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Politics : Don't Blame Me, I Voted For Kerry -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: ChinuSFO who wrote (68029)	10/7/2005 9:42:42 AM
From: paret	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 81568

Howard Kurtz is a Washington Post writer, halfwit. In fact Kurtz is the Washington Post's main attack dog.

To: ChinuSFO who wrote (68029)	10/7/2005 12:05:49 PM
From: paret	Respond to of 81568

Torture, deprivation and isolation of political prisoners at the "other" Guantánamo -- or at any of Fidel's gulags across the island -- are no secret. They've been loudly denounced by prisoners' families and reported by Cuba's independent journalists. But foreign journalists have paid little attention. It seems they're too busy shredding their hankies over whether enemy combatants at the naval base have enough honey glaze on their chicken. International apathy toward the plight of the political prisoners is just what Fidel Castro counts on. As the dissident movement has expanded in the past decade, El Maximo Lider has found it necessary to strike at it with excessive force from time to time. But when his repression becomes too public, he has to back off. The Other Gitmo: Where's the Outrage? In an honest world, there would be a worldwide outcry. Wall Street Journal ^ \| October 7, 2005 \| MARY ANASTASIA O'GRADY

To: ChinuSFO who wrote (68029)	10/7/2005 12:06:49 PM
From: paret	Respond to of 81568

NAMING THE ENEMY - The president's war speech, by John Podhoretz New York Post ^ \| October 7, 2005 \| John Podhoretz The War on Terror has always been an imprecise term, a vague placeholder for the real name of the conflict into which we have been unwillingly plunged. In a landmark speech he delivered yesterday, President Bush made it plain for the first time, really, that our enemy is not "terror" per se but something far more complex and therefore far more difficult to defeat.... And while he quickly followed that ground-breaking sentence with one assuring his listeners that "this ideology is very different from the religion of Islam," there's no mistaking that, four years into the War on Terror, the president and his people have finally decided that the use of euphemism is counterproductive. This was a necessary change in emphasis, because the arguments in favor of the broader War on Terror have been obscured by the failure to make reference to the specifically Islamist nature of the existential threat posed to the United States, the West and the world.... Bush went on to explain that the goals are "fanatical and extreme — and they should not be dismissed. Our enemy is utterly committed." To what, exactly? He elaborated: "The militants believe that controlling one country will rally the Muslim masses, enabling them to overthrow all moderate governments in the region, and establish a radical Islamic empire that spans from Spain to Indonesia. With greater economic and military and political power, the terrorists would be able to advance their stated agenda: to develop weapons of mass destruction, to destroy Israel, to intimidate Europe, to assault the American people, and to blackmail our government into isolation."... This speech, one of the longest and most detailed of his presidency, is so rich and nuanced that it can't be done justice in this space. Do yourself a favor... and read the whole thing.... (Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...

To: ChinuSFO who wrote (68029)	10/7/2005 2:27:58 PM
From: paret	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 81568

Press slow to follow trail of probe into Steele theft By Jennifer Harper THE WASHINGTON TIMES October 7, 2005 It took the New York Times 16 days to acknowledge the theft of the personal credit report of Lt. Gov. Michael S. Steele, Maryland Republican, by a pair of operatives working for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, led by Sen. Charles E. Schumer of New York. Yesterday, the Times addressed the fraudulent act in an A-section news story -- on page 28 -- headlined "Democrats are on defensive in Maryland state race," leading with the fact that Republicans are hoping to "exploit potential legal problems that Democrats are now suddenly facing in that race." The clandestine nature of the theft has a whiff of Watergate to it, but not the press coverage to match. The two staffers used Mr. Steele's Social Security number to obtain the records, reportedly seeking evidence of damaging debts. The first black elected to statewide office in Maryland, Mr. Steele is expected to run for the U.S. Senate next year. The incident -- the subject of a felony investigation by the FBI and the U.S. attorney's office in Washington -- took place in July and first was reported Sept. 20 by the Associated Press. To date, the theft has been covered by only four major dailies -- The Washington Times, The Washington Post, the Baltimore Sun and Newsday -- along with Roll Call, the Daily Standard, the weekly Montgomery County Gazette and McClatchey News Service. There have been no splashy investigations on broadcast networks or news channels, and limited editorial indignation over press indifference. "Maryland is not, say, New York or California. Perhaps news editors reason that most Americans haven't heard of Mr. Steele," Brent Baker of the Media Research Center (MRC) said yesterday. The center has tracked such selective coverage elsewhere; an online poll of MRC readers, for example, found that 93 percent agreed the mainstream news "applied a liberal double-standard in their coverage of Bill Bennett and his abortion comments." Meanwhile, quips like "Creditrategate" and "Chuckaquiddick" have surfaced among Web loggers. Syndicated columnist Michelle Malkin called the theft "Democratic dumpster diving," while Investor's Business Daily theorized that a "media firing squad" would have assembled if staffers for Sen. Bill Frist, Tennessee Republican, had snitched personal information from Sen. Barack Obama, Illinois Democrat. Blair Lee, a political analyst for Maryland-based WBAL Radio and the Gazette, called it "Steelegate," asking, "The media is all over this illegal act, right? Wrong. So far, the media's take has been: (1) hey, the two defendants are only in their 20s (like that's relevant?) and (2) everybody in politics does this kind of stuff." An online Carolina Journal editorial noted, "The media have a long history of playing defense attorney for Democrats and prosecutor for Republicans," calling the dearth of Steele coverage "a good example." The theft drew only a single editorial from The Post on Sept. 23, which observed that Republicans were also guilty of "political dirty tricks."