Category Archives: Political Commentary

Media Criticism, Political Commentary

Even Deeper In The Tank

67 Comments

The New York Times continues to act as the propaganda arm of the Obama campaign:

Steve Diamond has made a powerful case that, whoever first suggested Obama’s name, Ayers must surely have had a major role in his final selection. Diamond has now revealed that the Times consulted him extensively for this article and has seen his important documentary evidence. Yet we get no inkling in the piece of Diamond’s key points, or the documents that back it up. (I’ve made a similar argument myself, based largely on my viewing of many of the same documents presented by Diamond.) How can an article that gives only one side of the story be fair? Instead of offering both sides of the argument and letting readers decide, the Times simply spoon-feeds its readers the Obama camp line.

The Times also ignores the fact that I’ve published a detailed statement from the Obama camp on the relationship between Ayers and Obama at the Chicago Annenberg Challenge. (See “Obama’s Challenge.”) Maybe that’s because attention to that statement would force them to acknowledge and report on my detailed reply.

Yup. Wouldn’t fit the narrative.

[Mid afternoon update]

Instapundit has a roundup of links discussing this.

Political Commentary

Presidential Stock Market Response to VP Debate

43 Comments

Obama is still trading as a 2-1 favorite on Intrade after the debate and has even moved up a point since yesterday’s close to 66 cents (for a security that pays one dollar if he wins) as of press time. But Palin has earned her stripes. The “Palin to be withdrawn from the ticket” security has dropped from ten cents yesterday to 4 which is a penny less than “Biden to be withdrawn from the ticket”. My opinion? Palin’s the best of the four and should have been thrown to the media wolves so they could patronize her and have it backfire, so she could continue framing the debate, and so she could dominate the late-night talk shows and comedy shows. It’s not too late for her to make a circuit of the late night TV shows. Parody is a high form of praise. CNN reported that she did less than five interviews to Biden’s 100+. I don’t see McCain changing that now. I hope she runs in 2012 and if necessary 2016.

Political Commentary

Missed Opportunity

32 Comments

I’m watching the debate, but not attempting to live blog it. But I have to say that while Palin is doing fine in general, she missed a huge opportunity. When Biden kept going on about how he and The One were going to “end” the war, she should have said, “Senator, you, Senator Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid…you all keep talking about ending the war. But Americans don’t want to just end a war. They want to win the war. Why can you not let the word “victory” pass your lips when it comes America and the Iraq war?”

[Update a few minutes later]

Well, she keeps saying “win the war” and he keeps saying “end the war,” so maybe the point will come across subtly, but it would have been a big blow had she pointed it out.

I have to say that Biden has been surprisingly gaffe free. He’s told lots of whoppers, but no big gaffes.

Political Commentary

It Can’t Be A Real Crisis

13 Comments

The latest version of the bailout bill has new earmarks in it. As Mark Steyn explains:

I suppose sophisticated insiders would assure me that regrettably there’s no possibility of earmark reform; this is just the price of doing business in Washington. But that’s why non-sophisticated non-insiders hold the political class in contempt. The same blowhards who run for office on a platform of lowering ocean levels and healing the planet then turn around and insist they’re unable to do anything about the one small area of human endeavor for which they bear sole responsibility.

If this is an emergency, hold the wool research. If it’s an emergency that’s got time for wool research, let’s chew it over for another few months.

And they wonder why their approval rating is even lower than Bush’s?

Political Commentary, Space

Half A Century Of NASA

3 Comments

I have some fiftieth birthday thoughts over at Pajamas Media.

[Early afternoon update]

Well, this is annoying. A screwed-up history from Time magazine:

NASA was actually founded in 1915 and at the time was known as the National Advisory Committee on Aeronautics — or NACA. Its job was to keep the nation abreast of the latest developments in the then-nascent technology of powered flight. NACA was established with good intentions but operated mostly as a bureaucratic backwater, a government body that couldn’t hope to keep up with a rapidly evolving private industry. In 1957, however, all that changed. That was the year the U.S.S.R. launched Sputnik, the first Earth satellite — and in the process, scared the daylights out of the U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower acted quickly, dusting off NACA and renaming it NASA — for National Aeronautics and Space Administration. On October 1, 1958, the new agency officially went into business.

No, NASA was not NACA, or “founded in 1915.” NACA was a completely different kind of animal. It had nothing to do with space, and it was not an operational organization. It was a basic research outfit, and viewed the aviation industry as its customer, providing data and resources that allowed them to build better airplanes.

Sadly, once it was absorbed into the borg of the new space and aeronautics agency fifty years ago, it lost that focus, and the new entity largely saw itself as the customer, and the space industry as its contractors. Many argue that we need to return to a NACA philosophy for space, but it’s extremely misleading and confusing to state that NASA is NACA, and that its history goes back over ninety years. In fact, it is false.

He also doesn’t really explain why JSC is in Houston. Yes, Johnson was happy to have the mission control center in Texas, but Texas is a big state, and there are no particular geographical requirements for mission control (unlike, e.g., a launch site). It could as easily have been in Dallas or elsewhere. It was established in Houston because Rice University donated a lot of land for it.

Political Commentary, Popular Culture, Social Commentary

No Fascism Here

51 Comments

Nothing to see at all. Move along, move along.

As Jonah says:

All I need to know about your politics is whether you find this creepy or not.

Get out the crayolas and color me creeped out.

[Update mid afternoon]

Die Obamajugend Singt.

Roger Simon (who knows his fascists) has more thoughts.

[Update a few minutes later]

Some great comments at the Hit’n’Run link.:

[Olympics flashback]

The worst part is that the original singers were all replaced by much cuter kids.

[/Olympics flashback]

[Update about 3:15 PM EDT]

Exurban League has more, as does Confederate Yankee. It turns out to be astroturf:

Here’s a partial list of those who helped produce this “grassroots” effort:

  • Jeff Zucker — American television executive, and President & CEO of NBC Universal.
  • Post-producer (former choreographer?) Holly Shiffer.
  • Motion picture camera operator/steadicam specialist Peter Rosenfeld (appropriately enough, worked in “Yes Man,” a movie about ” a guy challenges himself to say ‘yes’ to everything for an entire year.”
  • Darin Moran, another motion picture industry professional, who just finished filming — how appropriate — Land of the Lost.
  • Andy Blumenthal, Hollywood film editor.

Jeff Zucker. This generation’s Leni Riefenstahl. Except without the talent.