Hugh Hewitt wrote yesterday, “perhaps the bloggers could agree to set a day for a unified blog beg”
Instapundit took him up on it.
So tomorrow blogs everywhere will be asking readers to contribute to some reputable charity of their choice.
NZBear has set up a Hurricane Katrina: Blog for Relief Day page with links to bloggers recommended charities and information on how to contact them.
When I heard news that the Bush administration was releasing the Strategic Petroleum Reserves I had a couple of different reactions. The first was, good. Now is the time when it is needed most. Suppy has been disrupted heavily in the Gulf and this is a prudent decision all the way around.
The other thing I thought of was how all the political opportunists in the Democrat Party have been calling for use of the Strategic Reserves since oil rose above $34 per barrel. Releasing the reserves at that point would only be strategic for their political ambitions. The security of the country is a mere afterthought to these people.
They were predicting economic catastrophe to the American consumer with $40/barrel oil. What does it say about their understanding of the economy when we have a GDP growth rate just under 4%, the best in the industrialized world? And this is during the time when oil has risen from $40 to $70 per barrel. They are either clueless, political opportunists, or both.
The Strategic Reserves are simply a political weapon to Democrats. Has been for a long time.
Flash back to the 2000 election,
Al Gore, September 21, 2000 (Cost of a barrel of oil, $34)
“We ought to start with several releases of five million barrels each, and assuming that is successful, we should continue with these swaps in an effort to stabilize the price of oil at lower levels and help consumers.”
Bush’s reply,
The reserve, Bush said, “is an insurance policy meant for sudden disruptions of the oil supply or for war. It should not be used for short-term political gain … at the expense of national security.”
How prescient is that? That is the difference between leadership and political opportunists.
May,2004 (Cost of a gallon of gas, $2.00)
“These out-of-control prices are burning a hole in Americans’ wallets,” said Senator Schumer. “They are putting at risk the economic recovery and the administration insists on throwing fuel on the fire [making the situation worse]. So what are we doing? We are calling on the president to use our one ace in the hole [perfect solution]. The one way we can stop OPEC [Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries] and big oil from raising prices through the roof and that is by releasing some oil from our Strategic Petroleum Reserve.”
May 2004 (Cost of a barrel, $42)
Half a dozen Senate Democrats plan to call on Bush today to begin releasing as many as 60 million barrels of oil from the nation’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve.
These people cannot be trusted to leadership positions in government. Their first priority is to achieve power. They have demonstrated time and again that they cannot make tough, unpopular decisions. They just don’t have the stomach (ie: courage) to go against short-term public opinion.
Where would we be if they got their wish?
Jay Fitzgerald of Boston Herald joined us in-studio for a lively discussion about blogs, media bias and the coverage of the war. It was great to hear from an “old media” veteran, especially when he talked about Michael Yon and the reporting he has been doing from Mosul.
Jay is a blogger himself. He has maintained a favorite of ours, HubBlog, for more than three years now. He also runs the Herald’s Econoblog.
Enjoy.
We enjoyed a special double feature on Pundit Review Radio this weekend. Boston Herald business reporter Jay Fitzgerald joined us live in studio. Here is what Jay had to say on his personal blog, HubBlog,
Michael Yon rules the blogoshere — and airwaves: Local blogger sensation Michael Yon will be tentatively on WRKO tomorrow night along with yours truly, 9 p.m.. He gets to talk about his incredible blogging from Iraq. I get to talk about, er, my blogging from Beacon Hill. Hmmm. … I’m psyched just to talk to the guy.
He was psyched and so were we. Last time Michael was on the show people lined-up to say thank you.
This week we focused on the issues at hand.
You don’t want to miss Michael’s audible reaction when he heard a quote from Cindy Sheehan!
You wont find this kind of analysis anywhere else.
Pundit Review Radio
WRKO, Boston’s Talk Station, AM 680
Sunday’s 9pm
Streaming Live and toll free 877.469.4322
Sunday night at 9pm est on Pundit Review Radio we will take a look at the impact blogs are having on corporate America. You can stream the show live.
Our guest for the first half hour will be Jay Fitgerald, business writer for the Boston Herald and the man behind the Herlad’s business blog, Econoblog. Jay also maintains a personal blog at HubBlog.
How are companies using blogs to communicate with consumers? And how are consumers using blogs to communicate with corporations.
Here are a few corporate blogging resources…
The Corporate Blog ListInformation Week
Look Who’s Blogging: How five executives got blog religion and are using it to their professional and personal advantage.
Of course, we’ll also talk about the impact that blogs are having on the media and politics.
I know you have heard alot about Michael Yon on this blog lately. The reason is simple. The Iraq War is at a critical juncture, especially when it comes to support here at home. Michael is the single best source of information about what is actually happening on the ground.
Please take a minute and read his latest dispatch. Check out the amazing, riveting, scary combat photos of our soldiers in action.
Words cannot do justice to the kind of first hand, life-threatening reporting Michael Yon is doing in Iraq. Please read his blog and support his work by clicking on the Support The Dispatches button.
Pundit Review Radio Update
Once again we will be speaking to Michael Yon on Sunday evening at 9pm EST on Pundit Review Radio. You can stream the show live and call us toll free at 877-469-4322. If you missed his previous visit with us, you can listen to it here.
We will continue to bring Michael Yon to your radio because people need to hear what he has to say. It’s that simple.
In a special double feature, we will also be speaking with Boston Herald business writer Jay Fitzgerald. Jay is an old media guy who “gets it”. He runs the Herald’s business blog, Econoblog and also maintains a personal blog, Hubblog.
Check it out, Sunday night at 9pm est!
Could the ‘paper of record’ actually be worse under editor Bill Keller than it was under Jayson Blair enabler Howell Raines? It sure seems like it lately.
We all know by now that when it comes to opinion editorials, the New York Times has ZERO credibility. After all, they continue to publish Paul Krugman’s distortions and outright lies. Check out his latest, one his most blatent yet,
Two different news media consortiums reviewed Florida’s ballots; both found
that a full manual recount would have given the election to Mr. Gore.
This one is so easily debunked, it makes you wonder if Krugman is getting lazy, or simply losing his mind. Our go-to-guy for all things Krugman, Don Luskin, had this to say in a post titled, The Truth Counts,
Krugman’s lie was especially loathsome considering that his own newspaper
– the New York Times — was a member of one of the media consortiums to review
the election results. But will the Times run a correction, at least concerning
Krugman’s blatant factual misrepresentations about the Miami Herald/USA Today
consortium’s results? As of this writing, I’ve heard nothing in response to my
query about it to “public editor” Byron Calame. I’m not holding my breath.
There’s no way the New York Times is going to interrupt its most effective
evangelist when he’s in the middle of a fire-and-brimstone sermon about the
Angry Left’s cherished creation-myth.
Luskin also points us to this open letter from Instutional Shareholder Services head John Connolly. His gripe with the New York Times? It’s business page and the unfair, innaccurate reporting of Gretchen Morgenson.
And now Mark Cuban, the brash billionaire owner of the Dallas Mavericks is complaining about another Times business reporter. Cuban lays it all out, including his e-mail exchange with the Times reporter, on his excellent blog, Blog Maverick.
Anatomy of a New York Times Article
I responded to what I hoped would be an interesting discussion about the merits
of a company based on a referral from someone I respected, from a newspaper I
respected.Instead, the article was more a personal attack than a representation
of our email exchange. Furthermore, even after the above exchange, the author
preferred to quote the press release saying why I wouldnâ??t vote for the deal
rather than our email exchange.
NAMPA, Idaho, Aug. 24 - President Bush told thousands of National Guard members and their families today that an immediate withdrawal of American troops from Iraq and the broader Middle East would only embolden terrorists and make the United States and its allies more vulnerable to attack.
Defending his administration’s military stance for the third day in a row, he presented another tough, if implicit, rebuttal to war critics like Cindy Sheehan, the mother of an American soldier slain in Iraq who has demanded to see the president in a monthlong protest outside his Texas ranch. Mr. Bush said that “as long as I’m the president, we will stay, we will fight and we will win the war on terror.”
The president said that withdrawing troops now from Iraq and the Middle East, “as some have called for,” would “only embolden the terrorists and create a staging ground to launch more attacks against America and free nations.” Ms. Sheehan and her supporters have called only for a withdrawal of American troops from Iraq, not the Middle East generally.
Is it too little too late? Given the momentum in the media, and the low threshold for success that the terrorists have, I’m not optimistic about turning public opinion around. It is truly mind boggling that allegedly serious people are actually talking about withdrawal in the middle of the fight. We couldn’t possibly do anything worse.
Our current situation is infuriating, especially when put in perspective with what we have accomplished and where we are today in Iraq. Sure, the MSM has to take some blame for their agenda driven, relentlessly slanted and negative coverage. But President Bush deserves the lion’s share of blame for letting it get to this point. He has the ability to go over their heads and communicate directly with the peeps, but he hasn’t done it forcefully, or often enough.
So here we are today with public support crumbling while the situation on the ground is far better than people realize. When I hear talk of withdrawal, one has to wonder if people truly understand the consequences of success?
David Frum has some good advice,
…alternatively, the president could have skipped the good news and delivered a blood, sweat, toils, and tears speech: Yes things are hard, harder in fact than expected, but the stakes remain enormous - and here is why we must win, and why I am determined to fight this thing through to victory. That would be powerful too.
Michael Barone read Frum’s piece,
This is a direct slap not only at the president, but also at his speechwriters, and from a former colleague who served in the speechwriting office in 2001 and 2002. Frum argues that Bush makes the same case over and over again, and does not flesh it out with arresting details and enlightening narrative.
