The point

A reader[*] writes in to Instapunditwatch about Glenn's reporting a rumor about who would become tthe new FAA administrator:

What was the point of the rumor about the FAA administrator? Territory marking. If the story breaks, it enhances his reputation as someone who gets all the latest news fast and has an inside track on upcoming news. If it doesn't break, well, who'll remember? Posting that little paragraph is like planting a flag on a mountaintop -- it says "I was here first."

Makes sense.

* Who will remain nameless for now, unless they want to take the credit.

Ingenuity of bloggers

Yes, this is nitpicking. Deal with it.

Glenn:

YOU CAN ONLY ADMIRE this kind of ingenuity -- though I'd expect no less from a blogger.

The ingenuity he talks about is how the guy he linked to managed to get his dipstick out of his oiltank after the plastic handle broke off -superglue something to the end of the oil stick, wait till it sets and then lift it out.

A neat solution, but not a very ingenious one and he didn't come up with it, a friend of his did. Said friend isn't a blogger, btw. Glenn really cannot read.

Glenn can't read

Title goes for the charitable explanation this time:

UPDATE: Reader Insta Punditwatch emails that this story comes from George Soros's Open Society Institute and that it complained about Guantanamo. I don't remember that, but OK. With bated breath, I await similar complaints from Amnesty, Chris Patten, and almost the entire Euro press.

What Instapundit Watcher sent him was this post. Would you read this and think I.P. Watcher was talking about George Soros's Open Society Institute?. Sheez.

Last time I.P. Watcher checked the Guardian was part of the European press too. What is it about "the entire Euro press" anyway? Give the problems Glenn had reading a simple article in English, I.P. Watcher doubts he's reading Dutch or French or German or Croatian newspapers.

So he *does* have a sense of humor

In the middle of a post, Glenn assures us:

I see this all the time as someone whose views straddle the left-right divide.

*chortle*

Oh, I don't know

Glenn posts a lengthy extract out of a Guardian article about abuses in UN funded and run mental institutions in Kosovo. At the beginning of the post he asks "why the United Nations is regarded as having any moral authority".

The abuses described in the article are indeed horrific, including tacit approval by the staff of male patients raping female patients. Certainly, this is a blemish on the UN's reputation, but does this mean the entire UN loses its moral authority? Anymore then for example the My Lai massacre permanently lost America its moral authority?

No organisation is perfect and in each large organisation there will be people abusing their power. Incidents, even horrible incidents like this are not enough to condemn the entire UN. It's needs more then that, it needs a culture in which such incidents are common and allowed to flourish. Does the UN have such a culture? Not as far as I.P. Watcher knows.

What irritated I.P. Watcher about this post was not as much the rhetorical question Glenn started with, as it was the rhetorical question Glenn signed off with:

Where are the people whose cries of outrage we heard over Guantanamo?

Look at where the article appeared, Glenn. The Guardian has certainly criticized America over Guantanamo. If you then read the last paragraph of the article:

The report, funded by the Open Society Institute with money from financier George Soros, was endorsed by the most respected human rights organisation in the US yesterday. Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch, called it "profoundly important... the horrors it describes are undeniable".

You'll notice Human Rights Watch endorsed the report. Take a look at what Human Rights Watch has to say about Guantanamo.

Guess what? The same organisations criticizing Bush over Guantanamo are the ones reporting about this situation. Imagine I.P. Watcher's surprise that Glenn turned out to be wrong about this.

Ego knows no boundaries

Instapundit:

RYAN OLSON SAYS the future is now. And he appears to be coping with Future Shock very sensibly.

I.P. Watcher says he mostly appears to be sucking up:

I have these moments every once in a while where I feel like I'm living in the not-too- distant future, living in Kansas City, listening to an LA radio station personality interviewing a Tennessee Law Professor I know from his Web Site.

Instapundit brags:

OVER A YEAR AGO, before InstaPundit was even a blog, I advised the White House to pursue a stream of Clintonesque mini-initiatives. Now TAPPED is complaining that he's doing just that. Advantage: InstaPundit!

No you didn't. You didn't meet with Bush or any of his advisors, you didn't have contact with an administration official, you just posted a small article on a web discussion board.

Nor does Tapped say Bush is doing the same as Clinton btw. Tapped complains that Karl Rove is "ginning up a faux crisis" whereas "Clinton, under Morris, looked for real local issues that could be readily addressed from the bully pulpit".

UPDATE: I.P. Watcher touched a nerve with that post she thinks, considering the update on Glenn's original post. Needless to say he was a lot less polite in his e-mail.

Why is I.P. Watcher sending Glenn e-mail, you ask? Because he doesn't read Instapunditwatch and he should get a chance to respond to criticism.

Glenn doesn't like Amnesty International

Quelle surprise. Evidence for it's "knee-jerk anti-Western stance and focus on relatively trivial issues" is not given though.

Let's therefore take a look ourselves at the main Amnesty International website, to see if we can find some evidence of either a "knee-jerk anti-Western stance" or a "focus on relatively trivial issues".

The following news items were present when I.P. Watcher looked:

Israel/OT: High Court decision gives green light for collective punishment
Sudan: Human rights agenda for lasting peace
Turkey: Abolition of death penalty welcomed
Israel/Occupied Territories/ Palestinian Authority: UN Secretary-General's report on Jenin underscores the need for a full inquiry
UN: Oral statement on the working methods and activities of transnational corporations

In the recent reports section, we find the following:

Cuba: Ill-health of Juan Carlos González Leiva
Medical Bulletin
Laos: Law promulgated but has no impact : Torture/ill- treatment
Afghanistan Continuing need for Protection and Standards for Return of Afghan refugees
Myanmar: Lack of Security in Counter-Insurgency Areas
Cuba: Questions and answers on the work of Amnesty International

There's a prominent link to a special section about Israel and the occupied territories. Beyond that, there are calls to action to stop torture in the Ukraine, to free a Chinese historian, to stop police abuses in Southern Africa, to put pressure on the G8 to focus on human rights and to protect human rights in Columbia.

Now does that add up to AI having a "knee-jerk anti-Western stance and focus on relatively trivial issues"? I.P. Watcher doesn't think so.

Comments

I.P. Watcher is a bit puzzled by Glenn's use of comments. Either you use comments or you don't, according to personal preference and she's okay with that. But what Glenn does is neither; he only uses comments on certain posts and they're always posts with which he can score points with his audience, never controversial posts....

Strange...