Vocal Minority

The Extremist Words of Crazy Radical Tea Partiers

Who inspired today's Tea Party movement? To celebrate Tax Day, Bill Whittle, who blogs at Eject! Eject! Eject!, has collected these quotes from the most radical, crazy, extremists in American history.

Listen & Learn: El Rushbo Destroys Media's Obama=Reagan Comparison (4/13/10)

Another day, another opportunity for President Hope&Change to knock down the United States a notch. As he met earlier this week with world leaders, Obama continued to further jeapordize our national security and embolden our enemies: Decreasing our nuclear stockpile, letting the entire world know that no strike on our soil will result in a nuclear retaliation … If it hurts us and strengthens everyone else, Obama proposed it.

In response to this nuclear summit, commentator Anderson Cooper had the chutzpah to compare Obama’s foreign policy approach to that of Ronald Reagan, and was wondering why Republicans were so disagreeable.

When I heard that, I was incredulous. Comparing Barack Obama with Ronald Reagan is like comparing Carter to Washington or Lincoln. In so many ways—from the economy to energy to foreign policy—Obama is Jimmy Carter part 2. Ronald Reagan, in my view, deserves to be on Mount Rushmore with the other great men who presided over our republic.

  

 

When Rush heard a liberal commentator comparing Obama to Reagan (and it hasn’t been the first time), he wouldn’t have it for one second. Below is a complete distruction of the leftocracy’s ridiculous Obama–Reagan comparison. 

   

Among Rush’s best quotes from this clip are:

Barack Obama is the antithesis of Ronald Reagan in virtually any way you can imagine — and you people in the media need to be ashamed of yourselves or worse. This template, this narrative out there that Obama is simply doing what Reagan’s doing and why are we not happy about it? You impugn the memory of Ronald Reagan when you associate anything this little man-child, five-minute career, inexperienced, community organizer does and compare that to anything Ronald Reagan did or wanted to do. It is an embarrassment and you’re not fooling anybody who was alive during the 80’s and knows full well what Ronald Reagan was all about. It still amazes me that you people who despise Reagan to this day feel the need to revive him to give your little president some sort of credibility he has not earned.

*     *     *     *     *

Reagan destroyed the Soviet Union. You are reestablishing the Soviet Union, Obama. Reagan put missiles in West Berlin or Western Europe, and Obama put our missiles in the dustbin! There is no comparison whatsoever. Reagan would have been focused on destroying our enemies, not coddling them — and certainly not apologizing to them for his own country.

*     *     *     *     *

Let me be clear about this: The era of Reagan is never over because the era of liberty and security and capitalism is never over. Reaganism is simply constitutional freedom. Freedom will never go out of style.

*     *     *     *     *

You guys on the left, doesn’t it bother you at all that your guy has to be compared to Ronald Reagan so he appears to have some chops, some cred, some street cred? Obama is Obama. He is not FDR, he is not Lincoln, he’s not Reagan. Obama is Obama, which means Obama is a failure. He will always be a failure because Obama does not learn from experience, from evidence, or from history. He has his agenda. He’s hell-bent on pushing it. He is presiding over the decline of the United States of America, and he is doing so happily and purposefully.

*     *     *     *     *

REAGAN (March 23, 1983): Free people must — voluntarily, through open debate and democratic means — meet the challenge that totalitarians pose by compulsion. It’s up to us, in our time, to choose and choose wisely between the hard but necessary task of preserving peace and freedom and the temptation to ignore our duty and blindly hope for the best while the enemies of freedom grow stronger day by day.

RUSH: And now that freedom’s enemies are growing stronger day by day, aided and abetted by President Obama. So I don’t want to hear it anymore. I don’t want to hear little nitwits like Anderson Cooper or whoever else in government-run media, wonder why Republicans are upset when Obama is just continuing the work of Ronald Reagan. Nothing could be further from the truth.

[Edited for long silences, commercial breaks, and extraneous talking]

(Download here)

Listen & Learn: Mark Levin on the Resignation of Justice Stevens (4/9/10)

In the first hour of Friday’s show, Mark made the case that the upcoming resignation of SCOTUS Justice John Paul Stevens may have dire consequences for the future of the country.

Convinced that Stevens’ resignation was deliberately timed (in order that an ultra-leftist president to fill with a like-minded judge), Mark recalls some of the nation’s most disastrous and Constitution-twisting decisions made by a mere 5-4 SCOTUS vote. Two of them were the doing of Justice Stevens himself:

(1) The decision to allow the EPA to regulate the emission of carbon dioxide, a newly-declared pollutant, and

(2) the decision to grant terrorist detainees held at Camp G’tmo certain civil rights they were not entitled to, which interfered with President Bush’s legitimate war-making powers and which to this day jeopardizes our national security.

Mark argues that a left-wing ideologue like our current president would no doubt nominate justices that would make Stevens look conservative by comparison. Therefore, as a plan of action, he demands that Congressional Republicans do everything possible to block any Obama nomination. He warns them, as well as us his audience, not to gratuitously play “nice guy” just to curry favor with the Democrats or media. He argues that if Republicans need to filibuster or obstruct, then they should do so with full force—reminding us that the precedent for such actions was set by the Democrats, such as the “Borking” Ted Kennedy in 1987 and the pompous Chucky Schmucky Schumer during the Bush years.

In short: If Obama gets an ultra-liberal activist justice on the Supreme Court, it would another huge nail in the coffin of this nation. This is a time for Republicans to show their backbones, even more so than during the government-run health (s)care ordeal. They must block at all costs!

[Edited for commercials, long pauses, and other extraneous content]

Download levin2010-04-09_pt1_80kbps.mp3

Download levin2010-04-09_pt2_80kbps.mp3

Article of Note: Would Lincoln Be a Republican Today? Let’s Ask Him!

Here’s a brilliant response to one of this past week’s stupidest questions:

April 10, 2010
Would Lincoln be a Republican today? Let’s ask him!
Phil Boehmke

Recently on MSNBC’s Hardball (go figure), Chris Matthews asked if Abraham Lincoln would be a Republican today. Matthews like so many of his fellow travelers in the MSM continues to find new ways to paint the Republican party and all who oppose his beloved Comrade Leader Obama, as racist. According to Matthews, the 10th amendment challenges to ObamaCare represent a modern day attempt to rebuild the confederacy and if President Lincoln were alive today he would not even be welcome in the Republican party. Matthews closed his nightly Obamaganda broadcast by saying.

...Who started his presidential campaign in Springfield, Illinois, paying tribute to its favorite son, Abraham Lincoln? Who do you think represents the spirit of Lincoln in today’s politics and who doesn’t? Not a bit. You call it...

Realizing that none of Matthews ever shrinking audience (get the free-market message Chris?) could provide a fair and balanced answer to his query I thought it might be interesting to see what Honest Abe himself might have to say.

President Lincoln, what do you think about the reckless spending of the Democrat Party under Mr.Obama?

You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today.

President Lincoln, how would you assess Mr. Obama’s leadership style?

Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.

President Lincoln, are the Obama administration’s redistributionist entitlements and tax schemes likely to stimulate the economy?

That some should be rich, shows that others may become rich, and hence, is just encouragement to industry and enterprise.

President Lincoln, how do you feel about the tactics employed by Obama and the party leadership in passing ObamaCare?

Force is all-conquering, but its victories are short-lived.

President Lincoln, as more details about ObamaCare are revealed, the opposition of the people continues to grow. What are your thoughts on this issue?

I am a firm believer in the people. If given the truth, they can be depended upon to meet any national crisis. The great point is to bring them the real facts. …

President Lincoln, one last question. What do you think about Chris Matthews speculation that you would not be welcome in today’s Republican Party?

Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubts.

Game. Set. Match.

Here’s a better question for that mental midget Chris Matthews, whose answer would make him cringe: Would John F. Kennedy be a Democrat today. In one of my earliest posts, I demonstrate that the answer would be a great big NO.

Adventures in Government-Run Health (S)care: How's This for Preexisting Conditions?

Rhetoric:

“In Britain, the government itself runs the hospitals and employs the doctors. We’ve all heard scare stories about how that works in practice; these stories are false. Like every system, the National Health Service has problems, but over all it appears to provide quite good care …”
— Paul Krugman, NY Times, August 17, 2009

Reality:

Consider these three quotes about the U.K.’s NHS, provided by Phil Boehmke at the American Thinker:

“The health service was launched on a fallacy. First we were going to finance everything, cure the nation and then spending would drop. That fallacy has been exposed. Then there was a period when everybody thought the public could have whatever they needed on the health service—it was just a question of governmental will. Now we recognize that no country, even if they are prepared to pay the taxes, can supply everything.”
— Dr. David Owen, Labor Minister responsible for the day to day operations of Britain’s NHS, in the London Sunday Times

“For most of us, it is only when we join a year-long hospital waiting list, or have taken an injured child to a hospital casualty department on Sunday afternoon, that we realize just how threadbare and starved financially the service really is. Not only is there an acute shortage of resources, but the expertise and facilities that are available are all too often dispensed via a conveyor-belt system which can at times be positively inhuman.”
— Bernard Dixon, editor of Britain’s “New Scientist” magazine

This must come down to the decision that some shall be helped at the cost of others being permitted to die before they need to. The conflicts on this issue have only begun, but there can be no doubt that they will be fierce indeed when the Draconian nature of the alternatives is fully realized.
— Harry Schwartz, in an essay entitled “The Infirmity of British Medicine”

Yet we keep hearing from the Obamaniacs, Congressional Democrats, and their media sycophants that the British system is the envy of the world (Before the health (s)care bill passed, I got into a Facebook debate with a GovCare supporter who insisted that the British government-run system was far superior to America’s erstwhile system.

Whatever. Who are you going to believe, a leftist Obamarobot or your lying eyes? Funny how we never see Americans jumping across the pond by the thousands to sign up for treatment and medicine in U.K.; it always seems to be the other way around.

So now here we are, entering an era where our leaders have imposed, against its citizens’ will, a health “care” system that will be just as successful as the British system they evidently admire.

Oh, by the way, the three quotes about were all cited in a book called The Future That Doesn’t Work: Social Democracy’s Failures in Britain by R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr. …

… Copyright 1975. 

That’s right: Brits knew their system was an economic and human nightmare as far as 35 years ago! How’s that for preexisting conditions?

Welcome to the future, suckers.

Listen & Learn: Mark Levin on Our Newly Guaranteed "Right" to Health Care

On the evening of the signing of America’s death sentence by President Golden Calf, I was one of probably many looking forward to the response by Mark Levin. As usual, the “Great One” did not disappoint. Although the topic is depressing, this is 13 minutes of awesome, passionate radio. In fact, it's so good that on this evening's show substitute host Mark Simone replayed part of it.

[Edited for commercials, long pauses, and other extraneous content]

Download levin2010-03-22_80kbps.mp3

What Is It About March 23?

If there are any practitioners of numerology out there, I wonder if they could tell us what 323 might symbolize. Lot of historical extremes on March 23:

1775 Patrick Henry called for America's independence from Britain, telling the Virginia Provincial Convention, "Give me liberty, or give me death!" 

1919 Benito Mussolini founded his Fascist political movement in Milan, Italy. 

1933 The German Reichstag adopted the Enabling Act, which effectively granted Adolf Hitler dictatorial legislative powers.

and now ...

2010 U.S. President Barack Obama signed "health" "care" "reform" legislation, effectively initiating the demise of the United States into a European-style socialist welfare state.

Why I Left Liberalism #5 - They Think We're Stupid: Obama's "I'm the President" Moment

Last week’s dog and pony show known as the bi-partisan health (s)care summit had some funny parts. My favorite part was when Louise Slaughter (D-La la land) made the case for imposing government-run health care on the nation because one of her constituents wrote her a letter and said she had to use the dentures of her dead sister because she couldn’t afford her own.

Something else was said at the summit which at the time seemed obnoxious to me, but nothing more. When Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell pointed out that the Dems got to speak for twice as long as the Republicans, President Hope&Change replied: “There was an imbalance in the opening statements, because I’m the President. And I didn’t count my time in terms of dividing it evenly.”

This statement was passed over by the mainstream media, which I took as them simply having no objection to that sentiment. But the conservative outlets took big issue with it. Again, I just took it as Obama being his typical pompous self, and let it go.

But Jeffrey Lord at American Spectator makes the argument that Obama’s statement is a symptom of a much bigger disease: There’s an epidemic of superiority—moral, intellectual, and, most importantly, constitutional. As Lord explains below, Obama is dead wrong on all three counts. And it’s not just Obama who assumes this level of superiority, but the Democrat Party as a whole. He makes an analogy with the recent Tiger Wood sex scandal: Just as with Woods, there’s a separate set of rules for the holier-than-thou.

‘I’m the President’: Tiger Woods In The White House
By Jeffrey Lord on 3.2.10 @ 6:08AM

… Three words. Volumes of information.

They are, of course, equals. Constitutional equals, as specifically provided by Article I (which creates the legislative branch) and Article II (which creates the executive branch) of the Constitution. The Article III crowd of constitutional equals, the federal judiciary, were correctly not at the table for the recent televised health care summit at the Blair House between the legislative and executive branches. …

Let’s do a Tiger Woods translation. Being President means the rules do not apply. Presidents are entitled. They get to live by different rules. The same boundaries that apply to everyone else in this room do not apply to me. Why? Because “I’m the President.”

Here’s a Ronald Reagan story.

Several times during his presidency, Reagan found himself in the hospital for various ailments. A gunshot wound to the chest plus a couple surgeries. On one of these occasions he was discovered on his hands and knees in his hospital bathroom, wiping up some water. Aghast, the person who discovered the President of the United States so employed received this explanation from Reagan. He had knocked a glass of water on the floor. Quite aware that he was the president, he was concerned that someone — most probably a nurse — would get in trouble for allowing such a thing to occur to “the President.” Instead of summoning someone to clean up the mess he himself had made — and thus potentially getting that someone else in trouble — he had grabbed a towel and dropped to his hands and knees to mop up the water himself.

The difference between the Reagan story and the Obama reaction to Senator McConnell’s noting the use of time by Constitutional equals is illustrative of exactly the problem that drives Americans crazy.

In short, as with Tiger Woods and his woman problem, Barack Obama and his liberal allies have a superiority problem. Liberals/progressives really do see themselves as “entitled” to make decisions for everyone else. They really do believe, as did Tiger, that the rules do not apply to them. Why? Because they are addicted to the idea they are smarter than everyone else.

Yes, yes, yes, their very-smart predecessors gave the nation Vietnam, caused the Great Depression (Herbert Hoover was a “progressive Republican,” lest we forget) and then FDR’s liberal intellectuals prolonged it. And yes, back in 2007, even the Nation’s David Moberg had to admit of Community Organizer Obama’s work on Chicago’s South Side:

“Despite some meaningful victories, the work of Obama — and hundreds of other organizers — did not transform the South Side or restore lost industries.” But hey, who cares? Robert McNamara, Hoover, the FDR crowd and Obama were and are just so mind-blowingly smart! So what if the results are a lot crazy?

This crowd belongs…nay, is passionately devoted, to what could appropriately be called a cult of cultural and intellectual superiority. Who cares if Obama is running the Democrats and the country into the ground? He’s just so damn smart! …

Years ago, historian Richard Hofstadter wrote a book called Anti-Intellectualism in American Life. In 400-plus pages, Hofstadter wrote at length about what he termed “the national disrespect for mind.” Published in 1962, the historian attributed what he saw as an ominous trend to McCarthyism and the “political and intellectual conditions of the 1950s.” …

In the almost five decades since Hofstadter’s book was published, this belief in the cultural and intellectual superiority of liberalism (or progressivism or left-wingism) easily meets another dictionary definition: cult. Which is to say, a “particular system of religious worship.” The religion in question here being the worship of the intellect.

And who, exactly, does not possess intellect? Just who are these not very bright people who are outside the faith?

That would be anybody who does not agree with liberalism/progressivism. By definition, these people are dumb. Plain stupid. They are philistines. They may be Senators and Congressmen at the table in Blair House. They may be Tea Party types. Talk radio hosts. Sarah Palin. (Hofstadter even dismissed William F. Buckley, Jr. as “an enemy of professors.” Horrors!) Most probably, these not very bright people also include, well — you.

Here’s the Hofstadter view of the world as presented in modern times.

• Bill Maher, of HBO fame: “They’re (Americans) not bright enough to really understand the issues. But like an animal, they can sort of sense strength or weakness. They can smell it on you.”
• Joe Klein, of Time magazine: “It is very difficult to thrive in an increasingly competitive world if you’re a nation of dodos.”
• Jonathan Chait from the New Republic: “President Obama is so much smarter and a better communicator than members of Congress in either party….” (Hat tip to James Taranto and John Podhoretz).

In other words, whether you are Barack Obama or Bill Maher or Joe Klein — or fill in the blank with names like Al Gore, John Kerry or just about anyone at the New York Times and the mainstream media like Chait or Klein or Maher — you believe as Tiger Woods did. Contrary to the headlines, Tiger’s real addiction was not to sex or women, it was to the cocaine of superiority, which in turn induces a sense of entitlement. To women, in Tiger’s case, to political or media power in the case of the rest.

This “anti-Main Streetism,” to append a name to it, has effectively become the anti-Semitism of the self-designated intellectual.

What is particularly telling in all of this is the background of many of those who are the most vociferous of the cultural and intellectual superiority crowd. The dirty little secret that no one wants to raise is that almost all of these people come from some version of the American middle or “working” class. Which is to say that the disdain they exhibit for Main Street or the Tea Partiers or conservatives or Republicans or Eisenhower/Nixon/Goldwater/Reagan/Bush/Palin (etc., etc., etc., fill in the blank ad nauseam) effectively gives the appearance of some desperate form of self-loathing. Not of themselves, but of their origins. They have, three cheers, worked hard in their lives. They are certainly intelligent. But in part what drove them seems to have been the desire to escape a background of which, to all appearances, they are deeply ashamed. Their version of Main Street. Their deeply Palinesque lives as kids. Otherwise, the constant “we’re so smart” routine is nothing more than the preening, fatuous — and intellectually empty — egotism of narcissists. …

The list of people who play this “we’re so smart” game is as endless as are their backgrounds as the children of the deeply middle-class or even further down the socio-economic ladder. The core of the approach always is to dismiss the opponent, in the haughtiest tone that can be summoned, as some version of what Hofstadter portrayed. A “philistine” (Hofstadter), “not very bright” (Maher), “dodo” (Klein), “a joke” (Brooks).

Or, once elected to public office — say again that first word public — to simply assert your superiority at a conference table of constitutional equals by saying, in the style Tiger Woods employed with a Chinese menu of bimbos, porn stars and waitresses, “I’m the President.”

To which the appropriate answer, as Tiger Woods, at least, has learned the hard way is: so what? If in fact Obama were as smart as Chait insists, then the South Side of Chicago would be, if not Silicon Valley, at least not the same troubled neighborhood Obama found it on arrival. Instead, as the Nation tells us (no rightwing scribblers they) Chicago’s South Side post-Obama’s smarts as a community organizer was the same as it was before the young smarty stepped a foot into the neighborhood. So how smart is that? And shouldn’t this be, as if lots of Americans weren’t already learning, a sign that the President has in fact no idea what he’s talking about outside a few plays from Saul Alinsky?

This “Obama is so smart and his critics so not bright” routine is nothing more than so much tiresome and quite boorish social and political wannabeism. Approval seeking from others (mostly liberal others) whom the individual in question wishes to cultivate. …

I have to admit, after reading this piece, I’m inclined to agree that liberals in government and media have this sense of superiority, one that is often not deserved. And even when the policies of the holier-than-thou in power leave destruction in their wake—as they have since time immemorial—the liberati circle the wagons and congratulate each other, while looking down at the rest of us “little people.”

Liberal Media Bias: Two Instances of Bias by Omission by the NY Times

Oh, that New York Times. I know several people who read it daily as devout Christians read the Bible. For one relative, in the newspaper business their whole life, it is the Source that sets the standard for all American news media in format and in content. In at least one of his books on media bias, Bernard Goldberg describes the “newspaper of record” the same way: Before they decide what’s newsworthy and what’s not, news outlets refer to the New York Times.

