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AT OUR NEW ANGEL'S CORNER:  READERS BLOG ABOUT THAT LIGHT-BULB LAW (YOU WILL BUY WHAT THEY WANT YOU TO BUY); RICK PERRY; THE DECLINE OF JOURNALISM; OUR DWINDLING DEFENSE; AND THE PRESIDENT.

I'D LIKE TO HEAR FROM READERS IN REGARD TO THE FOLLOWING:

1.  HOW DO YOU LIKE OUR NEW FEATURE, "SHORT TAKES ON THE PASSING WRECKAGE"? 

2.  RIGHT NOW WE'RE POSTING IN THE MORNING AND EVENING.  WOULD YOU LIKE MORE SHORT POSTS DURING THE DAY, ESPECIALLY THE AFTERNOON?  WOULD YOU VISIT US MORE OFTEN IF THIS WERE OFFERED?

THANKS.  READER OPINION MEANS A GREAT DEAL TO US.

JULY 17,  2011

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE:

WHATEVER HAPPENED TO HILLARY?  – The secretary of state is on a world tour, but does anyone care?  Even her fans in the press don't seem to notice.  Hillary Clinton seems to be fading away as a major factor in this administration.  Maybe she's serious when she says she wants to leave public life.  We see no sign of any real influence that she might have over American policy.  My guess is that Obama will be glad to see her gone, as she constantly polls more strongly than he does.

THE SARAH WATCH – Just as political watchers are anticipating Rick Perry's entry into the presidential race, they wonder about Sarah Palin.  It is hard to imagine Sarah jumping in if Perry gets in.  They occupy the same space ideologically, and I'd imagine that Perry would come off as the stronger candidate.  In that case, Sarah might be wise to live to fight another day, and perhaps seek another office, like U.S. senator, or work her way into a cabinet appointment in a Republican administration.  She's young.  She has many presidential races ahead of her.  For the 2028 election, she'll only be 64. 

PROGRESS? – A major producer's organization in Hollywood has passed a resolution condemning ideological bias in the film industry, meaning bias against conservatives.  That sounds good, in the same way that the Soviet constitution sounded good.  We'll see if it has any impact.  Ben Shapiro, the conservative writer who's written about the blacklisting of conservatives in Hollywood in his new book, "Primetime Propaganda: The True Hollywood Story of How The Left Took Over Your TV," has brought the issue to the fore.  Someday I'll write about my own encounter with left-wing political correctness in Hollywood.  It is not a joke.  It is modern-day McCarthyism of the worst sort.

July 17, 2011       Permalink

JAPAN WINS – AT 5:45 P.M. ET:  Japan has won the women's world soccer cup, in a photo-finish victory against the U.S. on penalty kicks.  The match was held in Germany.  Hmm, Japan beating the U.S. in Germany?  Kind of gives me the creeps. 

I'm not a soccer fan and rarely watch.  I watched this time because of all the hoopla over the world cup.  If the U.S. had won, it would have been the only women's team ever to win the world cup three times.  But it was not to be.

Both teams are to be praised for hard playing and good sportsmanship.  What is not to be praised is the appalling quality of the sportscasting.  The sportscasters were knowledgeable enough, and gave a good play-by-play.  But the basics of sports journalism were simply ignored.  Americans are not huge soccer fans, except perhaps at the school level, and most don't know the rules of the game.  I want those rules explained to me.  I want to know what referee calls mean.  I want to know how the penalty-kick system works.  And, most of all, I'd appreciate ESPN getting a good on-screen game clock that actually tells me something, not simply one that gives a minutes-elapsed reading.  How many minutes remain?  Exactly.  One sportscaster, incredibly, was actually reduced to saying "About seven and a half minutes to go."  About?  ABOUT?  In a world championship match?

I grew up on Red Barber and Mel Allen.  We're skating fans and we were "taught" by Dick Button and Peggy Fleming.  Okay, I'm a bit spoiled.

But, as in news journalism, basics count.  ESPN has work to do. 

July 17, 2011       Permalink

MORE HYPOCRISY – AT 11:45 A.M. ET:  One thing about ABC's Jake Tapper – he's a straight shooter.  He gives you the news, in the old tradition.  So Tapper now points out some of Obama's recent gaffes, a notation not found in most of the rarefied precincts of mainstream journalism.  Can you just imagine what the press response would be if George W. Bush or Sarah Palin committed any of these?  Can you just imagine?

Obama's Senior Moment: 'I'll be turning 50 in a week.'

Actually…he’ll be turning 50 in three weeks. His birthday is August 4, two days after the debt ceiling deadline. Senior moment?

He messed up Malia’s birthday, too, calling her 13 when she was at the time 12 and still days away from becoming a teenager.

In fact, this just scratches the surface.  I would suggest that Obama is the most gaffe-prone major politician we've had in years, but few if any news outlets make a point of his blunders.  He once said America had 57 states, maybe confusing it with Heinz foods; he said that Austrians speak Austrian, when they speak German; he told us that Joe Biden is called "the sheriff" in the White House, when no one else could recall any such label; he informed us this week that 80% of Americans favor higher taxes, an absurdity; he got the story of the creation of Israel almost completely wrong in a speech in Cairo; he told us, with a straight face, that he sat in a church pew in a particular church for 20 years, but didn't know the anti-American beliefs of the pastor; and his comments about the energy-saving virtues of certain steps like tire inflation were wildly overstated.

And that's only the start.

Barack Obama is one of the great fiction writers of our time, a true novelist who hasn't yet found his calling.  But let Sarah, George or Michele misinterpret one historical fact and the press screams "ignorant," "unqualified," and worse.

But Republicans must understand that this is the way it is, and work around the media.  You have to have a strategy in dealing with press bias, not merely a gripe.

July 17, 2011        Permalink

AN ARREST IN BRITAIN – AT 10:46 A.M. ET:  A key figure in the News Corporation "phone hacking" scandal has been arrested.  From WaPo:

LONDON— Rebekah Brooks, a top executive in Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. media empire before resigning Friday in the wake of a phone hacking scandal, was arrested Sunday by Scotland Yard in a broadening probe into illicit newsgathering.

Police confirmed a 43-year- old woman was taken into custody Sunday on charges of conspiring to intercept communications and on corruption allegations, a reference to bribes made to police officers for news tips. David Wilson, Brooks’ spokesman, confirmed the woman as Brooks, making her the highest-ranking News Corp official yet to be arrested in the case.

COMMENT:  The hypocrisy and phoniness in the press continue.  Yes, this is a serious matter, and, if Brooks is guilty, she must pay the price.  But note two things:  There is a constant reference to "Rupert Murdoch's" News Corporation, but with no balancing statement that not a single piece of evidence has been put forward showing that Murdoch knew anything about the phone hacking charges.  He's a smart guy.  I doubt very much if he'd go along with anything so loopy as hacking into the phones of news sources. 

Second, note the refusal of the press and broadcasting outlets, in reporting this story about journalistic ethics, to practice any on their own.  We need statements informing readers that News Corporation publishes newspapers, and runs broadcast networks, that are direct competitors of those covering the scandal, and that these competitors have a great deal to gain from the News Corporation's decline.  It is imperative, for example, that CNN run the following when reporting the story:  "News Corporation owns Fox News, our strongest competitor.  Viewers have a right to know that CNN stands to gain financially if Fox News is damaged and loses viewership or advertising."  I've seen no ethically required statement at all.

Jennifer Rubin, at Contentions, sums it up:

...while it is also understandable some in the media would get up on their hind legs and huff and puff about how awful this scandal is, the fact that the alleged hacking really is terrible stuff is no excuse for some of the hypocritical criticism doled out by those who don’t work for Murdoch.

One comical example was a piece published in the Washington Post on Friday by, of all people, pornographer Larry Flynt. The idea the publisher of Hustler could teach anyone a lesson about the ethics of journalism is so bizarre you might have thought it was a parody.

Far worse was Joe Nocera’s anti-Murdoch rant in the New York Times on Saturday. Nocera’s interest was in bashing the Wall Street Journal and claiming that Murdoch had destroyed a once-great paper, not commenting about the scandal. The Journal had no role in the hacking, and despite Nocera’s carping, the changes Murdoch wrought at the Journal have been widely praised for bringing new energy and improved features to a paper directly competing with the Times in a way that it has never done before.

Well said. 

A major British pol, Ed Miliband, is calling for a breakup of News Corporation.  Ed Miliband is a leftist.  News Corp is conservative.  You don't think politics is playing a role, do you?

July 17, 2011       Permalink

A VERY PERRY SUNDAY – AT 10:20 A.M. ET:  Governor Rick Perry of Texas is giving every indication that he'll soon jump into the GOP presidential race.  As governor of Texas, the nation's second most populous state, and the nation's longest serving governor, he becomes an instant heavyweight.  From The Politico:

In one of the hardest indications yet that he's a likely candidate, Rick Perry gave an interview to the politically important Des Moines Register last week, in which he said he is beginning to feel a "call" to run for president:

“I’m not ready to tell you that I’m ready to announce that I’m in,” Gov. Rick Perry told The Des Moines Register. “But I’m getting more and more comfortable every day that this is what I’ve been called to do. This is what America needs.”

Another big-name potential Republican presidential candidate who is still on the sidelines, Sarah Palin, told Fox News in May that she has “that fire in the belly” to run. It remains a question whether Perry does.

“I’ll be real honest with you, I don’t wake up in the morning – never did and still don’t today – and say, ‘Gee, I want to be president of the United States,’ ” Perry, 51, said by phone last week.

But his wife, Anita, and hundreds of people nationwide say they want him to run, he said. He said he would likely decide in two or three weeks.

Looks like the guy is in.  I mean, when they start talking about feeling a call, you can expect the announcement soon.  After all, what is going to say a couple of weeks down the line, "Uh, they stopped calling"?  Have you ever heard of anyone, in all history, who's said he's heard the call, but that it went away?

Reader Chris Corbett, at the new edition of our Angel's Corner, muses about a Perry-Rubio ticket, the Rubio being terrific Senator Marco Rubio of Florida.  That is a winning combination.

I've also heard buzz about a Perry-Bachmann ticket.  Well, maybe, but I don't think so.  No matter how you feel about Michele Bachman – and she can be magnetic – the Sarah Palin experience will weigh heavily.  Bachmann has a history as a loose cannon, which is exactly what a presidential candidate doesn't want in a running mate.  Of course, if she proves herself a spectacular competitor in the presidential race, and demonstrates fierce discipline, that factor can fall away.

July 17, 2011     Permalink

JULY 16,  2011

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE:

OBAMA AT HALF GALLUP – President Obama is down to 42% approval in the lastest Gallup Poll.  The number may actually be lower, as Gallup polled "adults."  Polls taken of registered voters, and especially likely voters, tend to be more Republican.  It should be noted that other surveys, including Rasmussen, place the president's approval higher, from the mid- to high forties.

GETTING REAL – Washington, D.C., whose schools have among the highest per-pupil expenditures in the nation, and some of the worst results, is laying off 413 teachers and staff members for failing to meet expectations.  We don't like to see anyone lose their job, but it's about time the District started taking action to remove a national embarrassment.  Of course, there are some people on Capitol Hill who also should be laid off for failing to meet expectations.

NEW LIGHT FOR SYRIA – Syria's opposition has formed a National Salvation Council to unify the challenge to Bashar al-Assad's iron rule.  This comes a day after at least 32 Syrians were killed in clashes with government forces, including 23 in Damascus, the country's capital.  The Syrian revolt, now several months old, is growing by the week.  Thus far the U.S. has limited itself to angry statements, but Assad shows no sign of budging.  In fact, Obama can't get anyone to budge, including the Republicans.

July 16, 2011       Permalink

THE HYPOCRISY, THE POSTURING – AT 10:41 A.M. ET:  Who will sacrifice if the U.S. can't pay its bills?  Why, we have one volunteer – Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, the man married to the Heinz ketchup lady.  We're sure Kerry can come up with 57 varieties of sacrifice, but here's one, reported by the Boston Herald:

The bitter high-stakes debate over raising the nation’s debt ceiling escalated into Capitol Hill class warfare yesterday as Bay State lawmakers battled over who would place their salaries on the line if there’s no deal next month.

U.S. Sen. John F. Kerry said he’d go without a paycheck if congressional leaders and President Obama fail to reach a deal to raise the debt ceiling by Aug. 2.

But U.S. Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-South Boston) steadfastly said he needs his pay, arguing he doesn’t have a “trust fund” to fall back on.

“Would I work for free? No, I wouldn’t work for free. There are a lot of members of Congress who are millionaires and are very, very wealthy. Maybe they can,” said Lynch, who was raised in the housing projects of South Boston and was an ironworker for 18 years. “I don’t have a trust fund that I can lean on. I know a lot of members do.”

Kerry, who has been named the wealthiest member of Congress 13 times by Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call, said he’s willing to give up his own pay. Reports placed the Democrat’s estimated wealth at $188 million last year.

COMMENT:  Three cheers for Stephen Lynch.  It's good to see some working stiffs in Congress.  Maybe they can show the Kerry crowd how the other half lives. 

July 16, 2011       Permalink

AND MORE FANATICS – AT 10:18 A.M. ET:  This has been suspected for some time.  From Fox:

MINNEAPOLIS -- A group of Minneapolis-area Somalis, including some who traveled to their homeland to allegedly take up arms against the Ethiopian army, held secret meetings in 2007 to plan the trips, created fake itineraries to fool family members and challenged one another about their commitment, prosecutors contend in a court filing.

The document was filed this week in advance of a trial for one man accused of being part of the conspiracy.

It sheds new light on how the recruiting operation worked in Minneapolis and how some of the men arrived at safehouses in Somalia, where they received AK-47s and weapons training.

Since the fall of 2007, at least 21 men have left Minnesota for Somalia, where authorities believe they joined the terror group al-Shabab. Eighteen people have been charged in Minnesota in connection with the case, including Omer Abdi Mohamed, who goes on trial next week on terror-related charges.

COMMENT:  What strikes us is the skill used in recruiting young men from the United States, making them deceive their own families, and sending them overseas, probably to their deaths.  It is almost ten years since 9/11, and we're starting to forget the power of terrorist ideology.  I'm afraid we'll be awakened.

July 16, 2011       Permalink

FANATICS – AT 10:01 A.M. ET:  One of the most common questions asked by pollsters is the right track/wrong track question.  You've seen it:  "Do you think the country is on the right track or wrong track?"  Some polling experts suggest that the answer to this question can predict trends in presidential elections.

Scott Rasmussen asks the question regularly.  But even more intriguing than the overall result is the breakdown of which groups are in each camp.  Consider:

For the second week in a row, 25% of Likely U.S. Voters now say the country is heading in the right direction, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey taken the week ending Sunday, July 10...

...Sixty-eight percent (68%) of voters say the country is heading down the wrong track, showing no change from last week. Since January 2009, pessimism in the nation’s current direction has ranged from 57% to 72%.
Most Republicans (89%) and voters not affiliated with either political party (70%) believe the country is heading down the wrong track. Democrats are evenly divided.

Whaa?  Democrats are evenly divided, in the face of overwheming evidence that we're going over a cliff?  I can understand a dramatic contrast between Republican and Democratic opinion, but how does one account for the contrast between independent and Democratic views?  Well, look at this:

Fifty-eight percent (58%) of black voters think the country is heading in the right direction, a view shared by just 20% of whites and 27% of voters of other ethnicities.

Obviously, that is fanatical loyalty to Obama.  It helps explain why Obama's poll ratings never dip below a given point.  There is a base that would follow him to Hades.

A majority (59%) of the Political Class believes the country is heading in the right direction. Seventy-nine percent (79%) of Mainstream voters disagree.

Can you believe that one?  The political class is heavily to the left, and, once again, it demonstrates its loyalty to Chairman Barack.  Why, how can the chairman go wrong?

Time for the voters to show the political class who's boss.

July 16, 2011     Permalink