ANYBODY ELSE GET THE FEELING HILLARY IS IN POLITICAL HOSPICE CARE? Judicial Watch attorneys told the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia today that they would like to depose eight present and former Department of State employees concerning Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email address and home brew server.

They also said it “may be necessary” to depose Clinton “based on information learned during discovery,” but kindly assured the court they would first ask permission. Judge Emmet G. Sullivan will decide after April 15 who among the eight will be deposed. Don’t be surprised if it’s all eight, including:

• Stephen D. Mull, executive secretary of the State Department from June, 2009, to October, 2012. Mull proposed Clinton use a State Department BlackBerry for email. Her identity would have been protected but the messages would have been subject to the FOIA.
• Lewis A. Lukens, executive director of the department’s executive secretariat from 2008 to 2011. Lukens suggested to Under Secretary of State for Management Patrick F. Kennedy and Clinton Chief of Staff Cheryl Mills, have a government computer to read messages sent to her clintonmail.com address.
• Patrick F. Kennedy preceded Clinton at the department, having served since 2007. He became Clinton’s primary adviser on technology and information services issues.
• Donald R. Reid, senior coordinator for security infrastructure in the department’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security, a position he has held since 2003. Judicial Watch believes Reid participated in discussions in 2009 about Clinton’s use of the Blackberry and other communications devices to conduct official government business.
• Cheryl Mills, chief of staff throughout Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state.
• Huma Abedin, deputy chief of staff for the entirety of Clinton’s tenure. Abedin also had an email account on the Clinton server and accompanied Clinton whenever she was seen in public.
• Bryan Pagliano, Clinton’s IT guru from her unsuccessful 2008 presidential campaign and the individual who kept the private server located at her New York residence operational while she was at the department.
• The eighth individual would be somebody designated by the department to provide information on the process by which FOIA requests are processed in the agency.

TRIBUNE OF THE WORKING CLASS: Lobbyists, lawmakers rake in cash for Hillary.

More than 100 individuals each helped bundle together $100,000 or more for Hillary Clinton’s presidential run since April, according to an announcement from the campaign Wednesday evening.

Reps. Jim Himes (D-Conn.) and Joaquin Castro (D-Texas) made the list, in addition to lobbyists David Jones of Capitol Counsel and Steve Elmendorf of Elmendorf|Ryan.

The website does not include the exact amount that individuals raised.

Former Sen. Evan Bayh (D-Ind.), who now works as a partner at McGuireWoods, also appears. Bayh, his wife and the firm’s political action committee hosted a fundraiser for Clinton last month.

“We had a fantastic turnout and the event was a huge success raising more money than we had expected,” L.F. Payne, president of McGuireWoods Consulting, said in a statement.

The Clinton campaign says it raised about $47.5 million in the second quarter — which spans from April to June. It spent about $18.7 million and still has $28.9 million cash on hand.

Bundlers play a key role, especially in presidential races, proving to a candidate that they can bring in much-needed cash needed to keep the expensive operation running.

Those private jets don’t pay for themselves.

INVESTOR’S BUSINESS DAILY: The Media’s ‘Fact Check’ Smokescreen.

If media “fact checkers” are just impartial guardians of the truth, how come they got their own facts wrong about Paul Ryan’s speech, and did so in a way that helped President Obama’s re-election effort?

Case in point was the rush of “fact check” stories claiming Ryan misled when he talked about a shuttered auto plant in his home state.

Washington Post fact-checker Glenn Kessler posted a piece — “Ryan misleads on GM plant closing in hometown” — saying Ryan “appeared to suggest” that Obama was responsible for the closure of a GM plant in Janesville, Wis.

“That’s not true,” Kessler said. “The plant was closed in December 2008, before Obama was sworn in.”

What’s not true are Kessler’s “facts.” Ryan didn’t suggest Obama was responsible for shuttering the plant. Instead, he correctly noted that Obama promised during the campaign that the troubled plant “will be here for another hundred years” if his policies were enacted.

Also, the plant didn’t close in December 2008. It was still producing cars until April 2009.

An AP “fact check” also claimed that “the plant halted production in December 2008” even though the AP itself reported in April 2009 that the plant was only then “closing for good.”

CNN’s John King made the same claim about that plant closure. But when CNN looked more carefully at the evidence, it — to its credit — concluded that what Ryan said was “true.”

And they wonder why their audiences, and credibility, continue to shrink.

WASHINGTON EXAMINER: Not so fast on ‘Mediscare’ and bellwethers.

