“White House Admits Fault,” indeed

Bad reporting is pouring in faster than it can be blogged. This time Terence Hunt of the AP gives us this headline:

White House admits fault on ‘Mission Accomplished’ banner

Sounds like Bush has finally admitted that he was completely, utterly wrong, doesn’t it? But let’s see what the White House really said:

“President Bush is well aware that the banner should have been much more specific and said `mission accomplished’ for these sailors who are on this ship on their mission,” White House press secretary Dana Perino said Wednesday. “And we have certainly paid a price for not being more specific on that banner. And I recognize that the media is going to play this up again tomorrow, as they do every single year.”

Doesn’t sound like a complete confession of fault as much as an indictment of the press over their preoccupation with a triviality. In fact, Mr. Hunt seems to have gotten himself excited over some sly mockery by the White House, rather than the supposed contrite admission of fault. Pretty ironic that the AP declares victory when in fact they’re the butt of a joke they’re too dense to apprehend.

Now, I happen to believe that the banner did not just refer to the sailors and that ship. I believe that the banner referred to the end of major combat operations, the successful invasion of Iraq, the dethroning of Hussein, and the liberation of the Iraqi people. All of which were true. The fact that the Left uses the continuing violence in Iraq to try to disprove the banner’s message is more damning of their comprehension of the military than Bush’s grasp of the situation in Iraq.

Was Bush overly optimistic about the situation and slow to respond to the rising violence? Sure was.

Does that have anything to do with the stupid banner? Not at all.

Bad reporting from the UK

Prince William flies back with dead soldier amid criticism over ‘PR exercise’

squeals Alexi Mostrous’ headline in this article in the UK Times Online. It then continues, saying:

But the Prince faced criticism from soldiers that his secret visit to the war torn country was nothing more than a public relations exercise.

But as you read the article, you find that the ‘criticisms’ come from:

• “a former Royal protection officer”
• a “publicist”
• Anonymous comments on a British Army forum

Great sourcing, Mr. Mostrous – you’ve managed to make a contentious claim with exactly nothing to back it up.

Judgment (Updated)

If it took Barack Obama over 20 years to finally realize that Reverend Wright was espousing black liberation theology on a regular basis, how exactly is he planning on managing the country? His sluggish comprehension would certainly explain his naive plan to sit down and talk with Iran. Perhaps it’ll only take him a couple of terms to realize that Iran is devoted to becoming a major regional power, and to promoting anti-American theocracies throughout the Middle East.

UPDATE: The same point was made today by Taranto:

So, was Obama sincere? Did he spent 20 years as an intimate of Wright and a parishioner of his church without ever having an inkling that the guy is a wacko hatemonger?
If so, can you think of anything more terrifying than sending such a naïf to the White House while there’s a war on?

END UPDATE

Of course, as many, many people have pointed out (including, apparently, Reverend Wright), his explanation of a sudden revelation based on Wright’s latest diatribes is completely unbelievable. He’s not that stupid.

What he is, is a politician cast in the mold of William Jefferson Clinton. Glib, loose with the truth, willing to say anything to make people happy and avoid trouble, poll-driven, and with no concept of America’s place in the world. Certainly the Revered Wright debacle showed that he has been exposed to extremist views to the point that they don’t perturb him, but it has also shown how facile he is.

And like Clinton, he has mastered the art of faking sincerity. He is the perfect candidate for his fans, who want someone who makes them feel good. He is the perfect candidate for Europe, who wants a docile America. He is the perfect candidate for the Middle East countries, who want a weak America. And he is the perfect candidate for Russia and China, who want a tentative America.

But for America itself? Not so much.

Thoughts on Operation Chaos

Rush Limbaugh’s Operation Chaos, that is.

Let me just say that I don’t like it, and I don’t think it’s right, fair, or productive. I think it is anathema to the American way and democratic ideal. It undermines the right to vote and sullies our already-pitiful primary process.

Democrats and Republicans have the right to pick their candidates without any tinkering by the opposition. Conservatives are proud of their ethics and values: Operation Chaos is consistent with neither.

If this guerrilla campaign has actually had a significant impact on the 2008 primaries, I’ll be sorely tempted to vote for a Democrat in November, just to do my part to atone for conservatives’ sins. Operation Chaos is evil.

Wacky Colorado Weather

Forecast is for sunny with a high of 78 tomorrow, but snow on Thursday.

Yeesh.

China and the Beleaguered White Male: Unlikely bedfellows?

Chinese students studying in America are upset over criticisms of the Chinese government’s treatment of Tibet:

No matter what China does, these students say, it cannot win in the arena of world opinion. “When we have a billion people, you said we were destroying the planet./ When we tried limiting our numbers, you said it is human rights abuse,” reads a poem posted on the Internet by “a silent, silent Chinese” and cited by some students as an accurate expression of their feelings. “When we were poor, you thought we were dogs./ When we loan you cash, you blame us for your debts./ When we build our industries, you called us polluters./ When we sell you goods, you blame us for global warming.”

All I can say is: welcome to the world of the white male, my friends. Get used to never, ever being in the right.

Bad headlines: the Aussie version

Hicks ’should never have been charged’

says the headline of the story News.Com.au, as they struggle to recast David Hicks as a victim and rather than a terrorist. But what does the article itself say? It says:

Col Davis testified that he “inherited” the Hicks case from a previous prosecutor and would not otherwise have charged him because he wanted to focus on cases serious enough to merit 20 years in prison and the Hicks case did not meet that test.

That doesn’t mean he “should never have been charged.” It simply means that his case wasn’t a priority. But Australian liberals are determined to clear the name of this ne’er-do-well. I suppose they’ll eventually succeed.

Because nobody else cares.

From the “totally not worth it” file

From Brit scientists:

Eating five tomatoes a day could help protect against sunburn and premature ageing, research suggests.

Five tomatoes a day, huh? Doesn’t sound very likely. But it gets worse – turns out that the benefits can only be realized after you turn the tomatoes into paste. Yuk.

Check out what they put the volunteers through:

Researchers studied the skin of 20 people, half of whom were given five tablespoons (55g) of standard tomato paste, the equivalent of five or six cooked tomatoes, with 10g of olive oil. The other half received just olive oil.

I’m surprised there were any survivors.

Things I hope I never say…

“I rushed down to the lab, saw the wasp sperm on the flowers glowing blue under UV light and was absolutely delighted.”

From here. (H/T to Hot Air)

India and the elections = vote for McCain

An op-ed in the Times of India has a lot to say about the political situation in the US – some of it poorly informed, but all of it interesting. The writer starts off by pointing out that a Hillary presidency is not necessarily a triumph for women’s rights:

…female rulers are not news at all in South Asia. Every major country in the region has had female rulers — Indira and Sonia Gandhi in India, Begums Hasina and Khaleda in Bangladesh, Benazir Bhutto in Pakistan, and Srimavo Bandaranaike and Chandrika Kumaratunge in Sri Lanka.

All these women attained power because they were related to earlier male prime ministers. Hence, they represented a feudal culture of inheritance within powerful families, not of feminists storming male bastions. Hilary Clinton’s rise also owes much to her relationship with a powerful male president. So, a Hilary victory would replicate the South Asian model, with women coming to power via the bedroom door. From a gender viewpoint, that is not an uplifting model.

I’d give her candidacy more credit than that – there are few politicians who don’t try to benefit from their associations with past presidents, even if they haven’t slept with them. Still, it’s interesting that the supposedly progressive nature of southern Asian politics can be considered to be a manifestation of the old feudal system.

Then he gets to McCain:

However, what matters for Indo-US relations is not the colour, gender or war record of any presidential candidate. What matters is their position on key bilateral issues. And in this regard, McCain beats Clinton and Obama hollow.
…
Indians find Obama and Clinton more likeable than McCain, but personal likeability is irrelevant in international relations. McCain will be best for India. It’s a pity that he will probably lose.

He bases the desirability of McCain on only two issues: support for India’s nuclear power program (where he praises Bush’s policy), and free trade (and visas to the US). Shows what’s important to our most important potential ally.

China has been courting India at least as strongly as Bush has. India has done an excellent job of playing the suitors against one another, making no enemies and accepting all the gifts they bring to win her over. Eventually India will have to make a decision, but unless we continue our courtship, the decision will be made for them.

One or two decades from now, our geopolitical position will either be at a rough parity (a US-India alliance vs. a China-Russia alliance) or at a decided disadvantage (the US vs. everybody else). McCain has been an ass in many ways, but for this reason alone I would feel compelled to vote for him.

Don’t sit out. Don’t screw around. Vote for McCain.

The Stupid Question: “Was the Invasion of Iraq Worth It?

How many times have we seen poll results for this question?

“All in all, considering the costs to the United States versus the benefits to the United States, do you think the war with Iraq was worth fighting, or not? (4/10/08)”

Worth It	Not Worth It	Unsure
%	%	%
34	64	2

That’s actually one of the better versions of the question, because it asks for a cost vs. benefit assessment. But it’s still a stupid question, because at this point none of the benefits have been realized. This is like paying for a car that you’ve never seen, and being asked if the purchase was worth it.

So what are the future benefits of the Iraq invasion? Today Fred Kaplan Kagan (in an excellent article on the definition of “success” in Iraq) mentions a few:

Success will have been achieved when Iraq is a stable, representative state that controls its own territory, is oriented toward the West, and is an ally in the struggle against militant Islamism, whether Sunni or Shia.

What Kaplan Kagan leaves out is that Iraq is in the very center of the Middle East. Success in Iraq means planting a seed in the Middle East that will hopefully influence its neighbors by showing a path toward peaceful, mutually beneficial, reconciliation between Western and Middle Eastern values. This is incredibly important, since the alternative is quite possibly an eventual military reconciliation between those values.

So that stupid poll question should be rewritten:

“Would the invasion of Iraq have been worth it if led to a fundamental realignment of Middle Eastern societies toward the West, stabilized the Middle East, averted a major armed conflict, and undercut Islamic extremism at its source?”

I would hope that would result in more supportive poll responses.

Pauperizing at the paper of record

Conservative blogs are chuckling over the NYT’s impending layoffs – the first mass layoffs in its 156-year history. Just looking at the circulation numbers, you knew that this had to happen. And frankly, given the NYT’s appalling performance and unbridled arrogance over the past 5 years, a bit of gloating seems well-deserved.

But a quick note to the NY Post: don’t plan on picking any of these folk up, lest you follow in the NYT’s unfortunate footsteps. Anyway, I’m sure they’ll be fine – they can just start picking up that easy blog money that’s always lying around.

H/T: Ace

Marvin Arrington – My Kind of Judge

You may remember the story of Judge Marvin Arrington, who cleared his courtroom of all white people so that he could lecture the remaining black audience on getting their act together. Many blogs and pundits called him a racist, however well-intentioned.

Today we hear that he and Bill Cosby are teaming up to lecture “foundering youth” from the black community, trying to convince them that by hunkering down and applying themselves, they can succeed within the system.

The ticketed event, which is not open to the public, is for foundering youths recommended by school systems and juvenile courts. Parent are encouraged to attend with them.

Cosby and Arrington hope to convince them that they can improve their situations instead of being resigned to them.

Arrington should know.
…
“I was an inner-city thug,” Arrington said. “Wouldn’t listen to anybody. Teachers turned me around.”

I think it’s clear where Arrington’s heart lies, and that his no-nonsense, tough love message is one that may help turn many lives around. And I find it difficult to be too troubled if he has to racially purify a venue or two to deliver that message. Racism is not always the worst crime one can commit, and is sometimes not a crime at all. After all, Affirmative Action programs are inherently racist, but they are generally felt to be racist in the service of a good cause [most conservatives feel that they now cause more harm than good, but that is beside the point].

I think Arrington and Cosby are deserving of our full support, and I hope that we can all set aside any resentments over the courtroom incident. We need more judges like Marvin Arrington.

Are Dems unhappy with Howard Dean?

The Dems start to rue their choice for DNC chairmen:

Democratic stalwarts who overwhelmingly elected Dr. Howard Dean as Democratic National Committee chairman may be wishing they’d gotten a second opinion, analysts said.

As the presidential primary season grinds on, the ex-Vermont governor once hailed as a 21st century grass-roots fund-raising guru now could be held responsible for procedural missteps that could squander the Dems’ chance to overthrow the Republican party.

It’s funny that the Dems are starting to echo the GOP’s criticisms of their candidates. Many articles have been written about Democratic voters’ newfound distaste for the shenanigans of the Clintons, and now we have the Dems starting to realize that Dean was probably not a great choice to chair the DNC. That makes him even less of a great choice for the presidency.

It’s nice when the Left and the Right can agree.

This quote in the article was especially funny:

“Howard Dean is caught between the devil and the deep blue sea,” said Christopher Hull, political professor at Georgetown University.

That’s not very kind, Professor Hull, and it’s kind of ambiguous, as well – which one are you calling the devil?

The NYT vs. the NY Post

The New York Times’ financial woes and declining circulation (<== this is an excellent post, BTW) are well known, and have been attributed to encroachment by the internet. But many conservatives feel that the NYT’s institutionalized reporting problems and bias are as much to blame as the internet. I think the conservatives are right.

Take a look at the daily circulation of the NYT’s crosstown rival, the New York Post:

I don’t think you can explain the circulation numbers of the two newspapers by blaming alternate media.