…since he met Joe the Plumber?
Ed Driscoll has a roundup.
Category Archives: Media Criticism
Operation “Wide Receiver”
…had absolutely nothing to do with “Fast and Furious.” But the Big Lie will continue from those covering for the Dems and Holder.
I wish that people, including Fox News, would stop calling it a “botched” operation.
The Modern-Day Depression
Welcome to it, and thanks, Mr. President.
The Obama Campaign’s New Flag
Muslims, Mormons And “Liberals”
Some thoughts on how some religions are more equal than others:
The “Book of Mormon”—a performance of which Hillary Clinton attended last year, without registering a complaint—comes to mind as the administration falls over itself denouncing “Innocence of Muslims.” This is a film that may or may not exist; whose makers are likely not who they say they are; whose actors claim to have known neither the plot nor purpose of the film; and which has never been seen by any member of the public except as a video clip on the Internet.
No matter. The film, the administration says, is “hateful and offensive” (Susan Rice), “reprehensible and disgusting” (Jay Carney) and, in a twist, “disgusting and reprehensible” (Hillary Clinton). Mr. Carney, the White House spokesman, also lays sole blame on the film for inciting the riots that have swept the Muslim world and claimed the lives of Ambassador Chris Stevens and three of his staff in Libya.
So let’s get this straight: In the consensus view of modern American liberalism, it is hilarious to mock Mormons and Mormonism but outrageous to mock Muslims and Islam. Why? Maybe it’s because nobody has ever been harmed, much less killed, making fun of Mormons.
Sanctimonious, hypocritical cowardice.
[Update a few minutes later]
Ignorance, too:
…isn’t it interesting that since 9/11 so few “liberals” or “progressives” in that media (and elsewhere for that matter) evince a serious interest in Islam? It’s hard to find one who knows much substantive about it. Few even know what taqiyya or dhimmi law are. I have had many blank stares from otherwise intelligent people when asking even rudimentary questions.
I think the reason for this is a convenient and largely deliberate ignorance. Liberals know if they scratch the surface of Islam all the misogyny and homophobia will come pouring out, not to mention the tenets of Sharia with its attendant superiority of religious law to state law and the consequent abolition of the separation of church and state — all values and goals supposedly anathema to the liberal mind. Trying to reconcile those things with the policies of their hero-president would make their heads explode, so better not to know about them.
Easier to keep a head from exploding when it’s buried in the sand.
The Obama You Don’t Know
Actually, some of us knew this a long time ago, but at last, four years too late, at least some members of the media have started to vet this creature. I guess the rest of them were too busy digging through Wasilla dumpsters to bother the last time around.
The Romney Tape
…and media hypocrisy:
Conservative journalist James O’Keefe has said the treatment the tape received starkly contrasts to what he got after his famous sting operations, including soliciting advice as a fake pimp from the voter-registration group ACORN, posing as an Islamist donor to NPR, and having a 22-year-old assistant obtain attorney general Eric Holder’s ballot at a Washington, D.C., polling place to prove how easy voter fraud can be.
“I think that there’s definitely been a double standard amongst professional journalists here because they’ve been pretty much raking Project Veritas [his company] over the coals for about three years,” O’Keefe told Yahoo News.
“There are no questions about whether it [the video of Romney] was dubbed or doctored, whether there are criminal, potentially state crimes committed in the course of taking that camera around, whether somebody left the camera there and walked away.”
O’Keefe noted that — unlike his videos — the source of the Romney tape remains anonymous and that “in the full raw video, the video starts apparently in the middle of the speech. . . . Journalists have to learn to be consistent. If they want to create these rules, they have to abide by them.”
Unfortunately, apparently they don’t. Of course, media hypocrisy and double standards is an evergreen topic in general.
Who Pays What Taxes?
Some useful graphics.
A Gaffe At The Gray Lady
In the Kinsleyan sense of accidentally telling the truth, that is. The paper is running a story today that essentially admits that Nakoula was arrested as a scapegoat:
The film was produced in the United States, though its origins are still shrouded. American federal authorities identified the man behind the film as Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, 55. Though the film does not appear to violate any American laws, the authorities took Mr. Nakoula in for questioning on Saturday over possible federal parole violations connected to an unrelated criminal conviction. That action has done little to tamp down the unrest.
Emphasis mine. Was it supposed to have that effect? If so, it makes it all the worse, because it is a concession to the violent rioters, and simply encourages them, and sends the message that violence will get them what they want. As Professor Jacobson says, empowering people who set fires to define the limits of free speech is how free speech dies.
In other accidental truth telling, the paper also admits that Occupy Wall Street was a pointless fizzle.
[Update a few minutes later]
Related thoughts from Lileks (you’ll have to scroll a bit):
Can’t quite imagine Buddhists rioting over it. Can’t quite imagine Hindus giving a rancid fig for Bill Maher’s opinion. Can’t imagine Copts or Zoroastrians or devotees of Odin pounding the table and shouting THIS SHALL NOT STAND and marching off with a gun to set things right. For that matter, can’t imagine Christians in the South, Africa, or China deciding that the rest of the day shall be devoted to yelling about the existence of a movie written and performed by a comedian who’s just got religion’s number, totally, like no one else ever.
So it’s almost as if –
No, that’s silly.
Okay, I’ll say it. It’s almost as if the author of the piece is carving out a First Amendment exception based on the possible reaction of a particular set of people in a particular place in the world.
Oh, it’s just a little exception. Sure, “you can’t cry fire in a crowded theater” becomes “you can’t mail someone in another country a picture of a match.” But that’s a hard and fast line. You can see quite clearly where the emanation ends, and the penumbra begins.
Don’t give them an inch.
