by Stanley Zir and Susan North, via Right Truth

For 8 years I have been chronicling the presence of a cancer in the Middle East peace process that has been slowly eating away at the lifelines needed to keep Jerusalem under Israel’s sovereignty. On Friday Obama dropped the UN Peace Bomb on Israel. Now there can be no doubt about his position on protecting the sovereignty of Israel.

Who is Barak Hussein Obama, a hero standing for freedom in Egypt, and for freedom in the Islamic world? He says Americans must respect the rights of the Islamic people and that their voices must be heard.

Obama said to Bill O’Reilly, the day of the Super Bowl, when asked his advice to news outlets, “the best thing news agencies can do is to give people the facts”. So let’s take him at his word and look at his record to see if his foreign policy even resembles a freedom agenda.

When Lebanon was on the brink of being overrun by Hezbollah, Obama was silent. Did he fear that standing against Hezbollah would damage any chance he has of engaging the terrorist state of Syria in dialogue? Is this what produced his lack of outrage against Hezbollah’s dastardly acts?

In this case, his so-called freedom agenda rendered America an impotent force in standing up to two terrorist outposts (as identified by our State Department). Thus leaving Lebanon, an ally, hanging out to dry, and turning America’s ship of state, into a ship of fools listing in the water.

Over the past two years, Obama has signaled to Iran’s leadership that they have a free hand to act with impunity. America under Obama’s leadership is unwilling to do anything to oppose their act of aggression, and thus it is open season on the United States, Israel and the free world.

Why has Obama never threatened a blockade of Iran to prevent it from receiving missiles from Russia which can secure Iranian nuclear facilities as an impenetrable fortress – or prevent Iran from receiving offensive missiles to launch a nuclear attack on Israel. What did he do to stop Russia from delivering sophisticated anti-ship cruise missiles in 2010 to Syria. Missiles which can be used to attack America’s fleet in the Mediterranean. Was there a threat from Russia that they would send defensive missiles to Iran to secure their nuclear facilities, if the United States opposed the Start Treaty? This was the thinking of many on the hill.

But Obama’s “get out of jail free card” extends far beyond the shores of the Middle East. It is obvious that the tyrannies of that region do not have a monopoly on his generosity. What was his position when the people of Honduras, adhering to their own constitutional mandates, disposed Zelaya who wanted to make himself President-for-Life? Obama supported Zelaya and opposed the freely elected congress of Honduras. What was his response when Iran and Russia both showed up at Chavez’s front door last year to discuss building a nuclear reactor in Venezuela? How many golden opportunities has Obama, the leader of the free world, allowed to pass him by, when he could have set these tyrannies back on their heels?

Now, when it appears the Egyptian people have had enough of a tyrannical government that has kept a high percentage of the population in poverty, and denied them recourse to address their grievances, Obama glides in on his white horse to save the day. “You must have change, NOW,” he demanded of Mubarak in front of the world.

Obama’s actions were disgraceful. He is an opportunist; his actions undermine the credibility of our nation’s noble enterprise. Below is a true story that sheds light on his disgraceful behavior.

A few years back there were numerous attacks on people in the new York subways. It was not being addressed by the mayor. A female friend was sitting in a subway train when she was attacked by three men with box cutters. She fought them off while screaming ‘get the hell out of here.’ After the attackers left the car, a man stands up and as the doors are closing he yells, “and don’t come back.” Obama is like that man. He isn’t willing to help until the victim stands up, and only if the outcome looks guaranteed. In the case of Egypt, now that Obama has the wind at his back, he calls out to the people to stand up against their oppressors.

What was Obama’s position in 2009 when the Iranian people protested in the streets against Ahmadinejad’s rigged election? Silence!

Like Obama, Mrs. Clinton has never stood up publically to the leaders of the Islamic world with any gusto until recently when she mildly scolded Arab leaders. This was just a scolding. But she has a reputation as a scold. No doubt Obama put this endearing trait of hers to good use just prior to the State of the Union in order to present a show of strength to the American people and the Islamic world.

