CNS Learns Taking Obama Out of Context Is a Non-Story Topic: CNSNews.com
CNS' Terry Jeffrey plucked a line from Barack Obama's inauguration speech out of context to falsely accuse him of being overly fond of "nonbelievers." Apparently, Jeffrey then tried to launch his false meme in the conservative community by having one of his reporters do a story on it.
How'd that work out? Not so well (for Jeffrey, anyway).
The Jan. 22 article by Pete Winn stuck to what Obama said, not what Jeffrey said Obama said, accurately stating that Obama merely "mentioned 'non-believers' in his inaugural speech"and putting Obama's full in-context statement at the top: "We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus - and non-believers."
Further, the "conservative religious leaders" Winn interviewed weren't taking the bait. Richard Land of the Southern Baptist Convention is quoted as saying, "It struck me as accurate. ... We are a nation of Christians and Jews, and Muslims and Hindus, and Baha’i and agnostics and atheists – although proportionally the vast majority of Americans claim some kind of affiliation with a Christian faith."
Rev. Robert Sirico, president of the Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty, is quoted as saying: “I think he’s acknowledging the reality that America is a very diverse culture that is not defined by a doctrinal creed. ... I take no offense at that. The Second Vatican Council acknowledge the reality of unbelievers. In fact, Catholics, every Good Friday, have a whole litany for – to use the phrase that we use -- 'those who have not yet come to believe.'"
Still, with this story fizzling, there's no explanation for why Jeffrey is so offended by Obama's inclusive language.
Examiner Invokes Peter Paul Topic: Washington Examiner
The Washington Examiner exhibits a flare-up of Clinton Derangement Syndrome in a Jan. 22 editorial. Citing reasons to oppose the nomination of Hillary Clinton as secretary of state, the Examiner asserts:
After all, even the liberal New York Observer editorialized a few years ago that Clinton was “unfit for elective office." Does nobody in the Senate care that she was tied to sleazy Hollywood fund-raising on her behalf by multiple-felon Peter Paul? Was it not even worth reviewing the 1995 deposition in which an independent counsel cited her for false statements under oath?
Paul, of course, is the same guy who's hurling various charges against the Clintons in a bid to keep his own felonious butt out of jail for unrelated sleaziness. Of course, Paul wasn't a felon at the time of his Clinton fundraising. We have to wonder, though: Is the Examiner following in WorldNetDaily's footsteps in believing every accusation Paul makes about the Clintons even though he is a "multiple-felon"?
And the "false statements under oath" is an apparent reference to Travelgate. The Examiner conveniently forgets to mention what the independent counsel also said about those statements: "[A]bsent persuasive, corroborated, and admissible evidence to the contrary, there is insufficient evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Mrs. Clinton's statements to this Office or to Congress were knowingly false."
Travelgate, by the way, is among the more bogus of the supposed Clinton scandals, since the Travel Office employees worked at the pleasure of the president, who could fire them at will, and there was, in fact, evidence of financial mismanagement in the office (even if Billy Dale was acquitted).
Newsmax's Ronald Kessler is still defending waterboarding, as he has several times before. From a Jan. 21 column:
Aside from the legalities, the CIA does not believe outright torture produces reliable results and has never used it. Scaring prisoners with waterboarding is another matter. Waterboarding led to a takedown of key al-Qaida operatives when they were planning more attacks. If waterboarding really were torture, the military would not use it on its own special forces as part of their training in case they are waterboarded after being captured.
Many well-intentioned people, including Sen. John McCain, have described waterboarding as torture. But as defined by the dictionary, torture is infliction of pain. As used by the CIA, waterboarding entailed placing a cloth over the face of the subject and pouring water over the cloth. The technique creates the sensation of drowning and therefore fear, but it is painless. The individual awakes the next morning feeling just fine.
In fact, as we've noted, contrary to Kessler's claim that waterboarding victims are "just fine" afterwards, there is evidence that waterboarding does result in lasting physical or psychological damage.
Media Matters catches Brent Bozell peddling a false comparison of inauguration costs in his Jan. 21 column: "For the record, the 'lavish' [2005] Bush inaugural cost $43 million. Final tallies are not complete, but according to some sources, like the Guardian newspaper, the Obama inaugural will cost more than $150 million." In fact, the Obama costs include security, transportation, and other expenses incurred by federal, state, and local governments, while the Bush number does not.
