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If Arnold Schwarzenegger, nominal Republican, wants to be allowed to run for president, why shouldn't Moktada al-Sadr be considered for a spot on the Dem ticket? After all, his views on U.S. withdrawal from Iraq put him firmly in the mainstream of the party of Pelosi The thought occurred to me while reading Moktada al-Sadr’s Gambit, an editorial in this morning's NY Times regarding the resignation of six members of al-Sadr's party as ministers in the cabinet of Prime Minister Maliki.

And what, according to the Times, was the gambit's goal?

"Mr. Sadr had his cabinet ministers resign in an attempt to bully the government into setting a timetable for the departure of American troops from Iraq."

Hmm. "An attempt to bully the government into setting a timetable for the departure of American troops from Iraq." Bullying the government? You mean like threatening to withhold funding for the military?

The latest Pulitzer Prize awarded to the New York Times wasn't so honored when it originally came out -- by conservatives or even by some liberals. Andrea Elliott's three-part series exploring Islam in America through the imam Reda Shata of the Bay Ridge mosque in Brooklyn was powerfully critiqued by Washington Times columnist Diana West:

Both the New York Post and the New York Sun have already pounced on the most egregious flaw of omission: not a mention, in 11,000-plus words, of the day in March 1994 when a man walked out of that same Bay Ridge mosque and, inspired by the anti-Jewish sermon of the day (delivered by a different, unidentified imam), armed himself and opened fire on a van carrying Hasidic Jewish children. Ari Halberstam, 16, was killed. The Times series, as it happened, concluded on the 12th anniversary of his death.

From Todd Boyd, ESPN’s Page 2:

Now that disgraced radio talk-show host Don Imus has been booted, can we finally get down to some “real talk” about the multiple issues embedded in this racial theater? There is a lot to sort through here, but after a week of debate centered around “nappy-headed hos,” half-assed apologies, cries of censorship, and a curmudgeonly shock jock’s lame attempt at being funny, many pundits have moved beyond the core issue and now are talking about the perceived double standard they feel exists between what Imus said and what often comes from the mouths of rappers.

Yet Imus and hip-hop really don’t have much in common. Imus was host of a radio show that focused on the real news of the day, while hip-hop is a fictionalized form of cultural expression. Imus is real, featuring real guests and humor based on real topics. However loudly hip-hop might claim to be real, it is not real; it is a form of representation. This is why so few rappers use the names on their birth certificates when performing.

The foreign press are having a field day wagging their collective finger at Americans, scolding us over our 2nd Amendment rights. It seems they are all of a mind to take our guns away from us... not that they have any say in the matter. But, at least one paper, the Daily Telegraph of Australia, got themselves in trouble with Americans over their insensitive choice of wording in a story about one of the victims of the Virginia Tech shootings.

In the piece "Was gunman crazed over Emily?", the headline as well as the first lines and of the article is so insensitive and sensationalistic that readers deluged the paper with complaints. So many complaints that they had to start a whole new story to address the slight.

In an April 17 article at CBSNews.com, investigative reporter Armen Keteyian tracked down the origin of the guns used by Virginia Tech mass murderer Cho Seung-Hui.

While Keteyian failed to consider what part restrictive anti-concealed carry policies on the Virginia Tech campus may have played in ensuring Cho faced no opposition from armed civilians, he found a former ATF agent to criticize current gun laws as too little to thwart terrorism.:

Ladies and Gentlemen,

The nation has been moved by yesterday’s tragedy at Virginia Tech. Our hearts and prayers go out to the families, friends, and loved ones of the needlessly fallen.

For those interested, Fox News’ Greta Van Susteren did an unbelievably moving tribute to all the victims Tuesday evening that left me shaking and in tears (video available here, h/t Glenn Reynolds).

Also, our friend Gateway Pundit has done a fantastic job of collecting pictures of the dearly departed, with information about each.

UPDATE at bottom of post: Tumulty responds.

Lamenting how Democrats have lost their penchant for fierce advocacy of new gun control laws, Time's Karen Tumulty described as "modest" former Vice President Al Gore's stance on gun control in his 2000 campaign in an April 17 post at her magazine's "Swampland" blog.:

...in talking to Democrats on Capitol Hill, I'm picking up no enthusiasm for a cause that many have deemed a political loser. Al Gore's relatively modest proposal in the wake of Columbine for licensing gun owners (as opposed to the more radical one of registering their guns) is still widely believed to have been a factor in costing him the election, losing him votes that he might otherwise have goten from, for instance, gun-owning union members.

Talk about your really inconvenient truths, a new study to be released on Wednesday refutes one of the major cataclysmic claims of soon-to-be-Dr. Al Gore and his band of not so merry global warming alarmists.

For those that have forgotten – or just intentionally blocked it out -- in the schlockumentary “An Inconvenient Truth,” Gore contended that global warming was responsible for increased hurricane activity with ominous portent for the future of such storms. In fact, this was a common media meme in 2005 after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans.

Yet, according to an article by Reuters Tuesday, not only does this appear not to be the case, but global warming actual reduces tropical cyclone frequency and intensity (emphasis added throughout):

Without any regard to how school shootings in recent years have occurred in states and nations with stricter gun laws, including one last year at a college in Quebec, Canada, ABC and CBS on Tuesday night focused stories and questions on Virginia's “lax” gun laws. “How the gunman purchased the murder weapon,” ABC anchor Charles Gibson teased an upcoming story, “Virginia's controversial gun laws: How lax are they? Brian Ross investigates.” Ross confirmed that “Virginia's gun laws, indeed, are regarded by law enforcement officials as among the most lax in the country.” Ross relayed how “for gun control advocates, the ease with which Cho [Seung-Hui] was able to legally get his Glock and a box of ammunition reveals the problems with Virginia's gun laws.” Over undercover footage recorded by the New York City Police Department, Ross explained how it shows “it's possible to buy a handgun at a Virginia gun store with no waiting period and only what is called an instant background check.” Though Ross aired a condemnatory soundbite from NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly, he failed to note that Virginia has a lot fewer gun crimes per capita than does New York City.

As if the media have nothing to do with “igniting” a debate on guns (ABCNews.com on Monday posted the question: “Do you think this incident is a reason to pass stricter gun control legislation?”), Gibson asked President Bush: “After Columbine, there was ignited a national debate on guns. Do you think this is going to rekindle the national debate?” Over on the CBS Evening News, Katie Couric, also on scene in Blacksburg, pressed Bush: “As you well know, after events like this, discussions about gun control inevitably follow. Is it too easy, in your view, for unstable people to purchase guns in this country?” Leading into an earlier story from Armen Keteyian, Couric cited “the question I asked the President about gun control. It's something many people are thinking about after the tragedy here at Virginia Tech, especially considering the gunman needed only two IDs and a credit card to buy the weapons and ammunition he used.”

UPDATE: Showcasing the same undercover video as Ross, on NBC's Dateline Chris Hansen interjected how “gun sales in Virginia have been more than a sticking point with gun control advocates.” (See more at end of item below)

Here’s a shocking story that seems guaranteed to not be covered by the mainstream media: Sen. John Kerry (D-Massachusetts) told NY1 News that Don Imus shouldn’t have been fired by CBS Radio as a result of his recent statements about the Rutgers women’s basketball team.

I kid you not.

Although the interview is not scheduled to be broadcast until Tuesday evening, a partial transcript was posted at the NY1 News website (emphasis added throughout):

Better put away those combustibles, potables, and sharp objects again, sports fans, because a group of British parents in New Forest, England, are threatening legal action if soon-to-be-Dr. Al Gore’s schlockumentary "An Inconvenient Truth" is aired in their schools.

I kid you not.

As reported in Tuesday’s Telegraph (emphasis added throughout):

Parents who claim that an award-winning film on climate change is inaccurate and politically motivated are threatening a legal challenge over the Government's decision to send it to every secondary school.

How absolutely marvelous. Dontcha just love the British? The article deliciously continued:

It’s not surprising that the mainstream media would quickly jump on the question of gun control in the wake of the mass shootings at Virginia Tech on Monday. On Tuesday, the second day for its new hosts, CNN’s "American Morning," broadcasting live from the Virginia Tech campus, jumped almost immediately on the gun control angle, citing from the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, one of the leading gun control groups in America.

CNN correspondent Greg Hunter did two live reports on the guns that were used in the massacre during the competitive 7-9 am Eastern time slot. The first report, which came a mere 6 minutes after the top of the 7 am hour, cited that Virginia is "a state that is pretty easy to get a handgun, according to the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence." Hunter then cited the reasons for this "finding" by the Brady Campaign, which included Virginia’s lack of a waiting period and no license requirements. He also cited the Brady Campaign’s advocacy of a "three-day background check."

Substitute hosting for Chris Matthews on last night's Hardball it didn't take long for David Shuster to bring up the specter of gun control in the wake of the Virginia Tech shooting. Shuster indicated that gun policies actually "enabled" the shooter to obtain his "weapons of choice." The following was Shuster's intro for the April 16th edition of "Hardball."

David Shuster: "At this hour, investigators are still trying to piece together what happened this morning on the Virginia Tech campus. Tonight, we will tell you everything we've learned about the killer's motive. We will bring you the most gripping interviews we have seen today from students who witnessed the rampage and tried to block the killer's path. And you will hear live from witnesses who saw the aftermath. Many questions are lingering tonight about the response by campus police, warnings to Virginia Tech students, even gun policies that enabled the killer to get his hands on his weapons of choice. But we start tonight with a campus community was rocked to its core and asking the question, why us?"

Perhaps a sign of how blind the liberally-biased media are to arguments from gun rights advocates, CBS's Andrew Cohen wrote in his Washington Post "Bench Conference" blog that "There Is Irony in the Tragedy at Virginia Tech."

I learned from CBS News' Armen Keteyian that school administrators and college officials at Virginia Tech had in fact implemented reasonable security measures (against the wishes of state legislators) designed to limit guns on campus. In other words, even though the university was relatively proactive in confronting the problem of guns on campus, the brutal slayings occurred anyway.

Actually, that's not so much irony as the law of unintended consequences, something that any pro-gun rights advocate could tell Cohen. I've not seen a worse definition of irony since Alanis Morissette wrote a song about it. (continued...)

The April 17 New York Times did not focus on the "tremendous number of potential conflicts" of the AARP's decision to start offering health insurance while continuing to lobby the government.

The obvious conflict is regarding what AARP will lobby for once it begins providing private insurance to individuals.

But the Times didn't try hard to find that conflict. Only four people were quoted in the 700-word article including two AARP executives, liberal Rep. Pete Stark (D-Calif.) and Judith A. Stein of the Center for Medicare Advocacy.

Stark told the Times AARP "could be a wonderful addition" to private insurers.

Stein cautiously mentioned the possible conflict. Not surprising, since it turns out "Ms. Stein and her organization work closely with AARP."

Conservatives often ponder why more young conservatives don’t go into journalism. Here’s one easy reason: the path to prizes and prestige doesn’t come from fierce investigative probing into liberal sacred cows or sharp-eyed conservative commentary. It comes from pleasing liberals with stories which advance their agenda.

The 2007 Pulitzer Prizes must have been a sad affair, what with no major prize for exposing and ruining an anti-terrorism program, and no major natural disaster like Hurricane Katrina to blame on President Bush. But that doesn’t mean the Pulitzers weren’t typically political. After all, the panels of judges are stuffed with long-standing figures in the liberal media establishment.

Let’s start with the Commentary prize, which was awarded to Cynthia Tucker of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The official Pulitzer Prize Board’s press release hailed Tucker’s “courageous, clear-headed columns that evince a strong sense of morality and persuasive knowledge of the community.” Translation: she’s liberal, and she hates George Bush.

On the last half hour of Tuesday's Early Show, guest co-host Maggie Rodriguez moderated a debate on gun control between gun control advocate Paul Helmke and gun rights advocate Suzanna Hupp. Rodriguez threw softballs to Helmke. For example, if tragedies such as the Virginia Tech shooting "are happening because there are too many guns in the United States?"and very bland questions like "what do you think about that?"

On the other hand, she asked much tougher and very biased questions to the gun rights advocate, Suzanna Hupp. Rodriguez noted that her parents were killed in a cafeteria shooting and commented that "some would that, that would make you a bigger gun opponent." When Suzanna Hupp noted that the scenario may have been different had Virginia Tech students been able to defend themselves, Rodriguez returned to Paul Helmke and called Hupp’s comments "controversial." Rodriguez’s final question to Hupp summarized her stance on gun control.

MSNBC host Contessa Brewer [file photo] has taken some deserved heat here, as when NewsBuster Scott Whitlock caught her here, seemingly rooting for the entire Democratic presidential field.

But for at least one brief shining moment this afternoon, Brewer gave the pro-Second Amendment side of the VA Tech argument fair treatment. The fair Contessa's guests were University of Missouri law prof Kris Kobach, a former senior aide to former AG John Ashcroft, and Dennis Henigan of the Brady gun-control group.

Brewer began by expressing skepticism as to how additional gun control laws could have helped: "Dennis, let me put you on the spot here. What possibly have been done to keep Cho from buying a gun? We now know he didn't have a criminal record."

On Saturday’s "Good Morning America," correspondent Christianne Klein hyped this past weekend’s global warming rallies by reporting hyperbolic and misleading information on the subject of rising sea levels. Reporting from lower Manhattan before a gaggle of environmental activists, she said of the protesters, "Now, where they will stand represents where the Manhattan coastline could be if the sea level rises just 10 feet, actually, a moderate estimate for global warming standards."

A 10 feet increase is a moderate estimate? Not quite. As the CATO Institute's Patrick Michaels noted, the much hyped U.N. report released by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) suggested a rise of inches, not feet, is likely:

Under the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's medium-range emission scenario for greenhouse gases, a rise in sea level of between 8 and 17 inches is predicted by 2100....Even 17 inches is likely to be high, because it assumes that the concentration of methane, an important greenhouse gas, is growing rapidly.

It didn’t take the BBC World, airing on PBS, long to find a way to criticize America and our constitution it the midst of our national tragedy. After an initial segment on the events at Virginia Tech, the BBC felt another story on Second Amendment rights were appropriate for a broadcast. The story by Gavin Hewitt led with the following, "Today’s images from Blacksburg are at once horrific but shockingly familiar. Shootings on campuses, in high schools, in shopping malls, have become part of the American landscape."

After continuing with a re-cap of past school shootings, his analysis of the ‘American landscape’ concluded with the following:

In the United states there are 200 million guns in private hands. Many Americans believe it is their right to keep and bear arms, as is their right by the constitution. Attempts to bring in tougher gun laws are often weakened by the powerful National Rifle Association. Even after today's horrific shootings, laws are unlikely to change.

As noted by Matthew Sheffield and Tim Graham, elements of the left run a massive campaign to destroy major media figures that do not ideologically march lockstep with them. This story appeared on the April 16 edition of "The O’Reilly Factor" when former Los Angeles area NOW president, and self proclaimed liberal Tammy Bruce appeared to expose that agenda.

Host Bill O’Reilly noted that he is investigating with Sean Hannity how leftist distortions and smears find their way into the mainstream media. Tammy Bruce noted that elements of the left take phrases out of context to demonize not only conservatives, but anyone who is not a complete liberal ideologue and they started with a test case on Dr. Laura Schlessinger.

Isn't there something a tad, I dunno, hypocritical about a group of journalists who associate with each other on the basis of race and ethnicity issuing an edict to fellow journalists to ignore the race and ethnicity of the Virginia Tech shooter, Cho Seung-Hui?:

Like the rest of the nation, we at the Asian American Journalists Association (AAJA) are stunned at the news of today's shooting at Virginia Tech. Our thoughts are with the victims and their families and friends as they cope with this horrific incident.

As coverage of the Virginia Tech shooting continues to unfold, AAJA urges all media to avoid using racial identifiers unless there is a compelling or germane reason. There is no evidence at this early point that the race or ethnicity of the suspected gunman has anything to do with the incident, and to include such mention serves only to unfairly portray an entire people.

The effect of mentioning race can be powerfully harmful. It can subject people to unfair treatment based simply on skin color and heritage.

We further remind members of the media that the standards of news reporting should be universal and applied equally no matter the platform or medium, including blogs.

