Fairly objective report for the Unification Church's newspaper. It really misses the point of the debate over the fairness doctrine. Imposing the fairness doctrine would only mandate what we already have: freedom to air points of view that are objectively untrue and sometimes harmful. What is really needed is to re-regulate ownership, to diminish conglomeration, to strengthen public service requirements, and to remove the profit motive -- at least from broadcast journalism. Information should not be thought of as a salable commodity geared toward consumers, but chosen for its significance to citizens.

The problem with this story (minor, unless you're naturally suspicious of journalism and journalists) is that it is a transcript of a televised interview, and it is not really clear from where the data Parker refers to comes. But the demographic makeup (if you will) of the Iraqi insurgency has been much investigated of late -- by the Center for Strategic International Studies, by the Gulf News (UAR), by the Guardian (UK), and others. The tragedy here is that AlterNet has picked this story up after the LA Times ran it last week, but the rest of the "mainstream media" are doing their best to ignore it.

If offering biased opinions based on a very selective reading of a highly critical document analyzing a politically unpopular and historically unnecessary war can be considered "good journalism," then this is GREAT journalism.

There is no original (or other) reporting in this story. It is a skeptical rehash of a pseudonymous report in the New Republic of brutal behavior by US troops in Iraq, written by one of their own. The "story" (such as it is) on PowerLine is essentially an invitation to its readers to provide their own anecdotal "evidence" to refute the New Rep piece. Innuendo, innuendo, innuendo...

I too wonder about Bob Edgar's identification as a Methodist minister. That's nice; what does it have to do with this story? I'm skeptical about the "myth of objectivity," but many people might be interested in knowing more about OMB Watch, the New America Foundation, Common Cause, etc. If someone had told America about the Project for a New American Century (Kristol, Perle, Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld, Cheney, et al) anytime in the last ten years, the US might not be in the mess(es) we're in right now.

This is a story the NYT should have been covering for the last six years, but hasn't. US support for Musharraf, the details of Musharraf's presidency, his inability/unwillingness to police tribal areas, Taliban's resurgence there, the likelihood of Al Qa'ida making these areas a HQ, new terror plots coming out of Pakistan, Musharraf's contempt for democracy -- none of this happened yesterday, and it's all been under-reported in the NYT.

Is there any objective way to rate the raters, other than "I like what s/he wrote/I hate what s/he wrote"?

My biggest criticism of this story is that it still follows the Times's recent proclivity toward reactive rather than proactive journalism. The failure of US "strategy" for capturing Osama bin Laden, for eradicating the Taliban, for fighting al Qa'ida -- to say nothing of bringing "freedom and democracy" to Pakistan -- becomes a news story when the White House releases the NIE. This is a set of related stories one can have followed, for the last five years, quite easily in the international press on the Internet. It should have been followed by the US media just as closely.

What is the "poll" the headline refers to? The story refers directly to no specific poll. The latest polls I've read (CBS News, June 26-28) undermine the story. In that one, only 50% of respondents said it was "appropriate" for candidates to talk about their religious beliefes, while 48% said it was inappropriate. To me, this story just sounds like a flogging of the political-trend-du-jour.