Jun 15, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses
Comments Daniel Pipes:
Sultaana Freeman -- the woman suing the State of Florida to win the right to be pictured on her driver's license wearing a niqab and showing just her eyes -- is back in the news today, with a report in the Orlando Sentinel on the arguments yesterday in front of the judges at Florida's Fifth District Court of Appeal. The paper summarizes these:
Howard Marx, Freeman's attorney, argued that the state should not substantially burden his client with the requirement that she appear without her veil on her drivers license. Conversely, Assistant Attorney General Jay Vail relied on the decision last year in an Orange County circuit court that favored the state's argument that 9-11 security concerns must outweigh a person's individual rights.
This case will go some way to deciding whether Saudi norms, with all their implications, will be imposed on the United States or not. (If judges read the opinion polls, there won't be any doubt; see the unscientific but convincing WFTV survey that finds 97 percent of respondents replying "no" to the question "Should the judge allow her to wear her veil in her driver license photo?")
You can see her picture here. The Smoking Gun notes:Turns out the Florida woman who is suing for the right to wear a Muslim headdress in a driver's license photograph has previously been subjected to an, um, unveiled government portrait. Following her 1997 conversion to Islam, Sultaana Freeman (formerly Sandra Keller) was arrested in Decatur, Illinois for battering a foster child. Freeman, 35, pleaded guilty in 1999 to felony aggravated battery and was sentenced to 18 months probation. As a result of the conviction, state officials removed two foster children from Freeman's care.
Previously we wrote:
Sultaana Freeman should not feel too bad--in Saudi Arabia she would not be able to wear a veil to cover her face for a photo ID--in fact, she in Saudi Arabia women are not even permitted to drive. (Postscript: In Muslim countries where women are allowed to drive, such as Iran, Egypt, United Arab Emirates, Oman, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain and Jordan, women do not cover their faces for a photo ID.) [Freeman Unveiled]
We also wrote:
Freedom of religion doesn't give one the right to a driver's license, which is a privilege granted by the owner of the roads--in this case the government. Freeman's options are to uncover her face, or forgo getting a license. [Islam vs. Driver's Licenses]
Writes Nicholas Provenzo in the Rule of Reason,
A drivers license may serve as a proxy for an ID, but in fact, it is nothing more than a license to operate a motor vehicle on government highways. Such a license should not demand invading an individual's privacy if they wish to maintain it.
If the question before the court was regarding the woman's passport, for example, I would probably side with the woman having to remove her veil if she wished to be issued a passport on the grounds that a passport serves as a form of identification and demands the means to physically identify the person in question.
In response to "libertarian rants" that Sultaana should win because the roads should be private: yes, the government should not build and maintain the roads under capitalism (in which case the state should not be giving licenses to use those roads, and the state should not be setting any rules as how to drive on those roads, i.e., speed limits.)
However, several points are in order: (1) we do not live in a laissez-faire society, we live in a "mixed economy" so in the "short run" the fact that the government does control the roads is a fact (though not a metaphysical one); (2) The transition to laissez-faire will not happen over night, but only after a profound cultural and philosophical change. Until this transition occurs, we need to survive and live with some sort of stability--"a rule of law"--in the present. Sultaana winning her case will not aid that stability or aid the transition to Capitalism; (3) A Florida's drivers license with a picture ID counts as a legal form of physical identification that may be used to enter and leave the U.S. without the need of another form of picture identification.
One can use a Florida's driver license (as a picture ID) in conjunction with a U.S. birth certificate to travel in and out of the United States to a foreign country, like the Bahamas, without owning a passport as many a Spring Breaker can attest. You can also take it to a Florida bank and use it to withdraw money from your bank account as it counts as a valid, legal form of picture identification. If you have been to BestBuy or WalMart and are making a very large credit card purchase they may ask you to show a picture I.D. to physically identify that you say who you are--and yes, they do accept a Florida Driver's license (in fact stores often prefer the Florida's driver's license to a foreign passport that they are not familiar with, i.e., have no means of validating). Given the present context, the Florida driver's license counts as an official government issued legal form of identification.
