Top 12 things that James O'Keefe did not do.

Click here for the James O'Keefe story and my earlier commentary.

Click here for Ben Stein's commentary on James O'Keefe.

We still don't know exactly what O'Keefe is supposed to have done that is illegal. I will add to this story only by listing the top 12 things that O'Keefe did not do:

1. He did not falsely accuse American soldiers of purposely shooting at journalists.
2. He did not alter a photo of Condi Rice to make her eyes appear "demonic."
3. He did not publish a photo of an
   unrelated car to dramatize the aftermath of
   shots fired at an Italian journalist.
4. He did not falsely report that a Koran
   had been flushed down the toilet, thus touching
   off riots and death across the middle east.
5. He did not stage a fake canoe ride in 4
   inches of water.
6. He did not attribute muslim riots in Paris
   to "African-Americans."
7. He was not forced to resign after being discovered
   inventing characters for columns.
8. He did not invent the "fake, but accurate" standard.
9. He did not print analysis of Iraqi
   election results prior to the actual elections.
10. He did not coach on-air guests to sound angry
    in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.
11. He did not invent a story about baby seal hunts in Canada.
12. He did not use fake quotes, interviews and sources, forcing the resignation of his executive editor.

These are only the things that O'Keefe did not do in 2004 and 2005. This list does not include the things O'Keefe has not done since that time. The corresponding people and organizations who actually did these things are listed here (with links). They remain at large:

1. CNN
2. USA Today
3. AP
4. Newsweek
5. NBC
6. CNN
7. Sacremento Bee
8. CBS
9. L.A. Times
10. CNN
11. Boston Globe
12. New York Times

Ann Coulter on Walter Cronkite

In a controlled scientific experiment, Donahue was given his own TV show on MSNBC in the new competitive environment of cable TV. That Boy's ratings are the lowest in primetime TV for any news program. They are so low, Nielsen can barely detect them. One wishes bitterly that MSNBC could give shows to all the other pompous liberal blowhards once forced on the public, like Edward R. Murrow and Walter Cronkite, so we could see how they'd fare with a little competition. Nielsen would not be able to "See It Now."

Ann Coulter - February 19, 2003

Quote of the day - Dana Milbank - planted questioners at "press" conference

The use of planted questioners is a no-no at presidential news conferences, because it sends a message to the world -- Iran included -- that the American press isn't as free as advertised. But yesterday wasn't so much a news conference as it was a taping of a new daytime drama, "The Obama Show."

Dana Milbank - Washington Post - 6-24-09

Eugene Lyons; Red Decade; Stalinists of the 1930's

Those of us who grow frustrated at the seeming contradictions of leftists' public positions should take comfort in the knowledge that this policy is nothing new for the leftists.

Today, we see leftists (1) demand different methods of counting votes depending on whether the method helps their candidate, (2) remain silent about DHS targeting of private, nonleftist citizens even though the left previously opposed the creation of this very Department, (3) oppose all anti-abortion religions except those whose operatives kill large numbers of Americn citizens, (4) honor national heroes only when a Democrat President can claim credit for their success, (5) support the very concept of public protest except when the protesters are against higher taxes, (6) arrange public protests to honor cop killers while smearing anti-tax protesters, (7) decry Hitler comparisons when a Democrat occupies the White House after supporting such comparisons during a Republican administration, etc., etc., etc., etc.

Eugene Lyons summarized these rapidly changing public positions during the 1930's:

In the same speech, on the same page, people defended executions and concentration camps in Russia and went purple denouncing the same phenomena in Germany. They condemned the burning of books in Hitlerland and hurrahed for the burning of authors in Stalinland. Hundreds among them denied vehemently that they were communists, though they were members under false names. Lying and cheating for the cause seemed to them noble and self-sacrificing. And in all this there was no contradiction and no trickery, since it was all on a plane way beyond logic.

Red Decade, p. 184

In the 1930's, the leftists had the excuse that they were taking orders from Stalin. Today, what possible excuse can the leftists claim? What lunatic could possibly order, benefit from or even conceive of the contradictions listed above?



When we are faced with leftist contradictions, it is right that we point them out at every opportunity. But we must do more. We must remember and discuss the history, context and goals of the leftist movement. The leftists are not simply forgetful. They know that they are lying and switching positions solely for political reasons. We must do more than simply point out the "hypocrisy." We must question their motives.

