I have a new post at Campus Watch on the effort by pampered, privileged academics at elite universities to raise money for a full-page ad in the New York Times in which they will attack their critics for daring to criticize their work. I quote a solicitation email that is making the rounds among professors and will keep my eye on the Times to see if they're successful. If they're not, will that mean that they're being censored?

**************************

The email below, which is circulating among academics, solicits contributions for a full-page ad in the New York Times by the Ad Hoc Committee to Defend the University to attack external critics of academe in the "newspaper of record." (Inquiring readers will want to know: will the Times cut them a deal the way they did Moveon.org? Same politics, same "worthy cause." Stay tuned.)

If you sign the petition and they raise enough money, you can get your name in the paper! Cool. And you won't have to die first or commit a crime.

The Ad Hocs are upset--terribly so--that their fellow citizens (that includes nationalist Americans as well as Citizens of the World) refuse to swallow everything they say or write and, worse, actually engage in criticism of their work. Quelle horreur! Next thing you know, people will be saying nasty things about the president, the pope, and the queen.

Clearly, such signs of disrespect for one's intellectual and social superiors must be stopped! A new battle-cry rises from the ramparts: Respect Thin-skinned People! Hush Your Mouth!

To read the rest of this blog, click here.

Many Foreign Srvice Officers of the United States State Department are a disgrace both to the United States and to State. State's broader general incompetence and timidity in fully participating in all facets of the Iraq experience are blatant and well-documented.

Today, the Associated Press (Washington Post Link)reports that the so-called State Department Foreign Service Officers’ union and many of its members publicly admit they disregard their oath of service and of being officers in United States foreign policy. (An extended excerpt is below.)

In 2007, I’ve posted the following, which pretty well describes the lowlights:
Important Guest Post: Modern Foreign Policy Execution

State Department Doesn’t Leave Dock

“What if they threw a war and nobody came?”

State Dept.’s Thin Ranks

Interagency Coordination Requires Dems & Reps To Come Together

The AP report:

Several hundred U.S. diplomats vented anger and frustration Wednesday about the State Department's decision to force foreign service officers to take jobs in Iraq, with some likening it to a "potential death sentence."…

"Incoming is coming in every day, rockets are hitting the Green Zone," said one who identified himself as Jack Crotty, a senior foreign service officer who once worked as a political adviser with NATO forces.

He and others directly confronted Foreign Service Director General Harry Thomas, who approved the move to "directed assignments" late last Friday to make up for a lack of volunteers willing to go to Iraq.

"It's one thing if someone believes in what's going on over there and volunteers, but it's another thing to send someone over there on a forced assignment," Crotty said. "I'm sorry, but basically that's a potential death sentence and you know it. Who will raise our children if we are dead or seriously wounded?"

His remarks were met with loud and sustained applause from the approximately 300 diplomats at the meeting….

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack acknowledged the session had been "pretty emotional" but praised Thomas for holding it. He also stressed that all diplomats sign an oath to serve the country that obligates them to be available to work anywhere in the world.

"It's a pretty sensitive topic and understandably, some people are going to have some pretty strong feelings about it," McCormack told reporters after the meeting. "Ultimately, our mission in Iraq is national policy, it is the foreign policy set out by the secretary as well as the president of the United States….

Under the new order, 200 to 300 diplomats have been identified as "prime candidates" to fill 48 vacancies that will open next year at the Baghdad embassy and in the provinces. Those notified have 10 days to accept or reject the position. If not enough say yes, some will be ordered to go.

Only those with compelling reasons, such as a medical condition or extreme personal hardship, will be exempt from disciplinary action. Diplomats forced into service in Iraq will receive the same extra hardship pay, vacation time and choice of future assignments as those who have volunteered.

More than 1,200 of the department's 11,500 Foreign Service officers have served in Iraq since 2003, but the generous incentives have not persuaded enough diplomats to volunteer for duty in Baghdad or with the State Department's provincial reconstruction teams.

CNN’s report adds the following comments from Foreign Service Director General Harry Thomas:

"We cannot shrink from our duty. We have all agreed to worldwide availability," Thomas said.

From now on, everyone in the Foreign Service would be required to serve one out of three tours in "hardship posts," he said.

For all those State personnel who serve honorably and bravely, and Americans who depend upon their executing our foreign policy, slackers at State should be sacked quickly.

Others agree: Michael Goldfarb at The Weekly Standard comments, “I'm inclined to think we're better off with no diplomats that an embassy full of Crottys,” after reading this, reacting to this version of the AP article.

527's may be necessary for Americans to actually hear about campaign issues.

Broadcasting & Cable reports:

From January-May 2007, only 10% of the 2008-presidential-campaign stories on the network evening newscasts were about issues, while 86% were about the horse race, strategy aspects or personal issues on the candidates like health, marriage and religion.

That’s according to the Pew Project for Excellence in Journalism and Harvard’s Joan Shorenstein Center on Press, Politics and Public Policy.

Democrat election law advisor Bob Bauer today discusses the tenuous line of reasoning used by critics of 527 organizations’ role in campaigns, “Worrying about 527s, on the Eve of ‘08”:

The [FEC: Federal Elections Commission] standard as written wanders in this direction and the other, noting that context can be considered but only to a "limited" extent; and that it is really a question of how "reasonable minds" would take in a statement that is "unmistakable, unambiguous and suggestive of only one meaning"—when "taken as a whole." And this is a legal test? It’s quite the mouthful, and the parts lack internal consistency: how is it that a statement can be "unmistakable and unambiguous" but also, at the same time, simply "suggestive." And yet a statement subject to this standard must be all three: "unmistakable, unambiguous and suggestive."

Yet, the 527’s are raising campaign issues, something the major media neglects:

Many of these groups will not have ties to one political party or the other. Its founders or members or donors will have been excited by one or the other issue in the campaign—yes, issues in the campaign—and they will want to speak as freely as possibly, expressing their point with the least amount of regulatory engagement with the federal government. Some will find themselves on the First Amendment protected side of the line, reporting their activity as 527s but not having to operate under the thumb of the campaign finance laws, and others will not.

Sure, either stridency or shading facts or disagreement with 527’s views may be distasteful to some, either wonkish purists or advocate opponents. But, so are the candidates’ official or election law sanctioned organizations presenting packaged pablum or distortions.

It’s not for the government to decide who should have free speech or what they should say. And the major media certainly aren’t serving the public’s need to know about issues. It’s for the American citizenry to decide what to hear and ponder. Along with that right is the need for citizens to promptly know who paid for the 527 ads, to consider the source. As Bauer says, “This seems like the best place to start, with improved disclosure: it stands a chance of success, unlike the more extensive regulatory controls…”

There’s, also, much more in the study about the heavy tilt in positive reporting about Democrats compared to negative reporting about Republicans. The Broadcasting & Cable link above has some further info, as does USA Today’s blog, and Newsbusters.

The tilt is similar to the 2004 election:

The Project for Excellence in Journalism has drawn similar conclusions about the media's political coverage in the past. In October 2004 it had this to say:
In the closing weeks of the 2004 presidential race, the period dominated by the debates, President George W. Bush has suffered strikingly more negative press coverage than challenger John Kerry. ...

Again, should we have to rely upon the major media to tell us what it wants us to hear, or do we have the need and right to hear the “rest of the story”?

The first rule of medicine is Do No Harm. The same should apply to lawyers.

There are gradations of circumstances in which this rule comes into play. Cut off a gangrenous toe to save a leg is not a harm. Cutting off a terrorist from destroying thousands of lives is not a harm.

Two former U.S. Attorney Generals and a former Director of the CIA and FBI, serving Democrat and Republican administrations, speak to that in today’s Wall Street Journal, “Surveillance Sanity.”

The government alone cannot protect us from the threats we face today. We must have the help of all our citizens. There will be times when the lives of thousands of Americans will depend on whether corporations such as airlines or banks are willing to lend assistance. If we do not treat companies fairly when they respond to assurances from the highest levels of the government that their help is legal and essential for saving lives, then we will be radically reducing our society's capacity to defend itself.

Instead, ambulance-chasing fee hounds and other lawyers whose conception of America is akin to Nazi Germany want to sue telecommunications and other deep-pocket companies for cooperating in the first lines of our defenses.

Immunity is designed to avoid the burden of protracted litigation, because the prospect of such litigation itself is enough to deter citizens from providing critically needed assistance.

The Democrats’ attacks upon and weakening of our defenses take the occasion of redefining FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) and trying to commit the next Attorney General to unilaterally and contrary to law forbidding certain legitimate interrogation techniques when urgent.

Lawyers must first be citizens instead of searching for ways to do harm to the citizenry.

This article appeared in the Monday, October 22, New York Times. On Friday, October 26, the New York Times noted that it didn’t know in what country the U.S. has troops serving. Little wonder the New York Times is otherwise confused.

October 22, 2007 Joint Chiefs Chairman Looks Beyond Current Wars By THOM SHANKER Correction Appended WASHINGTON, Oct. 21 — The new chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff plans to press Congress and the public to sustain the current high levels of military spending…

Correction: October 26, 2007
An article on Monday about the goals and priorities of Adm. Mike Mullen, the new chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, misidentified a country where American troops have been serving lengthy deployments. It is Iraq, not Iran.

While on a family cruise from our San Diego area home, I joked that we would not miss the news because only the names and dates change. This was my experience in previous decades, but is no longer correct. One has to add that the slant has increased and, thus, also remains the same. It is more difficult to catch up with the news, and that is more evident after being away for a while. The major media presents a partial, heavily biased version of the news. Reporting has so deteriorated that one has to search the Internet to get the complete news.

We missed the fires, but didn’t miss missing the news as we didn’t watch CNN-International (the only news channel aboard) nor see a newspaper. After 5-minutes of asinine Anderson Cooper looking for a stadium to cry over, a la Katrina, his disappointment at the organization and outpouring of help at Qualcomm Stadium was sickening.

My wife's 5-minutes watching CNN and its misleading graphics gave her the impression that all of San Diego, Orange County and L.A. were ablaze. After my wife phoned our house to find our answering machine working, she relaxed that the house was still there. In fact, the fires were rather isolated and in rural areas, large evacuations being ordered to avoid legal liabilities from law suits if they'd spread into heavily populated areas and politicians had not suggested early evacuations. Our neighborhood, near the coast, was told to evacuate although well-trimmed and ten-miles from the nearest sparks.

Upon returning yesterday afternoon, cleaning a mini-post-Pompeii of thick soot over everything, a process to be repeated several times over the next week or so (says my spic-n-span Germanic wife), I settled into catching up on the news. After browsing my collected daily newspapers and the major media sites, I had to spend twice as long searching a dozen blogs and their links to get the fuller stories and those not reported. AOL stopped accepting emails at 1000, a day or two’s normal receipts, so I missed the alerts I receive from friends, and that leaves a hole.

The ordinary American doesn’t have this search routine or network, depending upon the major media. It’s disgraceful, and woefully dangerous for our fate, that the ordinary American is left so in the dark and misinformed.

No, I don’t think we need more talking empty-heads on TV or argumentative columnists. We need more skilled reporters allowed to and judged by how completely they do their jobs, earning their bread, and less insulated editors and entertainment-circus-oriented media executives.

Major media viewers and readers have voted with their declining patronage. Major media owners respond by cutting news staff and pumping unreality filler. A conspiracist might speculate that they want Americans to be gulled into complacency or excitement at those points of view desired.

The truth is more that fish stink from the head, and major media management is out-of-touch with both reality and their responsibilities. They, like other fat segments of formerly successful American industry are headlong into their buggy-whip phase, trying to put rhinestones on it but ignoring that Americans want something better serving their needs.

My latest article, below, addresses some of the problems that plague Middle East studies, the most politicized field in academe. It appears in the current edition of Israfax, a publication of the Canadian Institute for Jewish Research, and will appear at their web site soon.

*******************

The epistemological crisis besetting North America universities is evident across disciplines, from the humanities to the soft social sciences. And while considerable attention has been paid to the politicization of those fields most in the public eye—American history and English literature come readily to mind—no area has been more thoroughly corrupted than Middle East studies (MES).

That this decline has occurred in recent decades is both unsurprising and unfortunate. It would be peculiar if MES were spared the intellectual ravages of related fields, but the very instability that plagues so much of the Middle East makes the descent of MES into a quagmire of tendentious, politicized, and often shoddy scholarship and teaching especially regrettable.

Just when the West faces serious, prolonged challenges to its way of life from Islamist terrorists bent on replacing liberal democracy with Sharia law, the reservoir of reliable, dispassionate, university-based expertise on this difficult, complex region is drying up.

This means that today's students encounter a generation of professors known more for their hostility toward the West—most particularly America and Israel—than for their dedication to rigorous research and teaching. In brief, we've gone from the scholarly study of Bernard Lewis, the professor emeritus of history at Princeton, to the activist den of Rashid Khalidi of Columbia University, whose hostility to Israel and America matches that of the man for whom his endowed chair is named, the late Edward Said.

Said has long been the most influential writer in contemporary MES. His 1978 book Orientalism indicted generations of scholars as racist minions of colonial powers whose work marginalized Arabs and Muslims. That it is demonstrably a work of inferior and politicized scholarship, laden with errors of omission and commission, has mattered little to the profession.

Today, Said's disciples act as gate-keepers to the field of MES, a role that allows them to keep their field "pure" by blocking the hiring of scholars hostile to their views, or by purging or marginalizing professors who value scholarly rigor over radical chic.

I'll close with two pieces of evidence that further illustrate the scope of the problem:

Khalid charged in 2003 that the Iraq war, "will be fought because these neo-conservatives desire to make the Middle East safe not for democracy, but for Israeli hegemony…. For these American Likudniks and their Israeli counterparts, sad to say, the tragedy of September 11 was a godsend: It enabled them to draft the United States to help fight Israel's enemies."

The Wahhabi Saudis have poured tens of millions of dollars into American MES programs, most notably at Georgetown and Harvard universities, which received $20 million each from Prince Alwaleed bin Talal. Such largesse makes less likely the production of scholarship that is either critical of tyrannical regimes, terrorism, or anti-Semitism, or positively disposed toward Western ideas and influences, or efforts at self-defense in the war on Islamist radicals.

Winfield Myers is director of Campus Watch, a program of the Middle East Forum.

Here's a story from today's Philadelphia Evening Bulletin that deserves much wider circulation. I wrote about it the other day, and many blogs picked up the story from Michael Rubin's post at The Corner.

The full text of the story follows (also up at Campus Watch):

Professor Kicked Off Panel For Military Record by Bradley Vasoli

The University of Delaware last week withdrew an invitation to Asaf Romirowsky, a fellow at the Middle East Forum and an Israeli Defense Force (IDF) veteran, to appear on a discussion panel.

Mr. Romirowsky was invited to speak at a university forum sponsored by the College Republicans and College Democrats on the topic of anti-Americanism in the Middle East. Others scheduled to appear on the panel included Clinton-era National Security Council official Stuart Kaufman, University of Delaware political science professor Muqtedar Khan and a graduate student.

But upon learning that the university had invited Mr. Romirowsky, who is also manager of Israel and Middle East affairs for the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia, to appear at the forum, Mr. Khan wrote a letter to one of the panel's organizers, identified only as "Laura," expressing displeasure at having to appear publicly with a former IDF soldier.

"I am ... not sure how I feel about being on the same panel with an Israeli soldier who was stationed in West Bank," Dr. Khan wrote. "Some people see IDF as an occupying force in the West Bank. I am not sure that I will be comfortable occupying the same space with him. It is not fair to spring this surprise on me at the last moment."

In Israel, military service is mandatory barring special circumstances. Therefore, Mr. Romirowsky noted, Mr. Khan's objecting to appearing with a member of the IDF would likely rule out his appearing with most Israeli scholars.

Panel organizers subsequently told the IDF veteran, a citizen of both the United States and Israel, that he ought not attend the panel but that he would find himself welcome speaking to university students at a later date. Mr. Romirowsky said he would rather not do so.

"At this point there's a larger issue," he told The Bulletin. "This is a symptom of the problem [in the universities] we have been dealing with all along."

Mr. Romirowsky has worked on the Middle East Forum's "Campus Watch" project, an attempt to identify and elucidate anti-Western bias in university Middle East studies programs.

Mr. Romirowsky, currently working toward his Ph.D. in Mediterranean Studies at Kings College in London, has called attention to the ties Mr. Khan has forged over the years to groups allegedly affiliated with Islamic terrorists.

Mr. Khan, for example, served on the board of directors of the Washington-based Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy (CSID) from 1999 to 2003. The organization counts among its fellows Kamran Bokhari, a man who, according to Middle East Forum director Daniel Pipes, has served as a spokesman for Al-Muhajiroun, a group that has reportedly included among its members at least one terrorist who participated in suicide terrorism in Israel.

"That's the problem with a lot of these groups," Mr. Romirowsky said. "They sell themselves as legitimate organizations, and they really have ties to terrorism."

Mr. Khan also currently serves as a nonresident senior fellow at the Washington-based Brookings Institution. Neither Mr. Khan nor Brookings spokespersons returned a call for comment.

I've blogged at Campus Watch about the treatment that Asaf Romirowsky, Campus Watch Associate Fellow, received yesterday at the University of Delware. Asaf was invited to participate in a panel discussion on anti-Americanism in the Middle East. Everything was set, but then a political science professor at Delaware, Muqtedar Khan, objected because Asaf is a veteran of the Israeli Defense Forces.

Moreover, as Michael Rubin pointed out at The Corner at NRO this morning, Khan is a consultant at the Pentagon--he conducted a workshop there only yesterday--and a fellow at the Brookings institution. His bigotry, therefore, reflects poorly not only at the U. of Delaware, but at the Pentagon. Your tax dollars at work.

My colleague at Campus Watch Cinnamon Stillwell has a post about this that includes her own insights and the comments of her readers.

Here's Michael Rubin's post from this morning:

***********************

Academic Freedom? [Michael Rubin]

Yesterday, the University of Delaware asked Asaf Romirowsky to step down from an academic panel at the University of Delaware because another panelist, University of Delaware political scientist Muqtedar Khan, didn't want to share the podium with anyone who served in the Israeli Defense Forces. Romirowsky, who holds joint American/Israeli citizenship and lives in Philadelphia, had been invited to join Khan, his colleague in political science, Stuart Kaufman, a staff member of the National Security Council during the Clinton administration, and a graduate student to discuss anti-Americanism in the Middle East. The program was organized by the College Republicans, the College Democrats, and the Students of Western Civilization Club. The Leadership Institute provided the funds for the panel, which met on the University of Delaware campus on Wednesday evening. The students offered Romirowsky the opportunity to come to campus next week and speak alone, with no other panel members who might object to his presence.

If Khan was just an academic, that would be one thing. But he also straddles the policy world: Khan is a a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution, and a Pentagon consultant. According to an e-mail he sent to the University, he gave a workshop at the Pentagon yesterday afternoon.

Academics should embrace intellectual challenge; not flee from it.

Here's the e-mail from Khan stating his objections to appearing with Romirowsky:

—— Original message ——
Date: Tue, 23 Oct 2007 20:02:29 -0400
From: "Muqtedar Khan"
Subject: Re: Understanding Anti-Americanism Panel
To: [Names redacted]

Laura, I have to speak at the Pentagon tomorrow. My
workshop is from 12-4. I hope to catch the 5 pm
Acela from DC and will be back in town by 7 pm. I
will come directly, but may be late. I am also not
sure how I feel about being on the same panel with
an Israeli soldier who was stationed in West Bank.
Some people see IDF as an occupying force in the
West Bank. I am not sure that I will be comfortable
occupying the same space with him. It is not fair to
spring this surprise on me at the last moment.

10/25 09:54 AM

********************************

Others around the blogosphere have picked up the story:

Jonathan Schanzer at the Jewish Policy Center;

The Blog Solomonia:

The JewishInfoNews;

Robert Avrech at Seraphic Secret:

I'll add more links as I find them. This is a very significant story, and I hope it receives the attention it merits.

I've already written about Pvt Beauchamp's foray into fiction writing for The New Republic. Editor Franklin Foer's defense of TNR's editorial judgment remains a classic in the "fake but accurate" genre. But TNR's cover story now seems to be in tatters. The US Army investigation has concluded "that Private Beauchamp desired to use his experiences to enhance his writing and provide legitimacy to his work possibly becoming the next Hemingway."

As near as I can determine, here's the chronology:

Pvt Scott Thomas--pseudonymous author of TNR's "Baghdad Diarist".

Pvt Scott Hemingway--future great American war novelist, in a holding pattern.

Pvt Ernest Beauchamp--TNR fabulist, having second thoughts, cancels Newsweek interview.

Pvt Scott Thomas Beauchamp--decides that earning an honorable discharge is worth more than writing fiction for TNR.

Franklin Foer--still reserving judgment, on Beauchamp, himself, and his magazine.

Over the last few months Pvt Beauchamp may well have become a better soldier than he was. Unfortunately, Franklin Foer is the same editor he was.

If you read all the documents, it's clear that the Army handled the whole thing very well--fair yet stern--and they've given him a chance to redeem himself as a soldier. If I had a nephew of military age and he were in the service, I'd want him to have commanders like those Beauchamp has. These officers and NCOs clearly know something about forming boys into men.

It could serve as an object lesson in maturity of judgment for the journalists, were they but willing to listen and learn.

[Note: The following is cross-posted at Campus Watch.]

A group of professors, mostly from the humanities and with a large contingent from Middle East studies, have formed the Ad Hoc Committee to Defend the University. They claim that "outside groups" are "seeking to influence what is taught and who can teach."

It's the subject of this story in today's issue of Inside Higher Ed.

But the professors aren't concerned with generic complaints; their real target is more specific. Although Campus Watch isn't mentioned, the Committee clearly alludes to it:

Unfortunately and ironically, many of the most vociferous campaigns targeting universities and their faculty have been launched by groups portraying themselves as defenders of Israel. These groups have targeted scholars who have expressed perspectives on Israeli policies and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict with which they disagree.

Aside from there being nothing ironic about that claim, there is also nothing true about it. CW does not target anyone for disagreeing with Israeli policies or the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. We critique professors of Middle East studies for myriad problems in their writing and teaching, whether Israel is involved or not.

Still, it's notable that their first two complaints deal directly with Israel:

*unfounded insinuations and allegations, in the media and on websites, of anti-Semitism or sympathy for terrorism or "un-Americanism;" *efforts to broaden definitions of anti-Semitism to include scholarship and teaching that is critical of U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East and of Israel;

Among the signatories (there were 144 as of this writing, about 5:30 EDT) are several professors of Middle East studies. Among them are: Gabriel Piterberg of UCLA; Magid Shihade of UC-Davis; Lisa Hajjar of UC-Santa Barbara; Gil Anidjar of Columbia; Laurie Brand of USC; Joel Beinin, listed as at Stanford, although (for now at least) at the American Univ. in Cairo; Lawrence Davidson of West Chester Univ.; Elliott Colla of Brown; Ahmad Dallal of Georgetown; Mark LeVine of UC-Irvine; Zareena A. Grewal of Yale; Suad Joseph of UC-Davis; Lila Abu-Lughod of Columbia; and others.

Since so many professors of Middle East studies are signatories, let's see if the charges made by critics of contemporary academe are in fact "unfounded," and if the term "anti-Semitism" is in fact tossed around so loosely. Here are just a few examples; judge for yourselves:

Juan Cole of Michigan, writing at his blog on Sunday, Oct. 21:

No one in the US media ever talks about Zionofascism, and the campus groups who yoke the word 'fascism' to other religions and peoples are most often trying to divert attention from their own authoritarianism and approval of brutality.

Joseph Massad of Columbia, writing in Al-Ahram Weekly this past March:

Israel is willing to do anything to convince Palestinians and other Arabs of why it needs and deserves to have the right to be racist. Even at the level of theory, and before it began to realise itself on the ground, the Zionist colonial project sought different means by which it could convince the people whose lands it wanted to steal and against whom it wanted to discriminate to accept as understandable its need to be racist.

Same man, same paper, December, 2004:

All those in the Arab world who deny the Jewish holocaust are in my opinion Zionists.

Saree Makdisi of UCLA, writing on his blog in April:

[Israel's] demand that its 'right to exist' be recognized reflects its own anxiety, not about its existence but about its failure to successfully eliminate the Palestinians' presence inside their homeland — a failure for which verbal recognition would serve merely a palliative and therapeutic function.

Scott Alexander of the Catholic Theological Union of Chicago, speaking in June, 2004, as an expert witness in the defense of Fawaz Damra, charged with immigration fraud and ties to terrorists:

[W]hen Palestinians refer to Jews as 'descended from apes and swine' or encourage support for those who 'kill Jews,' they do so with the reasonably justifiable self-image of victim and persecuted, not of victimizer and persecutor.

Omid Safi of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, speaking to the Associated Press in June, regarding the recent Pew Research Center Poll showing that 26 percent of American Muslim between the ages of 18 and 29 say that suicide bombing is justified in at least some circumstances.

Given what's happened in Iraq and Palestine, I would be shocked if there wasn't discontent.

Rashid Khalidi of Columbia, speaking of the Hamas takeover of Gaza in June, on National Public Radio:

[T]his has to be laid at the doorstep of Bush administration and Israeli government policy, they almost willed this result.

At the September General Meeting of the Queens Village Republican Club, State Senator Frank Padavan (R-Queens) spoke about his accomplishments in the community and took questions from the audience. One question concerned the status of a bill he co-sponsored, the Academic Bill of Rights (ABOR). The bill was devised to address the assault on individual rights occurring on our college campuses, and it has been languishing in committee for almost two years. When asked when it will come to the Senate floor for a full vote, the Senator said that it is customary that such legislation takes several years to pass and it was no longer in his hands. He said we would have to lobby the Higher Education Committee and suggested we all write letters to pressure the committee to take action on this urgent measure in order to put an end to the scourge of political indoctrination in the classroom and the curriculum.

Speech codes banning offensive sounding words, jokes and “suggestive looks,” political bias in faculty hiring and promotion, lack of ideological diversity and diminishing academic standards are the prevalent trends today. Evidence of dismal standards are demonstrated by the results of a nationwide multiple-choice test, in which 64% of college seniors couldn’t identify the father of our country, George Washington as the victorious general of American forces at the battle of Yorktown, the final battle of the Revolution. Shockingly, General Ulysses S. Grant was chosen as the correct answer by 36% of the students. Some campuses ban the display of the American flag, the singing of patriotic songs and reciting the Pledge of Allegiance, fearing it may offend foreign students.

American history is no longer considered essential in the core curriculum. The blame for the watering down of standards lies in part with multiculturalism, the root of monolithic thinking in academia. It presumes that we are all subject to Western cultural prejudices and the conceit that Western civilization is superior to all others. The objective is to break free from the trappings of this cultural conditioning, rejecting traditional American values in favor of a diversity of foreign cultures. One result of this brainwashing process is that anyone who links terrorism and suicide bombing with Muslims is denounced as “racist” or “Islamophobic.” The future of America is not secure if we can’t even identify our enemy or recognize our own identity as the greatest nation in the world.

Republican students and faculty are all too familiar with the hostile learning environment that prevails on campus. They know the frustration of having to hide their political views and religious beliefs fearing that they may be penalized for their opinions. They learn in class that speaking up may result in lower grades. A student described his experience taking a class in Modern History at Borough of Manhattan Community College. The professor spent the semester teaching 9/11 conspiracy theories as fact and that secret societies such as Skull and Crossbones rule the world. He taught that the collapse of the World Trade Towers was an inside job that the Bush administration knew ahead of time. He indicated as a fact that Tower 7, although it was not directly hit, came down because of a planned cover-up to hide secret government documents, proving that President George W. Bush was behind 9/11. When this student, a Republican and devout Christian disagreed and argued in defense of America and our president, the professor criticized him for being “stupid” and gave a lecture on the conflict between rational thinking and religious faith stating that “it is impossible to be a free thinking educated person and believe in a god.” As a result of expressing his views, his grades plummeted to finally failing the course. Fortunately, after hearing about ABOR, and that state lawmakers are looking out for his rights as a student, he felt empowered to fight for the grade he deserved. He contacted another professor who reviewed his coursework and fought for an entire semester for a fair grade. In due course, he won the grade he deserved and his crackpot professor was peer reviewed and demoted to an adjunct.

This is one of many examples of student experiences in institutions that should promote the free and open exchange of ideas and opinions but are more akin to totalitarian societies that trample free speech. But now, students and professors are fighting back and they need our support. We can support their battle by writing to the New York State Senate Higher Education Committee to send ABOR, bill #S2300, to the Senate floor for a vote as Senator Padavan advised. The same applies to the Assembly version, bill #A04406, sponsored by Assemblyman Anthony Seminerio (D-Queens). As stated in the summary, this non-partisan bill “creates an academic bill of rights that ensures an academic environment for both students and faculty members that allows freedom of political viewpoint, expression and instruction; requires institutions of higher education to publish such bill of rights and to adopt a grievance procedure to address complaints of violations of such rights.”

Senator Kenneth P. LaValle (R-Suffolk)
Higher Education Committee Chairman
Legislative Office Building, Room 806
Albany, New York 12247
Phone: 518-455-3121
Fax: 518-426-6826
E-Mail: lavalle@senate.state.ny.us

Assemblywoman Catherine Nolan (D-Queens)
Chair, Education Committee
Legislative Office Building 836
Albany, NY 12248
Phone: 518-455-4851
Fax: 518-455-3847
nolanc@assembly.state.ny.us

[The following, by Cinnamon Stillwell, the Northern California Representative for Campus Watch, is cross-posted at Campus Watch.]

As part of the "Islam Awareness Week" currently taking place at the University of Pennsylvania, a discussion titled, "Don't Believe the Hype: How the Media and Hollywood Portray Muslims and their Faith" will take place on October 24. Looking at the description of the event, it's clear that the usual platitudes about "Islamophobia," "racism," and "misconceptions" will be employed to mask the need for honest examination and, ultimately, reform in combating Islamism:

This event will seek to address the way Western media has created an unwarranted sense of fear towards Muslims. This speaker panel will address the heavy-hitting issue of Islamophobia as a form of racism towards Muslims. What is it, how is it formed, and how does it influence Western thought? Dr. Aminah McCloud and Azhar Usman will reflect upon the many negative images painted about Islam in today's media and attempt to reconcile the problems.

The goal of this panel is to reach a stronger understanding of Islamophobia and how Americans can respond to counteract this negative force. By better understanding Islam a victim of mass media, we can uncover the truth behind the misconceptions people have about the religion itself.

The involvement of Aminah Beverly McCloud, director of the Islamic World Studies program at DePaul University, speaks volumes about the disingenuous "Islam [as] a victim of mass media" trope being pushed by the speaker panel. McCloud has a history of not only aligning herself with reactionary and radical elements within the American Muslim community, but in actively working to obscure the true nature of Islamism in this country.

Earlier this year, Campus Watch highlighted the part played by Aminah Beverly McCloud in sabotaging the documentary, Islam vs. Islamists. Focusing on the challenges and dangers facing moderate Muslims from Islamists, the film was all set to broadcast on the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) as part of the taxpayer-funded series America at a Crossroads when it was canceled by managers at the PBS station WETA in Washington, D.C. And it turned out to be none other than Aminah Beverly McCloud on the WETA advisory board who helped them come to this decision.

In what the documentary's producer Martyn Burke described as an "unparalleled breach of ethics," McCloud showed rough-cut segments of the film to Nation of Islam officials who were themselves the subject of its investigative work. Unhappy with the film's realistic depiction of the group's attempts to intimidate Muslim whistleblowers into silence, the Nation of Islam officials threatened to sue PBS. And the rest, as they say, is history.

In the process, McCloud's background as a follower of Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, a speaker for the Saudi-financed Muslim Students Association, and the faculty member at DePaul who made the decision to hire the controversial and now former political science professor Norman Finkelstein came to light. So too did her relationship with the Chicago branch of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the leading apologist for Islamism among "mainstream" American Muslim organizations; her unsavory views on the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks (i.e. it was all our fault); and an excerpt from a 2000 article in the Nation of Islam's newspaper The Final Call, in which she stated that, "The Nation of Islam must define what Islam is within the American culture." (For more details on McCloud, read the Campus Watch blog post, "DePaul University Director of Islamic Studies and Finkelstein Ally Helps Sabotage PBS Documentary on Moderate Muslims").

That McCloud would continue to take part in activities which, under the guise of combating "Islamophobia," seek only to shroud the truth and, therefore, stave off much-needed progress is unsurprising. What is surprising is that McCloud continues to operate under a veneer of respectability she clearly does not merit.

Cinnamon Stillwell is the Northern California Representative for Campus Watch. She can be reached at stillwell@meforum.org.

Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week (IFAW) will take place on campuses throughout the nation starting on Monday and throughout the week of October 22nd and it is already achieving its intended effect of raising awareness and debate on a politically incorrect issue, taboo on campus, but nonetheless a vital national security concern that warrants comprehensive examination. The war of words is already escalating as the Muslim Students Association (MSA) and other campus pressure groups, as well as Fox News Channel’s Alan Colmes have been denouncing the coming events as “racist” and “Islamophobic.” The Revolutionary Communist Party called it a “Nuremberg Rally for the 21st Century.” In an attempt to ban the IFAW events and brand them as forums for “hate speech”, the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee plans to send threatening letters to university presidents nationwide. Columbia Spectator Editorial Board has become stymied over language in advance of next week’s forum with David Horowitz hosted by the College Republicans. Using thought and speech quashing tactics to shut down debate before it has even begun, they echoed the recent “hate speech” talking points expressing their resentment of any discussion concerning the threat of Islamic terrorism and the use of terms like “Islamofascism” to pinpoint the enemy. Horowitz clarified that the term “Islamo-Fascism” was coined by Algerian Muslims fighting for democracy in the 1990s who were victims of the widespread murder crusade by the armed Islamic fundamentalist forces linked to Al Qaeda seeking to purge Algeria of impure Muslims and establish an Islamic theocracy. But as revealed by a late breaking press release from the Islamic Republic News Agency entitled, University of Columbia students oppose Hatred Week in US there is something more sinister lurking behind the Columbia free speech censors. Evidently Iran’s Ministry of National Guidance that runs the country’s official news agency has endorsed the “Not On Our Campus” counter-event in conjunction with Columbia's Intercultural Resource Center and professors of the MEALAC department in order to protest IFAW with the blessings of Ahmadinejad. Will tenure-bound assistant anthropology professor Nadia Abu El-Haj, who makes a scholarly case that Israel was never on the map, show her face at the rally?

The idea for IFAW was inspired by the example of courage and determination demonstrated by Pace Hillel President Michael Abdurakhmanov when he succeeded in showing the documentary film Obsession on campus after Hillel’s plans for screening the film were met with vicious protests by MSA and censorship by Pace administrators. This story broke and went public from here on Democracy Project rousing a nationwide flood of support from concerned citizens outside the monolithic walls of academia, who pressured the Pace Film Police to ultimately recant. Recently I met with faculty from Kingsborough Community College who find themselves in a similar intolerant climate of vile antipathy toward anyone who expresses a pro-Israel point of view that diverges from the mainstream political agenda of the campus censors. I assured them that they would garner similar support from principled people who would stand up with them, once their stories are brought to light.

Here in New York City, besides featuring Horowitz, Columbia University will host a panel with Phyllis Chesler, Ibn Warraq, and Christina Sommers. Pace University will be screening documentary films at the campus dorms and hosting open discussions to “break through the barrier of politically correct doublespeak that prevails on American campuses” as Horowitz mentioned as one of the objectives of IFAW. People who have been asking me how to participate and support these events in New York can attend an off campus screening of Suicide Killers by documentary filmmaker, Pierre Rehov. This Pace sponsored screening is open to the public and will be held on October 25th at 8PM at the Aish New York Center. Abdurakhmanov, the organizer of the Pace events, will hold an open discussion after the film and welcomes all viewpoints without prejudice. I will be attending this event and I look forward to a fruitful discussion.

The film delves deep into the motivation and psyche of suicide bombers. In a Counterterrorism Blog interview, Rehov discusses the psychology behind suicide bombings and warns us about the spread of this deadly Islamic cult.

People don't understand the devastating culture behind this unbelievable phenomenon. My film is not politically correct because it addresses the real problem—showing the real face of Islam. It points the finger against a culture of hatred in which the uneducated are brainwashed to a level where their only solution in life becomes to kill themselves and kill others in the name of a God whose word, as transmitted by other men, has became their only certitude.

What no foreign military has ever accomplished may be done by the Haditha court martials ordered today, if they are not carefully understood and reported, by pro- and anti-Iraq war or military advocates. Lawyers might be expected to be single-minded, but the rest of us, and the juries, need to be more even-tempered. The Marine Corps’ determination in finding the truth must be respected, and the Marine Corps well-heralded discipline and respect for it may become stronger.

Lt. Gen. James Mattis ordered Lt. Col. Jeffrey Chessani and Lance Cpl. Stephen Tatum to trial by court-martial. Chessani will be tried for dereliction of duty and violation of a lawful order. Tatum faces trial on charges of involuntary manslaughter, reckless endangerment and aggravated assault.

"Lt. Gen. Mattis made his decision after consideration of information developed from investigations by Marine, Army and Naval Criminal Investigative Service investigators as well as evidence produced during an Article 32 investigation hearing," said a written statement issued late Friday afternoon.

As discussed here, the charges against Lt Col Chessani are a matter of Marine discipline that will ultimately be a matter of judgment by his peers.

However, the forwarding of Lance Corporal Tatum to court martial, and likely Staff Sergeant Wuterich as well, will be a donnybrook, both legal and military, that will long impact the fighting spirit of the Marine Corps.

The charges against Tatum have been reduced, but are still serious. At Tatum’s Article 32 hearing, Lt Col Ware recommended that charges against Tatum be dismissed. However, Ware wrote that reduced charges “better tracks that the killing was done as a response to the IED explosion and was an emotional response with the intent to kill insurgents.”

Chessani’s attorney reacted vehemently to the forwarding to court martial.

Chessani’s attorneys at the Thomas More Law Center in Ann Arbor, Michigan, said they are particularly disappointed with the decision to bring their client to trial because of the “chilling effect” the case has on the military’s sacrosanct chain of command.

Attorney Brian Rooney, himself a Marine combat veteran and one of the attorneys representing Chessani said second-guessing the actions of combatants is tantamount to the Soviet “commissar” theory of command. During the Communist era of the former Soviet Union political officers called commissars could countermand the orders of combat leaders in the name of political expediency.

“You might as well have a political officer in every battalion to make sure every order is politically correct,” Rooney said.

Indeed, there already is something close to that, the Judge Adjutant General officer assigned to each unit, making legal judgments that may or may not be correct in the conditions, but sometimes creating a hesitation to act. There are important, life critical, reforms to be made in JAG.

Tatum’s attornies reacted similarly, although more muted,

Tatum “did not commit any crime, and we will take the fight to the courtroom,” lawyers Jack B. Zimmerman and Kyle R. Sampson said in a statement. “We will vigorously challenge the government’s case, and nothing will be left undone in defense of this fine young Marine.”

“We are very disappointed that the commanding general did not follow the recommendation to withdraw and dismiss all charges made by the experienced trial judge who heard all the evidence during the Article 32 investigation,” they said. The Article 32 investigating officer, Lt. Col. Paul Ware, had recommended dismissal of the charges.

Mattis’ decision to send the case to trial “imperils every young Marine and soldier who faces a split second decision in combat,” Zimmerman and Sampson warned. “The success of future infantry combat operations is at stake. We remain convinced that the military justice system eventually will reach the right result.”

On the other hand, looking at Lt Col Ware’s recommendation that Staff Sergeant Wuterich proceed to court martial, although on reduced charges, Ware wrote that Tatum’s testimony is critical to Wuterich’s case:

Of all the witnesses in this investigation, it is LCpl Tatum that is most critical to any prosecution of SSgt Wuterich. His statements to NCIS are inadmissible against SSgt Wuterich. Only by having LCpl Tatum testify can the Government place SSgt Wuterich inside the back room of House 2. Bottom line is, LCpl Tatum must testify to substantially what is contained in the statements in order to place SSgt Wuterich inside the back room of House 2. [Where two adult women and six children were in the far back corner, there being some doubt whether there was sufficient light to see them, and time, in the circumstances.]

Earlier, Ware expressed some frustration that Tatum, “would start to become vague as to who was in the back room. [Whether Wuterich was there.] It is but one more discouraging development in the search for the truth of what happened and why it happened.”

The Marine Corps is, as always, doing its duty. Let it, whether in battle, or in court.

UPDATE:
Mark Walker at the North County Times, where Haditha case coverage has been superior, follows up Saturday morning with this observation:

"This demonstrates that Gen. Mattis has a mind of his own when it comes to making a decision and that the recommendations of the hearing officer are just that ---- only recommendations," said Gary Solis, a former Marine Corps judge and prosecutor, adding that he believes Mattis has been fair in deciding to withdraw charges against some of the others accused. "The circumstances of the incident ---- combat under fire ---- have played a significant role, and he has given the benefit of the doubt to some of those men."

Norwegian sex education for tots is supposed to protect them against assaults. Germans too. Brave New World!

OSLO, Norway, October 17, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) – An Oslo pre-school teacher, backed by child psychologists, has suggested that kindergarten children be encouraged to “express” their sexuality through “sex-play” and games, including dancing naked and masturbating, in pre-school and day-care centres.

The English language edition of Norway’s Aftenposten newspaper reports that Pia Friis, the respected operator of an Oslo kindergarten, told an interviewer that children should be able “to look at each other and examine each other's bodies. They can play doctor, play mother and father, dance naked and masturbate”.

“But their sexuality must also be socialized, so they are not, for example, allowed to masturbate while sitting and eating. Nor can they be allowed to pressure other children into doing things they don't want to,” Friis said.

Friis also faulted some staff of day-care centres and kindergartens who, she said, might react negatively to children expressing their sexuality. “When the personnel are uncertain, that passes on to the children, and it can be negative.”

Friis’ opinion was backed up by Norwegian child psychologist Thore Langfeldt, who said, “Children must learn about sexuality, otherwise things can go very wrong.”

“Children can't object to something they don't know about, and children can more easily and readily report assaults if they already are aware of their own sexuality.”…

The suggestion by Norwegian child experts follows a larger trend in many countries of the European Union to raise the level of sexual activity in every area of the culture.

In May 2006, the German government was blasted by dozens of human rights groups and experts in human trafficking for building new brothels and “sex huts” in time to service fans at the World Cup soccer tournament in Berlin. It was estimated that 40,000 women were added, with official approval, to the existing 400,000 who already plied Germany’s legal prostitution or “sex-trade”.

In July 2007, the German Ministry for Family Affairs was accused of “state-encouraged incest” when it issued a pair of education booklets encouraging parents to sexually massage their children as young as 1 to 3 years of age. One of the booklets recommended that fathers should “devote attention” to the sexual organs of young daughters and another suggested teaching children the movements of copulation.

Excerpt from Aldous Huxley's BRAVE NEW WORLD:

Chapter Three:
From a neighbouring shrubbery emerged a nurse, leading by the hand a small boy, who howled as he went. An anxious-looking little girl trotted at her heels.
"What's the matter?" asked the Director.
The nurse shrugged her shoulders. "Nothing much," she answered. "It's just that this little boy seems rather reluctant to join in the ordinary erotic play. I'd noticed it once or twice before. And now again to-day. He started yelling just now …"
"Honestly," put in the anxious-looking little girl, "I didn't mean to hurt him or anything. Honestly."
"Of course you didn't, dear," said the nurse reassuringly. "And so," she went on, turning back to the Director, "I'm taking him in to see the Assistant Superintendent of Psychology. Just to see if anything's at all abnormal."
"Quite right," said the Director. "Take him in. You stay here, little girl," he added, as the nurse moved away with her still howling charge. "What's your name?"
"Polly Trotsky."
"And a very good name too," said the Director. "Run away now and see if you can find some other little boy to play with."
The child scampered off into the bushes and was lost to sight.

We went to the pumpkin patch this afternoon, where 2-year old Gavin was thrilled to get a balloon sword. I guess in Europe he'd have gotten a balloon phallus. And, guess what the scabbard would have been.

Attorney General designate Michael Mukasey’s opening statement to the Senate Judiciary Committee:

…the issue between authority and liberty is not between a right and a wrong -- that never presents a dilemma. The dilemma is because the conflict is between two rights, each in its own way important. That is why I have told you during those discussions, and may have occasion to repeat again here today, that protecting civil liberties, and people's confidence that those liberties are protected, is a part of protecting national security, just as is the gathering of intelligence to defend us from those who believe it is their duty to make war on us. We have to succeed at both.

Heritage Foundation:

The contrast could not be starker between the nebulous, hypothetical harms that privacy absolutists assert could result from the incidental collection of information through electronic surveillance programs and the concrete harms that could result from the lack of robust foreign intelligence-gathering programs to detect and prevent acts of domestic terrorism.

Mukasey’s lesson from his experience as a judge in a terrorism case:

On one end of the spectrum, the rules that apply to routine criminals who pursue finite goals are skewed, and properly so, to assure that only the highest level of proof will result in a conviction. But those rules do not protect a society that must gather information about, and at least incapacitate, people who have cosmic goals that they are intent on achieving by cataclysmic means.

Mukasey’s recommendation:

Perhaps the world's greatest deliberative body (the Senate) and the people's house (the House of Representatives) could, while we still have the leisure, turn their considerable talents to deliberating how to fix a strained and mismatched legal system, before another cataclysm calls forth from the people demands for hastier and harsher results.

Editor of libertarian Reason:

When it comes to terrorism, the question is not how we can best serve our government but how our government can best serve us—in particular, the extent to which security against violations of our rights by the state should be traded for security against violations of our rights by terrorists. From the dismissive way he treats critics of anti-terrorist measures such as the PATRIOT Act, it's clear Mukasey worries more about the latter.

Left's Glenn Greenwald’s live blog of confirmation hearing:

When asked by Leahy if the President has the power to violate FISA, Mukasey makes clear that he shares the right-wing view that the President does. He begins by citing the statement of Griffin Bell at the time FISA was enacted -- "Limits of FISA do not reach the limits of presidential authority. There is some gap between where FISA left off and where the Constitution permits the President to act." He thus espouses the DOJ's theory justifying warrantless eavesdropping even in the face of a statute making it illegal….

Mukasey volunteered that the Fourth Amendment bars only "unreasonable searches," and while it does go on to describe warrants, "there is very scant case law on whether intelligence gathering (as distinct from gathering of evidence for criminal cases) actually requires warrants."

[Democrat Senator Russ] Feingold told him: "In light of the clear statutory language of FISA, I find your equivocating somewhat troubling." FISA says that it is the "exclusive means" for conducting surveillance, clearly meaning that Congress did not leave any room for President to eavesdrop in violation of it. Feingold: "This is a very important principle. The Attorney General should be comfortable with this."

According to Feingold, anyway. Most Americans are not comfortable with a government that doesn’t protect their safety, or those who excessively hamstring that key function. The Bush administration has worked in an unclear environment of new threats, and been willing to cooperate with Congress in concern for civil liberties. The administration should not be willing to allow any to take that to unnecessary excess, beyond constitutional or sensible, that would allow Americans’ basic security to be harmed. Heaven forbid another grave strike against our country, what will such Democrats excuse themselves with if they are confronted by grieving families? Let's start with these grieving families?

UPDATE:
Incredible. Scary.

Rules Committee Chair Louise Slaughter did something unusual however, in the hearing on legislation to extend the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act--she announced at the start of the hearing that no amendments of any type would be allowed for debate. Committee Democrats followed Slaughter's lead and voted against amendments to: authorize surveillance of those engaged in the creation of Weapons of Mass Destruction; authorize surveillance of foreign terrorists outside the United States; extend liability protection to telecommunications companies that relied on government directives and shared information deemed necessary for protection from terrorist attack; and, allow a debate on the Bush administration's alternative.

This is a reckless way to handle national security. House Democrats have once again shut Republicans out of the debate completely (as they did just yesterday in debate on the Internet Tax Freedom Act). They've used their position of power to give terrorists working with WMD a 'grace period' while U.S. intelligence agencies go to court for permission to tap them. They've abused the process to preserve the fatal flaws in their own bill:

· The Democratic bill specifically requires a court order to monitor conversations between terrorists abroad and people in the United States. So if Osama bin Laden called an al Qaeda cell in the United States, the intelligence community could not listen to the communication without a court order.
· It imposes FISA requirements on the US military--creating a perverse situation where it's easier to kill a suspected terrorist than monitor his calls.
· It creates a database of U.S. citizens suspected to be terrorists--a database that must be shared across agencies and with (notoriously leaky) members of Congress and their staffs.
· In specifically denying protection to telecommunications companies, it exposes those companies to lawsuits and creates a strong incentive for them not to cooperate with future surveillance activities.

UPDATE II:
The AP calls it a Republican “gambit,” that the sole amendment they were allowed by Democrats to offer, Democrats not allowing any others, to the seriously flawed bill reads ”nothing in the bill ‘shall be construed to prohibit the intelligence community from conducting surveillance needed to prevent Osama Bin Laden, Al Qaeda, or any other foreign terrorist organization…from attacking the United States or any United States person.’ ” I call it the Democrats afraid of being exposed for their true selves, and Republicans winning on the merits. The AP continues: “Democrats were forced to pull the bill from the House floor with no certainty about how it might be revived.
A Democratic staff member said the bill will not be rewritten but substantive amendments may [now] be allowed when it finally does come up for a vote…”

The New York Times carries this common-sense Republican observation:

Representative Heather A. Wilson, Republican of New Mexico, said that Speaker Nancy Pelosi “underestimated the intelligence of the American people and the bipartisan majority in the Congress to understand what matters most — preventing another terrorist attack.”

Just when I wonder if anyone is listening, the Democrats take my advice on their SCHIP poster-child. I’d suggested that "Dems Should Pick Another SCHIP Poster Child."

Politico reports that, “Bethany is the latest child being profiled by Democrats arguing for an override of President Bush's veto of the State Children's Health Insurance Program bill.”

Her family’s financial circumstances do appear to be more of what the SCHIP intent is, strapped working class families. However, Brittany was already covered by SCHIP, so the Democrats’ expansion of eligibility to higher earning families still remains at issue.

BTW, another blogger checked out my post about almost all SCHIP states not having an asset test, "I Could Qualify For SCHIP!," and found that research correct. I haven’t heard of any SCHIP expansion supporter in Congress calling for any sort of asset test, in order to better focus on true needs or, heaven forbid, protect taxpayers.

Just to stir the pot further:
I’d also phoned Medi-Cal (California’s Medicaid), targeting the truly poor, and found it does have a, perhaps overstrict, asset test: no more than $3000 of personal assets (including car and cash accounts). Wouldn’t the extra SCHIP funding be better spent on the truly needy. Or, do the Dems already discount that reliable voter bloc in their quest for middle-class voters who also want to be on the dole?

UPDATE:
See “Captain” Ed Morrissey’s analysis of today’s USA Today/Gallup poll. Seems the Democrats aren’t fooling the majority about their nationalized healthcare agenda with SCHIP.

[Note: This article, written by Robert L. Houbeck, Jr., was commissioned for Campus Watch and ran Friday at FrontPage Magazine. The subject treated--genuine censorship of academic work--is vitally important, and the piece deserves wide dissemination. Winfield Myers]

In 1989, former Conservative Party chairman and retired British officer, Lord Aldington, won a libel suit against Count Nikolai Tolstoy for allegations of complicity in war crimes which Tolstoy had made in his 1986 book, The Minister and the Massacres. Following up on his U.K. court victory, Aldington had his lawyers write to "… public libraries throughout Britain threatening further legal action if they continued to make [the book] available …. Even today, the book is virtually unavailable in Britain …."[1] Out of print, it is easier to find in New Zealand libraries than in the U.K.[2]

András Riedlmayer, a bibliographer at Harvard's Fine Arts Library, sees a family resemblance between the Tolstoy case and the current dust-up about Alms for Jihad. In both cases, an attempt was made by influential elites to intimidate libraries into suppressing a book.

In late July, Cambridge University Press settled a U.K. libel suit brought against it by Saudi businessman, Sheikh Khalid Bin Mahfouz. Bin Mahfouz had disputed statements in Cambridge's 2006 book, Alms for Jihad: Charity and Terrorism in the Islamic World, by J. Millard Burr and Robert O. Collins, that he had been involved in financing terrorist groups.[3] A press release by Bin Mahfouz's lawyers at Kendall Freeman[4] announced that, in addition to publishing a comprehensive apology, paying substantial damages, and pulping unsold copies of the book, "Cambridge University Press is taking the almost unprecedented step of … writing to over 200 libraries worldwide which carry the book telling them of the settlement and asking them to withdraw the book from their shelves."

Two weeks later, Cambridge Intellectual Property Director Kevin Taylor followed through with a letter to libraries known to hold the book, asking them to remove it.[5] Cambridge, apparently recognizing that librarians would almost certainly not comply, included an errata sheet with the letter. If libraries would not remove the book, Cambridge insisted that they insert the errata page.

Alms for Jihad quickly disappeared from U.S. bookstores and online suppliers.[6] What about the shelves of U.S. libraries?

Cambridge guessed right—librarians did not remove the book. To the contrary, they seem to have gone out and bought up the last elusive copies. More copies of Alms for Jihad were on library shelves in mid-September than before Taylor sent his August 15 letter.[7] U.S. holding libraries range from Harvard and Yale to Dearborn's Henry Ford Community College.

The American Library Association's Office for Intellectual Freedom issued a statement encouraging librarians to stand firm. "Libraries," ALA noted, "are considered to hold title to the individual copy or copies, and it is the library's property to do with it as it pleases. Given the intense interest in the book, and the desire of readers to learn about the controversy first hand, we recommend that U.S. libraries keep the book available for their users."[8]

A quick poll of library directors at Michigan academic libraries brought similar responses: We paid for the book, we own it, we're going to keep it. "The book itself," one director noted, "has now become part of the conversation." A commentary had become an artifact.

These librarians were affirming the profession's commitment to preserving and disseminating the "Great Conversation" of recorded knowledge. Academic libraries don't adjudicate debates, but on their shelves preserve and foster them.

On the substance of the Bin Mahfouz case, librarians had mixed views. One former library director observed that, to agree to such dramatic settlement terms, Cambridge must have concluded it was "dead-on wrong." Others were not so sure. "The … reaction of CUP to the pressure brought forward by Mahfouz," observed Mark Herring, Dean of Libraries at Winthrop University, "only serves to show just how powerful and influential money is, even in the face of intellectual freedom."

Others found it significant that the U.S. authors of Alms for Jihad were standing by their scholarship.[9] Bin Mahfouz had not brought action against them. Moreover, while the Saudi businessman has, since March 2002, initiated or threatened suit 36 times,[10] he has taken legal action only in the U.K., where libel cases favor the plaintiff. The matter, in the view of many librarians, remains a legitimate topic for examination.

The examination will go on not only in U.S. colleges and universities. Copies of Alms for Jihad are in the collections of many federal agencies, including the Library of Congress, the Department of State, Central Intelligence Agency, Defense Intelligence Agency, FBI Academy, the Air Force and Naval academies, and U.S. Special Operations Command. Did Cambridge send letters to federal libraries, too? If so, a search of the WorldCat database reveals that they aren't removing the book, either. It's hard to imagine Nancy Pelosi pressing Congress to surrender its copy, never mind Condoleezza Rice or Defense Secretary Robert Gates.

Librarians have been taking steps to protect this suddenly rare book. Charles Hamaker, Associate University Librarian at the University of North Carolina-Charlotte, reports that "my library, like many academic libraries, has placed Alms for Jihad in a reserve collection to keep it available for current and future users." The University of Michigan recalled its two circulating copies and put both on reserve—housed, as an added precaution, in separate locations. A search of their online catalogs reveals that Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, as well as the University of California-San Diego, have also placed their copies on reserve. Ohio State and Cornell put Alms for Jihad in non-circulating rare book collections. Prudent moves: the $30 book now has a market value of more than $500.[11]

Jonathan Rodgers, head of the University Michigan's Near East collections, reports that the message traffic among Middle East Librarians Association members has been uniformly supportive of protecting copies and resisting any request to return the book. Riedlmayer of Harvard and others believe it would be reasonable to insert the errata page. But the consensus view among U.S. librarians is to resist any request to remove Alms for Jihad from library shelves.

No librarians interviewed objected to Cambridge University's settling the lawsuit. Some accepted the firm's explanation[12] that the book contained erroneous statements which defamed Bin Mahfouz. Most understood Cambridge's reluctance to spend money on a suit it was likely to lose. Cambridge, too, recently announced plans to expand sales in the Gulf region and perhaps feared that any defense of the book would alienate potential customers.[13]

But librarians do object to the terms of the settlement. Cambridge University Press is the self-described "oldest printer and publisher in the world."[14] Yet this distinguished firm agreed to a virtually unprecedented insult to free inquiry: a request to academic libraries to be complicit in the suppression of a published work. Some wondered if Cambridge's request might portend more aggressive attempts at redress in future cases. In previous suits no settlement had included an attempt to suppress library copies. Some also worried about the potential chilling effect of these cases on lesser publishers who may become reluctant to accept manuscripts on terrorism issues.[15]

While questions are regularly raised about books in school or public libraries, challenges to books in academic collections are rare. A request to remove a book initiated by its publisher is virtually unheard of.[16]

When Little, Brown withdrew Kaavya Viswanathan's novel, How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild and Got a Life after the author confessed to plagiarizing portions, it did not ask libraries to suppress their copies.[17] The book remains in many academic collections. Similarly, Knopf stopped printing Michael Bellesiles' discredited Arming America: The Origins of a National Gun Culture, but did not advise libraries to remove it.[18] Libraries were not asked to remove Antoni Gronowicz's God's Broker, even though the publisher denounced its own book as "fraudulent" and voluntarily destroyed the unsold remainder of its 35,000 volume print-run.[19] The prestigious academic journal Science editorially retracted two fraudulent cloning articles by South Korean scientist Hwang Woo-Suk, yet did not purge the pieces from its article database.[20]

Publishers, generally, and academic librarians, certainly, do not suppress the printed record, even when that record contains acknowledged fraud and error, never mind disputed claims. It's not that either is indifferent to fraud and error. But, given "the endless twistiness of the human mind,"[21] the consensus has been that less mischief will be done by leaving the sorting out to readers. Caveat lector.

Harvard's Riedlmayer could recall one example of attempted mischief by a publisher. In 1953, the publisher of the second edition of The Great Soviet Encyclopedia sent a letter to subscribing libraries asking that they remove from Volume Five the article on Lavrentiy Beria and replace it with a piece on the Bering Sea. Beria, the brutal head of Stalin's state security police, had been liquidated. Purged from life, the Soviets attempted to purge him from memory. Clumsily helpful, they enclosed a razor blade.[22] Librarians did not remove the Beria article, but tipped-in the Moscow letter along with the replacement piece. No reports on what became of the razor blades.

Taylor of Cambridge didn't enclose razor blades with his letter. Nor did he advise librarians what to do with Alms for Jihad, should they remove it. Cambridge pulped its 2,340 unsold copies.[23] Some librarians are taking a page from their predecessors in 1953 and plan to tip-in, along with the errata sheet, the Taylor letter. It is now part of the record of the controversy and will be part of the ongoing Conversation.

If the Cambridge edition of Alms for Jihad has now become rare, its contents will not be so for long. Authors Burr and Collins have re-secured their copyright to the manuscript,[24] and several U.S. publishers are interested. Soon an even wider circle of readers will have the opportunity to evaluate the authors' arguments for themselves—without having to travel to New Zealand.

Mr. Houbeck is a former chair of the Michigan Library Association's Intellectual Freedom Committee. He writes occasionally for Campus Watch, a project of the Middle East Forum.

[1] Corsellis, John, and Marcus Ferrar. Slovenia 1945: Memories of Death and Survival After World War II. (London: I.B.Tauris Publishers, 2005), p.188. See also Mitchell, Ian. The Cost of a Reputation: Aldington versus Tolstoy: The Causes, Course and Consequences of the Notorious Libel Case. (London: Canongate, 1997); and Rayment, Tim. "The Massacre and the Ministers." The Sunday Times (London) April 7, 1996. http://www.serendipity.li/hr/mm.htm

[2] Twenty libraries in New Zealand own The Minister and the Massacres, just 17 in the U.K. For library holding statistics, search titles at: http://www.worldcat.org/ .

[3] For a summary of the controversy, with links to related articles, see Stillwell, Cinnamon. "Libel Tourism: Where Terrorism and Censorship Meet," http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2007/08/29/cstillwell.DTL . For Mr. Bin Mahfouz's views, see his website: http://www.binmahfouz.info/ . For background by one of the book's authors, see Robert O. Collins, "The Saudi Billionaire vs. Cambridge University Press." http://hnn.us/articles/42436.html . See also Rachel Donadio, "Libel Without Borders." New York Times, Sunday Book Review, 7 October 2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/07/books/review/Donadio-t.html?_r=2&ref=books&oref=slogin&oref=slogin .

[4] http://www.kendallfreeman.com/news/sheikh+khalid+bin+mahfouz+receives+comprehensive+apology.asp

[5] Author's copy of Cambridge letter.

[6] A record of the print copy of the book even disappeared from the online edition of Books in Print.

[7] On August 2, University of Richmond library director, Jim Rettig, reported that the OCLC database indicated approximately 325 institutions worldwide held at least one copy of the book. http://keillor.richmond.edu/blojsom/blog/jrettig/intellectual+freedom/?permalink=Cleanse-libraries-of-books-containing-errors-of-fact.html . By early October, the number had increased to 337. Nearly 300 of those libraries, mostly academic collections, were in the U.S. Only four U.K. libraries reported holding the book. Readers can search the OCLC database at: http://worldcat.org .

[8] "Can They Do That?" 8/14/07, http://blogs.ala.org/oif.php?cat-194 .

[9] See Stillwell and Collins pieces.

[10] Duncan Currie, "The Libel Tourist Strikes Again: How to Kill a Book You Don't Like." Weekly Standard, v.12, no.46, 20 August 2007, http://www.weeklystandard.com/Utilities/printer_preview.asp?idArticle=13987&R=1149BF4

[11] Stillwell reports that a copy sold on eBay for $538. Booksellers have offered Collins $500 for a copy, presumably to sell them for considerably more. See Albanese, Andrew, and Jennifer Pinkowski. "ALA to Libraries: Keep Alms for Jihad, Pulped in UK", Library Journal, 8/23/2007. http://www.libraryjournal.com/index.asp?layout=articlePrint&articleID=CA6471402 .

[12] Kevin Taylor, "Why CUP acted responsibly." The Bookseller, 8 August 2007. http://www.thebookseller.com/blogs/43397-page.html .

[13] See "Middle East and North Africa" section at http://www.cambridge.org/about/world.htm , where the Press notes that it is pursuing "a strategic Joint Venture with the Obeikan Group of Saudi Arabia which focuses on publishing for schools in the Gulf area." Cambridge has offices in Cairo, Dubai, and Riyadh. An article by Katherine Rushton, Information World Review, 28 September 2006, adds that Cambridge "is targeting swift expansion in other Arab territories." http://www.infomaticsonline.co.uk/articles/print/2165276 .

[14] http://www.cambridge.org/about/

[15] On this point see comments by Emory University professor, Deborah Lipstadt, in Gary Shapiro, "Libel Suit Leads to Destruction of Books." New York Sun, 2 August 2007, http://www.nysun.com/article/59706.

[16] Of 6,364 reports by librarians of challenges to books, as submitted to the American Library Association Office for Intellectual Freedom from 1990-2000, 71% occurred in schools and school libraries, 24% in public libraries. Less than 1% occurred in college or university settings (during 2000-2005, about 2.4% of reported formal challenges occurred in higher education settings). If ALA received any reports of publisher-initiated challenges, there were not enough to warrant an "initiator" category. See http://www.ala.org/ala/oif/bannedbooksweek/challengedbanned/challengedbanned.htm#backgroundinformation . See especially the "challenges by institution" and "challenges by initiator" reports.

[17] Motoko Rich and Dinitia Smith, "Publisher Decides to Recall Novel by Harvard Student." New York Times, 28 April 2006, p.A16.

[18] See chapter 2, "The Noble Lie: ‘Arming America' and the Right to Bear Arms", in Ron Robin, Scandals & Scoundrels: Seven Cases that Shook the Academy." (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004), pp.57-84.

[19] McDowell, Edwin. "Publisher to Withdraw a Book on Pope's Life." New York Times, 30 July 1984, p.C19.

[20] See articles by Hwang Woo-Suk et al., in the 12 March 2004 and 17 June 2005 issues of Science. The database in which I found the articles was ProQuest, http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?index=22&did=592965751&SrchMode=3&sid=1&Fmt=4&VInst=PROD&VType=PQD&RQT=309&VName=PQD&TS=1189800130&clientId=16043&aid=2 . For the magazine's formal retraction, see http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/311/5759/335b . For a discussion of the problem of labeling retracted or suspect articles in the medical literature, see Harold C. Sox and Drummond Rennie, "Research Misconduct, Retraction, and Cleansing the Medical Literature: Lessons from the Poehlman Case." Annals of Internal Medicine 144:8 (18 April 2006) http://www.annals.org/cgi/content/full/0000605-200604180-00123v1 .

[21] A characteristically pungent phrase of the formidable Elizabeth Anscombe, late of Cambridge University, in Ethics, Religion and Politics. The Collected Philosophical Papers of G. E. M. Anscombe, v.3. (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1981), p.60.

[22] See http://www.news.uiuc.edu/news/02/1217censorship.html for recollections of University of Illinois librarians about the razor blade. Nor is Beria mentioned on any page of the 31 volumes of the English translation of the encyclopedia's third edition.

[23] See Collins http://hnn.us/articles/42436.html .

[24] Donadio.

Last week, while preparing a post on the move toward a federal shield law for “journalists”, I featured information available from the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) blog, available no where else on the Internet. According to this USA Today report, the shield law will probably pass Congress, disregarding the serious impediments it will add to national security and other legitimate justice concerns.

I would suggest that this and other matters of serious concern are too often little covered in either the mainstream or Internet media, as agendas or “hot” stories crowd out getting ahead of the curve of emotions, special interests, or lack of being well informed in advance.

Please review the postings at the NAM blog, and see how many issues, of significant interest, you might otherwise not have been aware, and how being aware would add to your ability to be on top of or ahead of issues.

David Broder’s syndicated Washington Post column, “A Market Makeover For Health Insurance” indeed, as Broder subtitles it, ”Offers a Starting Point for Debate.” As a starting point: No doubt, everyone and every group would like a free lunch, but let’s avoid worse indigestion.

The Committee for Economic Development’s version, that Broder features, is actually not online yet, as it is due to be introduced tomorrow. But, Broder calls the Healthy Americans Act introduced by Democrat Senator Wyden and Republican Senator Bennett, and co-sponsored by seven other senators, the “closest parallel.” The Healthy Americans Act is online, at Senator Wyden’s website.

At first reading, it does offer many attractive proposals, in whole probably better than most comprehensive plans that I’ve seen. I won’t go into the details here, as it would take too long, and if it ever does get further toward enactment it will surely go through many changes.

Along that path, or the path of any comprehensive proposal, certain realities must be faced, and better sooner than later when the consequences may be too far along to reverse or remedy.

There is a fairly immutable law of healthcare: When one affects either Access, Quality or Costs, it also affects the others. Increased access or quality costs more, for example, or decreased costs mean reducing access or quality.

All plans promise lower cost growth or even cost savings. When one digs into the numbers, usually presented as a pretty static or short-term analysis, one finds most of the cost promises either illusory or shaky. Reality is that most Americans will not accept severely reduced access or quality for lower costs, and welcome the technological advances that save lives and quality of life and the increased access necessary with an aging population. That isn’t to say that some cost-growth can’t be slowed, but any promise that health care costs are not going to rise is snake-oil.

All plans mostly shift money around. That is an argument that may have some merit. However, it must be recognized that one’s gain is almost always another’s loss. The federal and state governments are already heavily involved in subsidizing or steering these fund flows. All plans would increase that government control, which inevitably decreases the diversity of free market choices that are more reflective of the variety of needs and means. Also, such political shifts of fund flows will likely more reflect relative organized power of stakeholders in health care, and leave some with legitimate interests less served.

Most plans contain fairly comprehensive standard benefits. Often these are more generous than those offered by most employers. The problem of greatly increased utilization for a freer-lunch is not adequately reflected in the cost promises. Perhaps the more comprehensive and lower co-pay benefits may be appropriate to those of low income and assets, but those with higher income and assets should be allowed a higher level of self-responsibility for the potential out-of-pocket costs of lower benefit levels.

Polls and votes repeatedly show that only a minority is willing to cede their own health insurance or materially increase their own costs in order to insure the uninsured, particularly when it is widely documented that the commonly cited number of almost 50-million is overstated by half due to short-term breaks in coverage, irresponsibility of the young or those who can afford coverage, and illegal immigrants. It is a legitimate item for public debate how to help those truly in need, and a more realistic and direct assessment is needed that isn’t clouded by agendas to accomplish nationalized health care by deception.

Government plans inevitably involve more complex and slower decision-making, the moreso the broader and deeper the plan, and impose greater uniformity than the variety of individual circumstances. That means lower adaptability to medical or economic changes, which retards future quality of health care and proper efficiencies. Similarly, uniform standards of care treatments necessarily are based on statistical probability, at best and if sound, but no statistic applies to 100% of individual cases and they may suffer.

The health care debate will be hot and heavy during this looooong 2008 election cycle, but let’s try to keep it real.

Elisabeth Bumiller, inadvertently, presents quite a contrast between the diversity of contrary opinions expressed at the Army’s Command and General Staff College compared to what one would find on most civilian college campuses.

In “Blunt Talk About Iraq at Army School,” in the New York Times, she says:

On one level, second-guessing is institutionalized at Leavenworth, home to the Combined Arms Center, a sprawling Army research center that includes the Command and General Staff College for midcareer officers, the School of Advanced Military Studies for the most elite and the Center for Army Lessons Learned, which collects and disseminates battlefield data.

The debates there about Iraq are vigorous and few holds barred. [Note: One of the subjects is whether the fate of General Shinseki turned on his outspoken early call for the need for more troops in Iraq. Ms. Bumiller’s recounting of those discussions may be better understood by a fuller understanding. See here for conflicting support for either side, and what’s likely. See here for another evaluation, at the time, by a knowledgeable source, which sides with Shineski’s recommendation as the more prudent course.]

Our civilian colleges are, also, supposed to be in the business of institutionalized lessons learned, and to encourage knowledgeable, experienced open and diverse discussion. Would that they did their job as well as the military.

Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez’ speech and Q&A session at the Military Reporters & Editors convention has unleashed a whirl of major media coverage and commentary. (See Memeorandum, for examples.) All are focused on his criticism of the Bush administration for inadequate strategy and prosecution of the war.

However, neither the New York Times nor Associated Press mention that over 40% of Sanchez’ speech severely took the major media to task. The Washington Post merely mentions it, and then underplays it at the end of its report, giving it 67 out of about 850 words in its coverage:

Sanchez opened by criticizing the U.S. news media, saying he was unfairly labeled "a liar" and "a torturer" because of the Abu Ghraib scandal, and he alleged that the media have lost their sense of ethics. He said that members of the media blow stories out of proportion and are unwilling to correct mistakes, and that the "media environment is doing a great disservice to the nation."

Here’s some of what Lt. Gen. Sanchez had to say about the media in Iraq:

ALMOST INVARIABLY, MY PERCEPTION IS THAT THE SENSATIONALISTIC VALUE OF THESE ASSESSMENTS IS WHAT PROVIDED THE EDGE THAT YOU SEEK FOR SELF AGRANDIZEMENT OR TO ADVANCE YOUR INDIVIDUAL QUEST FOR GETTING ON THE FRONT PAGE WITH YOUR STORIES! AS I UNDERSTAND IT, YOUR MEASURE OF WORTH IS HOW MANY FRONT PAGE STORIES YOU HAVE WRITTEN AND UNFORTUNATELY SOME OF YOU WILL COMPROMISE YOUR INTEGRITY AND DISPLAY QUESTIONABLE ETHICS AS YOU SEEK TO KEEP AMERICA INFORMED. THIS IS MUCH LIKE THE INTELLIGENCE ANALYSTS WHOSE EFFECTIVENESS WAS MEASURED BY THE NUMBER OF INTELLIGENCE REPORTS HE PRODUCED. FOR SOME, IT SEEMS THAT AS LONG AS YOU GET A FRONT PAGE STORY THERE IS LITTLE OR NO REGARD FOR THE "COLLATERAL DAMAGE" YOU WILL CAUSE. PERSONAL REPUTATIONS HAVE NO VALUE AND YOU REPORT WITH TOTAL IMPUNITY AND ARE RARELY HELD ACCOUNTABLE FOR UNETHICAL CONDUCT.

GIVEN THE NEAR INSTANTANEOUS ABILITY TO REPORT ACTIONS ON THE GROUND, THE RESPONSIBILITY TO ACCURATELY AND TRUTHFULLY REPORT TAKES ON AN UNPRECEDENTED IMPORTANCE. THE SPECULATIVE AND OFTEN UNINFORMED INITIAL REPORTING THAT CHARACTERIZES OUR MEDIA APPEARS TO BE RAPIDLY BECOMING THE STANDARD OF THE INDUSTRY. AN ARAB PROVERB STATES - "Four things come not back: the spoken word, the spent arrow, the past, the neglected opportunity." ONCE REPORTED, YOUR ASSESSMENTS BECOME CONVENTIONAL WISDOM AND NEARLY IMPOSSIBLE TO CHANGE. OTHER MAJOR CHALLENGES ARE YOUR WILLINGNESS TO BE MANIPULATED BY "HIGH LEVEL OFFICIALS" WHO LEAK STORIES AND BY LAWYERS WHO USE HYPERBOLE TO STRENGHTEN THEIR ARGUMENTS. YOUR UNWILLINGNESS TO ACCURATELY AND PROMINENTLY CORRECT YOUR MISTAKES AND YOUR AGENDA DRIVEN BIASES CONTRIBUTE TO THIS CORROSIVE ENVIRONMENT. ALL OF THESE CHALLENGES COMBINED CREATE A MEDIA ENVIRONMENT THAT DOES A TREMENDOUS DISSERVICE TO AMERICA. OVER THE COURSE OF THIS WAR TACTICALLY INSIGNIFICANT EVENTS HAVE BECOME STRATEGIC DEFEATS FOR AMERICA BECAUSE OF THE TREMENDOUS POWER AND IMPACT OF THE MEDIA AND BY EXTENSION YOU THE JOURNALIST. IN MANY CASES THE MEDIA HAS UNJUSTLY DESTROYED THE INDIVIDUAL REPUTATIONS AND CAREERS OF THOSE INVOLVED. WE REALIZE THAT BECAUSE OF THE NEAR REAL TIME REPORTING ENVIRONMENT THAT YOU FACE IT IS DIFFICULT TO REPORT ACCURATELY. IN MY BUSINESS ONE OF OUR FUNDAMENTAL TRUTHS IS THAT "THE FIRST REPORT IS ALWAYS WRONG." UNFORTUNATELY, IN YOUR BUSINESS "THE FIRST REPORT" GIVES AMERICANS WHO RELY ON THE SNIPPETS OF CNN, IF YOU WILL, THEIR "TRUTHS" AND PERSPECTIVES ON AN ISSUE. AS A COROLLARY TO THIS DEADLINE DRIVEN NEED TO PUBLISH "INITIAL IMPRESSIONS OR OBSERVATIONS" VERSUS OBJECTIVE FACTS THERE IS AN ADDITIONAL CHALLENGE FOR US WHO ARE THE SUBJECT OF YOUR REPORTING. WHEN YOU ASSUME THAT YOU ARE CORRECT AND ON THE MORAL HIGH GROUND ON A STORY BECAUSE WE HAVE NOT RESPOND TO QUESTIONS YOU PROVIDED IS THE ULTIMATE ARROGANCE AND DISTORTION OF ETHICS. ONE OF YOUR HIGHLY REPECTED FELLOW JOURNALISTS ONCE TOLD ME THAT THERE ARE SOME AMONGST YOU WHO "FEED FROM A PIG'S TROUGH." IF THAT IS WHO I AM DEALING WITH THEN I WILL NEVER RESPOND OTHERWISE WE WILL BOTH GET DIRTY AND THE PIG WILL LOVE IT. THIS DOES NOT MEAN THAT YOUR STORY IS ACCURATE….

ALL ARE VICTIMS OF THE MASSIVE AGENDA DRIVEN COMPETITION FOR ECONOMIC OR POLITICAL SUPREMACY. THE DEATH KNELL OF YOUR ETHICS HAS BEEN ENABLED BY YOUR PARENT ORGANIZATIONS WHO HAVE CHOSEN TO ALIGN THEMSELVES WITH POLITICAL AGENDAS. WHAT IS CLEAR TO ME IS THAT YOU ARE PERPETUATING THE CORROSIVE PARTISAN POLITICS THAT IS DESTROYING OUR COUNTRY AND KILLING OUR SERVICEMEMBERS WHO ARE AT WAR.

MY ASSESSMENT IS THAT YOUR PROFESSION, TO SOME EXTENT, HAS STRAYED FROM THESE ETHICAL STANDARDS AND ALLOWED EXTERNAL AGENDAS TO MANIPULATE WHAT THE AMERICAN PUBLIC SEES ON TV, WHAT THEY READ IN OUR NEWSPAPERS AND WHAT THEY SEE ON THE WEB. FOR SOME OF YOU, JUST LIKE SOME OF OUR POLITICIANS, THE TRUTH IS OF LITTLE TO NO VALUE IF IT DOES NOT FIT YOUR OWN PRECONCIEVED NOTIONS, BIASES AND AGENDAS.

IT IS ASTOUNDING TO ME WHEN I HEAR THE VEHEMENT DISAGREEMENT WITH THE MILITARY'S FORAYS INTO INFORMATION OPERATIONS THAT SEEK TO DISSEMINATE THE TRUTH AND INFORM THE IRAQI PEOPLE IN ORDER TO COUNTER OUR ENEMY'S BLATANT PROPAGANDA. AS I ASSESS VARIOUS MEDIA ENTITIES, SOME ARE UNQUESTIONABLY ENGAGED IN POLITICAL PROPAGANDA THAT IS UNCONTROLLED. THERE IS NO QUESTION IN MY MIND THAT THE STRENGTH OUR DEMOCRACY AND OUR FREEDOMS REMAIN LINKED TO YOUR ABILITY TO EXERCISE FREEDOM OF THE PRESS - I ADAMANTLY SUPPORT THIS BASIC FOUNDATION OF OUR DEMOCRACY AND COMPLETELY SUPPORTED THE EMBEDDING OF MEDIA INTO OUR FORMATIONS UP UNTIL MY LAST DAY IN UNIFORM. THE ISSUE IS ONE OF MAINTAINING PROFESSIONAL ETHICS AND STANDARDS FROM WITHIN YOUR INSTITUTION. MILITARY LEADERS MUST ACCEPT THAT THESE INJUSTICES WILL HAPPEN AND WHETHER THEY LIKE WHAT YOU PRINT OR NOT THEY MUST DEAL WITH YOU AND ENABLE YOU, IF YOU ARE AN ETHICAL JOURNALIST.

UPDATE:
Checking in this morning at 6AM Pacific Time on commentary on LtGen Sanchez’ comments on the media in Iraq, I find that at about the same time as I only one other – not in the MSM but at a blog – seems to have bothered to do elementary journalism. John Hinderaker at Powerline bothered to read Sanchez’ speech and picked up on almost half Sanchez’ speech being a severe criticism of the agenda and sloppy journalism practiced by the media in Iraq. Instapundit and CaptainsQuarters blogs picked up on it via Hinderaker’s post (my blog being a flea next to those – deservedly -- big dogs).

A noted blogger, Bill Roggio, who has embedded with the war-zone deployed troops numerous times emailed me this morning:

Wow…I can see why they [MSM] ignore that. Nice job Bruce.

While I strongly disagree with Sanchez’ current assessment of Iraq, his criticism of the media is spot on. I’ve seen it at work in the field – both in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Another renowned investigative reporter also emailed me: “Wow! Great work.” I replied it doesn’t seem to me particularly great work to actually read a speech and report fairly about it when the MSM features it. It’s elementary journalism, again by the wayside in the agenda journalism that LtGen Sanchez goes to length to describe and deride as seriously harming the critically important war effort and the lives of the deployed troops.

Note to Democrats: You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but can’t fool all of the people all of the time.

According to the latest of a series of polls by Rasmussen on the subject,

Rasmussen Reports has asked the underlying question about offering health care for free on three separate surveys. In mid-September, 44% supported the proposal. In our late September survey, 51% expressed support. In October, 52% answered yes to the question “Should health care be made available for free to all Americans?”

Yet,

However, that support falters when people are asked to support a plan that provides coverage for all but requires everyone with insurance to “change their coverage and join a program administered by the government.” A Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey conducted October 9-10 found that just 31% of adults would support that plan.

One big reason for the drop in support is that 68% of those who are already insured believe their own health care coverage would get worse. Only 18% think it would improve. Eighty-two percent (82%) of those surveyed are currently insured.

Further:

The survey also found that most Americans (52%) believed that such an approach would decrease the quality of health care in the United States. Just 29% thought it would improve the overall quality of care.

Forty-nine percent (49%) believe that making care available for free to everyone would increase the nation’s overall cost of providing care. Just 22% thought it would result in savings. Fifty-two percent (52%) thought that, when taxes were considered, the proposal would end up costing them more than they pay now. Just 28% thought their own costs would go down.

Therefore:

The data suggests that many Americans have come to see health care coverage as a basic right that should be available to everyone. At the same time, it suggests that any proposal forcing people to switch their current insurance coverage will be unlikely to attain popular support.

Two of my favorite commentators write today about what Republicans are missing from their positioning for the 2008 elections.

<