Talkin' Church and State Blues

I was all set to direct you to an article in the New York Times on how "Like a Rolling Stone" by Bob Dylan got the approval to be a single, but then I came across this tidbit. Apparently November 23 of this year the man most likely to be our next Chief Justice argued that separation of Church and State led to the Holocaust.

The Associated Press reported on November 23, 2004, "In the synagogue that is home to America's oldest Jewish congregation, he [Scalia] noted that in Europe, religion-neutral leaders almost never publicly use the word 'God.'"

"Did it turn out that," Scalia asked rhetorically, "by reason of the separation of church and state, the Jews were safer in Europe than they were in the United States of America?" He then answered himself, saying, "I don't think so."

Scalia has an extraordinary way of not letting facts confound his arguments, but this time he's gone completely over the top by suggesting that a separation of church and state facilitated the Holocaust. If his comments had gotten wider coverage (they were only noted in one small AP article, and one in the Jerusalem Post), they may have brought America's largest religious communities - both Christian and Jewish - into the streets.

Interestingly ahistorical perspective. Of course Jews were persecuted for centuries with the full approval and encouragement of the various European Christian denominations. Some would argue that the Holocaust was just the next step in that line. Certainly it didn't come out of nowhere.

Around the Horn Part IV A New Hope

And here we go again. Missed last week due to Thanksgiving nonsense, but I'm back now.

Archy has some comments on Ann Coulter and Tucker Carlson's comments on Canada and the potential treason involved.

BLOGG has some suggestions on simplifying your Christmas shopping.

Corrente has a good discussion on an post by Kevin Drum on Presidents Truman and Bush.

Echidne of the Snakes has some very good home decorating advice; unfortunately following it requires me to evict myself, as I do occasionally shed hair.

Kick the Leftist has a piece on a certin Austrian who might consider possibly running for President but now apparently won't.

Musing's Musing has some reflections on seasonal music and "The Rebel Jesus."

Continuing the Holiday Theme, we'd like to wish Pen-Elayne on the Web a Happy Birthday and point you to some cool pictures of Christmas-y houses.

Respectful of Otters has some comments on President Bush's tax initiatives, particularly the one that makes it harder for workers to get health insurance.

Birthday congrats also go out to Rubber Hose who is now 2/3rds of the way to being our President.

The Fulcrum has some reports coming out about how great Fallujah's going.

And that's it for another week. Have a nice day.

Good Old Ann Coulter

Another website for media criticism is Media Matters for America, which has some really good stuff. For example, they have these comments from Ann Coulter on our neighbor to the north.

There is also something called, when you're allowed to exist on the same continent of the United States of America, protecting you with a nuclear shield around you, you're polite and you support us when we've been attacked on our own soil. They [Canada] violated that protocol.

They better hope the United States doesn't roll over one night and crush them. They are lucky we allow them to exist on the same continent.

Nice stuff.

Now some of you might be wondering what Ann is talking about when she mentions that Canada didn't support us when we were attacked on our own soil. As you know, Canada did support our efforts in Afghanistan, and continue to support rebuilding efforts their. So they did support us against those who attacked us, but did not support our efforts to invade Iraq.

You see in Ann's mind Iraq is an Arab Nation and a Muslim Nation. And Arabs and Muslims attacked us on September 11th. Ann wants us to destroy all political entities in the Arab world (Kill their leaders) and forcibly convert them to Christianity. So if President Bush wanted us to invade New York to convert the cab drivers tomorrow, and Canada didn't support us, well, that would be another example of Canada's infidelity.

There are some nice anti-Canada sentiments by Tucker Carlson too, for those interested in the great white north.

Meet the New Boss, Same as the Old Boss

That's the tune that they are singing over at the Media Research Center about Brian Williams, who will replace Tom Brokaw at NBC Nightly News. It turns out that Brian Williams is a hated liberal as well, and therefore unfit to deliver the news. The examples they select, however, aren't entirely revelatory.

Take this example.

The United States spends billions on foreign aid, and hundreds of thousands of American soldiers gave their lives to bring freedom to the citizens of other countries, but Williams glibly suggested the Abu Ghraib prison scandal was enough to make the U.S. a global bad guy.

Anchoring the May 7, 2004 Nightly News, Williams intoned: "The damage is clear: After no weapons of mass destruction showed up in Iraq, the U.S. justified the war by saying that at least the human rights violations would stop - the torture, the abuse and the murders. Tonight, although the scale of this is much different, it is increasingly difficult for the U.S. to make that moral case around the world."

OK, let's break this down. The Media Research Center claims Mr. Williams claimed that Abu Ghraib was enough to make the United States look like a global bad guy. What Mr. Williams actually said was that if we are claiming to have invaded Iraq for humanitarian reasons, than the pictures coming out of Abu Ghraib make that a tougher sell. Seems like that's a pretty good analysis, even if it isn't something that conservatives want to see repeated. Is it really the Media Research Center's opinion that the pictures coming out of Abu Ghraib are going to improve America's image around the world?

And then theirs this popular technique.

When he was covering the White House for NBC, Williams gushed over then-President Bill Clinton. "He's perhaps the most intellectually and physically active person to have held the job in decades," Williams told the Late Late Show's Tom Snyder on November 17, 1995. "I've also said that if Americans were paying Presidents by the thought, we're getting a bargain in this guy because, my God, he's just always moving, his brain's moving, he hardly sleeps."

Did you catch that old switcharoo? They are penalizing him not for what he said as a newscaster during his newscast, but for what he said on a talk show, where he is naturally expected to give his own opinion. In effect they are penalizing him for admiring President Clinton's workaholism as a private citizen.

I don't know whether Mr. Williams is going to be a good host or not. I'm unlikely to find out as I don't really watch evening news (preferring to read my news). But not sure that these criticisms are anything to get my dander up over.

I'm Back

This stupid Blogger, that has functioned very well for me over the time I've used it, didn't work for me this morning, thus deserving my condemnation. I choose not to pay attention to the litterally hundreds of mornings I have been able to post without problems, and instead I am focusing on the one time they screwed up. Because that's the way I am!

Anyway I had a lot of cool stuff, but i've decided to punt and pick it up tomorrow. So have a nice evening.

Supporting our Troops For Real

I intended to post this on Monday but did not in fact do so. I consider it well worth considering as Mr. Deitrick makes a number of really good points.

Supporting Our Troops for Real
by Conrad Deitrick

There’s much talk these days of Supporting Our Troops. It’s a buzzword (buzzphrase?), like Saying No to Drugs used to be in the 1980’s or Tolerance in the 1990’s. In the reality that is now, if you support the troops you’re patriotic and a true American with values, but if you don’t support the troops, you’re unpatriotic, loathsome and maybe even a terrorist sympathizer. Not Supporting Our Troops in the 2000’s is like being secretly a Communist in the 1950’s. Political suicide at the least. Accusations of treason.

So everyone has to say they support the troops, vocally and publicly. You see it on bumper stickers, on t-shirts, on buttons. Politicians bandy it about; it’s the preemptive defense that you have to erect, especially if you’re a Democrat, lest someone point the finger and yell j’accuse and you’re hauled off to meet Mme Guillotine. The accusation alone is proof of guilt.

The problem is that really, it’s a bunch of rhetoric. I see a bumper sticker that says “Support Our Troops,” and I wonder what that person really is doing to support the troops. I’d wager nothing at all. Sure, they may write letters to some soldier in the family who they love and are proud of and hope makes it home safely, but that’s not Supporting the Troops. It’s supporting a troop.

The bumper stickers and rhetoric amount to little more than cheerleading, but even less effective. At a football game, the cheerleaders are right there on the sidelines. This “Support Our Troops” stuff is on the other side of the world from most of our troops in combat. Does it bolster their morale? Maybe a little. Knowing that people back home are proud of you does help a little, but when things are really bad and you’re cold, wet, hot, scared, and feeling pretty puny, cheerleading is pretty low on the list of what raises morale. It almost feels like a slap in the face sometimes. It’s hard to explain, but getting one warm shower and something to eat and a good night’s sleep will do more for your morale than all the bumper stickers and t-shirts in the world. And you know what would really help? Going home.

So it’s a little irritating because Support Our Troops is an ever-present droning mantra here in the states, but it’s almost worthless. An empty gesture. Even worse, sometimes it seems like a slap in the face: America pats them on the back and tells them they’re in its prayers and then places them in harm’s way and asks them to shoulder a disproportionate amount of the burden over and over again. “We love you and we’re proud of you, but guess what? You don’t get to go home to your wife and the daughter you’ve never seen because we’re involuntarily extending your enlistment and keeping you out here.”

So, here’s my point: If you want to Support the Troops for real, here are some things you can do.

1. Support measures that increase the military’s manpower, especially active duty manpower. Write to your congressmen. Yes, the generals say there are enough troops on the ground, but how long do they have to stay there? And how many times do the same troops have to come back? Given the current situation, the military is stretched pretty thin. Multiple deployments, even back-to-back, are becoming the rule instead of the exception. Deployments are getting longer. Especially for the reservists and Guardsmen who make up roughly half of our military strength, this is a terrible trial. If the need were dire, we’d suck it up and do our duty- out duty is what we signed up to do. But the need isn’t dire. The USA has a population of nearly 300 million, and our current military strength is tiny in comparison. Increasing the size of the military is simply a matter of spending the money to make it happen. With more manpower, there would be no need for back-to-back deployments. After soldiers, especially Guardsmen and reservists, have done their duty they would be able to go home, secure in the knowledge that they have done their duty and served with honor but now it’s someone else’s turn.

2. Encourage young men and women to enlist. How many military-aged men and women are hanging out on college campuses, living it up on mom and dad’s credit card and getting drunk every night while the same reservists and Guardsmen have to leave their wives and families over and over again? If you are the right age and medically capable, enlist. Yeah, you’ve got plans for your life, you’ve got places you want to go and things you want to accomplish, but so do all of those soldiers whose dreams and plans are being put on hold while they do their duty. Are your dreams better or more worthy than theirs? I doubt it.

3. Find out what things soldiers need, and send them packages. It doesn’t have to be just your son or daughter or brother or aunt. That relative you have in the military probably has battle buddies that might not get care packages- it would be incredible for a whole squad to find that one of their mothers had sent them all things like baby wipes, cheap but durable sunglasses, DVDs to kill the boredom, books, etcetera.

4. When the troops come home, cut them some slack! They’ve been living a life that is fundamentally different from what they’re coming home to. There’s going to be an adjustment period- it might involve a short temper, and there might be all kinds of trouble. Don’t be a fair-weather friend and turn their back on them when they don’t fit in right or when they lose their temper easily. Don’t nail them to the wall the first time they tell a tasteless joke. Please realize that this young man or woman has just had their entire world shaken up in a way you can’t even imagine and they’re doing the best they can to adjust. They’re transitioning from a world where a whole different set of norms and expectations are in place. If they don’t fit the socially acceptable mold you think they should, give them some time. Give them some leeway. Be patient. Be understanding.

5. Support expanded financial and other benefits for soldiers. Again, the Guardsmen and reservists are making a big sacrifice; many times they’re leaving a good job with a high salary to serve and make a whole lot less money. Things like pay raises, increased separation pay, increased combat pay, and other non-money benefits like Tricare are a way the Troops can really be supported. What can you do about it? Write to your congressman.

6. Support political candidates who seek to strengthen America’s alliances in the world. The more the US tries to go it alone, the more our Troops have to carry the burden. Weighing Down Our Troops and Spreading Our Troops Too Thin are definitely not the same thing as Supporting Our Troops.

7. Find out what businesses deal fairly with their reservist and Guardsmen employees, and make sure you patronize them. At the same time, find out what businesses give their reservist and Guardsmen employees a raw deal and boycott- and let them know why you’re boycotting them.

There are probably more ways than that, and in fact, there should be a number 8: look for ways you can Support Our Troops for real. Toss the t-shirt and the bumper sticker and let your actions speak for you- actions are so much louder than words.

The Other Side

Of course criticism of the New York Times isn't limited to just the Right Side of the dial. FAIR has some criticisms of how they have reported the war as well. Take this story on how they have dealt with Civilian casualties, for example. Basically FAIR argues that the times minimizes the numbers of Iraqi civilian deaths.

In three recent reports about the military invasion of the Iraqi city of Fallujah, the New York Times has misreported the facts about the April 2004 invasion of the city and the toll it took on Iraqi civilians.

On November 8, the Times reported: "In April, American troops were closing in on the city center when popular uprisings broke out in cities across Iraq. The outrage, fed by mostly unconfirmed reports of large civilian casualties, forced the Americans to withdraw. American commanders regarded the reports as inflated, but it was impossible to determine independently how many civilians had been killed."

The next day, the Times made the same point, reporting that the U.S. "had to withdraw during a previous fight for the city in April after unconfirmed reports of heavy civilian casualties sparked outrage among both Sunni and Shiite Iraqis." And on November 15, the Times noted that the current operation "redressed a disastrous assault on Fallujah last April that was called off when unconfirmed reports of large civilian casualties drove the political cost too high."

FAIR's opinion is that these stories portray the casualties as unconfirmed. My read is that they are placing the stories in time; at that time that the United States withdrew from Fallujah, those reports were unconfirmed. That said, I would be interested to know if the original stories had some message about the information on Iraqi Casualties that has come out since then.

This issue does, however, underline the point that we know a lot more about how many American Soldiers have died verses how many Iraqi civilians have died during our occupation.

There are some difficult questions that have to be answered before you can start counting Iraqi Civilian Deaths. Do you count just those deaths caused by the Coalition forces? Do you count those caused by insurgent movements? How do you count insurgents? Obviously President Bush and his supporters would like a standard that minimizes the number of Iraqi Casualties. Opponents of President Bush want a standard that shows the maximum number of Iraqi casualties. So you see a pretty wide range of numbers.

But it strikes me that the media has largely chosen to face this issue by avoiding it. Which I'm not sure is the best strategy. If we are to judge whether the Iraq war is a success or failure we need to have at least some idea of the cost of the war.

Reading the Times

The Media Research Center, Brent Bozell's organization to remove all liberalism from the news, has set up Times Watch, a website dedicated to proving that the Times is biased. This is a gold-mine for me, since I can go and read the articles they are talking about and see if their complaints are valid.

Take this story, entitled "Shadow of Vietnam Falls Over Iraq River Raids," by John F. Burns, which appeared at the New York Times yesterday. My guess is that the people writing articles at Times Watch just were gleeful as all get out when they saw that title. I mean the story practically writes itself, doesn't it? The Times thinks that Iraq is just like Vietnam and that shows that they are defeatist.

In the article, Mr. Burns offers several details that validate the Vietnam Comparison. For one thing he hears the soldiers themselves making the comparison. Although he notes that most Soldiers don't think a lot about Vietnam. He also notes that the river combat along the Tigris and Euphrates is similar in some respects to the river combat of Vietnam.

Most damning, however, is the suggestion that our allies may not be everything one would hope for in allies.

At one point, Lieutenant Duarte bridled when some of the Iraqis resisted his repeated urging that they spread out along the line, preferring to cluster together, ineffectively, at one end. A Marine sergeant told him that the Iraqis were officers and did not feel that they should be asked to work side by side with common soldiers.

One of the Iraqi officers, asked if he spoke English, replied snappily, "English no good. Arabic good. Iraq good." The message seemed clear.

Although recruits in the new Iraqi units undergo strict vetting, American officers say rebel sympathizers have infiltrated some of the new units - some of the soldiers have been caught tipping off rebel groups.

Hmmmmm. Allies we can't exactly trust. Where have we seen that before?

But the Times Watch analysis isn't interested in determining whether or not Mr. Burns had a good argument. They are only interested in pointing out that the point that Mr. Burns made contradicts Conservative orthodoxy, and is therefore wrong, regardless of any evidence offered.

Should the Media have an Adverserial Relationship to the President?

Goodness gracious, not right now! Currently we have a Republican President, so naturally the media should play a supportive role in getting his message out. When we have a Democratic President again, that's when the Media should be aggressive.

Look at this statement by Fox News Personality Bill O'Reilly. "Well, I think Fox News Channel was lucky because we were less skeptical of the war, and the war went very well. So we won." Well, of course there is some debate over whether the war went well. But not the way Mr. Reilly puts this. They were less skeptical of the war, and since the war went well, they won. That's not the same as saying, "We sifted the evidence, evaluated it, and determined that this was the right war." Not the same at all. FAIR has a pretty good response to this.

If you believe that a journalistic enterprise "wins" not by cheerleading for the more powerful side, but instead by informing its audience, then a recent study indicated that Fox News was actually the biggest loser during the war. The survey, by the University of Maryland's Program on International Policy Attitudes, found that misconceptions about the Iraq war were closely related to what news outlets an individual relied on for information. And for each misperception studied by the research group, viewers of Fox News were the most likely to be misinformed.

Of course that depends on what Fox News viewers want to be informed on. If they want to be informed on what is actually going on, this is negative. But if they want to hear that everything is fine and President Bush is wonderful, well, than Fox is giving them what they want.

The Assumption

The assumption is that the Media is clearly biased for Conservatives. We aren't talking about a little bias, such that all humans are susceptible to. We are talking about massive bias against conservative, Conservative ideas, and conservative politicians. Bias that leads to dishonest and deceptive reporting.

That assumption makes for a nice short hand. If you read the article in which FAIR suggested that the media were biased in how they select liberal and conservative panelists, you will see that they provided several examples of this bias on a variety of networks. This is very time consuming. Proponents of liberal bias, like the MRC, don't have to do nearly as much work, because they can assume already that their audience agrees that the media is awful.

Another favorite "proof" of media bias is that polls indicate that many Americans believe that the media is biased. Funny that, after decades of conservatives telling Americans that the media is biased a lot of them believe that they are biased.

The Media Research Center's 2004 campaign was called "Tell the Truth," by which they mean present conservative beliefs. The truth is that the economy is going gangbusters. So stories that suggest that Wal-Mart reported a drop in holiday spending, are clearly examples of liberal bias. Stories that report the difficulties our troops face in Iraq are also liberally biased. Stories that report that President Bush's economic policies are working wonderful are "telling the truth." Simple.

The Face Off

I don't know whether I'll stick with this or not, but it is a subject I'm interested in so maybe I will. As you know the media is worthy of criticism. And as you know both Conservatives and Liberals have some critiques for the media. The right has organizations like Brent Bozell's Media Research Center. The left has Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR). But as we shall see over the coming days, their approaches differ a bit.

FAIR, for example, doesn't assume that the media is biased conservative and assume that any readers assume that as well. This forces them to provide a little more information. Take a recent article on how the cable networks select guests for their panels.

Though such debate segments purport to pit right against left, centrist pundits are routinely substituted for the left on panels, while progressives are often excluded altogether.

Debates matching conservatives with centrists are a cable television tic so pervasive that a small army of centrist pundits has formed whose motto might as well be, "I'm not a leftist but I play one on TV."

Take a second and consider how many strong conservative voices you can think of. Now consider how many strong liberal voices you can think of. That should tell you something.

The Cable News Networks have promoted conservatives and conservative views by letting them appear opposite centrists or (even better) reporters. Some of you might think that, since reporters are automatically liberals, this is a good match. Except that reporters have to maintain an air of being unbiased, while the conservatives are allowed to be as biased as they like. It's an unfair fight.

Which is exactly what Conservatives want, I guess.

New Format, New Quote!

I might have used this weeks logo once previously--I am running to the end of my barrel of logos; so will have to make some more.

Anyway new quote, and a new Quotes Page.