Year: 2009

Icon Journalist Sam Donaldson Retires

Sam Donaldson
Sam Donaldson

Yes, I called him an icon, and I am damned proud of it. Sam Donaldson is icon of my youth, someone I remember watching as a kid. This back before my time in the political world. Back before I even knew the difference between a Liberal and a Conservative. A man who can be traced back to the days of Television, when there still an ounce of integrity.

The Washington Post reports:

Whatever else he accomplished in his 41 years at ABC News, Sam Donaldson knows he’ll be remembered mainly for his bellowing voice.

“I guess it’ll be on my tombstone: ‘He yelled at Ronald Reagan,’ ” Donaldson says.

Now, with little fanfare, the 74-year-old newsman is retiring from full-time work next week. “Some people leave the business bitter, feeling they’ve been cast out, or they hang on too long,” he says. “And I don’t ever want to get in that position.”

There was one thing in this story, that I really wanted to comment on:

Donaldson’s detractors viewed him as a liberal blowhard, and there were certainly times when his mouth outran his brain. Donaldson encouraged Colin Powell to run for president in 1996 and kept predicting that he would. Five days after the Monica Lewinsky scandal erupted, Donaldson said of Bill Clinton: “If he’s not telling the truth, he’s done. . . . I think his presidency is numbered in days. This isn’t going to drag out. We’re not going to be here three months from now talking about this.

You might be shocked to know this, but I never noticed Sam Donaldson acting like a “Liberal Blowhard.” If he ever did when I was watching, he was not very obvious about it. Unlike the anchors of today; like Keith Olbermann, who bellows his political opinion out, like it is the Gospel according to St Luke or something to that effect. For the record, I never heard or saw Sam Donaldson getting on National Television and screaming, “Shut the Hell up!” Like Keith did.

I think it goes back to a word that I used in the beginning of this Blog Entry; Integrity. It is something that the America Media needs to get back to, in a very big way.

Others: Michael Calderone’s Blogs and The New Republic

Stay Classy William Teach AKA Porter Good

First off, as a rule, I do not get myself involved with what other people write on their Blogs. I believe in freedom of speech, Freedom of Expression and so forth.

However, this morning, I happen to come across something that caught my eye. If you’re following the headlines, there is a woman who’s a columnist at the Tennessean. Her name is Gail Kerr. She wrote a piece on some Tennessee lawmakers who are pursuing the Obama birth certificate issue.

Now let me say from the outset that I respect her opinions; I do not agree with them, at all. However, I happen to read a blog reaction to what she had written over at pirate’s cove, which is owned by a one William Teach, who’s real name is Porter Good.  As I suspected, it was of the usual Conservative affair, criticize the piece and take gentle pokes at the author. However, there was a small bit in this piece that I found to be most offensive and I thought I would blog about it, and possibly inform Mr. Teach, that there are others out there that read his Blog. The offending part is underlined:

After eight years of the Left accusing Bush of everything that they don’t blame on anthropogenic global warming, and sometimes they blame both, with little to no proof, lefties, still riding high on hopeNchange, and probably the fumes from their black velvet Obama paintings, just do not like it when anyone asks for simple proof of Obama’s citizenship. Witness barking moonbat, and member of The Tennessean, Gail Kerr take on the subject of Barry’s birth certificate (and, hopefully, Jenny Craig)

The picture of the Woman in question:

Mr. Teach, let me remind you sir, that there are people in this world, who are not of perfect physical condition. As someone who is overweight and has struggled with weight gain for my entire life. I found your crass, asinine, dig towards this woman’s weight to be totally uncalled for, over the top and quite frankly immature, and most unbecoming of a Conservative Blogger. While I wholeheartely agree with you on your assessment of B. Hussein Obama, I do not believe that the personal insult of this woman’s Physical appearance was even remotely needed in the context of this discussion.

While I realize that a Blogger of any sort of integrity would ‘Man Up” and apologize, I do not expect this of teach at all. As I have observed, he has spent the good part of his Blogger career, cheerleading for George W. Bush and kissing the ass of the Podhoretz clan; so, one can only expect so much.

Update: Porter Good posts in the comments section says, verifying his true depraved nature:

And, yeah, I defended W when he deserved it, and attacked him when he deserved that, particularly on illegal immigration. As far as the Podhertz crack, that sounds vaguely anti-semetic on your part. Are you a Jew hater? Sounds like you owe me an apology. Oh, I misread your intent? Goodness!

It’s quite funny, when confronted with the truth, Neo-Con’s resort to playing the race card. Just like their Democrat counterparts. (There are those who would say that Democrats and Neo-Cons are one in the same, but that’s out of the scope of this discussion…) Identity Politics is such a tragic thing, on the left….. and the Right.

Others: The Moderate Voice, Washington Monthly, At-Largely,  and The Mahablog

Quote of the Day

What we are really seeing is that the generals increasingly have their own agenda and it ain’t bringing the troops home.  They provide good access and notable comments to a lot of enablers in the media like Ricks who like a robust story full of blood and guts and want to make sure the good old global war on terror goes on and on.  It might be simplistic to ask “If Usama bin Laden is the enemy and he is located in Pakistan why have we been fighting wars for seven years in Iraq and Afghanistan?” Sometimes the simple questions are the only ones worth asking.


Heh: Grandpa McSame is Bitter

This is a bit funny.

