quillnews

Are elite bias and a dying MSM security threats?

In the breezes swirling around the media campfires this week, a few items caught my eye as I, like the old linotypers, began assembling a few thoughts.  All related to the declining standing of trust of two key institutions: universities & the news media, where US obsessions with image and “pseudo events” are having real effects.  Items:

Universities: 

• Jihad Johnny a Yalie: Yale’s coddling of an unrepentant fascist propagandist as a “student” is beyond belief.  No wonder this is news!  John Fund’s WSJ article about the Taliban propagandist turned Yalie here is chilling enough, followed up by the unbelievable stupid responses from Yalies who ought to know better. (WSJ, WSJ2)  Since when does Yale reward sociopathic shape-shifters with the secret Buhla hand shake?  (BG)  Or is the current crop of Langley’s “slam dunkers” trying to rekindle New Haven’s OSS (Oh So Social) roots with a ham-handed recruiting of some amoral twit?
• Sixties Dead Enders: the answer to the “since when” question above, of course, is since the Sixties.  Check out David Horowitz’s Q&A at NRO, and his new book: The Professors: The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America.  The delusional Vietnam-era obsession of these academics on appearing on the side of diversity and peace and justice is giving aide and comfort to the forces of intolerance and war and slavery.
• Supremes have a clue: At least the US Supreme Court knows 8-0 that the nation has a right to defend itself. (WS) Yale and the other nation’s law schools apparently don’t want to taint themselves associating with those helping to defend military institutions.  They still want US tax dollars, thought.  Quillnews view: not another dime to ingrate anti-American schools!  More witch-hunting Congressional demagoguery on this issue, please!

News media:

• Say good night, K-R: Knight Ridder rides off into the sunset with the McClatchy merger, as more community-based newspapers hit the dust. (WSJ) This further demise of the independent news media comes as the Project for Excellence in Journalism issues its annual report on the media detailing the “seismic transformation” underway in news and journalism. (PEJ, Report) One factoid: newsroom jobs declined 7% since 2000. (WP)  Quillnews fond memories: when I was growing up, newspapers were my form and context of life.  My childhood days were informed and organized by reading the Hartford Courant daily and Shore Line Times weekly.  As I got older, major Boston, New York and DC dailies would organize my daily agenda, serving as a kind of civic mass to orient my thoughts and day.  Today, I don’t subscribe to a newspaper, and the freebies tossed on my driveway go right to the recycle bin unread.  The PEJ and CPJ have excellent summary sites on all this. Quillnews question: in the context of the universities, what eager bright graduate would choose a career in journalism anymore?
• Bush 43 speech acknowledges power of pictures:  In his excellent speech Tuesday at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, Bush 43 said that last December: Americans were inspired by the images of Iraqis bringing elderly relatives to the polls, holding up purple ink-stained fingers, dancing in the streets and celebrating their freedom. By their courage, the Iraqi people have spoken and made their intentions clear: they want to live in democracy -- and they are determined to shape their own destiny.  The past few weeks, the world has seen very different images from Iraq -- images of violence, and anger, and despair. We have seen a great house of worship -- the Golden Mosque of Samarra -- in ruins after a brutal terrorist attack. We've seen mass protests in response to provocation. We've seen reprisal attacks by armed militias on Sunni mosques -- and random violence that has taken the lives of hundreds of Iraqi citizens. (Speech, Fact Sheet)
• Implicit in Bush 43’s assertions is the recognition that it is the images and their overriding emotional impact that we are responding to as the war in Iraq unfolds.  The facts are one thing, but it’s the reflections of those facts in media that matter!  Notwithstanding the horror and power of the individual destructive acts of war, should it be primarily he images that we are to respond to in deciding whether to pursue one strategy or another in the war on Islamofascists?  If so, who creates the images?  Facts are a factor, but as important as to facts’ effects on immediate public opinion are the editing choices, the context and content, manufactured by the media!  As the demise of the Knight Ridder and the PEJ implies, the capacity to create those images is falling into smaller and a more focused (biased?) professional class whose get-go ideas today reflect the teachings learned in the Sixties.
• Peters to the rescue: Lt. Col. Ralph Peters again points out the truth to power – in this case the overwhelming image power of the MSM and its ability to distort the reality of war for the American people.  His article about the media myths about the Iraq war is a tonic.

