Blogs

Outrageously, a new live-action movie based on the G.I. Joe toy line might see Joe's American soldier identity scrubbed to be replaced by membership in an "international force based in Brussels." The news site, IGN Entertainment, a site that reports on the gaming, comics and movie industries, has the scoop on the upcoming live-action G.I. Joe movie that Paramount is launching and it is looking like the G.I. Joe that we all loved, that "real American hero," is going to be replaced with "Action Man," a member of an "international operations team." It appears that the American soldier, a liberator and protector, isn't a good enough role model for the execs at Paramount! Paramount is even turning Joe's name into an acronym adding insult to injury. Instead of just being the main character's name, it will become G.I.J.O.E., meaning "Global Integrated Joint Operating Entity."

It might not have been instant, but the bad karma a former British tabloid editor got calling President Bush "an idiot" for falling off a Segway in 2003 got him four years later as he broke three ribs when he accidentally hit a curb driving a - wait for it - Segway (h/t Say Anything via Glenn Reynolds).

As reported by Access Hollywood on August 21 (emphasis added):

Piers Morgan may be a great judge of "talent," but clearly, riding a segway is not one of his own.

The "America's Got Talent" judge broke several ribs this weekend as a result of a Segway accident, and may not be able to appear on tonight's season finale.

Hysterically, on June 14, 2003, the tabloid Morgan was then editor for, the Daily Mirror, ran a headline "You'd have to be an idiot to fall off, wouldn't you Mr President," along with a rather disparaging article with these pictures of Bush's accident (emphasis added):

How pathetic are the posters on a large blog when its own founder berates them for being gullible fools for being easily scammed by an obviously phony story? Such was the case with the posters on the favorite "progressive" blog of the MSM, the Daily Kos, when its founder, Markos Moulitsas, tore into them for being suckers because they fell for a story about a supposed imminent U.S. invasion of Iran based on the fantasies of a blogger with a history of fabulist tall tales. To add insult to injury, Moulitsas even cited a "rightwing" blog to discredit the thread posted by Daily Kos blogger Maccabee who originated the Iran invasion fantasy:

Seriously, just because something online confirms your own viewpoint or prejudices or whatnot, it does not mean it's true.

Skepticism is a virtue.

Now the right-wingers are laughing at the gullibility of those who recommend Maccabee's diaries.

On Monday, the Washington Post broke the news of another major Hillary Clinton campaign finance fiasco that seems destined to be ignored or downplayed by media in much the same way previous instances of such behavior by the former First Lady avoided press scrutiny.

After all, the media for seven years largely buried Hillary's involvement with convicted felon Peter F. Paul during her 2000 senatorial campaign, and have clearly downplayed last week's revelations concerning fugitive Norman Hsu's ties to the junior senator from New York.

Now, as reported by the Post, there's a third scandal involving the front-runner for the Democrat presidential nomination which, given past precedent, might also not receive the kind of attention the press would give the matter if Hillary had an "R" next to her name (emphasis added throughout):

Actor and commentator Ben Stein strongly defended Larry Craig on Friday's "Your World with Neil Cavuto," arguing that the police officer who arrested the Idaho Republican senator used "Gestapo tactics" to "browbeat" him into pleading guilty when, in fact, Craig had not committed any illegal act.

"He didn't do anything. He tapped his foot," Stein said. "And I don't like the idea that people are sitting in the next stall from you at a public bathroom listening to whether or not you tap your foot. This is, as I said, Gestapo tactics, Gestapo, Gestapo, Gestapo. It's not America."

Video: Windows Media (5.6 MB) Real (5.1 MB) Audio: MP3

Transcript follows:

If a survey found that the overwhelming majority of Americans believe lawmakers are using global warming hysteria to raise taxes, would the climate change obsessed media report it?

Highly doubtful, wouldn't you agree?

Well, Britain's Daily Mail published an article Monday that seems quite unlikely any major U.S. press outlet would dare cover for fear of contradicting the media meme of the debate being over concerning this controversial issue (emphasis added throughout, h/t Benny Peiser):

Possible discussion point: Most of our national holidays have some special meaning to the citizenry. Other than the informal end of summer, and the beginning of the new school year, what does Labor Day mean to you?

In an Entertainment Weekly interview, Jodie Foster explained her views on guns, “I don't believe that any gun should be in the hand of a thinking, feeling, breathing human being.”

She also said it is “shameful” that the “unsophisticated people who see a sophisticated movie” will cheer when she goes after the bad guys who kill her fiance in her new vigilante movie “The Brave One”

(emphasis mine throughout):

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: There's a rallying moment in The Brave One when you stick a gun in a bad guy's face and say, ''I want my dog back.'' How are you going to feel about the audience cheering on your character as she starts hunting people down?
JODIE FOSTER: It's shameful, but that's human and that's who we are as human beings. There will be unsophisticated people who see a sophisticated movie. Just like there were in The Accused. And thank God I only went to one screening of that movie with an audience.

Katie Couric reporting from Iraq.

If CBS's Katie Couric is beginning to believe the surge is working, it seems that even the most liberal media member could be convinced.

With that in mind, Couric was Bob Schieffer's guest on Sunday's "Face the Nation," and after spending some time touring Iraq with Gen. David Petraeus, felt the General will be quite optimistic when he reports to Congress next week.

In fact, after Schieffer asked what Petraeus would say to lawmakers upon his return to Washington, Couric seemed quite impressed with what the General had showed her during her tour (video available here):

The New York Times has now corrected a "smear" about Pete Seeger being 50 years too late in denouncing Stalin. Thanks to the intrepid research of Times reporter Daniel J. Wakin, the record has now been set straight. Pete Seeger was only about 40 years too late in criticizing Stalin.

What inspired Wakin to make this "major" correction was a report by historian Ron Radosh in the August 31 New York Sun that Pete Seeger sent him a letter recently expressing his regret that he didn't see what anybody with a pair of even slightly discerning eyes could have spotted: that Joseph Stalin was evil. In reponse to Radosh's criticism of the former Communist Party member for slavishly following the Stalinist party line, Pete Seeger sent him a letter which was excerpted in Seeger Speaks — and Sings — Against Stalin:

A religious debate about Mother Teresa took place on Tuesday's "Hardball" between author Christopher Hitchens and Bill Donohue, the President of the Catholic League.

Towards the end of the discussion, Donohue said to Hitchens, "Listen, you want to take it outside, Christopher, that's fine."

For some reason, MSNBC decided not to include this in the transcript posted at its website (video available here, relevant segment at 4:54):

Last week, NewBusters informed you of the hypocrisy behind 25 of America's newspapers opting not to publish an "Opus" cartoon which could be perceived by Muslims as being offensive.

Much of the discussion at the time concerning the matter was just how innocent the Muslim reference seemed to be, and how absurd the decision not to publish the comic strip was.

Well, the second of the two cartoons was published Sunday (h/t Hot Air).

*****Update: Charles Johnson's take on this issue, as well as a fabulous Cox & Forkum spoof of Washington Post's position follow after the break.

A blog posting at Daily Kos on August 24 has fired up the Netroots to point accusatory fingers at a Maine newspaper editor whose wife works for Republican Senator Susan Collins.

After all the smoke clears, liberal bloggers ignored some key facts concerning this matter:

• The editor under fire has worked at the newspaper in question since 1971
• His wife - who is about to retire in September - has worked for the Senator in question for ten years
• Her involvement with the Senator was disclosed by two newspapers, including the one her husband works for, in 1998
• The cousin of Collins's Democrat opponent for reelection in 2008 is the paper in question's political editor.

Of course, none of these facts were included in the Daily Kos post that got this firestorm started:

Possible talking point: Congress returns to work next week. Other than the war in Iraq and Petraeus's pending report, what will our legislators be addressing when they get back? Will the Democrats actually have an agenda besides Bush-bashing?

Islamic radicals continue to spread irrational hate against the Swedish Mohammed dog sketches, this time in Afghanistan where a newspaper there called for the imprisonment of the newspaper editors who printed one of the cartoons:

Afghanistan on Saturday condemned the printing of a sketch of Islam's Prophet Mohammad with the body of a dog in a Swedish newspaper, calling it hostile towards the Muslim world.

