Free Republic

As I leave, I remember why I do this by Chuck Anderson I’ll be moving to Oregon in a few days after a few years at the editorial helm of the Press-Banner. I’m going from one local weekly paper to another, the Wallowa County Chieftain in Enterprise, in the far northeastern corner of the state. Wallowa County, where cattle outnumber humans and Republicans outnumber Democrats, is a little different from our twin valleys. But the game called community journalism is the same. Wallowa County depends on the Chieftain, the county’s only newspaper other than a daily published in a neighboring...

The painter who created the controversial "Obama as Christ" painting is back. Artist Michael D'Antuono, who apologized for offending people and withdrew his original painting, titled "The Truth," from a scheduled NYC showing on President Obama's 100th day in office, has just unveiled a new Obama painting (larger version below the fold). However, D'Antuono was a bit disingenuous in the explanation of his surprise that people were offended by his first Obama painting as you can see in this press release: Artist Michael D'Antuono Responds To 'Truth' Critics With Second Obama PaintingNEW YORK, May 18 /PRNewswire/ -- Michael D'Antuono, the...

Google "shoe-thrower" and "Pulitzer" this morning, and you will get a surprising number of hits. From the streets of Baghdad to the blogs of North America, some are hailing reporter Muntadar al-Zeidi as a hero for having the spine to do what journalists should have done years ago. They are wrong. "This is a farewell kiss, you dog," al-Zeidi yelled as he flung his shoes toward President Bush Sunday, in the most entertaining presidential news conference moment since Dan Rather confronted Richard Nixon 35 years ago. As someone who has attended hundreds of news conferences, including dozens at the White...

Based on her interview with Sen. Joe Biden, we may assume that WFTV, Orlando Anchor Barbara West: 1. Did not graduate from a school of communications, 2. Will never receive an award from the Society of Professional Journalists, 3. Is unlikely to be employed by The New York Times in the foreseeable future, and 4. Will soon be working with Joe the Plumber, installing bathroom fixtures. Silly rabbit -- Didn’t West know that tough questions are reserved for Republicans? Yet, there she was asking old leaden-tongued Joe how his running mate’s spread-the-wealth platform differed from standard Marxist redistributionism (from each...

Folks, The Democrat Machine (which includes the press) is scared. If Obama continues to slide in the polls, they will turn into a frightened, enraged bull, trampling and goring anything and everything in its path. So brace yourself now for the Mother of all October Surprises. It's going to be an invented scandal a day, drip, drip, drip, turning into a torrent in the final week before election day. What do I recommend?This: No matter what you see or hear that is negative about McCain-Palin, do not believe it. I don't care how egregious the charge may be: McCain is...

But Mom! Everybody does it!Remember using that tactic as a kid when you're parents criticized your participation in the latest craze or fad? Pretty immature, wasn't it?Well, the press is employing that same tactic to defend their candidate's multiple "present" votes in the Illinois Senate. Check this out from the Leftist Press: "We don't have a 'present' button as governor - we are expected to lead..." said Palin, who is in her first term as Alaska's governor. Palin was referring to Obama's days in the Illinois Senate, when he voted "present" dozens of times among the thousands of votes he...

Reuters went to bat for its candidate, hoping to give him a boost after the shellacking Mac gave him at Saddle Back last weekend. It probably felt more like Brokeback to the Senator from Chicago.Anyway, Reuters published a subtle little piece on patriotism and the presidential candidates. In it, they call white America racist and questions its patriotism.Here's the first excerpt:The U.S. presidential election presents a sharp contrast between two types of patriotism: John McCain stands as a war hero. His rival Barack Obama calls Americans back to the can-do spirit of the nation's founders.When in the heck has Obama...

The worst economy since the great depression… Remember the constant bleating from the press and the anti-Bush crowd about how the Bush administration “cherry picked” intelligence? They allege that the president chose only those bits of information that fit his plans and ignored everything else. Well, the press has been cherry picking economic news for years. How many news items have you seen featuring some town, family, or business that’s doing ok, despite everything? How often do you hear or read something that puts the housing “crisis” in perspective (it’s not a crisis). Falling prices mean those who previously could...

