T

he Chinese are hobbling the Internet for the Olympics – not a surprise. The surprise is how the left is reacting.

A couple examples of hobbling. First, BBC reports on the restrictions journalists will face when they log on in the People’s Republic:

Journalists covering the Beijing Olympic Games will not have completely uncensored access to the internet, Chinese and Olympic officials say.

Sites related to spiritual group Falun Gong would be blocked, officials said. Journalists also found they could not see some news or human rights websites.

The timing of the blockade was interesting. As the first of an anticipated 20,000 journalists descended on Beijing to cover the games, Amnesty International issued a report on how China’s miserable human rights record has gotten even worse with the Olympics. Journalists visiting China couldn’t access it, but the Beijingoists couldn’t stop people elsewhere around the globe from accessing the report, however, so the ban is comically inadequate.

Another example, from AP, is China’s forcing of foreign owned hotels to comply with China’s Public Security Service demand that they install software blocking their guests’ access to the sites of human rights, Falun Gong, Tibetan activists and others. (Chinese owned hotels don’t need any forcing by the way; they know the drill.) Senator Sam Brownback said of this:

“These hotels are justifiably outraged by this order, which puts them in the awkward position of having to craft pop-up messages explaining to their customers that their Web history, communications, searches and key strokes are being spied on by the Chinese government.”

The purpose of China’s efforts is not to protect the Chinese people from any threat, it is merely to spare the nation’s Communist rulers embarrassment on their home court. Behind the heavy-handed Olympic efforts is a much more sinister and far-flung machinery that monitors all Chinese communications from the Internet to the backyard fence that results in the arrest, imprisonment and frequent execution of anyone deemed to be an enemy of the state.

The difference between China’s use of electronic surveillance and America’s use seems to be lost on the left. In his Salon column today, Glenn Greenwald leaps effortlessly and brainlessly from the Chinese pressure on hotels to U.S. cooperation with telcom companies to monitor terrorists’ calls.

The precise financial dynamic which Sen. Brownback is impotently protesting in China — that corporations are highly incentivized to assent to and enable all government spying lest they lose extremely lucrative government contracts (and, conversely, that they’re eager to cooperate with the Government in order to receive more contracts and become further integrated in government activities) — is exactly the dynamic that drives America’s surveillance state. …

[T]o watch U.S. Senators like Sam Brownback actually maintain a straight face while protesting China’s warrantless spying on the email and telephone communications of foreigners, and lamenting that private companies feel unfairly pressured to cooperate with China’s government spying out of fear of losing lucrative business opportunities, is so surreal that it’s actually hard to believe one is seeing it.

Surreal? Exactly the dynamic? This is exactly why the left is so dangerous: It cannot make rational evaluations based on good and evil, so it ends up supporting evil.

China’s government is motivated by its will to stay in power by suppressing political resistance and keeping a tight reign on the rights and freedom of its citizens. America’s government, the Bush administration, knows it will relinquish power peacefully and democratically in January 2009 just as it remembers the attacks that occurred in September 2001, so its motivation is wholly different: to protect America, so its citizens can continue to enjoy safety, rights and freedom.

Further, the Chinese government can do whatever it wants to do because it is authoritarian, lacking all checks and balances. Grrenwald may have missed the fact that the entire matter of electronic surveillance has been vetted thoroughly by our courts and our elected representatives, so this isn’t, as Greenwald characterizes it, simply the Bush administration running renegade again.

That point is completely lost on Greenwald and his readers, as this comment makes clear:

Brownback keeps a straight face because the US does its spying in secret. The Chinese are evil because they say right in the Guest Information that they are watching. Americans would never do that.

Mere parity is not enough for these loons. The left will not stop until they succeed at placing the globe’s repressors on a pedestal and submitting America to mockery.

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T

his week’s guest Watcher of Weasels is the secretive proprietress of Bookworm Room, and she has posted the entries in this week’s Watcher’s Council carnival there. Or you can read them here. As always, Council members will submit their votes Thursday p.m. and you’ll see the winners here Friday a.m.

Council:

1. The Razor: Here’s my response to Jack Markell’s commercial

2. Done With Mirrors: Us and Them

3. Wolf Howling: Stop The Destruction of Our Environment — Drill Now

4. Soccer Dad: Hating israel more than loving palestinians

5. Cheat-Seeking Missiles: An Awful Idea for Renaming a Perfectly Good Mountain

6. The Colossus of Rhodey: And Phil Gramm got grief? How come?

7. The Glittering Eye: Ooh-ooh-ooooh!

8. Rhymes With Right: Obama Desecrates Holiest Site In Judaism

9. Joshua Pundit: “Ich Bin Ein Beginner!”

10. Hillbilly White Trash: China

11. Bookworm Room: Nobody here but us biased chickens

Non-Council:

1. Bjorn Lomborg: How to Get The Biggest Bang for 10 Billion Bucks

2. Daniel W. Drezner: America’s soft power military

3. Jammie Wearing Fool: A Real Democrat Party

4. Maryland Conservatarian: Visiting Poland : A Warning

5. Patrick Poole – Pajamas Media: Anti-Patriot Act Poster Boy Kidnaps Own Kids

6. The Atlantic Online: Electro-Shock Therapy

7. Gregory Scoblete – Real Clear Politics: Will Obama Really Withdraw from Iraq?

8. UrbanGrounds: Barry in Berlin — I Am Not a Presidential Candidate

9. Jay Cost – Real Clear Politics: On Obama’s Message

10. Investor’s Business Daily Barack Obama’s Stealth Socialism

11. Jeff Jacoby Missing from that Berlin speech

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“I’m trying to save the planet; I’m trying to save the planet. I will not have this debate trivialized by [the GOP's] excuse for their failed [energy] policy.”
- Nancy Pelosi, House Speaker and Dem Demigod

M

adame Speaker has become adept enough politically to stonewall all GOP efforts to force a vote on dropping the federal ban on offshore drilling, and based on this explanation of why she’s doing it – given in an interview to Politico - she’s going to continue her obstructionist policies.

Energy policy statements are highly politicized, so I’m not exactly sure what the GOP’s supposedly failed energy policy is, but if I can hazard a guess it’s this: Try to break through the Dem/Green logjam and create some new energy sources while giving some serious lip service to alternative energy. It contrasts with the Dem position, which goes something like this: Protect the earth from Demon Warming, fight oil at every turn, put your full faith in the unfulfilled promises of alternative sources.

The last month should have been an eye-opener to Madame Speaker. After talking about it taking 10 years for new oil leases to impact the market, we’ve seen an immediate drop in oil prices upon President’s Bush’s rescinding of the federal off-shore drilling ban. And we’ve seen public opinion shift dramatically – now even more liberals are supportive of off-shore drilling than are opposed to it, and 67 percent of voters support it.

So maybe, just maybe, we should trivialize the debate a bit, stepping off the global warming pedestal to discuss things like the impact of high oil prices on the economy and the poor, or the amount of doubt and disproof that’s been heaped upon global warming theory, or the wisdom of fighting for theories when it’s reality that really sucks.

But NanPo is fighting to save the planet.

Even though the Dems’ historic constituency of the poor and working class is hurt most by rising oil prices.

Even though whichever side wins the energy policy debate, the planet, which doesn’t need her help, will just keep doing what its doing in its long and ageless cycles, oblivious to the grandiose and flighting egos of Capital Hill.

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I

t’s finally come out: the target of the most recent missile attack in the Pakistan border region is Abu Khabab al-Masri, al-Qaeda’s premier bomb and WMD techie, who was thought to have been killed at least once before. This time, it looks like we smoked him – but let’s wait for confirming evidence.

If al-Masari’s DNA is splattered about the bombed out target, the world is much better off without him. Counterterrorism blog says al-Masari, “an Egyptian also known as Midhat Mursi al Sayid Umar, ran Al Qaeda’s top training base in Afghanistan, and literally wrote ‘the book’ on chemical and biological warfare for terrorists worldwide.” He is credited with the design of the Richard Reid shoe bomb, and materminding a deadly attack on the Egyptian Embassy in Islamabad in 1995.

Let’s hope he’s gone.

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F

acing a McCain ad that makes mincemeat of Obama’s patriotism over the candidate’s canceled visit to the military hospital at Landstuhl, the NY Times has published a fumbling excuse that emphasizes the paper’s favoritism towards Obama.

Instead of starting with the criticism that’s been directed at Obama over the decision, the paper’s Jeff Zeleny starts with a slam on McCain:

WASHINGTON — For four days, Senator John McCain has sought to keep alive a story about how Senator Barack Obama called off a visit to American troops recuperating from war wounds at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany.

As if McCain needed to fight very hard to keep it going. The story is doing quite well on its own, thank you.

The paper then flatly states that the assertion made by the ad’s narrator, Michael Durant, that the hospital stop “was canceled after it became clear that campaign staff and the traveling press corps would not be allowed to accompany Senator Obama” is “not correct.” NYT’s source for it’s flat-out rejection? “Obama’s advisers.”

Zeleny then goes on to promote excuse 3.1 from the Obama camp:

But two days before the visit, Pentagon officials told the campaign that only Mr. Obama would be allowed inside the medical center in his capacity as a senator. The adviser who had intended to join Mr. Obama, Scott Gration, a retired major general in the Air Force, was told he could not go along because he was a volunteer campaign adviser.

Zeleny accepts this at face value and uses it to support its position that Durant’s statement is not correct – yet there you have nearly the exact same language from both parties:

Durant: “canceled after it became clear that campaign staff … would not be allowed …”

Campaign: “only Mr. Obama would be allowed inside the medical center …”

The excuse is thin gruel but Zeleny laps it up and puts off looking at the larger point: Why didn’t Obama just go alone? Mr. Trust My Judgment blew it, even though he had two days – an eternity in terms of how quickly a president must respond to crises – to come up with the idea of leaving Gration behind and flying solo.

Zeleny does broach this subject, but it’s out of order, buried at the very bottom of the piece. The campaign’s excuse, as you’ve surely heard, is that they thought it would be viewed as political even if the candidate went alone. Really? So why did they book it at all, since it certainly would have looked political as booked.

The NYT then must protect its candidate by countering the McCain ad’s charge that Obama worked out at the gym instead of going to the hospital. Here’s all the nation’s foremost newspaper come up with for the mission:

The McCain television commercial, which asserts that Mr. Obama chose to go to the gymnasium over visiting troops, is not entirely accurate.

OK, why is it not entirely accurate?

Instead of going to Landstuhl on Friday morning, Mr. Obama also conducted an interview with CNN in his hotel in Berlin.

Zeleny couldn’t bring himself to even type the words. What he was supposed to type was “Instead of going to Landstuhl on Friday morning, Mr. Obama went to the gym and also conducted an interview with CNN in his hotel in Berlin.”

Since when does doing two things make doing one of the things “not entirely accurate?” Pathetic!

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T

he Beijingoists are taking no chances as the countdown to next week’s Olympics races towards the opening ceremony … and possible protests.

According to AP, rallied to action to suppress any protests are 110,000 police, riot squads and special forces, and another 300,000 Olympic volunteers and neighborhood watch members. The figure apparently does not include the Chinese military, which also will be out in force.

Gosh, I just don’t remember security being quite that tight during the ’84 Olympics here in LA …

Last week saw four bomb blasts in Western China, with an Islamist group taking responsibility. And this statement came today from a militant identified by the DC-based monitoring group IntelCenteras as Seyfullah:

“Our aim is to target the most critical points related to the Olympics. We will try to attack Chinese central cities severely using the tactics that have never been employed,” he said.

China discounts such threats and said the recent bombings were not the work of terrorists. Exploding space heaters … meteorites … or something … don’t know for sure.

I despise the regime in Beijing and wish them nothing by ill will. But I also despise Islamists and their similarly totalitarian cruelty. So in this odd case, I’m hoping there’s no violence during the games – but that there are plenty of hitches, little shows of resistance for the cameras, a thousand cuts against the pride of those that crushed the spirit of freedom in Tienanmen Square.

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L

ast night I headlined a report of a missile attack in the Afghanistan/Pakistan border area, saying it sounded like the sort of operation designed to take out Taliban leadership.

We have a confirmation of sorts … from the Taliban:

A missile apparently fired at a religious seminary in Pakistan’s South Waziristan tribal region early Monday killed seven people, a local Taliban leader said.

The pre-dawn attack was carried out at a ‘madrassa’ at the border region of Azam Warsak at 3 a.m., Maulavi Nazeer said.

The missile attack also injured three others, he said.

Locals said that the missiles struck seminary belong to a local cleric Maulana Jalail, who is considered to be linked with Taliban.

Locals believe that the missiles were fired from Afghanistan to hit a house in the Pakistani area near the border with Afghanistan.

The army spokesman confirmed the incident but did not say if it was missile strike or a bomb blast.

He said the coalition forces exchange intelligence with Pakistani forces before their actions. (Global Security/IRNA)

Al Jazeera adds:

Residents said the house where the missiles struck belonged to local tribesman Malik Salat and that suspected pro-Taliban fighters used to stay there.

Several villagers said they heard jets approaching from Afghanistan before the strike.

Still waiting for something official … and that’s interesting. In some earlier attacks, there were immediate outraged charges of civilian deaths and mutterings from the DoD about investigations. Reaction to this attack is muted … as if we hit what we wanted to hit.

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Protecting the Potential VEEP

Fox News has independently verified the National Enquirer’s account of John Edwards – who’s been discussed as a potential VP or cabinet member in an Obama administration – sneaking out of his mistresses hotel room, being confronted by reporters and hiding in a men’s room until he could get hotel security to hustle him from the hotel.

According to a Nexis search of “John AND Edwards AND Enquirer,” a total of six stories ran in American newspapers in the days since the story broke. Running it were the Miami Herald, SF Wrongicle, Boston Herald, The Columbian in Wash. state, the Kansas City Star and the Philly Daily News. Not running it were the New York Times, Washington Post, LA Times, Chicago Tribune, any of the Big Three networks or any U.S. newswires.

Imagine the flood of media coverage that would be occurring today if this had happened to Dick Cheney or to any of John McCain’s potential VEEP nominees.

Media Bias 2008 will cover pro-Obama media bias all the way up to the election. Items are listed from most recent to oldest; the numbering reflects this and is not a ranking. Send Media Bias 2008 examples via “comments”‘ below, or to email2laer [@] yahoo [dot] com.

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N

ow that Barack Obama is back from his international road trip, perhaps it’s a good time to look back on one of his former trips abroad, and the promises he made, and the promises he broke.

It was in 2006, when thousands lined the dirt streets of Kogelo, Kenya to greet the American senator whose father called Kogelo home. The (UK) Evening Standard picks up the story:

He visited the Senator Obama Kogelo Secondary School built on land donated by his paternal grandfather. After addressing the pupils, a third of whom are orphans, and dancing with them as they sang songs in his honour, he was shown a school with four dilapidated classrooms that lacked even basic resources such as water, sanitation and electricity.

He told the assembled press, local politicians (who included current Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga), and students: “Hopefully I can provide some assistance in the future to this school and all that it can be.” He then turned to the school’s principal, Yuanita Obiero, and assured her and her teachers: “I know you are working very hard and struggling to bring up this school, but I have said I will assist the school and I will do so.”

Well, it’s the future and BO has been so busy being the most inexperienced candidate to ever take a serious run at the presidency that the villagers who touched him so have been forgotten and left in the Kenyan dust.

Granting us access to the school and its records, Principal Obiero, 48, tells us: “Senator Obama has not honoured the promises he gave me when we met in 2006 and in his earlier letter to the school. He has not given us even one shilling. But we still have hope.” …

Obiero and her board of governors followed up his letter offering ” support” with a bald, formal request for funds in the form of a nine-page proposal, a copy of which has been provided to the Evening Standard, laying out their ambitions for the school. In it they ask for 8.2 million Kenyan shillings (approximately £65,000 [or $130,000]) to upgrade the school. The money would be used, they say, to bring water to the school by sinking a borehole and building a water tank, erect a perimeter fence, complete the science laboratory and add muchneeded new classrooms, additional latrines, and a school dining hall.

Obiero recalls: “When the US Ambassador William Bellamy came to visit the school for the official renaming ceremony in February 2006, we gave him two copies of the proposal, one for the Embassy and one to give to Senator Obama. But we have not heard anything from either of them since.”

The lack of funding has a local name: “Obama’s lapse.” Do you not think it odd that Obama would lapse on a promise to his ancestor’s home, which he wrote so fondly about as a “special place” in his 1995 autobiography, Dreams from My Father, where he told of how he fell sobbing to his knees when he came to the graves of his father and grandfather?

“When my tears were finally spent,” he wrote, “I felt a calmness wash over me. I felt the circle finally close. I realised that who I was, what I cared about, was no longer just a matter of intellect or obligation, no longer a construct of words. I saw that my life in America – the black life, the white life, the sense of abandonment I’d felt as a boy, the frustration and hope I’d witnessed in Chicago – all of it was connected with this small plot of earth an ocean away.”

A transcendental moment to be sure … something that a normal person might honor by honoring a commitment made. But there’s nothing normal about Barack Obama. Call him exceptional and gifted or call him unbelievably full of himself, it doesn’t matter. What matters is this: His ambitions are much more important to him than his promises.

One reader from the US, a Hillary Clinton supporter who’s still clinging to hope for her gal, left a comment on the Evening Standard story that pretty much sums it up:

No doubt Obama doesn’t want to pay anything out of his own pocket. Those donations are reserved for his buddy, Reverend Wright, who plans on moving into a million dollar home in the south suburbs of Chicago.

Obama was probably thinking long term, after he’s elected President, he’ll funnel the US taxpayers $$ to Africa (he says he’ll double US funding to 3rd world countries on his website). In fact, his whole campaign is based on Santa Claus-like promises, yet he never explains how he’ll finance anything.

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