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Could it be that the film 300 -- plus the grassroots sensation of my friend Evan Sayet's YouTube video (160,000 views and counting) -- signal the beginning of the end of moral ambiguity?
Here's Victor Davis Hanson on 300:
The phrase "300 Spartans" evokes not only the ancient battle of Thermopylae, but also the larger idea of fighting for freedom against all odds - a notion subsequently to be enshrined through some 2500 years of Western civilization.
...almost immediately, contemporary Greeks saw Thermopylae as a critical moral and culture lesson. In universal terms, a small, free people had willingly outfought huge numbers of imperial subjects who advanced under the lash. More specifically, the Western idea that soldiers themselves decide where, how, and against whom they will fight was contrasted against the Eastern notion of despotism and monarchy - freedom proving the stronger idea as the more courageous fighting of the Greeks at Thermopylae, and their later victories at Salamis and Plataea attested.
And here's Glenn Reynolds on 300:
... the movie industry -- or at least the critic section thereof -- is stuck in the 1970s, when moral ambiguity and angst used to be groundbreaking and novel. Now they're overdone, predictable and boring.
Is it a coincidence that at this moment, Sayet's YouTube video is attracting such attention, that Victor Davis Hanson and Dennis Miller were talking about Evan, enthusiastically, on the radio last night? Sayet makes powerful points illuminating the absurdist logic of moral ambiguity.
An end of moral ambiguity could have a massive impact on global geopolitics. To take one example, it's time for Israel to thrill the world by saying, loud and clear, that Israel stands for freedom, democracy, achievement, science, and equality of the sexes, and that those who do not recognize its right to exist, have neither freedom, nor democracy, nor achievements, nor science, nor equality of the sexes. That alone would electrify - and change - the world.
By a margin of roughly 70% to 30%, Shiites in Iraq are supporting Democracy. It's the Sunnis - who for the past several decades ran the country under Saddam and oppressed their fellow Iraqis - who overwhelmingly oppose Democracy.
Per an ABC/BBC poll of Iraqis reported earlier this month, 70% of Shiites somewhat or strongly agree that it was right "that U.S.-led coalition forces invaded Iraq in spring 2003" - versus just 2% of Sunnis!
68% of Shiites believe that the current national government of Iraq has done a very good or quite good job of carrying out its responsibilities - versus just 6% of Sunnis.
94% of Sunnis find "attacks on coalition forces" to be acceptable, versus 35% of Shiites.
In all three statistics quoted, it's about 70% of the Shiites who are pro-Democracy and support the new government - and less than 10% of the Sunnis who do so.
This supports my previous post, "It’s Not A 'Civil War' In Iraq, It’s The Wrap-Up Of The Same War We Initiated When We Toppled Saddam," with the addition of providing the means of estimating the size of the minority of Shiites who are not on the side of Democracy. We can also estimate the proportion of the total Iraqi population that opposes Democracy.
As pointed out by HotAir, the ABC/BBC poll appears to oversample Sunnis. 35% of the ABC/BBC poll sample are Sunni Arabs, but GlobalSecurity.org estimates that the total Iraqi population is 12-15% Sunni Arabs. StrategyPage estimates that 20% or fewer of the total Iraqi population are Sunni Arabs:
..the 2003 invasion put the ruling class, largely composed of Sunni Arabs, out of power.
...The Sunni Arab domination of the government and economy IS the problem. Saddam's main job was to see that it stayed that way. So, since 2003, the Shia Arab replacements have been climbing a steep learning curve. It has not been pretty, especially when you throw in all the corruption.
...Most of the violence initially came from Sunni Arabs, led by military officers and secret police officials who wanted their jobs, and privileges, back. The Sunni Arabs have a high opinion of themselves, which is somewhat justified by their high educational and skill levels. The Sunni Arabs also realize that the majority of Iraqis (60 percent of the population is Shia and 20 percent Kurdish) hate them. That majority is also hungry for revenge. Saddam's thugs (the word fits very well here) got increasingly sadistic and brutal during Saddam's 30 year reign.
