Democrats: In Fear of Fox News

Boortz today:

Barack Obama and now Hillary Clinton are backing out of the Congressional Black Caucus/Fox News presidential debate this fall.  Apparently they’re afraid of the evil Fox News.  What’s the matter?  If you want to be president of the United States, you’ve got to be able to roll with the big boys.  So why won’t they do it?  The answer is really simple:  they won’t get the easy questions from a Fox News-moderated debate that they’ll get from a CNN-moderated one.

Forget about the BS that they only want to participate in DNC-sponsored political debates.  This is all about running scared from Fox News.  Obama, Edwards and Clinton are afraid of hard questions.  They’re afraid they might be called out on something.  Hillary Clinton is afraid she’ll be asked, for instance, why she voted for the war in Iraq but is now against it.  She’ll be asked why it’s such a big deal that George W. Bush fired 8 U.S. Attorneys when her husband fired all 93.  You know, things like that.

And note the double standard here.  Had Republican candidates ducked a debate that involved the Congressional Black Caucus, you can bet they would all be branded racists and outrage would ensue, no matter who was sponsoring the debate.  But Democratic candidates get a pass.  Isn’t that the way it always works?

Then there’s Captain Ed:

Democrats have once again gone running in fright from Fox News Channel for a political debate — or more accurately, have run from fear of their anti-war base. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama join John Edwards in refusing to appear on Fox for a debate sponsored by the Congressional Black Caucus:

Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) and Barack Obama (D-Ill.) yesterday joined former North Carolina senator John Edwards (D) in deciding to skip a debate scheduled for September that Fox News is co-sponsoring with the Congressional Black Caucus.Liberal activists, particularly the online group Moveon.org, have called for Democratic presidential candidates not to participate in debates by Fox, which they say is biased against Democrats. Clinton campaign aides said she would participate only in the six events sanctioned by the Democratic National Committee and two other events she had already agreed to. Several candidates, including Edwards, last month withdrew from a debate that Fox was co-hosting with the Nevada Democratic Party and would have taken place in August in Reno.

Aides to Obama, Edwards and Clinton said the candidates will participate in a debate that the Congressional Black Caucus is co-sponsoring with CNN in January in South Carolina.

 

Hmmm. I wonder why these courageous Democrats only feel free to speak when appearing on CNN. I mean, the Congressional Black Caucus doesn’t seem to feel the same fear as the candidates. They had their 2004 debates on Fox, and they survived the ordeal — twice. Those debates included Edwards on both occasions, and he wound up on the ticket for the Democrats.

Once again, I will ask this question: how can we expect these candidates to face off against America’s enemies when they can’t bring themselves to face Fox? Do they expect that this demonstration of cravenness to actually impress anyone but the radical defeatists of MoveOn?

Well, clearly the answer is they do not plan to face down America’s enemies. And as for Fox itself, I think we should be considering the number of anti-freedom, anti-american moves coming from the left these days.This is simply one more.

Boortz and the Captain are both correct about fear being the big motivator, here, but it runs deeper, I think than either say….  This isn’t just about fear of Fox news during the elections. They’re concerned about that, certainly… but they’re just as concerned about Fox News running free, reporting on things during any Democrat administration…  And so, they’re out to destroy Fox news… or any other news org which is not sympatico with the Democrats.

(Edit: Re-title)

I’ll leave the Imus bashing to Bit.   Shock jocks are not my particular cup of tea. 

I come not to praise Don Imus.  Rather I am here to dismiss him.   Imus is what Imus is, to wit a shock jock.   Shock jocks shock the audience.  I’m shocked.  There are far more talented shock jocks to which I don ‘t listen, than Imus.  If don’t like Imus, don’t listen to him.

Enough.

My point is what gives Al Sharpton the moral authority to criticize anybody, for anything?

Before anybody fires Don Imus from the radio, Al Sharpton should be fired first.   Imus refer to Rutgers’ basketball players as “nappy.”   Offensive.

