The Media War...cont.

From PowerLine

Aussie Andrew Bolt takes a look at "The holey ambulance -- the backside covering begins." Melanie Phillips meditates on "The media war against Israel." Michelle Malkin prescribes "No more ambulances for terror." And Secretary Rumsfeld also weighs in with "The will to win" (the Department of Defense has posted the complete text of the speech here):

[W]e find ourselves in a strange time:

* When a database search of America's leading newspapers turns up 10 times as many mentions of one soldier at Abu Ghraib who was punished for misconduct than mentions of Sgt. 1st Class Paul Ray Smith, the first recipient of the Medal of Honor in the War on Terror.

* When a Newsweek senior editor disparagingly refers to the brave volunteers in our Armed Forces as a "mercenary army."

* When the former head of CNN accuses the American military of deliberately targeting journalists and the former CNN Baghdad bureau chief admits he concealed reports of Saddam Hussein's crimes when he was in power so CNN could stay in Iraq.

* And when Amnesty International disgracefully refers to the military facility at Guantanamo Bay - which holds terrorists who have vowed to kill Americans, and is arguably the best run and most scrutinized detention facility in the history of warfare - as "the gulag of our times."

Those who know the truth need to speak out against these kinds of myths and lies and distortions being told about our troops and our country. This watchdog role is even more important today in a war that is to a great extent fought in the global media - to not allow the lies and the myths be repeated without question or challenge, so that at least the second and third draft of history will be more accurate than the quick first allegations.

Will somebody say "Indeed"?

Plame Out

fighting words: A wartime lexicon.

The ridiculous end to the scandal that distracted Washington.

By Christopher Hitchens
Posted Tuesday, Aug. 29, 2006, at 1:02 PM ET

Richard Armitage
I had a feeling that I might slightly regret the title ("Case Closed") of my July 25 column on the Niger uranium story. I have now presented thousands of words of evidence and argument to the effect that, yes, the Saddam Hussein regime did send an important Iraqi nuclear diplomat to Niger in early 1999. And I have not so far received any rebuttal from any source on this crucial point of contention. But there was always another layer to the Joseph Wilson fantasy. Easy enough as it was to prove that he had completely missed the West African evidence that was staring him in the face, there remained the charge that his nonreport on a real threat had led to a government-sponsored vendetta against him and his wife, Valerie Plame.

In his July 12 column in the Washington Post, Robert Novak had already partly exposed this paranoid myth by stating plainly that nobody had leaked anything, or outed anyone, to him. On the contrary, it was he who approached sources within the administration and the CIA and not the other way around. But now we have the final word on who did disclose the name and occupation of Valerie Plame, and it turns out to be someone whose opposition to the Bush policy in Iraq has—like Robert Novak's—long been a byword in Washington. It is particularly satisfying that this admission comes from two of the journalists—Michael Isikoff and David Corn—who did the most to get the story wrong in the first place and the most to keep it going long beyond the span of its natural life.

As most of us have long suspected, the man who told Novak about Valerie Plame was Richard Armitage, Colin Powell's deputy at the State Department and, with his boss, an assiduous underminer of the president's war policy. (His and Powell's—and George Tenet's—fingerprints are all over Bob Woodward's "insider" accounts of post-9/11 policy planning, which helps clear up another nonmystery: Woodward's revelation several months ago that he had known all along about the Wilson-Plame connection and considered it to be no big deal.) The Isikoff-Corn book, which is amusingly titled Hubris, solves this impossible problem of its authors' original "theory" by restating it in a passive voice:

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The disclosures about Armitage, gleaned from interviews with colleagues, friends and lawyers directly involved in the case, underscore one of the ironies of the Plame investigation: that the initial leak, seized on by administration critics as evidence of how far the White House was willing to go to smear an opponent, came from a man who had no apparent intention of harming anyone.

In the stylistic world where disclosures are gleaned and ironies underscored, the nullity of the prose obscures the fact that any irony here is only at the authors' expense. It was Corn in particular who asserted—in a July 16, 2003, blog post credited with starting the entire distraction—that:

The Wilson smear was a thuggish act. Bush and his crew abused and misused intelligence to make their case for war. Now there is evidence Bushies used classified information and put the nation's counter-proliferation efforts at risk merely to settle a score. It is a sign that with this gang politics trumps national security.

After you have noted that the Niger uranium connection was in fact based on intelligence that has turned out to be sound, you may also note that this heated moral tone ("thuggish," "gang") is now quite absent from the story. It turns out that the person who put Valerie Plame's identity into circulation was a staunch foe of regime change in Iraq. Oh, that's all right, then. But you have to laugh at the way Corn now so neutrally describes his own initial delusion as one that was "seized on by administration critics."

What does emerge from Hubris is further confirmation of what we knew all along: the extraordinary venom of the interdepartmental rivalry that has characterized this administration. In particular, the bureaucracy at the State Department and the CIA appear to have used the indiscretion of Armitage to revenge themselves on the "neoconservatives" who had been advocating the removal of Saddam Hussein. Armitage identified himself to Colin Powell as Novak's source before the Fitzgerald inquiry had even been set on foot. The whole thing could—and should—have ended right there. But now read this and rub your eyes: William Howard Taft, the State Department's lawyer who had been told about Armitage (and who had passed on the name to the Justice Department)

also felt obligated to inform White House counsel Alberto Gonzales. But Powell and his aides feared the White House would then leak that Armitage had been Novak's source—possibly to embarrass State Department officials who had been unenthusiastic about Bush's Iraq policy. So Taft told Gonzales the bare minimum: that the State Department had passed some information about the case to Justice. He didn't mention Armitage. Taft asked if Gonzales wanted to know the details. The president's lawyer, playing the case by the book, said no, and Taft told him nothing more.

"[P]laying the case by the book" is, to phrase it mildly, not the way in which Isikoff and Corn customarily describe the conduct of the White House. In this instance, however, the evidence allows them no other choice. But there is more than one way in which a case can be played by the book. Under the terms of the appalling and unconstitutional Intelligence Identities Protection Act (see "A Nutty Little Law," my Slate column of July 26, 2005), the CIA can, in theory, "refer" any mention of itself to the Justice Department to see if the statute—denounced by The Nation and the New York Times when it was passed—has been broken. The bar here is quite high. Perhaps for that reason, Justice sat on the referral for two months after Novak's original column. But then, rather late in the day, at the end of September 2003, then-CIA Director George Tenet himself sent a letter demanding to know whether the law had been broken.

The answer to that question, as Patrick Fitzgerald has since determined, is "no." But there were plenty of senior people who had known that all along. And can one imagine anybody with a stronger motive to change the subject from CIA incompetence and to present a widely discredited agency as, instead, a victim, than Tenet himself? The man who kept the knowledge of the Minnesota flight schools to himself and who was facing every kind of investigation and obloquy finally saw a chance to change the subject. If there is any "irony" in the absurd and expensive and pointless brouhaha that followed, it is that he was abetted in this by so many who consider themselves "radical."

Plame

New

More on BIAS from Malkin's Blog

The media's open-borders bias

By Michelle Malkin   ·   August 28, 2006 02:43 PM

Tim Graham at MRC has just released an excellent study of mainstream media coverage of the pro-illegal alien demonstrations from March through May 2006. A few of the conclusions:

■ Advocates of opening a wider path to citizenship were almost twice as likely to speak in news stories as advocates of stricter immigration control. Advocates for amnesty and guest-worker programs drew 504 soundbites in the study period, compared to just 257 for tighter border control. (Sixty-nine soundbites were neutral). On the days of pro-illegal-alien rallies, their critics nearly disappeared from the screen. For instance, on the night of April 10, the soundbite count on the three evening newscasts and ABC’s Nightline was 43 to 2 in favor of the protesters. When the debate shifted to Capitol Hill in May, coverage grew more balanced.

■ While conservative labels were common, liberal labels were rarely or never used. In the study period, reporters referred to "conservatives" or "conservative" groups 89 times, most intensely during legislative debate in May, when President Bush was presented as having to "appease" his "conservative" base. NBC’s Matt Lauer even referred to Bush’s base as the "far right." By contrast, the "liberal" label was used only three times – all of them by ABC. CBS and NBC never used the word, even as hard-left protest organizers described the House bill on public radio as full of "horrendous and macabre clauses, fascist clauses."

