Favorites: Thomas Sowell, Mark Steyn, Victor Davis Hanson, Tony Blankley, Charles Krauthammer, Michael Barone, Jonah Goldberg, Dan Henninger, Kim Strassel, John Hawkins, Shelby Steele, Brian Lamb, Milton Friedman, Adam Smith, FA Hayak
Nathan Burchfiel posts the above headline in NewsBusters.
If you thought media coverage of the Aug. 28 “Restoring Honor” rally hosted in Washington D.C. by Fox News host Glenn Beck seemed like just another attack on conservatives, you’re not alone. As noted by the Daily Caller’s Jim Treacher, much of the coverage had a common thread: describing the crowd as “overwhelmingly white.”
This is so depressing:
Conservative commentator Glenn Beck and tea party champion Sarah Palin appealed Saturday to a vast, predominantly white crowd on the National Mall to help restore traditional American values and honor Martin Luther King’s message.” — Associated Press
“Attendees at the rally Saturday largely honored organizer requests that they not bring banners or political signs. Instead, the predominantly white crowd, many seated on folding chairs and accompanied by their children, wore t-shirts with slogans including ‘Got principles?’ and ‘Restoring Honor.’” — AFP
“Meanwhile, many in the predominantly white crowd bent over backward to insist that they are not racists and to note that the crowd was courteous, despite heat and density.” — James Hohmann, Politico
“Beck says he and his overwhelmingly white followers ‘are the inheritors and protectors of the civil- rights movement.’” — Ben Adler, Newsweek
“Though the audience at the event was overwhelmingly white, many of the speakers were African-American, including a woman who sang a song about unity.” — Brian Montopoli, CBS
“Claiming the legacy of the nation’s Founding Fathers and repeatedly evoking civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr., the speakers at the ‘Restoring Honor’ rally exhorted a vast and overwhelmingly white crowd to concentrate not on the history that has scarred the nation but instead on what makes it ‘good.’” — Philip Rucker & Carol Morello, Washington Post
“A relatively dense and overwhelmingly white crowd stretched from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial out past the Washington Monument.” — Mark Benjamin, Salon.com
“The speaker list was diverse, including African Americans, Latinos and Native Americans; Jews and Christians; clergymen, military veterans and sports stars, including Albert Pujols of the St. Louis Cardinals. The crowd, however, was overwhelmingly white.” — Michael A. Memoli and Kim Geiger, LA Times
“Out in the overwhelmingly white audience… politics was everywhere, with Tea Party supporters describing the damage they envision for President Barack Obama’s Democrats in upcoming midterm elections in November.” — Mitch Potter, Toronto Star
“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” — Martin Luther King, Jr.
Or, how about as another overwhelmingly white crowd gathers, anxious about the economy. Is this group racist too???
Simple Questions: If Tea Parties Are Racist Because The People Attending Are Mostly White….
* Are newsrooms racist because they’re mostly white?
* Is Kos’ Netroots Nation racist because it’s mostly white?
* Are the Senate Democrats racist because their caucus is mostly white?
* If the crowd at an opera is mostly white, does that make it racist?
* How about a rap concert? Is Jay-Z a racist because most of the people showing up at his concerts are black?
* Some of the pro-immigration rallies that have been held have been attended overwhelmingly by Hispanics? Does that make them racist?
* If there are different answers here, are there any reasons for the different answers besides the fact that liberals hate conservatives and lie about us being racists because they believe it benefits the Left politically?
And, Brian S. Wise, on Bernard Goldberg’s website writes in Predominantly White.
The media knew what it wanted the Glenn Beck rally to be; and when it didn’t turn into the world’s largest cross burning, the media did the best it could to stay within a preconceived template. Good luck finding a mainstream media story on the rally that doesn’t mention the crowd as “predominantly white,” or some offshoot thereof. The Associated Press noted a “large, predominantly white crowd,” as did Politico, as did the AFP, et cetera. The Washington Post saw the crowd as “overwhelmingly white”; as did the LA Times, Toronto Star, Salon.com – you get the idea.
The amount of anti-conservative vitriol wrapped in accusations of racism that make it into the reporting and commentary on the Tea Party movement or town hall meetings is shocking. The dinosaur press constantly uses an undertone of “Tea Party racism” to explain anti-big government sentiment. The examples are almost too numerous to list. Researching via the excellent Newsbusters, a media watchdog group, allows me to provide you with an abbreviated list of examples.
Below is the text of one of those emails we all get from friends. I had no way of knowing if it was true. After I forwarded it to 2 family members I got curious as to why I had never heard about this visit, so I did a little digging.