Democrats are growing increasingly frustrated with the brash political attacks Sen. John McCain has launched against Barack Obama in the weeks since the new president took office. No one expected the Arizona Republican to be a legislative ally for this administration. But it was widely assumed that Obama’s overtures to McCain in the weeks after the election would dull some of the hard feelings between the two. Now, they are realizing, it has not.

“He is bitter and really angry,” Bob Shrum said of McCain in an interview on Friday. “He is angry at the press, which he thinks is unfair. He is angry at Obama and angry at the voters. He has gone from being an angry old candidate to being an angry old defeated candidate.”

Indeed, during the debate over the economic stimulus package it was McCain, as often as Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who spearheaded the opposition. The Arizona Republican denounced the proposal as pure pork on the Senate floor and introduced an alternative measure comprised nearly entirely of tax cuts.

On Sunday, McCain wouldn’t let the fight die, even with the legislation through Congress. Appearing on CNN, he described the $787 billion measure as “generational theft” and said that the bill’s authors should “start over now and sit down together.”

Meanwhile, appearing on ABC’s This Week, Sen. Lindsey Graham — McCain’s chief ally in the Senate — said of the process by which the stimulus was forged: “If this is going to be bipartisanship, the country is screwed.”

via huffingtonpost.com — Dems Fed Up With McCain: “Angry Old Defeated Candidate”.

Humph… I don’t feel a bit sorry for the old bastard. When you run a terrible campaign and basically whore yourself  and your running mate out to the far right, and then try and pimp yourself to the left; what do you expect? The old codger just needs to retire or preferably just drop dead, so Cindy can collect.

Hurry up and Wait

The Economy is going to hell and a hand basket and the President is shirking his responsibilities to take the First bitch Lady out for Valentines Day.

After pushing Congress for weeks to hurry up and pass the massive $787 billion stimulus bill, President Obama promptly took off for a three-day holiday getaway.

Obama arrived at his home in Chicago on Friday, and treated wife Michelle to a Valentine’s Day dinner downtown last night. The couple was spotted leaving upscale Table Fifty-Two, which specializes in Southern cuisine, with the first lady toting what appeared to be a doggie bag.

The president plans to spend the Presidents’ Day weekend in the Windy City, and is not expected to sign the bill until Tuesday, when he travels to Denver to discuss his economic plan.

Both the House and Senate passed the bill Friday night.

The push to get the bill through before the holiday weekend was so frantic, members of Congress didn’t have a chance to read all 1,071 pages of the document before they could vote.

via WHAT’S THE RUSH? – New York Post.

After all, what does he care? That Limousine Liberal does not care, he’s got money coming out his rather skinny wazoo…

Of course, I just loved this comment over at the Post:

ConcernedAmerican wrote:
libh8r wrote:
I wander what was in the doggy bag that Michelle was carring home???
It’s Barry’s Balls
Indeed.
Others: Betsy’s Page, Scared Monkeys, American Thinker, Sister Toldjah, Ace of Spades HQ, Riehl World View and Don Surber

President Obama disrespects Sir Winston Churchill

This is not in the least surprising, at least not to me anyhow.

Via the U.K. Telegraph:

A bust of the former prime minister once voted the greatest Briton in history, which was loaned to George W Bush from the Government’s art collection after the September 11 attacks, has now been formally handed back.

The bronze by Sir Jacob Epstein, worth hundreds of thousands of pounds if it were ever sold on the open market, enjoyed pride of place in the Oval Office during President Bush’s tenure.

But when British officials offered to let Mr Obama to hang onto the bust for a further four years, the White House said: “Thanks, but no thanks.”

Diplomats were at first reluctant to discuss the whereabouts of the Churchill bronze, after its ejection from the seat of American power. But the British Embassy in Washington has now confirmed that it sits in the palatial residence of ambassador Sir Nigel Sheinwald, just down the road from Vice President Joe Biden’s official residence. It is not clear whether the ambassador plans to keep it in Washington or send it back to London.

American politicians have made quoting Churchill, whose mother was American, something of an art form, but not Mr Obama, who prefers to cite the words and works of his hero Abraham Lincoln. Indeed a bust of Mr Lincoln now sits in the Oval Office where Epstein’s Churchill once ruled the roost.

The reason I say that it is not in the least surprising, is because this is the same man, who said he would meet with Iran without any preconditions. But quickly changed it, when it began to erode his support amongst independents.  Those who will talk to terrorists and terrorist nations are not to apt to keep busts of great warriors in their offices.

Of course, there is this reason too:

Churchill has less happy connotations for Mr Obama than those American politicians who celebrate his wartime leadership. It was during Churchill’s second premiership that Britain suppressed Kenya’s Mau Mau rebellion. Among Kenyans allegedly tortured by the colonial regime included one Hussein Onyango Obama, the President’s grandfather.

Ah yes, but of course, it is the old, “Let’s hold the White Man responsible for things that their ancestors did 300 years ago”; trick.  The old white guilt trick. This is the same man, whom holds in high regard the man, whom some feel sold the Anglo-Saxon race up the river, just so he could further his own political career and the man whom some refer to as the Patron Saint of White Guilt.

Others: Jules Crittenden, Riehl World View, Fausta’s Blog, TigerHawk, NewsBusters.org, protein wisdom Theo Spark, THE ASTUTE BLOGGERS