Day: October 22, 2005

Elisabeth Bumiller, reporter for the New York Times, filed this story about a ceremony at the new Air Force One pavilion in California, where President Bush dedicated the new building located on the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library. She opened the story by highlighting three famous rides aboard Air Force One, when the aircraft was a Boeing 707. While recounting this history, she exposes her political bias within the first few sentences. See if you can find it. 

One of these things is not like the other.

The blue-and-white 707 flew seven American presidents more than one million miles over nearly three decades of tumult in the United States and the world. Jimmy Carter took it to Germany to greet the hostages from Iran the day after his administration ended, Richard M. Nixon flew it back home to California after resigning the presidency, and Ronald Reagan took it to Berlin when he told Mikhail S. Gorbachev to “tear down this wall.”

Let’s take a look at this shall we?

Jimmy Carter tried in vain to free the Iranian hostages, and many believe it was this failure that cost him the 1980 election. A few minutes after Ronald Reagan was elected President of the United States, the hostages were released. Rejected by the American people, Carter travelled to Germany to welcome the hostages, not as a reelected president, but as a one-term ex-president leaving behind a legacy known more for its failures than its successes. Recollection of his less than spectacular tenure still hounds him today.

Richard M. Nixon, exposed as the crook he claimed he wasn’t, resigned the presidency and left D.C. as an ex-president who lost the trust of the American public. To his dying day he never admitted his wrong doing, and like Carter, his legacy will be marred forever.

Ronald Reagan travels to Berlin, Germany and delivers THE speech of the 20th century. His words and actions usher in the collapse of communism in the Soviet Union.

As I take a look at this, Bumiller highlights the lowest moments for two U.S. presidents. Yet her third example highlights one of the most (if not the most) important events in history. In fact, for Ronald Reagan, the trip on that 707 would mark a moment in time which would chronicle his greatest success – ending the cold war. But Bumiller aligns this event with two presidential moments of failure.

What is she trying to communicate here? Does she believe that Reagan’s moment of triumph was actually a moment of embarrassment for America? Probably, but rather than keeping this position out of the story, she includes it, and upholds a tradition of subtle bias at the Gray Lady.

If this is a joke, it isn’t funny. A terrifying note was discovered at Blaine High School, located in Blaine, Washington, a town 12 miles to the west of where I live.

Police in this northwest Washington town on the Canadian border are investigating the discovery of a so-called “hit list” at Blaine High School.

The note, found Wednesday in a school hallway and turned in to administrators on Thursday, warned that several students would die on Friday.

The list contained the names of 12 students and the school principal. It had “hit list” written across the top and the words: “You will die on 10/21.”

There was also a drawing of a stick figure with a gun.

Capital crime is very rare in this part of Washington State. Murders occur once in a decade. While it is likely that this is nothing more than a practical joke put on by a student, one can’t help but think of Columbine and the tragedy there. If this is a legitimate threat, hopefully the early discovery has already foiled the plot.

After battering Cozumel Island with 140 mph winds Friday, Wilma came ashore overnight near Playa de Carmen in a sparsely populated area of luxury resorts about 30 miles south of Cancun and creeped toward this city, weakening to a Category 3 storm.

The hurricane has now stalled, intensifying the damage.

At 11 a.m. EDT, the hurricane’s eye was just outside Cancun and about 400 miles southwest of Key West, Fla. Hurricane force winds extended out 85 miles from the eye and gale force winds up to 200 miles.

The current storm track shows Wilma hitting the Florida peninsula by Monday morning.

If this story turns out to be true, Kofi Annan will have to go.

THE United Nations withheld some of the most damaging allegations against Syria in its report on the murder of Rafik Hariri, the former Lebanese Prime Minister, it emerged yesterday.

The names of the brother of Bashar al-Assad, President of Syria, and other members of his inner circle, were dropped from the report that was sent to the Security Council.

The confidential changes were revealed by an extraordinary computer gaffe because an electronic version distributed by UN officials on Thursday night allowed recipients to track editing changes.

While this revelation further supports the allegations against Syria, it threatens to overshadow the reports findings.

One crucial change, apparently made after the report was submitted to the UN chief, removed the name of President al-Assad’s brother, Maher, his brother-in-law, Assef al-Shawkat, and other high-ranking Syrian officials.

The final, edited version quoted a witness as saying that the plot to kill Mr Hariri was hatched by unnamed “senior Lebanese and Syrian officials”. But the undoctored version named those officials as “Maher al-Assad, Assef Shawkat, Hassan Khalil, Bahjat Suleyman and Jamal al-Sayyed”.

Annan promised that he would not make any changes to the report – not even one word – but the report document shows that edits were made only a few minutes after he held a meeting to review its contents.

Has he learned nothing from his involvement in the Oil-for-Food scandal?

If it can be proven that this report was ordered by Annan to be edited to remove damning evidence implicating the involvement of the inner circle of the Syrian regime, then the UN General Secretary is indeed corrupt and should be immediately expelled as UN General Secretary.

MORE: Michael J. Totten shares his thoughts from Lebanon.