Quillnews observations:  Free people are in the midst of a war against their liberty and – for reasons of market changes, technology and ideological bias – we are not getting all the facts from our established institutions of communication and education.  How are free people to make informed judgments about the course of their war actions if we don’t have the issues organized in a coherent way from trusted and unbiased sources?

Newspaper cartoons are funny, except when you're serious (part 2)

Recalling the recent ranting street theater in some quarters over a cartoon or two, here's two to ponder, left and here: US of Islam.  (HT:  LGF)  Food for thought on a whole lot of levels.  Of course the Dubai Ports story has been a stand in topic for the "elephant" in the room - the complete trashing of Islam as a respectable religion because of the internal war being waged by the Islamofascists.  The American people are reacting to actions of Islamic fanatics and are responding in a completely understandable way. The elites from DC may say it is all because of media manipulation, but give the people who live in this world some credit. (WP, LGF) Where are the voices of moderation and reform within Islam who can counter this public poison of violent intolerance?  Others of faith in the world community aren't stupid and will respond to mindless threats of religious violence.  Where are the voices of moderate Islam? (Update: An earlier QN rumination.) With outfits like CAIR as their public spokesmen, it is any wonder the voice of moderate Islam has been crowded out ofthe public square? (Pipes & Chadha in MEI on CAIR a must read).  Quillnews question:  Dubai Ports, Schmorts! The Judeo-Christian West is losing trust in the Arab Islamic world's ability to be civilized.  Is this loss of trust permanent? Are we witnessing the making of a historic tragedy? I'm serious.  Stay tuned... (Part 1)

Too many brains; too much time...

Reading VDH's piece in NRO, you have to wonder if at least some of the problem with the so-called "former Iraq war supporters" from the conservative ranks, if this just isn't a question of too many brainy guys hanging around with too much time on their hands...  Kind of like all the kibitizers at the Civil War battlefield suttler's tent who hung around just talking and waiting...  Quillnews view: wars are an ugly mess, but let's use some common sense.  Iraq has come so far in such a short time since Saddam.  Give the volunteers who have sacrificed so much for such progress the benefit of the doubt. The war theater we are witnessing at home is not the reality on the ground in Iraq.  And most of the theoritical geopolitical models the think tank set like so much are hooey anyway.  What matters is defeating the enemy, victory in the field and enough backbone by the US force to make sure that the Iraqi's stand up for themselves.  The new government is being organized. No civil armies have taken the field.  Cooler heads among the Iraqis understand the stakes.  The game is still in play.  Soldier on.

