Posts Tagged ‘double standards’

“There is no press now”

Posted: February 2, 2009 by datechguy in arthur vs carter, opinion/news
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Victor David Hansen nails it with a column today President Hamlet:

Sometime around mid-2007, during its coverage of the Democratic primary, it ceased to be investigatory and chose to become an adulatory megaphone. A news story on the front pages of the New York Times or Washington Post, or a piece aired on NPR, or a feature in Time or Newsweek, is simply a disguised op-ed on yet another underappreciated moral or intellectual gift of Barack Obama. He has transcended the traditional doctrinaire support for liberal governance and become a sort of talisman that offers exemption to our elite from all sorts of guilt and anguish in matters ranging from race at home to multicultural sensitivity abroad.

The whole article is something Hanson bottom lines the choice for the president:

In the next year Obama can continue to run against George Bush and whine about the “mess” that “they” left him as he tries to turn the U.S. economy and government into copies of those in Spain and Greece. He can print money and label as “stimulus” a pork plan that is designed to empower Democratic constituencies at the price of leaving generations to come with decades of debt. He can use his formidable powers of rhetoric to talk of ethical progress while he allows Clintonian ethical regress. He can hope-and-change the world—and learn to his dismay that its thugs take such magnanimity for weakness to be ridiculed and indecision to be exploited. And he can end up a mediocre president who counts on historians to whitewash his presidency just as the media once ensured it.

Or President Obama can decline to be worshiped and instead stop the monstrous borrowing, unsustainable debt, and endless expansion of an increasingly incompetent government. And as solace, he can remember that his idol, Lincoln, was as hated by his contemporaries as he was worshiped by posterity—and that the latter is often predicated on the former.

The either or is the meat of the Carter/Arthur watch but I’m reminded of the Book I Claudius . Claudius goes on the how Caligula could have been Caligula the good , or Caligula the wise, but concludes of course if he was that type of person he wouldn’t have survived to rule. Same thing.

Update: Exhibit B at newsbusters and Michael Bates Blog.

Animal Farm at the Atlantic

Posted: February 2, 2009 by datechguy in Blame Bush, opinion/news
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As a follow up to the last post I thought I’d check to see what Andrew Sullivan had to say about the change. I found that all pigs are equal but some are more equal than others:

What some on the far right seem not to grasp is that opposition to torture is not about being soft on terrorism. It is about being effective against terrorism – ensuring that intelligence is not filled with torture-generated garbage, that we retain the moral high-ground in a long war against theocratic violence, and that we can better identify, capture, kill or bring to justice those who threaten our way of life. Rendition and temporary detention are tools in that effort – tools that now need to be as closely monitored and assessed as they were once recklessly abused.

Yeah they will be as closely monitored as the tax records of senior democrats when they are not considered for cabinet positions. Andrew is a good writer, the first blogger I ever read. His “view from your window” feature is one of the nicest things on the web but if he believes this he’ll believe anything.

UPDATE: Patterico takes a less charitable view of Andy than me (and my view isn’t all that charitable).

Human Rights (watch is optional)

Posted: February 2, 2009 by datechguy in arthur vs carter, opinion/news
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I have maintained in the past that although you have to do what you have to do in the war on terror it is important to question what is being done to keep yourself honest.

I have questioned the left’s insistence that Gitmo has needed to be closed and the left has misrepresented the place over and over.

I also maintain Waterboarding is not torture, but I can see why some have said so.

The use of prisons in other western countries is a little more iffy since we may not have control but the various western countries have rules to keep things in check.

Now of all the tactics used Rendition is the most iffy, its the one that leaves me the most queasy. Of the left’s arguments this one was the best of the batch. And Obama has decided to keep it and expand it:

Barack Obama exploited that outrage when he promised Hope and ChangeTM, and the Left squealed with joy over the Brave New Obama World in national security. Now they’ll have to squeal again as Obama has had a sudden revelation as President that renditions are more necessary than ever, if the CIA can’t hold these subjects at Gitmo or its own secret sites:

Moe Lane called out leftist bloggers on this but the most amazing thing is reported at Dissenting justice where he calls out Human Rights Watch:

Now that the L.A. Times reports that rendition will continue during the Obama administration, Human Rights Watch has apparently altered its position. According to Tom Malinowski, the organization’s “Washington advocacy director,” the risk of torture and other abuses does not mandate the prophylactic cessation of rendition. Instead (quoting the L.A. Times)

I haven’t seen such a double standard by a “human rights group” since…well every time any of em deal with Israel.

I give full marks to that blog on the left for doing so and being honest enough to be outraged. I actually liked the outrage on the left over Gitmo because although false it produced an irrational fear of the place to the newly captured that might have gotten them talking but now the choices have been reduced to bad ones.

Don’t you wonder what Obama saw in the briefings that changed his mind on this? I’ll give the last word to the Captain:

Frankly, I think the US does a better job of treating its detainees than anywhere a rendition program would deliver them, but without a Gitmo or CIA holding site, that’s the only way to ensure that we can get any intelligence that will protect the US. I’m not surprised that Obama has reached the same conclusion, now that he has the responsibility to keep the nation secure from foreign attack. It’s amazing how clarifying that responsibility can be, and Obama at least must have a little more comprehension of what Bush went through the last seven years.

Bingo!

Update: Whoa! My first Instalance and I didn’t even notice it. Hi. Take a look around, particularly if you are looking for remote tech support. or if you are a Fan of Morning Joe which I tend to liveblog a bit. See the shock of Iranian rejection and learn the ways of the internet scam. I write a bit about Religion, Israel, my current job search and a tad bit of baseball.

Oh and if you are a Doctor Who fan make sure you check out this blog. It isn’t mine but its awesome.

Update 2: Missed the link to Captain Ed at hotair, thanks to commenter Paul for catching it.

Update 3: I guess he gets an Arthur vote for this. Running total Jimmy Carter 6 Chester Arthur 3. An explanation of the Arthur Carter watch here.

Update 4: A disagreement in comments continues here.

About as well put as you can get

Posted: February 1, 2009 by datechguy in opinion/news, war
Tags: , , ,

Michael Yon is a man who has spent most of the last few years in the middle east in general and in Iraq in particular. No other single reporter has seen what is going on closer. He called in when the strategy in Iraq was failing and he called it when the strategy was working. His reporting has proved to be the most accurate out there and it isn’t even close.

Today he tackles Israel and Iran and wonders why people don’t see what is there:

It is amazing to me, as an American who travels the world on a near-constant basis, that there is so much confusion over who the terrorists are. Hamas is a terrorist organization that condones and facilitates suicide bombings and will kill every Jew on the planet if they have the chance. Meanwhile, Israel is an energetic democracy with a vibrant press. I could sit right here in Jerusalem and write bad things about Israel and Jews, and nothing would happen. Maybe I wouldn’t get invited somewhere or would be called an anti-Semite, but that would be it. Neither the Jews nor the Israelis would harm me, though they likely would write bad things about me. I came to Israel with no press accreditation and at the airport they knew that I was a writer. Yet they let me in and have allowed me to freely roam the country. Today I was in very close proximity to Mr. Netanyahu. Mr. Netanyahu talked about how, in this very hotel, Rehavam Ze’evi had been murdered just a few floors above our heads. The security seemed incredibly lax by American standards. Bernard Lewis and other extremely smart people were there.

Israel is a free country that abides by the rule of law. By contrast, if a writer were to go to Gaza or Iran, for instance, and start writing bad words, he might wind up on the news, dead. Israel allows Christians and Arab Muslims to worship freely, while Hamas wants to see us all at the bottom of the sea. Hamas, supported by Iran, is clear about their goals: they want to wipe out Israel completely, utterly, with finality. But it’s not just Israel that Hamas wants to kill; they want to kill all Jews everywhere. Complete genocide.

Read the whole thing. Via Glenn who answers the title of the piece with “because they don’t care what happens to Israel.” Given what I’ve seen over the last several weeks I am forced to agree.

Updates continue at Israellycool.

UPDATE: The Captain comments:

Yes, Europe has come a long way since the Holocaust, but unfortunately, it’s in a circle

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