(Read the rest here)

Juan Williams wrote an excellent column in the Wall Street Journal the other day, Tea Party Anger Reflects Mainstream Concerns. Williams concluded:

This all makes for populist anger, embodied in the tea party movement, at politicians who are not focused on the jobs agenda. The politician at the top of the totem pole right now is Barack Obama. He is black. But the relevant point to critics white and black is not his skin color but the persistent high unemployment rate and the government’s focus on Wall Street bailouts and health-care reform.

However, in the middle of the article he wrote:

It is a fact that the tea party is an overwhelmingly older, white and suburban crowd. It is true that Republicans in Congress are almost completely white. And it is also true, according to some black and gay Democrats, that a tea party rally against health-care reform at the Capitol degenerated into ugly scenes in which racial and homophobic epithets were used and spit flew on some members of Congress. There are suspicions that tea party anger boiled over into the spate of personal threats against Democrats who voted for the health-care bill.

I highlighted a troubling phrase. What does he mean that that the charge he repeated was “…true according to to some … Democrats?” either it was true or it wasn’t. If the charge that they made was accurate it was true; if it didn’t happen, then it was false. Truth is not a relative term.

Mark Steyn documents that the claim is false. (via memeorandum)

On March 20th, something truly extraordinary happened. On the eve of the health care vote, a group of black Democrat Congressmen (eschewing the private tunnels they usually use to cross from their offices to the Capitol) chose to walk en masse through a crowd of protesters, confident that the knuckledragging Tea Party goons they and their media pals have reviled for a year now would respond with racial epithets.

And then, when the crowd didn’t, the black Congressmen made it up anyway. Representative Andre Carson (Democrat, Indiana) insisted he heard the N-word 15 times. He’s either suffering from the same condition as that Guam-flipper from Georgia, or he’s a liar. At a scene packed not only with crews from the Dem poodle media but with a gazillion cellphone cameras, not one single N-word has been caught on audio.

So the best interpretation of Juan Williams’ claim is that these Congressmen are delusional. That’s hardly reassuring.

UPDATE: Council member the Provocateur points out that, racism, such as exists at Tea Parties comes from an outside source that is trying to ride the movement’s coat tails.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Via Hot Air

Rep. John Dingell (D-MI) defended the ObamaCare bill on WJR’s Paul W. Smith show yesterday when the host wondered why Democrats wait until 2014 to stop people from dying through lack of universal health care coverage. Dingell tells Smith that it takes a lot of hard work and preparation to create a system that will “control the people.” Freudian slip? I’ve clipped the complete question and answer, so you can decide for yourself. The American Thinker transcribed the answer (via CentristNet):
Let me remind you this has been going on for years. We are bringing it to a halt. The harsh fact of the matter is when you’re going to pass legislation that will cover 300 American people in different ways it takes a long time to do the necessary administrative steps that have to be taken to put the legislation together to control the people.

(emphasis mine)

Click here to view the embedded video.

via InstaPundit

“WE MAKE ‘EM UP AS WE GO ALONG:” I’m guessing that this Alcee Hastings video will appear in a few political ads this fall . . . .

Finally, we have Al Sharpton, who may not be an elected official but who, nevertheless, represents the President with a segment of the electorate. (via Seraphic Secret)

Click here to view the embedded video.

Al Sharpton: “Well, first of all then we would have to say that the American public overwhelmingly voted for Socialism when they elected President Obama.”

…

Now take a look at how Obamacare is going to effect the medical industry. This crippling Obama tax guarantees fewer jobs, less medical innovation, and a lower quality of health care in America. But the Democrat Socialists don’t care because everyone will have lousy medical care. That’s considered social justice.

If this is what Democrats and their supporters say in their own favor, shouldn’t we be just a little wary?

For 20 years President Barack Obama listened to the sermons of Rev. Jeremiah Wright, who was a racist and an antisemite.

So now he’s appointed Al Sharpton to be his liasion to the African American community.

Instapundit:

Kinda like if Bush had brought in David Duke to solidify things in the South . . . .

But we’re living in post-racial American, so it’s OK.

