Wednesday, 07 May 2008
 

Mainstream?
Contributed by Russ Vaughn

Why do we refer to those flyover country Americans who maintain their traditional beliefs in God and country as Mainstream Americans while at the same time using the same adjective in a pejorative sense to describe a godless, liberal, American media that gleefully tramples those beliefs at every opportunity? It is actually the Mainstream Media’s persistent use of the term Mainstream Americans that perpetuates the problem.

Mainstream Americans and Mainstream Media have absolutely nothing in common yet I fear the use of that term to describe both is very confusing to many Americans, perhaps to the extent that those who perceive themselves as Mainstream Americans would be tempted to incorrectly believe that the Mainstream Media are supportive of their traditional beliefs. It’s bad enough that these Americans are under a constant barrage of celebrity liberalism from the major networks, CNN and MSNBC; it would be a travesty if they should actually believe these leftist propagandists are on their side.

I know that Rush has coined the neologism, Drive By Media, but that term is in limited use among conservative groups and not nearly as widely used as the mainstream descriptive. The term mainstream as applied to Americans to depict salt-of-the-earth, Norman Rockwellian traditionalists far predates the deprecatory term Mainstream Media. Like the term Gay, it has been usurped to have far different implications and serve far different purposes than in its original manifestations.

There is no satirical intent on my part here. It is a serious concern that those folks who actually are mainstream may be confused as to who it is who truly represents their views. Could this be why so many of them continue to watch the liberal propagandists instead of switching to FOX News which is far more supportive of their views? I see the problem but don’t have a clue as to what to do.

Hey, Rush, what about you?

Contributed by Russ Vaughn on May 7, 2008 at 09:42 PM in Media Perfidy, Russ Vaughn | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Tuesday, 15 January 2008
 

R J Del Vecchio: And it's "busted again" for the NYTimes
Contributed by Bill Faith

Del emails:

Sometimes I really wonder, and wonder hard, how in hell supposedly "news professionals" at the Times can look themselves in the mirror in the morning.  They deserve ridicule and condemnation heaped on them like Everest dropped on a slime rat. Pass this far & wide, they've tried to smear all the returning vets as crazed killers and made one hell of a try at it. They really deserve to fry for this one. [Click here.]

Del

Some related links I found on my own; I'm sure I missed some I should have mentioned while I was having computer problems:

• Crazed Veterans Spark Nationwide Crime Wave
• Bruce Kesler: Weekly Standard & Others Miss Point About Vets
• NYT: Our war-crazed veterans are murdering people
  — at a rate not quite equal to the general population
• A letter to the editor of the Times

Contributed by Bill Faith on January 15, 2008 at 05:12 PM in Media Perfidy, R J Del Vecchio | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Friday, 27 April 2007
 

You have two choices. You can take the media's....
Contributed by antimedia

....word for what's going on in Iraq, or you can listen to Gen. Petreaus reporting on developments in Iraq. The Democrats have chosen the former.

It wouldn't hurt to read Steve Schippert's report on Iraq as well. Steve is a military expert with extensive contacts in the area and an astute understanding of the cultures and religions of Iraq.

Contributed by antimedia on April 27, 2007 at 04:01 PM in Antimedia, Iraq, Media Perfidy | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Monday, 02 April 2007
 

Straight Talk Express Derailed--by straight talk
Contributed by 72nd TCS

On Sunday, Republican Senators John McCain, Lindsey Graham and Indiana's Representative Mike Pence strolled through a Baghdad marketplace as a show of confidence in the improved security resulting from the "clear and hold" tactics introduced there by General Petraeus.  Afterwards, these members of Congress held a press conference at which McCain expressed cautious optimism about the progress made so far. The  AP account was picked up by some newspapers.  As with yesterday's story about the imminent exhaustion of funds to pursue the war, the Washington Post did not deem the press conference newsworthy. The New York Times, Chicago Tribune and others treated it in the lackluster fashion that customarily greets any favorable news or comment regarding  the war in Iraq. The citation that follows is taken from the major Phoenix outlet, The Arizona Republic:

Iraq strategy is working, McCain says
Senator visits Baghdad; 6 U.S. soldiers are killed

Associated Press
Apr. 2, 2007 12:00 AM

BAGHDAD - After a heavily guarded trip to a Baghdad market, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., insisted Sunday that a U.S.-Iraqi security crackdown in the capital was working and said Americans lacked a "full picture" of the progress.

The U.S. military later reported that six soldiers were killed in roadside bombings.

McCain, a presidential hopeful, acknowledged that a difficult task lies ahead in Iraq but criticized the media for not giving Americans enough information about the recent drop in sectarian killings, the establishment of security posts and efforts against al-Qaida.

"These and other indicators are reason for cautious, very cautious optimism about the effects of the new strategy," McCain said.

This is typical of the objective reporting that one sees: a brief, flat, recital of the bare facts.  The New York Times, by contrast,, weighs in at the outset with a resounding "But," setting the story in the context of the daily horrors generated by the enemy’s all-too-effective media campaign:

4 G.I.’s Among Dead in Iraq; McCain Cites Progress
By KIRK SEMPLE

BAGHDAD, April 1 — Mortar attacks, suicide car bombs, roadside bombs, ambushes and gun battles killed at least two dozen people on Sunday, including four American soldiers, the authorities said.

The American military command said the soldiers were killed southwest of Baghdad just after midnight as they responded to an earlier bombing that had killed two other American soldiers. The insurgents have frequently tried to reap greater death tolls by carrying out attacks against rescue crews rushing to bomb sites.

The attacks coincided with a visit to Iraq by a Republican Congressional delegation led by Senator John McCain, who declared at a news conference that the new American security plan was “making progress” and that there was cause for “very cautious optimism.”

In sometimes testy comments to reporters in the heavily fortified Green Zone, Mr. McCain said the American public was not receiving “the full picture about what’s happening,” and he described the delegation’s visit to a downtown market where scores of people have died this year in multiple car bombings and other attacks. There, the members of Congress said, they strolled around, haggled with merchants and drank tea.

But the outing was far from carefree. The delegation traveled in a convoy of armored military vehicles and was accompanied by a large contingent of heavily armed soldiers. The politicians wore body armor while they shopped.

“We had protection today,” Mr. McCain acknowledged when pressed by reporters.

The technique is not the least bit subtle, but highly effective. The Newspaper of Record conveys the strong impression that Senator McCain and his colleagues are a bunch of fakers, donning body armor and surrounding themselves with an impenetrable military cordon in order to create an artificial impression of progress in Baghdad.

On the left-leaning side of the blogosphere, McCain’s remarks unleashed a storm of sneers, jeers, and vilification, with epithets such as Neverland, delusions and pandering [to wingnuts] rife in the telling. [Too many examples for links. Just GOOGLE "McCain Baghdad" and slog through the muck.]