The Florida driver license laws can be hypocritical and contradictory--this is no grounds to add to that hypocrisy or to add to those contradictions by suggesting that Sultaana win her case on the grounds she is fighting for. Sultaana Freeman, or her lawyer, are not arguing to have the roads privatized. They are not arguing to remove the hypocrisy that may be present in the issuance of such licenses. They are arguing to undermine a legal form of picture identification.
In such cases, the defender of capitalism needs to focus on the essential issue in the short-run, while at the same time keeping an eye on the long run. In this case what is more important? The threat of terrorism from undermining legal forms of identification or the absolute mantra of "privatizing the roads"? Given that national security takes priority over privatizing the roads, the government should enforce the rules regarding picture IDs used as legal identification. (Such a case can be argued where the two--legal identification and privatizing roads--are not facing off against each other, Mrs. Freeman's case is not concerned with either issue).
If Mrs. Freeman were arguing that the government should not own the roads I would tend to be supportive her case. She is not. She should lose.Jun 14, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses
From Cox and Forkum:
From AP: Kerry Outlines Way to Limit Nuke Threat."At this hour, stockpiles go unguarded, bomb-making materials sit in forgotten facilities, and terrorists plot away," the senator said. "They have their technology. They have their scientists. All they need is that material. But we can stop them." ... "Remember. No material. No bomb. No nuclear terrorism," he said. [June 1, 2004]
Senator Kerry seems to be applying the leftists' anti-handgun philosophy to nukes: It's the weapons that are evil not necessarily the people who misuse them. In the same way the anti-handgun fascists want to limit a law abiding citizen's right to self defense, so Kerry wants to limit America's right to self defense, by reducing our nuclear weapons stockpile and stopping further research.
I have a "new" strategy suggestion: "No terrorists. No terrorist-sponsoring states. No terrorism." This used to be known as the Bush Doctrine, but we haven't heard it in a while.
Robert Tracinski commented on Kerry's new strategies in TIA Daily:In a new speech, Democratic candidate John Kerry sets forth his plan to deal with the threat of nuclear weapons falling into the hands of terrorists. His answer, as usual, is to fire off a barrage of paper bullets, negotiating new "anti-proliferation" treaties and appointing new people, as a cover for doing nothing of real substance.
Jun 14, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses
From Cox and Forkum: 
CNN reports: Nuclear watchdog criticizes Iran.International Atomic Energy Agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei was critical Monday of Iran's cooperation with his agency as the IAEA board of governors met. Iran's cooperation with U.N. nuclear inspectors is "less than satisfactory," ElBaradei said. [...] But, ElBaradei said, there is "steady progress" in the rest of the agency's work with the Islamic republic.
But as The Wall Street Journal editorial Coddling the Mullahs pointed out:If Iran goes nuclear within the next year or two, don't blame the inspectors at the International Atomic Energy Agency. Earlier this month Mohammed ElBaradei's U.N. team issued yet another damning report on the mullahs, describing a pattern of deception and non-cooperation that all but screams "bomb program." But the international community, with the apparent acquiescence of the Bush Administration, is treating it all as a matter of indifference.
OK, that's a mild overstatement. IAEA member states have been going through the motions required by their inspection process. But when they meet today in Vienna the consuming issue will be whether to "deplore" Iran's deceptions or note them with "serious concern." The Iranians are protesting that they consider even those words as all but a casus belli, but they are reported to be privately pleased as punch that the IAEA will yet again fail to refer them to the U.N. Security Council for sanction.
Jun 13, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses
From Cox and Forkum:
CNN reported today: Car bomb kills 12 Iraqis; Government official assassinated outside home in BaghdadMembers of Iraq's government have become targets of insurgents who see them as collaborating with the U.S.-led coalition.
Saturday morning, Bassam Salih Kubba, one of Iraq's four deputy foreign ministers, was killed when a carful of assailants drove by and fired at him. Assailants also opened fire on Iraq's deputy health minister, Ammar al-Saffar, Wednesday morning as he left his home for work. He escaped unharmed. Last month, a convoy carrying Salama al-Khafaji, a female member of the Iraqi Governing Council, was ambushed. Al-Khafaji survived the assassination attempt. In mid-May, a suicide bomber killed Izzedine Salim, who was just two weeks into his monthlong term as the council's president.
The governing council dissolved itself June 1 to make way for the interim government, which assumes leadership from the coalition June 30.
CNN reports: Baghdad car bomb kills 13; At least 16 people killed in five attacks MondayJun 13, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses
From Cox and Forkum:
The New York Times reported:There has, in fact, been a profound silence in the kingdom in the wake of the attacks in Yanbu and Khobar, in which foreigners were the main targets and Muslims were pointedly spared. Web sites popular with the more religious Saudis brimmed over with condemnation for the April bombing of the traffic police headquarters in Riyadh because all the victims were Saudis, while virtually ignoring the two subsequent attacks. That leads some Saudi intellectuals to conclude that the religious establishment, or at least its more militant elements, basically support Al Qaeda's goal of driving all foreigners out of the Arabian peninsula and establishing a Taliban-like caliphate. (The Saudis Fight Terror, but Not Those Who Wage It)
Meanwhile, in news from the kingdom yesterday, CNN reported: American shot dead in Saudi Arabia (the second fatal attack on Westerners in three days) and Poll of Saudis shows wide support for bin Laden's views. From the latter story:Almost half of all Saudis said in a poll conducted last year that they have a favorable view of Osama bin Laden's sermons and rhetoric, but fewer than 5 percent thought it was a good idea for bin Laden to rule the Arabian Peninsula. The poll involved interviews with more than 15,000 Saudis and was overseen by Nawaf Obaid, a Saudi national security consultant. It was conducted between August and November 2003, after simultaneous suicide attacks in May 2003 when 36 people were killed in Riyadh.
The Times article did note an exception to this sympathy with the terrorists' goals, a Saudi prince who recently said that the kingdom's religious scholars, or clerics, "have to declare jihad against those deviants [terrorists] and to fully support it, as those who keep silent about the truth are mute devils." But as John Lewis observed in the June 4 TIA Daily:The Saudi declaration must not be confused with America's war. The Saudis have declared a war, not against fundamentalist Islam -- of which they are a part -- but against those Muslims who disagree with Saudi Wahhabism. [...] For those who think that Islam is not violent, or that only "some" Muslims have "hijacked a great religion," consider that all sides in these conflicts require the sanction of clerics for their declaration of wars.
CNN reports: Saudi hunt for missing American; Another American murdered.The man was reported missing shortly after gunmen killed Kenneth Scroggs, an American working for a British-Saudi company, at his home in Riyadh's upscale Malaz neighborhood. The [Al Falluja Squadron group's] statement identified the man it said it had kidnapped, posting a driver's license, passport, business card and other documents and described him as a system engineering "specialist" for the Apache AH-64 helicopter."We have our legal right to treat them [hostages] the same way they treat our people," the statement reads. "We will publish more details about the man kidnapped and explain the mujahedeen's demands." The group added, "We will continue this determination in the same road toward Jihad and for supporting our brothers in Palestine, Iraq, Cuba and everywhere."
Meanwhile, the same Web site posted a video purporting to show the killing of Robert Jacobs, an American worker Saudi authorities said was gunned down Tuesday at his Riyadh home. CNN has not confirmed the authenticity of the video, and the victim's face is never seen. Jacobs, a 63-year-old employee of Vinnell Arabia, was gunned down in the eastern Riyadh neighborhood of al-Khaleej, which contains several residential compounds for Westerners, according to Saudi police and Jacobs' company.
Jun 11, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses
From Cox and Forkum:
This cartoon was inspired by a post at Charles Johnson's blog, Little Green Footballs. We stole his title outright: Hip-Hop, Islamofascist Style. The post is about an Iranian rapper who was allowed by the theocracy to release an album, but only after the "ministry of Islamic guidance and culture" censored 20 lyrical excerpts and a few songs. What was left? According the London Telegraph article:
Many of the songs question the habit of girls following western fashions. The lyrics mock the girls in Teheran who stroll through the capital with designer headscarves and make-up. "More important than bread at night is your lipstick and lipliner," raps Binesh Pagoh about a conceited girl. "There's a lot of religious people here, cover your legs with that skirt."
The article claims the album's release is an indication that officials are easing the restrictions on art. Perhaps. It's certainly an indication of how far Iranian people are from a free society.
Jun 8, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses
It's been thee months since the last suicide bombing. Remember how Hamas vowed to 'avenge' Yassin and al-Rantissi?
From the Jerusalem Post (June 3, 2004):
"The main factor in the decline of their capability is the killing and capture of their leadership. Only one senior West Bank Hamas figure, Ibrahim Hamad who is the commander in the Ramallah area, is still at large, having survived numerous attempts to capture or kill him. Others have fled and are believed to be in Syria...
..."Their rotating leadership is expending all its energy hiding. They are afraid of Israel hitting them which makes any sort of sophisticated planning difficult," said Bar, a senior research fellow at the Institute for Policy and Strategy at the Interdisciplinary Center, Herzliya." [Hat Tip: Max Harris]
Jun 8, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses
From Cox and Forkum:
CNN reports on the G-8 Summit:This year terrorism and its likely impact on world oil prices will see the European leaders lining up with the U.S. in common concern, according to [Katynka] Barysch [, an analyst at the Center for European Reform].
Jun 6, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses
From Cox and Forkum:
From The Wall Street Journal: Too Much, Too Late.A cultural establishment that (on the whole) doesn't give a damn about World War II or its veterans thinks it can undo a half-century of indifference verging on contempt by repeating a silly phrase ("the greatest generation") like a magic spell while deploying fulsome praise like carpet bombing. The campaign is especially intense among members of the 1960s generation who once chose to treat all present and former soldiers like dirt and are willing at long last to risk some friendly words about World War II veterans, now that most are safely underground and guaranteed not to talk back, enjoy their celebrity or start acting like they own the joint.
If you ever get a chance, be sure to visit the The National D-Day Museum in New Orleans.
Yale Kramer has posted an excellent article he wrote for The American Spectator for the 50th anniversary of D-Day: EASY RED, FOX GREEN: THE MEANING OF OMAHA BEACH. It contains a brief account of D-Day, specifically Omaha beach. Highly recommend. [Hat Tip: TIA Daily, LGF]Jun 3, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses
From "Ray Bradbury Rips Michael Moore", WorlNet Daily:
'Fahrenheit 451' author says filmmaker stole his title for Bush-bash...
...Moore's film won the Palme d'Or award at the Cannes Film Festival last month and is scheduled to hit theaters on June 25.
Of the Cannes award, Bradbury told the paper: "I have won prizes in different places and they are mostly meaningless. The people there hate us, which is why they gave him the d'Or. It's a meaningless prize."
Hat Tip: Kristoffer BohmannJun 1, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses
From Cox and Forkum:
In Saudi Arabia, Islamic terrorists systematically hunted and executed Westerner oil workers for being "infidels" and "crusaders" in the Holy Kingdom. Saudi Arabia's leaders finally realized that their own Islamic fundamentalism had spawned a threat to themselves and their oil customers, and rushed to launch an effort to secularize the government and hunt down all Islamist terrorists and their supporters...
No, of course, they didn't: Saudis rush to assure the world that oil production is okay.Saudi Arabia's leaders rushed to assure the world they were in full control, hours before global markets pass judgment on Tuesday on a suspected al Qaeda attack on their oil industry.
Many oil sector analysts said the militants' shooting and hostage-taking rampage at the weekend in the world's biggest oil exporter, in which 22 people were killed, could push fuel prices higher.[...]
Arab countries joined in the condemnation [of the attacks] and many will be at an OPEC meeting later this week at which Saudi Arabia is proposing production increases to help ease present high oil prices that threaten to stunt global economic growth. State-owned oil company Saudi Aramco has vowed to keep supplies flowing smoothly.
As for the "militants," it's reported that Saudi security forces 'allowed the killers to escape'SAUDI authorities struck a deal with al Qaeda hostage-takers which led to three of them escaping, it was claimed yesterday. Checkpoints set up across Saudi Arabia also failed to trace three Islamic militants who went on the run following Saturday's attacks in the eastern oil city of al Khobar. The allegation of collusion involving Saudi Arabian security forces emerged amid fears that the latest terrorist outrage in the country may have a knock-on effect on the global economy by sparking further rises in oil prices. [UK Herald]
Now there's some crack anti-terrorism tactics for you. Where's the cry of "No Blood for Oil" when you really need it?
Writes Victor Davis Hanson: Appeasing al-Qa'ida will only encourage militants:Much of the West's problem in the Middle East has been the false dichotomy between authoritarian regimes and their Islamo-fascist critics, who sometimes work conjointly against the West, while on other occasions turning on each other.
The Saudi royals, like most autocracies in Jordan, Egypt and Syria, play a tired game well known in the West. To ameliorate increasing misery among the populace (unemployment in Saudi Arabia is more than 40 per cent while $US800billion [$1.1trillion] is held by the royal family outside the country), few Arab regimes embark on liberalisation, constitutional government, open markets, free speech, sexual equality or religious tolerance.
Instead, popular frustration in state-controlled media is carefully filtered and directed against the US and Israel -- as if those in New York or Tel Aviv can explain why Saudi jobs are scarce or Egyptian water undrinkable. Direct aid to Islamic "charities", funding of hate-spewing madrassas and subsidising firebrand clerics were the old Danegeld that Saudi elites meted out to turn bin Laden's fury against us. And such triangulation worked, if we remember that 15 Saudi suicide killers struck on September 11, 2001 -- and earned smug, though private, smiles among many in the kingdom.
But feeding monsters is dangerous.
Jun 1, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses
From Yahoo News:
...a federal judge declared the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act unconstitutional Tuesday, saying it infringes on a woman's right to choose. U.S. District Judge Phyllis Hamilton's ... agreed with abortion rights activists that a woman's right to choose is paramount, and that it is therefore "irrelevant" whether a fetus suffers pain, as abortion foes contend. "The act poses an undue burden on a woman's right to choose an abortion," the judge wrote....In a statement, the Bush re-election campaign said: "Today's tragic ruling upholding partial birth abortion shows why America needs judges who will interpret the law and not legislate from the bench. ... John Kerry's judicial nominees would similarly frustrate the people's will..."
The "people's will" is irrelevant to the matter. The issue is individual rights--specifically a women's right to her own life. The women has a right to her life, and the unborn child does not have a right to it.
Kerry spokeswoman Stephanie Cutter said the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee voted to restrict late-term abortions when the measure contained a "clear exception for life or health of women."
This is better than Bush, but not by much. "Clear exception" is an unclear standard. Either the women has a right to a partial-birth abortion or does not.
..."When John Kerry is president he will appoint judges that are committed to upholding the Constitution, not pursuing an ideological agenda."
The problem is not that Bush is pursuing an ideological agenda, but that his ideology on this issue is based on the supremacy of religion and the pursuit of self-sacrifice, as opposed to being based on the supremacy of individual rights and the pursuit of happiness. The American constitution being founded upon the the ideology of the latter. Observe that on other issues--from confiscatory taxation to handing over American sovereignty to the United Nations-- Kerry is more than willing to sacrifice the life and happiness of Americans.
Justice Department spokeswoman Monica Goodling said the government "will continue to devote all resources necessary to defend this act of Congress, which President Bush has said 'will end an abhorrent practice and continue to build a culture of life in America.'"...Violating the law carries a two-year prison term. ["Judge: Bush Abortion Ban Unconstitutional"]
Translated: a culture of women undergoing back-room illegal "partial-birth" abortions because they have no other choice.
Recommended Website: Abortion is Pro-LifeMay 31, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses
From the International Herald Tribune on the E.U.'s legislature's "well-oiled system of perks and privileges":
...which might make a corporate president smile in recognition: chauffeured cars; daily and monthly stipends that can add tens of thousands of euros to basic salaries; jobs for relatives paid out of a E150,000 (about $180,000) a year secretarial allowance; free health care; pensions that, as one legislator put it, can put "gin on the terrace"; and, most stunningly, a travel expense procedure that reimburses legislators for as much as 10 times the amount of their airfare ticket prices. According to payroll and expense records obtained by the International Herald Tribune and The New York Times, a legislator can add well over E100,000 to a base salary when all the tax-free benefits are calculated...
...Budgeted at nearly E100 million in the aggregate, European deputies' benefits easily top those for members of any EU-member national parliament. (The U.S. Congress, in which members of the House receive million-dollar budgets to finance sizable staffs is another story, but nepotism in hiring is barred there and reimbursement is generally tied to actual costs incurred.) ["Perks at EU Parliament: A system out of control?"]
May 27, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses
From Cox and Forkum:
AP reports: Michigan Mosque Loudspeaker Issue on Ballot:HAMTRAMCK, Mich. - A noise-ordinance change that would allow mosques to broadcast calls to prayer on loudspeakers will be put to a citywide vote after opponents gathered hundreds of petition signatures. [...]
