Be kind to Bob Shrum. Perhaps the 68-year old is suffering from the not-so-early-onset of some dread memory-loss syndrome.  

How else to explain his suggestion on Al Sharpton's MSNBC show this evening that the National Restaurant Association's settlement for a relatively modest sum, in today's litigious world, proves that Herman Cain must have done something wrong?  Does the failed presidential campaign consultant's support of Bill Clinton, despite his much larger, $850,000 settlement with Paula Jones while "adamantly denying" her claims, fire any synapses in Shrum's cerebrum? Video after the jump.

Consider Shrum's sad memory lapse. And remember that the reported five-figure settlements by the National Restaurant Association represent  no more than a long-week's work for a team of big-time defense attorneys.

BOB SHRUM: I think the only way through this is for a release of those records from the National Restaurant Association. You can redact the women's names.  But what was he alleged to have done? What did the investigation show?  And if he didn't do anything, why in the world did they pay tens of thousands of dollars to these women?  

For those who don't know, ProPublica (bold is mine) "is an independent, non-profit newsroom that produces investigative journalism in the public interest. Our work focuses exclusively on truly important stories, stories with 'moral force.' We do this by producing journalism that shines a light on exploitation of the weak by the strong and on the failures of those with power to vindicate the trust placed in them." It has received predominant funding from the Sandler Foundation (yeah, those Sandlers; Herbert Sandler is Chairman). Other contributors include George Soros's Open Society Foundations. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. (yeah, him) is also on ProPublica's board.

Translation: They lean left. Nevertheless, the organization's Stephen Engelberg (HT Instapundit) questions whether the Politico had enough information on sexual harassment allegations against Herman Cain to publish a story (bolds are mine):

---

Raising Cain: When is a Scoop Ready to be Published?

Politico’s story on possible sexual harassment by Herman Cain may be the biggest investigative scoop of the campaign season. But it would be hard to deduce that from the facts as published.

The story lacks the key details needed to judge whether the allegations amount to fatal character flaw in a candidate suddenly running near the top of the polls. For example, the story quotes unnamed sources as saying the National Restaurant Association paid two “five figure settlements” to deal with charges of harassment by Cain, who was president and CEO of the trade group from 1996 to 1999.

Were they $99,999 each? (To use some of Cain’s favorite numbers) Or a buck above $9,999?

The former would suggest, but not prove, that something seriously untoward had occurred. The latter sounds like what lawyers term nuisance settlements – the money corporations routinely shell out to make frivolous claims go away.

After providing equivocal denials to Politico, Cain came out swinging today. "In all of my 40 years of business experience,’’ Cain told an audience at the National Press Club in Washington, “ I have never sexually harassed anyone.

“While at the restaurant association,’’ Cain said, “ I was accused of sexual harassment. Falsely accused, I might add."

Therein is the problem with this story. If the facts as published were part of a memo to Politico’s editors they would amount to a first-rate tip on a story. …

… But the onus remains on news organization to nail down their stories.

… in this case, it remains unclear whether this was merely a great tip or an actual bombshell.

Note, however, which Scott Whitlock at NewsBusters did this morning, that the Big Three networks hyped the story as huge, with former Clinton advisor George Stephanopolous characterizing it as a "bombshell blast."

The hypocrisy of the Politico choosing to run a story based on such thin gruel is in stark contrast to how the press handled at least four other items concerning Democratic presidents and presidential candidates over the last two decades. Besides Bill Clinton-Monica Lewinsky, which Matt Drudge forced out into the open in January 1998 after Newsweek spiked Michael Isikoff's story, there are these:

• During the 1992 presidential campaign, particularly during the early primaries, the press, especially the broadcast networks, worked feverishly to suppress Clinton's years-long affair with Gennifer Flowers — an affair to which Clinton admitted six years later.
• The elite media initially fiercely resisted publishing any information about Clinton's sexual harassment of Paula Jones in an incident which occurred in May 1991, mere months before Clinton announced his presidential run, when it became known in late 1993. Isikoff, then at the Washington Post, "brought the Paula Jones sexual harassment case to his editors … (and) they refused to run the story." The matter was settled for $850,000 in November 1998.
• More recently, the establishment media had to be dragged kicking and screaming by the National Enquirer into acknowledging John Edwards's 2006-2007 affair with and his fathering of a child out of wedlock by Rielle Hunter — while the former South Carolina senator's now-deceased wife Elizabeth was fighting cancer. As I noted in January 2010 when Howard Kurtz tried to claim there was "no independent proof" of Edwards's beyond-professional involvement with Hunter at the time of the Enquirer's real bombshell, there were plenty of clues. Several journalists following Edwards's campaign seemed to have been in a position to obtain more complete proof of the Enquirer's story, but inexplicably dropped the ball.