Sifting through the dispatches; actually, we're winning

You have to give the reporters sifting through all the static and data a break.  Who can avoid obsessing about the Dubai Port embroglio, and the stunning collapse of political savvy by the free market one worlders who let this deal come to this point without better political ground work? (WSJ)  Quillnews counts himself among those free market partisans, by the way, but even I knew that an outfit like the UAE would never get past the rope line at the gate on this deal.  Check out the recent (and understandable) bias of US public opinion. (WP) (Editor's aside: The last time I encountered a citizen of the UAE he held a machine gun at my chest. I was walking to a clearly marked men's room during a hour transit stop at the busy Abu Dhabi airport on a lay over on a flight to London from Qatar. I was just one of the thousands passing thru UAE on air transit daily, but I got this treatment anyway: no smiles, no thank you's, no welcome to our country; just a grease gun inches from my heart until a young man with the bad complexion and week's beard decided I could continue on my way...  I went back to my waiting area, by the way, and used the facility on the BA flight later.)   All newswalkers have such distractions to wade through.  Imagine the bits of scattered information and direct experience the Civil War correspondents at left must have sifted through back in the day. Sometimes it's good to go to the source. Take public statements of VP Cheney and SecDef Rumsfeld at two venues Tuesday, for example.  At the AIPAC convention in DC Cheney quite simply puts the entire war in context; and cuts through the fog and rhetoric. (Worth the read.)  The same day, at a DoD press conferrence, Rumsfeld reminded reporters that vigilence is key in the war on terror and that all the "civil war" talk by the MSM has been very badly reported and had the effect of undermining homefront morale. (Here). (Michael Rudin of AEI has an excellent analysis on this issue here). Rumsfeld poked fun with the reporters in the give and take, and gave his own "spin" on the recent developments in Iraq, which were no question bad, but not the beginning of a civil war.  Said Rumsfeld:

It's instructive to take note of several things that have happened in Iraq since the bombing of the shrine that must be disappointing to those who seek a civil war. First, the Iraqi security forces have taken the lead in controlling the situation.  Coalition forces assisted in a supporting role, according to General Casey. And second, the Iraqi government leaders took a number of key steps that have had a calming effect in the situation.  They imposed a curfew, and the leaders of most of the major parties have stepped forward to publicly urge restraint on all parties.

From what I've seen thus far, much of the reporting in the U.S. and abroad has exaggerated the situation, according to General Casey. The number of attacks on mosques, as he pointed out, had been exaggerated.  The number of Iraqi deaths had been exaggerated.  The behavior of the Iraqi security forces had been mischaracterized in some instances.  And I guess that is to say nothing of the apparently inaccurate and harmful reports of U.S. military conduct in connection with a bus filled with passengers in Iraq.

Interestingly, all of the exaggerations seem to be on one side. It isn't as though there simply have been a series of random errors on both sides of issues.  On the contrary, the steady stream of errors all seem to be of a nature to inflame the situation and to give heart to the terrorists and to discourage those who hope for success in Iraq. And then I notice today that there's been a public opinion poll reporting that the readers of these exaggerations believe Iraq is in a civil war -- a majority do, which I suppose is little wonder that the reports we've seen have had that effect on the American people.   

General Casey has reported that overall levels of violence have not increased substantially as a result of the Golden Dome bombing. To be sure, violence continues to slow Iraq's progress.  That's a fact, and we know that.  In the coming months Iraqis will face difficult obstacles in controlling illegal militias, and we know that. They're working to try to strengthen their ministries, and we're trying to help them.  And their efforts to fashion a unity government that will represent all elements of their society is clearly being delayed by the situation in Iraq.  Nonetheless, the leadership being shown by the Iraqi security forces, by the Iraqi government officials in the wake of these attacks against the shrine has to be seen as encouraging, despite the apparent unwillingness of some to accept it.

Nearly 56 years ago, in 1950, the Truman administration issued what would become a framework for America's Cold War strategy for four decades.  In a formerly classified document called NSC 68, the Truman administration said, quote, "Our fundamental purpose is more likely to be defeated from lack of will to maintain it than from any mistakes we may make or assault we may undergo because of asserting that will," unquote.  Today our nation is again in a long struggle.  And again, the toughest challenge will be to maintain our national will to persevere and to prevail.