Yet the Reverend Al accused Steven A. Pagones of raping one Tawana Brawley.   Sharpton’s charge was false.  Anybody with I.Q. above room temperature should have known Sharpton’s allegation were false.  Yet Sharpton has never apolgized.

Crystal Gail Mangum falsely accused Collin Finnerty, Dave Evans, and  Reade Seligmann of rape.  Yet the Reverend Al, never saw fit to either defend Finnerty, Reade and Seligmann, nor did Sharpton ever criticize Mangum.

Sharpton is part and parcel in one effort to falely smear white males, and willfully silent in another smear job.    As far as moral authority goes, I’ll take Imus over Sharpton anyday.  Imus is the the one who is honest enough to admit what he is, to wit a shock jock.  Sharpton is merely a race  huckster, who refuses to admit such.

Michelle Malkin manages a calm look at the bigger picture, here. 

Last, a rare video of Bill O’Reillly actuallly making sense.?

I wasn’t even going to comment on this whole ‘Blogger’s code of conduct’ nonsense, until I saw this, this morning. First of all it should be pointed out, as I have a few dozen times previously, that “The Moderate Voice” is nothing of the kind.

Secondly, when I see things like this, I wonder about freedom of speech. When I see somebody trying to invoke a code of conduct, particularly one that they are likely not to abide themselves, I figure it amounts to somebody trying to control the content of the conversation, at least, one side of it. When I see the majority of the calls for such a code, coming from liberal Democrats, who have a tendency to put all their trust in government to solve all their problems I recognize that sooner or later, such a code will become the law.  Look into the history of the “television code” and you’ll see what I mean.
Look; It’s no accident, that this subject should come up on the bleeding edge of a presidential election cycle which has all the earmarks for looking very nasty indeed; particularly amongst Democrats who are desperate to regain power to the levels of 20 years ago. Apparently, the nasty politics that they inflicted on us for years, aren’t valid, in their view, when people use it on them .

The kind of standards being proposed, are amusing, since it would knock perhaps 75 to 90% of the left the sites offline with one stroke of the pen were it ever to be really enforced. And let’s be honest, were those standards to be imposed on talkradio, The entirety of the “Air America” network would be history . Being nasty, being their bread and butter.

That these nasties back such a plan, suggests to me that they don’t think they’re going to be subject to the standards imposed. Which ought to be a clue about what the real agenda is.

This site, at least to my understanding of the standards proposed, has never really stepped outside of them. Mostly, because that is our brand of consideration for our readership. But as I say, I view the move to enforce standards of the like on this site and others, to be an effort to control the conversation. And damned if I will allow someone else… government or otherwise… to control the conversation on my site. It’s simply not going to happen.

Addendum:  (David L)   IF the liberal, and MSM, concept of absolute moral authority exists on any subject and for any person, it exists on the subject of blogging threats in the person of Michelle Malkin.

The techblogging elite, liberal femme bloggers, and their friends in the MSM are still yammering amongst themselves about the Kathy Sierra incident. Bloggers’ code of conduct. Civility badges. Blah blah blah.

Big props to Mary Katharine Ham for calling out the one-eyed, left-wing women bloggers (who still won’t admit their blind spot) and for demonstrating tough, but civil disagreement by example. Brava.

Whiners, whine, and Michelle keeps on blogging.   I’ll start listening to what the liberal blogosphere want sometime after they shove a figurative rug down Amanda Marcotte’s throat.  Symbolically of course.

I’m getting really bad about not answering my personal mail. Possibly the reason is the amount of spam nestled in it.  In any event, I see John Hawkins has released the results of a whole he taught at the end of last month.  Everything from bombing Iran to Pardoning Scooter Libby, can be found here.

