CNN Meltdown, Part III, "Stonewall !"

Hugh Hewitt highlights more on the CNN "meltdown," drawing from his interview with Tom Brokaw, and linking to the latest from Mark Steyn, Powerline, Michelle Malkin, Glenn Reynolds, and others (other links in Hugh's original).

Hugh also quoted from our own Update posted last night (thanks, Hugh) about the total disconnect between what CNN senior executives, including David Bohrman, were publicly pitching prior to the debate, and what actually unfolded at the event.

Hugh concludes:

"CNN is of course going to the mattresses, just as every MSMer does when the collision with their own bias and/or incompetence arrives. But like Rathergate, the YouTube/BoobTube debate is already a major milestone in the accelerating collapse of credibility of the MSM."

Right to the nub, Hugh.

Except that CNN, unlike CBS, will likely do little if anything in the way of a "self-examination" or investigation of what happened to try to restore their credibility, other than the Anderson Cooper "mea culpa," which was limited to the exposure about General Kerr's connection to the Clinton campaign.

Will CNN just take The New Republic approach to rooting out those serious research and credibility problems? "Moving right along . . ."

So far, their site suggests just that. A quick search of the CNN main website page, or of their politics page, reveals little or no recognition at all of the brewing controversy about their debate.
Elsewhere on the CNN site, CNN Investigates caught our eye for a second, but it's about candidate "attack ads" and who is this year's Willie Horton, not about "ambush questions" and who is this year's Dan Rather!

A post-debate Podcast analysis piece with Lisa DesJardin and John Lisk contains not a single word about the controversy. It's all just a, "he said, he said" recap of the candidates.

The only thing we could find on their entire site was two comments here buried among a total of 28 in what was a quickly closed thread. They were posted by Justin and Michael as reader comment on the post-debate wrap-up. Here are the two comments:

Justin

I also was disturbed by how little work seems to have been done to check the backgrounds of those asking questions. (Or was a lot of work done to make sure they were really from a narrowly focused group of people?!) I also was disturbed by how little work seems to have been done to check the backgrounds of those asking questions. (Or was a lot of work done to make sure they were really from a narrowly focused group of people?!) With what was supposed to be a good sampling of Americans, I found simple web searches of those asking questions bringing up facts that seemed to show these particular individuals were only coming from select political views and caused me to lose faith in the validity of the whole debate. CNN-The Most Trusted Name in News...REALLY?????

. . .

Michael

YouTube either forgot to or chose not to vet their guests last night. Keith Kerr, Leann Anderson, and David McMillan are all *publicly* tied to current Democratic campaigns but were passed off as "civilians" when their questions were aired.

Good for them! But not a very good beginning for CNN!

Finally, the CNN link to their partner communication, Time, Inc. is to a video post grading the candidates' performances.

The CNN/YouTube Debate: Outsourcing Journalism by James Poniewozik, author of Time's Tuned In blog, put up a post-debate analysis on the 29th, also studiously avoided the controversy. The whole piece is about the "refreshing" uniqueness of having "citizens" ask the questions.

In fact, here's a bit of irony for you from James!

But the better questions to come out of YouTube were ones that mainstream journalists wouldn't have asked, for fear of seeming biased (as I said last time, bias produces some of the best questions) or because they strayed from the standard campaign-2008 talking points.

Really? So . . . the only reason certain reporters don't ask certain questions, is to avoid appearing biased? Well, we knew that, James. But, it is nice to hear it coming from you!

Or how about his finisher:

In the end, CNN didn't "give YouTubers a voice." The YouTubers gave CNN one.

Sure did! And a rather distinctly Democrat one at that!

The CNN/YouTube Debate Update

As has been duly noted elsewhere, here is a CNN story, "Funny, poignant questions pour in for GOP debate" dated just this past Monday (11/26), in which CNN Vice President, David Bohrman made it quite clear that the specific intention of the hosts of Wednesday night's debate was for Republican questioners to ask the Republican candidates questions.

Here is exactly what Bohrman said on topic in the story, just a few days ago:

"This debate is to let Republican voters pick from among their eight candidates," said David Bohrman, Washington bureau chief and senior vice president for CNN. "We are trying to focus mostly on questions where there are differences among these candidates."

Bohrman also told "The Caucus (ht: ProteinWisdom)," the blogger for the New York Times that they would weed out any "gotcha" questions.

Both claims were utterly and completely untrue.

