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00Publius Contributor - Democrats/Leftists - Elections - Media Bias - President - Society/Culture - Warner Todd Huston

WaPo: As Obama Makes Gaffe After Gaffe, Let’s Talk About McCain’s ‘Flubs’

July 25, 2008 by

-By Warner Todd Huston

Remember when McCain said that he had visited all 57 States during his campaign? Then there was the time that McCain said “Well let me be absolutely clear. Israel is a strong friend of Israel’s.” Oh, and what about the time that McCain said “10,000 people died” in the Kansas tornadoes (death toll really 12). Crazy stuff, eh? Wait, let’s not forget when McCain said that Arkansas was a “nearby” state to Kentucky. Man was that a major flub showing a complete lack of knowledge of simple geography.

Hmm, wait a minute. I might be making a flub myself, here. Didn’t Obama make all those gaffes (and many, many more)? Why, yes, he did. So, why, amidst an ever growing list of Obama flubs and gaffes, did the Washington Post’s Howard Kurtz just pen a story titled “Is McCain’s Age Showing? Tongues Wag Over Flubs”? It’s as if the Obamessiah has spoken in flawless, if not mellifluous, English with nary a gaffe uttered throughout the campaign.

“We interrupt the nonstop coverage of Barack Obama’s overseas trip,” Kurtz writes, “to bring you some breaking whispers about John McCain.”

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00Publius Contributor - Democrats/Leftists - Elections - Media Bias - News - President - Society/Culture - Warner Todd Huston

A ‘Silence of Feminists’ Over Michelle Obama?

July 5, 2008 by 1 Comment

-By Warner Todd Huston

Mary C. Curtis is in high dudgeon. She is all twisted up inside over the seeming lack of support that feminists have for Michelle Obama. She has decided to scold all those recalcitrant feminists, too. Yes, she’s all upset over this thing wondering, “Where are Obama’s feminist defenders?” Curtis is even moaning that black women are second-class citizens, even with feminists. She is all in righteous indignation about the “The Loud Silence Of Feminists.”

Curtis is agonizing over the fact that women aren’t defending Michelle Obama. She imagines that feminists have failed women, specifically black women. Well, I agree at some point. Feminists have failed women, but the least of which is Michelle Obama. Not that Curtis seemed to notice, but femisinsts have indeed been silent on the treatment of women in the Muslim world. They have sat silent over forced weddings, beatings, female circumcision of children, rape, stoning and so-called honor killings going on not just in the Middle East, but in every western country that has a sizable Muslim population.

Still, Curtis is only interested in Michelle Obama. She warms us up with some hagiography of Michelle.

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00Publius Contributor - Democrats/Leftists - Elections - Inernet - Islam - Media Bias - News - President - Security/Safety - Society/Culture - Warner Todd Huston

WaPo After Free Republic Again, Now Over Barack-is-a-Muslim Email

June 28, 2008 by

-By Warner Todd Huston

The Washington Post published a June 28th piece geared to protect Barack Obama from the nagging rumors that he is a secret Muslim, rumors that have been circulating since 2004. The Post’s Matthew Mosk penned an attack on Free Republic, based on an Obama flak who claims she has somehow discovered that Freepers are to blame, if not initially responsible, for floating the Barack-is-a-Muslim chain email that so many millions of Americans have found in their email boxes over the last four years. But, the Washington Post’s article is so filled with assumptions and a singular desire not to really investigate the matter that it boggles the mind. Naturally, all the journalistic missteps serve to shield Barack Obama from any controversy and make all opposition seem nefarious or unhinged.

The Obama flak in question is one Danielle Allen of the Institute of Advanced Studies at Princeton. Mosk wishes to assure us that she is one smart cookie, apparently. To settle any question to the contrary, we are treated to some earnest, if over-the-top, adulation for good Doctor Allen. Allen is called a “razor-sharp, 36-year-old political theorist,” that she’s “gained valuable insight into the way political information circulates,” and that she works at the institute “most famous for having been the research home of Albert Einstein.” Mosk tells us that Allen “boasts two doctorates, one in classics from Cambridge University and the other in government from Harvard University.” The Post tells us that one winter morning Allen was “studying in her office at the Institute for Advanced Study, the renowned haven for some of the nation’s most brilliant minds.” Mosk also tells us that Allen “works alongside groundbreaking physicists, mathematicians and social scientists. They don’t have to teach, and they face no quotas on what they publish. Their only mandate is to work in the tradition of Einstein, wrestling with the most vexing problems in the universe.”

