Category Archives: Media Criticism

Thought For The Day

On the pretzel logic of the politically correct moral midgets currently running the country:

We forget that it is the sworn duty of every Political Correct Person to not only get everything wrong, but to get everything exactly backwards.

So they’ve hit on this fine matching set of absurdities: On the one hand they insist that no terrorist is a (real) Muslim. On the other, they insist that the violent puritanism of a minority Sunni sect absolutely represents the deeply held beliefs of all Muslims.

That would seem to match the Attorney General to a tee.

The Day Has Arrived

Time for solidarity in defense of enlightenment values.

Brendan O’Neill says, though, that we’re missing the real point — that the real cultural enemy isn’t extremist Islam, but the multiculturalists within. But Nick Gillespie explains why it’s important nonetheless. And Mark Steyn has more thoughts.

[Update a few minutes later]

People will see what they want to see.

[Update a while later]

Who decides
what is provocative?

The Horror

Here’s an interesting tidbit in a story about Blumenthal’s fabrication of his Vietnam experience. Some people apparently think that this is equivalent:

“It’s appalling that the Attorney General of the state of Connecticut – a highly-educated and trained lawyer – would misspeak about such a significant issue,” Simmons told POLITICO this morning. “Clearly he knows he never was in Vietnam, and yet he’s on record saying he was in Vietnam – obviously to appeal to an audience, and that’s a very troubling disclosure.

“But it’s matched in some respects by Mrs. McMahon who brought the charge — when just a few montnhs ago it was disclosed that she did not tell the truth about her college education and her degree — which is again something everybody should realy know,” Simmons said, referring to a Hartford Courant report that McMahon claimed on documents filed with her appointment to the State Board of Education that she had a degree in education, when her degree was in French.

“I got a degree in English Literature,” Simmons said. “It’s hard to make a mistake about something like this.”

What I find hilarious about this is that both Simmons and McMahon apparently believe that an education degree is of more merit than one in French. I disagree. At least the French major has some knowledge to impart to her students, if they want to learn French. I’ve never noticed that a degree in education teaches doesn’t provide much knowlege of positive value, and much of negative value. I would think that if you were going to upgrade your degree, you’d pick something worthwhile to substitute for French, like business, or even poli sci, not the degree that has the lowest entrance scores of all majors.

As I’ve said before, I’d abolish schools of education if I were dictator. Or at least eliminate government-backed loans for them (though actually, I’d eliminate government-backed educational loans, period).

A Big Thumb On The Scale

It’s three on one at a House hearing today:

Witnesses:

* Mr. Charles F. Bolden, Jr., Administrator, NASA
* Mr. Neil A. Armstrong, Commander, Apollo 11
* Capt. Eugene A. Cernan, United States Navy (Ret.), Commander, Apollo 17
* Mr. A. Thomas Young, Executive Vice President (Ret.), Lockheed Martin Corporation

I don’t expect Bolden to acquit himself well. I wish I were testifying instead. It’s a shame that Gordon couldn’t get Sally Ride, or Leroy Chiao, or some other astronaut who actually understand the problem for balance (not to mention Augustine versus Young, who has no manned space experience). As Clark notes, it’s too bad that the media doesn’t point out how stacked the deck often is in these show hearings. It does reduce confidence (never high to begin with) in the honesty and integrity of congressional deliberations in general.