Here is an example of "Bad" journalism. Mr. Leiby engages in insult as fact and misapplication of information as fact and a series of distortions or out right instigation and innuendo.
I will not defend Scientology, it is every bit as loopy as any other human enterprise. Attacking Tom Cruise because he dares to think, however foolish he might appear is inappropriate and defeats journalists creed of truth and fairness.
Mr. Leiby defeats his ow efforts and encourages bigotry toward Mr. Cruise and Scientology. These tactics do not educate or liberate us, they confine all of us in a place where efforts to see "A different path" or to honestly consider flaws in an idea are sneered at and soon defeated.
L. Ron Hubbard was a bit of a crank, and so was psychiatry in his day. Remember Lobotomies? Or the general assenting that Autism was caused by "immoral sex desires?"
Mr. Leiby needs to try for balance and not editorialize. He embarrasses himself and the Washington Post.
I have highlighted the innuendo and inappropriate inserts.



By Richard LeibyWashington Post Staff WriterSaturday, June 25, 2005; C01
Okay, should we address him as Dr. Tom Cruise from now on? Or will the Rev. Dr. Cruise suffice?
Whatever: Anybody who watched the actor's performance on NBC's "Today" show yesterday witnessed an unsettling transformation. The movie star, who has long embraced Scientology, launched a full-bore assault on the psychiatric profession, sticking to a script that his church (founded, mind you, by a hack science fiction writer) has been promoting for decades.
"Psychiatry is a pseudoscience," he told host Matt Lauer, later saying: "You don't know the history of psychiatry. I do."
Cruise looked like a man possessed -- or at least in need of an Ativan -- leaning insistently forward in his chair, hammering Lauer when the host suggested that some people were actually, you know, helped when doctors prescribed psychiatric drugs. Lauer sparred with Cruise specifically over whether it made sense for Brooke Shields to have sought therapy and taken antidepressants for postpartum depression -- a decision that Cruise had previously criticized.
Forget medical research: "There is no such thing as a chemical imbalance in a body," said Cruise, who prescribed vitamins and exercise for depression. "The thing that I'm saying about Brooke is that there's misinformation, okay? And she doesn't understand the history of psychiatry. She -- she doesn't understand, in the same way that you don't understand it, Matt."
This is the second time in recent weeks that Cruise has made an issue of the mental state of Shields, who previously termed "irresponsible and dangerous" his comments about her medical treatment for depression.
On "Today," Cruise also raged against Adderall and Ritalin, often prescribed to treat hyperactivity and attention-deficit disorder in children. "Do you know what Adderall is? Do you know Ritalin? Do you know now that Ritalin is a street drug? Do you understand that?"
And the meltdown continued: "Matt, Matt, Matt, Matt, Matt, Matt, you don't even -- you're glib. You don't even know what Ritalin is," Cruise said. "If you start talking about chemical imbalance, you have to evaluate and read the research papers on how they came up with these theories, Matt, okay? That's what I've done."
Lauer called Cruise's command of the subject "impressive," but noted, "I'm not prescribing Ritalin, Tom. . . . I'm simply saying I know some people who have been helped by it."
At one point, Lauer seemed fed up: "You're telling me that your experiences with the people I know, which are zero, are more important than my experiences. . . . And I'm telling you, I've lived with these people and they're better."
Cruise then accused Lauer of "advocating" Ritalin.
"I am not," Lauer said.
The interview (which Lauer told viewers would continue on Monday -- oh, goody) is pegged to Cruise's role in the film "War of the Worlds," which opens Wednesday. But every interview with Cruise lately has seemed to revolve around the twin suns of Scientology and Katie Holmes, his new fiancee and a recent initiate to the church. His now-legendary professions of love on "Oprah" started what has become a series of manic moments in public, in which the screen idol appears to be losing his chiseled, steely reserve.
While Cruise Chernobyled on "Today," Holmes gazed at him adoringly from the wings of the set, where the interview was taped on Thursday.
Will any of this hurt Cruise's career?
"Don't immediately assume that he is ruining himself," said Allan Mayer, managing director of Los Angeles-based Sitrick and Co., which regularly handles celebrities' PR crises. "He himself has said he doesn't care, and who are we to say he's made a mistake? . . . What's the point of being a hugely successful and powerful movie star if you can't talk about the things that matter to you? We may think it's silly and bizarre, but it's obviously important to him."
As a top-level celebrity believer in Scientology, Cruise has been steeped in the lingo and policies of the late church founder, L. Ron Hubbard. (Hearing Cruise use a term like "ideal scene" during his exchange with Lauer would perk up the ears of anyone who's been in Scientology's orbit before.)
Hubbard launched his self-help movement in the 1950s with a book called "Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health," and from early on, he battled with psychologists and psychiatrists. Indeed, Hubbard once wrote in an internal policy statement: "Our war has been forced to become to take over absolutely the field of mental healing on this planet in all forms."
Peg Nichols, a spokeswoman for the Landover-based Children and Adults With Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder, said her office was flooded with calls yesterday about Cruise's statements. The group avoids comment on Scientology, but she advised people to be "smart consumers of medicine." And she asked: "Since when would a celebrity have expertise in medicine? Would you go to your doctor and ask him about movie roles?"
Special correspondent Korin Miller contributed to this report.

FREEDOM IN CANADA: Here's an email sent to Andrew Sullivan 24/6/05:
I'm a gay farmer/rancher born and bred in Saskatchewan, Canada (or, as I prefer to call it, Paradise). I have been in a committed relationship with my partner for almost 8 years now. We live in an extremely rural part of an extremely rural province. From the time we moved in we were made to feel completely welcome and respected as any other family in the community. People here really don't care what you do in bed with who. What does matter is being a productive, involved member of the community and a good neighbour.Our neighbours continually pester us with questions about when we're going to "make honest men of each other." Just as with straight couples, it's with mixed emotions that my partner and I move closer to tying the knot. After all, forever is a very long time! But when you love someone completely none of that scary bullshit really matters. As long as we have each other to share life's good and bad and grow old together my life is complete. We are very lucky men to have found each other.I only wish my many gay friends in the U.S. were able to have their relationships honoured and respected in the same way. A country that doesn't allow its citizens to freely choose who they will spend the rest of their lives with can't truly be called a free country.

Anne Bancroft has died. She was the "Cool" lady in an age of vulgar excess. Her tack and brilliant acting seperated her from flawed players such as Jane Fonda, Barbra Streisand, and Shirley McClean. Bancroft was never seen as a fool or involved in scandal. Her marriage to Mel Brooks lasted 41 years! She was marvelous in the truest way. She will be missed.

(From Bloomberg Press)
Anne Bancroft, Mrs. Robinson in `The Graduate,' Dies at 73
-- Anne Bancroft, whose signature role was as the seductive Mrs. Robinson in the 1967 movie ``The Graduate,'' has died. She was 73.
The cause was uterine cancer, said John Barlow, a family spokesman. Bancroft was married to actor and director Mel Brooks.
Bancroft's portrayal on Broadway of the half-blind Annie Sullivan, the teacher of Helen Keller, in ``The Miracle Worker'' earned her a Tony Award in 1960. She reprised the role in the film and won the best actress Academy Award in 1962. Her co-star, Patty Duke, won the Oscar for best supporting actress.
It was as Mrs. Robinson, who seduced her daughter's boyfriend, played by Dustin Hoffman, that Bancroft gained recognition by a larger audience.
``I am quite surprised that with all my work, and some of it is very, very good, that nobody talks about `The Miracle Worker,''' Bancroft told an interviewer in 2003. ``We're talking about Mrs. Robinson. I understand the world. ... I'm just a little dismayed that people aren't beyond it yet.''
The film, which featured a soundtrack of songs by Simon and Garfunkel, earned director Mike Nichols an Oscar, Bancroft, Hoffman and Katherine Ross, who played the daughter, received Oscar nominations.
In addition to ``The Graduate,'' Bancroft received three other best-actress Oscar nominations: ``The Pumpkin Eater'' (1965), ``Agnes of God'' (1966) and ``The Turning Point'' (1978).
Anna Maria Louisa Italiano
Bancroft was born Anna Maria Louisa Italiano on Sept. 17, 1931, in the Bronx, New York. She made her professional debut as Anne Marno on television in the ``Studio One'' production, ``The Torrents of Spring,'' in 1950. She appeared as a semi-regular in the TV series ``The Goldbergs'' in 1950 to 1951.
She made her film debut, as Anne Bancroft, in ``Don't Bother to Knock'' in 1952. She appeared opposite Henry Fonda in the 1958 Broadway production of ``Two for the Seesaw,'' for which she earned her first Tony Award.
Bancroft appeared in more than 50 movies. Her most recent films include ``Torch Song Trilogy'' (1988), ``Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All'' (1994), ``G.I. Jane'' (1997), ``Deep in My Heart'' (1999), and ``Keeping the Faith'' (2000).
She married Martin May, a building contractor, in 1954. They divorced in 1957.
In addition to Brooks, whom she married in 1964, Bancroft is survived by their son, Maximilian. To contact the reporter on this story:
William E. Ahearn in New York at bahearn@bloomberg.net.
Last Updated: June 7, 2005 19:20 EDT

Since 1992 The Republican Party has been controlled by "Old South Reactionaries" Who rejected 19th century secularism and 20th century Liberalism. The United States is increasingly in a battle for deciding the future as a "Old South Plantation" or a "Urban Technocratic, Socially Liberal Democracy"

Here is another example of Andrew Sullivans take on this. (5 June 2005)

The battle for the Constitution and the theology of rationalism and individualism has been up and running for years and will heat up as 2008 approaches.

