There aren’t many things that can make me smile than a good backhand across Dan Rather’s face on national television. This is a verbal beat down.
This is shameful character assassination, plain and simple. And it’s what we’d expect when reporting about Sarah Palin.
A story that is so old news to conservatives, but it’s nice to hear from the horse’s mouth:
Sen. Biden, however, was in a place by himself when it came to bogus claims, absurd contentions, and flights of rhetorical fancy. He threw out several assertions that were so preposterous that – had Palin made them – they would have prompted immediate calls for McCain to dump her from the ticket”
How many Democratic scandals does it take for the media to notice?
Behold, “objective” journalism at its finest. Apparently the news that 4/10 Americans think the economy is not in recovery is good news for the Obama administration:
A national poll indicates that nearly half of all Americans think the economy has stabilized, but only one in eight believes that a recovery has started.
Four in 10 questioned in the CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey released Thursday morning think the country’s still in an economic downturn. …
The poll suggests that when it comes to an economic recovery, Americans agree with President Obama.
Huh? Only 1 out of 8 people believe that our economy has started to recover, 4 out of 10 believe we’re still in a downturn, and the takeaway about how the Obama administration is doing should be that Americans agree with him?
How about – only 1 in 8 Americans think that Obama’s economic plans have helped start economic recovery. Or, 4 out of 10 Americans think we’re still in an economic downturn. But no, CNN thinks that the important thing to note here is that Americans agree with Obama because Obama also doesn’t think our economy is recovering.
Even worse, why is CNN giving Obama a pass for thinking our economy isn’t recovering? Didn’t he promise us some time ago that unemployment wouldn’t get higher than 8% if we passed his really important stimulus bill? Today we’re hearing that unemployment rose again in June, even though we passed the life-saving stimulus bill months ago:
The jobs report was a heavy weight on the broader market. Payrolls fell more than forecast in June, and the unemployment rate rose slightly, according to the Labor Department. Employers cut 467,000 jobs in June, compared to a decline of 345,000 in May. The unemployment rate hit 9.5%, up from 9.4% in May. Analysts had forecast payroll declines of 365,000 jobs and an unemployment rate of 9.6%.
So CNN is faced with two pieces of news today: First, only 1 in 8 Americans think our economy is recovering and second, unemployment continued to rise even after we had already passed what Obama said would be the highest it would be. Given those pieces of news, CNN thinks the important point to takeaway here is that Americans agree with Obama about what the current state of the economy is.
I bet Americans agree with Obama about what color the grass is outside of the White House. Think we should write a story about that?
The guys over at Newsbusters noticed something interesting today. Apparently, when conservatives are featured in a segment on ABC discussing a topic with one of the networks own experts, that segment becomes a debate:
ABC medical expert Dr. Tim Johnson, a fervent fan of universal health care, actually talked to the other side on Wednesday, featuring Newt Gingrich for what an onscreen graphic labeled a “debate” on the merits of a government-run program. It might seem odd for the network to tag a segment of a conservative talking to one of its journalists as a debate, but Johnson is certainly a partisan on this issue.
Yeah. Odd indeed. Usually networks like ABC want you to believe that their reporters and analysts are objective. At least now they’re admitting that they’re a bunch of partisan hacks who have never even tried to give conservatives the dignity of objective coverage.
Not that anyone is surprised:
WASHINGTON — The Obama administration is considering forgoing legislation and issuing an executive order that would authorize the president to incarcerate some terrorism suspects indefinitely, White House officials said Friday.
Such an order would be controversial — seemingly aligning the administration with a disputed legal doctrine of former President George W. Bush, whose lawyers held that the president had sweeping authority in wartime to imprison those he deemed threats to national security.
Seemingly aligned with George W. Bush? Let’s review the New York Times’ past thoughts about indefinite detention and see if we have “seeming” alignment. (And as you can probably tell, this is a very light review of everything the NYT wrote about Bush’s detainment policies.)
“Indefinite Detention” – 11.24.08
For more than five years, the Bush administration has been holding Ali al-Marri, a legal resident of the United States, in near isolation under President Bush’s reprehensible enemy combatant doctrine. The Supreme Court is to meet on Tuesday to decide whether to review the case, and it should. The justices need to make clear that a president cannot trample on individual rights by imprisoning people indefinitely simply by asserting that they are tied to terrorism.
