For Monday, April 22, The American Prospect Online taps the following Web content:
INSTAPUNDIT RESPONDS. He wasn't talking about whether or not the massacre happened. He was talking about Western news organizations choosing images which "made it look as if all of Jenin was levelled, rather than a couple-of-blocks-square area in the refugee camp that is itself only part of the town." Point taken, but Tapped remains unconvinced of the claim of media bias. If Tapped were a photo editor and had to choose a picture to accompany an article about the destruction of the refugee camp, Tapped would probably pick...yup, a picture of the destroyed refugee camp, as opposed to the soccer stadium across town or what have you. (InstaPundit also links to a worthwhile piece by Observer columnist -- and presumed pro-Palestinian partisan -- Peter Beaumont arguing that Jenin was a brutal operation, but that the "deliberate and calculated massacre of civilians" did not occur. This seems to be the emerging consensus.) [posted 5:37 pm]
THAT MAKES FORTY-SIX! Mary Cheney has come out of the closet -- as a gay Republican. How's this for gay pride? The Republican Unity Coalition -- which Cheney will join as a board member -- has its goal "to make sexual orientation a "non-issue" within the Republican Party." Translation? Pretty please stop calling gays "sickening." (Or comparing them to "Satanists and homosexuals" or "kleptomaniacs" -- courtesy of Alan Keyes and Trent Lott, respectively.) For some real reporting (as opposed to wishful thinking) on the quandry of the gay Republican, check out Sarah Wildman's perceptive New Republicpiece on the collapse of the Log Cabin Republicans. She explains how the RUC is basically Bush's effort to neuter the LCR. Why would he want to neuter LCR? Because LCR was peskily asking Bush to sign onto an affirmative agenda. [posted 4:30 pm]
ROOT FOR THE HOME TEAM. If you're feeling glum this Earth Day, here's something to cheer about. Not since 1904 have the Boston Red Sox had such a hot beginning. But being a Red Sox fan, they say, is like being a Democrat...they fade in August. [posted 1:00 pm]
JENIN, AGAIN. InstaPundit links an aerial photo of Jenin noting the "the rather small area actually destroyed." Tapped feels that this analysis is not exactly up to InstaPundit's usual high level of, well, instapunditry. For example, check out this aerial photo of Ground Zero. Gee, look at the rather small area actually destroyed. But of course, that misses the point entirely. A mass grave can be very small indeed. Now, as Tapped pointed out Friday, we are still agnostic on Jenin. (A fair New York Times article from last week points out that anecdotal evidence suggests the deaths didn't quite qualify as a massacre, although no concerted search has yet been made for physical evidence.) But on general principle, don't InstaPundit, Andrew Sullivan, Bill Kristol and others feel a little weird being so far ahead of the evidence on this? [posted 12:45 pm]
EARTH DAY ROUNDUP. The Natural Resources Defense Council, in a quarter-page op-ad in The New York Times today, pretty much sums up Tapped's feeling this Earth Day. "It's Earth Day, and President Bush will probably plant a tree," the headline reads. "It's the other 364 days we're worried about. With more than 80 environmental rollbacks in less than 15 months, President Bush has been giving big corporations almost everything they want." Read their indictment sitting down, as they suggest. [posted 12:30 pm]
EARTH TO BUSH. Meanwhile, in its news pages the Times reviews the fine print of the Administration's record to date and tells us that despite the Senate's recent blocking of oil drilling in Alaska, the entire energy industry has won a host of appointments and regulatory and legislative favors (like billions of dollars of tax credits and subsidies and the opening of public lands for oil and gas exploration). And click here to learn how the foxes are now guarding the chicken coop. [posted 12:30 pm]
BUSH TO EARTH. USA Today, in turn, confirms the environmentalists' suspicions about George W. Bush's PR campaign to celebrate Earth Day. He's off to New York state to clear a trail and shake some hands. Al Gore certainly skewered Bush on a few points yesterday, but he might actually have had some impact if he'd spoken out sometime in the last 15 months. [posted 12:30 pm]
EARTH TO CONGRESS. Meanwhile, the Senate moves back to the energy bill and specifically to a debate over a mandatory reporting requirement for power plants and factories that spew 10,000 metric tons or more of carbon into the air. Um, excuse us, there should be a debate about whether they have to report to government? For the record, the White House opposes this mandatory reporting requirement. Happy Earth Day. [posted 12:30 pm]
LE RIGHT?. France has just swung in the political direction of Mussolini, as far rightist Jean-Marie Le Pen made it into a run-off with Jacques Chirac.
POWELL33;WOW? The Secretary of State got his clock cleaned on the Sunday talk shows yesterday, reports Punditwatch. So did the administration, for that matter.
(GREEN) POLITICS AS USUAL. Writing in Reason, Matt Welch -- who voted for Ralph Nader and covered his campaign for the progressive site WorkingforChange -- says the "purist" candidate actually lies just as much as any other politician.
SOMETHING ABOUT MARY. Andrew Sullivan says Mary Cheney has "come out" as a Republican and will be working to get gays into the party. Sullivan thinks this means gays no longer need to be in the left-liberal camp -- a point that's obviously very close to his heart. We see it as simply more evidence that an anti-gay politics has finally become untenable.
GET A REAL OMBUDSMAN! The Washington Post's Michael Getler takes up the topic of angry e-mails to the paper's reporters, but virtually ignores the episode of the Post's Susan Schmidt -- who, after receiving one such barrage, appears to have "researched the domain names the e-mails were sent from and forwarded their e-mails to their employers." That's how TAP's Brendan Nyhan reported it, at any rate, and no one has disputed his claim. Why, then, is Getler criticizing "rude" e-mailers instead of thin-skinned journalists who overreact to this nonsense?
HELPING THE ENEMY & C & C. Speaking of Brendan Nyhan, he's got the goods on the latest GOP foul play on Spinsanity and Salon. This time, it seems, they're claming that Patrick Leahy is guilty of "attacking the courage and memory of our fallen heroes from the attack on 9/11." Incredible.
RELIABLY PRO-ISRAEL. William Safire says the Democratic party is anti-Israel and writes that a "falafel curtain has descended across our continent, transmogrifying the Arab aggressor into the victim." Okay, suppose Safire was pro-Palestinian and had written about a "matzos curtain" that had "descended across our continent." We get the impression that some folks would be offended.
--compiled by Prospect staff