Jeeze, next Mosk will be telling us that Danielle Allen is the virtual reincarnation of Einstein himself!
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00Publius Contributor - Democrats/Leftists - Family - Immigration/Immigrants - Media Bias - News - Security/Safety - Society/Culture - Warner Todd Huston

Border Fence Ruins Mother’s Day for Mexican Families

May 14, 2008 by

-By Warner Todd Huston

If you are looking for an eyerolling, maudlin Mother’s Day story, you don’t have to go any farther than the pages of the Washington Post to get a doosie. You see, Ashley Surdin of the WaPo gave us a tear-jerker of a tale about how the border fence between Mexico and the United States keeps Mothers from being with their children. Yes those mean Americans and their insistence on border security hurts Mommies. To that all I can say is, Oh brother!

In fact, the WaPo is even claiming that those poor Mexican Mothers can’t put their fingers through that nasty, rotten fence to touch the tears on their baby girl’s face because if they did they would be punished by the eeeevil U.S. government. And these poor, innocent Mommies are worried that things are getting worse because the U.S. is building “more fences.”

Again, I have to say “Oh, brother.” Are these people serious with this nonsense?

Look at this schmaltz…

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00Publius Contributor - Democrats/Leftists - Elections - Media Bias - News - President - Religion - Security/Safety - Society/Culture - Warner Todd Huston

Obama’s ‘Small Town’ Slam Framed as Republican Attack By Wash. Post

April 12, 2008 by

-By Warner Todd Huston

Chris Cillizza of the Washington Post’s “The Fix” blog executed an example of political gymnastics so amazing for its twisting of reality that it boggles the mind. He actually turned comments by Barack Obama from a dissing of “small town” America to one highlighting how mean Republicans are. You heard me right. Obama’s comments had absolutely nothing to do with the GOP, yet Cillizza was somehow able to take his derogatory comments against the American heartland and turn it all into a discussion on how Republicans will attack the Democrat candidate! Talk about a bending over backwards to use an Obama gaff to attack Republicans, this one takes the cake and shows how in the tank for Obama Chris Cillizza seems to be.

So, as you may be aware by now, at an appearance in San Francisco where Obama was talking to some far left-wing California donors, he basically said that small town Americans are racist, gun-nuts who are religious fanatics and who just don’t get it.

“You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”

So, small town, Midwest America is filled with hateful religious, anti-immigrant, gun-nuts, eh Barack? How more harsh can a candidate be against people he wants to vote for him? Who can deny that this is a pretty bald and mean-spirited statement from the vaunted candidate of love and peace?
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00Publius Contributor - Democrats/Leftists - Entertainment - Media Bias - Military - News - Security/Safety - Society/Culture - Warner Todd Huston

Media Doesn’t Get Why Hollywood’s Dismal Iraq War Pics Are Flopping

March 27, 2008 by

-By Warner Todd Huston

On the 25th, the Washington Post served up a lament for Hollywood’s dismal box office returns for the many Iraq war pictures it has churned out over the last several years, wondering why they have all failed so spectacularly? The whole article amounts to the Post just not understanding why moviegoers have stayed away in droves from these dark and dismal movies. But with the anti-Military, anti-American point of view depicted in every single one of these movies, it is no surprise that Americans have ignored these self-denigrating flicks. After all, with soldiers really taking casualties on the battlefield, who wants to see a film that tells us all it’s OUR fault?

Still, the Washington Post is mystified.

After five years of conflict in Iraq, Hollywood seems to have learned a sobering lesson: The only things less popular than the war itself are dramatic films and television shows about the conflict… A spate of Iraq-themed movies and TV shows haven’t just failed at the box office. They’ve usually failed spectacularly, despite big stars, big budgets and serious intentions.

The Post then goes on to wonder if audiences are “turned off by the war, or are they simply voting against the way filmmakers have depicted it?” As the post asks that question, you’d think they are on the verge of understanding. But, this question is dropped right away as the story details one flop after another. Ridiculously, the Post seems puzzled by the fact that audiences have not just mindlessly followed into the theater the “big stars, big budgets and serious intentions” of these failed flicks and no further attempt is made in this story to explore the public’s disinterest.

