The Wall Street Journal’s headline and reporter Jeff Bennett’s opening paragraph concerning Chrysler Corporation’s first announcement of financial results since 2007 got right to the key points:

Chrysler Reports $4 Billion Loss Since Exiting Bankruptcy

Chrysler Group LLC lost nearly $4 billion since exiting bankruptcy last year, but the company reported a first-quarter operating profit this year and increased its cash reserves, bolstering Chief Executive Sergio Marchionne’s claim that the auto maker will break even by the end of the year.

That $4 billion consists of $3.78 billion in the last 205 days of 2009 and $197 million during the first quarter of 2010. The WSJ and Bennett basically did a nice job, though I have a problem with companies trumpeting “operating profit” when there is an “actual loss.”

I wonder if the Associated Press’s headline and the opening paragraph from AP reporters Tom Krisher and Colleen Barry presented the situation as well as the WSJ?

Not even close:

Yes, the second paragraph refers to “the staggering $3.8 billion that Chrysler lost from the time it left bankruptcy protection June 10 through the end of last year.” But if the never previously reported number is so “staggering,” why isn’t it part of the headline or the first paragraph?

Answer 1: The AP knows that many readers never get past the headline. Lots of people will see “Chrysler posts $197M loss but cash balance grows” and say, “Gee, that’s not so bad. Oh, and things are getting better.” That conclusion is more than a little debatable.

Answer 2: The AP knows that many news readers on radio and TV and Internet search result narratives won’t get past the first paragraph.

Answer 3: The AP knows, especially because it didn’t refer to what follows in any earlier paragraph, that very few readers will get to Paragraphs 16 through 20, where outside analysts question Chrysler’s very viability (bold is mine):

Some industry analysts were skeptical of Chrysler’s performance gains.

Max Warburton, an industry analyst with Sanford C. Bernstein in England, wrote in a note to investors last week that he thinks Chrysler’s accounting profits are “almost irrelevant” and not comparable to other automakers.

“Positive cash flow is being driven by dealer restocking and stretching payables,” he wrote in anticipation of Chrysler’s earnings release. “We remain unconvinced Chrysler will survive in its current form despite Marchionne’s blood, sweat and tears.”

While Marchionne’s cost cuts have been impressive, Warburton wrote that the company’s capital investments have been minimal, and it has been arguing with parts suppliers about payments for machinery to build future products.

But Marchionne, during a presentation on Fiat’s five-year financial plans in Turin, Italy, took a swipe at analyst reports that have taken a dim view of Chrysler’s operating profits. He compared the writings to the “Boulevard press,” meaning tabloid journalism.

“Stretching payables” is a euphemism for “not paying your bills on time and when promised.” If a company engages in that practice consistently, it’s not long before suppliers either raise their prices to offset the time delay, say “bleep you” and sever the relationship, go COD on all future shipments, or run out of cash themselves and go under trying to meet the customer’s demands.

It’s hard not to conclude that it’s more important to the Associated Press that many if not most of its news consumers think that the union-owned, government-controlled Chrysler be seen as being on solid ground than it is to communicate the full truth in a balanced manner.

Cross-posted at NewsBusters.org.

From GM’s Ed Whitacre in the Wall Street Journal (link may require subscription):

The GM Bailout: Paid Back in Full
The investment of U.S. and Canadian tax dollars worked.

No Ed. The government ripped off disfavored creditors and dumped something like $45 billion into new GM stock. It then “cleverly” lent your company far, far more than it needed to get going after walking away from tens of billions of dollars in pre-bankruptcy debt.

Now we’re supposed to be impressed that your company paid back a bunch of money that has been parked doing almost nothing since it emerged from bankruptcy.

Big freakin’ deal.

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UPDATE: No true accounting for the cost of the GM government bailout is complete without taking GMAC into account. The government in essence admits to that fact, as reported by the Associated Press on March 11:

The Treasury Department sank billions into auto finance giant GMAC Inc. without an exit strategy or proof the company was viable – a decision that could cost taxpayers $6.3 billion, a new watchdog report says.

