Daniel Greenfield / Sultan Knish Articles at DanielGreenfield.org

It's hard to miss just how much the media environment around us has changed in a fairly short time. Bias is nothing new as far as the media is concerned. Most of the major media outlets are run and staffed by people whose own views run left of center. That simple fact alone does not ensure bias, anymore than a bus counter staffed entirely by one race automatically means that other races will be discriminated against. As human beings we all have prejudices of one kind or another, acting on them in a workplace environment however is a matter of choice. And the current media environment is the product of a choice by editors, producers, anchors, reporters to not only bring that bias into the workplace, but to enshrine it as a heroic virtue that embodies all that is best about the profession. The barriers to bias in journalism depended on old school codes, such as sticking to the facts and not inserting your own viewpoint into the story. Those codes are virtually gone today in major

While most people are familiar with the Prophet Elijah, or Eliyahu HaNavi, one of the more famous biblical personalities, the common designation for his name remains a puzzle. He is called Eliyahu HaTishbi or Elijah the Tishbite, and Tishbi's meaning remains a matter of controversy. Some insist that it refers to a place name, though no clear location has been agreed on. Others offer various other explanations, without any definitive answer. However reading the original Hebrew given presents its own explanation. "And Elijah the Tishbite, who was of the settlers of Gilead " וַיֹּאמֶר אֵלִיָּהוּ הַתִּשְׁבִּי מִתֹּשָׁבֵי גִלְעָד Tishbi is paired with Toshavei or Settlers. Eliyahu is described as one of the settlers of Gilead. Gilead at the time was disputed with the Kingdom of Aram, which attempted to conquer it. As such the residents of Gilead at the time held a parallel function to "settlements" today, staking a Jewish claim on the land. Tishbi has alway

The current struggle between Western nations and Islam is a primarily one sided struggle reminiscent of the usual historical pattern of friction between a declining civilization and the barbarians at the gates. The West is heir to great technological, industrial and military achievements, which it has built on. It also heir to great political, intellectual and cultural achievements, which it has thoroughly degraded and warped. The result resembles a bodybuilder who builds up a powerful physique only to put it all at the service of an insecure and undeveloped mind. The West achieved its practical accomplishment through its intellectual accomplishments. With the intellectual accomplishments decaying badly, the practical ones will follow too. For now there is simply a lack of guidance. The infrastructure and technology exists to do great things, but not the will. The United States which went from nearly unarmed to unchallenged superpower in a handful of years during WW2, could end its dep

Who are they? They're all around you. They might be eating dinner in the same restaurant as you, buying the same brand of ketchup and even watching the same TV shows you do. But there's a terrible difference. They are that hideous brand of Enemy of the State known as "The Extremist". After 8 years of wailing and doomsaying, of dragging out the corpse of Orwell and parading him around to claim that the Bush Administration's War on Terror was nothing short of a brutal tyranny that violated the law and the Constitution-- the Obama Administration is rolling back the clock eight years and tossing out any pesky civil rights issues in order to fight the real enemy, "extremists". Naturally "former veterans" top the list as potential extremists, probably because like most "extremists" they're highly likely to vote for Republicans. And by now anyone who lived through 8 years of the Clinton Administration knows that when the left talks about

(Due to the final days of Pesach\Passover, this will be the final blog update until Thursday night. No new posts will appear until then and no new comments will be moderated) We've just concluded the drama of the showdown between the Navy Seals and the Somali pirates, despite that the lead story in the news has somehow been Obama's dog, reminding us that we're living in a country dominated by a media churning out a constant tide of "Beloved Leader" stories regardless of what else is going on in the world. And when the polls on the "Beloved Leader" don't go their way, they just massage the numbers enough so that they can proclaim that Hussein is more popular than ever. “Mr. Obama's overall approval rating, meanwhile, has hit a new high of 66 percent, up from 64 percent last month. His disapproval rating stands at 24 percent” boasted a press release from either CBS News or the Obama campaign, which is a difference without distinction. In other wor

When Benjamin Franklin was asked at the close of the 1787 Constitutional Convention, " What have we got—a Republic or a Monarchy? ”, the learned gentleman answered both wisely and cynically, “ A Republic, if you can keep it. ” Can we keep it? That's the question at the heart of the great struggle for America's soul. Are we a nation of laws or a people of pop culture? The 2008 Presidential election saw a race between an American war hero with decades of political experience and a man with virtually no political experience and no talent besides posing for photographs. The larger struggle that took place was between America as a nation of laws and the mass media and the internet distilling everything into digital entertainment. And America lost. When Tony Blair ushered in the New Britain, the Cool Britain, the one detached from its many centuries of wars and history, in favor of one defined by screaming pop stars and brazen tabloid covers-- he did to England, what Obam

Even before the rescue of Captain Phillips, the press was already hard at work doing what they always do, spinning the Muslim perpetrators of the attack into its victims. The current story that is beginning to rise through the bowels of the mainstream media is that the pirates are actually volunteer fisherman who have banded together to stop toxic dumping and fishing by foreign vessels. That's right the Somali pirates are actually misunderstood environmentalists. And once again Westerners are to blame for causing the poor Muslims to attack them. Al Jazeera seems to have taken the lead in pushing the "environmentalist pirates" angle, naturally it then percolated through the usual "hate America" channels such as Prison Planet and Democratic Underground, and is slowly bubbling through into mainstream news stories on Somali piracy. This of course is typical of how Muslim attackers become the victims. The first step is to portray the Muslim attackers as resp

The American people and their government chose to ignore the real lesson of 9/11. Which is that people succeed where systems fail. The system failed badly on 9/11, allowing terrorists to enter America, train there, hijack four planes and executive devastating terrorist attacks on American soil. The systems failed Federally, they failed abroad and at home. They failed on a state level, on a corporate level and on a municipal level. Simply, they failed. But where systems failed, people did their best. The system failed the NYFD, nevertheless without proper guidance or communication, firefighters nevertheless managed to reach the highest floors. The system failed the passengers on United 93, but they nevertheless took back the plane and prevented an attack on the White House. Contemplate that for a moment. It wasn't the White House that saved anyone's life that day. It was ordinary Americans who gave their lives to stop an attack on the White House. Had we really understoo

Note to Readers, Tonight is the beginning of Pesach\Passover. There will be no further blog updates or comments moderated until Saturday night. In the meantime feel free to browse through some of the week's posts below, and those linked within the roundup. Obama is busy headed for his own PR stunt Seder, but of course who he's really busy sitting down at the table with is Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Saudi King before whom he bowed his head and the Islamist regime of Turkey. One wonders what Obama will do during the reading of, "Bekol Dor VeDor". The acts of cluelessness and perfidy that mark Obama's big trip are too many to mark. It is clear that whatever else Obama is, he is completely ignorant. The mindblowing spectacle of Obama waxing rhapsodic about Kemal Ataturk, even while trying to win the favor of an Islamist party working to undo everything Ataturk did, and that has jailed many of his supporters, once again demonstrates the sheer depths of hopeless ignoranc

Identification is at the core of human allegiances. We identify with a family, a community and a nation. We identify with ideas and beliefs, with groups that share those beliefs. And we uphold the fusion of belief and community, idea and nation. Through this innate form of identification allegiance, nations and ideas, including our own nations and ideas, thrive and survive. The increasing failure of this process is also what's killing the First World. Much of the problem lies in the fact that the First World and its ideas and belief systems no longer has anything but the thinnest of identities. And without an identity, identification fails as the individual has nothing to grasp on to, and identify with. Most of the West has become "diversity oriented" with diversity no longer emphasized simply to promote tolerance, but as a goal in and of itself. Goal oriented diversity exists for no reason except to promote diversity as the ultimate good. Like a biological mechanis

Scientists first noticed the beginnings of the crisis a generation ago when satellite photos taken from space showed that the areas of Human Freedom were unaccountably shrinking. The amount of Human Freedom on Planet Earth has always been small, but that small amount has always been necessary to maintain the progress of human cultural and technological development. Which was why the satellite photos showing a drastically eroding amount of Human Freedom particularly in North America and Europe were so disturbing. North America and Europe had traditionally served as the reservoirs of Human Freedom, accounting for some 85 percent of Earth's total reserves of Human Freedom-- which was why the drastic disappearance of human freedom in these areas was so troubling to scientists. Closer inspection showed that Human Freedom was not simply unaccountably disappearing... it was being destroyed. What could be causing this? Detailed studies concluded that something had made the environment host

With his economic house of cards looking particularly wobbly in the US, Obama has headed out to continue his charade of an international campaign over to Europe. There we were treated to a gushing media fawning over his generic speeches, which naturally always highlighted his own uniqueness and "historicity ". Of course making speeches, posing for photos and discussing how important he is, is what Obama does best. It's also the only thing he does besides running a grueling marathon of saying stupid things and offending his hosts. Not only did Obama bizarrely try to dictate to the EU who their members should be, urging them to let Turkey in, a presumption that ranks right up there with France suggesting that Haiti should join the US as a State. But Obama as usual was posing for the Muslim world, and in the process tweaking Europe some more. The brokered deal that has Anders Fogh Rasmussen becoming NATO Secretary General in exchanging for apologizing for Denmark'

The current Leftist-Islamist coalition wrecking much of the first world with its combination of inside-outside warfare in America, Europe, Israel, Australia and across the world seems paradoxical in nature, but has both its origins and precedents. The irrationality of the Leftist-Islamist alignment is the seeming ideological contrasts between the two. Islamists after all would behead or forbid most of the left's agenda. There is little room in the heart of the average Imam or Mullah for Feminism, Homosexuality, Atheism, or the whole multicultural progressive rainbow. By contrast there is seemingly little room in the progressive agency for Theocracy, Gender Segregation or the rest of the Islamist Smorgasboard. But what allows this Gruesome Twosome to overcome their differences is that both see a common enemy in Western Civilization. The presence of a common enemy allows the "The Enemy of my Enemy" doctrine to kick in, which is what has made many of the unlikely and sel

After another embarrassing meeting between Obama and Brown, America's National Disgrace and England's National Disgrace, the Messiah of Chicago handing the Queen an iPod with his speeches on it, Obama went to pay his respects to his Master , Saudi tyrant, King Abdullah. While the media is busy assuring everyone that the Obamas are doing fantastically well, the rest of the world is laughing at him and at us. Not that you'll hear that from the American press, busy bowing to Obama, as deeply as Obama is busy bowing to his Saudi masters. Under the National Flag Code , the United States flag as the symbol of the nation is not to be dipped to anyone or anything. The President and First Lady too are not to bow to anyone. Certainly not to foreign monarchs . But considering the Saudi ties in Obama's background, this show of obeisance is not surprising... particularly when contrasted with the rude treatment of the Browns and Queen of England. Obama is making it clear where his