Back when our military failed to find stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, The New York Times apologized to its readers.


Why?


Before the war, the paper wrote article after article — relying on both government and non-government sources — that assumed the presence of stockpiles. Three of its reporters even wrote a book called "Germs," in which they discussed Saddam Hussein's chemical and biological programs.


But when the stockpiles failed to appear, the paper felt used, manipulated by the "devious" Bush administration. It promised its readers greater skepticism, more scrutiny, and no more at-face-value acceptance of assertions by the Bush administration. "The problematic articles varied in authorship and subject matter," wrote the Times in 2004, "but many shared a common feature. They depended at least in part on information from a circle of Iraqi informants, defectors and exiles bent on 'regime change' in Iraq, people whose credibility has come under increasing public debate in recent weeks. … Administration officials now acknowledge that they sometimes fell for misinformation from these exile sources. So did many news organizations — in particular, this one." Quoth the Times, "Nevermore"!


But with hard-left Democratic President Barack Obama and large Democratic majorities running both the House and the Senate, the mainstream media — the ones that felt used and manipulated by the Bush administration — now purr like a contented kitten after a hearty meal.

During the debate over the $787 billion stimulus package and while preparing his budget, the President projected an average unemployment rate for 2009 of 8 percent. It now stands at 9.4 percent. Where's the criticism about "rosy scenarios"? The Chinese show more concern than do our media about our exploding debt, deficit and impending inflation and high interest rates — given our unprecedented spending/borrowing/printing of money.


The President recently repeated the assertion that the stimulus package already "created or saved" 150,000 jobs and that going forward, the package expects to "create or save" 600,000 jobs by the end of summer. How does one prove a job "saved"? And how many jobs are lost by transferring money from a taxpayer to a beneficiary?


The government now puts itself in charge of everything from running large companies, such as General Motors, to determining compensation for businesses under government control. Presidents Reagan and Bush-41 each appointed one "czar" — a "drug czar." Clinton added two more — a "health czar" and an "AIDS czar." George W. had four — dropping the "health czar" while adding one for national intelligence and one for cybersecurity. Obama has — so far — appointed some 15 "czars," including a "technology czar," a "car czar," a "pay czar" and a "Great Lakes czar." Objections or concerns about an unconstitutional seizure of power, anyone?


Where are the stories reminding us of the smashing job government does in running Amtrak or the post office?

Where are the stories contrasting Canada's move toward greater privatization of its health care system to the President's desire to move toward a Canadian model?

The President promises health insurance for the more than 40 million Americans without it. What will it cost, and who pays? The President promises a carbon tax on American businesses to reduce global warming. What's the cost, and who pays? Will it, in fact, reduce "global warming," and if it does, will the benefits outweigh the liabilities? What does it say that voters in European country after European country voted in conservatives while America voted for the most liberal president in our history?


In defending his magazine's critical coverage of the Bush administration, Newsweek editor Evan Thomas asserted that it was the media's job to "bash the President." But after Obama's election, the strident Bush-hating Chris Matthews of MSNBC evidently spoke for many in the traditional media when he said that his job as a journalist is to "make … this new presidency work."


The Pew Research Center examined the coverage of President Obama versus that of G.W. Bush and Clinton: "President Barack Obama has enjoyed substantially more positive media coverage than either Bill Clinton or George Bush during their first months in the White House, according to a new study of press coverage. Overall, roughly four out of ten stories, editorials and op-ed columns about Obama have been clearly positive in tone, compared with 22 percent for Bush and 27 percent for Clinton in the same mix of seven national media outlets during the same first two months in office."


NBC's Brian Williams, invited to tag along with the President for a day, produced a fawning, groveling, breathlessly uncritical piece. Even PBS' hyper-liberal Bill Moyers criticized the coverage, calling it "the kind of Valentine every White House press secretary yearns to hand the boss."


Despite the President's personal popularity, Americans remain sharply divided on his major economic proposals. Most oppose bailouts of financial firms and car companies. For the first time, the President's "strong disapproval" numbers equal his "strong approval" numbers.


Today we witness the greatest government intrusion into our economy in history. As these tax-and-spend, socialist, job-destroying, prosperity-restricting practices take hold, we witness another transformation.


Our traditional media switch from anti-Bush attack dog to Obama-swooning lap dog.

Did you know that only racists turned out for the recent nationwide "tea parties"?!


"Let's be very honest about what this is about," actress/comedian Janeane Garofalo said on Keith Olbermann's MSNBC show. "It's not about bashing Democrats. It's not about taxes. They have no idea what the Boston Tea Party was about. They don't know their history at all. This is about hating a black man in the White House. This is racism straight up. That is nothing but a bunch of tea-bagging rednecks."


Oh.


A few days after Garofalo's analysis of why many Americans took to the streets in protest of the Obama administration's borrowing, spending and upcoming tax hikes, I sat in the chair at my barber's shop. A black customer came in, sat down and asked me whether I watched the coverage on the tea parties.


"Some," I said.


"Well," he responded, "it looked like a Klan meeting."


"Excuse me?"


"I looked at my television," he said. "I saw a bunch of white folks. It looked like a Klan meeting."


"Tell me you're kidding."


"No, it was nothing but white people. Looked like a Klan meeting."


"Really? I sometimes go to West Angeles (a large inner-city church with a predominately black congregation). Suppose a white guy walked into a Sunday service there and said, 'Looks like a bunch of Bloods and Crips to me.'"


"That's not the same."


"Isn't it? A bunch of people — some blacks included — came together in protest over this bailout stuff. But because most of them were white, you compared it to the Klan. News flash, my friend — not all white folks belong to the Klan."


"OK, maybe you got a point."


"Maybe?" I asked. "What would you say if white people said that given President Barack Obama's 20-year relationship with his whack-job pastor, Obama is the one who's racist?"


"What? Are you calling Obama racist?"


"No, I said one could make a stronger argument about that than your argument about the 'racist' tea parties."


"But Obama's a really smart guy. He didn't know about those things Rev. Wright said."


"Oh, no? When Obama announced his candidacy for president in Springfield, Ill., Rev. Wright was supposed to deliver the invocation. At the last moment, Obama called Wright and canceled him. But Obama didn't know that his pastor was controversial?"


No response.


"And after the cancellation, Wright said something to the effect of, 'Well, once people find out what I've done, the Jews could cause Obama some problems.'"


"That still doesn't mean Obama knew about the reverend's views."


"Did you read Obama's book? The first one?"


"No."


"Obama wrote about attending the sermon where Wright talks about the 'audacity of hope.' The reverend talked about Hiroshima and Nagasaki, cities America bombed to end World War II. My dad, a Marine, was stationed on the island of Guam when we assumed Japan would have to be invaded. Instead, we ended the war by dropping those bombs — saving probably a million Japanese and American lives. Wright compared this to what happened in South Africa in 1960 in a place called Sharpeville. Do you know about Sharpeville?"


"No."


"Over 250 innocent black men, women and children were killed or wounded when the apartheid government opened fire on unarmed protestors — a lot of them shot in the back. Now, Obama attended that sermon and had no problem with Wright comparing Hiroshima and Nagasaki to Sharpeville. Outrageous! And Obama used 'The Audacity of Hope' as the title of his second book and as a slogan when he ran for president. You want it both ways. Obama is so bright, but he was clueless about the stupid ideas of his pastor."


"Well, he isn't responsible for what his reverend says or believes."


"Never said he was. We're talking about whether Obama knew that Wright thought 9/11 was about the 'chickens coming home to roost' and that Wright implied that government was behind the drug epidemic by supplying the drugs."


Again, nothing.


"Suppose John McCain attended a church whose pastor — a man he referred to as his spiritual adviser — made racist comments about blacks and other people. The press would have been all over it, and McCain wouldn't have gotten his party's nomination. And if it came out too late for that, he would have been slaughtered in the election."


"You know," he conceded, "I guess when you like somebody, you tend to make excuses for them."


"That's what I'm saying. One more point. Nobody, by the way, stopped you, as a black man, from going to one of those tea parties. You didn't have to flash a secret sign. There was no registration fee. Nobody posted guards, stopping people at the gate. You try walking into a Klan meeting."


He laughed. As I got up to leave, we shook hands.


"One small step for man," I told him. "One giant leap for mankind."


"You take care," he said.

"I am absolutely convinced (banning waterboarding) was the right thing to do," said President Obama at a recent press conference, "not because there might not have been information that was yielded by these various detainees who were subjected to this treatment, but because we could have gotten this information in other ways (emphasis added), in ways that were consistent with our values, in ways that were consistent with who we are."


Once upon a time, critics of the Bush administration's alleged used of "torture" often argue that it simply does not work. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, for example, once said, "Experts agree that you do not obtain reliable intelligence through using these tactics and you diminish our reputation in the world, which hurts the cooperation we need to collect the intelligence we need to protect the American people."


Over the objection of his CIA director, the President publicly released the so-called torture memos. They described the allegedly abusive interrogation techniques used by the Bush administration. But the President's national intelligence director, Adm. Dennis Blair, recently wrote a memo to his staff. "High value information," he wrote, "came from interrogations in which those methods were used and provided a deeper understanding of the al Qaida organization that was attacking this country." When Blair's memo was released, that quote had been deleted.


The Blair memo also said, "I like to think I would not have approved those methods in the past, but I do not fault those who made the decisions at that time (emphasis added), and I will absolutely defend those who carried out the interrogations within the orders they were given." Not exactly string 'em up, trial to follow. The document release also deleted that quote.


The CIA recently said it stands by a 2005 Justice Department memo on "enhanced interrogation" techniques — including waterboarding — used on al-Qaida leader and mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, which caused him to reveal information that allowed the government to thwart another attack. This 9/11-style attack — called the "second wave" — planned to crash a hijacked plane into a building in Los Angeles.


Former Clinton administration Deputy Attorney General and current Attorney General Eric Holder, in a 2002 interview, said, "One of the things we clearly want to do with these prisoners is to have an ability to interrogate them and find out what their future plans might be, where other cells are located." The Geneva Conventions, Holder noted, place restrictions on interrogations. Holder argued that if we want our own prisoners treated well, we should treat the detainees humanely and in a manner consistent with the Geneva Conventions. But he pointed out, "It seems to me that given the way in which (these terrorists) have conducted themselves, however, that they are not, in fact, people entitled to the protection of the Geneva Convention. They are not prisoners of war."


Who said the following?


"Although I am personally opposed to the use of torture, I have no doubt that any president — indeed any leader of a democratic nation — would in fact authorize some forms of torture against a captured terrorist if he believed that this was the only way of securing information necessary to prevent an imminent mass casualty attack." — Alan Dershowitz, op-ed piece in The Wall Street Journal, Nov. 7, 2007.


Who said the following?


"Every one of us can imagine the following scenario: We get lucky; we get the No. 3 guy in al-Qaida, and we know there's a big bomb going off in America in three days and this guy knows where it is. We have the right and the responsibility to beat it out of him." — former President Bill Clinton, Sept. 24, 2006.


Obama, after conceding that the "enhanced interrogation" techniques produced valuable and perhaps lifesaving intel, says we could have gotten it in other ways. Such as…?




Make the terrorist stand on one leg for 4 1/2 hours and sing, in Farsi, "Do the Hokey Pokey."

Tell the terrorist that Dick Cheney just flew into Pakistan for a little bird hunting.

Tell the terrorist that Osama bin Laden decided to pack it in, hired the William Morris Agency and plans to host a reality show called "Dancing With the Mullahs."

Tell him that Osama bin Laden's No. 2, Ayman al-Zawahri, has converted to Judaism.

Threaten to give him two front-row tickets to a Los Angeles Clippers basketball game.

Paste on the terrorist's prison cell ceiling a Photoshopped picture of Helen Thomas in a thong bikini.

Tell him that Cat Stevens has returned to Christianity and that Flavor Flav has become a Muslim.

Make him sit through an entire Joe Biden speech.

The campaign and election ended. Obama won. He serves as commander in chief in the real world. If a terrorist refuses to divulge information that could save hundreds, thousands, hundreds of thousands of lives, what, pray tell, "other way" does the President envision?

Quoted:
Gotta love Larry Elder.

Fox has had him on a couple of times. (A guy who actually mortgaged his house to defend the 2nd.)

He definitely does'nt buy in to the pre-paid democrat slave agenda.

Quoted:
Gotta love Larry Elder.

Fox has had him on a couple of times. (A guy who actually mortgaged his house to defend the 2nd.)

He definitely does'nt buy in to the pre-paid democrat slave agenda.

Quoted:

He's one of those guys that makes me wonder why he doesn't get more time on talking head shows, especially Fox. If only as a contributor, he's a great spokesman for conservative America.