The Good News Report
A day when we report on only the good things from the news!
And here's our list of good news for today:
1. Jenna Bush "Wows" Folks at Charter School by Taking Second Graders to Library, Not Bar
Recently First Grandma Barbara Bush got some bad press for saying that having a hurricane destroy their homes and possessions was actually a good thing for the Katrina victims (since they were poor, and their stuff was crappy anyway). But US News & World Report gives us an item about how Jenna Bush taught minority kids how to check out library books, thus proving that not all members of the Bush family are heartless bitches, as far as you know.
Everyone seems to know about Jenna Bush, the blond half of the partying first twins. But ... Jenna has turned her attention to Washington's Hispanic Mount Pleasant neighborhood, coteaching second graders at the highly regarded Elsie Whitlow Stokes Community Freedom Public Charter School. And, we're hearing, the University of Texas English major is wowing folks at the school, which teaches English along with Spanish or French.
One example: Just last month, her second-grade class dropped into the neighborhood public library, marching quietly up to the second floor where there's a sprawling children's reading room. "It was great, and very sweet," recalls a librarian." ... She never raised her voice or showed frustration. Friends say she even speaks a little Spanish. "We were all really impressed. It was all very positive," says the librarian. "It made me feel hopeful that even though she's been around all that power, she's a real person. And I really liked her boots."
And if Jenna can speak a little Spanish after living in Texas for her whole life, can refrain from abusing seven-year-olds, inspires hope that she may be a real person, and has nice boots, then there is hope for America's future.
2. Bill Bennett Was Only Thinking of Welfare of African-Americans, Since Aborting All Black Fetuses Would Help Blacks Avoid Being Crime Victims
Renew America pundit Michael J. Gaynor says that President Bush Owes Bill Bennett an apology for calling Bennett's remarks about crime and race "inappropriate." Gaynor provides a transcript of Bennett's remarks; while Bennett does say, "But I do know that it's true that if you wanted to reduce crime, you could — if that were your sole purpose, you could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down," Gaynor explains that the comment isn't racist because Bennett is against abortion. {Note: all emphasis is in the original -- Gaynor gets pretty worked up when people bad mouth Bennett.]
READ WHAT BENNETT AND THE CALLER ACTUALLY SAID AND YOU WILL APPRECIATE THAT BENNETT IS NOT CALLING FOR ABORTING ANY BABIES, INCLUDING BLACK BABIES, OR CLAIMING THAT RACE IS THE REASON FOR THE DISPARITY BETWEEN THE BLACK AND WHITE CRIME RATES!
AND REMEMBER THAT MOST VICTIMS OF BLACK CRIME ARE... BLACKS!!!
So, blacks would benefit the most if all black babies were aborted.
But Bennett would spare the lives of these embryo-Americans even if they are black -- and even if they are Democrats. However, the people who criticize him, like Rep. John Conyers, would allow these tiny pre-voters to be killed, if that's what their mothers want. So, who are the the real racists? (Yeah, the women who get abortions, presumably.)
Bennett is an ardently pro-life Catholic who would save the life of every aborted baby, even though aborted babies are disproportionately black and blacks are disproportionately Democrat, while Conyers champions a woman's "right" to kill her unborn babies for any reason or no reason, even though black babies are disproportionately victimized by "legal abortion."
Yes, the good news is that Bennett is no racist, and is, in fact, a valiant defender of the black community. However, the bad news is that President Bush has hurt Bill Bennett's feelings.
3. Karen Hughes Winning Hearts and Minds In Arab World.
Karen recently impressed the Egyptians with these profound insights:
I really say that my job which is public diplomacy is about people. It's about people and it's about our policies. Because I recognize that our policies have an impact on people's lives and I think I've learned as I've listened to people here that sometimes policy decisions that there are two sides to the coin. And you have one set of views in one place and a different set of views in another.
Now that Karen has learned that sometimes people in different countries view our policy decisions differently than we do, you can expect world peace to break out any day now.
4. Document Will Exonerate Rush Limbaugh
As part of Palm Beach County State Attorney Barry Krischer's continued investigation of "allegations" that Rush "illegally purchased thousands of prescription pain pills" by getting the same types of medication from more than one doctor, Krischer has asked for an order allowing him to subpoena Rush's doctor. While Rush's lawyer holds that this in an invasion of Rush's medical privacy (i.e., Rush's impotence, flatulence, and butt boil problems are his own business, and not the State's), the prosecutor says he will restrict his questions to the issue of the prescribed pain killers.
Radio Ink adds this interesting detail:
A source close to the investigation said prosecutors are looking for a signed statement from Limbaugh to [Dr. John] Murray promising that if the doctor prescribed painkillers for him, including Oxycontin, in quantities sufficient to control his pain, Limbaugh would not try to obtain more prescription pills from other doctors. Prosecutors say Limbaugh obtained medication from other doctors as well.
Oh, wait, I guess the document will convict Limbaugh. My mistake.
5. We Have a War We Can Be Proud Of
Well, that's what Christopher HItchens says in a piece entitled "A War to Be Proud Of." The gist of it is that Saddam was a big jerk, and so we can be happy that we got rid of him, even though we screwed up the actual running of the war.
Oh, and we should thank Osama for crashing airplanes into our buildings, because, um, that caused us to go after Saddam, thus keeping Pakistan from getting nukes.
I am one of those who believe, uncynically, that Osama bin Laden did us all a service (and holy war a great disservice) by his mad decision to assault the American homeland four years ago. Had he not made this world-historical mistake, we would have been able to add a Talibanized and nuclear-armed Pakistan to our list of the threats we failed to recognize in time. (This threat still exists, but it is no longer so casually overlooked.)
I guess that's why we didn't capture bin Laden when we had the chance -- President Bush knew that he might do us some other great service some day if we left him free. In any case, we should send Osama a nice thank-you card, or maybe some fruit or something.
6. We Can Also Be Proud That Our Torture is More Humane Than That of Our Blood-Thirsty, Evil Enemies
As Hitch says at the beginning of his above column:
LET ME BEGIN WITH A simple sentence that, even as I write it, appears less than Swiftian in the modesty of its proposal: "Prison conditions at Abu Ghraib have improved markedly and dramatically since the arrival of Coalition troops in Baghdad."
We are more humane than Saddam! Cool!
Our new friend Felicia "Fee" Benamon makes much the same point, albeit less snootily, in her new column "Appeasing terrorists:
Recently, CBS's 60 Minutes ran a story of an ex-hostage Roy Hallums who was rescued by American forces in Iraq from terrorists ( CBS News | The Hostage | September 26, 2005 09:00:04 ). They treated Mr. Hallums horribly. He was beaten and made to sit in a cage for so long... he was in captivity for 10 months! The terror suspects at Guantanamo Bay Cuba received better treatment!
Yeah! While we make our prisoners hold stress positions for so long, we don't make then sit in cages. And while our detainees are kept in captivity indefinitely, and some were beaten horribly, um ... well, Fee's point is that:
We are way too lenient on them! They kidnap and behead our people (and our allies) and we worry how they are being treated while they are 'detained.' Something is wrong here! If terrorists engage American soldiers, I say shoot to kill!
But Fee isn't in a position to give orders or to shoot anybody. As you may recall, "Felicia quickly left the Army after becoming ill and realizing what her true calling is, to be involved in politics."
Yes, that was the best news yet!
7. PR People Consider This Blog On Par with Time's "Blog of the Year."
As we noted a month or so ago, a guy doing PR for Pamela Anderson's new book gave us a free copy of Star Struck in the hopes that we would review it at the blog. (And, as you might remember, we didn't exactly review it so much as compare and contrast it with Bill O'Reilly's Those Who Trespass -- and although we didn't read either book, we had no qualms in pronouncing Star Struck the better novel, based largely on the fact that we got it for free.)
Yesterday we learned from TBogg that the PR guy made the same offer to Powerline's John Hindrocket -- meaning that the PR rep thinks that World o'Crap is in the same league as Power Line!
Wait, that's not good news!
Anyway, Hindrocket claimed he couldn't get to Star Struck right away, because he was too busy reading Thackerly's Vanity Fair. Well, we STILL haven't started Pammie's book because we are too busy reading the complete works of Proust in the original French. (Also, we don't have much time for light reading due to our demanding schedule as an astronaut/super model/spy.)
In our defense, while it took Hindrocket 20-30 pages to realize that Pamela's novel was "quite pornographic," we knew this from the opening sentence (which was about nipples). And unlike Time's Bloggers of the Year, WE don't ruin our beautiful mind with pornography! Unless it's good, of course.
And that's your good news for today. We hope it brightened your life, helped to make the world seem a little less bleak, and staved off at least one suicide.
Join us tomorrow, when we will return to our nomal mix of cynicism, snark, and snide remarks.
4:59:17 AM 
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