As we noted, Bozell made the same false comparison in an appearance on "Fox & Friends."
Brennan Again Likens Obama to Nazis Topic: Newsmax
Prior to the election, Newsmax's Phil Brennan likened Barack Obama to Nazis (as we noted). Brennan does so again in his Jan. 20 Newsmax column.
After noting Obama's "highly touted scheme to put out-of-job Americans to work by rebuilding the infrastructure — billions upon billions for roads, bridges, tunnels, and buildings in need of refurbishing," Brennan adds: "To begin with, it's not a new idea. Adolf Hitler created a similar plan to put people to work."
Brennan also cited Obama's "reliance on giving tax reductions to vast numbers of people using so-called income tax rebates to people who don't pay a dime in federal income taxes." Brennan fails to note that even if some people do not pay federal income taxes, they do pay other federal taxes, such as federal excise taxes on gasoline and the FICA tax to find Medicare and Social Security.
CNS' Jeffrey Takes Obama Out of Context Topic: CNSNews.com
Terry Jeffrey takes cues from WorldNetDaily's Aaron Klein by taking President Obama out of context in his Jan. 21 CNSNews.com column, claiming that Obama made a "declaration" in his inauguration speech that "We are a nation of … non-believers." Jeffrey also referred to "the 'non-believers' to whom Obama paid tribute in the heart of his speech."
Jeffrey fails to offer to his readers the full context of Obama's remark: "We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus, and nonbelivers. We are shaped by every language and culture, drawn from every end of this Earth."
Like Klein, Jeffrey does not explain why he finds it offensive that Obama is acknowledging the simple, undeniable that there are people other than Christians who hold American citizenship.
NewsBusters Still Sneering At Obama Topic: NewsBusters
From an anonymous Jan. 21 NewsBusters post credited only to "NB Staff":
Possible talking point: Have all your problems gone away now that Obama is President?
Have your mortgage and monthly bills been mysteriously paid for? Did you wake up thinner, taller, fitter, healthier, and sexier? Did your boss give you a raise today completely out of the blue? Are your kids suddenly better behaved, and saying "Yes, sir/ma'am" to all your commands? Did your spouse give you an affectionate greeting this morning like you haven't received since your honeymoon?
Does the sky and the sun look brighter today? Were those strange noises in your car's engine suddenly gone when you drove to work this morning? Is there a new vigor in your step, and a sudden lust for life you've never felt before? Did your neighbors all wave to you as you drove down your street?
Please share with your fellow NBers how everything was better this morning as a result of yesterday's coron...er...inauguration. Inquiring minds want to know.
As if Newsmax's editorial denouncing the Bush legacy wasn't surprising enough, it follows up with part 2, which manages to be even harsher:
As Barack Obama assumes the mantle of the presidency and duties of the office, he has inherited from his predecessor a federal government that has a staggering national debt of over $10 trillion, a ballooning federal deficit this year estimated at $438 billion – and a government that recently assumed responsibility for some $5 trillion of the nation’s consumer debt.
The irony is that George W. Bush, who billed himself as a conservative in the mold of Ronald Reagan, leaves a legacy of profligate federal spending, record debt and an economy in shambles.
A broad range of conservative thinkers, surveying the political and economic fallout of the two Bush terms, are openly voicing their concerns that it may take years for the Republican party and the nation to repair the damage Bush policies have inflicted.
Wowser. Conservatives don't usually say this stuff in public about one of their own.
WND's Klein Trashes Obama's Inauguration Speech Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily's Aaron Klein oozed contempt for Barack Obama yet again in a Jan. 20 article on Obama's inauguration speech.
Attacking the inclusive language Obama used, Klein repeatedly took out of context a previous Obama comment that America is "no longer a Christian nation" to assert that Obama plans "to reorient the U.S. away from its traditional Judeo-Christian values." But Klein himself contradicts this claim later in the article by finally noting Obama's words in full context: "Whatever we once were, we're no longer a Christian nation. At least not just. We are also a Jewish nation, a Muslim nation, and a Buddhist nation, and a Hindu nation, and a nation of nonbelievers."
Klein does not explain why it's somehow offensive to him for Obama to acknowledge the simple, undeniable fact that there are Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims and atheists who are also American citizens.
