The Medved Alternative
If you're a conservative who's tired of the increasingly cartoonish yawping coming from the Limbaughs and Hannitys and Savages of talk radio, you might want to check out Michael Medved's nationally syndicated program (heard in the New York area on WNYM 970 from 3-5 p.m. weekdays and 3-6 a.m. Sundays).
Kill This Myth
It's been raining rumor and myth since the September 11 terrorist attacks on the United States. And though most of the so-called urban legends that now abound on the Internet and even make an appearance or two in mainstream news outlets are easily dispelled by their very outlandishness, there are some that just won't go away.
Giuliani Still Being Slighted by Media Elites
Even as he left office in January 2002 on a note of unprecedented triumph and popularity, the tone of the New York Times’s editorials and most of its news coverage was startlingly jaundiced.
Geraldo The ‘Palestinianist’
It happens every time: Let Israel bomb empty office buildings of the Palestinian Authority and the mainstream American media will for the most part restrain from pouncing - and point to that restraint as "proof" of their even-handedness. But let Israel take military action on a fuller scale and the wolves not only pounce, they devour.
What’s Good About Amy Goodman?
Award-winning journalist Amy Goodman, as she never tires telling audiences all over the country, is "a Jewish American, the granddaughter of an Orthodox rabbi and the great-granddaughter of a chassidic rabbi." She also happens to be a promoter of anti-Semites and anti-Zionists of nearly every stripe.
Bush, Jews And Democrats (Part III)
The presidential election of 1928 is seen by most political historians as something of a demarcation line in the history of Jewish voting loyalties.
It was in that election that the Democrats first began polling landslide numbers among American Jews, as New York governor Al Smith, a Roman Catholic of immigrant stock (whose campaign manager happened to be Jewish) captured 72 percent of the Jewish vote.
Six Days, Revised
Trolling the Internet these past couple of weeks has served to quash any lingering, hopeful doubts that the post-Zionists have indeed won the battle over how Israel is perceived – by Jews as well as non-Jews, Israelis as well as non-Israelis.
Israeli/Nazi Analogy Old Hat By Now
It would be fair to say that the recent demonstrations in cities around the world during which Israel was likened to Nazi Germany, and Israeli soldiers to Nazi storm troopers, created a fair amount of angst among an appreciable number of Jews. But as this is hardly a new phenomenon, the surprise really lies in why so many Jews continue to be surprised.
Political Bookshelf
Reaction some months back to the Monitor’s Summer Reading List (June 23) was gratifying enough to warrant a list of recommended books for intelligent readers during the coming cold-weather months. The previous list concentrated on books about the Middle East; this one focuses on politics, New York and national.
No Media Bias? Check Out Fletcher, Jennings
If you've ever thought you detected a certain anti-Israel bias in the reportage of NBC's longtime Israel bureau chief Martin Fletcher, there's good reason: Despite being Jewish, married to an Israeli and the father of three Israeli sons, Fletcher considers Israel worse than South Africa in the days of apartheid and won't even say whether he thinks the creation of the State of Israel was a good thing.
Bush, Jews And Democrats (Part XIII)
Before concluding our series on Jewish voting habits in next week's Monitor, we devote this week's installment to some of the more colorful responses we've received from die-hard Democrats. Wear your helmets.
The Left Gears Up For Battle (Part III)
Ordinary Americans are more or less united in the war on terrorism, but one enters an altogether different universe when paying mind to the torrent of recent commentary from left-wing journalists, academics and entertainers.
Remembering Eric Breindel
Rearranging the bookshelves the other day, the Monitor came across a volume published in 1999 titled A Passion for Truth. The book is a collection of columns by the late Eric Breindel, whose death in 1998 at the shockingly young age of 42 deprived the nation of one of its most articulate conservative polemicists.
Pro-Kerry Media, Anti-Israel Moore
Maybe you still believe that claims of a biased liberal media are nothing but the deranged muttering of paranoid conservatives.
And it could very well be that you refuse even to entertain the possibility that the mainstream media's coverage of this year's presidential campaign is driven to a large extent by a single-minded determination to send George W. Bush home to Texas and see to it that John F. Kerry is elected the 44th president of the United States.
Web Picks
The last time the Monitor listed some worthwhile websites and blogs it was back in the fall of 2009. So consider this listing a "Best of 2010/2011."
Summer Reading
Last year the Monitor proffered readers a list of books for summer reading that was, it must be said, several intellectual notches above the usual beach-and-bungalow fare. The theme of that list was U.S. presidents. This year’s theme, naturally, is especially close to the Monitor’s heart – the news media.
Attack Of The Virtuecrats
Every so often an issue arises that seems tailor-made to give liberals an excuse to parade their supposed moral virtues while denigrating the poor benighted rednecks, bigots and ignoramuses foolish enough to disagree with the received wisdom of The New York Times editorial page.
Israel Acts – And The Media Howl (Part II)
Further observations on the generally poor performance of the American media in covering Israel's military actions in Palestinian areas:
No Doubting Thomas On Israel
As an evangelical Christian, Cal Thomas – author, syndicated columnist, television talking head – brings to his work a deep religious commitment combined with a sophisticated media sensibility. His worldview is governed by biblical absolutes, among them the unshakable conviction that the Jews have a divine right to the Land of Israel.
Tapes, Transcripts And Watergate Ruminations
The recent release of yet another batch of Nixon tapes and transcripts inspired a new round of fulminations by Nixon-haters, most of whom are tellingly silent or remarkably forgiving when the misdeeds and indiscretions of other former presidents are revealed.
In The Footsteps Of Duranty And Matthews
New York Times columnist Roger Cohen wrote a piece earlier this week (“What Iran’s Jews Say,” Feb. 23) that brought to mind the naïve and insidious reporting by such legendary Times dupes as Walter Duranty and Herbert Matthews, whose whitewashing, respectively, of the Soviet Union in the 1920s and ‘30s and Fidel Castro in the 1950s will stand forever as monuments to the argument that the self-described “paper of record” is often anything but.
Israel’s Pathological Newspaper
It takes a time like this for the full fury of Israel’s leftists to erupt in the face of their own country and government. While it’s true that, at least for now, Israel’s anti-Hamas offensive has garnered widespread domestic support, that’s hardly been the case among the country’s left-wing elite.
Monitor’s Online Reading List
The Monitor's sort-of-annual listing of recommended websites and blogs is a little different this time. Previous listings were an amalgam of readers' favorites and the Monitor's own choices; this one is purely the Monitor's concoction.
The Left Gears Up For Battle (Part II)
The Monitor's most recent undertaking, interrupted by unavoidable circumstances last week, involved a look at some of the early left-wing reaction to the terrorist attacks on America. That our friends on the left would adopt a blame America and/or Israel party line should have been obvious from the get-go, and was exemplified by essays written by Robert Fisk in The Nation and Gary Kamiya on Salon.com.
Goldmann’s Questionable Quote
Shakespeare had it right: the evil that men do indeed lives after them. Case in point: Nahum Goldmann, who served in a variety of Jewish and Zionist organizational leadership posts from the 1920’s through the 1970’s (he died in 1982).
What Petraeus Really Said
When Gen. David Petraeus was portrayed last month as having made statements suggesting that America’s support of Israel was imperiling the lives of U.S. soldiers, the usual anti-Israel suspects had a field day on blogs and websites. Turns out, though, that the general didn’t quite say what was being attributed to him.
The Return Of Al Gore?
It was a far-fetched scenario as recently as a year ago, but Al Gore is quietly making something of a political comeback. Moderate Democrats who despair that the early frontrunner for their party’s 2008 presidential nomination, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, is likely unelectable, can’t help remembering that Gore won half a million more votes than George W. Bush in 2000. Meanwhile, the party’s base voters, appreciably more to the left than the country at large and angry at what they perceive to be Clinton’s drift to the center, are looking for someone other than her to carry the anti-Bush, antiwar banner.
Times Goes From Bad To Worse
In the grand tradition of Laurel and Hardy, Abbott and Costello, Burns and Allen, Mondale and Ferraro and others too numerous to mention, we now have the Pinch and Howell show at The New York Times, formerly the nation's paper of record but now mere comedic grist for Letterman, Leno and a few hundred struggling comics performing at dives from Trenton to Tacoma.
Bias Exemplified
The Monitor often is asked for an example of a news story that exhibits such blatant bias it astounds even a jaded observer of the mainstream media. Such a story appeared in the March 29, 2006 edition of The New York Times, on the occasion of the passing of Lyn Nofziger, longtime aide to Ronald Reagan.
Au Revoir, Harry Danning
Harry Danning died last week, and all The New York Times could muster was a dry, unbylined, six-paragraph obituary that somehow managed to overlook Danning's Jewishness - not a small thing when one considers that Danning played for the old New York Giants from 1933 to 1942, was selected four times to the National League All Star team, and until his death at age 93 had been the oldest living Jewish major leaguer.