Considerettes

Presented here with no other commentary than a hearty, “Amen!”  James Taranto:

“The majority is deeply wrong on the law,” according to a critic of yesterday’s U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United v. FEC . “Most wrongheaded of all is its insistence that corporations are just like people and entitled to the same First Amendment rights. It is an odd claim since companies are creations of the state that exist to make money.”

Whose opinion is this? We don’t know exactly, because it is not attributed to any individual. It is an unsigned editorial in the New York Times. That is to say, it reflects the collective opinion of the Times editorial board, a division of the New York Times Co., a corporation that exists to make money.

It’s lucky for the New York Times Co. that the Supreme Court upheld its First Amendment rights. Otherwise, it could not have exercised its First Amendment right to denounce the court for upholding its First Amendment rights. Right?

Not quite. As Justice Anthony Kennedy noted in his opinion, the McCain-Feingold “campaign finance” law–which until yesterday’s ruling made it a felony for corporations to engage in certain political speech–exempted “media companies” like the New York Times Co. (and News Corp., publisher of The Wall Street Journal and this Web site) from this restriction.

McCain-Feingold, in other words, granted a small group of companies, including the New York Times Co., the privilege to speak freely about politics, while denying it to all other corporations–not only “companies . . . that exist to make money,” but also taxable nonprofits that exist to represent a point of view, including the advocacy arms of the Sierra Club, the American Civil Liberties Union and the National Rifle Association.

The editorial published by the New York Times Co. includes no mention of the special privilege the New York Times Co. enjoyed under McCain-Feingold–a privilege that creates at least the appearance of a journalistic conflict of interest. Is not the failure to disclose the New York Times Co.’s interest in McCain-Feingold a serious violation of journalistic ethics?

The Times’s opinion is wrongheaded as well. Under the paper’s cramped view of the First Amendment, the privilege the New York Times Co. enjoyed under McCain-Feingold was just that: a privilege, not a right. The First Amendment does not say “Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech of media corporations.” If the Constitution doesn’t protect corporations, it doesn’t protect the New York Times Co. And if Congress had the power to grant an exemption to media companies, it also had the power to take it away.As Justice Clarence Thomas noted in McConnell v. FEC (2003), such reasoning would permit “outright regulation of the press.” Some on the far left, complaining about “corporate domination” of the media, would like to see just that.

In past generations, the New York Times Co. had a proud tradition as a defender of free expression. It was the prevailing litigant in two landmark Supreme Court cases expanding and vindicating First Amendment rights, New York Times Co. v. Sullivan (1964) and New York Times Co. v. U.S. (1971). The former case, by the way, involved a political advertisement.

What a shame it is to see a once-great media corporation become a fair-weather friend of free expression.

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Blaming God for the earthquake in Haiti got Pat Robertson some major blowback.  (He didn’t really blame God, he blamed Satan, but work with me here.)  All manner of scorn was heaped upon him.  Fair enough.  Then how about this lesser-publicized remark regarding the earthquake?

When we see what we did at the climate summit in Copenhagen, this is the response, this is what happens, you know what I’m sayin’?

(Emphasis mine.  Well, actually it’s Tim Blair’s, to whom the hat tip goes.)  See it’s OK for actor Danny Glover to blame a planet for these problems.  Heck, Al Gore’s made a living doing that.  But talk about what Blair calls “a less-fashionable deity” and all hell breaks loose.

That’s a phrase that Brit Hume used to describe his mentioning of that same deity.  Sounds like his contention that someone else wouldn’t have faced the same firestorm if they had said the same thing he did about Tiger Woods but suggested a New Age guru, is sounding more and more correct.

Want to nail Robertson for his comment?  Have at it.  But you you should give the same treatment to Glover.  The media and the liberal elite don’t, which suggests which side their on (or, more specifically, against).

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Any religious expression, it seems.  A commentator can’t say anything remotely religious without getting lambasted by the Left.  (And, no doubt, with exclamations like “Jesus Christ!” thrown in for good measure.)  While commenting on the Tiger Woods situation, former Fox News anchor Brit Hume dared dig deeper into the story and commented on one of the underlying issues.

Tiger Woods will recover as a golfer. Whether he can recover as a person, I think, is a very open question… the extent to which he can recover, it seems to me, depends on his faith. He’s said to be a Buddhist, I don’t think that faith offers the kind of forgiveness and redemption that is offered by the Christian faith. So, my message to Tiger would be: ‘Tiger, turn to the Christian faith, and you can make a total recovery and be a great example to the world.’

This has led folks like Keith Olbermann to compare Hume to a “jihadist” and his guest Dan Savage to consider him a “lunatic”.  Later, Olbermann said that Hume was attempting to “force” or “threaten” Woods into conversion.  From my local paper, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Jay Bookman called Hume arrogant and pompous.  Steve Benen at the Washington Monthly trashes Hume and seems to think that if adherents of a particular religion aren’t perfect then it’s perhaps hypocritical to suggest turning to that religion.  His multitude of commenters seem to agree.

But as LaShawn Barber notes, this was all inevitable.  The Secularists, those trying to essentially make religion a taboo in the public square and who overwhelmingly live on the Left, simply will not tolerate any mention of religion.  (How tolerant.)  And certainly not comparatively.  If you dare insist that belief in Jesus is any better than venerating a toaster, you’ll get shouted down.

On top of that, LaShawn links to Christian apologist and author James White who points out that, indeed, Brit Hume is right.

The secularists are, of course, howling in protest, but if you read what they are saying, one obvious underlying theme comes to the fore. No one is offering reasoned, objective criticism of the substance of Hume’s comments, because, quite simply, he is right. Buddhism does not, in fact, provide for redemption and forgiveness, but instead directs one to look inward for enlightenment and eventual freedom from suffering (via freedom from desire). But redemption? Not in this life, for in its classical expression, this would involve a long process of moving toward enlightenment through many lifetimes. In any case, secularists do not care about the objective truth contained in Hume’s words, but instead they are enraged that he would actually dare to express his thoughts in public—the realm over which they now claim absolute authority and control.

(Emphasis his.)

If we are not allowed to speak of religion in public, it may be time to hold a wake for the First Amendment, something the Left claims to uphold.

UPDATE:  Jay Bookman linked to my cross-post of this on Blogger News Network, in this sentence:  “Thanks to an earlier post on this subject, I’m now among those being accused of being anti-Christian and intolerant.”  My post is linked on the word “anti-Christian”, and you’ll note that nothing in this piece accuses anyone of that.  I’ll accept the accusation, though, of considering him intolerant for coming out publicly against free religious speech.

I’ve posted a comment on his blog.  (Hasn’t showed up yet; might need to be moderated because I’m a first-time commenter there.)  I’ll be interested in seeing what he says.

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Hollywood, are you listening?  Liberals who think at least Chavez isn’t the monster he’s often portrayed as, are you paying attention? 

President Hugo Chávez has risked international ire by lauding Carlos the Jackal, the Venezuelan terrorist notorious for a series of bombings, kidnappings and hijackings across Europe, as a "revolutionary fighter" unjustly imprisoned for trying to defend the Palestinian people.

The leftist Venezuelan leader praised Carlos — whose real name is Ilich Ramirez Sánchez — as "one of the great fighters of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation", denying he was a terrorist and claiming his lifetime imprisonment in France was unfair.

"I defend him," he said during a speech on Friday night. "It doesn’t matter to me what they say tomorrow in Europe."

Of course, this is now in addition to all his other BFFs.

The fiery anti-American leader sought to defend leaders he said were wrongly branded "bad guys", heaping praise on Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who is to visit Venezuela later this week, and the Zimbabwean leader Robert Mugabe, who he called "brothers".

He drew the wrath of Ugandans after casting doubt on the crimes of the Ugandan dictator Idi Amin. "We thought he was a cannibal," said Mr Chávez of Amin, whose regime was notorious for torturing and killing suspected opponents in the 1970s. "I have doubts … Maybe he was a great nationalist, a patriot."

Hat tip: Betsy Newmark, who wonders if those Hollywood leftists who have made common cause with Chavez will ever get asked about this latest news.  Yeah, probably not.  After all, it is the leftist media most likely to do any interviewing.

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Remember "Paul Harvey News and Comment" on the radio?  (Or am I showing my age?)  At least that guy had the guts to let you know that he had commentary in his show, unlike some journalists these days that sneak it in.  Well, no hiding it here.  This is "Doug Payton Links and Comment".

Becky Garrison, writing at the liberal "God’s Politics Blog", on the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall, says that "more walls need to fall".  Fair enough, and I’d tend to agree with that.  But sometimes walls are necessary, and are the least intrusive method of dealing with an actual problem.  They can protect more so than divide.  One of the walls that Ms. Garrison says needs to come down is the Israeli wall on the West Bank.  Meryl Yourish, however, compares these two types of walls — Berlin vs. Israeli — and notes major differences in the motivation and the result of each.  The Christian Left perhaps needs to understand a little nuance here.

Dale Franks, writing at Q&O, notes that the supposed upside of the government takeover of Chrysler, and subsequent sale of a large portion to Fiat, hasn’t, and looks like it won’t, materialize.  Your government, and your money, at work flushed away.

An insufficiently colorful color guard.  Scott Johnson at Power Line point out political correctness in the smallest aspect of our lives.  (And he needs to because the media doesn’t seem to want to notice it.  Or it looks on with admiration and doesn’t consider it news.)

For all the accusations of hate directed at the Right, and the religious Right in particular, Jeff Jacoby points out that they don’t hold a candle to the irreligious Left.

President Obama doesn’t think that the prospect of jail time over choosing not buying government-mandated health insurance (and likely choosing not paying the fine) is not the "biggest question" Congress is facing now.  Yeah, no big deal.  (Riiight.)  And in an Irony Alert, candidate Obama criticized Hillary Clinton for proposing a health care system with a mandatory purchase requirement. 

The New York Times has no problem calling Jim DeMint a "conservative Republican", but decides that Bernie Sanders, a self-described "socialist", is only a "left-leaning independent".  Courage and truth from that liberal media.

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The latest war between the White House and Fox News has come to a truce, with the Press Secretary of the Nobel laureate for Peace and a senior VP for the news organization (I think I can still call it that) meeting together to call a cease-fire.  The website The Wrap notes, "No word whether the White House will backpedal on its pledge to keep Barack Obama from appearing on the News Corp. network until 2010."

Can’t face Fox, but claims to be able to face off against terrorists.  Indeed.

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From Chuck Asay (click for a larger version):

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In an incredibly chilling move, the White House tried to freeze out Fox News from interviewing Obama’s Pay Czar, while granting interviews to all the other major news organizations.  As the video notes, often the White House makes a particular official available to all the groups, one after the other, but today’s event broke with that tradition.

To the credit of the other groups, they all decided to not do any interviews unless Fox was allowed to as well.  The administration blinked, and the interviews, from all news groups, commenced.  Before, it seemed that only Jake Tapper of ABC cared about this situation, as it was something of a big deal when he asked his question of Robert Gibbs.  However, this overreach by the Obama administration finally jolted all the other groups into action.  "First, they came for Fox News…" and all that sort of stuff.

This proves, beyond all doubt, that this has no real equivalence in previous administrations of either party.  This is a President and his staff shutting out a major news organization, and it is absolutely wrong.  First, because of general First Amendment, freedom of the press issues.  Secondly, because of the double standard employed in the reasoning.  If Fox News isn’t a news organization because it has a perspective, we don’t have any news organizations in this country.  And as I noted before, the incredibly liberal bias is merrily ignored, belying Obama’s motivation.

Not to mention liberal media "watchdogs" like Media Matters.  Instead of recognizing this for what it was, they pilloried Jake Tapper for daring to ask such a question.  And of course, if you look at their front page today, you’d think that Fox News was the only TV news organization in the country.  For a group that supposedly knows the media business, it’s pretty clear that what matters to them is not the media, just their (dare I say it) perspective, especially when they cheer this sort of thing on.

Again, it has nothing to do with "perspective".  It has everything to do with not wanting to deal with disagreement.  The Van Jones issue, the ACORN scandal, Anita Dunn fondness for Mao, and many other issues, covered by Fox and virtually ignored elsewhere, clearly shows that, while you could make a case against Fox’s "Fair and Balanced" motto, they at least provide a fair hearing to otherwise ignored stories, and they provide the balance in the extremely one-sided new coverage in this country.

And the White House is trying to silence them.  When did dissent stop being patriotic and start being a club to silence the opposition?  Do rank and file Democrats really think this is okey dokey?

P.S. Ironic, isn’t it, that Obama says he is willing to talk to our enemies with no preconditions, but goes to war with a media organization that is challenging him (which is arguable what all media organizations are supposed to be doing, the whole 4th Estate thing).  Good thing he’s already been given the "peace" prize.

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Clearly, the White House hasn’t quite figured out the difference between the two.  Now, I will say that some many who complain about liberal bias in the media and quote Keith Olbermann to, in part, prove it also need this bit of education.  (Quoting Keith Olbermann to show he’s an unserious clown is an entirely different matter.)  But the White House ought to certainly understand the difference.

After spending the week declaring that Fox News Channel isn’t a real news organization because it has perspective (while at the same time ignoring perspective of a worse kind from so many other news organizations), Jake Tapper of ABC News got White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs to determine what the standard was for “perspective”.

Tapper: “That’s a sweeping declaration that they’re not a news organization. How are they different from say, ABC, MSNBC, Univision?”

Gibbs: “You and I should watch around 9:00 tonight or 5:00 this afternoon.”

Tapper: “I’m not talking about the opinion programs or issues you have with certain reports. I’m talking about saying that thousands of individuals who work for a media organization do not work for a news organization. Why is that appropriate for the White House to say?”

Gibbs: “That is our opinion.”

On FNC, the 9:00 hour is Sean Hannity’s show, and Glenn Beck runs at 5:00.  So expressing viewpoints, on shows that are not news shows but are transparently and openly opinionated, by the White House’s lights, disqualifies you from being a news organization.

Well, apparently there’s more to that than just expressing viewpoints.  Else, why would the President himself have had MSNBC’s Olberman and Rachel Maddow as part of an off-the-record briefing?  Apparently it’s not just perspective that’s the problem.  It’s disagreement they’re trying to suppress.

Because you know that other news organizations are watching how this administration is treating FNC.  The message is clear, “If you want access, you will tow the line.”  True, other administrations have had issues with the press, and with specific networks or newspapers, in the past.  But Obama is taking this into uncharted territory.

Ostracizing a news network for it’s opinion shows critical of you is way, way out of line.  While it’s not technically violating the First Amendment, since there are no legal impediments being thrown up to Fox News, the spirit of the amendment is being violated.  This is either thin skin or something worse.  I hope it’s the former, but I’m watching out for the latter.

Update: A commenter on this post (which tries to make an equivalence between Obama’s general dissing of FNC to when Bush would try to get NBC to air unedited quotes of himself) make a great point.

All three networks to opinion after 5, what’s the big deal? I don’t think FOX has tried to hide the fact that Beck, O’Relly, Hannity or Greta are opinion. Hell, it’s not like any of those three were ANCHORING the presidential elections.

A la Olberman.  Ouch.

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Hunter Baker, writing at the American Spectator’s AmSpecBlog, relates a conversation with his boss:

I was telling my boss, Robert Sloan (former Baylor president and current president of HBU), about Michael Moore’s new film Capitalism: A Love Story.  We briefly discussed an interview of Moore by the Wall Street Journal yesterday in which Moore asserted that the auto workers should own 100% of the auto companies.  

Sloan responded, "The interviewer should have asked Moore if the crews on his films own the projects they work on for him."  That would be a nice question for the filmmaker, wouldn’t it?  

"Mr. Moore, do you pay your workers a wage to perform their functions or — consistent with your philosophy — do they own the films you make along with you?"

Any doubts as to what the answer is to that?  Yeah, me neither.

Baker asks any reporters out there to ask Moore that question.  However, any doubts as to whether the MSM will be reluctant to push that point?  Yeah, me neither.  Guess it’ll fall to Fox News or some independent conservative upstarts.

Speaking truth to power indeed.  More like gushing.

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A study shows that, it’s not that conservatives don’t write best-selling books, it’s just that the media are loathe to cover them.  From the Culture and Media Institute, an example:

Reaching No. 1 on the Nonfiction Hardcover List is a notable achievement. To maintain that spot for more than a single week is truly impressive.

Two liberal authors reached the No.1 spot on the List in 2009. Elizabeth Edwards’ “Resilience” was No.1 for just one week and Thomas Friedman’s “Hot, Flat, and Crowded” held that spot for two weeks.

They received media coverage befitting No.1 best-sellers, garnering nine instances of coverage on the networks between the two.

But there was another book that hit No.1. In fact, it held the No.1 spot for 12 of 18 weeks, and has yet to fall under the No. 4 spot. (Also, at this writing, it ranked No. 24 on Amazon.com, and has enjoyed 186 days in Amazon’s Top 100.)

That book, “Liberty and Tyranny: A Conservative Manifesto,” by conservative political commentator and nationally syndicated radio-host Mark Levin, was by far the most successful book on the list – nothing even came close.

[…]

Yet Levin’s book received zero coverage from any of the networks since its release on March 29. Nor did his name appear on any of the news programs since the release.

Contrast that with Edwards’ and Friedman’s nine instances of coverage for books that spent one and two weeks respectively at the top of the list. Equivalent coverage for Levin would require 36 mentions on the networks.

And the media blackout of “Liberty and Tyranny” extended beyond the networks and has been nearly complete.

Levin confirmed to CMI that “we have not heard from any of the major networks, and the only major newspaper that has interviewed me is Philadelphia Enquirer, and that’s because I’m from Philadelphia.”

If the media were truly drawn to ratings, and if ratings are driven by popularity, Levin would be all over the place.  He’s not, and I’m betting they’re not, either.  It’s ideological, plain and simple.

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Remember Cindy Sheehan?  Well if you don’t, that’s OK.  Neither do here one-time comrades-in-arms who sat with her outside Bush’s Crawford ranch trying to get an 2nd meeting with the Commander-in-Chief.  She’s up in Martha’s Vineyard protesting the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, but she doesn’t have much company.

And neither does the media, who covered her so extensively, remember her, either.  It’s so bad that in order for the Huffington Post to even link to a story on her, it had to resort to quoting that stalwart national news organization the Cape Cod Times.

It was a media circus during the Bush years.  Now, suddenly, it’s gotten very, very quiet.  What a difference an administration makes.

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Shire Network News #167 has been released. The feature interview is with Charles Winecoff, a contributor to the Big Hollywood blog for conservatives working in the creative arts. He says coming out as a conservative was harder than telling people he was gay. Click here for the show notes, links, and ways to listen to the show; directly from the web site, by downloading the mp3 file, or by subscribing with your podcatcher of choice.

Below is the text of my commentary.

Hi, this is Doug Payton for Shire Network News asking you to "Consider This!".

Candidate Barack Obama said that we needed health care reform in the US, but blasted fellow Democrat Hillary Clinton for proposing a mandatory insurance requirement.  President Obama now thinks this is a feature, not a bug; a benefit that we just need to get on board with.  But there’s more, much more!  If you act now…  (Oh, sorry, I was channeling Billy Mays for a second there.) 

Anyway, while there are many positives to the proposal, here are the Top 9 Benefits of ObamaCare(tm):

9 - No more pesky Canadians crossing the border to avoid their long waiting lines.  Ours will be just as long.

8 - We’ll be the envy of the third world.

7 - Health insurance will be just like car insurance; you have to have it, it’ll cover less as you get older, and your children can trade you in during our Cash for Clunkers program.

6 - Getting rid of of Grandma & Grandpa sooner means cost savings to you, not including the Christmas & birthday presents you don’t have to buy anymore.

5 - Electronic records means that your medical history will soon have its own Facebook page.

4- Medicine will no longer be prescribed subject to, as Scott Ott has called it, "diagnosis discrimination"; simply based on a doctor’s opinion.  Government bureaucrats will now be on a level playing field.

3 - It’ll make David Letterman forget all about Sarah Palin.

2 - Cost-cutting measure: close rural hospitals.  It’s OK that farmers will be travelling farther for health care, because we’ll mandate they buy an electric car.

And the #1 benefit of ObamaCare(tm):

If we had already had it, Michael Jackson would still be alive.

Yes, and Christopher Reeve, too, I imagine.  Consider this.

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No, not that Jackson 5. The first 5 American servicemen and women named "Jackson" who died in Iraq. They won’t get media coverage or the attention of those following celebrities, but theirs was a sacrifice we should honor.

PowerLine has the details.

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Take two similar stories and try to figure out how the media will cover each.  With a hat tip to Newsbusters, here are the two stories:

1. A former Catholic priest comes forward Monday (4/20/09) to claim that another priest abused him as a teenager nearly 30 years ago. (The accused priest has no other similar public complaints and denies the allegations against him.)

2. A former school teacher was sentenced Wednesday (4/22/09) after pleading no contest to eight felony counts, including having sex with two girls under the age of 16. The man "admitted to having intercourse with the girls, performing oral sex with the teens and taking extremely explicit nude photographs of his victims — including pictures of him with one of the girls - before sending the images over the Internet."

OK, they’re not entirely equivalent.  The priest story is from 3 decades ago and the teacher story is from this month.  OK, and the priest denies the allegations while the teacher is being sentenced.  So given that, what was the disparity in coverage?

NewsBusters answers:

Now it’s quiz time! To which story did the Los Angeles Times devote two generous color photos and a 640-word article? Which story did the Times totally ignore?

If you’ve been a close follower of this issue here at NewsBusters, you already know the answer. The Times loudly trumpeted the case of the Catholic priests, even though the original story was reported three years ago (!). Meanwhile, it totally ignored the story of the teacher (Contra Costa Times, 4/23/09; Long Beach Press-Telegram, 11/5/08).

In addition, at Google news, the story of the priests returns "about 128" results. The story of the teacher? One.

We’ll say it again: It seems the most important element to the Times when reporting the awful abuse of children is whether the words "priest," "bishop," or "Cardinal" is in someone’s job title.

Given the Google results, it’s not just the Times that has this ailment.  It’s almost journalists have some blind spot when covering negative stories on government schools and / or a hot spot when it comes to negative stories regarding religion in general and Christianity in particular. 

I’m sure there’s a logical explanation.

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