Oh the beauteous words we use to describe freedom! And she is indeed worth it, or at least used to be. The bitch of it is, in order for the words to carry any weight, you must back them up with action, lest you look like a wretched lip-server. And action is where we have—of late—fallen terribly, terribly short.

There was a day when traitors were hanged, not honored. There was a day when a treacherous hand was removed, not salved. There was a day when a coward hung his head in shame instead of strutting arrogantly before crowds and contingencies.

The following is a statement that is posted on the Whitehouse web site...this has never been done before.

Link - http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/11/20051111-6.html

Text...

Setting the Record Straight: Sen. Kennedy On Iraq

"It is regrettable that Senator Kennedy has chosen Veteran's Day to continue leveling baseless and false attacks that send the wrong signal to our troops and our enemy during a time of war. It is also regrettable that Senator Kennedy has found more time to say negative things about President Bush then he ever did about Saddam Hussein. If America were to follow Senator Kennedy's foreign policy, Saddam Hussein would not only still be in power, he would be oppressing and occupying Kuwait."

     CBS’s Bob Schieffer offered viewers “a solution to high energy prices” that “may be as plain as daylight.” Yet the truth of the matter was far different and the November 10 report showed the network was in the dark about its own story on solar energy.

     The story didn’t just wildly underestimate the cost of one family’s “tiny electric bill.”. It also forgot to mention that the tax breaks for solar power all come out the pockets of other taxpayers – in this case, more than $10 billion worth.

     The “Evening News” went to Barry and Anita Mathis’ house to look at solar panels as a way to cope with higher energy costs. Mrs. Mathis showed reporter Thalia Assuras her bill, which was just $43.01. “It was kind of mind-blowing when I first moved into this house because I'd open power bills and I'd just start laughing,” Mrs. Mathis said. “It just didn't make any sense that you could save this much money on electricity.”

A little bird forwarded me an email from MoveOn.org asking minions to write editorials for local newspapers and they have even provided what to say along with the best way to ensure they get published.

We need your help. Read the following mission from MoveOn.org, and if you see any letters to the editor or even editorials that look anything like this, please let me know.

Dear [insert minion name here - .ed]

Thank you for volunteering last week to write an editorial in your local paper calling on our leaders to get serious about Iraq.

This is a critical moment: the CIA leak scandal has highlighted the White House role in deceiving the nation when we went to war, and the public is turning against the continued occupation in Iraq.

CBS's Rene Syler interviewed the new Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Marine General Peter Pace, in the first half hour of today's Early Show. Her first question to Pace was prefaced by the body count of yesterday's suicide bombings at American hotels in Amman, Jordan at the hands of terrorists who had crossed the border from Iraq. In light of that tragedy, Syler wondered: "Do you take this as a sign that we are losing the war on terror?"

Though Syler and other co-hosts of the Early Show mentioned today is Veteran's Day and briefly thanked American veterans for their military service, there were no positive stories on accomplishments in Iraq or Afghanistan or reviews of progress in the war on terror overall. This is par for the course for the Early Show, however, as I've blogged here and here. The full transcript is posted below:

Video excerpt: RealPlayer or Windows Media

You know you're reading an unfair attack article when they're too scared to even use a byline. Today someone at MSNBC relied on partisan activists Media Matters to go after Bill O'Reilly for saying "that it was A-OK for terrorists to wipe the city [San Francisco] off the map."

That's not what he said at all. I was listening when he said it. The article reads:

At issue are comments from O'Reilly's Election Day broadcast radio show about a San Francisco ballot measure opposing the presence of military recruiters in city schools. "Listen, citizens of San Francisco, if you vote against military recruiting, you're not going to get another nickel in federal funds. Fine. You want to be your own country? Go right ahead," O'Reilly said, according to a transcript and audio posted by liberal media watchdog group Media Matters for America, and by the San Francisco Chronicle. "And if al-Qaida comes in here and blows you up, we're not going to do anything about it..."

What they left out was the paragraph before that where O'Reilly suggested that because San Francisco routinely rejects the military, if the measure passed, Federal officials may want to consider pulling military protection from the city. He didn't at all say it was "A-OK for terrorists to wipe the city off the map," only that if they do attack San Francisco the rest of us shouldn't have to come bail them out, and everyone should know that from go. By the way, does the whole city of San Francisco live in Coit Tower?