Later in the question and answer session, Rumsfeld had some fun with a reporter: 

• REPORTER: Mr. Secretary, Are you saying that this poll and that what you call the rush toward declaring civil war in Iraq, is that the result of intentional misreporting of the situation there?
• RUMSFELD:  Oh, I can't go into people's minds.  All I'm doing is reporting on what we've seen.  General Casey pointed out to this group here that he believes -- his data shows that the numbers of mosque attacks and the nature of the attacks and the severity of the attacks have been considerably exaggerated and that the number of civilian Iraqis that have been killed or wounded has been exaggerated. And -- now, why someone or whoever did this, I have no way to judge.  I'm not going to judge them.  It's just a fact that he is saying that, and I believe he's correct
• REPORTER: But you said, Sir, that -- I believe that the reporting was virtually one-sided.  Does that mean…?
• RUMSFELD: Yeah, the interesting thing about it is they all seem to be of a kind.  All the things that have later been corrected or need to be corrected or that he believes were exaggerated all seem to be on one side of the equation.  We don't see the similar thing on the other side, which you normally would get in some kind of a random spread, one would think.
• REPORTER: Well, do you believe that the media's been duped by the situation or doesn't understand it or what?
• RUMSFELD: All I'm doing is reporting.  I'm just reporting the facts.  (Laughter.)  The facts are as I've stated them.

Beware of the worst, sure. Just don't believe it...

Far be it for a lowly blogger to second guess the MSM consensus that Iraq is on the verge of civil war (sample headlines: Tipping Point, On the Brink, The Last Straw, et al), which all assume that we are headed toward a regional conflict involving all states in the area, and as a subtext it is all Bush 43's fault if he had only not lied about WMD and just left Saddam in power, et al... GAAK!  Okay, full disclosure Quillnews second guesses most things in MSM, and now is no different.  I'm a student of assignment editors' habits and news headline trends and I think it might be worth taking a second look at all the recent gloom and doom, and question some of its form and context.  I'm usually skeptical about the end being near, and have faith that we are all victim of the gloom that accompanies every bottom of a news cycle.  Granted bad news is bad, and the bombing of the Golden Shrine Feb 22 and the subsequent blood letting was bad.  It is also dangerous because it points a way that Iraq in fact could fall into a civil war involving the armed ethnic militias.  Fair enough.  But, to be frank, this has been true from the get go in '03 and the majority of Iraqis has proven time and again they prefer a unified country and a federal system where each group gets a piece of the action.  The political wrangling on who gets what gets bogged down now and then, and occasionally Rummy, Kalilizad or Casey issue dark warnings about US patience, but for a new bunch of democrats this Iraq crew seems to be in the game for keeps. So when I read in WSJ briefs about US Amb. Zal Khalilzad is warning of Civil War in the NY Times, Washington Post, LA Times, WP, I'm reminded that sometimes you have to talk turkey to your friends to get them to pay attention (something Khalilzad does as well as any) and am also heartened to read in NRO the counter tonic about the good news, as is NYP's Ralph Peters, RP2. (Bring back Arthur Chrenkoff!) Because in fact, war is dynamic (VDH) and what counts are the interactions of forces and relationships on the ground, which is turn are informed and sustained by the attitude of those of us at home. Quillnews vote on Iraq: ignore the assumptions in today's trendy news headlines; assume our guys will soldier on and complete the mission of standing up a new Iraqi govenment that can defend itself!  Despite the obvious heart breaks of the past few years, the record of accomplishments of the US forces in Iraq is outstanding.

Syriana & UAE: time for an LNG lesson

Cooler heads are beginning to take a deep breathe in the political belly flop the established forces of good government and free markets suffered with the disclosure that UAE's Dubai was on the verge of taking over management of some key American ports.  Good!  Let's all take a moment and toss out the rhetoric and heat.  Do as I had suggested we do after seeing Syriana, the George Clooney political oil terror thriller that's a lock to get an Oscar of some kind in a few weeks.

In this case, I would like to use this post as an excuse to post some relevant graphics dealing with the LNG business, with the map of the Persian Gulf, the Coastal emerities (kingdoms) that reside in the midst of Iran and Saudia Arabia. The UAE's emerities, a collection of kingdoms & city-states, is a powerhouse of economic heft, particularly Abu Dhabi, a massive petroleum producer.  The UAE is a great shopping location for the region, a bit of a play ground, and a well organized if somewhat isolated little place. It has been a strong ally of the US in the war on terror. To start our Quillnews geography lesson, what I intend to do is show that UAE is only one of the countries in that region that is very important to the US and the wider world, and everybody better get their thinking caps on tight to learn the new facts of life that Americans face in our world of global energy and interlocking corporate economies.

