Hewitt Blog

The FCC does the right, and constitutional thing. Good for Kos. Good for Krempasky. Good for all bloggers. And great for Free Speech.

Now, time to start Painting the Map Red. Free of the dead hand of government regulation. (Painting has moved to #278 on Amazon tonight, and #2 on the Movers & Shakers list. Thanks to the early buyers. The book is for everyone who's ever walked a precinct, donated ten bucks to a candidate, or written a letter to the editor. It is break the glass and pull the alarm time for the GOP, but 2006 can still be a very good year for the Republicans if the party leadership gets its act together.)

USAToday's cover story is amazing.

The doctors/nurses/corpsmen/technicians and support staff that take care of the wounded don't get much press, but articles and pictures like these remind us of their valor and professional excellence.

James confronts middle age:

It felt odd, being out, being downtown, at a bar at five. Too early to have a drink and of course no one smokes, so it felt a bit like an AA meeting at the American Lung Association. We talked about mid-life crises; I seem to be the only one inclined to grab the mike and sing “Is That All There Is,” as the Uke is full of great bright rude cheer – sharklike, he moves ever forward. He’s a salesman; he brings his own chum to the table. The Swede is somewhat more splenetic and practical – he is an engineer, after all. Me, I’m the Artist, which means I’m the crybaby.

BelmontClub has all the key links and commentary.

I am giving a lecture at Regent University Law School today (home of the excellent Ninomania, btw) before heading to NYC and DC to plug Painting the Map Red.

My objective in talking to law students and law professors about blogging is to persuade some of them to begin, and to begin in a specific way. There's a chapter in the new book on the impact of blogging on the two major parties which makes the argument that blogging has been very good for the GOP and very bad for the Dems.

When I made this argument the first time --at Hillsdale College in the fall (get your free subscription to Imprimis here)-- the president of Hillsdale, Larry Arnn, told me afterwards that he thought I was arguing for rectitude in blogging.

I will leave it to President Aristotle, John Mark Reynolds, Evangelical Outpost, MarkDRoberts or some other fine philosopher/theologian bloggers to explain what is, and how bloggers might practice rectitude. In a transparent world in an era of bitter partisanship and deadly enemies, though, it is a necessity, and not just for bloggers.

On a closely related subject: Joe Carter's essay on the Domenech smash-up is the best thing written on the matter, and though the left will dine out on Ben's troubles for years, I appreciate Ben's apology and suggest if CBS, Mary Mapes, Jayson Blair or any of a hundred journalists who had screwed up had used such an approach, their troubles would have been much less intenese and prolonged.

Memo to the WaPo: Joe Carter or Soxblog or Jonathan Last or all exactly what you need and what you were looking for. Papers thinking about adding necessary center-right voices to their number should consider asking the center-right for their opinion on the matter.

From the WSJ.com Avian Flu News Tracker:

2:15 a.m.: The spread of avian flu to at least 29 new countries in the last seven weeks — one of the biggest outbreaks of the virus since it emerged nine years ago — is prompting a sobering reassessment of the strategy that has guided efforts to contain the disease, the Los Angeles Times reports. The speed of its migration and the vast area it has infected have forced scientists to concede there is little that can be done to stop its spread across the globe. "We expected it to move, but not any of us thought it would move quite like this," said Dr. David Nabarro, the U.N.'s coordinator on bird-flu efforts. The hope was once that culling millions of chickens and ducks would contain the virus. Now, the strategy has shifted toward managing a disease that will probably be everywhere.

A great day as my pal Bud the Contractor got hitched to the wonderful Linda in the desert.

But now it is off to book tour hell.

Before I go, one note.

Jonathan Chait, was my guest on February 13, 2006, and he writes about his appearance on the show in the new issue of The New Republic.

In Jonathan Chait's version of what happened, he is Joseph Welch. Hilarious:

I blame George W. Bush's election for many ills, and, to that list, I can now add the fact that I have been publicly shamed for not owning a gun. My unwilling confession took place a month ago, while I was being interviewed by the right-wing radio talk-show host Hugh Hewitt. He asked me whether I owned a gun and whether I had ever owned a gun (in what seemed to be consciously McCarthyite language). Later, he proceeded with a lengthier inquisition into whether I had friends or relatives in the military. He asked a version of this question some half-dozen times. ("Is there anyone that you want to bring up, like your aunt or your uncle, or the guy down the street?") I volunteered that my next-door neighbor and friend is a naval reservist, but this failed to mollify him. "Do you know anyone who's been back and forth to Iraq and been deployed there?" he asked. Sadly, I was unable to produce any evidence for my defense. In the court of right-wing talk radio, I was convicted of being a blue-state elitist.

This is a very odd cultural moment we find ourselves in, where there is a stigma attached to not owning a gun or not having friends shipped out to Iraq. This isn't a moral question; military service is obviously admirable, but knowing people who serve is no more admirable than knowing people who donate to charity. It's a cultural question. Since Bush's election, and especially since his reelection, liberals have grown painfully aware of the cultural gap with the white working class. The approved liberal posture is cringing self-flagellation. We brought the catastrophe of the Bush administration upon ourselves with our latte-sipping ways, and we must repent. Conservatives are gleefully pressing their advantage. Did you mourn Dale Earnhardt? Do you sport a mullet? Well, why not?

Jonathan Chait: Proving that talent is no barrier to a byline, and that accuracy in reporting is no longer prized at TNR.

Mark Steyn. James Lileks. Ken Mehlman. Mickey Kaus. Glenn Reynolds. Victor Davis Hanson. Powerline's Hinderaker.

My theme throughout is the disease --and it is a disease-- that has MSM in its grip.

Radioblogger is working to get all the transcripts or audio up.

Is there any class of athletes that whine more than triathaletes?

BuckSargent blogs at AmericanCitizenSoldier, and he's currently in Mosul. Bookmark and read often.

BuckSargent's e-mail to me (reproduced with his permission):

I heard the interview on CNN with Mike Yon and yourself and that irritating Aussie. (All I can think of when I hear him is Robert Downey Jr.'s "Wayne Gale" portrayal in Natural Born Killers).

Let me just say Cooper's argument that troops only "hide out on their bases" and don't see the "full picture" like those brave embeds do is total nonsense. They embeds are the ones never leaving the bases, and they are left to interview the support soldiers that never leave the wire either.

The infantry platoons spend more time out in the streets than any normal Iraqi would, and we spend up to 12 hours a day patrolling throughout the city and actually seeking out trouble wherever it may be. And we keep this pace up for a year straight. What Iraqi or reporter can make that claim? So to say we don't know what's going on is preposterous.

Journalists like Michael Ware are gloryhounds (you can hear it in his voice) that come to Iraq to make a name for themselves as "war correspondents", and the only way they can do that is if all they do is cover nothing but blood and guts and gore. It's not exactly great copy to file a report that says, "I spent eight hours on patrol and absolutely nothing remarkable happened and I was bored stiff." That would be the truth on the majority of patrols, but it's not exciting and no one wants to read that so it's not going to get filed.

Ware seems to believe that being objective means not taking sides. But you can still tell the whole truth and root for your country to win. I don't see that as cheerleading, it's common sense. As it currently stands, the MSM is not telling the whole truth and actually siding with the enemy on occasion. They'll jump at the chance to report completely unsubstantiated claims by Iraqis of killings or theft or abuse that simply isn't credible when you know even the first thing about the American "militry" (as Ware calls it). They give the ruthless killers the benefit of the doubt every time, just to spread more nonsense about us.

Most soldiers don't follow the news back home, and it's a good thing,
because it would make them sick to know how they're being portrayed in the media. But I must be a bit of a masochist, because I can't seem to get enough. And it certainly takes a toll when you read time and time again in the NYT about things you know to be untrue or misrepresented.

The media wants us to lose, and they're doing their damndest to see it happen. But I have faith that the American people are too smart to fall for that trick twice.

If Anderson Cooper wants the real, real deal, he'll find BuckSagent, and put him on with Michael Yon and Michael Ware, and let it run for an hour.

Tim Graham covers the backlash that is growing., and which is deserevd.

UPDATE:

A grand Ramirez cartoon that should be titled: "MSM Crosses the Delaware."

UPDATE: Great additional background from Instapundit, May, 2004. "An Army of Davids" is at work dismantling MSM's power and exposing its bias.

UPDATE 3: Let's see if MSM gives this story coverage. (HT: LGF.)

UPDATE 4:

My Sandmen has more on the MSM meltdown this week.

UPDATE 5: ABC hears from the public.