November 28, 2006

Blogometer Extra

BUSH: Twins Gone Wild

  Wonkette is positively giddy as it reports the ultimate in seediness... that the President's twin daughters, Barbara and Jenna, "are being tossed out of Argentina--not by the actual country, but by the pissed-off U.S. diplomats in Buenos Aires." 

  Joe Goldman and Rhonda Schwartz reported at ABC News' The Blotter that the U.S. embassy "strongly suggested" the young ladies end their vacay early due to security issues. This follows reports of stolen belongings, drunken revelry, and the twins "running nude in the hallway of their hotel."  The embassy is denying that it asked the twins to leave.

  AMERICAblog's John Aravosis went on a mini-rant about the Doublemints and President Bush's crappy parenting skills:

George Bush's daughters are in a developing country where American officials cannot guarantee their safety.  What does George Bush do?  Absolutely nothing.  And before anyone says this is his daughters and not Bush, bull.  He is the president of the United States.  These are his children.  They are traveling as representatives of the US whether they like it or not.  They are traveling with American Secret Service protection, whether they like it or not.  They are tying up the resources of the US Embassy whether they like it or not.  And if they get shot and killed, or kidnapped, or drugged while they are in Argentina, that will directly affect the national security of the United States because our president will be subject to blackmail or worse.

  Then again, this is the man who kept riding his bicycle while he wife was being rushed to a secure location in the face of a possible threat on her life.  So it's no surprise that George Bush couldn't give a damn about the safety of his daughters either.

  Despite the hubbub, the ladies weren't about to leave, they decided.  As Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo put it, "State Department asks Bush twins to withdraw from Argentina.  Twins opt to stay the course."  Chuckle!  But at last report from The Blotter, Babs did opt to return home.

  Which prompted Wonkette to ponder the whereabouts of the rest of the Bush administration:

So where did everybody go?  Here’s the scorecard:

George W. Bush: Estonia, even though the actual NATO summit is in neighboring Latvia.

Condoleeza Rice: Supposedly in Egypt, talking to “the Egyptians,” but there’s no news anywhere to confirm this.

Dick Cheney: Supposedly returning to United States after secret trips to Saudi Arabia and, for some reason, Ireland.

Karl Rove: Possibly murdered with rare radioactive elements; whereabouts unknown.

Bush Twins: Possibly being kicked out of Argentina.

Laura Bush: Left alone at the White House to deal with the goddamned giant Christmas tree.

  And speaking of cutting and running, Congressional Quarterly's Craig Crawford said on MSNBC that Veep Cheney "may be the next to leave the administration," Think Progress reports.  No word yet of officials asking him to go because of inebriated escapades or nude shenanigans in Argentinian hallways.

ROMNEY: Mitt And The Tecnicolor Underwear

  No, it's not the latest off-off-Broadway production taking the kids by storm, it's Andrew Sullivan at The Daily Dish discussing at length, across several postings, likely '08 presidential contender Mitt Romney's Mormon roots. 

  Sullivan claims to be "uninterested in Romney's personal religious practices," yet spends ample time mulling several issues related to the Mass. governor's faith, including his clothes.  Sullivan dug up a year-old interview in The Atlantic Monthly:

"Do you wear the temple garments?" I asked uncomfortably, referring to the special undergarments worn by members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.  (The underwear has markings denoting the covenants of the Mormon faith, and is meant to serve as a reminder of the high standards Mormons are expected to uphold.  The rules governing its wear and disposal seem as complex as those pertaining to, say, the American flag.)

He answered, "I'll just say those sorts of things I'll keep private."

  Undies aside, Sullivan brings up food for church-state-separationist thought:

I am concerned that Romney believes that America had a "divine founding".  When?  Does he mean the Declaration of Independence?  Does he mean the period when Mormons believe Jesus arrived in America and hung out for a while shortly after the resurrection?  Or when exactly?  A person's private faith is irrelevant to me.  But if it means he holds that one country on earth has a special divine founding, then that has serious ramifications for foreign policy, at the very least.  Could someone fill me in on what Romney may mean by America's "divine founding"?  Obviously Washington and Jefferson weren't gods (although Mormons believe they now could be, right?)  So what role did the Mormon God play in founding America?  This is an important question for understanding a potential president's political philosophy.  And since the theocons believe in bringing religious doctrine into the public square as a basis for political decisions, and Romney is the theocon candidate, how can they object to the dialogue?

  Sullivan also ponders race relations within the Mormon church, and cites the case of Darron Smith, an African-American, Mormon professor at Brigham Young University who was fired after writing a book exploring Mormonism's troubled racial history.

  Capping off Sullivan's slew of posts ("It's Mormon Week on the Dish!") is "the story of [LDS founder] Joseph Smith, in song," courtesy of South Park.