Take the small state of Qatar, which I believe is the kingdom in question in Syriana.  Qatar is a very small country, but a very big deal. (See PDF travelogue excerpt Actors in Arabia at left from a visit I made there in '94.) Offshore Qatar is a gas deposit that even ExxonMobil admits today is 900 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. (Corp., LNG) This is a truly astounding amount of gas - one of the largest such deposits in the world, and possessing enough hydrocarbon energy to power needy markets in Asia!  In other words, if this reserve can be delivered, China and India have a chance of being able to afford the energy that their populations -- 40% of humanity -- will require to keep from starving!  A few weeks ago, in ExxonMobil's publication The Lamp, the company announced that it and Qatar had cut a deal to expand the LNG facilities under construction there now by 70%, a new $14 billion, to build two new production trains, each capable of producing 7.8 million tons of LNG a year, bringing to a total of seven the production that has already been committed to bring to market by mid 2009.  (Look at just one camera angle on this collusus above).

What I recommend is that Quillnews readers check out these simple graphics from the ExxonMobil website and just take in the process that is involved in producing the gas, piping it to shore for treatment, and placement in LNG tankers. 

Then look at the map graphic showing the potential growth of this trade from Qatar to the wider world.  Does anyone believe that the US won't do whatever it takes to protect this trade and ensure that the rulers of this region keep reform underway and which would guarantee their people take part in sharing the booty that would flow to their region from this awesome trade?         

UAE Port Deal? Rumblings from the right!

Much has been said and written on the UAE port deal.  Quillnews has only a few things to add:

1. The people of the US are at war with a murderous segment of the Islamic community and are still trying to sort out who is who;
2. The Americans don't care to wait a whole long time to find out and any "Islamic" country that wants to run Ports in the US has a burden to declare itself loud and clear - we are on your side;
3. The established wise heads inside the US government that reviewed this lease deal failed utterly to see this single issue - the Americans are at war and mean it;
4. The Bush 43 White House political staff system is broken. 

For any political operative on hand worth his pay check, this UAE lease deal was a complete no-brainer.  Of course it needed to be aired out in public, to be done transparently, and with every awareness that the American people at war don't play fair. Americans don't trust folks from those foreign parts these days, and UAE is going to have to go some to persuade they want to be trustworthy neighbors.  Despite the namby pamby main stream media and rantings of the anti American hard left, the political challenge that faces Bush 43 (and any of his would-be successors) is from the political right. The American people are at war against a cult of Islamic fundamentalist fascists and will destroy any and all who get in the way of victory.  Period. Full Stop. The current crop of exhausted DC weasels - Bush 43's people, the K St lobby advisors to the UAE shippers, the shippers, the British sellers, the political posers, positioners, and pretenders - they all blew this one big time. The political and economic and corporate leadership that sits in private luncheon meetings and protected settings to discuss deep issues over tea and sandwiches with the crust cut off, better wake up: take this war seriously.  Wage it, pay for it, support it, win it. The American people are at war.  In managing the reaction to the UAE lease deal and watching the flat footed established responses, I'm reminded of what my movie hero Bruce Willis told his adversaries in Die Hard after a pyrotechnic greeting: "Welcome to the Party Pal!"  (WS)

