Gregg is conflicted about the Miers nomination. He wants to belive in and trust the President but he has some reservations. Kevin lets him know that those reservations are well founded. Then, we bring on Patterico to get his perspective on the nomination.
With so much happening in Iraq, from the trial of Saddam to the voting on the Constitution, we are happy to announce that Michael Yon will be back on the Pundit Review Radio this Sunday evening. Michael’s work is the most insightful and compelling of any reporter in Iraq, in our opinion. His ability to bring the good, bad and ugly, in the proper perspective, is unrivalled.
We will get a preview of his upcoming Dispatch, of which he recently said,
Witnessing the critical Iraqi referendum Saturday, I saw such a breadth of events that some time is required to compose a dispatch equal to those historic proceedings. Accurately capturing the experience is more important than quickly delivering a statistical summary. The newspapers can handle the summaries. A surplus of reporters has kept an ongoing tally of high voter turnout and low insurgent activity. By now most people know that the voting was extraordinarily successful. But there�??s more to say than that it was a success. This milestone deserves careful consideration and writing. With that in mind, please be patient for a dispatch covering the historical voting that occurred in Iraq on 15 October 2005.
Michael has had several memorable appearances on Pundit Review Radio.
Anyone who follows his work undertsands that this is going to be something special.
When: Sunday, October 23, 9pm EST
Where: Streaming Live at Boston’s Talk Station, WRKO
Contact: Call us toll free at 877-469-4322
About Pundit Review Radio
Pundit Review Radio is where the old media meets the new. Each week Kevin & Gregg give voice to the work of the most influencial thought leaders in the new media/citizen journalist movement. This unique show brings the best of the blogs to your radio every Sunday evening at 9pm EST on AM680 WRKO, Boston�??s Talk Leader.
Has a bigger, more important story ever gotten less attention that the start of Saddam’s trial today?
This lack of coverage and historical perspective really exposes the MSM agenda. They simply will not give the Bush administration proper credit for taking out Saddam.
Removing Saddam was something that Democrats could only talk tough about. Lord knows, they could not do anything about it. That required guts and a willingness to endure bad poll numbers that come with trials and tribulations of war.
Imagine for a moment if a Democrat had done this? I know it is hard, but do you think the coverage would be any different?
This entire Iraq operation has kiled not only the Baathist regime, but the credibility of the MSM, and the American left.
Saddam was the focus of this country’s national security for more than a dozen years and he is today facing trial. An incredible, historic achievement for the United States and the men and women in our armed forces.
No matter what you think about our rational for going to war, or how we have conducted it, what is happening today in Iraq is something all Americans should be extremely proud of. It is a shame that only half the country, and even less of the MSM feel that way. I for one won’t forget it.
Our connection to the blogsphere has allowed Pundit Review to discuss certain stories days, weeks and even months before our talk radio audience in Boston ever hear a word about them in the MSM.
That is what makes blogs so powerful as a counter balance to the MSM. Their monopoly on deciding what is and is not news has been shattered. It is a beautiful thing.
What got me thinking about this was a headline on Marketwatch.com written by their excellent media columnist Jon Friedman,
TV Guide is a 2005 cautionary tale
Commentary: Publishing’s future hinges on innovation
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) – TV Guide, which has been surrendering circulation to interactive listing services and newspaper supplements for many years, is a cautionary tale. As the magazine industry’s leaders party and brainstorm at their annual meeting this week in Puerto Rico, they should all heed the crystal-clear message presented by TV Guide’s plight: innovate or die.
Now this is not earth shattering news, or even a very important story in and of itself. However, it IS a cautionary tale about the current state of the media and it is illustrative of what is happening at many, many media outlets.
I thought immediately about our interview with Jeff Jarvis of Buzz Machine back in August. As a former TV Guide editor, we discussed this very issue.
That got me thinking about other issues and other interviews.
Over a year ago, we spoke to Scott Johnson of Powerline days after he and a small group of bloggers figured out that Dan Rather used bogus documents in his Bush national guard hit piece.
We’ve spoken to the incomparable Michael Yon about the effectiveness of the Iraqi security forces months ago while the MSM continued to wail away about their ineffectiveness. Only now, after another successful election, are they starting to take notice.
We’ve talked to Brian Maloney of Radio Equalizer about the Air America scandal about a month before the story made national news.
We spoke to National Journal’s resident blogger Danny Glover about the impact bloggers could have on legislation, weeks before the post-Katrina birth of Porkbusters
More recently we’ve talked to Mark Tapscott about the OU suicide bomber a week before CNN figured out the significance of this story.
That is the beauty of blogs. Tomorrow’s news today. Determined by us, not them. We are proud to be able to bring the best thought leaders in the new media to Boston’s Talk Station AM680 WRKO each week.
Liberals want to have it both ways when it comes to energy policy.
They say no to new refineries (last one built in 1976) to nuclear power (20+years), to more drilling in the lower 48 states, in the Gulf and in Alaska, to onshore liquid natural gas facilities and oceanic wind farms within view of their summer retreats.
At the same time, they decry our dependence on “foreign oil” and sneer that it has something to do with Bush’s cozy relationship with the Saudi’s and “big oil”. It’s all politics to them. Liberals like Al Gore and Chuck Schumer were looking to tap the Strategic Petrolium Reserves after oil crossed $34 per barrell! Can you imagine? Good grief.
They cannot have it both ways. You cannot say no to exploration and development at every turn and then complain when the problem only gets worse. Hello. You are part of the problem.
The left prefers to have the issue on the table. They get to slam Republicans for being “anti-environment” and they get to complain about “the enrgy crisis’. It’s a double winner for them, until the public wakes up, makes the connection and sees them for the cynical obstructionists they are.
Get a load of this AP story on the recent vote allowing construction of new refineries.
BOSTON –On the final major vote before Congress took its 10-day Columbus holiday recess, House Republican leaders pushed through a bill that would promote construction of oil refineries by easing the environmental review process.
Any mention in the article about the need for new refineries? Or their connection to our current gas price spike? No, of course not.
So who do we have to blame for allowing this bill to pass?
Six Republicans and six Democrats missed the vote. Three of those Democrats were from Massachusetts. And the three who were absent — Reps. William Delahunt of Quincy, Richard Neal of Springfield and John Olver of Amherst — have the lowest voting percentages of the state’s 10-member House delegation.
Who said the entire Massachusetts delegation was useless? Was it me? I stand corrected. This is my favorite part when the AP reporter scolds these Congressman for allowing this bill to be “pushed” through,
Voting is a fundamental part of being a congressman. Votes are most frequently held between Tuesdays and Thursdays and during designated weeks between congressional recesses, allowing members large blocks of time to work in their districts and engage in official and personal travel.
When the roll is called, member pagers sound and bells ring through all House office buildings. Committee sessions are suspended, and police officers hold traffic so members can reach the Capitol. Clerks at the door of the chamber yell “More” as the final members race up the building’s granite steps to declare themselves “Yes,” “No” or “Present.”
It was our pleasure to welcome Mark Tapscott, veteran journalist, blogger and Director of the Center for Media & Public Policy at the Heritage Foundation, to Pundit Review Radio .
Mark has been leading the charge reporting on the OU suicide bomber investigation. His blog, Tapscottâ??s Copy Desk, and has already broken a number of stories.
Why is the big media ignoring this story? Why is the FBI not being upfront about the investigation? Why was the president of OU, former senator David Boren, so quick to dismiss the incident?
Seems like CNN is listening to Pundit Review Radio, because a week after we brought this story to you, CNN interviewed Mark about the OU bomber story.
I have to admit that I have been conflicted regarding the HM’s nomination to the SC. Although I agree with much of what Melanie Kirkpatrick says in yesterday’s Wall St. Journal including the following:
Mr. Bush was elected in part on his pledge to remake the federal judiciary, and he’s demonstrably followed through on that promise. That includes the appointment of John Roberts as chief justice of the United States, 43 appointees to the appeals courts and nearly 200 judges on the federal district courts. There are 871 judges in the federal judiciary, including 50 current vacancies. By the end of his second term, Mr. Bush will have appointed one-third or more. Ms. Miers has served on the committee that advises the president on judicial picks and, as White House counsel, has been chairman of that committee for the past year.
