"You know the difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull? Lipstick." -Gov. Sarah Palin-


"The media are not above the daily test of any free institution." -Barry M. Goldwater-

"America's first interest must be to punish our enemies, then, if possible, please our friends." -Zell Miller-

"One single object...[will merit] the endless gratitude of the society: that of restraining the judges from usurping legislation." -President Thomas Jefferson-

"Don't get stuck on stupid!" -Lt. Gen. Russel Honore-

"Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter." -Isaiah 5:20-



Petition For The FairTax




GOP Bloggers Blog Directory & Search engine Blog Sweet Blog Directory

Directory of Politics Blogs My Zimbio

Righty Blogs Of Virginia

Coalition For A Conservative Majority






A REASON TO TRY available from Barnes & Noble
A REASON TO TRY available from Borders
A REASON TO TRY available from Books-A-Million
A REASON TO TRY available from SeekBooks New Zealand
A REASON TO TRY available from SeekBooks Australia
A REASON TO TRY available from Chapters.indigo.ca Canada's Online Bookstore
A REASON TO TRY available from Amazon.com
A REASON TO TRY available from Amazon UK
A REASON TO TRY available from Amazon Canada

Monday, August 18, 2008

Senator John McCain Blasts NBC, And The Washington Post Looks At Five Ways To Wreck A Recovery

Well, we've known for a long time that Old Media outlets like NBC are biased in favor of leftist (i.e. Democrat) candidates. The question was actually one of how long it would take before Republicans would get a pair of cajones and call them on it.

Looks like John McCain has finally lashed out. From the Politco:

McCain's campaign manager Rick Davis asked Sunday for a meeting with Steve Capus, the president of NBC News, to protest what the campaign called signs that the network is "abandoning non-partisan coverage of the Presidential race."

Davis made the request Sunday in a letter that is part of an aggressive effort by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) to counter news coverage he considers critical.

In this case, the campaign is objecting to a statement by NBC's Andrea Mitchell on "Meet the Press" questioning whether McCain might have gotten a heads-up on some of the questions that were asked of Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), who was the first candidate to be interviewed Saturday night by Pastor Rick Warren at a presidential forum on faith.

...

Here is the text of the letter:

Steve:

We are extremely disappointed to see that the level of objectivity at NBC News has fallen so low that reporters are now giving voice to unsubstantiated, partisan claims in order to undercut John McCain.

Nowhere was this more evident than with NBC chief correspondent Andrea Mitchell's comments on "Meet the Press" this morning. In analyzing last night's presidential forum at Saddleback Church, Mitchell expressed the Obama campaign spin that John McCain could only have done so well last night because he "may not have been in the cone of silence and may have had some ability to overhear what the questions were to Obama." Here are Andrea Mitchell's comments in full:

Mitchell: "The Obama people must feel that he didn't do quite as well as they might have wanted to in that context, because what they are putting out privately is that McCain may not have been in the cone of silence and may have had some ability to overhear what the questions were to Obama. He seemed so well-prepared." (NBC's "Meet The Press," 8/17/08)

Make no mistake: This is a serious charge. Andrea Mitchell is repeating, uncritically, a completely unsubstantiated Obama campaign claim that John McCain somehow cheated in last night's forum at Saddleback Church. Instead of trying to substantiate this blatant falsehood in any way, Andrea Mitchell felt that she needed to repeat it on air to millions of "Meet the Press" viewers with no indication that 1.) There's not one shred of evidence that it's true; 2.) In his official correspondence to both campaigns, Pastor Rick Warren provided both candidates with information regarding the topic areas to be covered, which Barack Obama acknowledged during the forum when asked about Pastor Warren's idea of an emergency plan for orphans and Obama said, "I cheated a little bit. I actually looked at this idea ahead of time, and I think it is a great idea;" 3.) John McCain actually requested that he and Barack Obama do the forum together on stage at the same time, making these kinds of after-the-fact complaints moot.

Indeed, instead of taking a critical journalistic approach to this spin, Andrea Mitchell did what has become a pattern for her of simply repeating Obama campaign talking points.


This happens so often that it is beyond ridculous for Mitchell to even try to deny it. Anytime Old Media gets a chance to hurt John McCain and/or help Barack Obama, they do it.

It would probably be best for everyone if Old Media stopped pretending to be objective and just admitted their bias.

You can access the complete article on-line here:

McCain Protests NBC Coverage
Mike Allen
The Politco
August 17, 2008




And even the left-leaning Washington Post is starting to understand what Socialist policies means to the American economy. They actually allowed a column by Amity Shlaes (author of The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression) to be published.

Amity writes about five lessons we need to remember from the Great Depression. Here they are:

· Giving in to protectionism. In Herbert Hoover's time, Sen. Reed Smoot and Rep. W.C. Hawley proposed a tariff that was to raise effective duties by as much as half. More than a thousand economists signed an open letter warning that the duties would "raise the cost of living and injure the great majority of our citizens."

...

Yet again, one party -- the Democrats, this time -- is cavalier. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is blocking passage of these bilateral agreements. And another ambivalent politician -- Sen. Barack Obama -- has sent mixed messages to Canada about just how much he wants to roll back the North American Free Trade Agreement.


· Blaming the messenger. Punishing the stock market for the 1929 crash was popular in Washington in the early 1930s. Lawmakers attacked the practice of short selling; Senate Banking Committee counsel Ferdinand Pecora hauled J.P. Morgan and other Wall Streeters in for hearings.

...

Today, too, a "Blame the Street" mood prevails. SEC Chairman Chris Cox has criticized "naked shorts," an attack with a legitimate anti-fraud component. But targeting short-selling also generates uncertainty. The investigations of Bear Stearns and Freddie Mac are just the beginning; more prosecutions are likely. Like the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which followed Enron's accounting meltdown, this cleanup will send companies and jobs abroad.


· Increasing taxes in a downturn. Hoover more than doubled income tax rates, taking the top marginal rate to 63 percent from 25 percent. FDR hiked the top rate to 90 percent. Perhaps worse, Roosevelt's Treasury crafted taxes to punish business, including an undistributed profits tax and an excess profits tax, that ultimately sucked cash from a capital-starved economy.

Today, Democrats are planning tax increases that make Bill Clinton's hike look mild. The proposals start with lifting the cap on Social Security payroll taxes -- an effective increase in the top marginal tax rate of 6.2 percent, or for some 12.4 percent, all by itself. Add in the promised repeal of the Bush tax cuts and you have an additional 4.6 percent increase. Effective top rates approach 50 percent. There are also proposed increases for dividends and capital gains. Taken together, these will make the U.S. economy sluggish and more like that of Europe.

· Assuming bigger government will bring back growth. There's a sense today that Washington has retreated too much from daily lives. ... Such state solutions tended to suppress the creation of long-term private-sector jobs, as did the aggressive Wagner Act for organized labor. The National Recovery Administration, the New Deal's centerpiece, favored large businesses at the expense of small fry. The new Tennessee Valley Authority and Roosevelt's repressive Public Utility Holding Company Act combined to crowd out private utilities that hoped to light up the South. As for Wall Street, those New Yorker magazine cartoons were accurate: Wall Streeters retreated into their martinis and country houses rather than rebuild. This yielded the "Depression within the Depression" of 1937.


· Ignoring the cost of inconsistency. FDR spoke of "bold persistent experimentation." Obama speaks of "change." Both can do damage. What's more, the list of experiments is always finite. Our bailouts look reassuring, but even Washington cannot rescue the entire economy. And foreign investors wonder where Washington will stop. Already concerned about the inconsistent dollar policy, China is now troubled by the inconsistent rescues.


One of the most level-headed arguments against the Socialist policies of Barack Obama and the Democrats.

I've read The Forgotten Man and strongly encourage everyone to read it as well.

You can access the complete column on-line here:

Five Ways To Wreck A Recovery
Amity Shlaes
The Washington Post
August 18, 2008

No comments: