Post confuses terrorist with dissident

Here is another deconstruction of comPost analysis-reporting.....this time from Captain'sQuartersBlog.com.

January 27, 2005
WaPo Playing Petty Games With Inaugural Speech
Rarely will readers experience the level of intellectual dishonesty that Glenn Kessler and Scott Wilson reach in their report today on a jailed Jordanian dissenter and President Bush's reaction to a question about him. During his press conference, a reporter asked the president about Ali Hattar, currently jailed on slander charges in Jordan:

President Bush was stumped yesterday when he was asked at his news conference about the plight of a Jordanian man who faces a two-year prison term for slander after giving a lecture last month calling for a boycott of American goods and companies. "I'm unaware of the case," he said.
The circumstances are somewhat murky, but in many ways the case signifies the difficult choices and trade-offs inherent in Bush's call in his inaugural address for the right to dissent and protest around the world. ...

"Freedom has to include the freedom to criticize the United States," [HRW spokesman Tom] Malinowski said. "If Bush would stand up for this guy, people who doubt his sincerity would be impressed. It is an opportunity for the administration."


In the days following Bush's ringing call for promoting democracy as a moral and national-security solution for the world's ills, one could almost see the wheels turning in the mainstream media. First the media picked apart the references to God as too much Christian triumphalism, and then scoffed at the scope of Bush's vision, ignoring his warning that it would take "generations" to eradicate tyranny.

Now we see yet another strategy to discredit Bush: toss out the names of dissenters in authoritarian countries that dislike America and see if Bush knows who they are. When he doesn't recognize the name, they write analysis pieces on page A-4 in the Washington Post. If he really cared about human liberty, we are to say, then why doesn't he care about [insert obscure name here]?

Unfortunately, even in this case, Kessler and Wilson pick a pretty poor test case for their gotcha game. The American embassy in Jordan has already questioned Hattar's detention. And Hattar hardly represents the cause of freedom in the Hashemite Kingdom:

Hattar is not a democracy activist, nor would he be considered an appealing figure by many Americans, but he has been charged under a type of vague law frequently used to suppress dissent across the Middle East. ...
Hattar -- who Qadi said is a Christian -- belongs to Jordan's professional association of engineers, whose membership is made up mostly of men of Palestinian descent and is among the most politically militant in the country. He is a delegate of the group's "anti-normalization committee," which lobbies against Jordan's 1994 agreement to establish diplomatic relations with Israel, a decision he and others have demanded be reversed.


What's more, Hattar's charges don't exclusively deal with his call for a boycott of America, if they do at all. Hattar has been jailed for slandering the Jordanian government, which contends that he told audiences that the monarchy planned a genocide against its own subjects. Hattar doesn't even tell the truth about this, a factoid that Kessler and Wilson leave for the last paragraph of their article:

But government officials said at the time of his arrest that the charges against him were related to his contention that the Jordanian government was buying U.S. weapons for use against its own people. At the time of his arrest, Hattar said he did not mention Jordan in his speech. But in the following question period, he said he used Jordan as an example of developing countries buying U.S. weapons for use against "their own people."
In other words, Hattar is a Palestinian radical who indulges in the kind of lunatic conspiracy theories that terror groups use to legitimize attacks on Israel, America, and their own governments. Hattar isn't in the streets advocating democracy; he's advocating for the destruction of Israel and probably the replacement of the Jordanian monarchy with a PLO-style terrorocracy.

This piece is written in such a transparently deceptive manner that desperation can be the only explanation. Apparently, the president's speech had a stunning effect on leftist journalists, who now will stoop to attempts like this to discredit it. Pathetic.

Posted by Captain Ed at January 27, 2005 06:33 AM

Powerline Past's Post (Again)

Read this post from one of my favorite Blogs....Powerline.


"Centrists" Oppose Rice Nomination
Reader Richard Banyard pointed out this remarkable paragraph in the Washington Post's story on the vote in the Senate on Condoleezza Rice's nomination:

Some of the Democrats who opposed Rice were centrists from states in which President Bush won or ran strongly in November, including Evan Bayh (D-Ind.), Robert C. Byrd (D-W.Va.), Mark Dayton (D-Minn.), Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.) and Tom Harkin (D-Iowa).
"Centrists"?? Mark Dayton? Robert Byrd? Carl Levin? And Tom Harkin?? These are some of the most far-left politicians who have ever served in the United States Senate. At the Post, "centrist" apparently means "someone who isn't any more liberal than we are."

DEACON adds: The only centrist on the list is Evan Bayh. And I suspect that his vote against Dr. Rice is best understood in the context of the possibility he will run for president in 2008. Perhaps we are witnessing Bayh's transformation into an ex-centrist, in the Al Gore tradition.

UPDATE: Reader Jack Carrel points out that the Post has now removed the word "centrists" from its article. I assume this was the result of our pointing out the absurdity of the characterization. But there is no indication of any correction, no acknowledgement that the change was made. So go the mainstream media.

FURTHER UPDATE: Reader David McGuire has more, which casts doubt on the competence of the Post:

You will be interested to know that I e-mailed Chuck Babington about his "centrist" Democrat comments in this morning's Washington Post. Amazingly, this is how he responded:
***************

Thanks for writing. You will not find this quote in my article:
"Some of the Democrats who opposed Rice were centrists from states in which President Bush won or ran strongly in November, including Evan Bayh (D-Ind.), Robert C. Byrd (D-W.Va.), Mark Dayton (D-Minn.), Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.) and Tom Harkin (D-Iowa)." You (and many others) are victims of a cut and paste job that rearranged paragraphs in order to attack the story. You can read the real article on Washingtonpost.com. I'd be happy to respond if you want to take it from there.
again, thanks,
cb

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


I then went back to the Washington Post website to cut and paste Mr. Babington's "real" article. The fourth paragraph of his article reads precisely the same way that the quote above reads. Either someone is writing articles using Mr. Babington's byline, or Mr. Babington cannot even remember what he wrote on the same day he wrote it! It is absolutely amazing that a political writer at one of the major newspapers in the country believes he can somehow deny writing a paragraph that appeared on the official website of a newspaper only a few hours before. Mr. Babington has met the blogosphere, and he has lost BIG TIME.


The more you think about this, the weirder it gets. Babington's reference to "rearranging paragraphs" makes no sense; the issue is not the order of the paragraphs, but the adjective "centrist." How can a reporter deny that he used that term only a few hours after his article appeared online, and confidently refer to the WaPo web site for the correct version--at a time when the original "centrist" Democrat reference is still there? The only explanation I can think of is that Babington had directed that the adjective "centrist" be removed, but it hadn't happened yet at the time he replied to Mr. McGuire. If correct, that explanation reflects very poorly on Mr. Babington. The most charitable interpretation of these facts, as far as the Post is concerned, is incompetence.

ONE MORE UPDATE: The Post article, still bylined Charles Babington, has now been completely rewritten. It now covers both the Senate vote on Dr. Rice and the Judiciary Committee vote on Alberto Gonzales. The paragraph referring to Senators Dayton, Harkin et al. voting against Dr. Rice has now been deleted in its entirety. There is still a reference to "centrists," however. The article now says:

As in Tuesday's day-long debate on Rice's nomination, yesterday's criticisms came not only from liberal Democrats but also from more centrist or independent members who have backed the Bush administration on key issues.
For example, Sen. Russell Feingold (D-Wis.) voted against Gonzales's confirmation even though he had voted in 2001 to confirm Ashcroft, a staunch conservative and an irritant to many liberal groups.


So the Post now tells us that in both the Rice confirmation vote and the Gonzales vote, Democratic oppositon came in part from "more centrist or independent members who have backed the Bush administration on key issues." No indication, however, as to who those "more centrist or independent" Democrats might be.

God only knows what the Post will print in its hard-copy version in the morning.

The mainstream media are in complete disarray. They have no idea what hit them, they can't cope, and their habitual dishonesty is now on painfully public display.

ONE MORE, CAN'T RESIST: Reader Mike Chittenden got a copy of tomorrow's Post; he writes:

I just checked Page A1 of today's Washington Post. The paragraph in questions reads: "Some of the most critical Democrats were centrists from states that President Bush won or nearly won in November. Their comments came as recent polls have shown growing public disenchantment with the situation in Iraq." The article then goes on to mention "liberal Sen. Barbara Boxer." Dayton and Bayh are mentioned later in the article, after the jump. Others were then mentioned, including Kennedy and Levin. Lieberman, Feinstein and Salazar are mentioned as praising Rice. The quote in question does not actually appear in the print article.
Yet another version. There are ostensibly some "centrists," but the Post no longer claims that Sens. Dayton, Byrd, Levin and Harkin are among them, and, in fact, there is no hint as to who the "centrists" are. Stay tuned; there may be a second print edition yet to come with one more effort to get the story straight.

AND FINALLY: The truth, maybe. Charles Babington has emailed ouur reader David McGuire to admit that he was wrong:

You are quite right... The website folks updated the morning story after the vote, and combined some paragraphs... I should have read over their shoulder, my mistake. I did get them to fix it. The story i wrote for the morning paper did not use "centrist" to describe Byrd, Harkin, etc...
Thanks for the heads up . cb


If this version is accurate, anonymous staffers at the Post revise articles written by the paper's reporters and inject their own political views into the paper's characterizations of members of the Senate. One way or the other, the Post obviously needs to get its act together.

OK, ONE MORE: Reader Cyrus Sanai finds Babington's explanation plausible:

I noted with interest your point about the C. Rice story. I was a summer reporting intern at the Post between my first and second year of law school. After you file a story, the editors feel free to add whatever slant they feel like to the copy without telling the reporter. It is possible that Babington did not call these Senators centrist, but the characterization was added by an editor.
So at the Post, at least, liberal slant is added anonymously by unknown editors who are completely unaccountable--in public, at least. This is not exactly how the Post and other MSM outlets present themselves when they brag about their accountability, credibility and "professional" standards.

Posted by Hindrocket at 01:48 PM | TrackBack (13)

Post lifts Abbas from Abyss

Our colleague, Barbara Leber deconstructs recent comPost editorial,

Barbara writes (as edited by yours truely)

The Post editorial joins the chorus of newsmen who question Abbas's recent actions--hey they're fair (not). But the editorial paints a picture that Abbas is good (nothing bad about him except his recent actions) but his behavior can be justified--

He is given the benefit of the doubt and even "some Israelis" attribute his behavior to "campaign rhetoric"). He didn't need to do these things (but some say it
might be helpful) and there are things he needs to do, but he will need
help. There are numerous gratuitous digs against the true aggressor Israel
and Sharon.

1. What is more troubling is the characterization of the Palestinian
goals: Abbas has a positive plan which could lead to democracy if he is
able to neutralize.....and Hamas only " is intent on its own goal of forcing
Israel to conduct a planned withdrawal from the Gaza Strip "under fire."
That's it? Nothing about taking over Israel.

2. The characterization of Abbas -- "a strong and courageous opponent of violence against Israel"? What has he done?

The statement that because Abbas was "(A)ngered by an exchange of fire
between militants and the Israeli army that killed several apparently
innocent Palestinian youths, he referred to Israel as "the Zionist enemy"

But how does the editor know that Abbas was "angered," and why
justify those words, when one could just has easily have claimed that he said what he really thought about the Israelis and that he was just trying to get votes. And was it just an exchange of fire between militants and the army? (though he covers himself with the apparently innocent) or was it terrorists trying to kill innocent
Israelis and Israelis trying to protect themselves.

There was nothing that explained that he has been a long-time adherent, supporter, and leader of the PLO and right arm for Arafat. And Aaron Mannes's characterization of Abbas from his book "Profiles in Terror" (at the end of this e-mail) includes the point that Abbas wrote that he thinks peace will destroy Israel more effectively than
violence.

3. And why the digs at Sharon? ("Unlike Ariel Sharon, he [Abbas] endorsed
without qualification Bush's road map") Why this gratuitous and simplistic
statement? Perhaps to make Abbas look better by saying that Sharon is no saint and
without indicating why it might be more in the Palestinians' interest to
endorse the road map without qualification. And the onus is again largely on
Sharon to make it work--Mr. Abbas will need a lot of help to crack this
problem. To begin with, Israel must give the new president time to pursue
his political strategy and be willing to answer a Palestinian ceasefire
with at least a tacit truce of its own. Mr. Sharon may need prodding on
that point from the Bush administration--"

4. And why the negative characterization of the Israelis who, it would seem,
are the real aggressors who kill and imprison--somehow Abbas's "positive strategy" and his plan with "virtue" would offer protection to the "militants" from the "deadly Israeli campaign of targeted killings" and give
"freedom" to those in prison

Great job Barbara....comPost double standard takes another pounding.