Each of the four stories involved were far closer to being "nailed down" than Herman Cain's. That doesn't matter. Herman Cain is a Republican, conservative, African-American, a threat to the Washington elites of both parties, and a clear and present danger to Barack Obama's reelection. Thus, the as of now unsubstantiated story about Cain fits the establishment press's definition of a "bombshell."

Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.

Common decency dictates you shouldn't congratulate someone for possibly ruining the career and marriage of a fellow human being.

Such morality eluded MSNBC's Chris Matthews and the Washington Post's Nia-Malika Henderson Monday when they actually congratulated – on national television, no less! – Politico's Jonathan Martin for Sunday's hit piece on Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain (video follows with transcript and commentary):

CHRIS MATTHEWS, HOST: We start with the latest on Herman Cain. Jonathan Martin is chief political correspondent for Politico, and Nia-Malika Henderson is a political reporter for the Washington Post. Let’s show us now what we’ve heard latest. NBC has confirmed that one woman received a settlement from the National Restaurant Association after complaining about inappropriate sexual conduct by Herman Cain. NBC News is not disclosing the name of the woman nor characterizing who she is. Today, Herman Cain acknowledged he had been accused of sexual harassment but said the charges were not true. Let’s listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HERMAN CAIN: In all of my over 40 years of business experience, running businesses and corporations, I have never sexually harassed anyone. While at the restaurant association, I was accused of sexual harassment, falsely accused I might add. I was falsely accused of sexual harassment, and when the charges were brought, as the leader of the organization, I recused myself and allowed my general counsel and my human resource officer to deal with the situation. As far as a settlement, I am unaware of any sort of settlement. I hope it wasn’t for much because I didn’t do anything.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTHEWS: Well, let’s go to Jonathan Martin. J-Mar, congratulations on breaking this story.

J-Mar, congratulations on breaking this story.

Let's all celebrate that a man's career and personal life might be destroyed based on 20-year-old allegations from faceless, nameless accusers.

Hip, hip hooray.

But that was just the start of the celebration, for a few minutes later, the Post’s Henderson joined in the backslapping:

NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON, WASHINGTON POST: Yeah, and you heard Herman Cain for instance today call it a witch hunt, and obviously conservatives are blaming it on the liberal media. But I will say I think there have been rumors about this swirling around his campaign, swirling around press organizations, and, you know, kudos to you J-Mar for breaking this thing.

Kudos, "J-Mar." For he's a jolly good fellow.

As the shameless segment came to a conclusion, Matthews slapped “J-Mar” on the back again:

MATTHEWS: Anyway, thank you Jonathan Martin, congratulations on the scoop I guess, and Nia-Malika Henderson, thank you for congratulating him for his scoop.

Such joy on the Left over the possible destruction of a man some saintly by comparison liberals said a few weeks ago on this very network would be swooned over by the media if he were a Democrat.

Instead, because he's a black conservative, he is to be loathed, attacked, and hopefully thrown out of politics for good.

I find it fascinating that on a day when I am truly ashamed to be in any way associated with the news media because of the behavior of all those involved in this hit piece so many in the press are celebrating as if they just won the World Series.

What a truly disgusting industry this has become.

I honestly can't fathom how people like this look themselves in the mirror when they brush their teeth.

The American left is still shaken by the success of spontaneous conservative grassroots participation in tea party activities leading up to the 2010 elections. In desperation, leftists now hope to profit from the Occupy Wall Street gatherings which have spread to many other locations.

Haven’t the mainstream print and broadcast media, overwhelmingly liberal, given massive and sympathetic coverage to the Occupiers? Isn’t this a good way to build enthusiasm among the base the left needs to win the 2012 elections?

Probably not, even though Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, many extremist labor unions, the Socialist Party USA, the Communist Party USA, and others on the left are singing praises of the current demonstrators. So many want to lead the Occupiers.

