"TimesLies": Neil Lewis of the Times - Get The Wax Out

How to lie if you have an agenda (from Eternity Road):

one of the subtlest of rhetorical deceptions is the presentation of a non-representative case as if it were the norm. This is often accomplished by an unjustified aggregation of cases. Consider Thomas Sowell's classic example:

Did you know that 13 million American wives have suffered murder, torture, demoralization or discomfort at the hands of left-handed husbands? It may be as rare among left-handers as among right-handers for a husband to murder or torture his wife, but if the marriages of southpaws are not pure, unbroken bliss, then their wives must have been at least momentarily discomforted by the usual marital misunderstandings. The number may be even larger than 13 million. Yet one could demonize a whole category of men with statistics showing definitional catastrophes. While this particular example is hypothetical, the pattern is all too real. Whether it is sexual harassment, child abuse, or innumerable other social ills, activists are able to generate alarming statistics by the simple process of listing attention-getting horrors at the beginning of a string of phenomena and listing last those marginal things which in fact supply the bulk of their statistics. [From The Vision Of The Anointed: Self-Congratulation as a Basis for Social Policy.]

So we have Neil Lewis of The NY Times publishing "TimesLies" by saying (via JustOneMinute):

She testified that both Mr. Cheney and Mr. Libby were intensely interested in Ms. Wilson and her husband, Joseph C. Wilson IV

But it turns out that there was no intense interest in Mrs. Wilson. Click on the link and read the transcript.

Except for 10 or 20 seconds when you recollect you told Mr. Libby and VP Cheney about Wilson’s trip and his wife’s role, you had no other discussions with either of them about Mrs. Wilson?
“Not that I recall.”

At no time during the talking points discussion, did you mention Mrs. Wilson? No.

What we have here is the editorial desire of the Times to create the impression that the Wilsons - as a couple - were the focus of the Vice President's office; that Scooter Libby was as focused on Mrs. Wilson as he was on Mr. Wilson and his lies about his trip to Niger. And this is simply false. It is as false as conflating people who murder their wives with those that have harmless spats.

There is a term for it: TimesLies.

Fighting the Borg

From the Belmont Club:

Richard Landes at the Augean Stables describes the psychological death spiral of those who have been convinced that Resistance is Futile. It works like this. Since fighting only makes things worse one submits. And the more one submits the more Resistance is Futile

[snip]

The lever is there, for anyone who dares to pull it. So what is the way out? Fearless leadership; the steady compass of one who is not afraid to lose seats in Congress and reviled on every occasion; the rock-firm hand of a man who is not afraid to lose an election to do the right thing. But if it requires that kind of sacrifice then ... Resistance is futile.

Put Em Up, Or Shut Up

Rockefeller accuses Cheney of cooking the books to get us into war. Flopping Aces reminds us of a few things:

Let's see, Rockefeller was head of the Sen Intel Com (SSCI) before the vote on war in 2002. He had seen consistent intel on Iraq for years. He came out and was even more hawkish that W ever was. He said there was unmistakable evidence Saddam was making nukes. If there is ONE person who had access to all the intel, it was Rockefeller. As soon as the vote was over, he became a dove.

We know from the Rockefeller memo that he did his 180 just for purely political reasons. He sought to divide the nation at a time of war. Me, I see that as treason, or at least action warranting a censure. From 2003 forward he demanded investigations into the intel. 2004 came around, investigation showed there was no pressure, manipulation, creation, or misuse of intel. He demanded a comparison of the pre-war claims to post-war finds. He got it, and it showed people were just plain wrong-nothing more. Then he raved that W had pressured the then SSCI Chair to stall those investigations. He's still making that claim...problem is...now he's head of SSCI. If the Phase II version 3 investigation were politically held up as this liar claims, then it would effectively have been complete in 2006 when the Phase II version 1 and version 2 were released-or at least complete now.

So where is it Senator? If VP Cheney put pressure on the previous SSCI Chairman to not release the last phase of the investigations into pre-war intel, then why don't YOU release it? Your the head of the SSCI.

Read the rest.

Is Hollywood too timid for the war on terror?

Why are the only movies on the war favorable to the Islamofascists? The FBI tried to change this, but...

