by JAMES TARANTO
Thursday, May 26, 2005 3:40 P.M. EDT

Where's the Outrage?
"The American media has drifted toward tabloid journalism and has been cowtailed [sic] by the Bush administration over its coverage of events such as the war in Iraq, a congressional panel organized by Michigan Rep. John Conyers said Tuesday," reports the Associated Press:

"The vast majority of the mainstream media is not only unwilling to accurately report on the failings of the administration, but the few who do have fallen victim to scapegoating and retribution," said Conyers, a Democrat. "We have turned from breaking stories like Watergate and the Iran-Contra scandal to celebrity journalism."

Conyers organized the hearing in the aftermath of Newsweek's retraction of a report that claimed investigators had found evidence the Koran was desecrated by interrogators at the U.S. naval prison at Guantanamo Bay.

In itself this is uninteresting. Left-wing complaints about conservative media bias go back years and have become especially powerful in the past few years with the Democrats out of power. What is interesting is the reaction of the press--or rather, the lack of reaction. Here we have a government official calling official hearings to accuse the press of not doing its job properly. Shouldn't such interference occasion some outrage from the press? It certainly did when Scott McClellan criticized Newsweek last week.

Granted, a member of Congress from the minority party is far less significant than the White House. But suppose that, back when the Democrats controlled Congress, a Republican congressman had held hearings on liberal media bias? Our guess is that the press would have complained quite loudly.

Assuming that we are right about this, what does the lack of outrage over Conyers's hearing tell us? Perhaps journalists don't take complaints of "conservative bias" as seriously as complaints of "liberal bias." But if journalists themselves take the latter more seriously than the former, that suggests that liberal bias is indeed a problem, and journalists know it.

Or maybe journalists actually agree with Conyers's critique. But if they find themselves in accord with one of the most left-wing members of Congress, that would seem to illustrate that they have a liberal bias and don't know it.

Slow Learners in Reuterville
From a Reuters dispatch:

An FBI agent wrote in a 2002 document made public on Wednesday that a detainee held at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, had accused American jailers there of flushing the Koran down a toilet.

The Pentagon said the allegation was not credible.

The Reuters headline: "FBI Memo Reports Guantanamo Guards Flushing Koran"--even though the FBI memo, in Reuters' own telling, only reports a detainee claiming this. Apparently the folks at Reuters learned nothing from the Newsweek debacle.

Our Friends the Saudis
In the pages of the Arab News, Reem Al-Faisal, a photographer and writer from Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, weighs in on U.S.-Saudi relations (quoting verbatim):

A few weeks ago an American I met at a friends house asked a much repeated query, "Why do you the Muslims hate the Americans?" To which I answered in the same way as all the preceding instances in which this question was posed to me: "We don't hate the Americans, we might disagree with a certain US policy and dislike recent American actions in the Muslim world but we surely don't hate the American people."

The American who interrogated me was clearly not convinced with my answer and secretly I wasn't either. The truth is that at present the Muslims hate America and now, they hate not only its policymakers but most of the American people since they have proven recently without a shadow of doubt that they agree with their elite by voting back into office, by a comfortable majority, the Bush administration inspite of it's obvious record of lies and abuse of power. . . .

I have to admit finally, after decades of relations with the US, that they have convinced us that we should feel something and that our feelings have been boiled down today to pure hate. And why not? What have we as a people seen from the US in the past half century but an absence of respect for Muslim life, culture or religion, contempt and disregard for our rights and finally murder and torture from Afghanistan to Iraq.

So an American asks her why Muslims hate Americans. She responds that Muslims don't hate Americans, then writes an op-ed piece saying Muslims hate Americans because Americans hate Muslims. Can't we all just get along?

The Wait Is Over
After four years of Democratic obstruction, the Senate confirmed Priscilla Owen to serve as a judge on the Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The vote was 55-43, with two Democrats, Robert Byrd of West Virginia and Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, voting "yes," and one Republican, Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island, voting "no." Republican Ted Stevens of Alaska voted "present." The Associated Press explains:

Stevens, a supporter of Owen, originally voted yes, but was permitted to change his vote to present after the vote was concluded and the Senate had moved to another issue. He said his intent was to "pair" his vote with Sen. Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii, who opposed Owen but wasn't in attendance for the vote.

Whatever, dude. The most interesting votes were from Byrd and Landrieu, both of whom backed Owen's confirmation after voting not once, not twice, not thrice but--uh, what's the word for "four times"?--against allowing her nomination to come to a vote. On National Review Online, Edward Whelan asks: "On what principled basis do Byrd and Landrieu justify having filibustered a nominee whom they now vote to confirm?"

Well, is party loyalty a principle? Plainly that's what motivated Byrd and Landrieu--and perhaps other Democrats as well--to join the filibuster of Owen back then. Their affirmative votes now show that they didn't really believe all that nonsense about Owen being an "extremist" and "out of the mainstream."

Our guess is that there are other Dems who likewise didn't but who voted against Owen to avoid embarrassing either themselves or their party (which would have looked awfully silly had Owen been confirmed with 60 or more votes). So give Byrd and Landrieu a measure of credit--albeit a small one--for honesty.

Zeus and the Truce
Bloomberg News reports that New York's other senator, Chuck Schumer, took the Senate floor yesterday during the debate over Priscilla Owen's nomination and said: "We're not going to solve this problem if the president stands like Zeus on Mount Olympus hurling judicial thunderbolts into the Senate."

