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The usual "expert" pundits in NYC and Washington D.C. are currently fattening their considerable bank accounts by offering their brilliant analysis on exactly who the real Barack Obama is. Put aside (for now) a discussion of why they've waited until after the election to offer their "wisdom" on the character of Obama. We'll have at least four years to complete the media's self-induced destruction. For now, I'd like to ignore our lying media, and focus on the analytical talents of people who really are experts in analyzing other people. People who make a living actually working for a living. People who interact with Americans who live outside the Washington D.C. Beltway. The pundits had their chance and chose to focus their "talents" on Sarah Palin and Joe the Plumber. Now that their messiah has been elected, I really don't want to know what the pundits have to say about him. It is time to turn the tables. Let's ignore the media punditry and start listening to real people analyze the "experts" and the personalities they create.

The series of photos published here in the NY Post have opened the door to some interesting commentary from people represented by members of sites like this one. Experts in reality. No hidden agenda. No obligation to speak for anyone. Nothing more than a lifetime of living and observing a real world. After reviewing the pictures in the link above, consider Pollyannaish's comments below, and given her status as an expert in the real world, compare her analysis with the current media portrayal of a modern day messiah in our midst....

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Pollyannaish provides an interesting perspective that wouldn't have occurred to me if I hadn't read it here. And you certainly won't read it in the lying media. I'll confess that I don't plan on spending much time trying to figure out Obama's character. As with any other celebrity, I simply don't care about him enough to be curious about what makes him tick. My mental image of Obama is of a small person standing on a stage in a dark arena with a single, bright spotlight he has directed to shine only on him. And that's the way he likes it. The picture that struck me the most at the NY Post link was Obama and Michelle on the couch. Not a lot of joy there. They look like a couple on the verge of a divorce...on one of the biggest days of their lives.

Obama has been placed in the White House by mutual agreement between him and the folks in the media and government who put him there. But I strongly suspect that the cooperation that has landed him in the Oval Office won't extend much further. And it will break in both directions.

Obama enters his Presidency with near Utopian expectations from his strongest supporters who have never felt like they've had the ear of the very bureaucracies that fill their feed troughs with handouts and services. Their expectations of Obama must extend beyond our galaxy. Many of them exist in communities that rely on the government for EVERYTHING. If free money can be gained from a government that "is trying to keep you down", imagine what can be gained when "someone like you" is put in charge. I believe the statements from some that "Obama will pay for my gas" are completely genuine and sincerely believed.

We've had strong personalities in the White House before, but generally they were also leaders of their party. Obama barely won the nomination of his party. Is he now considered its leader? Can the cult of Obama exist alongside a democrat Congress? The expectations of Obama's Presidency are so unrealistically high that he is already doomed to fall well short. Nobody could live up to them. What will happen when that becomes obvious? Will Pelosi stand by his side? Or Reid? Or the DNC? Or the black community? ...Anyone?? And does he even think he needs anyone by his side? He's made a habit of stiff arming his own wife and her demeanor reflects the impact. How long before the rest of his allies of convenience wear the same expression.

Can anything about a person's inner personality really be gleaned from a picture? I think Pollyannaish makes a good case for the affirmative. And certainly, her perspective is every bit as valid as the delinquent curiosity now being articulated by "expert" pundits about Obama's real character. In fact, I believe Pollyannaish is on the leading edge of a wave of doubt about who Obama the person really is. Mark her words here and see how they pan out over the next few years. As she says, we'll have plenty of time to observe him, like it or not. She's got us off to a great start. The question is, how sorry will this country be that the (self) anointed "experts" didn't start this process years ago, instead of playing catch up to real people like Pollyannaish now.

A good friend asked the following questions today:

Is there any hope for the GOP?

Is there a place for Conservatives?

I had been considering the same questions for several days prior to the election, so in some ways the actual results of this election were reassuring. Before you dismiss me as crazy, let me try to explain myself.

My short answer to both questions is yes. Probably more now than ever. Conservatism wasn't on the ballot this election. In fact, it was probably the only thing that wasn't on the national ballot. And in the few states where it was tested on a state level (represented by the gay marriage ban in several states) it won. Even in California.

This election was lost during our primary. Half the GOP was focused on picking the least useless Republican candidate while the other half was focused on defeating Hillary. Well...we went 1 and 1 in that effort. But I think it cost us the whole war.

If there is one thing that has been proven in election after election it is that you don't elect your candidate by asking people to vote against the other candidate. It didn't work against Clinton in 1996, it didn't work against Bush in 2004, and it didn't work against Obama in 2008.

The only reason we gave our country to vote for McCain was his Vice Presidential candidate. McCain certainly never articulated a coherent message sufficient to capture the enthusiasm of even his own party. The "Maverick" thing became a punchline less then a month into his campaign, and from that point on he bounced from "change" to "the other guy is a socialist". Palin was his most compelling argument, but even as appealing as Palin is, another thing that has been proven in election after election is that you don't elect a President based on his Vice President.

I think the suggestion that no Republican could have won this year is completely false. It took Obama at least $600 million and the entire national media to defeat a weak Republican candidate. If we had nominated someone who actually believed in the conservative message I think we would have won. But we didn't do that. And we lost.

So where do we stand now? Well...we just watched our first string offensive line get taken out. Fortunately, I don't think anyone believes the offensive line we fielded is the best we can do. So maybe it is good to get them off the field. Brett Favre and John Elway led their teams to many great victories. But at some point, you need someone new to step in. And that is where we are right now. The kind of response Sarah Palin got from Republicans is an indicator that there is plenty of life in the party. What has been lacking is a strong leader. Someone people want to take the field with. Someone who articulates a clear vision, stands on principle, tells people they are wrong when they are wrong and reaffirms their beliefs when they are right. Someone who is young, but tested.

I think we have plenty of those people sitting on our sidelines. People who haven't been able to take the field because the old heads won't give it up.

Our country is headed for some tough times. It was regardless of who won the White House. But as a conservative, I am certain that the socialistic principles espoused by Obama will not solve our problems. They'll make them worse. We are in for a LONG four years and it is going to be painful. Unemployment is going to go way up, productivity is going to go way down, we will be tested and walked on internationally. Not even the dying media will be able to hide the impact. Think Carter years or worse.

Somewhere in that mess will rise a leader. A person who is able to articulate a solution. A person who will give people a reason to vote FOR him instead of against Obama. If our party will recognize that person, we'll win in a landslide in 2012. But if we do what we did in 1996, we'll nominate another gentle dinosaur like Bob Dole (or John McCain), and have to wait until 2016 to try again. I don't think that will happen and I think that is the one thing we can thank McCain for after this election. He didn't pull a Dole and pick someone like Jack Kemp for a running mate. Instead, he introduced the next generation of conservative leaders to the party in the form of Sarah Palin. And he whet our appetite.

We just elected a socialist Jimmy Carter. We're going to pay. But think of what came after Carter. Take a look at the electoral map from 1976 vs 1980.



Conservatism didn't die in 1976. And it isn't dead now.

EYE ON THE NEWS

This is one of the first columns I read the morning after watching Palin crush Biden in the 2 Oct Vice Presidential debate.

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Lowry's column highlights two important points. First, Palin has re-invigorated a demoralized republican (emphasis on republican) base. Second, the media elite (including him) still can't get it through their thick heads that taped interviews are edited into fiction.

The first point is most important. The gap in the polls over the last few days has been widening. That isn't because Barack's percentages are increasing. It's because McCain's percentages are decreasing. Barack rests somewhere between 48-50 in most polls. McCain used to be somewhere around 46-48. But in the last few days he's dropped to around 44 (and I'm guessing that the Gallup poll today is going to be very ugly). It is McCain's support that is weakening, and I think that is because his potential supporters have had nothing to cheer for in almost two weeks. Palin changes that now. There's something to cheer for again. And there's more to cheer against, as Palin has stood up to the media and won. The media theme that she can't string two sentences together is crushed, and if you can't cheer for McCain, you can at least make faces at our lying media, while you wave your "Vote for Palin" bumper stickers in their general direction.

But the second point is important as well. It is not only the traditional liberal media that is clueless. We are also poorly served by a lot of our conservative voices in the media. How stupid do you have to be, to not understand that someone like Katie Couric at CBS news wouldn't go to the end of the Earth to make Palin look bad in an interview? Do people like Rich Lowry actually believe that what he observed of the CBS interviews was an unedited, unfiltered look at Palin? Obviously he does, because even after seeing her unedited debate performance, he STILL thinks Palin was simply affected by temporary mental disability during her interviews on CBS and ABC. With that assumption, he marks himself as suffering from a developmental disability of his own and should perhaps spend a LOT more time away from his wonkish, media elite, out of touch with reality friends. Republican morale suffered blows from the idiotic comments of its supposed media allies (has anyone seen Kathleen Parker lately?) as much as from anything the McCain campaign actually did or didn't do on its own, and the comments from people like Lowry are not only short-sighted...they are wrong.

So if Palin has invigorated the Republican Party, she has done a lot more than win a debate. I believe she has done both. It will be 3 or 4 days before that shows up in any tracking poll. But with McCain's debate coming up on Tuesday, that might give him the momentum he needs to finally take the offensive on Obama.

EYE ON THE NEWS


I thought I'd give it a chance. Based on the title, I knew its entire premise was flawed but I don't mind reading an opposing viewpoint as long as it's based on reasonable logic and sticks to known facts. I should have known better.
I've attached below a piece written by Monica Duffy Toft and published in the 2 June Christian Science Monitor. Ms Toft is "a professor of public policy at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government." After reading her piece, I can also say very comfortably, that she is not only a discredit to that fine school's reputation, but also a discredit to women, professors and just about anyone else she can be associated with. In fact, by simply drawing attention to her Christian Science Monitor piece, I am reducing my own credibility a few notches and I don't have a lot of extra notches to play with. But like a train wreck, her piece and the thinking it represents cannot be ignored. Instead, it should be studied like a pathologist examines a corpse, to determine what the root cause of its death and subsequent putrefaction might be.
Mind you, this author is currently a professor of public policy at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. That is a pretty stellar credential. She could easily be considered an "expert" in her field. Which makes the disaster we are about to examine even more appalling. My notes on this corpse will be in red italics. Without further ado, I pull back the sheet and reveal....

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Well Professor Monica Duffy Toft, I am failing you for one of the most poorly thought out, one of the least rational, one of the most poorly informed pieces of writing I think I've ever read in a syndicated publication. This isn't even good enough to be embarrassing. It is simply a disgrace. Fortunately, there is some indication that Harvard may agree with me. I note on their website Harvard Kennedy School that your course ISP-409 Civil Wars: Theory and Policy is no longer being offered. Perhaps they too, were not impressed with your research on the subject. Or maybe they also read the ridiculous piece of trash you just had published in the Christian Science Monitor. I will accept either answer.

EYE ON THE NEWS

There was a time when a subscription to Time or Newsweek magazine was considered as essential to gaining insight on world events as watching network news or reading the local newspaper. The content of news magazine reports wasn't questioned. It was studied. As the third leg of a media triad, news magazines added depth and an almost academic flavor to the brief coverage of complex news events offered by nightly network news and daily papers. The three mediums complimented each other by reporting essentially the same viewpoint of the same story in three different ways. Daily newspapers introduced the story, nightly network news added a video commentary and the news magazines provided depth and analysis. Their accuracy wasn't questioned, because the story didn't change. Each time, it was simply reported using a different media technique.

The introduction of the internet and the new media is knocking the legs out of the old media triad. Given immediate access to multiple media sources, average Americans no longer have to rely on the reporting of the big three. And news magazines like Time and Newsweek are seeing their relevance decline as quickly as their ad revenues and their journalistic credibility.

Yet, like any dying empire, old media giants like Time are not going to go down without a fight. Within Time Inc. are true believers in the old way. "Journalists" groomed by obsolete mentors to believe that average people still rely on mainstream media sources to gain insight on world events. "Journalists" so committed to their own understanding of this evolving world that they actually believe what they write despite all evidence to the contrary.

Fortunately, such "journalists" are a dying breed, but they do still exist. It is useful to study their gross ineptitude to remember what once was, and why it is so important to put those days behind us.

Mark Kukis of Time magazine is a classic example of one of those old school, obsolete and inept journalists. As a regular contributor to Time magazine, his record of accuracy is very consistent. Consistently poor. In one typical example ironically titled: Has the Surge Reached Its Limits?(30 Oct 2007) Kukis not only proves his poor prognostication skills, but manages to incorrectly quote an American Army general (noted as an appended correction to the article) and report a supposed massacre of Iraqi citizens that never happened. All in one single, short article.

Kukis perhaps sensed a chance for redemption when Iraqi Army troops moved into Basrah to rid the city once and for all of its Mahdi Militia tormentors. Joining a gaggle of Time correspondents all trumpeting the same wholly disproven story line in a series of articles with titles like; How Moqtada al-Sadr Won in Basra, Sadr Offers to End Basra Fighting, In Iraq, al-Sadr Threatens 'Open War', Al-Sadr Tightens the Screws, and his latest effort...Al-Sadr Wins Another Round, Kukis continues a nearly perfect record of misrepresenting reality.

I've copied his latest disaster below. Given that al-Sadr hasn't been seen in Iraq for months, has repeatedly asked his Mahdi army to surrender and cooperate with the Iraqi Army, has cowered in a hole while his army has absorbed thousands of casualties throughout Iraq, lost control of all its strongholds in Iraq, lost the popular support of the Iraqi people and most recently been disowned by its Iranian enablers, the title of his latest piece of..."journalism"...should give you some idea of its value as a representation of why the old media is dying a long overdue, but well deserved death.

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I'll give Kukis the journalistic freedom to make wrong analysis and assumptions. I will not ignore his failure to accurately report facts. For each point I highlighted in bold print, I linked a supporting document that factually refutes Kukis' statements. I've relied heavily on the well referenced and resourced reporting of new media journalist Bill Roggio and his team at The Long War Journal. However, all of the sources I link are obviously open source, and none of them describe information that was revealed after the publishing date of Kukis' piece. In other words, I'm not using any information that he didn't also have access to while preparing his article.

Take a look at the article again. It isn't very long. It is written for one of the world's premier news magazines by one of its leading correspondents. And it is so riddled with factual error that when those portions are removed, the remainder could fill a single paragraph.

This is the media Americans are finally starting to abandon. But this is the media that has influenced American opinion for decades. What a disgrace. Stunning ineptitude indeed.

EYE ON THE NEWS

Occasionally, I find an article that fits so well into my goal of exposing our media's dishonesty that I post it here in its entirety. This piece by Tony Blankley is one such article.

I've highlighted in bold font statements I found particularly insightful, but the whole article is worth reading. As I stated in my first entry to this blog, "Facts are based on objective reality and can be used to form educated opinions. Opinions cannot be used to establish facts." Recent mainstream media reporting of the events that have taken place in Basra is a clear example of reporters attempting to twist their opinions into fact.

From the initial days of the Iraqi Army's offensive in Basra and southern Iraq, I have cautioned fellow members of TheRightReasons to refrain from leaping to conclusions about its progress based on mainstream media reporting. Blankley highlights several reasons why mainstream media reports are generally unreliable sources of information. In short, the media does not report. It editorializes. And it bases its editorialized reporting on a very thin stream of information from just a few shared resources. The danger of such a practice is the increased likelihood that information from a single flawed source is spread like a cancer through multiple media sources until bogus information becomes accepted as "fact" by virtue of its repetition.

As a Washington insider himself, Blankley gives the mainstream media a lot more credit than I do with respect to why it so often gets the story wrong. He blames the media's poor performance on laziness and shrinking budgets. While both of these assertions are probably true, the mainstream media has been spreading its bias for decades, and long before its recent collapse in readership and ad revenue. I believe the media's first weakness is its inability to focus on reporting fact over its agenda driven assertions. Laziness and shrinking budgets are simply making it more difficult for reporters to hide their malfeasance by reducing their ability to hide their bias in a blizzard of data and "exclusive" sources.

Regardless, Tony does a great job of illustrating why sites like TheRightReasons.net are so important. In the absence of accurate media reports, it is up to the broad expertise of membership groups on sites like this to do the media's job for it. As we continue to grow, so does the depth and breadth of our knowledge. We WILL do what our media has been failing to do for decades; uncover the truth. As Tony warns, without the effort of sites like this, "the light of knowledge will go out", and Basra was simply one more warning.

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EYE ON THE NEWS

The headline in my local newspaper this morning read “Militia Ordered to Keep Fighting; Al-Sadr tells Mahdi Army not to Surrender”. I knew that wasn't true because I had already read on TheRightReasons.Net, that just a few hours earlier, Sadr had ordered his followers to end their fighting.

It’s a tough time to be a journalist. Trying to keep up with the seemingly irrational moves of a renegade militia leader is a challenge in the best of times. Predicting those moves in the complex environment of post-Saddam Iraq is nearly impossible and outside the purview of what reporters should be doing anyway. So as I joined millions of other Americans skimming the headlines of my local newspaper, I could be forgiven for dismissing the contrasting headlines as a just another example of how challenging it is for the media to keep pace with the constant changes of our complex world inside a single news cycle.

This time, however, Sadr’s apparent 180 degree reversal did not come as a surprise to me. Nor did it come as a surprise to anyone whose exposure to events in Iraq isn't limited to reading "the facts" as presented by our mainstream media. As early as four days ago, freelance internet journalists like Bill Roggio of The Long War Journal were carefully explaining that the Iraqi Security Forces offensive in cities like Basra had been planned long before its first activity was noted by the mainstream media. Bill notes in his article dated 26 March 2008:

“The current Iraqi offensive has been in the works for some time. The Iraqi Army and police have been massing forces in the South since August 2007, when the Basra Operational Command was established to coordinate efforts in the region. As of December the Iraqi Army deployed four brigades and an Iraqi Special Operations Forces battalion in Basra province. The Iraqi National Police deployed two additional battalions to the province.”

Please note the linked articles embedded within that paragraph. Unlike most mainstream media journalists who simply expect their readers to accept their reporting at face value, conscientious journalists like Bill offer their readers the background information they use to support their points. In this case, the first link is to an article dated 5 September 2007. The next link takes you to an article dated 16 December 2007 that provides a very detailed breakdown of Iraqi Army troop build ups around Basra in preparation for the inevitable requirement to address the dissolving security situation in that city.

Where did Bill get his information? Does he have sources deep inside the Pentagon, or embedded within the Iraqi military? Does he have a staff of hundreds and a budget of millions of dollars dedicated to uncovering the facts at the heart of the complexities of our War on Terror? Absolutely not. Bill is the editor of a non-profit internet journal funded by reader donations. His staff is composed of eight hardworking team members of varied backgrounds and experience. None of them are professional journalists. The information they provide is available to anyone with the desire to find it. In fact, they are careful to point out that all of their information is “public knowledge and published”.

With that in mind, when Iraqi forces entered Basra to begin cleaning out the nests of criminals and terrorist plaguing the city, it should have come as no surprise to the professional mainstream media, with its unlimited resources and funding. Yet, three days after The Long War Journal was explaining that the Iraqi movements had been long in planning, mainstream media sources like the LA Times were suggesting Maliki’s move into Basra came as a surprise to not only Sadr’s militia, but also to Coalition leaders in Iraq and the Bush White House: Questions of timing emerge on Iraq offensive. A report on CBS News claimed the whole thing was done "On the Fly": "On The Fly" Iraq Offensive Surprised U.S.. And if the assault was launched with little preparation, the media suggests it failed even more quickly. Just two days after the offensive began, the New York Times had already declared it had “stalled”: Iraqi Army’s Assault on Militias in Basra Stalls. A day later, CNN’s chief Pentagon correspondent published an analysis explaining, Iraqis’ Basra Fight Not Going Well.

Perhaps our mainstream media was simply projecting its own lack of awareness when it claimed the Iraqi Army offensive had caught our military leaders and the White House off guard. It wouldn't be the first time they twisted their own negligence into accusations of incompetence in whatever target was most convenient at the time. But a closer look at their reporting over the last several days reveals something more insidious. A pattern that transcends negligent reporting.

As I’ve already stated, accurately reporting details and events regarding an environment as volatile as post-Saddam Iraq is extremely challenging. And although freelance journalists like those at The Long War Journal reveal what is possible when journalists actually exercise the professionalism to seek out all the facts, mainstream media coverage of the Iraqi Army offensive in Basra reveals a pattern of selectively reporting only information that makes the United States and the fledgling Iraqi Government look weak and ineffective, and conversely, the terrorists look unrealistically strong. Not surprisingly, while The Long War Journal was documenting a trend that pointed toward Sadr's eventual capitulation, mainstream media reporting was almost universally indicating a trend in the opposite direction.

Such a failure to accurately report the reality of what was happening in Iraq cannot be attributed to a lack of access to accurate information. As the team at The Long War Journal clearly point out, their information is all open source and documented. And news agencies with the resources to insert reporters into teams of Mahdi army terrorists (19 Tense Hours in Sadr City Alongside the Mahdi Army) can hardly claim to lack the resources to accurately report events from the perspective of coalition forces. A review of all of our mainstream media sources over the first five days of the Iraqi Army assault in Basra indicates a common trend of predicting failure for the Iraqi Army, and success for the Shi-ite militias they are fighting. As I’ve already mentioned, some of those predictions were made within 48 hours of the first movements taking place. Editorial pages linked events in Basra to a failure of the surge, an indicator that our efforts to train the Iraqi Army had failed, and of course, that President Bush’s optimistic outlook on the future of Iraq was negligently naive.

Yet, in the midst of an almost unanimous mainstream media determination that the Iraqi Army had suffered an ugly defeat at the hands of the al-Mahdi army and the ever elusive Muqtada al-Sadr, true journalists like Bill Roggio were offering an entirely different assessment. In a 28 March article (Fighting in Baghdad, South Against Mahdi Army Completes Fourth Day) he highlighted the fact that the Mahdi Army was taking significant casualties. The next day, he published the following: Mahdi Army Taking Significant Casualties in Baghdad, South. In that article, using open source reporting, he calculated the Mahdi Army had already lost 2% of its fighting force. And finally, today he was able to report ”Sadr Orders Followers to End Fighting”

While the mainstream media was falling all over itself to report doom and failure in Iraq, real journalists like Bill Roggio were quietly gathering all the information available and documenting very well referenced and supported conclusions culminating in the unsurprising news that Sadr was calling it quits in the midst of his own media declared "victory".

It is clear what drives people like Roggio to publish factual reports of our War on Terror. He explains his driving goal in the opening sentence of his mission statement for The Long War Journal: “The Long War Journal is dedicated to providing original and accurate reporting and analysis of the Long War (also known as the Global War on Terror).” Based on their analysis of recent events in Iraq, Roggio and his small staff at The Long War Journal are clearly succeeding in that mission. And their success stands in sharp contrast to the failure of the rest of the mainstream media.

The Global War on Terror will no doubt be a long war. Currently, the enemy we are fighting has a strong ally in our own mainstream media. While our heroes in uniform take on the terrorist threat, independent journalists like Bill Roggio and his team at The Long War Journal have committed to taking on the media threat. They are fighting their battles with weapons available to all, and they are using them with great affect. As each terrorist group falls to the forces of truth and democracy, our media falls to the forces of truth and the free market. We will know the long war is finally over when truth prevails over false promises. We've got a long way to go, but thanks to our men in uniform, and men like Bill Roggio, we are moving in the right direction.

EYE ON THE NEWS

The following editorial letter to the Greeley Tribune sums up so well my personal goal of revealing the flagrant dishonesty of our mainstream media that I am adding it to this blog in its entirety.

Well done Mr. Fisher. You have nailed one of the most lethal ailments in our society today. Thank you.

Newspapers not a reliable source on Iraq War

Chuck Fisher
March 28, 2008

Blaring at readers from newspapers across the nation was continuing evidence of the press' obsession for benchmarks of servicemen who've sacrificed their lives in Iraq, as if the 3,999th soldier to die -- or for that matter, the first -- merited no mention.

This issue isn't about freedom of the press. It's about journalistic ethics. The media circle like vultures waiting for the next lapse in government accountability, but demands virtually unlimited freedom to use anonymous sources.

Who polices the "policemen of democracy?" Why, they do, of course, creating their own rules of conduct (such as "Deliberate distortion is never permissible") and measuring themselves against those rules.

Readers need to ask what information is not in news reports out of Iraq. What is emphasized and what is not? In the Tribune's case, the emphasis is reflected by a dozen column-inches devoted to bombings and body counts and only one inch of small print to report a 60 percent drop in violence since Bush ordered the surge. The Tribune chose that emphasis. True, such decisions about emphasis often reflect practical exigencies: space allocation, advertising, newswire verbiage and newsprint costs.

But mingled with the practical are investigative choices. A newspaper staff has as much access to varied and credible news sources as any citizen, so there is no excuse for simply relying on Mr. AP. I can go to the State Department or Multinational Force-Iraq Web sites or innumerable soldier blogs and read about hundreds of thousands of servicemen and women who are not dead but who are rebuilding Iraq and cultivating friendly relations on the streets of Baghdad. There I find descriptions of an Iraq that is a different planet from the Iraq the media choose to present to Americans.

An educated populace is the best defense against both a tyrannical government and a tyrannical press. Readers need to go beyond trusting the press concerning particular issues they are concerned about. They need to ask questions about the media. For example, why the marked decrease in news articles about Iraq since the body count has plummeted? Is increased peace not newsworthy? Why are the majority of reports on the Iraq War from a single source: The Associated Press? This self-policing organization has more than 8,000 subscribers worldwide -- a virtual stranglehold on information Americans receive about the Iraq War. Are we simply to trust this organization?

The media's preoccupation with death smothers the success in Iraq. Doing so also neglects the more important issue: whether the war is the right one to fight. Body counts say nothing about the cause for which Americans have died. We were thankful for the sacrifice of 416,000 GI's in World War II because such sacrifice overcame tyranny and despotism. If we believe the war in Iraq is a war against another form of tyranny and despotism, then the body count isn't the news. Our chief concern should be victory.

However, by emphasizing macabre milestones, the press reveals its bias against the war and subtly manipulates public opinion rather than providing complete information on which readers may form their own.

If readers believe that the war in Iraq is simply Bush's Oil War, then they will trust the AP as a single-point source of information and be titillated by macabre milestones.

However, if readers want a more accurate, complete perspective of the war, about the thousands of kind acts of our servicemen have performed, about the lives that have been saved rather than lost, and about how American investment in lives and resources is transforming Iraq, they'd best seek information someplace other than in newsprint.

Chuck Fisher is an Evans resident and the father of two Marines who served combat tours in Iraq.

EYE ON THE NEWS


Here we go again. Fresh off of the bogus "Winter Has Been Warmer Than Average" AP story from 13 March (discussed here Global Warming or Mainstream Media Hot Air?), now Reuters offers its own installment of half-truths and twisted facts to push the phony global warming agenda.

Same routine as last time. Read the story, assess your response, read the real facts and reaffirm that our media never lets the truth get in the way of their liberal agenda.

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Sounds pretty dire. Obviously things are getting worse...right? Now even the "oldest" Arctic ice is melting. But is there more to this story? Of course there is.

Let's start with the basics. To predict future trends, it helps to have trend data to understand whether or not what you are observing is part of a normal cycle, or out of the ordinary. So if you had to guess, how long do you suppose scientists have been measuring the area of the Arctic ice cap? 200 years? 100 years? 50 years?....... Try 28 years. The first actual measurements were taken in 1979. So in a world many scientists believe is billions of years old, a set of data just 28 years old is considered sufficient to declare our world is undergoing massive man-caused alterations to its climate.

If one is willing to accept such a short data period as sufficient to establish a historically significant trend, then no point of data in that limited database can be ignored. And certainly, trends within that database must also be considered significant. If "man induced" global warming is truly shrinking the Arctic ice cap, then that trend should be consistent until man reduces the amount of damage he is inflicting on the atmosphere. CO2 emissions have been increasing every year. Is that reflected in available ice cap data? Below is a chart illustrating the ice cap measurements taken since November 1978:



There is a trend of decreasing ice area since the first year of data collection. And that rate does seem to increase since 1995. Until this year. February of 2008 marks a high point for Arctic ice cap coverage over the previous four years. If 28 years of data in a several billion year lifespan of a planet is sufficient to declare a significant shift in global climates, than this one year of data (2008) in a 28 year set of data is a phenomenally decisive indicator that the planet is careening toward a new ice age.

But what of the "old ice" described in this article? Get with the times! Worries about the area of the Arctic ice cap is so 2007. This is 2008, and now that the ice cap area is approaching normal, the new buzzword is "perennial" ice.

"Perennial" ice is ice that is one year old or older. Based on the data depicted in the chart above, is it surprising that the amount of "perennial" ice is also in decline? October of 2007 marks a 27 year low point for the area of the Arctic ice cap. Is it surprising that current measurements of ice that is one year old or older would be significantly lower now? And based on data from the same chart, would it be a stretch to predict the amount of perennial ice next year will be greater than it is this year? Only if you haven't convinced yourself that the only data that matters is data that "proves" man is melting the planet. In that case, facts don't matter. But according to this article Recent cold snap helping Arctic sea ice, scientists find , ice this year is 10 to 20 centimeters thicker than last year. Indeed, the tone of that article is refreshingly different from the ominous doom forecast by Reuters. Contrast this quote: "It's nice to know that the ice is recovering," Josefino Comiso, a senior research scientist with the Cryospheric Sciences Branch of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Centre in Maryland, told CBC News on Thursday. "That means that maybe the perennial ice would not go down as low as last year." to this one: "Thickness is an indicator of long-term health of sea ice, and that's not looking good at the moment," Walt Meier of the National Snow and Ice Data Center told reporters in a telephone briefing." "Recovering" or "not looking good"? How could it be that the scientific community can't decide? Could it be that there isn't enough data for anyone to really know?

Don't tell that to our mainstream media. They've got an agenda to push. And if we're not careful, we'll get sucked into their trash every time.

EYE ON THE NEWS

Our own Casino67 found this brilliant analysis on Newsbusters.org. I'm posting it here in its entirety and adding a link to Newsbusters.org in the "Useful Links" sidebar of this blog.
I've highlighted the "meat" of the author's analysis in bold font.


Newsbusters.org

The AP Style Guide on Defending Barack Obama
By Terry Trippany | March 15, 2008 - 11:21 ET

The Associated Press editors tasked in-house "writer" Phillip Elliott to write an article that dispels the "rumors and outright lies" concerning Barack Obama and the perception that Mr. Obama's support of Israel is questionable. The product of that task is what you'd expect from any number of left leaning story tellers in the mainstream media who write about Obama as opposed to journalists, reporters and political observers that actually take the time to research, study and honestly discuss that which they have found.

Elliott took no time setting up the Obama defense from the first sentence, stating that "Barack Obama has a solid Senate record in support of Israel". The rest of the article is essentially an exercise in repetition; repackaging the most often repeated excuses in defense of a man that inexplicably spent 20 years in a church listening to the controversial and dogmatic sermons of his pastor Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Wright honored noted Jew hater Louis Farrakhan and traveled with the Nation of Islam leader to visit Libya's Mu'ammar al-Qadhafi. You know Qadhafi, he's the megalomaniacal leader of Libya that instituted Sharia Law and expelled most all the Jews from his country while simultaneously destroying all their cemeteries. A real humanitarian and man of the people, IN HELL!

So perhaps the Jewish community has a reason to question Barack Obama on this issue considering that his teacher of faith is so aligned. But not if his supporters in the press have it their way. They have a casual way of making excuses for Mr. Obama, taking him at his word; not tasking him for who he associates with as they would others, but explaining away questionable relationships by asking a fleeting question and then convulsively nodding in unison as they gleefully accept fleeting answers.

For every criticism that anyone dare have about Barack Obama there is a cadre of willing "writers" and talking heads in the mainstream media that are waiting to provide a defense and make excuses. The one thing they are not doing though is answering the questions of his critics. Instead they play a shell game of avoid the answer. Which got me to thinking. I see a pattern emerging here and have decided to write it up as I would imagine it would be written up as a guide in AP Journalism 101.

The following is my 4 step AP Style Guide on Defending Barack Obama. For my examples I use excerpts from Associated Press writer Phillip Elliott in his recent article, Obama Tries to Allay Jewish Concerns. All comments surrounded by parenthesis in bold are mine for demonstration purposes.

Step 1. - Provide the Setup

The first step in creating a defense of Barack Obama is to provide a seemingly objective setup. The goal here is to state the criticisms of his record in a way that also defends his integrity and portrays Mr. Obama as a victim if at all possible.

Example:

CLEVELAND (AP) -- Barack Obama has a solid Senate record in support of Israel. (praise)

He sings the praises, too, of Jewish civil rights workers who fought for blacks' rights in the U.S. And he says he wants to patch up "a historically powerful bond between the African-American and Jewish communities." (praise)

Yet there is unease among some Jewish voters about the Illinois senator and Democratic presidential contender. (concern that needs to be addressed)

Why? (lead readers into believing that they will get an answer)

Part of it is a division between blacks and Jews that's been growing for years, a split that Obama has challenged fellow blacks to confront. (action item in defense of cause)

Another element is the praise Obama has received from Black Muslim leader Louis Farrakhan, whose disparaging comments about Judaism are toxic to many voters. Obama's own pastor has a history of supporting Palestinian causes. (concern that needs to be addressed)

And there are questions about Obama advisers who some U.S. Jews see as less than ardent advocates of Israel. (concern that needs to be addressed)

Finally, there are rumors and outright lies about the candidate that have gained an audience through repetition in e-mails and on Web sites. (defense, victimization, rumor and innuendo)


Step 2. - Provide the Defense

This step is quite simple. Provide a few fleeting action items, particularly recent events, that the candidate has done on behalf of the cause. Make sure to mix in a couple of statements from experts that are supportive of Barack Obama. Extra style points can be achieved if you take a swipe at conservatives, better yet if that swipe contains statements about rumor and innuendo. Use words and events that evoke emotion such as "lie" and "outrage".

Example:

On the day of the Mississippi primary this week, Obama took time to call Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni to express condolences over the deadly terrorist attack on a rabbinical seminary in Jerusalem. He also reaffirmed his support for Israel's right to defend itself and for its commitment to negotiations with Palestinians and underscored the need to stop Iran from supporting terrorism or getting nuclear weapons. (recent action item in defense of cause)

The effort by the candidate and his advisers to calm disquiet among Jewish voters began more than a year ago. (action item in defense of cause)

"The Jewish community cannot be taken for granted," said Rep. Robert Wexler of Florida, one of Obama's chief surrogates before Jewish audiences. Wexler sent an e-mail last March to supporters urging them not to be swayed by rumors, a message he repeated during a recent forum in Cleveland. (expert defense, mention of rumor and innuendo)

Obama used a speech in January at Martin Luther King Jr.'s church in Atlanta to chastise blacks for latent anti-Semitism. And during a recent debate, Obama alluded to James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner, one black and two Jewish civil rights workers murdered in Mississippi in 1964 as they worked together on a campaign to register black voters. (action item in defense of cause, association by mention of famous civil rights figures)

"You know, I would not be sitting here were it not for a whole host of Jewish-Americans who supported the civil rights movement and helped to ensure that justice was served in the South," Obama said. "And that coalition has frayed over time around a whole host of issues, and part of my task in this process is making sure that those lines of communication and understanding are reopened." (action item in defense of cause, civil rights, superfluous praise)

Still, there remains some "nervousness over Senator Obama" among Jewish voters, said Rabbi Joshua Skoff, who attended a private meeting with Obama in Cleveland last month. "The rumors still have some legs." (community outreach, concern that needs to be addressed, mention of rumor and innuendo)


Step 3. - Restate the Problem as Setup for Further Defense

This step is essentially a repeat of step 1. Do this in particular if the record of accomplishment is thin as it stretches the defense out. Appear objective. Avoid criticism unless it can be surrounded by offsetting praise or excused away.

Example:

Still, there remains some "nervousness over Senator Obama" among Jewish voters, said Rabbi Joshua Skoff, who attended a private meeting with Obama in Cleveland last month. "The rumors still have some legs." (concern that needs to be addressed,community outreach, mention of rumor and innuendo)

At the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, President Howard Friedman said Obama's Senate record on Israel has given his critics no reason to doubt him. (expert defense)

But that record is thin. Just a little over three years ago, Obama was a state legislator in Illinois. (excuse, note how this sentence contradicts the first sentence of the article)

"Right now, Obama's big problem with the Jewish community is similar to his problem with other communities: He's just not clearly defined among any voter groups," said Kenneth Wald, director of Center for Jewish Studies at the University of Florida-Gainesville. "The fact he has a name that sounds Muslim and has a Muslim father underlines questions about what we do and what we do not know about him." (concern that needs to be addressed)


Step 4. - Provide the Defense

This is a repeat of step 2. By now you should be getting into a rhythm providing excuses and defenses of all criticisms and concerns. Make sure to get some quotes and keep up the efforts to cast criticisms in the light of rumor and innuendo. Extra style points can be achieved if you take a swipe at conservatives, better yet if that swipe contains statements about rumor and innuendo. Use words and events that evoke emotion such as "lie" and "outrage".

Example:

Some critics on the Internet have gone far beyond raising questions. (defense and set up)

Contrary to some e-mails, Obama is a Christian, not a Muslim. He took his oath of office on the family Bible, not a Quran. (defense, dispel rumor)

"There has been a concerted effort, largely out of the conservative Web sites and anonymous e-mails," says Ira Forman, executive director of the National Jewish Democratic Council, which set up a Stop The Smears Web site to correct the rumors. (swipe against conservatives even though they have nothing to do with topic, mention of rumor and innuendo, drive people to advocacy site)

"I don't think it moves tons and tons of votes, but at the fringes, if left unchecked, it could move a few," he said. (critics are now portrayed as fringe)

In the private meeting in Cleveland with 100 Jewish leaders last month, Obama talked about his 2005 trip to Israel, his views on a Palestinian state and regional Middle East security. He was quickly questioned about his own pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, and an award his church magazine gave last year that said Farrakhan "truly epitomized greatness." (concern that needs to be addressed, action item in defense of cause)

Farrakhan is intolerable to Jewish voters because of a history of anti-Semitic remarks, like calling Judaism a "gutter religion." (statement of fact not attributed to Barack Obama)


Step 4. - Wrap it Up

This is the closer. Provide Barack Obama a platform from which to present his defense. Make sure you get a couple of key quotes. Leave the reader with a sense of calm that dispels all concerns and satisfies those who need an excuse to look past any questions that challenge Barack Obama.

Example:

Obama, who has rejected support from Farrakhan, assured voters his Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago does not endorse such messages. (defense, meaningless words and catch phrases that run counter to facts, tie up loose ends on criticisms for denouncing Farrakhan as opposed to rejecting him*)

"I have never heard an anti-Semitic (remark) made inside of our church. I have never heard anything that would suggest anti-Semitism on the part of the pastor," Obama said in a transcript of his remarks released later. "He (Wright) is like an old uncle who sometimes will say things that I don't agree with. And I suspect there are some of the people in this room who have heard relatives say some things that they don't agree with - including, on occasion, directed at African-Americans." (defense, meaningless words and catch phrases that run counter to facts, excuse, distance Obama from subject of concern)

Obama took the title of his 2006 book "The Audacity of Hope" from a Wright sermon. But last year, he asked Wright not to offer a prayer at his campaign's kickoff in Springfield, Ill. (excuse, distance Obama from subject of concern)

The questioners in Cleveland also raised Obama's use of foreign policy advisers the doubters say are foes of Israel, including former President Carter's national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski. (concern that needs to be addressed)

Obama replied that Brzezinski is an informal, not a key, adviser, and "I do not share his views with respect to Israel." (excuse, distance Obama from subject of concern)

He said he has other foreign policy advisers from the Clinton administration who share his belief that Israel has to remain a Jewish state with special ties to the U.S. and that the Palestinians have been irresponsible. And he said critics' e-mails never mention Lester Crown, a member of his national finance committee who is "considered about as hawkish and tough when it comes to Israel as anybody in the country." (action item in defense of cause, use of fundraiser turned advisor)

"This is where I get to be honest, and I hope I'm not out of school here," Obama told Jewish leaders at the private meeting. "I think there is a strain within the pro-Israel community that says unless you adopt an unwavering, pro-Likud approach to Israel that you're anti-Israel, and that can't be the measure of our friendship with Israel." (restate honesty, pro-Likud substitute as veiled reference to right wing)


The formula is pretty simple and there are variations to be sure. In the end make sure you advocate for Barack Obama while appearing objective.

* Closing the loop technique. Used to tie up loose end. In this example Barack Obama was quietly back peddling on a previous stance where he denounced Louis Farrakhan in the Russert debate with Hillary Clinton. Obama's parsing of words, using "denounce" instead of "reject" was capitalized on by Hillary Clinton and has caused great concern in the Jewish community as noted in the LA Times.

That is my take on the unwritten but seemingly understood formula used by many writers in the mainstream media that seek to defend Barack Obama rather than report on him.

We have seen this kind of thinly veiled activism being exercised by the press for quite some time. There is a double standard being applied to Barack Obama. The contrasts are astounding. Many of those defending him from the "guilt by association" of Rev. Jeremiah Wright are the same crowd that attacked John McCain when radio talk show host Bill Cunningham dared to use the full name of Barack Hussein Obama. Likewise Hillary Clinton has been sliced by the knife of intolerance as she distanced herself from Geraldine Ferraro's statements concerning Barack Obama's meteoric rise to power. The same goes for select religions. The mainstream media worked overtime discussing the Mormonism of Mitt Romney yet we are essentially being told that we shouldn't discuss the church of Barack Obama. It goes on an on, defense after defense, excuse after excuse.

The appalling aspect of this whole exercise is that we are talking about media influence and the duty to inform. I have fun with these examples by sarcasm but presidential campaigns are serious events. The people of this nation deserve more.

Terry Trippany is the editor and publisher of Webloggin.com