LET'S HEAR IT FOR OUR SIDE – AT 8:14 A.M. ET:  It's been a rather satisfying week for our side.  First, a report to the UN from an outside panel led by former Princeton University president Harold Shapiro severely criticized the UN's standards and practices in the matter of climate change research. 

Second, President Obama, in his Iraq address to the nation, had to concede, if only grudgingly, that the surge in Iraq worked and led to the end of our combat mission in that country this week.

Third, in one of the most remarkable statements by a media bigwig in modern times, the director-general of the BBC, Mark Thompson, conceded that the charges of bias against the world's largest news organization were correct:

The director general of the BBC admitted Thursday that his organisation had been guilty of a "massive bias to the left" but said "a completely different generation" of journalists now works at the broadcaster.

Mark Thompson told the right-of-centre Spectator magazine that there was an institutional bias when he joined the organisation, reinforcing the findings of a 2007 internal report which concluded that greater efforts were required to avoid liberal bias.

"In the BBC I joined 30 years ago, there was, in much of current affairs, in terms of people's personal politics, which were quite vocal, a massive bias to the left," Thompson said.

"The organisation did struggle then with impartiality. And journalistically, staff were quite mystified by the early years of Thatcher."  Now it is a completely different generation. There is much less overt tribalism among the young journalists who work for the BBC," he added.

In all three cases, our side can take a bow.  No, we're not crazy right-wing zealots.  We're thoughtful, informed people who had raised questions about the UN's climate-change propaganda; supported President's Bush's (and General Petraeus's) visionary surge; and constantly pointed out bias at the "prestigious" BBC.  For our efforts we were subjected to the usual name-calling.  It was even suggested, in regard to our skepticism about climate-change research, that we're the equivalent of Holocaust deniers.

Of course, we await corrective action at the UN.  And we remain skeptical about the BBC's "new generation" of journalists.  But at least we have the concession from its chief that bias has reigned at "the beeb."  That's more than we can say for the heads of American news organizations, who continue to insist that they're simply fair-minded professionals, a claim met with appropriate howls of laughter from anyone above the age of 18.  Make that 10.

So take that bow and hoist a few this weekend for our guys.  We've been right on a number of other fronts as well, and we look to the electorate to validate our conclusions this November.

September 3, 2010