Sunday Scan

Reporting Grammar-Free

One of AP's crack political reporters, Liz Sidoti, wrote this lead today:

Barack Obama scolded Democratic rival Hillary Rodham Clinton on Sunday for saying that the United States would "totally obliterate" Iran if it attacks Israel, and likened her to President Bush. Clinton stood by her comment.

Of course, Hillary said no such thing. Here's the Clinton quote:

"I want the Iranians to know that if I'm the president, we will attack Iran. In the next 10 years, during which they might foolishly consider launching an attack on Israel, we would be able to totally obliterate them."

She said, "would be able," not "would totally obliterate." Words are important and reporters -- especially reporters covering a national election -- are expected to get them right.

Done With Him

Last week, I lined up three options for Obama to consider in dealing with the Wright meltdown, from continuing what he was doing (doom!) up to a hard and complete severance. He's been following my third option, except for one thing I required for a believable clean break: "... and I assure the American people that anyone who holds beliefs like his will not be welcome in my administration."

In the same Russert/Meet the Press interview quoted above, Obama comes close:

MR. RUSSERT: You're done with him? If you're elected president, you won't seek his counsel?

SEN. OBAMA: Absolutely not.

But he follows that with babble:

Now, I think it's important to keep in mind, Tim, that I never sought his counsel when it came to politics.

Stop with the "buts" if you want to leave this behind, Obama! The statement shows you still don't get it. We never thought you were sitting down with Wright to talk health care policy options; we thought you might believe some or all of what he believed about America.

Obama will never recover all the votes he's lost because of Wright, and statements like that, following a very good statement, are part of the reason why.

The Latest Import From China?

China, which previously brought us avian flu fear, is at it again:

A province in eastern China recorded 622 new cases of the intestinal virus known as enterovirus 71 on Saturday alone, the official Xinhua news agency said on Sunday.

The figure brought to 5,151 the number of people infected by the virus in Anhui province, Xinhua quoted the provincial health administration as saying. Anhui's worst hit city was Fuyang with 362 cases.

EV71 can cause hand, foot, and mouth disease, which is characterised by fever, sores in the mouth and a rash with blisters -- a common illness among infants and children but which is usually not fatal, according to the U.S. National Centre for Infectious Diseases.

There is no vaccine or antiviral agent available to treat or prevent EV71. Enteroviruses spread mostly through contact with infected blisters or faeces and can cause high fever, paralysis and swelling of the brain. (source)

But remember, they've got a state-sponsored universal health care system in China, so you know we've got nothing to worry about!

Superdelegate Watch

Here's the latest update on Dem superdelegates, courtesy of Urgent Agenda:

Ray Nagin, the monumentally incompetent mayor of New Orleans, who botched almost everything during Hurricane Katrina, has been elected a superdelegate to the Democratic national convention. This proves America is a land of second chances, and Louisiana a land of second, third, fourth, fifth and sixth.

The "democratic" Democratic party puts unusual power in the hands of hacks and incompetents. Does America really need to have the likes of Ray Nagin having extraordinary power in selecting who might be our next prez?

The World In The Hands Of Babies

There's a very interesting survey up on Stats that polls US climatologists and geophysicists on global warming. Among the findings, was this most interesting tidbit:

Overall, only 5% describe the study of global climate change as a “fully mature” science, but 51% describe it as “fairly mature,” while 40% see it as still an “emerging” science.

So let me see if I have this right. The Greenie movement, and all its calls for fundamental and costly transformations of our way of life and economy, is all based on a baby scicence that doesn't even know if what it's doing is right or not.

And the Goriac's famous rant about the debate being over? Well the practitioner sof this baby science have this to say:

However, over two out of three (69%) believe there is at least a 50-50 chance that the debate over the role of human activity in global warming will be settled in the next 10 to 20 years.

Two out of three say it's a 50/50 chance. Is that what we call a debate that's over?

Was Rev. Wright Wronged?

This evening, Rev. Jeremiah Wright breaks his silence before a sympathetic interviewer, PBS' Bill Moyers. Bobby Seale and Louis Farrahkan apparently were unavailable to interview him.

Wright's big point is that he was wronged. Here's his exposition:

Wright defended his sermons, telling Moyers, "the persons who have heard the entire sermon understand the communication perfectly ... those who are doing that are communicating exactly what they want to do, which is to paint me as some sort of fanatic."

Actually, I didn't need Wright's help to come to this point; I've thought about it quite a bit because I've seen my fair share of out of context quotes, so fairness mandates that I consider the "out of context" question here. As an example, let's look at this infamous Wright quote:

" ... and then [America] wants us to sing 'God Bless America.' No, no, no, God damn America, that's in the Bible for killing innocent people. God damn America for treating our citizens as less than human. God damn America for as long as she acts like she is God and she is supreme."

I would actually like to hear a pastor say this, if the context around the quote is that God is within his rights to withdraw his favor from America because of the millions of his little ones we have suctioned and cut into oblivion in America's abortion mills.

But that wasn't the context behind the quote. We have the context, and it is this:

"The government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law ..."

And that's why God should damn America. Any black leader who says the (white) government (deliberately) gives black drugs and passes three strikes laws as a racist tool to imprison people who should still be on the streets even though they're three-strike criminals should expect media coverage, whether they're Obama's pastor or not.

In other words, we don't have to listen to the entire sermon, or the entire 20 years of sermons when Obama (theoretically) attended the church. Rev. Wright gave us the context. And if Al Campanis can get the boot for saying blacks "may not have some of the necessities to be, let's say, a field manager, or perhaps a general manager," then Wright can certainly feel some heat for saying this.

Back to the interview:

He said his critics' motives are clear: to undermine Obama. "I think they wanted to communicate that I am unpatriotic, that I am un-American, that I am filled with hate speech, that I have a cult at Trinity United Church of Christ. And by the way, guess who goes to his church, hint, hint, hint?"

Of course Wright has been used by some to undermine Obama and the story is bigger because he is Obama's pastor. That doesn't make the statements any less outrageous and any less newsworthy however, and a great deal of the newsworthiness of this story was the shock most of America felt upon hearing Wright for the first time. News is by definition "new," and this language from a pulpit was new to most of us.

Besides, before he accuses others of exploiting him because of Obama, Wright would do well to ask himself if he did not, in fact, benefit more from Obama than he suffered from him. How many times did Wright use his famous parishioner to aggrandize his church? How many favors did he ask Obama to do? This cuts both ways, Reverend.

Finally:

But he added, "They know nothing about the church. They know nothing about our prison ministry. They know nothing about our food ministry. They know nothing about our senior citizens home. They know nothing about all we try to do as a church and have tried to do." Focusing only on the snippets, he said, "was unfair. I felt it was unjust. I felt it was untrue. I felt for those who were doing that, were doing it for some very devious reasons."

The same can be said of Hezbollah. They have "ministries" that feed and heal and educate. But they also fire rockets from Muslim civilian neighborhoods into Jewish civilian neighborhoods and send martyrs duped idiots into crowds of Jews with explosives strapped around them.

And Mussolini got the trains to run on time.

Hezbollah is not remembered for its schools; Mussolini is not remembered for his train schedules. And Wright won't be remembered by most of Americans for his outreach because it's nothing more than expected that a church the size of his would have numerous outreaches. Having them, then, does not exonerate him from his wrongs.

So you see, what's unfair is not the media focusing on the "snippets;" rather, it is unfair that Wright calls them "snippets." They are his rockets and explosive vests, so of course the media and the people will focus on them, and running crying and sniffling to broadcast's ubber-Lib will not change that one bit.

I Guess It's Not The "Commie News Network" Anymore

Pro-Beijing (i.e., pro-totalitarian) Chinese by the thousands demonstrated in front of CNN's LA office today -- but it seems they were more angry about disparaging remarks about the quality of Chinese products than about coverage of the repression of Tibet:

Up to five thousand people gathered Saturday in front of the Hollywood offices of CNN to protest disparaging remarks about China made by one of the channel's commentators, police said.

The demonstration came as pro-China protests were held across the world against what they see as disinformation of the Western media over China's recent crackdown in Tibet, which has proved a public relations disaster ahead of August's Beijing Olympics. ...

The Beijing government took CNN to task this week after outspoken commentator Jack Cafferty slammed China for exporting unsafe products, which he called "junk with lead paint," as well as Beijing's massive purchases of US securities.

"I think they're basically the same bunch of goons and thugs they've been for the last 50 years," Cafferty said of China in an April 9 broadcast.

The Chinese foreign ministry on Thursday rejected a CNN explanation that his comments -- which caused a huge outcry in China -- were aimed at the government, and not the Chinese people. (AFP)

[Idiocy disclaimer: Cafferty is a raving idiot and I get very, very nervous when I'm on the same side as him. I like the sign above: "Cafferty, do you eat with that mouth?"]

Missing, by the way, is any coverage of the event on the CNN home page or its national news page. Cover-up News Network?

The Chinese are not making any friends or influencing any people with these demonstrations -- in fact, they stink of the same sort of arrogance of Muslim thugs who tried to tell us we couldn't print cartoons despite our freedoms.

They are free to demonstrate against our government and do -- despite the fact that protests are brutally shut down in their own country. We are free to be ticked off at them if they don't like it if they ship us crap or crush the dream of freedom among their people.

Photo: LA Times

Defending Charlie And George

Memeorandum is a daily read for me, and today is no different ... well, that's not right. It's very different.

I have never seen 25 stories posted on the same topic before today, but there they are: 25 stories, all of them critical of ABC's handling of last night's debate. Here are some representative headlines:

• The Debate: A Shameful Night for US Media
• An open letter to Charlie Gibson and George Stephanapoulos
• THESE QUESTIONS ARE A DISGRACE
• The ABC News “Freak Show”

Here's the criticism in a nutshell, from E&P:

In perhaps the most embarrassing performance by the media in a major presidential debate in years, ABC News hosts Charles Gibson and George Stephanopolous focused mainly on trivial issues as Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama faced off in Philadelphia.

Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the health care and mortgage crises, the overall state of the economy and dozens of other pressing issues had to wait for their few moments in the sun as Obama was pressed to explain his recent "bitter" gaffe and relationship with Rev. Wright (seemingly a dead issue) and not wearing a flag pin while Clinton had to answer again for her Bosnia trip exaggerations.

Well, shoot, what are Charlie and George to do? Here they are employed by a dinosaur media that's trying desperately to survive, getting ready to run a debate between Tweedledee and Tweedledum.

Ask a question on health care and what do you get? No sparks, no recognizable difference between the two. Ditto for the mortgage meltdown, the war, the economy -- just two Libs with Lib ideas that are separated by fly specks and hairs' breadth.

So Charlie and George went on the Internet, maybe asking for a little help to get them started, and they found where the emotion and the meat is. Hillary making up stories, Obama being an elitist snob. And they ran with it.

As they should have.

The fact that the left is howling in unison this morning is evidence they did the right thing. Americans elect presidents for two reasons: Policy and heart. With Obama and Hillary, though, it's all heart since they're policy clones, so Charlie and George gave voters -- not leftist pundits and campaign czars -- what they needed to decide how to cast their primary vote.

We'll get to the meaty stuff after the conventions, when the two remaining candidates for the job will have very, very different answers to questions about the economy, the war and the state of our nation.

Obama-Fawning Continues At MSM

Barack Obama said something that sniffed a bit like a whopper today -- and not the hamburger kind. Not that anyone in the media bothered to question it.

The story is all over the media, from an interview Obama gave to The Advocate, a gay newspaper. In it, he says he'll do what he can to make military life better for gays, and criticizes "don't ask don't tell" thusly:

"We're spending large sums of money to kick highly qualified gays or lesbians out of our military, some of whom possess specialties like Arab-language capabilities that we desperately need. That doesn't make us more safe."

Really? We've been kicking out Arab speaking gays? I'd like a bit of verification, please.

I'm not sure about "don't tell," but reporters sure have a "don't ask" attitude about Obama. Outlets that have run the story without fact-checking the quote include CNN, the Guardian, Military.com, Town Hall, Fox News, The Boston Globe, and Stars & Stripes -- all of them, and many, many more carrying the same AP story without a question.

As it turns out, a second or two on the good ol' WWW could have given reporters an initial, iffy answer to the question, if they had thought to ask it:

The U.S. Embassy in Baghdad has only six (6) fluent Arabic speakers out of 33 who speak Arabic. Yet, despite the Bush administration’s lip-service to a need for more Arabic speakers, the U.S. military has fired over two dozen linguists for being gay: 20 were Arabic linguists, 6 were Farsi linquists. (source)

Even if the statement is true -- it's linked to a Carpetbagger Report post that links the source for the quote to The New Republic (hardly a credible source!) via a broken link that lands you on the home page, where a search for "pentagon linguists arabic" lands you nothing.) -- it's disingenuous.

The number of fluent Arabic speakers in the Baghdad embassy is a useless piece of information deliberately used to make the problem appear big because the number is so small. But there are linguists elsewhere besides the embassy, from Forward Operating Bases to Central Command to the NSA.

But at least I asked the question. I thought the days when reporters grabbed the news releases from the candidates and ran them without a question ended with Watergate. But I guess that only goes for Republicans.

Sunday Scan

Dith Pram, Journo-Hero, Dies

The world would have learned what Pol Pot did in Cambodia -- killing 2 million of its 7 million people -- without Dith Pran, but the former NYT translator carried the story to the world so effectively that it's hard to imagine the story without him.