  Meanwhile, John Cole at Balloon Juice asks, "Can a Mormon be president," echoing Mike Allen at TIME:

Even if the church succeeds in its public relations offensive, Romney still has some explaining of his own to do, particularly to the Republican evangelical base, which now makes up nearly a third of the party’s electorate and can wield huge power in primary states, most notably South Carolina.  That’s because some Evangelicals hold the view that Mormonism is not a Christian faith.  Because Mormons acknowledge works of Scripture that are not in the Bible, believe that their prophets have received revelations directly from God and teach that God has a physical body, Evangelicals consider them heretics.  The Southern Baptist Convention lists the LDS church under Cults and Sects, along with Scientology.

  Cole adds, "Notwithstanding Romney’s recent pandering to the right with his war on gay marriage..., the base is not going to vote for Romney in a primary.  Not when there are good Christians like Sam Brownback out there--and Brownback has never been fuzzy on the issues of teh gay, stem cells, and abortion."

  He continues: "But who really knows what will happen, or how the religious right will contort to support the GOP.  After all, we learned over the past few years that torture is a Christian family value, so maybe the evangelical base is ready for a Mormon president."

  All this focus on Romney's religion, by Sullivan et al. in the mass media and blogosphere, prompted David French at Evangelicals for Mitt to respond in frustration:

Literally every major story about the Governor--and there have been quite a few over the past year--has put the "faith issue" front and center.  It is almost as if the media is doing everything it can to not simply "explore" faith differences but to literally shove those differences in our faces.  It's almost as if any public supporter of the Governor must answer burning questions about "the garment" or the Book of Mormon or mandatory tithing or some other aspect of Mormon theology and practice.

  Does this make sense?  Why are we not seeing similar questions and demands directed at Democratic supporters of Harry Reid?  After all, as the single-most politically powerful Mormon in the history of the United States, shouldn't he be getting all the religious scrutiny right now?  Why doesn't the media obsess over his faith?

  The answer is quite simple.  Harry Reid is liberal.  To be clear, I don't mean this is the sense of some sinister conspiracy.  The reality, I believe, is much more mundane--much more human. ... Simply put, the MSM knows Harry Reid and likes Harry Reid.  He's a mainstream Democratic politician.  So how can there possibly be a story about the strangeness of his faith when he's not strange at all?

  But Governor Romney, on the other hand, is something else entirely.  He's a religious conservative--the type of person that the media has stubbornly refused (or failed) to understand for the last 25 years of "religious right" political activism.  Pro-life, pro-marriage conservative politicians who locate and base many of their political stands in their religious values seem to be particularly upsetting to members of the media elite.

  Sullivan acknowledges that Romney-mulling is sure to intensify as he wraps, "I've now had more emails about Mormon underwear than gay marriage."

BLOGGERS VS. MSM: Curt & Aces' Bogus Journos

  Curt at Flopping Aces is hot on the case of what appears to be propaganda posing as news in the mainstream media.  Posting at a backup site since flooding traffic sunk his own server, he follows up on widely-picked up AP report of six Sunni Iraqis being "burned alive" by Shiites:

[I]t appears that our MSM is getting the “anarchy” stories from the enemy themselves.  That cannot be trusted.  I mean the big story yesterday was these six burned alive and now no one can find any evidence that this happened except the word of the enemy.  How many more of these stories are embellished?

  Additionals from his many updates:

Doing a search via Google I began reading the stories printed about the burned six and each and every one had one thing in common.  The only person stating that this incident happened was one Capt. Jamil Hussein.  Every news report printed this man as the source of the information. ... Since this guy's name is in every single story printed about the burning six I have to dig way down to get to older stories involving this guy. ...

  So the Baghdad police had not received reports fo this burning either?  Who in the hell is this Capt. Jamil Hussein then?  Is he part of the Iraqi police or an insurgent stringer for the AP?

  After The New York Times and The Washington Post both ran with the "burning" story, Curt contacted the U.S. military's Central Command (CENTCOM) and received this reply:

We are checking with the Iraqi Government to verify that Capt. Jamil Hussein is a legitimate Iraqi Government spokesperson.  We haven’t heard back yet.  Unfortunately, people posing as government officials often do call the media to make statements.

  We have no confirmation that this event happened; so it is very likely that this is not a legitimate source.  In addition, of the four mosques that were suppose to have been burned/destroyed at that time; we only confirmed one mosque was damaged by a fire that lasted an hour and then was extinguished with no casualties.

  "[T]hese reporters," writes Curt, "seem to be relying on stringers and others to do their reporting for them instead of going to the scene and gathering real facts."  Junkyard Blog's SeeDubya, reflecting on Curt's findings, says "[T]he worst scenario is that the Western press is negligently or carelessly (I’m not ready to believe knowingly) passing along terrorist propaganda disguised as news.  But even the best case scenario in each one involves some notable journalistic malfeasance."

  In an additional update, Curt found that "Jamil Hussein" had likely exaggerated casualities in a June incident, per a CBS article.  "Wonder if this guy is regular at KOS?" quips Curt. "His attempts to spread disinformation would fit in quite well with that crowd."

