their favorite word, by the way). And the narrative is of an unfeeling, bullying, brash young man.

Okay. Let’s say it’s relevant. Here are some of the stories the Post did not think relevant.

Item: Bill Clinton as a graduate student at Oxford University spent a week in the home of Bedrich and Jirina Kopold in Prague. Early in 1970, Clinton was the guest of two members of the Czech Communist Party Central Committee. These were not even “liberal” reform-minded Czech backers of ousted leader Anton Dubcek. That father of the “Prague Spring” of 1968 had tried to bring about “Communism with a human face.”

He failed. After Soviet tanks rolled through Prague, Dubcek wound up in chains in Moscow. There, a drunken Brezhnev sneered and jeered at Dubcek and some of his fellow chained Communist brothers because they had soiled themselves. This wasn’t the Kopold team, however. Bedrich and Jirina were the hard-line Stalinists who demanded the Soviet tanks come in and crush these first shoots of freedom sprouting up in Wenceslas Square. These were Bill Clinton’s hosts, the parents of his fellow Oxonian, Jan Kopold. In 1970, if you were a Czech, you had to toe the line for Moscow in order to be allowed to go to graduate school outside the country. Jan Kopold and his parents passed the KGB’s litmus test.

Item: John Kerry was a leader of the anti-war faction in the U.S. He testified in 1971 before Sen. J. William Fulbright’s Foreign Relations Committee, wearing half of his uniform, and all of his medals. Kerry charged his fellow soldiers with war crimes and said they violated the Geneva Conventions. This was after he met with North Vietnamese Communist in 1970 in Paris. The Post did cover this story, but only on page A8, and only in the context of reporting on a Swift Boat Veterans for Truth ad attacking Kerry.

Did anyone ask Kerry if he had pressed the North Vietnamese to observe the Geneva Convention for treatment of POWs? At the time Kerry was chatting with them, we now know, our POWs were undergoing torture routinely in Hanoi. Did Kerry make any demands of the Communist enemies of his country? If so, where are his contemporary notes? The Post apparently doesn’t consider this news you need to know. Since 1798, it has been against federal law (the Logan Act) for private citizens to negotiate with foreign powers. Did Kerry negotiate or not? We may never know.

Item: In April 1983, Columbia student Barack Obama attended the Socialist Scholars Conference in New York City. His presence there is documented. He admits as much in Dreams from My Father. The scholars at the conference were all Marxists and the meeting was held to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Marx’s death. Obama notes that he consciously sought out “radicals” among the professors and students he studied with. “Radicals’ were not radical environmentalists or radical pro-lifers or radical right wingers. The radicals he consorted with were almost all Marxists, like Frank Marshall Davis, his mentor.

For most of the time after World War II, such associations would have prevented Clinton, Kerry, and Obama from receiving a security clearance to see classified documents. The fact is now that national security safeguards are being compromised daily. These are not justWikiLeaks. The identification of SEAL TEAM 6, the disclosure by President Obama of the number of U.S. atomic weapons (5,113), and the most recent leaks about how we infiltrated Al Qaeda on the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) are examples of a serious breakdown in safeguarding national security.

Since Marxists were responsible for 100 million deaths in the past century and since Communist China, North Korea, and Cuba continue to kill their opponents, these associations and activities by major contenders for the White House ought to have been considered newsworthy. To be sure, many leftists profess Marx’s doctrines without endorsing the violence and oppression that always seem to accompany Marxist states.

Shouldn’t Americans have been advised to question these men on how they view Marxism?

Yet none of these background stories on Clinton, Kerry, or Obama was splashed across the front page of the Washington Post. Chances are the editors of the Post will not even be questioned about their judgment of what is newsworthy. So, when you see such stories in the hometown newspaper of our nation’s capital, you can only say: Consider the source.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: washingtoncompost

1 posted on 05/15/2012 6:09:01 AM PDT by Kaslin
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To: Kaslin
If civil war comes to this country and liberal journalists begin to decorate lamp posts,hey relax-it’s all just part of the narrative.
2 posted on 05/15/2012 6:17:01 AM PDT by Farmer Dean (stop worrying about what they want to do to you,start thinking about what you want to do to them)
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To: Kaslin

The number of deaths in the 20th century from Socialism was 140 million, not 100 million.

