The Corner -
SHIFTING STANDARDS IN RATHERGATE [Tim Graham]
In addressing the CBS Rathergate fiasco today, Washington Post ombudman Michael Getler quotes from a Howard Kurtz-Dana Milbank story attributing this thought to conservatives:
A news analysis in The Post accompanying the story about CBS reported that "conservatives hailed the panel's findings as a watershed event that would go well beyond a single flawed report by a lone network, asserting that the matter would tarnish the media broadly and would convince Americans that Bush had served honorably . . . and received no special treatment."
Whoever that conservative might be, I disagree with him or her. Conservatives should suggest that this disaster lands squarely on CBS. The other networks and national news outlets bear their own responsibility for automatically passing on the story without checking it on their own -- and for that, most did penance by then following up and picking CBS's story apart (including ABC, NBC, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, the Dallas Morning News, and others). The goal is not to "tarnish" the media, but to drain the arrogance out of them and cause them to thoroughly vet a story instead of letting their partisan instincts run over their doubts like a Mack truck.
As for Bush's military status, what conservatives should want the liberal media to ask themselves is not that they should never question George W. Bush's five years of service in the Texas Air National Guard. Rather, they should question why they would stake their entire reputations on an issue such as whether young Dubya missing a flight physical, as if that was a turning point in the Cold War -- and more importantly, what single standard of relevance should be attached to Bush's military service (and supposed evasions of service) AS WELL AS Bill Clinton's obvious evasions of ROTC commitments he made and then completely rejected. Everyone who's not a ridiculous-looking partisan should believe that if Clinton gets a pass, Bush gets a pass. If Bush requires a thorough investigation, then so did Bill Clinton.
Everyone expects liberal partisans and conservative partisans to sometimes switch standards in the interests of political convenience. What the national media consumer should not expect is for so-called "objective" or "straight news" outlets to follow the quickly shifting liberal partisan double standards like shameless spin doctors.
Posted at 03:47 PM
CHRISTIAN FAMILY MURDERED [John Derbyshire]
This story is very disturbing. An entire family of Egyptian Copts (i.e. Christians), who had fled Egypt because of the oppression of their faith by Muslims there, were horribly murdered in their Jersey City home. Mother, father, and two young daughters were all hacked to death. It turns out that:
---Nothing was stolen from the house.
---The husband was a fierce defender of his religion in online chat rooms, and drew some angry hostility from Muslims, including death threats.
---The older daughter, aged 16, was "very religious and very opinionated.... The heartless killer not only slit Sylvia's throat, but also sliced a huge gash in her chest and stabbed her in the wrist, where she had a tattoo of a Coptic cross. |