And that’s the problem. If the editors of the NY Times wants to transform a non-story into a huge story or a non-scandal into an über-scandal, they need do no more than place it on the top fold of the front page. On the flip side, what should very well be big news, the consumer of mainstream news will never know about if the nation’s information gatekeeper decides it’s not “fit to print.”

A powerful position to be in, for sure.

This week, at two separate righty websites, two different writers observed two blatant examples of media bias by the revered NY Times. Both are examples of the clever and barely detectable bias by omission.

First, in a Pajamas Media piece from over the weekend, Charlie Martin chronicles how the American mainstream media has virtually whitewashed from history the ClimateGate scandal and every other scandal—and there have been plenty!—suffered by the IPCC and climate alarmism movement since last fall.

This was a nationwide phenomenon—the WaPo and L.A. Times occasionally published uninformative morsels. But the biggest offender was the NY “All the news that’s fit to print” Times:

The New York Times — can we still say “paper of record” with a straight face? — hasn’t covered the recent developments at all.

After the London papers covered the collapsing credibility of the IPCC, after the LA Times made fun of [Republican Sen.] Inhofe’s igloo, after the Washington Post ran a story reassuring its readers that the climate science was still sound even if there were some procedural errors, the New York Times has run, apparently, nothing. What we do have is a piece in NY Times reporter Andrew Revkin’s Dot Earth blog on February 12, taken from “a prolonged exchange of e-mail messages Thursday with a heap of authors from past and future reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, along with some stray experts” that gives a lot of space to a prolonged fantasy of what science historians might say in 2210 ...

But this was the first time the media reported that an entire community of scientists had been accused of actual dishonesty. Such claims, if directed for example at a politician on a matter of minor importance, would normally require serious investigation. But even in leading newspapers like the New York Times, critics with a long public record for animosity and exaggeration were quoted as experts. As we know, the repetition of allegations is sufficient to make them stick in the public’s mind, regardless of whether they are later shown (or could easily be shown at the time) to be untrue.

On February 10, we have the “Distracting Debate over Climate Certainty.” Quoting Andrew Kent:

I still have problems with this whole business of debating the levels of certainty associated with global warming science. My view is that ultimately it’s a waste of mental energy, since we’ve already got enough certainty to know that it’s a good idea to take out an insurance policy against the worst-case scenario — and by the time you’ve got the hindsight to have “no error bars,” it’s already too late to do anything about GHGs.

Are there any mentions of Professor Phil Jones’ admission in a BBC interview that he isn’t good at keeping records, that his notes were so disorganized that he couldn’t comply with the Freedom of Information requests, that there had indeed been no statistically significant warming since 1995, and that there was still significant uncertainty about the Medieval Warm Period and even about climate science in general?

Not that I can find.

I contacted all three papers — the LA Times, theWashington Post, and the New York Times — asking for comment, or for a pointer to the stories I had missed. Only one of the three replied, and they wouldn’t speak for attribution or on the record.

It’s truly a puzzle. This is a story that affects the future of human civilization, if some of the believers are right. It ties financially to people right up to the top of American politics, as well as major industries throughout the U.S. and the world. What’s more, the story would seem to be all wrapped up, ready for aggressive investigative reporters with the resources of the Times to expose. Some of the perpetrators have even begun to confess. Why wouldn’t the Times cover it at all?

Are there any mentions of Professor Phil Jones’ admission in a BBC interview that he isn’t good at keeping records, that his notes were so disorganized that he couldn’t comply with the Freedom of information requests, that there had indeed been no statistically significant warming since 1995 and that there was still significant uncertainty about the Medieval Warm Period, and even about climate science in general?

Thanks to Gerard Vanderleun of the American Digest blog — and his link to Tom Nelson, one of my new favorite climate aggregators — we might have an answer. Nelson ran into this audio recording (warning: 105MB mp3 file) of the first Shorenstein Center/Belfer Center seminar on news coverage of climate change. One of the speakers was Andrew Revkin of the New York Times. Here’s part of what Revkin had to say, transcribed by Tom Nelson:

One thing that’s interesting to note … in this administration shift is that all the coverage that I did of all those obfuscations, editing, censorship and stuff that the Bush administration got involved in was a no-brainer getting that on the front page of the New York Times … Now, theoretically, should I be just as aggressively writing about these revelations? [nervous laugh]. There’s total … complete differences between what was going on then and some of the things you’ve heard about recently in terms of the scientific integrity of the IPCC … The bottom line is, there was a predisposition at my newspaper to say hey, that’s a great get; there’s a major front page story … when Phil Cooney … editing climate reports and all that stuff … it fit a very comfortable theme that all environmental stories for the longest period of time had, which is there’s bad guys and good guys. Shame on you, shame on you.

Could it possibly be that the Times would sit on a story of this magnitude simply because it doesn’t say “shame on you” to the right people?

Of course they would. For the same reason the L.A. Times to this day sits on a 2003 video of Barack Obama speaking at a party for anti-Israel pro-terrorism professor Rashid Khalidi, a video whose contents, no doubt, would have most likely lost him the 2008 presidential election and made Sarah Palin the first female vice president in U.S. history.

Next, Jeannie DeAngelis at American Thinker, notes that, ever since the reviled George W. Bush was succeeded by the heralded Barack H. Obama, the NY Times no longer updates its Casualties of War page:

… Every day readers were confronted with demographics, photographs and related links like, 2,000 Dead: As Iraq Tours Stretch On, a Grim Mark (October 26, 2005) and U.S. Death Toll in Iraq War Hits 4,000 (March 24, 2008). In addition, the NY Times online included a photo diary containing excerpts from e-mails and journals of six soldiers who died in Iraq.

In May of 2009, around the same time Obama decided a troop surge was necessary in Afghanistan,the NY Times death inventory came to an abrupt halt. To date, eight-months after the first major wave of new troops were ordered by Barack Obama into Afghanistan, Casualties of War has not been up-dated to include Afghan surge fatalities. Military victims of Obama’s Afghan war are missing from the Faces of the Dead section, which throughout Bush’s Iraqi war effort was refreshed on a daily basis. …

In the last eight months 600 dead has grown to nearly a thousand. If pertinent “facts” allow website viewers “to develop their own impressions and opinions,” which was the supposed purpose of Casualties of War, then the NY Times has an opportunity to actively reengage the public in forming independent opinion by monitoring and reporting in an interactive way the sharp increase in statistical military death related data.

For instance, readers may be interested to know that the seven years and four months preceding Obama’s eight-month surge, seven deaths per month took place. However, in eight months those figures grew to almost 39 deaths per month, which corresponds to a 450% increase in military lives lost. …

The uptick in war related Obama troop surge fatalities could provide the NY Times lots of vignette fodder, as well as many more photos of the president saluting flag draped coffins in the middle of the night. If the New York Times decides to chronicle the current combat obituary, if the last eight months are any indication of what’s ahead, The Obama Years: Casualties of War has the potential to be even more damaging to Obama’s presidency than the NY Times 7-year narrative on Bush in Iraq.

This last example of liberal media bias is particularly detestable because it proves the conjecture by many conservative pundits during the Bush years that this feature of the NY Times was just to score political points. The NY Times really didn’t give a crap about the war dead; they only used them as pawns to smear a president they hated. (I also recall a network news station that commemorated the war dead during the Bush years; I can’t remember which station it was though.)

And so, the newspaper that once gave us Walter Duranty and more recently gave us the non-scandal scandal called “Abu Ghraib” is now the paper that plays ostrich-in-the-sand with regard to the biggest scientific scandal in modern history and suddenly expresses no interest in our war dead now that the White House has a president whom they adore.

Nope, no liberal media bias here!

Rite Blog Round-Up (2/22/10)

Haven’t done one of these in a while ...

Josh Fulton: 75 Reasons to Be Skeptical of “Global Warming” [h/t Greg at Rhymes With Right]

Roman Around: Happy Birthday, Father of our Country

Stand by Liberty: A New Law Takes Affect Today Permitting Concealed Carry of Firearms in National Parks – The Brady Campaign goes After Starbucks

Strata-Sphere: Obama’s God Complex Is His Achilles’ Heel

Sweetness & Light: AP: Obama Plan Won’t Increase Deficit

Start Thinking Right: Saul Alinsky And the Obama-SEIU Ideology

The Life and Death of Howard Zinn — A Person Speaks

The Boston Globe had a glowing article on last week’s death of radical Marxist academic Howard Zinn, starting with the very title:

Howard Zinn, historian who challenged status quo, dies at 87

Yes, in 1964, 1967, 1970, et al. Zinn challenged the status quo. Then what happened? The challengers became the status quo—in Washington, in the media, in academia, and in Hollywood. God help you now if you challenge the status quo. Suddenly it wasn’t so praiseworthy, was it, Boston Globe? Rush Limbaugh challenges the status quo, but lib media slanders him. Sarah Palin challenges the status quo, but the lib media lambastes her. The Tea Parties challenge the status quo, but the lib media ridicules them.

Howard Zinn, the Boston University historian and political activist who was an early opponent of US involvement in Vietnam and whose books, such as “A People’s History of the United States,” inspired young and old to rethink the way textbooks present the American experience, died today in Santa Monica, Calif, where he was traveling. He was 87.

Why does the Globe simply call Zinn a “historian and political activist”? He was as left-wing as they come, and extremely controversial. The lib media can’t write about Limbaugh or Beck or Palin without labelling them “conservative” and/or “controversial.”

Eventually, the Globe brings in the Hollywood useful idiots:

In 1997, Dr. Zinn slipped into popular culture when his writing made a cameo appearance in the film “Good Will Hunting.” The title character, played by Matt Damon, lauds “A People’s History” and urges Robin Williams’s character to read it. Damon, who co-wrote the script, was a neighbor of the Zinns growing up. “Howard had a great mind and was one of the great voices in the American political life,” Ben Affleck [Coming from a Hollywood dimwit, Affleck, that is no complement.], also a family friend growing up and Damon’s co-star in “Good Will Hunting,” said in a statement. “He taught me how valuable—how necessary—dissent was to democracy and to America itself [Unless the dissenters are Republicans and the target of the dissent is a president you support] He taught that history was made by the everyman, not the elites [Except when the elites are you and your elitist Hollywood buddies telling us everymen that we should change our lifestyles to combat man-made global warming climate change or that we should worship the president like some sort of cult figure.] I was lucky enough to know him personally and I will carry with me what I learned from him—and try to impart it to my own children—in his memory.”

