NY Times Own Public Editor Admits Hit Piece on Palin Was Unfair

You know things are bad at the NY Times when its own Public Editor, Clark Hoyt, is forced to admit that the paper is biased against Republicans. It keeps happening. One notable incident was when the Times ran that ridiculous hit piece about McCain and a lobbyist, which Hoyt ripped to shreds. The latest incident involves a hit piece on Palin -- Once Elected, Palin Hired Friends and Lashed Foes -- which the Times published on its front page on September 13. Today Hoyt acknowledged that the attack on Palin was unfair:

It began with a sweeping assertion: “Gov. Sarah Palin lives by the maxim that all politics is local, not to mention personal.” Scott Blum of Atlanta said, “To justify stating this conclusion so forcefully in a front-page news article, the body of evidence had better be so compelling that most reasonable people would agree.” But Blum found the article “largely one-sided” and unconvincing. I think it presented a series of unflattering anecdotes, some confusing and incomplete, but never made the connection between style and results necessary to judge a politician who was overwhelmingly re-elected mayor and has an 80 percent approval rating as governor.

So even Hoyt realizes the Times is in the bag for the Democrats. I think the Times should adopt a new logo: "All the news that's fit to print ... if you write for the Daily Kos."

Obama's Academic Record Was Not Stellar; Meanwhile McCain Might Have Highest IQ in Presidential History

When academic credentials are discussed in the media, what you typically hear is that Obama is brilliant because he was president of the Harvard Law Review, whereas McCain is a dolt because he graduated towards the bottom of his class at the Naval Academy (even though that was because of discipline -- not academic -- issues, caused by McCain's "rebel" personality).

Now imagine a world in which the media is not in the tank for Obama. In such a world, the media might instead focus on the fact that Obama was somehow admitted to Harvard Law even though his academic record at Columbia was not stellar -- Obama graduated from college without any honors. Meanwhile, as Time Magazine once let slip out when McCain was running for president in 1999:

Included in the records is a 1984 IQ test. His score, 133, would rank him among the most intelligent Presidents in history.

In a sane world, you might expect the media to report these facts once in a while. But we don't live in a such world, so what instead passes for "journalism" these days is McCain=Bush=stupid. And oh yeah, Palin's an idiot too!

Thank God for the blogosphere, eh?

AP Blames Obama's Sagging Popularity on Racism

Check out this gem from the AP (via the NY Post):

RACISM HURTS OBAMA IN POLL

The poll, conducted with Stanford University, suggests the percentage of voters who may turn away from Obama because of his race could easily be larger than the final difference between the 2004 presidential candidates - about 2.5 points. ... The pollsters set out to determine why Obama is locked in a close race with McCain, even as the political landscape seems to favor Democrats.

***
Racism is to blame, eh? Funny, I thought Obama's hidden Marxist past and his 20-year membership in a black liberation theology church might have something to do with it. Silly me!

Pictures from Ahmadinejad Protest in NYC

Here are some pictures from a small anti-Ahmadinejad protest I stumbled upon in NYC in front of the United Nations on Thursday. All of the speakers and attendees seemed to be of Iranian origin. Ahmadinejad's crimes and human rights abuses were detailed and certainly everyone there seemed to hate Ahmadinejad.

But the most interesting aspect of the protest focused on an organization with which I was not previously familiar -- Mujahideen-e-Khalq ("MeK"). From what I gather, MeK is a left-wing, militant Iranian organization that advocates the overthrow of the Iranian government and has been headquartered in Camp Ashraf, Iraq since 1986. Given its goals, MeK was enthusiastically supported by Saddam during his reign. When the U.S. invaded in 2003, we bombed MeK camps because of the alliance with Saddam. But shortly thereafter, the U.S. government reached some sort of an accomodation with MeK.

Since then, MeK has seemingly been caught betwixt and between. The Iraqis hate MeK because it was aligned with Saddam. The Iranians also apparently detest MeK because it is responsible for terrorism in Iran. And the US government has listed MeK as a terrorist organization since 1997. Nevertheless, given our common interest in overthrowing the Iranian regime, some in Washington see MeK as a potential ally, and the MeK camp in Iraq has been under our protection in Iraq since 2003. This 2004 Christian Science Monitor article sums up the situation pretty well.

The recent news is that the US government is preparing to hand over the MeK camp to the Iraqis. The protesters seemed to think that that would be a death sentence for those living inside the camp, presumably because the Iraqis would turn them over to Ahmadinejad.

Whether that is true -- I have no idea. But whatever the case, I think the US government should keep its distance from MeK. After all, it is designated by our government as a terrorist organization, its members are hated by both Iraqis and Iranians alike, and they espouse Marxist revolution. What exactly do we stand to gain here?

Is Charlie Rangel Disabled?

Charlie Rangel calling Sarah Palin "disabled" was certainly a nasty insult, particularly because Palin just gave birth to a disabled child. Even so, I chuckled when I saw Rangel's comment in the NY Post this morning. It made me think of when we used to mock political correctness by using "challenged" for every so-called shortcoming. For example, if we wore glasses we were "visually challenged." If we were short, we were "vertically challenged" and so on.

Rangel isn't disabled, but he is "ethically challenged." The NY Post recently revealed that Rangel owes Uncle Sam more than $10,000 in back taxes. To make matters worse, he's tried to pin the blame on his wife, suggesting that she was the one who handled their taxes. So maybe Rangel's "tax challenged" too. Now here's the real kicker: Rangel is Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee -- the same Committee that writes our tax laws. So a guy who's not paying his own taxes, and blames his wife for his tax fraud, is in charge of writing our tax laws?

And what a splendid job Rangel has done. Rangel's made our tax laws so complicated that my dear ol' mom -- who's clocking 30Gs a year to survive (extra points for anyone who got the Third Bass reference) -- needs to hire a tax professional to file her taxes. Gotta love Charlie. Another example of our disab -- er, ethically challenged -- Democratic leadership in Washington.

Tancredo Introduces "Jihad Prevention Act"

Today U.S. Representative Tom Tancredo introduced the "Jihad Prevention Act." The description on Tancredo's website is a bit vague, but this seems to be the gist of it:

Tancredo’s bill, dubbed the “Jihad Prevention Act,” would bar the entry of foreign nationals who advocate Sharia law. In addition, the legislation would make the advocacy of Sharia law by radical Muslims already in the United States a deportable offense.

The first part sounds great. I certainly support barring foreigners who advocate Sharia. It's the second part that has me worried -- banning "advocacy of Sharia law by radical Muslims." What exactly does that mean? Does Tancredo also propose to ban advocacy of Sharia by "moderate" Muslims? How do we distinguish between "radical" Muslims and "moderate" Muslims? And what to do about advocacy of Sharia by sympathetic non-Muslims, e.g., Lynne Stewart? Or does advocating Sharia ipso facto make one a "radical Muslim"?

To be coherent, the legislation must necessarily ban any advocacy of Sharia by anyone. And that scares me. Don't get me wrong; I hate Sharia. I also hate Nazism, Holocaust denial, white supremacism, black supremacism (Reverend Wright), etc. But as deplorable as these things are, the solution is not to stifle free speech, but to encourage it. Indeed, it is free speech -- robust, uninhibited, and non-politically correct -- that is our best defense against Sharia. For if today radical Islamic websites are shut down because of the content of their speech, what is to stop the government censors tomorrow from shutting down sites that criticize Islam? Shall we resign ourselves to a Brave New World where no one can say anything deemed "too radical" one way or the other about Islam?

I say no thanks. Totalitarianism stinks, no matter the nature of the political content sought to be banned.

Of course, this is likely much ado about nothing -- if I understand Tancredo's bill correctly (and perhaps I do not), it would almost certainly violate the First Amendment. But the mere fact that Tancredo would even propose such a bill is troubling.

What do you think?

Hope and Change--In Your Face!

So much for the politics of hope and change. This is Obama on the campaign trail yesterday serving it up "in your face" style:

"I need you to go out and talk to your friends and talk to your neighbors. I want you to talk to them whether they are independent or whether they are Republican. I want you to argue with them and get in their face," he said. Watch the video here.

Can you imagine the media pundits if moose-huntin' Palin had said the same lines?