For years we have been bombarded by warning after breathless warning by followers of Al Gore’s global warming brigade. The tactics were familiar, equating skeptics to Holocaust deniers, faking data for the sake of promoting a lie, marketing the lie to children though television shows and movies. Perhaps the worst offense is how these ideologues use the schools to scare children with lies about the dying polar bears and seals. The tactic is perpetrated in a very coercive and manipulative manner that tugs at the heart and gives nightmares to unsuspecting children. They are everywhere, scheming, prodding and adjusting, even as the argument is pulled out from under them one lie at a time.

The global warming hysteria has been unmatched with a response in kind by people that knew the truth. Perhaps that is why they have been so successful. Convincing global warming believers that they have been sold a lie is worse than training a new puppy. Eventually the puppy gets a clue and starts going outside instead of peeing on the floor; but not so for the global warming alarmist. Liberal deniers of science that handily refutes their world view of a pending global warming apocalypse never learn. They simply regroup and recalculate, back again to puff and shout another day. This is troubling.

Forget the fact that Al Gore is a partner in a company that has invested billions of dollars in other companies that stand to profit financially from a carbon trading scheme. Forget the fact that a BBC reporter sat on the leaked CRU e-mail’s for over a month that indicated a massive fraud in the scientific community to manipulate climate change data in favor of the lie being peddled by those on the left. (By now most are aware that the e-mails were eventually published by the source in frustration that he/she couldn’t get the media to publish them; something the New York Slimes still refuses to do while Paul Krugman laughingly and embarrassingly doesn’t find a smoking gun in the coverup – See what I mean, Krugman is a dog that can’t be trained to pee outside; a flat earther through and through.) Forget the fact that the data in which much global warming theory is based on was destroyed in a coordinated effort instead of being handed over in a freedom of information act request. And forget that almost all our sources exposing the scandal and coverup are from UK journalists and not U.S. sources that refuse to publish it because they have been part and parcel of the scam.

Scratch that, don’t forget any of that. That is what the global warming alarmists want you to do, and more. They are so invested in the scam that they are happy to ignore reality and look like complete fools; after all, it feels good.

In 2004 the “academic” left was up in arms because the Bush Administration refused to climb on board with eco-terrorists known as the Union of Concerned Scientists by refusing to back recommendations of the IPCC supporting a new wave of legislation and regulation to combat man made global warming.

The George W. Bush administration consistently sought to undermine the public’s understanding of the view held by the vast majority of climate scientists that human-caused emissions of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases are making a discernible contribution to global warming.¹

After coming to office, the administration asked the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) to review the findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and provide further assessment of what climate science could say about this issue.² The NAS panel rendered a strong opinion, which, in essence, confirmed that of the IPCC. The American Geophysical Union, the world’s largest organization of earth scientists, has also released a strong statement describing human-caused disruptions of Earth’s climate.³ Yet even in the face of this overwhelming scientific concensus, Bush administration spokespersons continued to contend that the uncertainties in climate projections and fossil fuel emissions are too great to warrant mandatory action to slow emissions.⁴

Note the keywords and phrases of the propagandist alarmists, “overwhelming scientific consensus“, “undermine the public’s understanding of the view held by the vast majority of climate scientists”, “strong opinion“, “a strong statement describing human-caused disruptions of Earth’s climate”, “human-caused emissions“. Cleverly designed wording to stifle debate and cast aspersions on those that were aware of the scam from day one.

Like willing dupes or well aware propagandists left leaning blogs, mainstream media mouthpieces, well respected magazines and scientific journals teamed up and offered breathless condemnation of the Bush administration; one of many narratives that dogged the administration and followed the GOP into the 2009 elections. (Funny how they aren’t as outraged at the latest irrefutable coverup).

Wired Magazine and Scientific American both stared parroting bloggers by comparing Bush to Trofim Denisovich Lysenko, the Stalinist director of science in the 1920′s and 1930′s that condemned real science with a political campaign designed to further the communist party line. Many scientists were executed, the science of genetics was vilified (unless it pertained to Lysenko’s self taught version of the science) and true agricultural science was suppressed in a 40 year campaign that caused wide spread scientific and agricultural damage to the Soviet Union. It was an ideological assault on science designed to drive policy that had an amazing detrimental affect on Soviet society much the same as the global warming hoax is having on the world today.

The term is known as Lysenkoism, one the left loves to lob like a grenade against anyone that dare question their fuzzy science.