Read carefully and you'll detect the "Freaks vs. Hippie" argument.

From Andrew Sullivan (5 June 2005)

(Printed without permission)

"Many claim that there is no such thing as neutrality, that law is always and everywhere the imposition of one set of values over another, and that the question is merely 'whose values?' Although this has a kind of late night college dorm plausibility, it essentially abandons the entire Western attempt to conceive of law as something that aims, in so far as it is possible, to provide neutral limits on human activity in order to protect the freedom of individuals to live as they see fit. Even if this will have cultural consequences, even if this may make some feel discriminated against (even if they aren't), it is an essential goal of the liberal state to at least aspire to fairness, equal treatment of all citizens and tolerance of value-pluralism. In that sense, liberalism 'value' is fairness, consensus and equality."Bingo. Paint it in gold-leaf and hang it on your wall. It is exactly right.The major political battle of our time is between liberalism, which you so well describe above, and various fundamentalists who oppose it.Now, here is the important thing: The attack on liberalism is now the core ideology of the GOP. It is precisely the idea of liberal society that they are attacking when they decry the separation of church and state, when they talk about family values, when they seek to inject more faith into governance, when they call for a belief in absolutes, when they turn every political issue into an opportunity for moralism, when they organize politically active pastors, when they castigate everyone from Clinton to Sagan for the dread sins of secularism and moral relativism. The GOP's domestic agenda is no less than a full assault on liberalism. Our Constitutional democracy, born of the Enlightenment and strengthened during Reconstruction, is now threatened by the reactionaries who opposed both.It seems to me that the most important task for Americans who believe in liberal democracy is to defeat the GOP. I would not have said that ten years ago, when Republicans more than Democrats got my vote. But the GOP is not just surgent, it has been remade. It is no longer the home of old-fashioned conservatism, but headed instead is headed by our own home-grown fundamentalists. And if they are not as scary as some of the fundamentalists abroad, they are closer, and because of that, more able to wreak dangerous changes in our own government."

Here is a reprint of Andrew Sullivan's blog 6/1/005. What is important is that Sullivan is saying these things at all! The country is months away from the moment of truth when enough of the political community and national media decide the Bush Administration has gone "Too Far" in it's abuse of procedure and methods to deal with terrorism. The historical moment has not yet arrived, but it is coming. Sullivan states in sarcastic terms what is still repulsive and not yet bearable to most folks. But we are getting there. The abuse of Muslims and the shameless tactics at these arrest facilities and secret prisons will forever stain GW Bush and the GOP at this time in history.

Just as today the McCarthy era is seen as evil and a dark passage, The Bush era will be recalled for it's singular cruelty and wholesale abuse of the rights of human beings, however dangerous as a disgrace and a cautionary tale that even America with its loud celebration of freedom can be corrupted and do evil things.

I use Chile as the best example. Gen. Augusto Pinochet is seen today as a savior who used evil to get what he wanted. His deliberate tolerance of barbaric tactics have forever stained his place in history. GW Bush will suffer the same fate. His victims and their children will see to that!

Read Sullivan and see the whiff of what's to come!

ABSURD": Some of the rhetoric in Amnesty international report on U.S. detainment policies is indeed excessive. It is simply wrong on every level to equate the United States' policy of detention, abuse, torture and rendition of terror suspects with the Soviet Union's vast domestic prison system, designed to perpetuate an evil totalitarianism. But equally, it is now indisputable that a network of secret prisons exists to detain and interrogate terror suspects, that some of those imprisoned are "ghost detainees" with no proper records or accounting, that abuse and torture have occurred in hundreds of cases, that this president signed a memo defining torture into near-non-existence, that there is no secure method for determining the guilt or innocence of the prisoners, and that all of this has decimated America's international reputation. It is equally indisputable that investigations into these incidents are simply not "fully investigated in a transparent way." Even the most egregious cases of murder, as in Bagram, are sometimes dismissed at first for lack of evidence. Incidents of Koran abuse were deemed "not credible" for a week, until five incidents were confirmed. Many, many other accusations are deemed baseless because the only willing testimony comes from prisoners and no investigation takes place. Further, military critics of administration policy are often fired; and the message from the top is unmistakable. These are simply facts. To describe criticisms of this policy and record as "absurd" is itself absurd. It bespeaks either stunning cynicism, or equally stunning denial. And it suggests to me that there will be no resolution to this profound problem coming from the administration itself. They're relying on the general public not to care, or to believe that the ends of preventing terror justify almost any means, including an end to America's proud history of decency toward prisoners in wartime. That makes it all the more incumbent on the Congress, the media and the part of the public that does love this country's reputation and humaneness to speak out and demand accountability. The odds are long, but we have no choice but to try.