So we’re supposed to believe that the special-election results in New York’s 26th Congressional District were a bellwether of a 2012 Republican disaster because Democrat Kathy Hochul won by making Medicare an issue. Of course, Democrats would say Medicare was the main issue, especially after one of the party’s ideological advocacy group allies gained national attention with a TV spot showing a Paul Ryan look-alike shoving Granny over a cliff. Predictably, the morning after the election, the New York Times pronounced the results “a referendum on House Republicans’ efforts to reform Medicare.” It was as if GOP candidate Jane Corwin and her national Republican supporters had begun every campaign speech by declaring, “I can’t wait to get to Washington to help John Boehner and Paul Ryan throw all those old people off of Medicare!”

And what should Republicans now be talking about instead of Medicare reform, according to their friends on the Democratic side of the aisle and in the liberal media? Jobs and the economy. And right on cue, those Republicans tearing away from Mr. Schumer’s tent whip out a “new” job creation plan that looks very much like the one they’ve been pushing all year. Apparently, they think that will make their tormentors stop jumping out of the bushes.

Here’s why such advice on campaign strategy is suspect: A quick check of House Speaker John Boehner’s website finds that since April 1 he has issued 64 news releases discussing jobs and the economy, compared to 22 on Medicare reform. By contrast during the same period, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the Democrats’ chief national campaign voice on NY-26, issued 16 news releases on ending Medicare, and only two on jobs and the economy. In other words, Boehner talked about creating jobs and getting the economy growing again almost three times for every one time he discussed Medicare. As for Corwin, she gave one speech with a lukewarm endorsement of the Republican Medicare reform proposal.

Put another way, maybe the Republicans lost because they didn’t talk enough about Medicare reform.

Read the whole thing.

THAT WAS THEN. NOW ASSASSINATION IS GOOD: New Yorker Mag called the special ops team today hailed by Obama, VP Cheney’s “personal assassination team.”

Related: Indian media reporting on Pakistan protecting bin Laden.

And, from Bryan Preston:

On a more serious note, the raid in Pakistan that ended Osama bin Laden’s war crime spree is very good not only for American morale, but for American credibility. The kinetic military action in Libya has been doing a bang-up job of sapping both, and fracturing NATO, for weeks. This unambiguous success helps end that skid, and might just turn President Obama into an actual president. As others have said elsewhere, for the first time in my adult life I’m actually proud of him. I still won’t vote for him and I encourage others to oppose his re-election too, but at least when it was time to make a serious decision, he made the right one.

The Abbottabad raid also tells the world one more time that America is not to be messed with. That’s always a useful message to send.

Particularly at this moment, when doubts on that subject were accumulating.

UPDATE: Flashback: Stephen Colbert blasts Cheney’s Secret Assassination Squad.

Likewise, Seymour Hersh and Keith Olbermann.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Mel Kreitzer writes on Colbert: “They’re going to have to change that title now. Why should Cheney get all the credit?”

ANTI-GUNS-ON-CAMPUS BLOWBACK: You know, I raised this issue with a Faculty Senate colleague and was dismissed, but here it is: “Gun owners should remember this vote when UT comes whining back to legislature to beg, cajole and whine for more money.” I think too many faculty have their backs up over budget issues — and the legislature going Republican — and have chosen this as an issue to push back with. If gun owners care, that will be a big mistake. if they don’t care, well. . . that’s a bad sign in a different way.

UPDATE: For what it’s worth, the bill’s favored almost 2-1 in this online poll from the News-Sentinel.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Here’s the news story that the poll accompanies.

MORE: Here’s a letter that was circulated to the faculty today.

Open Letter to UTK Faculty, Staff and Students,

The Tennessee state legislature is considering legislation that would
decriminalize the carrying of concealed weapons on state university campuses
by individuals who have Handgun Carry Permits. The UTK faculty senate,
administration, campus police, and student government association have gone
on record as opposing this legislative change.

Since emotional arguments may have more weight for opponents of permitting
responsible adults to legally carry weapons on college campuses, let me
relate that I was on the faculty at Virginia Tech for 25 years and I still
have many friends and colleagues there. However, one less colleague is alive
today because a deranged student shot him and 32 others dead. I don’t know
how many of these people might be alive today if just one of the several
hundred people locked in Norris Hall had a weapon, but I do know that all of
these people had a right to life and a right to defend it. This right,
however, was usurped by laws designed to disarm law abiding students and
faculty. The proposed legislation would formally reinstate that inalienable
right of self defense to imagined ivory towers of Tennessee higher education.

The deranged student at Virginia Tech brought weapons onto campus with the
express intent to commit murder. Having made this decision, I am sure he was
not overly concerned about breaking the law by illegally carrying weapons on
campus. For the record, the student did not hold a handgun carry permit.
It seems to me that a great many involved in higher education, who
notionally profess to hold reason and scientific method as high ideals,
abandon logic and reason in favor of emotion when the subject of guns arises.

