Sunday, February 20, 2005

GM's Woes



Click here for AmazonFriday's Wall Street Journal reported that GM's highly touted new models have seen disappointing sellthrough. Specifically, the Pontiac G6 (pictured at left, of Oprah giveaway fame) and Buick LaCrosse are moving slower than Kirstie Alley at the Golden Corral buffet bar.

Here's a memo to GM's senior execs from a lowly car-loving peon: stop building cars that you want to build... and start building cars that consumers want to buy.

Click here for AmazonTake a gander, for example, at the difference between the G6 Concept, at left, and the production car, above. The G6 has the typical crappy Pontiac grille, not the sweet mesh of the concept. The G6 has the standard GM-ish wheel configuration, not snazzy nineteens sheathed in swelled fenders like the concept. The concept car was something that consumers would buy. The G6 is the same sort of predigested pap -- designed for the masses and not the enthusiasts -- that GM has been trying to pitch for years. It hasn't worked for years -- and it's not working now.

Click here for AmazonTake a late-model Honda Civic, for example. Its lithe, compact body has been heavily influenced by the BMW 3-series sedan (GM: you could do a lot worse than to simply build a 3-series clone).

Click here for AmazonHere's a late-model Nissan Altima. Its visual cues appear borrowed directly from Audi's old, sleek A4. It's inexpensive, attractive, and reliable.

GM needs to pick out an existing, highly respected, Japanese or German brand, and start building clones. It could be Nissan/Infiniti, Toyota/Lexus, or BMW. It really doesn't matter. It's obvious GM's execs can't execute creatively -- with the possible exception of Cadillac -- so they need to follow the leaders.

Beautify your grilles, add blingified wheels, add quiet, torquey powerplants with 4-valve-per-cylinder technology... and, of course, improve quality. Incentivize the workers (unionized or not) with Consumer Reports' famous color-coded report cards. Better report cards: better comp packages for workers. Force the workers to have skin in the quality game using metrics everyone on the planet can understand.

Oh, and when you have a well-received concept car, try not to suck away all of its appealing features as it moves towards production.

Saturday, February 19, 2005

Trapping Rumsfeld



Click here for AmazonBlogger Joe Fairbanks (hat tip: Best of the Web) notes this exchange between Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D., Calif.) and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. During testimony before the House Armed Services Committee, Sanchez attempted to trap the SecDef:

Sanchez: Unfortunately, as I said, this committee has had a hard time assessing where we really stand with the Iraqi army as an effective fighting force. Over the past year, we've received incredibly widely fluctuating estimates of that. And I think you have a real credibility problem on this issue.

Rumsfeld: Fluctuations of what?

Sanchez: The fluctuations of--the numbers that you bandy around about how many troops we really have out there that are Iraqi police, et cetera, et cetera. . . .

Rusmfeld: Now, you say we bandy around numbers. They're not my numbers. I don't invent them. They come from Gen. Petraeus. . . .

Sanchez: I have Petraeus's numbers. They're different than your numbers, by the way.

Rumsfeld: Well, what's the date? They aren't different because these came from Petraeus. He may have two sets of numbers, but they are not different if the date's the same. The date on my paper here is Feb. 14. What's yours?

Sanchez: Dec. 20.

Rumsfeld: Not surprising there's a difference.


The transcript does not record whether Sanchez left the room, completely embarrassed, at this point.

Friday, February 18, 2005

Has CNN been checking out my blog?



Click here for AmazonI don't know. Maybe they finally read a copy of Hugh Hewitt's new book.

Either way, Hugh points to this transcript from CNN"s Inside Politics that sounds startlingly close to what I described in Which MSM Outlet will Get "It" First?... the "it' being the blogosphere.

Here's what I asked:

...the most interesting stuff is happening on the Center Right side of the blogosphere...

...who in the MSM is ready to break new ground, find new market share, and get serious about the stories emerging from the blogosphere?


Jacki Schechner is a "CNN Blog Reporter" that is surveying -- guess what? -- the center-right blogs for the hot topics of the day. In the broadcast, she mentioned Hugh, VodkaPundit, Powerline, LGF and the NRO's Corner... all within a couple of minutes.

For those of you keeping score at home... it looks like, of the old guard, CNN has landed the first blows.
 

Things to think about while waiting for Dan Brown



Click here for AmazonHere's something to ruminate on while you wait for the next Dan Brown book. I came across this little snippet on a web site recently:

The Vatican has a 5,000 square foot library that was sealed in 1215, with specific instructions that it was not to be opened until February 19, 2010.


Imagine the historic and religious treasures this cache must hold.

The anti-Americans



Click here for AmazonIt's not very difficult to pick out key events where the Democrats made fundamental, mindbending mistakes that ended up costing them yet another election.

The wretched Jimmy Carter inviting bloated moviemaker Michael ("Riefenstahl") Moore into the presidential box at the Democratic National Convention.

Nancy Pelosi and a host of other Democratic congressional leaders pitching a repeal of the Patriot Act after meeting with groups like CAIR.

And now George Soros, the ultimate Democratic bagman, shows his true stripes by funding the defense of convicted terrorist abetter Lynne Stewart. Stewart, you may recall, was convicted on February 10 for providing material aid to terrorists and lying to federal investigators.

The material aid she apparently provided? She was assisting Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, who was sentenced to life in prison in '96 for involvement in the first WTC attack and attempted attacks against the Lincoln and Holland tunnels, as well as the UN building, in NYC. Stewart subsequently promised to abide by government rules to suppress communications between Rahman and his followers, because they had threatened a series of terrorist attacks in the U.S. to force his release.

Billionaire financier George Soros, whose opposition to President Bush's conduct of the war on terror caused him to pour millions of dollars into the effort to defeat the president, made a substantial donation to the defense fund for radical lawyer Lynne Stewart, who last week was found guilty of giving aid to Islamic terrorists.

According to records filed with the Internal Revenue Service, Soros's foundation, the Open Society Institute, or OSI, gave $20,000 in September 2002 to the Lynne Stewart Defense Committee.

In filings with the IRS, foundation officials wrote that the purpose of the contribution was "to conduct a public education campaign around the broad civil rights implications of Lynne Stewart's indictment."

Answering questions by e-mail, Amy Weil, a spokeswoman for the Open Society Institute, said the foundation contributed to Stewart's fund because "it appeared to us at that time that there was a right-to-counsel issue worthy of our support."


Yes, folks, this is your Democratic party in action. Words escape me.

NRO: Soros Funded Stewart Defense

Gmail Opens Up



Click here for AmazonIt looks like Google has opened up the floodgates and is now permitting anyone to register with its Gmail service. I've been using it since May of '04 and far prefer it over my AT&T web-mail address. It's not just the 1 gigabyte of space, it's the thick-clientish user interface, tremendous search capability and the auto-sensing and type-ahead of contact names. In fact, the automatic type-ahead feature is far more advanced and helpful than similar features on almost any real, think-client app.

Here's the email announcing the new, wide-open service:

[Gmail]... comes with 1,000 megabytes of free storage, powerful Google search technology to find any message you want instantly, and a new way of organizing email that saves you time and helps you make sense of all the information in your inbox.

And here are just some of the things that we've added in the last few months:

- Free POP access: Take your messages with you. Download them, read them offline, access them using Outlook, your Blackberry or any other device that supports POP

- Gmail Notifier: Get new mail notifications and see the messages and their senders without having to open a browser

- Better contacts management: Import your contacts from Yahoo! Mail, Hotmail, Outlook, and others to Gmail in just a few clicks. Add phone numbers, notes and more. Even use search to keep better track of it all.


If you don't have it, go get it or send me an email and I'll reply with an invite if you have problems signing up.

Thursday, February 17, 2005

The Ignorant Thomas Oliphant



Click here for AmazonThere are certain columnists who consistently deserve an appellation. Consider, for example, "The Great" Mark Steyn, columnist for the National Review, New Criterion, Spectator, Daily Telegraph, etc. Steyn's continued brilliance is deservedly highlighted on a regular basis by seasoned observers like Hugh Hewitt and New Sisyphus.

Boston Globe columnist Thomas Oliphant (he of the annoying, "heh-heh-heh-heh" laugh) visited the Imus show this morning and lived up to his longstanding prefix, "Ignorant". And if you think I'm being cruel about his laugh, don't worry, it was openly mocked on the program by, if you can believe it, Camilla Parker-Bowles. Or maybe that was an impersonator, I'm not sure. In any event, his comments have defined a high-water mark for ignorance. Allow me to describe what kind of garbage he dispensed this morning.

Of his major diatribes this morning, Oliphant first asserted that the administration's Iraq policy had made allies of Iran and Syria. Ruminate on that statement for a moment: audacious and moronic, no?

Consider what Geostrategy-Direct has said about the terrorist group Hezbollah, for instance:

...For nearly 20 years, Hezbollah has been armed and trained solely by Iran, while Syria provided the group a haven in southern Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley...


In fact, a Google search for "iran hezbollah syria yields a paltry 144,000 results. Only someone with partisan blinders on... or completely ignorant... or both would posit that Iran and Syria have been brought together by the Iraq war when Hezbollah is living, breathing proof of a decades-long alliance.

Not ignorant enough for you? Well, Thomas Oliphant is out to prove he can do even better. He next asserted that the administration's stance on Iran (e.g., espousing freedom for the Iranians in the State of the Union speech), was encouraging the Mullahs to crack down on the reformers.

Natan Sharansky, on the other hand, a man who suffered for years in a Soviet Gulag believes exactly the opposite: namely that endorsing freedom emboldens the enslaved and disheartens the oppressors:

In 1983, I was confined to an eight-by-ten-foot prison cell on the border of Siberia. My Soviet jailers gave me the privilege of reading the latest copy of Pravda. Splashed across the front page was a condemnation of President Ronald Reagan for having the temerity to call the Soviet Union an "evil empire." Tapping on walls and talking through toilets, word of Reagan's "provocation" quickly spread throughout the prison. We dissidents were ecstatic. Finally, the leader of the free world had spoken the truth – a truth that burned inside the heart of each and every one of us...


Come to think of it, Oliphant was consistently wrong about Reagan, too. Pentagon advisor Richard Perle recently said that the president's speech, "caused elation among dissidents in Iran."

But perhaps Tom, whose most painful recent experience probably involved a hangnail while waiting in line at Starbucks Martha's Vineyard, understands better than Sharansky the mindset of Iranian dissidents.

Oliphant is a man who probably isn't smart enough to know intellectual honesty if it hit him in the head with a two-by-four. Either that, or he is a serial prevaricator with a proclivity for mouthing untruths like a Pez dispenser.

In any event, it is entirely deserving to affix "the Ignorant" to his name from this point forward.
 

The Wretched Former President



Click here for AmazonThe commissioning of the attack submarine USS Jimmy Carter is cause for a moment of reflection on our 39th president. A man of failed policies at home and abroad. A man possessed of a distinct lack of moral clarity. A man for whom Communists and Islamofascists were not enemies, but allies to be leveraged in campaigns against America. Too harsh? Read on.

