As usual, Ann Coulter’s razor sharp claws are deadly accurate. When you separate all the frivolous allegations the attacks all come down to the fact that he’s gay. Here’s some Ann:

On the op-ed page of The New York Times, Maureen Dowd openly lied about the press pass, saying: “I was rejected for a White House press pass at the start of the Bush administration, but someone with an alias, a tax evasion problem and Internet pictures where he posed like the ‘Barberini Faun’ is credentialed?”

Press passes can’t be that hard to come by if the White House allows that dyspeptic, old Helen Thomas to sit within yards of the president. Still, it would be suspicious if Dowd were denied a press pass while someone from “Talon News” got one, even if he is a better reporter.

But Dowd was talking about two different passes without telling her readers (a process now known in journalism schools as “Dowdification”). Gannon didn’t have a permanent pass; he had only a daily pass. Almost anyone can get a daily pass — even famed Times fantasist Maureen Dowd could have gotten one of those. A daily pass and a permanent pass are altogether different animals. The entire linchpin of Dowd’s column was a lie. (And I’m sure the Times’ public editor will get right on Dowd’s deception.)

Read the whole thing, its great.

Juan Cole does his best to give us the negative spin on democracy in the Middle East in an article entitled, get this, “The Downside of Democracy“. What’s next, “Oxygen: The Dark Side Conservatives Don’t Want You to Know About”? The doom and gloom left never ceases to amaze me.

I’ll give you the Coles Notes version of Cole’s article – democracy can be bad because the leaders the people choose may end up being radical and/or anti US. He does his best to draw comparisons to other elections with “mixed results” such as Pakistan and Lebanon. However you don’t need to be a professor in Middle Eastern Studies to know that we are sort of rewriting the book on Iraq here. That’s why most of the “experts” who have been making dire predictions of civil war, a humanitarian catastrophe, an inferno of burning oil fields and failed elections with low turnout, have been wrong. You also don’t have to be a professor in Political Studies or Journalism to know that we wouldn’t be hearing the incessant drone of bad news and dire predictions from the media and academic left that turn out to continually be wrong, if this wasn’t Bush’s baby.

I think the smart money is on Bush, not the academic left.

What does selective advocacy of particular rights and freedoms say about the group purporting to advocate them? What affect does such selective advocacy have on the rights themselves?

Powerline links to a great article by Debra Saunders which looks at the differentiation in treatment of two professors, Summers and Churchill. You’ll recall that Summers made statements regarding the lack of women in high-end science professions. Churchill on the other hand, basically theorized that the victims of 9/11 had it coming. The Left wants Summers’ head, but is rallying around Churchill to protect his “academic freedom”. Read it all.

This hypocrisy is nothing new. I think the worst example of selective rights advocacy was the complete silence from the feminist left regarding the Afghanistan elections. Afghan women were among the world’s most oppressed people. Stoned or even killed for any form of “moral transgression”. Women could not attend school or occupy any formal positions whatsoever. One would expect that feminists would stand up and celebrate their emancipation. Yet there was silence. No rallies, no flurries of articles or publications. Nothing. This was Bush’s emancipation and they wanted no part of it.

It seems clear is that these “rights defenders” are not really that at all. They are rights users. Only when it is politically convenient does the left cry out in agony, fighting the unjust suffering at the hands of the evil conservatives. When it is not politically convenient, well, the suffering doesn’t really matter that much. The rights’ advocates are cheapened. But more importantly, so are the rights themselves.
UPDATE: Compare the silence of the feminists described above to the raving madness linked to by Lorie at Polipundit.

Fox News reports that Judge Greer’s stay has been extended until 5 pm eastern, Friday, February 25th so that he can have more time to review the case.

They also report that the Florida Department of Children and Families is asking to become involved.

Michael’s attorney is calling it an affront to the court and that it’s injecting politics into the court system.

Read it all here.

Update: The family’s website is currently down because of unusually high traffic. They have posted the following there.

The Schindler family are encouraged at the outcome of today’s hearing before Judge Greer and are overwhelmed at the public outpouring of care and concern being shown to them and their daughter, Terri Schiavo.

The Schindler family also welcomes the involvement of Florida’s Department of Children and Families (the state’s health and human services agency) in their investigation into serious and detailed allegations of abuse and to ensure that appropriate care and treatment of Terri and patients like her is being delivered.

We ask that you please continue to think and pray for them and for Judge Greer as he takes this matter under advisement. Terri’s life and the lives of many disabled, elderly and vulnerable people in Florida hang in the balance.

Welcome PoliPundit, La Shawn Barber, Pajama Hadin, House of the Dog Readers.

Hat-Tip to La Shawn for this link to Matt Margolis’ post on Living Wills.
Hat-Tip to Michelle Malkin for this link to ProlifeBlogs Terri Aggregator.

For the past several years we’ve been hearing a lot about the “Arab Street.” Old media reported as if the terrorists’ and thugs’ views were representative of all Arabs. But a funny thing happened on the way to democracy. The Arab Street started to be redefined to actually include, well, the whole street rather than just that bad house at the end occupied by the radical minority.

