The Importance of Pronouns

A reader brought this one to my attention. It appears to have been disappeared from the NYT story for some reason, but I read it there earlier:

The court documents state that she told investigators that Staff Sergeant Frederick "motioned the detainee's hands back and forward on its penis to coax the detainee to masturbate himself"...

Emphasis mine.

Church vs. Pro-Choice Catholic Democrats

No More MNB documents another bit of selective outrage by some members of the Catholic church. You see, Kerry may be disinvited from the annual Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation dinner, a charity fundraiser sponsored by the New York Archdiocese.

They were unconcerned in previous years with attendance by pro-Choice Catholics Giuliani and Pataki. No word on whether those two will be attending or not this year.

Call the office of Governor Pataki and ask them if he expects to attend the dinner this year. 518-474-8390.

Sinclair

In the PDN:

In 1996, the company's outspoken CEO, David D. Smith, was arrested by Baltimore undercover officers and charged with a misdemeanor sex offense involving a female prostitute.

Smith was reportedly driving a company-owned Mercedes when he was arrested in an undercover sting at a downtown corner frequented by prostitutes. A 31-year-old woman told an undercover officer that "she had just seen her regular date driving in the area," according to court documents. Police followed the car onto an expressway, where they said they witnessed the woman perform oral sex while Smith drove north.

The outcome of the charges against Smith, who was 44 and married with children at the time of his arrest, was not reported. Sinclair issued a statement at the time saying the incident "is unrelated to our business.?" We thought you should know about this. There is no journalistic value here.

All Your Jobs Belong to Bush

The new jobs report comes out on Friday. Let's hope for good news - I'm not going to wish for bad news to further my personal political agenda - I'm not a supporter of "hope for short term pain to get us long term gain" either on Iraq or the economy. But, what I do want is the truth, about both those things for better or for worse, to be understood by the people in this country.

So, even as we hope for good job news (a soft labor market is of no benefit to me, either) let's prepare for the inevitable spin in which bad numbers are made good and average numbers are made great.

It's a bit premature, but let's just remind ourselves. 140K+ net new jobs or so are necessary just to keep up with the growth in the working age population. And, while a second month of good numbers will indeed be an encouraging sign, there's almost no chance that the jobs numbers will return to their pre-Bush levels by the election.

There are some discouraging trends. The rise in the adoption of adjustable rate mortgages at a time when interest rates will inevitably rise is cause for concern. Rising long term rates could destroy the housing market. The declining share of output going to labor is also of concern. (Short version - wages are flat, productivity has been going up, therefore all that extra productivity is going to profits). Whether this is just a temporary trend in a weak labor market, or whether it's a sign of structural changes in the economy (decreasing competition due to tech. changes, poor anti-trust enforcement, a rise in crony capitalism, etc...) is unclear.

Linda Chavez Lies?

Media Matters is up and running. And, I have to say I'm completely shocked to find out that they've caught Linda Chavez lying. Of course, Chavez was already a proven liar.

What will we tell the children?

Media Matters

Brock:

WASHINGTON, May 2 ? David Brock, the former right-wing journalist turned liberal, describes himself as once having been a rather large cog in the machinery of the conservative media.

Now Mr. Brock is starting a new endeavor built to combat the very sector of journalism that spawned him, with support from the same sorts of people (Democrats) about whom he once wrote so critically.

With more than $2 million in donations from wealthy liberals, Mr. Brock will start a new Internet site this week that he says will monitor the conservative media and correct erroneous assertions in real time.

The site, called Media Matters, was devised as part of a larger media apparatus being built by liberals to combat what they say is the overwhelming influence of conservative commentators like Rush Limbaugh and Bill OReilly.

Mr. Brocks project was developed with help from the newly formed Center for American Progress, the policy group headed by John D. Podesta, the former Clinton chief of staff. And Mr. Brock said he hoped it could help provide fodder for fledgling liberal radio talk shows being started across the country, including those of the comedians Al Franken and Janeane Garofalo.

Sheesh. Wish someone would give me $2 million to do this. But, joking aside, it's about goddamn time our side threw some money at working the ref. And, hey, David, if you're hiring, I could use a job...