One week after the Occupy Wall Street protesters first gathered, the New York Times ran an opinion piece by Michael Kazin, “Whatever Happened to the American Left?,” offering his guidance in left-wing movement building. He urged the demonstrators to focus on “demanding millions of new jobs that pay a livable wage.”

A fat lot of good that demand would do.

Creating new jobs requires creation of new wealth, something that government has never been able to do. Government can and frequently does destroy jobs by interfering with wealth creation. At best, government can facilitate the creation of wealth (and jobs) by restricting its activity to protecting property rights, enforcing contracts, punishing fraud, and deterring violence.

The idea of leftists “demanding millions of new jobs that pay a livable wage” reminds one of the famous “cargo cults” which sprang up in the South Pacific after World War II. Allied forces visited many remote islands during that war, built air strips, and flew in large quantities of goods needed in the war effort. Native islanders, unfamiliar with modern civilization, received some of those goods from Allied forces who wanted friendly relations with them.

After the war, the planes stopped coming. Some primitive islanders created cargo cults. They built crude replicas of airplanes and prayed to the replicas, hoping to receive additional free goods from the sky. As evidence of the persistence of human folly, a handful of the cargo cults still survive, but most have faded away after generations of disappointment. Leftists demanding from government millions of new jobs will be similarly disappointed.

For better or worse, though, the Occupiers are too diverse to unite on a single demand. What attracts their current supporters, from top government officials to the avowed Marxists and Leninists, is their potential usefulness in promoting class warfare, an ancient and common thread which runs through the entire left. Maybe, somehow, the Occupiers will build a great surge of hate, invigorate class warfare, and help the left to maintain and increase its power, despite the growing public disapproval of President Obama and his allies.

And maybe not. We’ll see.

Right now, the protesters don’t seem to be winning public approval, despite sympathetic news coverage stressing their “idealism.” My late father often said, “Anyone can get his name in the newspapers if he’s willing to take his pants off in public.” Many of the Occupiers have done that and worse, which generates for them more contempt than admiration. The TV interviews with randomly selected Occupiers are suitable to run only on comedy shows.

Before the current age of easy communication, every community had its village idiot, someone everyone knew couldn’t think straight. The local village idiot was pretty isolated and usually tolerated well, often with affection because of his affliction. “Poor fellow.”

Today, village idiots can find each other easily online, and sometimes they can gather in large numbers. Such gatherings are ugly, but they attract media attention, which attracts more idiots. Their idiocy, when it is directed toward leftist politics, may be ignored or soft-pedaled by the major news media, but the mainstream media has lost its former monopoly on mass communications.

Most Americans have easy access to conservative media’s broadcast, print, and online communications which widely expose the idiots’ wackiness and bad behavior.

Who but the willfully blind still approve of the Occupiers’ protests and flights of fancy? Political linkage to these demonstrators will hurt, not help candidates in the 2012 elections. But this doesn’t occur to the left, who are stuck in a rut with an outmoded world-view just when millions of conservative Americans have become newly activated as responsible political participants. The left cannot accept the increasingly obvious fact that big government is destroying jobs and bankrupting our country and its people.

Leftists are fascinated by the Occupy Wall Street protesters because, for generations, their organizing principle hasn’t changed. It was best stated in 1901 by future Soviet dictator Vladimir Lenin in his newspaper Iskra (The Spark).

Lenin wrote, “Our task is to utilize every manifestation of discontent, and to gather and turn to the best account every protest, however small … Concentrate all droplets of popular resentment. Combine all these streamlets into a single gigantic torrent.”

More recently, Saul Alinsky taught much the same thing to many who now cannot resist applauding the Occupiers.

That old strategy won’t work in America today. Most experienced political analysts predict that President Obama cannot be re-elected unless our national economy improves dramatically before November 2012.

More government can’t generate the growth necessary to save the left in next year’s election. And even if it could, the current Congress would defeat any major attempts to increase government spending and government control of the economy.

The ironic fact is that the Occupy Wall Street protesters will, to the extent that they vilify profits and shame and frighten employers and prospective employers, discourage private investment in new activity which alone can create new jobs. By linking himself and his allies to these protests, President Obama is scaring off job creators and damaging his chance of re-election, not building his base of support. Fortunately, there aren’t enough idiots out there.

The "mildly Islamist" party that won a plurality of votes in recent Tunisian elections is not a troubling sign, nor is the possibility that Egypt and Libya may be moving in an Islamist direction post-Qadhafi and Mubarak, Reza Aslan argued in a Sunday "Guest Voices" piece for WashingtonPost.com's "On Faith" section (emphases mine)

[B]efore we give in to our inner Glenn Beck, let’s get a few things straight. First of all, the prospect of any of these countries transforming into another Islamic Republic of Iran is almost nil. It should be noted that Ennahda, which models itself after Turkey’s enormously successful Justice and Development (AK) Party, has repeatedly said it has no desire to impose sharia-inspired penal codes on Tunisia. Indeed, it is already in talks with liberal and secular parties about forming a coalition government. In Egypt, the influence of the Muslim Brotherhood has certainly increased, but it in no way dominates the political landscape of the country. On the contrary, the Muslim Brotherhood has yet to poll beyond 20 percent in any pre-election survey. In any case, like the Ennahda, the Muslim Brotherhood has also sworn off imposing a conservative interpretation of sharia law, which, according to Egypt’s current constitution, is already the basis of the country’s laws.

That leaves Libya as the only post-revolutionary country in which the transitional government has explicitly called for implementing sharia. I would venture to say that Jalil’s announcement has widespread support across Libya. The country is predominantly Muslim and it can be expected that, given the freedom of an option, the majority of the population will opt for a far greater role for religion in government than what was allowed under Gaddafi. As I have written before in these pages, that is not in and of itself a bad thing.

For generations, the dictatorial regimes in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya violently repressed any hint of religious opposition. With the dictators gone, it is only natural for the proverbial pendulum to swing toward a greater role for religion in society. It will take many years of dialogue and debate, trial and error, for these societies to come to a comfortable accommodation between the religious faith of their majority populations and the necessary requirements for a stable and modern democracy. (Remember, the United States has had a 250-year head start and we are still grappling with the role of religion in our government and society). Those are precisely the kinds of public debates we want people in the region to have.

[...]

As Harvard Law Professor Noah Feldman notes in The Rise and Fall of the Islamic State , for a great many Muslims living in countries where the law rests upon the whims of a dictator, sharia is merely code for “rule of law.” Sharia means that there is something written down and codified that can be relied upon by all citizens as a concrete expression of what is and what is not permissible. Further, for many of these newly free populations, sharia is a less a legal code than it is a form of identity, a means of espousing particular values and norms that were conspicuously absent during the corrupt and inept regimes of their ousted dictators.

Liberal Columbia University professor Dorian Warren compared the Occupy Wall Street protests to the NBA lockout on CNN Monday, saying that the players are using their "voice" and "bargaining power" to air their grievances with the owners like the protesters are doing with the banks.

"Record profits last year in the NBA, yet the owners are saying they don't have enough money to share with the players," Warren said of the lockout. "And so, the players are, unlike most American workers, staying strong in their union to say, no, we actually have a voice here and we have bargaining power and we're not going to let you get away with that." [Video below the break. Click here for audio.]

Co-host Alina Cho didn't exactly challenge Warren's bizarre assumption, being content to let him expound his pro-union view of the lockout and the protests as he blamed the decline of unions for America's income inequality.

"In 1950s, one in three American workers was a member of a union. Now, it's less than 1 in 10," Warren stated. "And so, I think that's related to the rise in inequality over the last thirty years, the declining unionization."

Cho could have challenged Warren's case on multiple counts. The average NBA player's salary, as of this past summer, is $5.15 million, certainly far more than the average Wall Street protester who is employed. The players have a distinct advantage in the amount of their savings on hand for an extended strike. 

In addition, the players haven't exactly taken to the streets, disobeyed the municipal authorities, or been arrested in confrontations with the police.

"Interesting perspective, and I encourage people to read this Washington Post op-ed from Sunday," Cho concluded the interview.

A transcript of the segment, which aired on October 31 at 7:17 a.m. EDT, is as follows:

[7:17]

ALINA CHO: Our in-depth look at the Occupy Wall Street movement this week. They're known for fighting against the one-percenters, the very wealthy. So, what do they have in common with the very well-paid, extremely well-off stars of the NBA? More than you think. Our next guest says that. Dorian Warren is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Columbia University. He specializes in studying inequality in American politics. Dorian, it's nice to see you.

So, LeBron James, he makes $16 million a year, he has a $90 million contract with Nike, firmly in the one percent. But you actually say he has a lot in common with the Occupy protesters. How so?

