The Blogosphere as a Cult

If you were to scour the comments sections of Daily Kos and Huffington Post, you'd find almost every comment acceptable, swearing, wishing death, other vulgar language, personal attacks, etc. What you aren't going to find on such a site is a defense of conservatives, conservatism, and Republicans. Try and stand up against universal health care on one of those sites and see what happens.

On conservative sites like Red State, Power Line, and Michelle Malkin, the language is less vulgar. Still, it's routine to hear the president called a Marxist, a Socialist, a Communist., and an anti American. In fact, the entire Democratic party is painted with a similar brush. Yet, you are very unlikely to see anyone defend the president on any of those sites. You are unlikely to see anyone attack the oil companies on those site. Take a look at a conservative site following a story about ACORN and see what you'll find. You'll find comments that call ACORN a criminal organization, a Marxist organization, and an interconnected web with President Obama. Don't get me wrong. I think ACORN is a criminal organization. I think they are run by pseudo Marxists. I'm not sure just how connected they are to President Obama. My point is that ACORN is far too complicated to be condensed to those three points. How can every ACORN related story be wound down to that? Yet, that's what you expect to find beyond each and every ACORN story.

That's because on the blogosphere, left and right, there is a certain view of the world that all readers are expected to follow. If a reader doesn't follow it, they are purged from any site. The rest of the world is wrong and only the world view of the site, and others like it, are right. If anyone believes differently, they are purged.

A couple weeks ago, I saw a documentary about Jim Jones. He was the cult leader that ultimately had his followers drink poisoned Kool Aid and hundreds died. In Jones' cult, the world view was no different. Only Jones was right. The rest of the world was wrong. Anyone that challenged Jones was immediately purged from the cult.

Recently, the conservative blogosphere was worked up in a lather over a protest here in Chicago of the American Banker's Association by groups lead by the SEIU. The narrative was the same. The SEIU are a bunch of thugs that are shaking down the banks. That was the only acceptable narrative in the right blogosphere. I didn't write about the story because it confused me. Is the SEIU a bunch of thugs because they are protesting? If that's so, what does that make the tea parties and why isn't the right blogosphere calling them thugs also? If the SEIU are just thugs, then isn't this merely an excuse to call them thugs, and their behavior in this case wasn't necessarily thuggish in and of itself?

The left blogosphere is no different. There are all sorts of global warming related stories on the left blogosphere. It's an opportunity for the left to feel superior to the right. That's because only the left cares about the environment. Only the left sees global warming for what it is, an imminent disaster. Only the left is trying to solve this disaster. On top of all of this, being eco friendly is an opportunity to also transform our economy as well. Meanwhile, conservatives are beholden to big business and are willing to sacrifice the environment for capitalism and their business interests. Of course, the opposite is true on the right blogosphere. There, global warming is a pseudo science. Liberals are using global warming as an excuse for imposing socialism (something I've supposed as well)

This isn't about who is right and wrong. The beauty of politics is that the debates are continuous and usually never ending. There is no right and wrong. It's the joust that makes politics. If debates were ever settled, there'd be no need for more than one party, one ideology, and one way of viewing the world. The point is that blogs, more often than not, create a world view, and then demand that everyone on said site follow that world view or be purged. Don't ever dare to challenge any given world view or you'll be purged from there. Think I'm crazy. Go to Daily Kos and say that you think that George Bush did a good job in Iraq and see what happens to you. Go to a conservative blog and suggest that President Obama isn't all that tied to ACORN and see what happens to you.

If you suggest such things, your point won't merely be challenged but your motives. You'll be called a facsists, socialists, or ACORN lover on a conservative blogosphere. You'll be called a hate monger, war monger, and neo con on the left blogosphere. On both, you'll be labeled the hated "troll". Whether all these blogs realize it or not, that's exactly the same M.O. that Jim Jones used in his cult. Anyone that challenged wasn't just challenged but called a provocateur, an infiltrator, a tool of the outside world looking to break up their way of life. I'm not saying any blog will tell people to drink Kool Aid. They'll just tell all readers to follow their view of the world or else. The M.O. is the same, only the stakes are less.

The irony is that all blogs see themselves as challenging the mainstream, the establishment. By doing so, they create their own establishment. What happens when you go to a blog and challenge the establishment they create in their own little universe, you are purged. Beyond that, there's no debate. A thousand people all agreeing with each other isn't a debate, it's a mutual admiration society. If you don't allow any challenging opinion, then all you get is a bunch of people agreeing with each other and others afraid to say anything different or risk being purged. That's not a political community but a cult.

The Ten Most Egregious Fox News Distortions?

I will give the Huffington Post credit. Rather than simply attacking Fox News with a bunch of rhetoric, they've actually provided evidence. This is the Huffington Post's ten most egregious Fox News distortions.



1)Bill Hemmer Accuses Obama "Czar" Of Condoning Statutory



According to the Huffington Post, the boy in question was in fact above the age of consent, 16, and Jennings knew it. In fact, that's half right. The boy was above the age of consent but Jennings, at the time, didn't know it and thought he was 15, which is below the age of consent. Either way, the boy was a minor and was having an affair, gay no less, with a man in his 20's, and Jennings didn't tell him to stop it but told him to "wear a condom". If that's an "egregious" distortion, then what will Huffington say about some of the things said on MSNBC...oh wait?



2)Fox News Crops Biden



In this one from March of this year, Martha McCallum purports to claim that Joe Biden recently (then of course) saying that the economy was strong. McCallum opened the segment by saying that "for weeks the Obama administration was saying doom and gloom on the economy" and then McCallum continued by saying they're "singing a different tune now". Then, she showed several clips of administration officials saying things similar to Biden. I will assume that Huffington is correct and this is from the campaign. Furthermore, Huffington says that Biden was quoting McCain when he said this. Still, this was one of four clips all saying the same thing. No doubt FNS shouldn't have put it in there but the point remains the same. At the time, the administration was absolutely suddenly saying things were getting better after scaring everyone in the debate over the stimulus. So, this is a distortion but egregious?



3)Fox News Deceptively Crops Obama On Health Care



The only thing deceptive here are the folks at Huffington Post. Huffington claims that Wendell Goler's report deceptively crops a soundbite by Obama. The soundbite says, "if you're going to fix it, why not a universal health care system like in Europe." Huffington claims that Obama was simply repeating the question and later on said that he didn't want a system like in Europe. In fact, Goler never said that Obama wanted a system like in Europe. He has always, however, pushed for UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE. That's what the clip of Obama said. The point was that President Obama wants a universal health care system like they have in Europe. Goler never said that Obama wants single payer like in Europe. Rather, he said that Obama wants universal health care like they have in Europe and Obama has said that on many occasions.



4)Megyn Kelly Accuses Sonia Sotomayor Of "Reverse Racism"



This so called distortion is absurd. We all know the quote that Ms. Kelly is referring to about a Latina woman with the richness of her experience reaching a better conclusion than a white male. This is a very troubling statement and that particular statement stinks of reverse racism and to not report on it would be ridiculous. In fact Kelly said it "sounded like" Sotomayor thought that Latinos would reach a better conclusion than whites and that's exactly what it sounds like. If this is a distortion, what exactly is the truth?



5) Fox News Passes Off Republican Talking Points As Its Own



Huffington claims that this report, done by Jon Scott, was actually from a Republican communications press release. That maybe so, but the actual report quotes newspapers from Politico, to the New York Times, to the Washington Times. So, if the original idea came from a Republican press release, so be it. The actual report quotes every major media under the soon, and these media show how over time the stimulus did in fact grow. So, if this is distortion, what's the truth?



6)Fox News Misleads On PATRIOT Act:



In this one, Trace Gallagher discusses three provisions of the Patriot Act that are about to expire: the loan wolf provision, roving wiretaps, and the business records provision. These were set to expire and the Fox News report says that Democrats are considering not renewing them. The so called proof of a distortion is a piece at Cato, a libertarian think tank that has no use for the Patriot Act. First, Huffington and Cato claim that Fox says that with this loan wolf provision Moussaoui would have been caught. In fact, Sammon says that there is no evidence of this. Second, Fox News quotes former AG Mike Mukasey as saying that these provisions saved lives. Third, even Cato's attack acknowledges that there would be changes to all through. Cato claims that Democrats wanting to remove it is a distortion since they want to keep all three for the most part. That's obviously a matter of opinion.



In reality, all these issues are far too detailed and complicated for one segment. So, of course, when you interview a proponent of the Patriot Act, you will get one side. What Huffington doesn't say is if Fox News then had someone that supports civil liberties over the Patriot Act on afterwards. It's likely they did. That's just as much a distortion.



7) Chris Wallace Promotes "Death Book" Smear



This is a total distortion. This has to do with a pamphlet put on the VA's site that suggested that if you were depressed or feeling like a burden to your family, you should end it. Huffington claims that Wallace had a Republican on to talk about this "smear". Of course, what Huffington Post doesn't say is that right after the Republican, FNS had Tammy Duckworth on to defend the VA. Furthermore, Duckworth said several things that were totally erroneous and after all the outrage, the pamphlet was eventually removed.