We now know that a significant number of the few selected questioners, from as many as 5,000 YouTube video submissions, were submitted by out-and-out Democrat plants, and even one aired question was by a former CAIR intern, all with no other purpose than to hurl ambush questions at the candidates, and that a minimum amount of research on the part of the CNN producers and researchers would have quickly revealed those connections to them.

At Instapundit, Glenn Reynolds correctly calls it "a failure of professionalism," noting, as others have, that YouTube is, after all, owned by Google!

So, what happened, Dave? Who in production and/or research dropped the ball? Who, if anyone, was uhhhh . . . Googling?

Over the years, we have seen CNN in various outrageous iterations, including having experienced the disgusting accusation by the former President of CNN news, Eason Jordan (in Davos) -- who ultimately had to resign -- over falsely accusing the U.S. military of intentionally killing reporters in Iraq out of anger! Now CNN has attempted to skew the nomination process on both sides, within two weeks.

Are they trying to outdo Dan Rather?

The CNN story on Monday ended as follows:

CNN's political unit is keeping the questions a secret, but those selecting them say viewers should be prepared for presentations that are funny, questions that are poignant and a format that is unprecedented for the GOP.

Yep.

Hey, maybe what they really meant to say was "funny" questions, and unprecedented presentations.

(Our original post, here.)

CNN - Another Media Misdemeanor

Let's see -- last week CNN hosted a Presidential debate for the Democrat candidates, and the "public participation portion" was infested with Democrat activists asking the questions of the candidates.

This week, CNN, along with YouTube, hosted a Presidential debate, this one for the Republican candidates, and the "public participation portion" (the entire debate) with YouTube video questions, was infested with Democrat activists asking the questions of the candidates.

Hmmmmm . . . maybe there is something to that Harvard media bias study that concluded, among other findings, that CNN is the most openly hostile to Republicans.

A video question on gays in the military was asked by a retired military officer, Retired Brig. Gen. Keith H. Kerr, whose solid connection to Hillary Clinton's campaign was popped last night before midnight by Kenneth P. Vogel on Politico. The former General initially lied to Vogel about his connection to the Clinton Campaign, as did the Clinton campaign.

From Politico's report:

. . .
Kerr told CNN that he had not done work for the Clinton campaign, and CNN
verified before the debate that he had not contributed money to any candidate,
the broadcaster said in a blog post after the debate.

Kerr told CNN he is a member of the Log Cabin Republicans and was representing no one other than himself, CNN said.

On Thursday, Clinton campaign spokesman Phil Singer said the retired general "is not a campaign employee and was not acting on behalf of the campaign."

A Nov. 11 press release retrieved from the website of the nonpartisan magazine Campaigns & Elections lists Kerr as one of nearly 50 co-chairs of "Veterans and Military Retirees for Hillary."

Clinton’s campaign did not respond to an e-mail asking about Kerr’s role
in her campaign or whether he was acting on behalf of the campaign.
. . . .

And today Michelle Malkin has the complete wrap-up on who the various plant questioners were in last night's CNN - YouTube "debate" free-for-all format.

Given the fact that, to some extent, the CNN Cable network had their reputation on the line in terms of allowing plants to misrepresent themselves on their debate programming after the latest Democrat debate they hosted, you would think the producers would have done a little better job of screening those asking the questions.

Nope.

This time, it is clear they did exactly what they intended to do -- give free air time to misleading, and in the case of the former general, lying questioners -- ersatz Republicans -- each of whose sole purpose was to try to embarrass those in the field of Republican candidates, by hitting them with "gotcha" questions. But don't completely fault the questioners for trying -- hey, they're partisans!

Blame CNN for failing miserably to handle it with any sense of fairness at all.

This is an old story with CNN. The pattern probably began a long time ago, with an earlier "innovative" election participation technology that was popular at the time -- the "call-in" show.

In the 1992 Presidential race, CNN's Larry King brazenly allowed known Clinton political operative and Communications Director, George Stephanopolus, to be one of several "just folks" call in questioners on his show, Larry King Live. Stephanoplous then proceeded to harangue the sitting President with a totally misleading and accusatory question about Iran Contra.

Though the senior Bush immediately objected on air to King on the grounds that it was an obvious ambush question by a plant from the other side, King insisted that Stephanopolus had a right like anyone else to "call in," and he allowed the call. The damage was done.

Of course, no doubt the call came from the Clinton "war room" -- the one which Stephanopolus himself set up -- where they had the distinct advantage of using a bank of telephones to be sure at least one call got through. Or, perhaps more likely, the Clinton team simply coordinated with Larry King, a known Democrat partisan, to set up the call in advance.

