On “Fox News Sunday,” Sen. Chris Dodd, when discussing the nomination of John Roberts to the Supreme Court, referred to the “privacy clause” in the Constitution.
The printer must’ve made a mistake with my copy, because I can’t seem to find that pesky clause anywhere.
You know, if you were a Kool-Aid drinker, then you’d think that this never happened before. You know, when Democrats controlled the Congress. That’s why there’s so few things named after Democrat Sen. Robert C. Byrd.
One month and five days after The New York Times ran an article allowing a lawyer to lodge an anonymous, ad hominem against director Peter Jackson, the Times finally acknowledges its faux pas.
An article in Business Day on June 27 headed “Lawsuit of the Rings” described a court action by Peter Jackson, director of “The Fellowship of the Ring,” contending that New Line Cinema, a unit of Time Warner, had committed fraud in handling the film’s subsidiary rights. The article included a quotation attributed to a lawyer for New Line, said to be involved in the suit but not further identified, contending that Mr. Jackson had already received an enormous amount of money from the company and asserting, “There’s a certain piggishness involved here.”
The Times’s policy does not permit the granting of anonymity to confidential news sources “as cover for a personal or partisan attack.” In fairness the quotation should not have appeared.
While this was an ethical black eye for the Times, the article also apparently had a slew of factual errors too.
The article also referred incompletely to an assertion of “self-dealing,” the sale of subsidiary rights to other companies under the Time Warner umbrella, and to the way it could affect the film’s gross revenues, upon which Mr. Jackson’s percentage is based. The possibility that such deals lowered the gross revenues is an allegation in the lawsuit, not an established fact.
The article also omitted context for a comment by Robert Schwartz, an entertainment lawyer hired by New Line, that litigants are willing to settle for far less than what they initially claim. He says he was speaking in general about such lawsuits, not specifically about the parties in Mr. Jackson’s suit.
The article and a related chart misstated the role of Warner Books in the distribution of subsidiary rights for the “Lord of the Rings” films. Warner Books did not receive such rights. The chart referred incorrectly to rights for foreign theatrical exhibition, home video and television markets sold to Warner Brothers International. New Line sold Warner Brothers International less than 30 percent of such rights, not a majority. The article also misstated the name of the music division of Time Warner that had the rights to the film’s soundtrack. It was Warner Brothers Records (now the Warner Music Group), not Warner Records.
Oops.
Former President Jimmy Carter apologized yesterday for his failure to take strong action more than 25 years ago when Islamic terrorists overran the American embassy in Tehran, Iran, and held Americans hostage for more than a year.
“My failure to take decisive action gave terrorists the impression that America was weak,” Carter told the Baptist World Alliance. “America isn’t weak, but I was. My failure emboldened the likes of Osama bin Laden and lead to the deaths of thousands of Americans over the ensuing decades.
“I am truly sorry,” Carter said.
Of course, I may have read that wrong. If I did, then maybe Carter would be well advised to shut his trap and go back to building homes.
Characterizing the America-hating cartoonist Ted Rall as an America-hater apparently gets his panties in a bundle.
Unfortunately, Taranto’s apparently too good a man to take Rall up on his offer — so I’ll do it for him. What do you say Teddy-boy America-hater? You (the America-hater) and me in a Toughman fight with the proceeds going to the Wounded Warrior Project?
I saw this Associated Press article on the wire earlier, and you can quickly guess what piqued my interest.
Feinstein is a middle-of-the-road Democrat who sometimes breaks ranks with her party colleagues. Two years ago, she was one of six committee Democrats who voted in favor of Roberts for the appeals court.
Feinstein is middle of the road? Maybe compared to her colleague, Barbara Boxer. Then again, maybe not.
Courtesy NRO’s Kathryn Jean Lopez, we have a revealing excerpt from a press conference held yesterday by House Democrat leader Nancy Pelosi. The following exchange is in regard to the early morning passage of the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA).
Q Can you elaborate, Madame Leader, on some of the offers that were made to Democrats that you know about?
REP. PELOSI: No.
Q In which case — it’s a pretty serious charge, that you’re saying some of them didn’t pass legal muster to you.
REP. PELOSI: Yeah.
Q You’re saying that — that Republicans were trying to bribe Democrats?
REP. PELOSI: I didn’t use the word bribe.
Q Well, you said it wasn’t legal.
REP. PELOSI: I said that offers were made that were, in my view, questionable. And I know that they would be at a cost to the taxpayers. And I say that without any hesitation.
Q But that’s a very serious charge.
REP. PELOSI: It is.
Q Could you just — could you just give us the specifics of what you’ve heard?
REP. PELOSI: No, I’m not going to. I’m telling you, and — why don’t you go ask the Republicans or the White House what they were offering people? They would know best; they’re the ones who were making the offers. I think that this has to stop. We have to stop the Republican rip-off of the legislative process on Capitol Hill. It has to stop now…
Q Madame Leader, I’m sorry to belabor this point, but it is — let me see how to phrase this — is there a difference between horse trading and federal violation regarding offering something of value for somebody’s vote?
REP. PELOSI: Yes.
Q There’s got to be a difference, right?
REP. PELOSI: Yeah. There is.
Q So now you’re beyond just the normal give and take of –
REP. PELOSI: Yes.
Q I don’t see how you can just lay that out there without giving us the specifics –
REP. PELOSI: Well, I just did. But I just did.
Q Is that fair, though? Is that the way you would like to be treated?
REP. PELOSI: That’s the way we are treated. That’s the way we are treated.
Q Are you going to pursue any sort of ethics complaint –
REP. PELOSI: I may. I may. I may. Not me, but those who have the information may. But these are the kinds of things that are very hard to prove if the deal is not consummated. That doesn’t mean the deal wasn’t offered. And it really — because they have a poverty of arguments in favor of CAFTA, they have to resort to these extraordinary means.
Pelosi’s attempting to characterize typical political horsetrading as something sinister and illegal — the GOP bought off 15 of her Democrat colleagues to get CAFTA passed. Well, as we here in San Diego have recently seen firsthand with two of our city councilman, when you have bribery or public corruption, both the briber and the bribee are guilty.
So, who are the dirty Democrats according to Pelosi?
One wonders what these free trade supporters would have to say to charges that they are corrupt.
I’ve been criticized by an elderly individual because I have failed to publish any pictures or accounts of my recent foray into hot and humid New England. I’m working on it, but here, to tide you over is a photograph of one individual who wasn’t bothered by the recent record highs.
The Democrats have a complete moron as the head of their party. These people think President George W. Bush is dumb, but Howard Dean is a gibbering idiot.
He also said the president was partly responsible for a recent Supreme Court decision involving eminent domain.
“The president and his right-wing Supreme Court think it is ‘okay’ to have the government take your house if they feel like putting a hotel where your house is,” Dean said.
Not a single justice currently on the Supreme Court was appointed by Bush, so how is this “his” court? And only a complete nincompoop would think that the Kelo majority of John Paul Stevens, David Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Anthony Kennedy and Steven Breyer are the Supreme Court’s “right-wingers.”
Reality-based community? Hardly.
In the classic golf movie “Tin Cup,” Don Johnson plays pro golfer David Simms who is described as hating old people, kids and dogs.
Well, today there’s a lot of news that demonstrates that the American left, while it does its best to look soft and cuddly on the outside, really hates Alzheimer’s patients, needy American kids, and the poor people of the Dominican Republic, Costa Rica, Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala and Nicaragua.
First comes word from the New York Daily News and the Bronx News that nearly half a million dollars in grants to help poor kids and Alzheimer’s patients were instead “invested” in Air America Radio. [Hat tip: Michelle Malkin.] This is, of course, illegal. It also doesn’t fit the standard media storyline that “Republicans=Evil, Democrats=Good” — so The New York Times has completely ignored the story.
Over in Congress, the vast majority of Democrats (and a few Republicans) voted against the Central American Free Trade Agreement — showing their opposition to improving the lot of millions of poor people.
Liberals like to claim that they are not opposed to free trade, but condition their support on minimum wage and environmental laws — condemning Third World nations to poverty.
The greatest resource these nations have is their people. These are not nations with vast reserves of oil or other valuable natural resources. Instead, cheap, non-skilled labor is the only way they can compete in the global marketplace. Minimum wage and environmental laws can stifle, and even strangle, economic growth.
Minimum wage and environmental laws come further down the road — after workers attain skills, earn money to improve their childrens’ education, and provide for basic needs. Liberals who oppose free trade would deny these people a better life, merely because it’s not an American-standard-of-living life.
In the end, CAFTA narrowly passed. That’s good news for those countries, and good news for ours.
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