  And then Curt got word from CENTCOM that "Jamil Hussein is NOT a Police Officer nor is he employed by the Ministry of the Interior."  Curt writes:

The insurgency knows what they are doing here.  They understand the ONLY way they are going to win against us is to borrow a page out of the North Vietnamese playbook.  Namely, forcing the morale of this country down to the point where funding is withdrawn and we leave. ...

  This has been my main point all along.  The average American picks up a paper or watches 10 minutes of the evening news and believes they are well informed.  The MSM prints stories that show all this chaos and mayhem and the average American swallows it all.

  Curt and other inspired bloggers then turn their sights on the Associated Press reporter, Qais al-Bashir, who has been using Hussein as a "source."  Lorie Byrd at Wizbang! eggs them on:

I just hold a small sliver of hope that the truth will win out.  It ain't gonna happen by accident though.  It will happen when the American public demand accountability from their media.  Unfortunately they have been too busy demanding entertainment value from it to pay much attention to the other stuff -- you know, like facts and such.  So, it is up to the bloggers at this point.  Okay bloggers, let's keep the heat on them.  It looks like it's going to be a full time job.

  The frenzy finally catches the attention and ire of Michelle Malkin:

While bloggers and a few mainstream journalists questioning sloppy war coverage (see Neil Munro's devastating piece in the National Journal) continue to try and hold the MSM accountable, what are media watchdogs whose job it is to police the industry doing?

  Churning out pabulum like this, defending the use of dubious Iraqi stringers with terrorist ties.

  Journalists in the legacy press are too busy trying to write the Bush administration's obituary to notice that they are writing their own.

  MSM credibility, R.I.P.

  Not to be outdone, The Anchoress rages:

I wonder how many of our troops are being further endangered by the fakery we’re discovering here?  I wonder how many of their deaths in the coming weeks will be due to this sort of stuff? ...

  I frankly don’t know how the president had endured this non-stop game, the incessant lying and leaking, distortion and hate-mongering in the press.  I don’t know how anyone can endure it and not lose heart.  Perhaps he has.  The press is literally trying to not simply destroy the man but take down his government and surrender a military action that is important to the survival of our identity, and the West’s.  And, sadly, they seem to be succeeding.

  This cannot end well.  The government needs to slap down the press and demand some accountability.  They’ve needed to do it for a couple of years now.

  Egad!  Yet she admits, "They won’t."

  Bob Owens, a.k.a. Confederate Yankee spies a "conspiracy," too, on a somewhat lesser, though no less serious, scale.  Are Reuters editors doctoring photos again?  Yank analyzes a picture of an Iraqi woman who bears a "rather uncanny resemblance" to President Bush.  Never mind that she's grieving before a coffin:

[T]his Reuters picture has all the earmarks of a crudely-edited PhotoShop, from the rather odd smudges and apparent artifacts around the heads of the two women on the left when the photo is enlarged, to the [similarity to Bush]."

  Yank's analysis of potential fakery somehow got promoted all the way up to The Drudge Report, where its host prominently displayed the photo in question... and posed questions of his own, which Will Bunch at Attytood felt was a bunch of bunk:

Conservative bloggers showed their respect for this tragedy by...claiming that the grieving woman at top left is actually a Photoshopped version of George W. Bush in a burqa.  If the one blogger who came up with this insane idea ... had been alone out there, it would have been fairly ignorable.

  Instead, this off-the-wall theory was picked up by one of the most popular sites on the Internet, the Drudge Report... In fact, the "Bush in a burqa" story (that was the headline on the top left of the Drudge Report an hour ago) is so ludicrous that even Drudge didn't promo it for very long.  However, it was up long enough for Raw Story to catch a screen grab, which we are showing here.

  We doubt this is the last time you'll see this type of ploy.  We just feel horrible for this woman in Sadr City, who already suffered once this week with the loss of a loved one, only to suffer a second time at the hands of the 101st Fighting Keyboard Commandos, firing willy-nilly to hit a political target and not caring who gets caught in their ridiculous crossfire.

  Jesus' General heaps it on, addressing an open letter to Yankee:

Your ability to sniff out Demoslamunistofascist conspiracies never ceases to amaze me.  ...[Y]ou've delivered up evidence that Reuters is pasting Our Leader's bold and resolute image over the faces of burqa-clad mourners.

  Of course there are those who will fail to see your genius and will refer to you using word combinations like "delusional douchebag," "f**king nut job," and "Michelle Malkin."  Pay them no mind.  They are simply trying to distract you from examining the photo more closely.  They're hoping you will miss the other areas of the photo where there is obvious tampering.

  Look at the woman below Our Leader for example.  Obviously, her face has been replaced with Mel Martinez's.  And the woman on the right looks suspiciously like Junior Leader Jeb.  And what about that suspicious bulge poking out from Leader woman's back?  Could it be that Reuters photoshopped a burqa fold to hide Saddam's weapons of mass destruction.  That deserves further inspection, but I'll leave it to you since it requires someone with your imagination.

Posted by Conn Carroll at November 28, 2006 07:27 PM