This reminded us of one of the odder comments from the 2000 presidential campaign (which we noted in July 2001), an article by Marvin Olasky about one of the men behind Monday's filibuster agreement, which appeared in February 2000:

If reporters weren't swooning for McCain, they would be able to show that "The Chairman," as the Bush campaign labels him, is not semi-divine, able to accept lobbyists' cash while remaining above it all. They would show that McCain is as erratic as the Zeus of mythology, with a history of throwing thunderbolts in all directions. . . . If McCain understood Christianity he would want to be treated as a humble sinner, not a demigod.

I'm glad the candidates are no longer sitting around the fire singing Kum-ba-ya. The stakes in this election are high, and it's sad that leading journalists are acting as proselytes in the religion of Zeus rather than tough reporters. The question now is whether the American public has become so unmoored from biblical understanding that, by Jove, it will believe in Zeus McCain.

So who's Zeusier, Bush or McCain? We'll go with Bush, on the strength of this headline in the Rochester (N.Y.) Business Journal: "In Greece Talk, Bush Urges Social Security Reform." Funny, we always thought Zeus' language was called "Grecian," not "Greece talk." But in any case, Bush probably would be better off urging Social Security reform in English. That way he wouldn't need as many thunderbolts to get his point across.

A Lachrymose Lawmaker
CNSNews.com describes a cringe-inducing moment on the Senate floor yesterday (video is here):

The thought that John Bolton might be confirmed as the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations brought one Republican senator to the brink of tears on Wednesday.

Sen. George Voinovich (R-Ohio) choked up on the Senate floor, as he urged his colleagues to vote against Bolton's nomination on Thursday: . . .

"I know some of my friends say, 'Let it go, George, it's going to work out.' I don't want to take the risk," Voinovich said. "I came back here [to the Senate] and ran for a second term because I'm worried about my kids and my grandchildren. And I just hope my colleagues will take the time (pause) and before they get to this well, do some serious thinking about whether or not we should send John Bolton to the United Nations. I yield the floor."

Voinovich's emotional moment came one day after he sent a letter to his fellow senators, telling them, "In these dangerous times, we cannot afford to put at risk our nation's ability to successfully wage and win the war on terror with a controversial and ineffective ambassador to the United Nations."

To win the war on terror, Voinovich seems to be saying, we need to send a clear message that we're not afraid to cry.

Mandatory Walking
An editorial in Newsday of Long Island, N.Y., weighs in on a pressing issue:

It's touching to see Rep. Peter King . . . offer a proposal to force automakers to add expensive new equipment to cars. His heart is in the right place: adding equipment to keep parents from driving over children in the family's own driveway and injuring or killing them. . . .

We like his auto safety add-ons but think some, such as a rear-view camera with dashboard monitor, should be optional equipment. What should be mandatory is that all drivers take an exploratory walk around a car before backing up, whenever there are small children in the vicinity.

How Newsday proposes to enforce the exploratory walk mandate isn't clear. Besides, this doesn't really solve the problem if the small children in the vicinity are behind the car where the driver can't see them.

You Don't Say
"Fatal Back-Over Accidents Involving Children Concern Parents"--headline, KCCI-TV Web site (Des Moines, Iowa), May 25

No Wonder the War Costs So Much
"Shuttle Moved From Launch Pad to Replace Tank"--headline, CNN.com, May 26

If He Loses, Don't Believe a Word He Says
"Corzine Vows He'll Be Honest if Elected"--headline, WCBS-AM Web site (New York), May 25

He's Back!
"Reagan Plan Will Restrict Private Craft"--headline, Washington Times, May 26

Dangerous Ties
"Paisley Launches Attack on Clinton"--headline, Irish Voice (New York), May 25

Not to Mention Physically Impossible
"It's beyond outrageous that a sitting City Council person should stand on the steps of City Hall . . ."--police union head Patrick Lynch, quoted in the New York Sun, May 26

The Enemy of the Good
"Perfection's Reward? Beating Sis"--headline, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, May 25

Which Is How Much in Dollars?
"Half-Ton Man Loses More Than 500 Pounds"--headline, Associated Press, May 25

Since When Do Construction Crews Wear Makeup?
"Hispanics Build a Solid Base: Immigrants Change Makeup of Construction Crews"--headline and subheadline, Washington Post, May 26

Doesn't Sound Very Classy to Us
"Lawsuit Over Penis Potions May Become Class Action"--headline, Denver Post, May 26

It's the Eponymy, Stupid
The Associated Press reports from Houston: "Shelley Breedlove used to tease her mother about not being able to tell her apart from an identical twin sister. Now, as a new mother, Breedlove has her own identity crisis: identical quadruplets."

Working 9 to 5, What a Way to Keep 'Em Living
"A Canadian province will shut its 24-hour suicide hotline and replace it with one that operates only during business hours," Reuters reports from Toronto:

Prince Edward Island, a small province on Canada's East Coast, says it is too expensive to operate the hotline around the clock. Starting June 1, it will be open only between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m., Monday through Friday. . . .

"How many times, when you get upset or worried or concerned about things, is it in the middle of the day? It's usually at 3 or 4 o'clock in the morning when you wake up," said Joan Wright, executive director of the Canadian Association for Suicide Prevention based in Edmonton, Alberta.

The hotline received about 1,400 calls a year and about 50 were from people contemplating suicide, health groups said.

"One of the things I was hearing is the government felt there weren't enough suicide-related calls," Wright said.

"Canada's suicide rate has been consistently higher than the United States," reports the Web site of the Calgary-based Centre for Suicide Prevention. Maybe that's because our suicide hotlines, like this one in San Francisco, are open 24/7.

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Today on OpinionJournal:

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• Peggy Noonan: It's springtime, love is in the air, and 14 senators are gazing at the mirror.
• Thomas Sowell: A real estate bubble could devastate the Bay area, land of interest-only loans.