One of the Old Media’s favorite ways of attempting to hide the ideological track of a story is to somehow forget to mention which party someone in the news hails or to whom they owe their fealty. In this case, it is what they don’t report that misleads. This week we find a classic what-they-don’t-say story concerning the judge that blocked sections of South Carolina’s new immigration law. For those unaware, U.S. District Judge Richard Gergel temporarily blocked segments of South Carolina’s new immigration laws because he claimed that some of its provisions impinged on federal prerogatives, things over which the state has no jurisdiction. The South Carolina law was opposed in court by Obama’s left-wing, activist Department of Justice headed by Eric “Fast And Furious” Holder and a gaggle of civil rights groups. Judge Gergel agreed with these attackers and issued an injunction to stop implementation of the provisions in question.

The Old Media reported a lot of details in the story, of course. We learned all about who opposed the provisions, who scoffed at the injunction, in what District Judge Gergel hailed, and in some of the reports we even get to hear what Republican South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley had to say about it all. But there is one thing few news outlets seemed to report that might help readers understand the decision better. Judge Richard Mark Gergel is an Obama appointee. (more…)

Let’s give Mr. Alter some props. He answered my email. Granted, it took awhile but he did respond. Here’s his response. It’s not bad until the end. You’ll see what I mean.

Hi, Mary:
Yes, I would tell you and Brian Terry’s family that Operation Fast and Furious was not a scandal. It was bad public policy that went horribly awry, with tragic consequences. It was a big blunder, a fiasco and maybe some other adjectives you and I could agree on, but not a “scandal” as conventionally defined. If you believe it’s a scandal, which to my mind connotes intentional wrongdoing for financial or personal (sometimes sexual gain), than you must include other huge policy mistakes under your definition.

So I assume you are willing to agree that the Bush Administration’s failure to recognize in advance that Saddam Hussein didn’t possess WMD was a scandal (removing Saddam’s WMD was the explicitly-stated purpose of the war). That intelligence failure led to an unnecessary war and the death of thousands. Many veterans of the Bush Administration have agreed that the war, like Operation Fast and Furious, was a case of good intentions gone horribly wrong.”Stuff happens,” as Donald Rumsfeld put it.

But those unfortunate, even tragic, things are not the stuff of scandal, unless they involved stealing by contractors and the like. As it happens, I was a supporter of the war initially, then criticized its conduct. But knowing that President Bush genuinely believed WMD to be present (In the same way Eric Holder genuinely believed the U. S. government could track guns through that straw purchase program, which had begun under Bush), I never called the Iraq War a scandal. Did you?  I didn’t think so.

If you are motivated by anything beyond sheer malice toward the President of the United States you will agree with the logic of this post. In any event, please feel free to share it with your readers.

Warm regards, Jonathan Alter

I thought it was an okay response until the last part and he shot himself in the foot. If my supposed “sheer malice” for President Obama is blinding me then couldn’t I say Mr. Alter’s total devotion to President Obama is blinding him?

To Mr. Alter a scandal is intentional wrongdoing for financial or personal gain. The Department of Justice didn’t tell the Mexican government about Operation Fast & Furious. Could someone please explain to me how that doesn’t count as intentional wrongdoing? How does anyone think it’s right or a good thing to arm already dangerous drug cartels? How were they going to track the guns without anyone knowing on the other side or tracking devices in the guns?! No attempt was made at the border to confiscate the guns. The DOJ purposely did not tell the Mexican government. They didn’t inform the Mexican government because they wanted this operation fail. Operation Fast & Furious was doomed from the beginning. Eric Holder never believed they could track guns through the straw purchase program. If he did there would be tracking devices in the guns and the Mexican government would be involved. If you think about it the only way for the guns to be tracked would be to find them at crime scenes.

Another reason why Operation Fast & Furious is a scandal under Mr. Alter’s definition: the push for gun control laws. Let’s just say everything Mr. Alter and Mr. Holder has said is 100% true. It’s still a scandal because now the DOJ and some in Congress are using Operation Fast & Furious as a way to push for more gun control. They’re using this situation for personal and political gains. The New York Times concentrated on that one part of Mr. Holder’s testimony!

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Bloomberg recently published a horribly inaccurate post by Jonathan Alter titled, “The Obama Miracle, a White House Free of Scandal.” It’s time for Mr. Alter to wake up, remove the rose colored glasses, and come back to reality. President Obama’s administration has a huge scandal on their watch and it’s called Operation Fast & Furious.

I sent an email to him and the editor responsible for the article.

Dear Mr. Alter & Mr. Lavin:

My name is Mary Chastain and I’m a writer for Andrew Breitbart’s Big Journalism. Lately I’ve been keeping an eye on the mainstream media and their Operation Fast and Furious coverage. I have one question for you: Are you serious?!? President Obama is scandal free?!? You said How much research did you do? Sir, you have to take off the rose colored glasses and allow me to introduce you to Operation Fast & Furious. Have you heard of that scandal? Probably not since the only mainstream media outlet covering it is CBS and I can tell from your article you don’t put much effort into your research.

Operation Fast & Furious (part of Project Gunrunner) started in fall 2009. The federal government approved the sale of illegal guns to Mexican drug cartels KNOWING they’d be walked into Mexico and used in crimes. Yes sir. The Obama administration told gun shop owners in border states to allow straw purchasers to buy these guns even though they knew these people would give them to Mexican drug cartels and be used in crimes. Do I need to repeat myself?

The Obama administration approved an operation that told gun shop owners in border states to sell illegal guns to straw purchasers KNOWING they’d be walked across the border into the hands of Mexican drug cartels and be used in crimes.

Do you know what ended Operation Fast & Furious? The vicious murder of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry on December 14, 2010 in Arizona. Yes that’s right. Not all the guns crossed the border. Many have been found at crime scenes in AMERICA! One was used to MURDER Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry. I’ve attached a picture of him.

I love this part of your article the most because we all know you’re alluding to Operation Fast & Furious, thus proving you DO know about it and PURPOSELY forgot about it.

Every time Representative Darrell Issa, the Republican from California who leads a House investigative committee, calls the Obama administration “corrupt” without offering any evidence, he hurts his cause. It’s much harder to make a story register as a bona fide scandal when the political motivation is so obvious.

Again, how much research did you do? Would you like to use all the research I’ve done? If you go to CBS News and use keyword Sharyl Attkisson (their investigative reporter who is on top of this SCANDAL) you receive 50+ hits on Fast & Furious.

You can go to Townhall and look at the the excellent work done by Katie Pavlich.

I can’t forget the awesome work done by Matthew Boyle and others.

Also check out Cam Edwards on Cam and Company at NRA News every night from 8-11PM CDT at http://www.nranews.com because he talks about it every night.

Here’s a link to my page at Big Journalism. http://bigjournalism.com/author/mchastain/

I will let you read through all of their hard work, which includes the EVIDENCE Congressman Issa has against the administration. I guess you missed out on all of the memos PROVING Mr. Holder was briefed on Fast & Furious as far back as July 2010. You should also check out Congressman Issa’s appearance on Face The Nation a few weeks ago. He again showed the evidence he has. You can easily find that appearance in the link I provided from CBS News.

Mr. Lavin, I know you put a disclaimer that said these are Mr. Alter’s opinions and not Bloomberg’s. But in all honesty this horrible and bias piece reflects incredibly bad upon YOU. I cannot believe you published an article that is filled with obvious LIES.

Respond back to me ASAP. I’ll have a piece up at Big Journalism soon. I’ll make sure to email it to you as soon as it’s posted.
Mary Chastain

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When does a columnist write something so utterly absurd that his credibility is forever damaged? I am not sure how to answer that in general terms, but I think at least one journalist answered the question for his own, now-thoroughly destroyed veracity. Jonathan Alter of Bloomberg has written one of the most ridiculous, least reality-based assessments yet of Barack Obama’s short White House tenure.

Alter

Alter put on his strongest rose-colored glasses and penned an uproarious piece headlined: “The Obama Miracle, a White House Free of Scandal.”

In his Bloomberg piece Alter claimed that Obama is “honest” and falsely asserted that his White House has been “free of scandal.” In fact, some of the incidents that Alter himself notes, and immediately dismisses, carry at least a whiff of scandal — if not untruthfulness.

Naturally, Alter ignores far more than he reports on Obama scandals but he also misses the biggest reason why Obama seems to him to have a scandal free presidency. The Media refuses to call anything Obama does a scandal!

After all, if you have a guy that wantonly lies, that double deals, that hides facts, that also allows subordinates to lie and that fellow is allowed to just get away with it without repercussion from journalists, I guess that makes for a “scandal free” guy, eh?

Alter’s first attempt to give succor to Obama’s failing presidency comes with a baseless swipe at “the whole” Republican Party.

The sight of Texas Governor Rick Perry tumbling out of the clown car recently as a “birther” (or at least a birther- enabler) is a sign of weakness, not just for the Perry campaign but for the whole Republican effort to tarnish the president’s character.

This is a false premise. It assumes that “the whole” Republican Party is using birtherism to “tarnish the president’s character.” This is a flat out untruth. Only a small portion of the center right polity in America has any interest in Obama’s birth certificate. Alter’s attempt to make the whole of the GOP into birthers is simply baseless.

Next, Alter dismisses the Solyndra scandal as meaningless. I guess if you don’t think its a touch scandalous when you have millions upon millions of tax dollars going into the pockets of buddies who turn around and go bankrupt almost immediately, well, what can you say to that?

Alter also dismisses both Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner’s tax evasion and Obama’s firing of Ag. Dept. official Shirley Sherrod without knowing what she really did. Then Alter makes the silly claim that Obama’s stimulus spending was free of any waste or abuse — the latter claim is laughable on its face. Have you ever heard of a government spending program that had no waste at all?

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- The fake news show that progressives love to watch won the Emmy for Best Variety Show last night. By “variety” we must assume that “The Daily Show” didn’t win for ideological variety, considering the background with Big Journalism contributor Steven Crowder. So Emmys “variety” actually means no variety.

- Greta vs. Tucker Carlson.

- Twitter’s board loses two investors:

Fred Wilson of Union Square Ventures and Bijan Sabet of Spark Capital are no longer on Twitter’s board, the company said on Friday.

It was not immediately clear what prompted the change.

- New survey says that ABC, CNN, Bloomberg, Golf Channel reach most affluent households.

- Honesty from a reporter: Canadian Commentator: The Press Gave America ‘An Untried, Unknown,’ ‘Incompetent’ President.

(more…)

Folks, it’s not called WikiHacks.  Nowhere in the news have I seen reports of hack attacks into CIA or State Department files.  Last time WikiLeaks well, uh, leaked, it had lots of help from an insider -allegedly the low level (read low life) intel flunkie Bradley Manning who described the prospect of disclosing vast amounts of state secrets as “beautiful and horrifying.”

Obvious conclusion that you won’t see in the Make-Believe Media:  This isn’t diplomatic rape — it’s incest.  America’s enemies are attacking from within.  And the Media is running a screen.

Time magazine can Skype with WikiLeaks’ founder Julian Assange.  And a private computer hacker can shut down WikiLeaks’ site for several hours, something the global governments just can’t seem to do.  Lots to learn there.  But hey, Interpol has just placed Assange on its worldwide wanted list for “sex crimes.” Yes, it takes an international government village to fail where the private sector suceeds.

(more…)

Call us cynical but we wonder whether Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s passionate backing of the building of a controversial mosque near Ground Zero stems as much from Bloomberg’s belief in America’s “freedom of faith” as it might from the Mayor’s belief in the “virtues of Islamic finance?”

Does the Mayor’s unshakable support have anything to do with The Bloomberg (company) becoming a ‘single provider of information that caters to the Islamic business market’?  A Bloomberg five-year business plan for an Islamic finance portal via a Bloomberg hub at the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) is already a reality.

Michael Bloomberg, has become a staunch supporter of the Cordoba House (Park51) Ground Zero Mosque.  In the process, the Mayor has lectured opponents on “religious liberty” and, by extension, implied that opposition to the mosque is largely based on bigotry.

Lately, Bloomberg has become so insistent on the mosque’s being built at its planned location that The New York Post has labeled him Pro-Mosque Mike.”

A defiant Mayor Bloomberg, saying there should be no compromise, insisted last night that a mosque be built near Ground Zero, declaring, “We must do what is right, not what is easy.

While Bloomberg hasn’t been shy about questioning the motives of those opposed to the mosque’s location, the media has shied away from the Mayor‘s motivations.  But what of the Mayor’s motives? What might they be? Does a strong passion for religious liberty explain all?

Some of Bloomberg LP’s officials may hold some clues. (more…)

A funny thing happened on the way to ABC’s This Week round table yesterday. The circle turned into a hexagon.

Instead of the usual balance of two—occasionally three—commentators from both political perspectives, ABC’s special Independence Day edition featured a 5-on-1 lib-to-con tilt. Crammed into the liberal corner were Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Cynthia “The People Are Stupid” Tucker, Bloomberg’s Al” Tea-Party Hater“  Hunt, Nobel-laureate Paul “Stimulus Maximus” Krugman, and Univision anchor/illegal immigrant amnesty proponent Jorge Ramos.

Looking a little lonely over in the cobwebbed conservative corner was Dan Senor, former Republican foreign policy advisor to “W,” husband of Campbell Brown,and founding partner of Rosemont Capital.

Hey, that’s a pentagon, not a hexagon. No, you just forgot to add Jake Tapper, the discussion’s—cough—impartial moderator. Now we’ve got all six sides of our wobbly table. Yet despite the flawed design of the furniture, nevertheless it was the “Senor moments” that carried the day.

One of the main issues addressed by our hexagon of heated haranguers was how best to foster economic recovery.

To no one’s surprise, all except Senor parroted the administration’s position that we desperately need more stimulus. Stimulus Maximus called the first stimulus bill—nearly a trillion dollars—a “half measure” (!) and says it’s time to double-down. Tucker, in a beautifully-timed fourth-of-July display of disdain for the muddle-headed hoi polloi (you and me), empathized about how “the people” were “confused” by the word “stimulus,” and praised Democrats for rightly rebranding the next handout as a “jobs bill.” To her, we’re too stupid to understand what “stimulus” means yet stupid enough to be fooled by the new marketing campaign. (more…)

Five weeks ago, on February 8, Bloomberg.com brought us assurances from Treasury Secretary Timmy Geithner concerning the stability of the U.S. debt rating.

Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner said the U.S. is in no danger of losing its AAA debt rating even though the Obama administration has predicted a $1.6 trillion budget deficit in 2010.  “Absolutely not,” Geithner said, when asked in an ABC News interview broadcast yesterday whether a downgrade is a concern. “That will never happen to this country.”

Geithner stated that, as soon as unemployment declines, “the U.S. plans to rein in the deficit.”  This assurance came, of course, in the midst of a push to pass healthcare legislation that guarantees to increase the national debt, but who’s counting?  With economic growth coming over the next four years, the former New York Fed president said five weeks ago that deficit reduction “is within our capacity to do.”  Capacity differs from intent, though.

Today, there’s another Bloomberg.com story about the U.S. bond rating.  It’s entitled “U.S., U.K. Move Closer to Losing Rating, Moody’s Says:” (more…)

The Democrats and their activist old media are running in circles and working themselves into pretzels trying to define the “Tea Party” movement. It can be quite entertaining to watch.  They really have no idea what is happening right in front of their eyes. The media would have an easier time reading Mandarin Chinese than they would deciphering the signs at a Tea Party rally.

You could argue that they don’t want to understand what they are seeing because that means they would have to admit that Democrats have lost the beloved grass roots that they claim to have had forever, and I would not disagree. But, for the moment, let’s just say that they are really trying hard to figure this out and it’s just not sinking in to their brilliant Ivy League minds.

Let’s give them a little hint:

Sunday on Meet the Press, Dee Dee Myers, the former Clinton press secretary, took a stab at defining the Tea Party movement. “I’m not sure exactly where this is going….is it a third party, is it part of the Republican Party?” (more…)