Saturday, June 24, 2006

Counterbalance for Sat. 24 June

THE BUZZ OUTSIDE THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA

Kim Krauss jumps off the ground as she holds up a sign in support of the Marines being held in the brig at Camp Pendleton Marine Corps Base during a protest outside the base's main gate Saturday, June 24, 2006, in Oceanside, Calif. Friends and family are rallying around the seven Marines and a Navy medic charged with killing an Iraqi civilian, setting up Web sites to raise money and draw attention to what they claim is an unfair prosecution.Kim Krauss jumps off the ground as she holds up a sign in support of the Marines being held in the brig at Camp Pendleton Marine Corps Base during a protest outside the base's main gate Saturday, June 24, 2006, in Oceanside, Calif.

COMMENTLINES

On WMDs in Iraq:
K
athleen Parker, like many of us, is wondering why the president resists declassifying what can only help the current debate about how to proceed in Iraq. I speculate the reason the White House has downplayed the role of WMDs in going to war in Iraq has more to do with our relationships with those countries who provided the WMDs, mainly our allies: France, Russia, and China; than with trying to assuage liberals and Democrats. After all, some things are simply bigger than the left.

On Al Gore and global warming:
Mark Alexander of the Patriot Post details why Al Gore's global warming flick is full of hot air.

On media and politics:
The New York Times, Los Angeles Times and Washington Post reveal a classified anti-terrorism Program. "Officials who leak the classified information with which they have been entrusted can be prosecuted for theft of government property. If the information is especially sensitive, they can be prosecuted for violating the Espionage Act. In either event, the press has no legal right to protect such lawlessness." says Andrew C. McCarthy in the National Review.

The leak and publish problem runs deeper than liberal bias and the use of anonymous sources in the mainstream media. The problem is within the government itself, where a few civil servants are more loyal to their maligned dogma than to the population they serve.

Heather Mac Donald goes further and says, "The New York Times is a national security threat. So drunk is it on its own power and so antagonistic to the Bush administration that it will expose every classified antiterror program it finds out about, no matter how legal the program, how carefully crafted to safeguard civil liberties, or how vital to protecting American lives."

Following in a similar communications theme, Christopher Orlet in The America Spectator says, "John Adams, who coined the phrase, said the American Revolution was won not on the battlefield, but in the hearts and minds of the American people. That's a good place to start. If President Bush wants to win this war, he'd do well to first win over the American people. Right now, with nearly half of the population convinced the war is a mistake, W. has a lot of courting to do."

NEWSBYTES

WMD IN IRAQ
WMD: Lost and found
By Kathleen Parker

(townhall.com) -- If you thought Democrats and Republicans were politically divided over the war in Iraq, you haven’t seen anything yet. The real political battle apparently is being waged under the radar between the White House, the intelligence community and Congress.

GLOBAL WARMING
"Al's Big Adventure"
This summer's hottest hit
By Mark Alexander

(townhall.com) -- Albert Arnold Gore, the populist pope of eco-theology, is back. Now showing at an artsy theater near you, Gore's tiresome treatise on global warming has taken the urban illiterati by storm.

MEDIA AND POLITCS
The Media’s War Against the War Continues
The New York Times and Los Angeles Times expose a classified anti-terrorism program.
By Andrew C. McCarthy
(NRO) -- Yet again, the New York Times was presented with a simple choice: help protect American national security or help al Qaeda.

National Security Be Damned
The guiding philosophy on West 43rd Street.
By Heather Mac Donald
(weeklystandard.com) -- BY NOW IT'S UNDENIABLE: The New York Times is a national security threat. So drunk is it on its own power and so antagonistic to the Bush administration that it will expose every classified antiterror program it finds out about, no matter how legal the program, how carefully crafted to safeguard civil liberties, or how vital to protecting American lives.

All Heart
The Nation's Pulse
Winning hearts and minds begins at home.
By Christopher Orlet

So much for our "special relationship." Results from a new Pew Research poll show that British support for the War on Terror has dropped from 63 percent in 2004 to 49 percent. That's not the War in Iraq, folks, but the War on Terror. More than half of Brits believe fighting terrorism has made the world more dangerous. Not for the terrorists, mind you, but for the British (though admittedly sometimes the two are one and the same). Apparently the world is made more dangerous by seizing the Canada 17 before they can behead the Canadian Prime Minister. And capturing Saddam. And killing Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

NEWS REFERENCES
Report: Hundreds of WMDs Found in Iraq
WASHINGTON (FOX News) -- The United States has found 500 chemical weapons in Iraq since 2003, and more weapons of mass destruction are likely to be uncovered, two Republican lawmakers said Wednesday.

Bank Data Is Sifted by U.S. in Secret to Block Terror
WASHINGTON, June 22 (NYT) -- Under a secret Bush administration program initiated weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks, counterterrorism officials have gained access to financial records from a vast international database and examined banking transactions involving thousands of Americans and others in the United States, according to government and industry officials. More. More. More.

Bank Records Secretly Tapped
Administration Began Using Global Database Shortly After 2001 Attacks
(washingtonpost.com) -- The Bush administration, relying on a presidential declaration of emergency, has secretly been tapping into a vast global database of confidential financial transactions for nearly five years, according to U.S. government and industry officials.

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