Either way, however, CNN openly participated in the ambush at some level. And, in that instance they arguably succeeded in helping skew the election process.

Participants in the new media, however, are time after time exposing the partisan nature of the old. The problem has been, and continues to be that the old media partisans still have the advantage of getting in the sucker punch. And they don't do such a hot job of covering one others' media misdemeanors. They tend to ignore or lightly gloss over the stories.

Only Fox News Channel covered it as an actual news story, although CNN contributor, Bill Bennett interjected the exposure of Clinton team's military questioner, and Anderson Cooper later weighed in with an apology, acknowledging Bennet's role.

Oh, don't expect too much coverage of the CNN story from ABC News, whose President is George Stephanopolous.

Today's ABC Good Morning America video recap on the debate by Jake Tapper still up on the ABC site in the late afternoon of November 29th, makes no mention at all of the controversy over the series of Democrat plants. And there is not even one word of mention about the Clinton Campaign's intrusion with General Kerr's question, which, as we noted, was exposed last night.

Jake's entire take was that the Republican debate was about "personal attacks," and that the campaign was "only going to get nastier."

Wolf Blitzer Bombed

As you no doubt already know, Wolf Blitzer threw in the CNN-monogrammed towel in the Democrat "debate" in Las Vegas.

What happened there didn't stay there! And it's all over the internet, on both the left and the right.

Having been rather openly warned not to focus the debate on Hillary, Wolf personally backed off asking her an obvious follow-up question on licenses for illegal immigrants, though he did closely query Barack Obama on the same issue. As noted on the NRO Media Blog, Hillary front group Media Matters, even issued a list of prior warnings to Wolf and CNN, regarding what questions they could and could not ask! Wolf ended up spending much of the debate interrupting the candidates, giving Fox News Channel's Chris Wallace an opening to critique the CNN coverage the next day, as reported on "alternative news" blog, The Raw Story.

Thus, in spite of Wolfy's prior pledge to ask tough questions, the CNN towel hit the canvas within a few minutes, just as it had apparently been planned all along.

Newsbusters notes that the lefty blog, Daily Kos jumped all over the CNN coverage as pro-Hillary. Likewise Gateway Pundit. Strange bedfellows, huh?

Our prior post, suggesting some tough questions for him to ask Hillary, was of course only half in jest. We knew Wolf would never have asked anything like the questions we listed. Nor will anyone in the media.

But little did we suspect that the entire network would completely cave, by scripting the public portion of the debate, and openly toss in with the Democrats to promote their agenda! Michelle Malkin accurately calls it the "Politics of Planting" in this video replay of that portion of the debate. Contrary to his pledge, he actually stated in the lead-in that the public questioners were "undecided," openly suggesting that they were independents, though as we know now, they were nothing of the kind.

Here is exactly how he put it:

Wolf Blitzer: "White House correspondent, Suzanne Malveaux is here with us and, Suzanne, you have some, uhh, undecided voters who are ready to ask these Presidential candidates some specific questions. Let's begin right now!"

Suzanne Malveaux: "Sure Wolf, they are all very excited . . . about a hundred folks here. I've had a chance to actually meet at least, uhh, some of you here. Katherine Jackson . . . I want to start off with you . . .

And off they went! The implication of the introduction was that they had selected a few questioners from a group of about 100 or more undecided voters who showed up for the debate.
But one of the questioners -- the girl, Maria Luisa, who got stuck at the end having to ask her "fun" question to Hillary, "Diamonds or pearls?" -- made it quite clear that the entire matter was scripted well prior to the "debate." Mark Ambinder at the Atlantic laid out the details of Maria's next day "blurt" on MySpace.

Many other questioners were previously known Democrat activists, as detailed by Noel Sheppard at Newsbusters, some of them with direct connections of loyalty to supporters of Hillary Clinton, including a former intern to Harry Reid!

So let's face it, as was reported about the Harvard media study, CNN is not only the most hostile to Republicans of all the networks, it also appears more than willing to ensure that the Democrat candidates are not confronted with anything like the tough questions Wolf had promised.

Where she saw an opening CNN's Suzanne Malveaux even "amended" one girl's question in order to further drive the agenda.

Regarding Mark Ambinder's Atlantic piece, above, you'll note that well over 500 comments have since been posted. The most persistent theme among the commenters is, if debate questioner Maria Luisa was so smart, why did she not just go ahead and ask her question about Yucca anyway, once they handed her the microphone? In other words, Why did she cave in and ask her "diamonds or pearls" question? She herself addressed it in the comment section.

The comments on the article thread range in quality from quite insightful to utterly abusive.

But having read through them, our vote for the best comment posted on the entire thread was this one:

(Heard in the wings: "Say, what time did you say we put the dog up on the pony?")
Posted by Billy Beck November 17, 2007 12:39 AM

Here is the original comment as posted on Billy's blog, where, incidentally, you can pick up a ton of information on guitars.

Funny. That said it all!

Quick, Wolfy Needs Our Help!

Folks, as you know, the CNN Democrat Presidential contenders debate in Las Vegas will be off and running in just a few hours! Bet it did not occur to you that talking heads like Wolf Blitzer -- especially Wolfy -- may need our help right now!

No doubt you're aware, reports indicate that Wolf was warned by the Clinton Campaign to go light on Hillary and not try to "pull a Russert" by asking her tough questions, or pressing her for answers! Of course, that really means that Wolf will need to ask some hard questions to avoid being tagged forever as a complete sell-out weenie! The one thing that a top level talking head cannot afford is to be disrespected by both the right and the left!

Just ask Tucker Carlson over at left-leaning MSNBC!

Well, as you also know there is a writer's strike on! That's right! Who is going to write Wolf Blitzer's questions for him, huh? He can leave it for the rest of the panel to ask the usual fascinating questions of Hillary . . . questions like, "Has powder blue always been your favorite color?"

But Wolfy has to hammer home at least a few tough ones, or else he'll be the one remembered as the "potted plant" from this evening's debate.

For that reason, we've jotted out few quick suggestions for him. They're really in rough draft shape, but I assume he can edit out what he doesn't like, no?

The only other thought we had is that reports state the recent Harvard study showed that CNN is very, very left wing -- "the most hostile to Republicans." No doubt the writers there are as well. Group Think, you know?

That means he may be unfamiliar with the focus we've taken, and perhaps the style as well. Hey look, nobody is perfect! At least we tried to help the poor guy out!

So, if you can think of a few quickies to add, please do! And more importantly, if anyone has an e-mail address for Wolfy, please be sure to forward this link on to him, along with any additions you might want to make. Just copy us for the file as a courtesy, if you would.

Thanks! Whew!

So, at last, here are our 10 suggestions, arranged by subject matter, for questions that Wolf Blitzer might ask Hillary Clinton tonight!


Experience:

Senator Clinton . . .You have repeatedly said in earlier debates, that you are the most experienced of the Democrat candidates for President. But your critics note that you have never run anything, never made a budget, nor have you ever been responsible for the lives of tens of thousands, or even millions of citizens and residents. And, you never served in the military, though you reportedly once thought about it. They also note that as First Lady, you failed miserably at those few things you personally became involved in, such as health care and the travel office. Even so, one could argue that you are more experienced than some of the would-be candidates on the dais with you . . . some, but perhaps not all. Would you please turn to Governor Richardson, who has actually run a federal government department, and who is now the Governor of a State, and please explain to him exactly what makes you more experienced than he is to be the President of the United States, and the Commander-in-Chief of all of our military forces?


Campaign candor -- Two questions:

a) Mrs. Clinton . . . A spokesman for Senator Barack Obama quipped to the New York Times in a story published today, that since it took you, "two weeks and six different positions to answer one question on immigration, it’s easier to understand why the Clinton campaign would rather plant their questions than answer them." Would you please take the opportunity right now to respond directly to Senator Obama, or would you be more inclined to just let that one sit out there unanswered?

b) Mrs. Clinton . . . when specifically did you first hear that your campaign was planting questions with audience members, and who exactly did you hear it from? Has anyone who participated in the planting of such questions been removed from your campaign, and if so who, and when?

Immigration:

Senator Clinton . . . you and one of your potential opponents on the Republican side, Senator John McCain, both voted for the so-called "comprehensive immigration reform" package that was before Congress recently, which went down to defeat. Since that time, Senator McCain has noted that we have really had a genuine national debate on the immigration question, and that he now understands and agrees with those who say that we must first deal with the question of border security before we can implement any broad provisions that would automatically enhance the status of the millions of illegal immigrants currently in our country. Do you agree with him? Would you also be in favor of firmly securing our borders before passing such status provisions?


Health Care:

Mrs. Clinton . . . critics of your national health insurance policies point out that in jurisdictions that have taken a more socialized approach, such as you propose, that it is common for individuals to be stuck in long waiting lines, or hampered by lengthy waiting periods of time for sophisticated procedures, such as MRIs. Suppose that, under your system, your daughter suddenly developed a condition that required an MRI, but she was forced to endure a long "waiting period" for the procedure. Where would you take her to get around that problem, as many foreigners often do now when they come to the United States for treatment? Canada? Great Britain? Cuba?

Iraq & War on Terror -- Two questions:

a) Senator Clinton . . . now that another month has passed, in Iraq few could deny that our military has made considerable additional progress on the ground in defeating al-Qaeda and it's affiliates. Do you think that the time may now have come for you -- and the rest of the candidates here as well - to publicly apologize to General Petraeus, in your case, for specifically implying to his face that he was a liar when he gave his testimony?

b) Senator Clinton . . . you recently said that you would not vote for any more money to support the troops in Iraq without a withdraw schedule attached. Now it appears that the President's surge strategy is working well, and specifically without a congressionally-mandated withdraw timetable. You want to be Commander-in-Chief. You also voted for the authorization for this war. If you were the Commander in Chief, would you invite Congress to put specific timetable limitations on your ability to do your job? And if not, why do you want to do that to the current President, whose strategy is now quite clearly working without any such timetables?

Campaign Finance:

Mrs. Clinton . . . I assume by this time that your campaign has finally identified all of the donors "bundled" by Norman Hsu, and if so, how many were there exactly, will you publicly release a complete copy of that donor list? And if you have returned all of the money, how many came back to you in "voluntary donations" from those specific donors? And, what about the so-called "dish-washer donors"? Does that sit well with you, or are you troubled by the fact that a substantial number of minimum wage workers, many of whom cannot even speak English, are somehow each coughing up a few thousand dollars to contribute to your political campaign?


Press Relations:

Mrs. Clinton . . . The New Republic has just published a lengthy and very, very unflattering piece by editor Michael Crowley about your campaign's media strategy -- Bunker Hillary: Clinton's Strategy for Crushing the Media -- addressing questions like, and I quote, "the Clinton camp's reputation for fearsome omnipotence is its treatment of media figures who cross them." Just in the past few days, unmistakable comments and pieces have been published that have been interpreted as "warnings to me" not to try to "pull a Russert" in this debate and ask you tough questions. Did you or your spokesman Howard Wolfson know anything at all in advance about any veiled threats from your campaign for me to go easy on you with my questions? And do you condone any such actions?

And, finally, not to bring up old news, but tough is tough:

Mrs. Clinton . . . have you forgiven Monica Lewinsky in your heart for having taken advantage of your husband's, shall we say, weakness -- the one you specifically identified years ago as having arisen in his childhood out of the conflict between two strong women raising him, i.e., his mother and grandmother?

When Denial Trumps The Obvious
The Elephant On the Cutting Room Floor

"We can imagine no better way to give hope to opponents of Iran’s repressive state than by showcasing America’s democracy and commitment to free speech."

NY Times editorial defending Columbia's decision to allow Ahmadinejad to speak.

11/01 - Today, the New York papers are all reporting that a 66-year old Jewish Professor at Columbia University, Dr. Elizabeth Midlarsky, some of whose work has concentrated on the acts of kindness of Gentiles toward the Jews back during the Nazi period, has just had a swastika spray painted on her office door up at the university. It was the latest of several anti-Semitic incidents, including hate mail, that were specifically aimed at this teacher in the past few weeks. Two of the city's newspapers, the New York Post and the Daily News displayed photos of the brown painted symbol scrawled on the door of Professor Dr. Midlarsky's office. She and her family live in New Jersey.

There was also a report of another bias-related incident back on October 10th of a noose being hung on the office door of Professor Madonna G. Constantine, a black professor at the college.

Regarding this latest incident, the New York Post reported that Dr. Midlarsky, a clinical psychologist and teacher at the college, had received three pieces of hate mail in her mailbox in the past few weeks, all occurring since the University's event hosting a visit by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, President of Iran, to visit Columbia and speak there at the end of September.

The professor had quite vehemently and openly opposed the invitation extended to Ahmadinejad by the school.

Midlarsky, who had family members killed in the Holocaust, strongly opposed the Sept. 24 visit to Columbia by Ahmadinejad, who denies the Holocaust, and wore a pin showing the Iranian president's legs twisted into a swastika.

