Posts Tagged ‘Libertarians’
Tuesday, January 24th, 2012
This Houston Chronicle piece by Joe Holley is an example of why so many people are dissatisfied with the job the legacy media is doing of reporting events.
In covering the American Jewish Committee/World Affairs Council of Houston senate candidate forum on foreign policy I mentioned previously, we have a news story that is demonstrably deficient in several areas:
You get told who wasn’t there (Craig James, Paul Sadler, and Lt. Governor Chupacabra), and even how many of each flavor were there (“six Republicans, three Democrats and one Libertarian”), but the article itself only lists five of those ten. That would be the very first “W” of the “Five Ws and an H,” assuming they still teach that at journalism school. (Maybe they’re replaced it with another class on “Reporting Social Justice.”)
However, because I’m so Old School, I actually went out and got a list of who attended the forum from the AJC: Republicans Ted Cruz, Tom Leppert, Glenn Addison, Lela Pittinger, Charles Holcomb, and Ben Gambini (yes, an actual Ben Gambini sighting!), Democrats Daniel Boone and Jason Gibson, Libertarian Jon Roland, and independent candidate Mike Champion. So it turns out that even the summary of candidate affiliations was wrong.
In an article on a foreign policy forum that runs just shy of 500 words, a grand total of 96 of them actually dealt with the candidate’s foreign policy views, and even those are essentially free of concrete information. Let’s repost those parts in their entirety:
Cruz also said that “President Obama has been the most anti-Israel president this nation has ever seen.”
[snip]
Leppert emphasized his experience as an international businessman familiar with issues of currency and international trade.
[snip]
Cruz and Leppert were the only two candidates who were able to respond with practiced ease to a series of sophisticated questions dealing with world affairs, ranging from Israel’s response to the Iranian nuclear threat to whether the United States should help bail out faltering European economies. Most of the others on the stage seemed unfamiliar with even the most basic foreign-policy issues.
That’s it. That’s the extent of coverage of the candidates’ foreign policy views in a forum dedicated to that very subject. We are no wiser as to what any candidate thinks of our troops levels in Afghanistan, what our relations with Pakistan should be, whether we should help topple the Assad regime in Syria, how to counter an increasingly bold China, or whether we should use military force to prevent the Islamic Republic of Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons. Were those topics covered? We don’t know, as Holley and the Chronicle do not deign to tell us.
Instead of giving the candidates’ actual views, Holley merely gives us his dismissive analysis of eight of the ten candidates, telling us they are “unfamiliar with even the most basic foreign-policy issues” without bothering to provide a single example of this ignorance.
The rest of the piece consists of horse race analysis, noting Dewhurst’s absence, audience attendance figures, and an interview with a random forum attendee. All of which would have been fine in a longer piece.
Joe Holley and/or his editor have missed a chance to actually inform their readers. I have a hard time thinking of a blogger who couldn’t have done a better job.
Tags:2012 Election, Charles Holcomb, David Dewhurst, Democrats, Elections, Foreign Policy, Glenn Addison, Houston Chronicle, Joe Holley, Lela Pittenger, Libertarians, Media Watch, MSM, Republicans, Ted Cruz, Texas, Texas Senate Race, Tom Leppert
Posted in Democrats, Elections, Foreign Policy, Republicans, Texas | 1 Comment »
Monday, December 26th, 2011
Still getting back up to speed after Christmas, so here are a few links that I’ve been squirreling away like nuts for winter:
Is Obama preparing for war with Iran? This interview with Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta sure makes it sound that way…
If I’m reading these tea leaves correctly, Gary Johnson is about to give up running as a Republican and run as a Libertarian. Which is a shame, because the Republican Party needs more libertarians. But his campaign never caught fire. Alternately, he’s going to pull out and endorse Ron Paul, which his front page sort of hints at.
To clear the air on Ron Paul: He’s not an Anti-Semite, he just wishes Israel didn’t exist, and he’s not a homophobe, he just refuses to shake gay’s hands or use their bathrooms.
Amy Alkon gets a TSA agent patdown. And by “patdown” I mean “repeatedly stick their fingers in her vulva.”
Jill Stanek on Christopher Hitchens and abortion. And Hitchens’ own, fairly conflicted thoughts here.
The Zeta Drug cartel has built their own national radio system. Let’s hope that Eric Holder didn’t give them that as well. (Hat tip: Dwight.)
Rebel Syrians holding a sign slamming Obama and praising Bush. Real, or Photoshop? I try to have a healthy suspicion of things that fit too neatly into my worldview.
Additional hat tips to Insta and Ace.
Tags:abortion, Amy Alkon, Gary Johnson, Iran, Leon Panetta, Libertarians, LinkSwarm, Mexico, Ron Paul, Syria, TSA, Zeta Drug Cartel
Posted in Foreign Policy, Jihad, Regulation, Republicans | 1 Comment »
Sunday, June 13th, 2010
A few random links to while away your day:
- It must be hard for the New York City teacher’s union, the United Federation of Teachers, to make ends meet, what with the $183,603 per year they have to pay for office space. That is to say, their office space in Boca Raton, Florida.
- “Environmentalists, like feminists, are just another arm of the Democratic establishment: ‘running dogs’ to be loosed or reined in as politics require. It is thus unnecessary to pay attention to what they say, since it’s just politics anyway.”
- “Europe’s Lehman Bros. is actually Europe.”
- Lifestyles of the rich and famous drug lords, including lots and lots of guns.
- When you’re Barack Obama, and Maureen Dowd (of all people) says that Joe Biden (of all people) has better relations with the press than you do, you may have a problem. Also this about Obama: “he is an elitist, too, as well as thin-skinned and controlling.” However, I’m not buying Dowd’s attempts to defuse the “media as Obama worshipers” problem: “The press traveling with Obama on the campaign never had a lovey-dovey relationship with him. He treated us with aloof correctness, and occasional spurts of irritation.” However, if that was the case, I don’t recall seeing a single report from the mainstream media in all of 2008 that mentioned it, which rather confirms the idea that the media buried any negative reporting during the campaign because of ideological solidarity and wanting him to win, doesn’t it?
- California’s Proposition 14 may have just insured that Green and Libertarian Party candidates never get on the general election ballot.
- Wednesday before Dutch election: Geert Wilders is irrelevant. Friday after Dutch election: Geert Wilders is a kingmaker.
- Am I just going to link to every damn Mark Steyn piece that comes down the pike? Why yes. Yes I am.
(Hat tips: Instapundit, Real Clear Politics, NRO’s The Corner)
Tags:California, Crime, drug lords, Geert Wilder, gold, Green Party, Guns, Joe Biden, Libertarians, LinkSwarm, Mark Steyn, Maureen Dowd, media bias, Obama, Proposition 14, unions
Posted in Crime, Economics, Media Watch, Uncategorized, Waste and Fraud, Welfare State | 1 Comment »