With all the coverage of grandiose tragedies as of late caused by the hurricanes, less attention has been paid this year to the regular back to school festivities. However, it is at such times of mass distraction that the abridgements of liberty pose the greatest threat and this is especially true of the mundane bureaucracies that govern much of every day life but are not very exciting in and of themselves such as the public schools.

One annual ritual that connects one generation with the next is subdued sense of joy that comes each year when parents and children go to acquire the supplies needed for the pending academic term. A less enjoyable accretion to this rite of passage is the additional practice of various schools staking a claim to this educational paraphernalia in the name of the community.

Some follow-up on the story of Cpl. Jeffrey Starr, a Marine killed in Iraq on Memorial Day, whose last letter home the New York Times excerpted in an October 26 story marking the 2000th fatality in Iraq.

Sunday's New York Post has the reaction of Starr's girlfriend to the paper's dishonestly selective quotation of his last letter to her: "The reason I chose to share that letter was the paragraph about why he was doing this, not the part about him expecting to die. It hurt, it really hurt,"

As summarized by TimesWatch and others last week, reporter James Dao's story printed a portion of the letter that fit into the paper's agenda of emphasizing the "grim mark" of the 2000th death, thus reducing Starr to a man just waiting to die: "Sifting through Cpl. Starr's laptop computer after his death, his father found a letter to be delivered to the Marine's girlfriend. 'I kind of predicted this,' Cpl. Starr wrote of his own death. 'A third time just seemed like I'm pushing my chances.'"

But here's the full context of that quote, as Michelle Malkin first revealed, showing how Starr felt about his death in the context of the fight for freedom in Iraq (portion left out by the NYT in bold):

"Obviously if you are reading this then I have died in Iraq. I kind of predicted this, that is why I'm writing this in November. A third time just seemed like I'm pushing my chances. I don't regret going, everybody dies but few get to do it for something as important as freedom. It may seem confusing why we are in Iraq, it's not to me. I'm here helping these people, so that they can live the way we live. Not have to worry about tyrants or vicious dictators. To do what they want with their lives. To me that is why I died. Others have died for my freedom, now this is my mark."

Brian Montopoli at Public Eye, the media blog for CBSNews.com, today notes that the left-leaning reaches of the blogosphere are virtually ignoring the riots in Paris which have continued unabated for nearing two weeks now. After excerpting some conservative blogger commentary on the troubles in France, Montopoli closes:

Stories like this are interesting in part because they show just how much what people consider news, and how we explain it, is influenced by our political views. Conservatives think this is a huge story, one that shows the failure of liberal ideology. They see the riots as the result of bad policymaking on the part of the left-leaning French government. (And it never hurts, from a conservative perspective, that France looks bad.) Liberal bloggers, for their part, have mostly ignored what seems a pretty significant story.

It reminds me why it's a mistake for anyone to pay attention to just one side or the other – and to accept the conventional wisdom of one's ideological brethren without questioning the beliefs through which it is filtered.

NYT Political Reporter Todd Purdum ignores Joe Wilson's whoppers and repeats his paper's pre-election conspiracy-mongering in a hodge-podge of a piece for the Sunday Week in Review. "The Message Mongers Rule Us, but Time Rules Them" is (mostly) about handing scandal and brings up the obligatory Libby-Wilson imbroglio, then segues not so smoothly into the paper's pre-election conspiracy-mongering:

"The message-control impulse is as strong today as it ever was, though it can take different forms. Few may know whether the Bush administration's decision to elevate the terror alert level for financial institutions in New York and Washington the weekend after the 2004 Democratic National Convention was pure coincidence, political plot or some mixture of the two. At best, it turned out to be based on intelligence that was not particularly fresh, and it prompted more than a little skepticism."

Our friends at the Associated Press have once again reminded us why any of their releases that contain the name ‘Bush’ must always be viewed skeptically. Their latest entry, “Bush Diplomacy Means Settling for Less” is one such example.

