Who are these unmasked men?

Question: Who are Martin Kramer, Daniel Pipes, Peter Berkowitz, Nile Gardiner, and Norman Podhoretz?

Answer: They are Norman Podhoretz, Martin Kramer, Daniel Pipes, Peter Berkowitz, and Nile Gardiner, respectively.

Confused? So is Newsweek, the author of this pictograph-riddle.

Newsweek, the weekly personality tabloid, recently went after presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani with disastrous results. Not only was the article — which focused on his team of experienced and highly respected conservative advisers — embarrassingly inaccurate, the magazine offered a sidebar with the pictures, names, and descriptions of the six top advisers to help its reader(s) keep track.

Except five out of six headshots are mislabled; only Robert Kasten's photo matches his name and description.


Anyone who still reads Newsweek knows by now that the magazine's writers and editors have never heard of Republicans; they have, however, heard of "neoconservatives" and have been known to appoint "neocons" sans research or contact with said "neocons".

Which makes it even less acceptable to have made such a huge mistake — if you only know one group ("neoconservatives") you should at least know that group. Newsweek admittedly knows nothing of the one thing it claims to know anything about.

Of course, the magazine's hatred of these fine people has to do with the fact that most of them are clear-thinking experts on Middle Eastern affairs. What is striking, however, is that the MSM has championed defeat in Iraq for so long, they are actually getting bored; it's time for them to defeat any prospects for peace in Israel — which is why champions of logic and reasoning like Pipes, Kramer, and Podhoretz are in their crosshairs.

Giuliani recently questioned the wisdom of establishing an independent Palestinian state when it's clear that that state would sponsor terrorism against Israel and the United States. That is a logical approach to the situation, but one that earns you the label "neoconservative" by the MSM.

As president, Giuliani would be careful not to undermine the safety and security of the United States and its important strategic and moral allies. But the MSM isn't concerned with the United States or its allies, so why would Giuliani, who is steadfast in his loyalty to Americans and our Israeli friends, appeal to Newsweek?

Newsweek is a New York-based publication, and New Yorkers are famously protective of the man whose accomplishments as mayor of NYC are still not even fully appreciated by many in the tri-state area. (He helped NJ and NYC simultaneously by catching welfare double-dippers, and his use of the trigger/broken windows crime theory to clean up some of the uncomprehendingly dirty and dangerous parts of the city was more creative and intellectually impressive than most people give him credit for.)

Yet, all it took for the MSM to turn on him completely was his brainy-yet-tough approach to brokering the Arab-Israeli conflict only in such a way that would not sign the Jewish state's death warrant.

Time Warner, Inc., is also based in New York. Yet its current events magazine TIME decided to report on the upcoming Annapolis peace parley from... Cairo. The article, titled "Can Annapolis Forge a Mideast Peace?" unsurprisingly includes exactly zero quotes or comments from Israeli sources.

What it does include, however, are 14 separate references to "Arab sources". Only three are named, and they are the peaceniks Bashar al-Assad (Syria's dictator), Ahmed Abul-Gheit (Egypt's foreign minister), and Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal — and those references are either attributed to other news sources or public statements.

The only reference to Israeli points of view is the following sentence, written by the piece's author: "Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert apparently prefers a looser conference agenda, one unlikely to commit to fresh negotiations."

Some form of the word "skepticism" was used three times in the article — never in a quote.

Arab "worry" or "concern" about lack of Israeli or American effort and concessions is referenced four times, and the author, Scott MacLeod, even uses the term "separation wall" to describe the Israeli security fence.

The term "photo-op" is thrown around, as are doubts about Israel's willingness to make peace and President George W. Bush's true intentions. The author refers to Hamas as Fatah's Islamic rival, failing to note that Hamas is actually Islamist, and that Fatah is at best Islamic (clearly not secular). And MacLeod doesn't feel it necessary to challenge either the Saudi prince's implication that Israel's settlements are illegal, or the Arab self-portrait as victims should the parley fail and the region descend into violence. (When was the last time Israelis launched an intifada?)

In other words, MacLeod wrote the article not by paying attention to the news, but by looking at his MSM handbook and relying on (only!) unnamed Arab sources.

So, memo to Giuliani: If you are skeptical about the creation of a Palestinian state, the media will come after you, (A) because you're not Arab or a terrorist apologist and (B) because you and your "neoconservative" advisers only want to go after enemies who have waged war against us.

Memo to everyone: If you want to become a mainstream media darling in the the United States, start by attacking our allies.

Otherwise, Newsweek doesn't even want to know your name.