Newspaper cartoons are funny, except when you’re serious

I’d like to think that I have some unique insights to add to the cartoon imbroglio, but I'm not sure I do.  It is all pretty simple to me.  Ordinarily I’m respectful of religious sensitivities.  My first lesson on Islamic sensitivies was a while ago – I think it was during publicity generated by Hollywood's making of (a no doubt over-the-top romantic Arabian Desert) epic about the birth of Islam – that Muslims had a unique take on images of the prophet. The movie makers had to be careful not to show any image of Mohammed.  Hmmm.  Kind of a tough rule when you're making a movie about Mohammed - even for Hollywood!   I never understood this particular preoccupying fixation myself. Images of The Almighty, Jesus, The Virgin Mary, the Holy Trinity and various saints and spirits have been enriching parts of my daily life from the get-go.  But hey, if believers in Mohammad say they want it that way, that’s cool.  What isn’t cool is any believer’s view that if some smart ass in the back of the room is disrespectful to this belief that the only acceptable response is that the offender should be killed.  Not cool.  The way disrespect of this type should be handled is one-on-one on the playground during recess in a brief and informal dust up that usually clarifies everybody’s feelings and attitudes. No biggie. As we all know, the world is full of smart ass weisenheimers, many of whom grow up to find employment in the print trades and who make their living saying, doing and printing outrageous things. This is life on earth. Get used to it. Usually cartoons are fun and cool. (Self-portrait of Jeff MacNelly, a Quillnews favorite, above.)  If you've got a problem with what is shown or said, write a heart felt letter to the editor and call the offender an idiot. And let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves about the nobility of the press in all this, because nobility and high-purpose, usually have absolutely nothing to do with the enterprise.  Mostly it’s all great fun. I mean some in the print trades will do noble things, but mostly the press behave like the human beings they are – imperfectly.  On this one, I’m giving all in the press a complete pass.  Just keep working guys.  As for the ranting street bone-heads, I don’t have much to add except to express my belief that the violent, intolerant, hateful, and downright stupid reaction by some rent-a-thugs to the cartoons in Denmark is not cool, not cool at all. 

Quillnews advice: Let’s remember to keep it simple. First point: most of these ranting young men wearing wraps around their heads and burning flags and promising death to the infidels are employed to make trouble by dictatorships (Iran, Syria, Egypt, et al), their opportunistic political operatives in foreign parts (Hezbollah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, et al), and promised virgins upon death by those moronic no-work “Islamic clerics” whose only occupation seems to be to avoid personal hygiene and to take money from rich Muslims (Saudis, Iranian Mullahs, et al) for saying outrageous things.  Viewing the recent ginned-up street theater, the world’s established communities of government and commerce and respectable sociability will no doubt be making this point to their counter-parts in the Muslim communities: can't you get your guys to knock this sh*t off.  Besides, what is the deal with you guys?  Are your home communities this incapable of life on the planet earth with human beings?  Come on, get with it.  Send the stir-it-all-up morons to the unemployment line now where they belong. Tell these "Muslim leaders" and their followers to put down their religious texts for a while and study some engineering, some economics, some science, some world history and learn something useful for their future. Furthermore, make sure your kids take their studies in life-on-earth to heart. Which leads to my second point: This life-on-earth school will be very important because the success the Muslim community has in educating its young about how the world actually works, will determine how much life many of their young people get to experience. Because free people won’t tolerate intolerance.  If the believers want to impose their intolerance on free people, it’s going to mean a fight. And it’s a fight free people will win. No matter how long it takes, no matter the cost. Freedom is non-negotiable.  (Lifson, Kelly, NRO, WS, Levy) (Part 2)

World War II - when reporters got it right

A quote from Ralph Peter's WS account about the performance of today's media really got to me: 

We got it right in World War II, but today we cannot count on patriotism among journalists, let alone their acceptance of censorship boards. Our own reporters pretend to be "citizens of the world" with "higher loyalties," and many view patriotism as decidedly down-market. Obsessed with defending their privileges, they refuse to accept that they also have responsibilities as citizens.

His reference to World War II brings to mind the fantastic journalism that was produced by Allied reporters in World War Two and that is available from the Library of America in two volumes titled Reporting World War II: American Journalism. Vol 1. Vol 2. I began reading these books after Sept 11 when American volunteers were doing the military work I believed was absolutely necessary, but which would no doubt be difficult to sustain because of its horrors. The accounts published in these volumes about the troops in WWII are truly great. The editorial voice of virtually all of the writers stands in stark contrast to the editorial tone and content of the journalistic output by today's MSM. Amazon links are here here. 

News from the front?

AEI's Karl Zinsmeister has done it again: report facts and context on the war in Iraq that completely puts the lie to the notion that the for-profit corporate MSM are doing the job for the American people. Zins' earlier books and essays for AEI have been excellent.  Like the Civil War-era reporter pictured at left, Zins has come back to tell what he's found. Check out Zins's Q&A from his last Iraq trip. (HT: IP) Terrific.  Retired Army strategist and incorrigable staff pain-in-the-neck, Ralph Peters, continues to do his duty. This time his cover story in WS is provocative, and should cause the Pentagon planners and their commanders to go through a few more rewrites on future military strategy. Quillnews has long believed that a delusional social science cult has emerged to grip the news and production assignment desks of the major newspapers, magazines and broadcast news outlets. In my view, MSM editing judgment has bordered on sedition. Peters' focus on the dangers of the secular bias of the anti-faith global media is what I find so telling.  Choice quotes:

1. A paradox of our time is that the overwhelmingly secular global media--a collection of natural-born religion-haters--have become the crucial accomplices of the suicide bomber fueled by rabid faith. Mass murderers are lionized as freedom fighters, while our own troops are attacked by the press they protect for the least waywardness or error. One begins to wonder if the bomber's suicidal impulse isn't matched by a deep death wish affecting the West's cultural froth...  Both the suicide bomber and the "world intellectual" with his reflexive hatred of America exist in emotional realms that our rational models of analysis cannot explain. The modern age's methods for interpreting humanity are played out. We live in a new age of superstition and bloodthirsty gods, of collective madness. Its icons are the suicide bomber, the veil, and the video camera.
2. Many of us have struggled to grasp the unreasonable, even fanatical anti-Americanism in the global media--including the hostility in many news outlets and entertainment forums here at home. How can educated men and women, whether they speak Arabic, Spanish, French, or English, condemn America's every move, while glossing over the abuses of dictators and the savagery of terrorists? Why is America blamed even when American involvement is minimal or even nonexistent? How has the most beneficial great power in history been transformed by the international media into a villain of relentless malevolence? There's a straightforward answer: In their secular way, the world's media elites are as unable to accept the reality confronting them as are Islamist fundamentalists. They hate the world in which they are forced to live, and America has shaped that world.
3. It isn't that the American-wrought world is so very bad for the global intelligentsia: The freedom they exploit to condemn the United States has been won, preserved, and expanded by American sacrifices and America's example. The problem is that they wanted a different world, the utopia promised by socialist and Marxist theorists, an impossible heaven on earth that captured their imagination as surely as visions of paradise enrapture suicide bombers.  The global media may skew secular, but that doesn't protect them against alternative forms of faith.
4. We have reached the point (as evidenced by the first battle of Falluja) where the global media can overturn the verdict of the battlefield. We will not be defeated by suicide bombers in Iraq, but a chance remains that the international media may defeat us. Engaged with enemies to our front, we try to ignore the enemies at our back--enemies at whom we cannot return fire. Indeed, if anything must be profoundly reevaluated, it's our handling of the media in wartime. We have no obligation to open our accounts to proven enemies, yet we allow ourselves to be paralyzed by platitudes. This doesn't mean that all of the media are evil or dishonest. It means we need to have the common sense and courage to discriminate between media outlets that attempt to report fairly (and don't compromise wartime secrets) and those whose track records demonstrate their hostility to our national purposes or their outright support for terrorists.
5. We got it right in World War II, but today we cannot count on patriotism among journalists, let alone their acceptance of censorship boards. Our own reporters pretend to be "citizens of the world" with "higher loyalties," and many view patriotism as decidedly down-market. Obsessed with defending their privileges, they refuse to accept that they also have responsibilities as citizens. But after journalistic irresponsibility kills a sufficient number of Americans, reality will force us to question the media's claim that "the public has a right to know" every secret our government holds in wartime. The media may constitute the decisive element in the global counterrevolution in military affairs, and the video camera--that insatiable accomplice of the terrorist--the cheap negation of our military technology.

