The Trouble With Russert

MR. RUSSERT: If he said to you, “Mr. President, what do I do today about the Middle East? What do I do to get a true peace?”

FMR. PRES. CARTER: OK. First of all, I think that the United States should stop their horrible abuse of the Palestinian people in a generic sense. I mean, all Palestinian people. Because they voted for Hamas candidates last January, we have cut off all aid to, to the Palestinian people, humanitarian aid and otherwise. We don’t let contributions from other nations go to the Palestinian people. They don’t have enough money to pay their, their teachers, their nurses, their policemen, their firemen, anybody on their public payroll, just because the Palestinian people voted for Hamas candidates. So I would stop that and let humanitarian aid go into Gaza and to the West Bank. (Meet The Press, Dec. 3, 2006)

What has become of Tim Russert? I write this as someone who once had a high regard for him, who once believed he was a firm but fair interviewer of all guests on his Sunday morning news broadcast. No more. In the past year, as the elections drew near, I detected a noticeable bias in his questions and more shocking, a stridency towards Republicans, elected or otherwise. It seems as if Tim Russert, like so many former Democrat politician aides-turned-media-hosts, has succumbed to the pack mentality so prominent in the mainstream media today. Last Sunday's show is a case in point.

Russert badgered the Bush Administration's Stephen Hadley over Russert's demand that George W. Bush admit numerous mistakes in Iraq policy. Hello! Am I mistaken, or did Bush not already admit he and the entire world were misled into believing Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction? Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't believe Mr. Russert has badgered Democrats who looked at the same intelligence and who voted for the Iraq War to admit their mistakes, although that does seem to be the template demanded by the left wing kooks in their party.

Not content with Stephen Hadley's deft defense of Iraq policy, or more likely agitated that his demands were rebuffed, Mr. Russert then badgered Sen. John Warner. The senator, clearly angered by the host's scowling demeanor and overbearing demands for contrition, let Mr. Russert know he would not buckle to Russert's demands. The Virginia senator was subjected to incessant questions over the failure to bring the Iraq War to a successful conclusion while Sen. Carl Levin, the Democrat from Michigan, was lobbed softballs setup questions which allowed him to tee off on the president and his Administration's conduct of the war. Mr. Russert's sole question to Levin about a non-existent Democratic Iraq plan for success failed to prompt a follow-up after a lame response from the Michigan senator.

Tim Russert these days carefully tracks the DNC/media blueprint for all "journalists" doing their bidding. That is, to pick up unsubstantiated "leaks" of bipartisan reports published or broadcast by DNC-friendly organs of propaganda, and then to assert by implication that those unsubstantiated leaks are truth in fact. As I wrote in my November 27th commentary the media are free to allege any manner of "news" that cannot be substantiated and subsequently have those allegations promoted by the press pack dogs. We saw this with the horribly misleading 9/11 Commission interim staff reports, faithfully promoted by National Public Radio and other left wing outlets, that bore little or no resemblance to the final Commission Report. Of course, the misleading and dishonest interim staff reports had the intended effect of discrediting the Bush Administration's early days in office while exonerating the previous Clinton Administration of any and all failures to combat Islamofacist terrorism.

In fact, NPR's Nina Totenberg attempted to blame Rush Limbaugh for death threats directed at 9/11 Commission member Jamie Gorelick, the author of the infamous Clinton Administration's The Wall memo that barred intelligence sharing between federal law enforcement agencies as well as among different divisions of the same agencies. Rush Limbaugh, as well as then-Attorney General John Ashcroft, questioned why Ms. Gorelick was not put under oath to testify as to the failures in discovering and tracking terrorists. Indeed, National Public Radio never sought to follow up on this apparently reasonable question, since it would force their "reporters" to delve into the Clinton Administration's abject failure in treating acts of terrorism as simple law enforcement issues. Rather, Ms. Totenberg and NPR attempted character assassination of a radio talk show host who merely asked the questions the DNC/media axis refused to ask.

In a similar fashion, Tim Russert and the media are now running with unsubstantiated reports that the Iraq Study Group will recommend a US withdrawal from Iraq. The visibly agitated Sen. Warner, as well as preceding guest Hadley, cautioned the scowling Russert to wait until the report was made public before jumping to his conclusions. However, Russert is vested in seeing to it that unsupported leaks are promoted as fact, so he was not fazed by warnings to be careful in his suppositions.

Whereas Russert was demanding and hostile towards Hadley and Warner, he was solicitous of former President Carter, who earlier in the interview had delivered the outrageous Jews control the media message, so common among fringe elements like the Klan. President Carter is another who I once held in high regard, but no more. Tim Russert failed to challenge the subliminal anti-Semitic tone of Mr. Carter's comments, and one needs only to view the program to understand the import of the remark. When Mr. Carter went on to assert that the United States is at fault for cutting funding to the Hamas government, elected upon the promise to wage war against Israel, Mr. Russert abdicated all pretense to fairness in order to protect the one-term Democrat from pointed criticism. A professional journalist would have immediately demanded to know why, if a people elect a government dedicated to the destruction of a US ally, that the taxpayers of America must funnel financial aid to that Hamas government. However, since Tim Russert is no longer a professional journalist but rather an obvious partisan, he smiled his way through the Carter interview as if he were Larry King. It's sad to say, but Meet The Press has become another MSNBC clone to promote partisan political agendas. It's time for NBC to replace Tim Russert as host of this once-reputable Sunday morning news program.

The Corrupt United Nations

GENEVA - The U.N. Human Rights Council rejected on Tuesday an attempt to hold the Sudanese government responsible for halting atrocities in Darfur, opting instead for a less-pointed resolution calling on all warring parties to end abuses.

The council, which took over from the discredited U.N. Human Rights Commission June, is dominated by African and Muslim countries that have sided with China, Cuba and other countries in preventing criticism of any government but Israel.

The council voted 22-20 against a resolution from the European Union and Canada demanding the Sudanese government prosecute those responsible for killing, raping and injuring civilians in the Darfur region of western Sudan. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061128/ap_on_re_af/un_rights

I recall the vitriol that Ronald Reagan had to endure from kneejerk liberals and leftist organs of propaganda, like the New York Times and Washington Post, about what was termed his brinkmanship in dealing with the Soviet Empire. The Left's myth-of-the-moment at the time was that President Reagan was a "cowboy" who might possibly ignite a nuclear holocaust merely by speaking out about the human rights abuses of the communist dictatorship.

Ronald Reagan and the conservative base he led understood that communism was a belief system devoid of faith, and that for human rights to prevail in the Soviet Empire leaders in the West had a requirement to speak the unvarnished truth. Liberals and the worldwide Left scoffed at and denounced this supposed simple-minded approach as a failure to bow to the dogma of realpolitic. The Left and liberals were of course wrong, as the combination of truth and increased US defense appropriations forced the demise of the Soviet Empire.

The Soviet Union was indeed an empty ideological edifice that had no real adherents, not even among the miniscule cadre of privileged Party elites who ruled through terror. One thing liberals and the Left believe totally is that they are never wrong. At least on this one delusional belief they have total faith. If you don't believe this then study their response to the truth that Alger Hiss was indeed a Soviet mole and compare it to their denials that Ronald Reagan played a major role in the defeat of Soviet imperialism.

History today repeats itself, with the Left/liberal dogma claiming that the United Nations is a worthwhile international body. If one is silly enough to believe this pap the United Nations would have been a better institution for dealing with Saddam Hussein's recalcitrance than the American-led coalition's determination to remove him. All one needs to be that silly is to ignore the seventeen UN resolutions that Saddam sneered at. Throw in the UN's corrupt Oil-for-Food scam that later came to light and if anyone still falls for the notion that the UN would have been a credible option to the allied resolve then the next stop for that person is the nuthouse. In short, the Soviet belief-without-faith system is mirrored in United Nations supporters; a profession of belief in a system where adherents lack true faith.

Now it's the issue of Darfur where the United Nations again conclusively demonstrates that it has become nothing more than a stalling element for Islamic hegemony and conquest. The UN attempted to stall the Iraq invasion, the UN stalls any sanctions against Iran for violating its agreement not to seek nuclear arms, the UN's Kofi Annan publicly calls America on the carpet for alleged human rights violations but refuses to call for equal rights in moslem societies for women, minorities, homosexuals, and dissidents as if the UN is aghast at the thought those groups exist in Islamic countries. In my memory I can't think of a comparable example of institutional hypocrisy. How many more Rwandas and Darfurs have to occur before the will to fight deceit and corruption rise to critical mass? For God's sake the United Nations cannot and will not define "terrorism", as this would force it to confront the very real and very brutal Islamofascist offensive against civilization.

What exactly is the United Nation's mission if not to extend the very policies Mr. Annan gives lip service to but ignores on a global scale? Is his job merely to preach to those countries that try to live up to the stated UN ideals while stuffing corrupt dictators' payoffs into his and his associates' pockets? It appears that is just how he approaches his job; the question is why civilized members of the United Nations have allowed him to remain in his job so long after UN officials' and his family's ties to the Oil-for-Food program became public.

Now that Democrats have successfully blocked John Bolton's nomination as UN ambassador it looks like the United Nations will continue to be a hindrance to those who believe in freedom, democracy, and universal human rights unless and until the United States leads a determined push to reform the corrupt UN. A good start would be for the president to nominate a Bolton-like realist willing to speak Bolton-like truth, forcing the leftist media to provide reformers a platform much like the media provided one for President Reagan. The truth dispels darkness; now is the time for good men and women to speak the truth just as when Ronald Reagan in speaking out about the communist regime. Only then will corrupt empires reform or fall and do-nothing lip service give way to relief of mass human rights atrocities in Darfur. We can only hope President Bush's resolve has not finally been weakened by recent elections and the continued liberal mass media onslaught against him and his presidency. We can only hope President Bush shows the steadfastness of a Ronald Reagan.