I met David once, though that was before I was doing this. Nice guy.

Shorter Franklin Foer

I am much more concerned with the lack of civility in John Dean's book than I am with his convincing evidence of "cancer growing on the presidency."

Chalabi

Lovely tidbit from Josh Marshall:

Then there's the matter of the bombing of the Jordanian Embassy in Baghdad on August 7th, 2003. I'm told that the Jordanians have phone intercept intelligence, which they shared with the US government, showing that Chalabi had advance warning of the bombing, which he chose not to share with the Jordanians or the Americans.

Of course, we still fund Chalabi to the tune of some $340,000 a month. So don't think your tax dollars aren't being well-spent. And that does not include the various highly-lucrative contracts doled out to his family members, political associates and cronies.

So, Chalabi is a supporter of terrorism as long as it is aimed against his political foes.

Dinosaur Adventure Land

Funny how the New York Times can do a story on the creator of a Creationist Theme Park and not mention that its creator was quite a virulent anti-Semite and anti-Catholic bigot, according to the SPLC.

Church No Longer Has Authority

Body and Soul pointed out that the boss of Carrie Gress (one of the people interviewed by Hagerty), is George Weigel, who recently argued that people should ignore the Vatican... when it comes to war. This brought to mind a similar piece by Hagerty, in which she was discussing the declining authority of the Church. In that, she interviewed the editor of First Things:

HAGERTY: And, of course, the '60s challenged every form of authority, from the police and the presidency to pastor and the pontiff. The changes were particularly pronounced in the Catholic Church, as that decade brought a dramatic shift in the relationship between the hierarchy of the church and the people in the pews.

Unidentified Man: Amid all of the conflict, the holy man in Rome carried on his peaceful pursuits. He opens the second session of the Ecumenical Council in Rome.

(Soundbite of religious chanting)

HAGERTY: The Second Vatican Council in the early 1960's gave the laity a greater role as the public face of the church. Then, in the 1968 Encyclical on the Regulation of Birth, or Humanae Vitae, Pope Paul VI instructed Catholics not to use artificial birth control. According to Father Richard McBrien, a church historian at Notre Dame, Humanae Vitae drove a wedge between lay Catholics and the church hierarchy.

Father RICHARD McBRIEN (Notre Dame): Humanae Vitae made Catholics realize, perhaps for the first time in modern times, that whenever the pope speaks, he may not always be right. He may not always know what he's talking about.

HAGERTY: American bishops continued to weigh in on topics such as nuclear deterrence, economic policy and welfare reform, and until the past decade or so, these pronouncements usually made a big splash in the news media. But Richard John Neuhaus, editor-in-chief of the Catholic magazine First Things, says those statements only serve to undercut the Catholic Church's credibility with the faithful.

Mr. RICHARD JOHN NEWHOUSE [sic - it's Neuhaus] (Editor-in-Chief, First Things): An awful lot of people said, 'Hey, you know, what do these bishops really know about American nuclear policy? What do they really know about marginal tax rates?' And by speaking too often when it was not necessary to speak, the bishops undermined their credibility when they speak on questions that require their speaking..

Neehaus, of course, in addition to being the editor of First Things is also a director at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, at which both Gress and Weigel work.

So, one short year ago it apparently wasn't important to be a "good Catholic" or an "orthodox" Catholic. Ignoring the will of the church was a good and correct thing. Now, apparently, ignoring the will of a few in the Church is a bad bad bad thing. And, according to Hagerty, it isn't just important to Catholic voters - it's important to all voters. Where Hagerty gets this piece of information? She pulls it right out of her ass.

How did Hagerty conclude that report?

HAGERTY: Whether these kinds of messages will influence the public's thinking about a possible war with Iraq, much less the president's thinking, is anyone's guess. No doubt churches will still try to give moral guidance to the nation. They'll just have a lot more competition. Barbara Bradley-Hagerty, NPR News, Washington.

You see, then Hagerty did inform us that Bush was defying the wishes of his own Church. But, again, that was a good and normal thing. Unlike now. You see, then it apparently wasn't important to voters that Bush was a good Methodist, or other legislators were good Catholics.

grrrrrrr

I Read the News Today Oh Boy

Apparently everything is good. Happy in Fox News land. Happy in CNN land. Happy in NYT land. Happy in Washington Post land.

So, it wasn't until I clicked over to Talk Left that I discovered, through an AP report, that 11 soldiers died today. Apparently, that's no longer considered to be worthy of even a modest headline.

More Hagerty

Roger Ailes pieces together some more weird connections in the Hagerty report.

Open Thread

Enjoy.

War President

All the controversy about Nightline's broadcasting of the names and faces of the fallen reminded me of the "War President" mosaic made by American Leftist. When it was first brought to my attention I didn't link to it because while I didn't have any problem with it I thought it was basically a cheap if effective bit of agitprop. However, then AL made a follow-up post which really made me rethink.

Given this image's inflammatory nature, I posted it with a great deal of trepidation. I had a hard time deciding if it was the right thing to do and I am still not sure. No, I didn't have the consent of the families of those pictured, and I apologize for any additional pain that this image causes them. That said, I must say that it is my belief that one distinguishing characteristic between art and other forms of speech is that art takes risks, and if we, as a society, value art we must allow it more leeway than other modes of expression to incite or offend.

'War President' is meant to be a satirical commentary, informed by the whole project of using the dead as political props. I'm not making a dime off the image, and never will attempt to do so. Given this lack of financial or other crass motives, other recent instances of the politicization of the dead strike me as more morally questionable: the coffins of the victims of 9/11 showing up in a political advertisement, the continued suppression of images of the funerals of those lost in Iraq from the mainstream American media, and images of the 9/11 disaster in a campaign ad. A certain party stands to benefit greatly from all three of those instances of politicization.

I'd also like to point out that 'War President' is an image. It is not a textual statement or rhetorical argument. An image is like an empty room and any message that one reads in that room necessarily came in the baggage one carried when one walked in the door. If I made a mosaic of George Washington composed of images of the American dead from the revolution, would viewers likely take that image as an indictment of Washington? I submit that they would not. It would be viewed as a monument to the dead and a celebration of a great leader, a somewhat maudlin monument maybe but surely not offensive. The fact that 'War President' is not viewed such a manner is not due to any intrinsic property of 'War President' but lies somewhere else.

Very true. Something like "War President" could have been auctioned off on EBAY to drooling freepi in the wake of the "Mission Accomplished" journey by flightsuit boy. The only reason people have a problem with Nightline and with something like "War President" is because they recognize that things in Iraq are a mess. Sadly, they'd rather be right than see any recognition of the sacrifices they themselves are not making (except Andrew Sullivan, who truly believes that his late night blogging was a noble sacrifice which made all of this possible.). I was against this war, but I was always happy to be wrong.

Both the Afghanistan conflict and the war in Iraq had moments when I knew that the administration was far more concerned about appearing to do something useful than actually doing it. In Afghanistan, it was the "have schoolchildren send a dollar to the White House" program, with the money donated being used for Afghan humanitarian aid. I always wondered what happened to that money, and in the wake of the Anthrax attacks when all mail to Congress and the White House is getting blasted until it's brittle who the hell thought encouraging people to send mail like that was a good idea. Of course it was total bullshit - PR, nothing more.

In Iraq it was "the schools! the schools!" I'm all for schools, of course, but I assume that schools weren't part of the vital public infrastructure that we blew up. Slapping on a new coat of paint so we can say "4 trillion schools have been rebuilt!" was, again, nothing more than a PR ploy to insert a line into every NPR report and every Bush speech. I'd rather hear about "the electricity! the electricity!" Oh well.

At this point I don't really know what the hell they went into Iraq for. I did ask Christopher Albritton of Back-to-Iraq what, one year later, he thought about it and he said something along the lines that whatever grand geopolitical plans they once had were no longer operative. I think that's probably true - they no longer know what the hell they hope to achieve there.

Jerry! Jerry! Jerry!

Congrats to Jesse from Pandagon on his new job.

Coinkydinks

Reader e did a bit of follow-up on some of the people interviewed by NPR's Hagerty regarding Kerry's Catholicism. As you may remember, she interviewed 4 people coming out of an 8:00 am mass - a mass which only could have happened Monday-Saturday according to the Church's public schedule. Only one of those people had their occupations identified - a "union official" (commie Democrat).