… GMAC was treated more like banks that received bailouts without having to explain what they were doing with the money, the report says.

The report was released Thursday by the Congressional Oversight Panel overseeing the $700 billion financial bailout that Congress passed in October 2008.

“Treasury missed many opportunities to improve accountability and protect taxpayer money,” panel chair Elizabeth Warren said in a conference call with reporters. She said Treasury didn’t make GMAC show how it would return the taxpayer money, or how the investment would increase credit to consumers.

“These decisions mean that Treasury is now struggling to deal with a GMAC that is not financially rehabilitated, Treasury has no exit strategy and taxpayers are not fully protected,” Warren said.

The Treasury Department responded by reiterating that backing GMAC was necessary to preserve dealer financing for GM. It disputed the report’s core finding, that alternative approaches might have saved taxpayer money and provided better transparency.

Uh, the reference $6.3 billion is more than the $5.8 billion Whitacre reports having repaid. So taxpayer losses were shifted from one GM entity to another.

Again, big freakin’ deal.

UPDATE 2: Best comment at the Journal (bolds are mine) —

GM – in some form – was rescued by a bailout. So what? Missing in this analysis is any accounting for the time value of money. These funds were forcibly diverted for a period of more than a year from other potential investments. There is no proof whatsoever that this was the best use of those funds. Following this logic, we should just turn over all of our money to the federal government and let them pick the recipient of the politicians’ largesse.

Thanks, but I’ll take freedom. Let the failures fail. … stronger ventures will arise from the ashes.

UPDATE 3: This news may explain Whitacre’s timing (link may require subscription) –

Chrysler Reports $4 Billion Loss Since Exiting Bankruptcy

Chrysler Group LLC lost nearly $4 billion since exiting bankruptcy last year, but the company reported a first-quarter operating profit and increased its cash reserves, bolstering Chief Executive Sergio Marchionne’s claim that the auto maker will break even by the end of the year.

The auto maker lost $197 million during the first quarter and $3.78 billion for the period covering June 10 through Dec. 31 after the company had exited bankruptcy. Last year’s loss included a $2.1 billion charge for the company’s payment into the United Auto Workers health care trust fund.

… Despite the 2009 financial report, Mr. Marchionne said Chrysler has continued to strengthen its cash position and will achieve of its strategic targets outlined at the company’s headquarter in Auburn Hills, Mich. in November. Those targets included Chrysler breaking even on an operational basis and selling 1.1 million vehicles in the U.S.

… Revenue for 2010 is expected to range between $40 billion and $45 billion with earnings of $2.5 billion to $2.7 billion before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization.

… Mr. Marchionne was no under obligation to release the financial results. However, he vowed to provide updates since he intends to return Chrysler to a publicly traded company in the future.

The invocation of “operating profit” is the kind of stuff Internet companies used to do during the dot-com bubble.

One thing you can say about the Associated Press’s and most of the rest of the establishment media’s treatment of former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick during the past two-plus years is that they’ve been almost totally consistent. They pretend not to know or care what political party Kilpatrick represented throughout his political career, and fail to acknowledge Barack Obama’s fondness for him before his legal and criminal troubles began.

The latest episode in this bizarre soap opera/insult to the taxpaying public has Kilpatrick, who now lives with his wife in Dallas, accused of violating his probation by not remitting monies received that he had agreed to pay to the City of Detroit to help take care of an acknowledged $1 million debt to the city. The cliffhanger is: Will he or won’t he be sent to jail again?

Today, the AP continued following its two-year pattern (see related March 2008 post at NewsBusters; at BizzyBlog), this time as written by reporters Ed White and Corey Williams, of avoiding any mention of Kilpatrick’s status as a Democratic politician when he was mayor of Detroit. Here are several paragraphs from the pair’s prose:

Judge says ex-Detroit mayor violated probation

Former Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick violated terms of his probation by failing to report assets and turn over tax refunds, a judge ruled Tuesday, strongly suggesting he may send him to jail when he’s sentenced next month.

