Goodbye, Gold Star Moron

Hail and farewell to Cindy Sheehan, the harebrained moonbat who made a career out of spitting on the memory of her slain son. The New York Times, as is its wont, published a lengthy tribute to the Gold Star Moron, and the rest of the media was not far behind.

Predictably, the Times account deified the dowdy Sheehan as the "face of the antiwar movement," and downplayed her wacked-out positions, not mentioning her anti-Semitic attacks on Israel and support from David Duke.

The Times basically turned over the podium to Sheehan and allowed her to rant about "the empire of the good old US of A." It even published, on its website, a link to her farewell on the Daily Kos.

Goodbye, Gold Star Moron, and good riddance.

The Media's Silence on Tenet and Arafat

George Tenet's new book, At the Center of the Storm: My Years at the CIA, has received lavish publicity - a segment on 60 Minutes, a front page story in the New York Times, and generally lavish coverage in the mainstream media. But here is one thing you haven't read: Tenet is devastatingly critical of Yasser Arafat.

As reported in the Jerusalem Post today, Tenet "places most of the blame for the breakdown of the security plan bearing his name and other efforts to stop the violence after the outbreak of the second intifada on Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat."

"Almost always, that last impenetrable barrier to peace had the same name: Arafat," he writes in his 576-page memoir, of which an entire chapter is devoted to the late PA chairman. . . . "Arafat always wanted one more thing, and one more thing was never enough because what he really wanted was for the peace process to be ever-active and eternally unresolved," according to Tenet.

An even more outrageous omission is the media's failure to report his endorsement of the Bush Administration's shunning of Arafat:

He says that the White House was right not to push for greater diplomacy with the Palestinians once Bush entered office, as it was apparent little could be done with Arafat in power.

"He got what he could from us [through the Oslo process], and from that point on gave little back," Tenet says. "Therefore - and it was a view I supported - there would be no more letting him in the front door."

I'm not faulting the media for focusing on Tenet's revelations on the Iraq war. But not one word on any of these insights? If Tenet had been favorable to Arafat, I'll bet it would have been splashed all over the front pages.

Will the Media Cover Hamas 'Kill All Americans' Sermon?

The Jerusalem Post online edition, quoting from MEMRI, today recounts a speech by a top Hamas official that is about as bloodthirsty as you can imagine. Here is an excerpt from the report:

Ahmad Bahr began: "'You will be victorious' on the face of this planet. You are the masters of the world on the face of this planet. Yes, [the Koran says that] 'you will be victorious,' but only 'if you are believers.' Allah willing, 'you will be victorious,' while America and Israel will be annihilated. I guarantee you that the power of belief and faith is greater than the power of America and Israel. They are cowards who are eager for life, while we are eager for death for the sake of Allah. That is why America's nose was rubbed in the mud in Iraq, in Afghanistan, in Somalia, and everywhere."

Bahr continued and said that America will be annihilated, while Islam will remain. The Muslims "'will be victorious, if you are believers.' Oh Muslims, I guarantee you that the power of Allah is greater than America, by whom many are blinded today. Some people are blinded by the power of America. We say to them that with the might of Allah, with the might of His Messenger, and with the power of Allah, we are stronger than America and Israel."

The Hamas spokesperson concluded with a prayer, saying: "Oh Allah, vanquish the Jews and their supporters. Oh Allah, count their numbers, and kill them all, down to the very last one. [italics added] Oh Allah, show them a day of darkness. Oh Allah, who sent down His Book, the mover of the clouds, who defeated the enemies of the Prophet, defeat the Jews and the Americans, and bring us victory over them."

Will the mainstream media be covering this bloodcurdling exhibition by a top official of the Palestinian Authority? We'll be watching.

A Story You'll Never Find in the Grey Lady

There are literally thousands, of course, but one stood out to a regular reader of this blog. It is an article in the New York Sun about a historian of the Vietnam War named Mark Moyar.

Moyar is a graduate of Harvard and Cambridge with a prodigious academic record. Says the Sun: "Before he had even begun graduate school, he had published his first book and landed a contract for his second book. Distinguished professors at Harvard and Cambridge wrote stellar letters of recommendation for him."

Yet Moyar can't find a job. Why? Because he is a conservative. The Sun reports:

A contrarian among most Vietnam scholars, he does not believe it was a mistake for America to have gone into Vietnam. In carefully argued prose using previously unexamined sources, he marshals support for the "domino theory." His scholarship and books have received great reviews and marked him as a rising star.

But that's not good enough for academia, which has shut him out. A better example of acadmia's liberal orthodoxy is difficult to find.