* If we’re supposed to be suffering under global warming, please explain to me why I’m wearing a sweatshirt and the heavy jeans and still freezing my ass off. We’re not even supposed to make it out of the thirties until Friday afternoon sometime. I was rather hopeful to have the majority of the yard work done by now so that I could concentrate my efforts on bringing our camper home and prepping it for a summer of week ending. No such luck.

I see Brit Hume has caught on to all of this nonsense. Go read it.

I tell you the truth….The “global warming” crowd… Mostly, Democrats who are desperate for power, are lying to us, friends. There are no kinder words for it. Do not be taken in by it.

*The Music: Ace: Five a side
“How Long” of course was the hit that made the band, and alas it was their only one, really… though Paul Carrack went on to record a number of other hits.

While that single does raise some serious memories of my AM hit radio days, in this case, it’s the album that’s the thing. This is a collection of songs written by ….and performed well by.. a first rate pub band. In a world of 1975, which it the time was overloaded with flash and glitter such as Kiss, Gary Glitter, and you name it, and the loud and frantic sounds of bands like Sweet, etc, the sound of Ace is a bit of a throwback to bands that are just out there on the road, gettin’ it done, night after night. In a strange way, it reminds one of the bands and situations that Southside Johnny tried to portray in the early Epic releases, such as “I don’t wanna go home.”

Nothing extraordinarily flashy instrumentally… just solid good playing and good singing with tight attention to harmony. “Tasty”, as the Good Rats used to say. Even the technical quality of the recording itself while relatively clean doesn’t really sparkle all that much. It had a rather subdued quality to it.
That said, in listening to Five a Side, one envisions the kind of sessions that Steely Dan used to have. No, really… I remember an interview with fellow Rochester Native Steve Gadd who played for them on their legendary “Aja” about how the band archived it’s relaxed, almost catatonic sound. (I wish now I’d taped the interview… I didn’t…)

The producers simply kept the band playing the same song over and over again… sometimes 30 and 40 times, until they got the sound they wanted. By that time all the nervous energy and been drained out of the musicians and the sound became “tired”.

With Ace, the sound is almost that, but not quite; One gets the impression that this is a band that’s been playing the songs on the road for some time and has a certain amount of fun while playing them, but there’s certainly no nervous energy about them, no urge to break out and get loud. Perhaps this was intentional to play up the pub band bit… I don’t know… It certainly doesn’t sound to me like a was a conscious effort. .
Like the mythical South Jersey bands, so much was centered around the sound of the band, that even the only hit single, “How Long” was not as it sounded… about a love affair breaking up… it was about somebody leaving the band. Does kind of raise the concept of this being the band’s sole top 40 hit to a level of irony.

Ace did have a few follow-up LP’s, and there was a couple of bright spots on them, (“I’m not taking it out on you” from “No Strings” is a favorite) but none of them really got to the level of their debut.

Still, “Five A Side” is worth a listen, if you can find it.

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* I’ve noted several times today, problems getting into Outside The Beltway. THe problems come and go… and I’m unclear why. I do hope it’s nothing serious. (Update: James says something in Apache is running a high load, but they have no clue why.)
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* I see that NBC and CBS were “Forced” to suspend Imus. (See my earlier comments here… I’ll amend them, now)

I see the left, who Imus has been shilling for, for years now, is suddenly backing away from him. Which is nothing that I didn’t predict years ago. I’ll bet he wonders why.

But I must admit that the sight of Bowers at My DD claiming Imus isn’t a ‘progressive” (As if being a “progressive” is supposed to be a GOOD thing)… was amusing.

Boortz was amusing, too;

Oh .. .and need we even say it? What about rap music? If Imus can show that he didn’t say anything that isn’t said day after day on urban radio stations .. .then he gets a pass.

And so now Sharpton and Jesse Jackson are doing their best to cash in the only way they can, by manufacturing outrage and calling out their roving band of race hustlers. For his part, Imus is employing the Michael Richards strategy. That is, handing his head to his enemies and hoping they’ll go away. The problem is that when you pay blackmail, the price always goes up.

