An October 17, 2006, op-ed by Los Angeles Times columnist Joel "I Don't Support Our Troops" Stein condescendingly slams Christianity as a "death cult."

Writing a lippy account of a Presbyterian service he had recently attended, Stein belches,

"The first thing I noticed about church was how much like PBS it was. The lighting was dim, the speakers talked slowly, the songs were dated, there were a lot of references to reading material and every so often my eye line was interrupted by envelopes asking me to donate money. Also, I kept falling asleep."

And (bold added),

"I'd never realized how much of a death cult Christianity is. When we weren't fixating on how awesome Christ's murder was, we were singing about how terrific it was going to be when we bite it. Chipper up, Christians! There's a lot to live for. They're making more of those 'Narnia' movies."

On Sunday October 15, 2006, the Los Angeles Times published a 1488-word, front-page article entitled, "Displease a Lobbyist, Get Fired," by Times staffer Peter Wallsten. The gist of the piece (if you can't glean it from the title): Lobbyist Jack Abramoff "manipulated the system" and used his influence at the White House to get Allen Stayman, a State Department official who was working against the interests of Abramoff's clients, fired. Wallsten's lengthy piece portrays Stayman as an unwitting government official who was innocently bulldozed for standing in the way of Abramoff and his interests.

However, Wallsten's article left out a big chunk of the story. Wallsten failed to inform his readers that Mr. Stayman, back in the 1990's, resigned from President Clinton's Department of Interior. He stepped down after serious criminal investigations was conducted against him and his department for illegal political activity. Documents show that his office contacted the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) to "target" Republican lawmakers who were up for reelection in 1998. The bulk of this campaign activity resulted out of an issue on which Abramoff and Stayman clashed.

A month or so ago I would have said that Neal Gabler and I inhabit different planets, but his apparent home has recently been demoted from planetary status. While I'm off searching for another metaphor, let me pass along the latest comment from the decidedly liberal denizen of Fox News Watch that made me reflect on just how distinct a world view we have. In the course of discussing on this evening's show the controversy that erupted this past week over Rush Limbaugh's comments about Michael Fox, Gabler had this to say:

"The media has tread lightly on Rush and his criticism of [Michael J.] Fox. To my mind, Rush is a cancer to America and hatemongers are marginalized, and why the media does not marginalize Rush, I don't know."

Appearing on Washington Post Radio on Friday, Senate hopeful James Webb (D-Va.) insisted an act which is arguably incest that he included in a novel of his is not in fact a "sexual act."

Yet the Saturday Washington Post had no mention of either the act itself or Webb's defense thereof.

As CNSNews.com reported on October 27:

Among the excerpts is a scene from the 2002 novel "Lost Soldiers," in which a man embraces his four-year-old son and places the boy's penis in his mouth.

Webb said the release of the excerpts was "a Karl Rove campaign tactic" and a "classic example of the way this campaign has worked. It's smear after smear."

He defended his fiction as "illuminative."

"It's not a sexual act," Webb told Plotkin regarding the "Lost Soldiers" excerpt. "I actually saw this happen in a slum in Bangkok when I was there as a journalist."

"The duty of a writer is to illuminate the surroundings," he added.

The following analysis by author and former Bush 43 White House speechwriter David Frum, which he posted Thursday in his blog on National Review Online under the title "The Cry Baby Party," may express what plenty of NewsBusters readers have sensed during this election campaign (bold-type emphasis has been added):

Let me see if I understand the rules of American politics in 2006:

It's in bounds to write a deliberately deceptive voter initiative to try to inscribe embryo-killing research into a state's law.

It's in bounds for a likeable and suffering celebrity to suggest that such research is poised to deliver a cure that will help him - despite the utter absence of evidence for any such claim.

The other governor’s race in America with a Mark Foley echo is in Massachusetts, where Democratic hopeful Deval Patrick, a former Clinton Justice Department official, whom the Washington Post profiled on Wednesday in a feature by staff writer Wil Haygood that was so positive, a liberal blogger characterized it as a "sweet send off for him...I hope he can feel the tail wind."

One reason was that Haygood and the Post completely excluded in this long, 77-paragraph piece how Patrick was embarrassed by an October 13 Boston Herald report by Dave Wedge that Patrick’s brother-in-law was an unregistered sex offender: "a convicted rapist who has been notified by officials that he is in violation of laws that require sex offenders to register with the state...Bernard Sigh was convicted in 1993 in San Diego of raping his wife, Rhonda, who is Patrick’s sister. He pleaded guilty, served a short jail sentence and was put on five years probation, officials said. The Massachusetts Sex Offender Registry Board sent Sigh a letter this week alerting him that he is required to register."

Here is an update to The Case For Invading Iraq And Removing Saddam Hussein From Power.

Hat Tip to Chris Donohoe, Sua Sponte 75, and (**) for some of the descriptions & links.