The senator certainly knew what he was in for, and even invited it by taunting the media to their faces, as reported by CNN:

‘The American people are not getting the full picture of what’s happening here. They are not getting the full picture of the drop in murders, the establishment of security outposts throughout the city, the situation in Anbar, the deployment of additional Iraqi brigades who are performing well, and other signs of progress,’ he said.

No gift of prophecy is needed to foresee the end of the McCain-Media honeymoon.  In truth, it’s here. As a serious candidate for the presidency, he has chosen to speak his mind on the central and most controversial issue of our time. Whatever the impact on his ambitions may be, he has vouchsafed an admirable embrace of principle. He deserves our respect, whether or not he gets our vote.

Contributed by 72nd TCS on April 2, 2007 at 02:31 PM in 1st Amendment, Current Affairs, Iraq, John "72nd TCS" Werntz, John McCain, Media Perfidy | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Monday, 19 March 2007
 

Arch Arthur: "Protesters, for, against war, face off"
Contributed by Bill Faith

Another letter to the editor about biased media coverage of the Gathering of Eagles, this one from our next-to-newest Old War Dog:

The piece you published in Sunday's Birmingham News (page 9a) was inaccurate.  I realize that this is an LA Times piece, but the Birmingham News printed it.

"The anti-war demonstrators amassed on the North side of the Lincoln Memorial chanting demands for peace now. The counter-protesters, fewer in number but no less vocal, gathered on the East side of the Vietnam Wall and shouted political taunts - many laced with obscenities."

Factual error #1:  The entire Lincoln Memorial was occupied by the Gathering of Eagles .  In addition to the Vietnam Wall, GoE held the mall from the Independence Ave on the South to Constitution Ave on the North and from Henry Bacon Drive on the West to 17th Street on the East.  GoE also protected the WWII and Korean War Memorials from anti-war protesters who threatened to deface again them as they had on 17 January 2007.  Act Now to Stop War and End Racism (ANSWER) was confined to a small area bounded by Henry Bacon Drive, 23rd Street, Constitution Ave and the Lincoln Circle. 

Factual error #2:  ANSWER began the political taunting using loudspeakers to blast their very offensive anti-American propaganda at the GoE.  They also flew two American flags upside down and carried red communist banners and Che posters.  ANSWER made the first use of profanity.  [Swear at a sailor do not be surprised if he swears back.]

Factual error #3: The National Park Service had helicopters circling the area all day taking ariel photographs.  According to their preliminary estimates, GoE had 30,000 demonstrators while ANSWER fielded 5,000 to 10,000. "Fewer in number" is just wrong.  I know I was there at  the Lincoln Memorial and I have photographs and video.

As for the student who "got called a commie".  She should avoid marching under placards bearing this image.

17 March 2007 marked a sea change in political demonstrations.  The leftist have, for the past 40 years, used violent, destructive, street demonstrations to advance their political agenda.   Masked, rock throwing protesters faced little opposition -  usually  outnumbered riot police or National Guard troops with restrictive rules of engagement.  The radical left funds these protests, providing transportation, meals and lodging paid by groups such as George Soros' MoveOn.org.  Their political opponents have resisted manning the barricades.   

Saturday, all of that changed.  With only six weeks of preparation and zero funding, GoE asked for nonpartisan, ex-military volunteers to protect the Vietnam Wall.   The response was overwhelming.  Veterans' groups including Veterans of Foreign Wars, American Legion, Military Order of the Purple Heart and Rolling Thunder responded with boots on the ground.  The National Park Police granted GoE permits to assemble on the monuments, denying ANSWER the opportunity to vandalize.  The anti-war demonstrators were intimidated.  They faced men who went to Vietnam and fought honorably rather than running to Canada or Oxford to avoid serving their country.

GoE is a true grass roots movement.  30,000 people paid their own way to Washington DC from as far away as California.  For the first time, violent demonstrators met a trained, disciplined and determined force.  They will meet that force again and again.  I was proud to stand with this 30,000.

ANSWER will never again go unanswered.

Arch S. Arthur,
Major USAF (retired)
Maylene, AL

Contributed by Bill Faith on March 19, 2007 at 07:41 PM in Caring about our troops, Gathering of Eagles, Media Perfidy, The American Warrior, US Air Force, US Army, US Coast Guard, US Marine Corps, US Navy, Viet Nam | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Max Friedman: Identifying the Anti-War Protesters
Contributed by Bill Faith

Email from R J Del Vecchio:

This is a letter to the editor of the Washington Post, with absolutely wonderful information on the leaders of the "antiwar" peaceniks. Everyone in the country should know who these people really are. Please read this over and pass it on.

Del

I emailed back and learned that Del got this straight from Max and has his permission to pass it along:

Dear Editor:

Your paper's coverage of the so-called "anti-Iraq protest movement" seriously failed to identify both the groups involved in leading the demonstration on March 17th, but also failed to identify its leaders whose names either appeared in the WP or on their press releases and websites.

Brian Becker, identified as "national coordinator for the Answer Coalition" is not identified as a longtime member and leader of the Stalinist "Workers World Party", perhaps the top communist party in the US today.  The same goes for other ANSWER spokespersons (over time) including Richard Becker, Steve Hackwell, Leslie Feinberg, Monica Moorehead, Sara Flounders, John Catalinotto, etc. Many of these individuals were identified as members of the WWP as far back at April 1974 in the report "The Workers World Party and Its Front Organizations", House Internal Security Committee (HISC) and in an earlier hearing, "Revolutionary Activities Directed Toward the Administration of Penal or Correctional Systems, Part 1", March/May, 1973. Thus WP writer Brigid Schulte's writing in "Veterans, Others Denounce Marchers", March 18th, got the chant "Workers World traitors must hang!" wrong. It was not "a reference to the Communist newspaper", i.e. "Workers World." It was a reference to the WWP as the sponsoring organization of the demonstration, along with a mixed Communist/Maoist coalition known as United for Peace & Justice, led by an old Communist Party USA-connect activist, Leslie Cagan, and Revolutionary Communist Party leader, the aging Carl Davidson.

ANSWER (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism) is the main "peace" front for the WWP, which also formed and controlled its predecessor, International Action Center (IAC), the All Peoples Congress, and the Peoples Anti-War Mobilization. Newer fronts include the  Peoples Video Fund, Troops Out Now, Party for Liberation and Socialism, and the various International Tribunals on Panama, Iraq, Haiti, etc.

Ramsay Clark was chosen as the front man either in late 1980 or early 1990, and this, in itself, would make a fascinating story to follow through on, though his support for various communist front groups goes back as far as the 1970's.

Significant information about the WWP and UPJ can be found at www.frontpagemagazine.com and its "DiscoveryTheNetwork" database, among other on-line sources.

Also, Schulte's attempt to characterize "The veterans for peace, including active duty men and women, and guys fresh from Iraq in desert camo ..." as  still having " the thousand-yard stare, and a battlefield hauntedness" was nothing more than pure hype, and garbage. While some may have seen heavy combat, it was of limited time of contact and of a limited in-country time of duration. The "stare" should belong to my father-in-law who fought his way across the Pacific in WW2 to a place called Iwo Jima,  or to the soldiers at the Chosin Reservoir, or to the Battle of Hue, Khe San, An Loc, etc.

This is not to take away from those Iraq veterans protestors who served honorably, but my son fought there and he doesn't have any "stare", only a healty respect for life and his fellow soldiers. Neither did the scores of Vietnam veterans I met with and talked to during the Protect the Wall rally. If anyone should have had the "thousand-yard stare," it was the guys I met from the Big Red One Division, the 3rd Marine Division, and the 82nd and 173rd Airborne Divisions, among other. Mike Benge, a former Marine and ex-civilian POW in Vietnam (5 years) and R J Del Vecchio, who was telling us about funny stories about how his wound was treated, didn't "stare"; they laughed, they shook hands and shared hugs of respect with fellow vets, and gave my daughter more history lessons on Vietnam in a few hours than you would find in many schools. They were the true "Band of Brothers."

Sincerely,

Max Friedman

(MF was a MACV-accredited correspondent in So. Vietnam, Fall 1970)

Contributed by Bill Faith on March 19, 2007 at 07:04 PM in Caring about our troops, Gathering of Eagles, Iraq, Islamism Delenda Est, Media Perfidy, R J Del Vecchio, The American Warrior, US Air Force, US Army, US Coast Guard, US Marine Corps, US Navy, Viet Nam | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Thursday, 01 March 2007
 

Telling Symptoms
Contributed by Russ Vaughn

This Appeal for Redress incident is so telling of mainstream media bias that it is virtually pathonemonic, a diagnostic term physicians use to demonstrate that the presence of a specific symptom is a near-guarantee of a particular, underlying disease. This manipulated, misleading and misrepresentative use of a small group of malcontents to represent our armed forces at large is hailed by the media and given copious ink and air time in major media forums around the world while the honorable members of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, who ultimately had such major, historical impact on an American presidential election that they kept a lying traitor from becoming Commander-in-Chief of the very armed forces he betrayed, couldn't get anyone to cover their press conferences until it was painfully obvious, even to the biased boobs in the media, that the Swiftees were going to torpedo their lefty hero.

And then what did they get, these men who had bravely served their country, first in an unpopular war, lost for them by an earlier generation of this same mainstream media, then secondly by coming out of their comfortable anonymity to stand once more to defend the rest of us from a huge fraud being perpetrated by one of the true war criminals of the Vietnam War? How about such sneering condescension and excremental excoriation that the very term, "swiftboating" has come to have a contemptuous, derogatory meaning in the lexicon of liberals and their media lapdogs? I apologize for that use of "lapdog" knowing full well it is a favored epithet of the world socialist movement and their fellow travelers, but golly, doesn't it just so beautifully describe our modern media? I can almost hear George Soros snapping, “Heel! Sit!” Of course there is the exception of FOX News, which the rest of those poodles consider to be a pit bull driven mouth-frothing mad with right-wing rabies.

For a more current example of this lack of media evenhandedness, one only has to look at the Gathering of Eagles counter-rally scheduled for March 17th in Washington by veterans’ organizations and other patriotic Americans to protect our war memorials from the same possible desecration by antiwar protestors as occurred to our Capitol building during a recent antiwar demonstration. Carefully note how a truly "grassroots" event, involving tens of thousands of citizens coming spontaneously to their capitol at their own expense to fulfill a sense of patriotic duty, is being studiously ignored by the major networks and most other media organizations.

That’s right; thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of Americans stepping forward to protect our sacred war memorials, our symbols of our nation’s gratitude for the sacrifices of our warriors is all but ignored while a handful of military malcontents, manipulated by some pinko public relations pimps is hailed as being emblematic of the discontent in our forward-deployed forces and given as much ink and airtime as their predecessors gave their then “war hero” John Kerry back in 1971.

Any physicians reading this, I ask you: is that pathonemonic or what?

Contributed by Russ Vaughn on March 1, 2007 at 11:10 AM in Gathering of Eagles, Media Perfidy, Russ Vaughn | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Tuesday, 06 February 2007
 

Russ Vaughn: "Force Multipliers"
Contributed by Bill Faith

Some of you may remember seeing this before but I'm guessing a lot of you haven't, and even if you have it's been a while. The last time I know of that it was posted was here a little over 13 months ago. With Arkin and those al-NYT imbeds having shown their they're asses like they have recently I think it probably fits a lot of people's moods these days.

Force Multipliers

Wikipedia: force multiplier - a military term referring to a factor that dramatically increases (hence multiplies) the combat-effectiveness of a given military force.

In Iraq an IED explodes,
An American soldier dies,
But that blast will grow as the media blow
It up before our eyes.
And trumpet to the watching world,
These fifth column falsifiers,
Like sheep they bleat we face defeat,
Our foe’s force multipliers.

Osama and his minions know,
In combat they can’t beat us;
So they hope and pray will come a day,
Our own media will defeat us.
Ignoring all the good we’ve done,
Liberals focus on the gore,
On losses mounting and body counting,
To prove we’ve lost this war.

They disgraced us once in Vietnam,
So now these leftists feel,
That again they’ll win with media spin,
And make America kneel.
But defeatists aren’t the only ones,
Learned lessons from the past;
Back then we swore we’d lose no more,
This time we’re standing fast.

The Internet’s exposed them,
As elitist media liars;
They stand unclothed and widely loathed,
Our foe’s force multipliers.
Some day when all our troops return,
With Iraq on freedom’s path,
The liberal elite who sought defeat,
May face some Righteous wrath.

Russ Vaughn
2d Bn, 327th Parachute Infantry Regiment
101st Airborne Division
Vietnam 65-66

Contributed by Bill Faith on February 6, 2007 at 12:08 AM in Iraq, Islamism Delenda Est, Media Perfidy, Poetry, Russ Vaughn | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Sunday, 04 February 2007
 

Russ Vaughn: "Unbound by Honor"
Contributed by Bill Faith

Russ wrote this especially for Michelle Malkin's site but it's been a couple of days since we sent it to her and I'm giving up on hearing back from her. This was written in response to "The NYTimes' unspeakable violation". You'll also want to read her follow-up post, "Lt. Gen. Odierno writes to the NYTimes." Sgt. Hook's comments here are also worthy, as are SuperToad's here.

Unbound by Honor

Bound by honor, a sergeant's creed,
One observed to his bitter end,
Honored by buddies in word and deed
To honor their dying friend;
But the New York Times has no such care,
From nothing they'll refrain,
To show our enemies everywhere,
Our young sergeant's dying pain.

Vile bottom feeders such as these,
Supposedly seeking truth,
Sensation seeking sorry sleaze,
Violate our valiant youth.
No sense of honor have they,
Unlike the men they cover,
Seeking a slick and sleazy way,
Like wraiths of death they hover.

To Sergeant Leija I raise my arm,
In a heartfelt stiff salute,
And pray the Times comes to great harm,
Poisoned by their poisonous fruit.
I fear the time approaches,
When our troops seek retribution,
And squash these media roaches,
A tragic but understood solution.

Because our troops hold this belief,
The foe of their foe's their friend;
Friends of their foes will come to grief,
Face a dire and deadly end.
So the Times tries to defeat us,
Our enemies they defend,
Doing their Lefty best to beat us
Someday we'll see their end.

For years I've warned the media through poems and prose and puns,
Unwise it is to piss off those who hold, can use, the guns.

Russ Vaughn
2d Bn, 327th Parachute Infantry Regiment
101st Airborne division
Vietnam 65-66

Contributed by Bill Faith on February 4, 2007 at 12:12 PM in Bill Faith, Caring about our troops, Iraq, Islamism Delenda Est, Media Perfidy, Poetry, Russ Vaughn | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Friday, 02 February 2007
 

WaPo Weasels II
Contributed by Russ Vaughn

Want to slam our soldiers, Arkin?
Well here is one to slam.
I got used to Lefty slamming
When I came back from Vietnam.
So you want to put a muzzle
On our brave fighting men?
Well try muzzling me you jerk,
Just tell me where and when.

Your profession needs a lesson
In basic free speech rights,
For those you worms all hide behind,
For those who fight your fights.
Like all your soft and smarmy kind,
You really have no clue,
Who American warriors truly are,
What our warriors truly do.

How many times in your four years
As a chair-borne analyst,
Were you within an ocean’s width
Of combat’s hard mailed fist?
How many medals did you earn
In those warrens at Fort Meade?
In four years of four-eyed service,
Just what was your bravest deed?

FOX news has combat warriors
To help us understand the score,
While MSM uses clerks like you,
Who have never been to war.
Your resentment of your betters,
Seeps through your bitter writing,
And shows you have no clue or care
Of those who do the fighting.

Like your ivy-cloistered Comrades, your war’s between the classes,
Dialectics, speeches, theory, your heads firmly up your asses.

Russ Vaughn
2d Bn, 327th Parachute Infantry Regiment
101st Airborne Division
Vietnam 65-66

*** ***

Webmaster's notes [Bill Faith]:

• Please see my posts here  and here for some background information. 

• I posted the original "WaPo Weasels" here.

• There's a slightly out of date alphabetical index to my Russ Vaughn collection here. Anything too new to be in it yet will be above it on the page if you click here.

Contributed by Russ Vaughn on February 2, 2007 at 09:52 AM in Media Perfidy, Poetry, Russ Vaughn | Permalink | Comments (25) | TrackBack

Thursday, 01 February 2007
 

It's called "Cojones Envy."
Contributed by Bill Faith

I linked this earlier but color this Old Dog upset enough to make sure everyone sees it. I'm hanging this post at near the top of the site for a while to be sure.  Please check out my Bill's Bites post, follow the links and leave your thoughts in the comments if you're so inclined.

***

The stupid son of a bitch is still diggin'. I've added to my original post on this several times.

***

I think I finally figured out what it is about the situation that upsets me the most. As far as I'm concerned by letting something like that be posted on their site al-WaPo's management gave their stamp of approval to treating our Iraq vets like my fellow Namvets and I were treated. I want blood. I want heads on a platter. Being too sick to travel that far is probably the only thing keeping me out of jail right now.

Original timestamp 2007.01.30.23:17

Contributed by Bill Faith on February 1, 2007 at 06:59 PM in Bill Faith, Media Perfidy, Peacenik Stupidity | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack

The Eagle and the Serpents
Contributed by Russ Vaughn

Such discord now ‘tween you and us,
Mainstream Media and populace:
You envenom all that we hold dear,
And revel in those things we fear.
You denigrate our national pride
Taking always now the others’ side.
A Media mamba, a poisonous pest
That lurks within our Eagle’s nest.

You arrogant adders puffed with pride,
We know truth’s on our Eagle’s side;
And care not what you snakes declare,
We’ve had it with your venomous fare.
Our Eagle soars above your wrath,
Your tortured, twisted serpents' path.
From your low crawl, you fail to see,
Our Eagle strikes have set men free.

Now the Eagle from his lofty post,
Looks down upon your hissing host,
Who poison every good intent,
With noxious toxins you invent.
Like diamondbacks you loudly rattle,
Strike fear in those you deem but cattle;
But your cattle now look to the sky,
See the Eagle soaring, and know you lie.

Can you Media serpents win this fight?
Bring our Eagle down from newfound height?
No longer now caged up by you,
Only negative news to shape our view.
The Internet set our Eagle free,
Now we can hear, now we can see.
A Mainstream Media hissing lies,
Spitting blinding venom in our eyes.

Our Eagle’s spied you false purveyors,
Just negative fools and foul naysayers.
The Eagle knows now he is right,
That he’s with honor in this fight.
And despite your biting fanged attacks,
He’ll land upon your serpent backs;
An image that should give you pause:
A thrashing snake in Eagle’s claws.

SSGT Russ Vaughn
2d Bn, 327th Parachute Infantry Regiment
101st Airborne Division
Vietnam 65-66

Contributed by Russ Vaughn on February 1, 2007 at 10:53 AM in Media Perfidy, Poetry, Russ Vaughn | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Wednesday, 31 January 2007
 

Another old dog responds to the Whitefield slam
Contributed by Bill Faith

In "R J Del Vecchio: Zing those old vets; it's fun" I excerpted part of a recent LAT editorial "Apocalypse again -- call up the Vietnam vets" and posted a copy of R J Del Vecchio's response. Old War Dog-to-be (as soon as he finishes settling in to a new home) Arch Arthur saw my post and was kind enough to copy me on his letter to the LAT. Arch, btw, was the EWO in an F-4 that took a SAM over North Vietnam during the '72 Eastertide offensive. I'm still working on him for permission to post the email he sent me describing that experience.

Mr. Whitefield,

I'm a veteran of Vietnam.  Apparently you missed the fact that those soldiers, sailors, marines and airmen you chose to demean actually won the War.  They never lost a single battle.  No unit ever surrendered.  They withstood two major enemy offensives, Tet and Eastertide, both of which were major defeats for the communists. Your OpEd piece maligns the people your freely-elected government sent to fight and die there.  At least get your facts straight.

While the Tet Offensive frightened Walter Cronkite and the media, it destroyed the Viet Cong.  Of the 84,000 VC, fewer than 10,000 escaped death or capture.  None of their five major VC objectives were achieved.  The North Vietnamese army (NVA) took the old imperial capital of Hué and held it for several weeks.  To save this ancient site, our Marines retook the city without artillery or tactical air support but not before the NVA executed 5,800 civilians.

The Eastertide Offensive coincided with the monsoon in late March 1972. General Giap had 200,000 NVA regulars equipped with tanks and artillery.  Only 40,000 US servicemen were in country.   The weather broke the morning of April 28th.   It was NVA's high water mark.  The South Vietnamese army fought well, especially with US air and logistical support.  The NVA lost half their tanks, half their artillery and 100,000 troops.  General Giap got fired.

President Nixon, furious about Eastertide, ordered Operation Linebacker.  We got to hit  their capability to wage war. In the weeks that followed, we destroyed roads networks, rail yards and airfields.  We hit their air defense system, electrical power grid, communication and their only steel mill.  Until mid December, Henry Kissinger made steady progress at the Paris Peace Talks.

On December 18th 1972, the North Vietnamese negotiators walked out. Nixon ordered Linebacker II – waves B52s each loaded with 106 Mk82 500-pound bombs.  They pounded Hanoi and Haiphong with 100 to 150 sorties per night.  By Christmas, the North Vietnamese had run out of surface-to-air missiles and anti-aircraft ammunition.  On December 28th, 1972, the North Vietnamese returned to the table agreeing to most of our terms in return for a halt in the bombing.  By any standard, the Paris Peace Accords constituted a US military victory in Vietnam.

The Democrats, in control of Congress, refused to let the Republican administration achieve victory.  First, the Senate Foreign Relation Committee reduced military aid appropriation to South Vietnam from $1.4B to $700M, ensuring that the South Vietnamese army would be unable to mount another successful defense.  Second, to the FY75 Defense Appropriations Bill, the Senate attached the Case-Church Amendment.  This rider prohibited US military operations in, over or in the waters of Vietnam, Laos or Cambodia.  For some reason, President Ford signed it.  The North Vietnamese did not believe that US forces would permit them to attack the South, so as a test,  they took a provincial capital.  We could do nothing.

On May Day 1975, a Soviet tank manned by a Cuban crew crashed through the gates at the Presidential Palace in Saigon.  It was not yet over.  850,000 South Vietnamese were reeducated to death. Hundreds of thousands of boat people drowned.  Hill tribes were ethnically cleansed and 2,000,000 Cambodians, slaughtered.

LA Times circulation is down 6% daily and 8% on Sundays.  Anyone reading your piece can understand why.  You may publish your opinion, make fun of men who shed their blood to protect your right to do so, but I would not suggest you do it in person.

By the way, I own guns but no Harley and I have all my teeth.

Arch Arthur

Contributed by Bill Faith on January 31, 2007 at 01:56 AM in Arch Arthur, Bill Faith, Media Perfidy, Viet Nam | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Saturday, 27 January 2007
 

R J Del Vecchio: Zing those old vets; it's fun.
Contributed by Bill Faith

A composite of three emails from Del, leaving out my responses:

Wow, a truly impressive display of ignorance and gross disrespect for Viet Nam vets.  And this guy is a supervisor at one of our larger newspapers?  But we all know that the idea that antiwar/antimilitary bias exists in the media is just a bit of extreme right wing foolishness, don't we?

Modest Proposal
Apocalypse again -- call up the Vietnam vets
Where else can Bush get 21,500 trained soldiers for his 'surge'?
By Paul Whitefield; Paul Whitefield supervises the [LAT] editorial pages' copy desk.

LISTENING TO President Bush's speech on Iraq earlier this month, my first thought was: "Where the heck are we going to get 21,500 more soldiers to send to Iraq?" Our Reserves are depleted, our National Guard is worn out, our Army and Marine Corps are stretched to the limit.

Then it hit me: Re-up our Vietnam War veterans and send them.

They're trained. They're battle-hardened. Many already have post-traumatic stress disorder. Also, some have their own vehicles — Harleys mostly, which are cheap to run, make small targets and are highly mobile. I'll even bet that lots of these guys still have guns (you know, just in case).

[...]

Finally, these Vietnam War guys are hungry for revenge. After all, they fought in the only war the U.S. ever lost. And they didn't even get a parade. So this is their chance. We can throw them that big parade when they come marching home. 

The guy is playing in the famous Jonathan Swift "Modest Proposal", but he's gone way over the line.  Look at the last sentence, that's not part of the Swiftian approach, it's a deliberate slam at Vietvets and the common comment that we never got a welcome home.  He could have written this very differently and not included actual disrespect for vets, but he didn't.  Either he's a terrible writer and has no idea how he screwed this up, or (more likely) he has a significant anti-war and therefore anti-vet bias.

Below is my letter to the LA Times.

A long time ago Jonathan Swift used satire to focus attention on the plight of the Irish poor, by proposing their young be used as a food source.  Mr. Whitefield apparently intended to ape Swift and use what he thinks of as satire in indirectly ridiculing the Bush drive to increase troop levels in Baghdad.  However, in using the Vietnam veterans as the tool of his satire, he went well past the Swiftian approach, which subtly poked fun at the British arrogance towards the Irish, and instead wound up making fun of Vietnam vets in general.  Characterizing them as owning Harleys and guns and having PTSD goes directly to the false and hurtful image of all Vietvets as maladjusted losers, and the final snide comment about a major sore point for vets- "they didn't even get a parade"- is clearly disrespectful and in incredibly poor taste.  Whatever he may have meant to do in regard to the Iraq/Bush debate, he wound up providing a totally gratuitous and deeply offensive reference to living men who served their country, and an implied dismissal of the sacrifice of those who paid with their lives in that service.  Shame on him.

R J Del Vecchio
Raleigh, NC  27603
USMC vet, Viet Nam 1968

***

See also: Another Old Dog responds to the Whitefield slam

Contributed by Bill Faith on January 27, 2007 at 01:47 AM in Bill Faith, Caring about our troops, Media Perfidy, Viet Nam | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Tuesday, 09 January 2007
 

Jamil who?
Contributed by Bill Faith

The Captain Jamil Kije saga just keeps getting better and better, folks. Click here to read my latest post on the matter. Things are moving too fast for me to try to keep both sites up to date.

Contributed by Bill Faith on January 9, 2007 at 03:03 PM in Bill Faith, Iraq, Islamism Delenda Est, Media Perfidy | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Friday, 05 January 2007
 

Harvey Jamil the rabbit reporter found, goes into hiding
Contributed by Bill Faith

Click here and here to read my latest two posts on the ongoing Captain Jamil Kije Hussein saga.

***

I just posted the beginning of my next post in the series here.

Contributed by Bill Faith on January 5, 2007 at 08:51 PM in Bill Faith, Iraq, Islamism Delenda Est, Media Perfidy | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Wednesday, 03 January 2007
 

The Big Lie That Shielded Arafat
Contributed by John Werntz

Caroline Glick's column in yesterday's Jewish World Review is a real shocker.  Poor choice of word, actually. No mature and aware citizen can be shocked any more by evidence of collusion between the government and media to hide the truth from the people. But the story that she tells has to be near the top of anyone's list of Most Sickening Big Lies, right up there with the litany of Vietnam falsehoods and distortions.

Briefly, she reveals that a declassified State Department cable--its release by the State Department historian ideally timed in the Christmas season to be widely ignored--establishes that ever since the Nixon Administration the government has had irrefutable proof of Arafat's direct personal involvement in monstrous acts of terror. Whether the actual perps were called Fatah, Black September, or the Aksa Martyr's Brigade, they were all Arafat's boys. Our government pretended for "reasons of state" to be convinced by Arafat's denials.

The long excerpt in the sequel relates a single incident of hostage-taking and murder that the cable analyzes. The excerpt is an appetizer. If it interests you, by all means follow the link and regale yourself at the banquet that follows. But be sure to keep a barf-bag handy.

By Caroline B. Glick

<snip>

ON MARCH 1, 1973, eight Fatah terrorists, operating under the Black September banner stormed the Saudi Arabian Embassy in Khartoum, Sudan during a farewell party for the US Embassy's Chargé d'Affaires George Curtis Moore.  The terrorists took Moore, US Ambassador Cleo Noel, Belgian Chargé d'Affaires Guy Eid and two Arab diplomats hostage. They demanded that the US, Israel, Jordan and Germany release  PLO and Baader-Meinhof Gang terrorists, including Robert F. Kennedy's assassin Sirhan Sirhan and Black September commander Muhammed Ahwad (Abu Daud), from prison in exchange for the hostages' release.

The next evening, the Palestinians brutally murdered Noel, Moore, and Eid. They released their other hostages on March 4.

Arafat denied any involvement in the attack.The US officially accepted his denial. Yet, as he later publicly revealed, James Welsh, who served at the time of the attack as an anayst at the National Security Agency intercepted a communication from Arafat, then headquartered in Beirut, to his terror agents in Khartoum ordering the attack.

In 1986, as evidence of Arafat's involvement became more widely known, more and more voices began calling for Arafat to be investigated for murder. As the New York Sun's online blog recalled last week, during that period Britain's Sunday Times reported that 44 US senators sent a letter to then US Attorney General Edwin Meese, "urging the American government to charge the PLO chief with plotting the murders of two American diplomats in 1973."

The article went on to note that the Justice Department's interest in pursuing the matter was making senior State Department officials uneasy: "State Department diplomats, worried that murder charges against Arafat would anger the United States' friends in the Arab world, are urging the Justice Department to drop the investigation."

<snip>

So it was that for 33 years, under seven consecutive presidential administrations, the State Department denied any knowledge of involvement by Arafat or Fatah in the execution of its own people.

The "banquet" that rounds out Caroline Glick's article is solid food for thought.  She ponders the evil consequences of this gross abandonment of the truth and the good that might have followed if our leaders had pursued the honorable course. As an exercise in editorial comment this brief essay merits the Pulitzer for which it will never even be considered. The coda wraps it all up:

Imagine how our future would look if rather than stealthily admitting the truth, while trusting the media not to take notice, the US government were to base its current policy on the truth, and the media were to reveal this truth to the world.

We owe thanks to her for doing the job the media purports to do.  Meanwhile, Pilate lives!

Contributed by John Werntz on January 3, 2007 at 08:15 AM in Current Affairs, John "72nd TCS" Werntz, Media Perfidy | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Tuesday, 02 January 2007
 

Eason Jordan calls out al-AP on Jamilgate!
Contributed by Bill Faith

I haven't been following Jamilgate closely on this site, but I just got up to Post # 27 in a series at my place and it's startin' to look like fun. Sorta like watchin' a knife fight between Kerry and Murtha, or maybe Bill and Hillary. Eason Jordan, whom we all know and love for his remarks at Davos, recently crawled out from under his rock to start an all Iraq, all the time, site. Remembering his previous wonderful Iraq coverage, the September 12th portion of the blogosphere has been pretty much ignoring him. Until now. I guess if FDR could make nice with Stalin... As much as it pains me to say it, go read this.

***

I just added a major update to my post at my place. al-AP has responded, more or less. Baghdad Bob would be proud.

Contributed by Bill Faith on January 2, 2007 at 07:46 AM in Bill Faith, Iraq, Islamism Delenda Est, Media Perfidy | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack

Sunday, 31 December 2006
 

2006 Quadruped of the Year
Contributed by The Gray Dog

You can’t imagine the exhilaration and delight this old dog felt when I was recently named Time Magazine’s “Person of the Year.”  Finally, after waiting my turn behind other “Men/Persons of the Year,” such as Hitler, Stalin, Carter and Clinton (sounds like a law firm, eh?), the “Year of The Gray Dog” had arrived.  Actually, this is not my first time to win this honor, albeit I had to share it with a few million others back in 1966 when “Twenty-five and Under” gained the distinction.   But this year is so much more gratifying to have been singled out.

At first, I was suspicious of a hoax. I mean, why underneath the word “YOU,” was “The Gray Dog” in such small print on a white label? But hey, they even printed my address, so there could be no mistaking who they meant. Then I thought: how could a dog be the “person” of the year?  But, after a quick check on the internet, I was reminded that back in 1982 “The Computer” was that year’s honoree and it wasn’t even a mammal.  So, after a bad year for humans, it seemed only fitting that the editorial staff at Time extended its consideration to quadrupeds.   

Continue reading "2006 Quadruped of the Year"

Contributed by The Gray Dog on December 31, 2006 at 12:38 PM in Current Affairs, Media Perfidy, Politics, The Gray Dog | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Friday, 29 December 2006
 

Should the Press Cut and Run?
Contributed by Bill Faith

From today's Best Of The Web (3rd item):

Should the Press Cut and Run?
Reader [Old War Dog] Russ Vaughn makes an interesting point about the disconnect between the servicemen who fight our wars and the media that inform us about them. The latter, he argues, perpetuate "the image of our military as being made up and led by those only minimally competent":

This they do by constantly reporting the negative aspects of the war with heightened emphasis on those events which portray our military in a negative light. With such reporting, they create and perpetuate an image of an enemy far more clever and cunning than our own forces. When they do occasionally report on an American success in battle, it's done in an almost ho-hum, so whaddaya expect with our overwhelming strength and technological superiority? tone. Yet murderous attacks against hapless civilians by those with minimal fighting skills are breathlessly depicted as daring and ingenious military feats.

If there is one constant complaint coming from our troops, it is this misreporting of the war by the media, which, I feel, share the same contempt for our service members as Charles Rangel, John Kerry and so many other liberal elitists.

A small but telling example comes in the course of a Reuters report on the latest fighting in Somalia:

More than a decade ago, U.S. forces backed by Black Hawk helicopters suffered a humiliating defeat at the hands of militiamen attacking from the city's maze of back alleys.

Reader Steve Tolle comments:

As an Army veteran who had a couple of buddies involved in the Black Hawk Down incident, I take a bit of umbrage at the characterization of a "humiliating defeat."  ...

Contributed by Bill Faith on December 29, 2006 at 05:35 PM in Bill Faith, Media Perfidy, Russ Vaughn | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

The Faces Behind the War
Contributed by George Mellinger

Cassandra at Villainous Company writes about the attitudes of our wounded warriors, and about the attitudes of our the press. Both Cassandra and our the press consider the war through the perspective of the our wounded, but see different people; our the press barely see people at all. This is inspiring writing, so I'm not going to give any excerpts; I know when I cannot improve or add. Go read it for yourselves.

A tip of the helmet to TACAN

-Rurik

Contributed by George Mellinger on December 29, 2006 at 10:23 AM in Caring about our troops, George Mellinger, Media Perfidy, The American Warrior | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Friday, 22 December 2006
 

We'll live in shame or go down in flames ...
Contributed by Bill Faith

CENTCOM says AP’s "Iraqi police source" isn’t Iraqi police -- Part 24 -- Continued from this post.

The Phantom Press Corps Song

Off we go, into the wild blue yonder,
Climbing high, into the sun,
Down we dive, spouting our lies from under
At 'em boys, give 'er the gun,
We'll live in shame, or go down in flames,
Hey! Nothing can stop the phan-tom press corps. ...

Sorry. Fuzzy flashback.

No exciting new news today but do read Eric's post here and Curt's here.

Contributed by Bill Faith on December 22, 2006 at 05:38 PM in Bill Faith, Iraq, Islamism Delenda Est, Media Perfidy | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Thursday, 14 December 2006
 

Cinderella Story
Contributed by John Werntz

H/T The Drudge Report

Remember Eason Jordan? He was the former Baghdad bureau chief of CNN who in April of 2003 admitted to having systematically suppressed stories about Saddam's human rights violations in order to maintain access to government sources there, Baghdad Bob being perhaps among the most reliable? This admission led to a flurry of adverse comment in the blogosphere, which quickly lost interest when Jordan claimed that his primary motivation was to protect his Iraqi informants.  When he went public, at the World Economic Forum in Davos with accusations he had made previously regarding the alleged targeting of journalists by the US Army, all hell broke loose.  That was in February of 2005, and he soon resigned his executive post at CNN.  He has kept a low profile ever since, but as Greg Mitchell reports in the Editor & Publisher of December 13, Mr. Jordan is coming back to electronic journalism in a big way.  He's baack, glass slipper and all.

He returns not as a TV newsman, but as the guiding spirit of an ambitious new blog called Iraqslogger. According to Jordan, the inspiration for the name was Donald Rumsfeld's oft-repeated comment that the war in Iraq will be a long, hard slog. Regarding the content and aim of the site, Greg Mitchell quotes him as follows--

'Iraq is the story of our time', he declares.  His goal for the site is for it to become nothing less than 'the world's premiere Iraq-focused news source'--and with no 'political slant.'

No one can accuse the man of thinking small.  He proposes to create the world's most authoritative roundup of news, anecdote. opinion--the whole spectrum of information on Iraq.  It goes without saying that there will be skeptics who question whether the copperhead can change its toxin to nectar.  I believe the blogworld, in the light of Eason Jordan's travails, owes the man and his site a fair reading.

Iraqslogger is in beta at present, but will soon emerge in final form. As it stands, it certainly is interesting.  One unusual feature is a crawl at the top that points to scheduling of important features and calls for interactive input from readers.  The left sidebar, containing sources and links, is broadly eclectic, and has such figures as Michelle Malkin and Bill Roggio as counterweight to Daily Kos and Juan Cole, for example.  Last word: do yourself a favor and check it out.

Contributed by John Werntz on December 14, 2006 at 02:57 AM in Current Affairs, John "72nd TCS" Werntz, Media Perfidy | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack

Saturday, 09 December 2006
 

Stringergate
Contributed by Bill Faith

I guess when I get up to 13 posts, and counting, on the same subject at Bill's Bites it's time for a second mention here. We've been lied to, friends, repeatedly. Think Ra^thergate on steroids, then multiply by a thousand. At best the MSM has been swallowing bogus news from Iraq hook, line, and sinker without bothering to verify their sources. At worst, and I have no trouble believing the worst in this case, they've been knowingly printing bogus stories in support of their BDS-driven anti-American agenda. To read my most recent posts on the subject first and work back, click here.  To read everything I've posted so far in chronological order start here and follow the links forward. You haven't heard the last of this. Some friends and I will see to that.

Contributed by Bill Faith on December 9, 2006 at 12:24 PM in Bill Faith, Iraq, Islamism Delenda Est, Media Perfidy | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Sunday, 03 December 2006
 

CENTCOM says AP’s "Iraqi police source" isn’t Iraqi police
Contributed by Bill Faith

(Part 7 -- Continued from this post.)

Brave New World 
Jules Critendon

The pajama-clad ranks of conservative bloggers are officially here as effective media watchdogs, having forced Dan Rather's retirement; having forced Reuters and other news agencies to come to terms with the propaganda they were shilling for terrorists in Lebanon; and having now prompted action from both the United States military and the Iraqi Interior Ministry after evidence of fraudulent war crimes reports by the Associated Press.

It is a beautiful phenomenon to observe.

The Associated Press, in its monopoly status, feels justifiably insulated from these annoying attacks. The AP is a monopoly, and high-level news executives, many of whom share the AP's anti-war and anti-administration sentiments, are likely to look at the latest scandal as just another one of the periodic speed bumps all news organizations encounter. So the question becomes, is the right half of the blogosphere capable of producing a sufficient stink to lead to more substantive results? Changes at the Associated Press, or perhaps even the emergence of a competitive U.S. wire service that will approach the news in a manner that is more ... fair and balanced.

Here is my Boston Herald column on the subject.

One cautionary note.  ...

Continue reading "CENTCOM says AP’s "Iraqi police source" isn’t Iraqi police"

Contributed by Bill Faith on December 3, 2006 at 01:44 PM in Bill Faith, Iraq, Islamism Delenda Est, Media Perfidy | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Monday, 27 November 2006
 

Centcom says AP’s "Iraqi police source" isn’t Iraqi police
Contributed by Bill Faith

This is gonna leave marks, folks, on some very deserving asses. Click here to go to my Bill's Bites post, follow the "See previous ..." links for background, read the latest, then check back for more later. We have lift-off and the fun's just starting.

Contributed by Bill Faith on November 27, 2006 at 12:51 PM in Bill Faith, Iraq, Islamism Delenda Est, Media Perfidy | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack

Monday, 06 November 2006
 

What ever happened to patriotic reporters?
Contributed by Bill Faith

Email from Russ Vaughn:

Treasonous Media

From today's Wall Street Journal:

The changes came to a head in January 1968, when Communist forces during the Tet holiday launched a major attack on South Vietnamese cities. According to virtually every competent observer, these forces met a sharp defeat, but American press accounts described Tet instead as a major communist victory. Washington Post reporter Peter Braestrup later published a book in which he explained the failure of the press to report the Tet offensive accurately. His summary: "Rarely has contemporary crisis-journalism turned out, in retrospect, to have veered so widely from reality."

Even as the facts became clearer, the press did not correct its false report that the North Vietnamese had won. When NBC News producer Robert Northshield was asked at the end of 1968 whether the network should put on a news show indicating that American and South Vietnamese troops had won, he rejected the idea, because Tet was already "established in the public's mind as a defeat, and therefore it was an American defeat."

Here's one Vietnam vet who'd like to have a few minutes alone with Robert Northshield to firmly establish something in his mind. The rest of a good piece on our treasonous media is here:

http://www.opinionjournal.com/federation/feature/?id=110009203

Russ Vaughn

***

The Press at War
What ever happened to patriotic reporters?
BY JAMES Q. WILSON

We are told by careful pollsters that half of the American people believe that American troops should be brought home from Iraq immediately. This news discourages supporters of our efforts there. Not me, though: I am relieved. Given press coverage of our efforts in Iraq, I am surprised that 90% of the public do not want us out right now.

Between Jan. 1 and Sept. 30, 2005, nearly 1,400 stories appeared on the ABC, CBS and NBC evening news. More than half focused on the costs and problems of the war, four times as many as those that discussed the successes. About 40% of the stories reported terrorist attacks; scarcely any reported the triumphs of American soldiers and Marines. The few positive stories about progress in Iraq were just a small fraction of all the broadcasts.

When the Center for Media and Public Affairs made a nonpartisan evaluation of network news broadcasts, it found that during the active war against Saddam Hussein, 51% of the reports about the conflict were negative. Six months after the land battle ended, 77% were negative; in the 2004 general election, 89% were negative; by the spring of 2006, 94% were negative. This decline in media support was much faster than during Korea or Vietnam. ...

Contributed by Bill Faith on November 6, 2006 at 02:25 PM in Bill Faith, Iraq, Media Perfidy, Russ Vaughn | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Sunday, 05 November 2006
 

Acorn Indictments
Contributed by George Mellinger

An Acorn is an unappetizing variety of wild nut.

So, less than a week before the midterm elections, four workers from Acorn, the liberal activist group that has registered millions of voters, have been indicted by a federal grand jury for submitting false voter registration forms to the Kansas City, Missouri, election board. But hey, who needs voter ID laws?

Read all the nutty details here.

I am at that awkward stage  - an old enough fart to remember, but not old enough to have forgotten. Back in the late 1970s and early 1980s, Acorn's association with the AFL-CIO was only secondary. Its main affiliation was with the various semi-legal organizations of the (then) New Left, and they had a reputation as hard core marxist activists. They served as a nominally non-partisan, and officially legal front group for all sorts of radical groups who could not, at that time apply for government grants directly.

-Rurik

Contributed by George Mellinger on November 5, 2006 at 01:26 PM in Current Affairs, Dem Dumbness, Media Perfidy, Politics | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack

Friday, 27 October 2006
 

Fighting back against another very real enemy
Contributed by Bill Faith

Information Warfare: Calling Out the New York Times 

October 27, 2006: The U.S. Department of Defense is now taking its requests for corrections public through a website known as For the Record. Here, the Department of Defense is openly calling for corrections from major media outlets, and even noting when they refuse to publish letters to the editor.

The most recent was this past Tuesday, when the DOD published a letter, that the New York Times refused to run, which contained quotes from five generals (former CENTCOM commander Tommy Franks, current CENTCOM commander John Abizaid, MNF Commander George Casey, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Richard Myers, as well as his successor, Peter Pace) that rebutted a New York Times editorial. This has been picked up by a number of bloggers who have been able to spread the Pentagon's rebuttal – and the efforts of the New York Times to sweep it under the rug – across the country. ...

Looks to me like a good source of information for the OWD pack, and for our friends.

Contributed by Bill Faith on October 27, 2006 at 11:46 AM in Bill Faith, Media Perfidy | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Sunday, 22 October 2006
 

A True Conservative Baseball Fan
Contributed by The Gray Dog

As a life long conservative Detroit Tiger fan, this past month last night brought me to the breaking point.  Sex scandals Errors, poor leadership execution and a continuous flood of illegal aliens Cardinals crossing our borders home plate prove that the Republicans Tigers need to be taught a lesson.

I know, the Republicans Tigers have been treated unfairly by the press umpires, but the fact remains they did not do enough to fight back score runs.  For this reason I believe that all true conservatives Tiger fans must sit out this election World Series.

I know that many of you are concerned that the Democrats Cardinals will sweep to power the Tigers allowing Nancy Pelosi Anthony Reyes to become Speaker Series MVP.  But I think this will be a good lesson to the Republicans Tigers that have let us down for so long.  Perhaps a couple of years out of power relegated to the minors are just what some of these Congressmen and Senators, players and managers need. 

For those who still cannot stay away from the polls baseball, there’s always the Libertarians Yankees.

The Gray Dogs note:  Stupid post?  Yep, you bet!  Sometimes trying to be funny when the topic is humorless hurts.  Cut-and-run conservatives that believe there is victory in quitting are adopting the same attitude as the liberals.

This dog will be voting Republican on November 7th and will be wearing Tiger Blue while I root for my team tonight.

Contributed by The Gray Dog on October 22, 2006 at 08:58 AM in Current Affairs, Media Perfidy, Politics, Sports, The Gray Dog | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack