Weekly Standard

Checking out the official Web page for the Obama administration today, I noticed that the White House has removed the  "pool reports" entry from the "Briefing Room" lineup roughly six days after the White House press corps made clear it would not fork over the pool reports to the White House. The page itself, which of course lacks any pool reports, is still accessible here.

As of noon this 27th day of January -- the 7th of the brilliant glory of the Obama era -- the daily press briefings are still lacking on whitehouse.gov. See my January 23 blog post about that here.

Weekly Standard's Mary Katharine Ham added her thoughts in a post to her magazine's blog yesterday, noting that the absence of press briefings is a continuation of the Obama's online communication strategy which was "built for message control, not openness" (emphasis mine):

In my short time here at NewsBusters, I've pounded away at the left's obsession with celebrities and especially their outsized role in Obama's campaign--going so far as to "advise" the candidate. You won't see any of that from the celebrities supporting John McCain. They're happy to keep their involvement to voice-overs for campaign ads and donations.

The Weekly Standard reports on a recent meeting of Hollywood conservatives, attended by such luminaries as James Caan and Robert Duvall of The Godfather fame and Jerry Bruckheimer, Dean Cain, and Angie Harmon.

If it was a good night for John McCain, it was an even better night for Hollywood's long-closeted conservative community. Many of those in attendance are members of the Friends of Abe, an informal group of entertainment-industry conservatives--part social club and part support group--founded by actor Gary Sinise. They have been meeting quietly at out-of-the-way diners and bars in and around Los Angeles for four years expanding their membership by word of mouth.

Walking out of the meeting, Duvall and Caan were asked about their support for McCain. Duvall said, "he's an American hero. He's got character. He's been around. The other guy? I just don't know."

It certainly isn't surprising that Barack Obama and his surrogates are going to need to exaggerate his scant accomplishments in the Senate in order to create the appearance that he's actually qualified for the most important job in the world.

However, an impartial media should be at the ready to point out to viewers and readers whenever claims are made that clearly stretch the truth.

If press members had been listening closely to Joe Biden's speech in Denver Wednesday evening, as well as to what he has said since being tapped as Obama's running mate, they would have found several juicy misrepresentations.

A number of these were pointed out by former Bush advisor Karl Rove in an article published in Thursday's Weekly Standard (emphasis added, photo courtesy AP):

While mainstream media members do a collective standing ovation for presumptive Democrat presidential nominee Barack Obama's choice for his running mate, something seems desperately wrong with their reports.

After all, they're supposed to be the great supporters of women's issues and equal rights.

This obvious hypocrisy has gone largely unnoticed as liberal reporter after liberal reporter jumped on a man's bandwagon despite a clearly more qualified and experienced woman being in the race.

Yet, as the Weekly Standard's Bill Kristol pointed out in a blog posting Saturday evening, the final Democrat act of misogyny and sexism was Obama picking Biden as as his running mate, a man that received virtually no public support for his presidential bid as compared to Hillary Clinton who got roughly 18 million votes:

More than three times as many Americans see a media tilt in favor of Democrat Barack Obama than toward Republican John McCain. A Rasmussen Reports telephone survey released Monday, of 1,000 likely voters, “found that 49 percent of voters believe most reporters will try to help Obama with their coverage, up from 44 percent a month ago,” compared to a piddling 14 percent who “believe most reporters will try to help John McCain win” while “just one voter in four (24%) believes that most reporters will try to offer unbiased coverage.”

Exactly half, 50 percent, “believe the media makes economic conditions appear worse than they really are,” a separate Rasmussen Reports telephone survey posted on Monday determined. That poll discovered “a plurality of Americans (41%) similarly believe that the media has tried to make the war in Iraq appear worse that it really is, while 26 percent say reporters have made it look better than reality and 25 percent think they’ve portrayed it accurately.”

Meanwhile, the “Scapbook” section of the latest (July 28) edition of the Weekly Standard magazine dubbed Newsweek “Obamaweek” and illustrated the media's infatuation with Obama by displaying images of six Newsweek covers featuring Obama, five of them just this year. (See miniature image above right, larger image after the jump.)

As NewsBusters reported, John McCain was Conan O'Brien's guest on Friday's "Late Night," and the comedian asked the presumptive Republican presidential nominee for some joke ideas beyond just his age.