The Constitution is simple, short and easy to read. There is no excuse for any reporter to write about it, without reading it. The latest example is an article about anchor babies in the Orlando Sentinel today (29 September) by Jim Stratton. The article concerns a comment about anchor babies by Fred Thompson, Republican candidate for President. If you haven’t followed the illegal immigration debate, anchor babies are children born on US soil of illegal immigrant parents. The babies get citizenship. Then, the provisions for “reuniting families” kick in, and the baby assists the parents in becoming legal. It is...

Lap Up Anything Said by Administration Opponents Filed under: General, Media Bias — Patterico @ 4:41 pm Dan Froomkin of the Washington Post has some interesting advice for journalists , * Don’t assume anything administration officials tell you is true. In fact, you are probably better off assuming anything they tell you is a lie. * Demand proof for their every assertion. Assume the proof is a lie. Demand that they prove that their proof is accurate. * Just because they say it, doesn’t mean it should be make the headlines [sic] . . . . He also advises “reasonable...

A notable decline in the core business of the New York Times Company has been underway, and yet is not reported in a straightforward way in the company’s official filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The SEC requires companies to file Form 10-K every year, to provide “a comprehensive overview of the company’s business and financial condition and… audited financial statements.” The SEC’s 10-K official rules require companies to “Provide any discussion of risk factors in plain English….” At the beginning of its 2005 10-K annual report to the Securities and Exchange Commission, the New York Times Company proudly...

Jan. 13, 2006 — Today, according to Pakistani military sources, U.S. aircraft attacked a compound known to be frequented by high level al Qaeda operatives. Pakistani officials tell ABC News that al Qaeda leader Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri, Osama bin Laden's top lieutenant, may have been among them. U.S. intelligence for the last few days indicated that Zawahiri might be in the location or about to arrive, although there is still no confirmation from U.S. officials that he was among the victims.

Editor's Note: What's it like to raise a family in Hollywood? To be a Christian in Hollywood? Wes Vernon put those questions to longtime pop recording and box office star Pat Boone. In the interview that follows, we learn that yes, there is a Hollywood blacklist, but not the one of Hollywood demonology--as well as the reasons Hollywood is so fanatically leftist; the movie roles Pat Boone did not get and why; the roles he turned down and why; thoughts on why Hollywood propaganda should be counted as an in-kind campaign contribution to the Democratic Party; Boone's review of the...

Fox News Watch is a Sunday program about journalism. This weekend, it demonstrated how not to be a journalist. The star of this dreadful segment was Neil Gabler. Much of the discussion was on the coverage of the Iraq War. Gabler has frequently demonstrated his bias to the left on this program. This time, he was over the top. Twice in the course of this discussion he yelled, not merely said, “Iraq is a DISASTER. Get it? EVERYBODY gets it now.” Therefore, anyone who disagreed with his conclusion, whether a spokesman for the Administration, or even anyone on the program...

WASHINGTON -- A lifelong boxing fan who himself trains in the ring twice a week, Rep. Peter King is not one to run away when it comes to confrontation -- even when it comes in the form of a letter from a constituent. "I understand that you recently contacted my office requesting that I vote to censure President Bush," King, a Republican from Seaford, recently wrote Bellmore resident Harry Halikias. "I disagree with you in every respect. You are morally, intellectually and politically wrong. President Bush is an outstanding leader of outstanding integrity. Like Ed Koch, I thank God every...

Despite the distribution of a video of the Arab suicide bomber who intended to blow up a hospital by the IDF, nearly all foreign news agencies chose to boycott the story altogether. An outraged former undersecretary to US President Ronald Reagan and candidate for Republican Presidential nominee, Gary Bauer wrote a scathing critique of the world media’s decision to avoid the story. Excerpts from Bauer’s letter: ”If you don't get the Fox News Channel then you didn't see any of the dramatic footage of the Israeli army's arrest yesterday of a 21-year old, female Palestinian homicide-bomber, strapped with 25 pounds...

The White House Press Corps' Selective Outrage By Michael Reagan FrontPageMagazine.com | May 23, 2005 The day after the story broke about Newsweek publishing an inflammatory - and bogus - story accusing our military of desecrating the Koran, reporters at the daily White House press briefing reacted in rage. But their rage was not against Newsweek, for in effect inciting riots that killed at least 16 or 17 and injured scores more, but instead at the White House for daring to criticize Newsweek. Asked one reporter: “With respect, who made you the editor of Newsweek? Do you think it's appropriate...

AlterNet.org has a hilarious excerpt of an interview that the delightfully named Jennifer Nix conducted with George Lakoff, the left-wing linguistics guru who has fooled Democrats into think he invented euphemism and dysphemism (ellipsis in original): Nix: Can you give an example of the media not understanding what's going on? Lakoff: A producer from a National Public Radio show "On the Media" called me up recently to tell me that [a style manual] . . . many journalists around the country call on when writing their stories is dictating that journalists stop using the word fetus and replace it with...

In their frenzied attempts to preserve government by judges, liberals are resorting to a familiar tactic -- accusing conservatives of inciting violence. It’s a ploy worthy of the hysterics and intellectual frauds who populate the American Left. When they can’t win a debate (can they ever?), leftists deploy what the late novelist/philosopher Ayn Rand called "the argument from intimidation." Instead of trying to refute the other side, they label their opponents' position evil, attribute sinister motives to its adherents, and charge that its proponents are encouraging violence. Thus, the Left stridently maintains that proponents of immigration reform are inciting violence...

With the revelation that an aide to Senator Mel Martinez was the source of the widely-trumpeted "GOP talking points memo," we have written this article for the Daily Standard to summarize the story as it has developed to date: For the past two and one-half weeks, Washington has been roiled by controversy over an alleged "GOP talking points memo" that, according to ABC News and the Washington Post, was circulated among Republican Senators on the evening of March 17, when the Senate took up debate on the Terri Schiavo federal jurisdiction bill. The memo, of which Republicans disclaimed any knowledge,...

One of the more absurd intellectual tics of the Left is lumping together strong religious sentiment with violent religious fanaticism -- witness the rhetorical lather New York Times columnists worked up over the protestors outside Terri Schiavo's hospice in Florida. "Democratic societies have a hard time dealing with extremists in their midst," wrote Paul Krugman. "Nobody wants to talk about the threat posed by those whose beliefs include contempt for democracy itself. We can see this failing clearly in . . . the Netherlands [which ignored] the growing influence of Islamic extremists until they turned murderous. But it is also...

"The special prosecutor investigating whether Bush administration officials illegally revealed the identity of a covert CIA operative says he finished his investigation months ago, except for questioning two reporters who have refused to testify," reports the Washington Post, citing a March 22 court filing by the prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald: Legal experts and sources close to the case also speculated yesterday that Fitzgerald is not likely to seek an indictment for the crime he originally set out to investigate: whether a government official knowingly exposed a covert officer. So where's the outrage from Josh Marshall, former Enron adviser Paul Krugman, David...

Seems to me that this morning's front-page attack on Tom DeLay by the Washington Post isn't a story about Tom DeLay at all. The story makes clear that DeLay did nothing wrong. In 1997, he took a trip to Russia paid for (as far as he had any reason to be aware) by the National Center for Public Policy Research in Washington D.C. The Center's president, Amy Ridenour, even came along for the trip. The Post describes DeLay's activities on the trip thus: "During his six days in Moscow, he played golf, met with Russian church leaders and talked to...

We have written extensively about the fake "talking points memo" on the Schaivo case that ABC News and the Washington Post publicized, beginning on March 18. We have pointed out, most comprehensively in the Weekly Standard, that there is no reason whatsoever to believe that the memo originated with the Republicans, and considerable reason to think it may be a Democratic dirty trick. Howard Kurtz of the Washington Post followed up on our critique here; he interviewed Post reporter Mike Allen, among others. Allen, like ABC News, took the position that it was all a misunderstanding: the Post had never...

"The nation's largest news organizations and journalism groups" filed a brief in federal court Wednesday arguing that "a federal court should first determine whether a crime has been committed in the disclosure of an undercover CIA operative's name before prosecutors are allowed to continue seeking testimony from journalists about their confidential sources," the Washington Post reports: The 40-page brief, filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, argues that there is "ample evidence . . . to doubt that a crime has been committed" in the case, which centers on the question of whether Bush...

The wife looked at me funny today for fussing about the liberal articles in today's Washington Post. Well, it shouldn't be surprising, especially on a Monday, when a newspaper often goes casting around for news, allowing for a little more indulgence of the ideological impulses. Above the fold in nearly every section (save Sports) the Post signals its liberal agenda. I wouldn't stay these stories aren't worth reporting (or reading), but they do put the lie to people thinking the Washington Times is the one biased newspaper in town. Scan them quickly with me. 1. On the front page, another...

President Bush gave a press conference today. Which reminds us why he doesn't do it more often. Here are some of the questions he fielded: Q Mr. President, you say you're making progress in the Social Security debate. Yet private accounts, as the centerpiece of that plan, something you first campaigned on five years ago and laid before the American people, remains, according to every measure we have, poll after poll, unpopular with a majority of Americans. So the question is, do you feel that this is a point in the debate where it's incumbent upon you, and nobody else,...

A stricter standard of sexual behavior for comedians than for Presidents? On Thursday morning, CBS Early Show co-host Harry Smith announced they would be interviewing a woman who claims entertainer Bill Cosby sexually fondled her thirty years ago. "This is a tough story to have to talk about," he insisted. But did they "have to" talk about it? When Juanita Broaddrick charged in 1999 that President Clinton had raped her in a hotel room, the CBS Evening News aired one story on a Saturday, but CBS This Morning never interviewed Broaddrick and aired no story on her charges. In the...

The Pentagon should probably feel good about today's latest (Page One!) installment in the faux torture controversy, offered up by the Washington Post. You know this story has to be collapsing of its own absurd weight when the tugging on our national heart strings now involves this egregious "abuse" of Muslim men: They are being forced to endure the deep indignity of being questioned by women clad in tee-shirts. This is the 21st Century America of Maplethorp, Piss-Christ, MTV, and R-rated movies that would have been X-rated 10 years ago -- the America where a poor Muslim man trying to...

Dawn Eden had been nervous for two days before she was called into the office of New York Post editor in chief Col Allan on Jan. 18. Ms. Eden, a 36-year-old copy editor and headline writer at the newspaper, knew she’d probably made a mistake by working some of her own pro-life views into an article she was copy-editing on women with cancer who were having babies through in-vitro fertilization. She knew it was risky, but she’d been so utterly repulsed by the lighthearted tone of the article that she felt she just had to make it balanced. Mr. Allan...

It's hard to imagine the MSM getting stupider, but there they go again...a raft of articles today on the "pro-Iranian Shi'ite list" in the Iraqi elections. It's totally wrong. The Iranians dread the Iraqi Shiites, because the Iraqis, from Sistani to Chalabi to Hakim and on down, all oppose the Iranian heresy of the "Supreme Leader," a cleric at the top of the state. The traditional Shiite view is that such an event can only take place when the "12th Imam" returns from his disappearance--more than a millennium ago--to claim rightful leadership of the entire Muslim world. Until then, people...

In yet another example of how Eason Jordan tosses around accusations without much supporting evidence -- or any at all -- the Guardian (UK) covering the News Xchange Forum this past November reports on accusations of the torture of journalists by American forces (hat tip - Peter Cook): Eason Jordan, chief news executive at CNN, said there had been only a "limited amount of progress", despite repeated meetings between news organisations and the US authorities. "Actions speak louder than words. The reality is that at least 10 journalists have been killed by the US military, and according to reports I...

BECAUSE I HAD TO FILE this column before President Bush gave his State of the Union address, I can only hope he called Democrats on their indifference to the medium- and long-term threats to Social Security. The decision by Democrats and their friends in media and blogosphere to downplay the obvious problems with the program is the fiscal equivalent of having a healthcare policy that is indifferent to teenage smoking because the consequences of such a habit are far down the road. The harsh truth is that Democrats prefer to fix the Social Security shortfall with tax hikes--which they cannot...

Forumblog, the blog dedicated to covering the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, reported last Friday that CNN chief Eason Jordan accused the US military of targeting journalists for assassination, and succeeding in twelve cases (via Hugh Hewitt): During one of the discussions about the number of journalists killed in the Iraq War, Eason Jordan asserted that he knew of 12 journalists who had not only been killed by US troops in Iraq, but they had in fact been targeted. He repeated the assertion a few times, which seemed to win favor in parts of the audience (the anti-US crowd)...

An extremely disturbing report from Rony Abovitz at the Davos conference: During one of the discussions about the number of journalists killed in the Iraq War, Eason Jordan [chief news executive of CNN] asserted that he knew of 12 journalists who had not only been killed by U.S. troops in Iraq, but they had in fact been targeted. He repeated the assertion a few times, which seemed to win favor in parts of the audience (the anti-US crowd) and cause great strain on others. Due to the nature of the forum, I was able to directly challenge Eason, asking if...

Jon Stewart, late in the Daily Show last night to Newsweek pundit Fareed Zakaria: "I’ve watched this thing unfold from the start and here’s the great fear that I have: What if Bush, the president, ours, has been right about this all along? I feel like my world view will not sustain itself and I may, and again I don’t know if I can physically do this, implode. (Hat tip: David Frum).

Fred Barnes has an editorial in the Standard arguing that Democrats have adopted "brutal tactics": calling Condi Rice a liar, Iraq a disaster, and Bush's Social Security plan an attempt to "destroy" the program. Barnes thinks that the Democrats are trying to replicate Newt Gingrich's success in 1993-94, but are misunderstanding the sources of that success. Here's Barnes's bottom line: "The media tolerate or even encourage Democratic rage. But the White House can't afford to. Senate Democrats have enough votes to block major Bush initiatives like Social Security reform and to reject Bush appointees, including Supreme Court nominees. They may...

Thomas Sowell has an excellent column on the subject of media bias as it relates to the Iraq war: If a battle ends with Americans killing a hundred guerrillas and terrorists, while sustaining 10 fatalities, that is an American victory. But not in the mainstream media. The headline is more likely to read: "Ten More Americans Killed in Iraq." This kind of journalism can turn victory into defeat. Kept up long enough, it can even end up with real defeat, when support for the war collapses at home and abroad. One of the biggest American victories during World War II...

Reading the reaction of Patrick Ruffini and blogger Ginnyto David von Drehle's excursion to The Red Sea — red states — in the Washington Post, I began to wonder whether many of the mainstream media's problems stem from having too many outlets competing for the same readers/viewers. Look over at Mickey Kaus, who is mocking CNN's Jonathan Klein for what Kaus finds to be lame ideas about how to catch up with Fox News. (Klein is ditching the debate show Crossfire and pledging more "roll-up-your-sleeves storytelling.") It's interesting that CNN has lagged behind Fox for a couple of years now,...

ED CONE IS SPANKING THE NEW YORK TIMES -- and specifically reporter Sarah Boxer -- for dubious reporting in an article on Iraq the Model. Expect more of this kind of thing as the Iraqi elections approach. I'll just note that the Times' standards for sourcing are, once again, shown to be much softer regarding stories that might hurt the war effort, or the Bush Administration, than they are when the story might hurt a Democratic candidate for President in a close election. UPDATE: Jeff Jarvis: Sarah Boxer's story on IraqTheModel in today's New York Times Arts section is irresponsible,...

Palestinian journalist Majida al-Batsh surprised most of her colleagues late last year by announcing that she would run in the election for the chairmanship of the Palestinian Authority. Batsh, a resident of the Old City of Jerusalem, had been working for many years as a Palestinian affairs correspondent for the French news agency, Agence France-Presse (AFP). Before she presented her candidacy in the January 9 vote, Batsh was a frequent panelist on Israel TV Channel 1's Politica talk show, where she would speak more like a representative of the Palestinians than an impartial journalist from an international news organization. Her...

Just to pile on his point a bit, it is important to note that Cliff is talking about the safe haven that the NIC report says Iraq has become post-Saddam. What it doesn't address, and what the MSM -- with heroic exceptions like our friend Steve Hayes -- remain in denial over is the terrorist haven Iraq was during Saddam's reign. Acknowledge it or not: terrorist training went on there; terrorists like Zarqawi and Zawahiri were welcome there; Bin Laden himself was offered safe haven there, and one of the 1993 WTC bombers was actually harbored there, on Saddam's payroll,...

Is it still fair to bash the NY Times? Have they been declared "too easy" by the blogosphere for 2005? Should we establish a rule like "only brand new bloggers can pick on the NY Times, it's just too damn easy?" Honestly, sometimes I'm reluctant to point out the foolishness that passes for news and commentary there. It's becoming increasingly akin to correcting my children - an exercise I also find I sometimes can't resist. In the kid's case, however, I still have hopes they'll learn something from the experience. The Times? They already know everything there is to know...

While so many in the media have found it outrageous that Bill Clinton could be accused of having "blood on his hands" over administration inaction on violence in America, for CBS it is perfectly acceptable -- even worthy of nationwide TV promotion -- to charge a Pope had the blood of six million Holocaust victims on his. On March 19, CBS’s "60 Minutes" promoted the book "Hitler’s Pope," by British journalist John Cornwell. If an author of Cornwell’s disposition were writing about Bill Clinton, CBS would have no trouble dismissing him as a "Clinton hater," as a vicious tool of...

Here’s what Bill Moyers said: “I'm going out telling the story that I think is the biggest story of our time: how the right-wing media has become a partisan propaganda arm of the Republican National Committee. We have an ideological press that's interested in the election of Republicans, and a mainstream press that's interested in the bottom line. Therefore, we don't have a vigilant, independent press whose interest is the American people." I have to comment for four reasons: 1) I began my so-called career working for Bill Moyers (whom I still like and admire), 2) I spent more than...

Couple of days ago, David Brooks published a column on John Stott, a British evangelical leader. There has been some discussion of this column — but I would like to make a queer point. In 1989 — also in 1988, the presidential-election year — there was quite a lot of good press for Barbara Bush. But the praise always came with a companion point: "unlike that b**ch Nancy Reagan." (No, I don't mean "butch.") You couldn't say something nice about Barbara Bush, the new Republican First Lady, without saying something mean about Nancy Reagan. Mrs. Bush couldn't be admirable for...

Do you remember when the culture wars were supposed to be over, and the liberal media was said to be a myth? I do. By denying our divisions, liberals implicitly declare themselves the winners of our culture battles. And deep sixing conservatism is a nice way to pretend that the media isn't biased. How can the media be liberally biased if the country as a whole has accepted liberal wisdom, and conservatives are just a fading relic of history? The election put paid to all that. Surprise! Conservatives exist. As a marker of just how far we’ve come in this...

THE TAKEDOWN of terrorists in Falluja seems to have gone well. The terrorists, as expected, fought hard and mostly to the death, but U.S. and Iraqi casualties remain lower than the history of urban warfare would have led us to expect. Success in Falluja can be attributed to two factors: a well-conceived plan and the outstanding execution of that plan by Marines and soldiers on the ground. But the second-guessing has already begun. Critics are asking what the operation in Falluja really accomplished. They note that the insurgents' leaders appear to have escaped and that violence has erupted elsewhere in...

Back in the 1970s, I took a temporary job helping to prepare the daily news digest for Armand Hammer. That's right, your reliable right-wing columnist once worked for the old com-symp himself. I reported to a room in the Occidental Petroleum building on Wilshire Boulevard in Westwood, and there, with a very pleasant young lady supervising, I clipped stories from wire services that I thought would interest the Great Man and pasted them into a daily news report. When I say "clip," I mean it literally. We had half a dozen wire service machines, rumbling and rattling out a continuous...

There's no rest for the politically weary. We'll have to keep a weather eye on '06 and '08, but there's a lot to do long before they arrive. There will be no respite while Nurse Ratched builds her campaign for the White House, and there's enough SGO this week to keep us busy. The RINOs are rampaging, the legacy news media are wounded but not dead, Yassir Arafat is dying, and the next most important election -- the January election in Iraq -- is fast approaching. We never should have left it to 007 to deal with SPECTRE. Despite his...