The Subtle Bias of the Courier-Journal Shows Itself Again

I will be commenting on an online story today in the Louisville Courier-Journal today about Fayette County Family Court Judge Tim Philpot's recent remarks critical of same-sex marriage to a religious group over the next couple of days. In the meantime I'll just remark that the dishonesty of the media reaches proportions that are sometimes epically astounding. 

The CJ titled the online version of the piece, "Family judge: Gay marriage like 'jumbo shrimp'." 

C'mon.

I'd love to attribute the headline to the simple ignorance of the kind I encounter all the time when I use an analogy about a relationship between two things and the person responding just doesn't get the difference between the similarity of two things (which is not what this kind of analogy expresses) and the similarity of two relationships between two pairs of things (which is what this kind of analogy does express).

For example, in a discussion the other day, a person protested my comparison between the idea that you can choose your gender based on your feelings and that you can choose your race based on your feelings. If the latter is unacceptable, then why is the former acceptable? The person's response was: "You cannot try to compare race with ... sexual identity. What you are doing is called a logical fallacy."

Uh, no. Sorry. 

A comparison of the process by which you determine gender and the process by which you determine race is not a comparison of gender and race. You are not saying "Gender is comparable to race"; you are saying "The relationship between the way we feel about our gender and what our gender actually is is the same as the relationship between the way we feel about our race and our what our race actually is. 

A is to B as C is to D—Not A is similar to B.

And the similarity of these two relationships is unmistakable, which is why someone who is actually male who thinks he is female is just as preposterous (in fact, even more so, since gender goes deeper than race) as Rachel Dolezel, the former chairman of the NAACP who, despite actually being White, claims she is Black because she feels Black—a point not dissimilar to the one Philpot was making.

The fact that people no longer get this is a commentary, not only on the general decline in the ability to think, but in the decline of the ability to think analogically. Maybe this is why the College Board took analogies out of the SAT after years of declining scores in that section.

Philpot did not say that "gay marriage is like jumbo shrimp"; he said “Same sex marriage to me is an oxymoron…kind of like jumbo shrimp." Not only is that a completely different statement, but a true one. The primary argument of those opposed to same-sex marriage is that it violated the very definition of marriage. Philpot's remarks are only another colorful way of making the same point.

Of course, I'm not averse to attributing ignorance to journalists. It abounds. In this case, however, the obfuscation of Philpot's position in the way the headline was written was clearly the result of media bias against anyone who questions the Politically Correct position on gender, which, if you're on the lookout for goofy things, ought to stick out like a sore thumb.

So, while much of the story is quite fair and some of it not entirely unflattering, the CJ (I don't know whether it was Andy Wolfson or an online editor) was clearly banking on peoples' ignorance about how analogies work to distort what Philpot actually said. They also had to know that, however fair much of the story was, the headline is what people will remember. 

This is the subtle way that media bias works, and it's a commentary on the integrity of newspapers like the CJ that they do this kind of thing on a regular basis.

Liberals in full hypocrisy mode over #MattBevin appointment to U of L board

Lest anyone thinks liberals are actually serious about tolerance and diversity, here comes a few reporters at the Courier-Journal to clear things up.

In fact, if you want to see a clinic in intolerance and bigotry, just go to the Louisville Courier-Journal''s opinion page and behold liberals, in full hypocrisy mode, as they attack a conservative appointed by the Bevin administration to the University of Louisville's board because, well, he's a conservative.

In several web posts and an opinion piece, the CJ assails Doug Cobb, a businessman from Prospect, who has doubts about two unquestionable liberal dogmas. We go to two scandalized reporters at the CJ (James Bruggers and Phillip Bailey):

One of Gov. Matt Bevin's new University of Louisville trustees regularly takes to Twitter to deny mainstream climate science and say that being gay isn't compatible with Christianity, while also taking aim at U of L sports.

And this disqualifies you from serving on the board of a state university ... how? 

And that he would "take aim" at U of L sports? Seriously? I mean the last thing we need on the board of scandal-plagued university is someone who takes a dim view of scandal.

Then there is the ridiculous Tim Sullivan, a CJ sports reporter. Cobb's positions, he says, "make Cobb a curious choice for an institution that values intellect and inclusiveness while maintaining a prominent sports profile."

Yes. Of course. We all know the terrible athletic consequences when governors appoint conservatives to university boards. 

First let us just behold the irony of someone who is trying to exclude someone from something because he disagrees with him in the name of inclusiveness. And, secondly, let us ponder the additional irony of a sports reporter opining about political issues in the very act of calling someone else unqualified.

His attack on Cobb was titled, "A Headline Waiting to Happen." Waiting to happen? When there are liberal reporters with an ax to grind who can write them? Is there some problem I am not seeing?

In fact, why is this controversial at all? These are commonly held beliefs among conservatives. You can disagree with them all you want. But why is this news? I'm trying to remember if I've ever seen a feverish story in the CJ about the astonishing fact that the Pope is Catholic, or breaking news reporting that bears do their business in the woods.

I mean, seriously people. Get a grip. And once you've gotten a grip, go ponder just how absurd you look accusing a conservative of being a conservative and how hypocritical you are when, after delivering sermon after sermon on diversity, you go ballistic when someone you disagree with gets appointed to a university board.

You've drunk the Kool-Aid on man-made Global Warming? A phenomenon that causes just about everything, but is caused by one thing and one thing only? Polar bears are close to extinction? Even cold weather proves your theory? In fact, everything proves your theory? Fine. Cherish it. Go pretend that an utterly unfalsifiable theory is science and that everyone must believe it no matter what (in fact, do this after lecturing someone on the evils of how the Church tried to force its opinions on Galileo, just for further ironic effect).

You think that Christianity and same-sex marriage are perfectly compatible? Despite crystal clear condemnation of homosexuality in the Old Testament? Despites Paul's condemnation of it in I Cor. 6:9? Despite of Jesus saying, in the context of his discussion of marriage, "he made them male and female"?

Go right ahead. I mean, if sports reporters can do politics, why not theology?

Sheeez.

Do media critics of the Duggars need professional help?

As if it's not enough that the Duggars have to face humiliating public scrutiny over their oldest child's sexual misbehavior as a 14 year-old, they now have to suffer the indignity of having to listen to advice about how they should have handled the problem from people whose sexual values differ little from those found in a common barnyard.

There are houses of ill repute with higher standards of sexual behavior than the people now giving advice to the Duggars.

Take the case of Salon magazine, a tawdry little liberal online publication, whose advice to the Duggars is to seek "treatment." Here is Kathleen Furin, wagging her moralistic finger at the Duggars and waxing eloquent about the "experts":

Keeping children safe from abuse is the purported goal of a number of institutions throughout the country. Yet clearly the Duggars – both the young girls who were victimized and Josh, the perpetrator — fell through the cracks on this one. What’s most concerning is that it is possible that this is not an isolated incident within this religious sect, and that many more children may be at risk. 

The greatest concern here for all of us should be appropriate treatment for the perpetrator and the victims, who seem to have been forgotten by both their parents and their brother. You can probably chalk that up to their uber-patriarchal, women-hurting, woman-hating belief system. But society should have an interest in stopping this type of abuse regardless of who is doing it (looking at you, powerful white men), and stopping this type of abuse requires treatment. It isn’t safe or healthy for any perpetrator to not seek appropriate, evidence-based, clinically effective treatment. Nor should any child, regardless of his or her parents’ religious beliefs, have to be subjected to this type of abuse, so it goes without saying that the girls should also receive the best treatment available.

Any time you hear someone touting something as "evidence-based" or "clinically effective" you should grab your family and head for the basement. Every failed idea ever proposed was hailed as "research-based" or "based on science." These are among the most abused expressions in the English language.

Every time someone has a moral failing, we haul out the celebrity shrinks and act like psychology is some kind of hard science that can solve all of our behavior problems. Just take Josh, put him on a couch, and subject him to a battery of questions to see if maybe his questionable behavior can be traced to something that happened in this childhood.

Oh, wait: His questionable behavior is what happened in his childhood. Never mind.

Now just to put Salon's advice into perspective, consider the following recent article titles in the magazine and then ask yourself who is in need of treatment:

• Your sex number is your business: The intimate secret your partner has no right to know: How many people have you slept with? It's usually a misleading figure, and one we have every right to hold close
• The “secret” to female e*********n: How all women can experience it: Explosive orgasms are understood to be a uniquely male phenomenon. That doesn't have to be the case
• “Unwilling v****as make me really uncomfortable”: Sensitive men draw their ideal v****as: Who doesn't want to hear a dude say something like, "I accept the v****a however it appears"?
• Intimacy after the “call girl” years: How sex work changed the way I have sex: Playing the part of a sexual object had given me a feeling of control. Now I'm learning how hard vulnerability is

Getting advice on how to handle sexual misbehavior from Salon magazine is sort of like getting advice on kindness from Atilla the Hun, or integrity from J.R. Ewing.

People who clearly have some kind of sexual psychosis have no business giving advice to other people on how to cure their sexual problems.

Should CNN News be cancelled for its bad advice to the Duggars?

The media never miss a chance to engage in moral preening and they have found another golden opportunity in the Josh Duggar scandal. Duggar, a member of the Duggar family featured in the reality show "19 Kids and Counting," allegedly fondled several young girls while they were asleep when he was 14 years old.

The Duggars, of course, are a Christian family, and what's potentially even worse (in the media's eyes) is that they're politically conservative, so conservative it seems that they are against "LGBT rights."

Now on the one hand, it doesn't take a great deal of foresight to conclude that if you're featured in a reality show about a Christian family with 19 kids and a father named "Jim Bob," it probably isn't going to end well for you. Not with the media constantly trolling for scandalous fodder to gain ratings.

I confess to having no understanding whatsoever why anyone would consent to let reality TV cameras into his home to expose a family to public scrutiny to the extent the Duggars have. I don't see any circumstance in which that doesn't harm your family. And doing it with a family of 19 kids does little more than risk turning your family life into a freak show.

And I'm sorry, but having 19 (going on 20) kids and thinking something embarrassing isn't going to happen that is going to be broadcast across the country by a media trolling for scandals is simply delusional.

Had the Duggars not been reality TV stars, they could have saved Josh the embarrassment he is now undergoing, and saved their daughters the embarrassment of the speculation now swirling that they were among Josh's victims.

Those who live by Hollywood must die by Hollywood.

But let's remember that the media that is now parading its discovery before viewers is the same media that has helped facilitate the sexual harassment crisis in the military by putting women in positions that do little else other than make them more vulnerable to such harassment and who have yet to do any investigation of colleges that facilitate sexual harassment on their campuses by doing the same thing through their policies on campus living facilities, not mention outright verbal encouragement.

Apparently sexual harassment in these situations is just one of the costs we must bear on the way to progressive egalitarianism. Josh Duggar, on the other hand, gives them a stick by which to beat conservative Christians. How can they pass that up?

And in fact the worst outcome of these revelations is that it gives the media the chance to morally grandstand. They want their viewers to believe that they are concerned about the victims. But the victims apparently want to be left alone. Ten bucks says that if someone finds out the names of the victims, CNN will broadcast them to the nation to the abject embarrassment of the very people they claim to be standing up for.

Dr. Gail Saltz, one of CNN's go-to people when it comes to explaining sin away, claimed yesterday that the failure of victims in these kinds of cases to get counselling leads to anxiety, depression, and relationship difficulties later in life.

Now I'm just wondering: How are these problems helped when national news shows parade the violations against them before millions of viewers? It's keeping these things secret, says Saltz, that causes psychological harm. So, what? Broadcasting their victimization before the whole country is good?

Does CNN offer free psychological services to the people they harm through all the attention they draw to the victims of sexual crimes?

And then there is Josh, who, we are given to understand, could have been cured of his 14 year-old stupidity through "treatment." That, at least, is what Dr. Phil thinks. Dr. Phil, whose psychological hammer renders him incapable of viewing anything as other than a nail, thinks it was just a travesty that Josh wasn't given over to psychiatrists.

Christian counseling just doesn't cut it, he told Anderson Cooper last night. Apparently Dr. Phil and Dr. Saltz have discovered the cure to stupidity and sin, although they have yet to reveal exactly what it consists of. Maybe it's a proprietary thing.

Saltz claimed that Josh knowing that what he did was wrong was not enough and that if he understood why he did what he did, the likelihood of him doing it again would be greater.

But wait.

What is Dr. Saltz's success rate with her patients? If Josh never again did what he did to the five alleged victims when he was 14 years old (and there's no indication that he did), then the success rate of the Christian counseling he got would make the record of Dr. Phil and Dr. Saltz look ridiculous by comparison.

Rolling Stone Magazine's Credibility, RIP

Another media narrative bites the dust: The Atlantic pronounces Last Rites over Rolling Stone magazine's credibility, after the magazine not only completely ignored basic rules of journalism in its bogus story of fraternity rape at UVA, but refuses to acknowledge that something is seriously wrong at the magazine:

Despite the high-profile scandal caused by "Rape on Campus," Rolling Stone insisted after the report's publication that the errors did not result from systematic error, and thus would require no change to operating procedure. The magazine also announced that Erdely, Dana, Woods, and other personnel responsible for the article would not be fired. Dana also said that the story would have not have broader consequences for media coverage of rape.

Read more here.

Culturally illiterate New York Times unaware of most basic Christian belief

I remember hearing a few years ago that a skyscraper in downtown Singapore featured, in its Christmas display, a manger scene featuring Jesus, Mary, Joseph, and the seven dwarfs. Now the nation's most prestigious newspaper has stepped in it about as badly.

This is utterly priceless. The New York Times printed an article on Israeli tourism which contained a reference to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, "marking the site where many Christians believe that Jesus is buried."

Huh?

The Times, apparently, is blissfully ignorant of the fact that the central belief of Christianity, a religion which boasts some 2.2 billion adherents worldwide and is intimately bound up in our own history and culture, is that Jesus was resurrected. Other than the cross itself, there is no more comprehensive symbol of Christian belief than the empty tomb.

It's sort of like not knowing that baseball involves hitting a ball with a bat or that milk comes from cows.

Here's Rod Dreher at the American Conservative on the Times' major gaffe:

I can understand someone living in Pakistan, or Sichuan province, not getting that all of Christianity, in its many versions throughout the ages, rests on the resurrection of Jesus. I don’t understand how an educated American, whatever his beliefs, can not know that. Yet that story got through several layers of editing at the Times before making it into print. It’s staggering.

As Dreher points out, it's one thing to disagree with this belief, but to simply be ignorant of it is inexcusable for the nation's most prestigious newspaper.

Read the rest here. HT: Rick Garrett at Mirror of Justice.

Book Burning Bummer: Bible censored from Banned Books Week documents

This week is Banned Books Week and once again the people who preach to the rest of us about the evils of censorship have averted their eyes to the most banned book of all: The Bible.

As in previous years, the oh so sanctimonious American Library Association has issued their top ten list of most frequently challenged books. But the one book censored by virtually all public schools didn't make the list.

Oh, wait, maybe the longer list of "Banned & Challenged Classics" will mention it in its catalog of 97 such books. But, alas, it is absent.

Surely the "100 most frequently challenged books: 2000-2009" will have it. Nope. Nor does Moses, Luke, or St. Paul make the list of "Most frequently challenged authors of the 21st century." In fact, a complete search of the "2013-2014 Books Challenged or Banned"for the term "Bible" produced the following result:

"0 document(s) with 0 instance(s)" 

Some people will argue that the Bible is not included in these reports because there have been no attempts to actively remove it from libraries or curricula because it is not included in these venues in the first place. So, in other words, it is not to be considered to be "censored" if it has already been successfully banned? Well that's convenient.

What's that word we use when people withhold a term from a document for political reasons? "Cen ...," "Cens ...," Give me a few minutes. I'll remember it.

Journalists brave hail of earplugs in Ferguson

Courageous journalists on the front lines of Ferguson brave hail of earplugs to get their story, says Michelle Malkin:

The J.V.'s have been hailed for their "courage" on the "front lines" -- like veritable 21st-century versions of Audie Murphy and Ernie Pyle! Of course, Audie Murphy and Ernie Pyle would know real bullets when they saw them. But Reilly revealed his abject cluelessness this week when he hysterically tweeted a photo of what he thought were "rubber bullets." They turned out to be high-capacity... ear plugs.

Read more here.

Character doesn't matter, except when it does

When Bill Clinton engaged in sexual relations with a subordinate White House staffer in the Oval Office, character didn't matter. When Donald Sterling, the owner of the Los Angeles Clippers made racist remarks to his girlfriend in a taped private conversation, character did matter.

Funny how that works.

Piers Morgan was not fired because of his accent

It's the attitude, stupid.

After making the incompetent decision to hire Piers Morgan in the first place, CNN has now found a way to blame Americans for the demise of his show. The narrative constructed to explain the Piers Morgan firing really takes the biscuit. The problem, they say, is that he was British and, for that reason, was just not the American viewer's cup of tea. This allows CNN to blame Americans for the network's lousy decision by implicitly accusing them of xenophobia.

He thought football was soccer. He had an accent. Yadda, yadda, yadda.

Uh, sorry. No. Not blooming likely.

Seth Mandel has the cracking best comments on this when he points out that the problem with Piers Morgan was not the accent nor was it the confusion between the gridiron and the pitch. The problem was that Morgan was both ill-informed and arrogant:

In reality, the problem with Piers Morgan was twofold: first, he opined on complicated issues without the slightest–and I mean the slightest–understanding of them, and second, he mostly called his guests names when they endeavored to explain those subjects to him.

And despite the fact that he got his ears boxed time after time on the gun control issue, displaying his ignorance and getting called on it, he blithely did it again and again. And every time he got schooled, he just rolled out more epithets.

And then, of course, we got treated to every species of Dada sexuality, night after night. We could tune in and watch a transgender person one night, and Boy George, whom Morgan called a "great singer," the next.

Blimey.

As a tribute to Piers, we hereby link to several posts, the first in which we live blog Piers' coverage of Whitney Houston's funeral. He does his bleeding best to figure out this whole God thing, which the Black people in the funeral want to talk about, but the White people don't.

Secondly, we have my article on why we should ban guns. From liberals, that is.

Finally, we have Piers' discussion with a "transgender" person named Janet Mock who is upset at Piers for saying that she was "born a man" despite the fact that she had herself authored an article, written in the first person, titled, "I was born a boy."

Finally, I link to the NFL's website, where Piers can find out what football really is.

Liberal media discovers source of false reports that Pope is changing everything about the Catholic Church

The liberal media is now beginning to react to the almost universal misrepresentation of the Pope as someone bent on the wholesale change in Church dogma and practice. When he was installed as Pope, we began hearing that Francis was going to overturn all prior Catholic Church precedent that came before previously. 

In addition to changing a whole lot of things it believed in the past antecedent to the present.

So for months we have been subjected to reports that the Pope is doing things the Church has never, ever done before in the history of existence. Not even once.

Such as helping the poor. Reaching out the underprivileged and downtrodden. Empathizing with sinners.
And preaching the gospel.

The Catholic Church? Preaching the gospel? Who woulda' thunk it?

But through what must have been some pretty involved sleuthing, the liberal media has now discovered, not only that the Pope has not repudiated the Church's past beliefs—not only that the things he is saying have actually been said and done before, but it has also discovered who is responsible for the widespread belief that he has.

That's right: The liberal media has finally isolated the source of the erroneous reports about the Pope. The perpetrator of these falsehoods is ...

... Now let me just verify this here just to make sure its is accurate ... hmmm. Now this is interesting. The source of the mis-portrayal of the Pope, according to the liberal media, is ... The liberal media!

That's right.

The Atlantic Wire runs a Reuters report that takes Time Magazine to task for perpetuating the myth that the Pope is engaging in a wholesale makeover of the Church in its article naming the pontiff "Person of the Year":

Francis, a socially conservative religious leader, was chosen as the most influential person on Earth in the same year as a landmark Supreme Court decision throwing open the doors for equal marriage rights in the U.S., a right that Francis, and his church, officially oppose. In a just few short months since his election, the new Pope has transformed how many people, including the media, talk about the Church — without actually modifying what the church believes. 

... The Pope's tenure so far includes a series of highly symbolic moments and quotes that seem to challenge and sometimes rebuke Church tradition. ... The power of those symbolic moments dwells in anticipation of what the Pope might do in the coming years. His most media-friendly moments haven't translated into the reforms many on the left seem to assume are around the corner. There have very few official pronouncements from his office, and none have deviated greatly from previous Popes. And chances are, they won't. 

The report points out that Time had to issue a correction of its previous report: ""An earlier version of this post suggested that Pope Francis rejected some church dogma. He does not."

Well, I guess that's all cleared up. Now that the liberal media has discovered that Francis is actually just riffing off of what the Church has always done, they won't ever misrepresent him again. Ever.

Promise.

Keep Abortion Legal (Even when it's not safe)

Remember the bad old days when abortion was illegal and back alley abortions killed thousands of women every year? You do? That's strange, since it isn't really true. But what about back alley abortionists who have practiced since abortion was made legal in Roe v. Wade?

Right now a trial is in progress on whether Kermit Gosnell, a Philadelphia abortionist, committed first degree murder of seven babies who were born alive and were killed by Gosnell ("ensuring fetal demise," he calls it). But you wouldn't know it if you had only the traditional news media to rely on.

Patients ignored. Workers uncertified. Flea-infested cats roaming the clinic defecating on the floor.Walls spattered with urine. Corroded vacuum tubes used for abortions--and for resuscitation. Blood spattered floors. Botched surgeries. Patients being infected with STDs from abortion procedures.

State health officials knew about some of these as far back as 1979, and repeated complaints were made, but nothing was ever done. Where were the people like those at Planned Parenthood who talk about keeping abortion safe and legal? They were nowhere to be seen.

They guy isn't even an OB/GYN. But he plied his grisly trade for three decades in West Philadelphia, where, according to some of his own employees, 40 percent of his abortions were performed on women over 24 weeks pregnant, as health officials looked the other way. Now that a trial is exposing just how inhuman his practices were, it is now the media's turn to avert its gaze.

Abortion being a secular sacrament, it's not hard to understand why this would be. 

Here's Kirsten Powers at the Daily Beast on the media blackout of Gosnell's atrocities:

I can only think of a handful of times in my eight years as a Fox News contributor that I’ve discussed abortion. The people who obsessively cover it and anything vaguely related to it are those in the mainstream media and in the left-wing media, which is why their silence on this is so remarkable. Mollie Hemingway did yeoman’s work chronicling how faithfully The Washington Post’s health reporter, who covered Todd Aiken, the Susan G. Komen controversy, and the murder of abortion doctor George Tiller, didn’t write a single story on the Gosnell trial. No abortion regulation is too small for the mainstream media to cover; no stupid comment about abortion by any Republican goes unnoticed. So her disinterest in this trial is inexplicable.

But while the left has alternately attacked the right for its alleged lack of interest and for paying too much of the “wrong sort” of attention, I haven’t heard a lot about the near silence from the feminist organizations that lecture us endlessly about how they stand for women’s health. I find the claims now that feminists were deeply upset about poor minority women being abused and killed along with their babies a little tough to believe. A search for “Gosnell” on NOW's website yielded only two hits, both from 2011. Search for “Gosnell” on the League of Women Voters website and you will find nothing. The same search on the NARAL and Planned Parenthood sites returned the same number of hits: zero.

Read the rest here.

The media's Troubled Relationship with the Facts: Kentucky media taking the low road in religious freedom debate

For the most part, members of the press corp in this state are honest, decent, well-intentioned people. They work hard, follow the law, and don't kick their dog. Most of their work displays these same standards. In general, they try to be accurate and truthful in their reporting.

But when it comes to issues that might have anything to do with gay rights, there are a few who simply abandon all journalistic integrity. They transform themselves from professional reporters into journalistic hacks. Their ideology seizes control of the part of their brains which houses the faint memory of the journalistic code of ethics they learned in school and just starts deleting things.

Things like basic honesty.

Not only that, but the standards they apply in every other part of their work are sacrificed to their liberal politics. The gods of Tolerance and Diversity are jealous gods, and they brook no interference from the things like truth and accuracy.

In the debate over HB 279, the Religious Freedom Act, certain sectors of the media just simply had a professional meltdown. They mis-portrayed the bill—which was vetoed by the Governor and is now in the hands of the State House—lied about its ramifications, and basically just punted on their journalistic responsibilities—all because the ACLU and a loose axis of gay rights groups basically just made stuff up.

I expect those groups to distort the truth. They do it all the time. For them, it seems a daily ritual. But those in the journalistic profession are supposed to be better than that.

When it came to that the issue actually was, some journalists just parroted the Fairness Alliance's press releases: "The bill," said Philip Bailey of WFPL, UofL's public radio affiliate, "would have allowed Kentuckians to ignore laws or regulations that violated their faith."

Huh? This is the claim of the ACLU and the Fairness Alliance. But a responsible journalist doesn't just take the talking points of one side and simply repeat them: He attributes the position to one side and then goes and gets the opinion of the other side. And in neither case does he simply state the claim of one side as the whole truth.

To be fair to Bailey, he did begin calling me and including my quotations later in the game. And he apparently was not getting my press releases, so he at least has some excuse for framing the issue they way he did.

But then we have Joe Gerth, a reporter with the LouisvilleCourier-Journal, whose editorial in today's CJ could be considered a paradigm case of inaccuracy and mis-portrayal. Because Joe is writing an editorial and not a news story, he obviously has more leeway in expressing his opinion. But that doesn't get him off on the issue of accuracy.

Now Joe's a good guy, which makes his article that much more disappointing.

Joe too simply suspends his basic journalistic standards and accepts the claims of one side (the side he clearly sympathizes with). Here's Joe, doing is best imitation of a Fairness Alliance press release:

See, the bill allows folks to ignore laws that run counter to their deeply held religious beliefs.

Oh, C'mon. It does no such thing. Either Joe knows this, in which case he's knowingly stating a falsehood, or he doesn't know it, in which case he doesn't need to be writing an editorial on the issue for the state's largest newspaper.

HB 279 simply re-installs the standard of "strict scrutiny" in religious freedom cases that prevailed universally in this country from 1938 to 1990, and which applied at both the federal and state level once again after the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) in 1993. In 1997 the court, defending the Smith decision of 1990, struck RFRA down as it applies to the states, but left it intact at the federal level, where it still applies today. This standard applied de facto in Kentucky until October 25 of last year, when the Kentucky Supreme Court announced that the lower stand was henceforth in place in state cases.

If Joe really believes this preposterous statement, then he should give some evidence for its truth.

He could start by explaining how a standard that involves the government having to have a compelling interest in infringing on the right of religious exercise and requiring the government to use the least restrictive means to further the purpose of the law (which is what it would have to do under strict scrutiny) would result in the universal right of people with "deeply held religious beliefs" to ignore the law.

He could also cite cases when strict scrutiny was in force—which is most of the time in most states over the last 75 years—people were able to do this. Where are they?

After Joe claims that a person could be a "pot-smoking, snake-handling, polygamist" and be free to be so if HB 279 is passed, he says:

And, under Kentucky law, snake handling, pot smoking and multiple wife marrying are illegal.

I know what you’re saying. 

You’re saying, “Joe, there is no religion out there that believes in pot-smoking, snake-handling and polygamy.”

No, that's not what I'm saying Joe. I'm saying that the assumption you're making in order to make this statement is completely false. It doesn't follow legally from what the law says and you have no evidence for it.

None.

I'm saying that the statement you make from which everything else in your article follows—that people can simply ignore laws that don't coincide with their deeply held religious beliefs under the strict scrutiny standard—is an ignorant statement.

It's beneath the dignity of a journalist to make it. Period. You shouldn't make it any more, and you should issue a correction for having made it the first time.

For one thing, what Joe apparently doesn't know (should we start making a list?) is that laws against snake handling were upheld in Lawson v. Commonwealth, a 1942 ruling of the Kentucky Supreme Court, a ruling which states, among other things that:

... the constitutional guarantee of religious freedom does not permit the practice of religious rites dangerous or detrimental to the lives, safety or health of the participants or to the public.

Nothing in HB 279 changes this.

And polygamy? Has Joe noticed that polygamy laws have never been overturned under the very strict scrutiny standard he thinks is going to bring about some legal Armageddon?

Among other things Joe clearly hasn't read is Gingrich, Yoder, and Zook v. the Commonwealth, the case last year that lowered the standard of scrutiny in religious freedom cases in Kentucky from "strict scrutiny" to "rational basis." Among the many other things the justices said, here is one of the more important ones:

As both our state and federal law have long held, then, government can act to restrict the free exercise of religion when that exercise is detrimental to the common good. But given the certain terms of the Kentucky and federal constitutions regarding interference with religious practice, there must be a burden the government meets before it can do so. Whether the governmental regulation is subject to a heightened level of review or whether it must merely meet a rational governmental purpose is determined by the action the government takes, why it is taking it, and how much the act restricts religious practice. [emphasis added]

In other words, whether the standard is rational basis (as it is now, since last October 25) or the strict scrutiny standard (as HB 279 would have it and as it was before last October 25), government can still restrict the free exercise of religion. The only difference is the standard the government must meet. And as the strict scrutiny standard has been applied by courts, the differences are not all that great.

Which is why the opponents of HB 279 have a hard time finding any cases exemplifying the parade of horrors they claim will ensue if HB 279 is passed—and why it is simply ludicrous to say that "the bill allows folks to ignore laws that run counter to their deeply held religious beliefs."

Joe's article shows no evidence he is even familiar with the concepts of rational basis or strict scrutiny, compelling interest or least restrictive means. No need to complicate things with the facts.

If you want to see a responsible handling of the issue, you ought to go to Peter Smith's article in the same newspaper just the day before. Peter has actually, oh I don't know, taken reality into account. And he didn't just blindly accept the claims of the ACLU and the Fairness Alliance.

Imagine that.

UPDATE: Phil Bailey has told me that he did not get the expression I attributed to him above from the ACLU or the Fairness Alliance, but that it was based on communications he received from a supporter of HB 279. After going back to check the link, I also noticed (although Phil didn't mention it) that the story I linked to was not apparently written by Phil, but by Joseph Lord. 

Vatican Shocker: New pope is old, Catholic

Okay, so I've been on the road and without Internet for a few days, and haven't been able to comment on the election of the new pope by the College of Cardinals.

I will have to say that the best two hours of comedy I have heard in years I experienced while driving to South Carolina last Wednesday, when the decision was announced. The secular commentary on the BBC was truly amusing.

You had three or four liberal journalists (what's the opposite of an oxymoron?) trying to figure out the doings of this ancient institution and the only way they could make sense of it was to impose their own assumptions and expectations on it, which, of course, completely obscured the nature of the thing they were trying to understand.

Thousands were gathered in St. Peter's Square waiting for the announcement by the College of Cardinals there in conclave. Coverage began when white smoke began coming from the chimney, the traditional sign that the selection had been made. For any other institution to announce an important decision this way would seem utterly preposterous, but it is the entire allure of the Church that it not only is an ancient institution, but that it acts like one.

And yet, despite the antique grandeur that was the only reason hundreds, perhaps thousands, of journalists descended on Vatican City from all over the world, they spent half their time talking about how the Church needed to "modernize" itself.

For the World to ask the Church to modernize itself is nothing terribly remarkable. But to do it at the very moment at which it is mesmerized by the very fact that it isn't modern is positively farcical.

The World is always demanding that the Church become more like itself. It's the one way to ensure the Church's irrelevance. The more the Church becomes like the World, the less necessary it is to the World. You already have the World.What need is there for something else that acts exactly like it?

The only reason the World pays any attention to the Church at all is precisely because it is not the World.

The minute the Church ditches the smoke in favor of Twitter is the minute everyone stops paying attention. No microphones. No cameras. No network coverage. And no more 150,000 people showing up, some traveling from the other side of world to see the event.

I'm trying to remember the last time hundreds of journalists were camped out in front of the Unitarian Universalist Church headquarters waiting for the announcement of their new leader.

And this is true not only of the manner in which the Church conducts Herself: It is also true of the message it transmits in such a traditional way.

The BBC commentators talked on and on of the need for the Church to modify its beliefs on everything from marriage to contraception to priestly celibacy. It's the sex thing. That's all the World really cares about. It has sex on the brain, which, as Malcolm Muggeridge once pointed out, is a very uncomfortable place to have it.

And when the announcement was made that it was Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio, there was a noticeable groan. "Well," said one of the reporters, "this is a surprise." "This, of course, will come as a disappointment to progressives." And "He is an older man."

Really? This is the first thing to say when they announce a new pope? That he's too old and too Catholic?

Would deporting Piers Morgan help with the trade imbalance?

Piers Morgan, the insult-slinging CNN talking head who got so rattled by a gun rights advocate last week that he completely lost his composure, is now the subject of a petition calling for his deportation from the U.S. I, for one, would not be sorry to see the British expatriate sent packing back to the island from whence he came. The problem is that, apparently, they don't want him back.

There are now three petitions extant: The first calls on the government to send him back. The second calls on the White House to keep him because the Brits don't want him back anyway. And the third is a petition in Britain, which says, "“We got rid of him once and why should we have to suffer again. The Americans wanted him so they should put up with him. We washed our hands of him a long time ago."

Maybe we can compromise. How 'bout if we lust fly him back halfway?

People in Newtown, Connecticut flock to ... grief counselors?

Friends and families of the victims in the Connecticut school shootings flocked to psychologists and other mental health professionals seeking comfort and solace in the hours after the news of the deaths came. Mental health clinics were mobbed with the people and lines extended out the doors as people sought answers to questions like "Why did this happen?"; "What does it all mean?"; and "How can a loving God let evil happen?"

Additional mental health professionals had to be bused in in order to meet the demands of hundreds of people ...

No, wait. I might have gotten this all wrong. Hang on a second while I check something ...

Well, gosh. It turns out that it was churches people were flocking to for comfort and solace. While the media flocked to the grief counselors, and the grief counselors flocked to the people, the people themselves flocked to churches.

Nevermind.

Evangelicals bad, radical leftists good

On yesterday's episode of National Public Radio's "Fresh Air," with Terry Gross, Terry interviewed Ryan Lizza, author of the recent New Yorker hit piece on Republican presidential candidate Michelle Bachmann. Lizza researched some of the people who have influenced Bachmann, a group which consists of a who's who of mostly standard, sometimes goofy, evangelical thinkers.

Lizza would name one of them, as Terry would express shock and amazement. He would name another, and Terry would express disappointment and unbelief.

It became clear to me that we needed a good comparison of the figures who influenced Bachmann we shouldn't respect and imitate (exclusively evangelical) and the figures we should admire and emulate (almost all secular).  Here is the list for those of you who were confused in any way. I know you will agree that the liberal heroes clearly are superior to those of Michell Bachmann:

Michelle Bachman's Heroes (Bad)	Liberal Heroes (Good)
John Eidsmoe (Professor who believes many of the founding fathers were Christians)	Margaret Sanger (Symphathized with Nazis, advocated eugenics and population control of the lower classes)
Francis Schaeffer (Late Christian thinker who believed that your worldview should affect what you do)	Robert C. Byrd (Late Democratic Senate leader who was a former Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan)
Robert Wilkins (Presbyterian pastor who has romantic view of the institution of slavery in the old South)	Barney Frank (Gay Congressman whose live in "partner" was running a prostitution ring out of his apartment without his knowledge)
Nancy Pearcey (Follower of Francis Schaeffer who thinks your worldview should affect what you do)	Che Guevara (Totalitarian pro-Soviet revolutionary who presided over Cuba's first firing squad sessions and founded the Cuban labor camp system for political prisoners)
R. J. Rushdoony (Late theologian who believed Old Testament Law still applies and that Christians should convince enough other people of their views that they will affect culture and politics)	Bill Ayers (Leader of communist revolutionary group that conducted terrorist bombings in the 60s and 70s)

What did the Courier-Journal know and when did they know it?

"Don't worry about it. Everything's okay."

Those are the words that an attorney representing Jack Conway's brother in a drug investigation used in a conversation with one of the investigators, assuring him after the detective told the attorney he was scared of losing his job because he had tipped off Matthew Conway, hopelessly compromising the investigation.

But the words could just as easily have been spoken by the Louisville Courier-Journal to U. S. Senate candidate Conway himself after the paper apparently did everything it could to downplay the issue at a crucial time in a close campaign that the whole nation is watching.

Did Jack Conway illegally interfere in the investigation of his brother? It's hard to tell until more information comes out, but what is equally disturbing is the question of whether the state's largest newspaper was trying to minimize the public's attention to the issue.

Just go read at the story, printed on the worst news day of the week (Saturday) when the least number of people would notice it. It is one of the most confused and contorted news stories I have ever read. You have to read it several times even to figure out what is going on, and mentions Jack Conway's involvement mostly at the end and even then it appears to do it reluctantly.

Here are the facts as I have gleaned them from having suffered through about fifteen readings of what has to be one of the worst-written news stories of the year:

According to the story, Matthew Conway (hereinafter, "Conway"), an assistant Commonwealth's attorney, became the target, while serving as a Jefferson County prosecutor, of an investigation on drug use or trafficking. Conway is the brother of the state's chief law enforcement official, Attorney General Jack Conway. Conway was not only tipped off about the investigation, he was allowed by one investigator to read the complain filed against him. He also received a two day heads up that his house would be investigated, and lied, as did one of the detectives, to police about the investigation.

Conway has never been charged.

And what was brother Jack's involvement? Jack found out about it when a supporter was tipped off by one of the detectives in a restaurant. Conway called his brother and said they needed to meet. The next day, there was a meeting in Jack's home with his brother and an attorney. The attorney then called the Louisville Police Chief to "report" the detective.

"Report" him? For what? For tipping them off? That's rather strange. Or was he "reporting" him for investigating Jack's brother?

At some point between the meeting in Jack's home and March 10, brother Matthew's attorney called one of the detectives who had breached secrecy in the case and asked him if he was investigating Jack's brother. According to the detective, Conway's attorney called him back two or three times, at which point the attorney assured the detective, now scared for his job, "Don't worry about it. Everything's okay."

What does that mean? And by what authority could an attorney for the subject of an investigation tell one of the detectives investigating him that "Everything's okay"? Who was the attorney representing in his calls to the detective? Matthew? Or Jack?

In detective novel parlance, the whole thing smells to high heaven. And that's not the only thing that smells.

What is the Courier-Journal's response, given that it now has this information in its possession? To run the story on a Saturday, and to bury the details involving the Democratic candidate for U. S. Senate that it has editorially supported at the tail end of a long and convoluted news story.

I've written plenty of news stories in my time and I know how to write my lead--that's the sentence you start your news story with that includes as many of the most important and interesting facts of your story. The lead on this story was clear: you have a potential scandal involving a Senate candidate in a nationally covered race. And your headline is pretty clear too.

But what did the Courier use as its headline? "LMPD probes detectives who tipped off prosecutor under investigation." Huh? And here's the lead:

A Jefferson County prosecutor was tipped off by Louisville narcotics detectives twice in the past two years that he was under investigation for possible drug use or trafficking, according to police records obtained by The Courier-Journal.

That's the story? The detectives? Really? You've got people associated with a candidate of one of the nation's most closely watched political races calling detectives investigating his brother on drug charges and telling them "Everything's okay" and the story is about a couple of detectives?

You have to wait until the fourth paragraph to find out that there's any relation between the attorney being investigated and the candidate. And you have to read to the end of the story to find out that the candidate is actually involved in some way.

Ask yourself this question: If Rand Paul's name had been associated in some way with activities that appeared to be interfering with a criminal investigation of a sibling and it appeared that his connections had had an influence on the case, how fast do you think it would have taken the Courier-Journal to jump on the story? And how do you think the headline would have looked? Would the lead in the story have mentioned his name? Would you have had to read to the end of the story to find out the nature of Paul's involvement?

Not only is there a story here, but it not only involves Jack Conway. Thanks to its handling of it, the Courier-Journal has now made itself a part of the story. There a few questions they should be asked too:

• Was the news story intentionally hard to read?
• How long have they known about this story?
• Why did they run it on a Saturday?
• Why did they not include mention of Conway in the headline when it was obviously the most explosive aspect of the story?
• Why did they bury the comments about Conway late in the story?
• How would they have handled this story if it had involved Rand Paul instead of Jack Conway?

When you stop just reporting on events and get involved in them, you need to answer questions too.

HT: BluegrassBulletin.com

56 newspapers you can't trust on Global Warming

Fifty-six newspapers have, in the face of Climategate, signed a statement indicating that they have drunk the Global Warming Kool-Aid and are experiencing the last twitches of alarmist-induced dementia.

NYT refuses to publish e-mails embarrassing to Global Warming advocates

It is amazing how liberal journalists all of sudden discover scruples when faced with decisions about printing information that goes against there editorial positions. Here is the Worldwide Standard on the New York Times blog refusing to print e-mails from someone who hacked a server that are causing not a little embarrassment for Global Warming alarmists:

With the release of hundreds of emails by scientists advocates of global warming showing obvious and entirely inappropriate collusion by the authors -- including attempts to suppress dissent, to punish journals that publish peer-reviewed studies casting doubt on global warming, and to manipulate data to bolster their own arguments -- even the New York Times is forced to concede that "the documents will undoubtedly raise questions about the quality of research on some specific questions and the actions of some scientists." But apparently the paper's environmental blog, Dot Earth, is taking a pass on publishing any of the documents and emails that are now circulating. Andrew Revkin, the author of that blog, writes,

The documents appear to have been acquired illegally and contain all manner of private information and statements that were never intended for the public eye, so they won’t be posted here.

Ahem. Has anyone noticed that this is the same paper of record that published the Pentagon Papers?