Three Words Too Many From Time

Jonah Goldberg points out the pure, unadulterated propaganda Time Magazine pumped out for their celebration of Earth Day.

Time magazine recently doctored the iconic photo of the flag-raising at Iwo Jima in order to "celebrate" Earth Day. Instead of Marines valiantly struggling to lift the stars and stripes, they are depicted planting a tree.

No doubt Time's editors think they will be celebrated in poetry and song for generations to come for their high-minded cleverness. Still, if the symbolism wasn't clear enough, Time writer Bryan Walsh spells it out: "Green is the new red, white and blue."

There are any number of problems here, starting with the fact that this is simply a lie. Green is not the new red, white, and blue. Concern over climate change may be the most honorable and vital thing imaginable. But if "the red, white and blue" means anything, it means patriotism or love of country. Patriotism and environmentalism simply aren't synonymous terms. Two things can be good without being the same. Fatherhood and all-you-can-eat chicken wings, for example, don't describe identical phenomena.

Time should have left off the words "white and blue" and they would have been accurate in their assessment.

The yearning for a moral equivalent of war is an understandable desire, perhaps even noble in its intent. But it is not democratic. It is fundamentally authoritarian, which might explain why so many environmentalists envy China's ability to ban plastic bags without reference to a vote or a court or anything other than the will of the China's technocratic rulers. Indeed, the authors of "The Climate Change Challenge and the Failure of Democracy" openly question whether the crisis of climate change should render liberal democracy obsolete. For some it seems the moral equivalent of war requires the moral equivalent of a police state.

Green is the new red. Go read it all. Goldberg hits it right on the head. I have posted about the increasingly authoritarian green movement for some time. Others have been pointing this out for quite some time as well.

Meanwhile, what Time is apparently unable to grasp is that there is heavy snow in the Dakotas and Minnesota. Or that the south polar ice extent is almost 2 million square kilometers greater that the average (which only goes back a very short time indeed.) 

Wright Place? Wrong Time.

ABC News is calling Reverend Jeremiah Wright's sudden public relations offensive a very bad thing - for Barack Obama.

The Rev. Jeremiah Wright's interview with PBS' Bill Moyers — to be broadcast Friday — (followed by a PR blitz that includes weekend appearances in Dallas and Detroit and a speech at the National Press Club in Washington Monday) vaults Wright back into the public eye after six weeks of silence.

Maybe he'll convince the public that he was misunderstood, his fiery words taken out of context. Or maybe (stop us if you think we're off) he's supplying oxygen and dry brush to the flames that have threatened to engulf Obama.

"When something is taken like a sound bite for a political purpose and put constantly over and over again, looped in the face of the public," Wright says, "that's not a failure to communicate. Those who are doing that are communicating exactly what they want to do."

He may be correct — but even trying to set the record straight ensures several more weeks of soundbites he and Obama don't get to choose.

"Barack Obama's biggest headache is back," Michael Saul writes in the New York Daily News.

"Wright, who for four decades built his reputation on straight talk and imperviousness to politicians, has been atypically quiet in recent weeks, canceling four appearances, declining all interview requests and bowing out of a news conference with other clergy," Manya A. Brachear writes in the Chicago Tribune.

That silence ends with a thud. The reverend wants context? As ABC's David Wright pointed out on "Good Morning America," his line about the chickens "coming home to roost" were actually referring to comments made by a former US ambassador, Edward Peck (who is white).

But: "Left out of the original sound bites broadcast on Good Morning America were Wright's version of how America was built on terror, his description of the United States 'as an arrogant, racist, military superpower,' and comments on the wealth or success of Oprah Winfrey, Colin Power, Condoleezza Rice and Tiger Woods," ABC's Brian Ross, Avni Patel, and Rehab El-Buri report.

The wrong time and place for Wright to be playing this. There will now be even more of Wright's "context" revealed. Like a kid picking at a scab, Wright does not know, apparently, when to simply leave it alone. How much damage has Wright already done to Obama and how much more will he do before this is all over? I think the answer is: a lot and a real lot.

Another Day, Another Scandal

It only takes the Washington Post until the third paragraph to name that party in this story about a mayor being arrested for trying to solicit a prostitute. How odd.

The mayor of District Heights was arrested early yesterday in the District after allegedly offering an undercover male police officer $40 for sex in a known prostitution area, authorities said.

James L. Walls Jr., 30, was arrested at 12:30 a.m. at Sixth and F streets NW, near Verizon Center. He was charged with solicitation for lewd and immoral purposes, police said. He was issued a citation and released.

Walls, who is single, was known as a rising star among young Democrats in Prince George's County. He was the youngest person elected mayor of District Heights — a community inside the Beltway with a population of about 6,000. He was elected mayor in May 2006; his term runs until 2010.

$40? Well, he certainly isn't Eliot Spitzer. The Post story does go on to describe some of Walls' supporters.

He was elected last year as vice president of tourism for the World Conference of Mayors, the Web site says. In 2006, he was selected as one of the most progressive leaders in the country younger than 40 by the People for the American Way Foundation.

Interesting definition of progressive.

Distractions

Charles Krauthammer weighs in on Barack Obama's definition of the word distraction and points out that Obama's "distractions" look an awful lot like character flaws - Obama's character flaws, that is.

Obamaphiles are even more exercised about the debate question regarding the flag pin. Now, I have never worn one. Whether anyone does is a matter of total indifference to me. But apparently not to Obama. He's taken three affirmative steps in regard to flag pins. After Sept. 11, he began wearing one. At a later point, he stopped wearing it. Then last year he explained why: because it "became a substitute for, I think, true patriotism, which is speaking out on issues that are of importance to our national security."

Apart from the self-congratulatory fatuousness of that statement — as if in this freest of all countries, political self-expression is somehow scarce or dangerous or a sign of patriotic courage — to speak of pin-wearing as a sign of inauthentic patriotism is to make an issue of it yourself. For Obamaphiles to now protest the very asking of the question requires a fine mix of cynicism and self-righteousness.

But Obama needs to cast out such questions as illegitimate distractions because they are seriously damaging his candidacy. As people begin to learn about this just-arrived pretender, the magic dissipates. He spent six weeks in Pennsylvania. Outspent Hillary more than 2 to 1. Ran close to 10,000 television ads — spending more than anyone in any race in the history of the state — and lost by 10 points.

This one is a must read. The excerpt barely scratched the surface of what Krauthammer pounds on Obama for in this column. From Obama's dismissal of small town Americans to his defense of the indefensibly wrong Reverend Wright, Krauthammer nails the real distractions Obama is using. Trying to distract people from his own behavior and questionable associates.