Fausta's Blog

American and Latin American Politics, Society, and Culture

November 8, 2008 By Fausta

Sarah Palin calls a jerk, a jerk


Palin Calls Critics Among McCain Aides ‘Jerks’.

Rightly so. They are jerks.

“So, no, I think that if there are allegations based on questions or comments that I made in debate prep about Nafta, and about the continent versus the country when we talk about Africa there, then those were taken out of context,” Ms. Palin said. “And that’s cruel and it’s mean-spirited, it’s immature, it’s unprofessional, and those guys are jerks, if they came away with it taking things out of context and then tried to spread something on national news. It is not fair and not right.”

And it’s yet another sign of the McCain campaign’s incompetence.

Part of Palin’s appeal to people like me is that she tells it like it is, unlike the current convoluted language in the media and the upcoming administration. C. Edmund Wright has an article on how Our Language is the Loser (h/t Larwyn). My favorite,

Earned Income Tax Credit: Now this is not a new term, but it certainly has been propelled back to prominence with Barack Obama’s unscripted chat with an Ohio plumber related to spreading the wealth. The problem with this term is that it has nothing to do with earning, income, paid taxes or credit. Ok, I know the real term is an accounting phrase related to two ideas: Earned Income – Tax credit. It is simply a fancy name for taking one person’s earned income and giving what should be his or her tax credit to someone else in the form of a welfare check. But it sounds much nicer to the recipient than a “welfare check.” This is related to the new definition of “compassion.”

Doug Ross illustrates one of the many reasons why the media is so in the bag with the Dems:

Put simply, there appears to be only a turnstile between a Democratic administration and a cushy media job.

That the media is so pliant and helpful signals to what Victor Davis Hanson calls the era of Post-journalism. Hanson points out

In the 3rd book of his history, Thucydides has some insightful thoughts about destroying institutions in times of zealotry—and then regretting their absence when there is a need for refuge for them. The mainstream press should have learned that lesson, once they blew up their credibility in the past election by morphing into the Team Obama press agency

UPDATE:
The Other McCain has the “jerks” video. Notice how Palin made a much more important point, about which the media is silent:

Of course we’re in the middle of putting our budget together, and looking at the price of oil today being so low, that is a good time for fiscal conservativism to be kicked in full-fledged and remind Alaskans we can not be spending at the rate that the state has been spending.

Of course that kind of remark doesn’t make good copy for Tina Fey…

On a side note:
Those of you who assert that “history is written by the winners” would do well to read up on Thucydides, the first scientific historian. The main reason Thucydides had time to write his history books is because he lost Amphipolis – the stronghold of Athenian power in the northwest – to the Spartans and the Athenians exiled him.

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Filed Under: Democrats, Election2008, journalism, media, NYT, politics, Republicans, Sarah Palin Tagged With: Fausta's blog

August 2, 2008 By Fausta

Olympic-sized coverage

Samizdata says there will be 22,000 reptiles journalists at the Beijing Olympics.

I wonder how many athletes are participating.

Olympic officials have denied agreeing to curbs on internet access for foreign journalists covering the Beijing Games. Considering how the Communist Party’s cracking down on “dissidents, gadflies and malcontents” by the thousands, I don’t expect that the Communist Party gives a rat’s a** on whether the IOC “agreed” or not.

Rick Moran finds Shades of 1936.

Don’t expect the journalists to be able to report what really goes on in China during the Games.

