January 2005 – Page 5 – Richard Bennett

Silence of the left

It’s interesting that the blogosphere is all abuzz with news of the CBS Rathergate report, which resulted in the firing of four CBS News employees (see Instapundit, Buzzmachine, RatherBiased, Rathergate, Real Clear Politics, Red State), but the Big Six leftwing sites (Eschaton, Dreary Kos, Kevin Drum, Tapped, Marc Cooper and Josh Marshall) are all completely … Continue reading “Silence of the left”

Apparently.

UPDATE: Jeff Jarvis is hopping mad about how the report marginalizes the bloggers who broke the story and how it excuses Dan Rather’s “perspective.” We concur.

UPDATE: Even Instapundit notices the blackout; check him out, he needs the traffic.

UPDATE: Incidentally, this report is a whitewash. It finds most of the facts, but doesn’t make the obvious conclusions about bias that the facts indicate. I’m very disappointed in CBS News, but I didn’t really expect all that much either. Blaming Mary Mapes for Rather’s behavior is rather boorish, however.

UPDATE: New watchdog at CBS News. Never again.

NEWS FLASH: Atrios breaks radio silence with a bit of denial. I’m so impressed I could sneeze.

UPDATE: Welcome to Glenn’s readers. I’ll post something on breast-feeding shortly just to make everybody happy. Meanwhile, here’s the main page.

UPDATE: Now Sundries Shack, My View of the World, Slant Point, and Alarming News hear the crickets chirping.

UPDATE: After everybody has gone to bed, Kevin Drum sneaks a post onto Political Animal endorsing the “sloppy journalism but no evidence of bias” line. Give me a break. A commenter observes that racing to be the first to air a story they knew was false doesn’t really rate as competitive journalism. It was politically-motivated bias, nothing more and nothing less.

UPDATE: Marc Cooper finally weighs in with some constructive suggestions for CBS News from Jay Rosen mixed-in with the party line (“bias? what bias? we ain’t got no bias”.)

Jeff Jarvis thinks CBS News is beyond redemption and should be sold.

Alberto Gonzales and the War on Terror

Rich Lowry gets the Alberto Gonzales nomination fight right: The confirmation hearings for Al Gonzales’s nomination as attorney general ostensibly are about his suitability for the job. But the real issue is how we conduct the war on terror. Are terrorists soldiers, just like any other? Do we have a right to pressure them for … Continue reading “Alberto Gonzales and the War on Terror”

Rich Lowry gets the Alberto Gonzales nomination fight right:

The confirmation hearings for Al Gonzales’s nomination as attorney general ostensibly are about his suitability for the job. But the real issue is how we conduct the war on terror. Are terrorists soldiers, just like any other? Do we have a right to pressure them for information upon capture? The Democrats’ answers are, by implication, “yes” and “no” respectively. Which is why the Bush administration should welcome a big, high-profile fight over this nomination.

The endless posturing about torture is clearly beside the point. Gonzales was asked for a legal opinion on the scope of the Geneva Conventions, and he gave a sound legal answer. What’s right isn’t always in line with what’s legal, either. See Andrew McCarthy in NRO:

For hours, the confirmation hearing for the Attorney General designate, Alberto Gonzales, was grueling ? for his detractors. The White House Counsel handled often strident questioning with aplomb. But, as strongly as Judge Gonzales held his ground on such matters as the non-applicability of the Geneva Conventions to alien enemy combatants, his critics provided just as strong a justification for his inevitable confirmation. In a word, they were fatuous.

For a good example of a fatuous reaction to Gonzales, see former Mercury News tech columnist Chris Nolan compare Al Qaeda to the American civil rights movement. No, I’m not kidding, she really does. Good thing for her she doesn’t allow comments on her blog.

I love DDT

For once, I agree with New York Times columnist Nick Kristof: In the 1950’s, 60’s and early 70’s, DDT was used to reduce malaria around the world, even eliminating it in places like Taiwan. But then the growing recognition of the harm DDT can cause in the environment – threatening the extinction of the bald … Continue reading “I love DDT”

For once, I agree with New York Times columnist Nick Kristof:

In the 1950’s, 60’s and early 70’s, DDT was used to reduce malaria around the world, even eliminating it in places like Taiwan. But then the growing recognition of the harm DDT can cause in the environment – threatening the extinction of the bald eagle, for example – led DDT to be banned in the West and stigmatized worldwide. Ever since, malaria has been on the rise.