Wayne County Circuit Judge David Groner said Kilpatrick could remain free on bond pending his sentencing on May 25, and ordered state corrections officials to prepare a pre-sentence report by May 18.

Kilpatrick pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice in 2008 after sexually explicit text messages became public, showing he had lied under oath about an affair with a staff member in a whistle-blowers’ lawsuit. The 39-year-old resigned, served 99 days in jail, agreed to give up his law license, repay the city $1 million, and stay out of politics for five years.

Prosecutors claim Kilpatrick hasn’t paid enough toward the $1 million he owes Detroit. He has been making monthly payments of $3,000 while living in the Dallas area and working as a salesman for information-technology company Covisint. But prosecutors learned Kilpatrick and his wife have had other money, including $240,000 in loans, live in a rented mansion and drive fancy SUVs.

“I think these entire proceedings have made it clear the defendant has no desire to pay,” Assistant Prosecutor Athina Siringas told Groner.

… In an interview, Siringas said there’s “no question” she will argue for “significant time” in custody. Defense lawyer Michael Alan Schwartz said jail or prison would be extreme.

“What’s important – punishing the guy or getting money for the city?” Schwartz told The Associated Press. “He’s already lost his position as mayor. He’s lost his license to practice law. … Is additional punishment going to achieve any positive good? The answer is no.”

In January, Groner said Kilpatrick had been untruthful about his finances and ordered $320,000 in accelerated payments, much of it due by Tuesday. His lawyers say he can’t afford it on top of his regular monthly payments. Relatives and supporters paid $40,000 on his behalf in February.

So Detroit’s ex-mayor supposedly deserves a stay-out-of-jail card because he’s too valuable to be allowed to languish there, even though the remainder of his debt, assuming a current balance of $900,000 (which may be low), won’t be paid for 25 years, and even though he by all accounts is living pretty large in Dallas. Who says crime doesn’t pay? If this were a loan with a 5% interest rate instead of a $1 million apparently interest-free assessment, Kilpatrick’s $3,000 monthly payments wouldn’t even cover the interest.

As to Kilpatrick’s previous association with Barack Obama, here is a transcript what the president had to say about him during the early stages of his presidential campaign (video is at link; transcript is below):

I want to, uh … I want to first of all acknowledge your great mayor, uh Kwame Kilpatrick, who has been on the front lines (pause during applause) … has been on the front lines, uh, doing an outstanding job of, uh, gathering together, uh, the leadership at every level in Detroit to bring about the kind of renaissance that all of us anticipate, uh, for this great city.

And, uh, he is a leader not just here in Detroit, not just in Michigan, but all across the country people look to him. Uh, we know that he is going to be doing astounding things, uh, for many years to come.

And I-I’m grateful to call him a friend and a colleague. And I’m looking forward to, uh, a lengthy collaboration in terms of making sure that Detroit does well in the future.

Well, at least former fan Obama was right about Kilpatrick “doing astounding things.”

Cross-posted at NewsBuster.org.

Two weeks ago (noted at NewsBusters; at BizzyBlog), the combined audience for the Big Three Networks’ Evening News shows for the week of March 29 fell to just below 20 million.

That audience was about 5% less than what Matt Drudge in the summer of 2006 headlined as “TV’s Lowest Week.”

The Big Three’s combined audience crawled back above 20 million during the week of April 5. But Chris Ariens of Media Bistro noted earlier today that the figures for the week of April 12 were more reflective of “summertime viewing patterns” than what is supposedly peak spring viewing season.

He’s right, and the decline from the same week last year is truly precipitous:

Ariens notes that the all-time low for evening news viewership (19.06 million overall, 5.49 million in the 25-54 demographic) occurred during the week of June 15, 2009 (he writes today that it was June 23, but that was the date of his related post last year). Last week’s results were only 2.9% higher overall, and only 5.8% higher in the 25-54 demo.

