musing minds

We’ve heard a lot about the tipping point of Democracy in the Mid East. It seems we’ve reached a tipping point with the media as well. Even Bush’s most ardent critics are starting to see the light. From Jon Stewart and the New York Times in the U.S. to the Guardian and Spiegel in Europe…

Come writers and critics
Who prophesize with your pen
And keep your eyes wide
The chance won’t come again
And don’t speak too soon
For the wheel’s still in spin
And there’s no tellin’ who
That it’s namin’.
For the loser now
Will be later to win
For the times they are a-changin’.

(Bob Dylan)

USA Today has a new commercial out. Have you seen it? A man in a hotel, getting the newspaper from the hallway, locks himself out of his room. He is in a state of undress. He wraps the newspaper around himself and proceeds to the front desk, getting looks from everyone. During this USA Today prints on the screen:

Never Dull
Never Tedious
Never Miss a Day
Never Gray

Via PoliPundit, another invocation of Nazism from the Left. Senator Byrd draws a comparison between Hitler and Republicans in arguing against doing away with the filibuster.

It’s obvious that the Left doesn’t appreciate the fact that every time they compare Bush or Republicans to the Nazis they are belittling the horrors of the Nazi regime. I should clarify that, actually. They may or may not realize that they are belittling Nazi atrocities, but they don’t really seem to care.

Imagine being a Holocaust survivor, or a close relative of one, having seen or heard personal accounts of entire towns and villages rounded up, put on trains, marched into gas chambers and incinerated. Knowing brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, best friends who were put to death by the state because of their religious background.

Consider what it must be like to go through such horrors at the hands of the Nazis and then years later turn on your T.V. and watch some young woman at an economic development protest holding a sign comparing Bush to Hitler, crying out as a “victim” of republican policies. Imagine having lived through real atrocities and knowing that after the young woman has wiped away her tears of anger, rather than mourning the state sponsored killings of her friends she will get into her comfy Volvo and go with them to the mall.

Worse yet, consider what it must be like for our Nazi survivor to turn on C-Span and see Senator Byrd, an ex-klansman who actively promoted racism, attempting to leverage the suffering of millions of Nazi victims for his own political gain. Disgraceful.

Via Powerline: Media Research Center has a list of Dan Rather’s “Notable Quotables”, showing his liberal bias dating back to 1995…

Here’s the first:

“The new Republican majority in Congress took a big step today on its legislative agenda to demolish or damage government aid programs, many of them designed to help children and the poor.”
— Leading off the March 16, 1995 CBS Evening News.

Now read the rest.

There’s a new blogger on the block – OpiniPundit. Good stuff there. Check him out.

PoliPundit has written code and made it available to all to get the clock posted at the top of this page. John Kerry told Tim Russert on Meet the Press that he would sign his Form 180. He still hasn’t done it. We’re waiting….

The pace of transformation in the Middle East seems astonishing. In short succession Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine and now Lebanon and Egypt have either gone democratic or are quickly heading towards democracy. There is no doubt this is unparalleled. I wonder though, just how astonishing this all would seem if the media showed a modicum of balance in their reporting and “analysis” of Afghanistan, Iraq and U.S. foreign policy in general.

From the outset of U.S. military intervention in the region, the media has almost exclusively focused on what was going wrong and what would go wrong in the future. A steady stream of experts and future tellers provided us with the skeptical downside. “Quagmire” was the catchword of the new millennium. Occasionally we would hear a press conference where Bush would tout the spread of democracy in the region. The media would give a collective condescending chuckle and go back to reporting from their hotel rooms, every car bomb story that came across the wires.

Imagine if the other side of the story would have been presented from the beginning. Imagine if the media had actually taken a serious look at the potential upside of U.S. foreign policy in the region. Imagine if Afghanistan had actually been covered after the shooting stopped. What’s happening now with Lebanon and Egypt would be no less history shaping. But it might have seemed a little less surprising.

At the White House Press briefing today regarding the resignation of the Lebanese Government Helen Thomas goes waaayy off topic: (Q is Helen Thomas):

Q Has the President ever issued an order against torture of prisoners? And do we still send prisoners to Syria to be tortured?

MR. McCLELLAN: The President has stated publicly that we do not condone torture and that he would never authorize the use of torture. He has made that —

Q But has he issued an order?

MR. McCLELLAN: — statement very publicly, and he’s made it clear to everybody in the government that we do not torture.

Q Well, why do we still hear these stories then?

MR. McCLELLAN: If there are allegations of wrongdoing, then the President expects those allegations to be fully investigated and if there is actual wrongdoing that occurs, then people need to be held to account. The President has made that very clear.

Q Well, do you deny that we still send prisoners to other countries to be tortured? Is that a denial?

MR. McCLELLAN: Judge Gonzales testified previously that we have an obligation not to render people to countries that we know would torture them.

Q He did not rule out torture.

Transcript and link to video available here. Why is this woman still attending press briefings? And look at the second part of the first question… Did we ever “send prisoners to Syria to be tortured?” – Do you still beat your wife?

Welcome Opinipundit readers.
Welcome American Princess readers.

Via Fox News: Lebanon’s Prime Minister says whole government to resign. The Lebanese are rising against the Syrian forces.

Prime Minister Omar Karami:

“I am keen that the government will not be a hurdle in front of those who want the good for this country. I declare the resignation of the government that I had the honor to head. May God preserve Lebanon,”

More from Reuter’s:

“The people have won,” main opposition leader Walid Jumblatt told LBC television after Karami announced the resignation of the cabinet to a parliament session debating Hariri’s killing.

Ecstatic protesters, having got their wish for the government’s resignation, chanted “Syria out” and “Freedom, sovereignty, independence.” Syria has wielded political and military power in its smaller neighbor for decades.

They also chanted “Lahoud, your turn is next,” in reference to pro-Syrian President Emile Lahoud.

Martyrs Square, by Hariri’s grave, was a sea of Lebanese flags — red and white with a cedar tree in the center.

Thousands of protesters watched the debate live on large screens while loudspeakers blared patriotic songs.

Cheers and applause erupted when Karami resigned. In parliament, opposition MPs wearing the red-and-white scarves that have come to symbolize their movement, gave a standing ovation.

I’ve been posting lightly because I received my new laptop on Friday and have been getting it up to speed with all my old software. I also have a paper due tomorrow for my current class, so posting on my part will still be fairly light.

I have a brand new Dell Inspiron 6000 with a very nice 15-1/2 screen. It’s like an HDTV screen wider than tall, so it’s very nice for spreadsheet viewing. I’m getting used to the new Office 2003 software too.