For those who claim to have an open mind, I ask that you consider the
following:

Only Licensed, Legally-Armed Citizens Would Carry

Current Tennessee law requires a minimum age of 21, a comprehensive FBI
criminal background check, fingerprints, classroom instruction and live-fire
certification to receive a Handgun Carry Permit. Consequently, legally-armed
citizens already have training and experience with firearms, and have
demonstrated responsibility. Holders of concealed carry permits in the U.S.
are arrested for violent crimes at a rate five times lower than non-license
holders (even lower than police officers in many states).

Whether or not you support concealed carry, it’s already an existing right
in Tennessee and most other states. Under current law, armed citizens can
carry a concealed weapon into literally thousands of places throughout their
state, including movie theaters, restaurants, banks, shopping malls,
churches and grocery stores, and have done so responsibly for years. In view
of this, prohibiting these same responsible individuals from carrying a
concealed weapon on a college campus doesn’t make sense.

“Gun-Free Zones” Don’t Work

History is clear. Stickers on campus doors saying “no guns allowed” don’t
stop criminal offenders. In fact, no law will ever affect criminal behavior
because criminals, by their very nature, do not follow the law. What these
signs actually do is create (and advertise!) a defense-free zone, removing
legal guns and forcibly disarming victims. This is exactly what makes
colleges most attractive to killers who seek easy targets.

Killers don’t take time to register their firearms or obtain permits for
their murder weapons. Virginia Tech and a host of other college shootings
demonstrate that. Responsible individuals carrying legal weapons on campus
are the very ones that could make a difference in a hostile situation.

The Net Effect is Positive

Many students state they would not feel safe if concealed carry were
allowed. However, concealed carry at Virginia Tech was blocked with the
specific goal of “feeling safe.” On April 16, 2007, it became clear that
feeling safe isn’t the same as being safe.

In reality, more than 70 college campuses currently allow concealed carry on
campus, including all public universities in Utah and multiple college
campuses in Colorado. According to crime statistics and inquiries to campus
officials, there hasn’t been a single reported instance of shootouts,
accidents or heated confrontations resulting from concealed carry on campus.
In fact, Colorado State University’s crime rate has declined steadily since
allowing concealed carry. While no one can irrefutably claim this is due to
concealed carry, we can at least state with certainty that allowing
concealed carry does not increase risks to a campus population and may even
help.

Everyone deserves protection

Opponents of concealed carry on campuses frequently point out that colleges
are safer than cities and urban environments. However, crime rates on
college campuses have risen in recent years, and statistics show that,
nationwide, there are nine sexual assaults reported on college campuses each
day. Furthermore, the low probability of becoming a victim doesn’t help the
47 victims at Virginia Tech, or the 27 victims at Northern Illinois
University, or any of the other countless victims of crimes on campuses.
Current policies give such victims the option of playing dead or huddling
under desks.

Colleges can’t protect students

Campus officials have introduced multiple responses to the problem of campus
crime — all of which are reactionary. Campus police, text message alerts and
cameras are all good ideas that demonstrate an awareness of the problem. But
awareness is not the same as readiness; text messages are ineffective,
police are often thinly-spread across vast campus grounds and cameras will
do nothing more than capture footage for the nightly news. The fact remains
that colleges are open environments with invisible boundaries and little to
no secure prevention measures. They cannot guarantee protection to students
or prevention of armed assaults. In all honesty, it’s not fair to expect
them to. It’s completely impractical to expect colleges to provide
airport-grade security with a secure perimeter, metal detectors, armed
guards, bag inspections and pat-downs. Even if they could, few people want
the nature of a college campus changed so radically.

Therefore, any institution that cannot provide for protection for its
visitors must not deprive those visitors of the ability to protect themselves.

Common Arguments Made by Opponents of Concealed Carry on Campuses

Argument: Guns on campus would lead to an escalation in violent crime.

Since the fall semester of 2006, state law has allowed licensed individuals
to carry concealed handguns on the campuses of the nine degree-offering
public colleges (20 campuses) and one public technical college (10 campuses)
in Utah. Concealed carry has been allowed at Colorado State University (Fort
Collins, CO) since 2003 and at Blue Ridge Community College (Weyers Cave,
VA) since 1995. After allowing concealed carry on campus for a combined
total of one hundred semesters, none of these twelve schools has seen a
single resulting incident of gun violence (including threats and suicides),
a single gun accident, or a single gun theft. Likewise, none of the forty
‘right-to-carry’ states has seen a resulting increase in gun violence since
legalizing concealed carry, despite the fact that licensed citizens in those
states regularly carry concealed handguns in places like office buildings,
movie theaters, grocery stores, shopping malls, restaurants, churches,
banks, etc. Numerous studies1,2,3, including studies by University of
Maryland senior research scientist John Lott, University of Georgia
professor David Mustard, engineering statistician William Sturdevant, and
various state agencies, show that concealed handgun license holders are five
times less likely than non-license holders to commit violent crimes.

Argument: Guns on campus would distract from the learning environment.

Ask anyone in a ‘right to carry’ state when he or she last noticed another
person carrying a concealed handgun. The word ‘concealed’ is there for a
reason. Concealed handguns would no more distract college students from
learning than they currently distract moviegoers from enjoying movies or
office workers from doing their jobs.

In most states with “shall issue” concealed carry laws, the rate of
concealed carry is about 1%. That means that one person out of 100 is
licensed to carry a concealed handgun. Therefore, statistically speaking, a
packed 300-seat movie theater contains three individuals legally carrying
concealed handguns, and a shopping mall crowded with 1,000 shoppers contains
ten individuals legally carrying concealed handguns. Students who aren’t
too afraid to attend movies or go shopping and who aren’t distracted from
learning by the knowledge that a classmate might be illegally carrying a
firearm shouldn’t be distracted from learning by the knowledge that a
classmate might be legally carrying a firearm.

Argument: Colleges are emotionally volatile environments. Allowing guns on
campus will turn classroom debates into crime scenes.

Before shall-issue concealed carry laws were passed throughout the United
States, opponents claimed that such laws would turn disputes over parking
spaces and traffic accidents into shootouts. This did not prove to be the
case. The same responsible adults—age twenty-one and above—now asking to be
allowed to carry their concealed handguns on college campuses are already
allowed to do so virtually everywhere else. They clearly do not let their
emotions get the better of them in other environments; therefore, no less
should be expected of them on college campuses.

Argument: In an active shooter scenario like the one that occurred at
Virginia Tech, a student or faculty member with a gun would only make things
worse.

What is worse than allowing an execution-style massacre to continue
uncontested? How could any action with the potential to stop or slow a
deranged killer intent on slaughtering victim after victim be considered
‘worse’ than allowing that killer to continue undeterred? Contrary to what
the movies might have us believe, most real-world shootouts last less than
ten seconds4. Even the real Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, a shootout
involving nine armed participants and a number of bystanders, lasted only
about thirty seconds and resulted in only three fatalities. It is unlikely
that an exchange of gunfire between an armed assailant and an armed citizen
would last more than a couple of seconds before one or both parties were
disabled. How could a couple of seconds of exchanged gunfire possibly be
worse than a ten-minute, execution-style massacre?

Argument: The job of defending campuses against violent attacks should be
left to the professionals.

Nobody is suggesting that concealed handgun license holders be charged with
the duty of protecting campuses. What is being suggested is that adults
with concealed handgun licenses be allowed to protect themselves on college
campuses, the same way they’re currently allowed to protect themselves in
most other unsecured locations. According to a U.S. Secret Service study5
into thirty-seven school shootings, ‘Over half of the attacks were
resolved/ended before law enforcement responded to the scene. In these
cases the attacker was stopped by faculty or fellow students, decided to
stop shooting on his own, or killed himself.’ The study found that only
three of the thirty-seven school shootings researched involved shots being
fired by law enforcement officers.

Argument: How are first responders supposed to tell the difference between
armed civilians and armed assailants?

This hasn’t been an issue with concealed handgun license holders in other
walks of life for several reasons. First and foremost, real-world shootouts
are typically localized and over very quickly. It’s not realistic to expect
police to encounter an ongoing shootout between assailants and armed
civilians. Second, police are trained to expect both armed bad guys AND
armed good guys—from off-duty/undercover police officers to armed
civilians—in tactical scenarios. Third, concealed handgun license holders
are trained to use their firearms for self-defense. They are not trained to
run through buildings looking for bad guys. Therefore, the biggest
distinction between the armed assailants and the armed civilians is that the
armed civilians would be hiding with the crowd, and the armed assailants
would be shooting at the crowd.

References

1″Crime, Deterrence, and Right-to-Carry Concealed Handguns,” John Lott and
David Mustard, Journal of Legal Studies (v.26, no.1, pages 1-68, January 1997);

2“An Analysis of the Arrest Rate of Texas Concealed Handgun License Holders
as Compared to the Arrest Rate of the Entire Texas Population,” William E.
Sturdevant, September 1, 2000; Florida Department of Justice statistics,
1998; Florida Department of State,
3“Concealed Weapons/Firearms License Statistical Report,” 1998; Texas
Department of Public Safety and the U.S. Census Bureau, reported in San
Antonio Express-News, September 2000; Texas Department of Corrections data,
1996-2000, compiled by the Texas State Rifle Association
4In “The Line of Fire: Violence Against Law Enforcement”, U.S. Department of
Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation, National Institute of Justice, 1997
5“Safe School Initiative: An Interim Report on the Prevention of Targeted
Violence in Schools,” U.S. Secret Service National Threat Assessment Center
in collaboration with the U.S. Department of Education with support from the
National Institute of Justice, Co-Directors Bryan Vossekuil, Marissa Reddy
PhD, Robert Fein PhD, October 2000

The foregoing issues and arguments were extracted with minor editing from
www.concealedcampus.org where additional relevant information and references
to research studies may be found.
Sincerely,

Jack C. Parker
Research Professor, Civil and Environmental Engineering
University of Tennessee

I’m inclined to agree.

