Redstate

Posted at 8:45pm on Jul. 1, 2008 Turn off the giant Obamatron

We've paid to see this movie, and now we won't pay again.

By Mark Kilmer

There you go again. Reagan said it to Fritz Jimmy, and I repeat it in the same spirit addressed to the media.

Look at what they are telling us: That as the GOP Sharpens Attacks on Obama, they've noticed that In Flag City USA, False Obama Rumors Are Flying.

Meanwhile, as Obama Fiercely Defends His Patriotism, they've talked to a few people and discovered that McCain game plan worries insiders. (In early July? What kind if idiot "insiders" are these, if their opinions are accurately portrayed? Sorry, but lefty bloggers do not count. For much. Interested, yes. Worried? Hardly.)

Notice how Barack the August soars above the pagan rhetoric of the GOP and of his lesser-endowed fans, while John McCain is unleashing the flea-bitten hordes, bitterly clinging to the stale demons of the yesterday's politics.

They have their meme, do Barry and his pals o' the press, but I am hereby raising my hand and shouting: ENOUGH! Stop idealizing an unreconstructed leftist whose greatest feature is his willingness to play nifty tricks on the ditzy masses waiting for a guide to come and take them by the hand, leading them to the magical land of HOPECHANGEHOPE. For all of our faults, the American voters deserve much better from all of you than this hysterical swoon. Our nation faces important problems on which our government is Constitutionally empowered and entrusted to lead. To promise us the moon and the stars when they are only models created in some left-leaning Hollywood studio is to distract us from the business at hand.

We, the American people, want to win this war and leave Iraq for the Iraqis. We, the American people, want to sweat our way out of these economic doldrums. We, the American people, at long last realize that we have the energy under our own land to solve our current energy problems AND the ingenuity which, if unfettered by trite regulations, can create and transition to the next sources of energy.

This country, to paraphrase someone of whom most of us haven't heard, has paid to see the Carter Administration, and now we won't pay again. The cost is too high, even if its face is prettier.

The giant Obamatron be damned.

Posted in 2008 | Media | Obama — Comments (9)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 4:12pm on Jun. 1, 2008 "Iraq's Chance"

By Jeff Emanuel

Note: This piece appeared in today's New York Times under the title "Colombia's chance." For the sake of illustrating absurdity, the word "Colombia" has been changed to "Iraq," and "FARC" to "al Qaeda in Iraq."

See if it sounds any better to you like this, than it does in the original editorial calling on Colombian President Uribe to capitulate to FARC rather than defeat them outright.

Iraq’s president, Nouri Al-Maliki, may be sorely tempted to begin a final, killing offensive against fighters of al Qaeda in Iraq, or AQI. The fighters are weakened, and Mr. Al-Maliki is eager to capitalize politically on their defeat.

Nevertheless, he should resist that temptation and seek a political settlement to try to bring the fighters in from the cold. Iraq has seen more than enough bloodshed. And Mr. Al-Maliki has a strong enough hand to insist on AQI's complete disarmament and an end to the attacks on civilians that has long been the group's main mission.

Al Qaeda has been under assault from Iraqi Security Forces, first led, then increasingly supported, by U.S. forces Army for some four years, and looks as if it is unraveling. It has lost several of its top commanders in recent years, including Abu-Musab al Zarqawi in 2006.

Read on.

Posted in Capitulation | Media | new york times | Surrender to win | War — Comments (5)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 9:27am on May 22, 2008 Is the New York Times attempting to extort access from the McCain campaign?

By Jeff Emanuel

As Soren posted on yesterday, and as California Yankee mentioned elsewhere last night, the New York Times, which has taken after John McCain with a white-hot fury since the man who was once their favorite Republican -- and whom they endorsed in the GOP race -- locked up the nomination a few months ago. This latest episode, related to the release of McCain's medical records, which the Times has been harping on for some time now, appears to be more of the same.

Ed Morrissey, now of Hot Air, has the details. Basically, the Times -- whose ethics policy states "We do not threaten to damage uncooperative sources, nor do we promise favorable coverage in return for cooperation" -- has sent a message to the McCain camp that failure to invite the NYT to the May 23 unveiling of Mr. McCain's medical records will result in far less favorable coverage of that release, and of those records, than McCain will receive if the Times is credentialed and invited to the presser.

Pardón? (Read on)

Posted in 2008 | liberal media | liberal media bias | Media | publications as trustworthy as the National Enquirer — Comments (9) / Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 4:20pm on May 14, 2008 Obama will preen and eat waffles, but not answer questions

By Soren Dayton

Today in Michigan, via Marc Ambinder:

Instead of answering a reporter's question, he calls her "sweetie" and says that he'll do a press avail, but, recalling a certain waffle incident, he never does. You see, he preens for the media rather than talk to them. Video after the jump.

Posted in 2008 | Barack Obama | Media — Comments (23) / Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 12:24pm on May 6, 2008 Cutting the leg off the one-legged stool

By Jeff Emanuel

The Atlantic features an analysis of the HillObama split in the Democratic party (link here; h/t Ben Domenech via email).

Certainly it wasn't the author's intent, but with one sentence fragment in the post's first paragraph, the writer inadvertently throws away the only leg on which the Democrats' lass warfare, poor-are-getting poorer, your life sucks, Michelle-Obama-things-are-getting-worse-every-day meme was standing:

the white working class - the core of Clinton's support in Pennsylvania and in the Democratic electorate writ large - is shrinking as a share of the U.S. population, while the mass upper middle class, a crucially important of Obama's base (and one that enjoys outsized cultural and political influence), is expanding at a rapid clip

Finally, some truth...it hurts, doesn't it -- especially when your whole rationale for running for office is based around class warfare, and reinforcing the admittedly untrue claim that quality of life in America is declining and the middle class are quickly becoming The Poor, due to the unapologetic greed of The Rich.

Posted at 6:00am on May 6, 2008 LWJ: "Iraqis begin to 'despise' the Mahdi Army"

The Surge and Counterinsurgency Got the Ball Rolling. Now it's up to the Iraqis to keep it in motion.

By Jeff Emanuel

The latest in kick-@$$ war reporting comes from Bill Ardolino, currently embedded in Baghdad and reporting for the absolutely indispensable Long War Journal.

(As an aside, I'd like to take a moment to exhort my colleagues at RedState and across the 'sphere to rely on the hands-down best news source of the Global War on Terror, the Long War Journal, instead of linking the NYT, WaPo, etc. when they have their one-in-a-million informed, honest articles. The Long War Journal is the AP/AFP/Reuters/insert-wire-here of the GWOT. Unfortunately, it lacks the recognition and accolades that it deserves, especially since it offers the best, most timely, most accurate, and most comprehensive reportage on the Long War of pretty much any outfit in the known world. Want to know what's going on in Iraq, Afghanistan, or anywhere else that matters in the GWOT? Get your up-to-the-minute and accurate reportage -- including eyewitness reports from key embeds who go where mainstream "journalists" don't dare -- from the Long War Journal...and tell all of your friends about it, as well.)

Anyway, back to Ardolino's latest. He's in Rusafa, a "large district in central Baghdad bordered by the Tigris River to the southwest and Sadr City to the northeast." The district, which is "predominantly Shia, but contains significant Sunni enclaves and a small Christian population, with a surprising number of openly practicing churches," and which has been known in the past to have heavy Jaish al Mahdi (Mahdi Army) activity.

Aside from its bordering on the suddenly-flagrant Sadr City, Rusafa is important because the district "contains Baghdad’s largest and most famous markets, including the Shorja, Saria, and Bab al Sharji, some of which were the scenes of high-profile suicide bombings during the sectarian-fueled carnage of 2006-2007."

Read on.

Posted in embedded reporting | Mahdi Army | Media | War — Comments (23)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 4:58pm on Apr. 23, 2008 Is Nancy Pelosi bored, or is she loopy?

or: Experiments in better government.

By Mark Kilmer

Speaker Nancy is either bored or loopy. Here's what she's planned:

*** Media Advisory ***
…
Pelosi to Hold Weekly Press Conference Tomorrow, Celebrate Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day
…
Washington, D.C. To celebrate Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day, Speaker Nancy Pelosi is inviting members of the Capitol Hill press corps and staff to bring their children to her regular weekly press conference tomorrow, Thursday, April 24. Following the regular Q&A, the Speaker will take a few questions from the children.

There are some members of the DC press corps, unfortunately, about whose reproductive ventures I'd sooner remain ignorant. Will these kids be brainwashed into asking about the evil, mutant Bush Administration? What does she tell these innocents if they ask her about San Francisco?

Over at Famous DC (linked above), they "hope this made for TV train wreck is televised." If it's embarrassing, it won't be, so I hope it's not. Then again, C-SPAN will cover it; Brian Lamb's that kind of guy.

And after they're done asking questions, can these kids pretty please replace the Congressional majority's leadership for a few days? I'd expect better things of Speaker Jennifer, age 6, and Majority Leader Bobby, age 11, than we're getting from this current bunch.

Posted in Congress | kids | Media | Pelosi — Comments (8)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 4:04pm on Apr. 21, 2008 Why won't Obama answer questions?

Cancels debates, dodges questions, eats waffles

By Soren Dayton

A reporter asked Barack Obama today a question about Jimmy Carter's meeting with Hamas. Obama's response?

"Why can't I just eat my waffle?"

He also just canceled his appearance at a debate in North Carolina. He had been whining that the press finally asked him hard questions.

This reminds us of his handling of a bunch of questions about Rezko. His response?

"Guys, I mean come on. I just answered like eight questions."

Steve Huntley from the Chicago Sun-Times didn't think that was a fair description. Huntley wrote, "In fact, Obama dodged the questions."

Sounds like "dodg[ing] the questions" has become his MO. What's he so afraid of?

Posted in 2008 | Barack Obama | Democratic Debate | Media — Comments (29)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 7:45pm on Mar. 23, 2008 CBS Uses Easter Holiday to Poke Christians with a Stick by Presenting a Five-Year-Old Story as “New News” (Part 1 of 2)

By Jeff Emanuel

Like clockwork, as the month leading up to the Easter holiday comes around, a major media outlet uses its platform to poke Christian viewers with a figurative stick by running (or, more often, re-running) any one of their archive rooms full of shoddily-researched, often long-disproven “Does this finally prove that Christianity is a bunch of bunk?” stories.

Last year, it was James Cameron’s documentary The Lost Tomb of Jesus, about a tomb which had supposedly been found to contain the remains of Jesus, his wife Mary Magdalene, their son Jude, and the rest of their family, including Jesus’ brother, James. Passed off as brand-new, religion-damning information at a pre-documentary debut press conference hosted by the black-clad Cameron, this “discovery” was, as usual, nothing of the sort.

Read on.

Posted in Archaeology | History | Liberals | Media — Comments (43) / Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 1:19am on Mar. 15, 2008 "If It Bleeds, It Leads"

By Pejman Yousefzadeh

And therein lies the problem.

It's about time that this issue get some attention. Bad news reporting leads to bad decision-making. Oh, and the mainstream media's tendency towards dramatizing the news is yet another reason why you should be glad there is a Blogosphere. At least now, there is a chance to check and correct various sky-is-falling reports that have no basis in reality.

Posted at 11:01am on Mar. 12, 2008 Quote of the Day.

And read the whole thing.

By Moe Lane

Quite good:

For the Constitution, rather than suggesting that all behave in a godlike manner, recognizes that, to the contrary, people are swine and will take any opportunity to subvert any agreement in order to pursue what they consider to be their proper interests.

To that end, the Constitution separates the power of the state into those three branches which are for most of us (I include myself) the only thing we remember from 12 years of schooling.

The Constitution, written by men with some experience of actual government, assumes that the chief executive will work to be king, the Parliament will scheme to sell off the silverware, and the judiciary will consider itself Olympian and do everything it can to much improve (destroy) the work of the other two branches. So the Constitution pits them against each other, in the attempt not to achieve stasis, but rather to allow for the constant corrections necessary to prevent one branch from getting too much power for too long.

Rather brilliant. For, in the abstract, we may envision an Olympian perfection of perfect beings in Washington doing the business of their employers, the people, but any of us who has ever been at a zoning meeting with our property at stake is aware of the urge to cut through all the pernicious [expletive deleted - ed.] and go straight to firearms.

- David Mamet, in the Village Voice ("Why I Am No Longer a 'Brain-Dead Liberal'").

Yes, we're all quite startled here, too. The conversion is not yet complete - elsewhere in this essay he compared GWB to JFK, in order to show that JFK was bad, too - but these things rarely happen all at once. Still, check it out, and imagine the screams of petulant rage at the profanation of the Village Voice's purity of essence with this essay...

Posted in Liberals | Media — Comments (9)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 4:47pm on Mar. 7, 2008 Not Suffering Fools Gladly

By Shoebox

The AP, amongst others, is trying to drum up a story about John McCain and his temper.

A New York Times reporter attempted to ask John McCain questions about his conversation with John Kerry re: the possibility of being his VP for the 2004 election. From what I can see, the reporter was trying to do a "got 'cha" over some dates.

Posted in Liberals | Media — Comments (8) / Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 11:50am on Mar. 4, 2008 Re: The Surge is Working, Part 3,927

By Jeff Emanuel

Backing up Pejman's post from this morning, I spent the first three weeks of August, 2007 embedded in this very area, with Baker Company 1-15 IN of the 3rd Infantry Division. Full reports can be seen here. A few highlights include the following:

Iraq's "Concerned Local Citizens" Program Grows into a Bona-Fide Phenomenon

Southeast of Baghdad, the Surge is Working

Another Iraqi ‘Awakening’?: In yet another region of Iraq, one tribe decides that it wants something better than what the insurgency has to offer

The Surge in Action: Baker Company 1-15 rallies villagers to the Coalition and against the insurgency.

Posted at 7:13pm on Jan. 21, 2008 Three years later, the NYT realizes that there are independent journalists in Iraq

And that they are doing the jobs that Americans won't do

By Jeff Emanuel

The New York Times has a long-overdue article up today profiling my good friend Michael Yon, one of the two longest-serving independent journalists in Iraq. Yon first traveled to Iraq shortly after the Blackwater contractors were killed and defiled in Fallujah, and has been in and out of the country (more in than out) for the better part of the last three years. Only J.D. Johannes, a documentary filmmaker and another good friend, has been conducting independent journalism in-country nearly as long.

Read the whole thing. Then, if you still have any stamina remaining, click over here and read what it is that makes these people different from 95% of ordinary journalists who go to Iraq and try to cover the war there.

[Updated below the fold]

Posted in embedded reporting | Iraq | Media | Michael Yon | War — Comments (3)/ Email this page » / Read More »