Mitch Daniels Would Choose Condi for his VP Choice (Plus: Likes Bourbon)

Some great posts from Libertarian Republican:

Mitch Daniels met with a group of young Republicans at a local bar in Indiana last week to chat over his potential presidential bid.

From Real Clear Politics, “Getting to Yes for Mitch and Cheri Daniels” May 13:

they asked him who he might like to tap as his vice presidential nominee if he runs.

Hypothetically, he told them, he’d like to pick Condoleezza Rice.

In a 2010 interview with Christianity Today (via kylemcdainell.com), the former Secretary of State was asked about her position on social matters:

I’m generally pretty libertarian in these matters, because Americans are quite good, actually, at finding a way to deal with these extremely divisive and difficult moral issues. And it’s not that I’m a relativist. It’s not that I believe everybody has their own morality. But I do understand that there are different ways of thinking about how these issues are going to play out in people’s lives, and I tend to give people the benefit of the doubt in governing their own lives. Sometimes when things are out of whack the government has no choice but to step in. But I’m wary of the government stepping in to too many issues

[….] and this:

Meeting with a group of young Republicans to discuss his possible presidential bid on Thursday. As relayed by RCP:

“We are a party of ideas, but more importantly a party that acts on ideas,” he said, adding that in the Hoosier State, there were no forgotten towns or inner cities that are too bleak.

He has obviously given some thought to the area beyond Indiana’s borders, too.

Daniels accepted an invitation from those 55 students to meet at a spacious bar several blocks away after the event; he sipped Woodford Reserve bourbon as he asked them about their own lives and families.

NPR Vivian Schiller Resigns-This Should Have Happened Over the Juan Williams Firing

Finally! NPR is showing its true colors again at the very top with the embedded liberalism (see firing of Juan Williams) of its “news” organization. This from NewsBusters:

In the wake of a video sting showing NPR executives making disparaging comments towards conservatives, National Public Radio announced Wednesday morning that it had accepted the resignation of its president Vivian Schiller. “The Board accepted Vivian’s resignation with understanding, genuine regret and great respect for her leadership of NPR these past 2 years,” said Board Chairman Dave Edwards.

The hidden-camera video, released Tuesday, showed NPR exec Ron Schiller, no relation to Vivian, calling the Tea Party “racist” and “xenophobic” and insisting that NPR would be “better off in the long-run” without the federal dollars that congressional Republicans have been seeking to rescind. A pair of NPR statements disavowed Ron Schiller’s comments, and specifically rejected his claims regarding NPR funding.

Vivian Schiller was also the target of criticism for her handling of the firing of Juan Williams from NPR for comments he made about Muslims that the station considered inappropriate. Schiller acknowledged in a speech at the National Press Club on Monday that the firing was not handled correctly.

Williams appeared on the Fox News Channel, where he is a contributor, on Tuesday night to denounce NPR for the revelations in the undercover video. “They prostitute themselves for money,” he had told Fox Nation earlier in the day.

…(read more)…

 

NPR Is a Biased Organization-which is why Mara Liasson is MIA on FoxNews (Also: Vivian on O’Reilly)

Joe Scarborough voiced the feeling of many at the time. “Well I just want to say, I love NPR and I listen to NPR, but I’ve been listening to reformed, pot-smoking hippies for the past thirty years on NPR with a very substantial left-wing bias — and I don’t care that they eat tree bark like Euell Gibbons, and I don’t care if they are still smoking pot in their sixties,” he said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” “They put on great radio. But for NPR — for NPR, the leadership at NPR to question the bias of Fox News is a joke.” (Daily Caller)

Now I know why I haven’t seen Mara Liasson on the FOX Special Report panel! Michael Eden over at Start Thinking Right has a great post on this topic entitled, “Government-Funded NPR Tries To Force Mara Liasson Off Fox News To Please White House Ownership,” in which he points out the following:

NPR reporter pressured over Fox role
By: Josh Gerstein
December 6, 2009 10:36 PM EST

Executives at National Public Radio recently asked the network’s top political correspondent, Mara Liasson, to reconsider her regular appearances on Fox News because of what they perceived as the network’s political bias, two sources familiar with the effort said.

According to a source, Liasson was summoned in early October by NPR’s executive editor for news, Dick Meyer, and the network’s supervising senior Washington editor, Ron Elving. The NPR executives said they had concerns that Fox’s programming had grown more partisan, and they asked Liasson to spend 30 days watching the network.

At a follow-up meeting last month, Liasson reported that she’d seen no significant change in Fox’s programming and planned to continue appearing on the network, the source said.

NPR’s focus on Liasson’s work as a commentator on Fox’s “Special Report” and “Fox News Sunday” came at about the same time as a White House campaign launched in September to delegitimize the network by painting it as an extension of the Republican Party.

One source said the White House’s criticism of Fox was raised during the discussions with Liasson. However, an NPR spokeswoman told POLITICO that the Obama administration’s attempts to discourage other news outlets from treating Fox as a peer had no impact on any internal discussions at NPR.

[….]

To the best of my knowledge, Mara Liasson has never ONCE appeared on either Glenn Beck’s or Sean Hannity’s programs.  She has appeared on Fox News Special Report with Brett Baier and with Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday.  Unlike the Kool-aid-drinking mainstream media, Mara has been smart enough to understand the difference between news and op-ed, and she has remained on the news side.

Meanwhile, the mainstream media’s malicious and dishonest smearing of conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh was apparently NOT “biased.”  CNN’s “fact checking” of an SNL sketch critical of Obama (while hypocritically ignoring months of unrelenting SNL sketch attacks against Sarah Palin) was NOT “biased.”  The mainstream medias’ frequent “reporting” about conservatives “organizing” while simultaneously ignoring PAID liberal activists’ organizing was NOT “biased.”

Take a gander at MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann’s bias (see HERE and HERE) and then recognize that he is immediately followed by Rachel Maddow (see here and here), who is nearly as bad.  There’s your Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity on steroids.

The mainstream media seem to love bias and propaganda, just as long as it is LIBERAL bias and propaganda.  And anything LESS THAN liberal bias and propaganda sends them into a hissy fit of galactic proportions.


Michael Eden continues:

The NPR ombudsman responded to a Pew study that challenged the liberal bias of the mainstream media by saying this:

There is much that can be pointed to as examples of inherent bias in the media — including NPR.

The media — as a class — tends to be remarkably homogeneous. As an NPR editor pointed out to me recently, “How many of our journalists have ever operated a business?” The poll indirectly points to the need for more diversity in our newsrooms — both intellectual and cultural. […]

This poll may have been done correctly, but in this one aspect — questioning the professionalism of journalists — the result will be a disservice to American journalists and journalism. In order to avoid the “liberal bias” accusation, some journalists might feel there is safety in pack journalism and that is likely to have a chilling effect on tough, independent journalism.

The media and its management have an obligation to maintain a skeptical and adversarial role to whatever party is in power. This poll could discourage that by implying that journalists will always let their personal politics trump their professional obligations.

Keep in mind that for much of the 2008 election campaign, and for most of Obama’s presidency, Fox News was basically the ONLY “adversarial” voice.  Fox News has in fact stood alone in avoiding the “pack journalism” that the rest of the mainstream media has pursued.  Which is to say, Fox News has actually done exactly those things that the NPR ombudsman argued that the media had to do.

…(read more)…

 

Here is a great example of the bias found on NPR:

Anti-Semitism can come in many forms; I would argue that when a news organization is very unbalanced in their coverage of the currant Palestinian/Israeli conflict, they are showing a bias that is feeding unhealthy views about the Semitic people and their history.

For instance, NPR: 18,321 words in pro-Arab only segments, 4,934 words in pro-Israel segments. Bias in number of Arab-only vs Israeli-only segments: 63-percent Palestinian/pro-Arab only segments, 37-percent Israel/pro-Israel segments.

NPR is a left leaning, tax payer funded (government), radio program. Sounds somewhat fascist to me.

Read more: RPT What “Is” Fascism (Two Posts Combined & Imported from Old Blog)


Another example from the recent “flotilla incident:”

A recent segment of On Point discussing the Gaza flotilla incident provided a reminder of why National Public Radio has been referred to derisively as “National Palestine Radio”. The segment hosted by Tom Ashbrook was broadcast on June 2, 2010 in the wake of the Gaza flotilla events and featured  five guests — not a single one who defended Israeli actions. The show featured:

Dianna Buttu, the Canadian-Arab lawyer who has been been faulted by CAMERA for unabashedly distorting the facts and was caught brazenly lyingKarine AFrancop (Nov. 2009) intercepted by Israel and found to be loaded with vast quantities of armaments do not count. during Israel’s Operation Cast Lead, asserting that Hamas rockets directed at Israeli towns do not contain explosives. Ashbrook introduced the former Palestinian Authority spokeswoman as an “Arab citizen of Israel.” Buttu provided her usual calumnies—”the blockade is a war crime”…”nothing linked to security”… “Israel cannot use the defense that the blockade is legal”… etc. Apparently, the two Iranian ships, the and the

Edward Peck, member of the Gaza flotilla and a friend to Hamas and Hezbollah, is associated with the Council for the National Interest, an organization that endeavors to end the close relationship between America and Israel. Peck describes the flotilla as “a humanitarian gesture, not in any way… hostile to Israel… The people were all of the humanitarian variety, ” he assured listeners. We have since learned that among that “variety” were Turkish militants seeking martyrdom.

Christopher Dickey, Middle East regional editor for Newsweek, has long contended that Israel is trying to  drag the USA into a war with Iran.  He reiterated this point-of-view again on the program. Dickey also falsely assured the audience that Israel, “knew there weren’t any lethal weapons to Gaza.”

Ehud Eiran was the sole Israeli representative. However, he did not present the dominant Israeli perspective. Polls have shown most Israelis solidly back their government’s stance on the blockade, but in typical NPR fashion, the person chosen to represent the Israeli perspective stated that  he “does not even support the Israeli position.” On June 14, he published a piece in Newsweek describing Israel as a modern-day Sparta afflicted with a “hardening of the heart.”

Janine Zacharia, a Middle East correspondent with the Washington Post, was the only one who did not overtly criticize Israel.  Neither did she defend its actions.

So there you have it – five perspectives and not one voice to present the mainstream Israeli perspective. That’s Ashbrook’s and NPR’s version of a balanced discussion on Israel.

(CAMERA article)



HotAir h/t:

“Fourteen percent of NPR listeners identified themselves as Republican, 40 percent said they were Democrats and 41 percent were independent, according to a survey taken in June by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press. Among all surveyed by Pew, the breakdown was 25 percent Republican, 33 percent Democratic and 34 percent independent.

Juan Williams Talks About NPR firing him-plus: Nina Totenberg (still at NPR) on God Giving Jesse Helms Grandchildren Aids

HotAir and NewsBusters h/t:

 

Here is Juan Williams Op-Ed:

Yesterday NPR fired me for telling the truth. The truth is that I worry when I am getting on an airplane and see people dressed in garb that identifies them first and foremost as Muslims.

This is not a bigoted statement. It is a statement of my feelings, my fears after the terrorist attacks of 9/11 by radical Muslims. In a debate with Bill O’Reilly I revealed my fears to set up the case for not making rash judgments about people of any faith. I pointed out that the Atlanta Olympic bomber —  as well as Timothy McVeigh and the people who protest against gay rights at military funerals — are Christians but we journalists don’t identify them by their religion.

And I made it clear that all Americans have to be careful not to let fears lead to violation of anyone’s constitutional rights, be it to build a mosque, carry the Koran or drive a New York cab without fear having your throat slashed. Bill and I argued after I said he has to take care in the way he talks about the 9/11 attacks so as not to provoke bigotry.

This was an honest, sensitive debate hosted by O’Reilly. At the start of the debate Bill invited me, challenged me to tell him where he was wrong for stating the fact that “Muslims killed us there,” in the 9/11 attacks. He made that initial statement on the ABC program, “The View,” which caused some of the co-hosts to walk off the set. They did not return until O’Reilly apologized for not being clear that he did not mean the country was attacked by all Muslims but by extremist radical Muslims.

I took Bill’s challenge and began by saying that political correctness can cause people to become so paralyzed that they don’t deal with reality. And the fact is that it was a group of Muslims who attacked the U.S. I added that radicalism has continued to pose a threat to the United States and much of the world. That threat was expressed in court last week by the unsuccessful Times Square bomber who bragged that he was just one of the first engaged in a “Muslim War” against the United States. — There is no doubt that there’s a real war and people are trying to kill us.

Mary Katharine Ham, a conservative writer, joined the debate to say that it is important to make the distinction between moderate and extreme Islam for conservatives who support the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq on the premise that the U.S. can build up moderate elements in those countries and push out the extremists. I later added that we don’t want anyone attacked on American streets because “they heard rhetoric from Bill O’Reilly and they act crazy.” Bill agreed and said the man who slashed the cabby was a “nut” and so was the Florida pastor who wanted to burn the Koran.

My point in recounting this debate is to show this was in the best American tradition of a fair, full-throated and honest discourse about the issues of the day. — There was no bigotry, no crude provocation, no support for anti-Muslim sentiments of any kind.

Two days later, Ellen Weiss, my boss at NPR called to say I had crossed the line, essentially accusing me of bigotry. She took the admission of my visceral fear of people dressed in Muslim garb at the airport as evidence that I am a bigot. She said there are people who wear Muslim garb to work at NPR and they are offended by my comments. She never suggested that I had discriminated against anyone. Instead she continued to ask me what did I mean and I told her I said what I meant. Then she said she did not sense remorse from me. I said I made an honest statement. She informed me that I had violated NPR’s values for editorial commentary and she was terminating my contract as a news analyst.

I pointed out that I had not made my comments on NPR. She asked if I would have said the same thing on NPR. I said yes, because in keeping with my values I will tell people the truth about feelings and opinions.

I asked why she would fire me without speaking to me face to face and she said there was nothing I could say to change her mind, the decision had been confirmed above her, and there was no point to meeting in person. To say the least this is a chilling assault on free speech. The critical importance of honest journalism and a free flowing, respectful national conversation needs to be had in our country. But it is being buried as collateral damage in a war whose battles include political correctness and ideological orthodoxy.

I say an ideological battle because my comments on “The O’Reilly Factor” are being distorted by the self-righteous ideological, left-wing leadership at NPR. They are taking bits and pieces of what I said to go after me for daring to have a conversation with leading conservative thinkers. They loathe the fact that I appear on Fox News. They don’t notice that I am challenging Bill O’Reilly and trading ideas with Sean Hannity. In their hubris they think by talking with O’Reilly or Hannity I am lending them legitimacy. Believe me, Bill O’Reilly (and Sean, too) is a major force in American culture and politics whether or not I appear on his show.

Full op-ed here. (Big Government h/t)