All the political buzz , lately has been about Howard Fineman's articleThe 'Media Party' is over. It seems that I've read this somewhere before.
A new age of democracy:

The last battle being waged for information is the one between the gatekeeper and the barbarian. The former, collectively known as the Mainstream Media (MSM), is challenged by the latter, the blogger. Now almost anyone can own the press. As with the printing press, today's gatekeepers publish at their peril. Obviously forged documents were exposed, while former veterans were "swift" to get their rebuttal heard.

It is no secret that the MSM has a decide slant in one direction.

Fineman notes;

t the height of its power, the AMMP (the American Mainstream Media Party) helped validate the civil rights movement, end a war and oust a power-mad president. But all that is ancient history.
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Still, the notion of a neutral, non-partisan mainstream press was, to me at least, worth holding onto. Now it's pretty much dead, at least as the public sees things. The seeds of its demise were sown with the best of intentions in the late 1960s, when the AMMP was founded in good measure (and ironically enough) by CBS. Old folks may remember the moment: Walter Cronkite stepped from behind the podium of presumed objectivity to become an outright foe of the war in Vietnam. Later, he and CBS's star White House reporter, Dan Rather, went to painstaking lengths to make Watergate understandable to viewers, which helped seal Richard Nixon's fate as the first president to resign.
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In this situation, the last thing the AMMP needed was to aim wildly at the president — and not only miss, but be seen as having a political motivation in attacking in the first place. Were Dan Rather and Mary Mapes after the truth or victory when they broadcast their egregiously sloppy story about Bush's National Guard Service? The moment it made air it began to fall apart, and eventually was shredded by factions within the AMMP itself, conservative national outlets and by the new opposition party that is emerging: The Blogger Nation. It's hard to know now who, if anyone, in the "media" has any credibility.

As I wrote in The Question on 12/9:

Today's anti-war crowd well remembers the last time they gathered. Falsely believing that they ended a war and destroyed a presidency, they set their pick axes and shovels to work again. And like John Henry who thought he could move a mountain, and ended up dying in the end, the anti-war crowd has fell upon this same fate.

There is one area where Fineman is dead wrong:

The notion of a neutral "mainstream" national media gained dominance only in World War II and in its aftermath, when what turned out to be a temporary moderate consensus came to govern the country.

Want proof? Four names: Joe McCarthy, Alger Hiss, and Ethel and Julius Rosenberg.

Want more proof? The Soviet Union and communism.

The media was always, always, soft on communism and the threat it presented to the free world. We are told incessantly about Hitler's concentration camps, but never hear about Stalin's purges, or his collectivization that starved to death15-25 million Ukrainians. And we wonder why the Ukrainians mass in the streets today?

The MSM meltdown didn't start with Ra^thergate. (hint: html sup tag!!). It has a long tradition. Anyone remember Lincoln Steffens or Walter Duranty? Why is Vietnam synonymous with Nixon? He inherited the disaster and ended the war. Why is it conventional wisdom that the New Deal saved us from the Depression? Unemployment never dropped below 18%, and started to rise again in the late 1930's. Why is the Japanese internment associated with the war effort, but not pinned directly on FDR? As if Abu Ghraib is remotely related.

The rise of right wing talk radio came about for a variety of reasons, but the one that stands out the most is Ronald Reagan's economic policies. Did you know that between 1982 and 1989, in real terms, tax revenues to the federal treasury more than doubled? Yet, it still is "Reagan's tax cuts and defense spending caused the deficits". No mention is made of the almost doubled domestic spending.

Rush Limbaugh is the result of a concerted effort to lie, to distort, to destroy. In a loosely coordinated, yet intricately planned effort by the one group that learned from experience its ubiquitous reach.

This reach extends far beyond the news to the pop culture as well. The imposition of gender neutrality, homosexuality, loose sexual mores, and slanderous religious views permeate society. And it has had a telling effect. A president lies under oath, suborns perjury, withholds evidence, and obstructs justice, and the general consensus is, "it's about consensual sex."

You see this in the reporting on Medicare reform in the 1990's. Modest rate increases were transformed into "draconian cuts". The MSM reported democratic talking points as gospel truth. Tax cuts? They're always for "the rich".