What about the other 3? Well, this reader discovered nothing on one of them, but what of the other two? First we had Ted Flynn. Could it be this Ted Flynn? Ted Flynn who has written yet another version of Pat Robertson "New World Order" book, which itself was itself lifted wholesale (and then sanitized) from standard anti-Semitic conspiracy theories.

And, then, she also interviewed Carrie Gress, who likely is the woman who is the program studies manager at the Catholic Studies Program at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, which is yet another Scaife/Bradley funded right wing lunatic tank. You'd think her occupation, at least, would have been relevant.


..Reader patience adds in comments:

I decided to try to figure out who "Philip Monos" was; according to Google there doesn't appear to be any such person. So I went back and listened to Haggerty's broadcast piece to see if there was a mistranscription of the name. Well, yes...I believe it is actually Phillip Munoz (she gave it the Spanish pronunciation). This helps. Back to Google.

Could this individual in fact be Vincent Phillip Munoz, as in "Vincent Phillip Muñoz is a Civitas Fellow of Religion & Public Life at the American Enterprise Institute and an assistant professor of political science at North Carolina State University" and who wrote this piece for the National Review in March?

...according to readers, Munoz and Gress at least are the people we've identified.

...Flynn confirmed as well. trifecta!

Open thread

It's a Saturday night special

Souter Attacked and Beaten

MSNBC reporting that Justice Souter was attacked and beaten by multiple men while he was out jogging...more to come.

...apparently he's fine. No word on motive.


...story link.

The incident occurred while he was jogging at about 9 p.m. Friday, said Kathy Arberg, a court spokeswoman.

Another source told CNN the incident happened near his home.

Arberg said Supreme Court police escorted the justice to Washington Hospital Center. He was examined and released at about 1:30 a.m. Saturday morning.

He sustained "minor injuries" and is "feeling fine," Arberg said.

She could not characterize the nature or motivation for the attack only that several young men were involved.

NPR

I think the entire transcript of this piece from Friday needs to be posted and examined.

BARBARA BRADLEY HAGERTY reporting

In 1960, John F. Kennedy set out to break a historic barrier by becoming the first Catholic in the White House. He won the backing of eight out of 10 Catholics, but he also had a problem, Protestants. Scott Appleby, a historian at Notre Dame, says Kennedy knew he could not win the presidency if Americans thought he was a tool of the Vatican.

Professor SCOTT APPLEBY (Notre Dame): So he made it very clear in this famous speech in Houston that he would not be taking orders from the pope.

(Soundbite of speech)

Mr. JOHN F. KENNEDY (Presidential Candidate): I do not speak for my church on public matters, and the church does not speak for me. Whatever issue may come before me as president, if I should be elected, on birth control, divorce, censorship, gambling or any other subject, I will make my decision in accordance with these views.

Prof. APPLEBY: So he was the first Catholic president prominent, attractive, intellectually very sharp, who made a clear distinction between his faith as a private matter and his role in public office.

HAGERTY: Scott Appleby.

Prof. APPLEBY: And that was very important in setting a precedent for Catholic politicians in the United States from Kennedy to John Kerry.

HAGERTY: Kennedy's challenge was to persuade voters that a Catholic could be a good presidential candidate. John Kerry's challenge is to persuade voters that this presidential candidate is a good Catholic.

Why? Where is there any evidence that Kerry needs to convince voters (and, not just Catholic voters), that he is a "good Catholic?" as defined by Hagerty. As for abortion, most Americans are pro-Choice, so presumably Kerry should demonstrate that he's a "bad Catholic" in order to get their votes.

Kerry is reported to go to Mass regularly. He has been married twice, but his first marriage was annulled by the church in 1997 at the insistence of his then fiancee, Teresa Heinz, herself a devout Catholic whose first husband, Republican Senator John Heinz, died in a plane crash. Kerry rarely speaks about his faith, an exception being a recent candidate debate sponsored by CBS.