This reshaping of the judiciary hasn’t been easy, and Mr. Bush has had to fight to keep his word. During his first two years in office, a Democratic-controlled Senate refused to act on 47% of his appeals-court nominees, or 15 out of 32 names. He renominated them on Jan. 7, 2003, immediately after the new, GOP-controlled, Senate was seated.The Democrats’ next tactic was the filibuster. No Senate had ever filibustered a president’s appeals-court choice before, but 10 of Mr. Bush’s best-qualified nominees met that fate in the last Congress. They included three women, an African-American, an Hispanic and an Arab-American. All had enough bipartisan support to be confirmed but were denied a vote by a liberal minority of Senators.
Mr. Bush didn’t back down on his nominees. He gave recess appointments to two–Charles Pickering of the Fifth Circuit and William Pryor of the 11th–who had been subjected to particularly vicious smears by Democrats. Judge Pickering had been accused of harboring racist views, even though he had the support of many African-Americans in his home state of Mississippi. Judge Pryor, Alabama’s attorney general, was skewered for his traditional Catholic beliefs even though he had pledged to uphold Roe v. Wade. Mr. Bush’s recess appointments came against the advice of some who favored compromise with the Democrats.
His highest-profile pick was Miguel Estrada, a Honduran immigrant who is often classed with Mr. Roberts as one of the brightest lawyers of his generation. After 28 months of waiting for a vote–and seven attempts in the Senate to break his filibuster–Mr. Estrada decided to withdraw and get on with his life. The White House had been prepared to keep on fighting.
Mr. Bush understood the political stakes here, and put Democrats’ obstruction of his judicial nominees at the front and center of last year’s re-election campaign. When he was rewarded with re-election, one of the first acts of his second term was to renominate every filibustered nominee who wished to carry on the fight. As a result, Priscilla Owen and Janice Rogers Brown, among others, were finally seated on the appeals bench this spring. Judge Owen had been waiting for four years; Judge Brown’s nomination had languished for two.
They were confirmed as the result of a deal under which 14 senators–seven Democrats and seven Republicans–agreed not to filibuster except under vaguely defined “extraordinary circumstances.” Conservatives angry that Mr. Bush didn’t nominate Michael Luttig or Edith Jones or Sam Alito to the Supreme Court ought to direct at least part of their ire toward John McCain and Lindsey Graham. These Weekly Standard favorites refused to pull the trigger on the “nuclear option,” which would have banned the filibuster and made it easier for the president to nominate someone with a well-known record as a judicial conservative.
The president’s supporters are under no obligation to support his selection of Ms. Miers for the Supreme Court. But surely conservatives owe him a chance to make the case that his nominee is who he says she is, and to listen to her Senate testimony before making a final decision about whether to oppose her.
Any president is due some deference under the Constitution in his choice of judges, and given his record on picking judges, this president deserves more than he has received.
I also agree that Jeff Goldstein of the blog Protein Wizdom offers quite a compelling argument to supporters of Ms. Miers which is worth checking out
Bushâ??s poll numbers show him at 42-44% approval; but where he has taken his hit is among Republicans, who are giving the President a 76% approval rating. Were that number to return to earlier figures, Bushâ??s overall approval rating would likely move back into the 52-53% rangeâ??quite in keeping with what one would expect in the current political climate.
And the way to do that is to rally conservatives by actuallyâ??publically, openly, and without fearâ??nominating conservative Justices and then standing behind both them and the judicial philosophy they represent.
Choosing instead a stealth nomineeâ??though possibly quite a pragmatic political decisionâ??suggests that the minority controls the power, and that there is something untoward about pushing for the kind of openly conservative Justice that a Republican President should be nominating to the Supreme Court.
John Roberts was, in my estimation, the perfect stalking horse. He was clearly legally conservative, and those who voted against him did so under the pretense that he didnâ??t give them enough to go on. So why not nominate someone every bit as conservative who has a track record? Force Schumer and Feinstein and Kennedy to reject conservatism on the record, rather than allowing them to deliver dissents on pretenses that are laughably disingenuous.
If not now, when?