Here's an excellent example of saying a lot of things that aren't new, but restating them in new and fresh ways. Wordsmith and satirist Mark Steyn has a trenchant and devastating column on Powell worship, media bias, media inability to see their bias, lack of diversity of thought among the left and newsrooms, their misappropriation of the term "liberal," and the myth of small "independent" bookstores. None of them new themes, but well worth a reminder of, and supported by recent and ongoing examples.

So supporting "internationalism," "multilateralism," abortion and racial quotas means you're "moderate" and "nonideological"? And anyone who feels differently is an extreme ideologue? Absolutely. The New York Times is rarely so explicit, at least in its "news" pages, but the aim of a large swathe of the left is not to win the debate but to get it cancelled before it starts. You can do that in any number of ways -- busting up campus appearances by conservatives, "hate crimes" laws, Canada's ghastly human-rights commissions, the more "enlightened" court judgments, the EU's recent decision to criminalize "xenophobia," or merely, as the Times does, by declaring your side of every issue to be the "moderate" and "nonideological" position.

As usual, the whole thing should be read.

Would love to look at that Mark Steyn column but all that comes up is about:blank

Doh!

Try it now...

Thanks.

Powell gets a bad rap in my view. The leftist think because he is black he owes them and is some closet commie and some on the right believe this. Powell was Ronald Regan's NatSec Advisor hardly a commie. Most of the leaks attributed to him are no more than Clinton undead wandering the State dept. Powell is a firm beliver in the Clausewtzian view of poltics and war his own doctrine follows this pretty closely. A lot of his statements are taken apart to obsurdity as if one sentence would be remembered beyond the next news cycle at all.

A good example would be his statement on MTV about condoms. Liberals beamed about "you see he is our boy" other Conservatives flinched in agreement. I just laughed for anyone who has every been in the Miltary would of realized he must of given the speil to how many platoons? I remember the NCO they gave it us except there was more colorful words to it and he was yelling at us. And I don't think the NCO was a commie.

Dr. Clausewitz: Of course Powell is no commie,
but left-liberal media know what they are doing when they extol him.
Before Reagan was elected, he was just
a devil with horns to them; when he was elected,
they harped on the struggle for the "heart and soul" of Reagan between "pragmatists" and "ideologues" in his cabinet. They are just practicing Realpolitik, and playing on dissensions in the enemy camp.

Powell is a superb diplomat; but his strategic
judgment is flawed. He was opposed to the
Gulf War. More recently, he caused the administration to stumble both in the polls and in its worldwide credibility by vacillating in its "moral clarity" stance vis-a-vis Palestinian terror.

The Bush people seem to have learned their lesson there - but so have their enemies, and this is why they have high hopes for Powell.