Quillnews pal Debra Burlingame again has brought common sense back to the debate about the media bias during the post Sept 11 war.  Her recent column in the WSJ nails it.  Michael Barone also has his interpretation about the narrative bias that has dominated the news judgment today.   CIA chief Peter Goss's assessment of the "very severe" damage done by the disclosure in the NYT of the NSA al-Qaeda snoop program.  (Powerline, Yahoo)  Arguments in support of the NSA program are made  but get short shrift in the NYT.  (Hayden Powerline, Gonzalez Powerline, NYT Powerline)  Finally, some serious legal talent is getting into the conversation arguing that the NYT's irresponsible story and anti-Bush campaign committed the crimes by violating the espionage laws during war time. (Commentary, WS, Powerline) Now we're talking!  Jail 'em.   

Quillnews assessment:  Don't dispair. I'm convinced that the media rules of the New Battlefield for the post Sept 11 War are changing -- for the better. James Taranto of the WSJ's Opinion Journal optimistically argues that despite the perfidy, incompetence and outright sedition shown by the elite MSM during the post Sept 11 War, the American people are in good hands: their own!  Free information, new technology, new voices and the collapse of the MSM hegemony on the pubic agenda ensures that the anti-military, pro-scandal, for-profit gossip peddlars will fail. The corrupt social science cult that has come to grip the professional journalists community in this era will be exposed for the delusional political hacks they are.  Check out Taranto's assessment of Newsweek's Howard Fineman's column on what Fineman called the American Mainstream Media Party:

Howard Fineman of Newsweek got at it in a provocative essay he wrote in January 2005, after CBS News released the findings of its independent investigation of the phony "60 Minutes" story about President Bush's National Guard service. Mr. Fineman argued that the journalistic establishment had, in effect, transformed itself into a political party; he called it the American Mainstream Media Party, or AMMP. Mr. Fineman wrote, "The notion of a neutral, non-partisan mainstream press, (was) pretty much dead... The seeds of its demise were sown with the best of intentions in the late 1960s, when the AMMP was founded . . . (ironically enough) by CBS. Old folks may remember the moment: Walter Cronkite stepped from behind the podium of presumed objectivity to become an outright foe of the war in Vietnam. Later, he and CBS's star White House reporter, Dan Rather, went to painstaking lengths to make Watergate understandable to viewers, which helped seal Richard Nixon's fate as the first president to resign. The crusades of Vietnam and Watergate seemed like a good idea at the time, even a noble one, not only to the press but perhaps to a majority of Americans. The problem was that, once the AMMP declared its existence by taking sides, there was no going back. A party was born."

Now in the post Sept 11 War, I believe we all are watching the demise of the AMMP, and its manipulators who seek to dominate the Democratic Party.  It is messy, ugly, and upsetting to those who grew up confident in the world they could see by reading newspapers and watching the daily 30 minute nightly news casts. Today our way to interpretating the world through our trusted newspapers and anchorman are gone. Like believers who watched the Great Schism when the Orthodox and Romans split, or the faithful who witnessed the post-Luther reformation, free people all are struggling to find our feet in this new media world.  The demise of the great newspapers as trusted outlets for community conversations, and the collapse of judgment and committment to balance at the major broadcast nets has been heartbreaking. But a cleansing of our communications institutions is necessary so that free people can triumph in the New Battlefield.  Stay tuned...