Jeff Gannon - A Voice of the New Media

March 11, 2008

CA Makes Gay Marriage National Campaign Issue

State Supreme Court Poised To Legalize Same-Sex Marriage

In 2003, a ruling by judicial activists that legalized same-sex marriage in Massachusetts touched off a national debate that had a profound effect on the 2004 elections. President Bush proposed an amendment to the U.S. Constitution that would define marriage as the union of one man and one woman, a stance helped him win re-election and propelled Republicans to larger majorities in the House and Senate. Voters in eleven of eleven states passed similar amendments preserving traditional marriage. In 2006, the issue of gay marriage still resonated, as seven of eight states approved measures that limited marriage to opposite-sex unions.

Most political analysts perceive the influence of social conservatives to be in decline considering the three contenders still in hunt for the White House. Polling suggests that “values voters” key issues, same-sex marriage and abortion have fallen well behind concerns about the economy and the war in Iraq in the mind of voters. However, the California Supreme Court is poised to change the dynamic of the 2008 presidential race.

Oral arguments are currently being heard in Sacramento that challenge the constitutionality of Proposition 22, approved by voters in 2000 that restricted marriage to opposite-sex couples. Gay rights activists asserted that only full marriage equality, in fact and name is the only acceptable outcome. The liberal-dominated court is likely to agree. Anticipating such a result, traditional marriage advocates have already begun collecting signatures for a November ballot initiative.

The ruling would provide a much-needed boost for Sen. John McCain in his pursuit of support from social conservatives who thus far have resisted the Republican nominee. McCain opposed the Federal Marriage Amendment in the U.S. Senate, but spoke in support of Arizona’s 2006 ballot initiative. It would also bring attention to the critical role the next president will play in shaping the Supreme Court for the next 20 years, since most observers predict at least two vacancies on the high court in the near future.

Democrats, on the other hand, face a quagmire on the issue of same-sex marriage in 2008. Gay activists, who claim at least partial credit for the Democratic takeover of Congress in the midterm elections, will not stand for a reiteration of the tepid language of the 2004 Democratic National Committee platform on their major agenda items. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama hoped to skate by with vague statements of support for “equality” and “non-discrimination”, both stopping short of endorsing same-sex marriage. A ruling by the California Supreme Court to change the definition of marriage will force the Democratic hopefuls to take an unequivocal position.

Despite a misperception created by major media’s pro-gay slant, there is overwhelming support among Americans to limit marriage to opposite-sex couples. Even in liberal California, voters approved Proposition 22 by more than 60 percent. Not a single state has voted to institute same-sex marriage. In fact, in 2007, fearing a rejection of the judicial fiat that legalized gay marriage in Massachusetts, activists prevailed upon sympathetic Democrats to derail an initiative that would have put the issue before voters in 2008.

National Democratic Party leaders also worried about the impact of the issue across the country. At the time, The Boston Globe reported:

US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi weighed in with calls in the last few days to DiMasi and Murray. She emphasized to state Democratic leaders that national Democratic officials feel strongly that a high-profile over the issue in 2008 would galvanize conservative voters nationally and undercut their efforts to capture the White House and keep control of Congress. Most observers agree that the Supreme Judicial Court's decision to legalize same-sex marriage was a major hindrance to US Senator John F. Kerry's presidential campaign in 2004.

It appears that the judicial activists in Pelosi’s home state did not get the memo.

Posted by jeffgannon at 12:55 PM

February 26, 2008

The Long Unraveling of Obama

Last week, Sen. Hillary Clinton jumped all over Sen. Barack Obama for speeches he made that employed phrases and flourishes previously used by Deval Patrick during his run for governor of Massachusetts. The overblown charges of plagiarism from Clinton’s surrogates and the candidate’s own attack line, “change you can Xerox” unleashed during a debate had little effect.

The juvenile back-and-forth between the Democratic candidates about who used what words when hid the fact that neither Clinton nor Obama had much new to say. The campaigns of both candidates focused on the word “change” without offering any clue as to the specifics of the change they wanted to bring. Since both Clinton and Obama are disturbingly unqualified to be Commander in Chief, voters should ask as Walter Mondale did 24 years ago, “Where’s the beef?”

Sen. Clinton’s agenda is not much of a mystery, since it is reasonable to expect her presidency to be a third installment of “Weekend at Bill and Hill’s” or perhaps “Back to the Future III.” The country would be plunged into four years of the scandal and corruption that has followed the Clintons throughout their public lives and government run amok with liberal judges appointed to implement social policy from the bench and Marxist economists imposing fiscal policy to confiscate larger and larger amounts from individual taxpayers, small businesses and large corporations and redistribute it to cronies, bureaucrats, liberal activists and the lazy.

Some Democrats and the Old Media have portrayed Barack Obama as a combination of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr. with a bit of the Messiah mixed in. However, the Illinois junior senator’s soaring oratory, while powerful enough to send a shiver up Chris Matthews’ leg, is devoid of substance. To say that Obama’s record of accomplishment is thin would be generous, virtually non-existent would be more accurate.

Because the racial politics Democrats waged against Republicans for decades have come home to roost, Obama has not been vetted by the party on the verge of making him their choice to take on John McCain, the only adult among the three presidential contenders. The Old Media has no intention of taking a critical look at someone who has sparked a flashback to their hippie days of marching for civil rights and against the Vietnam War.

The job of introducing the electorate to the real Barack Obama will fall to the New Media. A good place to start is with Obama’s “Global Poverty Act”, a massive giveaway program that not only puts hundreds of millions of American taxpayer dollars into the hands of corrupt United Nations types, but also commits the United States to various sovereignty-sacrificing programs such as gun control, global warming reduction schemes and the International Criminal Court.

Strip away Barack Obama’s seductive “Barry White” speaking style and mocha exterior and what is revealed is a garden variety far-left radical. The photograph the Clinton campaign passed around Monday that pictured Obama dressed up like Osama bin Laden was a valid political shot, contrary to the gasps and outrage of the Obama campaign and the Old Media. It showed how comfortable Obama was in a turban, yet the man who wants to lead the United States confessed how uncomfortable he felt with an American flag pin on his lapel:

"Shortly after 9/11, particularly because as we're talking about the Iraq War, that [American flag lapel pin] became a substitute for I think true patriotism, which is speaking out on issues that are of importance to our national security, I decided I won't wear that pin on my chest.”

This is only the beginning of the long unraveling of Barack Obama.

Posted by jeffgannon at 10:03 AM

December 11, 2007

No Hope For NBC

Would Network Air Comedian’s Troop Shows Today?

NBC sank to a new low last week when it rejected ads thanking American troops for their sacrifice and offering them Christmas greetings. A network official deemed the spots produced by Freedom’s Watch, a pro-troop organization to be “too political.” The ensuing backlash from patriotic Americans convinced an adult at NBC to reverse the decision after a few days.

The controversy underscored the liberal bias of the Old Media that can no longer be hidden or denied. The mindset that perceives a message of gratitude and support for American troops as "too political" defies any other plausible explanation. The ideological leanings once concealed by a monopoly of three similar television networks and a handful of major newspapers stand naked in the vast expanse of the new media universe and the marketplace of free ideas.

As a child growing up in front of the television during the 1960s, I watched the legendary Bob Hope entertaining the troops fighting for freedom in faraway lands during the Vietnam War on NBC. When my father served in the Army during the Korean War, Bob Hope came to where he was stationed to bring a bit of comfort, joy and encouragement from home. Hope’s last wartime performance for American troops came during the Gulf War.

If Bob Hope was alive and well today, it is almost certain that he would be traveling to Afghanistan and Iraq to entertain the troops. However, it is not clear that NBC would broadcast the show. It seems that anything that can be construed to suggest support for the war in Iraq is taboo on the Peacock network. Even positive news about Iraq appears to be verboten. The Media Research Center charted the direct relationship between declining Old Media coverage of the war in Iraq and the reduction of violence and U. S. troop deaths as a result of the “surge.” During the period from September 1 through November 30, stories broadcast by ABC, CBS and NBC about Iraq dropped 60 percent, matching a decrease in the number of soldiers killed.

This phenomenon goes beyond the adage that “if it bleeds, it leads” to indicate an agenda at work that denies progress in Iraq. A similar ploy during the Vietnam War handed the enemy a victory in the media that it could not win on the battlefield. Witness the attention paid to Democratic “hawk” John Murtha since he declared the Iraq War “unwinnable” in 2004. For over three years, the Old Media, especially MSNBC’s Chris Matthews, fawned over Murtha, uncritically accepting and repeating his pronouncements – until the Pennsylvania Democrat returned from a Thanksgiving trip to Iraq and admitted military progress was taking place.

In April 2006, retired Army Major General John Batiste led a small group of former military officers into the politics of the Iraq War writing an op-ed for The New York Times calling for the resignation of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. The Old Media instantly elevated Batiste to expert status. The retired general retained that exalted position, even while campaigning for antiwar Democrats as part of the MoveOn.org front group, VoteVets.org. However, his departure from the group and subsequent op-ed published in The Washington Post that suggested the current strategy employed by Gen. David Petraeus was working has been virtually ignored by the Old Media.

During a program last week at Columbia University, the moderator incredulously asked me if I actually believed that the Old Media wants the United States to lose the war in Iraq. My reply: Of course it does! The Old Media is not necessarily anti-American, but it sees failure in Iraq as something that would help its soulmates in the Democratic Party achieve electoral success and is willing to help that come about. Like the DailyKos, MoveOn.org, Code Pink radicals that have taken over the Democratic Party, the Old Media is willing to lose a war in order to gain political power.

Some would call that treason.

Posted by jeffgannon at 09:57 AM

November 29, 2007

CNN Debates Reveal Strong, Long Clinton Ties

CNN earned the reputation of being the “Clinton News Network” long ago. Wolf Blitzer and Company carried Bill and Hillary Clinton's water during their two terms in the White House, so no one should be surprised that CNN is doing it now. The two most recent debates broadcast demonstrate the shameless collusion with the Clinton machine and the Democratic Party.

