Word on the street is that the Dems have decided to “eliminate” Osama bin Ladin, as part of their defense strategy. Ooooookay then.

Kind of reminds me of a hockey fight where the little guy runs up behind the safety of the referee saying “let me at em!”

Kate at SDA hits the nail on the head:

Because journalism is no longer about delivering factual information about current events in appropriate context. It’s become a faux-profession increasingly populated by individuals who aspire to influence political outcomes and public policy – but who are too lazy (or too stupid) to earn that right by running for political office the old fashioned way.

I was thinking precisely that thought (though in less eloquent terms) just the other day. It increasingly appears as though the media isn’t just reporting the news in a biased way, but have taken it a step further and are engaging in political advocacy. What is particularily insidious about such conduct is the extent to which it involves an abuse of their constitutionally protected status (freedom of the press) as purveyors of information.

This past week we were given an opportunity to peer into the soul of the pacifist. And it wasn’t pretty.

Pacifism is premised on the notion that war is always avoidable. There is always a non-aggressive solution to geopolitical problems. The fundamental flaw with such absolutism (absolutism in any aspect is invariably flawed) is that, in war, it always takes two to tango. Pacifism is all well and good in a utopian vacuum, but what if the other side of the conflict isn’t benevolent but rather has belligerent or aggressive intentions. In that situation one is invariably faced with the option of backing down and giving into the demands of the aggressor or standing firm. Here is where the pacifist chooses to simply ignore reality.

The belligerent isn’t really being aggressive, so says today’s pacifist. He is just misunderstood. If only we could understand him conflict could be avoided. Integral to our misunderstanding is the notion that his aggression was ultimately caused by our own actions. Regardless of how obvious the aggression appears to be, it can always be traced back to our own conduct. Ultimately, all aggression is really our fault. The importance of this notion cannot be overstated. For if the root of the belligerent’s aggression is really our fault, then we are in control. What we have done, can be undone. Not only is peace possible. It can be achieved at our behest.

Through this reasoning, the pacifist is able to turn the dynamic of a conflict on its head, whereby the party that seems to be most responsible for the conflict is virtually taken out of the equation. This week we saw this dynamic played out before our eyes.

The pacifists were taken by force, held against their will, threatened with death, and one of them was murdered. Yet the party that was intent on murdering them was excused, while the party that risked death to save them was given no praises, but rather general condemnation.

When the Iraq war began there were varying predictions about the outcome. In terms of U.S. casualties, most predicted that there would be thousands of American deaths, perhaps tens of thousands, not hundreds like the previous war. It was a pretty fair assessment considering the task at hand: not just driving an army across open desert, but actually fighting into and then occupying Iraqi cities. Saddam warned that Bagdad would be a “bloodbath” for the U.S. and nobody was laughing off his suggestion at the time.

On the humanitarian front, a crisis of epic proportions was certainly contemplated by many reasonable observers: the war would lead to complete economic and social collapse, which in turn would lead to a mass of refugees, famine, the spread of disease and all of the related social consequences that war often entails.

On the environment, many forecasted an expansion of the scorched earth policy employed by Saddam in the first Gulf War. We imagined a sea of burning oil wells and projected an incalculable level of damage to the ecosystem in the region. Again, this was not an unreasonable prediction, but rather a pretty safe bet given our recent experience.

And of course, there was the near certain civil war and the break-up of the country. Iraq was a country of three distinct cultures, held together by the firm grip of a dictator. Once Saddam was deposed, the Kurds would break away, resulting in a broader regional conflict with Turkey, and to a lesser extent, Iran, given the decades-long struggle both of those countries have had with their own Kurdish populations. To the south, the Shiites and the Sunnis would battle for control of the rest of the country. It was to be a religious war with significant economic overtones – the control of Iraq’s vast oil wealth.

Finally, we had the “Arab Street”: the Pan-Arab uprising that was to destabilize the entire region. We were told that the populations of neighboring countries simply wouldn’t tolerate an American invading force.

In the end, none of the above occurred. There was no bloodbath in the streets of Baghdad. No humanitarian crises. No scorched earth. Remarkably, there has been no civil war. Despite many attempts by insurgents to incite one, the most recent being the mosque bombings, the various factions have shown remarkable restraint. In the North, Kurdistan is becoming a model for Mideast social and economic development. In the South, the Shiites and the Sunnis have chosen the political process as a means of advocating the interests of their respective populations. There have been difficulties with that process to be sure, but nothing close to civil war. As for the Arab street? Oh there was an Arab street alright, but it was filled with people clamoring for democratic change, in places like Lebanon, and to a lesser extent Egypt.

It’s difficult to imagine that, before the war, one would describe the current situation as a “worst-case” scenario. To the contrary, if one were to suggest, before the war, that not one of the above mentioned scenarios would occur, and that elections would be held within two years (with a voter turnout that rivals election in the West), that every city, every enemy stronghold, such as Fallujah, would be free from enemy military control and that only a relatively small number of fighters (in the hundreds or thousands, but not tens of thousands) engaging in small level attacks would remain as the only military concern, he or she would have been considered a believer in fantasies.

Yet, just the other day, I heard an “expert” describe the situation in Iraq as going from “bad to worse with each passing day.” It is almost universally characterized by the mainstream press as an unmitigated disaster. While the reality is that with each passing day, another prediction that civil war is just around the corner becomes unfulfilled, you will never hear the words “the war is going better than expected” written or uttered in any major news outlet. Instead, the goal posts have been shifted, the successes ignored, entire regions of Iraq forgotten. Grasping on to their pre-determined narrative, the media reports every bombing, every killing, every kidnapping in isolation and absent the broader context.

We don’t hear daily stories about the Iraqi electrical infrastructure anymore. The nightly blackouts became a symbol of a society in complete anomie. Today Iraq still has power grids, except they are being rebuilt and operating well above pre-war standards. When the subject of a story turns positive, it immediately loses its status as a story worthy of coverage. Remember Al Sadr? He was in the spotlight for weeks on end when he was leading a Shiite army against the U.S. Apparently the story of his capitulation and submission to the political process isn’t worth being told. When is the last time you heard the name Sadr city? While it was a ticking time bomb it was if it was at the center of the media universe. And who could forget the city of Fallujah, which occupied headlines for weeks while it was being controlled by foreign terrorists. Well, apparently the media did. After the U.S. forces routed the insurgents it disappeared from our consciousness. A new relatively peaceful city remains – a city with hundreds of stories of success. Stories that will never be told. Before the last bullet was fired the media had already moved onto its next example of Iraqi failure.

The reams of Iraq documents have finally been released, revealing some very interesting stuff, including documents supporting the link between Bin Laden and Saddam. And what does the media do? They basically tell us that they shouldn’t be believed.

Rather than simply reporting the facts and circumstances surrounding the source of the documents, and letting the reader decide how credible they are, ABC takes the remarkable step of adding a lengthy editorial note at the end of the story, discounting the veracity of the document.

Just to make sure the reader draws the “correct” conclusion about the legitimacy of the documents I guess.

Then again, at least ABC was kind enough to openly segregate the reporting with the editorializing this time.

One of the most insidious forms of media bias is the failure to report. After all, if a tree falls in a forest……Oftentimes the charge that the media has failed to report something is easily defendable. There are, after all, only so many pages in a paper, only so many minutes of a nightly newscast. It becomes less easy to defend when the media has focused on one side of a story while completely omiting another. Coverage of Iraq is the best example. We have daily accounts of suicide bombings, but we have no reporting of any accomplishments there, none.

Once again we are on the brink in the Mideast as Iran attempts to acquire nuclear capabilities. While the media has been busily reporting the (principally media created) “Bush knew the levies would breach” story, we learn that the previous Iranian nuclear negotiator has been bragging to the Iranian elite about Iran’s success at playing the international community while proceeding with their nuclear plans.

Recall that Iran has vowed to eliminate Israel from the face of the planet. They consider the U.S. the “Great Satan”. They openly sponsor terrorism. And now comes news that their negotiations with the E.U. regarding their nuclear ambitions have been a ruse to buy time.

It’s difficult to fathom any news story that is more important than this one. Yet it is virtually nowhere to be seen or read.

At what point does negligent reporting become grossly negligent or even fraudulent?

If you haven’t already checked out Hugh Hewitt’s interview/interrogation of Lawrence O’Donnell do it now. It’s pretty eye opening. The guys at Powerline also do a good assessment of the interview.

What I found particularily remarkable is O’Donnell’s attempts to compare this to Chappaquiddick. In his own words:

All we’re doing is guessing, because the Vice President forced us to guess, because he did exactly what Ted Kennedy did at Chappaquiddick. Exactly, Hugh. The same behavior.

Cheney was with a large group of people before, during, and after the shooting. It was immediately reported to the authorities, and the victim was immediately given medical attention by Cheney’s own medical team. But apparently that’s of no consequence if it wasn’t immediately reported to the press. It appears that to O’Donnell, the crime of not immediately reporting an accident to the press is up there with not informing anyone of the fact that a woman lay dying in a submerged automobile.

The narcissism of the MSM continues.

Bloggers from the right side of the political spectrum have long been frustrated by what they perceive as biased reporting of the Mideast. Primarily due to their ideological differences with the Bush administration and the inclination to oppose all things that Bush stands for, the media has often played the role of Devil’s advocate on behalf of radical Islam. “One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter” was a saying that embodied a moral relativism that permeated the mainstream media’s approach to Mideast reporting.

But a funny thing happened on the way to the gourmet cappucino bar. The media seems to have noticed that the front line of the Islamic cultural war may be on their own doorsteps. Perhaps the calls for the death of cartoon writers is just what the Western media needed to realize that one man’s terrorist is really just a terrorist – one who is driven by a belief system premised on hate and intolerance – and no matter how much our belief sytem is premised on equality and tolerance towards others, there is no way to justify or otherwise explain away the hate and intolerance of others.

Perhaps.

Is tolerance of intolerance, in and of itself intolerance?

That about sums up the first ten minutes of Meet the Press. It’s been awhile since I’ve watched the Sunday morning news programs. It appears to be as bad as ever. For those who haven’t watched for awhile here’s how it works:

Russert gathers headlines from (liberal) media on various subjects, all of which is anti-Bush.

He airs the headlines as if the premise of each story is the immutable truth.

The discussion about a failed Bush administration proceeds accordingly.