Media watch: Hamas’ Useful Idiots
“With every step Israeli soldiers take inside the Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza, the hysteria of Hamas propaganda goes up a notch,” observes David Collier at his site. “Western media simply parrots these messages” — all part of “Hamas’ finely tuned propaganda system.” That’s “built upon decades of western media naivety, alongside a collapse of media integrity.” “Reports about what is happening in Gaza should be treated with similar prudence to those about Moscow at the height of Soviet power,” especially since “the BBC or NYT have a particular talent for finding hospital staff” to cite “who openly celebrate when Israelis are murdered.” “Hamas is a proscribed terrorist organisation. If western media has become its mouthpiece, it is surely time that these outlets are held to account.”
Foreign desk: Milei’s Epic Win in Argentina
Argentina’s Javier Milei not only “defeated Peronism’s formidable political machine,” cheers Daniel Raisbeck at the Cato Institute, he convinced voters to “return to classical liberalism,” with “respect for the fundamental rights of life, liberty, and property” as the “source of prosperity.” He now must tackle 140% inflation, poverty gripping 40% of the population and a “practically worthless” currency. But his plan to “dollarize Argentina’s economy” will help stabilize prices and protect “citizens’ purchasing power” and “create an enlarged, Latin American ‘dollar zone,’ ” boosting regional trade. After “recent election victories for the Peronists’ hard leftist allies in Brazil, Chile, Colombia, and other countries,” Milei’s win can be seen “as a referendum on the future of Latin America itself.”
Conservative: Fast 180 on College ‘Statements’
After “the indiscriminate slaughter of civilian Jews in Israel, and the barbaric spectacle of pro-Palestine activists, including many US students and faculty, voicing support for Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack, the Washington Post editorial board suddenly believes that American colleges should cool it with the public statements,” fumes Becket Adams at The Hill. “For secular institutions committed to unfettered and contentious speech, silence is the best policy,” says the WaPo. Adams observes: “In a vacuum, this would be sound advice,” but “why did it take threats from university donors to pull funding over school administrators’ feckless response before the Post editors finally reconsidered the toxic role that academia has been playing on issue after issue in American politics today?”
From the right: Joe’s Age ‘a Problem of Reality’
At 81, President “Biden’s age and ability to perform his duties are front and center in the public’s mind,” notes National Review’s Jim Geraghty. That’s not because of Fox News or “any other bogeyman,” but thanks to “people’s real-life experiences. Almost every American has seen a grandparent or parent succumb to the ravages of age.” And: “In Biden, lots of Americans see lots of reasons to worry — the light schedule; the rarity of sit-down interviews; the sudden angry outbursts; the odd, confused, and erratic behavior at public events; the shuffling feet and occasional falls; the meandering stories, with his voice trailing off; and the frequent off-the-cuff declarations that his own staff won’t allow him to answer questions.” Fact is, “he’s not the same man he was when he was vice president or senator, and we can all see it.” So it’s “not a problem about the perception of reality,” but “a problem of reality.”
Eye on DC: Biden’s Costly New ‘Rule for Rules’
President Biden’s Office of Management and Budget recently changed a Reagan-era rule to “make it easier for every federal agency to raise the regulatory costs of everything,” warn the Washington Examiner’s editors. When the feds assess “the costs and benefits of regulation,” including “trade-offs between higher costs now and benefits decades” later, the new rule “tips the scales in favor of future benefits.” That’ll mean “a lot more federal regulations that have large upfront costs but are made to look reasonable by mythical long-term benefits.” This will help drive up the cost of everything, unless the “next president undoes this new regulation before real damage can be done.”
— Compiled by The Post Editorial Board