8) Fox News Anchor Calls Obama Fist Bump A "Terrorist Fist Jab"

This one was inexcusable. This was said by then anchor E.D. Hill. The Obama's are fond of the fist bump and they've made that a cultural phenomenon. I don't know where Hill got this from however she did apologize for it and Hill no longer works for the network.

9) Fox News Makes Up Math

In this one, there's only a screen shot. In the screen shot, it says the president's budget is $3.6 trillion 4x the size of Bush's biggest budget. That's inaccurate however the projected deficit was about 1.9 trillion dollars or four times Bush's biggest budget deficit. I think the two were conflated. I believe that this was written incorrectly and since all we have is a screenshot and not the video, I suspect that this is exactly what happened.

10) Fox News Promotes Tea Party Protests

The Tea Parties in April attracted somewhere in the neighborhood of one million people. That is news. They weren't promoted but covered. There were tens of thousands of tea party goers in D.C. on the 12th of September. That Fox News covered them is not promotion but covering the news. Huffington also claims that Fox News didn't cover the gay rights march in October. Of course, that isn't true either. That was also covered.

So, of the ten, only one is legitimately a distortion. I think it says a lot that the media that claims there's distortion distorts more than Fox News itself in the piece on distortion. Frankly, conservatives can find ten such examples every week from the likes of CNN and MSNBC. For instance, Andrea Mitchell just said she doesn't think that George Soros is far left. CNN fact checked SNL when SNL dared to mock President Obama.

These were supposed to be the ten worst and most of them were themselves distorted in order to make them distortions. That says plenty.

The Culture of Corruption Between Michelle Malkin, Michael Gaynor, and Anita Moncrief

Let's try a thought experiment. Imagine we are about four years ago. The leak that Bush was using warrantless wiretaps had just occurred recently. Now, imagine that a spy begins to leak information but to only two sources for the most part. One source is Markos Malitsos of the Daily Kos. The other is a relatively unknown left wing blogger. Imagine that initially the unknown blogger leaked their name recklessly. Then, despite this initial breach of trust, both Kos and this unknown begin to not only write about the story but begin to write endlessly about this leaker and present them in a glowing manner. They do this only at about the time when this source, who was initially a conservative, suddenly becomes a liberal. Meanwhile, the unknown blogger will often quote Kos when making their case about how great the leaker is. At the same time, while Kos uses this leaker as a source, he also allows him to be a blogger on his own site. Not only do Kos and the other blogger write endlessly about how great this leaker is, they also often attack the leakers enemies, real and perceived. Eventually, it gets so bad that Kos begins to quote the unkown blogger when attacking the leakers' enemies. Worse than all of that, while they always write glowingly about the source, they usually don't disclose a piece of information about them that paints them in a bad light.

Now, how do you think Conservatives would respond if all of this was revealed? Is there any doubt how they'd react? I say this because if change the story, flip the bloggers to a famous conservative blogger and an unknown and their source, then you have the corrupt relationship of Michelle Malkin, Anita Moncrief and Michael Gaynor. Now, if conservatives would be livid if the roles were all taken up by liberals, I wonder how they'll respond to conservatives pulling this stunt.

Until October 22, 2008, Anita Moncrief was an anonymous source for the New York Times. That day, however, Michael Gaynor outed Anita Moncrief. It appears that the two had been having email contacts and Gaynor leaked an email exchange in which she identifies herself. At the time, Moncrief was finishing up being a source of information to Stephanie Strom of the New York Times. Moncrief worked for Project Vote in D.C. She had apparently discovered information about email lists shared between the Obama administration and ACORN. I say apparently because it's unclear just how much evidence there is besides Moncrief's statements.

In any case, at the time Moncrief was herself livid that Gaynor leaked her name. In fact, one person familiar with things she said at the time said that if Gaynor knew everything she said about him at the time he'd never work with her. When Gaynor leaked Moncrief's name, he actually leaked an email exchange in which Moncrief identified herself. Interestingly enough, later in that same email Moncrief says that she emailed Malkin but that Malkin scared her. In fact, that appears to be the sum total of the communication at the time.

The three of them didn't start to communicate in earnest until late April. That's when Michael Gaynor began writing endlessly and glowingly about Moncrief. Then, starting May 18th, Malkin began writing a series of articles about Moncrief. In all, Malkin has written 24 articles since May 18th in which Moncrief is mentioned. She wrote one prior to that. In all the articles that both publish, the use the monikor whistle blower to describe Moncrief. Yet, they almost never mention this. Before Moncrief was a whistle blower, she falsely got a company Project Vote credit card and used it for personal expenses that accounted for more than $1000. Then, she was fired with cause and only after that did she blow the whistle. Keep in mind each initially made contact in December, but it wasn't till late April that the three of them began to interact regularly. What happened in the meantime? It appears that Anita Moncrief went through a metamorphosis from a liberal to a conservative.

Beyond this, Gaynor and to a lesser degree Malkin act as attack dogs for all of Moncrief's enemies real and perceived. For instance, Moncrief eventually developed a rivalry with the group ACORN 8. They're another group of ACORN whistle blowers. The rivalry occurred right after ACORN 8 refused to share documents they had related to ACORN. Moncrief was especially outraged that they never shared something called the Kingsley Report. That's a report from a lawyer that ACORN itself hired that sounded the alarm bells that ACORN's complicated structure was leading to conflicts, illegality and rampant criminal behavior. After ACORN 8 refused to share this and other documents, Michael Gaynor began to mercilessly attack ACORN 8 and members of the group individually. Gaynor would also often scold Fox News for no longer putting Moncrief on their air. Moncrief had appeared initially on Fox News but once they were made aware of her theft, they stopped putting her on.

Worse yet, both Malkin and Gaynor make it seem as though the only one that matters in the ACORN story is Moncrief. Gaynor literally could write up to four glowing pieces about Moncrief in a week. He will credit her with breaking most of the story. Malkin does the same thing. Often times, when we find out new information about ACORN Malkin and Gaynor will claim that Moncrief had already put this evidence out. As an employee of one branch of ACORN, in reality, Moncrief wasn't necessarily in a position to know that much. Eventually, she talked to a lot of people and learned a lot more. Ironically enough, most of what she knows about ACORN comes from regularly communicating with ACORN 8 members like Karen Inman and Marcel Reid until the split. So, the same people that she now has Gaynor attack relentlessly originally told Moncrief most of what she knows about ACORN. Both Inman and Reid, like all of ACORN 8, are either current (as Reid technically still is in D.C.) or former board members of ACORN. Obviously, a board member would be in a much better position to know what's going on. Even if you didn't believe that, Reid and Inman lead an internal investigation of ACORN following the revelation of Dale Rathke's embezzlemend and his brother Dale's cover up.

So, the role that Moncrief actually plays in the overall story is much smaller than what both Gaynor and Malkin give her credit for. Of course, it doesn't end there. First, Gaynor will often quote Malkin in providing evidence for his case that Moncrief is this awesome figure. Think about that. Both are constantly writing glowing reviews of Moncrief and then Gaynor will quote Malkin in her own glowing review in building his case for his own glowing review. The corruption reached its zenith about two weeks ago when Malkin quoted Gaynor back when Gaynor was attacking Michael McCray, another member of ACORN 8. Not only that, but Malkin never said who Gaynor is. He was identified at all. Instead, she simply said Michael Gaynor said this...The audience wasn't even given a clue who Gaynor is.

It doesn't end there. The relationship between them all is even more cozy. Anita Moncrief has a column on Malkin's sister site Hot Air. Often her columns are brought to the front page for maximum readership.

This isn't the first time I've pointed all this out. In fact, I made my case for this about a week ago. In fact, that wasn't the first time I made reference to this. Intially, I responded to the column in which Malkin quoted Gaynor. I actually knew about all this back in May but I didn't see a story. It wasn't until Malkin quoted gaynor to attack a third party that the corruption became obvious. In response to that story, Michael Gaynor attacked me. After my second piece, Gaynor didn't attack me. Both ignored the corruption I laid out and lay out again.

What they did do was telling however. Gaynor has since written four pieces in which he glows about Moncrief. In one, he compares her to Anita Dunn, presumably because both are named Anita because there's really no other reason.

Ms. Dunn is a Far Left Democrat and a key Obama Administration apologist.

Ms. MonCrief is an ex-radical feared by both the Obama Adminstration and ACORN since Ms.

MonCrief publicly became a whistleblower and a voluntary witness in a case against ACORN last October and even more since she became an ex-radical this year.

Why are the Obama Administration and ACORN (and others) afraid of Ms. MonCrief.

Briefly, Ms. MonCrief tells the truth and is aware of the corrupt relationship between ACORN and the Obama presidential campaign and President Obama's history with ACORN (about which he lied to win the Presidency).

Meanwhile, Malkin has remained relatively quiet herself and instead, Moncrief has written two pieces for her sister site, Hot Air. (that's the so called Green Room where specially selected guest bloggers have their work shown. For instance, I am not good enough to be in their Green Room) In one piece, Moncrief describes her transformation from a liberal to a conservative. Both were brought to the front page for maximum exposure.

The Democrats seemed to be the answer: social programs, better schools, and politicians who cared. I do think that if I had never seen the other side of community organizing that I would still be blindly following along that same path. Being a conservative gives me hope, and peace. While it has not been easy, I decided to start with what made me love America as a child – its history and Constitution- and go from there. Friends who are still radicals rail at me for loving a country that enslaved us, and I tell them I don’t. I love a country that had the guts to stand up time and time again and right a wrong. A country that is not afraid to pick itself up and start again.

In the other piece, Moncrief talks about her long struggle toward becoming a "reluctant whistle blower". Believe me, her journey is very long. I know this because the piece is a monster. It would take you a good ten minutes to finish all of it.

I had never heard of Gaynor but his writing on ACORN back in late September and early October of 2008 led me to believe that he, like Michelle, understood what was going on. Gaynor emailed back, Michelle did not. He became my backup plan after I agreed to identify myself to him so that he could check me out. In addition to being a confidential source of Stephanie, I became a confidential source of Gaynor.

Later in October of 2008 Stephanie told me that it would be better if she could identify me for this ACORN/Obama story. I preferred to be a confidential source, but reluctantly agreed to come forward. As of September 2008, I was no longer working for my union affiliated organization and a part of me felt that I had let my family down. I talked to my fiance, who was having a rough year because of me, and he agreed to support me no matter what. That was very important to me because I was never one of those people who lived the perfect life and being under a microscope would be hard for everyone. I was tired of living in fear, fear of the person I used to be, fear of other people, fear of ACORN and fear of what I was supposed to do.

Interestingly enough, what's missing from this piece is any mention of her fraudulenty obtaining the Project Vote credit card and using it for personal expenses. As a result, here's a sampling of the comments.

Anita – I recognize and am in awe of your courage and true grit. Thank you so much for speaking out and up. I love reading your writing here. God bless you.

Anita:

Thank you for your courage, and integrity. I can only hope that you inspire others to expose any corruption, wherever it may be.

Be safe, and may God watch over you and your family.

Now, let me tell you what I think. I think that Anita Moncrief is a narcisist. Think about it. Have you ever seen someone that more exemplifies the cliche "but that's enough about me, let's talk about me." Michael Gaynor writes about her endlessly in a glowing fashion. Michelle Malkin does much the same. That's not enough. When Moncrief herself writes, it's also all about her. Beyond that, Moncrief is clearly withholding pertinent information and Malkin knows it. Moncrief just wrote about her so called journey to being a whistle blower and didn't mention that she stole and got fired. Instead, she made it seem as though she quit because she was advised to as she prepared to blow the whistle. That's just not true. Malkin and Moncrief both know it and they don't care.

It doesn't end there. First, Gaynor promotes this article on his site.

Right after ACORN whistleblower Anita MonCrief's "How This Reluctant Whistleblower Decided to Tell All" was promoted from the Green Room to a Hot Air feature.

Malkin follows suit on her own main site, michellemalkin.com. On that site, she hold someting called an open thread. Here, any commenter can comment on anything they feel like saying. In her intro to the thread, Malkin quotes Moncrief from the same article.

ACORN whistleblower Anita MonCrief: “The more I spoke about Obama and the Democrats part in the ACORN scandal, the more I drifted away from the ACORN 8. I never thought that their mission was bad, but ACORN’s subversive nature is rooted in pay for play politics and if one is to clean house, it has to be across the board. I was proud when Marcel appeared on Glenn Beck but often dismayed at the picture she painted of ACORN. Yes, the members are great people, but they do not need an ACORN to help them. Local based initiatives run by people in their own communities seem to do more to really help the poor. As more ACORN corruption was exposed, it became evident that reform was really not an option, it was a band aid on the Titanic. By breaking free of someone else’s agenda and doing the right thing, I was able to take this story to another level by doing research and exposing even more corruption.”

If you like irony, you'll love this next part. Just a few days earlier, Malkin wrote a piece called "Protesting media culture of corruption". Did she start with herself first? Of course, everyone should see the biggest irony of all by now. Malkin has made a killing on the book, Culture of Corruption. The same person that condemns President Obama for a culture of corruption is embroiled in her own. Nothing she accuses Obama of doing is any worse than the complete and total culture of corrupton she's engaging in herself.

In fact, there's one last interesting piece of irony. When Moncrief does talk about the theft, she often says that she was a single mother and was just trying to provide for her child. Now, unfortunately, I've done much worse than that so I am in no position to judge. Frankly, it's not my style anyway. What are the chances that Malkin would normally except such an excuse? This is the person that mocks everyone that received a bailout or any government assistance. Yet, Malkin appears to have no problem with this explanation. Could it be because in his case it's convenient given the information that Moncrief purports to have on Obama's link to ACORN.

Now, none of this should be all right and acceptable. At the minimum, all three need to knock it off immediately. Their relationship is clearly unhealthy and none are any longer trying to tell a story. They are all promoting an agenda, or the same thing that conservatives attack liberal media for doing. Only in their agenda, they are all promoting Anita Moncrief and attacking her enemies. That's not journalism but public relations and propaganda. Furthermore, it's totally corrupt, and anyone that accepts it accepts media corruption. Furthermore, they would be total hypocrites if there's a similarly corrupt story in the liberal media and they were outraged.

No one should get a pass for corruption. If Malkin, Gaynor and Moncrief are allowed to go forward without scrutiny of what exactly they are and have been doing then clearly to most people, corruption isn't that important.

Finally a Defense of Obama's War With Fox News

There was something remarkable that occurred after Anita Dunn publicly took on Fox News this past weekend. Even his supporters saw this as foolish. The Nation magazine called the president Whiner in Chief as a result. New York Magazine said that Obama was arming his political enemies. The Daily Telegraph called Obama silly. In my unscientific scan of the media, I found no media that defended Obama in his full frontal assault on Fox News. So, I was surprised and interested when I found this opinion piece in the Huffington Post. Sure the Huffington Post is even farther left than Obama himself but so is the Nation, and they called him a whiner. The article starts with a long history of Presidents taking on the media and the minefields this creates. Still, the author thinks that Obama taking on Fox News is a good idea.

Then, it was clear why. Their view of the world is totally perverted. Let's start with this assertion.

Even in the early years of both CNN and later Fox News, there appeared to be an ambiguous, but tolerable liberal and conservative tug of war within the cable news industry. The three major broadcast networks ABC, CBS, and NBC were generally middle of the road, with certain exceptions on various issues in which they could be viewed as being liberal or conservative. However, with the rise of conservative talk radio, and the patently incestuous relationship between the second Bush administration and Fox News, the ideological media equilibrium has been completely jarred.

If you think the three major networks are middle of the road, then I can see how you'd also see that Fox News is nothing more than a propaganda arm of the Republican Party. If your view is so perverted that you think the three networks are objective, then of course, you'd see Fox News as nothing more than propagandists. The lunacy continues from there.

Fox News provides 24 hour anti-Obama, anti-Democrat, and anti-liberal coverage and opinion. No other major news network provides such one-sided coverage in favor of an alternative political and ideological agenda to Fox News. Even MSNBC provides a balance with conservative Joe Scarborough's morning show, and the blue-dog liberal Ed Shultz in the evening. But even MSNBC is not a round-the-clock slugfest against conservatives and right wing ideologues.

If you think that Ed Shultz is a "blue dog" Democrat rather than a traditional liberal, then I can see how anyone to the right of Shultz could then be viewed as a right wing ideologue. If you see Shultz as merely a skeptical supporter rather than a fawning supporter then of course Fox News could easily be viewed as nothing more than an arm of the Republican party.

At one point, the author scolds Fox News for not even giving Obama a "hundred day honeymoon". Think about that. He criticizes Fox for not waiting one hundred days to begin to look at Obama's policies critically. Even in normal times, such a statement is stunning. Media are never supposed to go easy on the people they cover. These aren't normal times. In the first hundred days, the president passed a $787 billion stimulus. According to the author, Fox News was supposed to go along because that was his "honeymoon".

Then, the article goes into typical liberal talking points against Fox News.

Instead, ever since the Presidential Inauguration, Fox News has been targeting the White House through its pundits and professional demagogues like Hannity, Beck, and O'Reilly. Indeed, Fox News' current role as the opposition news network has completely tipped the broadcast equilibrium which existed during the nostalgic pre-cable days of television.

...

Today, Fox News serves as the news militia for the right wing of the Republican Party, with its investigation of liberal community organizations such as ACORN, with its defamatory coverage of the first Hispanic Supreme Court Nominee Sotomayor, and by its incitement of mob-like opposition political rallies against the President and his domestic agenda this past summer. No similar investigations of Republican Senator Ensign's sexual improprieties have graced the coverage of Fox News. It is empirically known that Fox News chronically invites prominent members of the Republican party such as Newt Gingrich, former Bush advisor Karl Rove, former Senator David Santorum, and Clinton antagonist Dick Morris to give the air of credence to very important issues without debate or challenge. To the contrary, in those rare moments that liberals or democrats make their negligible appearances on Fox News, they are viciously attacked with the ferocity of a pack of pit bulls.

First of all, all liberal opponents of Fox News make it seem as though Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck are on Fox News 24 hours a day seven days a week. They aren't. In fact, between first runs and re runs, they're on 7 hours out of 24 during the week. That's a small minority and no critic of Fox News ever talks about Greta Van Susteren, Shepard Smith, Brett Baier, and their entire daily line up which is always played straight. In fact, ask the typical conservative and most have no use for Smith, who most see as liberal. That's probably a sign that Smith is fair.

Furthermore, liberals always like to point to every conservative that is a contributor to Fox News but fail to mention that Fox News has just as many liberal contributors. Yes, Fox has Newt Gingrich. I'd say the former Speaker is a huge coup. They also have Susan Estrich, former campaign manager for Michael Dukakis, Bob Beckel, former campaign manager for Walter Mondale, as well as Kirsten Powers, Juan Williams, Alan Colmes, Ellen Ratner, Dr. Mark Lamont Hill among many liberals also contributing to the network. Of course, it's just a flat out lie that Fox News didn't cover the Ensign affair. They did and they still do. Just because Fox News covers stories the rest of the media won't doesn't mean they don't cover stories the rest of the media does as well.

It's not surprising and ironic that a piece that accuses Fox News of propaganda is itself so full of propaganda. Still, to defend Obama in this case, it appears the only way to defend is through propaganda.

Maybe Everyone Should Resign Arianna

Arianna Huffington has weighed in on the war in Afghanistan.

Well, how about making the mea culpa unnecessary? Instead of saving it for the book, how about future author Biden unfetter his conscience in real time -- when it can actually do some good? If Biden truly believes that what we're doing in Afghanistan is not in the best interests of our national security -- and what issue is more important than that? -- it's simply not enough to claim retroactive righteousness in his memoirs.

Now, let's follow this logic to its conclusion. Presidents have hundreds of advisors. Imagine if each quit every time advice they felt passionately about didn't get followed. Every president would have McDonald's type turnover in their administration. In his interview with Chris Wallace, Dick Cheney strongly implied that he suggested to Bush that he take out Iran's nukes but that advice wasn't followed. By this logic, Cheney, too, should have quit.

War is dangerous business and most advice is given with passion, but to take Huffington seriously would mean chaos in all administrations. Many pundits believe that Huffington is trying to be provocative with this statement. They are saying that Huffington isn't really calling for Biden to quit. Of course, that's exactly what Huffington's own statements are.

What is clear is that the far left is attempting to exert its will on this president on Afghanistan. This statement appears to be as much a warning to Obama as it is a realistic call to Biden. That Biden is suddenly held as some sort of war expert speaks for itself. All pretense that Afghanistan was the "good war" has now dissipated. Every war is a bad war. What this article by Huffington indicates is that the far left is ready for their own political civil war if Obama doesn't take his marching orders from them.

The far left won't merely agree to disagree if Obama decides to go with McChrystal's orders. They will go into full attack mode. Arianna Huffington is ready to make Joe Biden the anti war hero for his stand.

Though it would be a crowning moment in a distinguished career, such an act of courage would likely be only the beginning. Biden would then become the natural leader of the movement to wind down this disastrous war and focus on the real dangers in Pakistan.

They will also attack ruthlessly and viciously any plan for Afghanistan that goes against their wishes for as quick and orderly a retreat as possible. That puts the president in a bind. That's because if he goes against them that will signal a political civil war within the party. The president can't afford to lose his base and so he is in a serious political bind.

O'Reilly, Olbermann, the New York Times, and the Feud

Yesterday, I wrote a piece detailing a story written by Brian Stelter of the New York Times that purported to claim that higher ups at GE and News Corp, including CEO's Jeffrey Immelt and Rupert Murdoch, that negotiated with each other and then put pressure on their two main cable news commentators, Bill O'Reilly and Keith Olbermann, to reduce the criticism of the other's networks and each other. The piece was published this past weekend.

The article was written very matter of fact even though the charge in the article was startling. If in fact major corporations are pressuring their anchors to present the news a certain way, then that is corrupt. If those anchors capitulated to that pressure rather than going public, their integrity is in question. The whole story purported to reveal a deep corruption within the news business.

Right after the story broke, Olbermann proclaimed the story bunk and used his Worst Person in the world bit to call out Stelter, O'Reilly, and Murdoch.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Meanwhile, O'Reilly used his Wednesday Talking Points Memo to call out GE. So, I called out Stelter both here and in an email. He responded and he reiterated that everything in his story was accurate and that both anchors vocally going after each other was merely "asserting their independence" when the deal was exposed.

Now, looking at Stelter's article, I believe it was factually accurate however the "facts" were presented in such a way as to totally mislead the public. Here's all that Stelter revealed about conservations between he and Olbermann. Olbermann said this in the article.

I am party to no deal

Olbermann had apparently said plenty more to Stelter. We know this because in the clip above he says plenty about what he told Stelter. First, Olbermann said, on and off the record, that he wasn't party to the deal and that none of his bosses ever even approached him about such a deal. Furthermore, he said that this story was a misinterpretation of an on air announcement that Olbermann made that he would no longer joke about O'Reilly in the aftermath of the Tiller murder. None of these things were quoted in the article. Olbermann didn't merely say he was party to no deal, but he totally contradicted the entire story as written. Yet, that adament contradiction wasn't in the piece.

Meanwhile, conversations with O'Reilly aren't even referenced. Normally, if you reach out to someone and get no response, that's what you say in the story. Stelter doesn't even do that leading me to believe he didn't even try and speak with O'Reilly. So, what do we have? We have a story that centers on two anchors. One anchor adamently denies the story and the other one apparently isn't even asked. Yet, the author proceeds with the story accusing both of media corruption. How's that for fair?

Stelter uses several anonymous sources close to the supposed deal as his back up, and then he proclaims that in June and July attacks from each to each nearly stopped. The timeline here is important as well. Dr. George Tiller was killed on May 31st. For the next week, Olbermann and others at MSNBC actually accused O'Reilly of contributing to the murder. O'Reilly fired back and the shots went on for about a week. So, if there was a lull, it didn't start until then. Here's how Stelter characterized it.

But like any title fight, the final round could not end without an attempted knockout. On June 1, the day after the abortion provider George Tiller was killed in Kansas, Mr. Olbermann took to the air to cite Mr. O’Reilly’s numerous references to “Tiller, the baby killer” and to announce that he would retire his caricature of Mr. O’Reilly.

“The goal here is to get this blindly irresponsible man and his ilk off the air,” he said.

The next day, Mr. O’Reilly made the extraordinary claim that “federal authorities have developed information about General Electric doing business with Iran, deadly business” and published Mr. Immelt’s e-mail address and mailing address, repeating it slowly for emphasis

.

Now, this can only be read a few different ways. First, while the two sides were negotiating the end of the feud, the two anchors were taking extreme shots at the other side knowing all along that a deal was imminent. Or, it might be that they took these shots and then were told to cool it and they did. Stelter claims that following this vicious salvo back and forth that the two sides stopped throwing lobs at each other for June and July. Here's how he characterized it to me.

I examined Mr. O'Reilly's show carefully in June and July and verified that the references to GE and NBC stopped almost completely.

I asked him what his methodology was in examining the O'Reilly Factor "carefully" but Stelter ended the communication there. There are some things to keep in mind here. First, June and July are the two months that both Olbermann and O'Reilly work the least. Each take a vacation over the fourth (Olbermann even took another one) and each works almost no Fridays. As such, the time in question amounts to 27 shows. Second, without context, what does it mean that O'Reilly's references to GE and NBC almost stopped completely? During that time, Michael Jackson died, the health care debate unfolded, protest were held in Iran, and the President held two press conferences? How much time was supposed to be dedicated to GE during this time?


This supposed deal also just doesn't pass the sniff test. O'Reilly celebrated being the number one cable news show for 100 months earlier in the year. Olbermann has become the top guy at MSNBC mostly by demonizing O'Reilly. Are we really to believe that corporate bosses were going to try and tinker with two successful programs?

Furthermore, Stelter's article made it seem as though attacks from each to the other were mostly sort of childish and personal barbs. O'Reilly's stories on GE and NBC are part of themese of media bias, media corruption, and corporate corruption. For instance, Stelter says that O'Reilly made a "startling charge" that GE was doing business with Iran. Its only startling if you don't watch him regularly since he's made that charge for more than two years. So, are we to believe that O'Reilly would stop reporting on things he sees as news because the corporate bosses thought it was too vicious? Would O'Reilly really stop reporting GE's advantageous relationship in the Obama admin

If this were true, O'Reilly would be everything that he rails against. He made a huge deal about how MSNBC and CNBC reporters were told to tone it down on their criticism of Obama. Now, we're supposed to believe that when his bosses told him to tone down his criticism of NBC he just capitulated. Would he really risk his entire reputation and lifelong resume in order to please his bosses? Furthermore, Stelter quotes several anonymous sources that were close to the deal. If they were working on the deal, why would they then leak it to the media? Did these folks think that Stelter would sit on this story? What did they think would happen when word leaked? Why would you work on a deal for months and then leak word of said deal to the media so that the publicity would kill it?

Furthermore, Stelter claims that higher ups in both organizations felt that the feud was hurting both brands. The NBC and GE brand are hurt. There's no doubt about that. Yet, Fox, Fox News, and News Corps brands are thriving. Now, we're supposed to believe that a successful brand would risk its reputation by trying to muzzle its top personality.

The problem I have with this story is that it is primarily about two anchors, Bill O'Reilly and Keith Olbermann. One, Olbermann, furiously denied the story and was willing to go on the record with that denial. The article totally downplayed this denial. The other anchor isn't even quoted and it appears he wasn't even contacted. So, one principle furiously denies the charges and the other isn't even contacted. How accurate can the story be? The story relies entirely on a few quotes, mysterious meetings, and unclear analysis of shows over a relatively small sample. It makes a startling charge with dubious evidence.

Since the article was published, Olbermann has railed against O'Reilly, Fox News, and Murdoch. O'Reilly has had a couple of segments focusing on GE, NBC, corruption. Stelter took this as affirmation that he was right. I challenge that, but there's an easy way to prove me wrong. If Stelter's August 1 assertion is right, then his storyis the biggest media story of the year. If it's true that corporate higher ups pressured anchors to tone down their rhetoric and those anchors capitulated, then that is media corruption of the highest order. Given that one of the two anchors, Bill O'Reilly, has made a living railing against corporate corruption, that's hypocrisy of the highest order. So, this is a story that requires follow up. If Stelter continues on this story and reveals more, he will be proven right. If this is the last we hear of this, then that also speaks for itself.

Blogging as Propaganda

Today on the conservative blog, Hot Air, had this story about initial weekly jobless claims. The story's thesis: this new report is further evidence that Obama's employment strategy is failing. The story points out that jobs report was up 25 thousand jobs from the previous week. The story does mention that jobless claims are down but dismisses that as inconsequential.

Put away the streamers and stop the chorus from singing “Happy Days Are Here Again,” at least for a while. Bloomberg reports that initial jobless claims rose again last week by 25,000 as more that 584,000 Americans applied for unemployment benefits for the first time. While the four-week average of initial jobless claims dropped, this increase hints at continued escalation of the national unemployment rate:

...

We may be seeing less firing, but we’re still seeing plenty of it. More than a half-million people had to apply for unemployment last week, which means that we’re not seeing new jobs created.In fact, I’d challenge the notion that we’re seeing less firing. The four-week average hit 559,000, and last week’s number was 554,000. The latest figure will push the average higher in the next couple of weeks, which is what happens when the rate of claims increases.

Now, this story is peculiar on many levels. First, jobless claims is a very technical economic statistic. Unless you cover it regularly, you shouldn't draw any conclusion from it. After all, it comes out every week. How much could something that only measures a week's worth of activity tell us? If you are going to make analysis about jobless claims, you should be reporting on them regularly. That's not what Hot Air does, they only report on jobless claims in random times. No doubt those times match up with bad news for President Obama. Here's what the piece at Hot Air didn't mention. This is the fourth week in a row that jobless claims are under 600,000. It is, however, the second straight week they have increased. So what does that mean? Your guess is as good as mine which is why I wouldn't draw a conclusion from this week's numbers one way or another. So, why would Hot Air draw a definitive conclusion on a random weekly number? It's because the conclusion is much more propaganda than opinion based on fact.

Conservative blogs were doing something similar with the monthly jobs numbers for a while as well. Here were the job losses from February to May of 2009, 710,000, 663,000, 539,000, and 345,000. Now, there's a pattern there and that pattern was that things were improving. (that pattern was of course broken in June when numbers when the Bureau of Labor and Statistics reported a loss of 477,000) If you were to report the jobs numbers honestly, you would have to acknowledge that things were getting better. That's especially true following the May numbers. That's because not only did they show a marked improvement from April, but they beat estimates by over one hundred thousand jobs. How did the same Hot Air cover those numbers? They selectively isolated the unemployment rate, which was higher than expected, and focused on that.

The unemployment numbers for May hit earlier this morning, and it looks like Barack Obama didn’t save many jobs at all. Despite claims from both Obama and VP Joe Biden that the Porkulus package had saved 150,000 jobs, unemployment went up another half-percent to 9.4%, setting a new record for the past quarter century. Unemployment rose across a broad spectrum of demographics, too:

Of course, no one could honestly analyze the May jobs numbers and conclude they were bad or bad for the president. They improved by about two hundred thousand from the previous month and they beat estimates by more than a hundred thousand. Anyone who at the time was pushing a narrative that these numbers were evidence of Obama's failing economic policies was engaging in pure rank propaganda.

Liberal blogs are of course notorious for engaging in rank propaganda. Daily Kos once touted that Olbermann had beaten O'Reilly in the ratings. They never mentioned that on that particular day Olbermann appeared on the flagship NBC station while O'Reilly was on cable. For years, liberal blogs would cite any source, no matter how obscure, that claimed that Bush lied about anything: Iraq, the economy, the GWOT. It was the liberal bloggers that couldn't get enough of the so called "Downing Street Memo" which purported to prove that Bush lied. Of course, this memo was actually the opinion of a single official in the British Intelligence service and not a fact as the bloggers claimed.

The issue of polling is another way in which both sides of the blogosphere engage in propaganda. It's usually done when polls are isolated that show a particular side more favorably. For instance, Republicans have come to treat Rasmussen's polls as the gold standard. That's because Rasmussen's polls have always found Obama's support to lack that of most other polling. Now, that doesn't mean that Rasmussen is wrong, and I've referenced Rasmussen's polls before as well, but isolating a Rasmussen poll and using it as the thesis of a story is totally misleading. So, of course, liberal blogs have taken to attacking Rasmussen.

Some commentators on the right have been pointing to an interesting number that
has been coming from the Rasmussen daily tracking poll, which Rasmussen bills as the "Presidential Approval Index," which Scott Rasmussen only began bringing out
in late 2008. The key questions then are: What is this number, and is it a valid measurement of real popularity? In an interview today with TPM, Rasmussen defended the index's validity against some harsh criticism, saying that intensity of opinion -- the true figure measured by his index -- does indeed matter.

The thing to remember is that this is not simply subtracting all the respondents who disapprove of President Obama from the people who approve. Instead, Rasmussen takes the numbers who strongly approve or disapprove, and then performs this math. As of today, that index number is -10, compared to an overall rating of +1 in Rasmussen's daily tracker.

It would seem at first glance that this number can skew negative -- that is, the people who disapprove of a president are inherently more likely to feel strongly about it, compared to a certain level of lukewarm support for a president. For example, the 2004 exit poll put George W. Bush's strong approval at 33%, to strong disapproval of 34%. But his overall approval was 53% to disapproval at 46%, and he was re-elected 51%-48%.

It's very dubious to have a blogger question the professional judgment of a pollster. Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo blogs professionally. Meanwhile, Scott Rasmussen polls professionally. I would trust Rasmussen's judgment over Marshall's for the validity of the poll.

To me it's dubious to create a narrative based on polling to begin with. It's even more dubious to focus on one poll, whichever side you are on. Real Clear Politics has a collection of polls that continues to show solid support for the president however it also shows that support has significantly eroded over the last few months. Focusing on polls appears to be beside the point. If health care doesn't pass, the president's poll numbers will fall precipitously. It won't merely be Rasmussen that shows bad poll numbers but everyone. If, on the other hand, the economy turns around, and especially if health care passes, even Rasmussen will show positive numbers. So, why the fixation on polls? It's because there are so many out there that a propagandist can always find a poll that will affirm their pre determined opinion.

Unfortunately in two plus years of blogging I have come to the conclusion that for the most part most bloggers are much more propagandists than they are journalists. Many more bloggers use their blogs to push an agenda rather than to report. They mask opinion that are dressed up to appear as facts. Ironically enough, blogs sprouted in large part because citizens believed that the MSM was engaging in this very behavior. As it turns out, most bloggers are no better than the media they despise only they don't write nearly as well.

The Left's New Attack on Bill O'Reilly

As everyone knows, over the weekend controversial abortion doctor, George Tiller, was murdered at his church. No matter what side of the debate you are on, this is a despicable, cowardly and tragic event. Everyone should pray for Tiller and his family. In fact, most on both sides are doing exactly that. The apparent gun man appears to be an individual was some serious mental issues and we will soon know more about their motivations.

We can all hope that this tragic event wouldn't be used to try and score cheap political points. Unfortunately, it hasn't even been twenty four hours and already that is not the case. Now, some on the left are trying to imply that Bill O'Reilly is responsible for Tiller's death.

But there's no other person who bears as much responsibility for the characterization of Tiller as a savage on the loose, killing babies willy-nilly thanks to the collusion of would-be sophisticated cultural elites, a bought-and-paid-for governor and scofflaw secular journalists. Tiller's name first appeared on "The Factor" on Feb. 25, 2005. Since then, O'Reilly and his guest hosts have brought up the doctor on 28 more episodes, including as recently as April 27 of this year. Almost invariably, Tiller is described as "Tiller the Baby Killer."

Tiller, O'Reilly likes to say, "destroys fetuses for just about any reason right up until the birth date for $5,000." He's guilty of "Nazi stuff," said O'Reilly on June 8, 2005; a moral equivalent to NAMBLA and al-Qaida, he suggested on March 15, 2006. "This is the kind of stuff happened in Mao's China, Hitler's Germany, Stalin's Soviet Union," said O'Reilly on Nov. 9, 2006.

O'Reilly has also frequently linked Tiller to his longtime obsession, child molestation and rape. Because a young teenager who received an abortion from Tiller could, by definition, have been a victim of statutory rape, O'Reilly frequently suggested that the clinic was covering up for child rapists (rather than teenage boyfriends) by refusing to release records on the abortions performed.

...

This is where O'Reilly's campaign against George Tiller becomes dangerous. While he never advocated anything violent or illegal, the Fox bully repeatedly portrayed the doctor as a murderer on the loose, allowed to do whatever he wanted by corrupt and decadent authorities. "Also, it looks like Dr. Tiller, who some call Tiller the Baby Killer, is spending a large amount of money in order to get Mr. Morrison elected. That opens up all kinds of questions," said O'Reilly on Nov. 6, 2006, in one of many suggestions that Tiller was improperly influencing the election.

Salon is not the only leftist making this claim. Longtime O'Reilly nemesis the Daily Kos is making a similar argument.

Since 2005, Bill O'Reilly has waged jihad against Dr. George Tiller, dedicating 29
segments of his show to demonizing and dehumanizing Tiller, who he invariably called "Tiller the baby killer."

First, there is delicious irony in folks like Salon and Daily Kos, who themselves frequently refer to George Bush as a mass murderer, expressing righteous indignation that O'Reilly demonized Tiller.

O'Reilly did demonize Tiller. Tiller performed thousands of abortions of fetuses that were viable. He performed thousands of late term abortions, making him one of only three doctors to perform such abortions. Tiller often also performed abortions on females under the age of 18, without reporting anything to the authorities. By law if you are under 18, you can't consent and so being pregnant is evidence of being raped.

Also, Tiller has been the target of mentally deranged individuals long before he became the target of O'Reilly. He's had attempts on his life since the 1980's. Was O'Reilly also responsible for those attempts? Yet, the folks at Salon find no problem insinuating that this individual snapped and killed Tiller because O'Reilly made him a frequent target of impassioned and direct criticism.

The whole thing is disgusting. All of this is meant to do one thing. It is meant to intimidate anyone else that seeks to criticize or be held responsible for demonization that leads to the target's life being threatened. Ultimately, these folks have used a tragedy not only to score cheap political points but as an opportunity to silence voices with which they disagree.

Leon Panetta and the Wrath of Hyper Partisans

To truly understand how remarkable the pick of Leon Panetta is for CIA chief, we should examine the first choice of Barack Obama for CIA Chief, John Brennan. Here Brennan's quick recent biography.

CEO of The Analysis Corporation
Chairman of the Intelligence and National Security Alliance (INSA)
Interim director, National Counterterrorism Center[5]
Director, Terrorist Threat Integration Center
Deputy Executive Director, CIA
Chief of Staff to Director of Central Intelligence, CIA
Chief of Station, Middle East, CIA (1996 - 1999)
Executive Assistant to the Deputy
Director of Central Intelligence, CIA
Deputy Director, Office of Near
Eastern and South Asian Analysis, CIA
Daily Intelligence Briefer at the White House, CIA
Deputy Division Chief, Office of Near Eastern and South
Asian Analysis, CIA
Chief of Analysis, DCI's Counterterrorism Center, CIA
Middle East Specialist and Terrorism Analyst, Directorate of Intelligence, CIA
Political Officer, U.S. Embassy in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, Department of State
Career Trainee, Directorate of Operations, CIA.

Generally, when an indivdual is touted and withdrawn from a particular political post, they are replaced with someone of relatively equal qualifications. Usually individuals are withdrawn because of some sort of personal problem that makes them no longer viable politically. I don't think anyone can look at Brennan's resume and say he wasn't qualified to be CIA Chief. In fact, when Brennan's name was first floated there was little controversy anywhere. The only controversy came from far left blogs like Daily Kos.

President-elect Barack Obama is sending conflicting signals on whether he intends to change the bankrupt culture of Washington's intelligence community and to introduce genuine reform to the Central Intelligence Agency. . . .

(He) has placed the intelligence transition process in the hands of two senior cronies of former CIA Director George J. Tenet: John O. Brennan and Jami A. Miscik, who were actively engaged in implementing and defending the CIA's corrupt activities during the Bush presidency. (Mr. Brennan was also an active defender of the illegal program of warrantless eavesdropping, implemented at the National Security Agency under the leadership of Mr. Hayden, then director of NSA. .

Obama ran as the anti Bush, dismissing nearly all Bush policies. With regards to intelligence, this meant a total rejection of rendition, harsh interrogation, and the terrorist surveillance program. Of course, the problem with rejecting all of Bush's intelligence policies over the last eight years is that it also disqualifies just about anyone in intelligence. It isn't as though there is a plethora of candidates with decades of intelligence experience that just so happened to take the last eight years off. The far left laid down the guantlet on anyone related to any Bush intelligence policies. By appeasing the far left on Brennan, Obama was left with few candidates.

What's puzzling about Obama's capitulation here is that no one can properly say that he has generally capitulated to the far left on his cabinet appointments. The economic team looks more like a Republican team. Furthermore, he has kept on Robert Gates, one of the architects of the surge, as Defense Secretary. To understand just what the far left wants look at this list of candidates one progressive hoped to see in Obama's cabinet.

Joseph Stiglitz is a Nobel Prize-winner in economics and a critic of corporate globalization. He should be Treasury Secretary.

Senator Russ Feingold is a champion of civil liberties. He should be Attorney General.
Robert Greenstein is head of Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. He would make a much better OMB director.

Arlene Holt Baker, executive vice president of the AFL-CIO, would be a tremendous Secretary of Labor.

And if Obama really wanted change, if he really wanted to honor progressives who backed him early on and then did the grunt work against McCain, he’d nominate Dennis Kucinich as Secretary of State.

Clearly, Obama hasn't selected his cabinet in general to the desire of the far left. So, why did Obama capitulate to the far left on the CIA? There is only one of two reasons. First, Obama saw anyone tied to any current CIA program as a battle he couldn't afford politically. Second, he doesn't see the CIA as altogether important and so it was a battle he was unwilling to wage. The first seems unlikely. There's nothing the far left hates more than current Iraq policy and yet he kept on Gates. If it's the second, that is scary. If Obama doesn't view the CIA is altogether important and so he is willing to appoint someone wholly unqualified in order to avoid a political fight, that spells doom for the GWOT. Obama himself has no experience in intelligence. He won't know that intelligence is lacking until it is too late. By then, Americans will be dead.

The Demonization of Free Markets

Among many things that 2008 will be remembered for, one of them will be that free markets began to fall out of favor. Now, those with an economically liberal agenda are using this opportunity to beat free markets when they are down. Free markets are now associated with unfettered greed and out of control behavior. Arianna Huffington took her turn demonizing free markets, and now, so has Thomas Frank.

But something went wrong on the road to privatopia. If everything is for sale, why shouldn't the guardians put themselves on the block as well? Now we find that the profit motive, unleashed to work its magic within the credit-rating agencies, apparently exposed them to pressure from debt issuers and led them to give high ratings to the mortgage-backed securities that eventually blew the economy to pieces.

And so it has gone with many other shibboleths of the free-market consensus in this tragic year.For example, it was only a short while ago that simply everyone knew deregulation to be the path to prosperity as well as the distilled essence of human freedom. Today, though, it seems this folly permitted a 100-year flood of fraud. Consider the Office of Thrift Supervision (OTS), the subject of a withering examination in the Washington Post last month. As part of what the Post called the "aggressively deregulatory stance" the OTS adopted toward the savings and loan industry in the years of George W. Bush, it slashed staff, rolled back enforcement, and came to regard the industry it was supposed to oversee as its "customers." Maybe it's only a coincidence that some of the biggest banks -- Washington Mutual and IndyMac -- ever to fail were regulated by that agency, but I doubt it.

Or consider the theory, once possible to proffer with a straight face, that lavishing princely bonuses and stock options on top management was a good idea since they drew executives' interests into happy alignment with those of the shareholders. Instead, CEOs were only too happy to gorge themselves and turn shareholders into bag holders. In the subprime mortgage industry, bankers handed out iffy loans like candy at a parade because such loans meant revenue and, hence, bonuses for executives in the here-and-now. The consequences would be borne down the line by the suckers who bought mortgage-backed securities. And, of course, by the shareholders.

Blaming free markets for the crisis is as simplistic as blaming deregulation, George Bush, Barney Frank, Fannie Mae, the Community Reinvestment Act, or any other of a number of villains that partisans on all sides have isolated and demonized for this crisis. This crisis didn't happen merely because the markets were too free. That is patently ridiculous. Beyond the scope of the unfettered greed that economic liberals like to look at, there was also a great deal of intervention in the free markets that perpetuated the problem. In fact, one could make the case that the pysczophrenic policy of the Federal Reserve over the last ten years has by far played the biggest role in setting up the crisis. All those bashing free markets seem to totally dismiss that the Federal Reserve has manipulated interests rates up and down no less than four times in nine years. Maybe just maybe, had the Federal Reserve not been so eager to interfere with the free market, then maybe just maybe, the free market wouldn't have responded so absurdly.

All those bashing free markets dismiss several other things as well. First, mortgages are one of the most hyper regulated industries we have. Every time a loan is closed no less than one hundred documents are signed. Those are signed in response to one regulation or another. Second, this crisis largely occurred in response to massive fraud on the part of borrowers, mortgage brokers, appraisers, and banks which all lied regarding income, assets, occupancy, and value. No market, free or otherwise, can withstand wholesale fraud. Finally, free market bashers dismiss the role of such regulations as FASB 157 in perpetuating this crisis.

Finally, what is the alternative? Should we have government control like in Cuba and Venezuela? Maybe we should have the quasi socialist systems of Europe where the economies have been largely stagnant for the better part of two decades. All those now clammoring for a plethora of new regulations to reign in this greed seem to dismiss the utter disaster of prior regulations like Sarbanes Oxley. Furthermore, those that demonize the free markets dismiss how the free market responded to this crisis. While pols all over the place debated what sort of new regulations we should have in mortgages, it was the free market itself that immediately eliminated all the trouble loans: stated, no money down, etc.

So, they can demonize the free market if they like. All it will really show is that they are partisan economic liberals with absolutely nothing more than a rudimentary understanding of how all of this came about. No one is saying that free markets are perfect. Some of us just realize that given any alternative, free markets are the best, and frankly, it isn't even close.

Wealth, Health Care, and Fundamental Rights

In today's Huffington Post, Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr. makes this stunning suggestion.

Because our current economic crisis is forcing us to think outside the box, one topic worthy of renewed discussion is health care. What if the Constitution said: "All citizens shall enjoy the right to health care of equal high quality and the Congress shall have the power to implement this article by appropriate legislation?"

Beyond the obvious benefits of greater and better health care itself, imagine the economic consequences: thousands of doctors and nurses being trained; new medical colleges established and older ones expanded; increased medical research; a massive preventive health care industry springing up; new hospitals in needy urban and rural areas with the private sector, federal, state, county and local governments all working cooperatively under the authority granted by the Constitution and Congress.

The absence of this human right as a health care constitutional amendment has major economic consequences as well. Preventive medicine is almost entirely missing from our current health care system, which costs taxpayers billions.

As such, Congressman Jackson Jr. doesn't merely believe that health care should be a right, but he wants the Constitution to be amended so that the right the quality health is forever ingrained into the Constitution. Even more stunning is the comparison Jackson makes to "prove" his point.

The Constitution is the wall that surrounds everything within it. The current wall consists of material from two central sources: a supreme law and the free enterprise system. The Constitution gives direction and authority to Congress, the president, federal agencies and to the states (under the Tenth Amendment). It is this sacred document that also grants the free market, our laissez-faire capitalist system, the legal authority to operate.

The First Amendment illustrates the interaction between these two wall-building materials -- the public and the private sides. That familiar amendment states that Congress shall make no law prohibiting or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press. That's it! The Constitution doesn't say USA Today, New York Times, Chicago Sun-Times, Chicago Tribune, Chicago Defender, AM, FM, Satellite Radio, Newsweek, Time, Channels 2, 5, 7, or 9, PBS or CNN. Nor does it state cell phones, i-phones, the internet, and on-and-on. So, while it's impossible to truly determine the economic impact of the First Amendment, the Constitution clearly has a major impact to our nation's economic vitality

It's true that media has proliferated in part because none of them are worried that the government will step in to silence them. That said, the government is not doing anything to threaten someone from entering the health care field despite health care not being a right. The comparison is totally ridiculous and fallacious. Jackson Jr. doesn't stop there. He sees the right to health care as a necessity because we are already spending an enormous amount on health care.

How can we afford such a system? Without a constitutional right to health care we already spend nearly twice as much as any other developed nation in the world -- about $2.5 trillion or 16% of our GDP -- yet nearly fifty million Americans are without health insurance and often receive their care in the most expensive manner possible, in the local hospital emergency room.

With a health care constitutional amendment, instead of plugging a hole in the dike, we would be building a wall with a strong and solid foundation. Instead of spending money on more band-aids, a revised Constitution would give direction to a unique American purpose and, over time, solve an historic problem. And with American innovation we could put millions of Americans to work expanding a more balanced economic system on the solid foundation of health care for all. Health care would be a human right protected by the American people in our Constitution.

In other words, in the view of those like Jackson Jr. anything that we spend an enormous amount of money on needs to be considered a right. This sort of a thought is extremely dangerous. There are lots of things that government spends an enormous amount of money on: housing, food, jobs, research, etc. By Jackson's line of thinking, all of these things should also be rights. After all, our country spends hundreds of billions yearly on housing and yet not everyone has their own home. If you think as Jackson does, the only way to make this a reality is to make home ownership a right. This is frankly exactly the sort of thought process that eventually leads right to Socialism.

Barack Obama Vs. the Far Left

Are you a Conservative that thinks that Barack Obama will govern far to the left? Never fear, for some, Barack Obama is already governing not nearly far enough to the left. Here are just some of the ideas that the average person on the far left would like to see for Obama's cabinet.
Dennis Kucinich for Secretary of State, Arlene Holt Baker (currently head of the AFL-CIO) for Secretary of Labor, Russ Feingold for Attorney General, Joseph Stiglitz (author of the far left's new gospel the Three Trillion Dollar War: the True Costs of the Iraq War) for Secretary of Treasury.

Here is how self professed Leftist,college professor, and political pundit Dr. Mark Lamont Hill analyzed the choice of Rahm Emanuel for Chief of Staff.

Based on recent history, Rahm Israel Emmanuel is by far one of the most conservative politicians on his side of the aisle. As a member of the New Democrat Coalition, Emmanuel and his comrades have been major allies to the Right-wing’s efforts to undermine fair trade, disempower unions, and disregard environmental considerations. For example, policies like the Clinton Crime Bill and NAFTA, which was heavily critiqued by Obama, are directly attributed to Emmanuel’s influence. For a president who got elected by distancing himself from Bush, Obama’s selection of a powermongering Lieberman Democrat wreaks of contradiction.

While most Democrats are attempting to responsibly reduce military spending, Emmanuel has repeatedly voted in favor of, and resisted attempts to limit, George W. Bush’s reckless and dangerous military expenditures. Also, Emmanuel was a hardcore supporter of the Iraq war, arguing that he would have supported the invasion regardless of whether or not weapons of mass destruction really existed. Today, Emmanuel continues to instigate military action against Iran by overstating its nuclear capacity.

Perhaps most disturbing about Emmanuel is his stance on Israel. As a fervent Zionist, he is further to the Right than President Bush on all issues related to Israel. From Israel’s assassination policy to well-documented human rights abuses, Emmanuel has failed to offer the slightest critique of America’s most coveted ally. Of course, it is not difficult to find the filial source of Emmanuel’s stances. His father, Benjamin Emmanuel, was a well-known gun-runner for Irgun, a pre-Israel terrorist organization that launched a series of vicious attacks against Palestinians and British civilians. In 1991, Emmanuel himself volunteered for the Israel Defense Forces during the Gulf War.

There is a strain of elite Conservative thought that blames social conservatives for the loss in this past election. If ever there was a base of voters that can be a problem though it is the far left.

The far left has a revolutionary agenda. It includes such social issues as gay marriage, abortion on demand, euthanasia, the re institution of the Fairness Doctrine, gun control and full drug legalization. On foreign policy matters, they can't get out of Iraq soon enough. They want to avoid war with Iran at all costs, and they generally have an anti American view of geopolitics. On economic matters they use words like social justice to mask their quasi Socialistic agenda.

They also wield a lot of power. Their power base is drawn from such groups as Moveon.org, Daily Kos, and the network of George Soros. The far left lead by Moveon and Daily Kos supported Barack Obama early over Hillary Clinton in the primaries. They have had eight years of pent up frustration and anger, and now they feel as though their guy was elected.

Not only do they feel entitled, but they are not so subtley demanding payback. Here is how the President of Move On, which raised $88 million for Obama, described the group's "hopes" for his administration.

President Obama will face daunting challenges from the day he takes office. We look forward, however, to being part of the enormous wave of civic and political engagement that his Presidency has inspired and that will enable him to achieve the things that have been on the top of his agenda and ours. We look forward to the change all of us worked so hard to create

To me, this was a not subtle hint that they expect payback from Senator Obama for their troubles in helping to elect him.

The far left is already restless from the cabinet choices. They view the Clinton administration as far too moderate. They expect the Obama administration to be far more liberal. Just ask both Hillary Clinton and Joe Lieberman what the far left does to Democrats that they feel have crossed them. In fact, picking Hillary Clinton may be seen as an act of sacrilege.

The problem for President Obama is that appeasing the far left will alienate everyone else. Not appeasing them will cause ire from the very base that lead him into office. In order to be successful as President, I am of the opinion that he will have to take on the far left. I don't know if he has the will to take them on, and I'm not sure that he disagrees with them much. What wil happen when our troops are still in country in Iraq by the end of 2011? What will happen the first time we take an aggressive posture toward Iran? What will happen when card check and the Fairness Doctrine are not delivered? It may spell a mutiny in his base, and two plus months before taking office, we are already seeing signs that we may see Barack Obama versus the far left.

The Far Left Economic Mindset

Anyone that is frightened by what economic horror the policies of an Obama administration may bring only needs to read this piece by William Jones to know their fear is not without merit. Jones attempts to draw comparisons between what Obama may do and every liberal's favorite economic Presidency, that of FDR. It isn't merely the positive connections that Jones draws, but rather the missed opportunities of FDR's administration that Jones hopes Obama won't miss. Here are the most relevant parts.

Obama invoked that legacy repeatedly during the campaign, from the account of how his grandfather benefited from the GI Bill to his proposals to create jobs and economic growth through federal investment in education, industrial innovation and infrastructure. Such rhetoric allowed him to claim the legacy of the most popular and successful government programs in American history, but it also displayed some of the limitations of New Deal policies, particularly in their ability to address racial inequality. We can thus turn to the history of those programs for an indication of how the Obama administration will confront the interrelated problems of economic and racial inequality in the twenty-first-century United States.

Despite conservatives' alarm about "the slippery slope to socialism," Franklin Roosevelt displayed a strong aversion to direct control over the economy. Instead, his administration relied on civil society groups to implement and enforce government policies. Rather than impose wage and price regulations to stabilize the economy, for example, the National Recovery Administration allowed business associations to establish standards and then empowered unions to enforce them. That unprecedented mobilization of civil society sowed the seeds for the industrial union movement, which proved critical to Roosevelt's re-election in 1936 and deepened his commitment to social democratic reform in the late 1930s and early '40s.

...

But there is a more troubling side to the New Deal's legacy, which will not be resolved through populist appeals to the struggling middle class. A growing body of scholarly literature has shown that the same reliance on civil society that inspired the labor movement also prevented the Roosevelt administration from addressing deeply ingrained racial inequalities. While unions improved wages and conditions for industrial workers, they had little impact on the agricultural and service sectors, where the vast majority of blacks and Latinos labored for low wages without collective bargaining rights, health insurance or even Social Security. The GI Bill offered mortgage assistance and scholarships to all veterans but did nothing to ensure that African-Americans could use those benefits to attend segregated colleges or buy homes in segregated neighborhoods. Indeed, had Obama's paternal grandparents lived in the United States it is unlikely they would have shared the sepia-toned vision of the New Deal era that was so pervasive in his campaign material.

...

President-elect Obama has an opportunity to further racial and economic justice by fusing the New Deal and civil rights traditions. He expressed that link directly in Philadelphia in March, when he insisted that unless Americans confront racial inequality directly, they will "never be able to come together and solve challenges like healthcare, or education, or the need to find good jobs for every American." Such a confrontation would entail strengthening the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and other civil rights agencies, while addressing racial inequalities in primary school funding, economic development and incarceration. Just as the GI Bill benefited white veterans more than black ones, race-neutral policies are likely to exacerbate existing inequalities.

This piece, and the thoughts behind it, have three frightening ideas. If these ideas are taken by President Obama then I believe we are headed toward economic disaster.



1) The lionization of FDR's New Deal



FDR casts a massive historical shadow, however one of the unfortunate by products of this is that he gets all sorts of economic credit he simply doesn't deserve. I say it over and over but it's worth repeating, unemployment was still more than ten percent in 1940. Of course, GDP began growing only about a year plus after he took office, however given how much he spent, it better have. Still, he didn't necessarily bring jobs back to the nation. Furthermore, the by product of FDR's New Deal is that we have a bunch of failing and flawed government programs like Social Security, Medicaid and Fannie Mae. If FDR is the model we choose, it is the wrong model.



Reagan, it could be argued, took over an economy in just as bad a shape. We not only had double digit unemployment but interest rates and inflation. Within three years though, the economy not only turned around but took off. Unlike FDR, Reagan relied on tax cuts to spur the economy. FDR relied on government spending. The results speak for themselves. If FDR is Obama's model, we may still have double digit unemployment come 2016.



2) The insistence on all or nothing socialism.



Jones uses the same M.O. as most liberals in dismissing Obama's and FDR's pseudo Socialism. Unless either is a full blown Socialist, all fears are overblown. Yes it's true, FDR didn't nationalize everything and give total control to the federal government. That doesn't mean that there wasn't plenty to fear from FDR's Socialistic tendencies. He partially socialized health care, retirement, and housing, and each of those programs (Medicare, Social Security, and Fannie Mae) are a burden on our economy to this day. He presided over the biggest expansion of government in the history of our nation and it's only gotten bigger since then. If Barack Obama expands the government as much FDR did, we will face a bureaucracy that will get in the way of everyone and everything.



3) Economic recovery isn't enough. We also need economic justice or social engineering.



We already know that Barack Obama has an affinity for economic justice or social engineering. He said as much in his infamous 2001 WBEZ inteview.



The far left isn't merely content with President Obama fixing the economy. The far left wants him to engage in social engineering through eupimisms like "social and economic justice". Jones wants Obama to create policy that will lift up African Americans, and he wants Obama to create programs that even out the playing field.

The far left will have President Obama's ear and they won't merely demand a new New Deal. Furthermore, they will demand that this version of the New Deal not only lifts our economy but creates some sort of social equality. Furthermore, unless it is entirely Socialist, we need not worry about any of the policies that get us there.

Anatomy of a "Gaffe"

According to the Huffington Post, Sarah Palin made her first gaffe today.

Gov. Sarah Palin made her first potentially major gaffe during her time on the national scene while discussing the developments of the perilous housing market this past weekend.

Speaking before voters in Colorado Springs, the Republican vice presidential nominee claimed that lending giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac had "gotten too big and too expensive to the taxpayers." The companies, as McClatchy reported, "aren't taxpayer funded but operate as private companies. The takeover may result in a taxpayer bailout during reorganization."

Economists and analysts pounced on the misstatement, which came before the government had spent funds baling the two entities out, saying it demonstrated a lack of understanding about one of the key economic issues likely to face the next administration.

"You would like to think that someone who is going to be vice president and conceivable president would know what Fannie and Freddie do," said Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research. "These are huge institutions and they are absolutely central to our country's mortgage debt. To not have a clue what they do doesn't speak well for her, I'd say.

Now, whether or not this is a gaffe is ultimately determined by logic that is a second cousin of determining what the definition of is is. First of all, when pointing out someone else's gaffe, it is very important not to make one of your own. McClatchey is quick to point out that both Fannie and Freddie are private companies. Of course, that is not entirely true. They are in fact Government Sponsored Entities. They are not private companies but rather some sort of netherworld that makes them kind of private and kind of public, and that is part of their problem. Among the perks of being a GSE is that both get multi billion dollar credit lines from the Treasury at a rate no other company would get. So, in a sense, they are always working with the government's money, or as Fred Thompson so aptly described it...

Fannie and Fred were “government sponsored enterprises” which means heads they win, tails you lose. If they make money stockholders, creditors and Fannie and Freddie employees – some making millions annually – get the benefit. But now that mortgages have hit the skids, with mounting losses, the taxpayers potentially face trillions in exposure. This is because there is an “implicit” (read “actual”) government guarantee of Fannie and Freddie’s obligations and both are now too big to be allowed to fail. This is called the “bailout phase,” which will probably lead to a bigger bubble in the future.

Now, frankly, if there is a gaffe here it is Palin's suggestion that this phenomenon is new. It isn't.
As Palin herself points out they are huge however they have since their creation dominated the mortgage market. As such, they have always been in a position where they are too big too fail. If you want to call that a gaffe fine, but not one of consequence.

Another potential gaffe might be Palin's statement that the two have gotten too expensive for the tax payers. That's because they've never required the bailout they need now. Well, in that case whether or not this is actually a gaffe depends on your definition of is.

Of course, what is clear is that neither the folks at Huffington Post or the so called expert economists have any more clue about what both of these institutions do than they think that Sarah Palin does. Here is another quote from the article.

Added Andrew Jakabovics, an economic analysts for the progressive think tank, Center for American Progress: "It is somewhat nonsensical because up until yesterday there was sort of no public funding there. Even today they haven't drawn down any of the credit line they have given to Treasury. 'Gotten too big and too expensive' are two separate things. The too big has been a conservative mantra for a while and there is something to be said of that in that they hold about half of the mortgage guarantees that are out there. And in the last year they have been responsible for roughly 80 percent out there. The 'too expensive to tax payers,' I don't know where that comes from."

Of course, it is patently ridiculous to say that the two have never had access to any credit line. They've had access to Treasury credit lines since their inception.

Finally, in my opinion, if any two politicians had a debate that lasted an hour or longer about the future of Fannie Mae, I would still be cataloguing the gaffes from that debate a week later. So, when partisans gasp in horror because a politician from the opposite party made what they consider a gaffe in explaining Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, then I am amused. The reality is that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are terribly complicated. Their business structure and model is terribly complicated. Even mortgage professionals don't really understand either one of them. The reality is that all politicians are generally totally clueless about both entities.