(Soundbite of debate)

Senator JOHN KERRY (Democratic Presidential Candidate): I believe in God, and I believe in the power of redemption and the capacity of individual human beings to be able to make a difference because, as President Kennedy said, here on Earth, God's work must truly be our own.

HAGERTY: Kerry's work is cut out for him with Catholic voters. John Kenneth White, a political scientist at Catholic University, says in the 1960s as more Catholics moved into the middle class, many became more conservative. By the Reagan years, only 46 percent of Catholics identified themselves as Democrats, down from 82 percent in 1960. Since then, White has seen a new type of divide, a values divide.

Mr. JOHN KENNETH WHITE (Catholic University): The basic division in American politics today is between those that, on the one side, believe in absolute truth, that there is a universal sense of right and wrong. On the other side of the divide, these folks like their morality roots small, meaning that my morality is for me but not necessarily for you.

HAGERTY: Those Catholics who hold to absolute truth follow the conservative moral teachings of the Vatican, and they overwhelmingly vote Republican, much as evangelical white Protestants do. But less orthodox Catholics, sometimes called cafeteria Catholics, gravitate toward the liberal side of church teachings, just as many mainline Protestants do, on the death penalty, on social welfare and justice issues, on war and peace. For these Catholics, White says, John Kerry is a very comfortable fit.

So, wait, do the "orthodox Catholics," who follow the "conservative moral teachings of the Vatican," ignore the church's teachings on the death penalty, social welfare and justice issues, on war and peace? Why does that make them "orthodox?" Why do these Catholics who hold to "absolute truth" apparently ignore their Church on all issues other than sex and abortion? Why are they not "cafeteria Catholics?"

Group of Protesters: (In unison) Two, four, six eight, the Catholic Church is not a state.

HAGERTY: Last week some 300 people protested church doctrine on birth control in front of the Vatican embassy in Washington. Frances Kissling was there. She's the president of Catholics for a Free Choice.

Ms. FRANCES KISSLING (President, Catholic for a Free Choice): Catholics are no different than the rest of Americans. They vote on their pocketbook, they vote on the economic issues, Social Security, Medicare, crime, education and health. They don't vote on the abortion issue.

HAGERTY: Surveys from Georgetown University show that the number one issue for Catholics in 2000 was the economy. Taxing, spending and government programs came in second. Moral issues were a distant third.

(Soundbite from a Mass)

HAGERTY: But tell that to the worshipers at the 8:00 Mass at St. Matthew's Cathedral in Washington. All but one interviewed there on a recent morning said they won't vote for Kerry. They said they knew he personally thought abortion was wrong but that his stand on abortion rights had a larger meaning. Here's Philip Monos(ph), Carrie Gress(ph) and Ted Flynn.

As a helpful reader (sorry, forgot who right now) has pointed out, St. Matthew's Cathedral in Washington has no Sunday 8:00 Mass. They have 8:00 masses every other day of the week. Catholics are supposed to attend mass on Sundays and specific Holy Days - those who attend mass on other days are particularly hardcore conservative Catholics. So, this is in no way a random sample of the Catholic-on-the-street. Just the opposite.

>

Mr. PHILIP MONOS (Worshiper): It's really character and personal integrity, and a man who does not seem committed to his faith, I don't see why he would be committed to his ideas or necessarily even his country.

Ms. CARRIE GRESS (Worshiper): It seems that he doesn't take his faith seriously, and it's something that it seems like he's using as a political card instead of something that he deeply believes in and is committed to.

Mr. TED FLYNN (Worshiper): I would work very hard against Senator Kerry because I think he is actually, from start to finish, a four-star phoney.

HAGERTY: Another early worshiper, Charles Loveless, a union official, downplayed the abortion issue.

Only one person had their occupation pointed out - a union official (Read: commie partisan Democrat).

Mr. CHARLES LOVELESS (Worshipper): There is a vast array of other social issues for children, for poor people, for things that we Catholics stand for, and in practically every one of these other issues, he is the man.

Group: (In unison) Kerry! Kerry! Kerry! Kerry! Kerry!

HAGERTY: Recently John Kerry went to a Washington rally to receive the endorsement of Planned Parenthood and to call for a new America.

Sen. KERRY: Where women's rights are just that, rights, not political weapons to be used by politicians in this nation.