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00Publius Contributor - Democrats/Leftists - Islam - Islamofascism - Media Bias - News - Religion - Security/Safety - Society/Culture - Warner Todd Huston

WaPo Editor: ‘I Want More Muslim Journalists’

March 6, 2008 by

-By Warner Todd Huston

Philip Bennett, the Washington Post’s managing editor, paid a visit to the University of California, Irvine for a little chat earlier this week. During his comments on the subject of religion and politics, Bennett claimed that the MSM should hire more Muslims because the media has too many misconceptions about Islam. Bennett told the UCI audience, “At the Post I want more Muslim readers and I want more Muslim journalists. ”One wonders how far this new understanding of Islam in the media will go for Bennett, though? Will his desire to be inclusive and to create a new politically correct understanding go as far as excusing Islamofascism as we try to better understand Islam?

The report in the Daily Pilot from Newport Beach, California also reported that the newsroom at the Washington Post was even debating whether or not they should even use the word “Islamist” because it might be too “contentious.” This WaPost debate alone does not auger as well for any better understanding as it does for overlooking the evil perpetrated in the name of Islam in favor of making believe that our understanding of them will somehow stop the violence and hate against us.

Still, I agree with Bennett that there is quite a bit of ignorance about Islam in the media and there is also a lot of confusion and questions in the minds of the general American public. The question is, is journalism really the place where these questions and misconceptions should be cleared up? Can we trust the media?

Bennett, for his part, thinks they are the ones to do the job.

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00Publius Contributor - Democrats/Leftists - Immigration/Immigrants - Media Bias - News - Society/Culture - Warner Todd Huston

Today’s Immigrants See Much Less Discrimination Than Past Minorities

March 5, 2008 by

-By Warner Todd Huston

You know, words mean things, right? That having been said, the Washington Post today employed a subtle wording in a headline that turns people who stand against illegal immigration into people who hate the immigrants themselves.

In their February 23rd piece, the Post headlined a report on illegal immigration in Maryland with a grave “Anti-Immigrant Effort Takes Hold in Md.” With that headline, you’d expect the story to be revealing Marylanders who are against a certain block of people. But, as you read the story, you’ll find that no one interviewed is saying they hate the immigrants. They are however, saying they are upset with untrammeled illegal entrance into this country. So, in the end, the story is about being pro-lawful immigration, and not about any hate for the immigrants themselves.

Even the subhead makes it seem as if the efforts of folks in Maryland to stop illegal immigration is directed at the immigrants themselves. “Grass-Roots Movement Expands Beyond Montgomery in Targeting the Undocumented,” the Post claims. Yet, again, nowhere in the story are any of those interviewed saying they are against people. What they are for is an enforcement of our laws and new laws to stop people from breaking our immigration laws. What they are against is lawlessness.

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00Publius Contributor - Democrats/Leftists - Elections - Media Bias - News - Security/Safety - Society/Culture - Warner Todd Huston

WaPost Columnist Hates Florida?

January 31, 2008 by 1 Comment

-By Warner Todd Huston

I have never seen, from a supposedly serious media establishment, a more hate filled rant against a particular state in this great country than this screed against Florida in the Washington Post. Granted, writer Libby Copeland has spewed hate filled rants in the past, but this one is particularly mean-spirited. Copeland seems to hate the elderly who’ve moved to Florida, she hates the business community there, appears to scoff at the asylum seekers from Cuba that settled there, and claims that all dreams die there. And what does it all boil down to? Al Gore’s loss in the 2000 election, naturally! At this rate, I’d suggest she not vacation in Florida in the near future after this slam on everything Sunshine State.

Ostensibly, Copeland is using the fact that Florida is seemingly the end of Rudy Giuliani’s road to the White House as the excuse for her evisceration of the state. According to Copeland, dreams are dashed in Florida just like Rudy’s were. She warns us to “Beware of the Sunshine State, Where It’s Easy To Get Burned,” and thinks that Florida’s good days are behind her, stranded in the 1970’s, “since those were the good days for Florida.”

But it is obvious, really, that Giuliani has little to do with her disgust with Florida because he makes such a brief appearance in the long hit piece. In fact, of a 16 paragraph piece, Rudy’s name only shows up in the first and the last two paragraphs. So it’s plain that current political analysis is as far from her mind as can be and that beating up on Florida is her main goal.