Further, the anonymously written article says:

Alioto briefly tripped up O'Reilly during her appearance, pointing out that he had conflated the military-recruitment measure with another measure to ban handguns.

I watched that show too and Alioto didn't trip up anyone but herself. O'Reilly brought her on to talk about both bills, toward the end he started talking about the second measure and her brain didn't realize that until several sentences into it whereas she acted like O'Reilly didn't know what he was talking about. Try to keep up Alioto, The Factor is a fast paced show. The rest of us followed along just fine.

Don't forget to visit the Live Vote asking if O'Reilly went to far.

The Paris riots have highlighted more than any other issue in recent years not only the bias, but the ignorance of the "old media." Internet readers have studied the situation in Europe for years. Numerous writers, from Mark Steyn to Ba'at Yeor to Debbie Schlussel, have long predicted the decline of Europe and the jihad that we have seen over the past few weeks.

But the "old media" personalities still have no clue as to what is going on. And their reporting and commentary has taken on an almost comical quality as a result.

Years after "new media" readers began to understand the consequences of French policies toward Islamic immigrants, CNN's anchor Carol Lin referred (on November 6th) to some of the participants in the Paris fiasco as African-American (apparently for lack of a better euphemism). Video available: Real Player or Windows Media

The claims that Mary Mapes is now making on her Truth and Duty book tour are as obtuse and embarrassing as those made by CBS News in the 10 days after the 60 Minutes hit job on President Bush aired back on September 8, 2004.

This morning on Fox & Friends, Mapes told co-host E.D. Hill that when she was first given the now-infamous memos, “I assumed they were forgeries,” but became convinced of their reliability by comparing them to official records and talking to others in the National Guard at the time.

Those arguments were laughable back in 2004, and only Mapes (and Dan Rather) seem in utter denial of the obvious: that they were victims of a not-very-convincing hoax.

The Times' top book critic again denies that there's liberal bias in the media.

This morning, Michiko Kakutani hails the anti-Bush book "Attack the Messenger" by Craig Crawford, a columnist for Congressional Quarterly, under the headline "Bushes' War Against Media."

Notice the plural "Bushes." Apparently, only Bush Sr. and Bush Jr. went to war on the media, not Bill Clinton. Then again, given that 89% of the White House press corps voted for Clinton in 1992, perhaps didn't have as much reason to attack the press.

The producers of "The West Wing" must have been pretty impressed with their idea to stage a political debate between the two fictional presidential candidates on live television Sunday. It was a through-the-looking-glass experience where NBC ran a live debate between two fictional characters, moderated by real-life reporter Forrest Sawyer, and aired with the NBC News Live "bug" (the little station graphic at the bottom of the screen).

One of the document experts CBS consulted has written a response to claims made about her by Mary Mapes in her new book. Last year CBS said that document expert Emily J. Will vouched for the authenticity of the photocopied documents.

In a point-by-point rebuttal, Will responds to passages from the fired producer's new book, Truth and Duty.

On Friday, September 3, 2004, I was closing down my office and thinking about the Labor Day Weekend ahead when the phone rang and the caller asked whether I would be willing to work over the weekend on some important, time-sensitive documents. This was the beginning of my involvement in the examination of documents in the Bush National Guard Document/Memo-Gate news story.

This week, the book "Truth and Duty" by Mary Mapes, former CBS producer, was released. The book contains several inaccuracies in the description of my participation. Because the book is a public document, I see it as my duty to publicly state the truth about what I said and did.

That's my recommendation for supplying the missing description of sources' motives in the Washington Post's DeLay Team Weighed Misdemeanor Plea to Save GOP Post by R. Jeffrey Smith on A1:

Lawyers for Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) tried unsuccessfully in late September to head off felony criminal indictments against the then-majority leader on charges of violating Texas campaign law by signaling that DeLay might plead guilty to a misdemeanor, according to four sources familiar with the events.

The lawyers' principal aim was to try to preserve DeLay's leadership position under House Republican rules that bar lawmakers accused of felonies from holding such posts. DeLay was forced to step down as leader on Sept. 28 after the first of two grand jury indictments....

You would think that this would be front-page, headline news:

“The insurgent organization al Qaeda in Iraq asserted responsibility Thursday for the blasts that tore through three hotels here the night before, the deadliest terrorist attack ever carried out in Jordan.

“‘After studying and observing the targets, the places of execution were chosen to be some hotels which the tyrant of Jordan has turned into a back yard for the enemies of Islam, such as the Jews and Crusaders,’" the group said in a statement.”

Oddly, the editors of the Washington Post must not have thought a statement from the terrorist organization that has declared war on America was very important, for they buried it on page A21.

Al-Jazeera International, a new English-language channel delivering news from an Arab perspective, is having trouble finding American cable companies willing to place it in their lineups.

Reports the British Guardian:

Nigel Parsons, the head of al-Jazeera International, said it was proving difficult to persuade US cable companies to give the channel space on their platforms.

"Without doubt there are one or two countries where it's more difficult. The US is not the easiest and nor is Australia," Mr Parsons told an audience of broadcasting executives at the News Xchange conference in Amsterdam.

"In other places we are knocking on open doors and I think we will get good carriage. Plus you've always got broadband so we will be visible [in the US]."

Karl Rove is BACK baby!  And just in TIME to get a good strategy going to EXPAND the GOP majority in the House and Senate! 

Next year, there are 33 Senate seats up for grabs, 17 seats currently held by Democrats, 15 seats currently held by Republicans, and 1 independent seat (Jim Jeffords).  So, immediately, Democrats are in the unfortunate position of having to DEFEND more seats than the Republicans.  Governor Jeb Bush in Florida is "term limited" and can't run for governor again.  If he runs for Senate, he could very easily defeat Bill Nelson (D) of Florida.

In the House (where all 435 seats are up for grabs), 15 Democratic seats are currently considered "vulnerable", and 22 Republican seats are considered "vulnerable".  Currently, Republicans hold the edge in the house by a count of 232 Republicans to 202 Democrats.  Assuming the Democrats win all their "vulnerable" seats, and Republicans lose ALL their "vulnerable" seats (something highly unlikely to happen), it would mean a net pick up of 22 seats for Democrats, and they would re-take the house by a margin of 224 to 210.  This is the "best case" scenario for Democrats.

Gaggle is a daily comic strip about the Washington press corps and Larry the press secretary. Larry deals with the shenanigans of reporters who couldn't imagine anyone voting for a Republican.

Click here for instructions on running Gaggle daily on your own site. There's also an archive of previous toons available here.

Media Wrong About Dollar: As the frequency of pessimistic reports increases, their accuracy seems to decline.

Since the stock market’s collapse between March 2000 and October 2002, the                    Free Market Project    media have continually been making gloomy and bearish economic forecasts, from predictions of a housing bubble implosion to gasoline prices heading to $5 per gallon and even an economic downturn due to Hurricane Katrina. As The Free Market Project has reported, none of these have panned out.

Other examples of media gloom and doom that ended up being inaccurate were the press’s opinions of the falling dollar at the end of last year, and what they believed were the likely consequences. Tom Fenton of CBS News went so far as to link the decline to the start of the Bush presidency. “Since the end of the Clinton administration – or to put it another way, since the beginning of the Bush administration – the dollar has been heading south at an alarming rate,” he argued in a Dec. 6, 2004, piece.

Asked by Bill O'Reilly Thursday night on FNC whether she's a liberal, Mary Mapes, the CBS News producer fired in January for her role in the forged National Guard memos and representations she made to her colleagues, first put up the usual avoidance device of a liberal -- “I'm not sure what a liberal is” -- before insisting that “like a lot of Americans, I'm all over the map.” In the taped interview, O'Reilly then pressed her: "Are you registered Democrat?" Mapes seriously responded: “I don't know." O'Reilly scoffed: "You don't know?" Mapes claimed: "I don't know if I'm independent or Democrat. I know I'm not -- in Texas, I'm not sure how I'm registered." (But apparently she's quite sure she's no Republican.) O'Reilly returned to his original interest: "So you would describe yourself politically as?" She maintained: "Oh, my goodness. I'm liberal on some things, I'm conservative on some things."

Video excerpt in Real or Windows Media. (Transcript of this exchange follows.)

In psychiatry the term illusion refers to a specific fo