The Afganistan and Iraq votes were the first eye openers, but it continues with Lebanon. Below I questioned whether there’s any doubt Bush’s policies have spurred on the freedom movement in Lebanon as well. Read for yourself, from the Washington Post:

Jumblatt dresses like an ex-hippie, in jeans and loafers, but he maintains the exquisite manners of a Lebanese aristocrat. Over the years, I’ve often heard him denouncing the United States and Israel, but these days, in the aftermath of Hariri’s death, he’s sounding almost like a neoconservative. He says he’s determined to defy the Syrians until their troops leave Lebanon and the Lahoud government is replaced.

“It’s strange for me to say it, but this process of change has started because of the American invasion of Iraq,” explains Jumblatt. “I was cynical about Iraq. But when I saw the Iraqi people voting three weeks ago, 8 million of them, it was the start of a new Arab world.” Jumblatt says this spark of democratic revolt is spreading. “The Syrian people, the Egyptian people, all say that something is changing. The Berlin Wall has fallen. We can see it.”

Emphasis mine.
UPDATE: The Belmont Club has a good roundup of the world community starting to jump on board Bush’s policies. Having courage and faith in your convictions and being right about it seems to yield a fair bit of international political capital.
UPDATE 2: The Anchoress has a related story out of the Middle East from The Daily Star. In this opinion piece Rami G. Khouri talks about the effects of democracy in Iraq on the rest of the region. Go read her, then go read the rest. (kimsch)
UPDATE 3: Welcome Daou Report readers.

To those Musing Minds readers who requested that I continue to follow this story, here’s the update: Looks like the pursuit of Hume is over. I did a scroll down at Kos and nothing. As I originally posted, it didn’t look like there was much there to begin with.

Liberal blogs are sort of the Maytag repairmen of the left side of the journalism spectrum. There’s nothing to “fix” since old media has their perspective fully covered already.

On a side note, it’s strange visiting blogs from the left. A lot of swearing, bitterness, anger and naive idealistic rhetoric. I kind of felt like I was back at my arts lounge in university.

Although I’m not privy to the specific details of the Schiavo case, the notion that the wishes of an estranged husband is given priority over the wishes of the parents seems outrageous.

On one hand we have the parents who have had a life long bond with their daughter. Absent any evidence to the contrary it would have to be assumed that they are guided solely by what they believe are their daughter’s best interests. On the other hand we have a man who, although married to her at the time she took ill, is now with another woman. One doesn’t have to spend too much time in the halls of divorce court to appreciate that after a marriage is over (even in circumstances where the break-up is amicable) all bets are off and it’s each man for himself. To literally put him in control of her life seems to fly in the face of the obvious.

Please pray for Terri and her family as they come to a crux in the legal situation.

Her husband has been fighting to end her life for the past eight years stating her wish not to continue living in these circumstances. He will not divorce her. He lives with another woman and their children.

Terri’s parents are willing and able to care for her. They do not believe her husband’s claim that she said she would rather not go on.

Terri Schindler-Schiavo Foundation

Update: Fox News reports that the appeals court has cleared the way for Michael Schiavo to get his way… Please pray for Terri.

The Miami-Herald has the story here. The judge issued an emergency stay until 5 pm tomorrow to allow a scheduled hearing to be held.

Update 2: Fox News just reported that the stay has been extended until 5 pm Friday, February 25th. Keep praying.

Remember, make your wishes (for end of life and organ donation) known in writing and verbally to as many family members as you can.

On my father’s death, the only organs that were suitable for donation were his corneas. Two people can see because of him.

Welcome La Shawn Barber and Anchoress readers! – Please look around and Jeff has posted on this too – just above, please click on home.

hat tip: Musing Minds reader Jeanette

Amir Taheri has a good article about the uprising in Lebanon. He writes:

The genie of people power has come out of the bottle and no amount of political chicanery will send it back in. Nor can Syria dispatch its tanks to crush the demonstrators on the streets of Beirut as the Soviet Union did in Prague in 1968.

Is there any question that the the elections in Iraq and Bush’s public pronouncements that the USA stands with all those who strive for freedom contributed to this uprising in a big way?

It’s amazing how much a couple of lines sums up the approach from the left: “I think it’s very important to make charges like that. I think it’s very important to combat this kind of activity in every way that you can.”

In shorter terms:

1) villify the Bush administration and

2) do whatever it takes to accomplish this regardless of the truth.

Regrettably this has been the centerpiece of the Dems’ approach over the last several years. I say regrettably, because notwithstanding my desire to see the Dems stay out of power for a very long time, these are very serious times which require a serious public dialogue. We don’t have that right now. Rather than a serious discussion on the level of proof required for preemption we have “Bush lied”. On social security reform we have “Bush is manufacturing a crises”. The list goes on. In the end the public is denied a real debate. And then Bush is accused of being “unilateral”. I think the better word is responsible. After all, someone has to be the adult around here.