The council had voted unanimously last month to allow the Bangladeshi Al-Islah Mosque to broadcast the call to prayer five times a day. [...]
The Al-Islah mosque plans to begin broadcasting the calls on Friday. Abdul Motlib, head of the mosque, said he was confident the measure would win a citywide vote. "Hamtramck has 23,000 people. If 500 or 600 people go against us, we're not losing nothing."
May 26, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses
From Cox and Forkum:
CNN reported this weekend: Moore's 'Fahrenheit 9/11' wins Cannes award."Fahrenheit 9/11" was the first documentary to win Cannes' prestigious Palme d'Or since Jacques Cousteau's "The Silent World" in 1956.
Michael Moore's far left politics are bad enough, but the fact that his political films continue to win major awards as documentaries is absurd.
The American Heritage Dictionary defines documentary as: "Presenting facts objectively without editorializing or inserting fictional material, as in a book or film." Editorialize is defined as: "To present an opinion in the guise of an objective report."
Moore proudly notes on his web site regarding his Cannes award: "It is the first time in nearly 50 years a documentary has won the Palme d'Or (the Golden Palm)." [Emphasis added]
Yet in a 2003 interview (viewable here and on DVD), Evan Coyne Maloney pointed out to Moore that his films are more like video editorials. Moore responded:"Yeah, it's like an op-ed piece in the newspaper. These are my opinions. I'm very up front about them. I don't try and disguise them. I don't try to present them as objective news. They're not. They're very subjective."
Even when Moore himself admits to editorializing (which is likely his justifications for the distortions and fabrications that taint his work), he still wins awards for his "documentaries." Perhaps there needs to be a new category for what Moore creates; there's already one word that comes close: advertorial.
Of course, Moore is free to express and market his political opinion. But passing them off as documentaries and accepting awards for them as documentaries is artistic fraud.
Evan Coyne Maloney points out how Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 will function as a Democrat-promoted political advertisement that skirts the campaign finance reform laws: The Michael Moore Loophole.
And in Michael Moore and Me, Fred Barnes, executive editor of The Weekly Standard, describes how Michael Moore lied about him.May 25, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses
From Cox and Forkum:
James Taranto has a number of good links regarding leftward media bias (and even one about the rightward bias). The lead entry is an op-ed by Michael Barone, who states:[T]oday's press works to put the worst possible face on the war. ... Hence the endless dwelling on the abuses in the Abu Ghraib prison and the breathless speculation that it would drive Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld from office. Instead, an ABC/Washington Post poll showed the public 69 percent to 20 percent against Rumsfeld's resignation. Hence the much lesser coverage given to the murder of Nick Berg. Hence the microscopic coverage of the finding of the deadly poison sarin in an improvised explosive device -- mustn't give credence to the possibility that Saddam was conducting (as inspector David Kay said) weapons of mass destruction programs.
Taranto also notes that the latest Pew survey of media professionals and the public found:55% of national journalists say they think the press is "not critical enough" of President Bush; only 24% of the public agrees. Thirty-four percent of the public thinks the press is "too critical," vs. a mere 8% of the national press. Thirty-five percent of both groups characterize coverage of the president as "fair."
After detailing a few more statistics indicating a port-side list in the media, Taranto concludes:All this suggests that journalists not only are considerably more liberal than the general public but also wish their own coverage were more liberal than it is.
Glenn Reynolds also has some relevant comments and links. Steven Den Beste has a number of great links and comments on media bias and Bush's speech. He also points to an op-ed by Michael Moran that attempts to blunt criticism of the media."Call [criticism the media for biased coverage] a fallback strategy: the media lost the war," says Tom Rosenstiel, a former Los Angeles Times correspondent who now runs the non-profit Project for Excellence in Journalism. "It's very convenient politically for an administration that's under fire for its war policy to blame the messenger. [...]"
So if things go badly in Iraq, the theory goes, then "war supporters" will use the media as a scapegoat. This is a straw man constructed to divert attention away from legitimate criticism. Obviously the media could not single-handedly lose (or win) the war. There are many factors. But it's preposterous to dismiss the impact of war coverage that emphasizes negative news instead of objectively reporting the full context.
