RACE AND THE NEWSROOM

A Boston Globe columnist blurted out the truth today:

The editor of a sizable newspaper told me recently that he decided the racial makeup of four new hires – two minorities, a white woman, and a white male – before reviewing a single applicant.

Isn’t that illegal? And if a leading editor is enforcing illegal racist hiring policies, shouldn’t a journalist tell us who he or she is? Or are liberal editors above the law?

JUST TO CLEAR THINGS UP

I did not believe the BlackPeopleLoveUs! website was for real. Give me some credit. I thought it was hilarious. But I didn’t want to spoil the joke. Ah, the subtleties of linkage. Funny, though, wasn’t it? And, in its way, telling.

MORE BBC PROPAGANDA: Now they’re disinterring old leaders of the anti-nuclear movement from the 70s and 80s to whip up opposition to disarming Saddam. The amazing thing is: they think these old Soviet apologists have moral credibility. And, of course, for the average BBC journalist, they do.

GERMANY: “WE’RE SCARED”

How else to interpret Joschka Fischer’s remarks at the U.N. yesterday? Here’s the money quote:

“We have no illusions about the brutal nature of Saddam Hussein’s regime, therefore we all demand that Baghdad implement the relevant U.N. resolutions in full. However, in addition to disastrous consequences for long-term regional stability, we also fear possible negative repercussions for the joint fight against terrorism. These are fundamental reasons for our rejection of military action.”

Of course, long-term regional stability would be destroyed if Saddam gets his hands on nukes. And Fischer’s second point is simply that Germany stands ready to give in to the blackmail of threatened Islamist violence. Just like they did at the Munich Olympics. This really is a moment of truth for the United Nations. After eleven years of being defied by a ruthless and brutal regime, they’re too scared and pusillanimous to do anything serious about it. The question is: are America and Britain?

INSIDE THE ANGLOSPHERE

I mentioned this idea in my latest Sunday Times column. Here’s a primer on what it really means.

THE RAPE OF PRIVACY: Do we really need to watch Diana Ross stumble around in a DUI road test? Yes, I know what she did is illegal; I know it’s in a public space. But there’s something cruel and wrong about trying to humiliate a person in this way. I’m with Salon’s Joan Smith on this one.

BLACK PEOPLE LOVE US! A liberal white couple celebrates their own tolerance. At least, I think so.

WILL THEY EVER LEARN?

Ron Radosh on the anti-war movement’s reliance on a Communist front, ANSWER.

THE GAY LEFT’S MYOPIA: Some leftist gay groups, like the extremist National Gay Lesbian Task Force, have come out against a war against gay-hating tyrants. They hate Bush more than people who crush gay people under stone walls. Now another gay group is organizing a trip to Cuba! I’m not sure if they’ll visit any of the sequestered camps for people with HIV. Maybe they’ll just wave to the imprisoned gay Cubans from their plane.

STILL SPINNING: Britain’s head cardinal (a bishop who actually confirmed me long ago) is still saying that in years gone by, no one really understood that pedophilia was a terrible offense. “There was a curve in understanding of firstly the addictive nature of paedophilia, secondly the great damage that is done to children and people say we should have known all this 20 years ago but I don’t know,” opines Cardinal Cormac Murphy O’Connor in the Daily Telegraph. “Personally, and its true to say that not only among bishops but in wider society, this was not known. Therefore the way a number of the bishops acted were ways in which they wouldn’t act now because they don’t have the knowledge they have now.” Truly pathetic. Elsewhere, O’Connor bemoans the fact that Britain has become a pagan society. Well, at least some pagans know that raping children is wrong.

NOT THE NEW YORK TIMES

From Salon, no less:

Considerable creative energy went into some attacks on the president. One large one read “Stop the Fourth Reich — Visualize Nuremberg/ Iraq.” On the other side were rows of doctored photos of all the top-ranking Bush administration officials wearing Nazi uniforms and officers’ caps, each with an identifying caption. Bush was identified as “The Angry Puppet” and Mind-controlled Slave/ ‘Pro-life’ Executioner.” Cheney: “The Fuhrer, Already in His Bunker.” Powell: “House Negro — Fakes Left, Moves Right.” Rice: “Will Kill Africans for Oil.” Ashcroft: “Faith-based fascist, sexless sadist.” “Field Marshall Rummy,” “Chickenhawk Wolfowitz — Jews for Genocide,” and “Minister of Dis-info — Ari Goebbels” rounded out the field.

This is the face of the anti-war left. Congrats to Salon for having the honesty to report on it. It was so bad even Alterman has found it necessary to worry that the marches might actually increase support for the war. A few readers have complained that by fixating on the extremes, I’m misrepresenting the marches. The trouble is: the extremes organized the march. Can you imagine if a massive gay rights rally has been organized by NAMBLA, the pedophile group? But NAMBLA is to gay rights what ANSWER is to legitimate anti-war sentiment. And no-one in the liberal establishment seems to care.