It is not uncommon for a poll sample to over-represent a demographic group. The industry-standard way to correct for this (and I note this as a professional market researcher) is to weight the data. This means that every respondent in the study is multiplied by a constant such that his or her response counts as somewhat more or less than one single response, the result being that the proportions of all demographic groups in the final weighted sample are equivalent to their actual estimated proportions in the real world. Astonishingly, that does not appear to have been done in the ABC/BBC poll report. Complete study results are presented on pages 14 to 38 of the report. Page 37 shows that 35% of respondents consider themselves Sunni Arabs, which appears to indicate oversampling as per the data from StrategyPage and GlobalSecurity.org noted above; and to indicate that the oversampling was not corrected via weighting of the data.
Oversampling is not considered to bias the results within the oversampled group. Therefore we can weight the data ourselves at this time for individual tables. In the following table, the "% of Population" column shows the estimated proportion of each group, per GlobalSecurity. The next column ( "% of the Religious Group" ) is taken directly from the ABC/BBC poll. The final column ( "As a % of Total Iraqi Population" ) is derived by multiplying the first two columns together for each row.
Source for population data: GlobalSecurity.org.
Source for Attitudinal data: ABC/BBC poll of Iraqis, March 2007.
via HotAir.
This analysis indicates that 36% of the Iraqi population finds attacks on coalition forces to be acceptable. This is a substantial percentage, but it's far less that the 51% which appears to have been erroneously reported on page 6 of the ABC/BBC report. Taken with the other data quoted above, it shows that the great majority of Iraqis support Democracy.
And it shows that this is not a civil war - it's a the wrap-up of the same war we initiated when we toppled Saddam - a war to bring freedom and Democracy to Iraq, and in that way to introduce it into the heart of the Mid-East.
Evan Sayet's YouTube video already had 18,000 views yesterday morning, before it was linked by Drudge. Today it has over 120,000 views.
It's also currently ranked as the #5 Top YouTube Favorite for the Month in News & Politics. It's got over 700 comments. What is making this video so hot? Let's take a look at a few excerpts:
The modern liberal will invariably side with evil over good, wrong over right, and the behaviors that lead to failure over those that lead to success. Give the modern liberal the choice between Saddam Hussein and the United States, he will not only side with Saddam Hussein, he will slander America and Americans in order to do so. Given the choice between the vicious, mass-murdering, corrupt terrorist dictator Yasser Arafat, and the tiny and wonderful democracy of Israel, he will plagiarize maps, forge documents, engage in blood libels, as did our former President, Jimmy Carter, to side with a terrorist organization, and to attack the tiny state.
......how do they think they're making better world, by siding with Saddam Hussein, by keeping his rape and torture rooms open, by seeking the destruction of a democracy of Jews that, I don't know if you've seen the list going around on the Internet, of all the Nobel Prize-winning scientists from this tiny state of Israel. How do they think they're making a better world by promoting to children, behaviors that are inappropriate and cause diseases and unwanted pregnancies and ruin people's lives? How do they think they're making a better world?
What I discovered is, the modern liberal looks back on - give me a number here - 50,000 years, 100,000 years of human civilization - and knows only one thing for sure: that none of the ideas that mankind has come up with - none of the religions, none of the philosophies, none of the ideologies, none of the forms of government - none have succeeded in creating a world devoid of war, poverty, crime and injustice. So they're convinced, that since all of these ideas of man have proved to be wrong, the real cause of war, poverty, crime and injustice must be found - can only be found - in the attempt to be right. See if nobody ever thought they were right, what would we have to disagree about? If we didn't disagree, surely we wouldn't fight. If we didn't fight of course we wouldn't go to war. Without war there'd be no poverty, without poverty, there'd be no crime, without crime there'd be no injustice. It's a utopian vision. And all that's required to usher in this utopia, is the rejection of all fact, reason, evidence, logic, truth, morality and decency. All the tools that you and I use in our attempts to be better people, to make the world more right, by trying to be right, by siding with right, by recognizing what is right, and moving towards it.
......So what you have is people who feel that the best way to eliminate rational thought, the best way to eliminate the attempt to be right, is to work always to prove that right isn't right, and to prove that wrong isnt' wrong. To bring about a philosophy - and you see this in John Lennon's song, "Imagine." "Imagine there's no countries." Not "imagine great countries." Not "imagine defeat the Nazis."
