29 October 2008 @ 8:53AM >> I thought the job of the news media was to provide information, not suppress it. I guess I’m wrong:

Let’s try a thought experiment. Say John McCain attended a party at which known racists and terror mongers were in attendance. Say testimonials were given, including a glowing one by McCain for the benefit of the guest of honor ... who happened to be a top apologist for terrorists. Say McCain not only gave a speech but stood by, in tacit approval and solidarity, while other racists and terror mongers gave speeches that reeked of hatred for an American ally and rationalizations of terror attacks.

Now let’s say the Los Angeles Times obtained a videotape of the party.

Question: Is there any chance — any chance — the Times would not release the tape and publish front-page story after story about the gory details, with the usual accompanying chorus of sanctimony from the oped commentariat? Is there any chance, if the Times was the least bit reluctant about publishing (remember, we’re pretending here), that the rest of the mainstream media (y’know, the guys who drove Trent Lott out of his leadership position over a birthday-party toast) would not be screaming for the release of the tape?

Do we really have to ask?

So now, let’s leave thought experiments and return to reality: Why is the Los Angeles Times sitting on a videotape of the 2003 farewell bash in Chicago at which Barack Obama lavished praise on the guest of honor, Rashid Khalidi — former mouthpiece for master terrorist Yasser Arafat?

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Is there just a teeny-weenie chance that this was an evening of Israel-bashing Obama would find very difficult to explain? Could it be that the Times, a pillar of the Obamedia, is covering for its guy?

Gateway Pundit reports that the Times has the videotape but is suppressing it.

Back in April, the Times published a gentle story about the fete. Reporter Peter Wallsten avoided, for example, any mention of the inconvenient fact that the revelers included Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn, Ayers’s wife and fellow Weatherman terrorist. These self-professed revolutionary Leftists are friendly with both Obama and Khalidi — indeed, researcher Stanley Kurtz has noted that Ayers and Khalidi were “best friends.” (And — small world! — it turns out that the Obamas are extremely close to the Khalidis, who have reportedly babysat the Obama children.)

If Barack Obama is elected, he’ll probably be the president about which the American public knows the least. The media seems only interested in conveying feelings about Obama, not facts. As National Review’s Mark Levin wrote:

Virtually all evidence of Obama’s past influences and radicalism — from Jeremiah Wright to William Ayers — have been raised by non-traditional news sources. The media’s role has been to ignore it as long as possible, then mention it if they must, and finally dismiss it and those who raise it in the first place. It’s as if the media use the Obama campaign’s talking points — its preposterous assertions that Obama didn’t hear Wright from the pulpit railing about black liberation, whites, Jews, etc., that Obama had no idea Ayers was a domestic terrorist despite their close political, social, and working relationship, etc. — to protect Obama from legitimate and routine scrutiny. And because journalists have also become commentators, it is hard to miss their almost uniform admiration for Obama and excitement about an Obama presidency.

Sure, we’ve heard about Obama incessantly, but what do we know?

We know he’s good-looking, super-cool, and he sports a spiffy halo. We know the celebrities in Hollywood love him, and European rock stars encourage Americans to vote for him on Saturday Night Live. We know that he will transcend race, even though he spent 20 years of Sundays in a racist church.

Aside from winning elections, we know that his greatest accomplishment to date has been to write two books about himself. We know he portrays himself as a moderate, but he hasn’t been on the political stage long enough to amass a record proving it. Even in his short time in the Senate, his votes have positioned himself further to the left than any other Senator.

True, the man has a voice that manages to soothe even as it commands respect. Unlike the raving lunatics and aging bomb-throwers he surrounds himself with, Barack Obama has the air of someone unflappably reasonable.

But who is Barack Obama really?

Given the lack of actual evidence backing up his supposed moderation—besides his take-my-word-for-it assurances—it is not only fair to judge Obama on the company he keeps, it’s pretty much the only way to judge him.

Perhaps that’s why news organizations like the Los Angeles Times wants us to know as little as possible about Obama’s associations. They know America would never elect a guy who keeps the company that Obama does.

1 August 2006 >> Last week in Seattle, a gunman opened fire on a crowd, shooting six people and killing one. On television news, where the rule is “if it bleeds, it leads,” mass shootings typically get massive coverage. And when there’s a motive for the shooting, you usually hear about that, too. We all remember that the Columbine shooters were picked on in school.

But some crimes don’t get quite as much coverage, and when they do, they are often scrubbed of politically incorrect details. So when Naveed Afzal Haq entered the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle and started shooting, it was interesting to see how the story was covered.

Haq, a U.S.-born Muslim, left no doubt about his motives: according to witnesses, he announced, “I am a Muslim American, angry at Israel” before opening fire. Haq later told a 911 operator, “These are Jews and I’m tired of getting pushed around and our people getting pushed around by the situation in the Middle East.”

But despite his own statements, it still wasn’t quite enough evidence for the folks at the Los Angeles Times. On Sunday, two days after the incident, the paper ran a front-page teaser about the story that claimed, “Jewish Center Shooter’s Motive is a Mystery.”

Yeah, what a mystery! Better call in the psychic detectives to get to the bottom of this one.

As a result of such deliberate ignorance, the paper’s number-one online watchdog administers sufficient ridicule. Nicely done, Patterico!

26 June 2006 >> A letter to The New York Times:

Your recent decision to publish information about a classified program intended to track the banking transactions of possible terrorists is not only detrimental to America but also to its fighting men and women overseas. I know because I am a sergeant in the army on my second tour to Iraq. As I am sure you don’t know because you aren’t in Iraq, and I am sure never will be, terrorism happens here everyday because there are rich men out there willing to support the everyday terrorist who plants bombs and shoots soldiers just to make a living. Without money terrorism in Iraq would die because there would no longer be supplies for IEDs, no mortars or RPGs, and no motivation for people to abandon regular work in hopes of striking it rich after killing a soldier.

Throughout your article you mention that “the banking program is a closely held secret” but the cat is out of the bag now isn’t it. Terrorists the world over can now change their practices because of your article. For some reason I think that last sentence will bring you guys pleasure. You have done something great in your own eyes-you think you have hurt the current administration while at the same time encouraging “freedom fighters” resisting the imperialism of the United States. However, I foresee a backlash coming your way. I wish I had a subscription to your paper so I could cancel it as soon as possible.

Well, one prominent L.A. blogger exacted that punishment against the Los Angeles Times.

Meanwhile, an interesting observation:

Because the war on terror is fought in a peacetime atmosphere, treason can be presented as dissent, and you can get away with it.

And finally, on a ligher note, a little mockery.

22 July 2005 @ 12:44PM >> This editorial in the Los Angeles Times makes me wonder: is there anything about George W. Bush that his opponents don’t hate?

2 May 2005 @ 8:34AM >> Patterico reports that the Los Angeles Times recently removed crucial information from a reprinted Reuters wire story. The story, covering the March shooting of a car carrying Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena by U.S. forces in Iraq, was doctored by the L.A. Times so that key information supporting the claims of the U.S. military was removed:

An important contested issue in the controversy was the speed of the car as it approached a U.S. checkpoint. Sgrena has maintained that the car was traveling at a “regular speed” — no more than 25-30 mph. Americans have said that the car was traveling at least 50 mph.

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As presented in the L.A. Times, the question of the car’s speed is a “he said, she said” issue, with no definitive evidence that would resolve the disagreement.

Here’s where it gets interesting.

The L.A. Times story is actually an edited version of a Reuters story that appeared on the news service yesterday afternoon. The Reuters story reported that investigators using satellite footage of the incident have conclusively determined that the car was speeding, just as the U.S. has always maintained.

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[T]he Reuters story reported that there is definitive proof that the car was speeding towards the checkpoint — critical information that tends to justify U.S. soldiers’ decision to fire on the car. But in the version appearing in the L.A. Times, editors cut out the passage reporting that proof.

It’ll be interesting to see whether the editors of the L.A. Times respond to this one.

7 July 2004 @ 6:13PM >> Check out this quote from a recent Los Angeles Times article:

L. Paul Bremer III, the civilian administrator for Iraq, left without even giving a final speech to the country — almost as if he were afraid to look in the eye the people he had ruled for more than a year.

Obviously, the second part of that quote is a bit of editorializing. But we’ll ignore the fact that the statement came in a “news” story and not an opinion piece. The greater transgression is the fact that the report is dead wrong. Bremer did deliver a farewell speech, and it was apparently quite well-received by at least some Iraqis.

In all fairness to the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post screwed up the story as well.

Napoleon once said, “Never ascribe to malice, that which can be explained by incompetence.” It’s good advice for the conspiratorially-minded. But in the case of the traditional media, why does it always seem that the supposed incompetence carries with it a specific political message?