Disgrace in Benghazi.

Disgrace in Benghazi.

The men who organized this attack knew the ambassador would be at the consulate in Benghazi rather than at the embassy in Tripoli. How did that happen? They knew when he had been moved from the consulate to a “safe house,” and switched their attentions accordingly. How did that happen? The United States government lost track of its ambassador for ten hours. How did that happen? Perhaps, when they’ve investigated Mitt Romney’s press release for another three or four weeks, the court eunuchs of the American media might like to look into some of these fascinating questions, instead of leaving the only interesting reporting on an American story to the foreign press.

For whatever reason, Secretary Clinton chose to double down on misleading the American people. “Libyans carried Chris’s body to the hospital,” said Mrs. Clinton. That’s one way of putting it. The photographs at the Arab TV network al-Mayadeen show Chris Stevens’s body being dragged through the streets, while the locals take souvenir photographs on their cell phones. A man in a red striped shirt photographs the dead-eyed ambassador from above; another immediately behind his head moves the splayed arm and holds his cell-phone camera an inch from the ambassador’s nose. Some years ago, I had occasion to assist in moving the body of a dead man: We did not stop to take photographs en route. Even allowing for cultural differences, this looks less like “carrying Chris’s body to the hospital” and more like barbarians gleefully feasting on the spoils of savagery.

“Healthy Ridicule.”

“Healthy ridicule.”

It is healthy for America that the president be criticized and even mocked. Deference to a Dear Leader has no place in a democracy. It’s healthy for race relations, too, that he be judged on his record rather than held to a lower standard in the name of racial progress. When a black politician is treated just like any other politician, that’s genuine progress.

And then there’s this:

Obama’s journalistic supporters live in a bizarre alternate reality in which a politician’s actual words mean nothing. When the president says something foolish and offensive, he didn’t say that. Meanwhile every comment from a Republican can be translated, through a process of free association, to: “We don’t like black people.”

Taranto’s second point above suggests to me that there are a lot of people on the left whose recent behavior is making them ripe targets for some very healthy ridicule.

Read the whole thing.

NBC News struggles with significant ratings decline.

NBC News struggles with a significant ratings decline.

Beyond “Today,” which is down about 4 percent in total viewers and about 9 percent in that 25-54 age group, “NBC Nightly News” has declined about 11 percent among those 25-54. Its main rival, ABC’s “World News,” also is down about 8 percent. (CBS’s newscast is up 1 percent.) On Sundays, “Meet the Press” is still the most watched show, but its lead over the second place “Face the Nation” on CBS has shrunk to just 2 percent in total viewers, while “Nation” is now ahead in the 25-54 group. And NBC’s effort to start a newsmagazine, “Rock Center,” led by its chief anchor, Brian Williams, has been greeted with some of the lowest ratings in prime time.

The article cites “talent transitions, weakness in prime time and late night programming, and changes in consumer behaviors” as reasons for this decline. I suggest it might be a loss of creditability. When you fake the news, get caught, and then refuse to clean house, the audience will desert you for more trustworthy sources.

“And ask yourself this, if they’re that egregious at lying on that issue, what else are they lying about?”

“And ask yourself this, if they’re that egregious at lying on that issue, what else are they lying about?”

Meanwhile, on the same day that the President invoked executive privilege to avoid giving Congress emails and documents concerning the Fast-and-Furious gunrunning scandal, the Attorney General admitted lying in his testimony to a House committee, and that same committee voted to hold the Attorney General in contempt, ABC News has as its lead story … the heat wave in the northeast.

As I’ve said many times before, if you depend on television news to find out what’s going in the world, you’re not merely uninformed, you are misinformed.

NBC has been caught again, for the third time this year, of selectively editing news footage to create a false scenario.

NBC has been caught again, for the third time this year, of selectively editing news footage to create a false scenario.

In all three cases the false scenario aided Democratic leftwing politics.

I mention this story only to emphasis how completely unreliable NBC is as a source of news information. Sadly, none of the other media networks are much better.

A modern journalist, disconnected from reality

First, watch this short youtube clip of NBC anchor Brian Williams on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. Fallon expresses his discomfort with President Obama’s activities during the last week (picking the winners in the NCAA finals, traveling to South America) while simultaneously getting us involved in a war in Libya.

Williams, almost as if he is a White House press spokesman, immediately defends Obama.

During Williams’ aggressive effort to defend the actions of the Obama administration, he said two other things that I think are important, though not for the reasons Williams thinks. » Read more

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