But if they're hoping that their seminar will win them props from filmmakers in general — a picture or two celebrating their courageous work in the war on terror — I suspect they are going to be disappointed. In the history of our time as told by the movies, the war on terror largely does not exist.

Which is passing strange, you know. Because the war on terror is the history of our time. The outcome of our battle against the demographic, political and military upsurge of a hateful theology and its oppressive political vision will determine the fate of freedom in this century.

Television — more populist, hungrier for content and less dependent on foreign audiences — reflects this fact with shows such as "24" and "The Unit." But at the movies, all we're getting is home-front angst and the occasional "Syriana," in which "moderate" Islam is thwarted by evil American interests. But the notion that this war is about our moral failings is comfort fantasy, pure and simple. It soothes us with the false idea that, if we but mend ourselves, the scary people will leave us alone.

Street Kids Raid Poverty Summit

The wealthy poverty summiteers were having themselves a party but didn't invite the starving children of Kenya's mean streets.

So the kids came and took the food.

Dozens of street children have invaded a five-star hotel food tent and feasted on meals meant for sale at the World Social Forum in Kenya's capital.
The hungry urchins were joined by other participants who complained that the food was too expensive at the annual anti-capitalist get together.

The police, caught unawares, were unable to stop the free-for-all that saw the food containers swept clean.

The gathering in Nairobi is discussing social problems, including poverty.

A plate of food at the tent being operated by the prestigious Windsor Hotel was selling for $7 in a country where many live on less than $2 a day.

Day by Day

Hollywood Abandons Hillary, Embraces Obama

Funny.

The McCain Feingold Mischief

In his dissent on the constitutionality of the McCain-Feingold bill to gag free speech prior to elections, Scalia reminds us that our "electeds" really dislike dissent.

Here is what Scalia wrote (citations removed):

[L]et us not be deceived. While the Government's briefs and arguments before this Court focused on the horrible "appearance of corruption," the most passionate floor statements during the debates on this legislation pertained to so-called attack ads, which the Constitution surely protects, but which Members of Congress analogized to

• "crack cocaine," (remarks of Sen. Daschle),
• "drive-by shooting[s]," ... (remarks of Sen. Durbin),
• "air pollution," ... (remarks of Sen. Dorgan).

There is good reason to believe that the ending of negative campaign ads was the principal attraction of the legislation. A Senate sponsor said, "I hope that we will not allow our attention to be distracted from the real issues at hand-how to raise the tenor of the debate in our elections and give people real choices. No one benefits from negative ads.

• They don't aid our Nation's political dialog." ... (remarks of Sen. McCain). He assured the body that "[y]ou cut off the soft money, you are going to see a lot less of that [attack ads]. Prohibit unions and corporations, and you will see a lot less of that.
• If you demand full disclosure for those who pay for those ads, you are going to see a lot less of that . . . ." ... (remarks of Sen. McCain). ...
• Remarks of Sen. Cantwell: "This bill is about slowing the ad war. . . . It is about slowing political advertising and making sure the flow of negative ads by outside interest groups does not continue to permeate the airwaves"
• Remarks of Sen. Boxer: "These so-called issues ads are not regulated at all and mention candidates by name. They directly attack candidates without any accountability. It is brutal . . . . We have an opportunity in the McCain-Feingold bill to stop that . . ."
• Remarks of Sen. Wellstone: "I think these issue advocacy ads are a nightmare. I think all of us should hate them . . . . [By passing the legislation], [w]e could get some of this poison politics off television").

It's was not to get the "dirty money" out of politics that these latter day book burners passed McCain-Feingold; it was the desire to shut up the opposition. To silence the critics. To make it easier to get re-elected.

Finally a good fluorescent bulb?

I'm going to try it.

(h/t Instapundit)

Check Our Online Poll

We have added a new feature to our website: a poll. Just an experiment. Try it out and vote for your next president.

Psst: It's on the left side near the bottom.

When are Black people Black?

On this business of race and authenticity: it’s striking that the most viable black Presidential candidates each party has produced to date – Barack Obama, Colin Powell – are both almost entirely removed from the black experience in America. General Powell is less “African-American” than Jamaican-British – had he run and won, he won have been the first President to be the son of British subjects since the early 19th century. His autobiography is full of observations about the difference between his background and those of most blacks:

Why is the US military doing all the work in Iraq?