GALLUP POLL OUT. Rudy and Hillary still in the lead. Ron Paul comes in at zero — yes, zero — suggesting that online activism isn’t enough to get his campaign going. I’m not sure what zero means, as an asterisk is “less than one half of one percent.” I suppose it means that no one in this sample surveyed by Gallup supported him. Mike Gravel also has a zero.

UPDATE: More thoughts from Ryan Sager: “While the Giuliani camp would surely like to return to the days of a 20-point lead, that was always an exaggerated number. But the belief in some quarters that Mr. Giuliani has tanked is equally, if not more, unrealistic. The former New York City mayor has proven quite resilient despite an onslaught of bad press in February, March, and April.”

I see some combination of Giuliani and Thompson as the GOP’s best hope.

A FRIENDLY EMAIL FROM THE PRO-AMERICAN LEFT:

Hello Insta-idiot,

Courtesy of Glenn Greenwald- whom I’m sure you wish you could be, if you ever grow a brain and some integrity- some of your wise words about the opponents of the Iraq War.

“FOR SUCH AN ADVANCED SPECIES, THEY SURE KNOW HOW TO RUB IT IN.”– Marge Simpson

Yeah, there has been a lot of pro-war gloating. And I guess that Dawn Olsen’s cautionary advice about gloating is appropriate. So maybe we shouldn’t rub in just how wrong, and morally corrupt the antiwar case was. Maybe we should rise above the temptation to point out that claims of a “quagmire” were wrong — again! — how efforts at moral equivalence were obscenely wrong — again! — how the antiwar folks are still, far too often, trying to move the goalposts rather than admit their error — again — and how an awful lot of the very same people who spoke lugubriously about “civilian casualties” now seem almost disappointed that there weren’t more — again — and how many people who spoke darkly about the Arab Street and citizens rising up against American “liberators” were proven wrong — again — as the liberators were seen as just that by the people they were liberating. And I suppose we shouldn’t stress so much that the antiwar folks were really just defending the interests of French oil companies and Russian arms-deal creditors. It’s probably a bad idea to keep rubbing that point in over and over again.

Nah.

May they go down nice and tasty…just before you choke on them. Oh, but I forgot, to acknowledge right from wrong, one has to have a sense of right and wrong–and you’re a rethuglican. Nevermind.

Well, I actually think that Glenn Greenwald wants to be me, though if so he’d be well advised to stop lifting his stuff from Tom Tomorrow.

But the quoted passage comes from this 2003 post, and actually I think it holds up pretty well. It’s not something I’d be bringing up if I were on the left today, though.

Did the antiwar left want us to lose? Quite a few did, and some even admitted it. Emails like this one, and the steady stream of self-satisfied gloating I get from antiwar lefties whenever there’s bad news about Iraq, hardly evidence a desire to see America do well, either. No, not all antiwar lefties want us to lose, as I’ve noted at tiresome length in the past, but most of the ones who email me seem to.

Civilian casualties were, in fact, far lower than predicted. In fact, as I noted in the post from 2003, the antiwar predictions generally turned out badly. But don’t take my word for it. Here’s an excerpt from Gateway Pundit’s roundup on that topic:

* German politicians predicted: “Millions of people in Baghdad will be victims of bombs and rockets.”

What happened: The antiwar Iraqi Body Count site lists an estimated 4,000-6,000 civilians and fighters were lost in the startup months of the War in Iraq.

* Ted Kennedy predicted:”A war on Saddam might also cause an unprecedented humanitarian crisis with an estimated 900,000 refugees, a pandemic and an environmental disaster as Saddam lit the oilfields on fire.”

Actual Result: The oil fields were not set ablaze, no pandemic.

* The UN predicted… It is also likely that in the early stages there will be a large segment of the population requiring treatment for traumatic injuries, either directly conflict-induced or from the resulting devastation. Given the population outlined earlier, as many as 500,000 could require treatment to a greater or lesser degree as a result of direct or indirect injuries.

What happened: Again, the antiwar Iraqi Body Count site lists an estimated 4,000-6,000 civilians and fighters lost in the startup months of the War in Iraq.

* Ted Kennedy also predicted: “The U.S. could run through “battalions a day at a time” and that the fighting would look like “the last fifteen minutes of ‘Private Ryan.'”

Actual Results: Although each fatality is a tragic loss for America, this is still one of most successful military campaigns the US has ever fought.

See his accompanying graphics and links. I should also note that despite predictions of 50,000 casualties in the initial invasion, three years later we’re at less than 5% of that. And U.S. casualties are falling as Iraqis pick up the load.

The “Arab Street” didn’t rise (the Iraqi insurgency, which is a mixture of foreign fighters and Ba’athist holdouts hardly counts, and there weren’t riots and insurrection elsewhere in the region, as was predicted — apparently, we neglected to publish cartoons, which seem to incite more unrest than invasions). As for the French oil merchants and Russian arms-deal creditors, or the strained efforts at moral equivalence, well, nothing’s happened to change that.

I had actually planned not to rub this in — the “antiwar” movement has shrunk to such a pitiful remnant of its not terribly impressive former self that it hardly seems worth it. But, hey, ask and ye shall receive. [You’re referencing scripture — does that make you a “Rethuglican?” — Ed. Who knows? I thought I was a “leftist opinion site.”]

UPDATE: Dodd Harris notes that the part about French oil merchants and Russian arms dealers holds up particularly well, and sends this link to Foreign Affairs on the war:

Judging from his private statements, the single most important element in Saddam’s strategic calculus was his faith that France and Russia would prevent an invasion by the United States. According to Aziz, Saddam’s confidence was firmly rooted in his belief in the nexus between the economic interests of France and Russia and his own strategic goals: “France and Russia each secured millions of dollars worth of trade and service contracts in Iraq, with the implied understanding that their political posture with regard to sanctions on Iraq would be pro-Iraqi. In addition, the French wanted sanctions lifted to safeguard their trade and service contracts in Iraq. Moreover, they wanted to prove their importance in the world as members of the Security Council — that they could use their veto to show they still had power.”

Yep. Today’s antiwar movement: tools of the international oil companies and arms traders. They used to say that kind of thing about war supporters, of course, but that’s just another example of the way things have gone all topsy-turvy of late.

ANOTHER UPDATE: “Evil?” Moi? “If you prick him, he does not bleed.”

Mike Hendrix has thoughts, too.

MORE: Reader J.D. Metcalf reminds me of one more phony antiwar prediction: “The biggest one of all is ‘When Bush is elected the DRAFT WILL BE reinstated.'” Yeah, I saw that claim all over the place.

Also, Australian columnist Andrew Bolt sends more failed antiwar predictions. Click “read more” to read them. I think you’ll find it worth your while.

(more…)

JAY ROSEN WRITES that President Bush has a new strategy on the press:

And the reporter then said: Well, how do you then know, Mr. President, what the public is thinking? And Bush, without missing a beat said: You’re making a powerful assumption, young man. You’re assuming that you represent the public. I don’t accept that. . . .

Whoever can speak to the whole nation becomes a power. There is still a reporters gallery, and it is still speaking the language of a Fourth Estate. But perhaps its weakness is in speaking a language Americans recognize as theirs. Bush is challenging the press: you don’t speak to the nation, or for it, or with it.

He cannot sustain this challenge all the time–thus, the April 13 press conference, thus the embeds–but it is a serious argument. Intellectually, it’s almost a de-certification move against the press corps. There’s a constituency for this, and it picks up on long-term trends that have weakened the national press, including a disconnect between Big Journalism and many Americans, and the rise of alternative media systems.

As a first step out of this trap, journalists need to ask themselves: how did we become so predictable?

The press, of course, is unrepresentative. It isn’t elected, nor — in its views, its background, and its personal characteristics — is it reflective of the public. (If the public thought like the press, no Republican would ever be elected President.) Nor does the public feel that it is represented by the press. I don’t know if it ever did, but back in the day when reporters were more like ordinary people in their habits, incomes, and backgrounds — the Lou Grant era — I think it was more plausible to make that claim.

UPDATE: Reader James Bourgeois emails:

I am a regular visitor to your site and my interest was really piqued by the item you posted on the president’s commenting that the press doesn’t represent the public.

President Bush is right. The media do not represent the people. Journalists (I hesitate to call them reporters because they are all failures at that job), whether working for electronic or print media, represent a minority of vocal holier/smarter than thou liberals who would make all important decisions for the “great, unwashed masses” that comprise the electorate in our country.

I am a former reporter. I have a journalism degree. I left the business because of its drift from real reportage to advocacy and the abandonment of journalistic standards and ethics in favor of the kind of slanting and spinning we see today on the pages of the morning paper and on the evening news broadcasts. I knew it was time to find another way to make a living when I watched Peter Jennings, on a closed circuit feed to ABC affiliates, berate the American voter for Ronald Reagan’s election victory over Jimmy Carter. Jennings, who was a Canadian citizen at the time, repeated that disgraceful performance in a toned down manner thenight he ascribed the Gingrich led Republicans’ takeover of the House of Representatives to a temper tantrum by the voters.

The really disturbing thing about what’s going on in the media is that the effect has seeped into local newsrooms of small dailies, weeklies and small market television stations as well. The reporters in those small markets are mostly ambitious types who want to make it to the big leagues and to get there they have to show they have game. In other words, they’d damn well better subscribe to the prevailing political views or they have no shot at all at an upward career path.

Real journalism, until the advent of the internet, was a dying craft. The mainstream media is too absorbed in shilling for liberal politicians and left wing causes to have an objective view of its output. There are no opposing opinions in the newsrooms at CBS, NBC, ABC or any of the leading dailies which would give the major players enough pause to consider that perhaps the other side has a legitimate viewpoint that should, by right, be given some play without denigrating comments, asides and negative labeling affixed to it.

It is no secret why Rather, Jennings and their ilk abhor people like Matt Drudge, Charles Johnson and Glenn Reynolds. You guys have taken their audience. While they were busy evading their responsibilities to give news consumers the truth, they lost their viewers and readers to those who recognized a vacuum and stepped up to fill it.

One cannot be a realist without recognizing that no thinking person can report on events and issues today without having some opinions. Those opinions, however, are to be kept out of news stories, whether they appear on newspaper pages or on television and radio broadcasts. The mainstream media, unfortunately, in buying into the liberal line that the ordinary citizen is incapable of making rational, informed decisions, made a conscious decision to quit informing them and instead has chosen to engage in launching a daily propaganda barrage.

As for that “days of Lou Grant” comment, the Mary Tyler Moore show didn’t come close to depicting the reality of a newsroom. The newsroom is a place of sniping and backbiting, populated by cheap shot artists fighting for inches and minutes by taking sensational angles on stories that, when presented honestly and objectively, tell themselves to willing audiences. I’ve been there, and sometimes a reporter gets sent out on an assignment that turns out to be a dog or a non-story. When that happens, a real professional doesn’t tart it up to get air time or page space. He moves on the next one. We don’t see that today and its effects are easily detected in the shrinking readership and viewership
of mainstream media outlets.

Well, that’s perhaps a bit overstated. But the White House press corps certainly isn’t reflective of America, nor is it elected. Nor, in light of shrinking viewerships and readerships, can it claim that it’s giving the people what they want. As ABC’s The Note admitted a while back:

Like every other institution, the Washington and political press corps operate with a good number of biases and predilections.

They include, but are not limited to, a near-universal shared sense that liberal political positions on social issues like gun control, homosexuality, abortion, and religion are the default, while more conservative positions are “conservative positions.”

They include a belief that government is a mechanism to solve the nation’s problems; that more taxes on corporations and the wealthy are good ways to cut the deficit and raise money for social spending and don’t have a negative affect on economic growth; and that emotional examples of suffering (provided by unions or consumer groups) are good ways to illustrate economic statistic stories.

None of these shared beliefs make the press “representative” of Americans at large, though it does tend to share the views of the academic/professional class to which it belongs.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Julie Cleevely emails:

Your reader James Bourgeois has just summed up the media in Britain perfectly. A couple of honourable exceptions, but in the main our media is no more than propaganda and lies. The BBC is a serious problem- Al Jazeera for middle class snobs.

Well, I think that these criticisms are a bit strong. Media bias is more like unconscious racism, most of the time, than it is like deliberate misrepresentation. While there are certainly cases of deliberate misrepresentation, most of the time I think it stems from a worldview so deep-rooted that they’re unaware of it.

But it’s certainly true that the notion of the professional press as a check on the government has no foundation. The Constitution envisions freedom of speech and of the press as checks — not the institution of the press as one. That’s a key difference, I think.

YET ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Mike Hammer emails:

Glenn: As a former print journalist I’d like to make a brief comment about the non-representative press. Journalists may be out of step with mainstream America, but for the vast majority of them it is because they are woefully underpaid, not overpaid. I suspect that many more newsrooms would swing to the middle if reporters were paid enough to live above the poverty line.

As a current college professor I could say the same thing about academia. If assistant professors were paid enough to live in middle class neighborhoods, then more of them might actually consider themselves middle class.

Mike Hammer
Assistant Professor of Spanish
San Francisco State University

I’d be the last to disagree that academics are underpaid. By definition! But the White House press corps makes a lot more money than most Americans, I imagine. It’s true that reporters at run-of-the-mill newspapers don’t make a lot of money. But I think that the analogy with academics demonstrates that there’s more to being “mainstream” than income. In fact, I don’t think the salary difference accounts for it, as higher-paid academics and journalists don’t seem to be any less aligned with the overwhelming ideologies in their fields. Indeed, as James Bourgeois suggests, they seem to be the opinion leaders for the less well-paid among them.

Newzilla, meanwhile, thinks I’m too generous to the press. But small publisher Brian Kuhn emails:

Though I often feel I’m fighting a losing battle and throw my hands up in disgust over the obvious bias displayed by the national media, I must say that I’m pretty durn proud of the small weekly and daily newspapers across this great land of ours. We (small town newspapers) are like a bunch of mini-blogs, printing everything from who visited who over the past week, to, yes, cute little cat and dog pictures. When news happens we of course print it, but with the very real knowledge that HOW we report it effects real people . . . often our friends and neighbors. Spin just does not work in small communities. Any fool publisher/editor/reporter who does try something like that wouldn’t last a year. That’s a fact.

As far as political affiliations within this large community of small publications, I’d say it’s 50/50, much along the lines of the famous “red/blue” map of 2000. We tend to reflect the communities we serve. I know of two small weeklies in our neck of the woods that were bought out by young pups fresh out of journalism school, who started running editorials that didn’t reflect the general conservatism of our area. They were about as liberal as you can get, repeating the usual liberal mantras. . . and they didn’t last a year. They just lost their readership, and had to sell. Democracy at work.

I wrote a column for our state’s press association for nearly a decade about technology issues facing our industry — from around 1990 to mid 2002. I strayed from my usual field in my last column to beg my fellow publishers across our state to read Bernard Goldberg’s “Bias,” and to do everything we could to counter the failings of our national media by remaining true to our commitment of fair and balanced reporting at the local level, and a commitment to serving, not dictating to, our readership.

Many of the older generation of publishers (including my father) grew up with complete faith in national media , believing anything that makes it into print or on the airwaves had to be true — especially from such organizations as the NYT, TIME, Newsweek, and other print media. So, I didn’t know how that last column of mine would play.

To my surprise, I didn’t hear one argument against that column. Not one. From the many people who e-mailed me to comment on it . . . only agreement.

So, yes, the national media is blowing it big time in ways obvious to those both in and outside the industry. And the disgust of the public is justified.

But to the reader you posted in your update, Glenn, who quit journalism out of similar disgust . . . don’t give up hope on those of us with small circulations and viewership. We’re still ticking, and providing a positive difference within the communities we serve.

Brian K.
Publisher,
Editor,
Reporter,
Janitor
. . . and proud of it.

Hey, that’s my job description here at InstaPundit!

MORE: Ryan Pitts disagrees with me, but it seems to me that his points are already answered in the updates to this post. I will say, though, that Pitts’ “we’re just plain folks” response rings false to me and, I suspect, a whole lot of other people. Including media guys like Gerard Van der Leun, who’s a lot harder on the press than I have been.

And at any rate, it’s clear — going back to the original point of this post — that whatever the divorced, go-fishin’ guys in Pitts’ newsroom think, the national media in general and the White House press corps in particular think that they are not just plain folks, but that they have a special, institutional role of a quasi-governmental nature. Hence the “Fourth Estate” claims. The problem is, that they don’t. As I said earlier, the Constitution sees the activities of speech and publication as checks on government. There’s no special role for the institution of the press. Which is a good thing since the Internet, talk radio, etc., are blurring that line beyond recognition and letting the rest of us get in on the act.

There are, by the way, quite a few very interesting comments to Rosen’s post now, and I highly recommend that you read them if this incredibly long post hasn’t totally exhausted your interest in the subject.

Finally, Roger Simon:

I will add, however, before I rush off to the Book Festival, that the press is often their own worst enemy.

The recent Presidential Press Conference, referred to by Rosen and others he cities, is a strong case in point. If one of the goals of free journalism is to make clear presidential policy they did a particularly poor job of it that day. Four questions were devoted to asking Bush to make an apology for 9/11 because Richard Clarke had. Leaving aside whether Clarke was being disingenuous, the answer has no real meaning . It’s devoid of factual content and is essentially a posture, no matter what the reply. It doesn’t lead to transparency, because it’s only “attitude.”

If the press wanted to ask something legitimately hard of Bush, how about this: “Mr. President, why didn’t you fire George Tenet on September 12?” Now there’s a question I’d like to hear answered, not the puerile pabulum asked by these veteran journos. I didn’t need Bush to dismiss them. I was perfectly capable of doing it by myself.

Ouch. Yes, if the press were better at its actual job, people might cut it more slack on its self-described role. Here are some other unasked tough questions for Bush that I noted shortly after the press conference. Most of them, unfortunately, would have required actual knowledge that the press either lacks, or assumes that its readers and viewers aren’t up to comprehending. Either way, the “special role” seems dubious.

And read this and this while you’re at it.

Jay Reding: “What we’re seeing now is a struggle between what the media thinks it is and what it has actually become.”