"Imagine no religions." And the key line is imagine a time when anything and everything that mankind values - is devalued to the point where there's "nothing left to kill or die for."
Obviously this is not going to happen overnight. There's still going to be religions - but they're going to do their best to denigrate them. There are still going to be countries, but they're going to do their best to get us to cede our sovereignty to one-world bodies.
But in the meantime, everything they believe is designed - everything they teach in our schools, everything they make into movies, the messages of the movies - the TV shows - the newspaper stories that they pick, and how they spin them - have but one criterion for truth, beauty, honesty, etc. etc. - and that's, does it tear down what is good, and elevate what is evil. Does it tear down what is right, and elevate what is wrong. Does it tear down the behaviors that lead to success, and elevate the ones that lead to failure, until there's nothing left to believe in.
...There is no standard to them, because a standard would require them to say that something is better than something else, which goes against this entire philosophy.
(View the video for much more, including the many examples Evan provides, as well as the brilliant metaphor he opens with, regarding a man who says he hates his wife, and whose friend habitually assumes he is joking.)
What's making this hot, may be one of the same things that's making the movie 300 so hot - i.e., the proposition that there is good, there is evil, there is right, there is wrong, and that we have the ability to distinguish between them and to champion what is right and good, and to oppose what is wrong and evil.
Sayet brilliantly identifies that today's Liberals refuse to say that something is better than something else - and that they consistently seek to tear down those who are doing good, and to build up those who are doing evil.
I encountered an example of this, this very morning. I was recently talking to my friend, A.T., and telling him about the danger France (and all of Europe) is in, from radical Islamists, who seek to destroy European culture, and replace it with Sharia culture. This morning A.T. called up and said he's discussed this with a friend of his, a reporter for NPR, and she had said that the Muslims in France are oppressed, that they are denied rights, and that is the reason for their riots. The NPR reporter provided a perfect example of what Sayet describes. She did not express one word of condemnation of the Muslims for their evil burning of thousands of cars in France, or for their violent attacks on the Jews of France, as noted in this recent Miami Herald article. On the contrary, she took their side. She supported those who are doing evil, violent attacks. She showed no support for the people of France who are being attacked.
A.T. immediately agreed with me that seeking for rights would not justify these violent attacks on people and property. (I asked A.T. to ask his NPR reporter friend to provide links to me to
document her assertion that Muslims in France are denied rights.)
Sayet's views are immediately applicable to what we see around us. Try it out.
ZOA commisioned a poll that was conducted by McLaughlin & Associates, with important findings:
New York — A major new national poll has found the following regarding American opinion on the Israel and Middle East issues:
The poll of 1000 randomly selected Americans was commissioned by the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA), the oldest pro-Israel group in the US, and has a margin of error of 3.1%. It was carried out by McLaughlin & Associates, a major national polling company, on March 25, 2007.
- By a margin of 5-to-1 (60% - 11%), Americans believe that Israel should not make more land concessions to the Palestinian Arabs.
- By a margin of 2-to-1 (45%-- 22%), Americans believe that a Palestinian Arab state would be a terrorist state rather than a peaceful democracy;
- By a margin of 10-to-1 (45% - 4.6%) Americans overwhelmingly support Israelis over the Palestinian Arabs.
- By a margin of more than 5-to-1 (65% - 11%), Americans believe that Saudi Arabia is not a reliable and trustworthy ally in the war against radical Islamic terrorism;
- By a margin of nearly 2-to-1 (46% - 24%), Americans believe that Egypt is not a reliable and trustworthy ally in the war against radical Islamic terrorism; and
- By a margin of nearly 2-to-1 (51% - 26%), Americans believe that the US should impose economic sanctions on Saudi Arabia until it stops its support and funding for terrorists and radical Islamic education that teaches hatred of America and Israel.
So - the American people aren't fooled by the endless MSM treatment of Palestinians and Israelis as being equally in the wrong. Americans know what MSM doesn't - that it's evil for the Palestinians to blow up buses, planes, trains, and restaurants.
