This budget builds on the steps we’ve taken over the last 100 days to move this economy from recession to recovery and ultimately to prosperity.
We began by passing a Recovery Act that has already saved or created over 150,000 jobs and provided a tax cut to 95 percent of all working families.Source

This would be wonderful news, if it were true.  Unfortunately, no one seems to be able to figure out where he got these numbers from.  They just don’t seem to add up to the facts.

So where do they get away with a number like that?

Actually, I thought this was easy. The administration has claimed that ARRA (“the stimulus bill”) will “save or create” 3.3 million jobs in 2 years. So I thought perhaps what they were doing was taking the date of signing, Feb. 17, computing how much of two years had passed (71/730 ~= 9.7%) and … well, that doesn’t work, because on a pro-rated basis they would get to claim 321,000 jobs.

I thought then maybe he had specific numbers. I recall him saying that he was told Caterpillar would call back the 20,000 in layoffs it had originally called for. But that doesn’t work out either, because Caterpillar is still laying off. Initial filings for unemployment insurance have risen through the first 100 days, though today’s number is a hopeful step downward.

Of course, no one will ever know the difference. The media wouldn’t dare challenge Obama with any difficult follow-up questions.  Not one reporter asked president Obama to corroborate this claim.

We had served together on the board of a foundation, knew one another as neighbors and family friends, held an initial fund-raiser at my house, where I’d made a small donation to his earliest political campaign,” he writes.

What convenient timing for Mr. Ayers to tell everyone of his close family friendship he had with the Obamas. Perhaps Good Morning America will corner him with this important question, but I wouldn’t hold my breath. Maybe they will ask him about his plan for socialism to take over America, but I wouldn’t get my hopes up. The fact the media are only showing interest in this man after the Obama is safely on his way to the White House speaks volumes.

We had served together on the board of a foundation, knew one another as neighbors and family friends, held an initial fund-raiser at my house, where I’d made a small donation to his earliest political campaign,” he writes.

What convenient timing for Mr. Ayers to tell everyone of his close family friendship he had with the Obamas. Perhaps Good Morning America will corner him with this important question, but I wouldn’t hold my breath. Maybe they will ask him about his plan for socialism to take over America, but I wouldn’t get my hopes up. The fact the media are only showing interest in this man after the Obama is safely on his way to the White House speaks volumes.

1. The ACLU and other leftist organizations would pitch hissy fits. Mission accomplished
2. Many liberals/progressives would tell us the decision was bad and would take the opportunity to rail at Bush. Mission accomplished
3. The Credentialed Media would release editorials against the decision. Mission accomplished!

Starting with CBS News, who had theirs out late Wednesday

So the tiny little fish in the barrel was indeed shot. In the least surprising verdict of this or any other year, a panel of U.S. soldiers Wednesday convicted former Osama bin Laden chauffeur Salim Hamdan of supporting al Qaeda operations before and shortly after the terror attacks on America. (snip)

And so a trial that changed the face of American constitutional law (and may yet do so again) ends precisely as it was designed to end by the people in power who designed the legal war on terror. With a conviction. With the White House and Pentagon boasting of the efficacy of the process. And with a model now set for the much more important trials of Mohammed and Ramzi Binalshibh, two truly bad guys. This round goes to the government in a fight that was rigged from the beginning. What happens in the next few rounds is anyone’s guess.

And the article got across exactly the tone the Progressives wanted, inciting exactly the type of comments one would expect, such as:

when we subvert the law to protect the likes of bush,

we become the terrorists,

all americans should be ashamed after this sham trial

At least the article at CBS was by an individual. The one at the New York Times represents the position of the New York Times: Guilty As Ordered

Now that was a real nail-biter. The court designed by the White House and its Congressional enablers to guarantee convictions of high-profile detainees in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba — using evidence obtained by torture and secret evidence as desired — has held its first trial. It produced … a guilty verdict.

The rules of justice on Guantánamo are so stacked against defendants that the only surprise was that Mr. Hamdan was actually acquitted on the more serious count of conspiring (it was unclear with whom) to kill Americans during the invasion of Afghanistan after Sept. 11, 2001.

We are not arguing that the United States should condone terrorism or those who support it, or that the guilty should not be punished severely. But in a democracy, trials must be governed by fair rules, and judges must be guided by the law and the evidence, not pressure from the government. The military commission system, which falls far short of these standards, is a stain on the United States.

In other words, give terrorist, people who are NOT American citizens and/or not applying for US citizenship, the full rights of American citizens. Funny how the sympathy on the Left goes to the Islamists, wrapped up in fake caring about Constitutional Rights.

The headline, tone, and writing of the editorial also seems to be taking shots at the military folks who served during this trial, apparently calling them mindless automatons.

Quite frankly, the Bush Administration did mess up, as they should have named the Islamists who were caught as POW’s, as distasteful as that is, so that they could have held them until the end of the War on Terrorism, without any trials, per the Geneva Convention.

The above portion of this article was written by William Teach of Pirate’s Cove and reprinted with permission.  However, I want to add a little more.

Andy McCarthy goes after the NY Times on the same article:

Of course, the trial also produced a not-guilty verdict.  Was that "as ordered" too?  If the system was "designed … to guarantee convictions" how did that happen?

As our take at NRO this morning points out, the trial appears to have been exceedingly fair.  Not only was there no "evidence obtained by torture" etc., there was actually suppression of interrogation proof derived from coercive questioning that did not come close to torture.  There were also jury instructions that were very favorable to the defendant, and the introduction of exculpatory evidence.  In combination, that probably led to that inconvenient acquittal the Times would prefer not to talk about. 

The tiresome Times bombast, altogether emblematic of what passes for discourse on the Left regarding the serious questions about how combatants should be tried, underscores the best result of the Hamdan commission trial.  As we argue today:

Such caterwauling, however, will no longer fill a void in the public mind. We now have a concrete record of a completed trial that seems to have been scrupulously deferential to Hamdan’s right to a fair proceeding.

And if it wasn’t, we’ll know that soon enough, too. In drafting and enacting the 2006 Military Commissions Act under which this trial was conducted, the Bush administration and Congress provided for multiple levels of appeal, first in the military system, then in the civilian federal courts — the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals and, ultimately, the Supreme Court. In these tribunals, we will no longer be talking hypotheticals and hyperbole. We’ll be talking about an actual case — the things military justice did do, not scurrilous predictions of what it might do.

Bill West at the Counterterrorism Blog sums it up nicely:

The officers who served on this jury had a duty to independently weigh the evidence presented to them within the rules of the Commission and to render a decision based on their own judgement of that evidence…not based on any external orders. The conduct of the proceedings and the verdict demonstrate those officers did just that. They not only vindicated the Commission…the "system"…but they brought great credit upon themselves and the Officer Corps. They upheld that code of honor We the People expect of them.

The NY Times, in its derogatory editorial, not only ignores that fact but does a backhanded insult to those officers who served on the jury.

The cherry on top of it all is that after all this ranting and raving from the MSM and the ACLU, the final sentence was a slap on the wrist.

After being forced from its strongholds in the west and centre of Iraq in the past two years, Al-Qaeda’s dwindling band of fighters has made a defiant “last stand” in the northern city of Mosul.

A huge operation to crush the 1,200 fighters who remained from a terrorist force once estimated at more than 12,000 began on May 10.

Operation Lion’s Roar, in which the Iraqi army combined forces with the Americans’ 3rd Armoured Cavalry Regiment, has already resulted in the death of Abu Khalaf, the Al-Qaeda leader, and the capture of more than 1,000 suspects.

Along with this good news, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki announced today that the terrorists in Iraq have been defeated and an aide to General Petraeus "The progress in Iraq is irreversible. There will be "significant reductions in 2009 whoever becomes president."

Somehow these headlines of historic news didn’t make any American newspapers.  I wonder why all this was ignored by our media.

Everyone can add two more Obama flip-flops to the ever-growing list.  Obama managed to make a full circle twist on the war in Iraq.  After gathering the liberal masses on his promise to quickly withdraw troops from Iraq, now that its time to tack to the center he makes a full reversal.  In his words, he has always held the right to "refine" his position on Iraq depending on circumstances.

“I’ve always said that the pace of withdrawal would be dictated by the safety and security of our troops and the need to maintain stability. That assessment has not changed,” he said. “And when I go to Iraq and have a chance to talk to some of the commanders on the ground, I’m sure I’ll have more information and will continue to refine my policies.”…

“My 16-month timeline, if you examine everything that I’ve said, was always premised on making sure that our troops were safe,” he said. “I said that based on the information that we had received from our commanders that one to two brigades a month could be pulled out safely, from a logistical perspective. My guiding approach continues to be that we’ve got to make sure that our troops are safe and that Iraq is stable.”

He added, “I’m going to continue to gather information to find out whether those conditions still hold.”

ABC’s Political Punch Blog is one of the few MSM spots not to ignore this, and they seem to be concerned.

Obama has almost always built in some wiggle room into his proposal — including promises to consult with commanders on the ground — but surely not always. For point of reference, go to Obama’s own campaign Website:

“Obama will immediately begin to remove our troops from Iraq. He will remove one to two combat brigades each month, and have all of our combat brigades out of Iraq within 16 months. Obama will make it clear that we will not build any permanent bases in Iraq. He will keep some troops in Iraq to protect our embassy and diplomats; if al Qaeda attempts to build a base within Iraq, he will keep troops in Iraq or elsewhere in the region to carry out targeted strikes on al Qaeda.”

It becomes more than obvious how much of a flip-flop this is when you can compare what he said before to what he says now.  Still, he tries to climb down.  I think Philip Klein sums it up best.

It’s official. The Obama campaign has entered John Kerry territory when it comes to changing positions on Iraq.

It doesn’t end here though.  Since this flip-flop is too big for all the media to ignore, certain ones will paint it up and "refine" it as much as possible.  Also, I don’t want to beat Obama up on this one too much since its a "change" in the right direction.  After all, whats the difference between Obama’s "refined" position on the Iraq War and the position McCain has always held?  Obama couldn’t end the day with just one flip-flop.  He had to hit a double whammy! 

The second "refined position" the media will do their best to ignore is on abortion.

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama says "mental distress" should not qualify as a health exception for late term-abortions, a key distinction not embraced by many supporters of abortion rights.

In an interview this week with "Relevant," a Christian magazine, Obama said prohibitions on late-term abortions must contain "a strict, well defined exception for the health of the mother."

Obama then added: "Now, I don’t think that ‘mental distress’ qualifies as the health of the mother. I think it has to be a serious physical issue that arises in pregnancy, where there are real, significant problems to the mother carrying that child to term."

Last year, after the Supreme Court upheld a federal ban on late-term abortions, Obama said he "strongly disagreed" with the ruling because it "dramatically departs from previous precedents safeguarding the health of pregnant women."

Last year Obama said he would trust women to make the right decision on partial birth abortion. This new position on abortion by Barack goes against his 100% NARAL rating in 2005, 2006, and 2007.  Of course the MSM will not report any of these details to you.  This is why you read Newsbusters.

Here is what he said:

“Let me tell you why it’s so wrong, It’s so wrong because in these situations . . . that 6-year-old is going to sit in front of me, or somebody far worse than me and I’m going to rip them apart. I’m going to make sure that the rest of their life is ruined. That when they’re 8 years old they throw up; when they’re 12 years old, they won’t sleep. When they’re 19 years old they’ll have nightmares and they’ll never have a relationship with anybody. And that’s not because I’m a nice guy. That’s because when you’re in court, and you’re defending somebody’s liberty, and you’re facing a mandatory sentence of those draconian proportions, you have to do every single thing you can do on behalf of your client. That is your obligation as a trial lawyer.”

By the way, he doesn’t regret a single word.

Well, CNN actually covered it, but couldn’t seem to figure out which party he belonged to.  The best they could come up with was that he was a legislator of some sort.