Crush Liberalism

LA Times offended at pro-American articles in Iraq

If this doesn’t qualify as gall, I’m not sure what does. From the AFP:

The US military is secretly paying Iraqi newspapers to print stories written by US soldiers in an effort to polish the image of the American mission in Iraq, a US newspaper reported.

US military “information operations” troops have written the articles, which are translated into Arabic and placed in Baghdad newspapers with the help of the Lincoln Group, a Washington-based defense contractor, according to The Los Angeles Times.

OK, the practice of planting stories is at the very least questionable, to be sure. It borders on propaganda. However, read this part (and avoid drinking anything while you do it, lest your beverage project from your nostrils):

Many articles are presented to Iraqi newspapers as unbiased news accounts written and reported by independent journalists.

Remove the word “Iraqi”, and you’ve got a perfect portrayal of the MSM in this country: a bunch of slanted editorials masquerading as news “stories”, written and reported by leftist journalists pretending to be “independent” and unbiased. The main difference is that in America, the MSM does this for the left for free. Maybe that is why the LAT is getting its panties in a bunch…they haven’t been able to parlay their partnership with the left into moolah?

Don’t resume drinking your beverage just yet…there’s more:

Some senior US military officers in Iraq and at the Pentagon have criticized the operation, saying it could ruin the US military’s credibility in other countries and with the US public.

That’s exactly what the LAT and other insurgent-friendly and al Qaeda useful idiot MSM sources are hoping!

What’s galling is that when the MSM gets planted stories from the left (including, but not limited to, the DNC), they run with the stories and think that it’s fair. However, let the stories be America-friendly (and, by default implication, Bush-positive), and all hell breaks loose!

November 30, 2005 Posted by crushliberalism | Uncategorized | Leave a Comment

More on the Sheehag book signing

A recent moonbat visitor here asserted that Cindy Sheehag’s book signing was a raging success and that she signed and sold all of her books…despite the photographic evidence to the contrary. It looks like said moonbat was simply taking the proven liar Sheehag’s word for it. From Editor and Publisher:

Antiwar activist Cindy Sheehan and her book publisher are upset about Associated Press and Reuters photos that allegedly presented a misleading impression of her book signing last weekend in Texas.

Sheehan, whose soldier son was killed in Iraq, gained wide fame last summer in an antiwar protest near President Bush’s ranch in Crawford, Texas, and then in a march in Washington, D.C. She returned to Crawford last week for a Thanskgiving protest. Her new book, “Not One More Mother’s Child,” had just been published, and her publisher organized a book signing in a large tent in Crawford on Saturday.

Photos of the event, carried widely on the Web, and then picked up by conservative blogs, seemed to imply that the book signing was a bust. The photos showed Sheehan looking dejected, sitting at a table, with no one in the tent except for a couple of photographers. The AP caption simply read: “Anti-war activist CindySheehan waits for people to show up at her book signing near President Bush’s ranch on Saturday, Nov. 26, 2005 in Crawford, Texas.”

The Washington Post, which carried Evan Vucci’s AP photo, noted that at a protest the same day Sheehan had addressed a crowd of only about 100. “In the morning,” the Post observed, “Sheehan signed copies of her new book, being published this week, for an even smaller crowd,” although it cited bad weather as a possible factor.

But in a statement today, Sheehan accused “right-wing” sites of “spreading a false story that nobody bought my book at Camp Casey on Saturday. That is not true, I sold all 100 copies and got writer’s cramp signing them. Photos were taken of me before the people got in line to have me sign the book. We made $2000 for the peace house.”

Yeah, Cindy, the Washington comPost is a “right-wing” site…and Howard Dean is a moderate! Continuing:

Her publisher, Arnie Kotler at Koa Books, meanwhile released a letter to her supporters, charging that “AP and Reuters posted photos – I can’t imagine why – of Cindy sitting at the book table between signings, rather than while someone was at the table. And now the smear websites are circulating an article, with these photos, that Cindy gave a signing and nobody came. It’s simply not true…. the benefit books signing in Crawford, Texas on November 26, 2005 was well attended and a huge success.”

The publisher is doing damage control for Sheehag’s fragile supporters. How does the AP respond?

Asked for a response, an AP spokesman commented this afternoon:

“Photographer Evan Vucci, queried about the incident today said that he was present at the book signing from about 10 a.m. to about 11 a.m. During that time, he said, people were coming in to have their books signed in small groups of a few at a time.

“At the time the photos were taken ‘maybe 5 people had come in,’ Vucci says, and Sheehan was waiting for more to stop by, which they did individually as well as in very small groups. Therefore the wording of the caption is accurate in that Sheehan was waiting for people to show up at her signing.”

If any people were coming in when the photos were taken, such as the “maybe 5″ that the AP folks saw, then how could Sheehag have been “in between signings” like her publisher said?

She wasn’t in between signings. It’s much simpler than that: Sheehag has become irrelevant even to her supporters. To the rest of normal America, she has been irrelevant for quite some time now.

November 30, 2005 Posted by crushliberalism | Uncategorized | Leave a Comment

Who is lying about Iraq?

Thanks to Kira for tipping me off to this great Cal Thomas column:

The Bush administration is partly responsible for declining poll numbers and the growing public disapproval of the war in Iraq.

Instead of responding immediately to questions concerning the reasons for the war and the honesty of top-level members of the administration, it allowed these allegations to fester until they became accepted, in many quarters, as fact.

Amen to that. I understand that Bush isn’t guided by polls, which I greatly respect. However, this conviction does not shield him from criticism, nor does it lessen the need for him to explain to the public what is really happening in Iraq. Simply believing you’re right and refusing to explain your position is foolish at best, and arrogant at worst. Continuing:

Terrorists are also winning the psychological warfare, partly because the jihadists are unified behind a goal and we often are not. They want territory and they want to kill “infidels.” American leftists want “peace,” without realizing that peace is a byproduct of defeating evil. The left also wants to use the war for partisan political gain and will seek to deprive President Bush of any credit for victory because it could benefit him politically. How sick is that?

Terrorists also gain because too many of us do not agree on which side is good and which is evil. Specifically, the left has reversed the political polarity: it sees the United States as evil and if it does not necessarily see the jihadists as good, it views “evil America” as the cause of jihadism.

Sick indeed. Our soldiers see this, too, and they will not forget who their friends really are. Any wonder they don’t vote for Democrats? Oh, yeah…the “lying” part:

In the December issue of Commentary magazine, Norman Podhoretz – in an article entitled “Who Is Lying About Iraq?” – demolishes that myth. He lists the numerous individuals, nations and intelligence agencies worldwide that reached identical conclusions about Saddam Hussein’s weapons. They include Hans Blix, who headed the UN weapons inspection team that tried to learn whether Saddam had complied with Security Council demands that he destroy weapons of mass destruction he was known to have had and used in the past. A few months before the invasion, Blix wrote of a “relatively new bunker” of 122-mm chemical rocket warheads 170 km southwest of Baghdad. He said, “They could be . the tip of a submerged iceberg.” Blix noted the discovery of those rockets “does not resolve but rather points to the issue of several thousands of chemical rockets that are unaccounted for.”

President Clinton’s National Security Adviser, Sandy Berger, stated flatly, “(Saddam) will use those weapons of mass destruction again, as he has 10 times since 1983.” Clinton’s Secretary of State, Madeline Albright, said the “risk” that a “rogue state will use nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons against us or our allies is the greatest security threat we face.” President Clinton, who now keeps company with war critics, said in 1998, “If Saddam rejects peace and we have to use force, our purpose is clear. We want to seriously diminish the threat posed by Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction program.”

The Podhoretz article is full of quotes from Democrats and others who were once gung-ho to topple Saddam. It also contains facts from bipartisan investigations that have looked into WMD and the run-up to the invasion. It exposes some liars, but President Bush and Vice President Cheney are not among them.

How patently unfair to quote critics in order to expose their hypocrisy!

Thomas’ conclusion is accurate: The Bush administration has finally started to reply to these modern “summer soldiers and sunshine patriots.” They had better persuade more of the public, or risk losing a war that we must win.

Fortunately, the MSM is losing influence faster than France and Cindy Sheehan combined, so there is great hope that despite the left’s and MSM’s (pardon the redundancy) best efforts, Iraq will turn into a flourishing democracy.

November 30, 2005 Posted by crushliberalism | Uncategorized | Leave a Comment