Village Versus Sonia

The Village continues to brutally attack Sonia Sotomayor with nastily personal stuff, today it's the AP's Sharon Theimer ripping into her supposedly false "rags-to-riches story".

With each passing day the so-called journalism surrounding Sotomayor's Supreme Court nomination gets more and more gruesome. Today, and it's early yet, the top honors in that category goes to the AP's Sharon Theimer with a piece that needs to be examined in order to understand just how dreadful our 'serious' press corps has become.

First up:

There are two sides to Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor: a Latina from a blue-collar family and a wealthy member of America's power elite. The White House portrays Sotomayor as a living image of the American dream, though its telling of the rags-to-riches story emphasizes the rags, a more politically appealing narrative, and plays down the riches.

Message: Sotomayor and the White House are hypocrites because they talk about the nominee's "blue collar" upbringing but don't talk about how "wealthy" she is; they don't dwell on her "riches."

If you read the AP, it seems that Sotomayor is privately living in the lap of luxury but she doesn't want anyone to know about it. But is she? The AP's got the proof:

She now earns more than $200,000 a year and owns a condominium in Greenwich Village, a neighborhood of million-dollar-plus homes. Her brother, Dr. Juan Sotomayor, is a physician in North Syracuse, N.Y., whose practice doesn't accept Medicaid or Medicare - programs for the poor and elderly - according to its Web site.

Does 'guilt' by association come any more rank than this? Sotomayor lives--she owns a condo--in a neighborhood where some very rich people own expensive "homes." How much is Sotomayor's condo worth? Did it cost millions? The AP has no idea, but Sotomayor's neighbors have a lot of money, so that's all readers need to know. (Note to AP editors, in NYC pretty much every neighborhood in Manhattan has "million-dollar-plus homes.")

And what about Sotomayor's brother? Well, he's rich because he's a doctor. Plus, his practice doesn't accept Medicaid or Medicare. I'd sure to curious to hear Theimer's justification for how that has anything to do with the Supreme Court nominee. And more importantly to her editors, has the AP ever in its history of Supreme Court reporting--ever, ever, ever?--spotlighted the billing processes of a sibling in order to take a swipe at a raising star judge?

Nope. Nor have you ever seen a Supreme Court nominee get blasted for making a salary either. "You're supposed to dislike her because she thinks she's better than you" is the underlying theme of this lovely little AP piece. She's not really from the Bronx, she's a sell-out. She's not like us normal Americans at all...and psst...she's Hispanic!

But that's what Change means to the Village...launching personal attacks to try to scuttle everything Obama does. Sotomayor is simply fair game.

[UPDATE] G. Gordon Liddy's radio show yesterday on Sotomayor: "Let’s hope that the key conferences aren’t when she’s menstruating or something, or just before she’s going to menstruate."

For the love of God. Find me one liberal radio host who would say that about anyone.

Village Idiocy

Which is a more depressingly moronic example of the state of the Village, FOX's Major Garrett asking about stupid and unfounded Winger rumors about Dealergate during a White House press briefing, or World Net Daily's Lester Kinsolving asking about stupid and unfounded Winger rumors about Obama's birth certificate during the same White House press briefing?

FOX should know better, but what the flaming hell is World Net Daily doing with White House press credentials? Are they handing those out with the tinfoil or what?

This is journalism? Idiotic and false attacks on Obama, daily?

[UPDATE] Peggy "Keep On Walkin Mysteriously" Noonan yells at Republicans for not being grown-ups.

Peggy Noonan is doing this.

Team Fortress, Too

The Pentagon is going to war on the internets.

The Pentagon plans to create a new military command for cyberspace, administration officials said Thursday, stepping up preparations by the armed forces to conduct both offensive and defensive computer warfare.

The military command would complement a civilian effort to be announced by President Obama on Friday that would overhaul the way the United States safeguards its computer networks.

Mr. Obama, officials said, will announce the creation of a White House office — reporting to both the National Security Council and the National Economic Council — that will coordinate a multibillion-dollar effort to restrict access to government computers and protect systems that run the stock exchanges, clear global banking transactions and manage the air traffic control system.

White House officials say Mr. Obama has not yet been formally presented with the Pentagon plan. They said he would not discuss it Friday when he announced the creation of a White House office responsible for coordinating private-sector and government defenses against the thousands of cyberattacks mounted against the United States — largely by hackers but sometimes by foreign governments — every day.

But he is expected to sign a classified order in coming weeks that will create the military cybercommand, officials said. It is a recognition that the United States already has a growing number of computer weapons in its arsenal and must prepare strategies for their use — as a deterrent or alongside conventional weapons — in a wide variety of possible future conflicts.

Time to put all those scriptkids, hackers, /b-tards and WoW forum junkies to work in defending America against those asymmetrical cyber threats, I guess.

Here's my first question: If Obama's the one creating this Pentagon Cyber Command department, you would think 8 years after 9/11, how come Bush hadn't started the ball roling on this? Congress gave the guy a blank check after all. No money to stop Chicom hackers and Russian black hats? C'mon. Being fascist and military all over the net? Republicans should have really jumped all over this and thrown billions at tech companies for consulting...or maybe they did and just classified the hell out of it. Obama's just taking the credit for it, maybe.

Here's my second question: considering the internet is a major equalizer when it comes to getting out information for both sides of a conflict (one man's freedom fighter information page is another man's terrorist web site) will the Pentagon now be targetting the internet to create information blackouts? Is this what they mean by using "computer weapons alongside conventional weapons?" Or is this just another iteration of the old Total Information Awareness program?

Does the US need to defend its cyber turf? Absolutely...but borders and sovereignty on the net is a tricky thing. You weaponize those borders, and things can get nasty, quick.

StupidiNews!

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