Which goes to show this “controversy” has nothing to do with the original remarks and everything to do with certain people lining their pockets.

Unfortunately, I’m beginning to suspect Imus is one of the people lining his pockets.

Neal’s point about your average rap “song” is well taken. What Imus said, really isn’t all that different . And they get a pass… why shouldn’t he?

Then I got to thinking… one does not stay in the business for as long as he has, without creating ratings. A moron about some things he may be, but not about that, or he wouldn’t be still in business. Would this situation, I thought, create ratings? The answer, obviously, is yes. Controversy always creates publicity which in turn creates ratings. Look at John Edwards and his wife. Same tune, different arrangement.
A number of years ago, myself and a bunch of other radio misfits took over an ailing AM radio station here in Rochester. We took its middle of the road, full service format, and basically drove a knife through it. We did so by playing the same song over and over again for three days. We started this little station bombing, right smack dab in the middle of morning drive.

We would intro Gladys Knight and the Pips doing Jim Weatherby’s “Midnight Train to Georgia” and on would come John Denver’s “Thank God I’m a Country Boy”. We’d intro Olivia doing “Please Mr Please” and on would come John Denver. I mean, aside from the discontinuity between what we were announcing, and what we’re actually playing, that that particular song of Denver’s is, when played too often, probably among the world’s most obnoxious to ones to be playing, next to perhaps Morris Albert’s “Feelings”.

The idea was to attract attention… and so we did. By the time the three days had gone by, we didn’t have too many listeners, (as a matter of fact I would suggest we probably didn’t have any at all… including the on-air staff…) but we did have everybody in town talking about us. We had several radio station jocks at other stations talking about us, the local talk radio station was talking about us, the television news was talking about us, (they sent a camera crew down to take pictures of the door that I’d jammed closed with a pile of old equipment ) and we’d had several visits from the local boys in blue, who never could figure out why they could never open the studio door. They never did bother to check the studio window, to see if it was open. It was. (Sorry, Jack, I never told you… But didn’t the practical situation of the necessary room enter your mind? After all, what would I do with all that coffee I drink? )

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As for Imus…. think;

Not everybody in the country was listening to his radio show. Not hardly. Indeed, his ratings have been dropping of late. But I will guarantee you that just about everybody in the country is talking about it, now. That’s a level of publicity you simply can’t buy anywhere else, for anywhere near the price.

And no, my friends, I wouldn’t put it past him. He’s been around long enough to know how to create mastodon barbecue… He’s certainly been around long enough to know how to create ratings.

If I am captured I will continue to resist by all means available. 

From Article III, United States Military Code of Conduct.

There is difference between being captured and surrendering.  The former is physical state, whereas the latter is mental attitude.  Lance Sijan was captured but he never surrendered.

The recently released British sailors and Marine were not the first westerners to be kidnapped by Iranian thugs.  Mark Bowden, has written an account to the American hostage ordeal during the Carter administration, “Guests of the Ayatollah,” Reul Marc Gerecht reviewed Bowden’s book for Opinion Journal.  An except from Gerhecht review:

John Limbert, an academically trained, Persian-speaking diplomat–who probably has the softest heart for Iran among the hostages–is in solitary confinement in the city of Isfahan, 200 miles from Tehran, after the failed Desert One rescue mission. (President Carter, after long delay, had sent fuel-tanker planes, gunships and helicopters to recapture the embassy; in a night-vision-goggle debacle set into motion by a sandstorm, a helicopter and a plane collided in the desert; the aborted the mission left the burnt remains to be toyed with by revolutionary clerics.) Mr. Limbert has no idea regarding the whereabouts of his compatriots until an Iranian guard, whom he is tutoring in English, asks him the meaning of the words “raghead,” “bozo,” “m—–f—er” and “c—sucker.” “Limbert laughed,” Mr. Bowden writes. “It warmed his heart. Someplace nearby, his captors were still coping with the United States Marine Corps.”