Then he educates on FDR’s fireside chats. Awesome stuff.
Yes, Bush has done a terrible job of communicating with the public about the war. People want to support it but it is difficult when all they hear is negative. What happened to the guy with the bullhorn? And it is not just the executive branch that is losing the information war. Michael Yon tells of the military’s difficulty communicating their success.
Given all of these challenges, will the American public stay the course?
Last night on Pundit Review Radio we did a little compare and contrast. We took a look at two stories that are related only by their place on the MSM’s agenda.
One story fits the agenda perfectly, so they cover it relentlessly. In this case we are talking about Cindy Sheheen. The second story doesn’t fit the MSM agenda so they choose to ignore it. We are of course speaking about the Air America financial scandal that has been kept alive only by the outstanding blog journalism of The Radio Equalizer Brian Maloney and Michelle Malkin.
While discussing Sheehen, we talked at length about Patterico’s LA Times Op-Ed that was publsihed on Sunday. In it, Patterico described the litanty of ways in which the Times has misled their readers on this story.
While discussing Air America, we went to the man himself, Brian Maloney and got the details directly from him. A special bonus, Brian was able to break the news on our show that Michael Graham of ABC Radio in Washington DC was fired for alleged anti-Islamic comments.
If you’ve been wondering what is going on with Air America, here is your chance to find out.
One thing has become clear in the month of August. While we continue to win on the ground in Iraq, we are losing the information war at home. On Pundit Review Radio last weekend, the incomparable Michael Yon’s told us that the troops in Mosul have better morale than those of us here in the states. That is so scary, so sad, so dangerous.
Yon expalins what is happening…
For example, our soldiers capture or kill top terror figures in Mosul routinely. Sometimes in stunning operations that display split-second timing. The “higher ups” often say, almost reflexively, that they don’t want the enemy to know about these kills or captures.Sounds reasonable. But whether soldiers sleek through dark allies with silenced weapons, slipping over walls with padded ladders, snatching sleeping terrorists from their beds before they can fully waken; or, whether they engage in a gunfight at a busy intersection and drag terrorists from behind the wheels of their cars–these are not anonymous men. Families notice when daddy’s gone missing.
If we aren’t keeping it secret from the enemy–and we can’t keep it secret from them–who do we protect by keeping quiet? These are not illegal operations. These are examples of the effectiveness of our forces. In Mosul alone there are daily events where the Coalition gets things right, that I never write about.
The “proximity delay” seems to be bi-directional. The higher-ups also seem to have a disconnect with what the media eventually does with Coalition successes. I kept silent for days on the Zarqawi-letter dispatch, ready to post what was probably the single most important piece of insider information to drop into our hands in quite some time. I requested clearance several times per day, each time being asked to hold back. I complied.
But then, without even giving the leaders at Deuce Four a head’s up, a typically entralling military press release went out to major, mainstream, media outlets. We all learned of it on CNN. The Zarqawi-letter story was almost unrecognizable. Because, in the hands of a network that hasn’t had a body in the field in Mosul long enough to get their bearings, the best the media could do is paraphrase the military press release. So what should have been a front page banner headline story ended up buried on page 6.
A major reason for the feeling around here that the public is turning against this war has been the Cindy Sheehan phenomenon in Crawford. Patterico, another recent guest on Pundit Review Radio, has an Op-Ed in today’s LA Times taking a look at the paper’s coverage. It shows once agan how MSM organizations can omit information central to the story and distort everything that follows. It also shows how woefully uninformed people can be if they rely on only the agenda driven MSM for news. Good for Patterico for calling them on it (again), and good for the LA Times for puplishing a beatdown of themselves in their paper.
in its apparent zeal to portray Sheehan as the Rosa Parks of the antiwar movement, the Los Angeles Times has omitted facts and perspectives that might undercut her message or explain the president’s reluctance to meet with her again.
For example, The Times uncritically reported Sheehan’s claim that the president had behaved callously in a June 2004 meeting with her and her husband, refusing to look at pictures of Casey or listen to stories about him. The Times claimed without qualification that Sheehan “came away from that meeting dissatisfied and angry.”
But the article failed to mention that Sheehan had previously described Bush as sincere and sympathetic in the meeting.
Of that trip, Sheehan said: “That was the gift the president gave us, the gift of happiness, of being together.” In the 11 articles and columns about Sheehan that The Times had run on its news pages as of Friday, there is no hint of her previous praise for the president.
Nor would you learn that Casey Sheehan reenlisted after the war started. And only The Times’ April 2004 obituary for the 24-year-old Army specialist noted that he bravely volunteered for the rescue mission in which he was killed by terrorists.
Rational people can disagree whether the war in Iraq is justified. But a newspaper’s job is to report all relevant facts and present different perspectives, not just those that suit one particular viewpoint.
By that measure, The Times has woefully failed its readers with its one-sided coverage of the Cindy Sheehan story.