(Soundbite of cheers)

HAGERTY: Father Richard John Neuhaus says with Planned Parenthood endorsement, Kerry entered dangerous territory. Neuhaus, who is editor of First Things magazine, says some politicians have tried to make a principled argument that Catholic doctrine can be reconciled with political governance. He says Kerry isn't even trying.

Father RICHARD JOHN NEUHAUS (First Things Magazine): It's a very different thing when, as in the case of many of these politicians, they openly, publicly, persistently and defiantly say, in effect, 'I don't give a damn what the church teaches. Here's the position I'm going to take.'

HAGERTY: In Kennedy's time, the bishops bit their tongue when they disagreed with him, but Kennedy did not have to deal with the deeply divisive issue of abortion. Today the Vatican and some American bishops are cracking down on Catholic politicians on this issue, threatening to bar them from Communion.

How many Bishops? Is this the official Vatican position, or is it also just a few within the Vatican?

Father RICHARD McBRIEN (Notre Dame): It would backfire into the most spectacular fashion imaginable.

HAGERTY: Father Richard McBrien teaches theology at Notre Dame. He says American Catholics do not want religious leaders telling politicians what to do.

Fr. McBRIEN: They can make statements all they want. They can express views on public policy issues. But as soon as they try to use their spiritual muscle, so to speak, to punish or to threaten political candidates and legislators or executives in their flock, then people would resent that, and I think it would indeed backfire.

HAGERTY: Catholics have, in fact, become a key swing vote in national elections, one that Republican strategists think they can win and one that John Kerry can scarcely afford to lose. Barbara Bradley Hagerty, NPR News.

Here we get the punchline - those who are moral vote Republican. Those who are not vote Democrat. Kerry is immoral, simply because he doesn't believe all of his personal religious beliefs should be legislated.

Hagerty doesn't bother to consider all of the pro-choice Catholic Republicans. She doesn't bother to find out why all Catholic Politicians aren't clamoring to outlaw birth control, and why the figures within the Church are silent on that. Ditto the death penalty.

Hagerty is a menace. She is NPR's religion reporter and always writes about the hot-button social issues. She's careful - very careful - to not let her reporting appear to be obviously slanted, but it's hideously slanted in a subtle manipulative fashion. The good guys and bad guys are always clear in her stories, even as she seeks to provide "balance." Here are her views on her job:

BARBARA BRADLEY HAGERTY

Journalism informed by a Christian worldview will glorify Christ and make an eternal impact, said Barbara Bradley Hagerty.

Hagerty, religion correspondent at National Public Radio, told students that Christian journalists, by committing to truth, excellence and selflessness, can set themselves apart from their secular colleagues.

"When you or I as Christ-followers go to work each day, we have to perform our jobs in a fundamentally different way from other people because our employer is Christ and everything we do has to be run through the filter of this question: How does Jesus Christ view my performance? It raises the bar higher than the most demanding editor or supervisor could possibly do," she said.

Hagerty highlighted four decisions that Christian journalists can make in order to honor Christ in their work.

First, Christian journalists must decide not to get "tough," or hardened, in their vocations.

Christian journalists have an obligation to ask hard questions and find compelling stories, she said. However, they must resist the temptation to be ruthless and uncaring in pursuit of stories.

"I decided that if I ever found myself growing callous or tough that I would leave the news business," Hagerty said. "It was a serious pact because I really, really did love journalism. But I realized that the very things that helped me as a journalist -- cynicism and toughness and stepping on people to get the story first, sometimes burning people in the process -- while those things might help me get a story, they would cripple my ability to get everything else that I wanted in life."

In the end, though, deciding to treat people with respect has helped her succeed in journalism, Hagerty said.

"This approach -- with compassion and empathy and coming to every interview subject with an open mind -- it's actually good journalism," Hagerty said. "The reason I think that's true is that every single person has a reason for what he or she believes or what he or she does. You don't know what that reason is ... and understanding what makes that person tick is the key to writing a good story."

Second, Christian journalists must decide to make God their primary audience.