The Media Bistro writer tries to blame this result on the general decline in TV use:

Summer viewing patterns are setting in early for the broadcast evening newscasts. The levels of people using television (PUTS) were down last week to the lowest levels since the week of July 13, 2009. As a result, all three shows were down week-to-week.

Okay, but it’s springtime, not summer, and Mr. Ariens would have to demonstrate that PUTS is down by double digits from a year ago to be convincing. Notably, he didn’t do that, nor did he provide a link.

The following paragraph from a post at Nielsen Wire, although it concerns the fourth quarter of 2009, seems to reach an opposite conclusion about TV viewership in general (bold is mine):

“The rise in simultaneous use of the web and TV gives the viewer a unique on-screen and off-screen relationship with TV programming,” said Nielsen Company media product leader Matt O’Grady. “The initial fear was that Internet and mobile video and entertainment would slowly cannibalize traditional TV viewing, but the steady trend of increased TV viewership alongside expanded simultaneous usage argues something quite different.”

It’s hard to believe that the Big 3 Net’s problem is that more people are turning off their TVs. It’s that people are changing the channel away from Brian, Diane, and Katie. I’ll leave it to readers to assess how much of the recent turn-away has to do with something I cited two weeks ago: “… more recent efforts at demonizing Tea Partiers, i.e., ordinary Americans.”

And we haven’t hit the dog days of summer yet.

Cross-posted at NewsBusters.org.

Lucid Links:

17 years ago yesterday, 76 people — men, women (two of them pregnant), and children (20) — were killed in Waco, Texas by representatives of the United States government. A YouTube video (Warning: disturbing footage and images) is here. A contemporaneous (and weak) New York Times story is here.

The best catch-up items for those who are too either too young to remember or need to know more are here and here at Reason.

Read them, and you’ll begin to understand just how outrageous it is that our country’s president at that time is now lecturing Tea Partiers and others exercising their God-given free speech rights in opposition to this gangster government about civility and the dangers of supposedly overheated rhetoric. To paraphrase Billy Joel, they didn’t, uh, start the fire, Mr. Clinton.

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Via Debbie Schlussel (underlying story here) — “Chicago Man Murdered 4 Family Members for ‘allah,’ Quran.” They were murdered “because his wife and family refused to adhere to Islam.”

True to Schlussel’s prediction, the Chicago Sun-Times whitewashed that inconvenient fact out of its story.

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Speaking of Schlussel, she noted a few days ago that the Freedom Alliance charity has been downgraded by Charity Navigator from four stars to two (i.e., “Needs Improvement”). FA is the charity that benefits, but not very much in context, from the Sean Hannity Freedom Concerts.

I don’t think Charity Navigator would take the action it did only because a blogger put up some posts with serious allegations, or only because an outfit like CREW raised a ruckus. I think CN did its own investigation, and corroborated enough of what Schlussel claimed to be able to independently justify its action.

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Lightly-commented Lightning Links:

• It took months last year before Tea Party protests with thousands of attendees got much attention from the media, but 100 protesters got a 350-word story in the Columbus Dispatch last Friday — and about two dozen negotiated the conditions of their arrests with the police in advance of the event.
• From the “Should Have Thought About That Before the Election” Dept. (“Will casinos offer booze 24/7? Restaurants, bars call round-the-clock serving unfair edge”) — “Just when downtown Cincinnati restaurants, nightclubs and bars thought they might get a boost from construction of a casino, some proprietors now are nervous that the gambling hall will keep customers away.”
• From Dick Morris at the Hill (“Obama’s terrible powers”) — “(The financial regulation bill under consideration is a) grant of power to the executive branch (that) is unprecedented and potentially totalitarian.”

