Both parties constantly make accusations that their rival is engaged in hypocritical, unethical, or illegal behavior. Given the drastic lack of ideological diversity in the American elite media, the general public usually only hears about such accusations against Republicans. Beyond the fact that biased reporting shapes public opinion to favor the left, it may also have an effect on law enforcement. The persistent lies that have been told about right-leaning political groups by leading Democrats, including President Obama himself, may have led to the IRS abuses of power that we’ve heard so much about in recent weeks. Even assuming that the Internal Revenue Service decided to target conservative groups without explicit orders, the fact is that Obama and other Democrats have been smearing conservatives for so long with vague but outrageous charges of criminality, it’s no wonder that some bureaucratic goons decided to harass “tea party” and “patriot” groups. The context of the audits is quite clear in retrospect, as Wall Street Journal columnist Kimberley Strassel demonstrated in an excellent piece
What is it with Weiner and accidental publication? Atlantic Wire: What does The New York Times have on Anthony Weiner that they aren’t ready to tell the rest of the world yet? Probably the first extensive interviews with the women he sexted since Weiner’s soft landing back on the political scene — a mid-campaign bombshell if there ever was one — but one accidental push of a button on the Times website has everyone waiting for the true return of the scandal once the Times gets its facts straight. “I have said steadfastly I apologize for the things I have done,” Weiner told reporters Tuesday morning, as he was forced to answer questions about more than one of his old demons while on the mayoral campaign trail. And it’s true: Weiner has been very open with the New York tabloids in an attempt to beat them at their own game ahead of September’s Democratic primary… and ahead of rumored selfies from his time in Congress that are still floating around out there. Could the Times have its hand on more topless Twitter photos? The Grey Lady might not get that salacious, but it’s got something worth deleting after a story was accidentally published online Monday, and it’s got the media, New Yorkers, and scandal-lovers everyone on edge. If you click on the URL left behind by the new-deleted story at NYTimes.com, all you get is a production note: “An article was posted on this page inadvertently, before it was ready for publication.” The article, by Times political reporter Michael Barbaro, who’s been all over the Weiner comeback beat, was titled “For Women in Weiner Scandal, Indignity Lingers.” That sure sounds like a stirring account of the difficult life the other side of a story has endured since June 2011, when it was discovered that Weiner had communicated with women whose images and online identities were made as instantly famous as the Congressman’s downfall was horrendously swift. We’ll see if they publish it at all. I assume they will.
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Misfire: New York Times Publishes, Pulls Weiner Article
We are often lectured that a major difference between liberals and conservatives is that the former “care” about the common people, while the latter are concerned only for themselves and their own. Many believe that it was this sentiment that doomed Mitt Romney’s presidential chances when a video surfaced where he said:
The headline on the front page of the New York Times said it all: “Women in the Senate Confront the Military on Sex Assaults.” In a triumphalist article showcasing the growing numbers of women on the Senate Armed Services Committee, “one of the Senate’s most testosterone-driven panels,” the story line presents female Senators attacking male military officials over charges of sexual assaults against women in the armed forces. Us-against-them stories are great for generating excitement in the media and in politics. But whether any of this political theater will actually reduce sexual assaults against women in the armed forces is a totally different question. For thousands of years, people around the world had the common sense to realize that putting young men and young women together in military operations was asking for trouble, not only for these young people of both sexes, but for the effectiveness of military forces entrusted with the fate of nations. Yet, in these politically correct times, civilian leaders who increasingly have no experience whatever in the armed forces are far more willing to try to micro-manage the military than back in the days when most members of Congress and most Presidents had served in the military. There seems to be something liberating about ignorance and inexperience. You are free to believe whatever you want to, unencumbered by hard facts and, if you have political power, to impose your headstrong ignorance on those with first-hand knowledge. If sexual assaults in the military are taking place in our own country, far from the scenes of battle, what do you suppose is going to happen when men and women are in the same tents or trenches at night on battlefields thousands of miles away? We don’t have to ask what will happen on warships at sea. The number of Navy women who already get pregnant in such places tells us more plainly than words. How much of this country’s military resources do you think should be diverted from preparing for, and fighting, battles involving life and death to adjudicating conflicting stories about who did what to whom, and whether it was consensual or not? Such issues have plagued college campuses with coed dormitories, where there are no bullets or bombs to complicate matters. Why would we imagine that “he said, she said” issues are going to be any easier to deal with in a military context? People who can understand that “prevention” is better than “cure” in many other contexts seem not to understand that simple fact in a situation where cures are often either elusive or impossible. You cannot un-rape somebody after the fact. Nor can you restore the honor of someone unjustly accused and convicted to appease civilian politicians on a rampage. Too much of the discussion of issues involving the role of women in the military is based on questions about whether women can do the same tasks as men with equal efficiency. The real question is whether either sex functions as well with the other sex around. If you don’t think either sex finds the other sex distracting, you are ignoring thousands of years of experience around the world. Nobody needs to be distracted in life and death situations, where the difference between victory and defeat can be “a near run thing,” as the Duke of Wellington said after the battle of Waterloo, which settled the fate of Europe for generations to come. Even consensual sex among members of the same military unit opens a whole Pandora’s box of complications that can undermine the morale of the unit as a whole — and morale can be the difference between victory and defeat, between life and death. A more insidious consequence of having ignorant civilians micro-managing the military is that the caliber of a nation’s military leaders can be affected when generals have to pass through filters for political correctness to reach the top. That means losing people whose only abilities are in winning wars with minimum casualties, or preventing wars by knowing the right deployment of the right forces. Top military talent is no more common than any other kind of top talent — and the stakes are too high to filter out that talent with requirements that generals be able to pretend to do the impossible on sexual issues. COPYRIGHT 2013 CREATORS.COM
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Sex and the Military
Yesterday marked the first day of the George Zimmerman trial. At first glance that sentence must seem like a mistake. After all, the media, celebrities, and community organizations already branded Zimmerman guilty ages ago. What began as very much a local crime story escalated exponentially into a chaotic media circus and sent the nation into frenzy. Between the fluff pieces, the school rallies, and the courageous celebrity tweeting , the fact that there is still a trial seems almost absurd. The New Black Panther Party (not to be confused with the old Black Panthers; in fact many original members condemn the new movement ) even offered a $10,000 bounty for his head . The reactions seemed endless, from the nonsensical lyrical references of several songs (look up Tyga’s “Designer” and Usher and Rick Ross’ “Let Me See”) to the “million hoodie” marches. I won’t dwell on the details of many of the marches and tweets, although Spike Lee’s Twitter fiasco deserves another nod. For those who are unaware of what happened, let’s just say his irresponsible tweeting of what he thought was George Zimmerman’s address put an elderly couple in harm’s way . Rhetorical question: Had Lee managed to post Zimmerman’s actual address, what, exactly, did he think would happen? Certainly the real culprit throughout all this has been the media, specifically the news media handling this case. From the start it was a failure. Original reports classified Zimmerman as a “ white neighborhood watch captain ” or simply as being “ white ,” thus making the headlines and leads a lot juicier. After all, why should the nation care about a local shooting? Well, certainly if a white guy shot a black teenager after he racially profiled him, that is worthy of national news. The problem was that wasn’t the case. Very quickly the reports switched “white” and “white neighborhood watch captain” with “ white-Hispanic .” The latest headlines and articles covering the trial have been excluding race almost entirely in the descriptions of Zimmerman and Martin, except for references to the previous race controversies. The vilest offense by the media, however, was with the supposed proof of Zimmerman’s racist rants. The first instance was where he allegedly called Martin a “f—-ing c—n,” as reported by CNN, although later it was decided the word used was unintelligible, with many agreeing it was “punks. ” The second, more serious distortion was the direct tampering with the audio of the 911 calls by NBC, where, after the dispatcher asked Zimmerman what Martin was doing,
