Saturday, May 30, 2009

Getting Away with Murder

There is an epidemic of murders in this nation. You won’t find them in the FBI statistics and there are no detectives or investigations. These are virtual murders—character assignations. And staying with the metaphor, the New York Times is a serial killer of historic proportions.

There is an MO that can help you identify and maybe even prevent a murder. A reporter or a columnist thinks they have a story—usually a deep, dark, insidious plot that must be revealed to protect the American public—and they are sure it is true. But they do not have facts or proof, they cannot corroborate their theory through confirmed sources, not even through sources who wish to remain anonymous because they fear retribution. The writer could contact the victim directly and get their side of the story, but that would likely dispel the mythical plot and exonerate the villain. Left with no place else to go and a faint twinge of commitment to the journalist’s code of ethics—they go where they can say what they want about anything or anybody without fear of libel suit or being bound by any sense of honor—they go to the Op Ed page. The murder in the form of character assassination is committed in the office, with the pen, by the journalist.

I have witnessed two attempted murders recently by Maureen Dowd. And her intended victim, who she has been trying to kill for years, is Vice President Cheney.

In the first recent attempt, Ms. Dowd claims to have obtained a copy of the Top Secret testimony of Dick Cheney before the Senate Intelligence Committee. Then she proceeds to fabricate the most outlandish concoction of the Vice President’s testimony about torture and the war on terrorism. But, it is not enough just to write a fictional piece; Ms. Dowd uses quotation marks to add an air of authenticity to her diatribe of lies.

The second attempt was the omni-present Maureen Dowd listening in on a private conversation between Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfield at a Georgetown cafĂ©. Again, she uses quotation marks to suggest that this was a factual report of an actual meeting of the former VP and Secretary of Defense. And, if it was not bad enough that she completely made up the conversation she “listened” in on, consider her moral outrage at the trampling of her Constitutional “rights” if it had been the omni-present NSA listening in of her private conversation at a public place.

Ms. Dowd does such a great job of building these fantasies about Dick Cheney that I even found myself wondering if they could be true. I suspect that 90% of the readers were left wondering the same thing. The difference for this reader is that I know Dick Cheney. I worked for him for four years when he represented Wyoming in the US Congress and I have remained a personal friend through the years. Suddenly, I snapped to full consciousness and realized I had witnessed two attempted virtual murders.

Moreover, I have had personal experience with the media’s new penchant for character assassinations, fabrications, slander, and manipulation of their readers through the unethical perversion of the Opinion Editorial. At least three lead editorials in the NY Times have impugned my character, my professional qualifications, and outright lied about an action I had taken as a Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Interior. The NY Times never consulted with Interior or me about the veracity of their fabrication. In fact, they twice refused to even print a 150-word letter to the editor correcting the record. And if it is not enough to be the subject of lies and even likened to the devil himself in a major national newspaper, the story gets reprinted in thousands of smaller papers across the country.

You see the real danger here is that once it has made it to newspaper print, then in the eyes of every journalist out there, the fabrication is now incontrovertible fact. This happens even though the original piece is printed on the Op Ed page, where journalistic license allows the authors a certain degree of factual latitude when expressing their “opinion.” But, the follow up stories are not printed on the Op Ed page; they are now news and that is how they get reported.

I feel sorry for the “Maureen Dowds” of the journalistic world. She just can’t get over the fact that George W. Bush and Dick Cheney were elected twice. She can’t get over the fact that Dick Cheney is still making news about issues for which his qualifications are undisputed. To my knowledge, no journalist has suggested Al Gore “shut up” about global warming even though several reputable scientists have caught him in his own fabrications on the issue. I haven’t heard anyone suggest Jimmy Carter go away and stop his interloping, dare I say, cowboy brand of diplomacy.

Two things will continue to frustrate Maureen Dowd. The first is that Chaney is right and polls show that the American people know he is right. Second, she is frustrated that her multiple murder attempts, each more deadly than the previous, have failed to kill Dick Cheney’s credibility. By now she should know that, if you want to kill a cowboy, you can’t just cut off his head; you have to hide it from him.

Tuesday, May 12, 2009

If Fiction Works for the Left, Why Can’t We Use It Too?

While conservationists make a difference by cooperatively working to improve habitat, the environmental industry employs stables of lawyers who march across the nation and advance bad policies through litigation. Our economy is being strangled, the bureaucracy is entangled, and lives are destroyed. In the meantime—thanks in part to the entertainment industry—America is happily “going green.”

Why—even though our environment has improved—do millions of Americans believe our world is teetering on the brink of destruction? Environmentalists are influencing people through the entertainment industry.

It all started with the 1975 novel, The Monkey Wrench Gang. Over time, this work of fiction became a manifesto for radical environmentalism and it paved the way for thousands of other novels that depict mankind as an eco scourge.

You can count on your fingers the number of times that fiction has been used to expose the dark side of environmentalism. Michael Crichton’s novel, State of Fear, and L. P. Hoffman’s new release, The Canaan Creed, are among them.

The response to The Canaan Creed has been overwhelmingly favorable, but the mainstream media won’t carry this message. I need your help. Together we can penetrate the entertainment market and reach millions of Americans with the truth—radical environmentalism does not work, conservation does!

Saturday, May 9, 2009

From the Politics of “Hope” and “Change” to a Culture of “Fear”

Remember the rhetoric of the 2008 Presidential campaign? Barack Obama was all about “Hope” and “Change,” something or someone you can “Believe” in. And Obama’s opposition was not so much John McCain as it was about no more George W. Bush. But Barack Obama will forget the past; he is all about the future. He would bring a fresh perspective to Washington, no more bitter partisan wrangling.

My how soon we forget our campaign promises and rhetoric. Even before Obama took the Oath of Office, he was telling Congressional Republicans that he had “won” the election and wasn’t going to take “no” for an answer. And he has taken this same approach several times since taking office. His Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel, was even more direct telling Republicans they could go you-know-what themselves. Yes, we were warned, and now it has come true; we do indeed have Chicago-style politicians running the country. So much for the promise of “Hope” and “Change.”

Our first serving of Obama “Hope” was an endless diatribe about the economic catastrophe this country would face if Congress did not pass the stimulus bill, the contents of which no one knew. A bill that in fact today is still full of discoveries.

Another promise in the 2008 campaign of “Hope” was that our government would be more transparent. Obama said the American people would be given 48 hours to review the content of every piece of enacted legislation before President Obama would sign it into law. We are left still hoping for any opportunity to review any enacted legislation!

Throughout the campaign and after his election was secured, Obama talked about moving the country forward and not dwelling on the past. At least, until he decided to selectively release memorandums with the express purpose of impugning the Bush/Cheney Administration. What about the “high road” you ask? Well I guess they missed that fork in the road that would lead to “Change” and took the path more easily traveled.

Despite all the rhetoric of “Hope” and “Change,” what Obama knows all too well is that “Hope” doesn’t sell and “Change” is hard. But, “Fear” is a commodity that enables extraordinary things to happen and provides the opportunity to foist a tired old socialist agenda on an unsuspecting population. Jamie Whitten, long time Democrat Chair of the House Appropriations Committee, was known for having said (and I paraphrase), Every disaster presents an opportunity. In essence, if you want to make sweeping change or spend inordinate amounts of money on things nobody would normally support, then you need a disaster, preferably a natural disaster, and an emergency aid bill.

Despite all the fearful rhetoric and doom and gloom, the current “Recession” does not even begin to compare to the Great Depression. In fact, it doesn’t even measure up to several recessions experienced by the US since the seventies. And when the banking industry is on the verge of recovering and wants to pay back the US Treasury, then the Administration whips up a Stress Test, tells Americans their banks are still too weak to survive on their own, and quickly tries to convert the non-voting government stock to common stock. I can hardly wait to hear the dower view from on high when the White House reacts to the fact that many experts believe the housing market may have bottomed out and could be on the upswing. But, if you want to hood wink the American people and Congress into passing a record breaking deficit spending packages of unknown content and make policy changes under the cover of darkness, “Fear” wins over “Hope” and “Change” every time.

And when you can’t whip up enough economic frenzy, then shift the attention back on the evil Bush/Cheney Administration. Or throw in a pandemic influenza virus, or hope for some spring flooding, or a really extreme tornado season. And don’t forget, hurricane season is right around the bend.

In matters not that we never have seen the “Annual” Katrina event the global warmists predicted disturbingly after the 2005 hurricane season. And, even though most Americans don’t believe in global warming, or if it exists that humans are the cause of climate change, the Obama Administration is working overtime to build up the “Fear” of global warming, or climate change which conveniently gives the alarmists an opportunity to blame any weather anomaly or disaster on mankind.

All of these man-made crises, whether the economy, the climate, or global conflict, present ripe opportunities for mischievous, even devastatingly bad policy and law. But, when one has an agenda to dramatically expand the roll of government and move the country closer to socialism, “Hope” and “Change” won’t get the job done. So I guess FDR was right, maybe even prophetic, when he said, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” Be afraid, very afraid. And “Hope” the young people who voted for “Change” in 2008 will see through the charade and have an equal appetite for real “Hope” and “Change” in the 2010 and 2012 elections.