Sure, we could simply point to Carter's horrific record as president: the human rights disasters occasioned by his failed policies in Iran and Nicaragua. In fact, the fall of the Shah and the rise of the Mullahs in Iran -- directly attributable to Carter - provided the central bastion for Islamofascism leading up to 9/11. His failure to support the Shah also emboldened the Soviets, who rolled into Afghanistan in 1979, correctly figuring that Carter would do nothing but bluster.

And everyone over the age of forty probably recalls the astronomical inflation rates during the Carter years (I, for one, had a 16% loan on my first automobile purchase). Henry Kissinger summarized it best:

...The Carter administration has managed the extraordinary feat of having, at one and the same time, the worst relations with our allies, the worst relations with our adversaries, and the most serious upheavals in the developing world since the end of the Second World War...


Peter Schweizer, author of the new book "Reagan's War", scoured once-classified KGB, East German Secret Police (Stasi), and Soviet Communist Party files. He has found startling ties between high-ranking Democrats and the leaders of the Eastern Bloc. Chief among the Democrats was Jimmy Carter, who approached the Russians in 1980 when it became clear that Reagan's campaign was in upswing. Yes, read that again. Carter went to our mortal enemies the Soviets, during the Cold War, to cut a deal to beat Reagan:

...Russian documents that show that in the waning days of the 1980 campaign, the Carter White House dispatched businessman Armand Hammer to the Soviet Embassy...

[Hammer] explained to the Soviet ambassador that Carter was "clearly alarmed" at the prospect of losing to Reagan. Hammer pleaded with the Russians for help. He asked if the Kremlin could expand Jewish emigration to bolster Carter's standing in the polls.

"Carter won't forget that service if he is elected," Hammer told Dobrynin.


Powerline's Hindrocket has been a bulldog in pursuing Carter's history, which paints the man as an opportunist intent on building a legacy at the expense of his country. Hindrocket quotes Steven Hayward, author of The Real Jimmy Carter :

...Carter [lusted for a] Nobel Peace Prize for years, seeing it as a means of gaining official redemption for his humiliation at the hands of the voters in 1980. He lobbied quietly behind the scenes for years to get the prize, and finally met with success in 2002 when the... committee saw an opportunity to use Carter as a way of attacking President Bush and embarrassing the United States. The head of the Nobel Prize committee openly admitted that this was their motivation in selecting Carter. Any other ex-president would have refused to be a part of such an obvious anti-American intrigue, but not Jimmy...


And Carter was the perfect target when Iraq's Oil-for-Food lobby attempted to influence American opinion to relax the sanctions on Saddam Hussein.

* * *


Yes, the name USS Jimmy Carter   is sure to strike terror in our nation's enemies. Heaven knows, his name alone terrifies me. Because America can't afford another President as wretched as Jimmy Carter.

Tuesday, February 15, 2005

Which MSM Outlet Will Get "It" First?


Gaining Competitive Advantage using the Blogosphere



Click here for AmazonThe first MSM outlet to devote regular column inches or broadcast minutes to the topics rippling through the blogosphere will be at a significant competitive advantage. Translation: the MSM can stop the ratings and circulation bleeding without wholesale personnel changes and with only minimal investment.

Imagine, say, the Old Yorke Times or, heaven forbid, the LA Dog Trainer offering a daily or thrice-a-week recap of the latest buzz on the blogosphere. Call it "Blogosphere Buzz" or some such hep jargon. The premise, though, is simple.

Big, big stories like Rathergate, the Eason Jordan Affair, and the Swiftvets are breaking first in the blogosphere. And the MSM will find a huge, receptive audience for serious, blog-related buzz.

There are a few discrete steps, though, that any MSM outlet must take in order to pull this off:

o Realize, first and foremost, that the most interesting stuff is happening on the Center Right side of the blogosphere. Why? Heaven knows, the MSM has already spent enough time and energy hammering away at the Right. Would Mary Mapes have had five years to work on an exposé of Bill Clinton's ROTC attendance record? So most of the good stuff is going to be coming from the massive Center Right blogs led by the likes of InstaPundit.

o Hire a serious and savvy blogger, who -- for reasons stated above -- must be from the Center Right. Captain Ed and Michelle Malkin come to mind.

o Give their columns ultra-fast turnaround time. In fact, have your chosen one syndicate a blog that happens to hit the print media (or broadcast media) mere minutes before it's published on the web. It has to be timely. Otherwise, don't bother.

o Provide new and better ways to transmit concise URL information to readers or viewers. Start using a branded facility patterned after TinyURL to make blog and story addresses microscopically sized. Best of all, it's easier to centrally track which stories are resonating.

So... my question is: who in the MSM is ready to break new ground, find new market share, and get serious about the stories emerging from the blogosphere?

What's that I smell in the distance? Ah, the enticing smell of cold, hard cash.

Update: the days of journalists taking an oath of omerta to join its clubby, insular world are over. Blackfive eloquently states:

The media, because its function is as a gatekeeper of information, has been more successful at hiding its errors and biases and, well, lies than any other industry.

That’s changing, and they don’t seem to like it. The scrutiny they apply to government and business – “sunlight is the best disinfectant” and all that – is now being applied to them, and they don’t seem to like it.

Hey– every other industry and profession has had to deal with outside media scrutiny since the invention of, well, the news itself. Why on earth should the media itself be immune?

The Cold War: Analyzing the Left



Click here for AmazonThe inimitable New Sisyphus asks an important question: what lessons can be learned from the Cold War about both the Left and the Right?

During the Cold War years, the Left pointed to U.S. support of brutal dictators and neo-colonial ties to places like the Phillipines and Korea. Fighting Soviet expansionism was more about expanding corporate coffers and less about spreading democracy.

At the same time, the Right explained that war -- even a Cold War -- makes strange bedfellows.

Think about World War II: we allied ourselves with the Soviet Union to rid the world of the immediate threat National Socialist Germany represented. We supplied it guns, planes and tanks. Our diplomats shook hands and shared vodka with Communist Party functionaries and gave speeches in honor of Stalin. Does any of this mean that the U.S. was and is complicit in the Gulag or Russia's tyranny in Eastern Europe? No, of course not. What it means is that war makes strange bedfellows. As Churchill--a real statesman--explained at the height of WWII, if Germany invaded Hell, we should immediately sign a pact with the Devil to defeat it.


Further, to assume that a few high-powered corporate board members dictate U.S. foreign policy is naive: the conflicts of the world are far too complex for this to occur and the U.S. has always had a track record of evangelizing the cause of liberty and human rights - even among its ostensible friends.

Aftermath of the Cold War

With the fall of the Soviet Union, there was a unique opportunity to test both positions.

In Central America (El Salvador, Nicaragua, Guatemala...), the U.S. withdrew its support for dictatorial, authoritarian regimes. In South America (Argentina, Chile, Paraguay...), the U.S. severed ties with military governments and helped to strengthen the middle class.

In Europe, even though it was not in its financial interest, the U.S. pushed for the reunification of Germany and provided succor to emergent democracies in Eastern Europe. In Asia, Indonesia and Korea werre encouraged to democratize, which both have done.

...And when the newly democratic government of the Philippines asked for the keys to Subic Bay and Clark Air Force Base, we shrugged, handed them over and said our good-byes. Hardly the act of "neo-colonialists."


The post-Cold War period provided time for citizens to evaluate the diametrically opposed positions of the Left and Right. New Sisyphus posits that most observers have begun to recognize the inherent failures of the Left to either depict or predict the nature of the real world.

...people are mostly rational and, with the facts being what they are on the ground, most people have begun to give credence to a philosophy that simply has done a better job of explaining the world around us...


The Right isn't so much winning people over as it is simply allowing the Left to repeatedly demonstrate its incorrect positions. Even today, the flawed viewpoints of the Left are highlighted for all to see: the Afghani and Iraqi elections are simply the latest milestones in a litany of failed predictions.

No wonder the Left continues to lose steam: its worldview has been wildly error-prone and, therefore, embarassing. The end of the Cold War exposed the Left's hollow arguments, but they are done yet. For even today, in the Mideast and elsewhere, they are still being exposed. Most U.S. citizens inherently understand that the Left is seldom right.

New Sisyphus: Testing Left and Right - the End of the Cold War

Monday, February 14, 2005

Die in Britain, Survive in the US



Click here for AmazonThe Spectator's James Bartholomew provides a UK perspective on the divergent approaches to healthcare in his country and the US. In short, while our healthcare system is an expensive mess, it delivers far superior results for all involved when constrasted with the UK's National Heathcare System (NHS).

His lengthy treatise is worth reading in its entirety. For the time-impaired, here are the highlights.

Which is better - American or British medical care? If a defender of the National Health Service wants to win the argument against a free market alternative, he declares, ‘You wouldn’t want healthcare like they have in America, would you?’

...the American system is so bad that even Americans - plenty of them anyway, if not all - want to give it up. They want something more like the Canadian system or our own National Health Service. That is what Hillary Clinton wanted and there are still plenty of people like her around.

... [How do we judge the two systems?] Let’s try the simple way first. Suppose you come down with one of the big killer illnesses like cancer. Where do you want to be - London or New York? In Lincoln, Nebraska or Lincoln, Lincolnshire? Forget the money - we will come back to that - where do you have the best chance of staying alive?

The answer is clear. If you are a woman with breast cancer in Britain, you have (or at least a few years ago you had, since all medical statistics are a few years old) a 46 per cent chance of dying from it. In America, your chances of dying are far lower - only 25 per cent. Britain has one of the worst survival rates in the advanced world and America has the best.

If you are a man and you are diagnosed as having cancer of the prostate in Britain, you are more likely to die of it than not. You have a 57 per cent chance of departing this life. But in America you are likely to live. Your chances of dying from the disease are only 19 per cent. Once again, Britain is at the bottom of the class and America at the top.

...The more one looks at the figures for survival, the more obvious it is that if you have a medical problem your chances are dramatically better in America than in Britain. That is why those who are rich enough often go to America, leaving behind even private British healthcare. One reason is wonderfully simple. In America, you are more likely to be treated. And going back a stage further, you are more likely to get the diagnostic tests which lead to treatment...

...[Diagnostic tests] are underperformed in Britain: first, because there is a shortage of equipment and second, because the equipment is underused. Britain has half the CT scanners per million of population that America has (6.5 compared with 13.6). It also has half the MRI scanners (3.9 per million of population versus 8.1). In Britain these machines are generally used during business hours only, regardless of the fact that some are extremely expensive. At the Mayo Clinic in America, by contrast, an MRI scanner is in use around the clock.

...In Britain 36 per cent of patients have to wait more than four months for non-emergency surgery. In the US a mere 5 per cent do...

...The [Americans] who face major problems [with the system] are somewhere between middle-income and poor. They are the ones who are not earning enough to take out an insurance policy, or not one with a high limit on medical expenditure. So if they come down with an illness which requires a long - and therefore ruinously expensive - stay in hospital, their insurance may run out and they may have to sell their homes or even go bankrupt. Those who are temporarily unemployed, between jobs, are similarly vulnerable.

The numbers are not large in relation to the whole population. We are talking about a minority of the American population - figures of 35-45 million are mentioned - which is not insured and which is not covered by Medicare or Medicaid. Of that minority only a small proportion will need fairly long-term hospital treatment. But financial disaster can happen and sometimes does. People lose their homes, their savings, everything. Half the bankruptcies in America are people who had previously been ill. In Britain the system might kill you. In America the system will keep you alive but might bankrupt you.

...the curious thing is that the new, improved, simple state system of Britain does not work as well as the American muddle. You have a better chance of living to see another day in the American mishmash non-system... than in the British system where the state does everything. It is not that America is good at running healthcare. It is just that British state-run healthcare is so amazingly, achingly, miserably and mortally incompetent.


A monolithic government bureacracy bloated and inefficient? Who'da thunk it?

Spectator: Die in Britain, Survive in the U.S.

Sunday, February 13, 2005

Book Review: Nelson DeMille's Nightfall


You need not be a conspiracy theorist to enjoy DeMille's latest



Click here for AmazonDeMille resumes his entertaining John Corey series with Nightfall . Corey, the ex-NYPD detective, is now working on an FBI anti-terror taskforce as a contract employee. In the summer of 2001, he and his wife Kate attend a memorial service honoring the fifth anniversary of TWA Flight 800, which ended minutes after takeoff in a catastrophic explosion that took all 230 lives aboard.

Despite hundreds of eyewitness accounts that stated something resembling a surface-to-air rocket had touched off the explosion, hundreds of FBI agents, NTSB personnel, and other governmental parties came to the conclusion that an internal spark had triggered an explosion in the central fuel tank. Having investigated the original incident, Corey's FBI agent wife is fed up with the apparent stonewalling and clues her husband onto an interesting, and not widely known, fact regarding the investigation.

A couple was apparently videotaping themselves during a risque frolic in the surf when the explosion occurred. Some investigators believe that their videotape captured the crucial events. One problem: the couple disappeared, most likely because they were adulterers, and there's no way to identify the pair other than a lens cap left on a beach blanket.

Corey doggedly pursues the investigation in an entirely unofficial manner and is quickly confronted with resistance from his administrators. Some top-level officials don't want him turning over any rocks and unearthing more details. And they're willing to take extreme measures to make sure he doesn't pursue the investigation.

As other reviewers have noted, the plot lags towards the middle of the book. But few other authors have mastered sarcastic, entertaining patter in quite the way DeMille has (although Raymond Chandler comes to mind). When Corey arranges to meet an old partner at a Chinese restaurant, he describes the scene:

"They were prepping the day's mystery dishes in the kitchen, and I thought I heard a cat, a dog, and a duck, followed by chopping sounds, then silence. Smelled good, though."

Despite a sluggish plot here and there, Corey is a consistently entertaining character and the mystery of Flight 800 is compelling. In fact, I suspect every person who reads this book will be googling the topic upon finishing the book.

Saturday, February 12, 2005

Fisking Michael Standaert



Click here for AmazonThe LA Times' review of Hugh Hewitt's new book Blog is enlightening. The Times   selected a person named Michael Standaert, with whom I am unfamiliar. I do know this... he has literally set the standard for left-leaning MSM shills to follow. He will be hard to top.

I hereby call him out for a brisk fisking.

...this book is a sustained effort of partisan hackery aimed at further eroding trust in what the author Hugh Hewitt calls "mainstream liberal media," which for him means anything to the left of Rush Limbaugh. This regurgitated mantra, in the hands of skilled marketers, can be applied to the latest hot brand — in this case anything to do with blogs...


In a non-subjective, academic, and peer-reviewed study Tim Grose-Close and Jeff Milyo, of the University of Chicago and Stanford University, meticulously vetted the mainstream media. Their conclusion?

...Although we expected to find that most media lean left, we were astounded by the degree...


Michael, Stanford and U. of Chicago are hardly bastions of conservative thought. Methinks there is a rather large problem in asserting that the mainstream media is anything but biased. Unless, of course, you can provide a peer-reviewed study that mainstream media is biased to the right. I won't hold my breath.

[Hewitt is] ...a sort of right-wing Robin Hood stealing from the rich liberal mainstream media and giving back the correct information to the hinterlands...


Right wing Robin Hood? I can hardly detect even a scintilla of biased sarcasm there, can you? Standaert's agenda couldn't be more clear than if he electronically scrolled it over Times Square during rush hour.

...Hewitt has chosen the Protestant Reformation as a mirror on how blogging is leading a reformation against the mainstream media. He focuses largely on the case of "Rathergate" at CBS and how blogs were the first to point out the discrepancies in the documents CBS anchor Dan Rather said alleged that President Bush received preferential treatment during his National Guard service...


The lynchpin analogy of the book is startlingly accurate. And I've noticed that you, Mr. Standaert, have no answer to Hewitt's assertions. The Rathergate affair is, well, rather well-documented. Born in the bowels of the Free Republic message board, it resonated through the blogs at speeds the MSM could only dream of achieving.

[Hewitt's] ...fanatical fervor leads him down the path of triumphalist bombast...


When the entire world of the mainstream media has been demonstrably upended, such a statement is neither accurate nor even responsible. The only bombast I have detected thus far, is yours, Mr. Standaert: the imprimatur of the LA Times   is hardly a substitute for common sense. As experts have, on multiple occasions, already demonstrated.

...Without traditional media to feed off of, there would be little for most political bloggers to link to and comment on...


Ah, the centerpiece of the review. And amazingly, shockingly, startlingly wrong... as even the events of the last several days have demonstrated. The blogosphere first reported upon and then proliferated the story of the Eason Jordan affair in a manner reminiscent of... Genghis Kahn (sorry, couldn't help myself)... an uncontrollable wildfire, thanks to people like Mr. Hewitt.

...Lott's and Rather's own miscues and ethical lapses were what ultimately brought them down — not bloggers...


Hardly. One is left simply to wonder how many Rathergates and Easongates have occurred, unreported, over the years. It is an unsettling thought.

...It was up to USA Today, part of that liberal mainstream media, to uncover the scandal that journalist Armstrong Williams was being paid by the Department of Education to talk up the federal "No Child Left Behind" program — not bloggers...


Ah, the proverbial victory for the MSM over the new media. But even a blind squirrel finds a nut from time to time. The MSM has its place, but there is little question -- especially after the Jordan affair -- that the blogosphere now holds the leash on the poodle.

...The other fallacy is that blogging will supplant mainstream media and that the emergence of blogs will be similar to the outcome the invention of the printing press had on furthering the Reformation by giving common folk access to the Bible in their own languages. There are cases to be made about how the blogging revolution will change mainstream media habits and dissemination, but unfortunately Hewitt's "independent" position advocates right-wing, corporate or advertisement blogging...


Once again, reality intrudes into Mr. Standaert's artificially constructed world. The blogosphere is already leading the MSM around by the nose. One only need look at the circulation woes of the LA Times and its owners or the catastrophic ratings slide of CNN. Stories like the Swiftboat Vets and Eason Jordan burst from the blogosphere to Fox, not the other way around.

...Hewitt is a bit more forthcoming about the ethical dilemma faced among the top tier of political bloggers who may or may not get paid to advocate for causes, saying "bloggers should disclose — prominently and repeatedly — when they are receiving payments from individuals or organizations about whom or which they are blogging." But in the book, Hewitt describes how blogs should be used by opinion makers to get their points across through directly influencing the most prominent bloggers...


Because their credibility, the foundation of trust, is at stake. It's called accountability, and its a concept that has been foreign to the MSM... until now.

What Hewitt fails to see is that there already is a growing infrastructure of litblogs available that are independent, not beholden to a single publisher and not taking payola to promote or trash competitors' books.


Talk about a non-sequiter. Litblogs? You mean litblogs like this and this? That happen to be the tiny fiefdoms of one Michael Standaert? Outstanding, my friend. It's lovely that you've been able to embrace, even for just a few minutes (which this review could hardly have occupied), altruism and resist pitching your tiny genre of the blogosphere. Oh wait, you couldn't... and didn't.

The Times  and its brethren (the AJC and CNN among them) are still in denial, hoping that the good old days will return and that the importance of the blogosphere will somehow magically dissipate. Bad news, boys. It won't.

Attempting to tar bloggers like Hugh Hewitt in an attempt to win back credibility is not only pathetic. It's laughable. The circulation numbers and Nielsen ratings are cold, hard reminders that there's a new sheriff in town. Better get used to the idea.
 

Carter/Clinton Legacies: "Death Match with Terror"



Click here for AmazonThe "legacies" of Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton keep growing in new and frightening ways. With North Korea's pronouncement that they do, indeed, possess nuclear weapons must also come a reassessment of the failed policies of non-proliferation agreements bound by promises and not actions.

In 1994, many observers had viewed Carter's visit to Pyongyang with skepticism. The trade seemed one-sided at the time: concessions by the U.S. in the form of billions in nuclear technology, oil and humanitarian aid in exchange for promises by North Korea to abstain from nuclear weapons development.

While Carter netted a Nobel Prize for his efforts, North Korea was able to surreptitiously pursue development of its nuclear arsenal. In March, 1999, the Washington Times   reported that North Korea had pursued uranium-enrichment technology for its nuclear weapons program, aided and abetted by none other than Pakistani nuke dealer A. Q. Kahn.

While Pakistan officially denied assisting the North Koreans, the LA Times    reported in August of that year that North Korean technicians were working in Pakistani nuclear labs as part of a secret agreement to exchange missile technology for nuclear know-how.

Well how about that? Kim Jong Il actually lied to Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton. Who would have thought it possible? The problem with nuclear weapons nonproliferation agreements today is that they create the temptation to plan contingencies on the basis of intent rather than capability...

The alternative is to abandon the "sophisticated" view of a stable international order and understand that we are a planet in crisis; that in some meaningful sense humanity is in a death match with terror.


One can only hope that the appeasement mentality, with its centuries-old track record of failure, will be utterly and completely abandoned by politicians before it's too late.

Belmont Club: Death Match with Terror

There's a new Sheriff in Town



Click here for AmazonHugh Hewitt reported late last night that Eason Jordan resigned. The opinion storm had battered CNN's credibility to a point where there was simply no alternative for the cable news network and its honchos.

Michelle Malkin has the best recap of the Jordan affair, describing each milestone in exquisite, concise fashion. She concludes her terse recital with:

The shock waves that have overwhelmed CNN started with a single blogger and reverberated worldwide. I agree with Rony Abovitz that there should be no joy in watching Eason Jordan's downfall. But there is certainly great, unadulterated satisfaction in seeing the collective efforts of the blogosphere--citizens and professional journalists among them--produce the one thing the MSM has for too long escaped in its walled-off world: accountability.


I'll go one step further. As the MSM provably drifted left, its agenda frequently obfuscated rather than amplified the truth. Over the years, how many Rathergates and Easongates have taken place without our realizing it?

If nothing else, the pointy-haired media bosses on the coasts are beginning to come to grips with the new reality: there's a new sheriff in town, and it's us.

Update: Savor this New Sisyphus recap:

Message to MSM: you no longer control the news nor the agenda. You no longer dictate what is news and what is not. You no longer have the power to jam your liberal agenda down our throats.

Deal with it.

A good way to start may be by hiring a replacement for Eason who doesn't think that U.S. troops operate death squads targeting journalists or who doesn't think it's a good idea to gain cheap popularity with European elites by irresponsibly dragging our country's honor through the mud.


Michelle Malkin: EasonGate: a Retrospective

Friday, February 11, 2005

Mr. Jordan's Frying Pan



Click here for AmazonThe dike hastily constructed by the mainstream media to contain the Eason Jordan affair has all but collapsed. US Senators are involved, actively calling for full disclosure. Talk shows around the country are buzzing with discussion of Jordangate. And Jordan himself has gone to ground, hoping the storm will blow over (news flash: it won't).

The MSM coverage now spans the spectrum of left to right:

Atlanta Journal Constitution: CNN news chief clarifies comments on Iraq

New York Times: CNN Exec Clarifies Comment on Military

Al-Reuters: CNN Executive in Hot Seat Over Iraq Claim

CMAQ (Canada): CNN Executive says GI's in Iraq Target Journalists

National Ledger (Arizona): Christopher Dodd to Eason Jordan: Release the Tape

Washington Times: Stonewalling at CNN

New Hampshire Union Leader: CNN continues to slime and smear US troops


Click here for AmazonIt's gone down exactly the way Hugh Hewitt predicted:

CNN has hunkered down, hoping that the [State of the Union address] will cover the Jordan story. I don't think this will work, and the network is producing a second act to Rathergate.


What is truly amazing about this story is not the fact that the blogosphere bit into the story and wouldn't let go. It's the control over the MSM that the blogosphere now exerts! A serious story, vetted by observers, analysts and pundits (amateur though many may be), is pushed into every corner of the Internet until it can't help but escape into MSM, no matter how much stonewalling the bigs attempt.

If indeed the "the blogs are percolating into mass media," then the jomokes at CNN and NYT better buy some copies of Blog, and quick. Because they certainly don't seem to understand the opportunities represented by the blogosphere, nor the dire threats to their staid, sluggish, and stained institutions.

* * *

Click here for AmazonThe sole firsthand comments from Jordan himself (at least, that I've seen), regarding his pet -gate, were released by filmmaker Danny Schechter, in the form of an email:

...Eason, seemingly shaken by all the heat coming down on him for discussing something that many journalists and press freedom groups like the International Federation of Journalists has been discussing, began to withdraw from the controversy he stirred. He wrote...

I was not as clear as I should have been during the Davos panel discussion. I was trying to make a distinction between journalists killed being the victims of collateral damage and journalists being killed under different circumstances. No doubt most of the 63 journalist deaths in Iraq fall outside the collateral damage category. I have never felt and never intended to suggest, however, that anyone in the U.S. military meant to kill anyone known to be a journalist. As you will see in the Howard Kurtz Washington Post today, my comments were controversial. While I am pleased the spotlight is on the issue of journalist safety in Iraq, I intend to let others do the talking for a while after I gave several interviews and statements on the subject. I will let my colleagues know of Danny's availability as an on-air guest. I thank you and wish you well.- Eason.



Uhmm, yes, Mr. Jordan, it's getting hot. Real hot. Feel like jumping out of that frying pan yet, sir?

The Implications of Google Maps



Click here for AmazonI have been playing with the new, improved version of Google Maps and I couldn't have been more startled than if I saw Flava Flav and Brigitte Nielsen tongue-kissing. Oh, wait, I did see that last night on TV.

Anyhow, Google Maps has implemented a shockingly good user-interface -- without any use of Java applets, Macromedia Flash, ActiveX or any other thickish plugins. Using only Javascript, DHTML and "RPC's" marshalled on-the-fly via XMLHTTP, the maps are simply an order of magnitude better than the competition.

I certainly wouldn't advocate surrender on anyone's part, but if you're a Mapquest executive, you may want to call up your favorite headhunter and ask about any interesting opportunities.

Aside from the standard sorts of things you might expect in a mapping tool, Google Maps also provides:

  • Drag-and-drop user interface - explore without waiting for annoying page refreshes, simply move in any direction you want

  • Integrated, local searching - search for "Atlanta Wifi" or "Duluth Pizza" and get 3D-style indicators pointing to matching landmarks


  • I got to explore my neighborhood by panning and zooming... and literally found new sidestreets and routes that I otherwise would never have noticed. It is simply that groundbreaking of a user-experience.

    Google has, once again, redefined the limits of web applications when it comes to taking advantage of "pure web" technologies: Javascript and DHTML.

    As BenjaminM points out:

    ...this functionality was originally provided through the Microsoft XMLHTTP object from MSXML but Mozilla and Safari have copied it with an XMLHttpRequest object - who said that IE wasn't innovative?


    Microsoft has to be both proud and frightened with this turn of events. Google has taken their technologies and used it to mount a formidable threat to the conventional operating system.

    The implications for other applications is also, literally, shocking: why can't conventional database applications provide drag-and-drop scrolling through scrolling lists of line-items without having to refresh pages? Why can't new searches be integrated onto a results page with repaints?

    Google is transplanting the thick-client, desktop application user experience into the world of web browsers.

    A whole host of applications are ready and waiting to be migrated to this "leaps and bounds" better user experience. And Microsoft better start hustling, ASAP, to likewise improve the Windows' user experience in sea-change fashion. Otherwise, the risk exists that the browser will truly supplant the conventional notion of operating system. In which case, very few people will actually need Windows.

    A long way off, perhaps, but I'm sure the folks at Redmond are concerned.

    Thursday, February 10, 2005

    Senator Franken



    Click here for AmazonIn the immortal words of Animal House's Flounder, "Oh Boy, this is Great!".

    Al Franken is expected to run for the Senate seat to be vacated by brave, brave Sir Dayton (you may remember him, he's the courageous Senator (D-MN) who closed his office and scrammed from Washington, saying he'd read an intelligence report that made him fear for the safety of his staff. Dayton isn't running for re-election and Franken intends to fill that void.

    PoliPundit says this is great news: "Franken would be almost as weak a candidate as Dayton would have been. Meanwhile, the GOP will have a strong candidate in Congressman Mark Kennedy..."

    That sly Karl Rove... what will he think of next?

    Dean, Boxer, Kennedy, Kerry... and Franken... the ostensible thought-leaders of the Democratic party. Does it get any better than this if you're a Republican?

    Update: David Letterman and Conan O'Brien are P.O.'ed - Franken dropped out of the race. Bummer. There's goes the basis for a thousand punchlines.

    Franken to throw his hat in the ring

    "The blogs are percolating into mass media..."



    Click here for AmazonThe Eason Jordan affair, just as Hugh Hewitt predicted, is gushing into mainstream media like water through cracks in a busted dike. The fractures keep flexing and there's not enough patching compound in the world to keep the blackout intact.

    Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT) reappeared on the Imus program this morning. He stated, in no uncertain terms, that Jordan needed to call for the release of the tape from the Davos people . Interestingly, the Jordan discussion was the first meaty item on the plate, even coming before discussion of John Kerry's bizarre assertions on Meet the Press and, later, on the Imus program.

    Glen Garvin of the Miami Herald is the latest to discuss Jordangate and, while adding little additional information, has some wonderful nuggets (hat tip: Powerline):

    ...more than 400 other blogs have taken up the cry. They located the first corroborating witnesses, pressed the World Economic Forum to release its videotape of the panel (Forum officials initially agreed, but changed their minds earlier this week and said the panel's ground rules prohibited any direct quotations) and taunted mainstream news organizations into covering the story.

    That finally happened this week with stories in the Washington Post, the Boston Globe and other papers, as well as on CNN's rival cable news networks...

    This marks the second time in a few months that blogs have surfaced a major controversy over television news. Blogs were the first to accuse CBS' 60 Minutes of using forged documents in a story last year on President Bush's Vietnam-era National Guard service.

    Their claims eventually forced CBS to retract the story and launch an internal investigation that cost Dan Rather his anchor job and resulted in the dismissal of five other CBS staffers.

    Abovitz, for one, is impressed. He plans to start writing his own regular blog. ''The blog swarm is now percolating into mass media,'' he said.

    "This is a new era where you can't just make statements anymore. There are too many eyes. The blogs are like a million little cameras and tape recorders.'


    Miami Herald: Jordangate and the Blogs

    Orson Scott Card on Saudi Subversion



    Click here for AmazonA few days ago, Freedom House reported that Saudi hate material had been scattered liberally in mosques throughout the United States. The Saudi-based material espouses an ideology of hatred ("it is a religious obligation for Muslims to hate Christians and Jews"), denunciations of democracy ("democracy [is] un-Islamic") and an appeal to treat their residence in countries as "a mission behind enemy lines".

    I am sure that the vast majority of Muslims in the U.S. are neither aware of this material nor sympathetic to its endorsements.

    Orson Scott Card has ruminated on this topic for a few days:

    ...The only difference between the Saudi government and Al Qaeda is that Al Qaeda rejects cooperation with the West, while the Saudis think the more effective path is to cooperate with the West on the surface while proselytizing for Wahhabism, preaching hate for and murder of all opponents of Wahhabist ideology...

    ...It's that [media's] laziness [in translating Arabic material] that Yasser Arafat always counted on, when he said one thing in English and the opposite in Arabic, and expected not to be caught by the western media. He was rarely disappointed.

    ...Saudi Arabia is actively supporting murder, espionage, and sabotage in America. Remember that these publications weren't intercepted at the border. They were found in American mosques, where they were being distributed or at least made available, presumably to young Muslim men who are the ones most likely to embrace the romance of a holy war.

    In short, [the Saudis] are recruiting terrorists in America.

    ...I suspect most American Muslims regard these publications with contempt or embarrassment. But the point is, they are there. They are available.

    ...[Ironically, claims are made that the] subversive, anti-American activities [are] under the protection of the First Amendment. But as Abraham Lincoln pointed out during the Civil War: The Constitution is not a suicide pact. When our nation is under dire threat, and our enemies are using our very freedoms as a protection for their subversive activities, then we have to make temporary exceptions to those freedoms.

    ...a foreign government does not have a right to distribute subversive literature in America that is designed to recruit people for anti-American activities in time of war... Saudi Arabia is a foreign country. It does not have any freedom of the press within its own borders, and, not being a citizen of the United States, it does not have the right to distribute subversive, seditious, and criminal instructions to potential agents in our country.

    ...It's time for anyone -- a church or a group or an individual -- receiving funding from the Saudi government or from Wahhabist sources to be registered as agents of a foreign nation ... and publically listed... After all, American Christians wishing to operate as missionaries in other countries outside the West are invariably registered and must have the permission of the government to operate inside their borders. And those American missionaries are not advocating murder of apostates and subversion of the local government!

    ...It should be required that any publication imported into the United States in Arabic should have an accurate side-by-side English translation in the same publication. Publications in Arabic alone should be turned back at the border.

    ...Requiring openness will make it easier for moderate Muslims to act in large numbers to oppose these subversive publications. If they are not just individuals, but the large mass of American Muslims acting together, they can far more easily show that they have embraced the American Constitution and all its liberties by rejecting all such anti-American and criminal propaganda and ceasing to tolerate it within their mosques.

    ...There is nothing in the Constitution that should require us to allow foreign nations to recruit young American Muslims to "behave as if on a mission behind enemy lines" without at least demanding that they be open about what they're doing.

    ...Shouldn't we at least make it potentially embarrassing for our enemies to recruit Americans to join in their war against freedom?


    Orson Scott Card: Saudi Subversion