How is that for a more visible example of a more virulent strain of Bush Derangement Syndrome?The infected in question is a very long and very public sufferer, the New York Times' Frank Rich, and he just uttered said symptom on MSNBC.Rich offered up his usual expert delusional analysis that the thus far flight of Democrats from the Hillary Clinton camp is not a result of her myriad unexamined scandals, her woefully unattractive personality or the reality that the "Ready" candidate is not really all that ready, having accomplished very little herself.

On a lazy December 30th Sunday afternoon, I flipped on the television, on which the previous evening I had left the History Channel (they were then doing a military analysis of the Bible, which was at once interesting and uninfuriating).This time the tubes warmed to display a replay of Clear and Present Danger, the film based upon the Tom Clancy novel.  Co-hosting the rerun were the Channel's in-house liberal historian, Steve Gillon, and guest liberal political commentator Neal Gabler (though of course neither was identified in any sort of ideological way).

Methinks This Is No Coincidence

This missive is not an analysis exercise of the accompanying article. There are Conservative differences aplenty to be found with Giuliani, in fact with all of the current Presidential hopefuls; so too with American Conservative Founding Editor Patrick J. Buchanan.

Was This the Slipping Digit?

The entry is entitled "Is (Hillary Rodham) Clinton now planting people in campaign forums?" (we at MRC would never insinuate such a thing), and is the average, tepid writing one has come to expect from Hollywood's ideological twin of New York's Times.

It is their web address that is more than a bit amusing:

Far too often, the media folds under pressure from Hillary and Bill 

Editor's Note: Originally published December 12th, 2007 by Human Events.

Distress

The latest edition of Gentleman's Quarterly -- GQ for short -- has just hit the stands.  On its cover is an in your face photograph of former President Bill Clinton, as he "Leads (Their) Men of the Year Issue".

"Bill Clinton - Public Citizen" is the fawning Clinton tosh we have all come to expect.  It is thirteen magazine pages with small type and large pictures, and authors George Saunders (in word) and Brigitte Lacombe (on camera) could not be any more in thrall to the man from Hot Springs (not Hope).

But there is more than just that to this tale.

To the MSM, any anti-American angle is a good one  

A Brave Nuclear World

The media's reaction to the November 2007 National Intelligence Estimate on Iran's nuclear weapon program has been as grandiose as it is selective, inaccurate and wrong-headed.

The single excerpt they chose to trumpet, that the report proffers with "high confidence" that Iran halted weapons development in 2003, maximized their ability to bash President George W. Bush for being wrong all along about one third of his Axis of Evil.

The MSM has characterized as "war mongering" and "the politics of fear" Bush's consistent and prudent imputations to keep our eye on -- amongst other things -- the spinning Persian ball.  They allege the Administration wielded these Terror implements to rush us into battle in Iran and to ensure electoral wins here at home.

Thomas Fingar, the Deputy Director of Analysis for the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), is the media rock star of the moment.

Why? For the just released NIE assessment he co-authored that proffers with "high confidence" that Iranian nuclear weapon development came to a halt in 2003.

This lands him myriad press plaudits because it affords them yet another opportunity to bash President George W. Bush.

However, those with any sort of political memory recall a July 11, 2007 Congressional appearance by the very same Thomas Fingar. Just these scant four months ago, he gave the House Armed Services Committee a very different "high confidence" perspective on Iran and their efforts to develop the bomb.

First published in Human Events on November 27th, 2007.

Wash, spin, rinse, spin. Phone, spin, report, spin, poll, spin. The similarities between the work of the mainstream media and a laundry machine are striking. Yet there is nothing about the cycle -- the spin-report-poll-spin cycle -- that does for political events what detergent does for your boxers or briefs.