November 3, 2003 by s.z.

And speaking of NRO Corner Nonsense, here's Rich Lowry commenting on Mark Shield's Time to Take the Dover Test: THE JUMPING-FROM-TOWERS TEST? [Rich Lowry] WASHINGTON (Creators Syndicate) -- At Harvard on January 19, 2000, then-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Hugh Shelton provided a valuable standard, both to determine whether the United States ought to send the nation's warriors into combat and to enlist "the support of the American people as well as the Congress" needed to sustain that involvement. In Shelton's judgment, such a grave decision: "(M)ust be subjected to what I call the 'Dover test.' Is the American public prepared for the sight of our most precious resource coming home in flag-draped caskets into Dover Air Force Base in Delaware -- which is a point entry for our Armed Forces?” DOES THIS MEAN SHIELDS IS ASKING ALL OF HIS EMPLOYERS, INCLUDING CNN, TO START SHOWING SEPT. 11 REPORTING AND PICTURES OF THE WORLD TRADE CENTER?? OR ARE THOSE PICTURES STILL TOO DISTURBING FOR THE AMERICAN PEOPLE??” Um, Rich, are you saying that American people would feel just fine about seeing the flag-draped caskets (if the Bush administration allowed anybody to see them, which they don't, which is the point of Lowry's article) if CNN would only show them the really graphic 9/11 images continually? And you are saying that you feel that the American people could easily be duped into thinking that the insurgent attacks in Iraq had something to do with 9/11, in only CNN would do its part?  Are you advocating using the deaths of innocents to justify the sacrifice of American soldiers engaged in a fight that has nothing to do with 9/11?  Is so, I have to say that you're pretty despicable.  But maybe I just misunderstood the point you were trying to make.  Yeah, I probably just misunderstood.  Maybe Rich meant that Bush was only trying to protect Americans from the horrific experience of seeing just how these soldiers died, just like CNN didn't air some of the more disturbing footage of people jumping to their deaths from the burning Trade Tower.  Except that the article wasn't about not showing grisly deaths, it was about not showing flag-draped coffins.  So, I don't know WHAT Rich is talking about.  I guess I'm just not smart enough to follow his logic because I'm not a genetic conservative. Oh, and Rich adds: GOOD POINT, RE DOVER [Rich Lowry] E-mail:"If Mark Shields wants to ensure that these patriots receive the `glory and public honor' that they `earned and deserve[],' CNN should spend at least as much time reporting on their accomplishments as they do reporting on their deaths." So, unless CNN spends more time reporting on those schools and hospitals opening, then Mark Shields is a hypocrite!  . 8:33:27 PM

The Converts Are Always the Most Enthusiastic For some reason, that ABC documentary exploring the theories about Jesus used in The Da Vinci Code keep reminding NRO's Tim Graham of Bill Clinton.  Geez, I think Clinton did a pretty good job as Prez but I would NEVER compare him to Our Lord.  KEEPING SCORE AT HOME [Tim Graham] Amount of time ABC devoted on air to investigating the claims of Juanita Broaddrick that Bill Clinton raped her: zero. Amount of time ABC devoted on air to investigating the claims of a novel that Jesus was married, and had sex, and his wife and child left Jerusalem to create a line of French kings: one hour, plus promotional time on "Good Morning America," "The View," and so on, and so on.... You know, I think we should get Richard Mellon Scaife funding some research into whether Clinton sexually harassed Mary Magdalene.  Even if ABC wouldn't devote any time to investigating it, I'm sure NRO would be all over it. 7:43:26 PM

Another TV Hatchet Job: ABC Smears Jesus! You probably knew (but didn't really care) that tonight ABC will air a documentary exploring the historical and religious theories Dan Brown made use of in his best-selling novel The Da Vinci Code (that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene -- who wasn't a prostitute, as some traditions hold, but was instead the Holy Grail -- and they had a kid, and that centuries later Michangelo was involved in a secret society founded to protect Christ's heirs from the Catholic church by leaving clues in paintings, and that page-turning action follows).  Well, nobody told NRO Corner Guy Tim Graham about this!  And it's all Bill Clinton's fault!: NOVEL AS NEWS SPECIAL  [Tim Graham] While we tsk-tsk CBS for making stuff up about the Reagans in an entertainment product, why are we just learning ABC is devoting a "news" special to questioning whether Jesus and Mary Magdalene were married? Based on a novel, The Da Vinci Code? This reads like a religious version of the infamous Maureen Dowd front-pager on the New York Times announcing that Nancy Reagan and Frank Sinatra had an affair in the White House. Doesn't it seem amazing that the same people who refused to believe that Bill Clinton was an adulterer until all the DNA testing was complete can load up their pop-guns on Jesus of Nazareth? Talk about confusing the sacred and the profane! While I agree with Tim that you have to be having a pretty slow news day to spend  60-minutes  exploring the historical and religious theories presented in a best-selling thriller ("Next week we talk to scientists, doctors, and theologians about whether you really do meet five people in heaven as Mitch Albom's novel claims"), I do wonder why Tim thinks the idea that Jesus might have been married is scurrilous and sleazy and somehow comparable to Nancy Reagan having slept with Frank Sinatra?  Does he secretly feel that Nancy Reagan and Christ both have to be sexless to be worthy of reverence?  Or did he simply want to mention that Bill Clinton had an affair, in case Jesus had missed hearing about it?  And what gives Tim the idea that "the same people" (author Dan Brown, the experts cited on the program, and the ABC crew working on this special) refused to believe that Clinton was an adulterer until "all the DNA testing was complete"?  Did he God send him another message in his wallpaper stain?  Anyway, since The Da Vinci Code is just a thriller, and this documentary is just one of those "Some people believe this, but then experts say these people are crackpots" investigations, maybe Tim should just read that NRO-hyped book about Clinton (The Pregnancy?  The Manatee? Something like that), and avoid TV for a while. 3:14:09 AM

And speaking of the Ministry of Truth, here's more from Donald Rumsfeld on his idea to fight terrorism by "winning the battle of ideas": Creation of Terrorists Must Be Stopped, Rumsfeld Says   "We are capturing and killing a lot of terrorists," Rumsfeld said on "Fox News Sunday," "but we also have to think about the number of new ones that are being created." One problem, he said, is the lack of knowledge about how many anti-American terrorists are being turned out. "There is no way to measure it because you don't know what's happening in each one of these radical cleric schools . . . how many people are coming out of these radical madrassa schools," he said on ABC's "This Week." Saying the United States is not organized to handle the problem, Rumsfeld said, "We need to find ways to make sure we're winning the battle of ideas and that we're reducing the number of terrorists . . . that are being taught to go out and murder and kill innocent men, women and children." Asked for the solution, he noted that with the dissolution of the United States Information Agency and its merger into the State Department, the country is "not organized, trained or equipped" to fight a war of ideas overseas. "What has to change in our country, organizationally, overt, covert, either one, so that we can have a higher confidence that we're reducing the number of people who [become terrorists]?" he asked. [snip] Saying the solution was outside the Defense Department and even U.S. hands, he said on NBC's "Meet the Press," "The world needs to think about other things we can do to reduce the number of schools that teach terrorism." Rumsfeld focused solely on radical Islamic madrassas as the breeding ground for the next generation of terrorists and did not include such things as the actions of U.S. troops in Iraq or their presence in other Muslim countries, which were recently used in a message by Osama bin Laden designed to recruit terrorists. But see, if we just change their IDEAS,  then they'll think that everything the U.S. does is good, and they won't want to kill us anymore.  Afterall,  they only have bad thoughts about the U.S. because they go to terrorism schools that are probably run by CBS, and show propaganda like THE REAGANS.  How can we change their minds?  A Clockwork Orange offers some suggestions. 2:10:49 AM

REAGANS Update: Pat Buchanan Says Docudramas the Only History Young Will Ever Know; CBS Orwellian and Nazi-like The Assassination of Ronald Reagan What is the matter with Dan Rather and other correspondents whose names America associates with CBS? They did not approve this script, but the company for which they work, CBS, allowed these Hollywood haters to make up quotes to tarnish the legacy and destroy the name of this president in the minds of the young, for whom such docudramas are the only history they will ever know. [snip] What CBS is doing is truly Orwellian, exactly what the Ministry of Truth was designed to do in Orwell's "1984" -- rewrite history to deceive and propagandize those who had no other source of truth. One of the differences between Americans and our communist and Nazis enemies was said to be that we stood for truth, and that they denied and twisted truth, and lied deliberately, for their own ideological ends. Is this not exactly what Hollywood and CBS are doing with "The Reagans"? Um, sure, Pat.  Whatever you say.  We're just going to back away now and leave you to uncover more conspiracies between Hollywood and CBS to take away all other sources of truth from impressionable young people, and then feed them Stalinesque, Joseph Goebbels-written propaganda about a Ronald Reagan who swore. 1:57:58 AM