Phony criticism of Obama; whitewash journalism; Red Decade

Now that the luster has started to wear off of the Obama cult of personality (at least temporarily), we can expect "journalists" from the MSM/DNC to pretend to criticize the administration so as to appear fair. I wrote of this tactic in the list of bias categories in 2005:

14. Whitewash/Softball criticism of leftist public figures. Whenever the MSM/DNC is forced to acknowledge some scandal that reflects badly on one of their own, MSM/DNC pretends to investigate and criticize for all of the wrong reasons. The CBS/Rathergate report criticized CBS for trying to be first instead of for biased reporting. Some MSM/DNC spokesman eventually were forced to criticize Bill Clinton for committing adultery and lying instead of for trading high tech ICMB delivery systems to China. MSM/DNC hacks grudgingly admitted that Jimmy Carter was "naive" "inexperienced" or "lacked savvy" instead of pointing out his real fault - nearly losing the cold war. These softball whitewashes provide cover for the real crimes/faults of those on the left. They are the equivalent of the getaway driver throwing some of the robbery loot out the window to distract the pursuing police. We should rarely expect a real investigation from the MSM/DNC about one of their own. And we should never let the MSM/DNC investigation cause us to hold back our own criticism.

This tactic is as old as the leftists' support for Stalin during the 1930's. As Eugene Lyons wrote (of leftist Louis Fischer) in 1941:

If occasionally he [Fischer] implied that there were stains on Soviet perfection, it only served to fortify his standing as a neutral commentator. Once he suggested cautiously in an article that Joseph Stalin could be wrong. For months thereafter he boasted of that feat of daring, while waiting for the lightning to strike.

Red Decade, p. 116 (1971 edition)

Today's "journalists" have not yet reached the level of bravery of Louis Fischer.

Charles Gibson; Sarah Palin; editing; MSNBC anchors; status of "new media" revolution

It is now no secret that ABC heavily edited the Gibson-Palin interview to distort her answers and leave out key information. Mark Levin posts the transcript with the edited portions. See also LGF.

This episode and other recent election related news occurring on or near the fourth anniversary of Rathergate forces me to ask what effect Rathergate has really had on the MSM/DNC.

Consider the following. In the past few weeks, we have seen a merciless MSM/DNC attack on Sarah Palin that was best summarized by Mark Steyn last week:

a stampede of lurid drivel deriding her as a Stepford wife and a dominatrix, comparing her to Islamic fundamentalists, Pontius Pilate and porn stars, and dismissing her as a dysfunctional brood mare who can't possibly be the biological mother of the kid she was too dumb to abort

Consider also that MSNBC was recently forced to remove two of its anchors from election coverage because the coverage was too blatant even for NBC's taste.

The MSM/DNC appears more partisan and hostile than ever.

Do these recent MSM/DNC activities indicate that the new media revolution is a failure? Was Rathergate in vain?

In July 2005 (in the midst of the Guantanamo nonissue), I predicted that the MSM/DNC would grow even more hostile and bitter as it struggled to forestall the revolution:

But in the meantime, the MSM/DNC has become and will become more vicious and partisan than ever. . . . From now on, we can expect that in the aftermath of every new scandal, the MSM/DNC will spare no effort to justify whatever blunder some MSM/DNC outlet has made. If the Washington Post says that the sky is purple and the blogosphere takes a different view, every Democratic politician will hire skywriters to spread purple smoke throughout the atmosphere. The consequences to the MSM/DNC of doing any less will be another huge loss like Rathergate. We should be prepared for Guantanamo type battles every time we point out another MSM/DNC blunder or lie.

July 3, 2005

Recent events have been predictable. It was predictable that the MSM/DNC would not easily allow a popular conservative uprising to prevent the Messiah from becoming President. It was predictable that MSM/DNC would use every available tactic to achieve its ends.

But this time, not only do we have the tools to fight back and expose the truth, our base (and others) know where to go to find the truth. When we see a clumsily edited interview on television that just does not seem right, we know that we have many options for discovering what really happened.

And it is working. The MSM/DNC is much more widely recognized as biased. Palin's popularity continues to grow despite these efforts. Even UPI is predicting a possible backlash.