In the wake of the ever growing scandal that is rocking all but the most die hard adherents of global warming hysteria it is apparent that Al Gore’s brand of science is much closer to Lysenkoism than the Bush administration ever was. In fact the Bush administration should be regarded as heroic in its efforts to slow the Democrats and leftist scammers that are continuing down the path of eco-terrorist based legislation.

The EPA has already declared that the CO2 we exhale is a pollutant while simultaneously quashing a report that not only contradicted the claims of global warming but also disputed that CO2 pollutant axis. Very Lysenko like of them, yet nobody on the left bothered to get all huffed up about the suppression. (Watcher’s Note – The Link above is to a blog called Barrel Strength which I believe to be typically of a liberal pov. I find it interesting to see that both the global warming scandal and the cap and trade scam are getting attention by both sides of the blogosphere. While this is not typical, as evidenced by Krugman and other spokespeople on the left, I think the tide is turning. Even the referenced Rolling Stone article by Matt Taibbi seems to get it. This is a breakthrough.)

Perhaps the tide is turning. Perhaps. Some scientists are starting to distance themselves from the fake science by turning on one another and Al Gore is starting to be questioned about his profit motive. Better late than never. Will the real Lysenko stand up (or should I call him Alsenko?)

Let’s keep up the pressure.

Watcher’s Council Coverage of the Growing Climate Change Scandal:

• Right Truth – Global Warming Scientists Worship at Wrong Altar
• Mere Rhetoric – Leaked Global Warming Docs: “Publicity Machine” Used To Manipulate Journalists And Intimidate Scientists
• Bookworm Room – A literary take on scientific corruption
• The Colossus of Rhodey – But Copenhagen is still on!!
• The Razor – Chutzpah of Climate Change Bureaucrats
• Wolf Howling – Climategate Update 7: IPCC’s Mao Plays The Obama Card, Peer Review Analyzed, Scientific Method Exlplained For Paul Krugman

See Also: Michelle Malkin, Hot Air, HyScience

Yeah, one of many images of the guy that makes me want to hurl. But this picture puts an exclamation point on the left’s next coming. President Obama couldn’t take the time from his rush trip to the comfortable confines of Camp David to visit Berlin on the anniversary of the day that President Regan triumphed over a communist tyranny and a people enslaved were freed as the Berlin Wall came down.

But BHO could take the time to have a staffer whip up a fancy video of him talking to the world, complete with the expected rants of an egomaniac President that spoke of himself in platitudinous historical inferences. (Obama’s supporters call this a “surprise” video address. Really, a surprise opportunity for Obama to put his smug face on a larger than life video screen and address the world? Surprise. Really?)

From Gateway Pundit:

U.S. President Barack Obama is seen on screens during a video message at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, Germany, Monday, Nov. 9, 2009, during the commemorations of the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall on Nov.9, 1989. (AP/Markus Schreiber)Even worse- Obama spoke about himself to the crowd:

“Few would have seen on that day that… that their American ally would be led by a man of African descent.”

And, of course, he did not mention Ronald Reagan or Margaret Thatcher in his speech.

Of course he didn’t, that’s what self centered narcissists do, talk about themselves and make sure not to talk about others that have greater achievements unless in the context of framing the latter’s achievements in the context of something they have done themselves. That about sums Obama up, with one exception, he has no achievements to speak of, except for the manufactured ones that are praised by the mainstream media, leftist unions and America’s teachers.

I would however like to highlight one achievement that Obama is completely oblivious about, even the rest of the world is tiring of the Obama shtick. Hence Toby Harnden of the Telegraph UK: (h/t Ace)

The White House has cited a packed schedule, though looking at it he had nothing much on yesterday (brief chat to reporters about healthcare – by far his biggest priority) and just blah briefings and a bill signing today until a meeting this evening with Benjamin Netanyahu. This time, Der Spiegel has reported it as “Barack Too Busy”.

But Obama is, of course, making time to trot over to Norway to receive the Nobel Peace Prize in December. Didn’t seem to have too much of a problem clearing the diary for that – though his acceptance of the prize and decision to give a another soaring, historical, epoch-marking etc etc speech there will be looked back on as a colossal political mistake and sign of hubris.

Perhaps Obama felt that celebrating the role of the United States in bringing down the wall would be a bit triumphalist and not quite in keeping with his wish to present America as a declining world power anxious to apologise for sundry historic misdeeds. Maybe he didn’t really want to be associated with that warmonger Ronald Reagan:

And what about the left’s most despised President next to Ronald Regan? Captain Ed at hot Air notes that President Bush and his lovely wife Laura took the time to visit the wounded soldiers of the Fort Hood terrorist attack while President Obama took off for Camp David for vacation.

Via Baldilocks, a Tale of Two Presidents: Weekend Priorities.  It was the best of times:

FORT HOOD, Texas (AP) ― Former President George W. Bush and his wife, Laura, visited wounded soldiers and their families near the site of the worst mass shooting on an Army post in the United States.

The Bushes made their private visit to Fort Hood’s Darnall Army Medical Center on Friday night. Bush spokesman David Sherzer said in an e-mail that the couple thanked Fort Hood’s military leaders and hospital staff for the “amazing care they are providing.”

And it was the worst of times:

11:25AM [Saturday] THE PRESIDENT addresses the House Democratic Caucus – Cannon House Office Building

2:30PM THE PRESIDENT makes a statement to the press on Health Care – Rose Garden

2:45PM THE PRESIDENT and THE FIRST LADY depart The White House en route Camp David – South Lawn

You know, it occurs to me that POTUS has a pretty comfy airplane at his disposal.  Rather than retreating to Camp David for the weekend, maybe the Commander in Chief could have gone to Fort Hood to visit the wounded?  Baldilocks is a little more impassioned about it:

Even if one were inclined to give President Obama the benefit of the doubt and assume that he had asked Former President Bush and Mrs. Bush to visit the wounded soldiers because the Bushes live in Texas, why would he ask this of his predecessor and not get on Air Force One overnight to get down there himself?

Why would he not go to be with those whom he is charged to send into battle and who were so horrifyingly betrayed by one of their own?

Because he doesn’t give a rat’s backside, that’s why not.

Well, he did think it more important to give that shout-out to Dr. Joe Medicine Crow …

Now of course all the news channels are scrambling for cover, reporting that PRESIDENT OBAMA IS GOING TO VISIT THE WOUNDED SOLDIERS AT CAMP HOOD!!!

Yeah, yell it a little louder you blithering, water carrying suck ups. Your choice for President makes everyone look bad. As the intolerable Reverend Wright loves to say, The Left’s Chickens are Coming Home to Roost.

See also: Michelle Malkin

By now most of you have heard about Hollywood ass wipe Larry David where he urinates on a picture of Jesus in a scene on David’s HBO series, “Curb Your Enthusiasm”.

For those of you trying to figure out why Hollywood and the typical morons that speak loudly on it’s behalf attack Christians on a regular basis, it easy; they are cowards.

You can bet that they wouldn’t think of targeting Muslims, not unless they wanted to wake up with their heads on their chest some day. But with Christians it is different. The cowardly Larry David’s of the world can get away with it knowing that they are not likely to get their heads beat in when they walk off the set. Hell, in Hollywood they probably get a big applause by like minded fools that sit around at cocktail parties fretting over buddies that get jailed for drugging and raping 13 year old girls.

Hollywood cowards know that Christians are the least likely group to retaliate violently. So they kind of act like the playground bullies that they pretend Fox News and Rush Limbaugh are. They will keep doing it until they pick on the wrong guy, and then of course try and make a sweeping generalization in another cowardly moment for this putz crowd.

What should happen of course is that these witless heroes of the left are charged with the same sort of hate crimes the left trots out every time they are offended by “free speech”. In my opinion Hollywood is inciting violence. They are attacking a group of people, men, women and children, and getting away with it, just because we let them get away with it. If this isn’t hate speech then nothing is. (I am actually on the side of  nothing is. It is free speech of course but the left is so fond of hate crimes they should actually have to live under the slippery slope of the vagaries that have been built into the legislation by design. )

For HBO’s cowardly part they are hiding behind the typical excuse.

“Anyone who follows Curb Your Enthusiasm knows that the show is full of parody and satire. Larry David makes fun of everyone, most especially himself. The humor is always playful and certainly never malicious. “

In this light I believe David actually slanders Jews every bit as much as he pees on Christians. These guys have made a living out of mocking their own Jewish heritage.  It is almost a self loathing wrapped up in insulting comedy. Unfortunately they act like they speak for all Jews. The reality is that they shame themselves and only speak for liberal sellouts of a proud race and religion.

My wife, God love her soul, doesn’t wish ill will on people. She equates it with bad karma, a sort of what goes around comes around attitude. While I similarly don’t wish ill will on these people I do enjoy the irony of shrugging my shoulders with the same indifference the left has toward Christians in those rare moments when these Hollywood lefties actually get what’s coming to them. And believe me, they will pick on the wrong guy some day. Just ask Perez Hilton.

The Politico reports that President Obama enjoys his golf and now has more rounds of golf played in office than President Bush did in two years and ten months.

One thing the article doesn’t say is that President Bush quit playing golf after that time – or why

“I don’t want some mom whose son may have recently died to see the Commander-in-Chief playing golf,” Mr Bush said in an interview with Yahoo and Politico.com.

“I feel I owe it to the families to be as – to be in solidarity as best as I can with them. And I think playing golf during a war just sends the wrong signal,” he said.

Interesting that the Politico, who has first hand knowledge of this factoid didn’t see fit to mention it.

Maybe they felt it would reflect badly on the current Commander-in-Chief, for some reason.

I read the news that the New York Times is going to cut another unexpected 100 staffers from it’s “news room”. While sad that these organizations are continuing to bleed staff I find it curious that none of the solutions to the tanking of the newspaper included any sort of recognition that perhaps the brain surgeons behind most every story that emanates from that crap hole of a newsroom are so ideologically one sided that half the nation wouldn’t read them unless paid to do so. It’s called “expanding your reach”.

Naturally über lib Bill Keller continues along his oblivious way in an article that states how Times executives did not anticipate a shrinking news staff in 2009.

“I won’t pretend that these staff cuts will not add to the burdens of journalists whose responsibilities have grown faster than their compensation,” he wrote, adding, “Like you, I yearn for the day when we can do our jobs without looking over our shoulders for economic thunderstorms.”

Times executives said this year that they did not anticipate the news staff shrinking in 2009, except through attrition, but that nothing was certain. In fact, the 5 percent pay cut was meant to forestall any staff reductions.

Oh really? Some libs are such big pretenders. The Wall Street Journal which has a usually conservative editorial section isn’t tainted throughout the newspaper with that point of view. In general I find that the paper simply reports until you get to the opinion section where it opines. Not so coincidentally the Wall Street Journal is about to overtake USA Today as the nation’s largest paper in terms of circulation. The Wall Street Journal charges for both it’s print and online versions and was the only paper in the top 25 to show an increase in circulation.

Yes, I am comparing a paper with a national format to the metro format that is the Times. I believe a national format does lend itself to a broader reach but there is something that the Journal is doing right that the people at the Times are missing. The NY Times problem is not simply a matter of  failing under the pressure of the internet. There is a culture issue here which lends me to believe that the people running the newspaper are blind to their own problem which is one of decreasing credibility fostered by a blind allegiance to liberalism which tends to anchor the paper to rubes in the Democratic Party.  A newspaper can not survive in this day and age if it is seen to be an extension of the government. Being a part of the perceived state run media may make these news people feel good about themselves but it isn’t exactly what everyone in the nation or even greater New York wants to read on a daily basis. It’s embarrassing as far as journalistic integrity is concerned.

What I really find curious however is the people in the comment section urging the Times to charge for online content instead of giving it away. Uh, duh, tried and failed. A sure sign that some of the paper’s readers are down and out oblivious. The economy sucks and Obama can’t even save jobs at an organization that is one of his biggest breeding grounds for sheepish followers, cheerleading central. Yet these dopes in the comment section think the solution is to charge more.

