SOME IN THE MEDIA SEEM FREAKED BY WHAT THEY HAVE DONE

Like the sorcerer's apprentice, some in the media are desperately trying to control the destruction wrought by the product of their labors. The 527 Media - those politically-activist media who present campaign ads as news -- worked long and hard to convince the nation that the Democrats weren't wild-eyed liberals. The Democratic congressional candidates including their leaders were, according to the media script, trustworthy moderates. But the Dems have read too much into the election results and while they've hit the ground running, their media pals are icing their path hoping to slow them down (and in the case of Jack Murtha, stumble)....

How much the media are owed - really, how much they can control the Dems - is being measured this week on Jack Murtha and his stance on Iraq.... The Washington Post, having achieved the defeats of George Allen and Michael Steele, endorsed on Tuesday long-time Maryland Cong. Steny Hoyer for the majority leader's post. In its endorsement, it voiced opinions about Hoyer's opponent, Jack Murtha, that were startling for their vehemence: "Mr. Murtha's candidacy is troubling for several reasons, beginning with his position on the war in Iraq...his descriptions of the stakes there have been completely unrealistic, and his solutions irresponsible." The Post's editorial comes soon after Sen. Carl Levin, incoming Armed Services Committee Chairman, said that Democrats wanted to pressure the White House into beginning to withdraw American troops in four to six months. The Post condemnation of Murtha is a sign of media panic. They know that if the Democrats unite around the Murtha policy of cutting and running, they may damage themselves significantly for the 2008 presidential race.

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EUROBUNGLING

Like some overblown African dictatorship, the EU keeps confusing grandiose ego projects with sensible expenditures on defense; as a result of which Europe and Britain look increasingly vulnerable and defenseless. On the day after Milton Friedman's passing it is a reminder of the bizarre and self-destructive nature of politicized decision-making-- because that's the trouble, of course: Everything in the EU is political, and all large military projects are pork-barreled to ensure that enough bacon fat goes to France, Italy, Germany and Britain itself. It works about as well as nationalized health care.

Britain's MOD spent almost twice as much money for a German anti-artillery radar than a US version would have cost. More than five hundred million dollars were wasted on a failed effort to produce European anti-tank missiles, which then had to be purchased from the US anyway. An armored vehicle had to be dumped after spending about 75 million dollars because it was too big to go into Hercules transport planes.

The Defense Ministry has ordered 232 Eurofighters at more than 90 million dollars each for "an acknowledged Cold War relic." The Eurofighter can't perform ground support or other bombing missions, but the terrorists don't have fighter jets to knock out.

To top it all off, Europe has embarked an a completely unnecessary doubling of the US GPS system for navigation; since the GPS system is free to users all over the world, it's like building a second world-wide web

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ELSEWHERE

Iraqis fighting terrorists: "While the world’s attention has been focused on Baghdad’s slide into sectarian warfare, something remarkable has been happening in Ramadi, a city of 400,000 inhabitants that al-Qaeda and its Iraqi allies have controlled since mid-2004 and would like to make the capital of their cherished Islamic caliphate. A power struggle has erupted: al-Qaeda’s reign of terror is being challenged. Sheikh Sittar and many of his fellow tribal leaders have cast their lot with the once-reviled US military. They are persuading hundreds of their followers to sign up for the previously defunct Iraqi police. American troops are moving into a city that was, until recently, a virtual no-go area. A battle is raging for the allegiance of Ramadi’s battered and terrified citizens and the outcome could have far-reaching consequences. Ramadi has been the insurgency’s stronghold for the past two years. It is the conduit for weapons and foreign fighters arriving from Syria and Saudi Arabia. To reclaim it would deal a severe blow to the insurgency throughout the Sunni triangle and counter mounting criticism of the war back in America.

Hewitt on judges: "Today, soon-to-be Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell told the Federalist Society that if "Democrats want our cooperation, they'll give the president's judicial nominees an up-or-down vote." The AP account terms this a "veiled threat," even though there is no "veil' in McConnell's statement. The forthright priority he is giving the repair of Constitutional process in the nomination and consideration of federal judicial nominations is in fact consistent with his much longer discussion of the importance of the judicial nominations' issue with me from Wednesday's program, and very similar to the opinions aired by Senator Coburn -a Judiciary Committee member-- on yesterday's broadcast from D.C., opinions widely shared by most Republican senators and most center-right activists and originalists."

Nicaragua plans big dig to rival Panama Canal: "The southern part of Ometepe Island is barely touched by modernity. On the single dirt road that flanks Lake Nicaragua, pigs are left undisturbed to cool off in puddles. But if planners in the nation's capital, Managua, have their way, people here will bear witness to the day's most advanced technology, with boats the length of five soccer fields plodding from the Atlantic to the Pacific, passing Ometepe along the way. Amid news that the Panama Canal will be expanded to accommodate the growing size and number of ships traversing the globe, Nicaragua has announced its own plan for an interoceanic canal, which planners say would be the world's largest."

In defense of "Borat": "Critics say 'Borat' is anti-American. In fact, the U.S. government could not begin to match Borat's contribution to the image of the United States abroad if it increased the budget of the under secretary for public diplomacy and public affairs by a factor of 10. The most important thing the movie has done for America is to show that it is a society capable of laughing at itself."

Chris Brand has just done a new lot of posts on his usual themes of race, IQ and political correctness -- with particular emphasis on the British scene.

For more postings, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and EYE ON BRITAIN. (Mirror sites here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here).

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"All the worth which the human being possesses, all spiritual reality, he possesses only through the State." -- 19th century German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Hegel is the most influential philosopher of the Left -- inspiring Karl Marx, the American "Progressives" of the early 20th century and university socialists to this day.

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialistisch)

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