Here’s the original email:
The doctor had his TV on in his office when the news of the military base shootings at Ft. Hood , TX came on. The husband of one of his employees was stationed there.
He called her into his office and as he told her what had happened, she got a text message from her husband saying, “I am okay.” Her cell phone rang right after she read the message. It was an ER nurse,” I’m the one who just sent you a text, not your husband. I thought it would be comforting but I was mistaken in doing so. I am sorry to tell you this, but your husband has been shot 4 times and he is in surgery.”
The soldier’s wife left Southern Clinic in Dothan , AL and drove all night to Ft.Hood. When she arrived, she found out her husband was out of surgery and would be OK. She rushed to his room and found that he already had visitors there to comfort him. He was just waking up and found his wife and the visitors by his side. The nurse took this picture.
What? No news crews and cameras? This is how people with class respond and pay respect to those in uniform. I sent my cousin in Fayetteville , N.C. (Retired from Special Forces) that picture of George W. visiting the wounded at Ft. Hood . I got this reply:
What is even better is the fact George W. Bush heard about Fort Hood, got in his car without any escort, apparently they did not have time to react, and drove to Fort Hood. He was stopped at the gate and the guard could not believe who he had just stopped. Bush only asks for directions to the hospital then drove on. The gate guard called that “The President is on Fort Hood and driving to the hospital.”
The base went bananas looking for Obama. When they found it was Bush, they immediately offered escort. Bush simply told them to shut up and let him visit the wounded and the dependents of the dead.
He stayed at Fort Hood for over six hours, and was finally asked to leave by a message from the White House.
Obama flew in days later and held a “photo” session in a gym, and did not even go to the hospital.
I Googled “george w bush Ft Hood visit” and then went to FactCheck.org. Here’s the short answer:
Q: Did President George W. Bush drop everything to visit Ft. Hood victims? Was he ordered away by the Obama administration?
A: Bush did visit the wounded at Ft. Hood, but a Bush spokesman says that his visit was coordinated with base officials and that he was not asked to leave by the White House.
Here’s the Full Answer:
The e-mail contains a grain of truth. President George W. Bush did visit the wounded at Ft. Hood only a day after the tragic Nov. 5 shooting spree on the base, as was reported publicly at the time by a number of news outlets. But since then, we’ve had a steady stream of queries about this chain e-mail’s description of the visit, in which the author embellishes the facts considerably. Army officials would not comment, so we spoke to Bush spokesman David Sherzer, who was happy to set the record straight.
They don’t have to turn it. I mean, this is the way the media treats all race stories in this country, Jon. It’s always that black people are the victims, white people are the perpetrators. You know, it’s white guilt, black victimhood and it’s constant, it’s in every area, not just this, but in terms of our political discussions about race that to me are always one-side and twisted and prevent us from having the honest kind of dialog that is so important.
Helen exemplifies how biased much of the MSM is. Her colleagues probably just view her as senile, but she really reflects what they think. Here’s a good example. And, it’s much worse in Europe.
Tony Snow once accused her of stating “the Hezbollah view” in her questions during the Israel/Lebanon war.
Let me start off by clarifying which organizations I consider to be the MSM (Main Stream Media): The 3 major TV networks: ABC, CBS and NBC, and the big 3 news publications: The New York Times, Washington Post and LA Times. Just a few of the many secondary news sources: MSNBC, CNN, CNBC, (most of) NPR and many major city newspapers.
I do not consider any of our local news organizations as falling into this (very generalized) category. I’m pleased to write that The Saratogian has never fit into that niche. While I’ve disagreed with many editorials on politics, I never saw any preconceived bias.
Noam Chomsky, a self-declared socialist, once said, “Any dictator would admire the uniformity and obedience of the US [mainstream] media.” Never would he have imagined that his critique would apply more than ever to the present-day relationship between the mainstream media and President Obama.
The manufactured villain evolved to be: 1) the traditions and tenets espoused by the founding fathers and the present day-politicians and citizenry (i.e., conservatives) who stand for those values, and 2) the perceived “unfairness” within the free enterprise system. The righteous: all those claiming to oppose the fabricated villain and favor “equality.”
In the 1960s, a social revolution took place against historical and societal norms. An era of peace and prosperity unprecedented in the history of mankind was underway in the United States, allowing a new generation who had never experienced hardship on a massive scale to focus on hedonistic pursuits, self-aggrandizement, and a search for meaning in their lives.
This movement was promptly seized by the true believers of the Left as a recruiting tool; Leftists proclaimed to the gullible that the United States was an unjust, repressive instrument of capitalism. The siren song of a classless society wherein all are treated fairly and there are no absolutes found eager ears. The protests against the Vietnam War and the very necessary civil rights movement, which achieved so much, were hijacked by many of the post-depression generation into a call to overthrow all of society’s foundational standards.
The protests surrounding the Vietnam War, and then Watergate, that most infamous of scandals, not only gave rise to the resignation of a president, but also accelerated the virulent polarization of politics and the beginning of the end of the impartial mainstream media.
This march to the media’s present role of being in league with the Obama administration is the culmination of the good-versus-evil narrative of modern journalism. The process of determining who are the righteous and who are the villains began almost half a century ago.
Here’s where the change really began:
As a consequence of the media’s perception of their own role in ending the Vietnam War and Watergate, the press began to look upon themselves not as neutral reporters of the news, but rather as a crusaders out to right the wrongs, as they perceived them, of the United States. Journalism, as taught in the university and promoted by those who had been active in the 1960s, came to be viewed not as an independent watchdog of government regardless of who is in charge, but rather as a vehicle for social and economic change.
Patrick Ruffini posted a great article called: Why 2010 Won’t Be Like 1994. (It’ll Be Bigger.)
I might be setting myself for a healthy serving of crow on November 3rd, but I get a distinct feeling that the GOP may be headed toward to a seat gain in the House of epic proportions — somewhere over 50 seats and well above the historical high point for recent wave elections (the 50-55 seats we experienced in elections like 1946 and 1994).
All in all, I don’t think a 70 seat gain is out of the question.
Well, time will tell if Patrick is right. For me, it’s still too soon to tell. I believe that President Obama is the most politically astute person in politics today, and what with the MSM’s investment in his success and the progressive movement, I would never underestimate their ability to turn things around.
This is my first post that will appear on the Saratogian newspaper’s blog.
I only began blogging a little more than 9 months ago and have gotten pretty hooked on it.
Reading postings on the blogosphere has opened up a whole new venue of political insights and information. It also gives me hope that there are millions of Americans, just like me, who have found a better way to get their information, bypassing the MSM. .
An example: folks who get their news via CNN were told “Hundreds of people, at least dozens of people”attended yesterday’s Tea Party Rally in Nevada. Now tell me, does this look like “hundreds, or at least dozens?”
This photo was taken at 1:35 p.m. More than an hour and a half after the rally started people were lining the highway trying to get in. Hundreds????
Most of my postings revolve around: the free market vs govt control; the rights of individuals vs. the “rights” of groups; freedom vs equality; foreign policy, and the economy.
I’ve accepted that progressives who are just as passionate about politics, are generally concerned people who just see the world, and human nature, differently than conservatives do (see Thomas Sowell’s recent Intellectuals & Society). Disagreements in political philosophy have been going on for hundreds of years (best book, so far: Russell Kirk’s The Conservative Mind – from Burke to Eliot).
I was one of those nutty long haired hippies throughout the 60′s and early 70′s and quite liberal in my thinking. Socialism seemed so much “fairer” than capitalism, until I saw how difficult is was running my own business from 1976 to 1990. So I’ve seen both sides.
Since I’m not a very articulate person, I will frequently rely on charts to show what I consider to be the obvious (if only to conservatives). Like this one:
or this one:
Besides postings about the Main Stream Media and what I, and many conservatives, view as media bias, I write about our president, the Congress; legislation; the differences between why the Left thinks the way it does, and why the right thinks the way they do (read Thomas Sowell’s Conflict of Visions); foreign policy; Mann made global warming; political campaigns, and I try to throw in some humor every now and then.
Most of my information come from these columnists, that I try to read every day: Thomas Sowell, Mark Steyn, Charles Krauthhammer, Michael Barone, Ann Coulter, Jonah Goldberg, the Wall Street Journal Editorial page (Dan Henninger, Kim Strassel, Peggy Noonan, etc) Tony Blankley, George Will, and Shelby Steele.
These are the ten blogs that I try to read each day:
So what century does our Vice President think we’re in today? Here is accidentally says the 20th century when I’m sure he meant the 21st century. The interesting thing is that the AP wrote that Biden said the 21st century
“I absolutely refuse to accept the notion that the United States of America is not going to lead the world economically throughout the 21st Century,” Biden said during remarks to supporters on the Delta campus.
Just like Obama stating there are 57 states, or Joe Biden saying FDR went on TV after the 1929 Marker Crash, here is MSNBC’s beauty queen Mika Brzezinski, of Morning Joe, while making fun of Sarah Palin, stating that her favorite “Founding Father” is …. Abraham Lincoln.
All serious conservatives know that NPR, NBC, ABC, CBS, MSNBC, the NY Times, Washington Post, LA Times, etc. etc, but this animation of a “teabag” conservative, who has the temerity to question Obama and his Health Care program, is just so far over the top. Enjoy this if you’re a masochist.
The vast majorities of conservatives knew when the $787 Billion Stimulus was passed that it was a spending bill and not a true Stimulus bill. So, this chart is no surprise. And of course we can count on the MSM exposing these numbers.
Climategate has given many conservatives new hope that the mass hysteria might be exposed for the group-think that it is. Of course, the hard part will be what the MSM allows the leak through its filter. But articles like this will reach more scientists because it calls their very credibility into question. Scientists who have nothing to do with global warming, or “climate change.”
Henninger writes:
Surely there must have been serious men and women in the hard sciences who at some point worried that their colleagues in the global warming movement were putting at risk the credibility of everyone in science.
I don’t think most scientists appreciate what has hit them. This isn’t only about the credibility of global warming. For years, global warming and its advocates have been the public face of hard science.
Liberals and statists have never had a better chance of moving the American economy to more government control by taking another large bite out of our free market private sector. The power grab has been justified based on “facts,” as evidenced by scientists.
Global warming enlisted the collective reputation of science. Because “science” said so, all the world was about to undertake a vast reordering of human behavior at almost unimaginable financial cost. Not every day does the work of scientists lead to galactic events simply called Kyoto or Copenhagen. At least not since the Manhattan Project.
It may be that scientists begin to talk amongst themselves and expand the discussion to a point where the MSM can’t just ignore the supposedly “settled science,” that’s been used to silence any debate.
This has harsh implications for the credibility of science generally. Hard science, alongside medicine, was one of the few things left accorded automatic stature and respect by most untrained lay persons. But the average person reading accounts of the East Anglia emails will conclude that hard science has become just another faction, as politicized and “messy” as, say, gender studies. The New England Journal of Medicine has turned into a weird weekly amalgam of straight medical-research and propaganda for the Obama redesign of U.S. medicine.
Henninger gives a great example of how this isn’t the first time in recorded history that people in power were controlling what people believed.
For three centuries Galileo has symbolized dissent in science. In our time, most scientists outside this circle have kept silent as their climatologist fellows, helped by the cardinals of the press, mocked and ostracized scientists who questioned this grand theory of global doom. Even a doubter as eminent as Princeton’s Freeman Dyson was dismissed as an aging crank.
Jim Hoft, runs one of my favorite blogs: Gateway Pundit. He explains one of the main reasons why I have become so addicted to reading blogs - it’s where the unbiased news is. News that the MSM will not report because it doesn’t support what they believe, or want to believe.
Until just about a year ago, the editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal was where I got my news, for the past 20 years. Now, I have about 50 web sites feeding my Google Reader every day. No wonder all the major (liberal) newspapers and networks are losing readers and viewers.
Obama and the Dems would have never gotten this far without a Media that favors their agenda. But it seems like a few are beginning to expose some of the most blatant fabrications:
Newspapers rise and fact-check The Won by Don Surber
It began with the Associated Press: “The White House seized on an initial report from a government oversight board weeks ago that claimed federal contracts awarded to businesses under the recovery plan already had helped pay for more than 30,000 jobs. The administration said the number was evidence that the stimulus program had exceeded early expectations toward reaching the president’s promise of creating or saving 3.5 million jobs by the end of next year.
“But the 30,000 figure is overstated by thousands — at the very least by nearly 5,000, or one in six, based on AP’s limited review of some of the contracts — because some federal agencies and recipients of the money provided incorrect job counts. The review found some counts were more than 10 times as high as the actual number of jobs; some jobs were credited to stimulus spending when, in fact, none was produced.”
“I will continue to say what I’ve said before. You hear in this debate, you hear analogies, you hear references to, you see pictures about and depictions of individuals that are truly stunning, and you hear it all the time. People — imagine five years ago somebody comparing health care reform to 9/11. Imagine just a few years ago had somebody walked around with images of Hitler.
Hopefully we can get back to a discussion about the issues that are important in this country that we can do so without being personally disagreeable and set up comparisons to things that were so insidious in our history that anybody in any profession or walk of life would be well advised to compare nothing to those atrocities.”
Or, here. You will be scrolling for a solid five minutes to exhaust the Hitler images employed by the left for eight solid years against Bush, and that’s in just two blog posts. They were ubiquitous; far more prevalent that Nazi imagery in the Tea Party movement. Saying what Gibbs said, or repeating it credulously, requires an incredible amount of dishonesty.