Here is a sad sampling:

Well, there is a solution to layoffs – start charging for on-line content, I’d pay….seriously. Why not? – Eric

As a long term subscriber, I am both saddened and concerned by this news.
If it has not been done already, may I suggest you study some form of charge to customers for the web paper. I would not be adverse to a payment, in addition to my subscription, to help. — Anne Hills

And then there is this:

Employees took a 5 percent pay cut, did that include all Executives, or just the regular folk? I bet Mr. Keller’s and all the other exec’s’ pay hasn’t decreased one whit, nor do they face the threat of a “layoff” like all the peons at the Times. It’s amazing how these corporate scenarios pan out, isn’t it? — mtrav

Confused? This reader certainly is. What solution do you think mtrav would suggest? Perhaps a government run newspaper? Hell, the Times is practically there already if content is any sort of yardstick from which to measure. Funny though, reader mtrav is a product of the garbage that the Times has been putting out for years; the typical anti-capitalist dimwit that is part and parcel of the Democratic party base. Sure, let’s get anti-corporate in response to a solution for a revenue problem. Rather than attack the executives for their pay wouldn’t it make sense to take them to task for their lack of creativity and leadership? At least then you can question why they are getting paid for such a lack luster job. But then the shareholders should be doing that anyway. Mtrav doesn’t do that however. His emphasis is simply on the evil executive.

It’s beyond belief that these simpletons don’t get it.

I’m not sure that anything can be done to save traditional newspapers regardless of their ideological leanings. The marketplace has changed. I am sure however that letting a myopic left leaning rot permeate the rest of a paper that is supposed to be balanced, or at least minimally, not pre-conceived bile, is hurting more than helping.

But that’s just my opinion. Which isn’t news, and doesn’t pretend to be.

Image by Terry Trippany

I read a great perspective on the mainstream media/Hollywierd infatuation with defending Roman Polanski:

You know what all those Hollywood glitterati would have said if he were a priest? The man is accused of giving liquor and quaaludes to a 13 year old girl and then raping her.

The Betsy’s page insight was inspired by David Gibson at Politics Daily.

There is the obvious parallel to the cases in the Catholic Church, which have rightly scandalized the public and the media. Prosecutors and plaintiffs’ attorneys have been dogged in pursuing these cases — whether out of concern for their careers or for justice — and the outrage was so widespread that the State of California created a one-year window in 2003 during which the statute of limitations on abuse crimes by Catholic priests was lifted. That meant the victims of men who were often long dead could finally get their day in court, or find some sense of justice and closure — and for cases that were no more egregious than Polanski’s abuse of Geimer. Polanski is alive, at least.

Comparisons are by their nature invidious. But what if Roman Polanksi were wearing a Roman collar? Would “Monsignor Polanksi” receive the same considerations? As Father Thomas Reese, a Jesuit, writes at the Post’s “On Faith” site, “Imagine if the Knights of Columbus decided to give an award to a pedophile priest who had fled the country to avoid prison. The outcry would be universal.” And rightly so, as Reese says. But Polanski gets an Oscar in absentia in 2003 and earns sympathy because he can’t receive it in person.

I completely disagree with Betsy’s conclusion:

Let him stand trial and give him perhaps a reduced sentence based on the victim’s stated wish for leniency for him.

Polanski already plead guilty to the charge and accepted a plea deal on a lessor crime and was awaiting sentencing when he fled. The trial has concluded and Polanski is a fugitive from justice. If anything the plea deal might not be accepted in light of his fleeing to another country but a new reduced sentence is not in order.

Paterrico who works for the Los Angeles County District Attorney notes that all his department has to do is represent the people of California at the sentencing.

He also noted the brutality of the drugging and forced anal rape of a 13 year old girl with a snippet of the grand jury testimony. I won’t reprint it here but you can read it for yourself. Suffice it to say that this man is being protected by the media and those on the left because he is a Hollywood celebrity.

As for the now 40 something victim one must note that she accepted a settlement from Polanski and that could certainly weigh on her call for leniency so many years later.  I can’t speak for her. But she can’t speak for all other past and future victims of this sort of crime.

See Also:

WaPo Columnist Has Undisclosed Conflict of Interest on Roman Polanski Matter

ABC Touts European Outrage Over Polanski Arrest; Sawyer: It’s an ‘International Incident’