"I was appalled he was asked to speak at Columbia. I was very outspoken about it at the time. Perhaps this game [sic – "gave"] this person the idea for this swastika." Midlarsky told The Post.

The psychology prof said she might also have been targeted because "I am openly Jewish and openly and proudly study Holocaust issues."

"I feel safe enough to come out about my concerns. I am known for it. But this could make me a target of someone who expresses hatred. Anti-semitism is there. It's real. It still exists today," she said.

Midlarsky said anti-Semitic hate mail had been left in her Teacher's College mail box three times starting on Oct. 17.

As reported in the Daily News, her husband also squarely attributed it to fallout from the Ahmadinejad episode.

Last month, Columbia University invited Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to speak on campus. Midlarsky's husband blamed the spurt of hate crimes squarely on the infamous hatemonger and Holocaust-denier.

"It's all fallout from Ahmadinejad," said Manus Midlarsky from the family's home in New Jersey. "The next step is physical violence, and that's what I'm worried about."

In two separate stories, the New York Times reported the incident as well, but failed in both to even include any mention of the hosting of Ahmadinejad at the school. One story, in the Education Section of the paper, entitled Swastika Painted on Columbia Professor’s Door, completely ignored whatsoever any possible relation of the incident to the late September visit to Columbia by the Iranian President.

The only quote that story included from her was as follows:

"I see this as an attack of extreme hate and extreme cowardice by someone trying to make a point," Dr. Midlarsky said yesterday.

One would think that would at least prompt a follow-up . . . say, "And what point would that be, Professor?" And, judging from her comments in the other two dailies, there is little chance she would have been shy about heading the reporter in the right direction on that one! Perhaps they did ask her and didn't like the answer, because it didn't fit their narrative.

The Times instead focused their short report exclusively in the context of other bias incidents, including the noose-hanging bias incident reportedly aimed at Professor Madonna G. Constantine at Columbia back on October 10th, and then went on to mention another reported noose-hanging allegedly targeting a Brooklyn high school principal in recent weeks, the latter quite obviously a completely unrelated incident. From the story:

On Oct. 10, a noose was found on the office door of Madonna G. Constantine, a black professor at the college. A string of similar acts in the region have occurred in recent weeks, including one in which a Brooklyn principal received a noose along with a racially charged letter in the mail.

The Times also printed the AP story about the incident that went into much greater detail about several reported noose-hanging incidents from around the country in recent years. But that story too, as well as the original New York Times story, did not mention a single word about the obvious relation of this incident to the September visit of Ahmadinejad to the University.

In their account, the AP claimed they were unable to reach Professor Midlarsky. Every other paper could. And the time stamp on the AP story indicates that it was filed after all of the other stories. But the AP managed to reach school officials at Columbia Teacher's College, meanwhile, who sought to blame it all on their focus on multicultural teachings, and blithly ignored the openly expressed views of victim of the incident, Professor Midlarsky.

School leaders said they felt the college was being targeted because of its "deep, multicultural work."

"We are committed to maintaining that tradition by operating as an open, tolerant community," Teachers College President Susan Fuhrman and Provost Tom James said in a statement. "We will not be intimidated by these incidents."

Right.

Except that everyone knows that Columbia University got so "open and tolerant" that they invited the world’s leading anti-Semitic hate-monger and Holocaust denier to drop by for a chat, graciously providing him with an open forum from which to spew his views.

True to form, of course, he played them for all the propaganda value he could squeeze from the incident, as this wrapup from FrontPage noted it would at the time.

But now the school officials want to pretend that this latest series of anti-Semitic incidents aimed at one of their own, and a vocal opponent of that visit, had nothing at all to do with their bad judgment!

They and their compatriots in denial at the New York Times, who, at the time, were busy pretending that the Ahmadinejad "visit" was really a glorious free speech rally, have played right along with this latest refusal to recognize the obvious. Shame on them all.

Denial has apparently now found a most powerful voice in a marriage of convenience between the New York Times, and the "leaders" at Columbia University. And they'll even carry that denial to the extreme of refusing to acknowledge the expressed views of one of their own, an elderly professor against whom these latest hate incidents were directly aimed.

Meanwhile, the New York Times would prefer to lecture the President of the United States, telling him he should cease what they call his "trash-talking" over Iran -- but without offering anything even remotely resembling a way to proceed on preventing Ahmadinejad's Iranian regime from getting their hands on atomic weapons!

So, the Times says, let the little dictator come here and rant, thus enhancing and enabling his position at home and abroad. But President Bush, they say, should just zip it!