Blogoland

John Hinderaker of Power Line:

From everything we know so far, Haditha is shaping up as a very bad news story. "Worse than Abu Ghraib" is a description we're often hearing, but that comparison mostly points up how relatively trivial Abu Ghraib--the most over-blown news story of modern times--was. If the allegations of multiplr (sic) murders at Haditha are true, they are of course infinitely worse than Abu Ghraib.

A prisoner at Abu Ghraib was tortured to death at the hands of Americans. What in the world could be worse than that? The apologists are truly delusional.

It is Memorial Day, a day to remember and a day to give thanks to those who have died to protect our country. So what could Ben Stein have possibly been thinking to speak the following words to family members of fallen soldiers?

The media try to rob your husbands' and wives' and kids' lives of meaning saying this war is not about anything.

They're wrong and they say what they say because they don't see the truth. They print a story on the front page about Marines killing civilians in a town in Iraq and if they did, it was wrong.

But the big media never report a MARINE throwing himself on a bomb to protect an Iraqi child, or a Marine giving his life to rid a town of murderers or a Marine or an Army man or woman or a Navy Seal or a Coast Guardsman offering up his life so that Iraqi human beings can have the same freedoms and rights we take for granted here in America.

The media are like grave robbers, robbing you of the certain knowledge that your spouses gave their lives for something deeply worthwhile: human dignity.

[snip]

And the media like to criticize because they know -- in their hearts -- that they will never have the guts that the man and woman in uniform have. I think media envy of your loved ones' courage has a lot do with media mockery of the war.

What a sick, little man Ben Stein is. [via an approving, I assume, InstaPundit]

UDPATE: And not to be missed, check out the nutters new campaign! To bring utter shame on evil, evil Google for not being patriotic enough to emblazon on their front page a flag or an eagle or, perhaps, a picture of a dead soldier. Really now, this is what these people worry about on a day like this? Pathetic.

Rush spent much of the first hour railing, stomping, and wiping tears from his eyes over this ABC News report from Brian Ross regarding an apparent investigation into Dennis Hastert and his ties with Jack Abramoff (transcript when available).

Now, one can debate the merits of this story, but what caught our attention at Blogoland was a call that Rush fielded. The gist? That dinja know, Brian Ross, was the very same Brian Ross of that infamous staged GM explosion story? And that he was later fired for it. The caller assured Rush that you could "Google it." Rush also said that his call screener performed some "research" on the matter and deemed it accurate. He was just really struck by the fact that Ross had been involved with the GM story.

Except they're all completely super-dead wrong. What a surprise.

No, Ross was never involved in the GM story. According to an article from USA Today on March 23, 1993 (no link), three producers were fired and Michele Gillen, the reporter, was reassigned. Brian Ross was not a part of the story, though he was later involved in a controversial story regarding cataract surgery, for which NBC was sued (the suit was dropped) .

Perhaps Rush and his caller were looking at this completely wrong story at Answers.com, which notes: "GM subsequently filed an anti-defamation lawsuit against NBC. The lawsuit in question was quickly settled by NBC and as a result Brian Ross and a few persons responsible for the incident were fired from NBC..."

Uh, no.

How long should we hold our breath for a Rush retraction?

UPDATE. God, what an idiot. He just came on again and actually corrected the record about who the real reporter on the story was, but then said, citing, (unbelievably) Wikipedia, that Ross was somehow involved and still fired. Doesn't Limbaugh have Lexis-Nexis?

Washington Post, July 11, 1994 (no link):

Longtime NBC investigative reporter Brian Ross has jumped to ABC News, where he gets the title of "chief investigative correspondent for ABC News" -- and a reported annual salary of $ 1 million.

Ross, 45, whose four-year contract with NBC expired in April, has been negotiating with both networks; as recently as last week, NBC thought it had him wrapped up. He had been with the network for 18 years. NBC on Friday would say only that "we were unable to reach a mutual agreement."

[...]

Friday Ross acknowledged that the decision to leave NBC, which had put a major counter-offer on the table in recent days, had been tough. He said that after 18 years with the network, "it was time for a new challenge."

Ross said a word of encouragement from Diane Sawyer helped him decide to make the change.

"She told me that 'the safest thing to do is take a chance,' and I decided
to follow her advice."

No, he wasn't fired, Rush, you fat, lazy idiot.

UPDATE II: Wow, Rush actually got his facts straight, and partially retracts. Still, he can't help but note that Ross and NBC were sued over the cataract story and not so subtly suggests that this is a reason why he left (all reporting suggests this is not the case).

UPDATE III: Unsurprisingly, Rush doesn't post a transcript of this meltdown. But he does helpfully explain to his listeners why people shouldn't trust those who dispense false information:

Brian Ross can be a menace, folks. I've had my own little run-ins with him where he has gotten it totally wrong about me, and when that happens to you, it's quite natural that you begin to doubt other things that people report when you discover that. Like who would ever believe Dan Rather again, for example?

You said it, pal.

Well, after threatening legal action, Dean's people got Matt "64 percent accurate" Drudge to take down his claim that the DNC head had intervened in the New Orleans mayor's race against C. Ray Nagin. Of course, that didn't stop Mr. Limbaugh from headlining it on his show and then making it the top item on his website:

RUSH: How about what the Democratic National Committee tried to do to "School Bus" Ray Nagin? Have you heard about this? The DNC was working against him. The DNC was actively trying to defeat Ray Nagin in the mayoral race in New Orleans. "DNC secretly placed political operatives in the city of New Orleans to work against the reelection efforts of school bus Ray Nagin. DNC chairman Howard Dean made the decision--" this is a Drudge Report exclusive.

Howard Dean made the decision himself, and you haven't heard about this. The Drive-By Media is not interested in this.

"DNC Chairman Howard Dean made the decision himself to back mayoral candidate and sitting Lieutenant Governor Mitch Landrieu (D-LA), sources reveal. Dean came to the decision to back the white challenger, over the African-American incumbent Nagin, despite concerns amongst senior black officials in the Party that the DNC should stay neutral. The DNC teams actively worked to defeat Nagin under the auspice of the committee's voting rights program. The party's field efforts also coincided with a national effort by Democrat contributors to support Landrieu. Landrieu had outraised Nagin by a wide margin - $3.3 million to $541,980. Preliminary campaign finance reports indicate many of Landrieu’s contributions came from out of state white Democrat leaders and financiers, including a $1,000 contribution from Sen. Ben Nelson's (D-NE) PAC. The defeat of Mitch Landrieu is the latest setback for Dean's office, often criticized field operation."

You haven't seen anything on this in the mainstream press, have you? I know you've seen the fact that the "School Bus" Nagin won, but have you seen the story that the DNC was trying to defeat Nagin? You haven't seen it, and you're probably not going to see it. Can you imagine if this were two Republicans, and the RNC was working to
defeat the black candidate? Now, that doesn't happen, because in the Republican Party these days, the future of the party happens to be Lynn Swann, Michael
Steele, and Ken Blackwell. Condoleezza Rice. I mean, there are a number of rising stars. It's in the Democratic Party where they sandbag Carl McCall in New York. They tried to sandbag "School Bus" Nagin and there are a couple of other examples of this, just amazing. And I wanted to mention this at the top of the program because I doubt that you have seen it anywhere.

Well, now you have. And it's complete hokum. What an idiot. I'm certain he'll correct this for his millions of listeners tomorrow.

You'd think Ass Missile, he of the dogged pursuit of ahem, "fake" documents, would have a wee bit more self-awareness than to post something like this:

It isn't yet clear whether Iran's legislative assembly has adopted legislation requiring non-Muslims to wear identifying, color-coded badges. But if it has, Andrew Bostom writes in The American Thinker, such action would be consistent with strong currents of bigotry against non-Muslims that go deep into Iran's history.

Yeah, not clear at all.

Or, New Orleans should probably be left to die since they elected a person I don't like:

I predict substantially less support for New Orleans reconstruction. Betweeen the Louisiana delegation's absurd overreaching in demanding a huge amount of pork-laden funding, and this, [the re-election of Mayor C. Ray Nagin] they've managed to squander a lot of the sympathy that was present in in September. Louisiana's political class isn't just greedy -- it's greedy and stupid. Louisiana will pay the price. And probably complain of unfairness when it does.

Pay the price. Good lord. And you have to love that classic InstaPundit passive-aggresive posting rubric.

In a related vein, it is not at all racist to compare the legitimate re-election of a black mayor of New Orleans to a crack-smoking, whore-loving, bribe-taking former mayor from The District of Columbia. [via Tbogg]

This is weird. First, Raw Story says they have a copy of a letter addressed to Hastert saying that DeLay's last day will be June 9. Reuters runs a story. AP runs a story. Couple other places.

But all quiet at NYT, WaPo, LAT and Boston Globe for the last few hours.

All I'll say is that it's very interesting that this is happening the same day as the NSA bombshell.

Remember way, way back, a few years ago, when Tom Daschle complained that the drug-addled talk show host Rush Limbaugh had unleashed the Furies on him by calling the then-Senate Majority leader, among other things, "Hanoi Tom," by saying that he was harming our troops, compared him with Satan, and other things too hilarious to remember?

People called Tom Daschle nuts. As for Limbaugh, well, of course he wasn't responsible at all for inciting hatred against a sitting Senator. No, no! He's a "policy" guy, don'cha know?

What we can’t understand is how the South Dakotan can suggest that a mainstream conservative with a huge radio following is somehow whipping up wackos to threaten Daschle and his family.

"Has the senator listened to Rush lately? Sure, he aggressively pokes fun at Democrats and lionizes Republicans, but mainly about policy. He’s so mainstream that those right-wingers Tom Brokaw and Tim Russert had him on their Election Night coverage."

It's four years later, and it's still hard to believe how crazy those few sentences are.

Now comes Richard Cohen, who sniffed and whimpered and moaned about a series of angry email messages he received after writing a column about Stephen Colbert's lack of funny.

Did the people who concluded that Daschle was nuts for thinking Rush incites hate-filled lunatics to call and threaten him believe that Cohen is equally nuts in complaining about the KosKidz being unleashed on him?

What do you think?

Michelle Malkin, superpatriot, is a person who in her spare time enjoys modelling T-shirts from a company that also produces outerwear that declares: "Rope. Tree. Journalist. Some Assembly Required." Hilarious. So you see where she's coming from. (P.S., this chuckle-inducing message to slay journalists has been kicking around for awhile. My earlier thoughts here.)

Now comes the hideous news of the beheading of a correspondent for Al-Arabiya, an Arab news network.

She describes the act as "Insanely evil." I agree.

But what I don't understand is why Ms. Malkin, a person who seems OK with a company that advocates the gruesome execution of journalists, would now become upset when a journalist is, well, gruesomely executed. Perhaps she is simply upset with the methods. As far as I can tell, no ropes nor any trees were involved.

Other luminaries who support the reasonable capitalists of "Those Shirts" :

from left: Glenn "InstaPundit" Reynolds, his wife, Helen, Michelle Malkin, and the Peanut Gallery

Yeah, Radosh is completely right regarding these new, "unaltered" Star Wars trilogy DVD's. But is it pure super-evil dirtball greed? Or just monomaniacal jerk-head greed? Well, we may have an answer. See, you can purchase ($15.99 Cheap!) the officially licensed Star Wars T-shirt 'celebrating' the new old movies.

In celebration of the release of the Star Wars trilogy on individual DVDs -- with each one including the original unaltered theatrical version of the film as a special bonus -- StarWarsShop is offering three exclusive t-shirts available only to our shoppers for a limited time! Each shirt will also be accompanied by an exclusive collector card, which is available in limited quantities while supplies last.

The first tee in the series, Han Solo, portrays the classic trilogy hero ready to take on an Empire -- look for two more tees to follow in the coming weeks. This exclusive t-shirt artwork, which is only available from StarWarsShop, will have a distressed, worn look that includes the chapter text "IV" on the sleeve. A great vintage look to commemorate the DVD debut of the vintage film!

The shirts say "Han Shot First." Ugh. What kind of nutjob would buy such a thing?

Is there nothing dumber than live-blogging? I say this of no one in particular.

Please stop the madness. Watch the event, write down what happened, and an hour or so later post it to your site. Give yourself time to think about what you are writing instead of imparting to thousands of readers clunkily worded insta-drool like "Murdock said the future of the web is on toilet rools. He said it was good. I liked what he said." It really adds nothing to the conversation.

Just because you have the ability to post instantaneously doesn't mean you should.