White House mad at British press - because they can't control them!

Drudge linked today to a report from Politico that described Press Secretary Gibbs attacking the British press:

“I want to speak generally about some reports I’ve witnessed over the past few years in the British media. And in some ways, I’m surprised it filtered down,” Gibbs began. “Let’s just say if I wanted to look up – if I wanted to read a writeup today of how Manchester United fared last night in the Champion’s League cup, I might open up a British newspaper. If I was looking for something that bordered on truthful news, I’m not entirely sure it’d be in the first pack of clips I’d pick up.”

“You're not going to find very many of these newspapers and truth within 25 words of each other,” Gibbs continued.

I suspect he was talking about the fact that the British papers in some cases chose not to print stories that were either too inflammatory (prisoner abuse photos) or were not sufficiently loose toward the release of information that might endanger secret government programs aimed at keeping US and British citizens safer. The real joke in this story is that it is pretty clear to me where his real issue resides.

He doesn't like that the British press will not accept the Obama White House narrative without question. That is his version of "truth". It's also why I read a lot more of the British press the the US press anymore. When US journalists talk about the tingling up their leg when Obama talks, it is really hard to take the seriously at all.

So keep at it British press!

Read the Politico story here.

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Sotomayor's real downside

I know that many blogs on the right are buzzing with anti-Sotomayor rhetoric and that is fine. The left blogs did the same thing for every Bush nominee and it is to be expected to a certain extent. I have read quite a bit both about the nominee, said nominee's colleagues, her resume and lawyers that have appeared in front of her.

Oh yes, I have also heard the speech at Berkeley and her borderline racist commentary. They will provide plenty of fodder for her to be questioned when she goes through her confirmation hearings. As a matter of fact, they provide plenty of opportunity to have thoughtful questioning of the nominee.

What bothers me about Sotomayor is the repeated suggestion that she 'isn't that smart'. That is not a good trait in a justice of the supreme court. This country survives because of the relationship between the Executive (job needs competence), Legislative(founders built balance into a system that could potentially breed over politicized incompetence - see Pelosi) and the Judicial (requires the maximum competence) branches of government functioning together.

What is the evidence? My first clue is in her 3 out of 6 success rate when her appellate cases were reviewed by the court. Worse, she is likely to also lose the New Haven case which is so clearly unconstitutional. So she could literally be confirmed in time to bring the ultimate jurisprudence losing record to the supreme court.

And that scares me.

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Powerline breaks major election fraud story!

Because there is no such thing as investigative journalism by media giants like the New York Time in regard to Barack Obama, Powerline once again broke a story about contribution fraud at Obama's web site:

More recently, incidents have been reported in which people have seen credit card charges surface suggesting they donated to Barack Obama when they did not. Matthew Mosk and Sarah Cohen noted one such incident earlier this week:

Now comes the story of Mary T. Biskup, of Manchester, Missouri. Biskup got a call recently from the Obama campaign, which was trying to figure out why she donated $174,800 to the campaign -- well over the contribution limit of $2,300.

The answer she gave them was simple. "That's an error."

Is the Obama campaign knowingly receiving illegal contributions?

It it indeed? Apparently, Powerline readers have been testing the site and have found a criminal lack of basic fraud checking at the Obama donation web site. Interestingly, the McCain has verification clearly in place.

Read the article here. The fact that the fraud is occurring is bad enough. The fact that no media organization will report on it is chilling. If this were John McCain, it would be front page news.

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