At a time when MSM revenues are cratering, why does MSM persist in its absurdist view of the world as a place in which America and its allies are no better than enemies who blow up buses, planes, cars, and restaurants?
Why doesn't MSM just catch up to where the American people are at? So many Americans know that this is the greatest country on earth, and that the reason for it is the combination of our Constitution, Democracy, capitalism, and our Judeo-Christian culture that recognizes God and encourages all to have healthy, successful lives. But MSM keeps trying to jam their absurdist view down our throats - and instead of destroying America, it's destroying MSM.
As has been widely discussed (see Patterico, Mickey Kaus, and others), there were noteworthy events at the LA TIMES this past weekend. I'll quote John Podhoretz for a summary:
Evidently the paper's senior leadership thought it would be a good idea to get "guest editors" to put out its Sunday opinion section. So the editorial-page editor secured the services of Brian Grazer. It happens that Grazer is an Academy-Award winning producer and one of the most powerful people in Hollywood, despite his really bad haircut.
Grazer would seem to fit the bill perfectly. Only it turns out he engages a PR firm that employs the editorial-page editor's girlfriend. And so the screams of "CONFLICT OF INTEREST! CONFLICT OF INTEREST!" rang out all over Southern California.
This is absurd. Beyond absurd.
The TIMES decided not to publish the section, and Andres Martinez, the editorial page editor, resigned.
Here's what I want to add. Last week I posted that "If MSM held itself to the standards it applies to others, it would dismantle itself." These events at the LA Times are a perfect example.
The TIMES ostensibly is trying to hold itself up to the same standards it uses on everybody else, and the result was serious damage to the paper. Per David Carr in the NY TIMES:
Reporting on the contretemps at The Los Angeles Times last week brings to mind a scene in which you come upon a sinking vessel and see people scrambling everywhere. And then you realize they are not looking for buckets, but guns.
At The Times last week, editors took aim at other editors, writers sprayed shots at their own newspaper, and the publisher drew a bead on his own foot.
From Kaus:
...the Times has lost a lively opinion editor, Andres Martinez, who's radically improved his pages and who apparently disclosed everything to his bosses. No doubt the paper's future editorial commentary will avoid creating this, or any other kind, of controversy. ...
The damage to the paper was needless. As quoted above, Podhoretz calls it "Beyond absurd." Per Patterico, "This nonsense about Andres Martinez isn’t a scandal."
Conservatives often feel that the standards MSM applies to others are unreasonable; that, in applying these standards, MSM does needless, undeserved, damage; and that these standards are ultimately suicidal in the sense that they do harm to our nation. In this case, when an MSM paper applies such standards to itself, it is evident just how needlessly harmful, and how directly suicidal, they are.
Conclusion: events this past weekend at the LA TIMES underline the need for MSM to find a way to build, rather than to destroy, that on which it reports.
Cathy Seipp, at the Roast in Her Honor, September 2006
I was only in the periphery of Cathy's world, but I am grateful to her for the significant contribution she helped make to my life. I first met her in May 2004, at a panel she hosted at AFI titled, "The Inside Story: Hollywood and the Media Deconstructed." I'd started blogging about a year earlier, and I owed my invitation to this event to Amy Alkon, who I'd made contact with, as a fellow LA blogger. This event was ground zero for my introduction to so many others who are well-known in the LA blogging world, including Moxie, Andrew Breitbart, Matt Welch, Luke Ford, and Cathy herself. In fact, it was that night that I assisted in introducing Moxie to Andrew Breitbart - a noteworthy event to those in the scene here. (I'm not trying to hint at anything - they're just two well-known folks, and it's interesting that this was the night they met.) I'd kept my eye out for Moxie, as a well-known blogger I'd first become aware of via an Instapundit link, and made sure to say hello when she appeared. She was on the second of two panels Cathy hosted that evening. Moxie expressed an interest in meeting Andrew, who, if I recall correctly, had been on the first panel, and I somehow introduced them, even though I'd never met either of them before. I believe I said to Moxie, come over this way, and just walked over to Andrew, and introduced them. Of course it was easy since they were both panelists. Afterwards, Matt Welch, who'd also been on one of the panels, and his wife Emmanuel, invited a number of us over to their place. I felt very fortunate to have the opportunity to hang out with this crowd, for whom I had a lot of admiration. As I posted the following day:
A Great Night in the Blogosphere
Well, last night’s event was great fun. Amy Alkon’s live-blogging of the panels is here.
Afterwards Matt and Emmanuelle Welch invited people over for drinks. Andrew Breitbart, Cathy Seipp, Luke Ford, Martin Devon, Moxie, and I, among others, joined the Welch’s. As you can imagine a party among bloggers, the conversation was just non-stop irresistible. It went on until after 4 a.m. Nobody wanted to leave.
Moxie took great pics, and I took a good one of her as well, which may appear on her site.
Update: the pic I snapped of her is up on Moxie’s site.
Cathy, Amy, and Emmanuelle regularly organized meetings of the LA Press Club, and, again thanks to Amy and Cathy, I began being invited to these as well (and blogged about many of them on this site). At these events I was able to stay in touch with these very cool people, and meet many more as well. As a new blogger, this meant quite a lot to me, and it still continues to do so.
My principal contacts with Cathy were at these Press Club events, but she was always warm and friendly to me, as I believe she was to all. In May of 2005, she called on her site for anyone who might be able to supply a freeze-frame from her recent appearance on Dennis Miller, and I was able to provide one which she subsequently used in a widely-read post.
When I last saw Cathy, it was at the roast in her honor, last September (where I took the above photo). She remembered the Dennis Miller picture and expressed her appreciation to me. I'm glad to have contributed something even so small. I saw with my own eyes how much she contributed to the community.
Rest in peace, Cathy.
From AP:
In the Senate, the changes to the Democrats' $2.9 trillion budget outline would cover close to half the cost of extending the expiring tax cuts and were aimed at sealing support from moderates for the nonbinding but symbolically significant blueprint.
The plan, however, also would erase a $132 billion surplus predicted to appear in five years.
...The tax cut amendment, approved 97-1, won the support of every Republican and of every Democrat except Sen. Russ Feingold...
I read that and wondered, why would the Dems purposely erase a projected surplus? The AP article has little else to say about it, so I went searching for more info, and found this, at MarketWatch:
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- The Senate voted Wednesday to add around $180 billion in future tax cuts to a Democratic budget blueprint while also boosting spending on healthcare program for children, ignoring a pledge to offset new tax relief with offsets elsewhere in the fiscal blueprint.
The amendment to the budget plan passed the Senate 97-1.
...the Democratic budget plan brought to the Senate floor this week is currently projected to produce a surplus of $132 billion in 2012.
So, is the surplus erased, as per AP, or projected, as per MarketWatch?
CBS News 8 says, erased:
...the Democratic amendment, which is not expected to be followed up with binding legislation this year, would have the effect of erasing a $132 billion surplus promised under the Democrats' original budget.
But Reuters says, projected:
The budget anticipates a $132 billion surplus in 2012...
The Reuters article (same link) may contain a possible explanation: it appears that the surplus is projected, but is allocated to predetermined uses:
An amendment approved by the Senate on a vote of 97-1 would devote surplus funds to children's health care and making permanent the child tax credit and other popular tax breaks. It was added to the $2.9 trillion fiscal 2008 budget blueprint being debated by the Senate in an effort to shore up support for the plan.
"Our amendment says that the Senate's highest priority for any surplus should be American families," said Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, a Montana Democrat.
If a surplus materializes, the measure would make permanent the 10 percent income tax bracket, marriage penalty tax relief, the refundable child tax credit and the adoption tax credit.
But that's allocating how a surplus is to be spent, which seems to be a different thing from erasing it. We don't usually refer to funds spent as having been "erased."
I've sent an email to the author of the MarketWatch article to see if he can shed additional light on this.
Observations:
Update 3-23-07: Perhaps this is what AP and CBS News 8 are trying to bring to light: by pre-allocating it, the Democrats are trying to hide from the public the fact that GWB's policies have produced a projected $132B surplus. If this is it, I applaud AP and CBS News 8, and hope they will be doing more to communicate this important story to the public.
Yesterday Daniel Pipes spoke at an event presented by Pepperdine University's School of Public Policy.
