eyeonthepost.org blog

Testing Reactivation

noreply@blogger.com (rsamet) — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 16:34:00 +0000

Testing, testing...

Kaus clobbers comPost clunker

noreply@blogger.com (Peter Vardon) — Tue, 05 Apr 2005 01:50:00 +0000

Mickey Kaus finds WaPo GOP Talking Points Memo story not entirely accurate or carefully worded.....and an early version even had unsupported claims.

hmmmm.....and might we even say the GOP memo story is biased?

Naked, Unbridled Scooplust at WaPo
By Mickey KausUpdated Monday, April 4, 2005, at 4:07 PM PT

Blogging in Print: According to de facto MSM Damage Controller Howie Kurtz, WaPo's Mike Allen is apparently now admitting what has been obvious to everyone else who has followed the controversy over those alleged "GOP Talking Points": the Post's stories were not entirely "accurate and carefully worded" (Kurtz's words), nor is it true that Allen "stuck to what we knew to be true and did not call them talking points or a Republican memo." Instead, he let an early version of his story ship out containing the unsupported claim that the memo was "distributed to Republican senators by party leaders." [Emph. added] ...

Obviously at some point Allen thought or assumed the memo was a GOP leadership document, and before he'd nailed that down he temporarily let his scooplust get the better of him. This is a perfectly forgivable mistake. At least I hope it is--I make it all the time. You get all excited thinking you have a great story and then when you think more about it you realize you have a not-quite-as-great story, so you go back and make it "carefully worded"! ...

comPost Bombs US Nuclear Policy

noreply@blogger.com (Peter Vardon) — Tue, 29 Mar 2005 15:42:00 +0000

Weekly Standard's Henry Sokolski nukes comPost's errors.

The Washington Post Bombs Nuclear History Did Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and Paul Wolfowitz try to stoke Iran's nuclear ambition in the '70s?
by Henry Sokolski
03/28/2005 2:35:00 PM

WHEN YOU ARE UP AGAINST the most worrisome modern security threat there is--the spread of nuclear weapons--history becomes more than an academic pastime. Get it right and you avoid the errors of the past. Get it wrong and the worst of the past is almost certain to rhyme into the future.

Take the Sunday Washington Post report, "Past Arguments Don't Square With Current Iran Policy," in which Dafna Linzer describes a nuclear negotiating strategy President Ford "reluctantly" endorsed for Iran that would reap U.S. nuclear vendors over $7 billion. Under this deal, which Secretary of State Henry Kissinger laid out in a memorandum in l975, the United States, according to Ms. Linzer, would supply Iran with reactors and try "to accommodate Iranian demands" for plants to separate plutonium chemically from spent reactor fuel, even though the plutonium produced could be used directly to make nuclear weapons.

The reporter reminds us that Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and Paul Wolfowitz served in the Ford administration and are now opposed to Iran's acquiring such dangerous nuclear capabilities. The reader is then steered to the following conclusion:

The Ford administration--in which Cheney succeeded Rumsfeld as chief of staff and Wolfowitz was responsible for nonproliferation issues at the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency--continued intense efforts to supply Iran with U.S. nuclear technology until President Jimmy Carter succeeded Ford in 1977.

There are many things upsetting about this history. But the worst of it is not the hypocritical flip-flop that Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Wolfowitz are accused of by the Washington Post. Instead, it's what the article fails to tell the reader.

First, whatever dubious approach to Iran Ford may have grudgingly endorsed in April 1975, he clearly reversed 18 months later. In October 1976, Ford, at the urging of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, the National Security Council, and his White House staff, which was under Cheney's command, made a major statement on nuclear policy. Ford explained that several months before he had ordered a thorough review of U.S. nuclear policy and concluded that "reprocessing and recycling of plutonium should not proceed unless there is sound reason to conclude that the world community can effectively overcome the associated risks of proliferation." He went on to explain that he had reached this conclusion because he believed "that avoidance of proliferation must take precedence over economic interests."

Ford's statement went beyond generalities. In it, he announced that he had prohibited any American export of reprocessing or nuclear technologies that could contribute to proliferation. He proclaimed that the United States would defer any domestic commercial separation of plutonium and called on all nations to avoid exporting reprocessing or enrichment technology for a period of at least three years. Ford also made it clear that the United States, in concert with like-minded nations, would help assure states that chose to forgo enriching or reprocessing a reliable supply of fresh reactor fuel and access to safe storage of their spent reactor fuel.

Second, although President Carter initially upheld the Ford administration's new nuclear policy, he subsequently undermined it, in the very case of Iran. In an effort to show support for the Shah, President Carter visited Iran in late December 1977. At the time, it was U.S. policy to export U.S. reactors but not to share reprocessing or enrichment technology with any state, Iran included. Yet, when he met with the Shah, Carter, to the amazement of his aides, cast U.S. nuclear policy aside and orally assured the Shah that he could have anything nuclear he wanted from the United States, including reprocessing, if he liked.

Unfortunately, these two historical facts failed to make it into the Washington Post's account. Nonetheless, they suggest that U.S. officials ought to be judged as much by how they measured up to Ford's 1976 nuclear policy statement as by what they may have done previous to its announcement.

Certainly, today we are struggling with some of the very same issues Ford gave fairly clear guidance on. It would still be best if the United States and other like-minded nations encouraged others to forgo expanding the world's current capacity to reprocess or enrich. And the further export of these and related technologies still needs to be curbed. Finally, just as 30 years ago, the recycling of plutonium for commercial reactor use should be proscribed until and unless effective ways are devised to prevent the quick diversion of this material to make bombs.

Are we living up to these standards today? That's not a question the Post, in its incomplete retelling of history, bothers to pose. It is, however, the question we should be asking.

Henry Sokolski, is executive director of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center in Washington, D.C. and author of The Best of Intentions: America's Campaign Against Strategic Weapons Proliferation (Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2001).

© Copyright 2005, News Corporation, Weekly Standard, All Rights Reserved.

The Spoofs on the comPost

noreply@blogger.com (Peter Vardon) — Tue, 22 Mar 2005 03:52:00 +0000

Powerline also finds comPost ethics problem

Our Skeptical Reporters

Yesterday's Washington Post included this rather embarrassing correction:

The March 18 Names & Faces column included a quote that was attributed to Britney Spears via Allure magazine. The quote was actually a spoof, written by a Philadelphia Daily News reporter, of an Allure interview with Spears. The spoof was then picked up as an actual quote by MSNBC.com.

As Michelle Malkin points out, the Spears parody quote was widely reported as fact in the mainstream media.
This kind of thing happens more often than you might think. To take one more consequential example, during the first George Bush administration, a political opponent made a joke to the effect that before going to Latin America, Dan Quayle expressed regret that he hadn't studied his Latin more diligently in high school, so he could communicate with the natives. This joke was retailed as fact in many newspapers and magazines, even though it was preposterous on its face. (I'm not aware that any news source ever retracted or corrected the false story, either.)

The Spears quote admittedly wasn't quite this ridiculous, but still: wouldn't you think that a reporter's suspicion might be roused by these alleged statements by Spears?

Like omigod, I have to tell the maid to buy diapers and get the poolboy to walk the dog? Can't I just make out with Kevin all the time? Being married sucks.
I'd like to think that we at Power Line wouldn't reproduce a quote that ridiculous without wondering, at least, whether it is genuine, and possibly even doing a bit of fact-checking--which seems, in many quarters, to be a dying art.

Posted by Hindrocket at 08:14 AM | Permalink | TrackBack (0)

Post reports story that never happened

noreply@blogger.com (Peter Vardon) — Tue, 22 Mar 2005 03:05:00 +0000

From instapundit, another chapter in comPost ethics.

Howard Kurtz writes that USA Today has some of the tightest sourcing rules around:

The veteran Gannett editor has also imposed strict rules on the use of anonymous sources, which some reporters say go too far and limit their ability to compete on stories. No information attributed to a "senior administration official" has appeared in USA Today since December, largely because of Paulson's crackdown. Even such formulations as "Democrats opposed to Bush's Social Security plan" are barred unless some names are included, and the use of unnamed sources has dropped about 75 percent.

To grant someone anonymity, Paulson says, "you have to go to a managing editor, identify that source -- which was at the heart of the Jack Kelley mess -- explain why we trust that source and how it moves the story forward." Paulson also runs Jones's picture on the editorial page, inviting feedback -- because, he says, past complaints about Kelley never reached or were dismissed by senior editors.

Kurtz notes that some USA Today staffers think that these rules make it hard to compete with other big papers. But Kurtz's next item makes me wonder if those other big papers don't need to do some tightening-up of their own:

How did The Washington Post manage to report that a Gridiron Club skit had lampooned commentator Armstrong Williams when the skit never took place?

"It was a goofball mistake on my part," says Post reporter Neely Tucker, who corrected it after the first edition and apologized to Williams. He says journalist sources told him of the planned skit -- working reporters are barred from the annual event -- and that he only learned later that it had been dropped.

Remember this when people accuse blogs of reprinting rumors without checking them!

posted at 09:02 AM by Glenn Reynolds

One More Test

noreply@blogger.com (rsamet) — Fri, 11 Mar 2005 22:43:00 +0000

Testing once again to make sure we're back up and running.

Post omits "Death to America"

noreply@blogger.com (Peter Vardon) — Mon, 07 Feb 2005 04:12:00 +0000

From Little Green Footballs...Post sanitizes Iran

2/6/2005: "Death to America" Event Canceled in Maryland

Regime Change Iran reports that the Bethesda Marriott Hotel has canceled plans to host an event paid for by the Iranian mullahs, titled: Twenty Sixth Anniversary of the glorious victory of the Islamic Revolution and Death to America Day.

The Washington Post story reveals that the Marriott Corporation canceled the event because it is illegal to do business with Iran: Iranian Celebration Canceled. But the Post doesn’t mention the “Death to America” bit.

A celebration scheduled for this weekend at Montgomery County’s new hotel and conference center, marking the 26th anniversary of the Islamic revolution in Iran, was canceled after the hotel’s operator learned that it would violate federal law.

The Bethesda North Marriott Hotel and Conference Center, which opened in December, was to play host to 1,000 guests at a reception thrown by Ali Jazini, director of the Interests Section of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

John Wolf, a Marriott spokesman, said yesterday that the hotel canceled the event after realizing it is illegal to do business with Iran. He said Marriott officials will “be taking steps” to prevent similar bookings in the future.

PrestoPundit Punches Post

noreply@blogger.com (Peter Vardon) — Mon, 07 Feb 2005 03:22:00 +0000

PrestoPundit was almost suckered by the Post....almost

I WAS almost suckered in by this duplicitious WaPost lead paragraph on medical care reform:
The budget President Bush unveils next week will propose spending an extra $140 billion over 10 years to expand health coverage to millions more Americans
But on closer reading this is just another WaPost lie (the dishonest WaPost reporter here is Ceci Connolly). If you look later in the story, it turns out that what is involved here are tax cuts -- i.e. the government isn't spending more of our tax money, quite the contrary -- instead people are being allowed to keep and make use of their own money:
About half of the $140 billion appears to represent Bush's plan to provide refundable tax credits for the purchase of health insurance.
This is a classic MSM lie, right out of the Columbia School of Journalism paybook. The whole tone and content of the article is anti-Bush, anti-reform, anti-market. Just what we've come to expect from the big lefty newspapers.

Post shows political bias

noreply@blogger.com (Peter Vardon) — Mon, 07 Feb 2005 02:48:00 +0000

Here's a terrific letter from our friend Leo Rennert.

HOW THE POST UNDERMINES ITS OWN CREDIBILITY AND GIVES CONSERVATISM A GOOD NAME!

In the Post's Jan. 6 editions about Saudi hate messages piling up in U.S. mosques, your agenda journalism backfires beautifully.

Your reporter, John Mintz, identifies Freedom House, which he describes as a "CONSERVATIVE-LEANING human rights organization, as the source of a report documenting the widespread dissemination of Saudi hate literature and messages in American mosques. A few paragraphs later, Mintz tells Post readers that Freedom House was founded by Eleanor Roosevelt.

Any half-way intelligent or observant reader would immediately ask him/herself: When the Post uses reports from Human Rights Watch, is it identified as a LIBERAL-LEANING human rights group? Of course not. Never. Why? Because left-leaning is politically correct and kosher; right-leaning is highly suspect and thus a pejorative adjective in the Post's lexicon.

But quite unintentionally I'm sure, Mintz compounds his own LEFT-LEANING agenda by recalling that Eleanor Roosevelt founded Freedom House, not realizing that what he's really telling readers is that the mantle of fighting religious and ethnic discrimination so courageously worn by Mrs. Roosevelt is now the province not of her LIBERAL progeny, but of CONSERVATIVES who alone are left to attack bigotry when they see it. Mrs. Roosevelt would weep.

So thanks, guys, for making all this clear.

LEO RENNERT, Bethesda, Maryland

Post confuses terrorist with dissident

noreply@blogger.com (Peter Vardon) — Thu, 27 Jan 2005 23:28:00 +0000

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)

noreply@blogger.com (Peter Vardon) — Thu, 27 Jan 2005 04:32:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (Peter Vardon) — Thu, 13 Jan 2005 04:42:00 +0000

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.

Post sets Record for Most Errors in a Single Paragraph

noreply@blogger.com (Peter Vardon) — Wed, 29 Dec 2004 03:54:00 +0000

www.lgf.com links to Scylla & Charybdis and laughs...the Post is only worse when it reports about Israel.

WaPo: 10 Errors about Memogate in One Paragraph
Update: Now it's 13 and counting....

Tom Shales of the Washington Post makes 10 errors in writing about CBS's Memogate...

...All in a single paragraph:

"...Tireless press critics during war or peacetime, the conservatives were handed a valuable new weapon when CBS News fumbled(1) a report (13) detailing(2) the president's(3) shoddy record(4) as a member of the National Guard back in Texas. The report was attacked (5) virtually the moment it aired(6) (11) on "60 Minutes" (12) ; documents used to bolster(7) the allegations were condemned by conservative(8) critics as phony and forged(9), though no forging has yet been proved(10)."

Errors:

1. Fallacy of the 3rd person. "Fumbled" as a verb implies the report was created by a 3rd party, and CBS was negligent in handling the precious gem. Wrong - CBS itself created the report.
2. Begs the question. It is the "detailing" itself that was a forgery. Again this implies that there is a valid story and Platonic truth involved, apart from the forged memos.
3. Use a capital "P." Basic word processing function. Others have had similar problems, it's not the 1st time.
4. Begs the question. Prior to the falsified CBS report, what - exactly - qualified Bush's military record as "shoddy?" (Compared to, say, Kerry's refusal to release his military records due to a "not honorable discharge" problem?)
5. Fallacy of the charged word (verb? adjective?); a form of begging the question. A third grade math teacher does not "attack" someone's homework; she corrects it.
6. CBS's experts declared the memos false 48 hours prior to the airing.
7. The documents didn't "bolster" the allegations. The documents were the allegations.
8. "Conservative critics" such as CBS's own experts, and ABC,a nd the Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Times. Those right wing nuts.
9. Why the distinction between phony and forged? As in, "Fake, but Accurate?" Compare with 1, 2 and 7, above. And 13, below.
10. The biggest error of all - the fallacy of the false burden. In a court of law, the memos would be inadmissible because they lack "foundation" - that is, a witness to vouch for their creation. Under the laws and culture of the United States, this shortcoming is a close proxy to something being "forged." The law's assumption is that the unvouched document is false. The burden to prove otherwise - to prove that it is valid, via its provenance or "foundation" - lies with the person (CBS) who wants the item admitted to evidence. With no foundation for the memos, other than foundation strongly establishing they were forged, the burden lies with CBS to come forward with evidence to prove the memos are not the forgeries.

Updates:
11. Factually incorrect. Blogs began questionning the provenance several hours after the program. The false claim that it was "virtually the moment it aired" is often repeated to support the "Karl Rove tricked us" BS, to wit: Rove OK’ed the documents with CBS, then waited to attack.
12. The program was 60 Minutes II, a Wednesday program, not "60 Minutes", a Sunday program.
13. Fallacy of objectification. The error is in referring to "a report" instead of "CBS's report."
The use of "a report" implies that the report was something that had independent existence, like the "9/11 Commission Report" as being "a report that people were talking about." There was no objective "report" here without CBS; CBS created the report.

Post missed Blair Statement....Widens Gulf with Europe and Reality

noreply@blogger.com (Peter Vardon) — Mon, 27 Dec 2004 18:56:00 +0000

www.andrewsullivan.com disentangles comPosts "put more pressure on Israel" analysis

EURO-ATLANTICISM AND THE MIDEAST: The Washington Post argues that the president's desire to mend relations with Europe conflicts with his approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. While the Bush administration has insisted on reform within the Palestinian Authority, the Europeans want to put more pressure on Israel. The Post paints this as a wide gulf, but the piece fails to mention Tony Blair's trip to Israel last week, where he too argued that reforms were necessary for "the Palestinian side to become a proper partner for peace with Israel":

Viability cannot just be about territory. The viability has to be that of a state that is democratic, that is not giving any succor or help to terrorism and that uses the help that it is given from the outside in a proper and transparent way.
Saul Singer, in the Jerusalem Post, writes that this "means that taking democracy seriously is no longer just the quaint province of George W. Bush and Natan Sharansky, but has spread...to Europe. It also means that the conference that Blair is proposing for next month in London might, for a change, advance peace." The London conference aims to help Palestinians build democratic institutions. At the same time, some 600 Palestinian politicians and intellectuals, in a public statement called "What We Want from the Elected President," are calling for a "firm commitment to democratic deals" and "the implementation of good governance, mainly the rule of law, transparency and accountability."

The Post repeats the idea that Bush "keeps giving Israel a pass" and "has devoted little attention to the issue." But Ha'aretz's Aluf Benn argues, "Under Bush, Sharon has adopted a policy that is the reverse of what he believes in, and has accepted severe limitations on his own freedom of action.":

Bush and his people have gone beyond declarations and have tried to have an impact on the reality of the Middle East. They have forced the Likud government to support a Palestinian state. They have forced Sharon both to promise to freeze settlements and evacuate outposts, and to agree to close American inspection of construction in the territories. They have forced him to return to the Palestinian Authority tax money that Israel owed the Palestinians, and they have made it clear to the Palestinians that, if they want a state, the price tag is internal reform and a change of regime.
All of which might be described as a synthesis of American and European approaches to the peace process.
-- Steven
- 2:31:47 AM

Powerline Shows comPost needs new Educational Opportunity

noreply@blogger.com (Peter Vardon) — Mon, 27 Dec 2004 18:22:00 +0000

Powerline exposes comPost domestic blunders also....can they get anything right?

Post Blunders, Dems Join In
Betsy Newmark wrote us to point out that her daughter's blog had reported on an error committed on Friday by the Washington Post: an error that resulted in this anti-administration headline: "Change Means Fewer Students Will Be Eligible For Pell Grants." The article claimed that 80,000 to 90,000 low-income students would be knocked out of the Pell program on account of new regulations issued by the Department of Education.

Yesterday, the Post issued a correction. Actually, the new regulations, which are based on updated government data, will expand the number eligible for grants, even though some will become ineligible at the upper end of the qualified income range.

What was most interesting about the story, as Betsy's daughter pointed out, was the immediate reaction of the Democrats. When the original, incorrect story ran, Senator Jon Corzine jumped in:

Sen. Jon S. Corzine (D-N.J.) said he was "outraged that the Bush administration is going forward with these punitive cuts," adding that the change in the eligibility rules was "nothing more than a backdoor effort to cut student aid funding."
"For those working to get ahead, this is a scene from 'The Grinch who stole my education,' " he said.

Got that? The Bush administration enlarges the Pell Grant program, and Corzine--obviously without knowing anything about the subject, doing any independent research, or even calling anyone at the Department of Education for verification--is "outraged" at the "punitive cuts."

To be fair, the outrage wasn't limited to Democrats. The frequently clueless Arlen Specter, who was happy to give the Post an anti-administration quote even though he had no idea what the facts were, "said he was 'very unhappy' and promised to renew the battle for broader Pell Grant funding next year." And Specter wonders why he isn't more respected within his own party.

It's just a guess, but I suspect we'll be hearing about the Bush administration's "punitive cuts" in the Pell Grant program for years to come.

Another View of the comPost's Impoverished Diplomacy

noreply@blogger.com (Peter Vardon) — Mon, 27 Dec 2004 18:16:00 +0000

Award winning Powerline fisks, "The impoverished diplomacy of Bush's critics." Who are the critics...none other than the comPosts own Robin Wright, who is wrong again and again.

Robin Wright of the Washington Post calls upon the Bush administration to get its act together and take "bold diplomatic action" in the Middle East. "Bold diplomatic action" isn't exactly an oxymoron -- it's possbile to take such action. Unfortunately, though, in the absence of a prior military victory, bold diplomatic action usually consists of making major and dangerous concessions. Any other course normally will be insufficiently audacious to be "bold" or insufficiently realistic to constitute "action."

Wright's survey of the Middle Eastern scene demonstrates the point. In Iraq she calls for either a U.S. exit in 2006 (concession in the strong sense) or bringing in the U.N. (concession and unrealistic). In Iran, Wright's solution is a deal in which Iran terminates its nuclear program in exchange for security guarantees (sure, Iran will go for that). In Israel, Wright looks to Zbigniew Brzeninski and Brent Scowcroft for her answer. And how do these worthies from the past propose to bring about a final settlement in which the Palestinians get a state in exchange for ending their terror campaign against Israel and permanently abandoning their claim of a right of return? We tell the parties what the solution is and then help/push them to bring it about. But of course. How did Bush miss that?

Checkpoints Take Toll on Post Reporting

noreply@blogger.com (Peter Vardon) — Tue, 30 Nov 2004 03:56:00 +0000

comPost's Moore does it again.

On page A1, she emphasizes Palestinian suffering and Israeli cruelty....this time at the checkpoints on page A1 no less. When was the last time the Post reported on US checkpoints?

Checkpoints Take Toll on Palestinians, Israeli Army
Civilians Describe Abuse; Troops Lament Conditions
By Molly Moore
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, November 29, 2004; Page A01

Embedded in the article is this statement, which captures Moore's imbalance:

At least 83 Palestinians seeking medical care have died during delays at checkpoints, according to the Palestinian Human Rights Monitoring Group. At the same time, 39 Israeli soldiers and police officers have been killed at checkpoints and roadblocks, according to the Israeli military.

She credulously cites a Palestinian group's sensational claim, which if wrong means the checkpoints are not nearly as severe as claimed. If wrong, it means Israeli soldiers routinely risk their lives, while Palestinians are merely delayed.

A fairer piece would also describe the terrorist's tactic of using ambulances, pregnant women and children to conduct their terrorism.

A still fairer piece would have compared Israeli checkpoint practices with US and other western checkpoint practices.....say the French, for instance.

My guess is that Israeli practices compare favorably.

Notice her subtle choice of verbs also in the following passages. Israeli military sources merely "say", while Palestinian sources "document", creating the subtle but false impression that Palestinian sources are more credible.

The Israeli military says the checkpoints are necessary to protect Israel and Jewish settlements in the territories from Palestinian attackers. Government and military officials have repeatedly cited the system of checkpoints in the West Bank as one of several factors contributing to a steady reduction in the number of suicide bombings against Israeli targets in the past two years.

At the same time, Palestinian, Israeli and international human rights groups have documented hundreds of cases of abuse by Israeli troops against Palestinians at roadblocks: beatings, shootings, harassment, humiliation and life-threatening delays. Last year, a female Israeli soldier assigned to a Gaza Strip checkpoint was convicted of forcing a Palestinian woman at gunpoint to drink a bottle of cleaning fluid, according to court records. This month, soldiers at the Beit Iba checkpoint, not far from the Hawara checkpoint, ordered a Palestinian to open his violin case and play for them while the lines behind him grew.

comPost's chilling report slams IDF soldier. Misses IDF heroics that save Arab children from terrorists that use them as decoys.

noreply@blogger.com (Peter Vardon) — Mon, 29 Nov 2004 03:30:00 +0000

comPost's Moore reports that IDF soldier killed a 13 year old Arab girl.

A Girl's Chilling Death in Gaza
Israeli Army Concedes Failure in Initial Probe of Shooting
By Molly Moore
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, November 28, 2004; Page A18

A fairer piece would have reported this.....IDF heroics routinely save Arab children while terrorists use children as decoys. It better helps to understand the actions of the soldier above.

IDF Saves Arab ‘Decoy’ Child
Friday, November 26, 2004 / 13 Kislev 5765

Golani soldiers won special recognition for saving an innocent Arab child who was sent to provoke IDF soldiers into shooting him.

The two Golani soldiers recently were manning a check post near Gush Katif when a 10-year-old boy suddenly ran towards them. Despite fears that the child was carrying explosives, the soldiers did not fire.

"The child fell into the arms of one of the soldiers," said the troops’ officer. "He hugged him to make sure he was not carrying a bomb. The child apparently received a few shekels to run towards the soldiers and provoke them into shooting."

The officer awarded the soldiers a special certificate for keeping an "even head" under pressure.

Arab terrorists have sent dozens of children on life-endangering missions, including suicide bombings, and often use children to smuggle explosives and ammunition. Army officials explain that Palestinian Authority incitement in the school system and on television is one of the prime reasons for the increase in the use of children as terrorists.

Read the whole the account to see another instance of selective comPost reporting that slanders Israel.

Post Uses Misleading data on Civilian Deaths...Getler Apologizes for not being More Wrong

noreply@blogger.com (Peter Vardon) — Mon, 22 Nov 2004 04:37:00 +0000

Oxblog shows that comPost's gutless Getler, the useless ombudsman, misses the point.

Post statistics about Iraqi civilian deaths are spurious. Colleague Leo Rennert makes the same argument about Post reportage of Iraqi and Palestinian civilian statistics.

Posted 9:13 PM by David Adesnik
OMBUDSMAN MISSES THE POINT: WaPo ombudsman Michael Getler apologizes today for the Post's insufficient coverage of the impact that the war in Iraq has had on civilians.

In spite of OxBlog's loud protest, Mr. Getler has nothing to say about the extremely misleading data on civilian casualties provided by iraqbodycount.net and reprinted by the Post on a regular basis.

# Posted 3:10 PM by David Adesnik

Oxblog shows comPost Iraq malnutrition report is empirically lean

noreply@blogger.com (Peter Vardon) — Mon, 22 Nov 2004 04:10:00 +0000

Colleague Bob Samet shows that the comPost casts Israel in a negative light.

Oxblog's David Adesnik thinks the comPost casts the US in a negative light also. The comPost implies the US is responsible for higher rate of malnutrition in Iraq.

Read his blog.

Posted 1:16 PM by David Adesnik
IRAQ -- "MALNUTRITION NEARLY DOUBLE WHAT IT WAS BEFORE INVASION": That the headline from today's WaPo. Naturally, the conclusion that malnutrition has doubled depends on the uncritical comparison of statistics compiled while Saddam was in power with those compiled more recently.

Just as naturally, the WaPo never makes this point explicitly and never suggests that the older statistics might be questionable. According to the article's second sentence,

After the rate of acute malnutrition among children younger than 5 steadily declined to 4 percent two years ago, it shot up to 7.7 percent this year.
Considerably later on, we find out that:
International aid efforts and the U.N. oil-for-food program helped reduce the ruinous impact of sanctions, and the rate of acute malnutrition among the youngest Iraqis gradually dropped from a peak of 11 percent in 1996 to 4 percent in 2002.
I do believe that the oil-for-"food" program improved nutrition for Iraqi children. Corruption at the UN may have been pervasive, but it seems that most of the money still went for food. But why should I attribute any credibility to pseudo-statistics such as the 11 and 4 percent malnutrition figures?

Before continuing with my criticism of the Post, I think it is worth point out that malnutrition rates in Iraq are apalling, regardless of whether they are higher or lower than they were before the invasion. As the Post points out,
Iraq's child malnutrition rate now roughly equals that of Burundi, a central African nation torn by more than a decade of war. It is far higher than rates in Uganda and Haiti.
So no one should pretend that this isn't problem. But why is this problem on the front page of the Washington Post? Because the problem is supposedly America's fault.

Even so, the Post does illustrate that some of this fault is indirect. For example, one apparent cause for the rise of malnutrition (and the widespread lack of health care) in Iraq is the fact that violence has forced relief workers out of the country. The United Nations, Doctors Without Borders and CARE International have all left the country.

While the Post does mention the specific incidents -- "a truck bombing", a "director...was kidnapped" -- that led these agencies to haul anchor, it never connects the dots to make an obvious point: that the insurgents have deliberately sought to increase the misery of the Iraqi people by violently attacking those who seek to make their lives better.

UDPATE: Reader OV points to this UNICEF study of malnutrition in Iraq which also reports that 7.7% of Iraqi children suffer from acute malnourishment. The problem is that this UNICEF study was conducted less than three weeks after the invasion of Iraq.

This raises a lot of questions. Were two different studies conducted, one last year and one this year? If so, then the malnutrition rate has remained essentially stable since the US invasion of Iraq -- and the increase from 4 to 7.7 percent was Saddam's doing.

Or are the two studies one and the same? Both were conducted by Iraq's Ministry of Health with help from the United Nations. If the two studies are the same, then the earlier date (April-May 2003) is presumably the correct one. The political implications of such a scenario are the same as above.

Finally, did the WaPo simply get confused and report on last year's study as if it were new? I'd put my money on that one. Even so, if any of these three scenarios is correct, then the entire thrust of the Post's article is very, very wrong.

UPDATE: Both this UN press release as well as this one confirm that the 7.7% figure was publicly available by May of 2003. One should note, however, that it applies only to Baghdad.

UPDATE: The WaPo identified two organizations as having worked with the Iraqi Ministry of Health to conduct the nutrition survey. They are Norway's Institute for Applied International Studies and the UN Development Program. Both IAIS and UNDP have webpages devoted to Iraq, but neither seems to have information about the malnutrition statistics.

Post's Priest is Disgruntled.....Can you guess who she voted for

noreply@blogger.com (Peter Vardon) — Wed, 17 Nov 2004 03:44:00 +0000

comPosts Dana Priest substitutes "abrasive" and "highly partisan" editorial judgment for "respected" reporting....Weekly Standard's Stephen Hayes dissects.

The CIA Fights Back
The Agency fights back as Porter Goss and the Bush administration push for institutional reform.
by Stephen F. Hayes
11/15/2004 11:00:00 AM

ON NOVEMBER 5, 2004, a top aide to new CIA Director Porter Goss warned the associate deputy director of counterintelligence about unauthorized leaks to the media. It was an admonition that might be considered unnecessary: secrecy is a hallmark of the agency and, in any case, such leaks are often against the law. But several officials bristled at the forewarning and after a series of confrontations the deputy director of Operations, Stephen R. Kappes, offered his resignation as a protest.

How do we know about all of this? The details were leaked and appeared Saturday on the front page of the Washington Post. Both the Post and the New York Times ran follow-up stories on Sunday. That evening, CBS News anchor John Roberts was already suggesting a failure, asking reporter Joie Chen, "What went wrong?" And so we have, three months into Porter Goss's tenure at the agency, a full-blown war between the Bush administration and the CIA.

In fact, this war has been underway for years but only one side--the CIA--has been fighting. The White House response to this latest assault will be an important sign of its willingness to gut the rotten bureaucracy at the CIA.

Dana Priest, co-author of the two Washington Post stories and one of a dozen reporters who regularly receive CIA leaks, previewed this current battle in an online chat on October 13, 2004. A reader from Bethesda, Maryland, asked: "What's your take on Porter Goss's leadership at the CIA after nearly a month in office? Is he making an effort to reach out to the rank and file or is he pretty much relying on his 'special advisers' to run the place for him?"

Wrote Priest: "He's created quite a stir among employees who are anxious and worried about his intentions. Mainly this is because he brought with him a group of Congressional aides who were not well respected, so I hear, by people in the building. Now, the question is: are they not well respected because they have axes to grind or because they represent change at an agency that has a hard time changing; or, are they not well respected because they don't know enough about intelligence and are mean spirited. Time will tell."

Now we know. According to the Post, top advisers to Goss are "disgruntled" former CIA officials "widely known" for their "abrasive management style" and for criticizing the agency. One left the CIA after an undistinguished intelligence career and another is known for being "highly partisan."

On the other side, though, are disinterested civil servants: an unnamed "highly respected case officer," and Stephen Kappes, deputy director for operations "whose accomplishments include persuading Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi to renounce weapons of mass destruction this year." (Persuasion? Were the Iraq war and subsequent capture of Saddam Hussein mere details?)

With this description of the participants is it any wonder that the anti-Bush-administration leakers often choose the Washington Post? What exactly has the Goss leadership team done to deserve such a cheap shot? Unfortunately, the Post articles give us few answers.

The reporting consists mainly of a one-sided chronology of the dispute over media leaks and a collection of unsourced and unsubstantiated personal smears of the Goss team. As for substance, the Post reported on Saturday that former deputy CIA director John McLaughlin believes top Goss aide Patrick Murray "was treating senior officials disrespectfully." The article continues: "Current and retired senior managers have criticized Goss, former chairman of the House intelligence committee, for not interacting with senior managers and for giving Murray too much authority over day-to-day operations."

The Post article from Sunday replowed much of the same ground. It added one new wrinkle: Goss has not yet made time to meet with four former senior CIA officials. (These weren't just any officials. According to the article, "the four senior officials represent nearly two decades of experience leading the Directorate of Operations under both Republican and Democratic presidents." The not-so-subtle implication is that Goss was unreasonable for failing to meet with the leaders.

Was he?

According to yet another anonymous source in the Post piece on Sunday, the group didn't want to talk so much as they wanted to lecture. The former officials "wanted to talk as old colleagues and tell him to stop what he was doing the way he was doing it."

After hundreds of words from the Post we still have very little idea of what, exactly, Goss is doing that has caused so much heartburn at the agency. But if he's aggressively reforming the bureaucracy, he should most certainly not stop what he is doing. In fact, the concern among critics of the agency is that Goss faces a nearly impossible job and will not do nearly enough to change the dysfunctional culture of the agency.

On Friday, the CIA lost Michael Scheuer, a senior official who headed the agency's bin Laden unit from 1996 to 1999. The agency had allowed Scheuer to write two books critical of the Bush administration as "Anonymous." But as he gave media interviews upon the publication of his most recent book, Imperial Hubris, he became more critical of the agency. He was then silenced by his CIA superiors.

"As long as the book was being used to bash the president," said Scheuer, "they gave me carte blanche to talk to the media."

That has been the modus operandi of the CIA for years. Goss wants to end it. He'll have to fight.

Stephen F. Hayes is a staff writer at The Weekly Standard.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Update, 11/16/04: When I originally examined the turmoil at the CIA, I criticized current and former CIA officials and, by implication, reporting by the Washington Post's Dana Priest. The unnamed officials used the Post piece to smear the new leadership team assembled by CIA Director Porter Goss. The reporting was, in my view, one-sided and incomplete.

Later in the article, I quoted Michael Scheuer's criticism of CIA leadership and sourced it to the Washington Post. Scheuer made those comments in an interview with Priest, a fact I should have noted.

© Copyright 2004, News Corporation, Weekly Standard, All Rights Reserved.

THE POST'S STATISTICAL SCANDAL ON IRAQI FATALITIES

noreply@blogger.com (Peter Vardon) — Mon, 01 Nov 2004 04:17:00 +0000

Leo Rennert does it again with another important analysis ...........

HOW THE WASHINGTON POST SKEWS STATISTICS ABOUT BOTH IRAQ AND ISRAEL

Since the start of the Palestinian intifada, the Post has misled its readers by steadfastly refusing to break down fatality figures between combatants and non-combatants -- between terrorists and innocent bystanders.

Now, the Post is committing a similar grievous error and misleading readers with regard to casualties in Iraq. In the run-up to the election, the Post has published statistical boxes summarizing Iraq casualties. These in turn are broken down between U.S. military casualties, allied military fatalities, U.S. civilian fatalities and grossly misleading counts of "Iraqi Civilian Fatalities."

What does the Post mean by "Iraqi Civilian Fatalities" (It gives the latest totals as falling between 14,181 and 16,312)? If you were think that these were Iraqi bystanders killed in operations by the U,S,-led coalition -- a quite natural impression -- you'd be absolutely wrong. In a small-type footnote, the Post cites as its source a private British web site, www.Iraqbodycount.net, which The Post says compiles civilian deaths "due to war-related events." To buttress the reliability of this web site, the Post notes that it bases its count on no fewer than 40 media sources. Sounds impressive -- until you pull up the web site.

What you find is that this British group doesn't confine itself at all to civilian victims of coalition fire. Included in its total of "Iraqi civilian fatalities" are all the insurgents and terrorists killed in encounters with coalition forces. Check the data base and you will find listed as "civilian" fatalities terrorists at a "suspected al-Zarqawi checkpoint," at a "suspected al-Zarqawi safehouse," at a "suspected meeting place for al-Zarqawi supporters," etc. All these insurgents and terrorist are just "civilians." In fact what this British group does is to include in its total count of Iraqi "civilian fatalities" anyone who wasn't wearing the uniform of Saddam's army. No matter that he's firing RPGs or slicing somebody's throat.

The second highly misleading aspect of the British group's figures is that while they identify location, target and weapons in fatal incidents, they fail to provide any breakdown totals between attackers -- where they coalition forces or terrorists/insurgents? So, while the gross totals garnered from all sorts of media sources may be fairly accurate, they don't tell the reader anything about whether the victims were really innocent civilians or combatants and similarly are silent on who actually pulled the trigger -- the coalition or insurgents/terrorists.

But wait there's more. In checking the data base back to July, I could not find a single instance of a fatality resulting from the beheading of foreigners by terrorists. Shouldn't they be included among "Iraq Casualties"? The British group says it weeps for all civilians killed but somehow overlooks the most brutal killings of all. Perhaps because the British group just wants to bestow its sympathy on Iraqi victims and these are non-Iraqi victims. But whatever the reason for this gross omission, shouldn't the Post provide a total of beheaded victims since the British group evidently does not?

So how does this British source justify its methodology to inflate "civilian" deaths with terrorist fatalities? The answer: With some contorted legalisms and a far-left ideology. It declares that its "civilian" count includes all "deaths resulting from a breakdown in law and order" and puts the entire blame on the U.S. and the U.K. These are all "civilian deaths attributed to our military intervention in Iraq," it declares, thereby exculpating al-Zarqawi and indicting George Bush and Tony Blair. Or, in another one of its formulations, these are "all deaths which the Occupying Authority has a binding responsibility to prevent under the Geneva conventions and Hague regulations." The terrorists get a free pass.

Its methodology is steeped anti-war ideology (that is, when the U.S. and the U.K. go to war -- not the other guys). For example, it argues that 13,000 "civilians" have been killed since 9/11 in Afghanistan and Iraq, compared with only 3,375 killed in "paramilitary attacks in Western targets" -- a 4-1 disproportionate ratio that compounds U.S.-British sins. The British group uses "terrorist" only in quotation marks and, as you can see, prefers the more sanitized "paramilitary" euphemism.

In case you still have doubts about its obvious political objectives, the web site strongly condemns virtually all major U.S. political figures -- from Howard Dean to George Bush. Looking over the pre-nomination field earlier this year, it declared that "apart from Denis Kucinich, every White House contender is a willing, unforced colluder with the official downgrading and dismissal of Iraqi deaths."

What makes the Post's ready reliance on the statistics of this highly political group all the more sad and ironic is that the Post has turned thumbs down on figures of a respected think tank, the International Policy Institute for Counter-Terrorism, which breaks down combatant/non-combatant fatality statistics since the start of the intifada.

So while the Post's editor assures readers that there is a total wall of separation between the editorial page and the news pages, he totally overlooks the fact that his news editors have their own political agenda and skew statistics about deaths in Iraq, Israel and Palestinian territories so that the role of terrorists is neatly hidden from readers' eyes.

LEO RENNERT

POST EARNS PRO-PALESTINIAN STARS

noreply@blogger.com (Peter Vardon) — Sun, 31 Oct 2004 02:57:00 +0000

Friend of blog, Leo Rennert rates comPost propaganda ...gives three stars.

A WASHINGTON POST REPORTER EARNS THREE PRO-PALESTINIAN STARS IN A SINGLE STORY

John Ward Anderson's Oct. 25 report from Jerusalem deserves at least three stars for its pro-Palestinian slant. Let Leo enumerate:

1. Anderson writes that, as the Knesset opened debate on Sharon's Gaza disengagement plan, "16 Palestinians were killed and almost 100 wounded by the Israeli military in the Southern Gaza Strip town of Khan Younis." No further details about the casualties. According to Haaretz, a left-wing, anti-Sharon newspaper, 11 of the 16 were armed men, according to Palestinian sources. In failing, as usual, to distinguished between combatant and non-combatant casualties, the Post leaves the impression that Israeli attacks are directed at Palestinians in general -- something Palestinian propagandists would like the world to believe, but something that is demonstrably untrue. Haaretz also reported, based on Palestinian figures, that there were 60 wounded -- not 100. But rounding it to 100 makes a more dramatic impact. So why not?

2. In the same paragraph, Anderson earns his second pro-Palestinian star. Having given the Palestinians a new reason for grievance with the operation in Khan Younis, he goes on to quote an Israeli spokeswoman as saying that the attack responded to the firing of more than 28 mortar shells at Jewish settlements. Fair enough. So up to this point, we have Palestinians attacked by Israelis and Israelis attacked by Palestinians. But Anderson isn't content to leave it at that. So he adds that those Palestinian mortar attacks were in retaliation for Israel's killing of a top Hamas leaders a few days earlier. And then he stops. But having reported three different attacks, why not go to the fourth and tell readers why Israel assassinated this Hamas leader, whom the Post as usual does not identify as a terrorist? Why not mention how many Israelis died as a result of this Hamas leader's violent forays. No, to give his paragraph a distinct pro-Palestinian spin, Anderson tells readers about TWO ISRAELI ATTACKS BUT ONLY ONE PALESTINIAN ATTACK. So, in terms of suffering and grievances, Palestinians are given TWO BITES of the apple, and the Israelis only ONE. The sequence he describes starts and ends with Israeli attacks -- exactly the impression Palestinians seek to convey that they're the victims and the Israelis are the aggressors. Never mind that there would be no bloodshed on either side if the intifada came to a halt.

3. To earn his third pro-Palestinian star, Anderson ends his story by reporting that doctors had performed a diagnostic endoscopy on Arafat in his "battered Ramallah headquarters, where he has been confined by Israel for more than two years." And that's it. So here we have an ailing Arafat having to undergo a procedure in his devastated HQ. Another victim of those callous Israelis, one is meant to think. But, what Anderson conveniently omits, is that Israel earlier offered to let Arafat leave his headquarters and move to a Ramallah hospital so he could be treated in more satisfactory fashion, but that the offer was rejected by Arafat's own people! But if Anderson had mentioned that, Israel might have been seen by Post readers in a more positive light. And we can't have that. Incidentally, the New York Times devoted a separate story to Arafat's health problems, with prominent mention of Israel's offer at the top of its story.

THREE PRO-PALESTINIAN STARS FOR ONE STORY. NOT BAD. BUT NOT A POST RECORD EITHER.

LEO RENNERT

Rozenman rips Cohen...Terrorism Result of Oslo

noreply@blogger.com (Peter Vardon) — Sun, 31 Oct 2004 02:37:00 +0000

The comPost published friend of the blog, Eric Rozenman's letter that rebuts the predictably inept reasoning of Richard Cohen....congratulations Eric.

Obstacles to Mideast Peace

Saturday, October 30, 2004; Page A17

In "Pro-Israel, but Pro-Peace?" [op-ed, Oct. 26], Richard Cohen writes that "from the signing of the Oslo accords in 1993 until September 2000, when the Camp David summit came to naught, about 256 Israelis -- civilians and soldiers alike -- were killed by Palestinian violence . . . . Between Sept. 29, 2000, and September 2004 -- four, not eight, years -- 1,026 Israelis were killed by Palestinians." He then argues that "those low fatality figures for the Clinton years were not entirely a coincidence. They were the product of hard [U.S. diplomatic] work." President Bush, Cohen says, has not been effective "in reducing the violence and bring[ing] about a peaceful solution."

In fact, the number of Israelis and foreigners murdered by Palestinian terrorists in Israel and the West Bank and Gaza Strip between 1993 and 2000 was not historically low but high. In the 15 years preceding Oslo, 216 Israeli civilians, security personnel and foreign visitors were murdered by Palestinian terrorists. Post-Oslo, the rate of deadly terrorism more than doubled.

The primary factor then as now was not who occupied the White House but rather the Palestinian violation of commitments to the peace process. After 1993, the Palestinian Authority trashed its pledges to end anti-Israeli, anti-Semitic incitement in schools, mosques, Palestinian Authority radio, television and newspapers; refused to eradicate the terrorist infrastructure; and would not educate its population for peaceful coexistence.

After 2000 and the Palestinian rejection of a West Bank and Gaza Strip state in exchange for peace with Israel, the death toll surged again. The problem is not finding American leaders committed to mediating Arab-Israeli peace but finding Palestinian leaders willing and able to make it.

-- Eric Rozenman

Washington

The writer is Washington director of the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America.

Post Stages Photo then Reports on Story.

noreply@blogger.com (Peter Vardon) — Sun, 24 Oct 2004 05:56:00 +0000

From the comPost correction page via www.OpinionJournal.com

Check out the sixth item in today's Washington Post corrections column:

*** QUOTE ***

In the Oct. 17 Sunday Source, the "Gatherings" story described a Republican
barbecue held to watch a presidential debate. The item reported "the
possibly unprecedented occurrence of a young woman in a cowboy hat
pretending to make out with a poster of Dick Cheney." The item should have
explained that the woman was asked to pose with the vice president's picture
by the photographer working for The Washington Post. The woman also did not
pretend to "make out" with the picture; at the photographer's suggestion,
she pretended to blow a kiss at it. The item should have explained that the
party was hosted in response to a request from The Post, which discussed the
decorations and recipes with the host and agreed to reimburse the cost of
recipe ingredients.

*** END QUOTE ***

Now, we know what you're thinking, but c'mon--give the Post a break. Staging
an event and reporting on it at the same time is a lot of work, even for a
great journalistic institution like the Washington Post.

The correction, however, raises one additional question: Just what does it
mean to "pretend to blow a kiss"? Isn't a blown kiss a pretend one by
definition?

Riddle: What's different about comPost photographers staging a photo that puts Republicans in the worst light versus one that puts Israel in the worst light? They would never offer a correction for Israel.