NBC's removal of Matthews and Olbermann resulted from pressure from Republican delegates at the RNC convention. Chants of "NBC!" "NBC!" during Palin's speech allegedly unnerved NBC officials to the point of taking action. (They can withstand cries of general media bias, but they do not like to be singled out during a highly viewed nationwide address.) Much as it did in 2004, direct action by the conservative base forced out well known MSM/DNC anchors. The MSNBC affair, much more directly than the Palin, coverage points out that new media and conservatives have the power to fight back.

We should not be disheartened simply because the old media has not reformed itself four years after Rathergate. We knew it would remain our enemy. We were not trying to reform the MSM/DNC. Instead, we have been educating the general public and providing alternatives. To that extent, the revolution has worked. While our enemy grows more desparate and vicious, we grow stronger. Keep exposing the lies and we may not have to care how biased the MSM/DNC is for very long.

Quote of the day - Mark Steyn

A conventional launch strategy for a little-known vice-presidential nominee might have involved "manipulating" the media into running umpteen front-pagers on Sarah Palin's amazing primary challenge of a sitting governor and getting the sob-sisters to slough off a ton of heartwarming stories about her son shipping out to Iraq.

But, if you were really savvy, you'd "manipulate" the media into a stampede of lurid drivel deriding her as a Stepford wife and a dominatrix, comparing her to Islamic fundamentalists, Pontius Pilate and porn stars, and dismissing her as a dysfunctional brood mare who can't possibly be the biological mother of the kid she was too dumb to abort. Who knows? It's a long shot, but if you could pull it off, a really cunning media manipulator might succeed in manipulating Howie's buddies into spending the month after Labor Day outbidding each other in some insane Who Wants To Be An Effete Condescending Media Snob? death-match. You'd not only make the press look like bozos, but that in turn might tarnish just a little the fellow these geniuses have chosen to anoint.

Mark Steyn - 9-11-2008

Sarah Palin rumor scorecard.

Here is a scorecard for the Sarah Palin rumors and MSM/DNC lies. H/T "Explorations."

Michelle Kosinski; Iowa flood coverage; fake canoe stunt; Today Show

I have been watching the coverage of the Iowa floods for about a week on the Today Show. I have noted the absence of Michelle Kosinski from any such coverage until this morning.

Michelle Kosinski handling a prior story


Kosinski is the "reporter" who was caught reporting from a canoe live almost three years ago during some relatively minor flooding in New Jersey. The problem occurred when two men walked past her canoe revealing the water to be only ankle-high. The incident became notorious and the subject of blooper reels and internet mirth. I still receive google traffic from people researching the incident. Newsbusters received record traffic over this incident. [I wonder what NBC's Washington bureau chief Tim Russert thought of the incident at the time.]

Michelle Kosinski canoe incident - 2005


I could not help but remember Kosinski's prior experience with flood coverage as I watched her this morning. I found myself paying closer attention than normal as I scrutinized everything she said and every piece of film that accompanied her report.

I would love to know the decision making process that resulted in Kosinski travelling to Iowa (whether at all or after one week had elapsed) to cover this story.

• Did NBC figure that three years was long enough for the viewers to forget the canoe incident?
• Did NBC delay Kosinski's involvement in the Iowa story because of the 2005 canoe incident?
• Did NBC even remember the canoe incident?
• Did they let Kosinski go to Iowa only if she promised to stay out of canoes?
• Were NBC's editors and producers extra careful in reviewing the report before putting it on the air?
• Did NBC figure that since the flooding was real this time, there would not be a need for a staged event, thus making Kosinski less likely to pull another stunt?
• Was the original canoe stunt even Kosinski's idea - or was it suggested by the Today Show producers, thus making Kosinski a mere scapegoat?
• Does NBC simply not care how it is perceived anymore?

The MSM/DNC must be the only employer for whom you can continue to work despite being caught defrauding your customers live on TV.
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Newsbusters posts Michelle Kosinski's history.

Iowa 2008 v. New Orleans 2005 - the un-Katrina flood response.

If the new media does its job, the Iowa floods will finally accomplish what 3 years and the truth could not accomplish - remove Hurricane Katrina from the talking points of the MSM/DNC.

Iowa 2008


In Iowa, 83 of the state's 99 counties have been declared disaster areas (according to NBC this morning). While no Iowa city is as large as New Orleans, the devastation is no less thorough throughout the entire state.

Consider the differences between the Iowa floods of 2008 and Katrina (2005):

• No one is trapped in a convention center or other public building.


• Evacuations were not delayed by incompetent local officials.


• Instead of looting, the citizens are volunteering to provide sandbags and protect their homes and cities.


• We see no corrupt politicians on TV crying about invented stories.


• We don't see corrupt politicians trying to blame the President.


• We don't yet see MSM/DNC outlets coaching guests to be angry (give that one some time - the crisis is still young).


• We have not seen parking lots full of buses that could have been used to evacuate the victims.


• We don't hear cries of racism or conspiracy theories.


• We have not yet seen celebrities making a big show of doing nothing.


• We have not yet seen Senators making a big show of doing nothing.


• We have not yet seen reporters making a big show of doing nothing.


• We have not seen local officials more concerned with the racial make-up of their city than solving the problem.

volunteers sandbagging the water instead of "journalists" sandbagging the viewers.


AP












The bottom line is, we are seeing more self-reliance and less complaining in Iowa. The citizens evacuated themselves instead of waiting for someone to rescue them. Iowa will not become a political football as did New Orleans. But it may show the contrast that will deflate the Katrina football and deprive the MSM/DNC of another weapon.

update - Sunday evening:

Lagniappe's Lair posted something very similar yesterday.

Arhooley comments thusly:

. . . . another underreported story was the San Diego wildfires of a few months back. With no assistance from the government (none asked and none provided), private citizens and businesses oversaw the best-organized refuge center in our Qualcomm Park that a person could imagine. Pets were taken care of, translation services provided, medical facilities set up, kids' entertainment provided, blankets and beds donated in plenty. With KOGO radio talking several times an hour with the refuge center's organizer, it generally took about 15 minutes from the time a need was announced on the air to the time a truck was pulling up outside the stadium. San Diegans volunteered all over the county to open their homes and staff assistance centers. Oh yes, and Barbara Boxer did fly in to Qualcomm to denounce George Bush for depriving San Diegans of National Guardsmen and firefighters for his war for oil. What would we have done without her?

--------------------------------------------
update - Joe Soucheray gets it.

Tim Russert, Keith Oblermann, Barack Hussein Obama, "strawman" arguments, Reverend Wright, John Kerry, George Soros, "historic" elections

The news of Tim Russert's passing has dominated the television for the past day. [Update - 6-16-08 - Debbie Schlussel comments on the endless coverage.]

Many conservatives have praised Russert and conducted themselves with more class than the left ever did at the death of a non-leftist.

I noted from watching Russert's old interview with Charlie Rose last night the real difference between Russert and someone like Keith Olbermann. Russert was not a one-trick pony. He could speak about a variety of topics with conviction and thoroughness. Olbermann seems to have nothing to talk about except for his hatred of the Republicans. Even when Oblermann hosts the NBC Sunday football program, the viewer expects that he is about to drop the football talk and explode into a "Bush is Hitler" rant. Regardless of ideology, there is more to Russert than Olbmermann or Chris Matthews or many others.

That being said, conservatives are fooling themselves if they believe Russert was unbiased or did not advocate the leftist cause. The rest of this post is necessary and is not meant to detract from our thoughts of sympathy for the family on the occasion of this untimely tragedy.

Russert's bias was much more subtle than that of most MSM/DNC employees, and therefore escaped notice by most conservatives. I know of no examples of Russert engaging in the outright lie.

Russert, instead, used the strawman(#15).

(1) Reverend Wright. In one of the last efforts of his life, Russert was recording an interview with MSNBC about Obama and this campaign yesterday. He summarized the arguments against Obama with a mythical conversation:

I remember being in Indianapolis covering the Indiana primary and a man came up to me and said he wasn’t going to vote for Senator Obama because he was very concerned about the comments made by Jeremiah Wright, Obama’s pastor. I said, “That’s interesting. As a reporter, I’m curious what comments particularly bothered you?” He said, “Well, I can’t think of any that come to mind, but I also read on the Internet that he’s a Muslim.” And I said, “Now wait a minute. You can’t have both. You can’t be offended by his Christian minister and then say he’s a Muslim. You’ve got to pick one.”

Had this been a real conversation, Russert's nemesis would have had no trouble remembering what particularly offended him about Wright. The only people in this country who don't remember "AIDs Conspiracy Sunday, or God Damn America Sunday, or U.S. of KKKA Sunday, or the Post-9/11 America-Had-It-Coming Memorial Service" are apparently Barack Obama and Tim Russert. [And even Obama threw Wright under the bus long before Russert was apparently trying to argue, yesterday, that no one could identify what Wright had done wrong.]

