www.HenryHemp.com ………tell em Bongwater Bob sent you. added by: hunzedog
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Rick Scott wants to be Governor of Florida. Get the facts before you hand over the peoples credit card to Rick Scott. Vote for Alex Sink Governor www.alexsink2010.com President Richard Nixon and Richard Scott two great Republicans. Two Richard's and Two Scandals, President Nixon meet Candidate Rick Scott. added by: YesFloridaCan
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National Review’s Rich Lowry on Sunday had a classic debate with Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne about whether or not the tax cuts implemented by former President George W. Bush should be allowed to expire. Dionne agrees with President Obama that they should only be extended for folks making less than $250,000 a year; Lowry thinks that raising anyone’s taxes right now could send the country back into recession. With this in mind, NBC’s David Gregory opened the panel segment of “Meet the Press” with a discussion about the current state of the economy and how this issue might impact the upcoming midterm elections. As he tossed the baton to Lowry and Dionne, one got the feeling Gregory was intentionally lighting a fuse he knew would result in some entertaining fireworks (videos follow with transcripts and commentary): DAVID GREGORY, HOST: E.J., the economy and taxes and where things stand. E.J. DIONNE, WASHINGTON POST: Well, actually, I think the administration is in a position where it should pick a big fight with the Republicans. I, I at least half agree with what Rich just said. They’re clearly down in this election. If the election were held now, they’d probably lose the House, though not the Senate. I think they can claw back enough to hold on to the House. I think they should pick a big fight on the renewal of the Bush tax cuts and say, “We want to renew them for everybody earning under $250,000 a year. Heck, maybe we can actually renew them for everybody earning under a million dollars a year.” Draw a line and say, “We want to give them tax cuts now. They want to fight for millionaires.” So you can have that fight. I think they can win it. But they need to shake up this race to salvage some of those seats. They need to hang on to 218 House seats. MR. GREGORY: Right. I’m going to get to Charlie in a second. But, Rich, back to the–you know, because I’ve, I’ve pressed Republicans on the point of, “Hey, you want to cut the deficit? Well, it’s going to cost $3 trillion to extend all of these tax cuts. How do you pay for it?” And Republicans say to me, “You know, that’s–that argument is off base here, that it’s existing tax policy and that you shouldn’t be making that argument.” And respond to E.J.’s point. Readers are recommended to fasten their seat belts, for Gregory likely without knowing it had nicely placed the ball on the tee for Lowry, and the National Review editor was about to launch the longest nationally televised drive of his life straight down the middle of the fairway: RICH LOWRY, NATIONAL REVIEW: Well, there, there, there are a couple things. I think E.J.’s political advice is exactly wrong, although I appreciate him half agreeing with me. I’ll take what–I’ll take whatever I can get. MR. GREGORY: Right. That may be all you get. MR. DIONNE: That’s great progress. MR. GREGORY: That may be all you get. MR. LOWRY: But, you know, before August, before they left–Congress left for the August recess, you had three Senate Democrats saying, “We need to extend all these things less temporarily.” And that was before this awful last month the Democrats suffered. I think it only got harder, if not impossible, not to extend all of these. So I expect the Obama administration either to say, “Let’s do it for one year,” or to punt it to the lame duck session. But even if they extend it for one year, that will be an amazing sign. If you have these large Democratic majorities in the Senate and the House extending all the Bush tax cuts, huge sign of the way the worm has turned politically. MR. GREGORY: Yes. MR. DIONNE: One idea is to put on the table, one of the things you could do with the money you save from not giving the tax cut to people earning over $1 million, you could either redistribute the rest of that to people down below a million, or you could begin to create an infrastructure bank to try to build us for the long-term. You need to look like you’re making a–you’re drawing a clear line with the Republicans. MR. LOWRY: But there, there, there you’re sucking money out of the economy in the short-term in order for the long-term in a weak economy. That makes no sense. Raising taxes, there’s no theory in which raises taxes in a slow economy makes sense. MR. GREGORY: All right. MR. LOWRY: Keynesians don’t favor it, supply-siders don’t favor it. Round one clearly went to Lowry. A bit later as promised, Gregory brought Charlie Cook into the discussion. As readers will notice, this also set Lowry up to demolish Dionne: MR. GREGORY: All right, but for everybody here, what is the bottom line? How did the president and Democrats get to this point? Is it a bad economy, case closed, Charlie, or is there a leadership question, a failure of leadership by the president that has got him to this point? CHARLIE COOK, EDITOR THE COOK POLITICAL REPORT: Democrats desperately needed three things to happen this year. Number one, they needed unemployment to turn around. And when you look at the, the groups that were sort of the booster, that pushed them over the top, among African-Americans the unemployment rate is 16.3, you know, way more than it was when the president took office; Hispanics, 12; young people, 26, the job market for recent college graduates the worst in 35 years. He desperately needed unemployment to turn around. Number two, he needed attitudes toward healthcare reform to fundamentally change, with people saying, “OK… MR. GREGORY: And that hasn’t happened. MR. COOK: And that–it just hasn’t happened. And they had to get control of the agenda. And right now what they’re doing is they’re paying a price for having focused so thoroughly on health care for a solid year at a time when the economy was deteriorating. And, for a lot of voters, they just see the president and Democrats as having checked the box on stimulus and then gone to cap and trade and health care leaving the economy to deteriorate. Absolutely outstanding analysis by Cook. With the table nicely set, Gregory invited Lowry and Dionne to continue the debate: MR. GREGORY: Have it out, you two. The question of the economy rules everything, or a question of leadership, E.J.? MR. DIONNE: First of all, in that Donnelly ad, it’s interesting that John Boehner, the Republican leader, was also in that picture. MR. GREGORY: Yeah. MR. DIONNE: And there are Republicans–the Republicans are unpopular, too. That’s going to be something Democrats want to play. I think the biggest mistake Obama made was in not making a big argument from the beginning, “Here’s where we started, here’s where we’re going. It’s going to be rough getting there. But if you stick with me, this is going to get better.” FDR did that, Ronald Reagan did that. He needed to do that. MR. GREGORY: But trust in government was different when FDR did it. MR. DIONNE: Right. But he needed to restore trust in government, and I think he was in a position to do that. He needed to emphasize the way they’re actually reforming government, which they are, but nobody knows it. MR. GREGORY: The flipside of that question, you can address this big one. MR. LOWRY: Sure. MR. GREGORY: But is also, have, have Republicans done anything to really regain trust about their leadership… MR. LOWRY: No, it’s most… MR. GREGORY: …to an oppositional strategy? MR. LOWRY: …it’s mostly a free gift from Obama fundamentally fumbling this. And I disagree with E.J. again. I’m going to have to agree with you at some point, E.J. just to be a good colleague here on the set. But people know what Obama’s about. They know what the program is. They know he’s growing government because he thinks that’s good for the economy and good for the country’s future. They get it. The problem, I think, is threefold. One is ideological grandiosity. Democrats thought in ’08 they had a mandate from heaven to do everything they ever wanted, when really they were just getting an opportunity because people were recoiling from the Republicans and the poor state of the economy. Indeed. New York Times columnist Tom Friedman made the same point on ABC’s “This Week” Sunday about Obama over-reading his mandate. But I digress: LOWRY: Then there was the cynical opportunism that Charlie referred to, a crisis is–never let a crisis go to waste. Therefore do health care, try to cap and trade, things that have nothing to do with the economy or may actually be harmful to it. And then three, there’s the fact that the program has not worked on its own terms. The stimulus has not worked. So you add all three of those things up and you have a very grim picture. And another huge problem, independents are much closer to the tea partiers on the big issues and even on the smaller hot-button ones–spending, debt, Arizona immigration law, Ground Zero mosque, all that–much closer to the tea partiers than they are to the Democrats. Indeed. Game, set, and match Lowry. Bravo, Rich. Bravo.
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Rich Lowry Smacks Down E.J. Dionne on Bush Tax Cuts and Obamanomics
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Obama administration Labor Secretary Hilda Solis (pictured at right with what I would guess is her ideal car of the future) shamelessly used Labor Day weekend as an opportunity to score political points. In a presentation that was more a political stump speech than an informative presentation, Solis recited a litany of alleged accomplishments. Many of them have no relationship to what her department does, while some are also objectively wrong. Second, she set up a host of straw men in the form of “those who woulds” and “to those who want tos” to make her department and the administration where she works appear as if they and they alone are the bulwark against rapacious employers and their political allies. The YouTube video is present at this DOL page (direct YouTube link here ). What follows are selected transcribed excerpts, with specific critiques: Excerpts: (3:10 – 4:30) You can be certain that like the president, I will not stop working until every American is back on their feet and we have fulfilled our mission to provide good and safe jobs for everyone. We’re making important inroads towards that goal. So let me tell you, briefly, what we have done so far to get there. First and foremost, we have reversed the dangerous trend of job loss in our country. Because, just over a year ago, we were losing almost 700,000 jobs per month. We were on the verge of another Great Depression. We took immediate action to stop the bleeding and create jobs. Now, instead of losing jobs, we’ve actually added them in the private sector every month. We’ve averaged about 90,000 jobs for the last seven months. But something else too, and this is important, our efforts, most notably the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, saved millions of American jobs in the auto manufacturing industry. [1] These efforts have also kept health care workers in clinics and community hospitals. They’ve kept hundreds of thousands of teachers in classrooms, and police and firefighters on the beat where they should be. (4:50 – 4:58) Now we are making it possible for American entrepreneurs to create and grow businesses that will put people to work. [2] (5:10 – 5:50) As a result of our quick and bold actions, millions of people are at work, building and rebuilding America’s roads, bridges, ports, and high-speed rail. [3] And we’re also investing in a new American foundation, and a whole new American industry and employer, and that’s clean energy. We look at that investment two ways. Advances in biofuels, wind, and solar power will reduce our dependence on foreign energy, and reenergize American manufacturing. I’ve long believed that green jobs can be great jobs, and jobs that every American can take advantage of. (6:12) I am pleased that this administration is making student loans more affordable and available. (6:40) Now, as we’ve done all that, we’ve also strengthened the safety net for American workers. We’ve expanded unemployment insurance programs in nearly 40 states so more people can receive benefits. And after decades of failing to rein in the out-of-control health care system, our reforms will control costs, improve care, minimize fraud, and provide security for millions of American families. (7:23) In the weeks and months ahead, policymakers will be debating what should come next. There are some who will suggest that, when times are tough, it’s time to get tough on working people. [4] They’ll suggest that we cut back on worker training, to cut back on worker safety, and to cut back on giving workers a voice in their workplace. I totally disagree. To those who say we can no longer afford to train, retool and educate our workforce, I say we can’t afford not to. To those who want to cut corners and disregard safety in the workplace, I say keeping workers safe matters far more than saving a few cents. And to those who want to deny workers a voice in the workplace, let me be clear: This Secretary of Labor recognizes, respects, and celebrates a worker’s right to organize and bargain collectively. As individuals and as a nation, we have very important choices to make. And each one merits careful and informed discussion. So in the weeks and months ahead, I hope we can continue this conversation. Each and every one of us has something at stake. And we simply cannot afford to make the wrong choices. Here are three obvious errors in Solis’s presentation: [1] – The “auto manufacturing industry,” even at is most broadly defined (which would include all transportation equipment, all motor vehicle and parts dealers, has only three million employees. The Labor Secretary is essentially claiming that there would be no industry without the stimulus plan. Other than to point out that Government/General Motors and Chrysler proactively killed tens of thousands of jobs at auto dealers, this claim is so utterly ridiculous as to require no further comment. [2] – Even ignoring individual initiative, it’s as if this administration is the first in recorded human history to “mak(e) it possible for American entrepreneurs to create and grow businesses that will put people to work.” She’s kidding, right? [3] – The total number of employees in “Heavy and civil engineering construction” was 888,000 in August (not seasonally adjusted). Even if you try to include a healthy percentage of the 2.1 million employed in the “Nonresidential specialty trade contractors” sector, many of whom obviously have nothing to do with infrastructure, there’s no way you get to “millions” of infrastructure workers, period, let alone “millions” who are working solely because of the administration’s “quick and bold actions.” [4] – Seriously now, who has suggested this, or any of the other conveniently created straw men that follow? Yes, Bush administration Labor Secretary Elaine Chao did give Labor Day addresses such as this one in 2002 . But if she had created something as blatant as this video, the press would have been all over her for playing politics during the entire Labor Day weekend. As it is, I doubt we’ll see much if any criticism of Solis from the establishment press. In a separate action, DOL removed the following opening paragraph from a web page on the history of Labor Day (original preserved at archive.org ; revised ) that had contained the same text for at least eight years: “Labor Day differs in every essential way from the other holidays of the year in any country,” said Samuel Gompers, founder and longtime president of the American Federation of Labor. “All other holidays are in a more or less degree connected with conflicts and battles of man’s prowess over man, of strife and discord for greed and power, of glories achieved by one nation over another. Labor Day…is devoted to no man, living or dead, to no sect, race, or nation.” More on why I believe that removal of Gompers’s statement occurred can be found here . Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com .
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Politicizing Labor Day: DOL’s Solis Uses Holiday Address As Propaganda and Attack Vehicle
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On Sunday’s Meet the Press , NBC host David Gregory wrapped up his interview with Sen. Lindsey Graham by setting up a debate with anti-war NBC reporter Richard Engel, who wasn’t shy this week in asserting on NBC’s Today that the Iraq war was unnecessary, that Saddam Hussein was growing more moderate and respectable by the day, and was gaining acceptance in Europe. After Gregory played a clip of that — complete with Engel calling Iraq a “giant distraction of resources” from Afghanistan, just like a congressional Democrat — Senator Graham insisted that the NBC reporter was “completely rewriting history” and that Saddam “was not becoming a good citizen, he was becoming a more dangerous dictator. The world is better with him dead.” Even as this stage of the Iraq war, as the surge seems to quite clearly brought peace and calm, never-say-it’s-a-win die-hards in the liberal media are the first line of attack on the Republican position: DAVID GREGORY: Senator, I want to conclude by asking you a question about Iraq and Afghanistan. The president, of course, ended Operation Iraqi Freedom with an Oval Office address, addressing the nation on that point on the end of the war. Our own chief foreign correspondent, Richard Engel, who covered the war throughout and has covered the war in Afghanistan as well, offered some analysis during an appearance with Ann Curry on the “Today” show about the legacy of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. I’d like you to listen and react to it. RICHARD ENGEL: If there had been no invasion, Saddam would still be in power. He was probably getting more moderate. He was being welcomed into the–into–by, by a lot of European countries. He was being welcomed into Eastern Europe in particular. He as heading in a, in a direction of, of accommodation. The, the sanctioned regime that was holding him in place was starting to fail. So I think he would–it would be somewhat of a, a basket case, but it would still–it would be–Iran would be a lot more contained. So it would be a dictatorship that was trying to break out of its box, but Iran would not be as dangerous as it, as it is today. ANN CURRY: And had the United States not invaded Iraq, would we be done in Afghanistan? RICHARD ENGEL: Probably. That was a giant distraction of resources, of intelligence assets. That war would probably be over. GREGORY: Senator, what do you say? SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM: Completely rewriting history. Our planes were being shot at in the no-fly zones, Saddam Hussein was violating every U.N. resolution to account for his weapons program, he was openly defying the international community when it came to controlling Iraq. He was not becoming a good citizen, he was becoming a more dangerous dictator. The world is better with him dead. If we can get a government together soon in Iraq and it becomes stable and secure, we’ll have a democracy between Iran and Syria. Iran’s biggest nightmare is to have a neighbor on their border who practices democracy. So the 4,400 young men and women who’ve died have done this country a great service by securing Iraq and making… GREGORY: Well, nobody’s disputing whether they’ve done the country a great service. But even our current… GRAHAM: We’re safer. GREGORY: …defense secretary, who’s a Republican says, “Iraq will always be clouded by how it began.” Three-quarters of the American people think it was not worth the cost. GRAHAM: Well, I can tell you, we will be safer by how it ends. History will judge us, not by what we did wrong at the beginning, but what we got right at the end. If we can get the government stable in–and, and President Obama, it is now his job to finish out Iraq. If it finishes out well and it becomes secure and stable, allied with us on the war on terror–this is the place al-Qaeda was beat by fellow Muslims. I can’t underestimate how important that was. Al-Qaeda went into Iraq to topple our efforts to bring about stability and representative government, and they were, they were beaten by Muslims with our help. That is a huge win in the war on terror. So Afghanistan is a — we’re getting things better, we got a long ways to go, but I am glad we did what we did in Iraq. America will be safer and history will record this as a big event in the Mideast where a dictatorship was replaced by a democracy in the heart of the Arab world. PS: I am not related to Senator Graham.
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On Meet the Press, Host Sets Up GOP Senator to Debate on Iraq with Anti-War NBC Reporter
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New York Times columnist Tom Friedman on Sunday accused Barack Obama of badly misreading his Election Day mandate, and said the current White House is the worst communicating administration he’s ever seen. Appearing on the Roundtable segment of ABC’s “This Week,” Friedman blasted the President saying, “I’m for more health care. I’m glad we’ve extended it to more Americans. But the fact is there’s a real, I think, argument for the case that Obama completely over-read his mandate when he came in.” Friedman continued, “He was elected to get rid of one man’s job, George Bush, and get the rest of us jobs. I think that was the core thing, and by starting with health care and not making his first year the year of innovation, expanding the economy and expanding jobs, you know, I think looking back, that was a political mistake.” Moments later, the Times columnist said, “I’ve never seen a worse communicating administration” (video follows with partial transcript and commentary): TOM FRIEDMAN, NEW YORK TIMES: Walter Shapiro had a column the other day which I think made a good point. Look, I’m for more health care. I’m glad we’ve extended it to more Americans. But the fact is there’s a real, I think, argument for the case that Obama completely over-read his mandate when he came in. He was elected to get rid of one man’s job, George Bush, and get the rest of us jobs. I think that was the core thing, and by starting with health care and not making his first year the year of innovation, expanding the economy and expanding jobs, you know, I think looking back, that was a political mistake. Not surprisingly, Friedman’s colleague at the Times blamed it all on Republicans. PAUL KRUGMAN, NEW YORK TIMES: He needs now to say it’s the other guys who are blocking action. He needs to lay out a philosophy. I’m not sure if there’s any way to save the House, but if he can, it can do it not by actually changing the economy in the few weeks remaining, but by making this an issue. Do you really want these guys’ economic plan? And then he has to campaign for it. Amanpour then referred to an article by Richard Cohen about to be published in the Washington Post talking about Obama as the incredible shrinking president. CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, HOST: He says, “The folks who ran a very smart presidential campaign in ’08 have left the defining of the Obama presidency to people on the edge of insanity.” But then he goes on to talk about his Oval Office address this week, about Iraq, about turning to Afghanistan and the economy. He says, “It was only his second Oval Office address, and so great importance was attached to it. He should have had something momentous to say.” Is that fair? FRIEDMAN: I think it is fair. You know, one of the criticisms certainly I’ve had and many others have had, this is not I think original, there’s been no narrative to this administration. To me, I think Barack Obama was elected for one thing – which I’m not sure he ever fully understood – to do nation building at home, to do nation building in America. That to me was the central tent pole. Under that was health care, jobs, you know, economy, innovation, education, energy, okay? He’s never tied it together it seems to me under one single narrative. And then, therefore, he’s fought each issue against a different constituency. There’s never been a unifying message. I’ve worked here since 1989. I’ve personally just as a reporter, columnist in Washington, I’ve never seen a worse communicating administration, just at the basic technical level of, hey, we’ve got a good plan, you know, maybe someone out there would be interested in writing about it, since I’ve been to Washington. More and more it’s becoming clear this President is losing his once gushing and fawning press. If only these same folks would have actually examined the junior senator from Illinois’ record before jumping on his bandwagon in 2007. I guess that would have been too much like journalism.
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Tom Friedman Rips Obama: ‘Completely Over-read Mandate…Never Seen Worse Communicating Administration’
Christian hate Pastor Steven Anderson is praying for President Barack Obama's death. Anderson, yet another hate spewing homophobic Christian, is Pastor of the Faithful World Baptist Church, in Tempe, Arizona. Aside from praying for President Barack Obama's death, Pastor Anderson seems fixated on homosexuality. His fixation is clearly unhealthy, and could very well be indicative of an individual unable to process his own sexual confusion. Anderson trots out the usual Christian slander and smear on the gay lifestyle. Anderson claims that homosexuals recruit through rape and the molesting of children. Yet Anderson goes one better than most hate filled Christians. Christians usually mask their hatred and bigotry with a cutesy expression like: “hate the sin but love the sinner”. To his credit Anderson is not so two-faced. Anderson says what many Christians are frightened to admit: Anderson wants the death penalty for homosexuals. The source for such a draconian response? The Bible, of course. added by: alexandrek
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The most surprising thing about Jimmy Breslin’s article in Harper’s Magazine is that he is still around. Who knew? Not so surprising is that Breslin hasn’t lost any of his barely coherent rage which seems to be his trademark. This latest example from Breslin is so off the wall and all over the place that it is actually hard to get upset over it. Just mark it up to typical Breslin and savor it for the flat out nuttiness of the proposition that people attending last week’s Glenn Beck rally in Washington, D.C. are somehow like assassins. Breslin jumps right into it from the start in which he somehow connects assassinations with free speech with the Glenn Beck crowd. It makes no sense but, hey, that is Jimmy Breslin for you: There are these sudden loud noises in the hotel kitchen, one, two, three, probably a tray falling, and then there is so much screaming and a hand holding a gun high in the air and Robert Kennedy, who had walked into the gun, is on the floor with his eyes seeing nothing. On this June night in 1968 he has just won a Presidential primary and suddenly he is fit only for a gravedigger’s dirt. It happens this way when the claws of madness swipe through the sky. In 1919 Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes called it for all time, and crashingly so today, when he wrote, “The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic.” … All day on television yesterday you had the aimless babbles of this Beck, who looks like he eats Bibles. Right about now, you are probably scratching your heads and saying, “Huh?” However, Breslin plunges even deeper into incoherency: They all come with the double barrels of a Low IQ and High Color Fear let loose on cable stations and e-mail, of which yesterday you read in disbelief. Let me tell you what a life spent running after news like this has left me remembering. In each case, we had chunks of our Democracy ripped up and leaders lost and the worst rising. Start with Robert Kennedy on the kitchen floor and over him, people tear the gun away from the killer and his body is thrown onto a steam table and I lose my feet and I don’t know how I am here, but I am sitting atop these thrashing legs and there is more screaming to hold his body down. Thrashing those legs won’t help. I’m too heavy to throw off. Now the football player Roosevelt Grier’s arm, bigger than a steam pipe, comes down across the guy’s chest and that is that. Grier says quietly, “He isn’t going anywhere.” Breslin later experiences another dire flashback that makes an enormous stretch to convert the Glenn Beck rally folks into potential Lee Harvey Oswalds: Before his night in Los Angeles, I am in Dallas on November 22nd, 1963, and in the days before there were these big inflammatory ads about the evils of President John Kennedy and the lousiness came out of the radios and television, small whispers when matched with what we have today, and Kennedy is in an open car and a shot comes out of the infested sky and he is gone. In the Dallas Police Headquarters at night, police in cowboy hats kept taking this pale white in a checked sports shirt out into the hall for the cameras to take pictures with them holding him, keeping him out there in a crowded hallway as if he were mounted on a target range, which he sure was. On one of these times the crush virtually plastered him into me, the sports shirt touching me, and I claim I can remember the eyes as being insane. I sure can tell you the name: Lee Harvey Oswald. Breslin concludes by seeming to make the Beck rally attendees into an angry mob whose mentality caused yet another assassination: Then what was it, only a couple of years later, when the skies screamed nameless revenge and hurled James Earl Ray into Memphis to shoot Martin Luther King and that night, when riots broke out everywhere, I sat with Andrew Young in a musty room in Memphis and he talked so quietly about the madness of the air people were breathing. The identical madness that was in Los Angeles where it built another stadium for murder. And all day yesterday, while they squalled and broke out poor Jesus at rallies to help them promote race and baseline dumbness, many could barely wait for September 11th, when they can act as owners of the place where the World Trade Center stood. Look around; they say they are victims but they appear to be just another mob trying to take us apart. It’s quite a jump to turn a peaceful event into an angry mob of potential assassins but that is Jimmy Breslin for you. Barely coherent crazed anger is his shtick.
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Jimmy Breslin Compares Glenn Beck Rally Crowd to Assassins
What follows indicates that at least one limit has been found to the establishment press’s willingness to serve as this government’s official apologists. Not surprisingly, it relates to Iraq. The press obviously and bitterly opposed the war from the start, to the point of doctoring photographs , making stuff up , pretending that its sources knew what they were talking about when they didn’t , and ignoring enemy atrocities and Saddam Hussein’s mass graves for years, while often having their journalistic failures and biases exposed by milbloggers and bloggers. So if one were to have guessed ahead of time where a clear break might occur, Iraq would have been a leading choice. That break comes in an AP email to staff from “Standards Editor” Tom Kent. He must have or at least should have known that its contents would get out. Jim Romenesko at Poynter Online (HT Legal Insurrection ) appears to have posted it first, about 16 hours after Kent hit the “send” button: Subject: Standards Center guidance: The situation in Iraq Colleagues, … we should be correct and consistent in our description of what the situation in Iraq is. This guidance summarizes the situation and suggests wording to use and avoid. To begin with, combat in Iraq is not over, and we should not uncritically repeat suggestions that it is, even if they come from senior officials. The situation on the ground in Iraq is no different today than it has been for some months. Iraqi security forces are still fighting Sunni and al-Qaida insurgents. Many Iraqis remain very concerned for their country’s future despite a dramatic improvement in security, the economy and living conditions in many areas. As for U.S. involvement, it also goes too far to say that the U.S. part in the conflict in Iraq is over. President Obama said Monday night that “the American combat mission in Iraq has ended. Operation Iraqi Freedom is over, and the Iraqi people now have lead responsibility for the security of their country.” However, 50,000 American troops remain in country. Our own reporting on the ground confirms that some of these troops, especially some 4,500 special operations forces, continue to be directly engaged in military operations. These troops are accompanying Iraqi soldiers into battle with militant groups and may well fire and be fired on. … Our stories about Iraq should make clear that U.S. troops remain involved in combat operations alongside Iraqi forces, although U.S. officials say the American combat mission has formally ended. We can also say the United States has ended its major combat role in Iraq, or that it has transferred military authority to Iraqi forces. We can add that beyond U.S. boots on the ground, Iraq is expected to need U.S. air power and other military support for years to control its own air space and to deter possible attack from abroad. Unless there is balancing language, our content should not refer to the end of combat in Iraq, or the end of U.S. military involvement. Nor should it say flat-out (since we can’t predict the future) that the United States is at the end of its military role. Tom William Jacobsen reaction at Legal Insurrection : “AP Calls Obama A Liar.” Well, it’s clear that AP is asserting that Obama is at least not telling the truth in this instance. Whether it becomes a more global assertion about the President himself based on the plethora of dishonesty the wire service is still willing to swallow from this President and his apparatchiks on domestic as well as foreign policy matters remains to be seen. Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com .
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AP Internal Memo: ‘Combat in Iraq Is Not Over’
ABC’s Claire Shipman waxed ecstatic over Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Friday’s Good Morning America, as she reported on Mrs. Clinton’s efforts in the Middle Eastern peace process. Shipman exclaimed how the Secretary had a ” distinct, quite public moment of triumph ” in her meetings with leaders from both sides, and noted how Clinton has become an ” international political celebrity .” Anchor George Stephanopoulos, former communications director for President Bill Clinton, introduced the correspondent’s report, which aired 44 minutes into the 7 am Eastern hour. Stephanopoulos noted past administrations’ failure “to broker a lasting peace between Israel and the Palestinians” and then proclaimed how it was Mrs. Clinton’s ” turn to try to make diplomatic history .” Shipman began by highlighting how Hillary “remains one of the most popular members of the administration” and how she was now “squarely center stage” with the possibility of bringing “something different to this Middle East process.” After using her “moment of triumph” line, the ABC correspondent emphasized how Secretary Clinton was apparently “hard on the trail of a dream that has eluded so many before her, and those who know her well say she brings a special touch to wooing both sides back to the table .” She also underlined Clinton’s reported modus operandi in the peace process: “It’s a trademark recipe of pragmatism and discipline over ego- no high-profile shuttle diplomacy for her, for example.” Shipman used three sound bites from the liberal Brooking Institution’s Michael O’Hanlon and one from former Clinton administration official and current Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs P. J. Crowley to heap praise on Mrs. Clinton. After O’Hanlon highlighted how the Secretary apparently “chose to really marshal her resources and guard them jealously, and wait for the right moment,” the correspondent added her own lauds: ” The other asset she wields: a bit of female EQ, and an astute political instinct .” The high point of the gushing language over the senior diplomat came near the end of the report: SHIPMAN: It doesn’t hurt, of course, that over the years, she’s perfected her ability to shift gears in an instant . Hard-working Hillary, suddenly transforms once again into international political celebrity . O’HANLON: She’s a multi-dimensional public figure. She’s part global rock star, part everybody’s friend, because she goes by Hillary more than Secretary Clinton . Shipman even remarked about the Secretary’s new hairdo: ” Her hair is even back in the headlines. She’s getting rave reviews on her longer, cool, new do .” Earlier this year, on the June 9 edition of GMA, ABC’s Elizabeth Vargas credited Mrs. Clinton for the primary success of Republican women candidates: “So many women saying- doing so well, and many saying perhaps Hillary Clinton helped by running for president. All these other women about to possibly take office, high office, in those states.” The full transcript of Claire Shipman’s report from Friday’s Good Morning America: GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: Henry Kissinger got the two sides of the Middle East conflict to stop fighting for a time. Jimmy Carter forged the Camp David agreements. But every administration since then has tried and failed to broker a lasting peace between Israel and the Palestinians. Now, it’s Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s turn to try to make diplomatic history. And Claire Shipman joins us from Washington with more. Hey, Claire. CLAIRE SHIPMAN: Hey, George. This is a big moment for Hillary Clinton. Her poll numbers show she remains one of the most popular members of the administration, but she’s tended to avoid the spotlight. Now, she’s back, squarely center stage, and we took a look at how she may bring something different to this Middle East process. SECRETARY OF STATE HILLARY CLINTON: Want us to stand here? SHIPMAN (voice-over): For a secretary of state whose style has been very much head down, nose to the grindstone, it was a distinct, quite public moment of triumph. CLINTON: I fervently believe that the two men sitting on either side of me- that you are the leaders who can make this long-cherished dream a reality. SHIPMAN: Peace talks back on track, she’s hard on the trail of a dream that has eluded so many before her, and those who know her well say she brings a special touch to wooing both sides back to the table. ISRAEL PRIME MINISTER BENJAMIN NETANYAHU: The people of Israel, and I, as their prime minister, are prepared to walk this road. PALESTINIAN PRESIDENT MAHMOUD ABBAS (through translator): The road is clear, in front of us, in order to reach peace. SHIPMAN: It’s a trademark recipe of pragmatism and discipline over ego- no high-profile shuttle diplomacy for her, for example. MICHAEL O’HANLON, BROOKINGS INSTITUTION: Secretary Clinton, unlike some of her predecessors and unlike some previous presidents, chose to really marshal her resources and guard them jealously, and wait for the right moment. SHIPMAN: The other asset she wields: a bit of female EQ, and an astute political instinct. P. J. CROWLEY, STATE DEPARTMENT: She’s been in the arena. She’s been bruised- you know, in that arena. And this gives her a credibility that helps relate to leaders. SHIPMAN: And it doesn’t hurt, of course, that over the years, she’s perfected her ability to shift gears in an instant. Hard-working Hillary, suddenly transforms once again into international political celebrity. O’HANLON: She’s a multi-dimensional public figure. She’s part global rock star, part everybody’s friend, because she goes by Hillary more than Secretary Clinton. SHIPMAN: And her hair is even back in the headlines. She’s getting rave reviews on her longer, cool, new do. CLINTON: And now, it’s time to get to work. SHIPMAN (live): Well, George, not the hair again- but, of course, ultimately, she will be judged not by her appearance, but by results in this process. There is a lot of hard work to be done. The two sides are hoping to talk to each other as frequently as every week, and Hillary Clinton is hoping to have another high-profile meeting in the Middle East as early as September, but we’ll see. STEPHANOPOULOS: And they’re facing a real deadline at the end of September on whether or not to continue- to start building those settlements again. SHIPMAN: Exactly, and a lot of people worry that that could put this process, so new, in jeopardy again. STEPHANOPOULOS: Okay. Claire Shipman, thanks a lot.
Originally posted here:
ABC’s Shipman Gushes Over Hillary the ‘Political Celebrity’
Posted in Hollywood, Hot Stuff, News
Tagged abc, claire-shipman, clinton, foreign-policy, good morning america, hillary-clinton, liberal, meetings, News, p.j. crowley, president, stars
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