■ While protests centered on underlining the vital role illegal aliens play in the American economy, the burdens of illegal immigration in added government costs or crime were barely covered. While the networks poured out their air time to the sympathetic stories of hard-working immigrant families, only six out of 320 stories mentioned studies that illegal aliens cost more to governments than they provide in tax dollars. Only six stories gave a mention to the problem of the cost or threat of criminal aliens.

■ The networks have not dropped the word "illegal" in favor of "undocumented" immigrants, although some reporters struggled to adopt clumsy liberal-preferred terminology. Groups like the National Association of Hispanic Journalists have urged their colleagues to never use the word "illegal," but the word was still more than five times more common than "undocumented." In 320 stories, there were 381 uses of the word "illegal," and 73 uses of "undocumented." But some reporters struggled to please: NBC’s Kevin Tibbles actually referred to protests by "those who critics call illegals."

The report concludes with recommendations for a more balanced picture in network news coverage of the immigration debate.

Hey, maybe someone could cover the Mexican flag melee in Maywood, Calif. Not. Holding. My. Breath.

Washington Times - Media Bias on Illegal Aliens is REAL!

Biased TV messages

TODAY'S EDITORIAL
August 29, 2006

Every time we think we have seen the worst in media bias, we come across studies like the Media Research Center's new report on the Big Three's immigration coverage. The center's director of media analysis, Tim Graham, confirms conservatives' worst fears about ABC, CBS and NBC, as they recklessly go about their efforts to depict an America that simply doesn't exist.
    Mr. Graham and analysts reviewed 309 immigration stories from March 24 to May 31, or roughly the period between the first major immigration rally and passage of the Senate's amnesty bill. The report found that in contrast to the networks' universal agreement that the rallies were historic and represented a "Vietnam-era" movement, collectively they mentioned just 16 nationwide polls that "might include the opinion of the non-protesters."
    Occasionally, the networks simply ignored polls that disagreed with their pro-illegal immigrant framework. For instance, CBS never cited its poll findings that 87 percent (April 6-9) or 89 percent (May 4-8) of Americans said that the problem of illegal immigration was "very serious" or "somewhat serious." NBC never cited its poll finding that 71 percent would be "more likely" to vote for a candidate "who favors tighter controls on illegal immigration." While touting a Time magazine poll showing 79 percent of Americans in favor of a guest-worker program, none of the Big Three mentioned the poll's finding that only 12 percent of respondents said the demonstrators made them more likely to endorse a guest-worker program, compared to 35 percent who said the protests made them more likely to favor laws to "make it crime" to enter or work in the country.
    During the study period, advocates of amnesty and guest-worker programs drew 504 soundbites on the network news shows, compared to just 257 for those arguing for tighter border security. On the night of one large demonstration on April 10, the count on all three networks was 43-2 in favor of the protesters. On the large May 1 nationwide rally, it was 62-8.
    When labeling groups and individuals, network reporters used the term "conservative" 89 times and "liberal" only three times. NBC never used "liberal" in its coverage, despite using "conservative" 45 times. On May 1, NBC's Nightly News quoted one Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, a rally organizer, without noting her membership in International ANSWER, a Communist organization. Similarly, a March 24 ABC story identified Teodoro Maus as a "community leader" without telling viewers he was Mexico's consul general in Atlanta from 1998 to 2001.
    It's no wonder cable networks like Fox News and programs like CNN's "Lou Dobbs Tonight" continue to attract viewers at the Big Three's expense. Congress especially should take the Media Research Center's report to heart and remember that network news is more like state-run TV in an authoritarian state than it's like objective news -- at least when it comes to reporting conservative opinion.

Casio unveils GPR-100, smallest GPS-enabled watch

By Darren Murph on wristwatch

Maybe there's some mass conspiracy to tackle an overweight epidemic among humans, or maybe folks these days are running just for the fun it, but regardless of the real agenda, Casio is cashing in on the statistically-driven-jogger craze by unveiling the GPR-100. Hailed as the "world's smallest GPS-enabled watch," the unit combines all the goodness found in your average wristwatch with the swank abilities of GPS in order to better analyze your exercise. Similar to other arm-dominating contraptions we've seen, this waterproof wristwatch syncs up with GPS satellites to calculate the time, speed, distance, pace, and averages of your run, while keeping track of your route should you deviate from the beaten path. You also get a "fully automatic" calendar, stopwatch, alarm, and even a backlight for those late night excursions. The biggest dig on this otherwise fanciful little timepiece is the battery life; the rechargeable LiOn apparently lasts just 2 hours in "normal operation," while legging out 4.3 hours in "low power mode." While this GPS watch will certainly attract less negative attention compared to earlier efforts, the compactness comes at a price -- at a whopping ¥54,000 ($476), you might be better off evading the GPR-100 entirely this September, and redirecting your energy (and cashflow) towards that tried and true Nike+iPod setup.

Hell Froze Over

Show-biz brigade takes a stand vs. Hezbollah, Hamas
By O’Ryan Johnson

Boston Herald
Thursday, August 17, 2006 - Updated: 01:16 AM EST
Hollywood heavyweights Nicole Kidman, Michael Douglas, Danny DeVito, Rupert Murdoch and more than 80 other stars played against type and entered stage right yesterday with an ad condemning Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Palestine and terrorists everywhere.

    “We the undersigned are pained and devastated by the civilian casualties in Israel and Lebanon caused by terrorist actions initiated by terrorist organizations such as Hezbollah and Hamas,” the full-page ad in the Los Angeles Times reads.

    Whatever will the crowd at Spago think?

    The undersigned also include La-la luminaries Dennis Hopper, Sylvester Stallone, Bruce Willis, Don Johnson, James Woods, Kelly Preston, Patricia Heaton of “Everyone Loves Raymond” and William Hurt.

    Directors Ridley Scott, Tony Scott, Michael Mann, Dick Donner and Sam Raimi also signed their names. Other Hollywood powerplayers who signed their John Hancocks included Sumner Redstone, the chairman of Paramount Pictures, and billionaire mogul Haim Saban.

    The move is a variation on the usual script in Tinseltown, where the political noise has been predominantly anti-Bush, anti-war on terrorism and anti-war in Iraq from high-profile stars such as George Clooney, Barbra Streisand, Susan Sarandon and Sean Penn.

    But this alternate A-List appeared to steal some of President Bush’s “A” material with lines like: “If we do not succeed in stopping terrorism around the world, chaos will rule and innocent people will continue to die. We need to support democratic societies and stop terrorism at all costs.”

Presenting false images

 