Enough with the whitewashing. Howard Zinn was an America-hating radical, all right? His fancy Columbia degrees notwithstanding, he was an intellectually dishonest activist posing as an academic. His personal and professional goal was not to teach history, but to historic revisionism in the style of the Stalinist Soviet brainwashers. The man lived in an ultra-leftist fantasy world, protected and encouraged by the circles he associated with.

You think I’m being hyperbolic? Let’s talk about that “history” book for which Zinn was most famous. The Globe itself writes:

“A People’s History of the United States” (1980), his best-known book, had for its heroes not the Founding Fathers—many of them slaveholders and deeply attached to the status quo, as Dr. Zinn was quick to point out—but rather the farmers of Shays’ Rebellion and union organizers of the 1930s.

You got that? Screw Washington, Franklin, Jefferson, Adams, Hamilton, Madison, etc. Just a bunch of rich white slave-owners. Didn’t do or write anything important. The real Amerian heroes are union organizers.

Need a more complete description of A People’s History? Here’s a description by Benjamin Kerstein at the New Ledger:

Thus far, the major obituary making the rounds is the generic wire-service report from the AP; itself a model of dissembling and misdirection. It pronounces that Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States “was, fittingly, a people’s best-seller, attracting a wide audience through word of mouth and reaching 1 million sales in 2003.” In fact, as the article goes on to state, “his book was taught in high schools and colleges throughout the country” meaning, for those who can put two and two together, that the book became a bestseller largely because a generation of professors forced their students to buy it — a fitting metaphor for Zinn’s view of “the people.”

Exactly right. How in the world could Zinn’s book be considered a “people’s bestseller, attracting a wide audience through word of mouth” if elitist professors and lefty history teachers pushed on impressionable students? And it took 23 years to reach one million sales? That’s nothing. You want a real people’s bestseller that attracted a wide audience through word of mouth and reached 1 million sales in one year? Try Mark Levin’s Libery and Tyranny. Curiously, the lib media devoted virtually no coverage of Levin’s status-quo-challenging book, and what little coverage they did provide was negative.

Next, Kerstein describes Zinn’s completely un-academic un-intellectual approach to his field:

... Unfortunately, as we all know, rewriting history does not necessarily make for good history, or even history at all. Indeed, even in regard to his own work, Zinn was quite incapable of accuracy.

In a 1998 interview with The Associated Press, Professor Zinn acknowledged that he was not trying to write an objective history, or a complete one. He called his book a response to traditional works, the first chapter, not the last, of a new kind of history.

“There’s no such thing as a whole story; every story is incomplete,” Professor Zinn said. “My idea was the orthodox viewpoint has already been done a thousand times.”

One can go on endless arguments about the right of the historian to express his opinions, to pick and choose, to emphasize or minimize as he sees fit; and there is no doubt that revisionism – the right to rewrite – is essential to the historian’s profession. What is striking about Zinn, however, is the utter banality of his ostensible insights. That all histories are incomplete is, in fact, not even an insight, but a statement of the obvious; and his “orthodox viewpoint” is at best a straw man of dubious provenance. Nonetheless, these two statements – empty, pathetic, and juvenile as they may be – essentially formed the basis of Zinn’s entire life’s work. There is perhaps no greater insight into the poverty of the American academy today, no greater testimony to its utter lack of depth or imagination, than the fact that it made this empty charlatan whose watchword was no better than the wisdom of an arrested adolescent one of its heroes.

Indeed, Zinn’s entire outlook on history, the totality of his grasp of the historian’s profession and his art, and the sole justification for his tendentious and consciously biased revisionism, was nothing more than the rusty cliche which holds that history is always written by the powerful, the wealthy, and the victorious. As an ostensibly revolutionary historian, writing a “new kind of history,” it was therefore the duty of the glorious Zinn to write for the powerless, the poor, and the defeated.

This is, put generously, a self-serving fantasy; but this is somewhat beside the point, since what is most striking about it is the extraordinary ignorance it displays of Zinn’s own chosen profession. It is true that the powerful, wealthy and victorious sometimes write history—and that they sometimes write it very well, witness Caesar’s histories of the Gallic war and Churchill’s numerous historical writings—but it is equally true that, from its very origins, history has also been written by the weak, the poor, and the defeated, who somehow managed this feat without the help of Howard Zinn. …

Needless to say, this is not really a thesis. It is not even really an idea. It is a sentiment, an unfalsifiable article of faith that bears out Karl Popper’s merciless but valuable observation that vast explanatory power is not a virtue but a vice; since any theory that explains everything by definition explains nothing at all. …

Author Daniel Flynn wrote the following sobering critique in 2003, when Zinn released an updated edition to the 1980 original:

The recently released updated edition continues to be plagued with inaccuracies and poor judgment. The added sections on the Clinton years, the 2000 election, and 9/11 bear little resemblance to the reality his current readers have lived through.

In an effort to bolster his arguments against putting criminals in jail, aggressive law enforcement tactics, and President Clinton’s crime bill, Zinn contends that in spite of all this “violent crime continues to increase.” It doesn’t. Like much of Zinn’s rhetoric, if you believe the opposite of what he says in this instance you would be correct. According to a Department of Justice report released in September of 2002, the violent crime rate has been cut in half since 1993.

According to Zinn, it was Mumia Abu-Jamal’s “race and radicalism,” as well as his “persistent criticism of the Philadelphia police” that landed him on death row in the early 1980s. Nothing about Abu-Jamal’s gun being found at the scene; nothing about the testimony of numerous witnesses pointing to him as the triggerman; nothing about additional witnesses reporting a confession by Abu-Jamal—it was Abu-Jamal’s dissenting voice that caused a jury of twelve to unanimously sentence him to death. [What the hell Mumia story is doing in a textbook that has only x number of pages to retell American history from 1492 to the present is beyond me—unless the auther has an agenda.]

Predictably, Zinn draws a moral equivalence between America and the 9/11 terrorists. He writes, “It seemed that the United States was reacting to the horrors perpetrated by the terrorists against innocent people in New York by killing other innocent people in Afghanistan.” Scare quotes adorn Bush’s “war on terrorism,” post-9/11 “patriotism,” and other words and phrases Zinn dislikes.

Left-wing editorializing posing as scholarly prose in a history textbook. Disgusting.

Next, Flynn discusses that in Zinn’s book, both the original and updated edition, omits of whole major events that make America look good, and includes of completely minor events making America look bad. In Dennis Prager’s words, Zinn has a “proctologist’s view of America.” Facts and truth are ignored, unsubstantiated, and unannotated—yes, the book has no footnotes!

When fact and theory clash, the ideologue chooses theory. Time and again, A People’s History of the United States distorts or simply ignores the truth to make the facts, or the alleged facts, or the invented facts, fit the theory that justifies his “social aims.”

Zinn claims that “George Washington was the richest man in America.” He wasn’t, but it makes for a good Marxist tale. George Washington certainly rose to accumulate great wealth in his lifetime—even if he was chronically cash-poor. (For example, he had to borrow money to travel to New York upon his election to the presidency.) It is generally conceded that Robert Morris was the Founding era’s wealthiest merchant, while Moses Brown, whose family’s name graces an Ivy League university, was another Washington contemporary whose wealth exceeded his.

“When the Scottsboro case unfolded in the 1930s in Alabama,” Zinn writes in an even more egregious fit of historical amnesia, “it was the Communist party that had become associated with the defense of these young black men imprisoned, in the early years of the Depression, by southern injustice.” Perhaps the Party had become “associated” with the defense of the Scottsboro Boys, but in reality the Communists merely used the embattled youngsters. Richard Gid Powers points out in Not Without Honor that the Communists had raised $250,000 for the Scottsboro Boys’ defense, but had put-up a scant $12,000 for two appeals. At the time, a black columnist quoted a candid Party official who stated, “we don’t give a damn about the Scottsboro boys. If they burn it doesn’t make any difference. We are only interested in one thing, how we can use the Scottsboro case to bring the Communist movement to the people and win them over to Communism.” As a fellow-traveler, Zinn has the identical view. He is only interested in history so long as it serves as a weapon of socialist ideology.

“Unemployment grew in the Reagan years,” Zinn claims. Statistics show otherwise. Reagan inherited an unemployment rate of 7.5 percent in his first month in office. By January of 1989, the rate had declined to 5.4 percent. Had the Reagan presidency ended in 1982 when unemployment rates exceeded 10 percent, Zinn would have a point. But for the remainder of Reagan’s presidency, unemployment declined precipitously.

Not surprisingly, Zinn’s book contains not a single source citation (perhaps footnotes would discourage his Pearl Jam fans).

More striking than Zinn’s inaccuracies—intentional and otherwise—is what he leaves out. Washington’s Farewell Address, Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, and Reagan’s speech at the Brandenburg Gate all fail to merit a mention. Nowhere do we learn that Americans were first in flight, first to fly across the Atlantic, and first to walk on the moon. Alexander Graham Bell, Jonas Salk, and the Wright Brothers are entirely absent. Instead, the reader is treated to the exploits of Speckled Snake, Joan Baez, and the Berrigan brothers. While Zinn sees fit to mention that immigrants often went into professions like ditch-digging and prostitution, American success stories like those of Alexander Hamilton, John Jacob Astor, and Louis B. Mayer—to name but a few—are off the Zinn radar screen. Valley Forge rates a single fleeting reference, while D-Day’s Normandy invasion, Gettysburg, and other important military battles are skipped over. In their place, we get several pages on the My Lai massacre and colorful descriptions of U.S. bombs falling on hotels, air-raid shelters, and markets during the Gulf War of the early 1990s.

My God. This is the garbage that is the most used history book in the country? The fact that even turns up in a classroom is ample evidence that American history classes don’t educate; they indoctrinate. If you use an avowed socialist’s book that incessantly bashes America’s founders, values, traditions, and economic system, what do you get? A generation of students who come to hate America’s founders, values, traditions, and economic system, that’s what! Anybody who tells you that this was not the goal of Zinn himself or the teachers in hundreds of schools who use his book are bullsh*tting you.

When Zinn died last week, so many Facebook friends were posting their remorse over his death! It was as if we lost Martin Luther King, Jr. or the like. Even some of their parents were distraught! In other words, two generations of Americans were simultaneously mourning the loss of this supposed American hero.

So when I was compelled to reply with objections to their beatification, I was confronted with ridicule and criticism. These people actually had no idea why I would think those things about their hero. I would ask any of those people, if they have the wherewithall to read this blog, to address any of these facts and actually tell me with a straight face that Zinn was nothing other than a dangerous America-hating radical. Several friends challenged me on that charge.

If the above information is not enough for such people, here’s more from David Horowitz’s indispensable Discover the Networks site:

Zinn describes the founding of the American Republic as an exercise in tyrannical control of the many by the few for greed and profit: “The American Revolution … was a work of genius, and the Founding Fathers ... created the most effective system of national control devised in modern times, and showed future generations of leaders the advantages of combining paternalism with command.” In Zinn’s reckoning, the Declaration of Independence was not so much a revolutionary statement of rights as a cynical means of manipulating popular groups into overthrowing the King to benefit the rich. The rights which the Declaration appeared to guarantee were “limited to life, liberty and happiness for white males”—and actually for wealthy white males—because they excluded black slaves and “ignored the existing inequalities in property” (in other words, they were not socialist rights). …

In A People’s History, greed is the explanation for virtually every major historical event:

Regarding America’s separation from Great Britain, Zinn writes: “Around 1776, certain important people in the English colonies … found that by creating a nation, a symbol, a legal unity called the United States, they could take over land, profits, and political power from the favorites of the British Empire.”

Zinn describes antebellum America as a uniquely cruel slaveholding society whose goal was subjugating man for profit. On the other hand, the war of the Union against the slaveholding system is portrayed in exactly the same terms: “It is money and profit, not the movement against slavery that was uppermost in the priorities of the men who ran the country.”

The same explanation is given for America’s entry into World War I: “American capitalism needed international rivalry—and periodic war—to create an artificial community of interest between rich and poor.”

According to Zinn, it was America and not Japan that was to blame for Pearl Harbor. The fight against fascism, he says, was a manipulated illusion to conceal America’s real goals, which were empire and money: “Quietly, behind the headlines in battles and bombings, American diplomats and businessmen worked hard to make sure that when the war ended, American economic power would be second to none in the world. United States business would penetrate areas that up to this time had been dominated by England. The Open Door Policy of equal access would be extended from Asia to Europe, meaning that the United States intended to push England aside and move in.”

Now, anti-Americanism is almost always accompanied by two other positions: pro-communism/socialism and anti-Israel. Predictably, Howard Zinn fit the fill on both (again from Discover the Network):

(1) Pro-communism/socialism:

In Professor Zinn’s view, Maoist China was “the closest thing, in the long history of that ancient country, to a people’s government, independent of outside control”; Castro‘s Cuba “had no bloody record of suppression”; and the Marxist dictators of Nicaragua were “welcomed” by the people, while the opposition Contras, whose candidate triumphed when free elections were held as a result of U.S. pressure, were a “terrorist group” that “seemed to have no popular support inside Nicaragua.” …

In a March 2009 speech, Zinn spoke positively about President Barack Obama, and said the following about capitalism:

“Obama has become president at a very special time, when the American capitalist system is falling apart. And good! I’m glad it’s falling apart, because unless the system falls apart, we’re not going to do anything about it. We’re not going to fix it.... The market system—be wary when you hear about the glories of the market system. The market system is what we’ve had. Let the market decide, they say. The government mustn’t give people free health care; let the market decide.

“Which is what the market has been doing—and that’s why we have 45 million people without health care. The market has decided that. Leave things to the market, and there are 2 million people homeless. Leave things to the market, and there are millions and millions of people who can’t pay their rent. You can’t leave it to the market. If you’re facing an economic crisis like we’re facing now, you can’t do what was done in the past....” …

Dan Flynn, in his above-cited article, also points out the overt anti-capitalist prism through which Zinn wrote A People’s History:

If you’ve read Marx, there’s really no reason to read Howard Zinn. The first line of The Communist Manifesto provides the single-bullet theory of history that provides Zinn with his narrative thread— “The history of all hitherto existing societies is the history of class struggle.” It is the all-purpose explanation of every subject that Zinn covers. On other hand, why study history when theory has all the answers?

Thumb through A People’s History of the United States and you will find greed as the motivating factor behind every act of those who don’t qualify as “the people” in Zinn’s book. According to Zinn, the separation from Great Britain, the Civil War, and both World Wars all were the result of base motives of the “ruling class”—rich men to get richer at the expense of others.

Zinn’s Marxist explanation of the New World begins with Columbus who like every other settler in the New World was driven by the (evil) profit motive. “Behind the English invasion of North America, behind their massacre of Indians, their deception, their brutality, was that special powerful drive born in civilizations based on private profit.” This malicious view of people who often came to the New World to escape persecution in the old, who sometimes championed the rights of indigenous peoples and who mostly attempted to live peacefully alongside them is characteristic of the extreme anti-European, anti-white, any American prejudice of this book. The idea that the Indians who themselves were “invaders” by Zinn’s standards (they came on a land bridge from Asia and exterminated the then native peoples) somehow owned the continent is a much a fantasy as the idea that they were simply passive victims of the settlers. Zinn’s account omits the unprovoked aggressions of the Indians on each other and on the settlers. But then doing so, would spoil his leftist melodrama.

(2) Anti-Israel

Just as Zinn held the United States in contempt, so did he despise America’s closest ally in the Middle East, Israel. According to the professor, Israel’s creation in 1948 “meant the dispossession of the Arab majority that lived on that land,” and led not only to “the occupation and subjugation of several million Palestinians,” but also to ”what we would today call ‘ethnic cleansing.’“

Zinn recalled that “after the Six-Day War of 1967 and Israel’s occupation of territories seized in that war (the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, the Golan Heights, the Sinai peninsula),” he personally “began to see Israel not simply as a beleaguered little nation surrounded by hostile Arab states, but as an expansionist power.”

With regard to the ongoing Mideast conflict today, Zinn placed most of the blame for “the cycle of violence” on Israel’s allegedly provocative use of disproportionate force: “a rock-throwing [Palestinian] intifada met by [Israeli] over-reaction in the form of broken bones and destroyed homes, [Palestinian] suicide bombers killing innocent Jews followed by [Israeli] bombings which killed ten times as many innocent Arabs.”

Zinn lamented that “in the occupied territories ... a million and more Palestinians live under a cruel military occupation, while our [U.S.] government supplies Israel with high-tech weapons.”

According to Zinn, Israeli society was replete with deep-seated “xenophobia, militarism, [and] expansionism.” Added the professor:

“Some of the wisest Jews of our time—Einstein, Martin Buber—warned of the consequences of a Jewish state. Einstein wrote, at the very inception of Israel: ‘My awareness of the essential nature of Judaism resists the idea of a Jewish state with borders, an army, and a measure of temporal power, no matter how modest. I am afraid of the inner damage Judaism will sustain....’“

Lovely. I wonder if my liberal Jewish friends who were among those mourning Zinn’s loss last week know—or even care—about the man’s adversity towards Israel.

Now, lest I be accused of defaming the deceased or spitting on their grave, note you will not find me popping open a celebratory bottle of champagne or hoping Zinn is burning in hell (unlike the oh-so-tolerant left when Ronald Reagan or Bush press secretary Tony Snow died). Benjamin Kerstein, in his above-cited article notes that “kicking a man when he’s dead” was Zinn’s forte:

One of the unwritten laws of opinion journalism is to never kick a man when he’s dead, at least, not until an appreciable amount of time has passed. The question is whether this can or should hold true for those who make their living by doing precisely that. The death at the age of 87 of pseudo-historian Howard Zinn raises this issue all over again, since very few academics have made a better living defaming the dead, with everyone from Columbus to Ronald Reagan, and thousands in between, being accused by the jocular old harpy of any number of hideous crimes, not one of whom, needless to say, being alive to answer the charges. It is, of course, the job of the historian to examine the acts of the deceased; and some consider it an equal part of their profession to pass judgement upon them. In the case of Zinn, however, he passed judgment with such slothful ease, and such obvious sadistic pleasure in issuing his condemnations, that one cannot muster up much sympathy at the prospect of the man’s memory dying by his own sword.

Well said.

Also, to Zinn’s credit, he did agree to interviews with right-leaning opponents, among them Dennis Prager. Here is Part 1 and Part 2 of Prager’s 2006 radio interview with him. I will conclude with this part of the interview:

Prager: What would you say … we [The U.S.] have done more bad than good, we’re in the middle, or what?

Zinn: Probably more bad than good. We’ve done some good, of course; there’s no doubt about that. But we have done too many bad things in the world.

Now there’s a man who really loved his country and whose farcical fantasy of a history book was brought within even a 10-mile radius of thousands of American schoolchildren!

But, dead or not, don’t you dare question his patriotism.

Other bloggers on the death of Howard Zinn: Jammie Wearing Fool, The Other McCain

Liberal Media Bias: MRC's Notable Quotables of 2009 Are Here!

They gushed like lovestruck schoolgirls over an unaccomplished, incompetent, and immature new president.

They downplayed said president’s motley crew of tax-cheating White House appointments and communism-endorsing czars.

They perpetuated his flawed conception of the United States as—that is, until he fixes it—an arrogant, racist, imperialist, wealth-stealing, pollution-spewing, Islam-oppressing, terrorist-torturing, saber-rattling threat to world security.

They covered his every trip abroad as if a rock star’s world tour.

They bolstered the administration’s image by unquestioningly parroting their excuses for their failed, disastrous policies.

They dutifully cheerled for every piece of legislation coming out of the Democrat White House and Congress, expressing virtually no concern their constitutionality, legality, or popularity with the American people.

They explained away opposition to said legislation by Republicans and the general public as bitter partisanship, talk-radio-fomented anger, militia-initiated anti-government hatred, and good ol’ fashioned American racism.

They treated Tea Parties and town halls as disturbing uprisings of perpetually angry, white supremicist, gun-toting militia types merely having a temper tantrum after losing an election to a black man.

With blatant disregard for fact-checking, source verification, journalistic professionalism and objectivity, they painted Sarah Palin as an intolerant, extremist, moronic country bumpkin.

With blatant disregard for fact-checking, source verification, journalistic professionalism and objectivity, they painted Rush Limbaugh as a woman-hating, violence-inciting racist.

They fixated on the scandals or indiscretions of conservative/Republican politician no matter how miniscule.

They downplayed the scandals or indiscretions of liberal/Democrat politician no matter how enormous.

They treated the infrequent crimes of conservatives/Christians as an indication of some dangerous pattern inherent in conservativism/Christianity.

They minimized the recurrent crimes of radical Islamists by warning us against the temptation of treating them as an indication of some dangerous pattern inherent in radical Islam.

They covered the deaths of famous conservatives/Republicans in a “Ding-dong the Wicked Witch is dead” sort of way.

They covered the deaths of famous liberals/Democrats in a “The heavens are weeping for this devastating loss to mankind” sort of way.

They helped perpetuate the man-made global warming climate change hoax by ignoring, dismissing, or criticizing opposing scientists and their data.

They helped perpetuate said hoax by ignoring or downplaying the leaked emails revealing the deliberate manipulation and deletion of inconvenient data.

Who are they? They are ABCNBCCBSCNNMSNBCPBSNPR, a.k.a. the mainstream media.

The year 2009 was sure busy for these protectors of Truth. For that reason, I am thankful to the Media Research Center and their 48 judges for selecting the most outrageous media quotes of 2009. Below are my personal favorites from this 18-page compilation. As was the case last year, my favorites don’t include statements made by commentators like Chris Matthews, Keith Olbermann, Joy Behar, and Rachel Maddow. As revolting as their statements are, I feel MRC does a slight disservice by conflating opinion-makers with news anchors or reporters. There are ample examples of pervasive left-wing bias offered this year by the Katie Courics, Bob Schieffers, Jack Caffertys, and Andrea Mitchells of the media world.

The Coronation of the Messiah Award for Fawning Inaugural Coverage

“What a day it was. It may take days or years to really absorb the significance of what happened to America today....When he [Barack Obama] finally emerged, he seemed, even in this throng, so solitary, somber, perhaps already feeling the weight of the world, even before he was transformed into the leader of the free world....The mass flickering of cell phone cameras on the Mall seemed like stars shining back at him.”
— NBC’s Andrea Mitchell on the January 20 Nightly News.

Master of His Domain Award for Obama Puffery

“The legislative achievements have been stupendous — the $789 billion stimulus bill, the budget plan that is still being hammered out (and may, ultimately, include the next landmark safety-net program, universal health insurance). There has also been a cascade of new policies to address the financial crisis — massive interventions in the housing and credit markets, a market-based plan to buy the toxic assets that many banks have on their books, a plan to bail out the auto industry and a strict new regulatory regime proposed for Wall Street. Obama has also completely overhauled foreign policy, from Cuba to Afghanistan. ‘In a way, Obama’s 100 days is even more dramatic than Roosevelt’s,’ says Elaine Kamarck of Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. ‘Roosevelt only had to deal with a domestic crisis. Obama has had to overhaul foreign policy as well, including two wars. And that’s really the secret of why this has seemed so spectacular.’”
— Time’s Joe Klein in the magazine’s May 4 cover story on Barack Obama’s first 100 days as President.

“It didn’t take long for Barack Obama — for all his youth and inexperience — to get acclimated to his new role as the calming leader of a country in crisis....Rookie jitters? Far from it....For the past three months, Obama has spoken in firm, yet soothing tones. Sometimes he has used a just-folks approach to identify with economically struggling citizens. He has displayed wonkish tendencies, too, appearing much like the college instructor he once was while discussing the intricacies of the economic collapse. He has engaged in witty banter, teasing lawmakers, staffers, journalists and citizens alike. He has struck a statesmanlike stance, calling for a renewed partnership between the United States and its allies....”
— AP Washington correspondent Liz Sidoti in an April 25 dispatch, “Obama quickly, confidently adapts to presidency.”

The Crush Rush Award for Loathing Limbaugh

“Limbaugh’s perceived racist diatribes are too many to name but here’s a sampling: He once declared that [words on screen] ‘Slavery built the South. I’m not saying we should bring it back; I’m just saying it had its merits. For one thing, the streets were safer after dark,’ said Limbaugh.”
— CNN’s Rick Sanchez promoting a made-up quote on the 3pm ET hour of Newsroom, October 12.

Damn Those Conservatives Award

Host Dylan Ratigan: “Some Republicans and conservatives celebrating Obama’s failed attempt to bring the 2016 Olympics to Chicago. Down with Chicago! Contessa Brewer has the latest.”
News anchor Contessa Brewer: “Can you imagine this, that some people actually went as far as to cheer?”
Ratigan: “Sure. I mean, there are people that are actually trying to derail health care in order to take down Obama, even if it means half the country dies.”

— Exchange on MSNBC’s 9am ET Morning Meeting, October 5.

The Poison Tea Pot Award for Smearing the Anti-Obama Rabble

“You know, … this is a party for Obama bashers. I have to say that this is not entirely representative of everybody in America....It’s anti-government, anti-CNN, since this is highly promoted by the right-wing conservative network, Fox. And since I can’t really hear much more and I think this is not really family viewing, I’ll toss it back to you.”
— Correspondent Susan Roesgen during live coverage of the tea party protests, CNN Newsroom, April 15.

“They’ve waved signs likening President Obama to Hitler and the devil; raised questions about whether he was really born in this country; falsely accused him of planning to set up death panels; decried his speech to students as indoctrination; and called him everything from a ‘fascist’ to a ‘socialist’ to a ‘communist.’ ...And all that was before Mr. Obama’s speech was interrupted by a representative who once fought to keep the Confederate flag waving over the South Carolina state house. Add it all up, and some prominent Obama supporters are now saying that it paints a picture of an opposition driven, in part, by a refusal to accept a black President.”
— ABC’s Dan Harris on World News, September 15.

Spread the Wealth Award for Socialist Sermonizing

“Why not just nationalize the banks?...People are angry. There’s so much taxpayer money going into the banks. Why shouldn’t the government — why shouldn’t you just fire the executives who wrecked these banks in the first place and tanked the world’s financial system in the process?”
— ABC’s Terry Moran interviewing President Obama for Nightline, February 10.

“In Britain, a government takeover of a bank last year helped to temporarily calm fears in the financial markets there. Nationalization may have a psychological impact as well, and Uncle Sam wrapping his arms around failing banks in this country might provide a big dose of confidence for the American consumer.”
— Katie Couric on the February 19 CBS Evening News, talking about the Obama administration possibly taking over American banks.

Long Live Camelot Award for Lionizing Ted Kennedy

“Mary Jo wasn’t a right-wing talking point or a negative campaign slogan....We don’t know how much Kennedy was affected by her death, or what she’d have thought about arguably being a catalyst for the most successful Senate career in history....[One wonders what] Mary Jo Kopechne would have had to say about Ted’s death, and what she’d have thought of the life and career that are being (rightfully) heralded. Who knows — maybe she’d feel it was worth it.”
— Discover magazine deputy web editor Melissa Lafsky, who formerly worked on the New York Times’s Freakonomics blog, writing at the Huffington Post, August 27.

“America mourns the lion of the Senate....There is, of course, no royal family in this country. The Kennedys, perhaps, the closest we’ve ever had....For nearly half a century in the Senate, Ted Kennedy spoke for people who had no voice — the poor and the disabled, children and the elderly.”
— Anchor Katie Couric kicking off the August 26 CBS Evening News.

The Half-Baked Alaska Award for Pummeling Palin

CNN’s Jack Cafferty: “Here’s the question: ‘Would you rather listen to a speech by Sarah Palin or a speech by Newt Gingrich?’ Go to CNN — or would you rather just stick needles in your eyes? [Over loud laughter off-camera from a man other than Cafferty, presumably Blitzer] Go to CNN.com/CaffertyFile and you can post a comment on my blog. I forgot about the third option.”
Anchor Wolf Blitzer: “What do you think, Jack? You want to listen to Palin or Gingrich deliver a speech?”
Cafferty: “I’m not interested in listening to either one of them.”

— Exchange on CNN’s The Situation Room, June 9, talking about Palin and Gingrich’s appearance at a Republican fundraiser the previous evening.

“She’s been an astronaut and a rock star. Pop icons Beyonce and Shakira. She’s won American Idol too. She’s even run for President twice. [Over footage of Sarah Palin] Some would argue she also ran for Vice President in 2008.”
— ABC’s David Wright in a retrospective marking the 50th anniversary of Barbie for Nightline, February 16.

“She’s a joke. I mean, I just can’t take her seriously....The idea that this potential talk show host is considered seriously for the Republican nomination, believe me, it’ll never happen. Republican primary voters just are not going to elect a talk show host.”
— New York Times columnist David Brooks talking about Sarah Palin on ABC’s This Week, November 15.

The Un-Fairness Doctrine Award for Slamming Media Conservatives

“Let me be precise here: Fox News peddles a fair amount of hateful crap. Some of it borders on sedition. Much of it is flat out untrue. But I don’t understand why the White House would give such poisonous helium balloons as Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity the opportunity for still greater spasms of selfinflation by declaring war on Fox....The best antidote to their garbage is elegant, intelligent governance.”
— Time’s Joe Klein on the magazine’s “Swampland” blog, October 23.

“[Robert] Novak titled his 2007 memoir, The Prince of Darkness, and he was indeed a very dark force in cable TV news contributing mightily to the toxic culture of confrontation, belligerence and polarization that so defines cable TV and American political discourse today. There is no way to be nice about his impact on cable TV during its formative years....I am talking about Novak’s sneering TV persona and the role it played in reaching back to the dark political style of the 1950s Richard Nixon — and leading us to the polarized, angry space that cable TV and the conversation of American politics now inhabits.”
— Baltimore Sun critic David Zurawik August 18 on his “Z on TV” blog, two hours after news broke of Novak’s passing.

“Was there a tone in this country that was actually started with the election of our first black president that is bringing the crazies out of the woodwork, and are they being motivated to move by right-wing pronouncements, like he’s dangerous, he’s a socialist, he’s a Muslim, and he isn’t even a U.S. citizen? This is what we hear on some TV and radio outlets, which, by the way, according to our Constitution, they are entitled to what they believe and even propagate.”
— CNN Newsroom anchor Rick Sanchez setting up a segment suggesting “hateful talk” can be blamed for the Holocaust museum shooting, June 11.

Let Us Fluff Your Pillow Award for Obsequious Obama Interviews

“You’re so confident, Mr. President, and so focused. Is your confidence ever shaken? Do you ever wake up and say, ‘Damn, this is hard. Damn, I’m not going to get the things done I want to get done, and it’s just too politicized to really get accomplished the big things I want to accomplish’?”
— CBS’s Katie Couric in an exchange with Obama shown on The Early Show, July 22.

“It seems to me that there is a sort of meanness that’s settled over our political dialogue. It started this summer at these town hall meetings....President Carter is now saying that he thinks it’s racial. Nancy Pelosi says it could be dangerous. What do you think it’s all about?”
— CBS’s Bob Schieffer to President Obama on Face the Nation, September 20.

“House Speaker Pelosi worried about the opposition, the tone of it, perhaps leading to violence as it did in the ’70s. There’s more recent examples of anti-government violence — occurring even in the mid-’90s. Do you worry about that?”
— David Gregory to Obama on NBC’s Meet the Press, September 20.

Barry’s Big Brain Award for Journalists Bedazzled by Obama’s Brilliance

“I like to say that, in some ways, Barack Obama is the first President since George Washington to be taking a step down into the Oval Office. I mean, from visionary leader of a giant movement, now he’s got an executive position that he has to perform in, in a way.”
— ABC Nightline co-anchor Terry Moran to Media Bistro’s Steve Krakauer in a February 20 “Morning Media Menu” podcast.

The Audacity of Dopes Award for Wackiest Analysis of the Year

“We have an FBI, and we’re not prejudiced against somebody who’s worked at the FBI. It’s an honorable place to work. And the KGB, I think, was an honorable place to work. It gave people in the former Soviet Union, a communist country, an opportunity to do something important and worthwhile.”
— CNN founder Ted Turner on Meet the Press, November 30, 2008.

“Watching both the health care and climate/energy debates in Congress, it is hard not to draw the following conclusion: There is only one thing worse than one-party autocracy, and that is one-party democracy, which is what we have in America today. One-party autocracy certainly has its drawbacks. But when it is led by a reasonably enlightened group of people, as China is today, it can also have great advantages. That one party can just impose the politically difficult but critically important policies needed to move a society forward in the 21st century.”
— New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman in a September 9 column, “Our One Party Democracy.”

The Obamagasm Award for Seeing Coolness In Everything Obama Does

Correspondent John Harwood: “He had this fly that was persistently buzzing around him....He swatted his hand and he said, ‘I got the sucker.’ He threw it onto the ground. It was a, you know, Dirty Harry ‘make my day’ moment.”...
MSNBC anchor David Shuster: “Amazing...An amazing interview....It never fails — great weather, rainbows, incredible speeches, and three-point basket. A fly and he nails it. Unbelievable. Unbelievable.”

— Exchange on MSNBC after Harwood’s CNBC interview with President Obama concluded, June 16.

“Between workouts during his Hawaii vacation this week, he was photographed looking like the paradigm of a new kind of presidential fitness, one geared less toward preventing heart attacks than winning swimsuit competitions. The sun glinted off chiseled pectorals sculpted during four weightlifting sessions each week, and a body toned by regular treadmill runs and basketball games.”
— Washington Post reporter Eli Saslow in a December 25, 2008 front-page story about Obama’s vacation fitness regimen.

Michelle, the Media Belle Award

Correspondent Dawna Friesen: “Her husband is, of course, the big star of the show, but this is Michelle Obama’s first foray on to the global stage as First Lady. And you can bet that her every move, her every fashion decision will be dissected and analyzed, especially when the couple go to meet the Queen. But she’s got a lot of good will on her side. … Ask the British about Michelle Obama, and you’ll hear a lot of what you hear in the States.”
Woman on the street: “Oh, I think she’s really cool. She’s got a lot of really good styles. It makes a change from politicians’ wives to look good.”
Man on the street: “She looks supportive and that’s what a man needs in life.”
Second man: “I have been totally stunned at the awesome nature of Michelle Obama.”...
Friesen: “Then there’s those arms, the envy of a lot of British women....”
— NBC’s Today, March 31.

“In 1961, when Jacqueline Kennedy came to Europe, she enchanted even the crustiest of world leaders, and she’s remained a tough act to follow for every First Lady since. But Michelle Obama looks more than equal to the task of impressing and delighting even the grandest of them....To be honest, most Europeans were going to like whoever replaced President Bush. But there’s no doubt Michelle and her husband have an extra je ne sais quoi.”
— CBS’s Elizabeth Palmer on The Early Show, March 31.

Media Hero Award

“I’m honored to be joined today by the Godfather of Green, the King of Conservation: Former Vice President Al Gore.”
— Katie Couric opening her November 2 “@KatieCouric” CBSNews.com webcast.

“The Thinking Man’s Thinking Man: Al Gore’s New Plan for the Planet.”
— Cover of the November 9 Newsweek.

“This woman has a life story that you couldn’t make up! I mean, you know, she’s born in the public projects, in the shadow of Yankee Stadium, a single-parent household, she goes to a Catholic school, she gets scholarships to the best schools in the country, Princeton and Yale, she overcomes all that while dealing with diabetes all her life, and she is Hispanic....This was the political advisor’s dream candidate.”
— CBS’s Bob Schieffer during live coverage of Obama’s selection of Judge Sonia Sotomayor for the Supreme Court, May 26.

Not enough for you? Then visit my post on MRC's 2008 Notable Quotables here.

Liberal Stupid-Ass Comment: Harry Reid and Sheldon Whitehouse Equate ObamaCare Opponents to Racists and Nazis

Instead of joining us on the right side of history, all the Republicans can come up with is, ‘slow down, stop everything, let’s start over.’ If you think you’ve heard these same excuses before, you’re right. When this country belatedly recognized the wrongs of slavery, there were those who dug in their heels and said ‘slow down, it’s too early, things aren’t bad enough. When women spoke up for the right to speak up, they wanted to vote, some insisted they simply, slow down, there will be a better day to do that, today isn’t quite right. When this body was on the verge of guaranteeing equal civil rights to everyone regardless of the color of their skin, some senators resorted to the same filibuster threats that we hear today.

— Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV), December 7, 2009

“Voting ‘no’ and hiding from the vote are the same result. Those of us on the floor see it. It was clear the three of them who did not cast their yes votes until all 60 Senate votes had been tallied and it was clear that the result was a foregone conclusion. And why? Why all this discord and discourtesy, all this unprecedented destructive action? All to break the momentum of our new young president.

They are desperate to break this president. They have ardent supporters who are nearly hysterical at the very election of President Barack Obama. The birthers, the fanatics, the people running around in right-wing militia and Aryan support groups, it is unbearable to them that President Barack Obama should exist. That is one powerful reason. It is not the only one.”

— Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), December 21, 2009

Yup. This is how Democrats debate an issue: When your opponents disagree with you, call them racists and/or Nazis.

So in the mind of idiots like Harry Reid, those who filibuster (or threaten to do so) are akin to those who didn’t want slavery to end, women to vote, and minorities to have civil rights? Harry Reid, either himself ignorant of history or hoping the American people are, apparently doesn’t know that the persons who filibustered the Civil Rights Acts of 1957 and 1964 were Democrats. One of them—Robert Byrd (D-WV) sits in the Senate to this day! Who prevented slavery from being stopped? Democrats! By why let historical record get in the way of your selfish political agenda?

Reid also doesn’t know that the Senate is not supposed to move fast on legislation. James Madison conceived of it as an anchor, acting to slow government down. But Harry Reid probably never even heard of James Madison.

What about the filibuster of George W. Bush’s nomination of black female judge Janice Rogers Brown to the U.S. Appeals Court for the District of Columbia? That was carried out by Democrats too. Guess those racist Democrat friends of Harry Reid and Sheldon Whitehouse just couldn’t stand having a black woman preside over a courtroom. And when Republican Bill Frist tried to stop Democrat filibustering on Bush’s judicial nominations, guess who was there to get on his smarmy little soapbox with his smarmy little voice? You guessed it:

Democrats are refusing to forgo filibusters and say they will fight any effort by Frist to act unilaterally to end them for judicial nominations. They warn that it could poison the well for bipartisan cooperation on other issues in the upcoming Congress.

“If they, for whatever reason, decide to do this, it's not only wrong, they will rue the day they did it, because we will do whatever we can do to strike back,” incoming Senate Democratic leader Harry M. Reid (Nev.) said last week. “I know procedures around here. And I know that there will still be Senate business conducted. But I will, for lack of a better word, screw things up.”

But the most disgusting thing about comparing slavery, civil rights, and women’s suffrage to this health (s)care bill is that they are in fact incomparable. As Law Professor Stephen Bainbridge explains on his blog:

[H]ealth care legislation is fundamentally different than slavery and civil rights. In the latter, we are dealing with negative rights. Health care—to the extent it is meaningful at all to talk about it in rights terms—is a positive right. Reid’s thus comparing apples and oranges. The crusades against slavery and for civil rights were about freedom. Obamacare is about mandates, expanded government, higher taxes, and larger deficits. “The men who wrote the Bill of Rights were not concerned that government might do too little for the people but that it might do too much to them.” Jackson v. City of Joliet, 715 F.2d 1200, 1203 (7th Cir. 1983) (Posner, C.J.). Me too. Sadly, it’s not a concern Senator Reid shares.