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Instant Lightning:

• At the tech-oriented Inquirer.net — “Apple dips below Microsoft’s security standards; Has Ignorant Users Too.”
• At The Hill — “Gay rights protesters interrupt Obama speech at fundraiser.” Video here.
• In the UK, “The Liberal Democrats have pushed the Labour Party into third place, according to an opinion poll on Monday that suggests no single party will win the May 6 election outright.”
• At the Catholic News Agency — “Undercover video exposes abortion clinic misinformation about fetal development”

From the Pike County News Watchman (HT to an e-mailer), on a Bob McEwen speech at that county’s Lincoln Day Dinner:

“Now, I don’t need some Indonesian immigrant to tell me he wants to change America,” McEwen said of President Obama who spent some of his growing up years in Indonesia.

Geez Bob, you didn’t need to go there to make your points about freedom, free markets, and limited government.

Why won’t you just go away?

From Dublin:

Apr 20, 2010 / 02:17 am

A survey of the Republic of Ireland shows that 70 percent of Irish people support the constitutional protection for the unborn, including the prohibition of abortion. One pro-life leader said the “hugely reassuring” results show “overwhelming public support” for unborn children and their mothers.

The survey, commissioned by the Pro-Life Campaign, asked respondents if they favor or oppose “constitutional protection for the unborn that prohibits abortion but allows the continuation of the existing practice of intervention to save a mother’s life in accordance with Irish medical ethics.”

Seventy percent supported the constitutional protections while only 13 percent opposed it. Another 16 percent of respondents did not know or had no opinion.

The Pro-Life Campaign’s Dr. Berry Kiely announced the results last week at a press conference at Buswells Hotel in Dublin.

She said the poll is distinguished from other polls showing support from abortion by its distinction between necessary medical interventions in pregnancy and induced abortion “where the life of the unborn child is directly targeted.”

“This is a critical ethical distinction which abortion advocates constantly seek to blur,” she charged.

“Some abortion advocates claim that legalized abortion ‘confronts the reality of crisis pregnancy.’ However, this contention ignores the humanity of the unborn child throughout the entire nine months of pregnancy and the latest research highlighting the negative consequences of abortion for women.”

“If we are to have a genuinely honest debate on abortion we cannot arbitrarily airbrush the unborn child out of the debate or the many testimonies of women who regret their abortions.” …

Go here for the rest of the story.

Note: This originally went up at BizzyBlog on December 27, 2006.

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Lots of people reviled for years as nuts are vindicated. It’s “odd” indeed that AP chose to run this story about the inquiry into 1995′s Oklahoma City bombing on Christmas Day (actually, over a long Christmas weekend; the new link is to the AP story at Fox, titled “House Panel Faults FBI in Oklahoma City Bombing Probe,” which is dated Sunday, December 24, 2006. — Ed.):

FBI rebuked over bomb inquiry
Oklahoma City leads ignored, House report says
Posted December 25 2006

WASHINGTON — The FBI failed to fully investigate information suggesting other suspects may have helped Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols with the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, allowing questions to linger more than a decade after the deadly attack, a congressional inquiry concludes.

The House International Relations investigative subcommittee will release the findings of its two-year review as early as Wednesday, declaring there is no conclusive evidence of a foreign connection to the attack but far too many unanswered questions remain.

….. The report also sharply criticizes the FBI for failing to be curious enough to pursue credible information that foreign or U.S. citizens may have had contact with Nichols or McVeigh and could have assisted their plot.

….. Rohrabacher’s subcommittee saved its sharpest words for the Justice Department, saying officials there exhibited a mindset of thwarting congressional oversight and did not assist the investigation fully.

….. The subcommittee concludes the Justice Department should not have rushed to execute McVeigh in 2001 after he dropped his court appeals, and officials should have made more efforts to interview and question him about evidence suggesting he might have gotten help from other people who remain unpunished.

There is widespread belief that the acknowledged rush to execute McVeigh was designed to ensure that he would NOT provide evidence of “help from other people.”

Reporter Jayna Davis had all of this (and still does) about where the “help from other people” came from. It’s about “Middle East Complicity in the Heartland Massacre.” Though AP writer John Solomon studiously avoids identifying any of the outside parties, Davis’s work leaves little reasonable doubt that there are Middle East connections. The big question is whether those connections run through Iraq, and if they do, what that would say about the previous administration’s response to the bombing and, in light of the inquiry’s strong rebukes to the FBI and DOJ, its willingness or reluctance to pursue and/or reveal the truth.

The “vindication” is in the fact that the inquiry even acknowledges the possibility of foreign involvement, as no other government body up to this time has done so. That’s the best one can ever hope for from a group that has an 11-year investment in the “two lone outcasts” version of events.

Without Davis’s work, and her persistence, it is very likely that the congressional inquiry and report would not have happened. For that, the part of the country with its eyes open, the small number whose eyes will be newly opened, the victims, their families, and ultimately the historical record, owe her a debt that cannot possibly be repaid.

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UPDATE, Dec. 28, 2006: Here’s an excerpt from Jack Cashill’s read-the-whole-thing column today. This debunks the claim that Timothy McVeigh was alone when he drove the Ryder Truck up to the Murrah Building (bold is mine) –

In her book, Jayna Davis, tells a different story altogether. She interviewed and names a series of people who saw the Ryder truck and identified McVeigh in the minutes before the blast. These witnesses invariably placed a short, foreign-looking, dark-skinned man in the passenger seat.

In fact, the FBI had been looking for a man who fit this description since they first traced the truck back to Eldon Elliot’s body shop in Junction City, Kan. “FBI spokesman Weldon L. Kennedy said investigators were still trying to identify John Doe No. 2,” wrote the Washington Post April 28, “a man who accompanied McVeigh when he rented the Ryder truck in Junction City, Kan.”

Twenty minutes before the blast in downtown Oklahoma City, employees at a tire store spotted two men of the same description in the Ryder truck, and even gave the men directions to the Murrah building intersection.

McVeigh’s defense attorney Steven Jones put one eyewitness on the stand in the McVeigh trial, the terribly injured Daina Bradley.

“It was a Ryder truck,” Bradley had cried out to rescuers who were in process of amputating her leg to extricate her from the rubble, “It pulled up, a foreign looking man got out, and then before long, everything went black.” The prosecution undermined Bradley’s testimony by pointing to Bradley’s real history of emotional problems, but Bradley made this claim to her rescuers 24 hours before the FBI knew that a Ryder truck was involved.

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UPDATE, April 19, 2010: McVeigh’s lawyer weighs in –

for the man who defended McVeigh the execution represented something else.

“I didn’t think this execution proved justice had been served,” Stephen Jones said. “What it proved to me was the government had chosen who it wanted to prosecute and execute.”

Jones said he did believe McVeigh was guilty, but is convinced there were others involved.

Jones is unsettled about the way the government handled the case and said he is one of the many who may never find full closure.

Kavon Nikrad at RightOSphere got it from the governor himself:

I was one of the first in line to the book signing, and when my turn came I asked Gov. Romney if I could ask him a question. After he told me that this was OK, I posed the following question to him:

“You have stated your intention to spearhead the effort to repeal the ‘worst aspects’ of Obamacare, does this include the repeal of the individual mandate and pre-existing exclusion?”

The Governor’s answer: “No.”

Gov. Romney went on to explain that he does not wish to repeal these aspects because of the deleterious effect it would have on those with pre-existing conditions in obtaining health insurance.

Ben Smith at Politico has Team Romney’s non-walkback:

UPDATE: Romney spokesman Eric Fehrnstrom calls the item “inaccurate” but doesn’t directly address the repeal question:

“Mitt Romney has been very clear in all his public statements that he is opposed to a national individual mandate. He believes those decisions should be left to the states.”

Uh, Eric, Kavon’s question was about ObamaCare, the statist NATIONAL health care scheme.

The longer Mitt Romney hangs around, the longer a serious, sensible conservative discussion about what to do with the health care system AFTER ObamaCare is totally repealed gets deferred.

Where’s the gong when you need it?

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UPDATE: From the “He Corrupts Everything He Touches” Dept. — Romney has endorsed Marco Rubio in the Florida GOP Primary for that state’s U.S. Senate seat, moving Rubio to mutter a muddled semi-defense of RomneyCare.

On the surface, it’s one of the Associated Press’s better dispatches from the real world on the state of the economy as people are experiencing it.

Datelined in Twinsburg, Ohio, Megan Barr’s Monday morning report, “Recession is ending? Some Americans don’t buy it,” does a good job of mixing macro and micro elements, painting a picture of a struggling town, a non-improving state economy (now eighth-worst, according to AP’s “economic stress” measurement tool), a somewhat-improving national picture, and a pervasive belief on the part of most Americans that things aren’t really getting better. I couldn’t help but notice the irony that AP reporter Jeannine Aversa, who wrote that the top economic story of last year was the economy’s “fall – and rebound,” contributed to Barr’s report.

But something was done to Twinsburg a year ago that goes a long way towards explaining why many people there are likely responding as one quoted resident did — “Who are they trying to kid?” — when asked for a reaction as to whether the economy is getting better. The AP didn’t cover that story last year — and should have — so it didn’t know that it should have referred it this year.

Shortly after noon on Thursday, April 30, 2009, the President of the United States told the nation that a Chrysler Corporation bankruptcy “will not disrupt the lives of the people who work at Chrysler or the communities that depend on it.” Shortly before that, senior Obama administration officials had made statements mirroring what the President said to Northeastern Ohio union leaders, politicians, and even a United States senator.

Late the next day (i.e., Friday), Detroit reporters digging through voluminous Chrysler bankruptcy documents learned that the company would close plants in four states. One of the plant’s closed was Twinsburg’s stamping facility, which employed 1,250. Nice timing: Tell a fib on a Thursday, make people look for it and not find it until late on a Friday, by which time few are paying attention.

As I noted at the time (at NewsBusters; at BizzyBlog), this monumental deception (not just the closures, but the accompanying deception) received the type of coverage it deserved in only one major newspaper, the Cleveland Plain Dealer (“Chrysler, Obama take the truth about plant closings for a spin”).

The AP was among the establishment news organizations that ignored the deception when it was uncovered. With no record of what actually transpired in any of its prior reports, no one at the wire service would have even thought to go back to a year-ago event to get background for the Monday recession story.

I trust that readers are beginning to see how media malfeasance builds on itself.

The bottom line is that Obama lied, and jobs died. The people of Twinsburg know that. The rest of the nation should. The self-described “Essential Global News Network” deserves a major share of the blame for why it doesn’t.

Cross-posted at NewsBusters.org.

ISM catch-up — The Institute for Supply Management had very good numbers earlier this month in its Manufacturing (up to 59.6% from 56.5% in February) and Non Manufacturing (up to 55.4% from 53.0%) indices. Any reading over 50% indicates expansion.

The last time we had manufacturing readings at March’s level was December 2003 through August 2004. During that period, manufacturing employment held steady (seasonally adjusted employment increased by 43,000 or about 0.3%). Early indications are that this time might be better, but we’re building on a base of manufacturing jobs that is 2.8 million workers lower. Over 2.0 million of those jobs were lost from June 2008 through December 2009 (i.e., using the May 2008 number at the link as the starting point), the first 19 months of the POR (Pelosi-Obama-Reid) Economy.

The Washington trio is at least a half-million manufacturing jobs away from being entitled to any kind of crowing about how much the sector is improving — and they don’t even deserve to do that until they accept the blame for how steeply it declined.

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Claudia Rossett’s reax to the “secret three-page memorandum” from Defense Secretary Robert Gates that, as reported in the New York Times, “the United States does not have an effective long-range policy for dealing with Iran’s steady progress toward nuclear capability”:

… Gosh, golly and no kidding.

