Richard Bennett

Personal animus

There is another way to look at the Rathergate story, however. While the left sees it as simply rushing a story onto the air before all the nasty details were spruced up and the right sees it as liberal bias, it can be seen, quite convincingly, as personal animosity on Rather’s part against the Bush family, going back to Dan’s attempt to ambush Poppie Bush on Iran/Contra only to have his ass handed to him on a platter concerning his walking off the set in a snit when a football game threatened to run over into this time slot. While we can never tease these explanations apart completely, personal animus has to be at least part of the story.

That, and Dan’s just a weird bird with enough power to play out his personal problems on the air at the most critical juncture in a presidential campaign.

Blogger takes on Washington establishment

John Fund has a nice little column on my buddy Stefan Sharkansky’s work to keep the Washington governor’s election honest: The new media–talk radio, bloggers and independent watchdog groups–have followed up their success in exposing Dan Rather’s use of phony memos by showcasing another scandal: Washington state’s bizarre race for governor, which features a vote … Continue reading “Blogger takes on Washington establishment”

John Fund has a nice little column on my buddy Stefan Sharkansky’s work to keep the Washington governor’s election honest:

The new media–talk radio, bloggers and independent watchdog groups–have followed up their success in exposing Dan Rather’s use of phony memos by showcasing another scandal: Washington state’s bizarre race for governor, which features a vote count so close and compromised it allows Florida to retire the crown for electoral incompetence. If Democrat Christine Gregoire, who leads by 129 votes and is scheduled to take the office Wednesday, eventually has to face a new election, it will have been in large part because of the new media’s ability to give the story altitude before it reached the courts.

The issue is far from settled, and Stefan’s work has given it a prominence that the Seatlle media wanted to avoid at all costs.

Gates warning

Bill Gates has a few words to say about the Creative Commons folks on CNET: CNET: In recent years, there’s been a lot of people clamoring to reform and restrict intellectual-property rights. It started out with just a few people, but now there are a bunch of advocates saying, “We’ve got to look at patents, … Continue reading “Gates warning”

Bill Gates has a few words to say about the Creative Commons folks on CNET:

CNET: In recent years, there’s been a lot of people clamoring to reform and restrict intellectual-property rights. It started out with just a few people, but now there are a bunch of advocates saying, “We’ve got to look at patents, we’ve got to look at copyrights.” What’s driving this, and do you think intellectual-property laws need to be reformed?

Gates: No, I’d say that of the world’s economies, there’s more that believe in intellectual property today than ever. There are fewer communists in the world today than there were. There are some new modern-day sort of communists who want to get rid of the incentive for musicians and moviemakers and software makers under various guises. They don’t think that those incentives should exist.

And this debate will always be there. I’d be the first to say that the patent system can always be tuned–including the U.S. patent system. There are some goals to cap some reform elements. But the idea that the United States has led in creating companies, creating jobs, because we’ve had the best intellectual-property system–there’s no doubt about that in my mind, and when people say they want to be the most competitive economy, they’ve got to have the incentive system. Intellectual property is the incentive system for the products of the future.”

I like Bill Gates.

UPDATE: Professor Lessig, the guy who writes all those “The Sky Is Falling” Internet books, is sad, and Boing-boing makes drawings to show how very hip they are.

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”