Finally, in 1919 nearly twice as many Senate Republicans (36) voted for women’s suffrage than did Democrats (20) and over twice as many Democrats (17) opposed it than Republicans (8). 

So Harry Reid is either a dimwit or a libeling mud-slinger.

Whitehouse’s libelous comment is just as bad. Does it ever occur to this power-hungry ideologue that Senate Republicans—and a vast majority of the American people—simply don’t want the federal government engaging in an unconstitutional, fascist, liberty-destroying, wealth-stealing, and life-threatening takeover of one sixth of the U.S. economy? I really don’t think it does.

Nope. In their sick liberal universe, all opponents of liberal Democrats are simply for drowning kittens and puppies, keeping women and minorities down, and having a temper tantrum that a black man is in the White House.

These are the mental midgets who will soon have your income and your very life in their unworthy hands.

A staunchly liberal friend denounced Michael Steele when he criticized President Hope&Change’s undeserved receipt of the Nobel Peace Prize, calling Steele “shameful.” No. What Harry Reid and Sheldon Whitehouse said is shameful. Denounce this.

20th Anniversary of the Czechoslovak "Velvet Revolution"

Those of you who still believe that freedom is an American (and human) value will appreciate the significance of this day. Twenty years ago today communism fell in Czechoslovakia with considerably little blood spilt. 

 

Here's a summary of the Velvet Revolution From Radio Prague:

The six-week period between November 17 and December 29, 1989, also known as the “Velvet Revolution” brought about the bloodless overthrow of the Czechoslovak communist regime. Almost immediately, rumors (which have never been proved) began to circulate that the impetus for the Velvet Revolution had come from a KGB provocateur sent by Gorbačev, who wanted reform rather than hardline communists in power. The theory goes that the popular demonstrations went farther than Gorbačev and the KGB had intended. In part because of this, the Czechs do not like the term “Velvet Revolution,” preferring to call what happened “the November Events” (Listopadové událostí) or—sometimes - just “November” (Listopad). But we digress.

It all started on November 17, 1989—fifty years to the day that Czech students had held a demonstration to protest the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia. On this anniversary, students in the capital city of Prague were again protesting an oppressive regime.

The protest began as a legal rally to commemorate the death of Jan Opletal, but turned instead into a demonstration demanding democratic reforms. Riot police stopped the students (who were making their way from the Czech National Cemetery at Vyšehrad to Wenceslas Square) halfway in their march, in Národní třída. After a stand-off in which the students offered flowers to the riot police and showed no resistance, the police bagan beating the young demonstrators with night sticks. In all, at least 167 people were injured. One student was reportedly beaten to death, and—although this was later proved false—this rumor served to crystallize support for the students and their demands among the general public. In a severe blow to the communists’ morale, a number of workers’ unions immediately joined the students’ cause.

From Saturday, November 18, until the general strike of November 27, mass demonstrations took place in Prague, Bratislava, and elsewhere - and public discussions instead of performances were held in Czechoslovakia’ theaters. During one of these discussions, at the Cinoherní Klub theater on Sunday, November 19, the Civic Forum (OF) was established as the official “spokesgroup” for “the segment of the Czechoslovak public which is ever more critical of the policy of the present Czechoslovak leadership.”

The Civic Forum, led by the then-dissident Václav Havel, demanded the resignation of the Communist government, the release of prisoners of conscience, and investigations into the November 17 police action. A similar initiative—the Public Against Violence (VPN)—was born in Slovakia on November 20, 1989. Both of them were joined en masse by Czechoslovak citizens - from university students and staff to workers in factories and employees of other institutions. It took about 2 weeks for the nation’s media to begin broadcasting reports of what was really going on in Prague, and in the interim students travelled to cities and villages in the countryside to rally support outside the capital.

The leaders of the Communist regime were totally unprepared to deal with the popular unrest, even though communist regimes throughout the region had been wobbling and toppling around them for some time.

As the mass demonstrations continued—and more and more Czechoslovaks supported the general strikes that were called—an extraordinary session of the Czechoslovak Communist Party Central Committee was called. The Presidium of the Communist Party resigned, and a relatively unknown Party member, Karel Urbanek, was elected as the new Communist Party leader. The public rejected these cosmetic changes, which were intended to give the impression that the Communist Party was being reformed from within as it had been in 1968. The people’s dissatisfaction increased.

Massive demonstrations of almost 750,000 people at Letna Park in Prague on November 25 and 26, and the general strike on the 27th were devastating for the communist regime. Prime Minister Ladislav Adamec was forced to hold talks with the Civic Forum, which was led by still-dissident (soon to be President) Václav Havel. The Civic Forum presented a list of political demands at their second meeting with Adamec, who agreed to form a new coalition government, and to delete three articles - guaranteeing a leading role in political life for the Czechoslovak Communist Party and for the National Front, and mandating Marxist-Leninist education—from the Constitution. These amendments were unanimously approved by the communist parliament the next day, on November 29, 1989.

Well, the old saying that ‘if you give them an inch, they’ll take a mile’ held true, and the communist capitulation led to increased demands on the part of the demonstrators. A new government was formed by Marian Calfa; it included just nine members of the Czechoslovak Communist Party (several of whom actively cooperated with the Civic Forum); two members of the Czechoslovak Socialist Party; two members of the Czechoslovak People’s Party; and seven ministers with no party affiliation - all of latter were Civic Forum or Public Against Violence activists.

This new government was named by Czechoslovak President Gustav Husák on December 10. The same evening, he went on television to announce his resignation, and the Civic Forum cancelled a general strike which had been scheduled for the next day.

At the 19th joint session of the two houses of the Federal Assembly, Alexandr Dubček—who had led the ill-fated Prague Spring movement in the 1960’s—was elected Speaker of the Federal Assembly. One day later, the parliament elected the Civic Forum’s leader, Václav Havel, President of Czechoslovakia.

Despite their many shortcomings—not the least of which were political inexperience and serious time pressures—the new government and parliament were able to fill in many of the most gaping gaps in the Czechoslovak legal framework—concentrating in particular on the areas of human rights and freedoms, private ownership, and business law. They were also able to lay the framework for the first free elections to be held in Czechoslovakia in more than 40 years.

The results of the 1990 local and parliamentary elections in Czechoslovakia, which were likened at the time to a referendum which posed the question “Communism, yes or no?” showed a sweeping victory for the soon to be extinct Civic Forum (OF) in the Czech Republic, and for the Public Against Violence (VPN) in Slovakia. In other words, “Communism, no thanks.”

The turnout for the local elections was more than 73 percent, and for Parliamentary elections more than 96 percent of the population went to the polls!

Czech Petr Pithart of the Civic Forum was elected as Czech Premier, Slovaks Vladimir Meciar and Marian Calfa, both of the Public Against Violence (VPN), were elected Slovak and Federal Premier, respectively. Václav Havel was re-elected as the Czechoslovak President on July 5, 1990.

I realize our esteemed president is in Asia apologizing for all the bad things we've done, but surely he'll find time to apologize for this too.

 

I found this heartwrenching post from a Czech blogger named Adriana Lukas:

Looking back in anger

It’s been twenty years since my firm belief in a better way of life was vindicated. 17th November was the beginning of the end of an era shaped by collectivism, brutality and industrialised inhumanity. I have written about my experiences of communism on Samizdata before. Today I’ll use someone else’s words to describe the wasteland communism leaves behind.

In 1992, Peter Saint-Andre has written a disturbing, brilliant and accurate description of what communism does to the soul:

...the hunger that I found most disturbing was not of the body but of the soul. [...] The socialist state cared nothing for the life of the individual, and this was driven home in innumerable ways.

Yet the overall effect was not merely physical—it was a deeply spiritual degradation. It is difficult to put that degradation into words. To me, the most striking sign of it was what I called "Eastern eyes". I could see and feel the resignation, the defeat, the despair, in the eyes of people I knew. It was an all-too-rare occurrence to come upon a person with some spark of life in his or her eyes (the only exceptions were the children, who had yet to have the life beaten out of them). If it is true that the eyes are windows onto the soul, then the Czech soul under socialism went through life all but dead.

It is tough for me to come up with something to say 20 years on that is not tinged with bitterness and disappointment and if not for the significant anniversary, I would have left this memory unturned. Despite the amazing change 1989 and its aftermath brought to my life I feel no closure over the past and a sense of proportion in the way the fall of communism has been ‘handled’. Today we should be looking back at the last 20 years counting the many communists who died in prison or are still rotting there... I can only hope that future generations will revisit the past and will have far lower tolerance of collectivism and totalitarianism. It may be a futile hope as today’s teenagers have little knowledge of the world my generation and that of my parents grew up. And so I am bitter and disappointed that people can say the word "communism" without spitting.

I am also bitter and disappointed because those who opposed communism have not won. It is still with us, in the idiotic juxtapositions of Nazism and communism, or socialism and free-market, used by those who aspire to communism and justify it by positing Nazism as the greater evil. It still raises its ugly head in those who despise free-markets and attempt to put a human mask on socialism by pointing out ‘failures’ of capitalism. Rather hard as socialism, like all totalitarianisms, has no face. It is the ultimate denigration of humanity, destruction of individuality, and subjugation of human beings to the vast merciless machine of control and power.

Communism is still with us in China and North Korea. One befriended by the West, the other frowned upon... but neither is ever challenged because of the oppression of its people, and only when it manages to ‘inconvenience’ the rest of the world. Once it falls, it will be horrifying and beyond belief to examine the monstrosities committed by the communists in the light of day. Again, I can only hope that the world will be shamed and aghast at letting this happen for so long. Until then, we only have testimonials such as this: Undercover in the Secret State

I am grateful to those who remember, struggle to understand and explain communism, and especially to those who have managed to capture something of the nature of the beast. …

Very inspiring words. Such a shame that those who currently run our highest offices of government are enthusiastic fans of this destructive and immoral system.

Barack Hussein Obama, Nancy Pelosi, etc., are you listening?

Additional info about the Velvet Revolution here.