A Commercial for Power Line

Posted on October 13, 2011 by Steven Hayward

I think Power Line deserves to take a bow once in a while. After I heard a tip last week from someone just back from Japan about the Wikileaks disclosure of a cable rebuffing an Obama “Apology Tour” stop at Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 2009, I naturally Googled to see what I could find. Although the story had appeared in a number of English language newspapers in Japan, I couldn’t find any mention of it anywhere in the American media, or in the blogosphere. So I think it is fair to say Power Line had the story first (“The World Apology Tour Revisited”).

I think Michael Barone was the first to pick up on it in his Washington Examiner blog space (mentioning Power Line), then Investors Business Daily, then Fox News “Special Report” last night, and also Jake Tapper’s “Political Punch” blog at ABC News. The White House has had to issue a denial that any such apology was planned. Yeah, and they never heard of Solyndra either. Let’s go to the tape: as Obama’s own ambassador put it, the Japanese government felt that “the idea of President Obama visiting Hiroshima to apologize for the atomic bombing during World War II is a ‘non-starter.’” Where, oh where, would the Japanese government have got such an idea into their head?

Another object lesson in the ability of the Internet to break the Mainstream Media monopoly. Hat tip to Wikileaks, of course. But as I said in the original post, anyone who thinks the damage from Wikileaks won’t affect the Left, too, isn’t paying attention.