A few quotes (from my handwritten notes - not expected to be verbatim):
Our goal must be nothing other than the modernizing of Islam. No other enemy is as far reaching [as that of the radical Islamists] - that was the message of 9-11. We must overhaul the Muslim world as we did Germany and Russia - we changed them.
...We must defeat them - that is, convince them that their goal is hopeless - as we did the Fascists in 1945 - as we did the Marxist-Leninists in 1991.
...We have the power. There is no great power that faces us.
...A key battlefield is the battle of the op-eds. It's a matter of our understanding, as a political culture, that we have a deep and committed enemy.
...Radical Islam's roots go to the 1920's. That is not to say there is a moderate Islam. Such a thing does not yet exist. But we can help it develop.
During the Q&A, Pipes discussed his views on the future of Europe. He stated that it appeared to him that there were two alternatives - Europe would be Islamized, or there would be civil war there to prevent Islamization and protect European culture. He anticipated that within 10-15 years, it would begin to become evident which way Europe is headed.
For most of modern media history, the reporting of scandals has been used to attract readers. From Wikipedia:
Yellow journalism is a pejorative reference to journalism that features scandal-mongering, sensationalism, jingoism or other unethical or unprofessional practices by news media organizations or individual journalists.
The term originated during the circulation battles between Joseph Pulitzer's New York World and William Randolph Hearst's New York Journal from 1895 to about 1898, and can refer specifically to this period. Both papers were accused by critics of sensationalizing the news in order to drive up circulation, although the newspapers did serious reporting as well. The New York Press coined the term "Yellow Journalism" in early 1897 to describe the papers of Pulitzer and Hearst.
The trend continues to this day. But many groups have now found that they can use this to manipulate the press - that if they shout "scandal," the press will amplify those shouts, rather than examine them.
Which brings us to the attorney firings. From Dick Morris:
THE TOTALLY PHONY US ATTORNEY SCANDAL
Meanwhile, the Democrats are trying to dominate the media - now that Bush has good news from Iraq - with the phoniest of all scandals since the Valerie Plane leak. They are outraged that Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales fired seven US Attorneys.
But these officials serve at the president's pleasure! He can fire any of them anytime for any reason. If he didn't like their hairstyle, he could bounce them. In fact, their four year terms had all expired and they were being carried on month-to-month anyway.
So what is the big deal? The Democrats (and some confused Republicans like Senator John Ensign of Nevada) say that Gonzales fired the prosecutors for political reasons - that they failed to be sufficiently aggressive in prosecuting certain cases such as voter fraud prosecutions. Well, so what? That's why we have political appointees in the US Attorney jobs. If we wanted nonpolitical figures, we would make them civil service positions. We have an appointed Attorney General and appointed US Attorneys precisely so that the president can impact their prosecutorial decisions to conform to his policy and program priorities.
But watch the Democrats use this crazy issue to attack the Administration - especially after they couldn't pass the Iraq troop withdrawal.
Emails written by Kyle Sampson, described by CBS as "Gonzales' top aide," provide relevant legal and historical information:
From: Sampson, Kyle
Sent: Sunday, January 09, 2005 7:34 PM
To: 'David G. Leitch
Subject: RE: Question from Karl Rove
Judge and I discussed briefly a couple of weeks ago. My thoughts are:
1. As a legal matter, U.S. Attorneys serve a 4-year term and may holdover indefinately thereafter (all at the pleasure of the President, of course). None of the President's U.S. Attorney appointees have served a full term yet -- the first were confirmed in September 2001, and many were confirmed during the 12 months thereafter. Although they serve at the pleasure of the President, it would be weird to ask them to leave before completing at least a 4-year term.
2. As an historical matter, U.S. Attorneys served at least until the expiration of their 4-year term, even where an election changed the party in power -- until President Clinton fired the Bush4l-appointed U.S. attorneys in 1993, nearly all of whom were in the midst of their 4-year terms. In 2001, President Bush43 fired the Clinton-appointed U.S. Attorneys, some of whom were in the midst of a 4-year term, but many of whom had completed their 4-year terms and were serving in holdover status.
