Archive for the ‘media’ Category

Morning Joe through the ages: There is no polite way to say it…

Posted: January 3, 2011 by datechguy in Afghanistan war, media, war
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Listening to Joe Scarborough and company prophesying defeat in Afghanistan after reports of US Casualties Let’s imagine Morning Joe as it reports on US wars throughout the ages:

Nov 1776: There is no polite way to say it: The Continental Army is in full retreat despite the heroic efforts of Washington and his troops

Dec 1780: There is no polite way to say it: The British are in full control of the south despite the heroic efforts of Continental troops

Oct 1803: There is no polite way to say it: The pirates of Tripoli have captured the USS Philadelphia and there is no way we can suppress them despite the heroic efforts of Commodore Preble

Aug 17, 1812: There’s no polite way to say it: the USS Nautilus has been captured and the USS Constitution has barely escaped a British Fleet, there is no way we can compete with the British Navy despite the heroic efforts of our sailors

Aug 1814: There’s no polite way to say it: The British have burned Washington and despite the heroic efforts of Mrs. Madison to save national treasures.

March 1836: There is no polite way to say it: The Alamo and the Goliard forces have fallen to a man and Sam Houston is in full retreat despite the heroic efforts of the Texans who fell.

July 1862: There is no polite way to say it: Our armies are in full retreat before General Lee despite the heroic efforts of the troops in the peninsula.

Sept 1863: There is no polite way to say it: Despite the heroic efforts of General Thomas the south has driven and besieged our forces in Chattanooga and we have to rethink if we can win this war.

June 1864: There’s no polite way to say it: with 40,000 more casualties Grant is no closer to Richmond that McClellan was two years ago despite heroic efforts on the part of the Army of the Potomac

June 1876: There’s no polite way to say this: The Sioux have destroyed General Custer’s command despite the heroic efforts of the 7th cavalry.

Dec 1917: There’s no polite way to say this: With the Russian surrender the war has turned despite the heroic efforts of the AEF

Aug 1942: There’s no polite way to say this: After Salvo Island we just don’t have the ability to cope with the Japanese fleet at Guadalcanal, despite heroic efforts of the Navy and Marines

Feb 1943: There’s no polite way to say this: Kasserine pass show there is no way for us to defeat the Desert Fox despite the heroic efforts of US troops.

Sept 12 1950: There’s no polite way to say this: The North Koreans and their allies have us in a pocket and our troops are exhausted after World War 2 despite heroic efforts of our men.

and could you imagine them after Thermopylae? There’s no polite way to say this but the Greek city states can’t cope with the Persians despite the heroic efforts of the 300 Spartans

I haven’t bothered mentioning Iraq because it’s recent enough that you can actually see the media from Leslie Stahl telling General Powell we can’t get our supplies and our rear is exposed. and Harry Reid saying (with Pelosi standing beside him) the war is lost.

It’s the old “we love our troops but they can’t win.” meme of the left.

If only he could talk to an expert on military history like Victor Davis Hanson to give them some perspective that is if Jeffery Sacks can give him permission to have an extremist like him on the show.

Don Surber notices something I didn’t …

Posted: January 1, 2011 by datechguy in media
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…in Ezra Klein’s sort of Mea Culpa:

Ezra Klein made the biggest mistake that can be made by a liberal — progressive — socialist — communist — no labelist — whatever the heck they call themselves on the 31st of the month.

He was being honest.

He does not believe in the Constitution.

He is cynical about it and he projects that same cynicism onto those who disagree with him.

That’s a pretty serious charge but he backs it up:

In reality, the tea party — like most everyone else (emphasis mine) — is less interested in living by the Constitution than in deciding what it means to live by the Constitution. When the constitutional disclaimers at the bottom of bills suit them, they’ll respect them. When they don’t — as we’ve seen in the case of the individual mandate — they won’t.

What a telling statement in that last paragraph is.

What Ezra Klein means by “most everyone else” is Ezra Klein.

And so the sentence means that Ezra Klein is not interested in living by the Constitution but rather, Ezra Klein wants to decide what the Constitution means.

That is his point of view.

Such a belief would explain why the Left was so upset about Gitmo — shredding the Constitution — under Bush but now could not care less about Gitmo.

When a document means whatever people want it to mean then it means nothing. The Constitution is a contract and a contract means what is says. How would you like us to redefine what the deed to your house means? The contract you work under, The rules of blackjack when you are winning? Or as Don puts it:

Well, when you are taught — as Al Gore said it — that “the Constitution is a living and breathing document” you really miss the entire point of having a Constitution.

Bingo!