And no, we don't need to choose between our legitimate reservations regarding Obama's judgment over the Wright affair and our concern with what Obama's own Kenyan brother has referred to as Obama's Muslim background. The fact remains that Reverend Wright is repellant and Obama has a Muslim background. Both facts can be and are true. Russert's strawman story cannot disprove these facts.

(2) John Kerry - 2006. Just before the 2006 elections, John Kerry insulted all American servicemen while campaigning for the Democrat congressional candidates, thus jeopardizing the Democrats' attempts to retake the House and Senate. Tim Russert attempted to ride to the rescue with an invented Kerry "apology" that explained away the insult. In this case, Russert had to invent a strawman apology from his own side in order to diffuse a problem created by John Kerry.

(3) Obama - "smears." Russert's final interview also promoted the Obama website whose stated goal is to refute "smears" against Obama. Russert alleged that Obama's opponents were going to create a new website to "spread the rumors, so that people that go to the Internet to get clarification will go to the wrong web site and get confused." Legitimate criticisms against Obama are thus dismissed as "rumors" designed to "confuse" people.

(4) Scott McClellan. Two weeks ago, Russert discussed Scott McClellan's book on the Today Show. While not explicitly endorsing or agreeing with the book, he subtly defended the book by stating "This is not Moveon.org" (George Soros' organization) even as it was being revealed elsewhere that a Soros' company published the book. While Russert may not have known of the Soros' connection, he never retracted that statement and he was eager to build up the book's credibility. In attempting to knock down a straw man argument ("moveon.org is behind this book") he accidentally hit upon the truth.

(5) Hillary - drivers licenses - the 15 year drought. Tim Russert took 15 years before he finally asked the Clintons a tough question. It was great that Russert helped Hillary trip herself up on the illegal alien/drivers license question last fall, but he waited until a more leftist viable candidate appeared on the scene. This was not a "strawman" example, but it shows that Russert is willing to be tough on the leftist standard bearer only when a more viable leftist replacement exists. Russert's toughness thus becomes the real strawman in this situation.

(6) "Historic" - Russert never explicitly said "vote for Obama." But as much as anyone else, Russert has referred to the 2008 election as "historic." Even yesterday's blurb at MSNBC states the following - "Tim Russert spent a lifetime preparing to cover the historic 2008 primary elections." As strange as that statement is, it points up the subtlety in the use of the word "historic." Russert used that word "historic" since the primaries began. Translation - a black man is going to be elected President for the first time. That is the only possible meaning of "historic" in this context. There would be nothing "historic" about a mundane Republican victory, so the continued use of that word implies that the Republicans will lose. If you don't vote for the Democrat, this election will lose its historic flavor. The use of the word "historic" allows Russert (and many others) to promote Obama without being explicit.

Russert demonstrated the most dangerous kind of bias. Everyone can ignore the raving lunatic like Olbermann. But a politician is more effective when he sits behind the news desk and refuses to endorse or openly advocate but, instead, boxes in one side with strawman arguments that take the form of "reporting" and "journalism."

The battle is not won or lost with the actual arguments pro or con. The battle is won or lost when the issue is framed. Russert framed the issues for the public, thus allowing the Democrats the simplicity of fighting strawman arguments. In the courtroom the parties begin each legal filing with an identification of the "issues" before the facts are even argued. The court accepts one lawyer's (or the other's) definition of the "issues." The party that gets to define the issues usually wins the battle - in court or in politics.

Russert was a lawyer (having graduated law school in the 1970's). It is telling that the MSM/DNC's most effective advocate was not really a journalist, but a lawyer. The MSM/DNC advocates - it does not report. Russert defined the issues, while Olbermann and others made factual arguments based on those definitions.

This is how the MSM/DNC really works. Understanding the MSM/DNC requires us to understand Tim Russert more so than we understand the more obvious leftists. Otherwise, we will be reduced to perpetually praising those who would box us in with strawman arguments.

"I have a dream" - 45 year anniversary - Obama acceptance speech.

