Yesterday, while at the gym, I was amused to see an episode of the Chris Matthews Show, amused because while he had a panel representing ostensibly diverse political points of views, the panelists spent the entire show (at least the part I watched) effectively calling the President of the United States a failure.

As I watched, I wondered (yet again) if I would have become more critical of the president earlier in his term had his opponents not been so determined to prove him wrong in all his endeavors, including accusing him of being dishonest and delighting in the politics of personal destruction. While the president has made many mistakes (notably his refusal to shift strategy in Iraq until after Republicans lost Congress last fall and his insistence on passing a “comprehensive” immigration bill), he does not, as one liberal pundit claims, specialize in “big lies and smear tactics”

That said, it seems his adversaries in the Democratic Party and the MSM do engage in tactics which may not quite be smears, certainly are similar. Despite ample evidence to the contrary, the pundits’ panel yesterday was pretty much convinced that the “surge” would not succeed.

Not only that. They lay the blame for the current turmoil in Gaza on the President. At various points in the program, they labeleled his Mid-East as benign and malign neglect. They seemed to forget that the latest Palestinian intifada began in September of 2000, before Bush’s election — and after then-Palestinian leader rejected an offer brokered by President Clinton giving his people nearly everything they requested — including statehood.

It seems the default position of these pundits is to blame President Bush. Perhaps they portray him as the author of all the world’s ills because he has been (by and large) and unapologetic defender of the values of the West. And all too many in the MSM have adopted the attitude (probably picked up in college, given the dominant ideology of all too many American universities) that if there’s a problem in the world, the West is to blame.

Just look at some of the coverage of the current situation in Gaza where one group of Palestinian Arab terrorists has been busy killing off an (only moderately) less militant faction. The pundits yesterday on Matthews’ program seemed to think it was all Bush’s fault.

Melanie Phillips, in a must-read piece* on her blog, notes that not only has the BBC apologized “for calling Jerusalem, the capital of Israel, its capital).” it has also been busy “been blaming the carnage in Gaza upon…Israel.” She wonders if reporters and pundits form British media can even see things as they are because “Their minds are simply programmed to a lie, and everything is seen through the prism of that lie.” She concludes, “Our quisling media are doing the filthy work of the enemies of the free world for them.” It is truly as she puts it, “beyond belief.” Just read the whole thing!

Maybe we need someone to revise the words of the Oscar-nominated song from “South Park: Bigger Longer & Uncut” to make it the MSM’s theme song: “Blame Western Civ.”

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Via Michael Totten via Instapundit.

That Gay Conservative linked me this morning to a great piece on Gay Pride on Reality Mugged Me. It’s particularly impressive that Nate Nelson who offered these intelligent insights is only 23 years old. I dare say we have a lot to expect from him.

Perhaps it’s his Buckeye background.

Like yours truly (an Ohio native), Nate skipped out on Pride this year. Nate is similarly “ambivalent toward the whole gay pride extravaganza.” I passed on Pride two years ago as well, penning a post where I wrote: “I’ve always wondered about term ‘Pride.’ I mean, I’m not proud to be gay. Nor am I ashamed to be gay. I just am gay.”

In a similar vein, Nate writes:

I am not proud. I am proud to be the man I am, a gay man, a gay American man, a gay American man in the Republican Party. But I am not proud to be a part of the gay community. I am not proud to say that the gay community’s leaders are employing intimidation tactics and anti-democratic strategies in my name. I am not proud that our leaders are destroying lives for the gain of their political allies. I am not proud that our leaders would rather work through an ideologically driven oligarchy than through a democratic legislature. I am not proud that our leaders seem remarkably like the authoritarian bogeymen in Warsaw and Moscow.

It’s a good piece where this young man reflects on the events of the day and notes those gay people about whom he is proud. Rather than compromise his words by paraphrasing them in this post, just check out his blog and read the whole thing!

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I apologize for losing the comments when I accidently deleted this post. I don’t know if there’s a way to get them back. And there were some good ones.