The failure of U.S. policy may be news to Obama, but for some time now it’s been glaringly obvious to most of the planet. While Obama has been yakking, bowing, apologizing for America, humiliating U.S. allies and dismantling both America’s defense capabilities and capitalist system, Iran’s rulers have been mocking him, scoffing at deadlines and flaunting their bomb program.

And, I should add, press coverage of the Iranians’ hostility towards him and us has been pretty muted.

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WaPo’s Robert McCartney makes a startling discovery (HT P.J. Gladnick at NewsBusters) — “Based on what I saw and heard, tea party members are not seething, ready-to-explode racists, as some liberal commentators have caricatured them.”

But much of the rest of McCartney’s take smacks of more than a little elitism (“The mix of kookiness and mistrust of authority reminded me of anti-Vietnam War demonstrations in which I participated four decades ago in the same spot”) and disingenuousness (“Perhaps people were concealing their true views, but I didn’t see evidence of racism at Thursday’s rally”).

McCartney should have stopped at, “I found that I agreed heartily with the tea partiers on what is perhaps their single biggest concern: that America’s swelling government debt seriously threatens our long-term prosperity.”

Related: Within a day or two (or three) at Pajamas Media, I’ll have an on-the-scene report that will in part reveal where the real bigotry resides.

From Prescott, Arizona:

4/10/2010 9:59:00 PM

Leon Leyson’s fateful encounter with Oskar Schindler at age 13 – as the Nazis rounded up Jews and sent them to death camps during World War II – saved his life.

Leyson, now 80, the youngest of those saved by Schindler, will speak about his experiences Tuesday at 6:30 p.m. at Yavapai College.

“Of the original 1,200 Schindler Jews, only 60 are alive today,” said David Hess, president of the Jewish Community Foundation of Greater Prescott. “To be able to meet him and talk to him, it’s amazing. I get chills, to actually see someone who can tell you Schindler saved his life. It’s a rare opportunity to meet a Schindler Jew.”

At great expense and risk to himself, Schindler rescued Jews from the Nazi terror by employing them at his factories. Schindler, a Nazi party member, a womanizer and a drinker, risked his life and spent his fortune to save imperiled Jews. Today, those who Schindler saved have more than 7,000 descendents.

While the 1993 Stephen Spielberg film “Schindler’s List” brought Schindler’s story to the public, Leyson’s own story is no less dramatic.

The Leyson family – mother, father and five children – lived in Krakow when the Germans invaded Poland. Schindler, a war profiteer, bought an enamel factory that employed Leon Leyson and his father. Later, the factory also made shells and ammunition, making it more invaluable to the Nazis.

The oldest Leyson boy, Hershel, escaped from Krakow and fled to the northern part of Poland, then under control of the Russians. After Hitler turned on Russia, that area fell to the Germans and a mobile killing squad killed Hershel, among many other Jews, Hess related. Nazi soldiers arrested Tsalig, the next oldest son, in Krakow because he didn’t have his working papers, and put him on a train bound for a concentration camp.

“In a famous scene in ‘Schindler’s List,’ Oskar Schindler’s accountant was about to be deported and Schindler goes (on the train) to get him,” Hess said. “Schindler saw Leon’s brother, who worked in his factory.” Schindler offered to save Tsalig but the young man didn’t want to leave his girlfriend alone and refused. He died in the camps.

Miraculously, Schindler saved the Leyson parents, along with David, Avia and Leon. While many virtuous people protected European Jews during the Holocaust, Schindler actually saved whole families, “which was completely unheard of,” Hess said.

Hess said that reminding people of what happened to Jews, homosexuals, communists, gypsies and others during those dark days may help prevent future genocides.

“I think the thing it’s important to remember – and what a lot of people do not realize – is in 1933 when Hitler came to power, Germany was a democratic society, one of the most advanced in its science, technology and social programs,” Hess said. “You would not have thought an advanced society could target a part of its population for extermination. We have to remember to prevent it from happening again.” …

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