Washington Post pans movie “Fair Game” for fabrications

The Washington Post had an editorial on Friday, criticizing the new move about Joe Wilson And Valerie Plame, “Fair Game”, for repeating many of the untruths about the whole Wilson-Plame episode and the Iraq war.

The close:

Hollywood has a habit of making movies about historical events without regard for the truth; “Fair Game” is just one more example. But the film’s reception illustrates a more troubling trend of political debates in Washington in which established facts are willfully ignored. Mr. Wilson claimed that he had proved that Mr. Bush deliberately twisted the truth about Iraq, and he was eagerly embraced by those who insist the former president lied the country into a war. Though it was long ago established that Mr. Wilson himself was not telling the truth – not about his mission to Niger and not about his wife – the myth endures. We’ll join the former president in hoping that future historians get it right.

It’s good to see a mainstream media outlet that tries sometimes to report it straight. Of course, there’s not so much to gain politically now from the “Bush lied” myth, so it’s safer to diverge from it.

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Chinese government implements Fairness Doctrine

A CNN blog reports on Democrats’ desire to censor conservative talk radio hosts:

Dems target right-wing talk radio

WASHINGTON (CNN) – ” More and More Democrats in Congress are calling for action that Republicans warn could muzzle right-wing talk radio.

Representative Maurice Hinchey, a Democrat from New York is the latest to say he wants to bring back the “Fairness Doctrine,” a federal regulation scrapped in 1987 that would require broadcasters to present opposing views on public issues.

“I think the Fairness Doctrine should be reinstated,” Hinchey told CNNRadio. Hinchey says he could make it part of a bill he plans to introduce later this year overhauling radio and t-v ownership laws.

Democratic Senators Debbie Stabenow of Michigan and Tom Harkin of Iowa added their voices recently to those calling for a return of the regulation.

Republicans oppose the Fairness Doctrine, arguing it would be wrong for the federal government to monitor political speech on the airwaves, in order to require opposing views.

It isn’t hard to imagine a different level of reaction from places like CNN if Republicans were in the majority and threatening the licenses of broadcasters who don’t have enough conservative views on the air. They’d probably even go so far as to report it on the air, rather than merely on a blog post on their website. Words like “fascism” and “Mccarthyism” would be used. And they’d be right. The Democrats are ready to go after talk radio only because the most popular voices on the air are conservative. It is entirely based on viewpoint.

In a similar story from the AP:

China to create blacklist of local journalists

BEIJING (AP) – ” China plans to create a blacklist of journalists who break its reporting rules, state media reported Friday, adding to an array of controls used to restrict its domestic media.

According to a report in the China Press and Publishing Journal, the agency that exercises control over the state-owned Chinese media plans to “establish a database of media professionals with a bad record.”

It said reporters who violate the rules or laws will have their press cards taken away. “Their names will be entered into the list and they will be restricted from news reporting or editing work,” Li Dongdong, deputy director of the General Administration of Press and Publication, was quoted as saying.

As noted here at Townhall.com, the so-called “Fairness Doctrine” isn’t the only way for Democrats to try to suppress conservative speech. There are a number of less direct or perhaps less visible ways for them to try to accomplish the same goal. The Democrats’ willingness to even consider such an open and direct assault on the 1st Amendment should be very troubling to every American who values the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

And a fascist doctrine roundup from Michelle Malkin.

McCain and Obama Debate 2

Obama starts right in with the “Bush-McCain deregulation caused the economic crisis” myth.

McCain should have gone right after Obama’s false narrative. He’s instead going into the old talking points. Not good.

Obama hits again with class warfare and promises of handouts. Obama is here to win.

McCain hits on Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac – “Obama’s cronies” – here we go.

Obama effectively ties the credit problem to it’s effects on ordinary employees. But then he dives back into the phony “deregulation” talking points.

Obama points fingers, then claims he doesn’t want to point fingers – cynically smooth.

Obama is going to cut spending?!? He’ll really say anything.

Obama says “we’ve got to deal with education” – Bill Ayers for Secretary of Education?

Obama calls for higher taxes on America’s employers heading into a recession. McCain seems to be letting it go. He goes into his old riff on reining in spending. The gloves are still on.

Obama: “After 9/11, Americans were ready to come together” (then Democrats set out to demonize President Bush more than al Qaeda or Saddam Hussein).

Brokaw: What can the goverment do to keep Americans from going into debt?
Obama: “It starts with Washington” (doesn’t everything, if you’re a liberal?)

McCain: Tax-raiser Obama = Herbert Hoover. McCain seems to be warming up a little now. Good – “Let’s not raise anybody’s taxes.”

Obama: “A tax cut for 95% of Americans” (even many who don’t pay any income tax, so he’s really talking about spending, not tax cuts. McCain better hit him on that.)

McCain on Global Warmism: Touts his cap-and-trade bill with Lieberman. But then – Nukes! Yes. Clean, generates lots of power, with no carbon dioxide emissions, and no burning of fossil fuels.

Obama: The same double talk on nuclear power. “McCain voted against alternative fuels.” We assume this means McCain voted against taxpayer subsidies for alternative fuel boondoggles, like solar and wind power, that Obama supports. Again, everything has to come from Washington, with taxpayer funding (if you’re a liberal).

“Should health care be treated as a commodity?” Now there’s a loaded question.

Obama: “You can keep your plan” (How generous of him!) “We’ll work with your employer” (Whether they like it or not)

McCain: Obama’s approach is government mandates. We need to give people choice, not mandates.

Obama doesn’t understand what rights are. This should be disqualifying.

Obama hits McCain for opposing expansion of SCHIP, sold as a program for lower-income children, to cover adults and middle class families. Repeats the lie “McCain favors deregulation in every circumstance.” McCain lets it go! Come on.

McCain: “America is the greatest force for good in the world.”

Obama says he doesn’t understand why we invaded Iraq. Not that he disagrees, but he doesn’t understand. This too should be disqualifying. Maybe he should talk to President Clinton, who signed the Iraq Liberation Act in 1998.

“Should we respect Pakistani sovereignty…” Good question.

Obama blames it on Iraq. A knee-jerk talking point, not a thoughtful answer.

McCain is exactly right, that the intention to attack across the border should not be announced loudly and publicly as part of a political campaign.

Obama: “We have to withdraw responsibly from Iraq” But his plan was to withdraw in defeat regardless of conditions, even before the surge he opposed worked. He’s been dead wrong on Iraq, an advocate of surrender. This too should be disqualifying.

Good question form the audience on Israel and the UN.

McCain: We obviously wouldn’t wait for the UN Security Council.

Obama: “We can’t allow Iran to get a nuclear weapon.” Talk is cheap.

“When President Bush said ‘we’re not going to talk to North Korea” This is a lie, one that Obama has repeated. The administration engaged in multi-lateral talks with North Korea, the kind of multi-lateral talks Democrats usually advocate. But it’s more important for them to attack the president than to tell the truth or uphold their own standards.

Obama: “we need fundamental change” (to erase the great economic expansion started under Ronald Reagan, and retreat to the tax-and-spend policies and economic stagnation of the Carter years.)

“Progressive” tolerance on full display

Here’s a great video of liberals being their typical tolerant and inclusive selves, via The Jawa Report (Warning: these are liberals – contains much uncivilized behavior and vulgarity not suitable for minors):

Ahhh, Barack Obama – bringing Americans together even before the inevitable inauguration on November 5th.

Obama-Biden on 60 Minutes

Barack Obama and Joe Biden appeared together on CBS’ 60 Minutes Sunday evening. Steve Kroft was as tough yet objective as you’d expect from CBS News:

“Does the fact that he [McCain] chose as his vice president someone what has less experience than you take that weapon out of his arsenal?” Kroft asked.

Whether Palin has less experience is at the very least a debatable point. Way to keep it objective, Kroft.

“Let me tell you the reason I picked Joe Biden. Number one, he can step in and become president. And I don’t think anybody has any doubt about that,” Obama said.

Really? No doubt from anybody? Got any polling data to back that up, Senator Obama?

“Number two is that if I’m in the room making the kinds of tough decisions that the next president’s gonna have to make, both on domestic policy and on international policy, then I want the counsel and advice of somebody who’s not gonna agree with me a 100 percent of [the] time. In fact, somebody who’s independent enough that can push back and give me different perspectives and make sure that I’m catching any blind spots that I have. And Joe Biden doesn’t bite his tongue,” he continued.

Perhaps some sage advice like suggesting we send a $200 million check to the terror-sponsoring state if Iran?

“You’ve had some differences over pretty substantial issues. Iraq for one,” Kroft pointed out.

“Actually, we haven’t,” Biden said. “Look, Barack was right. He not only got it right about bein’ against the war, I got it wrong about underestimating the incompetence of this administration when we gave the president the power we gave him at the time. He knew accurately that even, not even being outside. Maybe it gave you a better perspective. That that meant he was going to war. Bush told me he wasn’t going to war. I thought they meant it. You’re standing outside. You knew they didn’t mean it.”

What a load of phony, disingenuous nonsense. Joe Biden voted for the “Joint Resolution to Authorize the Use of United States Armed Forces Against Iraq”. Biden said in 2002:

“He’s [Saddam Hussein] a long term threat and a short term threat to our national security… “We have no choice but to eliminate the threat. This is a guy who is an extreme danger to the world.”

But now he says he voted for the authorization to use force because he thought we would not use force to eliminate the threat he said we had “no choice but to eliminate” in 2002? What?!? For Democrats, Serious Foreign Policy Wisdom means a stream of head-spinning, incoherent blather to avoid your actual record, apparently.

Biden, like his running mate Barack Obama, is clearly counting on the mainstream press not to check his record. Maybe Biden should step aside before he becomes the Admiral Stockdale of 2008.

Update: Did Biden – Wise, Long-Experienced, Foreign Policy Expert – really say we will simply have to stand by and accept a nuclear-armed Iran?

Democratic Cowboy Chickenhawk War-mongers

Good point from Ralph Peters:

AM I the only one who’s noticed the silence? Mere months ago, left-wing bloggers and demonstrators were wailing Support our troops, bring them home! seven days a week.

Now their presidential candidate has announced that he won’t bring all those troops home, but will simply transfer combat forces from Iraq to Afghanistan – expanding that war. (He’s discussed possibly invading Pakistan, too.)

And the left’s quiet as a graveyard at midnight.

Where are the outraged protests from MoveOn or the DailyKos? I thought the extreme left felt sorry for our service members in harm’s way and wanted to reunite them with their families.

What happened?

We all know exactly what happened. The left has nothing against foreign wars (as long as they don’t have to fight in person). They just want to pick our wars themselves.

The problem with Iraq wasn’t that America toppled Saddam Hussein, but that George W. Bush did it. I’ve been saying it for years: Had Bill Clinton done the job, the left would’ve celebrated him as the greatest liberator since Abraham Lincoln.

AP turns out to be wrong, again

From the AP:

They also include notes about the 2003 State of the Union address, during which President Bush made the case for invading Iraq in part by saying Saddam Hussein was pursuing uranium ore to make a nuclear weapon. That information turned out to be wrong.

Uh, no it didn’t.

Judgment: Obama, Democrats were completely wrong on the surge in Iraq

Via The Corner at NRO, Vets for Freedom announces a new ad:

(Washington, DC) “” This morning, Vets for Freedom released its second television advertisement as part of the national “Four Months, For Victory” media and grassroots campaign. The ad””entitled “Some in Washington”””highlights the success of the Surge, and exposes detractors of the policy””namely Senators Harry Reid (D-NV), Barack Obama (D-IL), and Chuck Hagel (R-NE).

CLICK HERE to view the ad.

The ad is part of Vets for Freedom’s current multi-million dollar ad buy, and will air in multiple markets in Ohio, Michigan, Virginia, Pennsylvania, New Mexico and select cable markets for the next ten days.

“It’s incredibly important that the American people not only know that the surge has been successful, but also that certain policy makers””from both sides of the aisle””opposed that policy and have been wedded to a narrative of failure since then.” says Iraq war veteran and Vets for Freedom Chairman Pete Hegseth. “This ad is intended to shake the trees and determine who truly supports victory and success in Iraq, and who is unwilling to admit past policy mistakes and change their stance.”

CLICK HERE for more information about the “Four Months, For Victory” campaign.

The ad is simple, direct, powerful. Check it out.

Barack Obama embraces President Bush’s Iraq policy

How exactly is this any different from President Bush’s position? –

It’s very hard to anticipate what it’s going to be like six months from now. We saw how rapidly things have changed over the last six months, because of not only the extraordinary work of our armed forces, but also the shift in attitudes of tribal leaders in places like Anbar, the Mahdi army’s decision to — for now at least — to stand down the more aggressive posture that the Maliki government took in going into places like Basra.

So if current trends continue and we are at a position where we continue to see reductions in violence and stabilization and continue to see some improvements on the part of the Iraqi army and Iraqi police, then my hope would be that we could draw down in a deliberate fashion in consultation with the Iraqi government at a pace that is determined in consultation with General Petraeus and the other commanders on the ground. It strikes me that that is something we could begin relatively soon after inauguration. If, on the other hand, you’ve got a deteriorating situation for some reason, then that’s going to have to be taken into account.

Sounds just like “return on success”.

It is nice though to finally hear a Democrat acknowledge the reality of the success of the president’s surge strategy. It’s really just tiresome to hear the Democrats keep repeating the same old talking points from 2 years ago over and over as if nothing has changed.

The Washington Post encourages Obama’s more realistic position:

BARACK OBAMA has taken a small but important step toward adjusting his outdated position on Iraq to the military and strategic realities of the war he may inherit. Sadly, he seems to be finding that the strident and rigid posture he struck during the primary campaign — during which he promised to withdraw all combat forces in 16 months — is inhibiting what looks like a worthy, necessary attempt to create the room for maneuver he will need to capably manage the war if he becomes president.

What are all the nutroots bloggers and activists going to do now that Senator Obama is adopting the strategy vision of the Outlaw Bu$hCo Regime? If he eventually goes all the way and talks about “victory in Iraq” their heads are all going to explode.

The Washington Post finally notices “The Iraqi Upturn”

An editorial from the Washington Post today:

The Iraqi Upturn
Don’t look now, but the U.S.-backed government and army may be winning the war

THERE’S BEEN a relative lull in news coverage and debate about Iraq in recent weeks — which is odd, because May could turn out to have been one of the most important months of the war. While Washington’s attention has been fixed elsewhere, military analysts have watched with astonishment as the Iraqi government and army have gained control for the first time of the port city of Basra and the sprawling Baghdad neighborhood of Sadr City, routing the Shiite militias that have ruled them for years and sending key militants scurrying to Iran. At the same time, Iraqi and U.S. forces have pushed forward with a long-promised offensive in Mosul, the last urban refuge of al-Qaeda. So many of its leaders have now been captured or killed that U.S. Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker, renowned for his cautious assessments, said that the terrorists have “never been closer to defeat than they are now.”

This should be kept in mind as the Democrats continue droning on with their partisan, year-old talking points that “the war is lost”, “the surge is a failure”, “the president’s Iraq strategy is a failure”, etc., even as their media allies find it harder to ignore the evidence of success.

The Post tries to instruct Senator Obama:

…the likely Democratic nominee needs a plan for Iraq based on sustaining an improving situation, rather than abandoning a failed enterprise. That will mean tying withdrawals to the evolution of the Iraqi army and government, rather than an arbitrary timetable…

When Mr. Obama floated his strategy for Iraq last year, the United States appeared doomed to defeat. Now he needs a plan for success.

But an arbitrary timetable for withdrawal without regard to the facts on the ground in Iraq is precisely what Obama has been promising. And Obama didn’t merely float a strategy “last year”, he continues ignoring the evidence even today. Senator McCain has said, “I’d rather lose an election than lose a war.” Senator Obama obviously doesn’t agree.

More comments from Ed Morrissey at Hot Air.