The poor countries that were able to keep malaria in check tend to be the same few that continued to use DDT, like Ecuador. Similarly, in Mexico, malaria rose and fell with the use of DDT. South Africa brought back DDT in 2000, after a switch to other pesticides had led to a surge in malaria, and now the disease is under control again. The evidence is overwhelming: DDT saves lives.

DDT sensitivity is a classic example of Western environmentalism killing people around the world, with Good Intentions, of course.

Double Standard alert

Yes, there’s something flaky about a guy with a radio show taking money to push a bill, even if most of the money is for commercials that are obviously commercials. Anytime money changes hands for message there’s something shady. All advertising is suspect. But why are the complaints limited to conservatives like Williams and the … Continue reading “Double Standard alert”

But why are the complaints limited to conservatives like Williams and the Thune bloggers when it’s obvious to anybody with half a brain that Atrios, Josh Marshall, Markos, and Oliver Willis are absolute and total whores of the Democratic Party?

Josh Marshall’s infamous Strom Thurmond/Trent Lott campaign was a project of the DNC, where Carville carried the orders to Marshall to proceed. Markos and the rest of the lefty blogosphere are paid handsomely (OK, except for Willis who’s probably cost-effective) to shill, tout, spin, lie, or whatever it takes to advance a policy interest and a set of candidates.

So what did Williams do that was so god-awful exciting? Everybody knows he’s conservative who’s worked for Clarence Thomas and Strom Thurmond. Everybody knows he’s black. So he’s obviously an important asset in the Republican consciousness-raising effort on education, where the task is to show blacks that the Democratic Party will never educate their children properly because they’re whores to the Teachers’ Union.

If the issue is the tax money, my god that’s pretty damn lame. Tax money flows into the pockets of advocates every day under such noble causes as the Violence Against Women Act and nobody complains.

I’m trying real hard to honor these complaints, but I’m having a hard time getting over the idea that Democrats are caught in their traditional hatred of black conservatives. Maybe I shouldn’t have read racist Democrat Steve Gilliard:

Brother, them white folks is gonna jump up on your ass like you were a trampoline. You’ll be lucky to avoid jail. The conservative lynching is already starting.

It’s like that line from Trading Places: “Of course I would never let a nigger run our company” Well, of course, if Williams is a crook, they would never defend his lying nigger ass.

Josh Marshall asked who else is taking payments from the White House.

He would, wouldn’t he?

So help me out, outraged liberals, show me the beef.

UPDATE: See Williams’ apology and clarification here. Not surprisingly, the reporting on this fiasco has been biased.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Dan Flynn is not impressed by Williams’ apology, which he finds disingenuous, and neither is LaShawn Barber.

Setting the record straight

Instapundit points to a Max Boot column reviewing films from Afghanistan and Iraq which makes the following observation: Ultimately, Osama’s masquerade unravels, and she faces a gruesome punishment from an Islamic court. The ending, which I won’t give away, is enough to make anyone shudder ? and give thanks that U.S. troops have toppled the … Continue reading “Setting the record straight”

Instapundit points to a Max Boot column reviewing films from Afghanistan and Iraq which makes the following observation:

Ultimately, Osama’s masquerade unravels, and she faces a gruesome punishment from an Islamic court. The ending, which I won’t give away, is enough to make anyone shudder ? and give thanks that U.S. troops have toppled the Taliban. Yet I don’t recall a single Hollywood feminist expressing gratitude to the U.S. military or its commander in chief for the liberation of Afghan women. No doubt Streisand, Sarandon & Co. were too busy inveighing against the horrors perpetrated by John Ashcroft.

To which Matt Yglesias responds with a bit of misdirection that’s obviously intended to make us believe the people Boot mentions actually supported the invasion:

The notion that the Bush administration invaded Afghanistan in order to help Afghan women is, of course, preposterous. Look at his remarks from the time and you’ll see that though the Taliban’s oppression was certainly mentioned, the war was motivated by the small matter of 9-11 and al-Qaeda. Equally preposterous is the suggestion that feminists are or were unconcerned with the fate of Afghan women. When I heard this stuff in the winter of 2001-2002, I assumed it reflected a kind of ignorance coming from the right. Years after the evident, it’s just a kind of malicious slander. Check out the Feminist Majority Foundation’s Afghanistan page and take note of the fact that, unlike Boot and his friends, their interest in this topic didn’t begin in September of 2001.

The truth is that Boot is right and Yglesias is wrong. The Hollywood Feminists Boot mentions opposed the liberation of Afghanistan from the Taliban, a fact that can very easily be checked:

The peace position was also taken by the Worldwide Sisterhood Against Terrorism and War, an organization of about 80 feminists that includes women from Central Asia as well as such U.S. notables as Gloria Steinem, Alice Walker, and Susan Sarandon. In a petition headlined “Not in Our Name,” the group declared, “We will not support the bombing or U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, for it would only punish suffering people and increase the hatred on which terrorists feed.”

Yglesias, consider yourself busted. The reversal of direction on Afghanistan on the part of some in the feminist establishment is one of the most shameful partisan flip-flops of recent times, but fortunately it wasn’t universal. Ellie Smeal apparently supported the invasion privately, contrary to my memory of events at the time and her public statements:

Perhaps it’s no surprise that some feminists, including Smeal, now feel the backward and violent regime deserves whatever it gets. The rare overlap between feminist and military interests made for particularly warm relations in the greenroom at an NBC station in Los Angeles when Smeal met up with three generals who were about to appear on Chris Matthews’s Hardball. “They went off about the role of women in this effort and how imperative it was that women were now in every level of the air force and navy,” says Smeal, who found herself cheered by the idea of women flying F-16s. “It’s a different kind of war,” she says, echoing the president’s assessment of Operation Enduring Freedom.

It’s too bad she didn’t go public with this sentiment, because if she had there wouldn’t be so much reason to point out that the position of the feminist establishment on Afghanistan was driven more by partisanship than by principle.

Top-Rated Charities

People wishing to make contributions for tsunami victims can check the status of their charities with the charitywatch.org list of Top-Rated Charities According to the American Institute of Philanthropy Accion International Africare American Friends Service Committee American Near East Refugee Aid American Refugee Committee AmeriCares CARE Catholic Relief Services Church World Service Doctors of the … Continue reading “Top-Rated Charities”

Accion International
Africare
American Friends Service Committee
American Near East Refugee Aid
American Refugee Committee
AmeriCares
CARE
Catholic Relief Services
Church World Service
Doctors of the World
Doctors Without Borders USA
FINCA International
International Rescue Committee
Lutheran World Relief
Mennonite Central Committee
Oxfam-America
Save the Children
U.S. Committee for Refugees

If your charity isn’t on this list, it’s not among the best in efficiency. The two highest-rated in International Relief and Development are Lutheran World Relief and the American Refugee Committee.

Edge Annual Question

Edge’s annual question is: “What do you believe even though you cannot prove it?” Here’s my favorite answer: DONALD I. WILLIAMSON Biologist, University of Liverpool; Author, The Origins of Larvae I believe I can explain the Cambrian explosion. The Cambrian explosion refers to the first appearance in a relatively short space of geological time of … Continue reading “Edge Annual Question”

Edge’s annual question is: “What do you believe even though you cannot prove it?” Here’s my favorite answer:

DONALD I. WILLIAMSON
Biologist, University of Liverpool; Author, The Origins of Larvae

I believe I can explain the Cambrian explosion.

The Cambrian explosion refers to the first appearance in a relatively short space of geological time of a very wide assortment of animals more than 500 million years ago. I believe it came about through hybridization.
Continue reading “Edge Annual Question”

Echo chamber strikes back

The quickest way to get a reaction from the blogosphere is to attack it, as we can see from the list of blogs commenting on a recent piece by John Schwartz of the NY Times ridiculing the echo chamber effect. Thing is, Schwartz is mainly right. Crazy rumors and conspiracy theories do run through the … Continue reading “Echo chamber strikes back”

Thing is, Schwartz is mainly right. Crazy rumors and conspiracy theories do run through the blogosphere like wildfire, and the blogosphere doesn’t employ its fact-check-your-ass function against itself with the same relish that it does against the MSM, so it’s a good thing for us to read blogs that we don’t agree with all the better to correct their errors.

There was an odd comparison of blogs to “new media” in the Schwartz piece that I found bewildering, but it was probably a typo or an editing error. (UPDATE:A source at the Times confirms this was an editing error, introduced at the copy desk.)

In any event, having a blog doesn’t mean that every criticism of the blogs is an attack on you, any more than voting Republican means you have to be a Creationist.