In the Democratic debate, Wolf acted more like a lamb after being warned by Clinton campaign officials not to pull a “Russert” on their candidate, that is, to ask a tough question. Blitzer complied, meekly giving Mrs. Clinton the opportunity to give a poll-tested, one-word answer about New York Governor Elliot Spitzer’s plan to give drivers’ licenses to illegal immigrants, the query she tripped over in the previous debate and not follow up. The charade included a plethora of “undecided voters” who turned out to be partisan activists reciting planted questions. The discovery of the fraud brought a Clintonian wave of denials, then admissions and finally promises not to repeat the offense.

Yet in the Republican debate hosted by CNN, the network chose a handful of YouTube video questions from thousands of submissions that “just happened” to be from Democratic activists and political operatives. So far, bloggers have discovered four such phony questioners:

Concerned Young Undecided Person “Journey” = John Edwards supporter “Journey”

Concerned Undecided Log Cabin Republican supporter David Cercone = Obama supporter David Cercone

Concerned Undecided Mom LeeAnn Anderson = Activist for the John Edwards-endorsing United Steelworkers union LeeAnn Anderson

Concerned Undecided Gay Military Retiree Brig. Gen. Keith H. Kerr = Hillary/Kerry supporter and anti-”Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” activist Keith H. Kerr

CNN not only selected Gen. Kerr’s question, but the network flew him to the event venue to be in the audience. Following the candidate’s answers, gay moderator Anderson Cooper then turned the microphone over to Kerr who delivered a speech about the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy. The retired general is a gay activist member of a Hillary Clinton campaign steering committee. Cooper apologized for not being aware of Kerr’s activism or ties to Clinton, but such a denial is a lie on its face. Gay journalist Anderson Cooper knows quite well of Kerr’s activism, but believes he can pull off a stunt like this because he is able to conceal himself in the protective closet the Gay Left provides for him. Cooper’s personal life, even though he is a media celebrity, is off limits to scrutiny because he is willing to advance the liberal gay agenda in the Old Media.

Pro-Clinton set-ups at CNN stretch back to the 1992 election. During a Larry King Live interview of incumbent Republican President George H. W. Bush a week before Election Day, Clinton campaign communications director George Stephanopoulos “just happens” to phone into the program to confront Bush.

In my book, “The Great Media War: A Battlefield Report”, I connect the dots between CNN and the Democrats and document the network’s deference to the Clintons. I was driven from the White House press corps after being falsely accused of being a plant and excoriated because I asked a single question that liberal activists believed to be “too friendly.” How about this zinger to President Bill Clinton from Wolf Blitzer from a March 19, 1999 press conference:

"There’s been a lot of people in New York state who have spoken with your wife, who seems to be pretty much convinced she wants to run for the Senate seat next year. A) how do you feel about that? Do you think she would be a good Senator? And, as part of a broader question involving what has happened over the past year, how are the two of you doing in trying to strengthen your relationship, given everything you and she have been through over this past year?"

It will be most interesting to see if “friendly reporters” like Blitzer will be excluded from the White House press corps if Mrs. Clinton is elected president. Will the “Gannon Standard” be applied to the liberal horde already slobbering at the cuffs of Hillary’s pantsuit?

Posted by jeffgannon at 12:11 PM

November 21, 2007

McClellan Excerpt Revives ‘The Big Nothing’

The publicist for a book written by former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan released an excerpt on Monday that set all of the Old Media tongues to wagging again about the Valerie Plame Affair:

"The most powerful leader in the world had called upon me to speak on his behalf and help restore credibility he lost amid the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. So I stood at the White house briefing room podium in front of the glare of the klieg lights for the better part of two weeks and publicly exonerated two of the senior-most aides in the White House: Karl Rove and Scooter Libby.

"There was one problem. It was not true.

"I had unknowingly passed along false information. And five of the highest ranking officials in the administration "were involved in my doing so: Rove, Libby, the vice President, the President's chief of staff, and the president himself."

This tantalizing bit seemed to have the intended effect judging from the volume and trajectory of spittle emanating from the mouth of MSNBC’s Chris Matthews. Visions of the Fitzmas that never came surely danced in the heads of David Shuster and Keith Olbermann. Democratic Sen. Chris Dodd predictably recited the Watergate mantra, calling on the new Attorney General to launch an investigation to determine the extent of any cover up and “what the President knew and when he knew it."

However, something tells me that the three paragraphs “cherry-picked” from the manuscript were meant to convey something that succeeding paragraphs would qualify and perhaps mitigate. Consider McClellan’s own public statements from an interview with Larry King on March 6, 2007, after Scooter Libby was convicted of perjury and obstruction of justice:

KING: Scott, were you lied to?

MCCLELLAN: Well, Larry, I said what I believed to be true at the time. It was also what the president believed to be true at the time based on assurances that we were both given.

That directly contradicts the conclusion many have drawn from the excerpt released Monday.

Later in the same interview, McClellan responded to the allegation that the White House sought to gain from ‘outing’ Valerie Plame:

Well, Larry, remember that the person was the one who was the original or primary source for Robert Novak, the column that started this whole investigation really was Dick Armitage, who was the deputy secretary of State, not really a proponent of the Iraq war. And it was certainly not a partisan gun-slinger as Robert Novak said in his article or said later in an interview. In terms of any other involvement beyond that, what came out in this trial is what I learned for the first time. So I don't know of any effort beyond what we have seen in this trial come out in the media that was going on. I think one of the questions that this gets to is, was the administration trying to discredit or retaliate against a critic? I would say that the administration was trying to set the record straight. Whether or not people were involved in leaking someone's name and that name was classified, that's a different matter. I don't know anything about that.

McClellan indicated that his entire knowledge of the ‘outing’ of Valerie Plame from both his personal knowledge and the public record was complete at this point, yet did not make any claim that high-ranking officials sent him out to “pass false information” about it. McClellan’s meaning in the book excerpt is murky at best and does not necessarily contradict the definitive statements he made to Larry King.

While the pundits parse, let’s review the facts:

1. Valerie Plame was not a covert agent at the time Robert Novak published her name and therefore no crime was committed in releasing her name.
2. Richard Armitage was Novak’s source for the information, not Karl Rove or Scooter Libby.
3. Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald knew that Armitage was Novak’s source at the beginning of his investigation and found no evidence to suggest that anyone at the White House was involved in giving Valerie Plame’s name to the press to retaliate against Joe Wilson.

The extreme bias of the Old Media is well illustrated by the news reporting of this latest rehash. Matthews, Shuster and Olbermann and their ilk are quick to promote the idea that Bush not only lied about Valerie Plame, but engaged in a covered up. Yet all of them refuse to acknowledge that Joe Wilson is a proven liar. I was the only White House reporter to get the Valerie Plame story right. I confronted Wilson in 2003 about his deception about how he came to be sent on the mission to Niger and the Senate Intel Committee confirmed it a year later. The truth was that Vice President Dick Cheney did not send Wilson to Niger, but that his wife played a role in it. Wilson claimed that he “debunked” a possible connection between Saddam Hussein and Niger to acquire uranium, but his CIA debriefers believed that Wilson’s report tended to support it.

In my book, “The Great Media War: A Battlefield Report”, I refer to the Valerie Plame Affair as “The Big Nothing” since the entire ordeal was a media-generated “scandal” perpetuated in the absence of fact by the crass politicization of the legal process. Wilson and Plame have already been exposed as attention-hungry frauds that deserve to be scorned or ignored. The more important discussion at hand is the Old Media’s willingness to exclude facts that do not fit the scenario they are trying to advance. Objectivity is not even at issue, as the discussion of bias is well beyond the question of whether or not it exists.

The Valerie Plame Affair is a shameful example of reporters and news organizations deliberately misleading citizens in order to affect a political outcome. Before the rise of the New Media, such operations could be accomplished with a high expectation of success, since opposing viewpoints and contradictory evidence could be kept away from the public. However, the Old Media continues to follow the same playbook, without realizing the field of battle has leveled. From Jayson Blair’s fabrications to Dan Rather’s phony documents to Hillary Clinton’s planted questions, the Old Media and their ideological soulmates on the left will get tripped up with greater frequency if they fail to adjust to the realities of the New Media.

Posted by jeffgannon at 12:12 PM

November 20, 2007

Hillary’s Attempted ‘High-Tech Lynching’

Conservative columnist Robert Novak caused quite a stir over the weekend writing that a Democratic operative told him that the Clinton campaign possessed a cache of scandalous information about rival presidential candidate Barack Obama, but had decided not to use it. Before long, the camps of the frontrunner and her closest challenger were trading accusations and denials, much to the delight of bored reporters and pundits looking for something to spice up the dulling march to Mrs. Clinton’s coronation as the 2008 Democratic presidential nominee.

The ensuing discussions about the source, timing and substance of the claims gave rise to myriad conspiracy theories and psy-ops intrigues. Is there a traitor in the Clinton camp? Did Obama’s people float the rumor to make Hillary look bad? Had Robert Novak made it all up to cause a controversy among Democrats or to burnish his reputation as the “Prince of Darkness”? These are so many questions that most Americans could not care less about.

Candidate Clinton will not be required to comment on whether her operatives participated in such things as the campaign sloughed off the whole affair as yet another manifestation of the “vast right-wing conspiracy.” Obama on the other hand is left to defend himself against the whispering campaign. Reporters will question him as to what might be contained in the dossier and rampant speculation in the press will drown out any discussion of policy or position from the candidate in the final weeks before the crucial test in Iowa. Obama can rail against the dirty politics, but the noose has already been slipped over his head. What I find interesting is that even the race baiters like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton have not spoken up for Obama.

However, the incident highlighted a key concept that may resonate in the minds of voters long after Obama and the other pretenders fade into Super Tuesday. It does not seem to be too much of a stretch to think that Hillary Clinton would attempt a “high-tech lynching” of her African-American rival or anyone else who stood in her path back to the White House. Many Americans still recall the smear campaigns the Clinton White House ran against political foes as well as the female victims of Bill’s sexual marauding.

In an environment of anti-incumbency and the desire expressed by voters in 2006 against “politics as usual”, Clinton is most vulnerable since she represents the Washington establishment more than any other candidate. The stain her husband put on the office of the presidency combined with the revival of the pair’s particularly nasty brand of “politics of personal destruction” could undermine her campaign if character becomes an issue.