By Joel Mowbray

The Washington Times
Published August 16, 2006

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When Reuters was forced to sever ties with free-lance photographer Adnan Hajj and remove more than 900 of his photos from its database earlier this month, long-whispered questions about the reliability of Arab stringers and freelancers came to the forefront.
    But while the widespread use of Arab locals in covering the Middle East raises many legitimate concerns, the Palestinian propaganda machine has enjoyed tremendous success over the years hoodwinking supposedly sophisticated Western journalists. And Hezbollah appears to have done the same over the past month.
    In short, almost nothing that is purported to happen in the Arab world can automatically be taken at face value. Not even if it's captured in a photo.
    Nowhere is the use of Arab "fixers" (as they are known) more common than in the Palestinian territories. And yet despite the extensive reliance on locals who presumably enjoy greater familiarity with the terrain and key players, negative press coverage of the Palestinian Authority or various Islamic terrorist organizations operating in the territories has long been scant.
    This void in coverage is not because such evidence does not exist. Palestinian Media Watch, a nonprofit that operates on a tight budget, has easily reported more on incitement and indoctrination by the Palestinian Authority, for example, than all Western media outlets combined.
    When it was discovered that Mr. Hajj had digitally manipulated his photos, at least one prominent Arab journalist was not surprised. "Sadly, things like this happen a lot, especially when your local fixers are openly affiliated and have a clear agenda," explains Jerusalem Post reporter Khaled Abu Toameh. He adds that some of the Arab stringers and freelancers contracted by Western media outlets are "people who see themselves as foot soldiers for the cause."
    Mr. Toameh is careful not to paint with too broad a brush, and he stresses that there are Arab journalists who do their best to get the story out. But the record is well-established that reporting certain truths in the Palestinian territories can result in intimidation or sometimes severe violence.
    After being arrested and detained for six days because he didn't give Yasser Arafat the desired coverage in the run-up to the 1996 election, Maher al-Alami, editor of Al Quds, the largest Palestinian newspaper in Jerusalem, said that "the Palestinian media follow [Yasser Arafat's] instructions out of fear."
    When an Associated Press cameraman filmed Palestinians in Nablus jubilantly rejoicing over the September 11 attacks, he "was summoned to a Palestinian Authority security office and told that the material must not be aired," according to the AP's own account. Threats from Islamic terrorists on Arafat's payroll quickly followed. One Palestinian cabinet officer even stated that the the Palestinian Authority could not "guarantee the life" of the cameraman if the footage was released.
    The Associated Press never officially released the footage.
    Even under the theory that Arab thugs and tyrants would be less likely to kill Western journalists because, well, the world would sadly care more about their deaths, relying solely on Western reporters instead is no panacea, either.
    Examples abound of Western reporters being duped or threatened. In April 2002, the Israeli military raided the Jenin refugee camp, a known terrorist breeding ground and safe haven. Palestinians immediately accused the Jewish state of systematically committing war crimes, and the buzzword soon tossed about by the Western press was "massacre."
    That no massacre actually occurred — not even the United Nations, the Palestinians' best friend, found any evidence to suggest one had — received only a fraction of the earlier, largely uncritical reporting. Ditto for the incident this June, when many family members died on a beach in northern Gaza. Originally covered as an Israeli shelling of innocent Palestinians, it turned out that Israel almost certainly played no role in the tragedy. The media mea culpa, though, was essentially mute.
    In a widely circulated photo taken last month and distributed by Agence France Press, two older, hijab-clad Lebanese women are wailing in front of caskets. Dozens of caskets, actually. The caskets were lined up against a wall, and numbers were spray-painted on the wall. Somehow, the women had wedged themselves into the narrow space between the coffins and the wall, and the numbers conveniently appeared directly behind them — guaranteed to be in any photo.
    The problems with the photo are obvious. Why would the women force their way into a crevice, when they could more easily face both the caskets and the wall? Quite simply, that shot wouldn't capture both the mourning faces and the numbers signifying the enormity of the tragedy. And on the topic of the numbers, the ones spray-painted on the wall were the kind used in the West, not in South Lebanon, thus erasing any doubt about the photo-op's intended audience.
    This photo, though, was not taken by an Arab freelancer or some hack Westerner. It was shot by award-winning photographer Marco Di Lauro, who won praise for his work with Marines in Iraq. The benign — and probably correct — interpretation is that he just wasn't suspicious enough.
    Yet given that thugs from Hezbollah, Hamas and Mr. Arafat's Fatah control almost everything in the most "newsworthy" areas of the Arab world, any scene or event encountered by Western media outlets must be viewed with supreme skepticism.
    But it's not as if this is news to the Western media. They know it. Yet pretend as if they don't. That's the real travesty.
Joel Mowbray occasionally writes for The Washington Times.

Robert Cox: Anti-partisan Lieberman may be on to something!

Robert Cox, The Examiner
Aug 15, 2006 4:00 AM

WASHINGTON - When I left New York last week for a family vacation in Southern California, Sen. Joe Lieberman had just lost the Democratic primary in Connecticut and was preparing for his first day as an independent candidate for higher office.

In his Tuesday night speech, Lieberman, both conceding defeat and launching a new campaign for the U.S. Senate, decried the “old politics of partisan polarization” and said, “I went into public service to find solutions, not to point fingers. To unite, not to divide.”

Lieberman went on to describe a political environment within his own party in that “Every disagreement is considered disloyal. And every opponent it is not just an opponent but is seen as evil.” He vowed to continue fighting for stronger national security and work with Democrats and Republicans to “build a better life for the people of Connecticut ... regardless of what the political consequences may be.” In staring into the abyss of an election loss, Lieberman may be on to something.

The following day on the other side of the country, I took my kids to the Shamu Show at SeaWorld San Diego, first stop on the 2006 Cox Family West Coast Summer Vacation Tour. Before the show began, August A. Busch IV, president of Anheuser-Busch, the company that owns SeaWorld, offered a video-taped salute to America’s heroes — a thanks to the men and women of the U.S. military and those of U.S. allies for defending freedom around the world.

I must have been refilling my bowl of chips during the most recent Super Bowl because I missed the ad where Anheuser-Busch announced that throughout 2006, members of the military and their families would be granted free entry at any one of Anheuser-Busch’s SeaWorld, Busch Gardens or Sesame Place parks.

As a New Yorker, where overt displays of patriotism are generally frowned upon, I was both a little uncomfortable with the video and curious as to the crowd’s reaction. I half expected to hear boos.

The show announcer then asked all those currently serving in the military to stand up. Hundreds of military families were in SeaWorld that day and during the 2 p.m. show, roughly 100 men and women, out of a crowd of more than 3,000, rose to their feet. The announcer then asked the crowd to show their appreciation and a long, loud and heartfelt applause followed.

Earlier that day, authorities in Britain announced they had broken up a planned terror attack aimed at blowing nine commercial aircraft out of the sky in a plot designed to kill thousands of people flying from England to the United States.

It was the whispered topic of discussion in the long lines queued up for SeaWorld’s most popular attractions. Looking out across Shamu Stadium at the families watching whales and their trainers do amazing tricks, it occurred to me that by planning an attack in August, the terrorists were clearly hoping to kill as many children as possible.

A few days later, as the Cox Family Tour moved north, we found ourselves at the Santa Monica Pier. As we looked north along the coast, we could see below us row upon row of white wooden crosses planted in the beach. Beside them was a row of a dozen coffin-sized boxes wrapped in American flags.

We watched from the pier above as the anti-war protestors, armed with clipboards approached beachgoers requesting their signature for what purpose I can only guess. Time and again, couples walking arm and arm, parents with families in tow and individuals strolling toward the surf, ignored them or waved them away. In the time we watched, we did not see a single person sign on to their cause.

This morning, at our not-so-swank hotel in the always-swanky Beverly Hills, a copy of the USA Today landed outside my room. I came across a letter to the editor from a man in British Columbia calling on Sen. Lieberman to withdraw from his Senate race so as not to divide the Democratic party and leave Ned Lamont a clear shot at his Senate seat. “Let’s hope Lieberman will see the error of running as an independent and allow a candidate who is against President Bush’s war to win,” he wrote.

I am not sure what it means when the largest daily newspaper in the United States, with “USA” in its name no less, needs to publish a letter from a Canadian calling on a sitting U.S. senator to deny Connecticut voters a say in who represents them in Congress.

But like I said, Lieberman may be on to something.

Robert Cox is a member of The Examiner’s Blog Board of Contributors, is president of the Media Bloggers Association and blogs at wordinedgewise.tv.

Examiner

New WYSIWYG Blogging Software from Microsoft

Yery simple, yet seemingly sophisticated blog authoring software!!

 

So, here's my wife!  Looking at me as we're about to embark on our 2nd Royal Carribean curise on our ship Rhapsody of the Seas!  Leaving fromGalveston, TX.

FOX does it too?

FOX does it too?

Okay, I have seen enough and I’d really like to hear from a journalist I trust and admire.  Maybe there’s a justification.  Maybe the rationale is there, just hiding behind a veil my eyes refuse to pierce.  Perhaps I simply can’t focus.  Regardless of the reason, I just plainly do not understand.  

I can look the other way when it’s MSM other than FOX.  I can even justify it when FOX is reprinting an AP or Reuters story.  But when FOX uses its own byline, I have to ask:

“Why is it O.K. to publicly report something that the officials-in-charge clearly do not want reported?”

Below, are 5 partial paragraphs excerpted from an article posted on the FOXNews.com website.  (All text enhancements are mine.)