August 28, 2008 will be the 45th anniversary of Martin Luther King's "I have a dream" speech. That same night, Barack Hussein Obama will deliver his acceptance speech to the Democrat national convention. In trying to turn this event into something historic, the MSM/DNC will repeatedly remind us all of this connection for the next three months. ("As we approach the 45 year anniversary of Dr. Reverand Martin Luther King, Jr.'s historic speech, Barack Obama prepares to make history himself. . . . etc. etc.")

But the MSM/DNC has a problem. The MLK speech has been so hyped for the past 4decades that neither Obama (nor anyone else) can live up to it.

But regardless of how well Obama actually performs, the MSM/DNC will treat it better than the Gettysburg Address and the Sermon on the Mount. Here is a sample of what MSM/DNC mouthpieces will say about Obama's speech:

- "truly historic"

- "transcends politics"

- "a new era has begun"

- "I will always remember where I was when I heard THE SPEECH."

- "something to tell our grandchildren about"

- "my leg is tingling"

The analysis and commentary is already written. The decision has been made. Obama's acceptance speech will be great. You will love it and worship it and be inspired - or else.

But now the hard part begins. Obama's handlers at the MSM/DNC must actually write something for Obama that sounds remotely like those post-speech comments. You can bet that speechwriters from all over the world are devoting themselves to this task. They have a little more than two months and three weeks (assuming they have not been working on it already for the past few months) to fill the teleprompter with stirring words.

The speech may include a new laundry list of things to dream about. We may discover that Obama has been dreaming about the end to war (the teleprompter will avoid the phrase "peace in our time") or the restoration of America's reputation among foreign nations. He will dream about the end of bitter, divisive politics and the rebirth of prosperity, where Americans can afford to keep their homes without fear of foreclosure. He will dream about the end of fear generally.

Obama will dream about the restoration of all of those industrial jobs that we have lost (but it is doubtful that the teleprompter will contain the word "China"). The speechwriters may contrast the "nightmare" of global warming with Obama's dream of a clean environment. The speechwriters may contrast many such "nightmares" with Obama's dreams. The nightmare of war, the nightmare of those hurricanes that Bush sent to New Orleans, the nightmare of all of that domestic spying that Bush/Halliburton is doing to this country and its legitimate dissidents like Khalid Sheik Mohhamed. But the nightmare theme will be downplayed, as the speech must be positive and must promise the moon.

Obama will dream that every child will be a planned and wanted child, who will then have access to government health care, midnight basketball, targeted tax credits for tuition and the end to the fear of being gunned down in school.

----------------------------------------------
update - I almost forgot - Obama's dream will also include the end of lobbyists in American politics (except for NARAL, unions, the trial lawyers, environmentalists, etc. etc.).
end update
----------------------------------------------

These are among the many dreams that speechwriters are busy cobbling together for the Obama acceptance speech.

It will be fun that evening to watch the commentators feign genuine emotion at hearing the speech, the basic substance of which they will already know (or can easily predict).

Two and 1/2 months may not be enough, as the MSM/DNC has 45 years of hype to live up to.

previous - The race speech.

Scott McClellan; George Soros; Dick Morris; Clint Murchison; Barr McClellan; Peter Osnos; JFK; LBJ; assassination plot

Scott McClellan's new book "What Happened" is not worth writing about, but the story of its creation and the MSM/DNC efforts to foist yet more white noise on the American people is noteworthy.

First of all, there is nothing noteworthy in the book, as Dick Morris has pointed out. (I will not bother to read the book, but Morris' analysis is logical.) McClellan's anti-Bush conclusions are supported by nothing that would be unique to any insider. There is no bombshell factual revelation.

It has become clear that as McClellan began writing the book, the book was bland with no reason for the MSM/DNC to provide any coverage. At some point, the publisher exerted some degree of influence, and the project "evolved" (as the Washington Post has acknowledged. The Post tries to downplay the influence of the publisher. The Post quotes publisher Peter Osnos (a former Post editor) as part of the effort to downplay the influence of Osnos' publishing company. The Post refers to Osnos' publishing company "PublicAffairs" as a "small company," but never acknowledges that PublicAffairs and Osnos are part of the George Soros empire that owns the Democratic Party.

Flopping Aces writes more on the evolution of the book from a drab say-nothing book to a drab anti-Bush book (and the publisher's role in said evolution).