Journalists will experience a conflict between seeking to glorify themselves and seeking to glorify God, she said. Christian journalists may have to perform difficult assignments without receiving commendations, but the desire to please God should drive them to complete those assignments with diligence, Hagerty said.

Third, Christian journalists must decide to gain respect from their colleagues by doing excellent work.

A journalist may not have opportunities to talk about Christ directly, she said. But Christian journalists can point their colleagues to Christ by acting in a way that is unexplainably different from the world.

"What's important is that [one's colleagues] begin to think differently about Christianity. And I actually think that's what we're supposed to do as Christians. We're supposed to draw people, through the power of attraction, to Jesus Christ just as He drew people to Himself," Hagerty said.

Fourth, Christian journalists must decide to follow the truth, not the pack.

A Christian worldview sees every individual as having worth in the eyes of God, she said. Because people have worth, they deserve to have the truth reported about them.

"Here's where my Christian worldview comes in. My Christian worldview tells me that every person has an infinite worth in the eyes of God.... I believe that God became man in the form of Jesus Christ to die for [man]. That's how valuable ... anyone is to God," Hagerty said.

"I have a serious responsibility to really get the facts before I begin shooting off innuendoes."

At times, honoring Christ may have short-term negative effects in the business of journalism, she said. That is why "any journalist that's a follower of Christ has to count the cost."

She concluded, "Early in my career at National Public Radio, I decided that being true to my God had to be the nonnegotiable. If it meant loosing my job, so be it. ... In the long run I had to think, is a story or even is a career ... more valuable than my relationship with God and eternal treasure in heaven? And I think the answer is no, and the decisions we make count for eternity."

It's important to understand what someone like this uses words like "facts" and "truth" - what they mean to a great degree are "Facts" and "Truth." Hagerty was affiliated with the World Journalism Institute until fellow traveller Jack Kelley got his ass canned by USA Today, and their mission statement came to light. WJI's mission statement has now been, uh, modified after the attention, but here's what it was:

To accompany reporting with practical commentary on current events and issues from a perspective committed to the final authority of the Bible as the inerrant written word of God (2 Tim. 3:16-17; 2 Peter 3:14-16).

So, as I said, facts and truth are replaced by Facts and Truth. Mandatory statement -- of course religious people should not be excluded from journalism. But, Hagerty's reporting is so biased and slanted - though done very cleverly - that she should not have her job at the liberal NPR.

O'Reilly vs. Canada

The amazing thing about O'Reilly is how truly thin-skinned he is. Most of the other right wing ranters seem to be aware that what they're doing is theater, and when they're playing up the victimization angle it's just a show. But, O'Reilly truly is a whiny little punk. Webgirl brings us up to date, excerpting a bit of a column from up North:

Mr. O'Reilly is not a smart man. He's like one of those old guys you see on the street ringing a bell and shouting about eternal damnation. He talks to his trousers. You know the type. They let wasps nest in their hair so they can lure weasels, trap 'em and eat 'em slow over the summer.

We were supposed to be discussing American deserters fleeing to Canada; instead, he went off on some wild thing about the mayor of Vancouver injecting people with heroin and unless Canada shapes up, "we" will boycott you and destroy your economy, just like "we" did to France.

I said France seemed to be doing fine. He implied that France now looked like Dresden in 1945. I hadn't heard that.

I said the United States couldn't boycott Canadian goods because it would be mutually damaging. "We're your biggest trading partner."

"No, you're not." (We are.) Naturally, I wanted to reply, "Yes, we are," so that he could say "No, we're not," and then I'd say, "Everything you say bounces off me and reflects back on you, so there," but I couldn't regress that far. Mr. Doyle would have been shrieking.

And then he asked me if I was a socialist, and I said, "Certainly," and it was as if I'd said I like donkey semen in my latte instead of milk. He then went into a mad rant about lefties like Mr. Doyle and how I was a typical Globe columnist. I said, no, truthfully, I think I'm regarded as "idiosyncratic" (the first six-syllable word ever spoken on the O'Reilly show), and he erupted again.

It was like talking to a manic child who had eaten 800 cherry Pop Tarts for breakfast. He kept interrupting, so that no point could be made that could win a reply, much less a reasoned response -- not so much a gabble of sound bites as a howling from Bedlam.