British Officials Identify 19 Suspects in Mid-Air Terror Attack Plot
Friday, August 11, 2006
FOX News

The bombs were to be assembled on the aircraft, apparently with peroxide-based solution and everyday carry-on items such as a disposable camera or a music player, two American law enforcement officials told The Associated Press.  The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because Britain asked that no information be released.  

Ok, then – If Britain (the country, not some individual, not an organization, not a political party, but the COUNTRY of Britain!) “…asked that no information be released.”  - Why did FOX print it?  Was it to declare that …”two American law enforcement officials…” didn’t feel compelled to abide by Britain’s wishes?  Or was it an indication that FOX News believes the AP should be outed?  Maybe, FOX thought since the AP had already revealed the information that it was now OK to keep spreading the word.  Was it one of those, …” the people have a right to know…” lines of bullshit the “other guys” like to hide behind?

The arrests were made in the eastern city of Lahore and in Karachi, the official said on condition of anonymity because he did not have the authority to speak formally on the issue.

If the “official” did not have the authority to speak, what gave you’all the knowledge that he even was an “official”?  So he was really an “un-official”?

A U.S. congressman briefed by intelligence officials, who did not want to be identified because of the sensitivity of the investigation, said U.S. intelligence had intercepted terrorist chatter.

This one’s another justification as to why congress should NOT be briefed!  If the investigation was/is sensitive, why say anything?!!?!?  

The test run was designed to see whether the plotters would be able to smuggle the needed materials aboard the planes, the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

We see this one so often that its now un-questioned.  Why do we accept the word of individuals who won’t identify themselves?  Where is any accountability?  Putting an identity to a statement does not guarantee truth, but it’s certainly a tad more reliable than an anonymous quote, isn’t it?

A British police official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the investigation, said the suspects were "homegrown," though it was not immediately clear if all were British citizens.

Was this one thrown in just to prove our congressmen aren’t the only ones who disregard the sensitivity of an undercover investigation into terrorism?





A whole new way to make us fear
(image placeholder)Posted by Clare Duffy, NBC News Producer (09:37 am ET, 08/10/06)
Editor's note: Clare was on her way to Burbank, Calif., from New York Thursday morning for a Nightly News assignment in Los Angeles. She writes this missive about her airport experience from her Blackberry Wireless Handheld.
Even in this post-9/11 world, the scene that greeted bleary-eyed travelers in the morning darkness at JFK International Airport was surreal: "No liquids or gels of any kind" read hastily printed signs taped to the check-in desks.
Those who noticed them hastily shoved mouthwash, toothpaste and sunblock into their luggage, but most did not, unaware of what was playing out at security. Air travel, an Ironman-worthy test of endurance on the best of days, today will stretch every passenger and airline worker to the limit. 
At the security line, the usual suspicious objects -- laptops, iPods, killer sneakers -- were all but forgotten as TSA workers shouted at people to throw away eyedrops, lotions, lip gloss, bottled water, anything at all.
One young woman chucked an entire Mario Badescu skincare kit into the trash, looking simultaneously bewildered, enraged and tearful. As a beauty product junkie myself, I felt her pain.  I made a show out of jettisoning a small tube of Neosporin so they might not take the half-full tube of $50 sunscreen in my bag. All the while, bits and pieces of the story were bruited about in a strange game of "telephone":  "I heard it was nuclear weapons!"
Epic screaming matches broke out over baby formula, with the dueling agendas of protective parents and those protecting us from terrorism locked in steely combat. The hapless woman who runs the day spa at the Jetblue terminal found herself and her stock the subject of intense scrutiny.  Who knew what lurked within the colorful jars of pomegranate face cream?
On board the plane now, a member of the flight crew is relating how even they were forced to throw away their lunches. There's no water on board, and we weren't allowed to bring any on board. This should be a fun six hours.
"The TSA, they don't know what they're doing," the crew member fumed to no one in particular.   
Someone knows what they're doing, though -- those who have found a whole new way to make us fear flying, and wonder about that mini tube of toothpaste in the bag of the guy in 35F.

Why did I hide my sunscreen?
(image placeholder)Posted by Clare Duffy, NBC News Producer (09:59 pm ET, 08/10/06)
It's been an eventful day -- both in the air and, it would seem, here in the blogosphere, as my morning observations have triggered some interesting responses. I can't address them all, but for those who believe I am whining or worse, helping the terrorists, a few thoughts. My experience at JFK transpired very early this morning, before much was known about the new luggage restrictions. The frustration I and many others witnessed at security grew out of the fact that by the time most people were apprised of the restriction, it was too late to put the problematic items in their checked luggage. As the morning wore on, it became far more efficient, and I'm guessing, there ceased to be battles over such things as baby formula. But that is indeed what was happening early this morning, as passengers and security officials alike got a grip on this new reality. And a note about your blogger -- I fly for work often, and understand and appreciate the work that goes into getting all of us where we need to go safely. But having had a piece of checked luggage stolen very recently, I'm also well aware of the many pitfalls of air travel. The thought of losing still more of my belongings at an airport was difficult to take, I realize perhaps not in the grand scheme of things, but nevertheless, that's why I tried to hide the sunscreen. In any case, this situation is our collective new reality.

The arc of the New York Times, take 2

The arc of the New York Times, take 2 – From: PowerLine
Reader Robert Schwartz writes regarding our post on Stephen Holden's New York Times effusion of moonbattery in his profile of Tony Bennett this morning. Demonstrating a keen eye and a remarkably high threshold for pain, Mr. Schwartz offers "two more examples from Tuesday's New York Times" and notes that "it's not just Stephen Holden":
Transforming the Alchemists
By JOHN NOBLE WILFORDPublished: August 1, 2006
PHILADELPHIA - Historians of science are taking a new and lively interest in alchemy, the often mystical investigation into the hidden mysteries of nature that reached its heyday in Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries and has been an embarrassment to modern scientists ever since.
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They also remarked, somewhat conspiratorially, over parallels between the misguided certainties and self-delusion of alchemy and today's political and religious attacks on modern science. Of Boyle's efforts to replicate experiments from alchemical writings, Joseph E. Early, a retired Georgetown University professor who studies the philosophy of chemistry, said, "He couldn't do it any more than we could find the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq."
Then the scholars departed Philadelphia, leaving the city's lead-to-gold ratio unchanged.
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This one is almost diagnostic:
Tax Cheats Called Out of Control
By DAVID CAY JOHNSTONPublished: August 1, 2006
So many superrich Americans evade taxes using offshore accounts that law enforcement cannot control the growing misconduct, according to a Senate report that provides the most detailed look ever at high-level tax schemes.
Among the billionaires cited in the report are the owner of the New York Jets football team, Robert Wood Johnson IV; the producer of the "Mighty Morphin Power Rangers" children's show, Haim Saban; and two Texas businessmen, Charles and Sam Wyly, who the Center for Public Integrity found in 2000 were the ninth-largest contributors to President Bush.
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Note that Saban is identified as a TV producer, and the Wylys were identified as Bush contributors. He could just as well have identified Saban as a Democrat big wheel. Searching "Hiam Saban Democrat" on Google produced the following also from the Times:
PRIVATE SECTOR; A Cartoon Giant's Rich Reward

By BERNARD WEINRAUB Published: March 4, 2001
HAIM SABAN picked up the phone in his office. Leslie Moonves, president of CBS Television, was returning his call. "Boobie," said Mr. Saban, the children's television mogul and a top Democratic fund-raiser, "don't worry, don't worry, I'm not asking you for money." Instead, Mr. Saban asked Mr. Moonves to help a singer, who was a family friend, in finding a TV gig.
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With his second wife, Cheryl, and their two young children, Mr. Saban lives in a grandiose French-chateau-style home in a gated community in the Beverly Park section. Former President Bill Clinton has stayed there several times, and the Sabans were guests many times at the White House. The Sabans have given as much as $10 million over the years to the Democratic Party and its candidates; Mr. Saban said he was not sure of the exact figure. They have donated more than $10 million -- to child-related charities like Children's Hospital Los Angeles and the Los Angeles Free Clinic. And they have donated for the benefit of Israeli soldiers.
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The only conclusion is that the NYTimes is no longer "The Newspaper of Record" it is now the "Mouthpiece of the Democrat Party."