National Review has a bunch of pundits offering their takes on the 2005 "best and worst" of the year. Some I like, some are just plain silly. Here's a few I'd like to comment on:
1. Laura Ingraham thinks the worst moment of 2005 was Illinois Senator Dick Durbin "comparing the treatment of detainees at Gitmo to that of the "Nazis, Soviets in their gulags or some mad regime — Pol Pot or others." C'mon -- if we listed everyone who utilized the "Nazi" analogy in 2005 (or ever), the list would be a mile long. Durbin, while deserving of castigation, hardly merits "worst" moment.
2. Michelle Malkin's list is great -- I had forgotten about many of those. For instance, who remembers "the 'Bush engineered 9/11' crackpot-fest convened by Rep. Cynthia McKinney" back in July? N.Y. Rep. Maurice Hinchey's "fevered February 2005 allegations that Karl Rove was behind the CBS Rathergate fiasco"?
3. Stephen Spruiell offers several media-manufactured stories. He begins his list with the "revelation" that Bush authorized the NSA to listen in on suspected terrorist's phone calls. In May, he notes the [in]famous Newsweek story about Korans being flushed down a toilet, and the riots that ensued afterwards. The story ended up not being accurate. (And, I recall, an American general also said that the Newsweek article wasn't responsible for the riots -- thanks for that reminder, Hube!)
Huh, nobody mentioned Dan Rather and his fake documents; wasn't that this year? He gets best and worst at the same time in my book:
Worst was that an anchor for the MSM hated the president so much he was willing to use the sketchiest of evidence for his crusade, and still held onto the idea that the story was good even if he couldn't prove it.
Best was that he got fired for it.
Posted by: G Rex at December 30, 2005 11:58 AM