Outsourcing The Lies

If you've wondered exactly who the vast proportion of Americans are who think the Bush Administration and its policies are abject failures, you might investigate the source of the news. John Rosenthal at TechCentralStation.com has a startling examination of the AP-Ipsos polls of recent days.

So, maybe Americans are not turning French, after all. Maybe the anomalous AP-Ipsos results have to do rather with the firm that is doing the polling...What exactly is Ipsos? AP press releases identify Ipsos coyly as an "international polling firm"...as well as "non-partisan" and "objective". One would hardly expect them to say otherwise. But here is what neither AP nor Ipsos want Americans to know and assiduously avoid saying: Ipsos is a French polling firm...But AP and Ipsos undoubtedly fear that to many Americans..., in light of the current climate of Franco-American relations, it might at least raise some doubts about Ipsos's impartiality and objectivity...And what is worse: about this particular French polling firm, these doubts would be highly justified. On its home market, Ipsos is well known precisely for the unreliability of its polls and for being especially tight with the French political establishment....

I guess that if you can't get people to believe your "fake but accurate" news, do what everybody else is doing with productive activity, outsource it. The discovery that a poll is likely to be biased is not new or unique, of course. The careful manipulation of focus groups -- questions shaped for expected answers, etc., etc., -- is old stuff in advertising. But when such tactics becomes a basis for "objective" debasing of an Administration and American foreign policy, we're past marketing and into subversive propaganda. Select here for the rest of Rosenthal's article.

Luther

Who's Really "Liberal"?

Wretchard has an interesting post on today's Belmont Club regarding the care and use of labels. You should read the whole thing. But if you don't have the time, we'll leave you with this summary excerpt:

One of the most important functions of labels is to summarize a large quantity of information in a single symbol. Because people don't have the time to comprehensively analyze the specific attributes of a product they often rely on labels or simply branding information to serve as a proxy indicator of the properties they wish to measure. Labels perform a similar function in politics.
The term "soft power" sounds like it might be better than "hard power". Countries which don't sign up to the Kyoto climate agreement are presumably rogue states intent on polluting the planet. Greedy, money-grubbing capitalist countries are presumably less environmentally friendly than gentle Socialist countries.

People buy on the basis of labels; people vote on the basis of labels, and sometimes they are misled. The power of labels creates an opportunity for hucksters to substitute fiction for reality, as anyone who has ever bought a Rolex made in Pakistan knows. For years the United Nations presented itself as a saintly organization bent on saving the whales when it wasn't preserving world peace. Reality fell somewhat short of this ideal, and the process of disillusionment is always painful to watch. In a way, even those who didn't believe in the fake labels can feel a sense of loss at watching the hope, and then the belief fade from the faces of those who have been suckered. The truth will set you free; but first it will make you miserable.

Just returned from wandering through Mammoth Cave in Kentucky (which is surely a metaphor for something) over Thanksgiving Week, Wonker is pleased that folks like Wretchard are finally starting to grapple with the real problem that intellectuals on the right face on a regular basis. The hard left has systematically controlled the "labeling" of social, political, and artistic terminology for well over a half-century. This has, slowly and subtly, contributed alarmingly to the weakening of our energetic and optimistic American culture, pushing it toward the failed European amalgam of economic determinism, nihilism, fatalism, and elitist corruption disguised as progressivism.

A classic example of this "relabeling" is what has become one of today's most contentious terms, "liberal." Wonker would contend, with considerable justification, that today's "liberals" are more like yesterday's "conservatives." Stuck in a time warp, America's left (which always identifies itself as "liberal" to obscure their connection with discredited Marxist beliefs) have successfully wrapped themselves in the positive mantle of "liberalism," while behaving precisely like the elitists and intellectual fascists that they like to imagine exclusively inhabit the right. There is, in fact, nothing whatsoever "liberal" about denigrating religion, pushing sex education into lower and lower grades in public schools, glorying in abortion, dissing our troops in Iraq (while proclaiming "patriotism"), blacklisting Republican-oriented professors in college tenure situations, etc. We could go on, but you get the picture.

Wonker would propose that the "conservative right"—consider taking the "liberal" label back. Why not. "Conservatives" believe in freedom of religion, the sanctity of the family and of life, the rightness of democracy, the success of Americanism, and the freedom of intellectual expression. Why then have "conservatives" been stuck with this stodgy label? Something to ponder as we head for the Christmas season. Er, the "Holiday Season," yet another relabeling effort, courtesy of the anti-democratic left, meant to exterminate our country's acceptance of its Judaeo-Christian roots. Words and labels do matter. We need to take them back.

Streisand's Favorite Ambulance Chaser

"Everybody needs a lawyer," the old US Attorney General said, as he took on Saddam Hussein as a client last week. Given the well-documented slaughters of the Hussein regime, of which the 140 victims he's now on trial for killing are but a miniscule portion of one percent, the dictator's new lawyer, Ramsey Clark, is giving new meaning to the phrase ambulance chaser. He's a perfect fit for the job. His decades-long, pathological pursuit of American crimes and misdemeanors, a hallmark of today's boutique Left, to whom any psychopath who hates America is a preferred client, mixed with the professional demeanor of a torts lawyer, yields an old fool foaming at the mouth as he rushes to Saddam's side crying victim! victim!. If you'd like to read more about this sorry bastard, see today's Washington Times. Former Secretary of State Kissinger and former National Security Advisory Zbigniew Brzezinski offered institutional rationalizations, but nobody should be fooled. People in institutions will say anything to get attention.

Luther

Don't Get Cocky, Kid

In the flush of victory after victory, bloggers ought to pay attention to an ancient history. Dramatic episodes of free exchange and freedom are often followed by equally dramatic episodes of repression. Fifth century Athens was such an explosion. Once the enemies of freedom knocked them down, Athens never recovered its position as a center of enlightened thought and action. Glen Reynolds, the author of An Army of Davids: How Markets and Technology Empower Ordinary People to Beat Big Media, Big Government, and Other Goliaths, is clear-eyed about this.

I've been writing about Internet free speech for a long time in Internet years. I've written about the new communications media's effect on old media, the challenge it poses to dictators, and its effect on U.S. elections. But the truest thing I've ever written on the subject was this: You want to keep this media revolution going? Be ready to fight for it...That's been brought home by events both abroad, and in the United States...Abroad, we've seen the World Summit on the Information Society, held in Tunisia....

Bloggers and lovers of freedom should study this piece by Reynolds and do some serious thinking about the future of the Blogosphere. Whether Senators McCain and Clinton, the UN, or big commercial interests, opponents of individual, independent reporting and opinion are varied, numerous, and powerful. Franklin's admonition bears repeating in a slightly different context: "We have a republic; now let's see if we can keep it."

Luther

When In Doubt About Your Stupidity, Resign

Some strain of common sense must have occurred to John Daly, a faculty member at Warren County Community College who had advocated for American soldiers to kill their senior officers in Iraq. He left town.

To reassure yourself, check the source. It is possible, one imagines, that a motivation for Daly's departure was that he found out that his students regarded him as a superior officer.

;-)

Luther

Why Mince Words?

This requires little comment. While the big talking heads excuse or ignore a former President's abusive war of words against American foreign policy in Iraq, David Horowitz has no such qualms.

Just read it for yourself.

Luther

Green Poverty

When you invest in the study of real science instead of politically manipulated scientists, an appalling possibility emerges, that the killing poverty that affects a third of the world's population, not to mention the death of millions by malaria, are a new political holocaust, one emerging directly from political (as opposed to scientific) environmentalism.

Dr. Roy Spencer has been writing about this for some time.

The Ambassador to the U.S. from Uganda, Edith Ssempala, spoke forcefully and passionately about the negative influence that western policies have had on her people. Due to the unintended negative consequences of policies that the wealthier countries of the world have adopted, Africans continue to die by the millions each year...But the policies the Ambassador was criticizing had nothing to do to with global warming...What is killing Africans in greatest numbers is poverty, and international trade policies that prevent Africans from protecting themselves from diseases that are easily preventable. The Ambassador mentioned pressure from environmentalists in wealthy nations that has prevented the construction of hydroelectric dams in Africa, denying electricity to millions of people. Two billion of the Earth's inhabitants still do not have access to electricity...The Ugandan Ambassador was particularly critical of westerners that have a romantic view of how Africans should live, as if the simpler life is a preferable one. How many people in the industrialized world with this view would be willing to trade places?

If you're swayed by news reports (see below on the quality of much contemporary "news"), you owe it yourself to read the rest of Dr. Spencer's article. Things are not so simple. Wealth creates health is not a cliche, but a truism. And restrained by the success of primarily Western, political environmentalists, local entrepreneurs, doctors, and agricultural scientists who might bring that lesson home in Africa are left holding empty cups and coffin handles.

Luther

Market Is Suggestive

The quarterly City Journal is probably not on George Clooney's reading list, but it would be interesting to eavesdrop on a conversation at his house about Brian C. Anderson's Conservatives in Hollywood? piece in the Autumn 2005 issue.

In a time of declining moviegoing, what gets people out to the theaters, it turns out, are conservative movies—conservative not so much politically but culturally and morally, focusing on the battle between good and evil, the worth of heroism and self-sacrifice, the indispensability of family values and martial honor, and the existence of Truth...When Hollywood does put its liberal worldview aside to make movies that embody traditional values, it often scores big with the public. Consider 2004’s Spider-Man 2... so eye-catching that you might miss the story’s old-fashioned moral truths. The movie is a fable about duty and heroism...Pixar Studio’s dazzling animated superhero film The Incredibles (2004) is another box-office winner—domestic gross $261 million—with a surprisingly right-of-center worldview...The defense of excellence—and frustration with the politically correct war against it—is a central theme of The Incredibles, as in a scene when Helen chides Bob for not attending their son Dash’s “graduation” from fourth grade. “It’s psychotic,” Bob thunders. “They keep creating new ways to celebrate mediocrity..." Robert Zemeckis’s Cast Away (2000) is an updated Robinson Crusoe, starring Tom Hanks as Chuck Noland, a Federal Express troubleshooter marooned for years on a desert island. The movie makes us keenly aware of the benefits—the immense human achievement—of an advanced capitalist society. (Untypical for Hollywood, Cast Away depicts a big corporation as a caring and effective organization...Martial virtues, long jeered at by liberal Hollywood, have enjoyed a big-screen comeback over the last half-decade or so. Peter Jackson’s sweeping adaptation of J. R. R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy (2001–2003) teaches us about the need for free men and women to stand up with military force to totalitarian evil—and about the potential of power to corrupt even the most decent from within....

That's good evidence for the often unspoken complaint of the Hollywood Left, that people, left to their own devices, without the advantage, say, of an Ivy League education, have a strange respect for family, nation, and freedom. Worse, given a free market choice in what to see, those kind of people show a marked preference for movies that celebrate those values. No wonder the Hollywood Left loved the old Moscow film center! A director, such as Tarkovsky, relaxing with state subsidies, and basking in the unavailability of competition, could make a longwinded, pretentious mess like Solaris without fear of being shut down by a management, or a theater-going public, averse to such unprofitable self-indulgence. Perhaps when George Clooney made his remake of Solaris a couple of years ago (using a translation of Tarkovsky's script as his primary source), he was under the impression that he was working in the USSR! One could easily get that impression in Hollywood, save for articles like Brian C. Anderson's, which suggest that the Left Coast's Iron Curtain may not extend beyond Barbara Streisand's front yard.

Luther

A Mammoth Vacation

Hear ye! Hear ye! Wonker will be taking a break from the madness starting tomorrow morning, and will be heading off, via southern Virginia and West Virginia, to Mammoth Cave National Park in Kentucky for a week's vacation. Strange, you say, spending a week at a relatively unknown National Park, Thanksgiving Week at that? Well, yeah, it is strange, but Wonker and Mrs. Wonker, aka the Red Menace, had a use it or lose it week left on a timeshare swap, so carpe diem, to mix a metaphor. The park is one of those weird, magnificent places in America that few people probably visit, so we're going to give it a shot. We don't do photoblogging yet, so we'll debrief upon our return.

Meanwhile, we know we can trust the Mighty Luther to keep up the carping and kvetching while we're off hunting for bats and blind cave fish in Kentucky, although many of these can also be found in abundance on the Democratic side of the aisle back here in DC.

We'll return on November 29, stuffed with turkey, dressing, and probably more than a little stored up bile in contemplation of renewing the armed struggle against the Philistines. Stay tuned. Meanwhile, a Happy Thanksgiving for all!

(PS, looking ahead, we plan to cause a scandal on the net by wishing everyone a Merry Christmas early and often in December, and fully expect to hear from the PC Police and/or the ACLU, the latter probably armed with a cease and desist order!)

The $1.16 Lion Tamer Speaks

For those who might have forgotten poor Deborah Combs, an unemployed American citizen whose tax debt of $1.16 caused her to be arrested and held liable for up to $4,000 in fines and a possible prison term, great news! . Charges have been dropped. Fines, even the $200 penalty Sean Hannity offered to pay are also dropped. A favorite quote from Loveland, Ohio Mayor Brad Greenberg: "The Circus is leaving town; I will not allow our taxpayers to spend any further money prosecuting this case." Bold words, Mayor G, but I wonder, if you're the Mayor, who's training the lions? And does that training include -- gasp! -- an apology?

Luther

Shhh....Antarctica Is Growing

It is perhaps asking too much for serious people to take Dr. Michael Crichton's word for anything. After all, even if he does cite chapter, book and graphical study in blasting the warm blanket theory -- sorry, the global warming theory to bits, he's a novelist, a professional liar, as Mark Twain once described himself. But, trouble is, oh, ye, disciples of the Earth goddess, praying for relief from Satanic mills and Beelzebubian SUVs, scientific reports keep rolling in, suggesting that -- shades of Hellish truth -- global warming is a political strategy disguised as science, sort of Dan Rather meets Lysenko (If I Believe It, It Must Be True). For quite a few years, this stuff has been a staple of broadcast and print media; if you believed the stories, you'd already have bought oceanfront property in Missouri. For those who haven't gone that far, don't miss How Much Ice In The Global Cocktail? by Patrick Michaels at TechCentralStation.

One of the great fears generated by global warming is that the ocean is about to rise and swallow our coasts. These concerns have been heightened by the substantial uptick in Atlantic hurricane activity that began in 1995. The frequency of really strong storms striking the U.S now resembles what it was in the 1940s and 50s, which few people (aging climatologists excepted) remember...Critics have long argued that these changes require a substantial net melting of some combination of the world's two largest masses of land-based ice, Antarctica and Greenland. In addition, they note that observed global warming is right near the low end of the U.N.'s projections, which means that realized sea level rise should be similarly modest...t is simply impossible for the scientific community to ignore what is going on, even as prone to exaggeration of threats as it has grown to be. The planet is warming at the low end of projections. Antarctica is undoubtedly gaining, not losing ice. Greenland appears to either lose a little ice, or, in the recent study of Johannessen, gain dramatically. It's going to take some time for it to contribute much to rising oceans...Meanwhile, Antarctica grows. Computer models, while still shaky, are now encountering reality.

The global warming stuff, as Crichton himself has put it, and not originally, more resembles a substitute religious faith, which makes it very hard for real scientists to fight back with real reports. Ever try arguing with a Fundamentalist about Biblical literalism? It would be easier to engage a pit bull in a debate about global warming. Faith doesn't avail itself of rational argument or of factual reports. That's fine when faith is in God, but it bodes real doom for the rest of us when it shutters scientific reports of genuine value. If you'd like historical testimony on that, read Arthur Koestler.

Luther

Calling All Liberal Professors...

Enterprising economics professor Daniel Klein of George Mason University, located in the Northern Virginia suburbs of DC, is looking for some assistance compiling stats on the political orientation of the professoriat. If you want to lend a hand, check out details on the project here.

On the other hand, we're not sure whether the good professor is using his time wisely. Without any budget and without any effort, Wonker can assure any researcher that the percentage of professors who vote Democrat 100% of the time can be reliably estimated at 95% give or take a percentage point.

You don't need the proverbial degree in rocket science to understand that the tenured, largely socialist professoriat, has been hiring only birds of a Marxist feather for roughly 40 years now, even as they cynically hire adjunct wage-slaves to accomplish the actual work of teaching the undergraduate masses--i.e., filling the empty vessels with left-liberal slogans and knee-jerk responses. This is classic Gramscianism in action, completely undermining the skepticism and objectivity required to fairly staff a college faculty capable of honoring and preserving cultural, philosophical, and scientific traditions while forging a path to a non-ideological tomorrow.

Unfortunately, the only path the average faculty member blazes today is the well-worn and dead-end path to world socialism. We applaud Professor Klein's intention to document this phenomenon with appropriate academic rigor. But, as we've already mentioned, we're not quite sure that yet another study or survey "proving" the obvious and pernicious leftist bias on America's campuses is worth the time or the effort.

A better use of man-hours and money would be for state legislatures to place offending university departments in taxpayer supported state systems--particularly humanities departments--into academic receivership. Once this is accomplished, court-appointed receivers can be directed to enforce affirmative rules and regs to force ideological diversity on disciplines that today are little more than indoctrination camps dedicated not to teaching Thoreau but to deconstruct his prose to better illustrate the nirvana of a future socialist utopia.

Deep Throat urged Woodstein to "follow the money." That's good advice today in an entirely different context. Only when we begin to clean out corrupt educational, political, and nonprofit institutions that are scooping up huge, unregulated quantities of taxpayer monies to fund sedition and treason against the United States will we be able to reclaim at last our proud American heritage and traditions. Since the tenured left loves the notion of "accountability" in the business sector, we're sure they'll warmly welcome deploying it to shine the light of truth on their own intellectually corrupt departments.

HazZzMat: Political Fads, Hold The Fries 2

Note: For another view of salt, try the Salt Institute.

http://www.saltinstitute.org/28.html

Neas Says Nay

This tidbit from the Washington Times concerning some "dirt" dug up on Supreme Court nominee Alito:

Judge Alito went on to say that "racial and ethnic quotas should not be allowed" and that he strongly favors "limited government, federalism, free enterprise, the supremacy of the elected branches of government, the need for a strong defense and effective law enforcement, and the legitimacy of a government role in protecting traditional values."

Mr. Neas [Ralph Neas of "People for the American Way"] said this proves the nominee's "fervent allegiance to virtually every pet cause of the radical right" and "underscores our concern that he would vote to turn back the clock on decades of judicial precedent protecting privacy, equal opportunity, religious freedom, and so much more."

Read the rest here. Power Line's Paul Mirengoff observes:

So let's see -- according to Neas, the "pet causes" of the "radical right" are race-free, merit-based selection decisions; limited government; federalism; free enterprise; the supremacy of the elected branches of government; strong defense and law enforcement; and protection of traditional values. As an opponent of the right, Neas' pet causes appear to be race-based preferences, unlimited government, unfree enterprise, the supremacy of unelective branches of government, less than strong defense and law enforcement, and indifference (if not hostility) towards traditional values.

Which set of people is "for the American way?"

Mirengoff has got that right, and exposes once again the constant Gramsci-inspired upending of American culture, religion, and ideals by leftists like Neas who are dedicated to undermining the United States and all the good things this country stands for. Also, duly note the galling name of Neas' organization — as Mirengoff does: "People for the American Way." It has been another time-honored tactic of the left to obscure their true motives by wrapping their hypocrisy in the American flag and claiming to be patriots — when in fact, their only allegiance is to a now hypothetical world socialist government, not the America envisioned by our Founding Fathers (who were not Framers, by the way).

A prime example of this tendency is the highly destructive American Civil Liberties Union. Initially a Communist front organization founded in the 1930s, the ACLU has never shed its old ways, espousing civil liberties of all kinds just as long as they don't include freedom of religious expression, freedom of parents to control the behavior of their minor children, freedom of children from socialist indoctrination in public schools, and the freedom of everyone from the disastrous expense of frivolous lawsuits.

The aim of the ACLU is the same today as it was in the 1930s — deploy left-wing judicial activists via carefully crafted lawsuits against vulnerable local governments. The result of such lawsuits — rarely in doubt because they are always brought before hard-left judges — is to limit the effectiveness of elected officials while trashing American traditions and culture, most particularly the Judaeo-Christian ethics that were considered the bedrock of this nation's greatness. Until the ACLU wore everybody down. But they do use those nice, warm, fuzzy words in their moniker, don't they? American. Civil Liberties. What could be more important, right? More, well, American?

If you've got more examples of leftist language manipulation, send 'em in. As we get HazZzmat up and running, we're open to taking on all the help we can get as we attempt to take American culture and traditions back from the leftist thugs who've hijacked them for at least a half a century while covering themselves with Old Glory.

Slippery Lawyers Cause Litigation Cancer

Fake reporting isn't restricted to political stories from CBS. Over at James Glassman's Tech Central Station, a great deal of Web space is devoted to exposing junk science, rhetorically dressed "evidence" more intended to impress gullible juries in torts trials than demonstrate competent research. Of late, for instance, a massive lawsuit has been initiated against Teflon (TM) manufacturers. Gregory Conko and Henry I. Miller, authors of 2004's The Frankenfood Myth, go right at the chemistry of this complaint:

The radical Environmental Working Group has charged that the billions of meals worldwide prepared every day on Teflon cookware are being contaminated with "Teflon toxins," and two Florida-based law firms have filed a $5 billion class-action suit in eight states against the manufacturer, DuPont, for "failing" to warn consumers about the product's alleged dangers...these charges are bogus. And that really fries us.


The truth is that an EPA advisory panel has recommended more testing of a chemical known as PFOA, which is used to make non-stick coatings...However, both Teflon and PFOA have been the subject of numerous studies, and there is not a shred of evidence that either poses a human health risk...high-dose test methodology is...totally irrelevant to real world exposures...Most compelling of all, PFOA is not present in the actual non-stick cookware coating -- including pots and pans coated with Teflon...Even the chronically over-cautious European Food Safety Administration recently dismissed the trumped up concerns and allowed the continued use of non-stick coatings in cookware.

How do such lawsuits get started? If there is the slightest possibility that a substance might cause cancer, that's a start (and a reasonable one, until you start to dig below the headlines and talking head chatter). Another key consideration is how many people are exposed. That part might be described as "lawyer math." If ten million people bought Teflon cookware last year, that's ten million potential clients. Even at a few hundred dollars apiece, consider that a common fee for the law firm is 30% of the reward. In a one hundred million dollar out-of-court settlement, the most common kind of arrangement for these suits, that's thirty million for the law firm: lawyer math! That might even seem reasonable, until you begin to notice that there's something missing in the torts complaint. For instance, in the long dead issue of cyclamates, those artificial sweeteners that enjoyed a brief vogue in the 60s and 70s, cancer-causing dosages in rats were roughly equivalent to a human drinking several hundred cans of soda per day for five years. I've heard of some extraordinary bladders, but not even Paul Bunyan and his Blue Ox could have kept up that pace. And it's not only the fabulous expense of settling these cases that's undercutting the economy, but the increasing use of excerpted or wholly fabricated data to support lawsuits. This is where junk science and junk reporting in politics meet. Both lawyers and reporters are setting standards of "truth" that are not only disruptive and destructive, but undercut public life by substituting a web of half-truths for public discourse. You can read the rest of the article here.

Luther

Political Fads, Hold The Fries

Over at American Enterprise Institute's James Glassman's TechCentralStation they spend a lot of time devoted to the problems of junk science, that favorite snack food that keeps torts lawyers fat. If you trust news reports that cite statistical studies "proving" that certain habits make you a victim of obesity, for instance, you might take a look. John Luik, a health care policy maven, discusses obesity studies:

The subjects [of a study on vending machines in schools and obesity] were divided into four groups based on how frequently they used their school's vending machine in the past thirty days -- with one group of those who did not use it at all or purchased only water, another group which purchased 1-3 items, a third group whose members bought 4-6 items and a final group whose young people bought more than six items. The most frequently purchased item from a vending machine, according to the authors, was not pop but water, purchased by 36.3% of the young people, followed by sweetened beverages other than pop purchased by 31%.

But what was really interesting was that there were no differences in BMI [body mass index] percentile or in calories between the four groups. In other words, contrary to the claims of those who blame school vending machines for childhood obesity, vending machine purchases did not make a difference to the student's calorie intake or to their BMI.

One wonders if the study's director will ever be invited to play golf with the Trial Lawyers Association again. You might want to look at the rest of Luik's article or at another, as well as another revelation on the hold the salt Puritans trying to save us.

Luther

Fake, But Accurate; The Same, Only Different

Rathergate continues to echo through the MSM, as sacked CBS producer and Rather lackey Mary Mapes continues to flog her less-than-truthful new book on the PR circuit. Now some of her friends are attacking Power Line, one of the conservative blogs that outed Rather's and Mapes' blatant attempt to smash George Bush at the polls with damning documents that were obvious forgeries...er, documents that were "inauthentic." Power Line's Scott Johnson elaborates on a major verbal arabesque in the disappointing, but somewhat accurate, Thornburgh Report:

It's true that the Report avoids stating a definitive conclusion that the documents are fakes; it merely endorses Peter Tytell's analysis that the documents are "inauthentic." It does so on page 175. This is a little-known fact that simply hasn't penetrated the mainstream media reporting on the Mapes fraud. If the documents are inauthentic -- if they are not what they purport to be -- they are fakes.

In case the pathologically dense can't parse this, Johnson restates the argument again:

If the Thornburgh Report finds Tytell's analysis regarding the inauthenticity of the documents to be "sound," as it does on page 175, the only rational conclusion one can draw is that the documents are fakes. But ratiocination is a commodity in short supply among members of the alternate-reality based community.

Rathergate junkies can read the rest here.

Wonker is reminded of an early Cheech and Chong movie where Cheech is trying to draw an analogy for the perpetually drug-hazed Tommy Chong. Cheech says, "You know, it's the same, only different." We would guess that this about sums up the continued defense of obviously fake or forged documents by clinging to the word "inauthentic" which fuzzes the issue. Fake but accurate. The same only different. It depends on what the definition of "is" is.

Johnson gets it right. The left really does inhabit an alternative, parallel universe.

But this story also resonates with our longer observations from yesterday and helps bolster our major point. Words do matter. The left has mastered the fine art of employing verbal nuance to turn reality on its head, to take the prudence out of jurisprudence, to "constitutionally" eliminate religion from public discourse, and to eviscerate admirable American cultural traditions. Our first step in taking these things back from the left is to take our language back. We'll be doing that here a lot in the coming months.

A Known Fact: ™ How Propaganda Works

Some casual brilliance from Redstate.org, revived recently after a bit of a hiatus. Here we have some received and observed wisdom on Gramsicanism in action in public discourse:

As a general rule of thumb, liberals ... try to win arguments by repeating the same thing over and over again, regardless of its veracity. Eventually, through sheer exasperation, you concede what you consider to be a very minor point so that they will just! shut! up! and hopefully you can move the discussion forward. Sooner or later, however, you learn that any concession whatsoever is unwise, because that only tends to make them fixate on that issue even more, and thus a Known Fact™ is born.

There are two horrible things about Known Facts™. The first is that, in the mind of a liberal, they can never be killed. The second is that they have a tendency to rise uninvited to plague discussions with which they are wholly unrelated. You could be talking, for instance, about a Victims of Communism memorial, only to have the "Bush bungled the response to Katrina because he hates black people" Known Fact™ rear its ugly head.

Read the rest here. Norman Podhoretz brilliantly dissects the issue here.

It is extraordinarily important for right thinking people to gain a thorough understanding of the indirect, convoluted yet highly sophisticated propaganda tactics of the hard left in political and cultural discourse. Only when there are enough people who are wise this game will we be able to overcome the extensive anti-US, anti-Judaeo-Christian mythology the left has meticulously put in place to substitute for our own religion, traditions, and culture. The left habitually trumpets a lie, tirelessly denies or even prevents rebuttals to that lie in the media it controls (most of it), and thus creates a "new truth" which gains wide acceptance even though it is a lie.

For example, former Senator Joseph McCarthy is relentlessly cited as the Great Satan in order to smear anyone who dares to voice dissent against leftist orthodoxy. But is this mythical characterter really the true one? McCarthy, as is now well known, was a drunk and a thug, frequently embellishing known or provable facts with smears and innuendo designed to keep the pressure on. (You can frequently see McCarthy successors like Chuck Schumer and Ted Kennedy employing similar tactics today against Republican nominees to the executive and judicial branches of government. But since they're Democrats, no one calls them on this.)

But McCarthy's vile public persona is not sufficient to obscure the very reason he initially possessed a high level of credibility with the average American. Marxists had indeed infiltrated government, trade unions, the entertainment industry, journalism, and the arts — quite obviously — during and after the Second World War. If they had not, and if this were not eminently provable (which it was and is), McCarthy would have self-destructed from the start and his hearings might never have materialized.

By incessantly trumpeting inflammatory rhetoric about McCarthy's "blacklists" and his alleged abuse of "first amendment freedoms" not to mention Tail-Gunner Joe's well-documented boorish behavior and its bitter aftermath, the left deftly draws attention away from its demonstrable guilt in subverting the United States in word and deed. What is now called McCarthyism has evolved a highly useful, meticulously constructed, proven mythology whose aim is to obscure, and perhaps erase, the left's provable, active, ongoing involvement in supporting individuals engaged in the constitutionally enumerated crimes of sedition and treason.

Today, the McCarthy Mythology provides quasi-religious cover for the leftist hate-mongers who toil tirelessly, 24/7, to discredit the superior intelligence and logic of those on the right. And yet, they never fail to engage in "McCarthyite" practices themselves, tossing out random Known Facts and smearing opponents with abandon to provide cover for their overt propaganda and pristine lack of erudition.

Witness this vicious, spluttering tirade — a response to Red State's observations, cited above — which blisters McCarthy while simultaneously employing the Senator's legendary tactics:

You no good SOB Hiatt [the Red State blogger]. You have been irresponsible, grossly negligent, ingenuous and a Bush lackey on Iraq for 4 years now and you have the gall to write those words. You despicable McCarthyite cretin. We're not supposed to say this anymore - but eff you. How dare you question the patriotism of people who are doing what YOU have failed to do - hold the Bush Administration to account? How dare you? Your editorial page has always "clapped louder" at the behest of the Bush Administration. Now you dare to SMEAR Dems at the whistle of the worst President in history? How dare you sir?

While scarcely requiring comment, this is typical of the juvenile, hyperventilating, virtually illiterate response of the rabid left to anything deemed out of orthodoxy. It is a delicious irony that, while accusing Hiatt of McCarthyite tactics, the respondent indulges a vulgar display of distilled ignorance that might even have embarrassed the late Senator.

In a similar vein today, we are forced to witness the continuing spectacle of the MSM's uncritical worship of hate-America leftist propagandists like Cindy Sheehan. "Mother Sheehan" is characterized as one of the many Hate-Bush American "patriots" of the left who really love this country and adore our troops. This is transparent nonsense. Sheehan's efforts, funded in large part by organizations with known ties to the North Koreans and others of their ilk, are — true of Jane Fonda's infamous Vietnam antics a generation ago — indirectly at least, responsible for the deaths of countless additional American sons and daughters serving with the US military in Iraq, as they encourage our enemies to keep picking off our people one by one to provide fodder for the MSM in their continuing effort to "Vietnamize" Iraq and relive Woodstock one final time.

Promulgated by the MSM, this bizarre notion of leftist "patriotism" (read "subversion") is not of recent vintage. It was first put in place decades ago in defense of the Rosenbergs, who were cynically characterized as "innocent" and perhaps "misguided patriots" who did in fact sell nuclear secrets to the Soviets and were "wrongly" executed (read "martyred") for doing so. They were in fact, "sincere" (another code word, used somehow to disconnect extremists from provable guilt) in their "beliefs" (Marxist dogma), and should have been praised for loving their country rather than being brutally executed based on a "misunderstanding."

Using this line of propaganda, Communists, Marxists, and other collectivists exploit constitutional language by hiding under the mantra of "free speech," which provides the perfect cover for them (since, being Marxists and situation ethicists, they also get to define what "free speech" is). US democracy protects free speech and dissent, which is what makes our country different from and better than so many others. So Marxists, in opposing, say, Bush administration policies, are only exercising their God-given rights (if there is a god) of freedom of speech and dissent. Right?

Unfortunately, what the left doesn't tell people is that it doesn't regard the US as a legitimate governmental entity. Instead, it has historically paid allegiance to Soviet Moscow as the seat of a legitimate world government for "the people" which would ultimately swallow the imperialists and capitalists in the US. (Note: Since the inconvenient toppling of the Berlin Wall, this allegiance to a socialist world order is seemingly being transferred to the pathologically corrupt and largely far-left UN.)

It is for this reason that the hard-left's not-for-public-consumption re-definition of "free speech" constitutes sedition, and their devious notion of "patriotism" is simply treason. Their real allegiance, which they never admit, is not to the US but to a socialistic world ideal. Hence, they are guilty of sedition and treason. More fundamentally, they are simply dishonest when they bleat piously about exercising their constitutional right to "free speech" to promote "patriotism" since they mean, dialectically, quite the opposite of what they say. They are always and everywhere in active opposition to the constitutional US Government, although this is usually obvious only when there is a conservative in the White House.

This kind of dialectical "reasoning" has gone on long enough, however. You can't be a "exercising constitutionally protected "free speech" if your actual intention (always unstated) is to topple the legitimate American government, culture, and system with the help and allegiance of outside forces, replacing it with a hostile socialist power. Like "free speech," this topic is further addressed in the Constitution. But you will never hear about this from the hard left.

Rules of the (Dana) Priest-hood

From today's Power Line piece on Howie Kurtz' dissection of Plame-gate and Plame-gate Redux, aka, the Democratic leaks from inside the CIA (presumably) via Post reporter and relentlessly anti-Bush Democrat apologist Dana Priest exposing clandestine prisoner interrogations by the US in East European countries:

It is deeply disappointing to find Kurtz repeating the liberal line that "senior officials were trying to discredit White House critic Joe Wilson by focusing on the role of his wife in his inquiry into whether Iraq was trying to acquire nuclear material." Mr. Kurtz, please try this on for size: "Senior officials were trying to explain how an unqualified, recently dismissed Foreign Service officer was sent on a sensitive intelligence mission and left free to publicize and misrepresent it in the New York Times."

On the plus side, Kurtz quotes John's comment supporting an investigation of Priest's anonymous sources for the article: "It would be a great thing if the steady stream of illegal anti-administration leaks out of the CIA and the State Department could be shut down, and some of the Democrat leakers imprisoned. It's time to put the Plame farce to a good use.

Read the whole thing here. For the Kurtz tap-dancing that gave rise to these comments, access it here. (Wa/Po generally requires registration to access, although no fees like the cheapskates at the NYT.)

We can simplify it here further. For journalists and politicos alike, any charges against Republicans by Democrats are therefore true. Any chargest against Democrats by Republicans are therefore false. This is why our friends on the left no longer have to think.

Ironically, for old-line Catholics, this reflexive Democratic methodology, which substitutes blind faith for rational thought, is reminiscent of the old Baltimore Catechism which had all the answers necessary for one to keep and practice the Catholic faith. In the 1950s and early 1960s, a student had merely to memorize this little book, and no further questions or inquiries would be required, needed, or indeed wanted. Dana Priest's regular, one-sided editorial savaging of the Bushies and the War on Terror — all accomplished in Wa/Po "news" stories, not on the op-ed pages — provides ample proof that this is true. A Pulitzer Prize is probably the next thing on tap for yet another writer content to ply her trade as a propagandist disguised as a reporter.

Why Was Anyone In Paris Surprised?

Thanks to Paul Greenberg in the NY Sun, New York's daily conservative paper, for recovering a three-year-old article from City Journal, a conservative journal in New York. Written for the Autumn 2002 issue by Theodore Dalrymple, it presents a picture that the Elysee Palace should have recognized then, instead of after two and a half weeks of fires and rioting.

I go to Paris about four times a year and thus have a sense of the evolving preoccupations of the French middle classes. A few years ago it was schools...For the last couple of years, though, it has been crime: l’insécurité, les violences urbaines, les incivilités. Everyone has a tale to tell...The laxisme of the French criminal justice system is now notorious. Judges often make remarks indicating their sympathy for the criminals they are trying...the day before, 8,000 police had marched to protest the release from prison on bail of an infamous career armed robber and suspected murderer...Reported crime in France has risen from 600,000 annually in 1959 to 4 million today, while the population has grown by less than 20 percent...Where does the increase in crime come from? The geographical answer: from the public housing projects that encircle and increasingly besiege every French city or town of any size...A kind of anti-society has grown up in them—a population that derives the meaning of its life from the hatred it bears for the other, “official,” society in France. This gulf of mistrust—greater than any I have encountered anywhere else in the world, including in the black townships of South Africa during the apartheid years—is written on the faces of the young men, most of them permanently unemployed, who hang out in the pocked and potholed open spaces between their logements. When you approach to speak to them, their immobile faces betray not a flicker of recognition of your shared humanity...There are burned-out and eviscerated carcasses of cars everywhere. Fire is now fashionable in the cités: in Les Tarterets, residents had torched and looted every store—with the exceptions of one government-subsidized supermarket and a pharmacy.

What Dalrymple describes is the condition of the French banlieues before the riots. Anyone who lived in New York City between 1975 and 1990 will recognize the descriptions and sympathize with Dalrymple's relentless assault on the primary cause, the French government in its statist presumptions to know all that needed to be known. New York nearly burned down under the weight of legacies from the Great Society and the New Deal as France is today under the legacy of French statism. And those who fled New York for other parts of the U.S., a veritable (and widely reported) flood during the Dinkins administration that preceded Rudolf Giuliani's election in 1993, are likely to find themselves with new French neighbors as the Chirac/Villepin government, once again, surrenders to the deluded expediency of bribing the gangsters and ignoring the people.

Don't miss Dalrymple's article, which is not science fiction, but an eyewitness report from three years before the current riots. It should be read in full.

Luther