Doing the Scampering Dance of Joy

In a complete surprise to just about nobody, a Texas prosecutor indicted House Majority Leader Tom DeLay for conspiracy to evade campaign-finance laws. I've stated it before, and I'll state it again: I'm no fan of DeLay, and I tend to believe his damn-the-torpedoes approach is counterproductive in the long run. But my beef here is twofold:

1. The mainstream media is doing a little too much exulting. I confess that I did a little happy dance that day Bill Clinton was forced to admit, quite candidly, "I did not have sexual relations with that woman," so I know exultation when I see it. The news outlets are positively aswim with stories saying things such as Reuters'

   The indictment of House No. 2 Tom DeLay on Wednesday added to a growing list of political woes for Republicans ahead of next year's congressional elections, providing new fuel for Democratic charges that Republicans have been corrupted by power.

   This was the first paragraph of the linked story. I'm not surprised, but I am a little upset give how much I feel the MSM has bent over backwards in the past to preserve a little innocent-until-proven-guilty feeling for Democrats.
   
2. But more than that, there is the automatic dismissal of the charge that the prosecution is politically motivated. Indeed, the linked story rehashes the old "rebuttal" that DA Earle has prosecuted more Democrats than Republicans. Maybe, but his abortive prosecution of Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison in 1993, which was so thin he he was forced to drop it. But apart from all this, here we have a man who, in May 2005, came within a hair's breadth of referring to DeLay and his associates as "Mussolini and his fascists."

I'll let this thing sort itself out in the courts. I just wish the media would take a breath and try to do the same thing.

Truth Begins to Emerge From the Wreckage

It has taken some time, but it appears that America has caught its breath following the mad dash away from Hurricane Katrina. As evidence of this I present the fact that I am finally beginning to see stories such as this one, taking the media to task for its in-the-moment reporting of stuff heard on the street.

Katrina was undoubtedly a distaster--fatal to many; painful to many, many more; and destructive beyond all expectation. But it is now clear (as it always was to those of us who watch with a critical eye) that much of what the media fed to us in the days following landfall was quite far from the truth. But it all made sense at the time, didn't it? There was looting, there were fatalities from rising water, there were nutbags playing sniper with hunting rifles. CNN and Oprah would have had you believe this was the norm, and not the exception. And it doesn't help that the finger-pointing started so early as to result in local, state, and federal officials throwing poorly founded accusations.

The media certainly has a right and, it would argue, a responsibility to report on news as it happens. This must be one of the most challenging situations any reporter can face: there is news happening, but how reliable are the facts at hand? But I'm not holding my breath in anticipation of any mea culpas on the part of the mainstream media outlets. Call me a cynic.

The Hand's on the Other Foot Now!

Now, I'm not one to gloat, and I'm certainly not a fan of government gridlock, but I have to admit I'm a bit pleased with the uncertainty following the recent German elections. As you may recall, in the days following the 2000 U.S. Presidential election, there was a fair amount of (holier-than-thou) comment in the international press along the lines of "How could such a thing happen in the United States?" Well, Germany, now you know. Oh, I certainly understand that this is hardly the same sort of thing--though I like how Schroeder seems to be insisting on a PM role despite his party losing the CDU v. SPD vote--but the very idea that the formation of a government should be held up because (gasp!) the electorate is split!? How...how...democratic.

On a side note, in my search for a nice Angela Merkel image I encountered a good many seriously unflattering and/or manufactured ones. I guess the left's fetish for Photoshopping as a means of political expression is not a strictly American phenomenon.

Classy. Very Classy.

Reuters has posted this picture as part of its coverage of George Bush's recent address to the UN Security Council. The attached caption reads:

"U.S. President George W. Bush writes a note to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice during a Security Council meeting at the 2005 World Summit and 60th General Assembly of the United Nations in New York September 14, 2005. World leaders are exploring ways to revitalize the United Nations at a summit on Wednesday but their blueprint falls short of Secretary-General Kofi Annan's vision of freedom from want, persecution and war. REUTERS/Rick Wilking"

Can someone explain to me why they thought this photograph would add in any way to the public's understanding of the event? Does it have something to do with the public's "need to know" that the President has a functioning bladder?

Nice, though, that many people still consider the media to be "objective."

UPDATE: It appears that Reuters has responded to the uproar caused by this picture. First, they tell us not to blame the photographer (duh) and that Reuters chose to zoom in on and contrast-enhance the note so that the text would be more visible. Second, they say that it did in fact add relevant context to the UN story:

The photographer and editors on this story were looking for other angles in their coverage of this event, something that went beyond the stock pictures of talking heads that these kind of forums usually offer. This picture certainly does that.

Now, let me ask you all a question: if, next time around, Reuters got hold of a picture of Bush actually visiting the bathroom while, say, the Namibian delegate was speaking, do you think they would hesitate to publish it? It certainly would go "beyond."