DORIAN WARREN, assistant professor of Political Science, Columbia University: Well, he and his fellow players are raising grievances with the owners, much like the Occupy Wall Street protesters are, saying around Wall Street banks.

Record profits last year in the NBA, yet the owners are saying they don't have enough money to share with the players. And so, the players are, unlike most American workers, staying strong in their union to say, no, we actually have a voice here and we have bargaining power and we're not going to let you get away with that.

CHO: Well – and you mentioned the unions. In fact, you say the NBA players have one significant advantage over the other 88 percent of workers in America, and that is they belong to a union, right?

WARREN: That's right.

CHO: And you say, actually, the disintegration of unions in this country has exacerbated the problem.

WARREN: That's right. In 1950s, one in three American workers was a member of a union. Now, it's less than 1 in 10. And so, I think that's related to the rise in inequality over the last thirty years, the declining unionization. And what's interesting is that the NBA players themselves recognize this.

So when Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin, for instance, in February attacked public sector workers, the NBA Players Union stood with those public sector workers and defended union rights of all workers in this country, so –

CHO: What do you say to people who say unions are the problem, then?

WARREN: Well, if they were the problem then – and there's – they have much more influence than you would imagine, right? At 12 percent of the workforce. That's down from, again, 35 percent when we had shared prosperity and we had less inequality and we had more economic growth. So, you have two snapshots here. When unions were strong, we were stronger as a country and more equal. Unions are weak, we're more unequal, less economic growth, economic collapse.

CHO: You know, I read an article in the "The New York Times" recently that really stuck with me on the Occupy movement, and one line – and I'll read it to you – "No matter how instrumental new media have become in spreading protests these days, nothing replaces people taking to the streets." And, you know, when you see those pictures, and I mean let's keep in mind, this has gone global –

WARREN: Right.

CHO: – it really is extraordinary, and you say this is a significant moment.

WARREN: This is a significant moment. I think we're seeing an emergence of a social movement of people actually making two kinds of claims. The first is that economic inequality and our economic system doesn't work for everybody. And second, that our political system is broken. And there's a link between both of those things.

That the people that are benefiting from the economy get to buy their way in Washington and that most average people, most average Americans don't have a voice in the political system and don't have a future in the economy.

CHO: But let's talk about this because we're now two months into the protests and there are some people who, frankly, have – still have a hard time understanding what it's all about. They know they're mad at the 99 percent –

WARREN: Yes.

CHO: – I mean, at the one percent.

WARREN: One percent, right.

CHO: And that they're the 99 percent. But some have argued, critics have argued that they're not good on solutions, and that's part of the problem and maybe is that why they're not even, you know, a bigger presence and more significant in terms of our collective memory?

WARREN: Well, I think it's important to put this in context. So, we're two months in, but the most successful movement of the 20th Century, the Civil Rights Movement – Rosa Parks, Montgomery Bus Boycott, 1955. Five years later, 1960, student sit-ins. Next year, 1961, the freedom rides. We didn't get the Civil Rights Act until 1964 –

CHO: 64.

WARREN: – right? And then the Voting Rights Act of '65. And I'm not saying it's going to take 10 years for the Occupy Wall Street movement to see legislative success, but when you think about social movements broadly, it takes a while and we're only two months in.

CHO: Hm-hmm. All right. And you're right, the Civil Rights Movement – people are still fighting.

WARREN: Yes, right.
 

"This is the biggest single Twitter controversy of the campaign.  48,000 mentions!"

That was Mike Allen doing his best "look–a squirrel!" dodge on today's Morning Joe.  Pressed by Joe Scarborough as to whether Politico had any more details beyond its story's vague allegation that Herman Cain had made gestures "that were not overtly sexual but that made women uncomfortable," Allen's telling first instinct was to point to the story's popularity on a social networking site. Video after the jump.

Allen subsequently recycled Jonathan Martin's already-stated claim that Cain had invited a woman up to his hotel room. But he was unable to cite a single additional fact.  Throughout his appearance, Allen had the air of an over-caffeinated campaign aide to an opposing candidate believing he was onto a story that could crush Cain.

Watch Allen's weak diversionary effort.

JOE SCARBOROUGH: Mike Allen, you had Cain defenders yesterday seizing upon a line that Politico wrote about gestures made by Cain toward these women that were, quote, non-sexual in nature.  Just to confirm you have evidence as well of sexually inappropriate behavior?

MIKE ALLEN: What the women said was that he said things that made people feel uncomfortable in that way.  This story clearly resonated with people. There's an estimate out there that this is the biggest single Twitter controversy of the campaign.  48,000 mentions of Herman Cain on Twitter yesterday.  That's more than the mention of any Republican candidate ever.

U.S. District Court Judge Catherine Eagles last Tuesday granted a request for a preliminary injunction that temporarily blocks a provision in North Carolina's new abortion-restriction law that would require women seeking an abortion to view an ultrasound image of their womb within four hours of the procedure.

In her decision to suspend this one requirement, while upholding other provisions in the law pending resolution of the lawsuit by several plaintiffs, Judge Eagles said the ultrasound requirement likely violates patients' First Amendment rights. Come again?

Various "rights groups" argued that requiring women to see what they are about to abort amounts to using women's bodies as "virtual billboards," to promote an ideology mandated by government.

Judge Eagles wrote, "The First Amendment generally includes the right to refuse to engage in speech compelled by the government," adding that freedom of speech precludes limits on "both what to say and what not to say."

As Craig Jarvis of the Charlotte Observer reported, Katy Parker, legal director of the ACLU of North Carolina Legal Foundation, said the law "would have put medical providers on uncertain legal ground and harmed women." Harmed women? What about the aborted babies?

Let's apply this twisted reasoning to commercial airline travel. FAA regulations require that passengers receive an oral and video demonstration of the plane's safety features. Though safety information is clearly written on laminated cards slipped into the pockets of every airline seat, passengers are also shown what to do in the event of an emergency.

Are the First Amendment rights of passengers violated because the government requires them to listen to these instructions? Apparently not; the safety announcement is a "federal regulation," and as such, passengers must hear it each time they fly. Some of these emergency instructions might be unsettling for passengers to hear — like how to put on your oxygen mask should the plane lose cabin pressure or how to access your floatation device if the plane is headed for a crash landing in water — but again, no one is suggesting their First Amendment "right" not to hear such speech is being violated.

Another federal regulation requires a person seeking sterilization to receive several specific pieces of information in order to have informed consent. In addition to the patient certifying receipt of the information, the physician must also certify in writing that the procedure and its consequences have been thoroughly explained.

So, to compare this to Judge Eagles' ruling, one must have informed consent in order to be made incapable of having a baby, but denied informed consent when one is carrying a child and wants to abort it.

A federal mandate requires agriculture employers to provide an oral warning to employees of certain pesticide applications in greenhouses, farms, nurseries and forests. Another requires a home health agency to orally disclose to a patient prior to giving them care the extent to which payment may be expected from the federal government and how much the individual must pay. The comptroller of the Currency, the Federal Reserve and the FDIC require banks that sell insurance to orally disclose to the consumer that the insurance is not FDIC insured.

No one is challenging in court any of these oral requirements. So what's the objection to orally and visually disclosing to a woman seeking an abortion what's inside her womb? Judge Eagles' decision, and the rationale behind it, is unabashedly political. How can more speech containing factual information violate the First Amendment, which is all about protecting, not restricting, speech?

With studies and stats showing large numbers of women choosing to give birth after viewing an ultrasound of their baby and learning about the consequences of abortion — along with positive alternatives — refusing to empower women in this manner makes "pro-choicers" censors and an enemy of women, as well as the enemy of another generation of babies who are not being born. This has consequences for society and corrodes culture. It also darkens our souls and harms the common good.

Although he sort of admitted last Thursday that he's part of America's richest one percent, schlockumentary filmmaker Michael Moore clearly wants to hide this inconvenient truth whenever possible.

This was perfectly illustrated Monday when he refused to answer questions about his wealth at an Occupy Portland rally (video follows with transcribed highlights and commentary):

An Occupy Portland participant asked Moore if the richest 400 people in the country could "give back" $1 million each. The hypocritical flimmaker repeated the question saying it was a good idea.

A reporter for the Oregon based website Daylight Disinfectant shouted out, "How about a million of your 50 million?"

Moore ignored this and instead continued speaking to the crowd.

After Moore finished his speech, the reporter and his cameraman followed the schlockumentarian asking versions of the same question.

"Aren't you part of the one percent?"

When Moore still ignored him, the reporter said, "$50 million Michael Moore. Here he comes."

Despite this, crowd members could be heard shouting, "Michael, we love you."

The reporter then asked, "Hey Michael, you flying the corporate jet back? Huh, your own private jet?"

At that point, the crowd turned on the reporter shouting, "Who's paying you?"

According to the notes posted at DD's YouTube page:

At the end the videographer [sic] assaulted (specifically pushed and shoved) by participants in OccupyPDX. At the end of the piece you can hear the DD reporter say to the head of Occupy PDX media: "You are blocking my shot bro," [sic] The Media representative retorts: "Yeah I know." So he is deliberately interfering. The DD Reporter also gets shoved in the stomach about this time. So much for free speech.

Indeed.

Maybe more importantly, so much for critical thinking as these folks in the movement continue to revere a man who based on his wealth should be their enemy.

Not a very intelligent group of people, is it?

(H/T Breitbart TV)

In an unbylined item Sunday evening, the Associated Press informed readers that Venezuelan ruler Hugo Chavez, continuing a six-year campaign of agricultural land seizures, has ordered the expropriation of a huge swath of farmland from a British company, and unilaterally decided that any compensation which might occur will be paid in his country's own currency, over which the country's banks exercise strict repatriation controls.

The report frames the amount of land being seized in a way which will ensure that many readers won't appreciate its massive scope. More important, in something seen frequently in reports about authoritarian regimes, it treats the specific objections of opponents — in this case, current landowners – as arguments instead of observable and determinable facts. Here are several paragraphs from the report (bolds are mine):

---

Chavez orders more land taken from British firm

Venezuela's president on Sunday ordered the expropriation of 716,590 acres belonging to a British-owned company amid a disagreement over compensation for earlier takeovers of ranchland from the firm.

President Hugo Chavez announced the latest seizure after saying that Venezuela refuses to pay compensation in foreign currency to Agropecuaria Flora, a local subsidiary of the British company Vestey Group.

Chavez said the government had received a demand from the company that it be paid in dollars for the previous seizure of tens of thousands of acres. But the government insists in paying in bolivars, Venezuela's currency.

It's difficult for foreign companies operating in Venezuela to repatriate profits and other income in bolivars due to foreign currency controls in the South American country.

… Owners of large farms and cattle ranches have criticized the takeovers, arguing that Chavez's socialist-inspired policies have failed to boost agricultural production and made Venezuela increasingly dependent on imports of food from countries such as Brazil and Argentina.

How differently would a reader react if the AP had described Chavez's seizure as "over 1,100 square miles" (at 640 acres per square mile, it's actually 1,120 square miles) instead of in acres, which many if not most readers won't mentally convert? The land Chavez is seizing is over 90% of the size of Rhode Island, and 45% of the size of Delaware. What's more, if (emphasis if) the estimate of arable land in Venezuela per Google is correct at 2.85%) and if all land being seized is arable, the seizure would represent over 11% of all arable land in the entire country (arable land = 2.85% x 354,000 square miles = 10,089 arable square miles; 1,120 square miles seized divided by 10,089 arable square miles = 11.1%).

If he intends to pay at all, Chavez's preference to pay in bolivars would appear to be based on his ability to devalue the currency (which he has done), and its two-tiered nature, with separate rates for "essential" and "non-essential" goods. Whichever rate translates into fewer British pounds would clearly be the one he would intend to use.

The final excerpted paragraph uses a frequently employed technique in press coverage of authoritarian regimes. It is a fact that agricultural production did not rise appreciably in the first nine years (1998-2007) Chavez and his Bolivarian government took controlled the country (I could not find data for more recent years). It is also a fact that Venezuela's food imports have risen dramatically, from 40% of all food needs in 2000 to 70% in 2010. Yet the AP presents the objections of "owners of large farms and cattle ranches" as something they are "arguing," as if what they are asserting is debatable, instead of as something they are pointing to as facts and verifiable observations.

This "journalism" will even go to absurd levels such as what was seen here in late 2008 in a post about the AP's coverage of Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe: "critics blame Mugabe's policies for the ruin of what had been the region's breadbasket. Mugabe blames Western sanctions …" — as if the two competing assertions have equal value. No; one (Mugabe's policies ruining the country) is true; Mugabe's is false. It's not a violation of journalism to point that out.

As long as we get mush such as that cited in this post, everyday Americans' understanding of key developments around the world will be incomplete and erroneous. I would suggest that this may be the entire point.

Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.