harmonicminer

John Ziegler talks about his documentary on the 2008 election, in Media Malpractice: One year later

A year ago today I went head-to-head, live, with Matt Lauer on the Today Show during the coveted 7:30 a.m. slot. The purported occasion for this interview was the release that day of my documentary film on the 2008 election and its aftermath, “Media Malpractice… How Obama Got Elected and Palin Was Targeted.”

Of course, the only real reason the esteemed Today Show agreed to lower itself to have on a relatively unknown conservative filmmaker who was introducing only his second feature film was that I was providing them with fresh interview video of the then seldom heard from Gov. Sarah Palin. Obviously, this is roughly the equivalent to offering crack to a street addict. During the course of multiple interviews I did that day, NBC proved the basis of my film more than I ever could have on my own…

There is much more at the link above, regarding Ziegler’s experiences in the last year, his perceptions of the establishment figures on the left AND the right, and his advice to anyone else who wants to make a conservative film these days.

Ziegler is correct that the media response to him and his film have proved, repeatedly, the fundamental thesis of the film, namely that the major media is

1)  irretrievably left,

2)  gave Obama an incredible send-off into the election, and

3)  did its best to destroy Palin, with a partisan vigor and vengeance seldom seen even in the notoriously left national mainstream media.

I made some predictions about how the media would handle Obama when the honeymoon was over.  It appears that I was optimistic.

The media is still mostly not telling the truth about Obama’s policies.  That doesn’t mean they print only out and out lies (though that certainly happens).  It simply means the media doesn’t tell the whole truth, in context.  It doesn’t do “investigative reporting.”   It rarely mounts any serious challenge to any of Obama’s assertions or quoted “facts.”  Here’s how to spot it.  When Obama says something clearly false, the major media simply quotes a Republican denying it, so that the truth appears to be merely a partisan perspective.  On the other hand, if any Republican makes any factual error, the media is likely to carefully investigate and quote some “trusted authority” to debunk it.  In the other direction, when a Republican says something that is clearly true, instead of quoting a “trusted authority” to verify it, the media is likely to quote a Democrat denying it, so that, again, the truth is disguised as partisan wrangling.  If Obama does say something that’s true (it happens once in a while…), the press is likely to quote a “trusted authority” to cement it in the public mind.  In short, the press performs virtually none of the “adversary” role it would perform if there were a Republican president, as has been amply shown in the past.

This kind of thing (making Democrat lies and Republican truths look merely partisan, but objectively reinforcing Democrat truths and Republican misstatements) is why so many “independents” are apt to say that “both sides lie,” as if it were axiomatic that both sides lie equally, and are equally caught at it by an investigative media.  It’s subtle enough that only the carefully observant are likely to spot it…  and of course, those are the folks who won’t stay “independent” forever.

I thought the press would be embarrassed by its own failures in exploring Obama’s past, his connections, etc.  I thought the press would begin investigating itself.  I was simply wrong, at least so far.  The press has closed ranks almost completely about its abject failures in bringing to light even the most basic aspects of Obama’s past, his statements on various issues, his behavior and performance as a student,  his associations as a “young political organizer,” and his early political career.  The press that derided Bush for not being “curious” has exhibited a near total lack of interest in what life experiences and choices formed their chosen president.  And their acceptance of the attractive (to them) candidate that they see in his books reminds me of the press’s willingness to swallow whole the fiction of John Kennedy’s authorship of his books, which were mostly ghost-written by elite academics on the payroll of his father.

The simplest way to put it is this.  Not since John Kennedy’s campaign and administration has the press so willingly functioned as a political arm of a sitting president, so carefully avoided embarrassing him with facts undoubtedly known to them, and so uniformly protected him from the revelation of compromising facts from his background and associations.  Nearly all of the negative coverage that the major media has (regretfully) provided has been the minimum that they could not avoid in response to stories in the “alternative” media.  Without FOX, Rush, Drudge, the blogs, etc., would we ever have heard the name Jeremiah Wright?  Bill Ayers?  What don’t we know because the major media has buried it to protect “the One”?

I’m guessing rather a lot.

One of the most disappointing aspects of this matter, to me, has been the response of some of the “neo-con” intelligentsia to Sarah Palin.  Criticizing her is one thing.  Failing to spend at least TWICE as much time criticizing her treatment by the major media is quite another.  And I think that may be why Ziegler didn’t get as much help with promoting his film as he might have received.  Too many of the self-anointed conservative gate-keepers are (justifiably) embarrassed that they didn’t make the film, and embarrassed that they didn’t criticize the coverage of Palin more (at the time) than they criticized Palin.  It appears that for some, the loyalty to social class and ivy league connections (with their accompanying invitations to the best cocktail parties) transcends loyalty to political perspectives and fair play in the marketplace of ideas and candidates.

It’s a shame.  But I think that maybe they will not be able to hold her down, in spite of their best efforts.  I don’t know if she will be president, and I don’t know if I really want her to be…  time will tell.  But she has confounded the elites who gleefully pronounced her resignation from her job as governor of Alaska to be a political self-immolation.   I have the feeling she’s just getting started.  And I have the feeling she is learning as she goes.

The elections of 2010 are going to be very interesting.  2012 is still the far future…  but I think that the major media will try to do in 2010 what they did for Obama in 2008…  and will discover that they’ve used up more and more of the meager capital of trust that they had with the independents whom they prize most highly on election day.

Some music students apparently have entirely too much time on their hands.

Is anyone actually surprised by any of this? Only people who have been deliberately blind to the facts.

Climate scientists withdraw journal claims of rising sea levels

Study claimed in 2009 that sea levels would rise by up to 82cm by the end of century, but the report’s author now says true estimate is still unknown

Scientists have been forced to withdraw a study on projected sea level rise due to global warming after finding mistakes that undermined the findings.

Climategate U-turn: Astonishment as scientist at centre of global warming email row admits data not well organised

* Data for vital ‘hockey stick graph’ has gone missing
* There has been no global warming since 1995
* Warming periods have happened before – but NOT due to man-made changes

The academic at the centre of the ‘Climategate’ affair, whose raw data is crucial to the theory of climate change, has admitted that he has trouble ‘keeping track’ of the information.

Colleagues say that the reason Professor Phil Jones has refused Freedom of Information requests is that he may have actually lost the relevant papers.

Professor Jones told the BBC yesterday there was truth in the observations of colleagues that he lacked organisational skills, that his office was swamped with piles of paper and that his record keeping is ‘not as good as it should be’.

The data is crucial to the famous ‘hockey stick graph’ used by climate change advocates to support the theory.

Professor Jones also conceded the possibility that the world was warmer in medieval times than now, suggesting global warming may not be a man-made phenomenon.

And he said that for the past 15 years there has been no ‘statistically significant’ warming.

There is nothing new here, except that now the liars are beginning to admit their prevarications. The fact that the science is anything but “settled” has been obvious for awhile.

Now you should ask yourself this:  exactly how seriously should we take any politician, or any scientist who has been carrying water FOR those politicians, who have tried to scare us into accepting economy killing measures to reduce CO2 on the ground that it is a greenhouse gas?  When other greenhouse gasses are far more potent?  Including, well, water vapor…

These people have simply forfeited all credibility, in my judgment.

It is time for them to go.

Shoot..  rather than implement any of the suicidal economic policies these clowns are promoting, it would be cheaper to put the entire IPCC as well as the bulk of the global-warming establishment on permanent vacation on the French Riviera in 9-star hotels (we’ll have to create new categories), with leased Aston-Martins and paid, fawning entourages of GAIA worshippers along with entire Hollywood movie production companies filming their lives for the eventual Oscar ceremonies.

Dubai seeks global dragnet for Hamas man’s slaying

Dubai police appealed for an international manhunt Tuesday after releasing names and photos of an alleged 11-member European hit squad accused of stalking and killing a Hamas commander last month in a plot that mixed cold precision with spy caper disguises such as fake beards and wigs.

Powerline thinks this was done by Mossad, or a similar Israeli agency.

I doubt it. They don’t leave this many loose ends, especially the security camera footage.  I suppose they may have paid for it.  On the other hand, it could simply be a political foe who fronted the cash.  Fatah doesn’t exactly love Hamas.  In fact, this kind of thing has happened before, but is just more likely to be ignored when there isn’t an obvious potential Israeli assassin angle.

I suppose it’s possible the hit was done by a private assassination service for hire, though it seems they didn’t use bullets that move in curves.

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Kenneth Starr will have his work cut out for him as president of Baylor University

Kenneth Starr, the former special prosecutor who took on President Clinton over the Whitewater and Monica Lewinsky scandals, will be leaving his post as Pepperdine University law school dean this spring to become president of Baylor University in Waco, Texas, the schools announced Monday.

Starr has headed the Malibu law school since 2004. During his West Coast tenure, he also represented the supporters of Proposition 8, which bans same-sex marriage, during a challenge before the California Supreme Court last year. Starr won the high-profile case, with the state high court upholding the voter initiative’s legality in a May ruling.

………..

Starr said he hoped to remain active in the practice of law in his new position but that it would be up to the Baylor Board of Regents to decide whether he should take on off-campus issues as he did in defending Proposition 8 while at Pepperdine.

…………….

In a statement posted on Baylor’s website, Board of Regents member Joseph B. Armes said Starr was “a fifth-generation Texan who, throughout his distinguished career in law, the academy and public service, has been an articulate advocate for Christian ideals in the public square.”

Baylor, of course, has had real difficulties internally in the last decade or two (including some failed presidencies), with a divided faculty, a divided administration,  ideological combat growing from the increasing secularization of the institution, and the attempts by some to encourage the school to retain its traditional values (it started as a Southern Baptist school) in the face of growing pressures to ape purely secular institutions.  it is by no means clear that “peace” is possible at Baylor unless one side or the other clearly wins, assuming that victory is not Pyrrhic.   It is not clear to most observers which side will win, though it seems to me that at this point the secularizers have the edge, or a bit more.

To take the job as president of Baylor, Kenneth Starr is leaving his role as leader of the Law School of Pepperdine University.  Has his time at Pepperdine, which is experiencing the same pressures as Baylor, though perhaps not quite so extremely, prepared Judge Starr for the task at Baylor?  Will he conceive his role as trying to keep Baylor faithful to its historic mission, or will he, Gorbachev-like, preside over a gradual surrender to the pressures of dissolution that will leave Baylor a thoroughly secularized school, with only an honorable mention for its religious origins?

I doubt even he is sure at this point.  Some people say being a university president is the hardest job in America.  Maybe.  I’m pretty sure it helps if you know what you believe, and if you take a position at a school that historically resonates with your beliefs. Some presidents see their role as fundamentally changing an institution.  Some see their role as preserving it.  Some see their role as growing it, whatever the cost.

That’s what remains to be seen.  I wish him Godspeed, in a very difficult task.  And I hope he sees the task as one of preservation first (probably with elements of recovery), with growth and change coming in as distant second and third.

I’ve commented recently on the incredibly peripatetic energizer-grandpa, Jack Bauer, on Fox’s TV show “24.”

Tonight has gotten really ridiculous.  After being stabbed and tortured with electrical shock, our later-middle-aged grandpa manages to grab the electric prod with his feet, hold it the chest of his torturer, rendering him unconscious, and then, with bound feet (!) and bound wrists (!) he does an incredible ab-toning move to get his feet above the pipe he’s hanging from, wriggles down the pipe, manages to break it loose, fall to the floor, and, still bound, hop-scotch over to the waking torturer and break his neck.

The show is turning into a caricature of itself.  I mean, he’s Jack Bauer, not Batman…  or the Shadow.

Maybe he has a secret stash of X-Kryptonite.

Temporary super-powers seems to be the only explanation.

“House Divided” Speech by Abraham Lincoln

On June 16, 1858, more than 1,000 Republican delegates met in the Springfield, Illinois, statehouse for the Republican State Convention. At 5 p.m. they chose Abraham Lincoln as their candidate for the U.S. Senate, running against Democrat Stephen A. Douglas. At 8 p.m. Lincoln delivered this address to his Republican colleagues in the Hall of Representatives. The title comes from a sentence in the speech’s introduction, “A house divided against itself cannot stand,” which paraphrases a statement by Jesus in the New Testament.

Even Lincoln’s friends believed the speech was too radical for the occasion. His law partner, William H. Herndon, thought that Lincoln was morally courageous but politically incorrect. Herndon said Lincoln told him he was looking for a universally known figure of speech that would rouse people to the peril of the times.

Click the link above to read Lincoln’s world-changing speech (Harry Jaffa’s phrase).

I was watching the Superbowl. Drinking soda from an aluminum can. And this ad comes on:

Some of us have been warning for some time now that the Greens are the new fascists…. well, make that the old fascists, with a new propaganda twist.

Just to stick it to the man, I tossed my aluminum can into the trash.

UPDATE:  Did you see the smug expression on the Audi driver’s face as he was allowed to drive on?  Yeech.