At issue yesterday was Mr. Bush’s claim that he can label any American an ”enemy combatant” and hold him or her in prison indefinitely without trial or access to counsel. The case involved Yaser Esam Hamdi, an American citizen who was taken prisoner in Afghanistan and has been held in solitary confinement in a Navy brig in South Carolina.
“Court backs Bush on military detentions” 7.15.08
President George W. Bush has the legal power to order the indefinite military detentions of civilians captured in the United States, the federal appeals court in Richmond, Virginia, ruled on Tuesday in a fractured 5-to-4 decision.
“Bush Seeks to Affirm a Continuing War on Terror” 8.29.08
It could, they say, provide the legal framework for Mr. Bush and his successor to assert once again the president’s broad interpretation of the commander in chief’s wartime powers, powers that Justice Department lawyers secretly used to justify the indefinite detention of terrorist suspects and the National Security Agency’s wiretapping of Americans without court orders.
So just so we’re clear: the NYT had a very established line about indefinite detention: Bush did it, and when he did it was controversial, evil, secret, and an abuse of power.
But when Obama flirts with the exact same idea, for some reason, he is only “seemingly” aligned with Bush? Why might that be? Because if Obama does align himself with Bush on the issue, that means everything they said about Bush ignoring separation of powers, extending the power of the executive, and using “secret powers” that “trample on individual rights” would now apply to President Obama.
The NYT doesn’t want to eat its words and it certainly doesn’t want to go after the Obama administration like it did Bush.
So what’s its only other option? Nuance the similarities as much as possible and hope no one notices.
I ran across this article on Fox News today about how the GOP’s list of presidential “prospects” for 2012 is growing slim. Now that Sanford threw his career away pundits everywhere seem to feel the need to evaluate where the GOP stands in terms of fielding a candidate to challenge Obama.
And it’s ridiculous:
The Grand Old Party’s 2012 presidential pool isn’t looking so grand these days.
Add Nevada Sen. John Ensign’s and South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford’s extramarital affairs to Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal’s unconvincing TV speech and Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s family dramas, and the Republican presidential herd is thinning fast — leaving many to wonder who will lead the party in its attempt to reclaim the White House.
The author, Christina Corbin, is actually suggesting that Jindal might not be in the running to become a formidable challenge to Obama in four years because he gave a really bad speech in January. That’s unbelievable. Sure, Jindal gave a bad speech and would probably do well staying under the national radar for awhile, but do you think that when Republicans start looking to nominate their own candidate, someone with the conservative creds that Jindal has isn’t going to be in the running (if he wants to be)? We know the guy can speak well – he’s done it before – and I’m not denying that his response to the State of the Union was bad, but come on – it’s going to be forgotten in 3-4 years. Period.
Now granted, Jindal is unlikely to run in 2012 – but I think it will be of his choosing that he doesn’t. He’s got a very promsing future in front of him and there’s no use wasting it running against an incumbent who might still have the hope of hte people behind him. And Jindal isn’t even 40 years old yet. So maybe he doesn’t run – but it will have nothing to do with his speech.
The piece continues:
Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, Virginia Rep. Eric Cantor, Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty and Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels are the names now being whispered in Republican circles as potential winners — although observers admit political speculations can change overnight.
Well that’s probably the smartest thing said in the piece - although the bar is set pretty low.
Of course the political winds can change in an instant. In fact, they will. Are you telling me that in 2004 after Bush’s reelction people actually thought Obama would be the president right now? Sure, people raved over his speech and a lot said he would probably be president one day – but Hillary was seen as the presumptive nominee all the way until she got her butt whooped in Iowa.
Who knows where we will be when 2012 rolls around. No one has any idea who is going to have accomplished what. We don’t know what new scandals will have rocked which politicians.
Speculation about 2012 is stupid. It doesn’t make any sense right now and it might do our political system quite a bit of good if we laid off. We need our politicians and other leaders to focus on helping their communities, states, and nation as a whole. We’re doing more harm than good by constantly making them worry about what they should and should not be doing for a presidential run in 4 years.
Oh no. A 48-year-old man who has been smoking since he was a teenager occasionally still gives into the need for a cigarette. This is such a surprising event, I think we should write a 683 word story about.
As Allahpundit at Hot Air would say, can’t the man just eat his waffle?
He can’t actually believe there would be no competitive advantage for a non-profit health care provider over one that needs to profit in order to survive… can he?
Good grief.