blogs.kxly.com

More people live in liberty around the world at this very moment than at any other time in human history. Whatever else you think about President George W. Bush, he is substantially responsible for that truth. A month before the 43rd President departs from the White House, polls show that a majority of Americans don’t think much of George W. Bush, but had his administration not done what was done in the wake of 9-11, how many more innocent American civilians would have been killed by terrorists?

President Bush says nobody could have predicted in the Fall of 2001 that the country would not be hit again for the rest of his presidency, and he says, “It was not a matter of luck.”
This week the President mentioned several plots that were disrupted since the 9-11 attacks including an attempt to bomb fuel tanks at a New York airport, and a plot to blow up jets bound for the East Coast. President Bush says no one knows how many lives may have been saved. He could’ve told of other plots, but chose to talk about only the ones that were widely reported.

How George W. Bush will be remembered after Barack Obama succeeds him next month remains to be seen. In the short term, he will be chastised for the current poor economy, and many critics will choose to overlook the success in Iraq. There’s “plenty to debate about the decisions President Bush has made in the last eight years, but that there can be no debate that on his watch, there wasn’t another terrorist attack on the United States after 9/11. I think history will treat the 43rd U.S. President much better than today’s media which largely has driven the widespread negative regard for George W. Bush.

Like many of you, I’m a creature of habit. There are things I do every day the exact same way - and, if I don’t, things feel a little off. Don’t get me wrong: I’m not OCD about this. But, some things are just easier if I follow a routine. That goes, too, for the websites I visit every day. I thought I’d share the sites I visit every day - and, see if you have any to suggest. And, though I probably should be embarrassed by some of my choices, I won’t be. The first step to recovery is admitting it.

kxly.com and other news sites: These are the sites I visit often (multiple times a day). I check our website to make sure we’re staying on top of coverage, to see stories that I may have missed on TV and to check for things like grammatical errors or things that don’t look quite right. I check our competitors’ websites even more frequently to make sure we’re not missing something we should be covering (I don’t feel bad about saying that, because I know our competitors are doing it, too). I also check the regional news sites, including the Seattle TV stations and newspapers. To stay competitive, you have to know what your competition is doing - and, sometimes, stories that are done in Seattle/Portland/San Francisco, etc. can be relevant here. Those are the sites on which I spend the most time (whether I’m at work or not). I also check NPR.org a couple times a day, just to see the headlines from a different perspective. And, I check Greatfallstribune.com a couple times a week to see what’s happening in my hometown.

Facebook.com: My husband used to tell me I was too old to go on Facebook (and, Myspace); until he realized all his friends were on it, too (and even some of their parents). I’ve reconnected with so many people from throughout my life through these social networking sites - and, it’s a really nice diversion. I don’t accept any friend requests from people I don’t know, though, so maybe I should be expanding my horizons.

PerezHilton.com: I’m a gossip junkie. It’s a sickness, but I can’t help myself. And, nobody does it like Perez.

TeamSugar.com: I discovered this site about a year ago and am still discovering new elements. It’s considered a social network site for women - and, is made up of a series of blogs about everything from fashion to home improvement to shopping and beyond. I used to be a daily visitor to fabsugar.com (the fashion site), but since I’ve been pregnant, I visit lilsugar.com every day. It’s a little something for everyone in one easy-to-navigate site.

Gomarquette.com: I am proud to have a degree from a well-respected Jesuit institution like Marquette University. But, when it comes to my free time, I don’t go to Marquette’s academic site - I go to check out what’s up with the basketball team. And, since I’m convinced they’re going to win a national championship this year, I’m sure I won’t be the only one checking it out!

Thedailybeast.com: A news clearinghouse run by former Vanity Fair and New Yorker editor Tina Brown. It includes original content and newslinks in an easy to digest format. It has a sarcastic edge to it - that’s why I like it.

Those are the sites I check every day - though, I spend a good portion of my day online, so I check a lot more than just this. I hope you’ll share some of your go-to sites - I’m always ready to add to my list. 

It’s hard to sum up what gets news people so excited on Election Day. Thankfully, CNN did it for us. The network took out a full page ad in today’s New York Times. Here’s the text:

There is a moment, a simple moment, before history gets recorded.

Before it goes in the books.

Before it appears as a question on a game show.

Or, on a midterm exam.

A moment right before the headline is written.

There is a moment when history lives in the present.

When we can watch it unfold in real time, right before our eyes.

And we can all assume our place in it.

Some people live for history

We live for the moment just before.

-Cnn ad in the New York Times

I got an email the other day, and after I added a few thoughts of my own, I think the following story frames well the stakes in the 2008 presidential vote. I’m sure you remember the old fable about the ant and the grasshopper. The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away. Then when winter comes the ant is warm and well fed, but the grasshopper has no food or shelter, so he dies out in the cold.

The moral of this story of course is that we all must be responsible for ourselves.

Well now there’s a new modern version of that old story. The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away. Come winter, the shivering grasshopper calls a press conference and demands to know why the ant should be allowed to be warm and well fed while others are cold and starving. CBS, NBC, ABC, PBS, CNN, MSNBC The New York Times, The Washington Post and dozens of left-tilting newspapers show up to provide pictures of the shivering grasshopper next to a video of the ant in his comfortable home with a table filled with food.

Americas are stunned by the sharp contrast. How can this be, that in a country of such wealth, this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so? Kermit the Frog appears on Oprah with the grasshopper, and everybody cries when they sing, ‘It’s Not Easy Being Green.’ Jesse Jackson stages a demonstration in front of the ant’s house where the news networks film the group singing, ‘We shall overcome.’ Jesse Jackson then has the group kneel down to pray to God for the grasshopper’s sake. Barack Obama exclaims in an interview with Larry King that the ants routinely get rich off the backs of the grasshoppers. He calls for an immediate tax hike on ants to make them pay their fair share.

Americans incensed by those mean spirited ants elect Obama, and his party, and soon, ants get huge tax increases and fines for failing to hire a sufficient number of green bugs in their enterprises. Soon having nothing left to pay steep taxes ants everywhere find their homes confiscated by the government. The story ends with the grasshopper finishing up the last morsels of the ant’s food while the government house in which he lives, (which just happens to be the ant’s old house), crumbles around him because he doesn’t maintain it. The ant disappears in the winter snow. Soon thereafter, the grasshopper is found dead in a drug related incident. The house, now abandoned, is taken over by a gang of spiders who terrorize the once peaceful neighborhood.

The moral of this story is this: Be careful how you vote next Tuesday.

Sarah Palin really doesn’t want to entertain the media as she meets with several world leaders in New York this week.

Palin got a passport just last year. Before this week, she had not previously met with any international leaders. By the end of this day, the Republican vice presidential nominee will complete meetings with seven foreign heads of state. She began with a half-hour session with Afghanistan’s President Hamid Karzai and Colombia’s President Alvaro Uribe Tuesday. The McCain campaign has arranged Palin’s visits with these foreign leaders during the United Nation’s annual General Assembly.

The plan is to give her exposure to foreign policy in advance of her October 2nd debate with her vice presidential opponent, Senator Joe Biden.

The media wanted in on these meetings, but only a pool camera crew from CNN and some still photographers were admitted. There was much Media grousing about not being invited to attend Palin’s briefings. Some networks and newspapers actually threatened not to cover the meetings. The reason the media were restricted is because the McCain campaign knew these media vipers, most of whom are already in the tank for Barack Obama, only wanted to catch Sarah Palin in a mistake.

These so-called “reporters” who followed Barack Obama to Europe like it was the second coming, and made his first meetings with world leaders seem like a gift to world peace, only wanted to capture an embarrassing moment, if there was one. It turns out there were none.

The left-tilting mainstream media has been upset that the McCain campaign has not made Palin available to reporters for questions. Since the nomination of Alaska’s governor as John McCain’s running mate, she has given two network TV interviews, and will soon do another with CBS, but shehas held no news conferences.

The fact that Barack Obama has held no general question news conference in many months doesn’t seem to bother the media.

The media will discount any value in the meetings Palin has had with foreign leaders. They’re already saying they don’t improve her stature. Clearly the campaign coverage double standard remains inplace.

House Ways and Means Chairman, Democrat Charles Rangel of New York admitted last week that in recent years he has underpaid his taxes by about $10,000. The media reported the story with a heavy theme of sympathy, casting Rangel as a victim of the very tax code he helped to write.

How does one just accidently fail to record some $75,000 of rental income?

Charlie Rangel, who is a self-proclaimed champion of the poor and underprivileged, received the money from a beach house he owns at a posh Dominican Republic resort. The veteran congressman claims he made an honest mistake. He says that he didn’t know how much money he made from the property because his Dominican business partners would “start speaking Spanish.”

The mainstream media has already dismissed the matter as unimportant. Had Rangel been a Republican, would the media have been so understanding?

Then there’s the re-election attempt by incumbent Congressman William Jefferson of Louisiana. You haven’t heard much about this guy either, have you? You will recall that Jefferson was indicted in June of 2007 on 16 charges of corruption. He was the lawmaker in whose freezer the FBI found $90,000 in cash a couple of years ago. Yeah … that guy.

We find the media reporting on all the seats that the Democrats plan to gain in the upcoming November election. We also find reporters scouring for perceived scandal involving a Republican. If they find something, it gets plenty of front page press such as the nothing story involving Governor Sarah Palin that the media is calling “troopergate” and the Senator Ted Stevens corruption matter in Alaska.

Yet if it involves a Democrat, it gets buried on page 56. I just wondered if you noticed.

Remember the Alamo.

Remember the Maine.

Remember Pearl Harbor.

Remember 9/11.

It’s been seven years since that last rallying cry became a part of our country’s collective consciousness, the latest in an all-too-familiar string of attacks on either our national interests, national pride or our sovereignty.

In the seven years since the deadly attacks against Washington and New York City, 9/11 has become a political football much in the same way the powers that be assessed blame for the attacks on the Pacific Fleet lying at anchor in Pearl Harbor and the sinking of the USS Maine in Havana’s harbor.

What’s long since been forgotten by the pundits and politicians is that in those terrible minutes after airliners were intentionally rammed into the Pentagon and World Trade Center thousands of American lives were lost.

September 11th is a day to remember those lives lost seven years ago as much as we will pause on December 7th to remember the lives lost over 60 years ago in Hawaii.

It shouldn’t be about politics.

It should be about the people our country lost that fateful day seven years ago Thursday.

It should be about Mothers and Daughters. Fathers and Sons. Sisters and Brothers. Grandparents. Husbands and Wives. Police Officers and Firefighters. Soldiers and Airmen. Sailors and Marines.

That’s what “Remembering 9/11” is really about.

NOTE: And to the vandals who defaced Coeur d’Alene’s 9/11 Memorial overnight. There are probably quite a few firefighters and police officers in North Idaho that would love to make your acquaintance. If you have any information on who defaced the memorial to honor our nation’s fallen, please call the Coeur d’Alene Police Department at 208.769.2320.