Dith (Cambodians do last names first) created the term "killing fields" as he survived the horror for five years, and brought us story through The Killing Fields. He survived Pol Pot, but not pancreatic cancer, and there's a loving obit in the NYT, where he became a photographer.

There's a quote in the AP story on Dith that I really liked. It didn't make the NYT story; I think you'll understand why:

He was "the most patriotic American photographer I've ever met, always talking about how he loves America," said Associated Press photographer Paul Sakuma, who knew Dith through their work with the Asian American Journalists Association.

When you can experience America after living through what happens if countries are left to Communists -- particularly crazy Communists in Cambodia's case -- it's hard not to be patriotic.

Non-Story Of The Day

I bring you the Hooters Girls only to make a point: Some political news stories only exist because of big boobs in tight T-shirts, like this one from the Merc News:

It's a pretty safe bet Assemblyman Joe Coto won't be patronizing Hooters anymore.

"You're going to get me in trouble," Coto, D-San Jose, quipped last week, after IA inquired about the most interesting line item on his campaign expense report for late 2007.

The item on page 73 shows a $319.13 "meeting" at a Hooters restaurant in Sacramento, an eatery more famous for cleavage than cuisine thanks to the "Hooters Girls." That's what the attention-loving company calls the young women who dress in tight white tops and skimpy orange shorts while serving burgers, fried chicken and beer to drooling customers.

So what's Coto - a well-dressed, married man, a former superintendent for the East Side Union High School District - doing eating at a place like Hooters?

I am definitely not a Hooters fan -- I'm deeply suspicious of a restaurant that has to rely on sex for customers; it makes me question the quality of its food -- but c'mon, if an elected wants to eat there, it's not like he's spending campaign funds for crack and lap dances.

But here's how desperate the media is to titillate: Coto's Hooters bill was for carry-out for an office dinner, not for table service. Even thought they knew this, the experts in news judgment went ahead with the story anyway.

And we trust them with important stories.

Greenie Fundamentals Revealed

In the Greenie e-mag Greenbang, climate gal Dr. Kate Rowles lets down her guard and tells us what the Greenie/Warmie movement is really all about:

Greenbang: What do you think is wrong with the debate on climate change?

Dr Kate: It hasn’t really got to grips with the fundamental problem, which is that Western, industrialised lifestyles are literally unsustainable. Climate change is just one symptom of this. [The World Wildlife Federation] famously calculated that if everyone on earth were to enjoy the lifestyle of an average Western European, we would need three planet earths.

Not even the most optimistic believers in technology think that we can technofix this problem so that 6 billion people (let alone the projected 9 billion) can enjoy a western lifestyle without ecological meltdown. It follows that we urgently need to rethink what we currently mean by a ‘high standard of living’ and move away from materialistic versions of this to an understanding of quality of life that could be enjoyed by everyone, without causing environmental mayhem. This is about values, not just about technology.

I'm not "the most optimistic believer in technology" by any means, yet I think we can "technofix" the problem, because I believe in the boundless desire of man to survive and thrive ... and to adapt.

The Greenies think in terms of limits, not adaptation. To them, our future is limited, our ability to deal with change is limited, our ability to plan is limited, our intelligence is limited. Take for example the projection of a population of 9 million. China, India and Africa are responsible for most of the population growth and China and India have, through methods I hardly condone, gotten a handle on theirs. No limits to to human ability to learn and adapt.

Dreary Dr. Kate continues:

Current levels of consumption in industrialised societies are too high - as the three planet earth analysis clearly shows. This presents a major problem for current economic thinking, which is premised on growth, and which requires us all to keep consuming more, not less. Clearly we can’t grow infinitely, and consume infinitely, on a finite planet.

In other words, poor people of the world, unite! ... and give up all hope that your life will ever improve, because if the Greenies and Warmies succeed in dialing back Western creativity and growth, any hope the poor nations have for a better future is gone.

But that's OK with Dr. Kate Rowles, because if poor people live better, it's just more carbon to her.

h/t a long chain starting with What Bubba Knows, through Moonbattery and on ...

A Resounding McCain Endorsement

John McCain my not be touting this "endorsement" on his Web site -- after all, the headline is Why We Should Fear a McCain Presidency, and it is a scathing denouncement of his foreign policy. But given that it's from the Moscow Times, it's a reassurance that he might be the right man for the job.

A couple excerpts:

Driven in part by his intense commitment to the Iraq war, McCain has relied more on neoconservatives such as his close friend William Kristol, the Weekly Standard editor. His chief foreign policy adviser is Randy Scheunemann, another leading neoconservative and a founder of the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq. McCain shares their belief in what Kristol has called "national greatness conservatism." In 1999, McCain declared: "The U.S. is the indispensable nation because we have proven to be the greatest force for good in human history. ... We have every intention of continuing to use our primacy in world affairs for humanity's benefit." ...

Reflecting the neoconservative program of spreading democracy by force, McCain declared in 2000: "I'd institute a policy that I call 'rogue state rollback.' I would arm, train, equip, both from without and from within, forces that would eventually overthrow the governments and install free and democratically elected governments."

Oh, the horror!

Never Having To Say You're Sorry

Pick you're media outlet; it's all the same story. Here's BBC:

Iraqi Shia cleric Moqtada Sadr has ordered his fighters off the streets of Basra and other cities in an effort to end clashes with security forces.

He said in a statement that his movement wanted the Iraqi people to stop the bloodshed and maintain the nation's independence and stability.

I chose BBC because I was listening to it while driving home one day last week, as the fighting in Basra was just rolling out. What better source, eh?, since the Brit withdrawal from Basra had motivated Moqtada Sadr to start fighting again.

So BBC had its Basra reporter and some foreign affairs reporter from a British paper ... the Telegraph, I think ... on, talking about how this was going to be a tough fight, how strong Sadr is, how not-ready the Iraqi Army is, blah, blah, blah.

Well, I read the story about Sadr giving up in less than a week from top to bottom, and nowhere did I see an admission that they got it wrong. Again.

Another Crazy AG (Thank God!)

The Left loves to hate Bush AGs, and Michael Mukasey is no exception, maybe because he says stuff like this (in NanPo's hometown, yet!):

"Forget the liability [phone companies face]. We face the prospect of disclosure in open court of what they did, which is to say the means and the methods by which we collect foreign intelligence against foreign targets."

Whether it's demanding the closure of Gitmo so the worst terrorists in the world can be tried in our court system, or denying phone companies protection so that our technologies are laid open, the Lefties are intent on using our courts to put America at the greatest disadvantage possible in the war on terror.

Faced with enemies without and enemies within, Bush has no choice but to have a tough, no-nonsense AG. And recognizing that, the Left has no choice but to attack every AG Bush appoints.

Who Are You Embedded With

This AFP photo ran with a BBC story on the fighting in Basra today.

Apparently, AFP has a photographer embedded with the Moqtada Sadr's Mehdi Army -- which BBC refers to as "powerful," although no such qualifiers appeared when the report covered the Iraqi army forces in Basra. There's one alternative to an embedded photographer: AFP could have gotten the photo from Sadr's PR staff. Such is the nature of modern warfare.

In either case, the photo is evidence of a high degree of communication and trust between the news service of a NATO nation and a militia that is trying to throw Iraq into chaos. This up-close coverage of both sides of the battle qualifies as objective journalism, but I've never thought objectivity to be a sufficient standard for journalism because it is the standard of relativism.

If you cover both sides the same and you are objective by modern standards, but if you tell the truth about both sides, you are not, because truth requires subjective thought -- weighing, evaluating, choosing sides. So the media cover the staged PR events of the Mehdi Army, Hezbollah and Hamas and run their news releases in the name of objectivity, and consider their job well done. But the public is not served.

It's similar with weighting. A reporter can top-load a story with the quotes and details from one side, then give a few inches or seconds at the bottom of the story to present a quote from the other side, and get a thumbs up from the editor/producer for having presented an objective view. Again, the public is not served.

If the photo above were taken by an AFP photographer, he could have slammed the sniper with his camera bag and saved a good guy, but in the name of objectivity, he let the trigger be squeezed and the round be fired ... and possibly allowed an Iraqi Army or British soldier to be killed.

Ah, objectivity!

Pimped Out At MSNBC

God protect us from idiot journalists ...

... a big job, even for God.

In this MSNBC clip, David Schuster interrupts lib commentator Bill Press, who is talking about Chelsea Clinton's campaigning, and says:

But doesn't it seem like Chelsea is being pimped out in some kind of way?

Since when do the public airwaves deserve speech like this? Can't Schuster say what's on his mind -- that the Clintons are exploiting their daughter -- without bringing whoring into it?

Schuster subsequently apologized, in that smarmy, limited, disgusting new style of apology that's becoming the national norm:

Some people have taken it literally. To the extent people feel I was being pejorative, I apologize for that.

What would be so hard about saying, "I'm sorry I used that word. It wasn't appropriate, it was pejorative, and I apologize to Chelsea Clinton, the Clinton campaign and our viewers." That's an apology that's worth uttering; Schuster's actually makes matters worse.

That said, the Clinton campaign apparently is using Chelsea in unseemly ways -- as Schuster explains before getting to his apology. He states that the Clinton's are using her to call super-delegates, "the unseemly side of politics."

And indeed it is. Words fail me ... Exploitative? Manipulative? Unconscionable? Clintonesque? Yes, that's it.

By happy coincidence, my Demotivator Calendar from Despair.com just happens to have as its February theme exactly the image and phrase that captures the Clintons:


As it says, it's best to avoid standing directly between a competitive jerk and his goals ... be the jerk a campaigning Clinton or a self-aggrandizing cable news reporter.

Bludgeoning Big Oil With Katrina

It comes as a shock to no one that Greenies, Warmies and the hodge-podge of progress-haters like to tag humans with blame every time a natural disaster hits. I can see the headline:

Asteroid Rushes to Earth:
SUVs Blamed

Today there's a headline over an AP story that's not quite as extreme, but is definitely from the same school of attack journalism:

Did oil canals worsen
Katrina's effects?

It's a legitimate question to ask what the 10,000 miles of canals dug years ago through the Louisiana marshes have done to the area's environment. At a minimum, the canals have changed saltwater-freshwater dynamics and caused dredged materials to be piled as fill on surrounding marshland.

Sensible study of these matters could lead to a plan that would rectify past damages, prevent future damages, while still allowing the benefits of the oil canals to be realized.

Oops. Did I say "benefits?" Nowhere in the 48-paragraph story does the reporter, Cain Burdeau, detail why the canals were built, how they're used or what the Louisiana economy would be like without them. And nowhere does he contrast the regulatory environment today with what it was when the canals were dug, leaving the impression that nothing's changed.

Burdeau doesn't even allow the oil industry to open its mouth until paragraph 41, and then it's a couple quick paragraphs clipped onto the end of the story. According to the story, the oil industry doesn't provide anything useful anyway; rather, it is just "'sucking out of the ground so much oil and gas."

Burdeau says the oil industry is dodging criticism because of a big PR campaign -- not because they provide a lot of benefit and have changed due to intensive regulation -- so he and others are launching their own PR campaign, based on the premise "If what we've done hasn't driven them out, let's blame them for something much bigger."

Still, when politicians in Washington or Louisiana talk about Katrina guilt they blame the Corps of Engineers, global warming and the French for building a city in low-lying swamps nearly 300 years ago — but not the oil industry.

"It's the elephant at the dinner table and nobody wants to say there's an elephant there," said Luke Fontana, a New Orleans lawyer for Save Our Wetlands, one of the state's oldest grassroots environmental groups that has fought the draining of swamps and oil company activity since the 1970s.

And

[The canals] also connect an overlooked set of dots in the Hurricane Katrina aftermath: The role that some say the oil industry played in the $135 billion disaster, the nation's costliest.

The article presents not a single meteorologist to reinforce its premise -- probably because they all would have scoffed at the idea. Katrina was just too big and too nastily positioned to be bothered much by man-made affairs.

It's classic journo-crap. Find a problem no one's paying much attention to, bleed deeply over it personally, and trump up a bigger charge against it, in the hopes you've finally found the silver bullet that will kill the bad guy.

Budreau isn't a journalist; he's a pimp to the lawyers of Save Our Wetlands. Write it straight, write it honest, or get a job with the Greenies.

Kristol Kicks Off NYT Column

"Some of us would much prefer a non-liberal and non-Democratic administration," wrote William Kristol today in his first N YT column. I can see the jaws drop all over the Upper East Side

"We don’t want to increase the scope of the nanny state," he continued, "we don’t want to undo the good done by the appointments of John Roberts and Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court, and we really don’t want to snatch defeat out of the jaws of victory in Iraq." Yes, NYT readers, there really are people out here west of the Hudson who feel that way. A lot of us.

Kristol's column will be a periodic thorn in the side of most NYT readers, who will be like inveterate speeders having to attend traffic school. They'll get lessons they don't want to get, but lessons that are nonetheless good, even life-saving, for them.

The subject of Kristol's writing today is Mike Huckabee, who he extols, but not to the point of endorsing him. He posits that Huckabee could win a match-up with Obama and points out that a Huckabee/Obama race is the one most likely to bring Bloomberg into the race, to the detriment of Obama.

In the end, he notes that Republicans spent most of 2007 underestimating Huckabee, and that the Dems may spend 2008 doing the same thing. Interestingly, that's exactly what NYT readers have been doing with conservatives -- underestimating our intelligence, our positions and our potential. Now that Kristol's in the hen house, it may just start to dawn on them that their underestimating has been "misunderestimating."

Or, more likely, they'll just go on being mad at Kristol, and at us, for daring to bring such stuff up.

Politico's Thompson Play Sooo Old School

Fred Thompson did not resign after tying for third in Iowa, as The Politico said he would. Still, that couldn't keep the Web-rag from coming up with this misleading headline this morning: Resignation greets Thompson's third place.

Not that kind of resignation, dummy -- the "oh, well ... sheesh" kind of resignation. Never mind that it was Politico that started the whole resignation speculation bit anyway.

Politico needs to decide whether it's going to be a good news outlet or a goofball news outlet, and sophomoric headline tricks like this point it in the goofball direction.

The article itself makes it clear that Thompson, while worried about finances, isn't finished yet:

He asked the crowd where he needs to go next. At their shouts of “South Carolina!” Thompson nodded approvingly. Thompson’s last best shot will be in the south, where he polls significantly better than New Hampshire.

Thompson implied he might soon drop out of the race, saying, “We’ll have to look at our finance numbers.”

But there’s nothing like playing to a crowd with low expectations.

“It looks like someone’s gonna have to carry a strong conservative message, and it looks like it’s gonna be me.” The crowd went wild as if Thompson had just sworn up and down that he was sure to win.

Not in the article is any mention of the pub's Tuesday evening article predicting that Thompson would resign if he did not finish in second place. Not any inside scoop -- or confession -- detailing on how they got duped by a few opportunistic political operatives, missing the oldest political trick in the book.

How very old school of this new media outlet. My trust factor in Politico just dropped down, waaay down.

hat-tip: memeorandum; art: The Ward View

From Crisis Standpoint, Hillary Blew It

An unfortunate sidebar of being an experienced communicator is having to deal with crises -- deaths of well-known people, restaurant poisonings, corporate crimes or stupidity, natural disasters -- so I'm reading the post-hostage taking Hillary coverage with an attentive, if jaded, eye.

The media seems to think she did stellarly:

• The hostage-taking itself offered a rare, if small, genuine drama in a campaign season governed by strict schedules and scripted stump speeches.
  
  The scene was one of a woman in charge.
  
  It looked and sounded presidential,” said Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics. “This was an instance of the White House experience of this campaign. They knew how to handle this.” (Politico)
  
  
• When the hostages had been released and their alleged captor arrested, a regal-looking Hillary Rodham Clinton strolled out of her Washington home, the picture of calm in the face of crisis. (AP)

Here's what the regal, presidential Clinton did when faced with crisis: She canceled a speech in Virginia and flew home. Only after it was over did she go to New Hampshire and meet with the taken hostages.

Tactically, it was important for the hostage taker, Leeland Eisenberg, not be given the opportunity to talk to Clinton, but that did not mean she had to be miles from the scene. I seem to recall torrents of criticism directed at President Bush for not being at the scene of Katrina, but Hillary skated with laudatory references to her regal and presidential character. (I'll have none of the former, please; this is America.)

Why isn't the press demanding to know why she hid herself away in the New York suburbs instead of being there for her faithful employees in their time of need?

Why aren't they asking why she cowered or hid (using words that probably would have been applied to Bush in a similar situation) instead of being visible? She was under no personal threat.

Why isn't her senior staff being grilled? Can you imagine the questions being directed at a Karl Rove or Andy Card if the sensible pump were on the other foot?

It's not just that; it's that Hillary missed one one singular, golden opportunity to appear ... warm. Here's how it could have played out:

Upon hearing the news, Hillary cancels her speech, leaves Virginia and flies to New Hampshire. The press has not been traveling in her bus or plane, so they easily enough could have been misled by a press secretary who refuses to disclose her location but hints that it's not New Hampshire.

Once in New Hampshire -- perhaps arriving in a wig and dark glasses in an unmarked car -- she goes to a private place near the scene, where she meets with the hostages' families, giving them encouragement and strength, and talks by cell phone with law enforcement officials.

Then, when the negotiations succeed and all is well, the first person to greet her traumatized workers, under the glare of the cameras, could have been Hillary Rodham Clinton, a tear sneaking its way down her cheek, but strong, commanding and compassionate as she gives them the kind of comfort she wants to extend to all of us Americans.

(This of course assumes Hillary would be able to act like a warm, compassionate human for a prolonged period of time.)

But instead of taking any risk, she thought too much about options: What if the negotiations drag on and I miss a fund-raiser? What if it all ends horribly; do I want to be there?

Pshaw. On a risk/reward scale, this one was overwhelmingly tilted toward reward; especially if things did start going very badly and she could have been there to talk to Eisenberg.

She played it safe, took no risks, and got praised by a fawning media. Not a bad result, but if she'd played by my playbook, she could have been unbeatable.

Update: Ann Althouse writes well on the subject, too.

hat-tip: memeorandum

A Smarmy End For The YouTube Debate Format

YouTube debate outing continues unabated this morning at Free Republic and Michelle Malkin.

First was the gay general who supports Hillary. Then the "abortion girl in blue" who is an Edwards supporter. (Picture courtesy of michellemalkin.com) The Log Cabin Republican questioner is an Obama supporter. The lead toy questioner is a union activist and Edwards supporter.

Is this an outrage or simply the end of the YouTube debate format?

Most definitely an outrage is the chatter going on at Free Republic where the outting of the "abortion girl in blue" is getting quite creepy, with her Internet guts getting spread all over the blogosphere with info like this:

Blue Girl's Profile:

she listens like spring and she talks like june View all userpics
Name: cold as fire, baby, hot as ice
Text
Message: Send likespring a text message
on his/her cellphone/pager.
Website: website
Location: Arlington, Texas, United States
Birthdate: 1988-09-21
E-mail: ******* @ gmail.com [all addresses censored by C-SM]

AOL IM: ***** (Add Buddy, Send Message)
MSN Username: ******* @ hotmail.com

Bio:
******* @ l i v e j o u r n a l . c o m
journey. yes, that's her real name. female. 19. arlington, texas. liberal. vegetarian. feminist. lesbian. has an inexplicable teeny crush on joey
fatone. attending the university of texas in arlington. hoping to transfer to ut-austin in 2008. political science. aims for law school. enjoys good food. finding a great new book. watching glbt movies. and lots of shopping. was a princess in another life. future president of the united states of america.

Yes, of course Likespring opened the door to this exposure by becoming a public figure with her question, and she should know her cyber-fingerprints are easily lifted, but digging into her personal info like this seems a bit like cyber-stalking -- and with her various cyber-contact addresses now posted for all to see, she's probably in for a long bout of ugly inbox.

That's unfortunate because she probably had every right to ask the question. Nothing in the rules of the YouTube-CNN debate says questioners must be of the party that's debating that night, so there may well have been GOP questioners in the Dem debate.

"Abortion girl in blue" did not misidentify herself; she merely failed to identify her candidate of choice -- and being a GBLT supporter of the most feminine of all the Dem Prez wannabes isn't a crime. If, however, Likespring works for the Edwards campaign or cooperated with the Edwards campaign in designing and submitting the question, then it's another story. And it's a story that may turn out to be difficult to document one way or the other,

Also another story is the Log Cabin Republican questioner because he created the sense that he was a gay Republican by the way he asked his question. He is a political trickster, scum, persona non grata.

As is Gen. Keith Kerr, who, if he were an honorable man, would have stated his position in the Clinton campaign.

CNN has no excuse for not ID-ing Kerr. I traced his background in a couple clicks last night, and even this morning after his exposure, the Clinton news release listing him as a member of her GLBT task force is fifth from the top on Google:

HillaryClinton.com - Media Release
It includes people like former US Assistant Attorney General Eldie Acheson, ... Keith Kerr, retired Colonel., US Army; retired Brigadier General, ...
www.hillaryclinton.com/news/release/view/?id=2196 - Similar pages - Note this

The most cursory review by CNN staff would have turned up this news release, so either they were entirely too cavalier in their screening of questioners, or someone at CNN knew full well who Kerr was and to whom he was affiliated.

This should, I hope, spell the end of YouTube debates. As refreshing as it has been to have real people ask real questions, the system is simply too easily corrupted by unreal people asking unreal questions. Winnowing out the Kerrs is as easy enough job, but tracking down the political affiliations and sexual orientations of people like Likespring infringes on their rights and chills the political process.

With YouTube so problematic, the format simply must be dropped. We then are back to the awful format of pundits asking preened-up questions of wooden, overly trained candidates, all to the detriment of the American people, who deserve a better way to evaluate their candidates.

I propose as an alternative a round-robin kind of debate, where two candidates are selected at random, then given five minutes in proper debate format to pound back and forth on a question from a list prepared by a neutered (not neutral) body, i.e., questions worked out by the party that's debating in concert with the media outlet that's sponsoring the debate.

Then another two candidates would get the opportunity, until every candidates has had at least two opportunities to give detailed responses under the pressure imposed by the responses of the other candidate.

It's compact, challenging and intelligent. It'll never happen.

Still No Evidence 9/11 Nuts Rule

I will never refer those who think the US government is behind the attacks on our country on September 11, 2001 as "9/11 Truthers" because from a messaging point of view, the term yields the high ground to the disgusting whackos. So, I'm not happy to pass along this bit of news:

Nearly two-thirds of Americans believe the federal government had warnings about 9/11 but decided to ignore them, a national survey found. ...

Sixty-two percent of those polled thought it was "very likely" or "somewhat likely" that federal officials turned a blind eye to specific warnings of the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon.

Only 30 percent said the 9/11 theory was "not likely," according to the Scripps Howard/Ohio University poll. (NYPost)

Of course, the poll is useless because it phrased its questions to sensationalize rather than gain understanding. It certainly doesn't show that 62% of Americans accept the insane, paranoid, anti-American rantings of the Truthers. Specifically:

• What percent of those answering yes believe a routine transmittal within the intelligence agencies may have been lost in the paperwork?
  
  
• What percentage of those answering yes believe a source that wasn't credible provided information that was ignored for seemingly good reason?
  
  
• What percentage of those answering yes are aware of the many, many threats against America made by bin Laden and others; threats that seemed like huff and puff at the time, but turned out to be significant?

Unless polls ask follow-up questions like that to discern what percentage of people who answer "yes" to the question really think that senior U.S. officials knowingly allowed 3,000 people to die because it furthered their foreign policy and personal wealth objectives, and that the legions of operatives required to carry out the diabolical scheme have remained silent, we will not know what percentage of Americans have sadly fallen into the grip of the Truthers.

Designing polls right so they yield this level of understanding is not the exception; it's the routine. But this poll was designed by the Scripps Howard newspaper chain, so sensationalism clearly was more important than objectivity.

Scripps Howard has not posted a link to the survey instrument itself, which used to be fairly routine, but now stands out as particularly guarded and lacking transparency. If we dig deep into the Scripps Howard coverage of the poll, we find down in paragraph nine that "16 percent of Americans speculate that secretly planted explosives, not burning passenger jets, were the real reason the massive twin towers of the World Trade Center collapsed."

That's a fairly good indicator of crazed conspiracy buy-in, but the one Truther I'm friends with believes explosives were planted, but doesn't necessarily believe that the U.S. was the one planting them ... so even a 16% whacko factor may well be nothing more than poor polling resulting in overstatement.

Still, the poll undeniably shows that a significant percentage of Americans believe in anti-government conspiracies. It shows, for example, a narrow majority believes the government is aware of the real truth of the Kennedy assassination and is keeping it secret, and about a third believe the government is keeping knowledge of UFOs and aliens secret.

These likely Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich voters can never answer the question "Why?" Why would no one ever break the silence -- especially on Kennedy or Roswell after all these years? Why did Bush want war in Iraq when he didn't campaign on it?

And most important of all, why would people who have dedicated their lives to serving the most freedom-loving, most transparent government on the planet suddenly stop loving freedom and create elaborate cover-ups of crimes against the country they serve?

Don't count on Scripps Howard to provide any answers.

hat-tip: memeorandum

NYT Leaks Again, To Detriment Of War

It's a pipsqueak by comparison, but today's NY Times leak-driven story on the new Dept. of Defense planning for alliances in the tribal regions of Afghanistan is not entirely unlike the paper leaking details of the Normandy invasion during the months leading up to D-Day.

A new and classified American military proposal outlines an intensified effort to enlist tribal leaders in the frontier areas of Pakistan in the fight against Al Qaeda and the Taliban, as part of a broader effort to bolster Pakistani forces against an expanding militancy, American military officials said.

If adopted, the proposal would join elements of a shift in strategy that would also be likely to expand the presence of American military trainers in Pakistan, directly finance a separate tribal paramilitary force that until now has proved largely ineffective and pay militias that agreed to fight Al Qaeda and foreign extremists, officials said.

We're not talking a lot of U.S. troops here -- just the current 50 or so growing by "dozens." Any U.S. troops in the tribal regions of Pakistan are already at high risk of terrorist attack, and this story won't calm down the Islamists any.

Its real risk, though, is against the tribal leaders with whom we hope to ally. Until today, they were just tribal leaders under the watchful and threatening eye of Islamists, who have shown in Iraq and Afghanistan alike their eagerness to assassinate any leader who affiliates with the Americans. Now, they are potential U.S. allies.

We know that already this story has been translated and is circulating amidst al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders in Pakistan. They know the best tactic against the U.S.: Ruthlessly murder a few of the potential U.S. allies and their families, leave them beheaded in pools of blood, and let the other potential allies consider the road ahead.

Without the NYT, special ops forces could have quietly begun working with the Frontier Corps, a paramilitary force recruited from the various border tribes. Granted, their presence there would have been known soon enough, but it would have been known on our terms, not the NYT's terms.

NYT acknowledges that aspects of the new effort have already been leaked by the LA Times and WaPo. These stories dealt with increased aid to the region and did not put soldiers or their allies at risk. The NYT got the leak on the military support and joined the leak-fest to avoid being journalistically one-upped.

The story itself is straightforward and remarkably non-critical, drawing parallels to successes in Anwar that it does not question ... much:

The proposal is modeled in part on a similar effort by American forces in Anbar Province in Iraq that has been hailed as a great success in fighting foreign insurgents there.

"Has been hailed as a great success" is about as positive as you'll get in the anti-military media today. But that sentence is followed with this:

But it raises the question of whether such partnerships, to be forged in this case by Pakistani troops backed by the United States, can be made without a significant American military presence in Pakistan.

Nowhere in the story is that concern addressed again, let alone attributed to any source, named or unnamed. Who raised the question? The three-reporter team it took to break the story? Did they, in raising the question, consider that by leaking the plan and putting the military and the tribal leaders at greater risk, and that they therefore may be contributing to the need for more than a few dozen additional troops?

Who knows? All we k now for sure is that beating the LAT and WaPo is reason enough to put soldiers' lives at greater risk.

See more coverage at memeorandum.

What Should GE and Microsoft To Do With Their Libs?

The secret's out. MSNBC, we are told by its executives in a NYT article today, never sat around a conference room table with a dogma chip on their shoulders and decided it would be great to attack Bush and Cheney long enough and hard enough so that their lackluster techie news cable network would become America's liberal TV network.

Officials at MSNBC emphasize that they never set out to create a liberal version of Fox News.

“It happened naturally,” Phil Griffin, a senior vice president of NBC News who is the executive in charge of MSNBC, said Friday, referring specifically to the channel’s passion and point of view from 7 to 10 p.m. “There isn’t a dogma we’re putting through. There is a ‘Go for it.’”

As well-spun as that sounds, there's a modicum of truth to it, especially when you consider that Ann Coulter, Laura Ingraham and John Gibson were all early MSNBC on-air newsfolk.

But a funny thing happened on the way to Clinton's impeachment, as MSNBC suddenly began seeing surging viewership on a show hosted by an angry leftist by the name of Keith Olbermann. They liked the dough, and now it looks like the networks sole holdout against flaming liberalism, Tucker Carlson, is about to be shunted aside to make room for 9/11 nut and angry lesbian Rosie O'Donnell.

Giving O'Donnell airtime is a much more whacky proposition than putting Olbermann in front of a camera. He's just a run of the mill, well vocalized lib. She's a certifiable paranoid crazy.

So the co-owners of the network, GE and Microsoft, appear content that the child they birthed to appeal to geeks at the dawn of the Internet age has grown up to be a haven for rants against America and American values. That's not exactly a conventional marketing scheme.

Should we buy Whirlpool instead of GE? Should we shun Windows and Vista (as if that's possible, Apple fans notwithstanding)?

I say no, with one condition: If its owners talk as frankly about the network as the network's hosts do. Here's the not too cryptic Olbermann:

“If you go into a burger place, and you go in there for the fish, you might want the fish occasionally but it’s probably a mistake,” he said. “Could you be utterly different politically and succeed in this format? You’d basically be throwing your audience away.”

Burgers apparently being the food of the left and fish the food of the right. No MSNBC execs would talk for attribution to the Times about the network's leftist leanings. Let them admit it openly, let the corporate owners say they're pursuing the money that comes in from left field, and I'm ok with it.

If they pretend that they're just another fair and balanced news outlet (get the hint, Fox?) then I'd be concerned about giving my money to corporate liars.

Headline Readers Think Iran Doesn't Seek Bomb

The McClatchy headline and the lead are bold indeed:

Experts: No Evidence of Iranian Nuclear Weapons Program

WASHINGTON — Despite President Bush's claims that Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons that could trigger "World War III," experts in and out of government say there's no conclusive evidence that Tehran has an active nuclear-weapons program.

Even his own administration appears divided about the immediacy of the threat. While Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney speak of an Iranian weapons program as a fact, Bush's point man on Iran, Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns, has attempted to ratchet down the rhetoric.

Leftyblogs were quick to jump on this bandwagon because, after all, there is no evil in the world other than Bush:

If you listen to White House officials, Iran’s nuclear-weapons program is already a reality. There’s no hesitation on the rhetoric — the program, top administration officials say, is an unfortunate reality that demands our immediate attention. As Dick Cheney recently put it, “Our country, and the entire international community, cannot stand by as a terror-supporting state fulfills its grandest ambitions. We will not allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon.”

With this in mind, it’s probably worth taking a moment, now and again, to point out that there’s no conclusive evidence that such a program actually exists. (The crooks and liars at Crooks and Liars)

Then there's The Newshoggers with this pig-eyed view:

One of the contributing worries of people who believe that there is a significant possibility of overt US military actions against Iran before Jan. 20, 2009 is the roll-out of the propaganda and FUD factors. We have Kyl-Lieberman taking the place of the 1998 Iraq Liberation Act, we have the unfounded accusations, we have the massive hyping of potential threats built upon gossamar threads of plausibility, we have freakish exile groups stovepiping their 'intel' and we have a coterie of officials who have a long-standing hard-on for 'regime change' with power in the White House.

One of the positive repeats of that entire cycle was the McClatchy/Knight Ridder team. They were the ones who were digging around and pointing out the bullshit on weapons claims, threat assessments and intel 'sources' while the big boys in the national media reprinted official claims without any skepticism on the front page, or in the lede. McClatchy is doing it again today with an analysis of the Iranian nuclear capacity in a great article.

Beware, my friends, it appears the Leftyblogs are content to make news from headlines and leads, and not really probe into the articles they are basing their posts on. The highly suspect and blatantly anti-Bush motivations of McClatchy's headline and lead-writers notwithstanding, let's fisk a bit, shall we?

The gist of the article is that Iran is no doubt pursuing a nuclear program, but there's no evidence they're actually making bombs. Well, duh. There's not much point in making bombs until you have something to put in them, eh? And there's plenty of evidence related in the article about their efforts to do that, including:

• Seized drawings "that indicated that Iranian experts studied mounting a nuclear warhead on a ballistic missile."
• Seized plans for a deep-bored shaft "apparently designed to contain an nuclear explosion."
• A document viewed by the IAEA that showed how to produce uranium hemispheres which have no application in nuclear power plants "but form the explosive cores of nuclear weapons."
• Iran's assertions that it only has P1 centrifuges, not P2's, which are much faster, fly in the face of IAEA evidence that they do, indeed, have plans for P2s.
• Iran's assertions that they're not doing anything with their P2 plans flies in the face of proof "that Iran sought to buy thousands of specialized magnets for P2s from European suppliers."

And on and on. The McClatchy article, in totality, is a condemnation of Iran's claims that it seeks nukes only for peaceful purposes, but the Left is content to skim the headline and lead and make their own safe, anti-American conclusions.

hat-tip: memeorandum

16 Days Without A US Combat Fatality In Iraq

Corrected: See this post, which reports data that disproves this post. I apologize for the error.

A U.S. soldier died Thursday, October 27 when he was hit with small arms fire in Salah ad Din, Iraq.

This is the first combat-related New Casualty Report posted on Cent-Comm since October 11, when a release was posted on a soldier who was killed in combat operations in Baghdad.

Two weeks and two days passed between one death and the other. Did the MSM notice? Do you recall seeing a raft of stories about success in Iraq? Let's see.

Here's a CBS story ... from July. Here's a McClatchy story from September. This USA Today story is a little hard to peg; there's a note that it was updated "95d" ago, presumably in July, like the CBS story. Even this Fox News report from last Wednesday failed to note the fact.

These stories and many like them, right up to this WaPo editorial from October 11, are reporting on the general success of the surge, one measure of which has been the dramatically falling rate of combat deaths and injuries among not just US forces, but also Iraqi forces.

Have the Dems on Congress taken notice? Certainly, some of them have, but the leadership plods on in a quagmire of denial and defeatism.

Has the media noticed? Nowhere can I find a report that says that two weeks and two days went by without a single American dying in combat in Iraq. It seems like a newsworthy story ... but what would I, a former reporter who's spent 30 years in PR, know about newsworthiness?

Note: The photo at the top, from A Soldier's Blog, doesn't show a soldier grieving over a fallen comrade. It's even more touching. Here's the caption:

U.S. military police officer Brian Pacholski comforts his hometown friend and fellow officer David Borell, both from Toledo, Ohio, at the entrance of the military base in Balad, Iraq, about 30 miles northwest of Baghdad, on June 13. Borell broke down after seeing three Iraqi children who were brought to the base seeking medical help after they were injured while playing with and burning a powder that was inside a plastic bag near their farm.

These strong, tough men who break down when seeing an injured child ... how noble they are; how different from our enemy, who plant bombs on children.

Of Stonewalling and Blackwater

Bad news and snooping reporters are never greeted with welcoming arms. In my business -- high-level public relations consulting -- crises relating to bad news that my clients would rather not see are depressingly familiar affairs.

It's hard work and clients come at it from different ways, with the best using "explain" as their strategy in a word, but others going for "delay" or even "cover up." Only the last response is unethical, but neither of the last two are winners, so my clients get counsel that is based in "explaining."

Too bad the State Department isn't my client; look at this, from the LA Times today:

Even as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice defended her department's oversight of private security contractors, new evidence surfaced Thursday that the U.S. sought to conceal details of Blackwater shootings of Iraqi civilians more than two years ago.

In one instance, internal e-mails show that State Department officials tried to deflect a 2005 Los Angeles Times inquiry into an alleged killing of an Iraqi civilian by Blackwater guards.

Get it? Today's efforts by State are being undermined by poor decisions made two years ago ... reporters never forget. And agencies and corporation never remember that their emails aren't private.

"Give [the Los Angeles Times] what we can and then dump the rest on Blackwater," one State Department official wrote to another in the e-mails, which were obtained by ABC News. "We can't win this one."

One department official taking part in a chain of e-mails noted that the "findings of the investigation are to remain off-limits to the reporter." Another recommended that there be no mention of the existence of a criminal investigation since such a reference would "raise questions and issues."

The embarrassment of the moment seemed a compelling argument against disclosure in 2005, leading now to that embarrassment being compounded by stories of stonewalling and deceit by public officials.

What would have happened if State had come clean in 2005? Clearly, there would have been a scandal of sorts in 2005. But it would have been a scandal largely implicating Blackwater, not one that besmirched the administration itself.

And more important, a dozen or perhaps more people would still be alive today, because new policies would have been set in place two years earlier.

We had a case recently when a reporter went after one of our clients. He called every prior associate of the client he could find, looking for unfair business practices of some sort or another, because from the very outset he was convinced our client was a crook -- not because of anything he knew about our client, but because of his preconceived negative attitudes about the client's industry.

Of course he found stuff. You can't be a big, far-flung, successful entrepreneur for 15 years and not have some soured business relationships or flopped endeavors in your background.

We spend two weeks furiously trying to shake the reporter back to reality by putting him in touch with dozens of new sources, and getting those involved in the negative news to explain that the client was playing straightforwardly, despite whatever may have happened at the time.

In the end, the reporter remained true to form, ignoring all the facts and writing his story the way he'd set out to do it in the first place. (Sorry, no link; it's not in the client's best interest.)

About a week later, the LA Times did a story on the same client, and it was a beautiful thing -- overall quite positive, hitting most of our key messages, and none of the stuff that had so fixated the other reporter. It turned out so well in part because we were able to quickly disclose all from the outset, using the research we had pulled together for the reporter from the Daily Crapsheet.

The media live off people who never seem to learn these simple lessons and continue to fall into their trap. You would think that State -- supposedly where the really smart people go, if they're going into government -- would be far too sophisticated to try to cheat their way through the news cycle, but again and again they prove that they are no smarter -- even less smart -- than the rest of us ...

... but certainly smarter than the Kings of What Were They Thinking at FEMA, who have written a new chapter in Dealing Stoopid With The Media.

Dinosaurs Alive And Kicking In Blogosphere

The dinosaur media may be struggling ... but we'd be struggling without them.

That fact becomes clear when you look at the sources for the most cutting-edge new media. Memeorandum qualifies in that regard, with its running, nonpartisan log of the news of the day, drawn from the blogosphere, the printosphere and the real atmosphere (the broadcast media).

The site just posted its top 100 news sources; here are the top ten.

1	New York Times
2	Washington Post
3	Associated Press
4	The Politico
5	Think Progress
6	The Atlantic Online
7	The Corner
8	CNN
9	The Hill
10	CNN Political Ticker

Seventy percent of the top ten are old line media, with only The Politico, Think Progress and The Corner qualifying as new media. New media become more pronounced in the second ten, representing 60 percent of that grouping:

11	Los Angeles Times
12	The Huffington Post
13	Crooks and Liars
14	Weekly Standard
15	Captain's Quarters
16	Opinion Journal
17	Talking Points Memo
18	MSNBC
19	Firedoglake
20	michellemalkin.com

The MSM are struggling, but they're obviously continuing to perform a needed function no one has figured out how to usurp. To succeed they must first overcome their bias and become Everyman's media; only then will they be able to figure out a way to stay profitable in the face of a finely tuned and efficient new media.

Can they do it? Sometimes. Look what the LA Times is doing to use new media to stay ahead of the blogosphere in its fire coverage.