The Ultimate in counter programing

Posted: December 31, 2010 by datechguy in blogs, culture, media, oddities
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While the rest of us on the right pick apart Colman McCarthy over this Washington Post column Robert Stacy McCain decides in a brilliant bit of counter programing to tackle the issue that has sadly been ignored, namely the best tactics to ahem; stimulate the economy of the movie industry:

The question of what it takes nowadays to get people to go to the multiplex and pay $9 to see a movie they can catch a few months later on HBO or Netflix is a perplexing question for Hollywood. But when a chick says to her boyfriend, “Hey, you want to go see a ballet movie?” it’s kinda helpful if she can follow that up with, “You know, the one with the Natalie Portman lesbian scene.”

He then follows up 20 paragraphs on the cultural history of the “lesbian scene” in print and film including this gem:

It would be a worthwhile project for some “cultural studies” grad student to go through the 1971-79 Penthouse archives and count how many girl-on-girl pictorials they published. And you could probably get a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to do that research.

The irony of course being that you likely could get a grant from the NEH for such research and this is precisely the type of scholarship that our Mr. McCarthy would prefer our kids in college study as opposed to ROTC and the like.

This is usually the hit starved season for bloggers but Stacy knows that the phrase “natalie portman lesbian scene” will generate hits for years to come in search engines not yet invented to shore up his slow days. Why comment on the news of the day when you can make a long-term investment that will guarantee you hits and page views forever?

Update: Nothing like an Instalanche to start the new year, between the 63 (so far) at my party and this it’s quite a start. Don’t forget to tune into WCRN AM 830 tonight at 9:30 for DaTechGuy on DaRadio with DaScienceGuy and Barbara Espinosa of American Freedom. And remember two weeks from tonight Glenn will be my guest on the show (Jan 15 9 p.m. ) Mark that on the calendar! Listen live here. And if you are a business or a blogger looking for hits, you can’t do better than that for a draw.

A side thought about the military and the left

Posted: December 31, 2010 by datechguy in Afghanistan war, culture, media, opinion/news, war
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As I been reading the continuing commentary on the Washington Post piece that has really got the attention of bloggers and readers from the daily pundit

“DADT as the reason for ROTC’s banning was always a sham. Now the mask is finally off. The elite professoriat doesn’t hate ROTC because of DADT, they hate ROTC because they just can’t stand “the warrior ethic”. That’s code for courage, honor, and duty, ethics all anathema to Leftist indoctrinators. They prefer us supine, afraid, and dependent on them.”

an opinion I share to Vodkapundit

“See there, Mr. U.S. Marine Captain — McCarthy doesn’t hate you. Why, he thinks you’re every bit as respectable as a Taliban.

who adds a graphic that says it all to this post at Ace of Spades HQ that compares the course requirement for ROTC at Sienna College and woman and gender studies at Columbia guess which one is more challenging academically?

While all of these are first-rate there is a thought that hit me this morning that hasn’t been touched on. Namely that the McCarthy’s of the world actually bring about the results they claim to deplore.

Consider; our media tends to reflect the views of people like McCarthy and the movies and media we put out there tend to show our troops in a very poor light, particularly over the last 40 years that has been exported as American Cultural and elite opinion to foes all over the world that the Saddam’s, Bin Ladin’s and Chavez’s et/al have bought into. It is precisely believe they have bought into the weakness of American culture and the people opposition to the military and the troops as uneducated rabble that they have been bold enough to make war figuring we can’t defeat them or oppose them.

Hundreds of thousands of idiotic and fanatical followers of these fools have learned the hard way that this is not true (in fact it was the last thing they ever learned), yet their fanatical leaders who are not hiding in caves manage to convince them that America will simply roll over. Why don’t they believe the evidence of the empty chairs where their predecessors have been? Because men like McCarthy promote the idea of a military unwanted and supported, because our media is so focused on the number of our casualties in war that they ignored the losses of our foes that dwarf ours.

These men are the enablers of the very wars they claim to oppose, and even more ironically are only able to be such enablers because our military is precisely NOT like the Taliban or any of these guys.

The secret here is that the McCarthy’s on the left’s position is really less about their hatred of the military, but more about convincing themselves of their own moral superiority. They can’t match the courage or the honor or the sacrifice of these men and women so they denigrate them in a vain attempt to convince themselves that it is their words and good wishes, dare I say it their faith in their own love for their fellow-man that outweighs the works of the military in risking their own lives to save others.

That’s liberalism in a nutshell belief and good intention trump works and results every time.

Update: Oh Brother!

Hitler could have been waited out. He might have been overthrown by his own government. Who knows? To have 50 million people killed: Hitler would have died within 10 years no matter what he did.

Oh and Lincoln was wrong to fight the civil war too. Moe Lane nails it:

Whichever editor approved this Washington Post article should be ashamed of him- or herself. I do not expect shame, but it’s long past time that we started telling these people when they’ve done something foul.

He certainly has the right to free speech but did he have the right to a Washington Post op-ed?

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