Washington Post Stands Up For Rashid Khalidi

An editorial in the Washington Post springs to the defense of former PLO spokesman Rashid Khalidi, dismissing Khalidi’s radicalism and ridiculing the McCain campaign for mentioning Barack Obama’s long association with him: An ‘Idiot Wind’.

If you need one more example of how the mainstream media are completely in the tank for Obama, this is it. The editorial repeats Obama campaign talking points and Khalidi’s evasions word for word.

WITH THE presidential campaign clock ticking down, Sen. John McCain has suddenly discovered a new boogeyman to link to Sen. Barack Obama: a sometimes controversial but widely respected Middle East scholar named Rashid Khalidi. In the past couple of days, Mr. McCain and his running mate, Gov. Sarah Palin, have likened Mr. Khalidi, the director of a Middle East institute at Columbia University, to neo-Nazis; called him “a PLO spokesman”; and suggested that the Los Angeles Times is hiding something sinister by refusing to release a videotape of a 2003 dinner in honor of Mr. Khalidi at which Mr. Obama spoke.

Saying that the McCain campaign “likened Khalidi to neo-Nazis” is a blatant distortion, of course. McCain raised a hypothetical case to illustrate the bias of the media, saying: “I’m not in the business about talking about media bias but what if there was a tape with John McCain with a neo-Nazi outfit being held by some media outlet. I think the treatment of the issue would be slightly different.” And sure enough, as if to prove McCain’s point, today the Washington Post is distorting the statement.

Is it surprising to see the Post deny and distort like this? Not really. They’ve had a serious problem telling terrorists and their shills from ordinary citizens for quite a long time. Here are just a few of the terrorists and/or terror apologists who’ve been granted access to the Washington Post’s op-ed pages recently:

Muhammad Hussein Fadlallah, spiritual leader of Hezbollah.
Hamas leader Mahmoud al-Zahar.
Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh.
Deported Hamas leader Mousa Abu Marzook.

Also see:
Soccer Dad: Running interference for rashid.

(Hat tip:Nacy)

Martin Kramer on Rashid Khalidi and Barack Obama: Kindred Spirits

Martin Kramer has been following the career of former PLO spokesman Rashid Khalidi for years, and is convinced that Khalidi’s “moderation” is a sham: Khalidi and Obama: kindred spirits.

Were we to see the videotape, it might give us some sense of how far down the road Obama went in that [anti-Israel] direction—and not all that long ago. It would be interesting to know, for example, if there was reference to Iraq. In 2003, when Khalidi’s friends gave him his goodbye party, he was deep into propagandizing against the Iraq war. Among his arguments, he included this one:

This war will be fought because these neoconservatives desire to make the Middle East safe not for democracy, but for Israeli hegemony. They are convinced that the Middle East is irremediably hostile to both the United States and Israel; and they firmly hold the racist view that Middle Easterners understand only force. For these American Likudniks and their Israeli counterparts, sad to say, the tragedy of September 11 was a godsend: It enabled them to draft the United States to help fight Israel’s enemies.

This argument against the war was not at all unusual on the faculty of the University of Chicago at the time. Another professor of Middle East history, Fred Donner, gave it blatant expression on the pages of the Chicago Tribune, calling the Iraq war “a vision deriving from Likud-oriented members of the president’s team—particularly Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith.” So perhaps it is not surprising that Obama, in his October 2002 antiwar speech, declared:

“What I am opposed to is the cynical attempt by Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz and other arm-chair, weekend warriors in this Administration to shove their own ideological agendas down our throats, irrespective of the costs in lives lost and in hardships borne.”

No mention of Cheney or Rumsfeld—and no need to mention them, to a constituency that knew who was really behind the push for war, and why. (Later, the same argument would figure prominently in The Israel Lobby, co-authored by another Chicago professor, John Mearsheimer.)

Obama, when pressed during an appearance before a Jewish audience, admitted that “I do know him [Khalidi] because I taught at the University of Chicago.” This sounds wholly innocuous; I also know Khalidi because I taught at the University of Chicago—twice, in 1990 and 1991, when I had an office on the same hall. Obama continues: “And I do know him and I have had conversations.” Well, even I’ve had conversations with Khalidi. (A former Chicago graduate student who must keep meticulous records writes to me that he spotted me on December 6, 1990, at the Quad Club lunching with Khalidi.) Nor does it mean much if Khalidi introduced Obama to Edward Said; Khalidi introduced me to Edward Said in New York in November 1986.

The difference is that while I came away from these encounters convinced that Khalidi’s purported moderation was a sham, and have said so, Obama went the other direction, maintaining their friendship right up to Khalidi’s send-off from Chicago, to which he contributed an encomium. Which is why I’d really like to see that videotape. I’m just curious which of Rashid Khalidi’s virtues I somehow missed, and Barack Obama saw.

(Hat tip:Charles Johnson the Cult leader of LGF)

Khalidi Tape News: The Guest List

A PUMA blog has done some good investigative work, and pieced together a verified guest list for that party for Rashid Khalidi: The Khalidi Tape: Putting the Bits and Pieces Together with New Details.

Verified Information

Location:
Burbank Manor, 6312 W 79th St., Burbank, Illinois

Time:
Friday, August 1, 2003
6pm – Reception
7pm – Dinner and Reception

Those who attended:
1. AAAN (Arab American Action Network)
2. Not In My Name
3. Ali Abunimah (a Palestinian rights activist in Chicago who helps run Electronic Intifada, who met Obama in 2000)
4. Bernadine Dorhn and Bill Ayers
5. Barack Obama
6. Mayor of Chicago Richard Daley
7. Rashid Khalidi
8. Mona Khalidi
9. Gihad Ali, a Palestinian spoken word poet
10. NPR Worldview host Jerome McDonnell (not McDonald as written in the e-mail)
11. Camilia Odeh (director of SWYC Southwest Youth Collaborative)
12. Sanabel debka troupe (traditional Palestinian dance group)
13. Hatem Abudayyeh
14. Others – Up to 50 to 500 guests

(Hat tip: Charles, The Obama Operative)

Politico: Yes, We’re Biased. So What?

Politico reporters Jim VandeHei and John F. Harris examine the claim that the media are overwhelmingly biased against the McCain campaign, conclude that it’s true, and then sum up their response in two words: “So what?”

Why McCain is getting hosed in the press.

OK, let’s just get this over with: Yes, in the closing weeks of this election, John McCain and Sarah Palin are getting hosed in the press, and at Politico.

And, yes, based on a combined 35 years in the news business we’d take an educated guess — nothing so scientific as a Pew study — that Obama will win the votes of probably 80 percent or more of journalists covering the 2008 election. Most political journalists we know are centrists — instinctually skeptical of ideological zealotry — but with at least a mild liberal tilt to their thinking, particularly on social issues.

So what?

You see, political journalists are a special breed of human being.

Responsible editors would be foolish not to ask themselves the bias question, especially in the closing days of an election.

But, having asked it, our sincere answer is that of the factors driving coverage of this election — and making it less enjoyable for McCain to read his daily clip file than for Obama — ideological favoritism ranks virtually nil.

The main reason is that for most journalists, professional obligations trump personal preferences. Most political reporters (investigative journalists tend to have a different psychological makeup) are temperamentally inclined to see multiple sides of a story, and being detached from their own opinions comes relatively easy.

So there you have it. Stop complaining about bias, and accept the opinions of your betters, America.

(hat tip:Chuckles)

LA Times Still Stonewalling on Khalidi-Obama Video

At the Washington Post, Howard Kurtz takes notice of the Los Angeles Times’ refusal to release a videotape of Barack Obama at a party for former PLO spokesman Rashid Khalidi (Kurtz calls him a “Palestinian rights advocate and Israel critic”). And the McCain campaign has noticed this too.

The L.A. Times ran a story last April about a 2003 party at which Obama said nice things about Palestinian rights advocate and Israel critic Rashid Khalidi, who he said reminds him “of my own blind spots and my own biases. . . . It’s for that reason that I’m hoping that, for many years to come, we continue that conversation — a conversation that is necessary not just around Mona and Rashid’s dinner table [but around] this entire world.”

The McCain camp tells me the paper refused to release a videotape of the remarks that it had obtained. Little Green Footballs calls that “media malfeasance of an almost astounding degree. They have a video that could change the stakes in this election and they’re hiding it.”

“We’re not a video service,” Doyle McManus, the Times Washington bureau chief, tells me. “We’re not suppressing anything. We were the first to report on these facts.” He declines to say whether the paper considered posting the video.

The Los Angeles Times is currently hemorrhaging readers, laying off employees, and losing advertisers. Releasing this video would be very good for their bottom line; a lot of people are interested in it. Does this mean they’re more invested in seeing Barack Obama win the election than in being profitable? Shouldn’t the remaining shareholders in the company be concerned about this attitude?

Newsbusters has video of the Bill O’Reilly show; the Times told him there’s an “ethical problem” with releasing the tape. Right.

Newsbusters has the email address of the owner of the LA Times, Sam Zell, if you’d like to add your voice to the many who are demanding a release of the video.

(Hat tip:Nacy)

Peter Wallsten, Hand Over That Tape

t Australia’s Daily Telegraph, Tim Blair says: “Peter Wallsten, hand over that tape.”

Referring to this: The LA Times is hiding an incriminating video of Obama with radical Palestinian professor Rashid Khalidi.

Contact the Los Angeles Times and demand that they release this video.

(hat tip:Nancy)

Rashid Khalidi Ranted About the ‘Zionist Lobby’ on Al Jazeera

In December 2003, Barack Obama’s friend Rashid Khalidi appeared on the Arabic version of Al Jazeera and let the mask drop completely, in a bigoted, antisemitic rant against the Washington Institute for Near East Policy: Dr. Rashid and Mr. Khalidi.

By God, I say that the participation of the sons or daughters of the Arabs in the plans and affairs of this institute is a huge error, this Israeli institute in Washington, an institute founded by AIPAC, the Zionist lobby, and that hosts tens of Israelis every year. The presence of an Arab or two each year can’t disguise the nature of this institute as the most important center of Zionist interests in Washington for at least a decade. I very much regret the participation of Arab officials and non-officials and academics in the activities of this institute, because in fact if you look at the output of this institute, it’s directed against the Palestinians, against the Arabs, and against the Muslims in general. Its products describe the Palestinians as terrorists, and in fact its basic function is to spread lies and falsehoods about the Arab world, of course under an academic, scholarly veneer. Basically, this is the most important Zionist propaganda tool in the United States.

Martin Kramer comments on the organization Khalidi attacked, which is directed by Dennis Ross—who is now Barack Obama’s Middle East advisor:

This is the intimidating language of Arab boycott, aimed against an institution with entirely American credentials. The Washington Institute is directed by Ambassador Dennis Ross, who was the chief Middle East peace negotiator in the presidential administrations of George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton. He has always been a model of balance (unlike Khalidi, whose forays into politics have always been to advise Yasir Arafat). The Washington Institute is run by Americans, and accepts funds only from American sources. (Contrast with the donors of Khalidi’s chair, whose precise identities Columbia still refuses to reveal.) …

I note that Khalidi has never made a comparable statement in English, probably for this reason: it would damage his reputation as a bridge-building moderate. To maintain that image, he’s even shared podiums with members of The Washington Institute. But Khalidi in Arabic, on Al-Jazeera, is someone else altogether. There he is the bridge-burner, the zealot who would warn other Arabs away from The Washington Institute because it is “Israeli,” and a “Zionist propaganda tool.” Behold, Arab-style McCarthyism.

(hat tip:Chaz)

Newsweek Reporter Fantasized About ‘Taking Out’ Rudy Giuliani

You’re not going to believe this one. Newsweek reporter Michael Hastings, while covering the presidential campaign, entertained fantasies about “taking out” Rudy Giuliani.

And now he’s talking openly about it, and about his underhanded dealings with the John McCain campaign, as he pretended to be friendly and sympathetic while looking for every negative angle possible.

He doesn’t even seem to be self-conscious about revealing what a dishonest, biased scumbag he is.

HACK: CONFESSIONS OF A PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN REPORTER.

The reality is: I quickly realized Rudy was a maniac. I had a recurring fantasy in which I took him out during a press conference (it was nonlethal, just something that put him out of commission for a year or so), saving America from the horror of a President Giuliani. If that sounds like I had some trouble being “objective,” I did. Objectivity is a fallacy. In campaign reporting more than any other kind of press coverage, reporters aren’t just covering a story, they’re a part of it—influencing outcomes, setting expectations, framing candidates—and despite what they tell themselves, it’s impossible to both be a part of the action and report on it objectively. In some cases, you genuinely like the candidate you’re covering and you root for him, because over the long haul you come to see him as a human being. For a long time, this was John McCain’s ace in the hole with the press, whom he referred to as “my base.” Reporters rode along with him, and he joked with them, and that went a long way toward shaping the tone of their coverage. (Last January a group of reporters asked McCain’s staff to make McCain campaign press T-shirts for them.) And because your success is linked to the candidate’s, you want to be with a winner, because that’s the story that makes the paper or the magazine or gets you on TV.

In my case, it was easy to despise Rudy. I’d spent two years covering the war in Iraq. I had a brother who was currently deployed there as an infantry platoon leader, and I had Iraqi friends who were now living as refugees. To listen to a man so casually invoke violence and warfare—a man who’d never set foot in Iraq or in any war zone—was troubling indeed. I wasn’t alone in the press corps. I don’t think I spoke to another journalist who ever said one good thing about the man. What did we say? We made fun of his divorces and his wives, that he’d married a second cousin, that he surrounded himself with corrupt cronies, that he had a piss-poor relationship with his children, etc. We talked about his megalomania and his cynical exploitation of September 11.

Still, I ate meals with staffers and campaign managers. I tried to say things that would make me appear sympathetic to Rudy while not technically lying. (“Wow, he sure seems popular.” “I was in New York on 9/11, and I have to be honest with you, I was glad Rudy was in charge.”) I tried to stay out of any discussion about issues and to just repeat the mantra to myself: I am here to observe and record, observe and record.

(Hat tip:Nancy)

Did You Know ‘Socialist’ is a Code Word?

Did you know that “socialist” is a code word for “black?” No? Lewis Diuguid, Kansas City Star Editorial Page columnist, sets you straight: Shame on McCain and Palin for using an old code word for black.

McCain and Palin have simply reached back in history to use an old code word for black. It set whites apart from those deemed unAmerican and those who could not be trusted during the communism scare.

Shame on McCain and Palin.

(Hat tip: Killian B.)

WaPo Columnist: John McCain, Far Right Extremist

This is where the mainstream media has been headed ever since the nomination of Barack Obama as the Democratic candidate; E. J. Dionne is the latest journalist to claim that any and all criticism of Obama is by definition racist. But he takes it an extra step, saying that John McCain represents the reemergence of the far right.

Yes, really. John McCain, far right extremist. Wow. Meanwhile, Barack Obama associates with people who scream “God damn America,” and with people who are guilty of bombing the US Capitol, and gets a complete pass.

Are we witnessing the reemergence of the far right as a power in American politics? Has John McCain, inadvertently perhaps, become the midwife of a new movement built around fear, xenophobia, racism and anger?

McCain has clearly become uneasy with some of the forces that have gathered around him. He has begun to insist, against the sometimes loud protests from his crowds, that Barack Obama is, among things, a “decent person.”

Yet McCain’s own campaign is playing with powerful extremist themes to denigrate Obama. When his running mate, Sarah Palin, first brought up Obama’s association with 1960s radical Bill Ayers, who has become a centerpiece of McCain’s attacks, she accused Obama of “palling around with terrorists.” What other “terrorists” was she thinking about?

Since Obama was a child when Ayers was part of the Weather Underground, and since even Republicans have served on boards with Ayers, this is classic guilt by association.

Notice how many mainstream journalists shamelessly parrot Obama’s talking points about William Ayers, word for word.

(Hat tip:Nacy)

Associated Press: A Full Court Press Against Sarah Palin

They’re relentless.

The latest Associated Press masterpiece of journalistic malpractice: a headline that goes right to the edge of saying Sarah Palin called Barack Obama a terrorist (which she did not): Palin defends terrorist comment against Obama.

They’re parroting Obama campaign propaganda, word for word, and doing eveything they can to minimize William Ayers’ terrorist acts.

But while Ayers and Obama are acquainted, the charge that they “pal around” is a stretch of any reading of the public record. And it’s simply wrong to suggest that they were associated while Ayers was committing terrorist acts. Obama was 8 years old at the time the Weather Underground claimed credit for numerous bombings and was blamed for a pipe bomb that killed a San Francisco policeman.

Can you spot the world’s biggest straw man in that highlighted sentence?

(Hat tip:Chas)

Associated Press Hits Bottom, Digs

The Associated Press article on Sarah Palin’s comments about William Ayers is a Category 7 jaw-dropper. Apparently, now even criticizing Obama’s associations with white violent radicals is racist: Analysis: Palin’s words carry racial tinge.

Palin’s words avoid repulsing voters with overt racism. But is there another subtext for creating the false image of a black presidential nominee “palling around” with terrorists while assuring a predominantly white audience that he doesn’t see their America?

Her reference to Obama’s relationship with William Ayers, a member of the Vietnam-era Weather Underground, was exaggerated at best if not outright false. No evidence shows they were “pals” or even close when they worked on community boards years ago and Ayers hosted a political event for Obama early in his career.

Obama, who was a child when the Weathermen were planting bombs, has denounced Ayers’ radical views and actions. …

In a post-Sept. 11 America, terrorists are envisioned as dark-skinned radical Muslims, not the homegrown anarchists of Ayers’ day 40 years ago. With Obama a relative unknown when he began his campaign, the Internet hummed with false e-mails about ties to radical Islam of a foreign-born candidate.

Whether intended or not by the McCain campaign, portraying Obama as “not like us” is another potential appeal to racism. It suggests that the Hawaiian-born Christian is, at heart, un-American.

This really is the election in which the mainstream media have thrown all their claims to impartiality right into the sewer. It’s sickening to see.

(Hat tip:Chas)

Ifill Didn’t Tell Debate Commission About Book, But It Doesn’t Matter

d Morrissey is continuing to follow the outrageous story of Gwen Ifill, the insanely biased debate moderator: Ifill: I never told the Commission about the book.

But at this point, it simply doesn’t matter how much evidence of bias you can dig up, because John McCain said he was sure Ifill would be fair and objective. He signed off on her, when he could have objected. This battle is over.

(Hat tip:Nancy)

IPT: Washington Post Puts Target on Prosecutor’s Back

The Washington Post, once again, is on the wrong side of the battle to expose jihadis in the United States: Washington Post Reporter Puts Target on Prosecutor’s Back.

Many have chronicled the odd relationship between the Western media and the forces of radical Islam, perhaps the starkest incident being the refusal of almost the entire mainstream media to publish the Danish cartoons depicting the prophet Mohammed, even as a wake of destruction and series of violent threats were unleashed by religiously motivated mobs as a result.

While fear of threats and reprisals were clearly a motivating factor in that case, there are other instances where the motivation is slightly harder to divine. A recent case in point is Washington Post reporter Jerry Markon. In an article titled “Relentless Terrorism Prosecutor Faces Accusations of His Own,” Markon has carelessly bought in to an Islamist propaganda campaign against one of America’s finest and bravest prosecutors, Assistant U.S. Attorney Gordon Kromberg of the Eastern District of Virginia.

Markon trots out the complaints of a convicted terrorist operative and a coterie of his defense lawyers that Kromberg’s actions are somehow driven by religious bias rather than a desire – and a duty – to hold criminals accountable for their actions. The result of Markon’s “reporting” is to put a target on Kromberg’s back and to scare off government lawyers from taking similar cases targeting criminal radical Islamists – lest reporters from major newspapers accuse them of religious bigotry and stymie future career prospects or higher government appointments.

Success breeds contempt, and Kromberg’s track record, which includes not just locking up Islamic terrorists, but other major criminals like FBI spy Robert Hanssen and United Way CEO William Aramony, speaks for itself. But let’s look at Markon’s vacuous treatment of one of the terrorism prosecutions:

“Kromberg’s highest-profile case since joining the office’s new terrorism unit after Sept. 11 was what prosecutors called the ‘Virginia jihad network,’ 11 Muslim men convicted on such charges as preparing for holy war by, among other things, playing paintball. Justice officials hailed it as a classic post-Sept. 11 case of prevention, but civil libertarians and some Muslims said it targeted Muslim men.”

Markon’s fixation on the paintball aspect is nothing more than an attempt to belittle the significance of what happened. Of the 11 defendants, six pled guilty and three were found guilty of terrorist related charges. Most had, in addition to, yes, training in Northern Virginia with paintball guns, also trained at Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) camps in Pakistan for the purpose of joining the Taliban to fight against U.S. forces in Afghanistan. LeT was designated by the U.S. government as a terrorist group in 2001 after its violent takeover of the Indian parliament.

Read the whole thing…

(Hat tip:Hat tip Nancy@LGF)

Olbermann: The Worst Person on Television

Have you watched Keith Olbermann’s show for MSNBC lately? Last night I checked it out for the first time in a long time, and was actually amazed at how nasty it has become. (I thought Olbermann had reached the nadir of nastiness long ago, but I was wrong.) What kind of person enjoys this sort of ugly ranting and dishonest distortion?

Noel Sheppard points out that the ugliness is coming straight from … where else? Olbermann Uses False Information From Daily Kos To Smear Palin.

(Hat tip:Chucky@LGF)

Video: George Galloway on Iranian TV

Here’s George Galloway, creepier than ever, arguing with David Henshaw, producer of Channel 4’s Undercover Mosque, on Iran’s English-language propaganda channel Press TV. Galloway ends up calling Henshaw a “hooligan.”

(Hat tip:Nancy)

Saudi Clerics Issuing Death Fatwas for TV Producers

Saudi clerics are raging and seething about the Turkish soap operas (dubbed into Arabic) that are becoming very popular in the religious apartheid kingdom, and calling for people to be killed.

“If they continue airing depravity and shamelessness they should be banished from this place and others brought in their place,” senior Saudi cleric Sheikh Saleh al-Fozan said in comments published Sunday, referring to TV executives.

He suggested purveyors of horoscopes and “sorcery” should face the death penalty, and head of the Islamic sharia courts Sheikh Saleh al-Lohaidan said last week channel owners should be tried and face possible death for “indecency and vulgarity.”

Arab TV producers aren’t laughing.

They’re not laughing because they know these aren’t idle threats. But there’s an interesting note of hope in this story:

One TV official who did not want to be named said religious conservatives could not push back the tide in Arab entertainment television, which already pays attention to social and religious mores. “You can’t put the consumer back in the box,” he said.

Statistics compiled for MBC indicate that one episode of Turkish soap “Noor” reached an audience of 85 million, half of whom were women, in early August. There are around 300 million Arabic-speakers throughout the Middle East and North Africa.

Long live the idiot box!

(Hat tip:Nancy@LGF)

The Atlantic’s McCain Cover

Gerard Vanderleun posts about some quite amazing perfidy from The Atlantic and photographer Jill Greenberg, whose photo shoot with John McCain was deliberately set up to produce ominous, threatening pictures—by using outright trickery: Out-Takes: Behind The Atlantic’s McCain Cover.

At Photo District News, there’s an article with more details, and Greenberg’s own words about this disgraceful episode: PDNPulse: How Jill Greenberg Really Feels About John McCain.

When The Atlantic called Jill Greenberg, a committed Democrat, to shoot a portrait of John McCain for its October cover, she rubbed her hands with glee.

She delivered the image the magazine asked for—a shot that makes the Republican presidential nominee look heroic. Greenberg is well known for her highly retouched images of bears and crying babies. But she didn’t bother to do much retouching on her McCain images. “I left his eyes red and his skin looking bad,” she says.

After getting that shot, Greenberg asked McCain to “please come over here” for one more set-up before the 15-minute shoot was over. There, she had a beauty dish with a modeling light set up. “That’s what he thought he was being lit by,” Greenberg says. “But that wasn’t firing.”

What was firing was a strobe positioned below him, which cast the horror movie shadows across his face and on the wall right behind him. “He had no idea he was being lit from below,” Greenberg says. And his handlers didn’t seem to notice it either. “I guess they’re not very sophisticated,” she adds.

(Hat tip:Charlie Manson the LGF Cult leader)

ABC News Hid Important Parts of Palin Interview

It won’t come as a surprise to LGF readers, but Charlie Gibson’s interview with Sarah Palin was heavily edited by ABC News to make Palin appear more hawkish and less knowledgeable. Mark Levin has the complete transcript, and what ABC News tried to pull here is a textbook example of media malfeasance: Gibson Interview.

Also see: ABC News Edited Out Key Parts of Sarah Palin Interview.

The interview was so egregiously biased, even UPI is calling out ABC News for their blatant double standards: ABC’s Gibson grilled Palin hard, but it may backfire.

The double-standard Gibson applied to Palin, compared with the uncritical media platforms repeatedly offered to Obama, who has had zero executive experience running anything, was especially striking. ABC and Gibson focused on Palin as if she were running right now for the presidency rather than the vice presidency. He and other media pundits, by contrast, have never asked the Democratic vice presidential nominee, Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware, if he has ever had to make a decision on anything.

Gibson’s aggressive approach appeared to take Palin by surprise: He was clearly attempting to put her on point by presenting her as having extreme religious views. This again, however, appears to be a double-standard, as Palin grew up in the Assemblies of God, one of the largest Christian denominations in America with 16 million members, and is now a member of the Wasilla Bible Church. Even now, Obama has yet to receive any comparable grilling on his 20-year attendance in the congregation of the notoriously racist Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

(Hat tip:Carlie Manson the LGF Cult Leader)

Krauthammer: Charlie Gibson’s Gaffe

Charles agrees with me that Charlie doesn’t know the real meaning of the “Bush Doctrine.” And Charles should know; he coined the term: Charlie Gibson’s Gaffe.

The New York Times got it wrong. And Charlie Gibson got it wrong.

There is no single meaning of the Bush doctrine. In fact, there have been four distinct meanings, each one succeeding another over the eight years of this administration — and the one Charlie Gibson cited is not the one in common usage today. It is utterly different.

He asked Palin, “Do you agree with the Bush doctrine?” She responded, quite sensibly to a question that is ambiguous, “In what respect, Charlie?”

Sensing his “gotcha” moment, Gibson refused to tell her. After making her fish for the answer, Gibson grudgingly explained to the moose-hunting rube that the Bush doctrine “is that we have the right of anticipatory self-defense.”

Wrong.

I know something about the subject because, as the Wikipedia entry on the Bush doctrine notes, I was the first to use the term. In the cover essay of the June 4, 2001, issue of the Weekly Standard entitled, “The Bush Doctrine: ABM, Kyoto, and the New American Unilateralism,” I suggested that the Bush administration policies of unilaterally withdrawing from the ABM treaty and rejecting the Kyoto protocol, together with others, amounted to a radical change in foreign policy that should be called the Bush doctrine.

Then came 9/11, and that notion was immediately superseded by the advent of the war on terror. In his address to the joint session of Congress nine days after 9/11, President Bush declared: “Either you are with us or you are with the terrorists. From this day forward any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime.” This “with us or against us” policy regarding terror — first deployed against Pakistan when Secretary of State Colin Powell gave President Musharraf that seven-point ultimatum to end support for the Taliban and support our attack on Afghanistan — became the essence of the Bush doctrine.

Until Iraq. A year later, when the Iraq war was looming, Bush offered his major justification by enunciating a doctrine of preemptive war. This is the one Charlie Gibson thinks is the Bush doctrine.

It’s not.

Read the whole thing…

(Hat tip:Charlie Manson of the LGF Cult)