Sunday, January 30, 2005
Blue Fingers, Brave People, Blessings of Liberty!
Folks,
It's been an amazing day for the world, for America, for Iraq, and for freedom.
To show YOUR solidarity with the brave people of Iraq, may I suggest you do what I've done and what a young girl in the South came up with---before you go out tomorrow (Monday) ink YOUR INDEX FINGER in deep blue, too--show your solidarity with the voters of Iraq....and give the proverbial "finger" to the terrorists and haters.
If you read some of the amazing Iraqi blogs, you'll here tales of old people, sick people, people taking their children with them, people dressing in their finest as if for a very special party--all to VOTE. A woman says "I've never had a choice in anything, not who to marry, nothing, until now." Another "We not only never had this in Iraq, we never even read about it in neighboring countries." THOUSANDS in Abu Graib WALKED 13 MILES in the sun EACH WAY to the nearest polling place when theirs was shut due to security concerns. One blogger tells the tale of a group of Iraqi National Guard troops CHEERING THE VOTERS and saying THEY were the country's heroes--then ONE soldier got a bit enthusiastic and yelled "Vote for Alawi!"--and his officer stopped the convoy, and publicly dressed him down, saying "Listen--you are NOT Alawi's soldier--you are IRAQ'S Soldier--It is NOT our place to tell people how to vote!" and the crowd CHEERED the officer!
The point is, my friends, THESE PEOPLE "GET" IT! And the only ones who said they wouldn't/couldn't are the RACIST IMPERIALISTS of the OLD EUROPEAN nations and the AMERICAN LEFT! Sweep Teddy & the gang into the dustbin of history!
Wear YOUR ink-blue finger tomorrow, and wear it with PRIDE>
And BY THE WAY......while millions vote, thousands fight, a bit over one thousand Americans have died, and countless others have sacrificed, there is absolutely NO DOUBT ON EARTH by ANY honest person that today's miracle in Iraq is due to ONE MAN because he has the WILL to make it happen.
In tribute to our President, the following lines from "man of La Mancha" come to mind to me and have been singing in my head all day:
"And the world will be better for this,
That one man, scorned and covered with scars,
Still strove, with his last ounce of courage,
To reach the unreachable stars!"
God Bless You, Mr. President.
This blue finger is for you, too.
It's been an amazing day for the world, for America, for Iraq, and for freedom.
To show YOUR solidarity with the brave people of Iraq, may I suggest you do what I've done and what a young girl in the South came up with---before you go out tomorrow (Monday) ink YOUR INDEX FINGER in deep blue, too--show your solidarity with the voters of Iraq....and give the proverbial "finger" to the terrorists and haters.
If you read some of the amazing Iraqi blogs, you'll here tales of old people, sick people, people taking their children with them, people dressing in their finest as if for a very special party--all to VOTE. A woman says "I've never had a choice in anything, not who to marry, nothing, until now." Another "We not only never had this in Iraq, we never even read about it in neighboring countries." THOUSANDS in Abu Graib WALKED 13 MILES in the sun EACH WAY to the nearest polling place when theirs was shut due to security concerns. One blogger tells the tale of a group of Iraqi National Guard troops CHEERING THE VOTERS and saying THEY were the country's heroes--then ONE soldier got a bit enthusiastic and yelled "Vote for Alawi!"--and his officer stopped the convoy, and publicly dressed him down, saying "Listen--you are NOT Alawi's soldier--you are IRAQ'S Soldier--It is NOT our place to tell people how to vote!" and the crowd CHEERED the officer!
The point is, my friends, THESE PEOPLE "GET" IT! And the only ones who said they wouldn't/couldn't are the RACIST IMPERIALISTS of the OLD EUROPEAN nations and the AMERICAN LEFT! Sweep Teddy & the gang into the dustbin of history!
Wear YOUR ink-blue finger tomorrow, and wear it with PRIDE>
And BY THE WAY......while millions vote, thousands fight, a bit over one thousand Americans have died, and countless others have sacrificed, there is absolutely NO DOUBT ON EARTH by ANY honest person that today's miracle in Iraq is due to ONE MAN because he has the WILL to make it happen.
In tribute to our President, the following lines from "man of La Mancha" come to mind to me and have been singing in my head all day:
"And the world will be better for this,
That one man, scorned and covered with scars,
Still strove, with his last ounce of courage,
To reach the unreachable stars!"
God Bless You, Mr. President.
This blue finger is for you, too.
Wednesday, January 12, 2005
The Ever-Insightful, Ever-Entertaining Lileks Strikes Again!
This guy is both hilarious and, in a good way, relentlessly viscious. Read his take on the Rathergate Report and see HERE or below. Don't deny yourself the pleasure, regardless of your political pov, of some great writing with a very sharp point. James Lileks gets my nomination for punditry's highest honors (and his blog is in our blogroll for that reason and it is a work of art visually, too.)
---------------
Posted on Wed, Jan. 12, 2005
Hush, Dan, and be grateful
By JAMES LILEKS
Some CBS critics would be satisfied with nothing less than this:
From: Mapes
To: Bigdan:
OK, here's the deal. I got a guy who cooked up fake memos, another guy who will lie about their credibility, and a retired general who will back up the story. He's dead, but we have the seance on tape. (Morley did the voice. What a ham!) The Kerry campaign is ready to go with the "Fortunate Son" ad campaign to piggyback on the AWOL theme. You end the segment by saying, "And the story is, as they say in a one-hour Texas Photomat, developing." That'll be the cue for everyone to wipe the hard drives. Oh, and I had the guy who faked the memos "disappear" in a scuba accident. Don't worry, I outsourced it and billed it as "catering." Love, Mary
From: Bigdan
To: Mapes
You are as hard-working as an Oklahoma toad in a button-polishing contest, and I'm happy as a horse who inherited a peanut butter factory. After 17 attempts to smear Bush with a fabricated charge, it looks as if we may finally have something that sticks like Juicy Fruit on the Alamo wall. Keep in touch. Dan
Anything short of that? Whitewash! Such critics will never be satisfied.
But maybe that's good. Maybe skepticism should be the final reaction to CBS' internal report on Memogate.
There's also room for a little gratitude: It wasn't quietly sneaked out on a Friday night. It named names and collected scalps. Four CBS employees were heaved out the window. Some sort of commission will be set up to safeguard the precious remaining ounces of the network's credibility, which are now in a vial in a safe. And consider what we've learned.
What caused CBS to run with this story? A raging, untrammeled desire to see George W. Bush driven from office in a hail of jeers and dead cats? Oh, heavens no.
"Myopic zeal," as one CBS executive put it. A desire to get the story out quickly, because there might be another nut out there with another set of forged documents, talking to ABC. No bias here! If we're guilty of anything, it's good ol' fashioned enthusiasm!
This is hard to swallow.
The report would have been satisfying if it had squarely faced the issue of bias, and ferreted out every last contact between producer Mary Mapes and the Kerry campaign. But its authors didn't dare, either from unease with the truth or disbelief that journalists might have agendas. Those Fox guys, sure. And Armstrong Williams, it now seems. But Dan Rather? The man's so fair he rotates his metaphors among all 50 states!
The report did note that some who helped unmask the forgeries had agendas of their own. Which is relevant how, exactly? If an atheist proves that the face of the Virgin Mary on a Krispy Kreme was actually drawn with a Sharpie, this doesn't mean the doughnut's holy.
True, pro-Bush bloggers may have been more suspicious than those who think Bush spends his days leashed and curled at Karl Rove's feet, but they were right, and that's what counted in the end.
The CBS report can't bring itself, even now, to say the documents were unquestionably bogus. Rather himself told the panel that "no one had provided persuasive evidence that the documents were not authentic." This is like floating in the North Atlantic, clinging to a White Star Line life preserver, asking for proof that the Titanic ever existed in the first place.
Dan, please. Be grateful the report went as far as it did, because it ended the story for all practical purposes. Be grateful it didn't go further, lest CBS News be seen as the entertainment wing of the Democratic National Committee.
Remember the heading on those damning memos? SUBJECT: CYA.
"A" stands for "anchor."
James Lileks is a columnist for the Star Tribune, 425 Portland Ave., Minneapolis, MN 55488. E-mail: james.lileks@newhouse.com
---------------
Posted on Wed, Jan. 12, 2005
Hush, Dan, and be grateful
By JAMES LILEKS
Some CBS critics would be satisfied with nothing less than this:
From: Mapes
To: Bigdan:
OK, here's the deal. I got a guy who cooked up fake memos, another guy who will lie about their credibility, and a retired general who will back up the story. He's dead, but we have the seance on tape. (Morley did the voice. What a ham!) The Kerry campaign is ready to go with the "Fortunate Son" ad campaign to piggyback on the AWOL theme. You end the segment by saying, "And the story is, as they say in a one-hour Texas Photomat, developing." That'll be the cue for everyone to wipe the hard drives. Oh, and I had the guy who faked the memos "disappear" in a scuba accident. Don't worry, I outsourced it and billed it as "catering." Love, Mary
From: Bigdan
To: Mapes
You are as hard-working as an Oklahoma toad in a button-polishing contest, and I'm happy as a horse who inherited a peanut butter factory. After 17 attempts to smear Bush with a fabricated charge, it looks as if we may finally have something that sticks like Juicy Fruit on the Alamo wall. Keep in touch. Dan
Anything short of that? Whitewash! Such critics will never be satisfied.
But maybe that's good. Maybe skepticism should be the final reaction to CBS' internal report on Memogate.
There's also room for a little gratitude: It wasn't quietly sneaked out on a Friday night. It named names and collected scalps. Four CBS employees were heaved out the window. Some sort of commission will be set up to safeguard the precious remaining ounces of the network's credibility, which are now in a vial in a safe. And consider what we've learned.
What caused CBS to run with this story? A raging, untrammeled desire to see George W. Bush driven from office in a hail of jeers and dead cats? Oh, heavens no.
"Myopic zeal," as one CBS executive put it. A desire to get the story out quickly, because there might be another nut out there with another set of forged documents, talking to ABC. No bias here! If we're guilty of anything, it's good ol' fashioned enthusiasm!
This is hard to swallow.
The report would have been satisfying if it had squarely faced the issue of bias, and ferreted out every last contact between producer Mary Mapes and the Kerry campaign. But its authors didn't dare, either from unease with the truth or disbelief that journalists might have agendas. Those Fox guys, sure. And Armstrong Williams, it now seems. But Dan Rather? The man's so fair he rotates his metaphors among all 50 states!
The report did note that some who helped unmask the forgeries had agendas of their own. Which is relevant how, exactly? If an atheist proves that the face of the Virgin Mary on a Krispy Kreme was actually drawn with a Sharpie, this doesn't mean the doughnut's holy.
True, pro-Bush bloggers may have been more suspicious than those who think Bush spends his days leashed and curled at Karl Rove's feet, but they were right, and that's what counted in the end.
The CBS report can't bring itself, even now, to say the documents were unquestionably bogus. Rather himself told the panel that "no one had provided persuasive evidence that the documents were not authentic." This is like floating in the North Atlantic, clinging to a White Star Line life preserver, asking for proof that the Titanic ever existed in the first place.
Dan, please. Be grateful the report went as far as it did, because it ended the story for all practical purposes. Be grateful it didn't go further, lest CBS News be seen as the entertainment wing of the Democratic National Committee.
Remember the heading on those damning memos? SUBJECT: CYA.
"A" stands for "anchor."
James Lileks is a columnist for the Star Tribune, 425 Portland Ave., Minneapolis, MN 55488. E-mail: james.lileks@newhouse.com
Monday, January 10, 2005
YouDon'tHaveToBeBiased...To Spin
It helps, of course. That's why the silly notion spun in the CBS report that political bias had nothing to do with Rathergate is, well, silly. Of course it did. But you know, there is a built-in spin machine in all journalism, especially high-profile media journalism, and it doesn't have as much to do with politics as it does with economics---journalists--whether individuals or institions like networks and newspapers--are about getting attention, and that skews the whole process in a way that's not only overlooked, but also actually measurable. I didn't know how measurable until I read THIS COLUMN by Paul Jacob. Read the whole thing, but here's the measurement portion fyi:
---
There's less crime than "the well-informed" think there is, for instance. Reporters report the exceptional, but news viewers see these exceptions as the rule, with crime endemic. Thankfully, this is something that John Stossel repeatedly reminds his viewers. Few other journalists do.
Similarly, a recent study has shown that journalists, by concentrating on the biggest spending electoral races, encourage widespread misperception. In a survey conducted by social scientists at MIT and Stanford, it was found that "people with less education (and thus lower tendency to read newspapers) had, on average, the most accurate estimates of the average amount of money spent in politics and the relative importance of interest groups."
Informed readers' opinions on the subject, on the other hand, closely tracked the lopsided reporting they'd been exposed to. They over-estimated the impact of corporate and PAC money; their estimates of amounts spent on campaigns was over seven times that actually spent.
So, on average, the people in the nation with the most accurate view of politics are the least informed. At least on this issue.
---
There's less crime than "the well-informed" think there is, for instance. Reporters report the exceptional, but news viewers see these exceptions as the rule, with crime endemic. Thankfully, this is something that John Stossel repeatedly reminds his viewers. Few other journalists do.
Similarly, a recent study has shown that journalists, by concentrating on the biggest spending electoral races, encourage widespread misperception. In a survey conducted by social scientists at MIT and Stanford, it was found that "people with less education (and thus lower tendency to read newspapers) had, on average, the most accurate estimates of the average amount of money spent in politics and the relative importance of interest groups."
Informed readers' opinions on the subject, on the other hand, closely tracked the lopsided reporting they'd been exposed to. They over-estimated the impact of corporate and PAC money; their estimates of amounts spent on campaigns was over seven times that actually spent.
So, on average, the people in the nation with the most accurate view of politics are the least informed. At least on this issue.
Rathergate Chickens Roost...sort of.....
Okay. The famous report is out. You can read the whole thing (I have...get some no-doz) HERE (I suggest you rightclick/download the PDF file for future study or in case the power goes out during its endless self-justification.
But the best summary reaction--better and more in synch with my views than anything I'd write myself--comes from the Weekly Standard's Jonathan Last, and I present it here as the "coda" on this episode that began the true age of the Blog Revolution (which will not end now, btw--and which, I predict, will have its next major war and VICTORY up in Washington re. the shameless vote-non-count/count for Governor) the LINK is HERE, but here' s the whole text, too:
--------------
CBS and the Philosopher's Stone
What the CBS Report has to say about Dan Rather, Mary Mapes, and their political agenda.
by Jonathan V. Last 01/10/2005 12:20:00 PM
IN A DOCUMENT shot through with agnosticism, perhaps the most agnostic section of the CBS Report is a six-page segment toward the end titled, "Whether There Was a Political Agenda Driving the September 8 Segment."
The Panel acknowledges that some sectors of the media had imputed political bias to Rathergate. So diligence required that the panel ask both Dan Rather and Mary Mapes, directly, whether or not they had been politically motivated: "Both strongly denied that they brought any political bias to the Segment."
Surprising? Not really. It seems unlikely that either Rather or Mapes would even perceive their own political bias--and even more unlikely that they would cop to it if they did perceive it. Yet for Thornburgh and Boccardi, their denial is enough, since "The Panel will not level allegations for which it cannot offer adequate proof." And here the CBS Report continues its modus operandi: It enumerates, in damning detail, CBS's mistakes, and then throws its hands in the air.
To wit: The report tells us that Mapes and Rather had pursued the story for five years; that they used a number of anti-Bush sources as key components of the story; that they tried to use a "gratuitous" and "inflammatory" interview with Colonel Hackworth; and that Mapes attempted to put Bill Burkett in contact with the Kerry campaign.
Thornburgh and Boccardi view all of these facts and then turn away saying that there is no "persuasive evidence of a political agenda;" and that they do "not believe that evidence
exists to demonstrate" that political leanings of the anti-Bush sources influenced the story; and that they "cannot conclude that this proposed use of Colonel Hackworth was part of any political agenda."
The only counter-evidence the report offers on this score are Mapes's and Rather's denials. "Absolutely, unequivocally untrue," Rather thunders. It was "proximity, not politics," Mapes demurs.
The CBS report can find evidence of political bias--they admit and document as much; they just can't reach any metaphysical conclusions about why that evidence exists. The esteemed panel has a journalist and an attorney general. Perhaps they should have included a philosopher, too.
Jonathan V. Last is online editor of The Weekly Standard.
But the best summary reaction--better and more in synch with my views than anything I'd write myself--comes from the Weekly Standard's Jonathan Last, and I present it here as the "coda" on this episode that began the true age of the Blog Revolution (which will not end now, btw--and which, I predict, will have its next major war and VICTORY up in Washington re. the shameless vote-non-count/count for Governor) the LINK is HERE, but here' s the whole text, too:
--------------
CBS and the Philosopher's Stone
What the CBS Report has to say about Dan Rather, Mary Mapes, and their political agenda.
by Jonathan V. Last 01/10/2005 12:20:00 PM
IN A DOCUMENT shot through with agnosticism, perhaps the most agnostic section of the CBS Report is a six-page segment toward the end titled, "Whether There Was a Political Agenda Driving the September 8 Segment."
The Panel acknowledges that some sectors of the media had imputed political bias to Rathergate. So diligence required that the panel ask both Dan Rather and Mary Mapes, directly, whether or not they had been politically motivated: "Both strongly denied that they brought any political bias to the Segment."
Surprising? Not really. It seems unlikely that either Rather or Mapes would even perceive their own political bias--and even more unlikely that they would cop to it if they did perceive it. Yet for Thornburgh and Boccardi, their denial is enough, since "The Panel will not level allegations for which it cannot offer adequate proof." And here the CBS Report continues its modus operandi: It enumerates, in damning detail, CBS's mistakes, and then throws its hands in the air.
To wit: The report tells us that Mapes and Rather had pursued the story for five years; that they used a number of anti-Bush sources as key components of the story; that they tried to use a "gratuitous" and "inflammatory" interview with Colonel Hackworth; and that Mapes attempted to put Bill Burkett in contact with the Kerry campaign.
Thornburgh and Boccardi view all of these facts and then turn away saying that there is no "persuasive evidence of a political agenda;" and that they do "not believe that evidence
exists to demonstrate" that political leanings of the anti-Bush sources influenced the story; and that they "cannot conclude that this proposed use of Colonel Hackworth was part of any political agenda."
The only counter-evidence the report offers on this score are Mapes's and Rather's denials. "Absolutely, unequivocally untrue," Rather thunders. It was "proximity, not politics," Mapes demurs.
The CBS report can find evidence of political bias--they admit and document as much; they just can't reach any metaphysical conclusions about why that evidence exists. The esteemed panel has a journalist and an attorney general. Perhaps they should have included a philosopher, too.
Jonathan V. Last is online editor of The Weekly Standard.
