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I was on a flight from Baltimore to the West Coast early this week and ended up sitting next to a young Muslim who was originally from Kenya. However, as soon as he came to the United States he joined the U.S. Army as a way to obtain funds to go to college. He spent most of his years in military service in Korea.
The omnipresent Howard “Howie” Kurtz of the Washington Post offered this interesting tweet after the victory in the U.S. House by Rep. Bart Stupak and his coalition that opposes the use of tax dollars to fund abortions:
Before the explosion of news from Fort Hood, there was another comment I wanted to make about the election of Virginia’s new governor, Robert F. McDonnell. So please allow me to dip into tmatt’s GetReligion Guilt folder and pull this one back out.
Several weeks ago, I received an email from one of the nation’s top political reporters. The bottom line: This reporter could not understand why editors and other reporters in the newsroom could not do the math and realize that the pro-life Democrats in the House of Representatives were serious. They wanted an up-or-down vote on the status of the Hyde Amendment and its attempts to ban federal funds from being spent to fund abortions.
Sometimes, it’s hard to believe what your ears are hearing — especially when you are listening to broadcast journalists having to work on deadline under tremendous amounts of pressure. That is why journalists hire experts, people to help them navigate the dense and often tricky language and symbolism of complex organizations, rituals and traditions.
I am always amazed (and I must confess, intimidated) by the quality of journalistic work that true professionals are able to do on deadline.
As I continue to read the New York Times coverage of the Maine vote, my mind drifted back to these lines from Daniel Okrent, the newspaper’s former ombudsman, in his infamous 2004 column entitled “Is The New York Times a Liberal Newspaper?” News junkies will recall that his lede said bluntly, “Of course it is.”
Here’s the thought for the day, as you ponder the headlines out of Maine. This famous quote is taken from “The Press and Foreign Policy” by Bernard C. Cohen:
Noor Faleh Almaleki has died in Phoenix. Thus, we have another development in the case of her father, 48-year-old Faleh Hassan Almaleki, who fled the United States after it is alleged that he hit the 20-year-old Noor and the mother of her boyfriend with his car.
