Liberal Bias In The Media?

Who would have thought it?
Is anyone surprised by the fact that journalists give money to liberals and the far left at a rate nine to every one journalist who gives to a republican or conservative cause:

MSNBC.com identified 144 journalists who made political contributions from 2004 through the start of the 2008 campaign, according to the public records of the Federal Election Commission. Most of the newsroom checkbooks leaned to the left: 125 journalists gave to Democrats and liberal causes. Only 17 gave to Republicans. Two gave to both parties.

Read the entire story here.

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McCain on the News from Iraq We Aren't Hearing

This editorial by Senator John McCain in today's Washington Post:

I just returned from my fifth visit to Iraq since 2003 -- and my first since Gen. David Petraeus's new strategy has started taking effect. For the first time, our delegation was able to drive, not use helicopters, from the airport to downtown Baghdad. For the first time, we met with Sunni tribal leaders in Anbar province who are working with American and Iraqi forces to combat al-Qaeda. For the first time, we visited Iraqi and American forces deployed in a joint security station in Baghdad -- an integral part of the new strategy. We held a news conference to discuss what we saw: positive signs, underreported in the United States, that are reason for cautious optimism.

. . . The new political-military strategy is beginning to show results. But most Americans are not aware because much of the media are not reporting it or devote far more attention to car bombs and mortar attacks that reveal little about the strategic direction of the war. I am not saying that bad news should not be reported or that horrific terrorist attacks are not newsworthy. But news coverage should also include evidence of progress. Whether Americans choose to support or oppose our efforts in Iraq, I hope they could make their decision based on as complete a picture of the situation in Iraq as is possible to report. A few examples:

· Sunni sheikhs in Anbar are now fighting al-Qaeda. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki visited Anbar's capital, Ramadi, to meet with Sunni tribal leaders. The newly proposed de-Baathification legislation grew out of that meeting. Police recruitment in Ramadi has increased dramatically over the past four months.

· More than 50 joint U.S.-Iraqi stations have been established in Baghdad. Regular patrols establish connections with the surrounding neighborhood, resulting in a significant increase in security and actionable intelligence.

· Extremist Shiite militia leader Moqtada al-Sadr is in hiding, his followers are not contesting American forces, sectarian violence has dropped in Baghdad and we are working with the Shiite mayor of Sadr City.

· Iraqi army and police forces are increasingly fighting on their own and with American forces, and their size and capability are growing. Iraqi army and police casualties have increased because they are fighting more.

. . . There is no guarantee that we will succeed, but we must try. As every sensible observer has concluded, the consequences of failure in Iraq are so grave and so threatening for the region, and to the security of the United States, that to refuse to give Petraeus's plan a chance to succeed would constitute a tragic failure of American resolve. I hope those who cite the Iraq Study Group's conclusions note that James Baker wrote on this page last week that we must have bipartisan support for giving the new strategy time to succeed. This is not a moment for partisan gamesmanship or for one-sided reporting. The stakes are just too high.

Read the entire article here. As to McCain's complaint of underreporting of positive news from Iraq, it is worthy of note that McCain's Iraq visit and his newsconference on this same topic was not only underreported in many quarters of the MSM, but mocked in the NY Times, who covered it by juxtaposing McCain's news conference with other news of U.S. casualties from Iraq:

4 G.I.'s Among Dead In Iraq; McCain Cites Progress.

Mortar attacks, suicide car bombs, roadside bombs, ambushes and gun battles killed at least two dozen people on Sunday, including four American soldiers, the authorities said.

The American military command said the soldiers were killed southwest of Baghdad just after midnight as they responded to an earlier bombing that had killed two other American soldiers. The insurgents have frequently tried to reap greater death tolls by carrying out attacks against rescue crews rushing to bomb sites. . .

The report continues on with some short notes about McCain's news conference, but no substantive news about whether the surge is in fact succeeding in its counterinsurgency mission inside Baghdad proper. Reading this, one might almost suspect that there is not only the ommission of positive news from Iraq of which McCain complains, but more then a bit of active media bias.

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CNN's Michael Ware Suffering PMS?

By PMS, I don't mean Pre-Menstrual Syndrome, though I admit not knowing Mr. Ware's estrogen levels. Rather I mean Partisan Meltdown Syndrome. Partisan Meltodwn Syndrome only became an accepted clinical diagnosis among unhappy liberals shortly after the screaming incident by Howard Dean several years ago. That it should be found today in particularly virulent form among CNN reporters is no surprise, as it has long been suspected that patient zero was Ted Turner himself. There is no known cure at the present, though apparently watching repeated showings of Michael Moore's Farenheit 9-11 and then joining in a Code Pink or MoveOn.org protest march can have a temporary palliative effect. The latest confirmed diagnosis of full blown PMS is that of CNN reporter Mr. Michael Ware. As documented in a Drudge Report exclusive:

During a live press conference in Baghdad, Senators McCain and Graham were heckled by CNN reporter Michael Ware. An official at the press conference called Ware’s conduct “outrageous,” saying, “here you have two United States Senators in Bagdad giving first-hand reports while Ware is laughing and mocking their comments. I’ve never witnessed such disrespect. This guy is an activist not a reporter.”

Senators McCain and Graham flew into Iraq and drove into Baghdad, making stops at an open market and a joint Iraq/American military security outpost before appearing at the press conference.This is not the first time Michael Ware has taken issue with Senator McCain’s comments about early progress in Iraq.

Last week, after Senator McCain told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer that he needed to catch up on the news coming out of Iraq, Michael Ware responded, saying: “I don't know what part of Neverland Senator McCain is talking about when he says we can go strolling in Baghdad.”

Michael Ware has also publicly expressed his views on the war last year in an interview with Bill Maher, saying, “I've been given a front-row ticket to watch this slow-motion train wreck … I try to stay as drunk for as long as possible while I'm here … In fact, I'm drinking now.”

Actually, the incident with McCain and Blitzer was examined by Powerline, particularly Ware's assertion that violence was down in only one measure - sectarian violence - while by other measures, such as the number of car bombings, there was actually an increase in violence in Baghdad since the start of the surge. Powerline checked the positions of both McCain and Ware, ultimately concluding

Ware [made a] statement that "sectarian violence -- one type of sectarian violence -- is down." The statistics show that Iraqi deaths in Baghdad are down substantially. So I guess the type of sectarian violence that's down is the kind that kills people. And wasn't that, after all, the primary purpose of the surge?

On CNN's website, there is no mention of Ware at the Baghdad news conference with McCain and Graham. Likewise, Ware's name does not appear on the byline for the CNN article, McCain Lauds Security During Baghdad Visit, about the Senators' visit and news conference. Nonetheless, it seems that Ware's PMS is highly infectious among his fellow liberal reporters at CNN. The story CNN does carry, under the byline of Mohammed Tawfeeq and Candy Crowley manages to get in some cheap shots, apparently without any help from Ware.

Sen. John McCain visited a Baghdad market Sunday and later told reporters the American people were not getting the full story on what he said were improving security conditions in the war-ravaged capital.

McCain, a presidential hopeful, was among a delegation of Republican lawmakers that made an unannounced trip to Iraq this weekend, the details of which were withheld for security reasons.

The delegation traveled in armored Humvees with a military escort. . . .

Do you think Candy could have spun this any harder to suggest McCain is lying to the American public about an improving security situation? These facts have no bearing on whether the security situation in Baghdad has improved. Similar security measures are common for high level visits to potentially unfriendly places, regardless if the security situation is relatively good or dire. But mentioning that in her report would spoil the effect of the ad hominem attack - and such would be contraindicative of PMS.

Alas, it is apparent that Ms. Crowley is closing in on the advanced stages of PMS herself. As the disease is invariably "progressive," watch her upcoming reports to begin with something akin to "Lying Bastard Baby Killer McCain and Idiot War Mongering Republicans Claim . . . "

UPDATE: It has long been known that the NYT has numerous reporters in various stages of PMS. It was just pointed out to me that NYT's reporter Kirk Semple in fact has a case of PMS already advanced to a degree beyond that of Ms. Crowley. On the McCain story, where Mr. McCain was attempting to convery to the public that the security situation was improving in Baghdad because of the surge, Mr. Semple authored a report of McCain's news conference, but juxtaposed that story and the headline with the sad news concerning American casualties outside of Baghdad:

4 G.I.'s Among Dead In Iraq; McCain Cites Progress.

Mortar attacks, suicide car bombs, roadside bombs, ambushes and gun battles killed at least two dozen people on Sunday, including four American soldiers, the authorities said.

The American military command said the soldiers were killed southwest of Baghdad just after midnight as they responded to an earlier bombing that had killed two other American soldiers. The insurgents have frequently tried to reap greater death tolls by carrying out attacks against rescue crews rushing to bomb sites. . .

The report continues on with some short notes about McCain's news conference, but no substantive news about whether the surge is in fact succeeding in its counterinsurgency mission inside Baghdad proper. It would appear fair to say that Mr. Semple likewise a case of PMS quickly advancing towards the end stage.

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Our German . . . Ally?

If you are not a student of military history, you might not get get the significnce of this picture. It is a picture is of General George S. Patton pissing in the Rhine, circa 1944. As you read on, I think you will find it an approrpriate commentary.

According to recent polls, where is America more popular - Iran or Germany?

Iran, of course. Over 50% of people polled in Iran within the past twelve months have a positive view of the US. It is one of the few countries in this world where our currency is rising. That shouldn't be a surprise - the theocracy has mucked up their country just incredibly badly while blaming all evil in this world on the Great Satan. Thus, the Iranians, disenchanted with the mad mullahs, are thinking that, if the mullahs are dead set against it, then maybe the Great Satan isin't so bad after all.

Not so with Germany, who feel it stylish to believe the Americans uneducated and uncultured boors. Not only do they detest America, but after years of a steady diet of anti-Americanism from Government and the media, 48% of Germans believe that the US is a greater threat to the world then a soon to be nuclear armed Iran. With allies like these . . . ?

David at Medienkritik has been saying for years that German media bias against the U.S. is the worst in Europe. I did not fully grasp the depth of hatred for America in Germany until reading this article written by Der Speigel's Berlin bureau chief. He examines this curious German phenomenon - and is appalled.

Evil Americans, Poor Mullahs
By Claus Christian Malzahn
March 29, 2007

Forty-eight percent of Germans think the United States is more dangerous than Iran, a new survey shows, with only 31 percent believing the opposite. Germans' fundamental hypocrisy about the US suggests that it's high time for a new bout of re-education.

The Germans have believed in many things in the course of their recent history. They've believed in colonies in Africa and in the Kaiser. They even believed in the Kaiser when he told them that there would be no more political parties, only soldiers on the front.

Not too long afterwards, they believed that Jews should be placed into ghettos and concentration camps because they were the enemies of the people. Then they believed in the autobahn and that the Third Reich would ultimately be victorious. A few years later, they believed in the Deutsche mark. They believed that the Berlin Wall would be there forever and that their pensions were safe. They believed in recycling as well as in cheap jet travel. They even believed in a German victory at the soccer World Cup.

Now they believe that the United States is a greater threat to world peace than Iran. This was the by-no-means-surprising result of a Forsa opinion poll commissioned by Stern magazine. Young Germans in particular -- 57 percent of 18-to-29-year-olds, to be precise -- said they considered the United States more dangerous than the religious regime in Iran.

The German political establishment, which will no doubt loudly lament the result of the poll, is largely responsible for this wave of anti-Americanism. For years the country's foreign ministers fed the Germans the fairy tale of what they called a "critical dialogue" between Europe and Iran. It went something like this: If we are nice to the ayatollahs, cuddle up to them a bit and occasionally wag our fingers at them when they've been naughty, they'll stop condemning their women to death for "unchaste behavior" and they'll stop building the atom bomb.

That plan failed at some point -- an outcome, incidentally, that Washington had long anticipated. Iran continues to work away unhindered on its nuclear program, and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad reacts to UN demands with an ostentatious show of ignorance. The UN gets upset and drafts a resolution.

Another item on the Iranian president's wish list is the annihilation of Israel. But that will take a bit longer. In the meantime, just to make sure it doesn't get out of practice, the regime had 15 British soldiers kidnapped a few days ago. But it's still all the Americans' fault -- that much is obvious.

Inherently evil

We've known just what they're like for a long time. The 19th-century German author Karl May taught us about the American Wild West, and Karl Marx warned us about unbridled capitalism. Besides, we've all been there at least once -- on vacation, of course. Be it in California or Florida (that's where you get the best deals on rental cars, you know), we can see right through the Americans.

For us Germans, the Americans are either too fat or too obsessed with exercise, too prudish or too pornographic, too religious or too nihilistic. In terms of history and foreign policy, the Americans have either been too isolationist or too imperialistic. They simply go ahead and invade foreign countries (something we Germans, of course, would never do) and then abandon them, the way they did in Vietnam and will soon do in Iraq.

Worst of all, the Americans won the war in 1945. (Well, with German help, of course -- from Einstein and his ilk.) There are some Germans who will never forgive the Americans for VE Day, when they defeated Hitler. After all, Nazism was just an accident, whereas Americans are inherently evil. Just look at President Bush, the man who, as some of SPIEGEL ONLINE's readers steadfastly believe, "is worse than Hitler." Now that gives us a chance to kill two birds with one stone. If Bush is the new Hitler, then we Germans have finally unloaded the Führer on to someone else. In fact, we won't even have to posthumously revoke his German citizenship, as politicians in Lower Saxony recently proposed. No one can hold a candle to our talent for symbolism!

Anti-Americanism is the wonder drug of German politics. If no one believes what you're saying, take a swing at the Yanks and you'll be shooting your way back up to the top of the opinion polls in no time. And on the practical side, you can be the head of the Social Democratic Party and endear yourself to the party's hardcore with a load of anti-American nonsense, and still get invited back to Washington -- just look at Gerhard Schröder. In fact, you could, like leading German politicians in the debate over the planned American missile shield in Europe, be accused of having "an almost unbelievable lack of knowledge" by a former NATO general, and even that wouldn't matter. It's all about what you believe, not what you know.

Anti-Americanism is hypocrisy at its finest. You can spend your evening catching the latest episode of "24" and then complain about Guantanamo the next morning. You can claim that the Americans have themselves to blame for terrorism, while at the same time calling for tougher restrictions on Muslim immigration to Germany. You can call the American president a mass murderer and book a flight to New York the next day. You can lament the average American's supposed lack of culture and savvy and meanwhile send off for the documents for the Green Card lottery.

Not a day passes in Germany when someone isn't making the wildest claims, hurling the vilest insults or spreading the most outlandish conspiracy theories about the United States. But there's no risk involved and it all serves mainly to boost the German feeling of self-righteousness.

Not so safe

Iran is a different story. The last time someone made a joke on German TV about an Iranian leader, the outcome was not pleasant. Exactly 20 years ago, Dutch entertainer Rudi Carell produced a short TV sketch portraying Ayatollah Khomeini dressed in women's underwear. Carell received death threats. The piece, which lasted all of a few seconds, led to flights being cancelled and German diplomats being expelled from Tehran. Carell apologized. Jokes about fat Americans are just safer.

Daniel Jonah Goldhagen, the American historian who in his 1996 book "Hitler's Willing Executioners" deprived the Germans of the belief that they didn't know what was going on back in the day, is currently studying the history of genocides in the 20th century. One of the things he has noticed is that the politicians or military leaders who planned genocides and had them carried out rarely concealed their intentions in advance. Whether the victims were Hereros, Armenians, kulaks, Jews or later Bosnians, the perpetrators generally believed that they were justified and had no reason to hide their murderous intentions.

Today, when Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad talks about a world without Israel while dreaming of an atom bomb, it seems obvious that we -- as Germans of all people -- should be putting two and two together. Why shouldn't Ahmadinejad mean what he says? But we Germans only know what we believe.

The Americans are more dangerous than the ayatollahs? Perhaps the Americans should take the Germans at their word for a change. It's high time for a new round of re-education. The last one obviously didn't do the job.

Claus Christian Malzahn is SPIEGEL ONLINE's Berlin bureau chief.

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