Selective Reporting

The lefty "media watchdog" Media Matters seems to spend an awful lot of time watching and deconstructing Fox News. I understand why they spend many hours absorbing the most watched news network out there, but their discussion of what transpires at Fox is routinely disingenuous. Media Matters gleefully points out any mistake or misrepresentation that Fox News may present, but at the same time they misrepresent, by omission, the analysis that takes place on Fox and elsewhere.

In a classic lefty fallacious turning the tables move, where lefties adopt the same rhetoric that is directed against them and direct it back at conservatives, Media Matters accuses conservatives of directing "vitriol" at the New York Times.(because they published of a story which went into detail about a top secret and totally legal program known as the Terrorist Finace Tracking Program.)


Bush-bashing lefty vitriol is a staple of the modern American left, yet here Media Matters claims that conservatives are directing "vitriol" at the New York Times. The video presentation on this particular page of Media Matters shows a series of conservative pudits taking the New York Times to task because of thier arguably treasonous and at the very least unpatriotic, behavior of late, up to and including this latest fiasco. After seeing the clip It is clear that the usage of the term "vitriol" is simply incorrect , not to mention borrowed. A factual analysis of the New York Times' jaw dropping lack of judgment vis a vis revealing the details of the Terrorist Finance Tracking Program does not constitute "vitriol". As usual, when the left tries to simply level the same complaint leveled against them back at their opposition it fails to pass logical muster.

In Media Matters’ discussion of this latest affront perpetrated by the NYT they claim,

"Conservatives have directed their vitriol almost entirely at The New York Times, despite the fact that the Los Angeles Times and The Wall Street Journal also posted articles on the subject on their web pages on the same day -- June 22 -- as the New York Times, and both published articles on it in their June 23 print editions."

Here we have a classic example of disingenuous reporting by omission. Media matters fails to anywhere mention the fact the Wall Street Journal and the LA Times chose to run the story on TFTP after they had learned that the NYT was going ahead with publication of said story despite being asked not to do so by many public officials including even Jack Murtha. (Even Murtha knows that the publication of details on this program will harm America.)

When will lefty outfits like Media Matters learn? Anyone in the know is aware that the New York Times lead the charge on reporting this story, which by the way the 'Times' is now claiming is not really news because “terrorists already knew that we were tracking their funds”.

Again I ask, if everyone already knew the intimate details on this program then; how is that news? Unfortunately, applying a logical standard to almost any lefty stance is a fool’s errand, so why bother. (Oops, was that vitriol... or a statement of fact?)

But it is this sanctimonious attitude that Media Matters adopts which really takes the cake for me at the moment. If Media Matters truly wants to be seen as objective like Fox New strives to be, will they ever learn to present the full story and not omit certain key facts that anyone who has looked into anything is aware of?

As long as Media Matters is here to attack Fox News and conservative pundits, bloggers like me will be here to logically refute Media Matters and the legion of other lefty spin merchants.

The Longest Day

"Forty summers have passed since the battle that you fought here. You were young the day you took these cliffs; some of you were hardly more than boys, with the deepest joys of life before you. Yet you risked everything here. Why? Why did you do it? What impelled you to put aside the instinct for self-preservation and risk your lives to take these cliffs? What inspired all the men of the armies that met here? We look at you, and somehow we know the answer. It was faith and belief. It was loyalty and love.

The men of Normandy had faith that what they were doing was right, faith that they fought for all humanity, faith that a just God would grant them mercy on this beachhead, or on the next. It was the deep knowledge -- and pray God we have not lost it -- that there is a profound moral difference between the use of force for liberation and the use of force for conquest. You were here to liberate, not to conquer, and so you and those others did not doubt your cause. And you were right not to doubt.

You all knew that some things are worth dying for. One's country is worth dying for, and democracy is worth dying for, because it's the most deeply honorable form of government ever devised by man. All of you loved liberty. All of you were willing to fight tyranny, and you knew the people of your countries were behind you.

We in America have learned bitter lessons from two world wars. It is better to be here ready to protect the peace, than to take blind shelter across the sea, rushing to respond only after freedom is lost. We've learned that isolationism never was and never will be an acceptable response to tyrannical governments with an expansionist intent. But we try always to be prepared for peace, prepared to deter aggression, prepared to negotiate the reduction of arms, and yes, prepared to reach out again in the spirit of reconciliation."

Ronald Reagan
June 6, 1984

Haditha

1) Marine Lance Corp Miguel Terrazas dies in attack on US convoy.
2) US military initially says bomb also killed 15 Iraqi civilians.
3) Eight insurgents killed after attacking convoy. US later says the 15 civilians were not killed by bomb, but shot accidentally in battle.


1) Marine Lance Corp Miguel Terrazas dies in bomb attack on convoy of four Humvees. Troops then "go on rampage".
2) At roadblock, four students and taxi driver killed.
3) Eight people killed in one of three houses.
4) Seven killed in a second house.
5) Four brothers put in wardrobe and shot dead in a third house.


Unlike Jack Murtha, who is gleefully pointing to this incident as evidence that he believes advances his political agenda and who is obviously choosing to believe the worst of our American service personnel, I would rather wait until the investigation is concluded.

Rather than theorize and speculate as to what happened I would just point out that Iraqi insurgents have no problem using civilians as cover and generally involving civilians whenever possible. All it would take to cause civilians causalities if you were an insurgent, would be to fire at American troops and then run into a house or building where civilians were resideing and then hide, or even use civilians as a human shield.

It is very difficult to conduct a war where the enemy is not held to any standards of decency and/or rules of engagement, yet our own forces are constantly placed under the microscope with some of those on the American Left scrambling to find any evidence of wrongdoing to further thier political agenda and thereby, as a by- product of their political posturing, giving aid and comfort to the enemy.

In a separate incident, American forces were cleared of any wrong doing when calling in an air strike on a building where insurgents were hiding. “The nighttime raid was conducted in the village of Ishaqi, about 50 miles north of Baghdad, by a ground assault force. After being fired upon from the vicinity of the targeted building, the soldiers called in air strikes by an Air Force AC-130 gunship, which attacked the building, the defense officials said."

"Local Iraqis said there were 11 total dead, and contended that they were killed by U.S. troops before the house was leveled."

In this case, the findings of the investigation seem to contradict the statements of the eyewitnesses. We shall see who is telling the truth in the Haditha “massacre” and if the Marines did blatantly kill civilians, they should be punished. However, the rushing to condemnation that is being offered up by Jack Murtha is utterly shameful and serves to bolster the enemies morale rather than our own. Jack Murtha and others who delight in bad news in Iraq are a disgrace.