Sorry for being out of pocket folks. Family and work were filling my days recently.

Rita and Katrina were very powerful storms which left a lot of destruction in their wakes. America will band together to assist the ravaged areas and our neighbors in need. The question is whether the media-formally-known-as-mainstream and the talking heads – both sides – will mute their marginal naggings so we can all do what we must with the least distractions. It is no surprise the hyper-critical ACLU, which has long lost any purpose in this country (except to push socialistic dogma and theories), is out today telling people of faith they are not welcomed in the national effort.

After weeks of prodding by Republican lawmakers and the American Red Cross, the Federal Emergency Management Agency said yesterday that it will use taxpayer money to reimburse churches and other religious organizations that have opened their doors to provide shelter, food and supplies to survivors of hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
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Civil liberties groups called the decision a violation of the traditional boundary between church and state, accusing FEMA of trying to restore its battered reputation by playing to religious conservatives.

“What really frosts me about all this is, here is an administration that didn’t do its job and now is trying to dig itself out by making right-wing groups happy,” said the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State.

See what happens in fantasy world of leftwing nuts when you open your door to feed and shelter those who lost everything in the storm? You are called ‘right-wing’. You are smeared and mocked. I am not religous nor am I a republican – yet. But I would rather be ‘right-wing’ and care about others than ‘left-wing’ and so bitter and angry that I cannot see any good outside my selfishness. Barry Lynn is a sad, little man who exemplifies what is so wrong with the left in this country. Barry, buck up and put out a helping hand – even if the person is religous.

The Washington press needs some new blood if it wants to be a respected source of information. Take for example this statement, which reflects a 3rd grade understanding of the world:

Violent attacks — unknown before the invasion — have killed more than 3,000 since late spring.

I actually cannot find that in the story, it is the tease from the ‘front page’ today. In the first paragraph in the story is this

Revelers threw water on one another and the Americans, exuding joy at the crushing of a dictatorship that had silenced, tortured and killed their people.

So the author acknowledges America liberated the people from a 3 decade nightmare. But the author somehow never points out that it is the insurgency killing Iraqi’s and not allowing them to rejoice in their freedom from Saddam’s terror squads:

You think the Post ever gets around to pointing out Americans are not the ones killing Iraqi’s and barring them from their basic rights due them as human beings?

Like the rest of Baghdad, Karrada is messier, more beat up than it was before the invasion. Merchants leave some damage from bombings unrepaired, anticipating more violence. Rubbish tends to pile up in once-tidy streets, neglected by a weak, cobbled-together government.

Oh, how we all wish for the good ‘ol days under dear Uncle Saddam! You folks in the news media need to get a grip on reality and point out how great things in Iraq could be if the insurgency was defeated.

Cindy “Get the US out of New Orleans” Sheehan is not even worth mentioning, except the press cannot seem to let go of their Joan of Arc and so they keep mentioning her!

About 370 antiwar demonstrators were arrested yesterday after planting themselves on the sidewalk in front of the White House, a protest that stretched out for nearly five hours as police removed them in stages to avoid a backlog at a processing center.
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Cindy Sheehan, who was among the demonstrators yesterday, was the first to be taken into police custody. She smiled at the crowd when police lifted her from the sidewalk and escorted her to a van.

Sheehan is just a strange person in search of a media camera. Where is the news here? There was obviously nothing more important in the world than this staged photo op.

The Frist controversy seems to be another yawner. People who own stock, and then sell it, is not really big news. Insider trading has to be proven without any doubt, and so far all we have is an apparent coincidence. Frist says he had no insider information and there is an investigation. In America, at least the America I grew up in, a person is innocent until proven guilty. Anyone out claiming he his guilty wants to live in a country more akin to the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany. In these countries claims by partisans held sway over truth and justice. One way to tone down the political heat today is to start acting like Americans and rebuke any talking head or partisan media hack who acts contrary to our founding principles. On both sides.

The Washington Post editorials today are a pathetic attempt by a group of nobodies trying to act like know-it-alls, when all they know how to do is watch others do what they do best. The press is a strange profession, where the best are able to tell gripping stories about the accomplishments or failures of others. But they are still spectators to history.

The worst pretend they are smarter and more omnipotent than anyone else on the planet – because they are book read on a subject. Given the internet, television, rapid publishing technologies, we can all learn for ourselves what people are doing. The press has a role in this, but somehow they lost their way in it in the last decade of the partisan wars. They need to remember they are a spectator function.

E.J. Dionne is a classic example of someone who at one time early in his career wanted to explore the details of events and tell the stories to all of us. Back then I enjoyed reading his work. Now he tries to manipulate events so reality is more to his personal liking. And of course now he is not very interesting. He is not interesting because we all know he pines for a reality that conforms to the fantasy socialist nirvanna everyone touts when they are afraid to face the ‘real’ reality. A nirvanna created from simplistic ideals more attune to Sesame Street stories than the real world. You know, where we all smile blissfully, and no one is superior, and everything is so 1950’s TV. Ugh.

Democrats and liberals are ecstatic that President Bush has finally faced his moment of accountability. The travails of Hurricane Katrina followed a bad summer for the president and have called into question his leadership style, competence and intense partisanship.

The world is great when a natural disaster of biblical proportions causes mass suffering. Why? Because the left thinks the masses are so stupid they will believe Bush is responsible. They are giddy with anticipation and the idea the dimwit Americans will blame the dimwit President for hurricanes.

And the left wonders why people immediately think of vultures when they see these reactions on the left. Hell, two or three more body blows to America and Bush might be impeached!

The critiques come from the left (“Why can’t Democrats stand up and be counted?”) and from the center (“We’ll never win if we look like liberal ideologues”). And almost every day Democrats seem to give their critics evidence of division. The party splintered over the nomination of John Roberts as chief justice. The newspaper Roll Call reported yesterday that some House Democrats were opposing the decision by their leader, Nancy Pelosi, to boycott a Republican-led investigation of the Katrina disaster. Pelosi favors an independent commission. You know the party has a problem when even the politics of Katrina divides its members.

E.J., we know you are obssessed with partisanship when finding solutions to the suffering of Americans becomes a distant priority to the politics of democrats desparate to win some elections. This is the kind of thinking that just makes you want to puke. It is crass, cold, calculating. It is the kind of thinking that was shared by the worst enemies mankind has ever faced. Power uber alles. It is why America is turning its back on the left.

Seems I am not the only one who can see how badly our media acted during these times [Hat tip: Drudge]. The LA Times, of all places, is running a story on how poorly the media performed its supposed functions of accurately reporting events.

The New Orleans Times-Picayune on Monday described inflated body counts, unverified “rapes,” and unconfirmed sniper attacks as among examples of “scores of myths about the dome and Convention Center treated as fact by evacuees, the media and even some of New Orleans’ top officials.”

Indeed, Mayor C. Ray Nagin told a national television audience on “Oprah” three weeks ago of people “in that frickin’ Superdome for five days watching dead bodies, watching hooligans killing people, raping people.”

Let’s be blunt here. Ray Nagin is a liar, willing to lie for political gain.

For the finale, we drop in on The Hill, again thanks to Drudge, and watch how the Gang of 14’s agreement last spring was the big win for the reps all of us in The Coaltion of The Chillin’ predicted it would be:

Sen. Patrick Leahy (Vt.), the Senate Judiciary Committee’s ranking Democrat, vented frustration with Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (Nev.) during a closed-door Democratic meeting last week before stunning colleagues and liberal activists by announcing his support for Supreme Court nominee John Roberts.

No filibuster, but lots and lots of confirmed judges! Still chillin’.