The law says that U.S. Attorneys serve at the pleasure of the President - it cannot be illegal for the President to fire them. But Liberals know that if they shout "scandal" the MSM will amplify those shouts, rather than examine them.
And now the public is noticing how easily MSM can be manipulated. MSM has already convinced the majority of the public that it has a bias:
The vast majority of American voters detect the presence of political bias in the mainstream news media, according to a Zogby poll released yesterday in conjunction with the George Washington University Institute for Politics, Democracy and the Internet.
Sentiment is strong: 83 percent of likely voters think bias is "alive and well." Of that number, 64 percent said the press leans left, while slightly more than a quarter -- 28 percent -- said there was a conservative bias.
Naturally, there's a partisan divide, and a pronounced one. Among Republican respondents, 97 percent said the press was liberal. Two-thirds of political independents agreed with them, with less than a quarter of the independents -- 23 percent -- saying there was a conservative bias.
By jumping whenever anyone uses this claimed-scandal strategy, MSM is confirming in the minds of the public that it is an unreliable source of key political information. This is doing incalculable harm to MSM, as the public begins to turn away from MSM to get its news elsewhere.
In this day and age, it's not just specific groups of U.S. citizens who rely on MSM to amplify, rather than to responsibly examine, claims of outrage. It's also the radical Islamists who do so, rioting over the Mohammed cartoons, anticipating that MSM won't criticize their rationale. It's also Hezbollah, who use phony photos to fake outrage, expecting that MSM would merely reprint them, rather than question them.
But the vast number of people worldwide who have gotten into the claimed-scandal business, provide MSM with a golden opportunity to rebuild its reputation for trustworthiness and reliability. All MSM has to do is to start seriously examining every claim of outrage, rather than reporting it in a knee-jerk fashion.
The old strategy of using scandal to sell papers has reached a point of diminishing returns, and is now causing more harm than good to the mainstream media that use it.
Conclusion: At this time, when the public is turning away from MSM to get its news elsewhere, MSM must reestablish its reliability in the eyes of the public. It must do this by responsibly questioning cries of outrage - rather than by amplifying them.
NEWSWEEK COLUMNIST HOWARD FINEMAN: DEMS STILL LACK A COMPELLING VIEW OF THE WORLD
Democrats haven't fashioned a compelling (even to themselves) alternative to George W. Bush's world view.
Washington, DC – Automakers kicked off National Alternative Fuel Autos Week by announcing that there are 10.5 million Alternative Fuel Autos on the nation’s roads today, according to 2006 sales data from R.L. Polk and Co.
The Polk sales figures also reveal that an unprecedented 1.5 million Alternative Fuel Autos were sold in 2006, surpassing automakers’ sales expectations by 50 percent. Currently manufacturers are offering 60 models of Alternative Fuel Automobiles for sale including hybrid electric, ethanol-capable E-85, and clean diesel, up from just 12 models for sale in 2000. A complete list of available autos can be found at www.DiscoverAlternatives.com.
"WATCHING MOVIES ON YOUR HEAD" - VIA A WEARABLE VIDEO VISOR:
From Wired:
Where in the world is Osama bin Laden? Uh ... try checking Google Earth. After Google recently updated its satellite images of parts of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, much of the region still looked blotchy — the kind of low resolution that persists in coverage of, say, upstate New York. But several small squares (they stand out as off-color patches from 680 miles up) suddenly became as detailed as the images of Manhattan. These sectors happen to be precisely where the US government has been hunting for bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri.
Turns out, Google gets its images from many of the same satellite companies — DigitalGlobe, TerraMetrics, and others-that provide reconnaissance to US intelligence agencies.
An article in the current Rolling Stone (issue 1022) slams Cheney for being, in the opinion of RS, mean:
In fact, per RS, he's even "meaner now than he ever was." So it would be reasonable to at least infer that Rolling Stone is opposed to meanness. RS, one might infer, hews to a reasonable, calm, point of view, that is never mean.
That's why it seems so jarring to see the table of contents entry for this same article:
They're using his name as a four-letter word, and making a joke of doing so. They're not only being rude and mean, they think it's funny.
So what is with this double standard? How is it reasonable to criticize Cheney for doing something that they themselves like to do?