A young lieutenant offers the following parable about what the military has been called upon to do:

“So a man is in a horrible car accident. He is wheeled in to the OR, and the most elite, prestigious surgeon in the world goes to work. He operates, without rest, for 24 hours straight. All the man's organs are put back where they belong and the internal injuries are fixed. The surgeon collapses, exhausted, and calls for the suture doctor to come in and close the wounds. The problem is, the suture doctor is afraid of blood. He insists he won't come in and sew the guy up until the bleeding has stopped. The surgeon yells that the bleeding won't stop until the sutures are in, and he isn't trained to do it, isn't allowed to do it, and the suture doctor has the keys to the suture cabinet with all the supplies. Meanwhile, the man is dying on the table. Too bad, says the suture doctor, this isn't what I went to med school for, I made it clear when I came to work in this hospital that I don't like blood and only work when there isn't any danger that the patient will die. So now, the hospital is trying to train the exhausted surgeon, who hasn't slept in 36 hours, how to do sutures with different equipment, since the suture doctor doesn't like people touching the stuff in his cabinet. Welcome to Iraq....”

The Body Democratic

From Jonah Goldberg:

While Webb favors a "formula that will in short order allow our combat forces to leave Iraq," our forces in South Korea have been there for nearly six decades. Something tells me the antiwar base of the Democratic party doesn't have that sort of timetable in mind for Iraq.
So, except for the fact that the Korean War didn't end, our troops are still there, and the outcome has been the source of humanitarian and national-security nightmares, Webb's salute to Eisenhower's statesmanship really strikes home.

I AM WOMAN, HEAR ME BORE

Ann Coulter:

As long as we have revived the practice of celebrating multicultural milestones (briefly suspended when Condoleezza Rice became the first black female to be secretary of state), let us pause to note that Mrs. Clinton, if elected, would be the first woman to become president after her husband had sex with an intern in the Oval Office.

Jimmy Carter: Too many Jews on Holocaust council

The real Jimmy Carter is finally coming out of the closet. What a horrible human being.

The carefully crafted image of "ol' Jimmah" hammering nails for a Habitat House is shown to be a disgusting anti-semite,and a rather stupid one at that:

...a noted Holocaust scholar who was a Presbyterian Christian was rejected from the council's board by Carter's office because the scholar's name "sounded too Jewish."

I'm glad Jimmy received the Nobel Prize. That medal has been used as an anti-American cudgel for many years. Carter and the Nobel committee deserve each other.

Iraq In the Funhouse Mirror

What's Iraq really like? It appears some parts are like my city of Chesapeake, Virginia and parts are like South Central Los Angeles.

From what I know about the war on Islamofascism, I propose we pull out of South Central and focus on Iraq.

You think you know what Iraq is like, but if you get your news from the MSM, you're dead wrong. Read The Baghdad Report. See why you don't "get" Iraq when it's reflected in the MSM's funhouse mirror.

New and old conventional wisdom

Via Glenn Reynolds:

OLD CONVENTIONAL WISDOM: "Rumsfeld and Bush should have listened to the generals."
NEW CONVENTIONAL WISDOM: Shut up, generals.

UPDATE:

Here's more from Hugh Hewitt's blog (by Dean Barnett):

If John Warner thinks Dave Petraeus doesn’t know what he’s talking about, he should explain why that’s the case in a detailed fashion. The same goes for Susan Collins, Norm Coleman, Gordon Smith and the rest of the pro-resolution gang. But I haven’t heard a Senator from either side of the aisle explain why he or she thinks the surge will fail with anything more comprehensive than Andrew’s virtual sound byte. When General Petraeus testified in the Senate yesterday, the Senators doing the questioning were loath to engage him in a tactical debate, clearly sensing their limitations. Yet without Petraeus in the room, the same Senators promise to be uninhibited when it comes time to vote for a resolution that will say in effect that Petraeus is wrong about the tactics he is pursuing.

David Shuster: Fabulist!

Just One Minute lists the stories that MSNBC's David Shuster simply makes it up.

David Shuster: Fabulist!

Just One Minute lists the stories that MSNBC's David Shuster simply makes it up.

Video of Failed Tube (British Subway) Bombing

This is what happens when the exposives don't go off right.