Our Marines may have been captured, but they never surrendered.

(H/T: Scott, Powerline )

Now jump forward the Sun (UK) interviewed the released British sailors and Marines.  The Brits surrendered.

The Brits might as well cede the Falklands back to Argentina.  How long before Spain asks for Gibraltar back?

There are two Americas, and Elizabeth Edwards would just as soon not have to look at the other one. Maybe that’s why she is so eager to live in the White House, the ultimate gated community.

James Taranto, Best of the Web. 

Stanley Kurtz at The Corner:

Suppose that upon entering Iraq, our troops had uncovered a nuclear facility in which Saddam had 1,000 working centrifuges, another 2,000 about to come on line, and manufacturing capacity to produce yet more centrifuges? Would anyone have argued at that point that the invasion had been unnecessary? Do any Democrats deny that Iran does in fact have all of this capacity right now?

 Look closely, Stan, and you’ll note that the Democrats as a rule, have not said thing one on the topic, being totally reactive.  So, it depends…. Is George Bush saying they have the capacity? If so, we can be assured the Democrats will argue that they do not. Otherwise….

In the debate to come over Iran’s nuclear capacity, there will be constant references to our intelligence failure in Iraq. The dispute will be about exactly how close Iran is to a bomb. But let no one forget that Iran is already at a point that would easily have justified the overthrow of Saddam. This fact, by itself, does not decide the issue of what to do about Iran. An attack on Iran would be militarily tougher than the invasion of Iraq. Occupation of Iran seems out of the question. There are also questions about how far an attack would actually set back Iran’s nuclear program. Yet all of these difficulties and considerations notwithstanding, the fact is, we are under a threat of exactly the sort that everyone agreed would justify action in Iraq.

All true.

Yet, can you imagine taking on Iran with Iraq still being controlled by Saddam?

You may recall it’s been about 25 years… nearly to the day… that the UK was embroiled in the Falklands dispuite.

CNN is reporting today:

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — Argentina marked the 25th anniversary of its failed attempt to regain the Falkland Islands by force on Monday and reasserted claims to the South Atlantic archipelago.

“Neither war nor the passage of time changes reality: The Malvinas are Argentine,” said Vice President Daniel Scioli, using the islands’ Argentine name, as 5,000 people, many of them veterans of the 1982 war with Britain, applauded.

“We call upon the United Kingdom to heed international calls and resume negotiations,” Scioli said during the ceremony in Argentina’s southernmost city of Ushuaia — 440 miles (710 kilometers) southwest of the islands.

Now, you may ask why they’d pick now to do that…

Could it be that the sharks smell blood in the water, following the less than great outcome with Iran?

They’re trying to erect a monument to pay homage to the service of  Petty Officer Danny Dietz in his hometown of Denver. Of course the usual suspects are at it again, saying this glorifies violence and other such nonsense. I guess this is how liberals support the troops… dishonoring their service.

Go and read over at Black Five… and act.

I’ve already said my bit about Imus.

That he’s running his mouth again is no shock. This latest incident simply reinforces my original take.

And that the moron is willing to kiss the backside of Sharpton, as the first stop on the “White Man Apology tour” is the capper, in my view.

It’s time for him to say bye- bye. Not because he’s a racist…. I don’t think he is, really… and Boortz points this up rather nicely…. But because he’s a bloody moron.

Maybe Glenn Reynolds is right.  Mrs. Pelosi is trying to kill Mrs. Clinton’s chance of ever becoming president.   Mrs. Pelosi perfectly executed the Clinton Doctrine, which is to stab your friends in the back and make nice to  your enemies.   I  mean, Democrats are perfectly willing to talk to Basher Assad, but they not willing to talk to Chris Wallace of Fox News.