I wrote in Their hate knows no bounds:

That's why its okay to say Bush wants to lynch Blacks, throw old people out of their homes, starve children, etc. One, they really do believe it, and two, who cares, Bush is evil.
Thus it is okay to challenge a decisive victory and question the legitmacy of voting in America and for Kerry to repeat "one million African Americans were disenfranchised" time after time.

It is unquestionable that any Republican that said even something remotely as close would be lambasted. Do the names Chris Dodd and Trent Lott sound familiar?

Fortunately, we have had talk radio for 15 years, and now the blogosphere. There is alot of damage still to fix, but imagine a few years ago, and we'd be talking right now about president elect Kerry, and how Bush National Guard service did him in.

Here's somewhat long read, by Norman Podhoretz called, "The War Against World War IV". He is absolutely right, the war is being attacked from both right and left, compared to Vietnam, playing on our defeatist tendencies. The war against the war on terror is almost, no, every bit as forceful as the war being waged against us by terrorists.

In a somewhat shorter post on James Fallows' piece that earned a Hookie, I commented with this:

So, basically the entire post war planning dealt with every possible condition, save the one that was in reality, most outside the realm of anyone planning. They had people from the military, USAID, all sorts of dissident groups, heads of NGO's, the list goes on and on. Everyone involved had impeccable credentials, notwithstanding any political leanings. However, all they needed was one political scientist.

What is the real lesson from Vietnam? For the US military, it is numerous. For the rest of the world, along with Somalia (found only once in this context: Because those engagements—in Grenada, Lebanon, Panama, Haiti, Somalia, Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, and elsewhere—have no obvious connection with one another...) the lesson of Vietnam is monumental, so much so that even bin Laden himself has referenced these events. The real lesson is that if we don't handle the domestic political situation, then nothing else matters.(emphasis here mine)
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The Vietnam War was one where never lost a battle, but ended up losing the war. North Vietnam knew it could not defeat us militarily, but could politically. They knew that they could use a propaganda campaign, with the press and the protestors their agent provocateurs. Walter Cronkite, John Kerry (yes, that one!!), and a cast of thousands provided more deadly ammunition than anything North Vietnam could muster. Somlaia just further reinforced the notion that America was unwilling to bear even a drop of blood spilled.
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All of the problems we face today are rather unrelated to the pre-war planning and post-war difficulties. Considering all the reconstruction efforts and relatively stable parts of Iraq, all other things being equal, the situation should be better. The looters of a year and half ago aren't the ones planting bombs in front of police stations or blowing themselves up in mess halls. No, the insurgents today are nihilists, bent on destruction for the sake of destruction. They are the remnants of Saddam's regime, an army of devotees he created, trained, armed, and motivated, which we hadn't any inclination or understanding of.

And their strategy is entirely the Vietnam/Somalia strategy of a political victory. That political victory, being mostly tactical regarding Iraq, would also carry with it a much larger strategic victory. It will sap the will of America to fight global terrorism.

In his most stinging criticism, Podhoretz laments:

World War IV is already marked by its own version of all these features ("Why are we in Iraq?"; "Who, exactly, is the enemy?"; "Is there really a terrorist threat?"). But in the 24-hour-a-day TV coverage that now exists, the forces promoting defeatism have a far more potent weapon for magnifying everything that goes wrong, or only appears to have gone wrong. We who support World War IV can complain all we like about these conditions, but they are the ones under which it will have to be fought if it is to be fought at all. The bottom line is that we are up against even more defeatism in this war than there was in World War III.

Sadly, I called this one too. We're at war with two enemies, one foreign and one domestic. Both will win by destroying our will to fight. Hopefully Bush's re-election was proof we're willing to shoulder the burden, to stay the course for the duration. Or maybe it was just that Kerry was so detestable a candidate, so unable to be trusted at the helm, that Bush and his doctrine got a pass. I surely hope it's the former and not the latter.

What does it mean if we delay the Iraqi elections? It means that violence and terror are effective means at achieving a desired outcome. The terror will be emboldened and violence will only escalate and worsen if they discover that will deligitamize the elections. This puts the control of Iraq's future in the hands of the terrorists.

