Journalistic Double-Standard: “Don’t Jump to Conclusions” after Ft. Hood, but Immediate Attacks on Palin, Others, after Giffords Shooting

On November 5, 2009, Maj. Nidal Hasan opened fire at a troop readiness center in Ft. Hood, Texas, killing 13 people.  Within hours of the killings, the world knew that Hasan reportedly shouted “Allahu Akbar!” before he began shooting, visited websites associated with Islamist violence, wrote Internet postings justifying Muslim suicide bombings, considered U.S. forces his enemy, opposed American involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan as wars on Islam, and told a neighbor shortly before the shootings that he was going “to do good work for God.”  There was ample evidence, in other words, that the Ft. Hood attack was an act of Islamist violence.

Nevertheless, public officials, journalists, and commentators were quick to caution that the public should not “jump to conclusions” about Hasan’s motive.  CNN, in particular, became a forum for repeated warnings that the subject should be discussed with particular care.

“The important thing is for everyone not to jump to conclusions,” said retired Gen. Wesley Clark on CNN the night of the shootings.

“We cannot jump to conclusions,” said CNN’s Jane Velez-Mitchell that same evening. “We have to make sure that we do not jump to any conclusions whatsoever.”

Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/beltway-confidential/2011/01/journalists-urged-caution-after-ft-hood-now-race-blame-palin-afte#ixzz1AgEnk8Gp

Diversity for Political Correctness is Killing Us, Literally

Diane West has an article about the recent US Naval Academy “diversity” flap at the Naval Academy’s Color Guard appearance at the World Series, and how it relates to the handling of Maj. Hasan at Ft. Hood:

Same with Naval Academy Commandant Matt Klunder. Here is the Nov. 5 story from Naval Times (via Marine Mom) revealing his own duty to Diversity Uber Alles. The resulting harm was not bodily, of course,but the PC  ideology at work here is the same:

Naval Academy leaders removed two midshipmen from a color guard that performed at the World Series last week because they were white men, and replaced them with a non-white man and a white woman so the academy could present a more “diverse” profile, according to several sources, a move that has reportedly angered mids and alumni.

As it turned out, the color guard still ended up all white because the male replacement forgot parts of his uniform.

Two white, male members of the color guard learned Oct. 28 they were being replaced with a white woman, Midshipman 2nd Class Hannah Allaire, and a non-white man, Midshipman 2nd Class Zishan Hameed, on orders of the school’s administration, according to an internal e-mail message provided to Navy Times by an academy professor. With a national television audience, Naval Academy leadership worried the color guard it planned to send wasn’t diverse enough, the e-mail said.

However, after the color guard arrived in New York for the game Oct. 29, Hameed, whose family is from Pakistan [on top of everything else], realized he had left his dress shoes and cover in Annapolis. Midshipman 1st Class Aaron Stroud regained his place and served as a rifleman for the presentation of the colors. Allaire carried the other rifle and the four original members marched with the flags.

Naval Academy spokesman Cmdr. Joe Carpenter responded to questions about the midshipmen replacements in a written statement Thursday after the color guard story was first reported on the blog “CDR Salamander.”

Carpenter quoted a statement from Naval Academy Commandant Capt. Matt Klunder, who said he wanted to respond to questions about why some of the members of the color guard weren’t able to march at the World Series.

Academy officials actually sent an eight-person color guard to the baseball game, Klunder said, but the full squad couldn’t perform after Hameed forgot part of his uniform, because color guards need an even number of members. So it wasn’t that the academy administration yanked members of the color guard because they were white men, it’s that Hameed’s “uniform inventory problem,” as Klunder called it, meant that only six mids could march, instead of eight.

FOR FULL ARTICLE: http://www.dianawest.net/Home/tabid/36/EntryId/1116/Diversity-Uber-Alles.aspx