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Filed Under: China, journalism, Olympics, sports Tagged With: Fausta's blog

June 18, 2008 By Fausta

Dr Richard Landes translates the Al Dura decision

The Court of Appeals Decision: A Professional Translation into English As you can see from the details, the judge dismissed the case after she ripped Enderlin. Just one paragraph (emphasis added)

Given that, indeed, the testimony by Luc ROSENZWEIG, former chief editor of MONDE, established that after having met, in May 2004, some colleagues who shared with him their doubts about Charles ENDERLIN’s commentary, and having thereafter himself shared these doubts with Denis JEAMBAR and Daniel LECONTE, on October 22, 2004, he viewed with them FRANCE 2’s rushes and was surprised that, of the 27 minutes of Talal ABU RAHMA’s rushes, more than 23 minutes of the scenes on film had nothing to do with the images broadcast by the station, including those of little Mohamed’s death, and consisted of young Palestinians faking war scenes. The witness concluded his testimony at the hearing in the lower court by stating his conviction that “the theory that the scene [of the child’s death] was faked was more probable than the version presented by FRANCE 2,” while admitting that, as a journalist, journalistic “criteria did not allow him to go further than that.”

and found,

ON THESE GROUNDS

The court

By judgment rendered after due hearing of the parties and after having deliberated according to the law;

In view of the interlocutory order of October 3, 2007;

Declares no objection to the pleadings submitted by Philippe KARSENTY;

Overturns the deferred judgment and dismisses the charges against Philippe KARSENTY;

Dismisses the demands of the civil parties.

Go read the entire translation. Dr Landes is going to comment on the text of the decision in the future, so I’ll be posting updates.

Via Maria,
Jonathan Rosemblum writes, Pallywood: For once, the good guys win. The article summarizes the details of Enderlin’s nefarious blood libel (emphasis added), one of the most harmful anti-Israel propaganda videos ever made:

Enderlin distributed the France 2 clip free of charge, and it was subsequently broadcast thousands of times. The image of the terrified boy cowering behind his father quickly assumed iconic status. It featured prominently in mass anti-Israel demonstrations in Europe, where it was juxtaposed to the image of the Jewish boy with his hands raised in the Warsaw ghetto.

To heighten its impact, Palestinian TV cropped into the France 2-clip pictures of an Israeli soldier firing. The image of “Muhammed al-Dura” beckoning other Palestinian children to join him as martyrs in paradise features prominently in the Palestinian death cult. His name was invoked by the Ramallah mob that disemboweled two Israeli reservists, in Osama bin Laden’s 9/11 video, and in that of Daniel Pearl’s beheading.

France2 has played the footage thousands of times over the years (and the footage is still played by the international media as if it were true) but to the best of my knowledge have not reported on the court decision in their newscasts. I watch the France2 newscasts almost daily.

The whole Enderlin footage was a lie:

From the general to the particular. The sole footage of “Muhammed al-Dura’s death” was that of Palestinian cameraman Talul Abu-Rahmeh working for France 2. Abu-Rahmeh is a liar. On October 3, 2000, he testified under oath to the Palestinian Center for Human Rights that there had been 45 minutes of sustained Israeli fire directed at the man and boy. As an experienced war reporter, he could verify that they could have only been hit by Israeli fire. Abu-Rahmeh claimed to have filmed 27 minutes of the fusillade. Later he told German documentary filmmaker Esther Schapira that he had filmed six minutes.

We now know that the boy could have only been hit by Palestinian fire. The story of a 45-minute fusillade was on its face laughable: Had Israeli soldiers wanted to kill Palestinians, they had dozens of rioters immediately in front of the Israeli stockade from which to choose. Moreover, Abu-Rahmeh’s entire footage of the man and boy consisted of 58 seconds comprised of six spliced scenes.

The rest of his 27 minutes of footage – only 18 minutes of which France2 produced when ordered to do so by the French appeals court – consists of obviously staged scenes, according to three veteran French journalists who viewed it. The “al-Dura” footage was shot in the same area that Abu-Rahmeh and other Palestinian cameramen spent the day shooting such staged scenes.

Abu-Rahmeh once declared, “I went into journalism to carry on the fight for my people,” and was certainly not above employing his camera for a bit of deception. A Reuters clip from the day shows him filming another staged scene involving a Molotov cocktail. That scene was inexplicably omitted from the rushes produced in the French court.

Whether Charles Enderlin knew from the first that his voice-over was false is unclear. That he lies is certain. He drew for gullible journalists a false map of Netzarim Junction, which wrongly placed the Israeli position in a direct line of fire to the man and the boy. Worse yet, he repeatedly claimed that he had edited out the last three seconds of the “al-Dura” footage because the boy’s death throes were too painful to watch.

