It’s nice to see anti-Semitism alive and well at the Guardian. Then again, at least it’s nice to see a major media source wear its bias on its sleeve, rather than pretend it’s purely neutral.
Will Hutton decides to rebuke Israel for its recent incursions into Gaza, which netted eight cabinet members, thirty members of parliament, and thirty other officials of the Hamas-led Palestinian government, calling these acts, as well as the bombings of infrastructure targets in Gaza, a declaration of war by the Israeli state.
Memo to Mr. Hutton: Well, duh.
Hutton notes “Missiles from Gaza are regularly fired at Israel.” Yet in Hutton’s world, this apparently does not constitute an act of war against Israel by the Palestinian state, despite his earlier statement, “The Hamas government has not yet renounced its commitment to the elimination of Israel or to the use of terrorism.” The “elimination of Israel” as a tenant of what Hutton claims is a legitimate and sovereign government is not a “declaration of war”? I’m not sure how much clearer Hamas, and thus, the Palestinian people, who put Hamas in power, have to be in their declaration of war against Israel to satisfy Mr. Hutton.
Far from being, as Hutton claims, an inexcusable act of war, Israel’s bombings of and raids in to Gaza are more of what Israel needs to be doing to stand strong in the face of an enemy which seeks its utter annihilation. There may be a sliver of hope for peace between Israel and the Palestinians, if Palestinian Prime Minister Abbas were not being undermined by the Hamas majority in the government.
But when a majority of a nation seeks not only the defeat of its neighbor, but the elimination of that nation’s people, there is little reasoning that can be done with such persons to secure peace. Israel must project strength to protect itself, to assure the Palestinians and any other group or nation that it is willing to do whatever it takes to ensure “Never again.”
Writers such as Mr. Hutton would do well to pack away their double standards for the Israeli state and, well, “remain silent” would be the polite term.
Tag: politics
I’m sure, like Jeff and Mark Alexander, I fall in to a distinct minority of conservative-minded folks in that I do not approve of the line-item veto.
Jeff gives a great example of the sort of situation fiscal conservatives point to as their case for the line-item veto:
Congress has embraced the notion of passing ten-thousand-page omnibus bills that provide an appropriation for buying missiles, invest taxpayer dollars in education, reform the health-insurance, and by the way also fund half a dozen wasteful squanderings of the federal treasury. And if the President wants to veto it, he has to veto it all. Nuts, right?
As Jeff goes on to say, yes, it is nuts. But members of Congress need to stand up and defend their reasons for why they want these “wasteful squanderings” included along with the legitimate items in such bills. (Though I will quibble that the government has no business in the health insurance business, either.) Equally so, the President–and this is any president, not just the current one–should get the message out to the American people why he’s vetoing the entire bill, despite all of its good and legitimate items.
More communication is the key. As Jeff puts it, the American people need to be made smarter as to the machinations of their government. The two parties seem to enjoy playing politics, so why not extend that to budgetary items? If Congress sends you a spending bill with bridges to nowhere in it, you veto it, tell the American people you vetoed it because of the bridges to nowhere, and mention you’d be happy to sign it when it comes back without the bridges to nowhere within. Likewise, if Congress sends a spending bill without any largesse–stop laughing, this is a hypothetical after all–and the President still vetoes it, Congress has that handy two-thirds majority thingy from the Constitution.
Like net “neutrality” legislation, I think the line-item veto is a mountain that’s actually a molehill. We have more important areas to concentrate on, like keeping those who wish to kill us outside of our borders.
Oh, by the way, there are weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. A lesser man might say something like, “Suck it, mouth-foamers”, but I’ll refrain from engaging in such childish behavior.
At journalism conferences, the question is often brought up whether a journalist should see himself as an American first or a journalist first. Often the consensus is that they are journalists first.
I wonder how many of them would report a story if it would mean the death of their own child. And would any of those reporters who would be journalists first in even that appalling instant cheerfully mis-report a story in order to cause the death of their child? I suspect virtually none would.
If only they loved their country’s young and willing warriors as much as they loved their own children.
But the journalists today are too swept up in their own dance macabre to even notice the murderous consequences of their own malfeasance — or to hear the demands of simple decency.
Speaking of Tom, he’s authored a great paper as part of the Master’s program he’s enrolled in. Titled “Weblogs, Pamphlets and Public Citizens: Changing Modern Media“, in which he compares the citizen journalists of today’s blogosphere to the pamphleteers of pre-Revolutionary War America. I got a sneak peek during the drafting and editing phase, and I think it’s really good.
Some choice quotes:
The effects of blogs in a new media environment are twofold: Weblogs cover stories that their mainstream media counterparts, for editorial reasons or other gatekeeping practices common in modern professional media, omit or miss entirely; and weblogs also bring to bear an ever-vigilant group of diverse problem solvers that fact-check the work of many reporters and journalists in the mass-media arena. This makes the blogosphere an excellent addendum to mass media, operating as both appendix and errata to the main compendium of stories that the mass media puts into the public sphere using trained reporters and journalists.
and
As technology had advanced further, producing Really Simple Syndication (RSS), a distribution method that allows for easy and automatic syndication of new additions to weblogs, it has become possible for a consumer of media to add weblogs to their daily news diet. This allows for readers to mix and match their media, creating a new media outlet that is personally tailored to their interests and to their pursuits. Using an RSS-reader application on a personal computer, a sports fan can have a forty-page sports section and a one page local section, or a political junkie can have page after page of differing commentary from a variety of sources. The reader becomes their own editor and gatekeeper, combining multiple weblogs and conventional media sources, which have also adopted RSS, into their own personal fountain of news and commentary.
If you’ve read Dan Gillmor’s We The Media and/or Hugh Hewitt’s Blog, some of Tom’s piece will sound familiar, especially in that he cites the former as a source, but I say the familiarity makes Tom’s arguments stronger. Good work, my friend!
The Stephen Colbert kerfuffle, intrinsically uninteresting though it is, leads Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen to an excellent insight:
Why are you wasting my time with Colbert, I hear you ask. Because he is representative of what too often passes for political courage, not to mention wit, in this country. His defenders–and they are all over the blogosphere–will tell you he spoke truth to power. This is a tired phrase, as we all know, but when it was fresh and meaningful it suggested repercussions, consequences–maybe even death in some countries. When you spoke truth to power you took the distinct chance that power would smite you, toss you into a dungeon or–if you’re at work–take away your office.
But in this country, anyone can insult the president of the United States. Colbert just did it, and he will not suffer any consequence at all. He knew that going in.
This, it seems to us, explains several conceits of the Angry Left:
The notion that criticism–whether of the Dixie Chicks or of Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer–amounts to censorship.
Claims by Democratic politicians that Republicans are “questioning” their “patriotism.”
Fears of incipient fascism.
What these have in common, aside from being totally fantastical, is that they all reinforce the image of the Angry Leftist as courageous dissenter. In truth, this country is so tolerant, indeed downright indulgent, of this sort of “dissent” that it affords no opportunity to be courageous.
Speak “truth to power” in America, and power will pat you on the head and say, “What an adorable little girl.” Some on the Angry Left could actually have the courage to stand up if they were faced with real consequences–but they are unlikely ever to get that chance. America’s almost boundless tolerance thus reduces them to the level of petulant children. No wonder they’re so angry.
The elements of the “crisis” Mitchell describes are twofold: (1) Iraq isn’t Vietnam–i.e., a war the press helps lose for America; and (2) the Bush administration hasn’t produced a Watergate–i.e., a corruption scandal in which the press helps bring down an administration. This isn’t a crisis for America. For most Americans, Vietnam and Watergate were tragedies, and we’d rather not repeat them, thank you very much.
But it is a crisis for the press. For journalists of a certain age, Vietnam and Watergate were triumphs that they are eager to repeat. It doesn’t look as though that’s going to happen. Our advice to newsmen? Pray. “Lord, grant me the courage to change what I can, the serenity to accept what I cannot, and the wisdom to know the difference.”
Amen. Now stop crusading and report the damn news.
The bad news, surprise, surprise, is that it’s not as good as we think it is.
Jeff Donn, for the AP:
Startling research from the biggest study ever of U.S. health care quality suggests that Americans – rich, poor, black, white – get roughly equal treatment, but it’s woefully mediocre for all.
[…]
The survey of nearly 7,000 patients, reported Thursday in the New England Journal of Medicine, considered only urban-area dwellers who sought treatment, but it still challenged some stereotypes: These blacks and Hispanics actually got slightly better medical treatment than whites.
While the researchers acknowledged separate evidence that minorities fare worse in some areas of expensive care and suffer more from some conditions than whites, their study found that once in treatment, minorities’ overall care appears similar to that of whites.
“It doesn’t matter who you are. It doesn’t matter whether you’re rich or poor, white or black, insured or uninsured,” said chief author Dr. Steven Asch, at the Rand Health research institute, in Santa Monica, Calif. “We all get equally mediocre care.”
Too bad this won’t shut the left up on wanting government-run, socialized medicine.
[Via Stones Cry Out.]
Stephen Moore, Political Diary:
During last week’s debate about the federal earmarking process — which is used to distribute pork to congressional districts — House Appropriators struck back. The appropriators, of both parties, complain that fiscal conservatives in the House are trying to ruin a time-honored congressional tradition of passing out bacon by demanding full transparency for pork spending. In a letter to his colleagues, Idaho Republican Rep. Mike Simpson went so far as to argue that the Framers wouldn’t have approved of this effort to curb Congress’s power of the purse and even claimed “earmarking is virtually required by article 1 section 9 clause 7 of the Constitution.”
So we did some checking on the writings of the founders to shed some light on their view of the domestic pork process. The first budget ever passed by Congress approved roughly $100 million of funds in today’s dollars. There were no Lawrence Welk Museums or Cowboy Hall of Fame earmarks in the bill — which was only a few pages long. The founders believed that if a government function wasn’t listed in the Constitution under the enumerated powers clause (Article I, Section 8), the right to spend money didn’t exist. Pork was hardly an issue.
The biggest opponent to federal spending on parochial projects was Thomas Jefferson. Here is what Jefferson wrote in a letter to James Madison: “I view [road building] as a source of boundless patronage to the executive, jobbing to members of Congress & their friends, and a bottomless abyss of public money. You will begin by only appropriating the surplus of the post roads revenues, but the other revenues will soon be called into their aid, and it will be a scene of eternal scramble among the members, who can get the most money wasted in their State; and they will always get most who are meanest.”
To be sure, there were defenders of congressional funding of local projects, most notably Alexander Hamilton. But back then the stakes and dollar amounts were much smaller. Given what’s happening today in Congress with highway bills larded up with thousands of special projects, we’d say that Jefferson’s warning was amazingly prescient. We’d also say that the founders would be mighty disgusted with the way Republicans and Democrats have been serving as guardians of the public purse.
I haven’t started reading Robert Ferrigno’s Prayers for the Assassin yet, though I need to soon. I have started reading his blog the past few days, and like this post from last month:
[I]t seems to me that the issue of the cartoons points out the dangers of multi-culturalism, which has been embraced by Western societies post WW2. If all cultures are equal, and each culture reserves the right to be offended and to act on that offense in a matter it deems appropriate, whether burning cartoons or cartoonists, than we’re in for a rocky ride. When do the Hindus in the West start torching McDonalds for promoting the sinful eating of cows? When do the Amish run amok in shopping malls outraged by the rampant consumerism and excess vanity? When do the Scientologists go after South Park, one of my three favorite TV shows?
Eerie how some things come to pass. Not that Scientologists are going after South Park (yet), but it was odd reading Robert’s post from February 5th, in light of the recent Isaac Hayes-South Park flap.
I don’t think we’ll see the Amish run amok any time soon, either, since they tend toward pacifism, but I must say I won’t be surprised to learn of any Hindu violence, should it erupt in this country. Like many Muslims in other countries, the Hindu within India can be exceedingly violent against Christians, Buddhists, and other persons of faith.