Civil Discourse is Overrated

August 15th, 2010 10:20 AM
So Matt Lewis writes a column decrying, I think, the Political climate's nastiness. I say, I think, because after reading it, I'm not quite sure what he's saying.Matt brings up two pieces of evidence: Matt Yglesias saying that lying is okay was one distressing example. Well, duh. Yglesias is a liberal and I have yet to read a liberal blogger who doesn't believe the ends justify the means. There…

Daily Kos: Exposing Our Dumbest Quotes Ensures There's 'No Meaningful

August 14th, 2010 10:18 PM
It's bad enough that the Daily Kos posts outrageous claims like “the 9/11 attacks were horrific, but they were more about optics than actual harm.” When bizarre sentences like these are exposed, then the exposers are accused of being enemies of “meaningful dialogue.” What is meaningful in telling the families of the victims of 9/11 that their losses were more “optics” than “actual harm”? But that…

Daily Kos Holocaust Denial: 9/11 Attacks 'Were More About Optics Than

August 12th, 2010 1:50 PM
While the Ground Zero Mosque controversy strikes the media as an opportunity for "healing" that's being denied by stubborn conservatives, the leftists at the Daily Kos see it as an opportunity for Holocaust Denial. The blogger known as "Something the Dog Said" dropped this jaw-dropping paragraph Thursday morning about fear of Muslims:Given that they are such a small minority in this nation, it…

Katie Couric: 'Obama Has Enough Stress to Last a Lifetime

August 11th, 2010 5:51 PM
Give the guy a break, he deserves it. That was Katie Couric's message a week ago in her Notebook blog entry about President Obama's 49th birthday (emphasis mine):The job has aged him, as it did his predecessors. Dr. Michael Roizen at the Cleveland Clinic stated constant stress can age the Commander in Chief two years for every one year in office.So I guess that means he's really turning 50.…

Ground Zero Mosque Backlash a Symptom of Economy Says Think Progress B

August 10th, 2010 12:31 PM
Is it "the economy, stupid" or is it just that the economy makes people stupid? Either way Matt Yglesias, ThinkProgress.org blogger extraordinaire, believes the economy is what's driving conservative furor over the "Ground Zero Mosque." On MSNBC's August 9 broadcast of "Countdown," Yglesias did his best to psychoanalyze people that are upset a mosque is being built in the shadow of Ground Zero,…

WaPo Highlights 'Local Opinion' Politicizing Nun's Death in Favor of

August 5th, 2010 12:49 PM
The Washington Post has an opinion blog entitled "All Opinions Are Local." Print edition editors regularly pick from the blog to excerpt a post to the editorial page under the heading "Local Opinions."Today's entry, "Stop the torrent of hate after a deadly drunk-driving crash," was filed by one Simone Campbell of Washington, whom the Post noted "is executive director of Network, a Catholic social…

Apparently Keith Olbermann Is a Fan of NB Publisher Brent Bozell

August 5th, 2010 12:40 PM
Lefty blogs have been having a field day with a tweet that showed up on Glenn Beck's "favorites" list - a list of tweets bookmarked, in a sense, by the user - directing followers to a white supremacist message board.Keith Olbermann picked up on the line of attack last night, crediting a website called "Stop Beck," which he says noticed the tweet. Stop Beck came as close to stating that Beck was…

USA Today Reporter: 'Do You Care About the Nationality' of Drunk Drive

August 4th, 2010 12:50 PM
On Sunday morning in northern Virginia, a drunk illegal immigrant -- who had previously been convicted twice on DUI charges --  allegedly crashed head-on into a car full of nuns, killing one, Sister Denise Mosier, and injuring the rest. The Benedictine Sisters have since come out to say they are "dismayed and saddened" that the crime "has been politicized and become an apparent forum for the…

Huffington Post Attacks 'Dividers' at NewsBusters

August 2nd, 2010 5:13 PM
Today I am thinking about all the reasons William K. Black detests me. Last Tuesday, I reported how MSNBC promoted the findings of June Carbone and Naomi Cahn, co-authors of Red Families v. Blue Families, without acknowledging their affiliation with the Roosevelt Institute, a left-wing think tank. On Friday, Black, associate professor at the University of Missouri, Kansas City, devoted almost 1,…

Post Publishes Obit for Terrorist 'Known to Some... As a Near-Mythic F

August 2nd, 2010 3:06 PM
When the defining event of your life is shooting at U.S. Congressman from a House visitors gallery, you'd think the Washington Post obituary, if any, for such a person would have enough sense to treat that event with the appropriate condemnation.But in Emma Brown's August 2 treatment of 90-year old Lolita Lebron -- "A fervor for Puerto Rico's freedom led her to violent act at U.S. Capitol"* --…

Joe Klein Defames ADL Leader As Intolerant for Questioning Appropriat

August 2nd, 2010 11:56 AM
Time magazine's Joe Klein has a penchant for self-righteous bluster in his writing, particularly, it seems, when he's smacking around adherents of his Jewish faith who happen to disagree with him politically. Klein can't seem to let his wrath take a respite, as witnessed by a sabbath-day posting on Time's Swampland blog. Klein lit into Abraham Foxman of the ADL in a Saturday morning blog post for…

Newsweek's Clift Laments Rangel's Fall From Grace, Presents Harlem De

July 30th, 2010 4:00 PM
Imagine that it's 2006, and an elderly, long-serving conservative U.S. congressman from a deep-red congressional district is facing congressional hearings regarding charges of corruption and tax evasion. Also imagine that this congressman was caught on camera being exceedingly condescending and dismissive when asked about these charges by a young reporter. The media drumbeat of indignation would…

What is a HuffPo Blogger Doing in the Vaunted 'Helen Thomas Seat

July 27th, 2010 7:45 PM
UPDATE: HuffPo's Jason Linkins offers explanation (see bottom) Maybe this is the way former Hearst Newspapers columnist and so-called dean of the White House Press Corps Helen Thomas would have wanted it. Although Thomas' old seat in the White House press briefing room hasn't officially been designated for a particular outlet, and this might be wishful thinking on the part of the Huffington Post…

Syracuse Journalism Prof: Sherrod's NAACP Was Testimony of God's 'Amaz

July 27th, 2010 1:00 PM
Shirley Sherrod's now-infamous March speech before an NAACP audience is recognizable to practicing Christians as a "testimony." That's the spin that Syracuse journalism professor and former Washington Post staff writer R. Gustav Niebuhr brought to Newsweek/Washington Post's On Faith feature in a July 26 Under God blog post:As she said to members of the Georgia NAACP back on that March day, she…