Posted by jeffgannon at 11:53 AM

November 16, 2007

Hillary’s Brownshirts Drown Out Competition

Voters hoping to learn more about the positions of Democratic presidential candidates came away from Thursday night’s Las Vegas slugfest empty, confused and a bit angry. Even though CNN moderator Wolf Blitzer promised that each candidate would have ample time to articulate their key points during the broadcast, much of the face time went to Sen. Hillary Clinton. When the camera wasn’t on her, the questions were about her or the other candidates were talking about the former First Lady.

Following the Russert debacle in the last debate, the Clinton campaign went to work on Blitzer, turning Wolf into a lamb. No tough questions were posed to the woman who claims to be able to stand up to tyrants and terrorists. Worse yet, whenever one of the other candidates said anything critical of Mrs. Clinton, her cheering section loudly booed.

Along with last week’s “planted question” scandal, the Clinton machine’s strategy of media manipulation is becoming increasingly clear: intimidate journalists, manufacture “news” and silence dissent.

If the election was being held in 1968 and not 2008, I might be more concerned. Clinton’s Nixonian posture with regard to the media is based on a model that no longer exists. The reason there has been no “Cronkite moment” that secured America’s defeat in Iraq is that the New Media has allowed enough of the truth to seep through the liberal media blockade to neutralize the antiwar propaganda.

During the 1990s, Hillary was able to discount critics on the right by referring to them as the “vast right-wing conspiracy” and the sycophantic liberal media dutifully went along with the ploy. However, the rapidly changing media landscape renders that tactic ineffective. In the past, it was possible to shout down contrary voices, like Hillary’s brownshirts tried to do Thursday night, but the Internet prevents that from happening on a larger scale.

As I discuss in my book, “The Great Media War: A Battlefield Report", Democrats are not dealing with the New Media well because they are not used to competing in the free marketplace of ideas. Tim Russert pierced the media bubble that has surrounded Clinton since she came back to Washington in 1992 and left her gasping for breath in an unfamiliar environment. Previously, the only tough question posed to her came from me in 2005 when I suggested to President Bush that Sen. Clinton was “divorced from reality” because of her view that the economy was on the verge of collapse and social security was rock solid. As a result, Mrs. Clinton’s “goon squad” at Media Matters came after me, just as they have done to anyone who dares to criticize her. Observe what it did to Russert as well as the “don’ts” Media Matters put out before the CNN debate.

One of the things Barack Obama is right about is that Mrs. Clinton is stuck in the 1960s. Certainly, the Wellesley grad has not strayed far from the radical socialist orthodoxy she espoused as a college senior. So too, very little has changed in her perception of the media. Clinton is banking on the Old Media’s willingness to buy into her Potemkin village of contrived cackles and obfuscation. What she has not yet come to grips with is how to deal with the New Media and keep it from breaking through her façade to expose the real Hillary.

Posted by jeffgannon at 09:29 AM | TrackBack

November 15, 2007

Who Will Lead The Democrats’ ‘Anbar Awakening’?

By every measure, the tide has turned in Iraq. American troop deaths are on the decline along with the number of roadside bombings and incidents of sectarian violence. The flow of refugees out of Iraq has reversed course and those displaced within the country are returning to the neighborhoods where they once lived.

Several factors came together to change what many believed to be a quagmire for the United States and an intractable civil war between Shi’a and Sunnis into a hopeful scenario of a secure and democratic Islamic nation in the heart of the Middle East. The dramatic shift in the conditions on the ground in Iraq can be directly attributed to the “surge” of troops into areas held by insurgents and al Qaeda. The show of American military strength and resolve convinced insurgents and rival factions to turn on al Qaeda and drive them out. Consequently, the terrorists were routed from their safe havens and security began to grow from the bottom up. The turnaround in a western province nearly given up for lost in 2006 is referred to as the “Anbar Awakening.”

Insurgent militias and al Qaeda forces ruled the territory, but the terrorist group’s imposition of a Taliban-style of sharia law antagonized the population. Sheikh Sattar Abu Risha led a movement to oust al Qaeda from the region. President Bush visited Anbar province in early September to demonstrate how much the situation had changed. Similar awakenings have spread across the country enabling Iraqi forces to take control over more aspects of their own security.

Gen. David Petraeus reported all of this during in his testimony before Congress in the despicable “Betray-Us” hearings. Gen. Ray Odierno expressed a similarly positive assessment in a much less publicized presentation at the National Press Club in October. In the wake of these reports an amazing political transformation has been taking place on Capitol Hill. President Bush and his most loyal supporters do not appear to be standing so alone on the war anymore. Once wary Republicans closed ranks behind the President to sustain his vetoes that ruled out timetables for withdrawal of troops and other legislative tactics that would micromanage conduct of the war. The voices of war critics within the Republican Party have also grown faint. All of the GOP presidential candidates except for long-shot Ron Paul have strongly endorsed completing the mission in Iraq.

The evidence of success in Iraq can be gauged by how few stories about the war end up on the front page of The New York Times and The Washington Post or lead the nightly network newscasts. Recently, Charlie Gibson opened ABC’s World News Tonight broadcast by saying: “One item from Baghdad today. The news is… that there is no news. The police told us that, to their knowledge, there were no major acts of violence. Attacks are down in Baghdad and today no bombings or roadside explosions were reported.”

In July, liberal Brookings Institute foreign policy scholars Michael O’Hanlon and Ken Pollack wrote a piece for The New York Times suggesting that the United States might prevail in Iraq. More recently, the liberal punditocracy has begun to fret that Democrats’ opposition to a war that America was winning could haunt them in 2008 and beyond.

However, there is a problem with the Democratic leadership. Who will lead the Democrats’ Anbar Awakening? Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman might have been able to pull it off, except for the fact that he got bounced from the party in 2006 because he supported the war and had to run as an Independent to retain his seat. Last week, he chastised Democrats for their obsession to pull troops out of Iraq in order to hand a defeat to President Bush.

Democratic leaders in Congress are unlikely to bring the party’s thinking into line with reality. In April, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid declared, “The war is lost.” Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi have introduced over forty bills to cut off funds or force a premature withdrawal with such increasing urgency as if desperate to secure defeat before victory can be achieved. None of the Democratic presidential candidates would risk the wrath of the hardcore antiwar base of the party by suggesting the Iraq war is winnable and that the mission deserved a chance to succeed. Alleged Democratic hawk Rep. John Murtha, who has been pushing a “cut and run” strategy of “redeployment” away from the battlefield for over two years could never admit that antithesis of his plan was working.

Such is the political quagmire for Democrats. The party is so invested in the defeat of its country’s own military that it cannot admit its own defeat in bringing it about. Anyone breaking ranks with the defeatists is severely chastised by the radical groups like MoveOn.org and Code Pink that have a stranglehold on the Democratic Party. Rep. Brian Baird, a Washington Democrat returned from Iraq in August and suggested that the surge was working. The leftists savaged Baird and called for his head. If no Democrat steps up to lead the awakening, the party’s reputation of weakness, defeatism and cowardice will be affirmed in the minds of Americans for another generation.

Posted by jeffgannon at 06:15 PM | TrackBack

July 18, 2007

Hustler Hypocrite Larry Flynt

Pornographer Conducts Political Smear Campaign

Pornography king Larry Flynt recently launched a crusade against Washington politicians who run for office on a ‘family values’ platform but fail to live up to the standards they espouse. The publisher of Hustler Magazine publicized reports that a telephone number registered to Louisiana Sen. David Vitter appears on a list released by alleged ‘D. C. Madam’ Deborah Jeane Palfrey. Flynt suggests that other high-ranking government officials are also implicated in extramarital hanky-panky.

Vitter issued a statement acknowledging involvement with an escort service some years ago and indicated that he had previously “asked for and received forgiveness from God and my wife” during counseling. However, the Louisiana Republican’s admission and contrite remarks are insufficient according to Flynt. He said, “Unfortunately, we have too many of these guys in Congress, and I’m gonna do my part to get them out of there.”

So far, the targets Flynt’s of righteous indignation have been Republicans, two members of the Bush administration and one member of Congress. The pornographer denies a partisan vendetta against the members of the GOP, but allows, “Republicans are more fun, because they get caught so easy and live a repressed life.”

Flynt says he wants to expose the hypocrisy of politicians who advocate a virtuous lifestyle for others but conduct their own affairs by a different standard. He makes a good point - since Vitter’s rhetoric about the sanctity of marriage is a classic example of “do as I say, not as I do.” However, the elitist Washington culture is rife with hypocrisy on virtually every topic. Flynt’s own hypocrisy should not be overlooked simply because he points to someone else’s indefensible acts. Consider the absurdity of Larry Flynt lecturing about the moral failures of others.

Flynt is a purveyor of filth who would castigate otherwise honorable men seduced by the provocative images he is responsible for bringing into public view. The Devil works that way, too putting temptation in the path of men only to claim victory when they succumb to it. Flynt publicly reminded Vitter of his sins even though he confessed them long ago. The Devil does that, too. The name “Satan” comes from the Hebrew word meaning “the accuser.”

Strict adherence to a moral code is not an easy task in the modern world. Many who know the difference between right and wrong and even some who preach about it to others sometimes fall short. The sensational scandals of the recent past remind us that we are all one misstep from stumbling. My own experience is evidence of that.

The phrase “hate the sin, love the sinner” embodies a basic Christian tenet that reflects God’s affection for His children. God wants us to be saved from lives of sin and instructs us to repent for our transgressions and receive forgiveness. In contemporary discourse, Christians who speak about that which God considers sinful behavior are often characterized as “hateful” and “mean-spirited.”

Flynt and his ilk practice the antithesis of that principle and instead “love the sin, hate the sinner.” They seize on the moral failings of public figures for use as political weapons of mass destruction. These provocateurs do not want their victims to stop living a sinful life; they want them to stop talking about what constitutes a virtuous one.

Men like David Vitter can be shamed because they believe in a moral code. Conversely, those who have no moral compass cannot be ashamed of their behavior. Flynt said, “Democrats are liberal — they wear it on their sleeve. Their sex life is what it is. They don’t spend their whole life trying to cover it up.” Indeed, the smutmeister was one of President Bill Clinton’s most ardent defenders during the Monica Lewinsky scandal. He found no hypocrisy in Clinton signing the Defense of Marriage Act into law at the same time he was breaking his own sacred vows.

Flynt’s hypocrisy is holding public figures to high standards while at the same time having no standards of his own. He is critical of politicians who fall short of moral principles instead of those who have none at all. Flynt’s foray into this debate about morality and politics is crass partisan opportunism. He said it himself, “Payback’s a bitch.”