The sketch has also drawn condemnation from neighbouring Pakistan, which said it was blasphemous. Muslims believe images of the Prophet are forbidden and consider dogs to be impure.

Mother Teresa died ten years ago this week, just days after Princess Diana perished in a car crash, displaying a very interesting comparison in media reactions. Princess Diana, molded by so much positive publicity over the years into a "secular saint" when she died, drew superior coverage, both in amount and in tone. Mother Teresa's publicity was also very positive over the years, of course, but the media seemed more willing to solicit harsh criticism of her life, even at the time of her death. Brent Bozell chronicled that story in his column ten years ago: 

Just last fall, as the networks exploded with coverage of Mark Foley's creepy instant messaging, we noted the networks (like ABC) had a very different way of covering Republican sex scandals -- especially the gay-themed ones -- than they did for Democrats. The best example is Barney Frank.

Notice how the networks define hypocrisy, and how liberals never seem to qualify. Frank was a lawmaker with a male-prostitution ring in his house, not to mention a lawmaker who kept getting the pimp's parking tickets waved off. Notice how they all mention "the voters" will decide, instead of going searching for legislators and party activists to underline his need to resign.

The people who manufacture the news in America are very persistent at writing the narrative exactly as it helps liberalism emerge victorious. On ethical scandals, they're very good at making sure Republicans force theirs to resign, and they're also very good at keeping Democrats shamelessly in power.

Yesterday, we brought you a classic example of How Liberals Think. Step one: identify a problem. Step two: propose "massive" government welfare programs to address it. The column was plucked from the pages of the Boston Globe. Today, the Globe's Big Apple corporate parent, the New York Times, gives another good illustration of the mindset.

As the title of its editorial indicates, Help for the $82,000 Family makes the case that families earning that much, or perhaps even more -- in excess of 300% of the poverty level -- should be entitled to participate in a healthcare welfare program known as S-chip.

If you needed any more evidence as to how little actor Alec Baldwin actually knows about politics, it was provided Saturday evening in the second sentence of his article at the Huffington Post (emphasis added):

"Even though [then Rep. Larry] Craig voted to censor Barney Frank for Frank's tryst with a male prostitute."

To begin with, Alec, the term is censure.

Adding insult to injury, a vote on censuring Frank never happened, for as reported by the New York Times on July 20, 1990 (emphasis added):

Brian De Palma wants to stop the war, and he thinks his new movie about an Iraqi girl's rape can help, regardless of the consequences or the rights and privacy of Iraqis. In a Friday August 31 Reuters article, De Palma asserted “The movie is an attempt to bring the reality of what is happening in Iraq to the American people. Sky News online picked up the thread that he hoped his film "Redacted" will alert people about “these horrible things things that are happening, this horrible war that I am financing as an American citizen.”

De Palma's comments were made Friday, at the Venice Film Festival, after showing the movie that is supposedly based on the rape of a 14-year-old Iraqi girl from Mahmudiya who was then killed and her house set on fire. You know, every day stuff in the military.

“Redacted” is a do-over for De Palma, who made the same movie back in 1989 when it was called “Casualties of War” and starred Michael J. Fox. This is De Palma's second try at the “American military rapes indigenous girl and everyone laughs, but the sensitive guy feels sorry and tells; someone has nightmares, and the military is still bad” storyline. At least it wasn't “The Bonfire of the Vanities 2.”

In a subscription-only editorial yesterday, Wall Street Journal Editorial Board member Stephen Moore notes that many countries in the rest of the world, including a few you'd never expect, are adopting the tax-cutting policies of Ronald Reagan, to their benefit:

Earlier this year the cover of Time Magazine depicted Ronald Reagan with a tear running down his cheek -- the message being that the political class has abandoned the Reagan legacy.....

Ironically, the Reagan economic philosophy of lower taxes, less regulation and free trade has never been more in vogue abroad -- so much so that it has become the global economic operating system.

Let's call this phenomenon Reaganomics 2.0.

Original caption:

Democratic presidential hopeful Dennis Kucinich makes a hugging gesture toward the audience as moderator Margaret Carlson (rear) watches after Kucinich's his turn speaking at the Visible Vote '08 Presidential Forum sponsored by the Human Rights Campaign Foundation and broadcast on the Logo Network in Hollywood August 9, 2007.

If it turned out that any of the major Republican presidential candidates had not only taken contributions from the recently surrendered fugitive Norman Hsu, but also had received donations from a felon during a prior campaign, do you think it would be reported?

Probably on front pages and newscasts for days, correct?

Well, although ABC's Brian Ross did mention during Friday's "World News with Charles Gibson" that Hillary Clinton's "kickoff senate fund-raiser in 2000 was organized by a convicted felon," not one news agency has mentioned since Wednesday's Hsu revelations the name of this individual, all the particulars, or that there is still a lawsuit pending against the Clintons concerning the matter.

Not one.

For those interested, the New Media Journal did a seven-part series about Peter F. Paul last March with information about Hillary's largest benefactor which the media have almost completely ignored for seven years (emphasis added throughout, videos describing the details also available here, here, and here):

When I saw the New York Times headline "As Her Star Wanes, Rice Tries to Reshape Legacy," I really wasn't prepared for the amount of vitriol about to be heaped on the current Secretary of State.

In the end, I was sorry I even looked.

Helene Cooper's piece on Saturday began by addressing a May 25 article in the Stanford Daily, the newspaper of Stanford University, which discussed the possibility that Condoleezza Rice could return to the highly-regarded institution when President Bush's second term is over in January 2009.

Rather than citing one word from the article, Cooper instead shared reader reactions to it (emphasis added throughout):

They Really Care

Several media outlets used the second anniversary of Hurricane Katrina as an excuse to promote the 2008 Democratic candidates. On CNN, right after running a glowing piece on Democrats such as Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, anchor Soledad O’Brien sermonized that "no event has damaged the Bush White House more than Katrina." Over on ABC, "Good Morning America" co-host Robin Roberts claimed that candidates from "both parties" would travel to New Orleans to "point out the Bush administration's shortcomings in fixing many problems that still exist, like those being forced to still live in trailers."

Those Vile Republicans

"Hardball" regular David Shuster managed to combine both the Katrina coverage with the scandal over Senator Larry Craig. He bizarrely claimed that the Craig incident "adds moral insult to the injuries being suffered today by the victims of Hurricane Katrina."

College Football, Baby!!!

Any preseason predictions (we already know yours, Blonde!)?

Who's the dark-horse that is WAY too lowly rated to begin the season and is going to fool EVERYONE?

What will be today's shocking upsets?

Go Bears and Huskers!

Sometimes, after you read a story from the MSM, you have to sit back and say to yourself, "just what in the heck that was all about?" Such is the case with the AP's latest titled "Clooney: Obama's like a rock star," a story that seems to present George Clooney's political opinion as if he is somehow a respected policy wonk, political pundit, or a well-known intellectual. There is no pretext for this story presenting Clooney's political meanderings and no sensible reason why the AP is presenting his blather as news. The AP just presents it straight forwardly as if it is somehow news we all just need to know. All in all, it is an amazing report for its senselessness, cluelessness, and pointlessness. On the other hand, it fits to a tee with the APs editorial position on politics and the world and this fact alone surely accounts for its publication.

You're a liberal. You've identified a problem -- the massive loss of manufacturing jobs in the United States; a net loss of 4.6 million jobs over the last 20 years. You've even done a decent job of identifying the causes of the problem: "Companies lose market share to foreign low-cost producers . . . or move their operations overseas in search of lower wages . . . or apply production techniques that require fewer workers."

So, what's your solution? Measures like reducing taxes and regulation to make U.S. manufacturers more competitive, perhaps? Of course not! Remember, you're a liberal. No, your solution is what you yourself describe as a "massive" new welfare program for affected workers and communities that will contribute to making U.S. manufacturers even less competitive and destroy even more jobs!

That is the approach proposed by Gary Chaison in his Boston Globe column of this morning, Disaster relief needed for manufacturing: