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The Media’s silence on Benghazi

by Phantom Ace ( 195 Comments › )
Filed under Al Qaeda, Barack Obama, Censorship, Corruption, Elections 2012, Fascism, Islamic Terrorism, Liberal Fascism, Libya, Progressives, Tranzis at October 31st, 2012 - 3:00 pm

As much as Conservatives are in an uproar over the Benghazi debacle we have to be honest with ourselves. This story has not done Obama much damage politically. Despite telling ourselves the media is losing influence, the Benghazi cover up proves otherwise. Think of all Obama has gotten away with: Fast and Furious, an anemic economy, Solyndra and the Benghazi debacle. None of these have seriously damaged Obama politically. Any normal politician whether a Democrat and especially a Republican would have been sunk over any one of these issues. Obama’s staying power is due entirely to the media-industrial complex.

Where is the Benghazi media feeding frenzy?

I don’t think there’s a conspiracy at work. Rather, I think journalists tend to act on their instincts. And, collectively, the mainstream media’s instincts run liberal.

In 2000, a Democratic operative orchestrated an “October surprise” attack on George W. Bush, revealing that 24 years earlier, he’d been arrested for drunken driving. The media went into a feeding frenzy.

“Is all the 24-hour coverage of Bush’s 24-year-old DUI arrest the product of a liberal media almost drunk on the idea of sinking him, or is it a legitimate, indeed unavoidable news story?” asked Howard Kurtz on his CNN show “Reliable Sources.” The consensus among the guests: It wasn’t a legitimate news story. But the media kept going with it.

[….]

Last week, Fox News correspondent Jennifer Griffin reported that sources on the ground in Libya say they pleaded for support during the attack on the Benghazi consulate that led to the deaths of four Americans. They were allegedly told twice to “stand down.” Worse, there are suggestions that significant military resources were available to counterattack, but requests for help were denied.

If true, the White House’s concerted effort to blame the attack on a video crumbles, as do several other fraudulent claims. Yet, last Friday, the president boasted, “The minute I found out what was happening” in Benghazi, he ordered that everything possible be done to protect our personnel. That’s either untrue, or he’s being disobeyed on grave matte

4 Americans are dead and the media doesn’t care. It’s time for the Republican Party to start treating the press as an enemy entity. The Benghazi coverup should dispel any notion that the media is losing any influence. Barack Obama has a shield wall protecting him from failures that would have undermined politicians more talented than him. He is viewed as deity by the media and nothing he does will have any political effect on him. The American people do not hear about his failures and don’t care about the Bengahzi debacle because of this. Conservatives should continue to speak out about this debacle, but we need to realize it’s not doing Obama any damage.

We no longer have a free press in the country.

Tags: Benghazi Terror attack, Jonah Goldberg, Media Industrial Complex
Posted in Al Qaeda, Barack Obama, Censorship, Corruption, Elections 2012, Fascism, Islamic Terrorism, Liberal Fascism, Libya, Progressives, Tranzis | 195 Comments »

The party of “hope and change” plays the race card

by Mojambo ( 62 Comments › )
Filed under Barack Obama, Democratic Party, Elections 2012, Hate Speech, Media, Politics at August 30th, 2012 - 8:00 am

The first response to the headline is “So what else is new?”. However, it shows me that they are really worried and I strongly suspect that their internal polls are more troubling then the purported polls that show the race to be basically even.

by Jonah Goldberg

Huzzah, America, our centuries-old struggle with racism and bigotry may be coming to an end.

This news was confirmed by none other than Michael Eric Dyson, a professor of sociology and the author of 18 books on race, racism, racial history, black culture and black history. Suffice it to say, he knows a lot about prejudice and bigotry.

Yet in response to Mitt Romney’s lame joke about not needing a birth certificate to prove he was from Michigan, Dyson proclaimed, to the approval of a collection of sage pundits on MSNBC, that Romney was resorting to “the basest and the most despicable bigotry we might be able to imagine.”

MSNBC host Alex Wagner seemed to feel the same way, describing Romney’s comment as “scraping the very bottom of this sort of racist other-ist narrative.”

Just to recap, here’s what Romney said of himself and his wife: “No one’s ever asked to see my birth certificate. They know that this is the place that we were born and raised.”

[…]

Yet this is “the basest and most despicable bigotry we might be able to imagine.” Clearly, if that’s the worst we can come up with, the state of racial tolerance in America has never been better.

Within hours of Romney’s joke, the Obama campaign was trying to turn its outrage into cash. An email appeal from campaign manager Jim Messina repeated Romney’s quote and then said:

“Take a moment or two to think about that, what he’s actually saying, and what it says about Mitt Romney. Then make a donation of $3 or more to reelect Barack Obama today.”

I know some people take this ‘birther’ stuff very seriously. But I find the whole thing ludicrous. Apparently, if Romney jokes about Obama’s birth certificate, white Americans will suddenly notice the president is black. But when Obama jokes about his birth certificate — or even hawks birther-themed swag on his campaign website, it’s all in good fun.

[…]

Here in Tampa, former Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour told BuzzFeed that the Democrats are playing “the race card” in order to gin up black turnout. I’m sure that’s true, but they’re also trying to transform Romney into the ultimate unacceptable other in American politics — a bigot (and a Mormon one to boot). Still, I also have no doubt that Dyson, Edsall and others in the media eagerly hyping the race angle are sincere in their beliefs; I just think they’re wrong.

But I think both the cynical and the sincere race-obsessives fail to fully appreciate the damage they’re doing to their own cause. In 2008, the hope for many was that Obama would transcend race, moving the nation beyond the exhausting topic. Instead of a post-racial politics, our politics are saturated with ridiculous charges of racism. “No drama Obama” is instead a source of constant drama, often hyped in the most ludicrous ways.

Read the rest: Dems play the race card

Tags: Jonah Goldberg
Posted in Barack Obama, Democratic Party, Elections 2012, Hate Speech, Media, Politics | 62 Comments »

The Ideologue-in-Chief

by Mojambo ( 91 Comments › )
Filed under Barack Obama, Elections 2012 at July 21st, 2011 - 8:30 am

Obama with the help of his media allies will try to run as the pragmatist holding the fort against Republican ideologues. This is ironic because he is the most ideological and least pragmatic president’s we have ever had.

by Jonah Goldberg

“I think increasingly the American people are going to say to themselves, ‘You know what? If a party or a politician is constantly taking the position my-way-or-the-highway, constantly being locked into ideologically rigid positions, that we’re going to remember at the polls,'” President Obama said at his Friday news conference.

I know everyone is sick of hearing about the debt-limit negotiations. Lord knows I am. When I turn on the news these days, I feel like one of the passengers seated next to Robert Hays in the movie “Airplane!” By the time we get to the phrase “in the out years,” I’m ready to pour a can of gasoline over my head.

Still, regardless of how things turn out with the negotiations, what we are witnessing is the rollout of the Obama reelection campaign’s theme: Obama is the pragmatic voice of reason holding the ideologues at bay.

So it’s worth asking, before this branding campaign gels into the conventional wisdom: Who is the real ideologue here?

The president, we are told, is a pragmatist for wanting a “fair and balanced” budget deal. What that means is tax increases must accompany spending cuts. Any significant spending cuts would be way in the future. The tax increases would begin right after Obama is reelected.

Now keep in mind that tax hikes (or what the administration calls “revenue increases”) are Obama’s idee fixe. He campaigned on raising taxes for millionaires and billionaires (defined in the small print as people making more than $200,000 a year or couples making $250,000).

During a primary debate, he was asked by ABC’s Charles Gibson if he would raise the capital gains tax even if he knew that cutting it would generate more revenue for the government. The non-ideologue responded that raising the tax, even if doing so would lower revenue, might be warranted out of “fairness.” As he said to Joe the Plumber, things are better when you “spread the wealth around.”

Earlier last week, referring to the fact that he is rich, the president said: “I do not want, and I will not accept, a deal in which I am asked to do nothing. In fact, I’m able to keep hundreds of thousands of dollars in additional income that I don’t need.”

Leaving aside the fact that the man lives in public housing and has a government jet at his disposal — so his definition of “need” might be a bit out of whack — what is pragmatic about this position?

Obama says that Republicans are rigid ideologues because they won’t put “everything on the table.” Specifically, they won’t consider tax hikes, even though polls suggest Americans wouldn’t mind soaking “the rich,” “big oil” and “corporate jet owners.”

But Obama hasn’t put everything on the table either. He’s walled off “Obamacare” and the rest of his “winning the future” agenda.

If Obama believes the American people are the voice of reason when it comes to tax hikes, why does their opinion count for nothing when it comes to Obamacare, which has never been popular? (According to a RealClearPolitics average of polls, only 38.6% of voters favor the plan.) Why not look for some savings there?

[…..]

Read the rest – the ideologue in the oval office

Tags: Jonah Goldberg
Posted in Barack Obama, Elections 2012 | 91 Comments »

Replace the name “Dominique Strauss-Kahn” with “Ted Kennedy” or “Bill Clinton” – and we have seen this movie before

by Mojambo ( 4 Comments › )
Filed under France, Special Report at May 23rd, 2011 - 3:30 pm

Jonah Goldberg points out some of the blatant hypocrisy’s in the DSK case. Does anyone recall Chappaquiddick?

by Jonah Goldberg

Dominique Strauss-Kahn has re signed as the head of the Interna tional Monetary Fund, after being charged with the sexual assault and attempted rape of an African-immigrant hotel maid.

“DSK,” as he’s known in France, is socialist royalty and was the presumed shoo-in to beat Nicolas Sarkozy in next year’s presidential race.

I had planned on taking the easy route and mocking the debauched and depraved (im)morality of the French, the arrogant and asinine sophistry of DSK’s defenders, and the probability of his guilt.

[…]

The gist of his brief: Who is this lowly woman to accuse a great man of such base acts? And how dare America’s courts take her accusations seriously when it’s her word against the great Strauss-Kahn’s? According to Levy, the New York judge should be ashamed because he “pretended to take [DSK] for a subject of justice like any other.” Translation: Do you Americans know who he is?

I hadn’t realized there was an escape clause at the end of the French motto: “Liberti, egalite, fraternite (for the little people)!”

[…]

I count myself blessed to live in a country where a poor maid from Guinea can have the head of the IMF dragged off a plane “simply” because she offered credible evidence she was sexually assaulted — but I’m not sure Americans should be congratulating themselves.

[…]

But America is hardly so righteous. As blogger Will Collier notes, if you replaced “socialist” with “Democrat” in many of these stories, and “Dominique Strauss-Kahn” with “Ted Kennedy,” the results would be pretty illuminating.

After Chappaquiddick, the liberal establishment did its best to cover up a potential homicide by the “liberal lion.” It offered something close to a Gallic shrug when Sens. Kennedy and Chris Dodd made a “waitress sandwich” out of an unsuspecting restaurant server. And as Christopher Hitchens recalls in Slate, Teddy’s priapic brother John was such a “seducer” he imported “a Mafia gun-moll into the White House sleeping quarters.”

If memory serves, Bill Clinton had to deal with a large number of “bimbo eruptions,” as one of his aides put it. He was accused of sexual assault and sexual harassment. The same feminists who once insisted that women never make such things up were suddenly calling the president’s accusers liars or by simply abandoning the very standards they had established.

Gloria Steinem took to the pages of The New York Times to establish what has become known as the “one free grope” rule. Susan Faludi, author of the feminist bible “Backlash,” suddenly took a more laissez-faire attitude toward sexual aggression, requiring “nuanced” responses “in scale to the offense.” A reporter for Time magazine insisted she’d be happy to pleasure the president just for keeping abortion legal.

So yes, the French should be ashamed. But they’re not the only ones.