Posted by jeffgannon at 09:00 AM

March 04, 2007

Ann Coulter Drops The “F” Bomb

The Left hates Ann Coulter. They hate her because of the truth she told about the Clintons, how she destroyed the liberal myths about Joe McCarthy and for revealing the godless church of liberalism they worship. The Left hates her because she is a woman who is educated, witty, beautiful and conservative. More than that however, they hate her because every now and then she goads them into exposing their true nature.

Such was the case on Friday at the Conservative Political Action Conference. In her remarks, Coulter said:

"I was going to have a few comments on the other Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards, but it turns out that you have to go into rehab if you use the word "Faggot."

It didn’t take long for the liberal outrage machine to get cranked up. Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean demanded that all Republican presidential candidates, all current and past Republicans and the fetuses of pregnant Republican women beyond the second trimester (DNC rules won’t permit referring to a pre-born person as an “unborn child”) denounce Coulter. At the prompting of the Old Media, many GOP presidential hopefuls predictably distanced themselves from her remarks.

I was in the room at CPAC when Ann said it. She was making a joke and it was funny. She was mocking the very process that is taking place right now – political correctness run amok. The reference was not so much about the effeminate, blow-dried, “Dick Cheney your daughter’s a lesbian” ambulance chaser, but how an actor’s off-camera comment that got someone’s panties in a bunch landed him in a re-education camp.

In a few of her vastly underreported comments Coulter said that she didn't believe gays should be discriminated against and that most of them should be Republicans because of the party's stand on crime and taxes.

That "faggot" has become the new “N-word” is evidence of how far our culture has drifted. For decades, the “F-word” was the four-letter one you couldn’t say on television, but now it's part of mainstream liberal vernacular. However, rallying behind a slur of their own, gays can take to the streets in their assless chaps and nipple piercings and skip the two centuries of slavery and a hundred years of separate lunch counters and drinking fountains to demand whatever they can extort from pandering politicians.

The Left has no claim to righteous indignation when it comes to “hate speech.” In January 2005 Howard Dean told a group of New York Democrats:

“I hate Republicans and everything they stand for.”

In the release about Coulter, Dean wrote:

"There is no place in political discourse for this kind of hate-filled and bigoted comments.”

Dean must mean that only DNC-approved hate speech is permissible. Dean and the lunatic leftists he represents don’t hold back on their venom when talking about Republicans, conservatives or Christians.

Try being gay, conservative and Christian to see what happens! I’ve devoted an entire chapter in my forthcoming book to the “Love Letters from the Left” that I have received over the past two years. "Faggot" is one of the nicest things the hateful Lefties have called me. There is no more vicious hate speech than that of the gay Left. I’m sure this column will prompt another wave of it. Matt Browner Hamlin of the Huffington Post interviewed me at CPAC about Ann’s comments but didn’t include them in his story since I told him exactly what I’ve written here.

Why is there a different standard for Ann Coulter? There were no repercussions when liberals produced a film about the assassination of George W. Bush and Cindy Sheehan wrote that she dreamed of traveling back in time to strangle the future president in his cradle. Liberals cheered when Bill Maher expressed disappointment that Vice President Dick Cheney wasn’t killed in the recent terrorist attack against him in Afghanistan. The shrieking from the Left about Coulter’s comment is as phony as Hillary Clinton’s latest position on (insert just about anything here).

True to form, John Edwards used the incident to raise funds for his presidential bid. If anything, faggots should be offended by being mentioned in the same sentence as the sleazy trial lawyer.

Posted by jeffgannon at 09:17 AM

November 10, 2006

Lessons Terrorists Learned

In the aftermath of the electoral losses by Republicans, and it was just that, not a victory for Democrats and their agenda, much has been written and spoken about the lessons learned. The obvious lesson for the Republicans is that they can’t have some of their members of Congress taking bribes and lusting after teenage boys without losing the support of the family values crowd and honest government types that put them there in the first place. Democrats needed to only stand out of the way while this it was happening and nominate enough conservative-looking candidates to distract voters from their party's true liberal nature.

The enemies of America learned lessons from the election as well. Undoubtedly there was cheering in a cave somewhere along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border and a celebratory beheading somewhere in Sadr City when the results of the vote tallies were announced. President Bush was correct when he declared in the last weeks before the election that if Democrats win, terrorists do also. His words should be repeated since they will be recalled at some point as painfully prophetic, "However they put it, the Democrat approach in Iraq comes down to this: The terrorists win and America loses."

Terrorists learned that to win, they need only continue to do that which they do best, terrorize. Lopping off a head here and there, a few improvised explosive devices along a convoy route and the daily suicide bombing in a crowded market or a funeral procession will do the trick. Create just enough chaos to convince cowards in America that maybe the way Saddam Hussein ruled Iraq wasn’t so bad after all. Democrats and the Old Media will do the real heavy lifting.

Democrats spent a lot of time over the last year denying that it wanted to “cut and run” from Iraq. Their efforts to redefine their “retreat and defeat” strategy as “strategic withdrawal” or “phased redeployment” was as phony as Bill Clinton trying to change the meaning of “is”. The lesson terrorists learned is that Democrats will not fight them or any enemy of the United States in Iraq or anywhere else. This was evident in the response of the Democratic 527 group, MoveOn.org to the terrorist attacks of September
11, 2001. Even as the ruins of the World Trade Center were smoldering, MoveOn.org political chief Eli Pariser was circulating a petition uging, “moderation and restraint in responding to the terrorist attacks against the United States." Some of the same people are now promoting the absurd conspiracy theory that 9/11 was either caused or allowed to happen by President Bush and Vice President Cheney to justify waging a war for oil and profit.

Democrats see troops in the field not as heroes, but war criminals or
victims of “failed policies.” Senator John Kerry has expressed this during two wars as only the effete Boston Brahmin that he is can. Even after 34 years, hearing Kerry comparing American troops to the army of “Genghis Kahn” is sounds as sickening now as it did the day he first said it. The sad reality is that Democrats find talking about soldiers useful only when they can be accused of wrongdoing or counted as casualties. Every one of them has applauded Cindy Sheehan, but few, if any have ever paid tribute to Sergeant First
Class Paul R. Smith or even know that he was the first Medal of Honor winner in Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Even without troops engaged in battle, terrorists know that Democrats will serve their needs by crippling the intelligence and law enforcement capabilities used against them. With Democrats in power, terrorists should not be troubled that anyone might be listening in when they are discussing plans to strike, or that their funding might be intercepted or traced to their location or that they will have to endure discomfort in order to be forced to give up potentially live-saving information if they are captured.

Terrorists also learned that the Old Media is a source of valuable
information about the methods and tactics employed by the United States to prevent their attacks. Before Democrats can destroy a secret tool in the counterterrorism arsenal, it must be made public through a “leak” to the New York Times or the Washington Post. Terrorists know that the U. S. Constitution makes such treason virtually impossible to prevent or punish because of the First Amendment’s sacred principle of freedom of the press.

These enemies of the United States also know that the Old Media will promote their propaganda and downplay information that might remind Americans of their deadly deeds against their fellow citizens. The film footage of office workers hitting the pavement after leaping from the burning towers over five years ago are deemed “too graphic” to ever be viewed, but a videotape of a sniper gunning down an American soldier plays in an endless loop on CNN. The Old Media will also help stage photographs designed to engender sympathy for the terrorists or undermine support for those fighting against them. If the images aren’t graphic enough, the Old Media will alter them to produce the appropriate message, as it did following the bombing of Beirut by the Israeli Air Force. An editor added dense smoke to look as if the damage inflicted was far greater than it actually was.

Terrorists’ best friends in the Old Media will posit that America is
actually creating more terrorists by fighting them. They will also attack patriots who use “insensitive” words to accurately describe bloodthirsty thugs who would murder innocents and their motives for doing it. The Old Media will uncritically air the lunatic rantings of one “grieved” parent of a fallen soldier who opposes the war in Iraq and ignore the thousands of others who suffered the same loss but are proud of their loved one’s sacrifice and the cause for
which it was made.

At some point, terrorists will be conflicted about Democrats and the Old Media. The terrorists will think that because they have been such great allies it will be a shame to kill them all. But alas, c’est la vie, Allah Akbar!

Posted by jeffgannon at 11:16 AM

October 12, 2006

Foleygate Is A Totally Gay Affair

Gay Rep. Mark Foley was “too friendly” with 16 and 17 year-old male pages and did gay things with a former page of legal age. Gay Mark Foley engaged in gay erotic chat with someone of legal age who was either gay or pretending to be gay. So far, there is no evidence that gay Mark Foley did anything gay with pages while they were in the program. Gay Mark Foley is gone from Congress, but the gayness of Foleygate doesn’t stop there.

Two former House Republican staffers, gay Kirk Fordham and gay Jeff Trandahl have made statements suggesting that they warned Republican leadership about gay Mark Foley’s alleged “overly friendly” behavior toward 16 and 17 year-old male pages. There have been confusing statements from the leadership about who knew about the “overly friendly” stuff when and Democrats have alleged a cover-up. There is no indication that anyone in the Republican leadership knew anything about the gay stuff reported by ABC News. They probably were aware that Mark Foley was gay, but gay activists say that is no reason to suspect anyone of wanting to do something gay with teenage boys.

Gay Rep. Jim Kolbe said recently that he knew Mark Foley was gay years ago and reported his “overly friendly” behavior to the board that oversees the page program. Still, there was no compelling reason to do anything about gay Mark Foley because as every gay activist says that there is nothing wrong with being gay or being “overly friendly”. So far, it seems that the Republican gays were trying to deal with the gay Mark Foley thing on their own terms.

Two activists, gay Mike Rogers and gay John Arovosis have been blackmailing and threatening gay members of Congress and their staffers with public exposure unless they supported gay legislation. They or their gay associated have compiled a list of gay members of Congress and staffers they intend to publicly identify as gay. Both are gay Democratic operatives, although gay Mike Rogers recently changed his registration from Democrat to Green so that he could claim that he was not a gay Democratic operative. Gay Mike Rogers boasts that he has working ties to members of the Democratic National Committee. Gay John Arovosis and a group of Lefty bloggers (some of whom were probably gay also) recently had lunch with former President Bill Clinton in New York City.

Foleygate is such a totally gay affair that news outlets are beginning to report about a network of gays that some refer to as the “Velvet Mafia” or “Lavender Mob”. The flame war between gay activists and the gays on Capitol Hill as well as all of the media scrutiny may have closet doors all over Capitol Hill springing open to reveal more even more gays.

Are there gay Republican members of Congress that most people don’t know are gay? Probably. Are there Democratic members of Congress who are secretly gay but operate under the protection of a sympathetic media and gay activists because they vote the gay way? Most assuredly. Are there Democratic members of Congress who “play with the boys” in DC but return to their districts to stage photo-ops their wife and kids? Definitely. Will all of these members of Congress be exposed? That could happen as this totally gay squabble appears to be lurching toward “mutually assured destruction”.

Democrats and George Soros’ CREW have tried to spin the very gay Foleygate into Watergate – something which it is not. Their carefully timed hit on Republicans one month before an election has focused a lot of attention on all things gay and may result in unintended consequences. A majority of Americans already suspect that many gay men are predators when it comes to teenage boys. Democrats have reinforced that stereotype with their overreaction to the actions of the gay Republican Congressman, explicitly claiming that gay Mark Foley was “preying” on young boys. That has certainly caused problems with the small, vocal and over-represented portion of the Democrat’s base that is comprised of gays.

Gays are likely to be blamed for this big gay mess, since it can all be reduced to a spat between Democratic gays and Republican gays. The very gay affair may cause Republicans to divest themselves to some degree of gays on Capitol Hill, since the gay principals in this case appear to have done the party a great disservice. Going by the numbers, should Republicans be overly concerned about losing such a miniscule constituency? Gays make up 6% of U. S. population. Only 25% of gays vote Republican. The net loss is 25% of 6%. The GOP may score several times that number by reassuring religious conservatives who have become increasingly disaffected by a perceived lack of progress on their social issues.

Foleygate will therefore be a disaster for gays. Gays will have to rely solely on the Democratic Party to advance the gay agenda, which is problematic since Democrats have lacked the political courage to publicly support gay marriage. Democrats had been relying upon the courts to legalize gay marriage in the same way it did abortion so it didn’t have to take a position on it, but so far justices have failed to find a right to gay marriage in the Constitution.

Foleygate may get even gayer if any of the investigations now underway uncover the very gay goings on taking place in some of the bathrooms and cubbyholes on Capitol Hill…

Posted by jeffgannon at 09:24 AM

February 01, 2006

Bush Slaps Dems During SOTU

President Bush’s sixth State of the Union address was a good one as far as this kind of speech goes. He touched most of the bases for conservatives like myself, but I particularly enjoyed his jabs at Democrats.

To the Bush-haters that form the angry, radicalized Leftist base of the Democratic Party he said:

In a system of two parties, two chambers, and two elected branches, there will always be differences and debate. But even tough debates can be conducted in a civil tone, and our differences cannot be allowed to harden into anger. To confront the great issues before us, we must act in a spirit of good will and respect for one another – and I will do my part.

Good luck with that. You know they’ll just get worse. Just wait and see - if Democrats lose seats in the upcoming midterms – a real possibility – how insane they get.

Bush then called them out on their cowardice here:

In this decisive year, you and I will make choices that determine both the future and the character of our country. We will choose to act confidently in pursuing the enemies of freedom – or retreat from our duties in the hope of an easier life.

And here:

In a time of testing, we cannot find security by abandoning our commitments and retreating within our borders. If we were to leave these vicious attackers alone, they would not leave us alone. They would simply move the battlefield to our own shores. There is no peace in retreat. And there is no honor in retreat.

And here:

America rejects the false comfort of isolationism. We are the Nation that saved liberty in Europe, and liberated death camps, and helped raise up democracies, and faced down an evil empire. Once again, we accept the call of history to deliver the oppressed, and move this world toward peace.

He reminded them and the Old Media about the success we are having in Iraq:

In less than three years, that nation has gone from dictatorship, to liberation, to sovereignty, to a constitution, to national elections. At the same time, our coalition has been relentless in shutting off terrorist infiltration, clearing out insurgent strongholds, and turning over territory to Iraqi security forces. I am confident in our plan for victory … I am confident in the will of the Iraqi people … I am confident in the skill and spirit of our military. Fellow citizens, we are in this fight to win, and we are winning.

Bush slams their “cut and run” strategy:

The road of victory is the road that will take our troops home. As we make progress on the ground, and Iraqi forces increasingly take the lead, we should be able to further decrease our troop levels – but those decisions will be made by our military commanders, not by politicians in Washington, D.C.

He chastised them for their constant negativity:

Yet there is a difference between responsible criticism that aims for success, and defeatism that refuses to acknowledge anything but failure. Hindsight alone is not wisdom. And second-guessing is not a strategy.

And tells them straight up that he’s got them over a barrel on the war in Iraq:

Members of Congress: however we feel about the decisions and debates of the past, our Nation has only one option: We must keep our word, defeat our enemies, and stand behind the American military in its vital mission.

But they won’t listen. Stay tuned for the midterms.

He also pointed out something that he believes in that Democrats don’t:

Yet liberty is the future of every nation in the Middle East, because liberty is the right and hope of all humanity.

The President came out swinging about the NSA surveillance program:

It is said that prior to the attacks of September 11th, our government failed to connect the dots of the conspiracy. We now know that two of the hijackers in the United States placed telephone calls to al-Qaida operatives overseas. But we did not know about their plans until it was too late. So to prevent another attack – based on authority given to me by the Constitution and by statute – I have authorized a terrorist surveillance program to aggressively pursue the international communications of suspected al-Qaida operatives and affiliates to and from America. Previous presidents have used the same constitutional authority I have – and Federal courts have approved the use of that authority. Appropriate Members of Congress have been kept informed. This terrorist surveillance program has helped prevent terrorist attacks. It remains essential to the security of America.

Here’s the money quote:

If there are people inside our country who are talking with al-Qaida, we want to know about it – because we will not sit back and wait to be hit again.

You’ll be hearing this all the way up to the 2006 election if the Democrats don’t drop it. It’s another loser for them, but history shows that they never learn.

Democrats cheered their own obstructionism when Bush said:

Congress did not act last year on my proposal to save Social Security…

Bush shook his finger at them and warned that there would be a price to pay for kicking the can down the road:

…yet the rising cost of entitlements is a problem that is not going away – and with every year we fail to act, the situation gets worse.

The Democrats responded with a lame speech from the governor of Virginia who has been in office 18 days. This is the best they can do? Why not have Ted Kennedy, John Kerry, Hillary Clinton or Nancy Pelosi deliver the response? The answer to that question is precisely what is wrong with the Democratic Party.

Posted by jeffgannon at 09:12 AM | TrackBack

January 10, 2006

Liberal Media Elite Bemoans 2005

Marie Cocco of the Washington Post Writers Group recently proclaimed 2005 to be an “annus horribilis” for the American press. While I disagree that last year was worse than 2004 in terms of the media, with Eason Jordan and Rathergate and its reprehensible conduct during the election, it was unquestionably one more in a string of down years in the precipitous decline of the Old Media.

Cocco claims that the “spectacular” journalism scandals of the past, like the multitude of Jayson Blair’s lies pale in comparison to the timidity of the press and the Bush administration’s efforts to intimidate and undermine it. The incidents she cites and those she omits reveal how the Old Media sees itself and but remains blind to its inherent liberal bias.

The writer demonstrates how far to left she is when she whines about the “corporate slashing of newsroom budgets.” A theme that is beginning to emerge from the Hard Left is criticism of a “corporate media” that places profit above truth. It is unhappy that the Old Media isn’t activist enough to advance their liberal political agenda. But in the face of plummeting audiences, even the partisan media had to mitigate its overtly biased reporting.

Of course Cocco takes a gratuitous and now obligatory swipe at me for asking questions at White House press briefings that a majority of voters in the 2004 election wanted to have answered. I was particularly struck by her description of “partisan hucksters” who “masquerade as journalists”. That would apply to a majority of reporters in the Washington press corps.

She shrieks about payments to journalists to promote government programs and pre-packaged “video news releases” as evidence that the President is using taxpayer funds to disseminate propaganda but fails to note that these were also standard practices of the Clinton administration.

Cocco is especially critical of the news stories “planted” in Iraqi papers. I’m not sure her complaint is about the policy or the fact that the articles contradict the Old Media and al Jazeera’s fraudulent reporting on the war in Iraq.

She also laments the cozy relationship between Washington reporters and the people they cover, using the Valerie Plame affair as the example. Was she in a coma during the 1990s? Is it impossible to be a Beltway journalist and not be aware of the incestuous relationship between the media and with the Democratic Party? Washington Post reporter Walter Pincus and his wife Ann (a Clinton appointee) were guests of the Bill and Hillary at Camp David and none of the journalism elites found anything unseemly about that.

Cocco harps about the failings of the New York Times, but fails to criticize the rag that promotes her drivel. 2005 wasn’t a very good year for the Washington Post.

Bob Woodward held important information about his sources in the Plame affair from his editors, just as Judy Miller did. Other reporters have sat on information that undercuts the case against members of the Bush administration in the matter, but haven’t yet stepped forward. Expect this to be revealed when Scooter Libby’s trail begins.

Last January, the Washington Post’s Jonathan Weisman published a story so fraudulent that the White House demanded a retraction and got it. Its affiliate publication, Newsweek ran a phony story about a Koran being flushed down a toilet at the terrorist detention facility at Guantanamo Bay that resulted in the deaths of over a dozen people.

The paper’s other reporters ran afoul of any number of legal and ethical standards in 2005. President Bush recently chastised White House correspondent Peter Baker at a press conference for the biased premise of his question about NSA surveillance programs. Dana Priest is being investigated for the story she wrote about alleged “black sites” operated in foreign countries by the CIA, information that is highly classified. Matthew Mosk appears to have had an operational role in the set up of an aide to Republican governor Bob Ehrlich and perhaps violated the law in the process. The Washington Post continues to stonewall on the matter.

The newspaper’s ombudsman suggested that the column of a liberal writer who does a daily roundup of what other liberal journalists are saying about the White House be clearly distinguished as opinion since readers were confusing it with the nonsense it puts on the front page as objective reporting.

If Cocco thinks that 2005 was a bad year for the media, she isn’t going to like 2006. Reporters will be spending a lot more time in court explaining what they knew about Valerie Plame and when they knew it as well as being required to name the sources of classified information about key programs in the war on terror. Several may be in jeopardy of prosecution for revealing these secrets – and deservedly so. Minimally, their sources that likely include CIA officials, federal judges and Congressional Democrats will probably be exposed.

I think 2006 is going to be a great year!

Posted by jeffgannon at 01:27 PM | TrackBack

December 21, 2005

Bring on the Impeachment!

Democratic Senator Barbara Boxer delighted and thrilled the rabid anti-Bush base of her party today when she released a copy of a letter she sent to “legal scholars” asking if they believed the President might have broken the law when he authorized the monitoring of international communications with persons inside the United States with suspected ties to al Qaeda. She repeated the assertion of former Nixon White House counsel John Dean who suggested that the President might have committed an impeachable offense. In 2004, Dean wrote a book titled, “Worse Than Watergate: The Secret Presidency of George W. Bush.”

Rep. John Lewis chimed in that proceedings to remove George Bush from office should be considered. But with Republicans in control of both houses of Congress, such an event is unlikely. Impeachment talk will probably dominate the Old Media “news” shows and taxpayer-funded NPR, all aimed at Democratic fundraising for the 2006 elections. Unable to reach consensus on a positive agenda or a position on Iraq, Democrats will hope to ride the “I-train” to victory in the midterms.

I’m hoping Democrats will move forward with their demands for articles of impeachment. For several years, the activists on the Left that have agitated for Bush’s ouster for any number of alleged “high crimes and misdemeanors.” It appears that the inmates are now in charge of the asylum. It probably won’t be long before Rep. John Conyers; “King Moonbat” among Congressional Democrats will stage another “hearing” in a basement room of the Capitol. Earlier tribunals featured “testimony” from Joe Wilson and Cindy Sheehan. Today, Conyers released a compilation of the liberals’ conspiracy theories billed as a “rebuke of the Bush administration” by an activist group.

The liberal talking heads will try to put the template of Watergate over the NSA squabble, but comparisons to Bill Clinton’s trial before the Senate are inevitable. Let’s check the scorecard and see how this stacks up:

Bush

President Bush will be required to defend actions to which he freely admits, taken to protect Americans from a terrorist attack, in the belief that he had the constitutional authority in his role of Commander-in-Chief.

Clinton

President Clinton lied to a Grand Jury to cover up a sordid extramarital sexual affair he had with a White House intern in order to obstruct justice in a sexual harassment lawsuit filed against him by Paula Jones.

I certainly don’t mind Bill and Hillary Clinton’s legacy of corruption for political gain being brought up again. It will mesh nicely with the information in the Barrett Report, currently held captive by Senate Democrats that is said to show how Clinton used the IRS to intimidate and punish political enemies and the women who accused him of inappropriate sexual behavior.

It would be worthwhile to re-examine the Clinton administration’s dismal efforts against terrorism along with its abuse of power without the distraction of a plump paramour. The Old Media would have to fight a battle on two fronts, protecting and defending the Clintons while simultaneously coordinating attacks on Bush with the Democrats.

Impeachment hearings would probably expose even more of our intelligence capabilities to our enemies, as leaks to The New York Times and Washington Post would become a raging torrent. Both publications have been a vital source of intelligence for al Qaeda in addition to rendering public relations services. Neither would have any remorse for taking down the leader of the global war on terror and handing Islamofascists the victory they could not otherwise achieve.

The proceedings will be more revealing about the accusers and their accomplices than the accused. I say, “Bring it on!” After all, the impeachment thing worked so well for the Republicans, didn’t it?

Posted by jeffgannon at 06:40 AM | TrackBack

December 05, 2005

Media outrage over planted Iraq stories hollow

Predictably, the Old Media cried, “Foul!” over reports that the Pentagon might have been paying for positive press coverage in Iraq. It claims that planting stories in Iraqi newspapers that showed only one side of events in the war undermines a most basic institution of the democracy that Americans are spending blood and treasure to establish. There is no doubt that a free, independent press is essential to a stable political environment in the post-Saddam era. However, it is hypocritical of the American media to throw stones at the Pentagon when its own house is made of glass.

A wave of talking heads and editorials denounced the Pentagon’s program to influence public opinion in Iraq with news stories that focused only on the aspects that supported the article’s premise. But that criticism is at best disingenuous considering the conduct of the Old Media, especially as it relates to the war in Iraq. Its own biased coverage accounts for Americans’ increasingly negative attitude toward the war, to say nothing of its thinly disguised liberal leanings and political agenda.

An editorial in the Boston Globe called the Pentagon operation “an ethical breach stunning in its callous disregard for the truth,” and accused the Bush administration of “trashing the principles of a free press.” The fact that the information contained in the articles was true and not available from other news outlets in the region seems to matter little to the publication that was a cheerleader for Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry in 2004.

The Globe cherry-picks two items from the liberal media elite’s litany of Bush administration “attacks” on the media in support of its case; payments to conservative commentator Armstrong Williams to promote the “No Child Left Behind Act” on his radio and television shows and my admission to the White House press corps. These two incidents are supposed to represent examples of spin and deceit coming from an administration that disdains “open journalistic inquiry.”

But the Globe gets is completely backwards. It is because the White House rightfully distrusts the Old Media that it feels compelled to take steps to circumvent it. In the case of NCLB, the administration reached out to a credible voice to talk positively about a program of importance to the minority community. Except for Williams, most media coverage of the education accountability initiative was a recitation of negative talking points from the Democratic National Committee and the teachers unions.

With regard to my participation at White House press briefings, the Globe couldn’t be more wrong. It mistakes my questions asked from a conservative perspective as being pro-Bush softballs. It is understandable that it might have no idea what the queries from a conservative reporter sounds like, since it is so rare in the ultra-liberal Old Media universe. Ironically, it was the Globe who was so interested in writing a balanced story about me that it regurgitated a press release from the George Soros funded Media Matters and contacted me only to ask what college I attended.

It is laughable for the Old Media to be so concerned about the integrity of the press in Iraq when its own credibility is in shambles. This same crowd continues to heap praise on Dan Rather, as if he had never been involved in one of the most egregious media scandal of all time. It still accepts as truth every word that crosses Joe Wilson’s lips despite the fact that he has been proven to be a liar. Newspapers rail against corporate scandals but gloss over their own criminal acts of defrauding advertisers with inflated circulation figures.

In all fairness, the Old Media should be considered to have the ability to recognize a propaganda operation in Iraq, since CNN admitted to running one for Saddam Hussein’s regime. In 2003, Eason Jordan confessed that his network covered up for the atrocities of the Iraqi dictator in exchange for keeping its Baghdad bureau open.

A free press is important for democracy to thrive in Iraq, but it shouldn’t be modeled after the American Old Media. Iraqis deserve better.

Posted by jeffgannon at 01:52 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

November 18, 2005

All Roads Lead Back to the CIA

With Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald’s case against Scooter Libby in serious jeopardy as a result of Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward’s bombshell revelation, it may finally be time to clear the media driven “scandal” out of way. As Libby’s legal team contacts Washington reporters to inform them that they might be called to testify as to “what they knew about Joe Wilson’s wife and when they knew it,” it is likely more of them will be coming forward to confess what many have believed for some time: Plame was not covert and no crime was committed by anyone at the White House in relation to this matter.

Perhaps when the Fitzgerald’s case completely crumbles, he will drop the charges and return to Chicago. Then the Congress can begin the overdue investigation into Joe Wilson, Valerie Plame and the Central Intelligence Agency. The trail begins with Wilson and his wife, but the road leads back to Langley. In fact, when other leak investigations begin that put reporters who published classified information on the spot, all roads will lead back to the bumbling bureaucracy that has become a political entity.

The CIA has been in declines for years, being undermined and politicized by the Clinton administration. It has become so ineffective in the intelligence game that the only thing it has been able to uncover recently is the location of the best Beltway cocktail parties. In lieu of its mission to thwart plots against the United States and its interests from foreign enemies, the agency trained its sights on the Bush administration. It has waged a jihad against the President and his conduct of the war on terror.

Clinton and his team purged or otherwise drove career agents from the intelligence service until all that remained were political creatures, but ideology is only part of the equation. The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 exposed the CIA’s total ineffectiveness. The Wilson-Plame affair is a case study of the sorry and dangerous state of the organization responsible for America’s first line of defense.

Democrats have revealed their mid-term election slogan, attacking Republicans for a “culture of corruption, cronyism and incompetence.” But is it the CIA’s botched operation against the White House is the epitome of that mantra.

The selection of Joe Wilson for the mission to Niger is a prime example of cronyism, as it has been established that his wife, Valerie Plame suggested him for the job. Incompetence is evident at every turn. Wilson’s report was so irrelevant that it didn’t merit a written report. Plame’s area of expertise is reported to be weapons of mass destruction, but the agencies intelligence in that field has been virtually non-existent. The CIA was clueless as to whether Saddam Hussein had WMDs or not. The agency’s foolhardy choice of Wilson and its failure to have the publicity-seeking gasbag sign a non-disclosure agreement demonstrates a profound lack of competence.

Finally, the cover-up of these facts is the corrupt aspect of the affair. A whistleblower from the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR) sent a memo to the White House documenting how an outspoken opponent of the President’s policy toward Iraq was chosen to gather information requested by the Vice President’s office. I was the first and maybe the only journalist to confront Wilson about this document and its contents. He issued a bald-faced denial during our October 2003 interview. The CIA tried to discredit the memo in a leak to Walter Pincus at the Washington Post that appeared in a December 2003 article. In July 2004, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence confirmed the accuracy of the document and chastised Wilson for his dishonest and misleading statements.

The CIA requested the investigation into the “leak” of Plame’s name as part of the effort to hide its own political operation. Wilson whined that his wife’s “covert” identity hade been blown but the CIA’s claim, made public as part of the indictment against Libby was that Mrs. Wilson only had a “classified” role with the agency. This is a far cry from the “covert” status Democrats and their Old Media amplifiers have been wailing about for two years. Ultimately, it will be determined that Plame’s association with the agency was not a secret at all.

In the meantime, the rogue element either still within or now outside the CIA is engaged in full-throated disclosure of classified information that threatens America’s war on terror. The Washington Post has recently published stories that appear to be gleaned from detailed volumes about the agency’s global counterterrorism methods of operation. These are treasonous activities being facilitated by reporters. The damage will be far more profound than naming a third-rate analyst and should be dealt with swiftly and severely.

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November 17, 2005

Watergate Reporter Torpedoes Case Against Libby

Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward has delivered what may be a fatal blow to Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald’s case against the former aide to Vice President Dick Cheney, I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby. The key figure in the Watergate saga that brought down President Richard M. Nixon provided testimony in recent days that indicates a White House official other than Libby mentioned Valerie Plame’s association with the CIA to him weeks before Fitzgerald says the subject of his indictment “was at the beginning of a chain” of communications with reporters.

Former U. S. Attorney Joe DiGenova believes that the Special Prosecutor must now withdraw the indictment against Libby because the central premise of his claim has been refuted. He says that Justice Department rules specify that Fitzgerald cannot proceed with prosecution if facts material to the indictment are proven to be false. William Jeffress Jr., one of Libby's lawyers is questioning whether Fitzgerald will admit that he was wrong to say on TV that Scooter Libby was the first official to give this information to a reporter.

Fitzgerald’s indictment of only Libby after two years of investigation was a bitter disappointment to the Old Media that drove the story. Democrats were livid when Bush’s political advisor, Karl Rove was not indicted. They had hoped to topple the “evil genius” that handed them three straight electoral defeats.

Woodward’s bombshell has them all reeling. During Wednesday night’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “Hardball”, host Chris Matthews’ disappointment was evident. In the weeks leading up to Libby’s indictment, he was giddy about the prospect of key members of the White House facing charges. Now he has been forced to deal with the prospect that not only might there be no convictions in the case, but the truth about the Wilson-Plame affair will probably be discovered.

The question on the minds of nearly everyone paying attention to this was the reason Woodward decided to come forward only now. It wasn’t a sense of conscience that motivated the reporter; it was fear of being forced to admit that he withheld important information that would exonerate Libby. When Libby’s defense team announced that it would vigorously defend their client, instead of negotiating the usual Washington “slap on the wrist” Sandy Berger-style plea deal, Beltway reporters realized that many of them might have been called as witnesses. The defense would have every right to do so since the Special Prosecutor, who required reporters to reveal sources of confidential information, has already established the precedent in this case.

Libby’s lawyers indicated this week that they would seek to have a large number of journalists testify, especially those who were not called before the Grand Jury. The question to be asked of reporters will be: “What did you know, and when did you know it?”

The answer to this question will further destroy Fitzgerald’s case, if it ever makes it to trial. The Special Prosecutor already knows that Valerie Plame was not “covert” at the time Robert Novak published her name in his 2003 column. What he will learn from journalists is that Joe Wilson’s wife and her association with the CIA was well known among reporters. NBC’s Andrea Mitchell admitted as much even before a special prosecutor took over the case, but has recently claimed her remarks were taken out of context. Libby’s lawyers intend to determine what she and other reporters knew about Valerie Plame under oath.

What many of these reporters fear most of all is that they may be required to reveal their sources. Since there is no federal shield law that exempts a reporter from being forced by the court to name a confidential source, it is likely that the network of reporters and their sources in the government will be exposed. The results will be enlightening to say the least.

What may be laid bare is the virtually unlimited access that reporters have to government secrets. No small part of this is the political component behind many of the leaks. During 2004, classified information that was damaging to the Bush administration was provided to journalists who appeared to coordinate their reporting with the Kerry campaign. Those reporters may be exposed as having acted as political operatives.

One of the reporters who may receive the most scrutiny is the Washington Post’s Walter Pincus. His extraordinary sources have made him a top reporter on national security issues, but now that reputation will come into question as the Libby case moves closer to trial. Yesterday, a federal judge found Pincus to be in contempt of court for refusing to reveal his government sources for information about nuclear scientist Wen Ho Lee. Lee has filed a lawsuit against the government for improperly disclosing information about him in violation of the Privacy Act.

The Wilson-Plame affair is on the verge of becoming a media scandal, where journalists will be found to have willingly participated in political operation to destroy a sitting president. As I have said on many occasions, this is not 1972 and the Old Media’s credibility is virtually non-existent and its ability to control the news has been significantly diminished by the rise of the New Media.

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October 04, 2005

A Stealthy Court Pick

President Bush caught everyone off guard when he announced that White House Counsel Harriet Miers was his choice to fill the vacancy on the Supreme Court left by the retirement of Sandra Day O’Connor. Miers, who had been vetting candidates for the position, ended up with the job herself, much in the same way Dick Cheney got onto the ticket in 2000.

Since Miers has never been a judge, Democrats have no record to attack. Instead, they circulated a talking point that the choice smacked of “cronyism.” NBC’s Katie Couric led off with it shortly after the nomination was announced and repeated by reporters throughout the day. ABC’s Terry Moran used it during the White House press briefing and MSNBC’s Chris Matthews said it so many times it sounded like a chicken clucking.

Oddly enough, cronyism wasn’t the Old Media’s cry when a president’s wife was put in charge of a government takeover of the national health care industry or the entire staff of the White House travel office fired to make room for political supporters.

Conservatives are up in arms because Miers does not have a known judicial philosophy. She is not one of the judges that the Right views as the payoff for supporting Bush for another term. They wanted another Antonin Scalia or Clarence Thomas. Pricilla Owen and Janice Rogers Brown were favorites of the movement conservatives because their views are well known. They’ve been gearing up for this fight for a long time, to avenge Robert Bork and compensate for David Souter.

Rush Limbaugh said that the pick was made “out of weakness.” Bill Kristol said he was “disappointed, demoralized.” Ann Coulter called Miers a “complete mediocrity.”

I have to confess I wanted a nominee that would be the “stick in the eye” that Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid warned the President would trigger a filibuster. Like most conservatives, I have grown weary of how the Democrats continue to assert their relevance in governance when voters have removed them from power and reduced their numbers in three successive elections.

When you peel away the top layer of beltway bloviation, the brilliant strategy becomes easier to see. Bush has worked closely with Miers for over a decade and knows her philosophy. Conservative critics point to her campaign contributions to Democrats in Texas in 1988 as some indication that she might have liberal tendencies. That may trouble some, but I am encouraged, since I know that a convert to a cause seems to adopt its principles with greater fervor than those who come to it naturally.

If you view political strategy as war, as I am sure Karl Rove does, the Miers pick makes perfect sense. Her lack of a record makes Democrats focus on other aspects for clues to her philosophy. Initially, their plan of attack will be to demand information about her work in the White House, initiating a battle over Executive Privilege, which is technically attorney-client privilege, a battle they will lose. Ultimately, they will focus on her religious beliefs. Miers is an evangelical Christian, something that liberals view as a disqualifying factor. There is great peril in pursuing this strategy, since the insinuation that Democrats would employ a religious litmus test to will only serve to rally the conservative base. Think Bill Pryor.

She will be confirmed, probably as easily as John G. Roberts. Thus, the balance of the Supreme Court is effectively tipped to the right. Where O’Connor sometimes sided with the liberals on 5-4 decisions, Miers will not. The battle for the Court will be won at that point. Strict constructionists will be in the majority and a long period of judicial activism will come to an end. When conservatives stop to think about it, they will be comforted by what Bush has achieved. He will have delivered the Court he promised, without the political bloodshed everyone assumed would take place. A principle of Sun-Tzu is to have won the war before the first shot is fired.

The real fireworks will come next year, when the mid-term elections begin to heat up. This is where the long-awaited political battle will be fought. Liberal Justice John Paul Stevens has signaled that he would retire soon. If he steps down at the end of the current term, a red-meat conservative will be nominated, that Democrats will be hard pressed to defeat. Their base will demand a bloody war that Senate Democrats can’t win. Vulnerable Democrats in red states will be forced to choose between supporting a filibuster led by Charles Schumer, Ted Kennedy and Barbara Boxer and getting re-elected. Think Tom Daschle.

Bush is once again being “misunderestimated.”

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September 28, 2005

Brownie Fights Back

Former Federal Emergency Management Agency director Michael Brown lashed out at his critics during a Congressional hearing Tuesday. Democrats on the committee boycotted the televised event, but a few representatives of the stricken area showed up to grill the man who has received much of the blame for problems associated with Hurricane Katrina.

There were softballs and hardballs as well as a few cheap shots. Brown appeared to be credible and well spoken, feisty and unwilling to be intimidated by the Congressmen. Contrary to media reports, Brown admitted that he made mistakes, but portrayed FEMA as an agency compromised by attrition and now only a small part of the gargantuan Department Homeland Security. He suggested that DHS singular focus on protecting the nation from terrorism overwhelms FEMA’s mission.

He also leveled criticism at Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco and New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin. He claimed that he failed to get them to settle their differences early enough to issue and facilitate a mandatory evacuation. This marks the first time an administration official has put any responsibility for lapses on the Democrats who run the state. Brown said that he realized too late that “Louisiana was dysfunctional.”

He also attacked the media for exaggerated, misreported and sensationalized coverage of the events surrounding the disaster that actually hindered rescue and relief efforts. Little of what has been reported by the Old Media has been accurate, from the sobbing parish president on “Meet the Press” to estimates of body counts in the tens of thousands.

Brown also took issue with the personal attacks on his resume and qualifications to hold the position. He noted that he successfully presided over 150 declared emergencies during his tenure.

The former FEMA chief’s performance was so effective that the Old Media went full out to distort his testimony. It also drove Blanco to issue a statement accusing Brown of lying to Congress and prompted her appearance in Washington on Wednesday.

It would appear that Democrats’ strategy of pressing for an “independent” 9/11-style commission is failing, since Republicans have moved forward with hearings into the matter already. Witnesses are offering testimony that will likely alter public perception of the response to the storm. That will be a disaster for the Democrats and the media since several important points will emerge that challenge their version, which has been, “Bush’s fault, Brown’s fault.”

Posted by jeffgannon at 11:23 AM | TrackBack

September 07, 2005

Old Media’s Katrina Dilemma: Politics or Truth

The Old Media finds itself on the horns of a dilemma in the wake of one of worst disasters in American history. It must choose whether to continue to pursue its anti-Bush agenda or to report the thousands of stories of tragedy, triumph and heroism that have begun to emerge from the floodwaters and debris of Hurricane Katrina.

In the first week, the Old Media reflexively began to point an accusing finger at the Bush administration, suggesting a “slow response” to ravages of the storm. When it became clear that affected area was larger than any other natural disaster the goalposts shifted to “lack of preparation.” After footage of police participation in looting was shown and it was reported that rescue and relief efforts in New Orleans were hampered by gunfire directed at emergency helicopters, racism was alleged. But such claims collapse under the weight of the realities that are hard to ignore.

On the Sunday that Katrina was bearing down on the “Big Easy” the Old Media was still engaged in a two-pronged attack on the President, the problems with the war in Iraq and the high price of gasoline. News coverage was totally committed to the antics of a woman in the ditch in Crawford, Texas. The only mention of the hurricane came in the context of what effect it would have at the pump. At the time, there was little concern expressed for the danger posed to the residents of the Gulf Coast. Certainly, none of the “experts” that have come forward in the last week to pontificate sounded any alarm in advance of the storm.

Democrats have seen political opportunity amidst the death and destruction, evidenced by the angry outbursts of their leaders and their sycophants in the press. Sen. Mary Landrieu blubbered during an interview with George Stephanopoulos while flying in a helicopter over the ruined landscape. She expressed anger at the President for not having acted sooner, but neither the senator nor her intrepid questioner made any mention of what actions her brother, Louisiana Lt. Gov. Mitch Landrieu took before, during or after the hurricane.

Similarly, NBC’s Tim Russert took Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff to task, asking whether he or any of his staff were going to resign. The usually cool moderator angrily declared, “The time for accountability is now,” but he did little to ascertain where responsibility might lie.

Few, if any in the Old Media have raised any questions about the state and local leadership. But the public record demonstrates that the New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin and Louisiana Governor Kathleen Babineaux Blanco failed to act on advice offered by President Bush and FEMA chief Michael Brown. Bush personally urged Blanco to issue a mandatory evacuation of New Orleans on the Saturday before the hurricane came ashore. Brown made television appearances the same day telling residents to leave the city.

In contradiction to its own 2000 plan for evacuation, buses that could have transported thousands to safety sat idle in parking lots, later rendered useless by the flood. Residents were herded into the Superdome, which became a hellhole of robbery, rape and murder. Blanco didn’t mobilize the Louisiana National Guard before the storm, so it would be available as soon as the hurricane passed.

Nagin told reporters that the President presented the governor with two proposals when he visited last Wednesday, but Blanco was unwilling or unable to make a decision for 24 hours. Instead, she wrung her hands, fumed and sobbed for the cameras.

Meanwhile, back in Washington, the White House Press Corps led the charge as usual against the administration. The reporters posed the same question about accountability dozens of times to Press Secretary Scott McClellan, who repeatedly resisted becoming involved in the “blame game.” The President similarly responded to a question asked him before Tuesday’s cabinet meeting. Of course, that infuriates the press corps, because the assignment of blame is one of its main functions, having long ago abandoned the role of diviners of truth.

But the press corps risks becoming even more irrelevant if it continues to work the Democratic talking points and amplify the race baiters’ outrageous comments. There is truth to be discovered, but if cannot be found in the White House briefing room. The ugly truth is about New Orleans itself.

For generations, New Orleans has been an adult theme park, where corruption and patronage ruled. All degrees of illicit behavior were treated with a wink and a turn of the head. But Katrina stripped the sexy, seductive veneer from the city to reveal corruption, poverty and high crime. Those elements made an explosive combination when the vestiges of law and order collapsed. Much of the Old Media seems to miss the point that rape, murder and the looting of big screen television sets are man-made disasters not the natural outgrowth of a storm.

The story that the Old Media should be following is on the ground in Louisiana, not in the cozy shadow of the National Press Club. Instead of angling for sound bites to be used in the next MoveOn.org ad, the press needs to abandon its political agenda and do some honest reporting from the scene. There are literally thousands of stories of loss and hope in Katrina’s wake, but it remains to be seen if the press is up to the task of telling them.

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August 19, 2005

Would discovery of 'gay gene' change gays' pro-choice stance?

How committed to unfettered access to abortions is the gay community Catch my latest column on the subject.

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August 16, 2005

Wheels coming off Sheehan’s antiwar juggernaut

After nine days, the activist that has become the face of the antiwar movement in the United States expressed fatigue and complained about how her solitary protest now has a “Disneyland” atmosphere. Cindy Sheehan has been overwhelmed by the support she has received from groups ranging from the pro-terrorist Code Pink Women for Peace to MoveOn.org and Democrats.com, which form the base of the Democratic Party. But it seems her simple message of a mother’s grief has been overtaken by her own contradictory statements about her meeting with President Bush last year and her recitation of Leftist talking points about Israel and empire.

Members of her family have issued public statements disagreeing with her protest and expressing support for the war and the President. Her son is pleading for her to return home. Sheehan’s husband has filed for divorce. But Casey’s mother is now a captive of the antiwar movement, no more able to return to private life now than John Kerry was in 1971. She has vowed to continue her protest until all American troops are withdrawn from Iraq.

The Old Media fawns over Sheehan while she conducts press conferences scripted by Fenton Communications, media consultants on loan from MoveOn.org. Liberal pundits shriek about the “smear campaign” being conducted by their conservative counterparts who would have the audacity to question Sheehan’s motives or extreme rhetoric. Talking heads bloviate that the White House needs to be concerned about this woman and her impact on Americans’ support for the war in Iraq.

But it’s Democrats who need to be concerned about what Sheehan has started. The words she speaks about a lying George Bush murdering her son and members of the administration being held for war crimes sound like the delusional rantings of a John Conyers or Louise Slaughter, and emphasize a radicalized Democratic party that presidential hopefuls like the newly-minted centrists Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden need to rein in order to win in 2008.

The antiwar playbook hasn’t been updated since the 1960s and what worked then to turn a nation against the struggle to stop the spread of Communist tyranny isn’t going to be successful in 2005. Cable television, talk radio and the Internet has destroyed the Old Media’s ability to significantly influence public opinion. Already, there have been counter-demonstrations that support the United States’ efforts in the global war on terror and other mothers who have lost sons are able to come forward to say that their sacrifice is for a noble cause.

Christoper Hitchens writes about Sheehan's "Sinister Piffle" for Slate and a San Antonio news outlet's headline summarizes the troublesome message of her protest.

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August 10, 2005

Raising the threat level to Pink

There's a media circus going on outside the Bush ranch in Crawford, Texas. Cindy Sheehan, the mother of a soldier killed in Iraq last year, is camped along the road that leads to the Western White House demanding to confront the President. She blames him for the death of her son Casey, who perished during an April 2004 mortar attack in Baghdad. Most would agree that no one should minimize this woman's grief or her right to express it.

It is clear she is angry, but her words and actions contradict statements she made to her local newspaper, the Vacaville Reporter after meeting Bush a year ago. At the time she found him to be "sincere", but now she says he "acted like it was a party." The newspaper issued a statement Tuesday where it stands by its story.

The White House press corps, trapped in the heat and misery of a fifth consecutive August in Texas, fawns over Sheehan, partly out of boredom and resentment of the circumstances that consigned them there, but also because she fits their partisan agenda. She told an activist news group that many members of the media who interviewed her expressed support for her cause, which is the immediate withdrawal of American troops from Iraq and the impeachment of Bush.

Not surprisingly, The New York Times is promoting Sheehan in a series of favorable articles and an editorial. It portrays her as one woman on a mission, but it fails to mention the Leftist antiwar groups that she is affiliated with and that are there in Crawford supporting her.

Article, August 7 Article, August 8 Editorial, August 9 Dowd column, August 10

One of the groups Sheehan is allied with is Code Pink Women for Peace. It is led by longtime Leftist activists who have rebranded their racialism under this new banner. Members of the group who wear pink outfits during protests have staged publicity stunts by disrupting several Congressional hearings and interrupting Bush's inauguration speech this year thanks to Democratic Hill staffers who slipped VIP tickets to several activists.

Code Pink is supporting Sheehan's protest, by organizing facilities, collecting donations, staging a hunger strike and helping with media relations. At the same time, the group is gathering signatures on a petition to calling for the removal of American troops from Iraq.

While these activities on the surface may be legitimate forms of political expression, a closer examination of Code Pink reveals more insidious motives. One of Code Pink's leaders, Medea Benjamin, is an unabashed supporter of dictator Fidel Castro, having lived in Cuba during the 1980s.

She and other members of the group worked to stymie U. S. efforts in Iraq before the invasion by going to Baghdad as guests of Saddam Hussein's government. After Baghdad fell, Code Pink established Occupation Watch in the Iraqi capital to document "attrocities" by Coalition forces and to encourage American solidiers to abandon their brothers in arms by becoming conscientious objectors.

Code Pink has been demonstrating outside military recruiting centers and try to bar recruiters from high school and college campuses. The Washington, DC chapter of Code Pink spends Friday nights protesting against the war and the Commander in Chief outside Walter Reed hospital, while the families of seriously wounded soldiers visit their loved ones.

But it is with the Code Pink's assistance that many of those soldiers were maimed and others killed. Last December, Benjamin boasted that Code Pink gave $600,000 in cash and humanitarian aid to "the other side" in Fallujah. In addition to monetary and material aid to the terrorists, the group is encouraging their attacks on American soldiers and Iraqis. In a blog posted from the World Tribunal on Iraq, another Code Pink leader, Jodie Evans wrote:

"We must begin by really standing with the Iraqi people and their right to resist. I can remain myself against all forms of violence, and yet I cannot judge what someone has to do when pushed to the wall to protect all they love. What does the Iraqi resistance have to lose? They are fighting for their country, to protect their families and to preserve all they love. They are fighting for their lives, and we are fighting for lies. It is so amazingly obvious; we must get out of Iraq now. They will rebuild their country, it will take time, a long time, but they cannot start until we are gone."

In Sheehan, Code Pink and their pro-terrorist allies have a face and a voice for their anti-Bush and anti-Operation Iraqi Freedom rhetoric. The degree to which she is being exploited is difficult to measure, since her talking points are the same as the Leftists groups that support her. She has been making the rounds of events sponsored by these groups, so it doesn't appear that she is an innocent dupe but a willing participa