Sheppard Laments Bush Derangement Syndrome, Oblivious to His Own Maladies Topic: NewsBusters
Noel Sheppard begins a Jan. 20 NewsBusters post by asking, "As we prepare to say goodbye to our 43rd President, an important question needs to be asked: will those suffering from Bush Derangement Syndrome be cured on Inauguration Day?" Sheppard added: "Consider that Herbert Hoover left the White House in 1933, and he still gets eviscerated 75 years later."
But Sheppard didn't have to go back so far for evidence to support his theory. All he needed to do was examine whether his colleagues at the Media Research Center were cured of Clinton Derangement Syndrome when Bill Clinton left office.
Of course, that answer is an emphatic yes.
As we detailed at the time, MRC chief Brent Bozell was suffering from a full-blown case of CDS when Clinton left office in 2001, hosting a $125-a-plate dinner so his conservative buddies could heap abuse, claiming, "It's our way of celebrating the fumigation of Washington." Bozell also said of Hillary Clinton'selection assenator from New York: "We need fund-raising fodder. ... They left her behind for us."
When Hillary Clinton ran for president, CDS was back; Bozell and Tim Graham were right there with a book rehashing biased and misleading accounts of so-called Clinton scandals.
Sheppard himself is a CDS sufferer: He once theorized that a hostage crisis at a Hillary Clinton campaign office was "orchestrated" by Clinton "to make herself look battle-hardened."
But that's just one malady Sheppard suffers from. Not only does he have Global Warming Derangement Syndrome (as most recently evidenced by his embrace of a 9/11 truther published in Pravda simply for mouthing anti-global warming dogma) is also developing a full-blown case of Obama Derangement Syndrome. As we've noted, Sheppard was quick to blame Barack Obama's victory for a stock market drop immediately following the Nov. 4 election -- "there's no question this represented Wall Street's vote of no confidence in Obama's economic plans for the future" -- while failing to acknowledge that there was economic news that even the Fox Business Channel agrees played a decisive factor in the decline.
Sheppard does the same thing in another Jan. 20 post, suggesting the decline in stocks was related to Obama's inauguration. While Sheppard does note that "stocks normally do very poorly the first year of a new president's first term," he was also eager to point out "how the selloff accelerated after Obama finished his Inaugural address." At no point does Sheppard mention events in the financial world that actually drove the decline. As the Washington Post reported:
Disillusioned investors fled financial companies as fresh evidence mounted that the industry's problems are larger than previously understood, larger than the response so far mustered by the government and perhaps larger than the resources remaining in its rescue program.
Nevertheless, Sheppard pre-emptively bashed "the giddy Obama-loving media" for the possibility that they might not report it out of fear of "allow[ing] anything to dampen the celebration."
Fleshing out his earlier reference to Hoover, Sheppard also embarks on a strange revisionist defense of him:
Much like today's BDS, media hatred of Hoover conveniently ignores facts. Although the economy was in a recession in 1930, the Depression really didn't begin until 1931. This means that for all intents and purposes, Hoover only presided over two years of the Depression.
By contrast, as the GDP didn't surpass its 1929 output until 1941, and unemployment after peaking during Franklin D. Roosevelt's first year in office didn't return to more normal levels until 1942, Roosevelt presided over almost ten years of the Depression.
Regardless, to this day, Hoover gets all the blame for this horrible period in economic history, and Roosevelt gets all the credit for ending it even though the economy only improved once America entered World War II and went right back into a serious recession once the war ended.
Sounds like Sheppard has apparently caught a virus from the HeritageFoundation, resulting in this flare-up of an apparent lingering case of Roosevelt Derangement Syndrome.
Aaron Klein Anti-Obama Agenda Watch Topic: WorldNetDaily
The election ended months ago, yet WorldNetDally's Aaron Klein is still hurling guilt-by-association attacks at Barack Obama.
The latest is a Jan. 19 article in which he once again raises the specter of "anti-Israel professor Rashid Khalidi" and his alleged connections to Obama. Needless to say, Klein fails to mention that Khalidi has ties to prominent Republicans including Obama's former opponent, John McCain.
As we detailed, Klein avoided telling his readers about the Khalidi-McCain connection until someone else reported it, and then desperately tried to spin it away.
NewsBusters Readers Not As Classy As They Think Topic: NewsBusters
In a Jan. 20 NewsBusters post, Rusty Weiss attacked commenters at the Huffington Post for a "propensity ... to delve into the vile and disgusting" regarding a news article on Dick Cheney and having "their ‘looney left' radar working overtime, developing conspiracy theories that would make Rosie O'Donnell blush." Weiss concludes: "But it's just more proof that the readers here at NewsBusters are a class above the competition."
Really? Let's see what NewsBusters readers have to say about our new president here:
Sorry, but even though I have the time, I cannot attend. I am already nauseous and do not wish to go full bore emetic. I have already seen enough of The One's "historic" luxury train trip pretending to be Lincoln. Don't they understand: Lincoln was a Republican and the dumbocrats of the time hated him as much or more than GWB!
I've been forced to watch the inauguration on ABC, and this nutwork's coverage is so sickening that my stomach has done Olympic quality somersaults...It's as if the Democrats are rubbing it into the faces of us Republicans.
what would you as a parent do with a child's temper tantrum? this is the task at hand of we the responsible adults during this incredibly irresponsible presidency
I, and millions of Americans will not watch this travesty. To do so would be like watching an execution and enjoying it. I can't take having to talk back to the t.v. every five seconds. I can't take feeling sick every time I hear the ignorant talking heads and see the hords of screaming lambs as they go to slaughter. The America I once knew is gone , possibly forever. It is a dark day for this nation which has elected a child, simply because he is black. America will suffer greatly for this parody, trumpeted by a small but cunning, selfish, and dishonest group of hypocrites. Sad.
I live in an area where you really can't say anything negative about "The Messiah" without getting a dirty look from someone. Everyone here has an Obama shirt or button. My wife gets mad if I make fun of him. This morning she told me not to say anything and I simply told her I did forfeit my right to free speech.
Thank God I live in Ga! I am wearing a tshirt that says "Black Tuesday" on it. I plan on wearing it to the grocery store, later. I don't give a rat's rear what anyone else thinks.
I am urging all NewsBusters to boycott PepsiCo. The CEO of PepsiCo is a long time supporter of Obama and has even gone as far as to change the logo of Pepsi to more closely resemble Obama's logo for his run for the presidency. They are also running a campaign call "refresh America" with Obama in mind to "refresh America". They have even named a brand of spring water for Obama!
[...]
Barack Obama is a pathological narcissist and has a very weak sense of self.
Barack Obama compensates his devalued and injured self with pomposity and by projecting a false image of majesty and authority.
Barack Obama retreats into a bubble universe of fantasy, in which he is loved, respected and omnipotent.
All children create such a world. Narcissists like Barack Obama, simply don’t leave it.
Barack Obama has carried this world of pretense into his adulthood.
[...]
Barry O, Barry O! Who are you? What have you sacrificed? Barry O, Barry O! Who are you? What have you sacrificed?
NewsBusters Sneers At Inauguration Coverage Topic: NewsBusters
The folks at NewsBusters appear to have decided that all coverage of Barack Obama's inauguration constitutes liberal bias. That sentiment is summed up by Matthew Sheffield:
It's inauguration day which means the media Obama love-athon is going to be going on for hours today.
Thanks for succintly encapsulating the attitude of the Media Research Center, Mr. Sheffield.
Gainor Misleads on Inauguration Rights Topic: Media Research Center
In a Jan. 18 appearance on Fox News, the MRC Business & Media Institute's Dan Gainor complained that HBO paid $5 million for the rights to broadcast the inaugural concert at the Lincoln Memorial, calling it "pay for play." Gainor added: "If he's such a news-making rock star, and I think we all agree the media are treating him that way, well then, if he's a newsmaker, this is news, and that means shared video for a major event, not exclusive." A Jan. 19 NewsBusters post on Gainor's appearance by Matthew Philbin adds that HBO's rights deal "meant that only HBO subscribers and the 37 percent of cable customers that have digital cable could watch."
Both Gainor and Philbin appear to be wrong. As TPM has noted, HBO descrambled its channel during the presentation itself, so basic cable subscribers still got to see it. Further, the Presidential Inauguration Committee owns the rights to the concert; HBO merely owns the broadcast rights for six months.