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00Publius Contributor - Democrats/Leftists - Media Bias - News - Security/Safety - Society/Culture - UN - Warner Todd Huston

Pining for an America That Does What Foreigners Want Her to Do

January 11, 2008 by 1 Comment

-By Warner Todd Huston

Moisés Naím who is also editor in chief of Foreign Policy magazine wants to pretend that he and his ilk love America in a Washington Post op ed. But, after reading his newest editorial, titled “A Hunger For America” where he denounces the U.S.A.’s “incompetence, recklessness and ignorance,” one can only come to the conclusion that he only loves it when America does what foreigners want her to do. In other words, he doesn’t love America at all, he only loves the interests and desires of others and using the power and money of America to their ends instead of our own. More ridiculously, he seems to pine for an America of the past, saying “the word wants America back,” proving that his real problem is just more of the kind of boring Bush Derangement Syndrome so endemic in the MSM.

Even Naím’s initial premise is flawed.

For the next several years, world politics will be reshaped by a strong yearning for American leadership. This trend will be as unexpected as it is inevitable: unexpected given the powerful anti-American sentiments around the globe, and inevitable given the vacuums that only the United States can fill.

Despite the game face of anti-Americanism out among the world of nations, there has not really been any slackening of want for America’s favor on the part of foreigners — though Naím does make that clear a little later in the piece. Further, since before the U.S.S.R. fell, the U.S. has been filling those “vacuums” the whole time. His initial paragraph makes it seem that the U.S. has been sitting idly on the sidelines since 2000. Yet, then he goes on to decry what we have done with the second paragraph of his piece making it clear that it hasn’t been the U.S.A.’s lack of involvement in the world that people will hunger for, but a change of the sort of involvement that he doesn’t like. His is a desire for U.S. involvement that he hopes will change in 2008.

This renewed international appetite for U.S. leadership will not merely result from the election of a new president, though having a new occupant in the White House will certainly help. Almost a decade of U.S. disengagement and distraction have allowed international and regional problems to swell. Often, the only nation that has the will and means to act effectively is the United States.

Notice how he pins this “return” to U.S. involvement in the world to a new president’s entrance into the White House. It isn’t that we’ve stood by doing nothing, it’s just that he doesn’t like what we have been doing. He obviously pines for the Clinton years of a foreign policy that was far more mollification for what others want than the strongly America focused policy under Bush.

Then Naím goes on to clearly make his case that he wants an America that does everyone else’s bidding, eschewing her own, as well as a U.S. that foots the bills for every little podunk nation on the globe.

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00Publius Contributor - Constitution - Democrats/Leftists - Media Bias - News - Society/Culture - The Law - Warner Todd Huston

CBS/WaPost Trots our Has Been McGovern: ‘Impeach Bush,’ ‘Worse Than Nixon’

January 8, 2008 by

-By Warner Todd Huston

Will the MSM ever give up their quest to get Bush and Cheney impeached? Seemingly, no. And this time they have trotted out one of the biggest most, irrelevant losers in American electoral history like a performing monkey ready to sing impeachment to the MSM’s organ grinding tune. The Washington Post rolls out George McGovern to beat the impeachment drum making fools of themselves doing it. McGovern gives us all the boring, ridiculous tropes of American defeatism that the left has mired themselves in since their loss in 2000, but he adds a new one to the list when he says that Bush is “worse than Nixon.”

Not content just to let the WaPost give McGovern his platform, CBS uses McGovern’s blather as a launching pad for their own advancement of the impeachment idea.

The former Democratic nominee for president who ran against a president later driven from office under threat of impeachment, today said that impeachment of President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney is “the rightful course for an American patriot.”

McGovern using the word “patriot” is nothing short of obscene.

CBS goes on to quote more from McGovern’s Washington Post editorial that he thinks “Bush and Cheney are clearly guilty of numerous impeachable offenses,” and that…

“They have repeatedly violated the Constitution. They have transgressed national and international law. They have lied to the American people time after time. Their conduct and their barbaric policies have reduced our beloved country to a historic low in the eyes of people around the world. These are truly ‘high crimes and misdemeanors,’ to use the constitutional standard.”

Oh, brother. Can anyone take this stuff seriously? Apparently, though, CBS thought it was worthy to report on and that is even sadder than this aging relic of the failed counter culture days imagining that he is still relevant.

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