The worst scourge in the history of of the human race.


3 posted on 05/15/2012 6:18:32 AM PDT by buffaloguy (uab.)
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To: Farmer Dean

There a few real journalists left in this country—only paid political hacks.


4 posted on 05/15/2012 6:19:53 AM PDT by freeangel ( (free speech is only good until someone else doesn't like it)
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To: Kaslin

The fourth estate isn’t the fourth estate, it is the state. And its our enemy.


5 posted on 05/15/2012 6:21:06 AM PDT by skeeter
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A. Who didn't want to give a hippie a haircut in the 60's?

B. What about the haircut the bond holders of GM had to take?

6 posted on 05/15/2012 6:32:41 AM PDT by vollmond (I'm an issues voter. If you're a Democrat, I've got issues.)
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To: vollmond; Nachum

This is interesting. Good background information when arguing over a partisan press.


7 posted on 05/15/2012 6:38:34 AM PDT by gortklattu (God knows who is best, everybody else is making guesses - Tony Snow)
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To: Kaslin

At best this so called transformation of America is going to accomplish is hard times for all the people Obama pretends to care about.
To bad they are to starry eyed to see it.
It will take a decade or longer to crawl out of this mess.
Of all the people the left demonizes they left they always miss the biggest demons of all...themselves.


8 posted on 05/15/2012 6:39:35 AM PDT by Leep (Enemy of the Statist)
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To: Kaslin

At best this so called transformation of America is going to accomplish is hard times for all the people Obama pretends to care about.
To bad they are to starry eyed to see it.
It will take a decade or longer to crawl out of this mess.
Of all the people the left demonizes they always miss the biggest demons of all...themselves.


9 posted on 05/15/2012 6:39:55 AM PDT by Leep (Enemy of the Statist)
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To: vollmond

Just an FYI, in ‘65 high school society the victim was more likely a surfer.


10 posted on 05/15/2012 6:51:50 AM PDT by ngat
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To: buffaloguy
The number of deaths in the 20th century from Socialism was 140 million, not 100 million. The worst scourge in the history of of the human race.

Whenever I hear liberals complain about Christianity and its abuses (i.e. the Spanish Inquisition and other things), I always remind them that secular atheism killed more than 100 million people in the 20th century, which is way more damage than misguided Christians have ever managed to accomplish.

11 posted on 05/15/2012 6:54:23 AM PDT by Maceman
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To: Kaslin

bump


12 posted on 05/15/2012 7:02:25 AM PDT by gibsosa
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To: Kaslin

All the story “proves” is that, at one time, Romney was a normal, healthy, young male. I wonder if they have anything to show the same about Obama...


13 posted on 05/15/2012 7:06:53 AM PDT by trebb ("If a man will not work, he should not eat" From 2 Thes 3)
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To: Kaslin

Romney should state “My position on long blond hair has evolved since 1965”.


14 posted on 05/15/2012 7:33:22 AM PDT by Londo Molari
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To: trebb

We don’t know if the incident ever happened—but the media is treating it as proven, even though the supposed victim’s family says they never heard of it, and they also deny that their brother was homosexual. (Of course in the media’s mind that would not exonerate Romney, since they could claim he “perceived” his classmate as homosexual, and how can Romney prove otherwise when he doesn’t even remember the alleged incident?)


15 posted on 05/15/2012 7:36:11 AM PDT by Verginius Rufus
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To: Kaslin

It would take a book to catalogue all of the stories that the Washington post failed to print or feature about Clinton and Obama. Then there is Al Gore, Leon Panetta, Christopher Dodd, Ted Kennedy, John Conyers...That fellow-traveler(at least) business is a stubborn thing.


16 posted on 05/15/2012 8:45:40 AM PDT by Inwoodian
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