I. Saddam was known to have WMD and used it in at least 3 separate situations.

1. S. Hussein used Chemical weapons in the Iran-Iraq War [Wikipedia]
2. Hussein used Chemical weapons vs. the Kurds in N. Iraq  [phrusa.org] Also see this  [Free Republic]
3. S. Hussein used Chemical weapons against the Sunnis in S. Iraq [Human Rights Watch]
4. Statements to the effect that Iraq had or was seeking WMD made by: President Clinton, Madeline Albright, Sandy BergerRep. Nancy Pelosi, Sen. Carl Levin, V.P. Al Gore.  Also see this for many of the same or similar remarks [Snopes & acsa.net]
5. Letter to Pres. Clinton, signed by: Sens. Carl Levin, Tom Daschle, John Kerry, & others 10-09-1998. [Snopes]
6. Letter to Pres. Bush, Signed by Sen. Bob Graham & others, Dec, 5, 2001.  [Snopes]

II. There is a long list of WMD, delivery systems, and banned conventional weapons found in Iraq

The Department of Homeland Security has opened an office referred to as the Center for Faith-Based and Community Initiatives which will be part of the Preparedness Directorate responsible for channeling relief funds. Secularists such as those at Americans United for the Separation of Church and State are critical of the program for fear that churches and religious ministries will withhold federal aide from disaster victims until they’ve had a chance to catechize a captive audience. However, the groups themselves likely to seemingly benefit from such apparent largesse should also be leery of the tempting apple set before them.

It has been said that he who pays the piper calls the tune. Thus, anytime funds are distributed, those handing them out are going to say how they are going to be dished out even if what they are now handing out wasn’t originally theirs to begin with.

...Support Conservative Talk Radio...   Now more than ever we need talk shows like  "The Captain's AMERICA"...   Tune in to hear great guest's...    Current Events, Iraq, Politics and more...     We need good, conservative shows like   "The Captain's AMERICA"!   Listen to the show live on 1490 WWPR Radio   Bradenton-Sarasota-Tampa & Venice, FL.   Or at www.wwpr1490.com   Monday thru Thursday 12 noon - 1 PM (ET)   If you miss the show, check out the podcast:   http://thecaptainsamerica.podomatic.com/   Show your support     for Conservative Talk radio     and   "The Captain's AMERICA" Radio Show    by calling WWPR   today at   941-761-8843Email: manager@1490wwpr.com   

As Tim Graham reported here earlier this week, NBC reporter Richard Engel, who spends much of his time in Iraq, has declared: "I think war should be illegal...I'm basically a pacifist."

This morning's 'Today' ran a feature Engel had put together focusing on depression among American troops serving in Iraq. Engel spoke with men of the 1st Platoon, 562nd Engineer Company. At one point, Engel asked the soldier pictured here:

"You ever worry one day your number's gonna come up?'"

Replied the soldier, in words echoing those of comrades over the generations: "Yeah, but you try to keep that in the back of your head. You just focus on today and what you've got to do to get it right and bring everybody back home alive."

One of the maddening things about the Mark Foley scandal is how the media can take one congressman’s creepy Internet messages about masturbating, declare it an issue in 468 congressional races, demand the head of the Speaker of the House, and then decry other people for ruining democracy with desperate negative ads that besmirch honest public servants. It’s exactly how Michael Grunwald’s Washington Post story on Friday began, with the Republican opponent to Rep. Ron Kind (who represents my dear old home town of Viroqua, Wisconsin) mocking his backing of federal sex studies. Grunwald and the Post predictably summarize, with typical spit and polish, the DNC talking points of the day, that it's the GOP that wins the prize for negativity:

The New York Times is moaning the supposed loss of the "Republican Moderate" in Congress with their latest piece, Moderate Republicans Feeling Like Endangered Species.

Amusingly, some of the names they use to define a "Republican Moderate" are Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins of Maine and Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island. They also mention Mike DeWine of Ohio, but the three they focus on are Snowe, Collins and Chafee... these are the people they call "moderate".

Let's take a look at how the ACU rates the conservative voting record of these three in 2005 (0 being least conservative and 100 the most conservative).

Susan Collins - 32
Olympia Snowe - 32
Lincoln Chafee - 12

These three are FAR from being "moderate". They are more like Democrats -- and far left ones at that -- than Republicans and rarely vote with their national Party on any issue. But, to the NYT "moderate" means voting with Democrats, apparently.

FNC's Bill O'Reilly returned to the Late Show Friday night for round two with David Letterman over Iraq. In the show taped on Monday but not aired until Friday, Letterman expressed disgust with the war: "So we've made a mistake in war, so we stay there and kill as many Americans as we possibly can? That's the way you get out of a mistake?" At another point, Letterman fretted: “It's all about oil. That's why we're there. Big deal." When O'Reilly asserted that “it isn't 'We're a bad country, Bush is an evil liar.' That's not true," Letterman retorted that "I didn't say we were a bad country. I didn't say he was an evil liar" and charged: "You're putting words in my mouth just the way you put artificial facts in your head."

Unlike the January 3 confrontation, however, each time it seemed to get too personal, O'Reilly would always -- and Letterman sometimes too -- interject a humorous rejoinder to try to keep the interview from becoming too hard-edged. “We're really friends. This is all an act. We're buddies. We bowl," O'Reilly proposed in an effort to cut the tension. For a look at the January session, check my NewsBusters post of the time (with video), “Letterman Denounces Iraq War, Sheehan Critics.” My Friday night posting, “O'Reilly Returns to Late Show Friday Night, Letterman Calls Him a 'Liar,'” recounted comments Letterman made on his Thursday night show. (Partial transcript from Friday's show follows)

Video clip of the most animated portion of the O'Reilly appearance (7:10): Real (5.3 MB at 100 kbps) or Windows Media (4.5 MB at 81 kbps), plus MP3 audio (2.5 MB)