For the Shia and the Kurds, it means that once again, the 20% of the population can control the other 80% through violence and intimidation. The surest way to lose the support and the faith of the Shia and the Kurd will be to delay elections.

Who said that? Right here. I said that on November 27, 2004.

What is the common wisdom today?

Any delay would simply embolden the guys with the guns to kill more Iraqi police officers and to intimidate more Sunnis Tom Friedman

Delaying vote in Iraq would only make matters worse. USA Today

That is just from today, something I stressed a month and a half back.

Criticism of Bush's Iraq policy has taken all forms, from the hyterical left to the reactionary right. Is there anything more ironic than Pat Bucahanan and Michael Moore finding themselves the strange bedfellows that opposition to the war has made them. Would anyone have thought that antiwar.com would be a hotbed of so called conseravtive thinking.

Other criticism has taken the shape of the pro-war left and right. Without a doubt, Thomas Friedman and Andrew Sullivan have enjoyed the "freedom" that being for the war has given them to attack the president. And the attacks have come from the leading neo-cons like William Kristol as well, though he stops short and only targets Rumsfeld.

What nobody has bothered to offer up is a vialble alternative, a real solution to the intractible problem in the Middle East. And for all his perceived intellectual shortcomings, the president has grasped the reality and enormity of the situation better than anyone. And hoepfully, he'll remain undaunted by our struggles, only seeing them as the early stages of a longer and more important struggle. Even early defeats and struggles in Kasserine, Guadalcanal, or over German airspace, didn't deter us from the bigger picture. A world with a viable facist entity was not an option.

So too does Bush understand the bigger picture, a complicated and difficult one to draw. A world filled with terrorist supporting tyrants who cannot be "contained" nor reasoned with is only delaying the inevitable reckoning.

One of the administration's goals has been energy independence, and Bush has been a big supporter of alternative energies like hydrogen, expanded oil drilling, and nuclear energy. Certainly Kerry's flip-flop on Yucca Valley had to one of the campaigns more hilarious moments. However, this energy independence comes with a price.

Though in it's early stages, hydrogen has proven to that it is a viable energy source. If it can power Helsinki buses, in twenty years, maybe half that, it can power our homes, and one day our cars. That is a wonderful development, and not just for the environment. Even if it isn't a cheaper alternative, the mere fact that the economy will not be subject to energy price shocks be enormous.

The flip side of this is troubling however. What nobody has addressed is that sometime in the near future, the Middle East is going to run out of oil. China's economy is growing at record rates, and though that cannot be sustained long term, there will be literally hundreds of millions of new consumers. It is hardly inconceivable that in twenty years China will have more cars and drivers than America. And exactly what is going to power those cars, and how long will the supply last, when you double, even triple, the demand for oil?

Which is exactly the problem. Excluding petroleum exports, Middle Eastern GDP is roughly that of a little league bake sale. It is axiomatic that the freest societies are also the most prosperous. It is unrealistic to assume that the thugocracies and autocratic clerical regimes are going to respond well to the shock of either the spigots running dry, or their steady stream of petro-dependents going sober.

The only hope for that part of the world is liberalization, politically as much as economically, though the two are almost synonymous. The Middle East is already generations behind most of the world, yet one with a ready supply of people willing to immolate and detonate themselves. If this situation has been aggravated, as Bush's critics have claimed, then inaction will create ten-fold the terrorists.

Europe was confronted with a similar situation in the 19th century. They had seen wars escalate, both in size and devastation. By 1700, Louis XIV was lucky to muster an army of a quarter million. Little more than 100 years later, Napoleon was able to muster armies of half a million and more, with an economy at home devoted its maintenance. Metternich's choice of stability and legitimacy over representative governments only hastened the consolidation of power in Germany, Russia, and even France.

One hundred years later, European armies were measured in the millions, motivated by past grievances, and powered by industrialized economies that continually fed men and machine into the carnage. And a generation later...

Middle Eastern armies will never measure in the millions. They will never be able to do any more than buy second rate western arms from corrupt European democracies or cash strapped Russian arms dealers. Those weapons, when used against United States arms, will be nothing more than targets. When used against their own people, as witnessed by both Shia and Kurd in Iraq, those same weapons will be effective at stifling revolt.

