The Sci Fi channel hosts a program titled Destination Truth, devoted to serving up weekly episodes purportedly “investigating” reports of mysterious creatures across the globe. Representatives of the program traveled to Tibet to investigate the Yeti, and what do you know? they promptly discovered Yeti footprints.

With such unambiguous evidence as the footprint cast pictured above, naturally enough the mainstream media hastened to bring all this to the attention of worldwide readers.

Just remember these are exactly the same newspapers which also publish the Global Warming stories frequently on the basis of reports from sources just as reliable and disinterested as Destination Truth.

Sample stories:

AP

BBC

Reuters

Dennis Praeger explains the fundamental, underlying dynamic:

One of the most widely held beliefs in the contemporary world — so widely held it is not disputed — is that, with few exceptions, the world hates America. One of the Democrats’ major accusations against the Bush administration is that it has increased hatred of America to unprecedented levels. And in many polls, the United States is held to be among the greatest obstacles to world peace and harmony.

But it is not true that the world hates America. It is the world’s left that hates America. However, because the left dominates the world’s news media and because most people, understandably, believe what the news media report, many people, including Americans, believe that the world hates America.

Investigate the Media catches the Chronicle trying to fool its readers:

The San Francisco Chronicle has recently activated a devious system by which it deceives commenters on its website, SFGate.com. Here’s how it works:

If you make a comment on an article posted at SFGate, and if the site moderators then subsequently delete your comment for whatever reason, it will only appear as deleted to the other readers. HOWEVER, your comment will NOT appear to be deleted if viewed from your own computer! The Chronicle’s goal is to trick deleted commenters into not knowing their comments were in fact deleted. I’ll give evidence below showing how they do this.

Why would SFGate do such a thing? Because ever since public input was first allowed at SFGate, many commenters who had their comments deleted would come back onto the comment thread and point out that they had been silenced for ideological reasons — i.e. they weren’t sufficiently “progressive” — or because they had pointed out ethical lapses at SFGate and the Chronicle. Or any number of other reasons that the Chronicle did not want known. So, to pacify these problematic commenters, the SFGate moderators came up with a very clever and underhanded coding trick to prevent deleted commenters from ever finding out that they had been silenced.

Read the whole thing.

AFP: US military brings charges against Bilal Hussein in Iraqi criminal court.

The US military has filed a formal complaint with an Iraqi criminal court accusing a detained, award-winning Associated Press photographer of being a “terrorist media operative,” the Pentagon said Monday.

Geoff Morrell, the Pentagon press secretary, said the military made the complaint about Bilal Hussein, who has been held for more than 19 months without charges in US military custody, to Iraq’s Central Criminal Court.

“We believe Bilal Hussein was a terrorist media operative who infiltrated the AP,” he said. “MNF-I possesses convincing and irrefutable evidence that Bilal Hussein is a threat to security and stability as a link to insurgent activity.”

Morrell said an investigative hearing into the case by the court is scheduled to begin on or after November 28.

Hussein was detained April 12, 2006 after marines entered his house in Ramadi to establish a temporary observation post and found bomb-making materials, insurgent propaganda and a surveillance photograph of a US military installation.

Morrell said Hussein, who was part of an AP photo team that won a Pulitzer Prize in 2005, had previously aroused suspicion because he was often at the scene insurgent attacks as they occurred.

He said other evidence, which he would not describe, came to light after his detention “that makes it clear that Mr. Hussein is a terrorist media operative who infiltrated the AP.”

But the Associated Press is still vehemently defending its Al Qaeda-affiliated photographer.

The U.S. military plans to seek a criminal case in an Iraqi court against an award-winning Associated Press photographer but is refusing to disclose what evidence or accusations would be presented.

An AP attorney on Monday strongly protested the decision, calling the U.S. military plans a “sham of due process.” The journalist, Bilal Hussein, has already been imprisoned without charges for more than 19 months.

In Washington, Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell explained the decision to bring charges now by saying “new evidence has come to light” about Hussein, but said the information would remain in government hands until the formal complaint is filed with Iraqi authorities.

Morrell asserted the military has “convincing and irrefutable evidence that Bilal Hussein is a threat to stability and security in Iraq as a link to insurgent activity” and called Hussein “a terrorist operative who infiltrated the AP.”

AP Associate General Counsel Dave Tomlin rejected the claim: “That’s what the military has been saying for 19 months, but whenever we ask to see what’s so convincing we get back something that isn’t convincing at all.”

The case has drawn attention from press groups as another example of the complications for Iraqis chronicling the war in their homeland—including death squads that target local journalists working for Western media and apparent scrutiny from U.S. intelligence agents.

A public affairs officer notified the AP on Sunday that the military intends to submit a written complaint against Hussein that would bring the case into the Iraqi justice system as early as Nov. 29. Under Iraqi codes, an investigative magistrate will decide whether there are grounds to try Hussein, 36, who was seized in the western Iraqi city of Ramadi on April 12, 2006.

Tomlin said the defense for Hussein is being forced to work “totally in the dark.”

The military has not yet defined the specific charges against Hussein. Previously, the military has pointed to a range of suspicions that attempt to link him to insurgent activity.

The AP also contends it has been blocked by the military from mounting a comprehensive defense for Hussein, who was part of the AP’s Pulitzer Prize-winning photo team in 2005.

Soon after Hussein was taken into custody, the AP appealed to the U.S. military either to release him or bring the case to trial—saying there was no evidence to support his detention. However, Tomlin said that the military is now attempting to build a case based on “stale” evidence and discredited testimony. He also noted that the U.S. military investigators who initially handled the case have left the country. …

While we are hopeful that there could be some resolution to Bilal Hussein’s long detention, we have grave concerns that his rights under the law continue to be ignored and even abused,” said AP President and CEO Tom Curley.

“The steps the U.S. military is now taking continue to deny Bilal his right to due process and, in turn, may deny him a chance at a fair trial. The treatment of Bilal represents a miscarriage of the very justice and rule of law that the United States is claiming to help Iraq achieve. At this point, we believe the correct recourse is the immediate release of Bilal,” Curley added.

It’s ridiculous that the US military has spent 19 months building a case and is trying to bring him to justice via the Iraqi courts. There was ample evidence to have conducted a drumhead court martial under US authority and to have executed Bilal Hussein, as a spy within 24 hours of his arrest.

Previous Bilal Hussein postings

World-wide Islamic outrage over the shooting of young Mohammed al-Durah by Israeli security forces as reported by France 2 led to the lynching of two Israeli soldiers in Ramallah and poor Khalid Sheikh Muhammed (who sawed off the head of Daniel Pearl in retaliation) wound up having water poured in his face.

Melanie Phillips, in the Spectator, describes how the ongoing defamation suit by France 2 and its Jerusalem correspondent Charles Enderlin against French media watch-dog organization Media Ratings’ Philippe Karsenty (who accused them of fraud) is progressing.

After Philippe Karsenty, founder of the French online media watchdog, Media Ratings, accused France 2 of staging the al Durah ‘killing’ and called for the resignation of both Charles Enderlin and France 2’s News Director, Arlette Chabot, France 2 and Enderlin sued Karsenty for defamation, and won. In a disgraceful piece of judicial cronyism after the gratuitous intervention of the then French President Jacques Chirac, the court decided against Karsenty and in favour of France 2 and Enderlin. Karsenty appealed; the judge ordered France 2 to produce the unscreened footage of this incident; today it did so.

Well, sort of. What it actually produced was 18 minutes out of the 27 it was required to bring forward. From this footage, which according to France 2’s Palestinian cameraman was filmed during an implausible 45 minutes of continuous shooting by Israeli soldiers, there is no evidence that anyone at all was killed or injured — including Mohammed al Durah who by the end of the frames in which he figured seemed to be still very much alive and unmarked by any wound whatsoever.

The drama of today’s hearing was enhanced by the appearance of Enderlin himself, who until today had not graced this case with his presence. As the film was shown to a packed and overheated (in every sense) courtroom, Enderlin and Karsenty offered rival interpretations of the images on the screen. If Enderlin thought he would thus demonstrate the inadequacy of Karsenty’s case, he was very much mistaken. On the contrary, parts of his commentary were so absurd that the courtroom several times burst into incredulous laughter.

Enderlin offered only a vague, rambling and unconvincing explanation of why he had only produced 18 minutes of footage rather than the 27 he claimed to have received from his cameraman in Gaza (Enderlin himself was not in Gaza when these events occurred). After the hearing Professor Richard Landes, one of the people who had already seen the contested footage, said that two scenes had been cut out which clearly showed that the violence had been staged — including one in which a Palestinian preparing to throw a missile is suddenly picked up and carried into an ambulance despite showing no signs of injury. This scene, said Landes, was filmed by Reuters, who actually filmed the France 2 cameraman filming it. …

The Appeal Court is not due to give its verdict in this case until next February. As of today, such are the fresh contradictions and questions thrown up by the showing of this footage it would seem that France 2 has painted itself into a corner from which it will find it increasingly hard to escape.

Read the whole thing.

Pallywood video link.

J.R. Dunn, at American Thinker, discusses the Left’s successful propaganda campaign on so-called “Torture.” The Left controls the narrative in matters of this kind by using a combination of its domination of the MSM and emotionalism to shout down dissent.

Torture” is one of many current topics of significance that have been abandoned to the left. Leftist commentators have been allowed to set the terms, make the definitions, and generally run the argument without much in the way of serious opposition or debate.

No small number of elements of the War on Terror have suffered the same treatment. An offhand list would include profiling, wiretapping, border security, and rendition. All have been hijacked and turned into battering rams to support a particular left-wing interpretation of the War on Terror. The GOP has been unable to respond for a number of reasons: they’ve been blindsided, have been busy fending off corruption investigations, or simply couldn’t or wouldn’t defend certain obvious positions. As a result, the left has been able to peddle its version of events with near impunity.

“Torture” is probably the most egregious of these cases. That’s the explanation for the sneer quotes. Because, quite simply, in much of the debate over “torture”, we’re not talking about actual torture at all. We’re talking about rough treatment, harshness, or coercion.

The American left has defined these upward until they mean the same thing as torture, all as a part of their efforts to undermine the War on Terror in general. The core of this stance is the assertion that a slap on the head, several days without sleep, or hearing Rage Against the Machine played at full volume is fully the equivalent of torture in the classic sense. (Well… maybe we should reconsider that last….)

Of course, it’s no such thing. Torture is easily defined as physical assault carried out over a prolonged period against a victim under complete control and holding the possibility of permanent physical or psychic damage. Official legal terminology contains the proviso that torture consists of acts that “revolt the conscience” We can also add, by way of Dashiell Hammett, that such actions must have “threat of death behind them”. If they contain these elements, they are torture. If not, they’re something less. Not necessarily something justifiable or commendable, but not torture either. (Another method of judging these actions is to ask whether the activity would excite an individual like Mengele or Yezhov.)

The left has succeeded, through a relentless media campaign (is there any other kind?) in obscuring this distinction. According to the latest criteria, torture is anything unpleasant that occurs to a prisoner while in American custody. (Overseas it’s different. It’s very, very difficult — almost impossible, in fact — for any developing or left-of-center regime to commit torture, no matter what they do to their prisoners. Unless, as in the rendition uproar, the U.S. is somehow involved.)

Read the whole thing.

The United States has conducted for several years a ridiculous, melodramatic, and embarrassing debate about the supposed “torture” of murderous terrorist prisoners. Most of the controversial methods of brutality denounced by many of the blogosphere’s most prominent sissies in alliance with the high-minded mahatmas of the mainstream media, obligatory standing, shaking, and face slaps, were punishments routinely doled out in the elementary school I attended by nuns.

The most controversial, of course, was a technique not actually favored by the Sisters of St Casimir (presumably because it would have been too messy), i.e. water-boarding, a form of negative reinforcement in which a supine prisoner has a cloth or a piece of cellophane placed over his face and then gets water poured over it.

Water-boarding has been variously imagined and discussed in the media. Initial reports pretty much equated water-boarding on the scale of man’s inhumanity to man with the rack-and-pincers or the death of a thousand cuts. So terrible was the simulated experience of drowning, press reports breathlessly observed, that the fiercest and most fanatical jihadi could be reduced to a quivering pile of jelly in a matter of minutes, eager to tell interrogators all he knew. The terrible Khalid Sheikh Mohammed allegedly won the admiration of interrogators by holding out for two and a half minutes.

A recent journalistic stunt in which Kaj Larsen paid two former SERE instructors $800 to waterboard him for 24 minutes tends to undermine that earlier perspective.

10:03 video

Larsen is obviously far from the toughest hombre who ever came down the pike, and he not only endured being waterboarded voluntarily for a lot longer than Khalid Sheik Mohammed, he is seen laughing at its conclusion. Kaj Larsen’s exercise in moral instruction also backfires by revealing to everyone that US military personnel routinely experience waterboarding during SERE training.

And now, after considerable national, international, and Senatorial fuss, we learn that only three al-Qaeda terrorists were ever waterboarded, no waterboarding has occurred since 2003, and that the CIA banned waterboarding some time ago.

What all this demonstrates is that contemporary bourgeois life in Western societies is so safe and so non-violent that a profound physical cowardice, an exaggerated fear of violence inflicted by others upon one’s person, is a common characteristic of members of the Western intelligentsia. That cowardice becomes for many an incapacitating phobia, which impairs their judgement and destroys all sense of proportion.

Press reports of the sinister appearance of nooses as threats or as a form of racial initimidation are suddenly everywhere.

7 Eyewitness News today offers a typical example:

Authorities are investigating the third apparent hate crime at New York City schools– in just the last two weeks. A noose was found hanging from a tree in a playground in Queens yesterday– one day after a principal in Brooklyn received a noose in the mail.

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And politicians are responding with a rash of proposed laws, some making displaying a noose a hate crime and a felony.

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The problem is that, until this September, when leftwing coverage of the so-called Jena Six having spread to Black talk radio finally reached the mainstream media, no one thought of nooses as a racial symbol at all.

But, in the customary media avalanche fashion, a false statement was published by the first paper, and was repeated by the second, and before very long, a considerable body of public record exists attesting to validity and universal acceptance of another piece of arrant nonsense.

But the indefatigable Michelle Malkin is on the case, thank goodness, using her bully pulpit to republish a Christian Science Monitor article by Craig Franklin, which notes that just about the entire Jena Six story is a myth from top to bottom.

By now, almost everyone in America has heard of Jena, La., because they’ve all heard the story of the “Jena 6.” White students hanging nooses barely punished, a schoolyard fight, excessive punishment for the six black attackers, racist local officials, public outrage and protests – the outside media made sure everyone knew the basics.

There’s just one problem: The media got most of the basics wrong. In fact, I have never before witnessed such a disgrace in professional journalism. Myths replaced facts, and journalists abdicated their solemn duty to investigate every claim because they were seduced by a powerfully appealing but false narrative of racial injustice. …

Myth 1: The Whites-Only Tree. There has never been a “whites-only” tree at Jena High School. Students of all races sat underneath this tree. When a student asked during an assembly at the start of school last year if anyone could sit under the tree, it evoked laughter from everyone present – blacks and whites. As reported by students in the assembly, the question was asked to make a joke and to drag out the assembly and avoid class.

Myth 2: Nooses a Signal to Black Students. An investigation by school officials, police, and an FBI agent revealed the true motivation behind the placing of two nooses in the tree the day after the assembly. According to the expulsion committee, the crudely constructed nooses were not aimed at black students. Instead, they were understood to be a prank by three white students aimed at their fellow white friends, members of the school rodeo team. (The students apparently got the idea from watching episodes of “Lonesome Dove.”) The committee further concluded that the three young teens had no knowledge that nooses symbolize the terrible legacy of the lynchings of countless blacks in American history. When informed of this history by school officials, they became visibly remorseful because they had many black friends. Another myth concerns their punishment, which was not a three-day suspension, but rather nine days at an alternative facility followed by two weeks of in-school suspension, Saturday detentions, attendance at Discipline Court, and evaluation by licensed mental-health professionals.

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Of course, it’s not really surprising that the teen-age pranksters “had no knowledge that nooses symbolize the terrible legacy of the lynchings of countless blacks in American history.” That particular identification would only have been made (before last September) by hyper-racially-sensitive obsessives. The lynching of blacks in the post-Civil War pre-WWII era is commonly treated as a key feature of the American catalogue of racial crime, but the reality is that lynchings were equal opportunity forms of mob justice.

Lynchings occurred as spontaneous outbursts of public indignation over particularly objectionable crimes, in which a suitable quorum of the community assembled proved unwilling to wait for legal due process to unfold, and having –rightly or wrongly– concluded the suspect’s guilt was incontrovertible, simply proceeded without further ado to the immediate application of justice.

Nor was lynching a unique feature of the segregated American South. As recently as 1933, there was a lynching in the San Francisco Bay area, following a kidnap-murder in San Jose. The perpetrators wound up dangling from the recently-completed (1929) San Mateo-Hayward Bridge.

TNOYF:

Sample question:

Complete the following: “Bush is to Hitler as…”

a. Jeffrey Dahmer is to Clay Aiken.

b. A serial rapist is to a benign snuggler.

c. Full-blown AIDS is to a hangnail.

d. A skyscraper is to Lincoln Logs.

Complete test.

J.R. Dunn explains how the denial of recognition of military success is essential to the process of destruction of national morale and will by the pacifist, defeatist media.

Victory is hated by antiwar types, no matter what their ideology and motivation. (This is not even to mention the agendas of the hard left and the Democrats, which we don’t have space to get into.) They don’t want war redeemed. Anything that lessens its loathsome aspects makes it easier to view war as a possibility. Victory is one of the failings of war that must be gotten rid of. But of course, in any conflict (excepting wars of exhaustion, which we don’t often see) there will be winner and a loser. Victory can’t be denied to that extent. But the rituals, the salutes, the expressions of respect and magnanimity, can be undermined. And so we get buried victories.

A buried victory is one that has been downgraded and ignored, one that has been hedged with so many qualifications and second thoughts that it is scarcely a victory at all any longer. A buried victory is one from which all the human aspects have been drained, and replaced — if that’s the word — with bureaucratic procedure.

We’ve seen this for fifty years or more. U.S. forces had effectively secured most of South Vietnam by 1972. The Viet Cong had been a nullity since being effectively wiped out during the Tet Offensive, and the People’s Army of North Vietnam had to a large extent been chased across the borders into Cambodia and Laos. South Vietnam was a stable political entity, and with adequate support could have remained that way.

But the American left, for purely political reasons, portrayed the situation as a defeat, and in a series of Congressional actions through 1973 and 1974, cut off support for the Saigon government until it was hanging by a string. It fell at last on April 30, 1975, after a heroic final defense at the gates of the city.

In the years that followed, close to 3 million were murdered in Southeast Asia. …

Today we see a similar process occurring in Iraq. None of the achievements of the Coalition or the Iraqis has gained more than momentary recognition. The purple revolution, the elections, the reconstruction — all have been dismissed or ignored. What has replaced them is an endless chronicle of suffering and destruction – of war without victory.

A must read.

Today’s big story as reported by NBC News, headlined ‘A Nightmare With No End in Sight,’ and written by Jim Miklaszewski and Courtney Kube, largely turns the message of retired Lt. Gen. Richard Sanchez’ luncheon address to military reporters and editors on its head.

General Sanchez’ speech comprised a strong condemnation of the MSM unethical conduct and unaccountability, followed by criticism of the Bush Administration’s failure to utilize the government’s political and economic power along with its military power in a coordinated and coherent strategy (including more effective efforts at building an international coalition), with just as much criticism of selfish and irresponsible political partisanship.

Sanchez said about the press:

IN SOME CASES I HAVE NEVER EVEN MET YOU, YET YOU FEEL QUALIFIED TO MAKE CHARACTER JUDGMENTS THAT ARE COMMUNICATED TO THE WORLD. MY EXPERIENCE IS NOT UNIQUE AND WE CAN FIND OTHER EXAMPLES SUCH AS THE TREATMENT OF SECRETARY BROWN DURING KATRINA. THIS IS THE WORST DISPLAY OF JOURNALISM IMAGINABLE BY THOSE OF US THAT ARE BOUND BY A STRICT VALUE SYSTEM OF SELFLESS SERVICE, HONOR AND INTEGRITY. 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. …

1. SEEKING TRUTH,

2. PROVIDING FAIR AND COMPREHENSIVE ACCOUNT OF EVENTS AND ISSUES

3. THOROUGHNESS AND HONESTY

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.

About strategic failures:

AFTER MORE THAN FOUR YEARS OF FIGHTING, AMERICA CONTINUES ITS DESPERATE STRUGGLE IN IRAQ WITHOUT ANY CONCERTED EFFORT TO DEVISE A STRATEGY THAT WILL ACHIEVE “VICTORY” IN THAT WAR TORN COUNTRY OR IN THE GREATER CONFLICT AGAINST EXTREMISM. …

OUR NATIONAL LEADERSHIP IGNORED THE LESSONS OF WWII AS WE ENTERED INTO THIS WAR AND TO THIS DAY CONTINUE TO BELIEVE THAT VICTORY CAN BE ACHIEVED THROUGH THE APPLICATION OF MILITARY POWER ALONE. OUR FOREFATHERS UNDERSTOOD THAT TREMENDOUS ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL CAPACITY HAD TO BE MOBILIZED, SYNCHRONIZED AND APPLIED IF WE WERE TO ACHIEVE VICTORY IN A GLOBAL WAR. THAT HAS BEEN AND CONTINUES TO BE THE KEY TO VICTORY IN IRAQ. CONTINUED MANIPULATIONS AND ADJUSTMENTS TO OUR MILITARY STRATEGY WILL NOT ACHIEVE VICTORY. THE BEST WE CAN DO WITH THIS FLAWED APPROACH IS STAVE OFF DEFEAT. THE ADMINISTRATION, CONGRESS AND THE ENTIRE INTERAGENCY, ESPECIALLY THE DEPARTMENT OF STATE, MUST SHOULDER THE RESPONSIBILITY FOR THIS CATASTROPHIC FAILURE AND THE AMERICAN PEOPLE MUST HOLD THEM ACCOUNTABLE.

THERE HAS BEEN A GLARING, UNFORTUNATE, DISPLAY OF INCOMPETENT STRATEGIC LEADERSHIP WITHIN OUR NATIONAL LEADERS. AS A JAPANESE PROVERB SAYS, “ACTION WITHOUT VISION IS A NIGHTMARE.” THERE IS NO QUESTION THAT AMERICA IS LIVING A NIGHTMARE WITH NO END IN SIGHT.

And about the impact of politics on the war effort, General Sanchez said:

SINCE 2003, THE POLITICS OF WAR HAVE BEEN CHARACTERIZED BY PARTISANSHIP AS THE REPUBLICAN AND DEMOCRATIC PARTIES STRUGGLED FOR POWER IN WASHINGTON. NATIONAL EFFORTS TO DATE HAVE BEEN CORRUPTED BY PARTISAN POLITICS THAT HAVE PREVENTED US FROM DEVISING EFFECTIVE, EXECUTABLE, SUPPORTABLE SOLUTIONS. AT TIMES, THESE PARTISAN STRUGGLES HAVE LED TO POLITICAL DECISIONS THAT ENDANGERED THE LIVES OF OUR SONS AND DAUGHTERS ON THE BATTLEFIELD. THE UNMISTAKABLE MESSAGE WAS THAT POLITICAL POWER HAD GREATER PRIORITY THAN OUR NATIONAL SECURITY OBJECTIVES. OVERCOMING THIS STRATEGIC FAILURE IS THE FIRST STEP TOWARD ACHIEVING VICTORY IN IRAQ – WITHOUT BIPARTISAN COOPERATION WE ARE DOOMED TO FAIL. THERE IS NOTHING GOING ON TODAY IN WASHINGTON THAT WOULD GIVE US HOPE.

By cherry-picking pessimistic statements, Miklaszewski and Kube (assisted by AP) turn the General’s criticism of the press and of national disunity into another testament to hopelessness and defeatism. And, with just the most delicate application of a thumb on the scales of interpretation, criticism of the failures of “NSC, Congress, the State Department and the national political leadership” magically turn into “a broad indictment of White House policies and a lack of leadership in the Pentagon to oppose them.” Remarkable, isn’t it?

Don Surber invented the game, and Glenn Reynolds and Scott Johnson want to play, too.