While praising their efforts to work with the UN on Iran and Syria, AP writer Anne Gearan takes the Bush Administration in general and Condi Rice in particular, to task for their former unapologetic unilateralism:

In showdowns over Iran, North Korea and now Syria, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice seemingly agrees that half a loaf is better than none -- an unexpectedly pragmatic streak for a Bush administration better known for going its own way in international affairs.

As reported by Editor and Publisher (with a hat tip to Free Republic), the daily circulation rate of America’s newspapers continued to fall the past six months:

“The Newspaper Association of America said on Monday that overall daily circulation for the six-month period ending September 2005 for 789 newspapers fell 2.6% to 45,153,192 copies. For the 627 papers analyzed, Sunday dropped 3.1% to 49,394,406.”

The Washington Post published two articles today about the war in Iraq. One made the front-page, the other was relegated to page A16. Curiously, the one dealing with a major offensive along the Syrian border was buried. By contrast, the one dealing with American casualties was on the front-page. 

In an article entitled “For Many in Iraq, Death is Quick and Capricious,” Steve Fainaru shared recent casualty totals, while specifically detailing the actions of some of America’s heroes that lead to their unfortunate death:

“The growing number of U.S. military deaths, which reached 2,000 last month and has since risen to 2,035, underscores a grim reality: There are countless ways to die in Iraq.”

This article was not only on the front-page, but was also 1,800 words.

By contrast, on page A16

A column on World Net Daily, promoting a new book due out next week, 'Pants on Fire: How Al Franken Lies, Smears, and Deceives' reveals the real motives behind Al Franken's infamous USO Tours.

Just found out that Skorski will be on Tucker Carlson tonight, MSNBC 11pm.

If Franken is threatening to sue Peter Schweizer over some charges of hypocrisy, imagine his volcano temper over Alan Skorski's new book

Interviewed by his son, Chris, in a pre-taped session for Fox News Sunday, Mike Wallace of CBS’s 60 Minutes rejected as “damn foolishness” the notion of any liberal media bias. Mike Wallace contended, as if it were in doubt, that reporters are “patriots just as much as any conservative. Even a liberal reporter is a patriot, wants the best for this country.” Mike Wallace then condescendingly charged: “Your fair and balanced friends at Fox don't fully understand that.” He also confirmed that he had told Dan Rather that Rather should have resigned when his producers were fired over the Bush National Guard memos story, but when Chris Wallace suggested that story agenda reflected a bias -- “I think that they were quicker to believe it and, therefore, sloppier about checking it out than they would have been about John Kerry" -- Mike Wallace scorned the idea: "I don't believe that for a moment."

Chris Wallace moved on to his father’s new book, Between You and Me. Full transcript, of discussion about liberal bias and Memogate, follows.

When's the last time you remember a broadcast network adopting a politician's self-aggrandizing label as its own description of him?

Yet that's exactly what NBC did on this morning's Today show.  Remember how during the 2000 primaries John McCain traveled around the country on his "Straight Talk Express" bus, beguiling reporters? 

As Katie Couric interviewed McCain this morning, what legend appears at the bottom of the screen?  The utterly uncritical:

"Straight Talk: How Can US Secure Iraq?"

You can't pay for advertising like that!

Katie threw a couple more bouquets John's way.

Asked why he had said that he had "no confidence" in Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, McCain explained that a reporter "asked me a direct question and I gave him a direct answer."

It appears that the violence in France by disaffected Muslims has now reached a boiling point, with 11 straight days of riots, looting, and burning.  The violence has now spread to Paris, and is even spreading to nearby countries that also contain sizeable Muslim populations.

Source:  http://apnews.myway.com/article/20051107/D8DNDM500.html

Where is all the condescension and ridicule from France to the United States now?  For decades, they have told us how "racist" and "unfair" we are to minorities in the United States.  For decades, they would use the 1960s riots to "prove" that we were a "lawless", "racist" and "unfair" country.  Lyndon Johnson's war on poverty and the civil rights act apparently did nothing to disavow the French of the "evils" of American society. 

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.

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