But even more interesting is the history of McClellan's father, Barr McClellan. You see, Barr McClellan is an author also. He became a partner in the Austin law firm of Clark, Thomas and Winters in 1972. At that point, "he was told about the illegal activities of the firm. . . " including the assassination of President John Kennedy. As a result of this inside information, he quit the firm five years later to start his own firm. I guess when you are gen-u-ine insiders like the McClellan's, it takes time to figure out that you don't like what you see on the inside.

Dad's belated crazy book
















But I digress. Barr McClellan decided to write a tell-all book in which he revealed the assassination plot - a plot so extensive it included Dallas Cowboy owner Clint Murchison, Lyndon Johnson, oilman Haroldson Hunt and others.

JFK assassin Clint Murchison (rear left) talking with Tom Landry and other Dallas Cowboy officials.
















The book is entitled Blood Money and Power: How L.B.J. Killed J.F.K. I am not sure how the law firm was involved, but it sounds like a more interesting story than Scott McClellan's book.


An attractive attorney at Clark Thomas and Winters - [I wonder if she knows that she is working for assassins. Maybe Scott should let her and the other employees in on the secret. Come to think of it, maybe Scott should have mentioned this whole JFK assassination thing to the President while he was working at the White House - unless, of course, Bush was in on it too. I guess that is the subject of his next book.]




In any event, the MSM/DNC's (1) failure to mention that Goerge Soros is the publisher of Scott McClellan's book (2) attempts to depict the publisher as "small" (3) failure to mention that Scott McClellan's father is a first class nut who published more interesting crap than his son ever could and (4) other stuff that we are not yet aware of - is all standard operating procedure to which we have become accustomed.

I wonder, in the entire McClellan book (Scott's - not Barr's) is there even one lie depicted that comes close to the Washington Post description of Scott's publisher as "small"?

What is more interesting is that George W. Bush hired this man in the first place. Memo to future moderate Republican presidents: Don't hire the insane or their children. George W. Bush is lucky that "war propoganda" is all that he was accused of. I can't wait to see what kind of crazies are lining up to work in the McCain administration.

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visit counter added on January 25, 2009.

Shroud of Turin; Matt Lauer's teleprompter thinks Jesus died in "one A.D."

I already knew that in order to host the Today Show, one had to pass some sort of atheist litmus test. It became obvious long ago that individuals could not rise to the top of the MSM/DNC food chain without some degree of hostility to (or at least ignorance of) Christianity.

But I did not know that ignorance of history is a requirement also. Nor did I suspect that basic math (addition, subtraction, counting, etc.) is "frowned upon" as well. I have often suspected that network teleprompter writers believed that history began only with Vietnam, but I never knew how literally true this suspicion was.

On Good Friday, March 21, Matt Lauer's teleprompter featured a segment on the Shroud of Turin, the alleged burial shroud of Jesus.

Shroud of Turin

















There is a question as to how old the Shroud is, with some scholars believing the Shroud to be a Medieval hoax (about 600 - 700 years old), while others believe it was used for Jesus' burial (shortly after Jesus' death on the cross). Without taking sides in the dispute, I note only the questions that Matt Lauer asked one of the experts. While I don't remember the exact question, the question was prefaced with the assumption that the Shroud may have originated in "1 A.D." Lauer repeated "1 A.D." a second time moments later.

Even a moment's reflection would reveal that Jesus could not have died in "1 A.D." Jesus lived about 30 years. His death is generally recognized to have occurred between 29 A.D. and 33 A.D. Even if one did not know when Jesus died, his death could hardly have occurred in "1 A.D." He would have been only 1 year old at that time. If Lauer's teleprompter assumed that Jesus was born in "1 B.C." or "zero" (there was no year "zero"), then how would we number the years in which Jesus was alive?

In fact, the year "1 A.D." marks the year of Jesus' birth, not his death. "A.D." does not mean "after death" as we supposed when we were five years old. It means Anno Domini - in the year of our lord. The phrase is Latin [not the language spoken by people in "Latin America," but the language of ancient Rome and its subject territories].

I am not trying to make a case here, as these facts are well established and commonly recognized. I am simply trying to point out that these questions should have occurred to Lauer as he was reading "1 A.D." on his teleprompter. But I am beginning to suspect that we have only begun to plumb the depths of MSM/DNC ignorance.

What the MSM/DNC did not tell us about the NIU killer and the hollow book guy; Benjamin Baines; Steven Kazmierczak; Rasmieyh Abdelnabi

The man who hid a box cutter in a hollowed out book at the Tampa Airport also had some other items in his backpack:

Officers found books in the backpack titled "Muhammad in the Bible," "The Prophet's Prayer" and "The Noble Qur'an." He also had a copy of the Quran and the Bible.

H/T Debbie Schlussel

The MSM/DNC did not dwell on the RoP connection.

A dry run?










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In the case of the NIU killer, the first thing I thought of when I heard the initial report of the shooting was the Religion of Peace. But then I heard that he was a liberal sociology major and I dropped the RoP angle. But now Debbie Schlussel reports on the RoP connection:

Unlike most of us, Steve started his research from day one, reading every book he could find on Hamas. He'd give me a status report when we saw each other in class. Steve said that his perception of Hamas changed with all the research he did.

quoting Rasmieyh Abdelnabi in the Chicago Sun-Times

Rasmieyh Abdelnabi






We did not hear about Kazmierczak's affinity for Arabic and Hamas because the MSM/DNC is too busy blaming guns and video games. We will never win the war on terror if we cannot identify our enemy.

Quote of the day - Ann Coulter

But liberals are still fighting the 2000 presidential election -- if only to take a break from fighting the 1973 Chilean coup by Augusto Pinochet. They never rest, they never give up, they never stop lying. Liberals lie and lie and lie and then, the moment conservatives respond, they shout: OLD NEWS!

Ann Coulter - December 12, 2007

Mitt Romney's Mormon speech; The Coming of the Mormons

I did not hear Mitt Romney's speech today about his religion. But the speech has received national attention, as MSM/DNC commentators strive to apply their usual victim-group script to every situation. In this case, the MSM/DNC plays the religion card by asking whether America is "ready" for a Mormon president. While the MSM/DNC hates Republicans, its real target is America itself. The MSM/DNC doesn't mind letting a Republican play the coveted "victim" role once in a while, so long as MSM/DNC gets to portray America as a bigoted, ignorant country that fears and "hates" diverse religions.

I am also stricken by the modern tendency to view issues in terms of the superficial headlines of the moment instead of the deeper facts that might truly educate us all. In this case, we hear a constant discussion on the MSM/DNC news, in which various commentors speculate as to what Mormons really believe and what they practice. But the MSM/DNC provides few tools for us to make up our own minds about this religion (or any other issue). We hear a constant din of white noise, consisting of superficial sound bites, but we learn little of any use.

Here is my contribution to the issue. I am not a Mormon, nor do I support Mitt Romney (for reasons other than his religion. My reasons for preferring a different Republican nominee include Romney's flip-flopping on major issues (and see Debbie Schlussel's discussions)). But I do think a further study of Mormonism is in order. Decades ago, American students used to learn a little history in addition to the usual leftist indoctrination. One history book was entitled, "The Coming of the Mormons." This book detailed not only the Mormon migration to Utah, but provided good background into the whole pioneer era.



Regardless of how I feel about Mormonism, I would have a lot more confidence in what I see on television if the television mouthpieces knew even a fraction of the material featured in books like this before assembling stories that impact Presidential races. This is true not only for the Mormon "issue", but for every issue that receives the usual MSM/DNC white noise, race-politics, PC, superficial treatment.

Quote of the day - Cammile Paglia [Hillary's campaigns]

Hillary's stonewalling evasions and mercurial, soulless self-positionings have been going on since her first run for the U.S. Senate from New York, a state she had never lived in and knew virtually nothing about. The liberal Northeastern media were criminally complicit in enabling her queenlike, content-free "listening tour," where she took no hard questions and where her staff and security people (including her government-supplied Secret Service detail) staged events stocked with vetted sympathizers, and where they ensured that no protesters would ever come within camera range.

Camille Paglia

Quote of the day - Ricardo Sanchez

“As I understand it, your measure of worth is how many front page stories you have written and unfortunately some of you will compromise your integrity and display questionable ethics as you seek to keep America informed.”

General Ricardo Sanchez

General Sanchez

Quote of the day - General Ricardo Sanchez

“Almost invariably, my perception is that the sensationalistic value of these assessments is what provided the edge that you [MSM] seek for self aggrandizement or to advance your individual quest for getting on the front page with your stories.”

General Sanchez

General Sanchez with Albanian troops