According to the Weekly Standard's Christopher Caldwell, comedians are having a far more difficult time finding humorous material about Barack Obama.

Writing for the Financial Times Friday, Caldwell tried to explain why (emphasis added):

A couple days ago at the gym, listening to a Hugh Hewitt podcast and perhaps not paying as much attention as I should have while pedaling away, I heard Hugh mention that Barack Obama doesn't understand the role of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. What was Hugh referring to? As the British would say: the penny just dropped.  A few minutes ago, CNN's Situation Room played a clip of Obama saying this about his plan for Iraq:

BARACK OBAMA: I'm going to call in the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and give them a new mission, and that is to bring the war in Iraq to a close.  We are going to get out.

There's only one problem.  The Joint Chiefs of Staff does not have operational command of U.S. military forces.  That authority resides in the commanders of the various Unified Combatant Commands.  CENTCOM is the command with responsibility for Iraq [and 26 other countries including Afghanistan and Pakistan].  Earlier this month, the Senate confirmed Pres. Bush's appointment of Gen. David Petraeus as CENTCOM commander.  Lt. Gen. Raymond Odierno is the new US commander for Iraq, replacing Gen. Petraeus. Those are the people, along with the Secretary of Defense, to whom the orders Obama spoke of would be issued.

 View video here.

The voters had a temper tantrum last week . . . Parenting and governing don't have to be dirty words: the nation can't be run by an angry two-year-old. -- Peter Jennings, November 14, 1994, on the Republican landslide.

[C]onservatives . . . can choose to stand aside from history while having a temper tantrum. But they should consider that the American people might then choose not to invite them back into a position of responsibility for quite a while to come. -- William Kristol, February 4, 2008, on conservative aversion to McCain.

It's one thing to have been bawled out by the late Peter Jennings. But do conservatives have to have their knuckles rapped by one of their own, Bill Kristol? Apparently yes, as per the Weekly Standard editor's New York Times column of today, Dyspepsia on the Right.

Remember that touching picture of Yassar Arafat donating his blood to the 9/11 victims that was conveniently published after CNN ran footage of Palestinians cheering and handing out candy to celebrate the destruction in New York? Now France 2 journalist Charles Enderlin says that photo was staged; Arafat never gave blood.

The photos were taken by an AP photographer with a history of biased journalism and given captions that read like “a press release covering talking points.” Power Line's Scott Johnson reported Enderlin's revelation in a January 24 Weekly Standard article (bold mine throughout):

As Joel Pollak recounted online at the site Guide to the Perplexed [ed. link here], Enderlin told his Harvard audience "that Yasser Arafat had faked his blood donation to the victims of the September 11th attacks. Enderlin said the event had been staged for the media to counteract the embarrassing television images of Palestinians celebrating in the streets after the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks."

Catching up: Picking up on Chris Matthews' New Hampshire primary night suggestion (reported that evening on NewsBusters) -- that if pollsters called with an “Archie Bunker voice” they'd “get a more honest answer” -- last week's Weekly Standard magazine's “Parody” page conjured up an imaginary memo to pollsters advising them to mimic the voice of actor Carroll O'Connor's character. Amongst the suggested articulations presented to Zogby International staffers polling South Carolina voters:

Hey! How ya doin'? I'm callin' from th Zogby people, ya know, dem poll guys?...

So, this Clinton dame -- whew! Whaddaya think o' the piano legs on that broad, huh? She's a piece o' work, that senator o' mine, lemme tell ya. I can see why that husband o' hers thinks he's gotta dip his pen in the company inkwell, as we used to say. You gonna vote for her?...

Well, OK, my missus tells me it's time we had a woman President. But I tell her, those Ay-rabs better not start sendin' missiles over this way when it's Hillary's time o' the month, right?...

They got this Maback Bommarama, or Bamak Omarosa, or whatever his name is -- ya know, the colored guy with the big ears -- I mean, c'mon -- you're not gonna actually vote for de guy, are you?... [Reprint below]

If you're a soldier serving in Iraq and have a downbeat view of the troop surge, Time's Joe Klein is itching to have the Left adopt you as a poster boy. But should you be a soldier in Iraq and you think the surge is working, well, obviously you're just a tool of those vile neocons at The Weekly Standard, willing to "trash" fellow soldiers.: