I wish no ill upon Johnson. However, as soon as I began watching this local TV story I knew something was up. They featured members of Johnson's family assuring us he was nearly recovered and yet avoided showing Johnson actually speaking.

If you click on the videos along the bottom you'll see why. He, as he notes, has not recovered normal speech. He sounds like a serious stroke victim. If his mind is completely alert, he doesn't demonstrate it, relying instead on rather basic written remarks.

It's amazing that the media pushed the story that he's almost entirely recovered, and yet denied us the ability to make that determination ourselves by showing us the best evidence of this proposition either way, eh?

Is he "nearly" fully recovered? That doesn't seem to be the case. Can he be fully recovered in time for the next Congress? Given that it's taken him this long to manage a partial recovery, that seems fairly doubtful.

Congratulations to Tim Johnson for making this much of a recovery. Damn The Deciders of the media, however, for deciding on our behalf that we should not be permitted to judge whether he was actually capable of continuing on as US Senator.

This is exactly like a candidates' history of cancer. His camp will of course insist it is irrelevant and in any event he's entirely cured. His opponents will argue it is a factor to be weighed in determining whether or not he's healthy enough, and will remain so long enough, to serve the office he seeks.

It's a genuine issue, if a touchy one. But who do The Deciders think they are to censor relevant information on this score from the audience they serve and instead feed us nothing but the assurances of his son that he's recovered, when the actual videotape of the speech, deliberately censored from the TV report, proves the precise opposite?

Thanks to the Influence Peddler.

Posted by: Ace at 11:07 AM | Comments (21)
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Huge and thorough piece by Karl at Protein Wisdom on "The Deciders'" extremely questionable decision-making.

Who's getting the war right? Not the MSM, which is simply too emotionally and egotistically invested in defeat to be trusted.

The establishment media has developed ever more creative ways of reporting US casualties. For example, in April 2007, the McClatchy newspaper chain reported that “March… marked the first time that the U.S. military suffered four straight months of 80 or more fatalities,” without any suggestion as to why the number 80 had any significance. Indeed, the four prior months averaged over 80 casualties; they just weren’t as evenly distributed.

The establishment media also has become more willing to show graphic video of US casualties at the hands of the enemy. CNN aired an insurgent sniper video obtained directly from the enemy. ABC News aired video of a Bradley armored vehicle blown up by an improvised explosive device as six American soldiers died inside, then exploited the grief of family members to attack the current “surge” of troops in Iraq. Similarly, CBS News spiked a story containing video originally posted on an al Qaeda propaganda website, but posted the same video on its own website. Throughout the conflict the establishment media has shied away for the truly graphic images of the enemy beheading civilians.

Conversely, there are the stories “journalism by remote control” misses, or chooses not to cover. As early as September 2003, establishment reporters admitted that “good news” stories were getting short shrift; three years later, nothing had changed (Jane Arraf). If anything, by late 2006, the stories missed were getting larger.

Take, for example, the coverage of events in Anbar province. In September-November 2006, the Washington Post ran a series of articles suggesting that the US military was unable to defeat the bloody insurgency in western Iraq “or counter al-Qaeda’s rising popularity there.” These stories were echoed in the New York Times/International Herald Tribune, The Christian Science Monitor, NBC News, ABC News, CNN, the AP and others, down to local TV.

But this was not the only picture of events in Anbar. In “Will the Real Anbar Narrative Please Stand Up?”, Bill Ardolino juxtaposed the WaPo stories against analysis by bloggers and embedded reporters like the Times of London’s Martin Fletcher and Michael Fumento for the Weekly Standard. Bill Roggio’s military and intelligence sources were angry over the media’s characterization of the secret reports cited by the WaPo. Roggio examined how the claims made in the WaPo coverage were taken out of the larger context of events in Anbar. Roggio and the Mudville Gazette’s “Greyhawk” charted the formation and rise of the Anbar Salvation Council — the alliance of 25 of the province’s 31 tribes in the fight against al Qaeda. Roggio and Greyhawk followed up when the Anbar tribes got US air and artillery support — a development ignored by the establishment media.

We now know which narrative was more accurate. Al Qaeda was not increasingly popular in Anbar. To the contrary, the local tribes were overwhelmingly opposing and increasingly waging war against al Qaeda, with support from the US military. Bloggers — carefully following and synthesizing information from their own sources, military information, embedded reporters, Arabic media and isolated stories in the establishment media over the course of a year — proved to be better remote journalists than those at the WaPo, NYT, CSM, AP, CNN, NBC and ABC (and any others I have overlooked).

Incidentally, as early as September 2004, Roggio had predicted the tribes would eventually turn on al-Qaeda. This type of development is crucial to winning a war against an insurgency. Popular support is key to the continuation of an insurgency; Mao Zedong famously advised his insurgents to “move through the people like a fish moves through water.” Thus, the magnitude of the media’s failure to recognize the import of the rise of the Anbar Salvation Council — and its portrayal of Anbar province as lost — cannot be understated.

Even now, generally antiwar media outlets are traveling throughout Iraq and revising their opinions. The Guardian reports that violence is ebbing and wealth returning to parts of Iraq, Der Spiegel concludes that the “US Military is more successful in Iraq than the world wants to believe,” and even Salon’s correspondent concedes that parts of Iraq actually seem to be getting better. The establishment media still remains largely confined to quarters in Baghdad.

If that looks like I've merely reprinted the bulk of Karl's post, nope, it's a whole lot more than that. Read the whole thing.

Posted by: Ace at 10:56 AM | Comments (13)
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A bit of push-back to preserve Iowa's and New Hampshire's God-given right to pretend to be important every four years.

Posted by: Ace at 10:47 AM | Comments (28)
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This is an awful lot like the Mark Foley scandal. The story had been out there for years but, conveniently enough, it was only pushed into the MSM before an election.

In this case, the arrest report wasn't leaked earlier when it would have given an Idaho GOP challenger time to suddenly whip up the makings of an insurgent campaign. Instead, it comes far too late for that, making it almost certain Craig will prevail in the primary for lack of a real challenger and then be defeated by a Democratic candidate.

How do these lucky breaks keep accruing to the Democrats?

The Roll Call reporter who broke the story himself questions the timing by wondering how it could be that this was never broken previously.

He could help answer that himself by divulging not the name but the partisan leaning and organizational association of who tipped him the story. Of if it was done anonymously, he ought to say so.

Dirty tricks like this aren't all that dirty. It was Craig, after all, who colluded in this by trying to hide what could not be hidden, leaving himself at the mercy of partisan opponents as regards the timing of the inevitable leak.

And yet the media is awwwwwfully interested in the skullduggery aspects of stories like this when the GOP is behind them -- or even whispered to be behind them. Indeed, the rule is generally this: If a leak hurts a Republican, the MSM focuses on the content of the leak. If a leak hurts a Democrat, the MSM plays down the actual information divulged by the leak and instead focuses on the skullduggery of how the leak came to happen.

Obviously, in both cases, the MSM is casting the GOP as the bad guy. A leak that hurts a Republican proves the Republican is the bad guy. A leak that hurts a Democrat also proves the Republican is the bad guy, because what's he doing spreading malicious information?

The MSM now routinely "questions the timing" of even terror alerts but apparently has no interest in the well-timed outing of closeted gay Republicans engaging in highly questionable behavior. Even though this is the second time running that a Late Summer Surprise threatened to turn an election in the direction of Democrats.

Related: To both the Craig and Hillary! stories.

While the media floods the zone on Craig, they seem curiously uninterested in the details of Hillary's shady fundraising from Peter Paul -- despite the fact she might soon be under oath and required to answer questions about the matter in court.

Posted by: Ace at 09:57 AM | Comments (29)
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Just want to put this on your radar. It's probably just first-week pranks, but I just received the following notice from my school's administration (I have altered it slightly since I have an Ace-mentality about privacy).

You may have seen or heard that a number of colleges and universities have received bomb threats via email, none of which have yet to be determined as credible. This morning, the [undergraduate college] also received an email bomb threat. At this time there is no indication that this is a credible threat, however, we take any threat to the University community seriously. Law enforcement authorities have been alerted and we are taking appropriate steps to insure the safety of campus.

As always, please be aware of your surroundings and report any suspicious packages or persons to the department of Public Safety.

I looked through the news, but couldn't find much on the referenced "number of colleges" which also received threats. If you know of some, feel free to put them in the comments.

Aside from the mere fact of the bomb threat, I want to mention that I appreciate the university notifying us of the threat, even if its credibility is undetermined. Back at my undergrad (a different school) there was a minor scandal when it was revealed that the university had received a threat of violence and chose not to notify staff, students, and faculty. Moreover, it was policy to withhold that information until the credibility of the threat had been determined.

Update: More poking around has revealed that at least two schools have been evacuated because of emailed bomb threats in the last few days.

The local FOX affiliate in Cleveland reports that the University of Auburn's College of Engineering Akron's Science and Engineering Center was evacuated for a few hours this morning.

Also, Cornell's business school was evacuated because of an emailed threat yesterday. (Spaz in the comments note that the article has it wrong; the evacuation occurred yesterday, despite the article's use of "today" with today's date.)

No bomb was discovered at either location.

Update 2: Here's a report from the University of Iowa. Apparently, this is UI's third such threat and the university is getting tired of evacuating every time. UI's Director of Public Safety says:

Officials will not continue to evacuate buildings if authorities keep receiving threats on a daily basis, he said.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 09:50 AM | Comments (15)
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As a lot of commenters have noted (well before my very dulled-by-acceptance-of-statist-authority antennae were raised), the arrest of Craig was on very shaky grounds. He didn't actually... do anything illegal. He didn't make a lewd proposition, at least not an explicit one that, and certainly didn't have sex in a public place.

Via Instapundit, Vaifrank notes that Larry Craig was arrested for, it seems, tapping his foot in an illicit manner. With malice aforethought.

I really don't want to defend this guy. I'd rather he resign from the Senate. While this arrest is incredibly thin and, it seems, unjustified, the fact is he was probably intending to do precisely what he's accused of intending to do. But mere intent is not illegal, and should not serve as the basis for an arrest.

So while I don't want to defend him, I guess I have to. How a guy gets arrested and threatened with a life-changing prosecution for tapping his friggin' foot is beyond me.

It should also be noted that the stories of gay cruising the Idaho Statesman didn't report until yesterday for lack of corroboration still have no corroboration. They've taken the circumstances of his arrest as general all-purpose corroboration for any and all one-source claims about Craig. Pretty much any gay Democratic operative or sympathizer can now claim "Larry Craig raped me!" and the MSM will print it as "credible."

Posted by: Ace at 08:51 AM | Comments (89)
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The poor gal just can't help being duped by
smooth, shady operators... and that's exactly what you
want in your Commander in Chief.

Don't worry, none of this is important, newsworthy, or even terribly interesting. The Deciders have decided.

For the last 15 years, California authorities have been trying to figure out what happened to a businessman named Norman Hsu, who pleaded no contest to grand theft, agreed to serve up to three years in prison and then seemed to vanish.

"He is a fugitive," Ronald Smetana, who handled the case for the state attorney general, said in an interview. "Do you know where he is?"

Hsu, it seems, has been hiding in plain sight, at least for the last three years.

Since 2004, one Norman Hsu has been carving out a prominent place of honor among Democratic fundraisers. He has funneled hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions into party coffers, much of it earmarked for presidential hopeful Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York.

In addition to making his own contributions, Hsu has honed the practice of assembling packets of checks from contributors who bear little resemblance to the usual Democratic deep pockets: A self-described apparel executive with a variety of business interests, Hsu has focused on delivering hefty contributions from citizens who live modest lives and are neophytes in the world of campaign giving.

On Tuesday, E. Lawrence Barcella Jr. -- a Washington lawyer who represents the Democratic fundraiser -- confirmed that Hsu was the same man who was involved in the California case. Barcella said his client did not remember pleading to a criminal charge and facing the prospect of jail time. Hsu remembers the episode as part of a settlement with creditors when he also went through bankruptcy, Barcella said.

The bulk of the campaign dollars raised by major parties comes from the same sources: business groups, labor unions and other well-heeled interests with a long-term need to win friends in the political arena.

But the appetite for cash has grown so great that politicians are constantly pressured to find new sources of contributions. Hsu's case illustrates the sometimes-bizarre results of that tendency to push the envelope, often in ways the candidates know nothing about.

This campaign message brought to you by Hillary! 2008.

As a Democratic rainmaker, Hsu -- who graduated from UC Berkeley and the Wharton School of Business -- is credited with donating nearly $500,000 to national and local party candidates and their political committees in the last three years. He earned a place in the Clinton campaign's "HillRaiser" group by pledging to raise more than $100,000 for her presidential bid.

Records show that Hsu helped raise an additional $500,000 from other sources for Clinton and other Democrats.

"Norman Hsu is a longtime and generous supporter of the Democratic Party and its candidates, including Sen. Clinton," Howard Wolfson, a spokesman for the campaign, said Tuesday.

"During Mr. Hsu's many years of active participation in the political process, there has been no question about his integrity or his commitment to playing by the rules, and we have absolutely no reason to call his contributions into question or to return them."

Wolfson did not immediately respond Tuesday night to questions about Hsu's legal problems.

Though he is a fugitive, Hsu has hardly kept a low profile. The website camerarts.com, which sells photographs taken at political events, features shots of Hsu at several fundraisers he hosted at Manhattan's elegant St. Regis hotel -- including a June 2005 luncheon for Rep. Doris Matsui (D-Sacramento).

No one knew he was shady. Can't fault anyone involved in this. Poor Hillary! and the other Democrats taking straw-man donations from a fugitive felon were duped yet again.

Unlike as was the case with, say, Jack Abramoff. In that case, everyone taking his donations should have known he was bilking his clients.

Nuance.

Thanks to JackStraw.

Pic thanks to Riehl.

PS: Liberals will claim my criticism of the MSM is self-defeating here-- after all, this story is from the LAT. But the fact that reporters occasionally rouse themselves to actually report on Democratic skullduggery hardly proves that The Deciders in the MSM give stories that hurt Democrats the same play, the same flood-the-zone coverage that they give similar stories that hurt Republicans.

The LAT duly noted this and will now dutifully move on. We will not have the feeding frenzy of the NYT, NBC, CBS, and ABC all breathlessly reporting on this story and once and dedicating serious journalistic resources to advance it. Abramoff was taken by the media to demonstrate the heart of corruption in the GOP (despite the fact that Harry Reid took more money from Abramoff than most Republicans); this story, on the other hand, signifies nothing at all.

It's of a piece with the Guess That Party! game. When a Republican is caught dirty, it's an indictment of the GOP. When a Democrat is caught dirty, on the other hand, it's merely an indictment of "the system" generally -- no specific fault found on the part of a Democratic politician or the Democratic Party generally.

Posted by: Ace at 08:42 AM | Comments (25)
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A "political expert" in New Hampshire has decided that the next big constituency will be military moms. She says:

The military mom -- who has either a child or a husband who is serving -- is disenchanted with the war.

I'm skeptical that there are enough military moms to make a difference. I'm pleased to see that the WaPo article also notes that there is no indication that military moms actually constitute a monolithic block of voters, or even one that leans heavily towards one party.

The "political expert" doesn't have that caution. She says that military moms are "the swing vote" (emphasis in original). The expert also thinks that the "'military mom' would probably vote for a candidate who she thought would have credibility on foreign affairs, so that on the Democratic side is most likely to be Hillary Clinton."

The WaPo at least doesn't take this seriously (and it's nice to know that the WaPo writers read their own polls):

[A] Washington Post-ABC News poll in April found that more women in military families had already rejected Clinton outright (48 percent) than had women in nonmilitary households (34 percent).

There is no discussion of why military moms would be showing up now, but not for the 2006 mid-terms.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 08:32 AM | Comments (17)
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Any guesses on the meaning of the red dots?

Explanation here.

Posted by: Slublog at 07:02 AM | Comments (82)
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I find it curious that foreign regimes who are officially or unofficially enemies of the US never fail to endorse Democrat candidates.

"The word today is that an apparently unbeatable ticket could be Hillary for president and Obama as her running mate," he wrote in an editorial column on U.S. presidents published on Tuesday by Cuba's Communist Party newspaper, Granma.

What is it about Republicans that commies and terrorists don't like?**

Democrats and hostile regimes, the tongue-baths flow in both directions.

**This post is troll-bait. I'm bored.

Posted by: LauraW. at 06:36 AM | Comments (29)
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