Mrs. Pelosi’s scorecard for her Middle East trip recieved a perfect score, using the Clinton Scoring System.   Mrs. Pelosi stabbed every friend of the American People in the back and pleased every tyrant.  The Middle East Media Relations Institute sums up Mrs. Pelosi’s trip, “Pelosi Rewarded the Hangman and Turned Her Back on the Victim.”   For her perfidy, Mrs. Pelosi is awarded the Clinton Doctrine Play of the Week.

Byron York, at The Corner:

The new issue of The Atlantic has a piece by Mark Bowden, “The Ploy,” about the American interrogation team in Iraq that found Abu Masab al-Zarqawi. It is teased as “the inside story of how the interrogators of Task Force 145 cracked Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s inner circle — without resorting to torture — and hunted down al-Qaeda’s man in Iraq.”

The torture reference is interesting, because the story suggests that the legacy of prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib has actually been useful to American intelligence agents. Iraqi terrorists do not, it appears, believe the U.S. has cleaned up procedures at Abu Ghraib, so if a detainee is being interrogated elsewhere in Iraq, and it is not going well, and the interrogator suggests that perhaps it’s time for the detainee to be transferred to Abu Ghraib — well, that sometimes inspires prisoners to start talking.

Exactly so. As an example:

After a lot of extraordinarily clever misdirection, the American interrogator cut to the chase. “You have information you could trade,” he told Abu Haydr. “It is your only source of leverage right now. You don’t want to go to Abu Ghraib, and I can help you, but you have to give me something in trade.”

The basis of the success of that interrogator was primarily due to the fact that the individual in question did not want to be given ‘the treatment’.  So much for the argument about how torture is ineffectual.  The fact is it does work; it works quite well, and this incident proves it rather nicely.   That’s how the real world works, my friends. That’s why all this hand-wringing over ‘torture’ is counter productive.

The fact that he was not tortured not withstanding; he thought he WOULD be, thought the threat a genuine one and so responded. But the threats are not worth squat if we don’t demonstrate it at least once in a while. Evil? Perhaps…. but needed.

Look; we elect governments on the basis that they are a necessary evil. Because, while having a government is inherently problematic, not having one is more so.   That concept carries here.

There are those who will argue against what I’m saying here, on moral grounds.  I can’t say I blame them much.   But they’ve not thought through the consequences of what they propose.

For instance ; how many more people would have died, being beheaded, etc., had the information we obtained from Abu Haydr, not turned Zarqawi? If one is truly moral, one cannot turn their back on the number of people that Zarqawi would have killed…. but that is precisely what the crowd complaining about ‘torture” would have us do… turn our backs on our own. (I use quotes, in this case, because most of what they’re complaining about simply doesn’t qualify as such.  )

Certainly, keeping that larger number of people from being killed by the likes of Zarqawi is the smaller of the two evils.  Of course, it should be noted that the people complaining about places like Abu Ghraib the loudest, are also the ones who wouldn’t mind seeing us lose in Iraq. Not all of them, but most.
See also:

Moralizing over ‘torture’? Not me.

Richard S. Lindzen writing in Newsweek, asks, “Why So Gloomy?” 

The current alarm rests on the false assumption not only that we live in a perfect world, temperaturewise, but also that our warming forecasts for the year 2040 are somehow more reliable than the weatherman’s forecast for next week.

Read his entire article.  Lindzen’s salient point is there is no such thing as perfect weather.

B.C.’ cartoonist Johnny Hart dies at storyboard

ENDICOTT, N.Y. -(AP)- cartoonist Johnny Hart, whose award-winning “B.C.” comic strip appeared in more than 1,300 newspapers worldwide, died at his home on Saturday. He was 76.

“He had a stroke,” Hart’s wife, Bobby, said on Sunday. “He died at his storyboard.“[emphasis added]

More, Don Markstien, Toonpedia.

Addendum:  Hart was from Endicot, New York.   His local home town paper, Sun & Press Bulletin has a very nice article, displaying that local connection: