Dreams Into Lightning

Rav Kook Symposium

Arutz Sheva has an excellent post on Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook (1865-1935):

(IsraelNN.com) As part of the ongoing commemorations of the 73rd anniversary of the death of the saintly Rabbi A. I. HaCohen Kook, the Beit HaRav museum/educational center will sponsor a symposium on the topic of Modern-Day Teshuvah this Wednesday evening.

Speakers such as Rabbi Yaakov Filber, Michi Yosefi, and others will address the relationship between the philosophies of Rabbi Kook and Rebbe Nachman of Breslov. ...

Go to the link for excerpts from the speakers' comments. For background, here's Wikipedia on Rav Kook:

Abraham Isaac Kook (1865–1935) was the first Ashkenazi chief rabbi of the British Mandate for Palestine, the founder of the Religious Zionist Yeshiva Merkaz HaRav, Jewish thinker, Halachist, Kabbalist and a renowned Torah scholar. He is known in Hebrew as הרב אברהם יצחק הכהן קוק HaRav Avraham Yitzchak HaCohen Kook, and by the acronym HaRaAYaH or simply as "HaRav." He was one of the most celebrated and influential Rabbis of the 20th century. ...

See also: Rabbi Chanan Morrison's Rav Kook site.

"I don't have the votes in Congress."

Just because it's a slow evening, there's this.

The Obama campaign talks a lot about new ideas and expanding the political map, but in the swing state of Pennsylvania, which the campaign has focused on almost exclusively since the Democratic convention, old-school issues still rise to the fore.

The latest example came Friday during a small political event at SCHOTT North America Inc., a glass factory in Duryea, Pa., where even a hand-picked crowd threw Barack Obama a curve ball.

A woman in the crowd told Obama she had “heard a rumor” that he might be planning some sort of gun ban upon being elected president. Obama trotted out his standard policy stance, that he had a deep respect for the “traditions of gun ownership” but favored measures in big cities to keep guns out of the hands of “gang bangers and drug dealers’’ in big cities “who already have them and are shooting people.”

So far, so good. Right?

“If you’ve got a gun in your house, I’m not taking it,’’ Obama said. But the Illinois senator could still see skeptics in the crowd, particularly on the faces of several men at the back of the room.

I feel bad for those guys in the back of the room with skeptics on their faces. I hope the skeptics at least had the decency to take their shoes off. But I digress.

So he tried again. “Even if I want to take them away, I don’t have the votes in Congress,’’ he said.

I feel better already.

“This can’t be the reason not to vote for me. Can everyone hear me in the back? I see a couple of sportsmen back there. I’m not going to take away your guns.’’

You know, I can hear the desperation crying to me through the pixels of my computer screen.

“This can’t be the reason not to vote for me. ..."

No indeed, there are so many good reasons not to vote for you, Barry.

But we take your point anyway, Dennis.

Prager: "The left does not understand that Auschwitz was not liberated by peace activists."

No, actually it was liberated by Communists.

Palin's Constituency

My personal preference for McCain's veep would have been Lieberman. I like Joe, and he and John McCain both represent the kind of politician I can think of as "my kind of people". So for someone like me, a McCain/Lieberman ticket would have been a "dream team".

But - as I am reminded daily in my explorations of the political blogosphere - most people aren't "like me". And this is where the genius of the Sarah Palin pick comes in. I like Sarah Palin. I don't share her views on some issues, but I can live with that. And (here's the main point) I think she complements John McCain splendidly.

Unlike Lieberman, Palin is young (and an older Presidential candidate needs that in a VP), she has executive experience, she's female (not a be-all and end-all, but not a matter of complete indifference either), and - most importantly - she's a real conservative.

Put it this way: McCain was seen as, at best, a "borderline conservative" by a lot of people. Adding Lieberman to the ticket wouldn't have won him any liberal votes, but it would have lost him a lot of conservative votes.

Not being a "real conservative" myself, let me turn the floor over to Mark Hemingway at The Corner:

Since I wrote about Palin below, I've been getting a nonstop barrage of reader emails all around one theme — McCain done good:

Awesomely Awesome!!!
I just gave McCain some money for the first time.

and

Add me to the list of people who just went from “Will vote for McCain as lesser of two evils” to “Will donate and volunteer for his campaign”.

and

I just sent a personal check payable to “Palin for Vice President” to the McCain campaign headquarters. Until the selection of Governor Palin, I was prepared to sit out the presidential election – and I am lifelong Republican who cast his first presidential vote for Barry Goldwater in 1964. I hope others do likewise to underscore the importance and value of a ticket that represents traditional Republican views and values.

and

Conservative Evangelical here. Long time NR subscriber and on line viewer. Reagan alt. delegate in 1976 and simply thrilled with the pick. Huckabee first choice. Palin a close second. Brilliant move on McCain's part. Kathryn J. Lopez said this may be the day the conservatives reclaimed our party. Cudos to Big Mac, the next President. Best wishes to NR.

Now I won't bore you with my thoughts on Mike Huckabee. (Hint: "President Huckabee" = "Asher moves to Canada.") But Palin can get these folks on board, and me too, then McCain's done something right.

Go McCain/Palin 2008!

Bristol Palin's pregnancy: Here we go again.

It's not often I quote Focus on the Family here at Dreams Into Lightning, but this statement from James Dobson (via LGF) easily makes the cut:

"In the 32-year history of Focus on the Family, we have offered prayer, counseling and resource assistance to tens of thousands of parents and children in the same situation the Palins are now facing. We have always encouraged the parents to love and support their children and always advised the girls to see their pregnancies through, even though there will of course be challenges along the way. That is what the Palins are doing, and they should be commended once again for not just talking about their pro-life and pro-family values, but living them out even in the midst of trying circumstances.

"Being a Christian does not mean you're perfect. Nor does it mean your children are perfect. But it does mean there is forgiveness and restoration when we confess our imperfections to the Lord. I've been the beneficiary of that forgiveness and restoration in my own life countless times, as I'm sure the Palins have.

"The media are already trying to spin this as evidence Gov. Palin is a 'hypocrite,' but all it really means is that she and her family are human. They are in my prayers and those of millions of Americans."

I don't always see eye-to-eye with Dr. Dobson but he's got it just right. Here's Charlotte Hays at The Corner:

The Washington Post’s delicate sensibilities are such that it had to be dragged kicking and screaming to the story of (an adult) Democratic politician who cheated on his cancer-stricken wife. But Sarah Palin’s pregnant 17-year-old daughter made the front page of the newspaper today. You’d never know from the headlines and commentary over the last few days that the pregnancy bothers liberal commentators but not the religious right — at whom these stories are aimed. The left gleefully hoped that the pregnancy would depress this segment of the voter population. Of course, if they’d actually met a member of the religious right they’d have known better. (And on another page in the same newspaper, Lois Romano reaches a new low in campaign reporting" The McCain campaign said it could not confirm that Palin was still breastfeeding Trig…")

Only reason I'm posting on Bristol Palin's pregnancy at all is that it's giving us a re-run of what we've seen from the left and from the media establishment before. We saw it with Rudy Giuliani:

"Once again, the Democrats attempt to define the GOP not as it is, but as they wish it were."

Gay Patriot West is talking here about the DNC's desperate attempt to weaken Rudy Giuliani's candidacy for the White House by "highlight[ing] Giuliani’s stance on gay issues in order to play on the bias of social conservatives, assuming that these Republicans would never support a candidate with such a record." ...

And we saw it with Mary Cheney's baby:

It's because the liberal Left needs Archie Bunker. They can't deal with a rational, moderate, center-to-right mainstream; so they drag up the boogeymen they know they can defeat. And they have to convince their liberal audience, and themselves, that those Archie Bunkers are the threat to America that only they - the liberal establishment - can defeat. What a transparent farce. What an insult.

Byron York was at the Republican National Convention speaking with evangelicals on this issue (if it is an issue), and I'll let him - and the evangelical conservatives - have the last word:

When the day’s business was over, I drifted around the Colorado and Ohio delegations — two critical swing states — to get a feel for the delegates’ reaction. In the Colorado section, I ran into Sue Sharkey, from Windsor. When I asked what she thought, her reaction was not about Palin but herself.

“For me personally, it hit my heart this morning,” Sharkey told me, “because I was a 17 year-old girl, just like Sarah Palin’s daughter, and I had — I was in those shoes. And my son is with me, who will be 35 years old next week, and so I know what a difficult road there is for her.”

“I chose to have my son, and from that point I realized that I was a very strong right-to-life advocate,” Sharkey continued, her voice wavering ever so slightly. Roe v. Wade had been passed just the year before, and I already knew girls who were going through abortions. It wasn’t a choice for me; it wasn’t in my heart to do that. So when I heard the news this morning, it struck close to home for me.”

A few feet away, members of the Ohio delegation were finishing up business, and I asked Patricia Murray, a delegate from Cincinnati, what she thought. “I don’t even think this is an issue,” she told me. “It’s a family issue. It’s a personal issue. The only reason it was made public was because of her mother.” Nearby, Ben Rose, a delegate from Lima, said that, “In every case where I heard delegates talk about this, the first thought was to the human nature of it.”

Morning Report: 2008-09-01

Morning Report is back, with news of Iraq, Iran, and Russia, thoughts on social issues, and more.

Anbar province turned over to Iraqi control. BBC: 'The US military has handed Anbar province, once the centre of Iraq's Sunni insurgency, to Iraqi control at a ceremony in the provincial capital.' Via Gateway Pundit.

Russian news site owner killed. CNET: 'The owner of an opposition Internet news site in Russia's volatile Ingushetia region was shot and killed Sunday after being detained by police. Magomed Yevloyev, owner of the www.Ingushetiya.ru Web site, died Sunday after being detained by police. Magomed Yevloyev, owner of the www.Ingushetiya.ru Web site, was arrested at Nazran airport in southern Russia after disembarking a flight, according to a statement by media watchdog Reporters Without Borders. Yevloyev was later found dumped on the side of the road, suffering from a gunshot wound to the head, the news site's deputy editor, Ruslan Khautiyev, told the Associated Press. Yevloyev later died at a hospital, Khautiyev said.'

Al-Qaeda sqeezed by security operation. MNF-Iraq:

BAGHDAD – Coalition forces captured three wanted men and 10 additional suspected terrorists in central and northern Iraq during operations Sunday targeting al-Qaeda in Iraq.

An alleged terrorist leader overseeing AQI operations in the Jazeera desert was captured with one suspected associate during an operation in Tikrit. The wanted man is also believed to be organizing terrorist forces in Mosul after several leaders there were captured or killed, including the Mosul “emir”, Abu Khalaf, who was killed by Coalition forces Jun. 24.

Operations in Baghdad netted two wanted men and four additional suspects. One of the wanted men is assessed to be part of the AQI foreign terrorist facilitation network, and conspiring to acquire chemicals and poison for use in attacks. The other wanted man is reportedly an associate of an attack leader within the network.

Five killed in South Waziristan safe house strike. Long War Journal: 'The US targeted another al Qaeda safe house in South Waziristan on Aug. 30, according to reports from Pakistan. At least five al Qaeda operatives were reported killed in the attack, which appears to have been launched by unmanned Predator aircraft hovering over the area. "Two Canadians of Arab origin" were among those killed. Two Punjabis were reported wounded. The strike was targeted at the home of Noor Khan Wazir in the Korzai region near Wana. The home was recently rented to "foreigners."' Read the rest at the link.

Winston: Iran regime is worried. Winston at TSOM:

The regime is worried. They have sensed that after the failure of useless negotiations on the nuclear issues, the Israelis or Americans are prepared to take military action against the regime's nukes. The new regular Iranian air force commander is also a surprise to many. He is not one of those individuals who was recruited and trained during the Shah's reign in 1970s. ...

Here's the story on the supposed impending attack on Iran:

According to reports in the newspaper De Telegraaf, the country's intelligence service, the AIVD, has stopped an espionage operation aimed at infiltration and sabotage of the weapons industry in Iran.

"The operation, described as extremely successful, was halted recently in connection with plans for an impending US air attack on Iraq," said the report.

Go to the Telegraph (UK) link for the rest.

Looking for answers. We've linked previously to Shir-o-Khorshid Forever. We now have a face and a name for SKF: she's Sayeh Hassan, she lives in Toronto, and she's 28, according to her Blogger profile. She offers some reflections in this post:

The thought of Iran, regime change, freedom and democracy in Iran and all the brave men and women who fight for these ideals on a daily basis occupy a lot of my time. For a long time I have looked for answers on how things can change... and the fact that I have not come up with a satisfying answer has been quite frustrating.

However for the first time tonight I came to a realization, it's OK not to have all the ANSWERS, what is important is to have QUESTIONS, as long as we continue to form questions, to think about issues and not to accept things at face value there is still hope that we can bring change, even great change to Iran. On the day we feel like we know everything and have all the answers ( like many unfortunate souls who are lost in their ignorance) is the day all hope will be lost and there will be no chance for a better Iran. ...

Through the eyes of the press. Anne Lieberman at Boker Tov Boulder takes a look at the AP's photo treatment of Democrats and Republicans.

Commentary. Roger Simon: The social issues are not the same.

For me, same-sex marriage is by far the simpler issue. I am one hundred percent for it on moral, civil rights and scientific grounds. (Sexual orientation is not elective.) And I am surprised so many of my fellow citizens would want to deny others a chance to experience a life of recognized love and commitment, something I have found, through hard experience, to be easily the most fulfilling and socially useful way to live. It would seem almost, dare I say it, unchristian.

Abortion is another matter entirely. I have had a personal experience in recent weeks. I became the grandfather of twin girls brought to our family by my son Raphael and his partner Phillip. These beautiful girls were conceived in vitro and carried by a birth mother. They emerged healthy and thriving. Staring at them brings tears to my eyes.

Russia, Georgia, McCain, Palin

Dreams Into Lightning is back in action, with a roundup on some significant events from the past few weeks.

Russia invaded Georgia on August 8, seizing the province of South Ossetia. And rather than try to wade through tons of commentary and analysis, I'm just going to take you to the one guy I trust, the Portland-based blogger who's got box seats to the 21st-century world. Here's Michael Totten, who, as always, is on the scene:

TBILISI, GEORGIA – Virtually everyone believes Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili foolishly provoked a Russian invasion on August 7, 2008, when he sent troops into the breakaway district of South Ossetia. “The warfare began Aug. 7 when Georgia launched a barrage targeting South Ossetia,” the Associated Press reported over the weekend in typical fashion.

Virtually everyone is wrong. Georgia didn't start it on August 7, nor on any other date. The South Ossetian militia started it on August 6 when its fighters fired on Georgian peacekeepers and Georgian villages with weapons banned by the agreement hammered out between the two sides in 1994. At the same time, the Russian military sent its invasion force bearing down on Georgia from the north side of the Caucasus Mountains on the Russian side of the border through the Roki tunnel and into Georgia. This happened before Saakashvili sent additional troops to South Ossetia and allegedly started the war.

Regional expert, German native, and former European Commission official Patrick Worms was recently hired by the Georgian government as a media advisor, and he explained to me exactly what happened when I met him in downtown Tbilisi. You should always be careful with the version of events told by someone on government payroll even when the government is as friendly and democratic as Georgia's. I was lucky, though, that another regional expert, author and academic Thomas Goltz, was present during Worms' briefing to me and signed off on it as completely accurate aside from one tiny quibble.

... “A key tool that the Soviet Union used to keep its empire together,” Worms said to me, “was pitting ethnic groups against one another. They did this extremely skillfully in the sense that they never generated ethnic wars within their own territory. But when the Soviet Union collapsed it became an essential Russian policy to weaken the states on its periphery by activating the ethnic fuses they planted. ...

Read the rest at Michael Totten: The Truth About Russia in Georgia.

And speaking of former Russian territories, Alaska governor Sarah Palin was named as Senator John McCain's running-mate. Via The Corner, here's Blackfive:

Alaska is the first line of defense in our missile interceptor defense system. The 49th Missile Defense Battalion of the Alaska National Guard is the unit that protects the entire nation from ballistic missile attacks. It’s on permanent active duty, unlike other Guard units.

As governor of Alaska, Palin is briefed on highly classified military issues, homeland security, and counterterrorism. Her exposure to classified material may rival even Biden's.

She's also the commander in chief of the Alaska State Defense Force (ASDF), a federally recognized militia incorporated into Homeland Security's counterterrorism plans.

Palin is privy to military and intelligence secrets that are vital to the entire country's defense. Given Alaska's proximity to Russia, she may have security clearances we don't even know about.

According to the Washington Post, she first met with McCain in February, but nobody ever found out. This is a woman used to keeping secrets.

PrestoPundit:

In fact, Sarah Palin has more foreign policy executive experience than Joe Biden, John McCain, and Barack Obama combined. Among other things, Palin has negotiated an arrangement where by Alaska natural gas will be piped across the Canadian border and into the United States.

For MSM idiots who haven't looked at a map, Alaska has an international border with Canada, and is next door neighbors with the Russian Empire, and shares a fishing region with Japan and South Korea. A governor of a state the size and location of Alaska necessarily has all sorts of contacts and negotiations with foreign governments. It's part of what a governor of Alaska does.

"It puts Russia in a very powerful position."

CNN:

Experts are growing increasingly concerned that the United States will have to rely entirely upon Russia to take astronauts to and from the international space station for at least five years.

Observers say the situation is all the more worrying as after NASA announced a delay in the launch of its next-generation Orion spacecraft.

... "It is a vulnerability," said John Logsdon, director of the space policy institute at George Washington University.

"Any time you are relying on a single system to do a critical task, you are vulnerable if that system has problems.

Read the full article at the link.

Almighty Supremebeing Allah arrested on cocaine charges.

South Windsor, Connecticut:

A 35-year-old man with the eye-catching name of Almightly Supremebeing Allah is facing criminal charges after being arrested during a traffic stop Thursday night, police said today.

It's always fun to see South Windsor in the news. My old hometown previously achieved national fame for the Bridezilla drama and the anti-gay t-shirt controversy.

The fucking Jew is a racist!

Canadian author Howard Rotberg runs into some trouble.

Melanie Phillips on the Real Liberals

This stand-out July 26 piece from Melanie Philips is well worth reading in its entirety.

Such people often think of themselves as liberals. But authentic liberalism is very different. For it was at its core a moral project, based on the desire to suppress the bad and promote the good in the belief that a better society could and should be built. What has happened in recent decades is that this moral core which upholds social norms and discriminates against values that threaten them has been replaced by a post-modern creed of the left, which has tried to destroy all external authority and moral norms and the institutions that uphold them, and replace them by an individualist, moral free-for-all —the creed which has led to the moral relativism and denial of truth that lie at the core of the anti-war movement.

Where [Andrew] Sullivan is absolutely right is to call Bush a liberal. For in repudiating the corrupted values of both the post-moral left and the reactionary appeasers of the right, Bush has indeed exhibited the classic liberal desire to build a better society, along with the characteristic liberal optimism that such a project can and must succeed.

And this is surely why Bush is so hated by the left. For this hatred wildly exceeds the normal dislike of a political opponent. It is as visceral and obsessive as it is irrational. At root, this is surely because Bush has got under the skin of the post-moral left in a way no true conservative ever would. And this is because he has stolen their own clothes and revealed them to be morally naked. He has exposed the falseness of their own claim to be liberal. He has revealed them instead to be reactionaries, who want both to preserve the despotic and terrorist status quo abroad and to go with the flow of social and moral collapse at home, instead of fighting all these deformities and building a better society.

She goes on to quote Michael Novak:

Then, too, the Left has developed a tic about neoconservatives. These former leftists (for a former leftist is what a neoconservative is, of the first generation anyway) do have a vision of the future, a bright vision to rival that of the Left. They fight the Left, ideology for ideology, policy proposal for policy proposal, class analysis for class analysis. The neoconservatives side with the conservatives on most issues, but with an attitude, and an aim, and a determination. They are, in the life of the intellect, warriors. Their sharpest weapon is the reality check. That is their comparative advantage over the Left. They have been "mugged by" and won over to reality. The Left has lost argument after argument to the neoconservatives for the past 20 years — has proved to be on the wrong side of reality on issue after issue — and hence reserves for the neoconservatives a special loathing.

George W. Bush turns out to have been far closer to the neoconservatives (though he is not one) than Ann Richards and Al Gore ever believed possible. True enough, he is no intellectual, and would not want to be one. Still, his mind is quicker, of a more tempered steel, and honed to a more acute practicality than lazy-minded leftists before 2001 ever allowed themselves to imagine. They "misunderestimated" him then, and still do.

Via the indispensable Random Jottings.

Posting Break

So, I might as well just make it official: I am going on a posting break. Light posting until September 1.

Saturday Night Video

And now, because I want to take a break from political stuff, here's some Apollo440:

Can't stop the rock! Rowrrr.

Leave Barack Obama aloooooone!

I don't usually post about Paris Hilton, Britney Spears, or Barack Obama, but this just made my day:

To Hollywood, it smacked of desperation.

That's why the reaction to a new John McCain ad attempting to portray Barack Obama as a kind of mindless celebrity -- likening him to Paris Hilton and Britney Spears -- drew collective yawns and shrugs of irritation from politically active members of the entertainment industry. ...

Well, I guess the morally and intellectually bankrupt world of Hollywood would know a thing or two about "desperation"; at any rate, there's nobody I'd rather irritate.

And I agree with Tammy Bruce, John McCain earns at least a thousand points for this. (BHO: "I realize I don't look like those other bubble-headed nincompoops ...")

Update.

Omar Khadr

As for Khadr's being Canadian, whatever the facts about the grenade murder, he was in Afghanistan fighting the ISAF coalition of which Canada is part. There's a name for people who take up arms against their country: "traitor."

Via GOAF, via Solomonia.

Reining In the CHRC

Ezra Levant shares the good news:

Parliament is on its extended summer holiday but news comes nonetheless of two government MPs who are opposed to the Canadian Human Rights Commission's abuses and corruption. ...

Neither [Conservative MP John] Williams nor [Conservative MP Rick] Casson could be described as "wild-eyed" MPs. Words like "deliberate" and "understated" and "considered" come to mind. The fact that each of them has seen fit to criticize the CHRC, that Williams has favourably reviewed Kay's dramatic Op-Ed, and that Casson is actually directed voters to lobby the Justice Committee, is all the more encouraging.

Reforming -- or even abolishing -- the CHRC is no longer a radical idea when men like Williams and Casson say what they've said this month.

Go read the post for details.

Millay: Christmas 1940

... I wanted to tell you about us, how wicked we are.
And yet also to say that the Star—you know the star I mean—
Is for some of us clearly visible still in the east at midnight rising, and all the night long burns serene—
And that on such nights on unaccustomed knees we kneel and in sweet discomfort
Pray for hours, and mean it, to be better than we are.
I am not one of these, I fear;
I loved you always for the things I read
About you in a book we had.
I did not meet you for the first time through the incense and stale smell
Of a room seldom aired, where people purred of heaven and howled of hell.
I used to read all day, when I was ten:
—You and Don Quijote were my heroes then.

Perhaps because of him I have been kind
Often with my heart, before consulting my mind.
I might have been wiser, had I learned direct from you—
Learned to make curlicues in the sand or on a scratch-pad while deciding what to say or do ...
Such as, "Sin—the waves come in—all pushing pebbles—each alone ...
I have it!—Let him among them who is without sin!—cast the first stone!"

I learned so young to know you, I could never see
Why we should not be playmates; you were wonderful,—
Oh, you were shiny!—and for some strange reason, fond of me.
But nothing will be done. I can do nothing. Nothing at all.
Only remember what you said, your voice, the way you said it,—
For it never was like something read, it was something heard, even while I read it—
And try to be wiser and kinder, in a world where Pity from place to place
Flees under cover of darkness, hiding her face;
Give Pity breathing-space.

- Edna St. Vincent Millay
from Make Bright the Arrows

IBD: Media Donations Favor Democrats

William Tate at Investors' Business Daily:

An analysis of federal records shows that the amount of money journalists contributed so far this election cycle favors Democrats by a 15:1 ratio over Republicans, with $225,563 going to Democrats, only $16,298 to Republicans.

Two-hundred thirty-five journalists donated to Democrats, just 20 gave to Republicans — a margin greater than 10-to-1. An even greater disparity, 20-to-1, exists between the number of journalists who donated to Barack Obama and John McCain.

Searches for other newsroom categories (reporters, correspondents, news editors, anchors, newspaper editors and publishers) produces 311 donors to Democrats to 30 donors to Republicans, a ratio of just over 10-to-1. In terms of money, $279,266 went to Dems, $20,709 to Republicans, a 14-to-1 ratio.

And while the money totals pale in comparison to the $9-million-plus that just one union's PACs have spent to get Obama elected, they are more substantial than the amount that Obama has criticized John McCain for receiving from lobbyists: 96 lobbyists have contributed $95,850 to McCain, while Obama — who says he won't take money from PACs or federal lobbyists — has received $16,223 from 29 lobbyists.

The article also raises the question of whether journalists were being encouraged to evade policies prohibiting political donations:

A few journalists list their employer as an organization like MSNBC, MSNBC.com or ABC News, or report that they're freelancers for the New York Times, or are journalists for Al Jazeera, CNN Turkey, Deutsche Welle Radio or La Republica of Rome (all contributions to Obama). Most report no employer. They're mainly freelancers. That's because most major news organization have policies that forbid newsroom employees from making political donations.

As if to warn their colleagues in the media, MSNBC last summer ran a story on journalists' contributions to political candidates that drew a similar conclusion:

"Most of the newsroom checkbooks leaned to the left."

The timing of that article was rather curious. Dated June 25, 2007, it appeared during the middle of the summer news doldrums in a non-election year — timing that was sure to minimize its impact among the general public, while still warning newsrooms across the country that such political donations can be checked.

In case that was too subtle, MSNBC ran a sidebar story detailing cautionary tales of reporters who lost their jobs or were otherwise negatively impacted because their donations became public.

As if to warn their comrades-in-news against putting their money where their mouth is, the report also cautioned that, with the Internet, "it became easier for the blogging public to look up the donors."

Via IRIS.

Remarks. Near the end of the article, Tate provides the rationale for the "100:1" figure asserted in the headline:

A second [possible way to extrapolate media bias] is to analyze contributions from folks in the same corporate cultures. That analysis provides some surprising results. The contributions of individuals who reported being employed by major media organizations are listed in the nearby table. [See article. - aa]

The contributions add up to $315,533 to Democrats and $22,656 to Republicans — most of that to Ron Paul, who was supported by many liberals as a stalking horse to John McCain, a la Rush Limbaugh's Operation Chaos with Hillary and Obama.

What is truly remarkable about the list is that, discounting contributions to Paul and Rudy Giuliani, who was a favorite son for many folks in the media, the totals look like this: $315,533 to Democrats, $3,150 to Republicans (four individuals who donated to McCain).

Let me repeat: $315,533 to Democrats, $3,150 to Republicans — a ratio of 100-to-1.

Tate's claim here is that donations to Ron Paul and Rudy Giuliani "don't really count". I understand the argument but I think it looks too much like cherry-picking. The theory that Ron Paul donors were really trying to help the Democrats is a plausible conjecture, but it's still a conjecture. And throwing out Giuliani donations because Giuliani "was a favorite son for many folks in the media" is circular reasoning pure and simple. That's why I'm not repeating Tate's sensational "100-to-1" figure in my post title. The actual numbers are quite bad enough.