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ONE WAY TABLOIDS GET INFO. Today I got an unexpected look at one way in which some tabloids pursue stories. I got a call this morning from a reporter for STAR magazine. He said that I might be surprised to know that a particular TV actress lived near me. He identified her by name, and wanted to know if I could confirm a rumor that she was engaged. He’d found my address as being one near hers, and had gotten my number from a phone directory that lists numbers by address.
Later in the call he revealed that the address he had for the actress was two years old, and might no longer be current. I said I’d never heard that she lived in this neighborhood, and could give him no information on the subject, which is an accurate statement.
The thing is, if I had heard anything of the kind, I wouldn’t be comfortable telling a reporter, who evidently was seeking to publish information that the actress herself has not yet chosen to publish at this time. He seemed like a nice guy, but I just don’t think what he was doing was all that cool.
He asked me if this wasn’t the wildest call I’d ever gotten. I said, “No, I just didn’t realize this is how these things were done.”
Roger L. Simon comments on a statement made by Chris Matthews:
Earlier today I was drafted on the Hugh Hewitt’s Show at the last minute. When it happens that way, I don’t have a chance to put up an alert on the blog. Hugh called to ask what I thought of comments made my Chris Matthews on Hardball in which Chris said of the Iraqi ‘insurgents’ “they’re not bad guys especially, just people who just disagree with us…”
...I found Matthews’ comments despicable. But then I guess I just have trouble lumping our soliders in any way with Islamic terrorists who cut peoples’ heads off or Baathist fascists who seek to reinstate a regime that dumped children in mass graves with their toys. I leave that kind of moral equivalency to Chris Matthews and his ilk.
“They’re not bad guys especially, just people who just disagree with us…”—what a preposterous statement Matthews has made. It’s not their disagreeing with us that we object to. It’s their killing of the civilians of our country (and of others.)
The terrorists kill as many civilians as they can, while we do everything we can to avoid doing so.
Our soldiers are risking their lives every day in circumstances like Falluja, just to protect as much as possible, the local civilians from harm. It would be far safer for our soldiers to just fire-bomb the place from the air and have done with it. It would cost far less as well, needless to say. Drop a few bombs, the city is flattened, mission accomplished. The only reason we don’t do that is that we are doing everything we can, despite the risks, to minimize civilian casualties.