Yet, it will not prevent those same dictators from sending their agents abroad, nor from bringing scientists in, both with the same goal. What little money is left from selling the last drops of oil will be spent on developing, or purchasing weapons of mass destruction. The recent failure to find weapons in Iraq only highlights the point that we don't know where they're being developed nor do we know where they're being stored.

Leaving several hundred million people to wallow under oppressive regimes, floundering economies, and under sway of clerical barbarism, is not a plan, it's a death sentence. It's an invitation to return to the dark ages. With elections in Afghanistan, and soon in Iraq, the first steps can hopefully be laid for a radical transformation of the Middle East. We just can't stop with Iraq.

On Apple's website is a story about the director of the movie, "A Day Without A Mexican". The point of the story is to highlight people using Apple hardware and software to produce a film. Of course , there is some obligatory politics, but hey, Algore sits on the board. But here's the funniest part:

Arau groans with frustration at the stereotypes his film labors against. “In California they call you Mexican no matter which Spanish-speaking country you’re from,” he says. “It’s insulting to be all lumped together, and you get tired of explaining that Venezuela is not part of Mexico.”

Thank public school teachers for that one.

President Bush is trying to reform social security by introducing private accounts. The Orlando Sentinel says this about Social Securiy:

Some opponents of Mr. Bush's proposal say its rationale -- a "crisis" in Social Security -- is bunk. Labels aside, they need to take another look at the deficits looming ahead for the government retirement program as retiring baby boomers swell its ranks.

Private accounts may or may not be a good idea for Social Security. They deserve careful study from Congress, along with other possible changes to the program.

But declaring Social Security sound, and doing nothing, would be fiscally foolish.

Remember, Florida is the retiree state, so when a Florida newspaper acknowledges the obvious, it is time to act. The problem lies in the fact that democrats will do everything in the power to thwart any reform, once again putting party befrore country, politics above responsibility.

As I wrote on 12/30:

...But their betrayal of the country, their politics before country partisanship, has another side. They completely refuse to acknowledge the impending catastrophe of social security.

John Kerry campaigned as if there was no problem, and that the "transition gap" of private accounts is too risky and costly. Here again, they put party before country.

There is no debate about the whether there'll be a future explosion of social security. The only honest debate is when it will occur. But one thing is patently clear, whether 20 years from now or 30, the receipts will exceed the outlays to the tune of several trillion dollars annually. A horrible analogy for sure, but this is the tsunami that follows the earthquake. We know it will hit, we don't know when, and we must act now.

The only reform necessary is to just kill the thing. Social security was established as a retirement account system to help those who had no other help. The retirement age was set well above the average life expectancy. The economic conditions were entirely different then, as not only are we not in a depression, but today, most people have retirement accounts.

The problem for the democrats is that reforming social security changes more than just a government program. It fundamentally changes the relationship between the government and its people. The have lived for six decades with the purpose of creating as much dependency on government as possible. Whether it's welfare, social security, worker's compensation, family leave, or even "affirmative action", democrats existince is possible only through dependency. Thus any reform is deadly to demcorats.

But reform is not enough, in fact, it's not even close. It should be phased out over time. Those receiving paymnets should not lose them, while those near collection would be gauranteed the money, along a graduated scale. The farther away you are from collection, the less you would receive, the more time you have to invest. The simple fact remains that even with reform, social security payments will not happen without either serious benefit cuts or large tax increases. And this is the reason more than any to kill the program.

Cutting benefits will be impossible, so the only option will be to increase taxes to a level that will be economicllay stifling. Even for a public school teacher like myself, one who doesn't pay into the social security fund, the tax burden will be extensive.

As an example, teachers in California don't pay into social security but instead pay into a retirement fund called the California State Teachers Retirement (CalSTRS) Fund. Unlike social security, it is a financial asset and is transferrable to my dependents. CalSTRS invests in a variety of growth and income funds exactly as any private account would. You have to hand it to public school teachers, they made sure they didn't pay into social security.

Defending the staus quo of a program that's 65 years old and is headed for disaster is irresponsible. Trying to reform a system such as that is really not much better. The only proper reform for social security is to just kill it.