In all the media furor over fired radio host Don Imus, one fact was very rarely reported: that Imus is not a conservative. In truth, he is a moderate liberal. Aside from his stand against the Iraq war, support of John Kerry, abortion-rights, and the Democratic takeover of Congress, perhaps the biggest indicator of his liberal credentials was that liberal media elites like Tim Russert, Jonathan Alter, and Nina Totenberg appeared on his show on a daily basis.

Being in like Flynn with the left-wing media snobs didn't do anything for Imus when it came down to it, however. Many GOPers and conservative intellectuals would do well to learn this lesson. Trying to get in with the liberal media crowd (bashing fellow conservatives works best) will never earn you any protection.

Even if you're naturally a moderate conservative, it still won't earn you any respect from the far left's rage, as centrist conservative radio host Michael Smerconish is finding out. Writing at Classical Values, Eric Scheie reports:

Proof that even broken clocks are correct twice a day, CNN’s populist anchor and "Early Show" contributor Lou Dobbs appeared on the April 17 edition of the CBS show to provide some perspective on the recent Virginia Tech massacre. Dobbs stated that although the shooting at Virginia Tech was a terrible tragedy, it pales in comparison to some of the horrific tragedies that happen on college campuses every day. Suicide and binge drinking kill far more college students than these terrible but very rare incidents, yet the media rarely focuses on them. The transcript is below.

LOU DOBBS: Good morning, Russ, thank you. And good morning to all of you. This morning, we're grieving for the victims of what has turned out to be the deadliest shooting in this country's history and the senseless deaths, the shock of those death, of more than 30 people and the wounding of dozens more on Virginia Tech's campus won't diminish for us soon. My heart goes out to the families and the victims and all those touched by this tragedy. As we try to make sense of this madness, you and I know that in the days and weeks ahead, these horrible murders will dominate our news coverage and our national conversation. And we in the media will most likely lose some perspective and some sense of proportion. We'll be reporting on the worst shooting rampage ever in this country.

As liberals in the media call for the firing of well-known conservative radio hosts like Rush Limbaugh in the wake of the Don Imus controversy, none seems willing to turn the politically correct microscope on those espousing views from the left.

With that in mind, Lisa De Pasquale, Conservative Political Action Conference director for the American Conservative Union, published an article at Human Events Tuesday wonderfully illustrating the obvious double standard between what liberal media members can say or write versus their colleagues on the other side of the aisle.

The target of De Pasquale’s disaffection was the blogger formerly known as “Wonkette,” Time.com’s Ana Marie Cox (emphasis added throughout):

Here's a little lighthearted item to punctuate the serious news of the past day.

"The View" co-host Joy Behar appeared on today's "Martha Stewart Show" to help the program's host make piñatas from scratch. The final product: a piñata emblazoned with Rosie O'Donnell's photographic image.

For what it's worth, Behar insisted in a Q&A session with the audience that the heated discussion on-set doesn't translate to off-camera animosity.

Comment on the news of the day and anything else...

A day after posting a blog entry replete with falsehoods, and despite more than dozens of comments pointing out the factual inaccuracies of the story, Brian Ross and Dana Hughes of the ABC News blog "The Blotter" have yet to issue a retraction.

Does ABC News have an obligation to report facts, or is peddling a political agenda buttressed by lies their preferred stock in trade?

As I noted yesterday, the ABC News blog did not get so much as a single fact in their blog entry correct.

The Ross entry states that high-capacity magazines "became widely available for sale when Congress failed to renew a law that banned assault weapons." This is a patently false statement, containing no truth at all.

In the aftermath of the Duke lacrosse rape hoax, New York Times columnist Peter Applebome spoke out against the "socially conscious left" that was ready to convict the innocent Duke lacrosse players without evidence. Was fellow Times columnist Selena Roberts listening?

Applebome writes the "Our Towns" column for the Sunday Metro section, and talked to locals with connections to the Duke case for his latest offering, "After Duke Prosecution Began to Collapse, Demonizing Continued."

"The rape case that cost three Duke University lacrosse players a year of their lives and much more of their youth finally ended on Wednesday, when North Carolina Attorney General Roy A. Cooper said what many people have long known: all three were totally innocent of the charges against them.