The Distant Ocean

The anti-Bush media strikes again

Speaking of patience, on October 25th Bush made the following statement: "We're making it clear that America's patient [sic] is not unlimited."  Yes, that's what he said--in fact that's straight from the official White House transcript, including the [sic].

When I searched for this quote on Google the first hit was for an article on NPR's web site, and the excerpted text that Google displayed for the NPR page showed the "patient" gaffe exactly as Bush had said it.  But when I clicked through to the NPR page as it actually is today, I found that NPR had corrected the quote so that it now contained the word "patience" instead, like a normal, educated, literate human being might say it.  The fact that Google had cached the "patient" text means that NPR initially published the correct quote, but later decided that they should go back and cover for Bush's idiocy.

There goes that liberal media again--always trying to make Bush look bad.

This is nothing new or even uncommon.  The fine folks at FAIR caught the CBS and NBC nightly news shows carefully editing Bush's response to a question about whether he was frustrated with the level of violence in Baghdad, in a way that made him sound like not quite the tone-deaf nincompoop he actually is.  The jarringly offensive part of Bush's response was this: "Sometimes I'm happy. This is -- but war is not a time of joy."  Both CBS and NBC were careful to omit this part of Bush's response from their reporting, but CBS actually went the extra mile of dropping just these two sentences from Bush's answer, accurately quoting what he'd said both immediately before and immediately after as though it was a single, contiguous quote; the offending words simply disappeared.  It makes you wonder if Winston Smith is working for CBS these days.

And back in 2003, after reporting Bush's statement that the US gave Saddam Hussein "a chance to allow the inspectors in, and he wouldn't let them in," the Washington Post said that "The president's assertion that the war began because Iraq did not admit inspectors appeared to contradict the events leading up to war this spring."  This would be roughly like the Post saying that "The president's assertion that the sun hasn't risen for the last decade appears to contradict the observed series of sunrises over the past ten years."  It's hard to imagine a more bald-faced lie on Bush's part--or a more mealy-mouthed way for the Post to present it.  Salon has a good summary of this particular repeated lie of Bush's, and the media's ongoing dedication to ignoring and underplaying it for him.

So the "liberal" (and supposedly adversarial) media won't even publish Bush's actual statements if they feel it would reflect poorly on him, and will go so far as to edit and correct them for him if necessary--despite the fact that the most basic standards of journalism require them to provide accurate quotes.  That's a level of servility you wouldn't be surprised to find in a dictatorship.

Quiz of the day

Republican or Democrat?  You decide:

1) In the days ahead, the Iraqis must make the tough decisions and accept responsibility for their future. And the Iraqis must know: Our commitment, while great, is not unending.

2) We expect that the Iraqi government will make the hard decisions necessary to unite the country and listen to the will of the 12 million people.  [...] They must respect the fact that we've got patience, but not unlimited patience.

Can you tell the difference?  I'll give you a hint: there's one of each.

Still can't tell?

Number 1 is from a speech by soon-to-be Democratic House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer.  Number 2 is from a press conference by George Bush.  If you couldn't tell the difference, maybe it's because you won't be able to tell the difference between their future policies on Iraq either.

It's worth reading the rest of Hoyer's comments as well so you can see the revolutionary plans the Democrats have to address the most pressing issues of the day.  And what are those, exactly?

• Increasing the minimum wage.

• Enacting the Sept. 11 Commission's security recommendations.

• Allowing the government to negotiate drug prices for Medicare patients.

• Cutting energy industry tax breaks.

• Lowering financial hurdles for access to higher education.

This is directly from the Democrats' list of talking points.  As Hoyer says, "Democrats pledge to address the concerns and issues that affect the lives of working families."  Or in other words, "Democrats pledge to pay attention to a small number of issues we believe we can peddle to our perceived main constituencies in order to grub for votes in 2008, while completely ignoring the most critical issues of our times."

And for some reason Hoyer neglected to list the Democrats' desire to "revise" the Sarbanes-Oxley corporate governance law, as championed by "San Francisco liberal" Nancy Pelosi:

Nancy Pelosi, the leader of newly empowered House Democrats, received more campaign money this year from partners at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, the venture capital firm that helped launch Google Inc. and Amazon.com Inc., than she got from Democrats' traditional friend, the AFL-CIO labor federation. She in turn has already identified revising the 2002 Sarbanes-Oxley law as a top priority when she becomes House speaker in January.

Thank goodness we'll have Democrats in power now, so things will be so much different than they were under the Republicans.

Nader-bashing never gets old

And for some Democrats it never will.  Here was my response in comments to this standard issue Democratic self-goal:

You've ably proven the adage that the only thing a Democrat hates more than a Republican is a liberal. Truly a sad display, especially after this much time and after you had another chance in 2004 to learn just who was responsible for the Democrats' loss: namely, people like yourself who'll support supposedly "electable" Republiclones like John Kerry.

Keep holding on to that burning hatred of someone who actually embodies and lives the principles you otherwise claim to value, and you can look forward to decades more of electing Democrats who promise to raise the minimum wage slightly instead of doing something about the disaster in Iraq, repealing the Torture Act, or doing anything more than pay lip service to addressing global warming.

It's time to let it go. Nader is not the source of your problems; rather, it's your own willingness to throw away your principles for some imagined electoral advantage.

For anyone who'd like to see some of my other articles on this topic, you can look here, here, here, or here, or search groups.google.com for "Blameocrat" to see what I was writing in 2000.

In case you're wondering, I made the adage up as I was writing the comment (and successfully resisted the urge to throw the adjective "old" in there).

Helpful context from Bloomberg

Look at the title of this Bloomberg article about a recent Israeli attack in Khan Yunis, in the Gaza Strip: "Israel Kills 7 Palestinians in Raid to Stop Rockets."  Do you notice anything wrong with that?

Now consider that Hamas has called for strikes against Israel in retaliation for Israel's killing of 19 Palestinians in Beit Hanoun--and it's very likely that within a few days or weeks this call will be answered.  If that happens, can you imagine a Bloomberg account of the incident with a title like "Hamas Kills 5 Israelis in Attack to Resist Occupation"?  And the howls of outrage and fury that would inevitably result?

It's telling that we're so used to this this kind of bias toward Israel and the Israeli version of events that it doesn't even register as bias anymore.

They overcame their fear

Here's proof that there are heroes in the world.  The author, a female member of the Palestinian Legislative Council, powerfully and eloquently recounts her role in resisting the Israeli siege of Beit Hanoun in the Gaza Strip:

We faced the most powerful army in our region unarmed. The soldiers were loaded up with the latest weaponry, and we had nothing, except each other and our yearning for freedom. As we broke through the first barrier, we grew more confident, more determined to break the suffocating siege. The soldiers of Israel's so-called defence force did not hesitate to open fire on unarmed women. The sight of my close friends Ibtissam Yusuf abu Nada and Rajaa Ouda taking their last breaths, bathed in blood, will live with me for ever.

Those who persist in claiming against all evidence that the Palestinians are motivated by irrational hatred should memorize these words:

Why should we Palestinians have to accept the theft of our land, the ethnic cleansing of our people, incarcerated in forsaken refugee camps, and the denial of our most basic human rights, without protesting and resisting?

The lesson the world should learn from Beit Hanoun last week is that Palestinians will never relinquish our land, towns and villages. We will not surrender our legitimate rights for a piece of bread or handful of rice. The women of Palestine will resist this monstrous occupation imposed on us at gunpoint, siege and starvation. Our rights and those of future generations are not open for negotiation.

By all means, read it all.