Enderlin was ridiculed in the courtroom:

Enderlin drew twitters of laughter in the French courtroom when he offered that perhaps the crowd was anticipating the boy’s death.

There were no such death throes. In those last three seconds, the boy lifts his head, peeks out from under his arm (with which he is shielding his eyes) prior to resuming a prone position — albeit with his leg still held aloft. A nearby mob chants, “the boy is dead, the boy is dead,” before he even lies prone the first time. Enderlin drew twitters of laughter in the French courtroom when he offered that perhaps the crowd was anticipating the boy’s death.

What has the French media done? They’re circling the wagons and claiming that Enderlin is a victim – along with the Palestinians – of the Jews.

The word perfidy doesn’t begin to describe it.

Dr Landes and Yaacov Ben Moshe have been my podcast guests, most recently on May 20, the day before the final verdict. You can listen to the podcast here.

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Filed Under: AlDura, France2, journalism, media, propaganda

June 7, 2008 By Fausta

Obama the Lightworker


Via Instapundit and Memeorandum, Mark Morford goes off – waaay off – the spiritual deep end,

Barack Obama isn’t really one of us. Not in the normal way, anyway.
…
To them I say, all right, you want to know what it is? The appeal, the pull, the ethereal and magical thing that seems to enthrall millions of people from all over the world, that keeps opening up and firing into new channels of the culture normally completely unaffected by politics?

Ok, guys, before we continue reading let’s cue to Caine’s theme from the old Kung Fu series:

While the music plays (the video only shows the photo of Caine, so you can read on while the music plays), let’s read the good part:

Here’s where it gets gooey. Many spiritually advanced people I know (not coweringly religious, mind you, but deeply spiritual) identify Obama as a Lightworker, that rare kind of attuned being who has the ability to lead us not merely to new foreign policies or health care plans or whatnot, but who can actually help usher in a new way of being on the planet, of relating and connecting and engaging with this bizarre earthly experiment. These kinds of people actually help us evolve. They are philosophers and peacemakers of a very high order, and they speak not just to reason or emotion, but to the soul.

Forget Chris Matthews’s thrill up his leg: I never thought I’d say this, but this article may be ushering a new era of fellational propagandistic political prose with a New-Age twist.

My joy is complete.

Then I checked out Joyner‘s post and it turns out Morford was rather low-key about the Obamamessiah – some folks have worked themselves up to a screaming orgasm (marked by the CAPS at the end):

Through the miracle of Google, I see a discussion from February that points out that, “There is one candidate still left in this race who is an Earth Ally. His name is Barack Obama. Yes, thats right. Barack Obama is an Earth Ally. He is a light worker. He is a being of light. He is not conscious of this, but subconsciously he is. His speeches of change and hope are evidence of this. He is the candidate the Galactic Federation of Light would like to win.” It is also noted that “Obama is a Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) member. The CFR IS THE ILLUMINATI!”

Cassandra posted on the holy crap a while ago, but when it comes to the Morford article Jay noticed that No Quarter‘s asking,

If Obama is a “lightworker” then what does that make anyone who opposes him, even mildly?

Good question. As Jonah Goldberg puts it,

Obama willing, my re-education facility will be somewhere in the mountains, with a nice view.

Add tango lessons and tango shoes for mine.

Related
Obama, Political Viagra and Obama’s Race an Asset for Young Voters
And more…
Gods for the New Age

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Filed Under: Barack Obama, Democrats, Election2008, journalism, politics, propaganda

April 16, 2008 By Fausta

Nojoud got her divorce, and other items

Via Instapundit and Althouse, little Nojoud Muhammed Nasser got her divorce.

God bless her and keep her.

Cassandra has an excellent post on how the military are treated with contempt:

Men like Cavett like to pretend doing ones’ duty is optional. Who knows? Perhaps in their world, it is? Their somewhat bizarre world view allows them to mock what they will never comprehend. But the complex reality they refuse to acknowledge or respect is that, if everyone thought as they do, America would be defenseless against fanatacists who have sworn never to stop until we are wiped off the face of the earth. Men like Cavett can contend until the end of time that extremists are not a threat. The truth of the matter is, the only thing standing between him and violent extremists are the kind of men he likes to belittle. If he doesn’t show up for work, a column doesn’t get written. If they don’t show up for work, someone may die. Thousands may die. Nations, sometimes.

Mamacita can’t wait to get to San Francisco. Neither can I.

Wretchard has a fascinating article on Terror, Oil, and the Beijing Olympics

Jeff Emmanuel remembers One Morning in April. Siggy commemorates the anniversary of the Virginia Tech massacre in Loss, Lessons and Life.

John’s wondering What the hell is historical machismo?

The “Squeezed” Taliban Hold a Convention. Perhaps a perfect time for a Raul Reyes treatment?

Moaning about journalistic ethics.

The Obama myth, continued

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Filed Under: China, journalism, Pakistan, Taleban, Yemen

September 13, 2007 By Fausta

Too many conservative columnists?

UPDATED

Media Matters for America has come up with a study, Black and White and Re(a)d All Over: The Conservative Advantage in Syndicated Op-Ed Columns that purportedly “reveals the true extent of the dominance of conservatives” in newspapers.

You wouldn’t know it by looking. As Jonah Goldberg points out,

With the exceptions of the Wall Street Journal and the New York Post, I’m hard pressed to think of a top 20 newspaper that isn’t liberal editorially.

James Joyner takes a look:

One obvious concern in a study like this being conducted by an organization whose very mission is to expose conservative bias in the press is that the coding will be skewed. They looked at 100 columnists, many of whom I’m unfamiliar with, so I can’t provide detailed feedback on that score. Looking at the major columnists, though, raises a couple of red flags:

James quantified the results,

I agree with his assessment. Go read the rest.

More posting later.

Update
Copious Dissent rips to shreds the study:

This coding bias demonstrates emphatically that the people behind this study are deliberately trying to mislead their audience. They simply cannot be trusted. Astonishingly, what I am about to tell you next is even more ridiculous. According to the study, sometimes “editors of papers provided the name of a syndicate or syndi¬cates in addition to or in lieu of specific columnists.” When that happened, Media matters “recorded such syndicate data but did not include them in the analysis, except for a few rare exceptions.” So according to these dishonest people, we are supposed to believe they did not omit newspapers from their study that would throw off their agenda?

Why am I not suprised?

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Filed Under: journalism, media, news

August 23, 2007 By Fausta

The journalism that bloggers actually do

The journalism that bloggers actually do, by Jay Rosen explains what bloggers have known for a while: that some journalists’ opinions are not based on, ehem, journalism. It’s an interesting read, but I’d like to add four more journalist-bloggers to the list:
Richard Miniter’s report, How The New Republic Got Suckered in the Beauchamp story (and Richard’s a journalist, too).
Confederate Yankee has also been on the story, and just last week uncovered that the Associated Press ammo story was fake, too.
EU Referendum’s report on the corruption of the media reporting in Lebanon.
Charles Johnson’s uncovering that the Dan Rather story on Pres. Bush’s National Guard memo was totally fake.

I’m sure you can come up with a lot more examples.

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Filed Under: journalism

June 14, 2007 By Fausta

Matt Sanchez reports from Iraq as an embed

Matt Sanchez isn in Iraq, and has a great article, Outside the Wire–A day in the Life with photos.

Go read every word.

Michael Fumento has a great series of posts in his Afghanistan Diaries chronicling his experiences when he was an embed in the country last March. He also has great photos.

Update, Friday 15 June
Don’t miss also Michael Fumento’s The Other War:
Afghanistan is Winnable, but Victory Can’t be Taken for Granted

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Filed Under: Afghanistan, Iraq, journalism, Matt Sanchez, Michael Fumento

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