John Stossel

Stealth Propaganda

An obscure 2008 academic article gained traction with bloggers over the weekend. The article was written by the head of Obama's Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, Harvard Law Professor Cass Sunstein. He’s a good friend of the president and the promoter the contradictory idea: "libertarian paternalism". In the article, he muses about what government can do to combat "conspiracy" theories:

...we suggest a distinctive tactic for breaking up the hard core of extremists who supply conspiracy theories: cognitive infiltration of extremist groups, whereby government agents or their allies ... will undermine the crippled epistemology of those who subscribe to such theories. They do so by planting doubts about the theories and stylized facts that circulate within such groups, thereby introducing beneficial cognitive diversity.

That's right. Obama's Regulation Czar is so concerned about citizens thinking the wrong way that he proposed sending government agents to "infiltrate" these groups and manipulate them. This reads like an Onion article: Powerful government official proposes to combat paranoid conspiracy groups that believe the government is out to get them...by proving that they really are out to get them. Did nothing of what Sunstein was writing strike him as...I don't know...crazy? "Cognitive infiltration" of extremist groups by government agents? "Stylized facts"? Was "truthiness" too pedantic?

Salon.com's Glenn Greenwald explains why this you should be disturbed by this:

This was written 18 months ago, at a time when the ascendancy of Sunstein's close friend to the Presidency looked likely, in exactly the area he now oversees. Additionally, the government-controlled messaging that Sunstein desires has been a prominent feature of U.S. Government actions over the last decade, including in some recently revealed practices of the current administration, and the mindset in which it is grounded explains a great deal about our political class.

... What is most odious and revealing about Sunstein's worldview is his condescending, self-loving belief that "false conspiracy theories" are largely the province of fringe, ignorant Internet masses and the Muslim world.

It's certainly true that one can easily find irrational conspiracy theories in those venues, but some of the most destructive "false conspiracy theories" have emanated from the very entity Sunstein wants to endow with covert propaganda power: namely, the U.S. Government itself, along with its elite media defenders. Moreover, "crazy conspiracy theorist" has long been the favorite epithet of those same parties to discredit people trying to expose elite wrongdoing and corruption.

It is this history of government deceit and wrongdoing that renders Sunstein's desire to use covert propaganda to "undermine" anti-government speech so repugnant. The reason conspiracy theories resonate so much is precisely that people have learned -- rationally -- to distrust government actions and statements. Sunstein's proposed covert propaganda scheme is a perfect illustration of why that is. In other words, people don't trust the Government and "conspiracy theories" are so pervasive precisely because government is typically filled with people like Cass Sunstein, who think that systematic deceit and government-sponsored manipulation are justified by their own Goodness and Superior Wisdom.

Why would we think that the course we've selected would work? Because we are weak!

The Limits of "Surge and Run", Paul Mirengoff, Powerline

The Washington Post reports on an upsurge of terrorist violence in Anbar province. On Thursday, fiive explosions in a city in the province killed at least eight people. A week earlier, twin explosions killed at least 24 people. There have also been approximately 40 attempted assassinations in Anbar province, according to the Post.

As a result, the Iraqi government has replaced the provincial police chief. This has angered the tribal leaders. They considered the police chief ineffective, but see his replacement by an army chief from Baghdad as an affront to their power.

The tribal leaders also say that members of al Qaeda in Iraq were released from local prisions after the U.S. turned them over to the Iraqi government as part of our withdrawal agreement. If true, and some Iraqi officials say it is, this would be particularly disturbing.

Who do the Iraqis think they are, Eric Holder?

This news has some interesting implications with respect to the Iraq surge and "surges" generally. First, it further undercuts the claims of leftists and other Bush administration critics that the surge was not responsible for the stunning turnaround in Anbar province that followed our change in strategy. Critics argued that internal developments in Anbar province,not the U.S. surge, were responsible for the transformation. This claim was always implausibe -- tribal leaders almost surely would not have committed to taking on al Qaeda without our support; they hadn't before we surged. It is even less plausible now that the situation has worsened following our departure. U.S. presence is down from 35 enclaves to 5, and our forces are largely confined to their base in Ramadii and rarely accompany Iraqis on operations.

Second, developments in Anbar province show that a "surge and run" strategy -- though generally preferable to its alternatives of "cut and run" or continue to lose -- is not the best approach. The best approach would have been to maintain a more substantial presence in Anbar province, to continue to accompany Iraqis on operations, and not to turn al Qaeda prisoners over to Iraq. There were, of course, political pressures both at home and in Iraq that militated against this approach. Let's hope the price for giving in to those pressures does not include a major resurgence of al Qaeda in Iraq.

Debates about the Iraq surge are largely academic at this point except to the extent they provide lessons for Afghanistan. In my view, the lesson for Afghanistan is that we should surge, but not surge and run.

President Obama has not said in so many words that we will surge and run, only that we will begin reducing our forces in July 2011 based on conditions on the ground. My guess is that, in practice, this will mean surge and run. I hope I'm wrong.

If I'm not wrong, we can expect that some of the whatever progress the surge in Afghanistan makes likely will be undone. Moreover, by sending the signal that we intend to surge and run, Obama reduces the likelihood that local forces will assist us, and thus reduces the prospects for a successful surge in the first instance.

Why Time passed Obama by

The magazine's choice for Person of the Year says it all

Rex Murphy, Globe and Mail

Time magazine picked Ben Bernanke, the chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve, as its Person of the Year. He gets the accolade for presiding over a “weak economy” that could have been “much, much weaker.” Pretty feeble. I can't imagine someone being named Athlete of the Year because while he “lost a few games” he could have lost “many, many more.”

It's a puzzling choice, even for a magazine that has previously hailed “you” as its Person of the Year. (No offence – I think “you” are pretty good, just not prince of the planet.) Some of the runners-up were pretty odd too: The Chinese Worker and Nancy Pelosi.

I suspect Time knew just as well as everybody else that the real person of the year, whether you worshipped him or were a critic, was – how could it be anyone else? – Barack Obama. Was not Barack Obama sworn in as President in 2009? Was he not – the descriptors are now bonded to his name – “the first black man to occupy the White House?” Was this not a “historic milestone?” Did he not, almost immediately, also win the Nobel Peace Prize? Was he not the predominant politico-celebrity figure of the entire world this year?

What was Time waiting for before it would name him as person of the year? Did he have to win Wimbledon with one hand tied behind his back while simultaneously directing repairs to the Large Hadron Collider?

I think Time went to the relatively faceless functionary Bernanke mainly notto name Barack Obama. Time, like a lot of its fellows in the wild world of the contemporary U.S. media, is in an awkward place with regards to Mr. Obama. Having devoted so much incense to his remarkable ascendancy, a great swath of his country's press is looking for a convenient and not too noticeable off-ramp while it – shall we say – recalibrates its enthusiasm.

It's an uncomfortable pivot from the audacity of hope to buyer's remorse. Very uncomfortable for those in the media who played the cheerleader for Mr. Obama, who skated by controversies that would have sunk other candidates or abandoned the ruthless investigations they would have pressed on less congenial candidates.

The ferocity they applied to the Republican vice-presidential candidate, Sarah Palin, in contrast with the timidity they brought to his campaign, will in time come to be seen as one of the most shameful episodes in American journalism. Not so much for what they did to Ms. Palin, but for what they neglected to do in examining the candidate for the office that really counted. In some curious way, the U.S. media's bulldogging of Ms. Palin was kind of an inverted compensation for what they weren't doing to him.

Well, the bands have stopped playing for Barack Obama. At the end of 2009, the poll numbers have dropped mercilessly. He may yet get his health reform package, but only in the teeth of great public resistance. More Americans simply don't like what he's doing with health care than do. The great “cool” of Mr. Obama – essentially all those qualities that marked him as the non-George Bush, the anti-George Bush – is wearing a little thin now that Mr. Bush is really no longer a figure in play. That cool now is seen as a troubling lack of affect, an unsettling passionlessness. What really, in his public role, captures or commands the fundamental energies of Mr. Obama? What are his core convictions and aspirations? It's very hard to tell.

His eloquence is fading, more people now find it more a trick of rhythm and cadence – a mannerism – rather than felt thought in memorable language. His recent statement to an anxious America after the Christmas Day bomb plot was flat, off-key and utterly unpersuasive. He went to Copenhagen, played the frantic for the better part of a day and came home essentially empty-handed. Hugo Chavez is mocking him in precisely the same terms as he mocked poor Mr. Bush.

Most of all, Mr. Obama has exploded his own credentials as the agent of (genuine) hope and change. The promise to remodel the essentially harsh nature of modern politics, to seek transformation in the tone and substance of public life, to end Washington's buying and selling, is seen now, and seen very reluctantly such was the real hope he inspired, as empty. His White House is as dagger partisan as Richard Nixon's.

Almost a full year into his presidency, Mr. Obama is at a dangerous point. His ability to inspire has all but departed. The novelty of his historic ascension is over. And, late though it be, there are now questions about his effectiveness. As there are also doubts about whether that magnificently cool presence – his much-touted ability to distance himself from the turbulence and passions of those around him – springs from a fear of being overwhelmed by events rather than a confidence in mastering them.

No wonder Time gave him a pass.

There are three pieces that you should read at your convenience. The first contributed by Mike Walker followed with two from the Weekly Standard. The second piece is from William Kristol and the third from Stephen Hayes. All are part of a set that reflects our current position on Foreign and National Security policies: what we see and what we don't. Question: Do you feel safer with this administration?

Where is our national security policy heading?

Mike walker

All,

You will be getting a full dose from the media regarding key unfilled jobs within our national security/defense umbrella.

Is this a bad thing?

I am not sure.

The President gets it.* He termed our defense against the attack a "systemic failure."

But who are the people nominated for the senior security jobs and what is their stand on the war against terror?

If they will not admit that the war exists then who needs them?

Are they espousing more of the Napolitano attitude that what we need is a "backward looking" defense where the goal is to be able to react to the deaths and injuries?

Are they "thoughtcrime" nominees who will continue to define success as the ability to roll the fire trucks after the attack has taken place?

If they take office what will happen to their subordinates in our national security agencies who openly profess that we are at war with a very capable and utterly ruthless enemy? What will happen to the professionals who will not buy into the “lone wolf” mindset?

Is the "Team Napolitano" era nothing more than a return to the time of Rumsfeld when dissent in the ranks was crushed by the "doublethink" dictated from the top?

We had a miraculous gift presented to us this Christmas. Not only were the lives of hundreds of innocents saved but we also got a wake-up call to redouble our defensive efforts for the future.

That means a focus on PREVENTING the deaths of innocents, not “ex poste facto” actions by first responders followed by endless investigations.

The real goal should be to not have to respond in the first place.

If the nominees do not get that then it is better to have the jobs go empty.

We will all be safer with these folks on the outside of our security agencies looking in.

Semper Fi,

Mike

*Contrary to some reporting, the President used the words war, terrorists, extremists, etc numerous times in his 27 March 2009 speech on the subject.

Napolitano: No War Here

William Kristol, Weekly Standard

It's worth reading (don't worry, it's short) Janet Napolitano's op-ed in USA Today. As if to confirm Dick Cheney'sclaim that the Obama administration doesn't understand we're at war, Napolitano never uses the word...war. Nor does she mention Islam, Yemen or Nigeria -- nor any of the details of the incident, nor the particulars of the government failures over the last few months.

Lots of op-eds ghost-written for cabinet secretaries are stupid. But this one may outdo them all in its vagueness and avoidance of substance, in its managing to be at once bureaucratic and cloying, and in speaking to the American people as if they are children. She attempts to reassure, and fails.

By the way, since this was a plot hatched overseas by people whom our intelligence agencies are listening in on and trying to bump off -- is Napolitano really the appropriate lead official? It's revealing who the White House put out Sunday -- Napolitano and press secretary Robert Gibbs. For the Obama White House, it's all spin and TSA procedures. Do we still have a CIA director? I'd heard Panetta wasn't getting along with the White House...but is he even in the loop?

....................................................................................................

Iran Burns, Obama Seeks More Engagement

Stephen Hayes

With President Barack Obama's year-end deadline to Iran just one day away, the Washington Post's Glenn Kesslerreports that the Obama administration is preparing "targeted sanctions" on Iran. But with an asterisk.

Ten months after President Obama set a year-end deadline for Iran to engage with world powers on its nuclear program, the government in Tehran has failed to respond in kind, other than an abortive gesture in the fall.

Now, in what may be a difficult balancing act, officials say the administration wants to carefully target sanctions to avoid alienating the Iranian public -- while keeping the door ajar to a resolution of the struggle over Iran's nuclear program. The aim of any sanctions is to force the Tehran government to the negotiating table, rather than to punish it for either its apparent push to develop a nuclear weapon or its treatment of its people.

So the year-end deadline for engagement is upon us and the Obama administration is carefully crafting sanctions to force...engagement.

The Iranian regime -- fragile now as never before -- continues to support terrorism, to kill US soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, to enrich uranium and to arrest and murder its own citizens. And the goal of US policy continues to be non-punitive engagement? Shameful.

Now, the Iranians are reporting that Senator John Kerry, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and shadow Secretary of State, has officially requested to visit Tehran. As Mike Goldfarb notes, there are many reasons to be skeptical of such reports from a regime in turmoil. But neither Kerry's office nor the White House has directly denied the reports -- something that would have been easy enough to do if the claims were untrue.

Is it the case that the Obama administration, rather than pivoting to the confrontational posture that Iran's intransigence requires, is simply preparing a more aggressive outreach campaign? It won't work.

As Hillary Clinton, the real Secretary of State, said on December 14: "I don't think anyone can doubt that our outreach has produced very little in terms of any kind of a positive response from the Iranians."

Even senior Obama officials understand that engagement hasn't worked. Why is it still the goal?

The Climate Change Scam: A Concise Summary

John Hinderaker, Powerline

In the wake of Climategate, common sense deniers like to say that there is lots of other evidence for global warming, in addition to that which has been debunked by the East Anglia whistleblower. Actually, however, the scientific evidence for AGW is remarkably weak. At Icecap, Lee Gerhard, geologist and reviewer for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, sums up the key scientific evidence with admirable brevity:

It is crucial that scientists are factually accurate when they do speak out, that they ignore media hype and maintain a clinical detachment from social or other agendas. There are facts and data that are ignored in the maelstrom of social and economic agendas swirling about Copenhagen. Greenhouse gases and their effects are well-known. Here are some of things we know:

• The most effective greenhouse gas is water vapor, comprising approximately 95 percent of the total greenhouse effect.

• Carbon dioxide concentration has been continually rising for nearly 100 years. It continues to rise, but carbon dioxide concentrations at present are near the lowest in geologic history.

• Temperature change correlation with carbon dioxide levels is not statistically significant.

• There are no data that definitively relate carbon dioxide levels to temperature changes.

• The greenhouse effect of carbon dioxide logarithmically declines with increasing concentration. At present levels, any additional carbon dioxide can have very little effect.

We also know a lot about Earth temperature changes:

• Global temperature changes naturally all of the time, in both directions and at many scales of intensity.

• The warmest year in the U.S. in the last century was 1934, not 1998. The U.S. has the best and most extensive temperature records in the world.

• Global temperature peaked in 1998 on the current 60-80 year cycle, and has been episodically declining ever since. This cooling absolutely falsifies claims that human carbon dioxide emissions are a controlling factor in Earth temperature.

• Voluminous historic records demonstrate the Medieval Climate Optimum (MCO) was real and that the "hockey stick" graphic that attempted to deny that fact was at best bad science. The MCO was considerably warmer than the end of the 20th century.

• During the last 100 years, temperature has both risen and fallen, including the present cooling. All the changes in temperature of the last 100 years are in normal historic ranges, both in absolute value and, most importantly, rate of change.

Contrary to many public statements:

• Effects of temperature change are absolutely independent of the cause of the temperature change.

• Global hurricane, cyclonic and major storm activity is near 30-year lows. Any increase in cost of damages by storms is a product of increasing population density in vulnerable areas such as along the shores and property value inflation, not due to any increase in frequency or severity of storms.

• Polar bears have survived and thrived over periods of extreme cold and extreme warmth over hundreds of thousands of years extremes far in excess of modern temperature changes.

• The 2009 minimum Arctic ice extent was significantly larger than the previous two years. The 2009 Antarctic maximum ice extent was significantly above the 30-year average. There are only 30 years of records.

• Rate and magnitude of sea level changes observed during the last 100 years are within normal historical ranges. Current sea level rise is tiny and, at most, justifies a prediction of perhaps ten centimeters rise in this century.

The present climate debate is a classic conflict between data and computer programs. The computer programs are the source of concern over climate change and global warming, not the data. Data are measurements. Computer programs are artificial constructs.

Public announcements use a great deal of hyperbole and inflammatory language. For instance, the word "ever" is misused by media and in public pronouncements alike. It does not mean "in the last 20 years," or "the last 70 years." "Ever" means the last 4.5 billion years.

For example, some argue that the Arctic is melting, with the warmest-ever temperatures. One should ask, "How long is ever?" The answer is since 1979. And then ask, "Is it still warming?" The answer is unequivocally "No." Earth temperatures are cooling. Similarly, the word "unprecedented" cannot be legitimately used to describe any climate change in the last 8,000 years.

SCOTT adds: The direct link to Gerhard's piece is here.

ARROGANCE, CORRUPTION, STUPIDITY

Scott Johnson, Powerline

Republicans didn't have the votes to stop the Senate's Obamacare bill this morning. But they had the better argument. Oklahoma's magnificent Senator (and Dr.) Tom Coburn spoke for a lot of us in explaining his vote against the Democrats' bill:

This vote is indeed historic. This Congress will be remembered for its arrogance, corruption and stupidity. In the year of 2009, a Congress ignored the coming economic storm and impending bankruptcy of our entitlement programs and embarked on an ideological crusade to bring our nation as close to single-payer, government-run health care as possible. If this bill becomes law, future generations will rue this day and I will do everything in my power to work toward its repeal. This bill will ration care, cut Medicare, increase premiums, fund abortion and bury our children in debt.

This process was not compromise. This process was corruption. This bill passed because votes were bought and sold using the issue of abortion as a bargaining chip. The abortion provision alone makes this bill the most arrogant piece of legislation I have seen in Congress. Only the most condescending politician can believe it is appropriate to force Americans to pay for other people's abortions and to coerce medical professional to take the lives of unborn children.

I would quibble only with Senator Coburn's attribution of "stupidity" to congressional Democrats. The House and Senate bills are indeed stupidly destructive of the best health care system in the world, and they will impose unbearable costs on the American public. But if and when a final bill is enacted next year, the Democrats will have achieved their goal of control over the medical means of life and death. This Congress will be remembered for its arrogance, corruption and tyranny as well as its staggering profligacy, all of which are well represented in the Obamacare bills.

Politico reports that the timetable for passage of a final bill has now slipped to February. Ed Morrissey and Andrew McCarthy tentatively see a ray of light in the delay. Later is better than sooner, but don't be deceived. The Democrats havethe whip hand.

Grounds for optimism exist in the opposition to the government takeover of health care that runs deep and wide. Somehow, the American people have seen through the bill of goods they are being sold despite the Obama's best efforts, the Democrats' control of the process and the unfailing assistance of their allies in the media.

Democrats count on the opposition to subside and the public to acquiesce. Yet the Roman spectacle to which Obama and the congressional Democrats have treated us will be hard to erase from our memory. It will constitute an obstacle to our pacification and a spur to our resistance.

LYING ABOUT CLIMATE CHANGE

Posted by John Hinderaker, Powerline

The despicable Al Gore features in this story of how climate alarmists have knowingly and persistently lied to support their cause (or obsession). But so do prominent scientists who presumably should be held to a higher standard. Paul Reiter, a professor of medical entomology, writes in the Spectator:

I am a scientist, not a climatologist, so I don't dabble in climatology. My speciality is the epidemiology of mosquito-borne diseases. As [Al Gore's] film [An Inconvenient Truth] began, I knew Mr Gore would get to mosquitoes: they're a favourite with climate-change activists. When he got to them, it was all I feared. In his serious voice, Mr Gore presented a nifty animation, a band of little mosquitoes fluttering their way up the slopes of a snow-capped mountain, and he repeated the old line: Nairobi used to be 'above the mosquito line, the limit at which mosquitoes can survive, but now...' Those little mosquitoes kept climbing.

The truth? Nairobi means 'the place of cool waters' in the Masai language. The town grew up around a camp, set up in 1899 during the construction of a railway, the famous 'Lunatic Express'. There certainly was water there -- and mosquitoes. From the start, the place was plagued with malaria, so much so that a few years later doctors tried to have the whole town moved to a healthier place. By 1927, the disease had become such a plague in the 'White Highlands' that £40,000 (equivalent to about £350,000 today) was earmarked for malaria control. The authorities understood the root of the problem: forest clearance had created the perfect breeding places for mosquitoes. The disease was present as high as 2,500m above sea level; the mosquitoes were observed at 3,000m. And Nairobi? 1,680m.

These details are not science. They require no study. They are history. But for activists, they are an inconvenient truth, so they ignore them. Even if Mr Gore is innocent, his advisers are not. They have been spouting the same nonsense for more than a decade. As scientists, we have repeatedly challenged them in the scientific press, at meetings and in news articles, and we have been ignored.

In 2004, nine of us published an appeal in the Lancet: 'Malaria and climate change: a call for accuracy'. Clearly, Mr Gore didn't read it. In 2000, I protested when Scientific American published a major article loaded with the usual misrepresentations. And when I watched his animated mosquitoes, his snow-capped mountain was oddly familiar. It took a few moments to click: the images were virtually identical to those in the magazine. The author of the article, Dr Paul Epstein, features high in Gore's credits.

Dr Epstein is a member of a small band dedicated to a cause. And their work gains legitimacy, not by scholarship, but by repetition. While they publish their work in highly regarded journals, they don't write research papers but opinion pieces and reviews, with little or no reference to the mainstream of science. The same claims, the same names; only the order of authors change. I have counted 48 separate pieces by just eight activists. They are myth-makers. And all have been lead authors and/or contributory authors of the prestigious [United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] assessment reports.

Take their contention, for example, that as a result of climate change, tropical diseases will move to temperate regions and malaria will come to Britain. If they bothered to learn about the subject, they would know that in a period climatologists call the Little Ice Age, when Charles II held ice parties on the Thames, malaria -- 'the ague' -- was rampant in the Essex marshes, on a par even with regions in Africa today. In the 18th century, the great systematist Linnaeus wrote his doctorate on malaria in central Sweden. In 1922-23 a massive epidemic swept the Soviet Union as far north as Archangel, on the Arctic circle, killing an estimated 600,000 people. And malaria was only eliminated from the Soviet Union and large areas of Europe in the 1950s, after the advent of DDT. So it's hardly a tropical disease. And yet when we put this information under the noses of the activists it is ignored: ours is the inconvenient truth.

That's the story of climate activism. Whenever one portion of the evidence alarmists rely on is shown to be fraudulent, the response is, "But there's lots of other evidence." Yes, and that other evidence is fraudulent, too.

Via Andrew Stuttaford at The Corner.

Slip Sliding Away...

Everything Obama has been volatile in just his first year, but I don't think we've seen anything yet!

Contribution from Mike Walker, USMC (retired)

Ernie Pyle Where Are you?

Marines,

I have been unstinting in both praise and criticism of our war efforts since 9/11 as an active participant and, upon reflection, have noted that there have been amply harsh words heaped upon our military and its leaders as well as elected officers of the highest rank, to include both President Bush and President Obama.

I am not, however, a fan of taking only a critical leading-edge tack as a few words from a 1910 speech by President Teddy Roosevelt always come to mind when feeling a bit too self assured and cocky:

"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better.. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat. "

Having seen first hand the horrors of war as a Marine, first in the former state of Yugoslavia and later during two tours in Iraq, there is a degree of humble honesty and decency that essentially ensures one's sanity and moral equilibrium in that most demandingly painful of all undertakings.

In seeking that honesty and decency, I find that our military commanders and our Presidents, both Bush and Obama, are worthy leaders. This is not to say they are ideals, or perfect, or above criticism, but as President Roosevelt said so well, they know the great devotions in complete service to our nation and will forever be, in my books, simple souls of honor.

After much searching, the same cannot be said of our media. Where is the Ernie Pyle of our generation? I believe someone is there to take up the challenge but that the media machine of today will crush them as a bug and silence anyone aspiring to his mantle in a fit of institutionalized and reactionary misjudgment.

Here is the source of my catharsis, a lead today by the AP: “Massacre at mosque shows Taliban strength.” It hit me as such a moral and ethical wrong that I could not shake lose its many offenses.

Since when did the ability to conduct a massacre deserve any other lead than one that describes the outrage? Is it a show of strength? Baloney. Is it a show of savagery? Yes. To characterize the mosque massacre as a show of strength is the moral and ethical equivalent as saying the trial of John Demjanjuk “shows Nazi strength.”

Next let us address the word “strength,” used here as a compliment. There are many words and phrases that those who have put our lives on the line in defense of our country expect to see in the US media. A complimentary use of “shows our strength” is too generous beyond hope from the US media when reporting on our men and women in combat.

In an earlier AP lead this was written: “US Marines launch offensive in Afghanistan.” No one in uniform (the lack of which on the battlefield hints at another unspoken step in civilization’s decent into savagery as led by Islamic extremists) could but laugh at the irony when comparing the two leads.

Every man and women who ever wore a uniform knows that similar verbiage blending the two leads would never be permitted. The AP would never allow: “Marine offensive Cobra Anger launched, in part, behind enemy lines ‘shows our strength’ in Afghanistan.” That type of complementary lead is reserved exclusively for our enemy, never for us.

Where is our Ernie Pyle? We deserve better.

Semper Fi,

Mike