MRC's Graham Still Mad At the Smothers Brothers After 40 Years Topic: NewsBusters
Feel the bitterness in Tim Graham's Dec. 13 NewsBusters post:
George Clooney just can't get over the glory days when CBS was a powerful disseminator of left-wing propaganda. First, he fictionalized the glories of stone-faced anchorman Edward R. Murrow fighting the red-baiters. Next up is glorifying the Smothers Brothers and their CBS comedy hour and how they "spoke truth to power" with communist musicians like Pete Seeger singing "Waist Deep in the Big Muddy" against the Vietnam War.
Unlike Graham, we have actually read the David Bianculli book upon which Clooney will base his movie.The Smothers Brothers were actually pioneering the use of political satire on network TV (and, this being the late 1960s, network TV was pretty much all the TV there was). And CBS, far from being "a powerful disseminator of left-wing propaganda," did everything it could to water down or scuttle the show's political statements and ultimately canceled the show because of it.
Amazing that Graham is actually paid to spew such ignorant hatred, but there you go. This stuff happened 40 years ago, Tim! It's time to move on!
CNS Screws Up Pelosi's Reference To 'Macroeconomic Advisers' Topic: CNSNews.com
A Dec. 15 CNSNews.com article by Edwin Mora went after Nancy Pelosi for saying that an extension of unemployment insurance "is not only good for individuals. It has a macroeconomic impact. As macroeconomic advisers have stated, it would make a difference of 600,000 jobs to our economy." Mora added, "Pelosi did not name those 'macroeconomic advisers.'"
In fact, as Media Matters detailed, Pelosi was not speaking generically. Macroeconomic Advisers is the name of an independent consulting firm whose research states exactly what Pelosi said.
CNS has done this sort of thing before. Last year, it repeatedly misinterpreted then-Obama administration nominee Erroll Southers' reference to the far-right Christian Identity movement, falsely claiming that Southers thought groups having a "Christian identity" were security threats.
MRC Condones Sexist Behavior As Long As It's Not Worse Than What Muslims Do Topic: Media Research Center
In the midst of a Dec. 14 TimesWatch tirade criticizing New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman for committing the offense of saying something less than laudatory about Israel, the Media Research Center's Clay Waters takes things in a weird direction.
After quoting Friedman pointing out that ultra-Orthodox Jews in Israel have persuaded local bus companies to create segregated buses in which "women are required to enter through the bus back doors and sit in the back of the bus, as well as 'dress modestly,'"Waters retorts: "As if much harsher kinds of repression of women aren’t an everyday occurrence in other Middle Eastern countries."
Really? That's Waters' standard? Such blatant discrimination is OK since it supposedly is not worse than what "other Middle Eastern countries" -- read: Muslims -- do?
A more sane response would be to criticize discrimination in all its forms, no matter who is perpetrating it. But MRC employees are not exactly known for their sanity, are they?
AIM Article at Breitbart Site Featured Nazi-Era Anti-Semitic Image Topic: Accuracy in Media
A Dec. 14 Accuracy in Media article by Logan Churchwell opined on the supposed "increased risk of bias" in the Associated Press' new drive for "distinctiveness." But when the article was reposted at Andrew Breitbart's Big Journalism site, it received an extra feature: Nazi-era anti-Semitic propaganda.
As Media Matters details, the image is based on an anti-Semitic cartoon in a Nazi-era magazine (which explains why the big guy looks more than a little stereotypically Jewish). The image has since been deleted without explanation and replaced with another image.
It's unclear whose fault this is, but the image appears in at least two other Big Journalism posts, according to Media Matters.
UPDATE: Big Journalism is sort of taking responsibility for the image, claiming it was removed after Breitbart editor-in-chief Joel Pollak ("an Orthodox Jew with a degree in Jewish Studies, so he tends to pick up on these things") noticed it. But Media Matters first noted Big Journalism's use of the image back in March.
Should someone who holds the title of T. Boone Pickens Fellow really be spending his time complaining about that some other billionaire spends money to further his favorite causes?
Newsmax Just Can't Stop Fluffing Trump Topic: Newsmax
After Donald Trump burned Newsmax by abandoning their planned joint debate of Republican presidential candidates, why the heck would Newsmax continue to engage in Trump-fluffing?
We don't know, but that's what Newsmax has decided to do. A Dec. 15 article touts how "Donald Trump’s new book 'Time to Get Tough' is garnering praise from Rush Limbaugh, America's most-listened-to talk radio host.
The article is credited to "Newsmax Wires," but one has to wonder what self-respecting news wire would publish such something that is nothing more than a press release.
Then again, Newsmax's willingness to engage in more Trump-fluffing after Trump so publicly and humiliatingly dissed it doesn't exactly serve as a display of self-respect, does it?
Criticism of A Clinton Proves MRC Thesis Wrong (Not That MRC Will Admit It) Topic: Media Research Center
In a Dec. 13 NewsBusters post, Ken Shepherd highlights how the Washington Post panned Chelsea Clinton's debut as a TV correspondent on NBC. The reviewer "clearly didn't pull his punches in his December 13 review," Shepherd wrote, "hitting the former president and his long-suffering consort the Secretary of State."
Um, doesn't this harsh review discredit the entire raison d'etre of NewsBusters' parent organization, the Media Research Center, that "the media," and the Washington Post in particular, has an ingrained liberal bias? If the paper was truly biased, wouldn't it have not published the review in the first place?
Alas, Shepherd doesn't seem interested in answering that question -- he's too excited by the Clinton-bashing to care.
Right Wing Watch catches Brenda J. Elliott on Phyllis Schlafly's radio show promoting the book she co-wrote with WorldNetDaily's Aaron Klein, "Red Army," which according to WND documents how "a radical socialist movement has been quietly infiltrating the major institutions of American power: our schools, our military, our economy, our media, and Congress itself."
On the show, Elliott called President Obama a "useful idiot" who is nothing more than a tool for said socialist conspiracy. She continued: "Honestly, folks, it is a conspiracy. Two people is all it takes for a conspiracy and an intent to make something happen, that’s a conspiracy. The word conspiracy theory has been really distorted, it’s been made to sound like something loony, and it’s not loony, it’s not loony!"
MRC Complains About Accurate Statement by David Frum Topic: Media Research Center
In a Dec. 12 Media Research Center item, Matt Hadro complained: "Faux-Republican David Frum took a shot at Fox News viewers on Sunday when he told CNN's Howard Kurtz that 'people who watch a lot of Fox come away knowing a lot less about important world events.'"
Hadro didn't mention that there's evidence to back up Frum's claim. Last month, a Fairleigh Dickinson University poll found that Fox News led people to be even less informed than those who say they don’t watch any news at all.
Hadro also grumbled about Frum's assertion that through the conservative media, "conservatives have built a whole alternative knowledge system, with its own facts, its own history, its own laws of economics." Of course, the MRC has a horse in this game (unmentioned by Hadro) through its "news" operation, CNSNews.com, and its Obama-hating editor Terry Jeffrey.
Still, Hadro grumbled:
So Frum thinks that the conservative media are presently worse off in this regard than the liberal media, who are nevertheless catching up to them. Apparently, Frum has not seen MSNBC's "Lean Forward" promos which incessantly tout the network's liberal values of its prime-time lineup – including new host Al Sharpton laughably blaming Republicans for the down economy.
Meanwhile, the MRC has moved this year to promoting CNS' conservative bias, complete with banner ads right-wing radio hosts singing its praises:
Newsmax is trying to salvage its Republican presidential debate -- but it's not telling Newsmax readers about it.
When Donald Trump pulled out of serving as moderator for the planned Dec. 27 debate, Newsmax editorial director Steve Coz made only a non-committal statement about the future of the debate at Newsmax itself -- which, at this writing, is the most recent article containing the "Trump Debate" tag at Newsmax. He has, oddly, been more forthcoming with other news outlets about Newsmax's plans.
Coz told CBS News, "We're full steam ahead. ... We're obviously disappointed more candidates didn't come forward... [but] what everyone is ignoring is that we have the frontrunner."
Coz told the Huffington Post's Michael Calderone: "We, Newsmax and ION Television, are actively exploring having a forum for candidates on the 27th or at a later date. ... Obviously with Trump bowing out the situation has changed."
Why isn't Coz reporting any of this at his own website? Should Newsmax be the go-to site for news about Newsmax's debate?
Then again, Coz used to be editor of the National Enquirer, so maybe he's a little unclear about how this "news" stuff actually works.
Obama, without question, voiced the most unambiguous endorsement and affirmation for communism ever made by an American president. It is yet another demonstrative proof that Obama embraces communism and that his primary goal is to turn America into a communist nation. Republicans (and quite frankly, Democrats, too) who are standing by silently allowing this Erebusic megalomaniac to spew his detestable and divisive rhetoric to the impressionable and malleable minds of children, are, in effect, openly supporting a terrorist attack on minds of America's children. It is enough that public-school teachers teach such messages; the children do not need said message reinforced by the president of the United States.
Words fail to express the contempt I have for Obama as the leader of our nation. He condemns the very thing that made America great - and specific to that point, America was great before there was an Obama. It should be a punishable offense to allow him to undermine that greatness.
America is in denial to believe that he is not a communist doing everything in his power to forcibly and insidiously transform the nation into a communist state. It is misinformation for the media, political pundits and writers of opinion to report his actions in any other way. He is a manifestation of evil that threatens America in a way the KKK and al-Qaida could but hope to.
[...]
There remains another question astute individuals will ask: "Why did Obama choose Osawatomie to deliver such a transpicously Marxist speech - considering that he and his ilk do nothing that isn't meticulously calculated?" The answer to that question is another question. Could it be because Osawatomie was the Weather Underground newspaper published by Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn in the 1970s, or did it have to do with the abolitionist John Brown whose nickname was Osawatomie - unless you believe it was all just a coincidence?
Then there is the eerie similarity between the Weather Underground organization logo and the Obama 2008 campaign logo. There is also their use of "audacity" to bring about "socialism" in America, in the original newspaper written by Ayers and Dohrn. While it is unknown for a certainty who wrote Obama's "The Audacity of Hope," Ayers, himself, referred to it as more of a "political hack book," suggesting that it was a disingenuous feint to the center written by committee. I reference it because language found in "Audacity of Hope" closely parallels that found in the Ayers-Dohrn communist newspaper.
CNS' Jeffrey Whiffs Again In Kagan Recusal Effort Topic: CNSNews.com
CNSNews.com editor in chief Terry Jeffrey is getting increasingly desperate in his efforts to get Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan to recuse from deciding the constitutionality of President Obama's health care reform plan.
Internal Justice Department email communications made just days before the House of Representatives passed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act show that then-Solicitor General Elena Kagan was brought into the loop as DOJ began preparing to respond to an anticipated legal complaint that Mark Levin and the Landmark Legal Foundation were planning to file against the act if the House used a procedural rule to “deem” the bill passed even if members never directly voted on it.
Levin's complaint involved a procedural maneuver used to pass the bill -- which the case before the Suprement Court will not address, given that the "deem and pass" procedure was never actually used -- and did not address the content of the legislation.
Strike one.
Jeffrey brought up another irrelevant issue in a Dec. 13 article, trying tomake a big deal about how Neal Kaytal, Kagan's deputy when she was solicitor general, the position she held before being appointed to the Supreme Court, "had written her a memo informing her that she had 'substantially participated' in Golden Gate Restaurant Association v. San Francisco—a case that Kagan’s own office tied to Obamacare." Jeffrey continued:
On May 28, 2010, 15 days after Katyal sent Kagan this memo informing her that she had “substantially participated” in the Golden Gate case--and a month before Kagan’s Supreme Court confirmation hearings started--Kagan’s office submitted a 26-page brief to the Supreme Court in the case. The brief cited PPACA by name 12 times and referred to it more generally as “the federal legislation” or “the new federal legislation” an additional 6 times.
Additionally, the brief cited the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act (HCERA), the reconciliation bill enacted with PPACA, 7 times.
Sounds serious -- except it's not. As Jeffrey eventually concedes, the brief Kagan's office issued in Golden Gate Restaurant Association case argued that it "should not be taken up by the Supreme Court at that time because the full federal regulatory framework in which that question could be properly answered could only be seen once all the new regulations needed under Obamacare had been written by the federal agencies responsible for them."
Again, Jeffrey provides no evidence that Kagan offered an opinion on the constitutionality of health care reform. Far from it -- the brief Jeffrey is citing argues that the case not be take up until federal law is settled as health care reform is implemented.
Strike two.
Jeffrey then condenses that article in his Dec. 14 column, complete with suggestion that Kagan's participation in this case means she lied to Congress when she said she hadn't ruled on legal issues regarding Obamacare. Again, advocating that the Golden Gate case be put on hold until federal issues are resolved is not an opinion about the legal merits of Obamacare.
NewsBusters Complains That Conservative Group Is Accurately Identified Topic: NewsBusters
Matthew Balan writes (and sporadically boldfaces) in a Dec. 12 NewsBusters post:
ABC, CBS, and NBC's morning shows on Monday all used news briefs to highlight how home improvement giant Lowe's is "facing a backlash" after it pulled its ads from TLC's "All-American Muslim" reality TV series. All three noted that the company reacted to a complaint from a "conservative" or "Christian" group who threatened a boycott. CBS's Early Show played up how Lowe's "critics call that bigotry."
NBC's Natalie Morales stated in her brief that the chain is "sparking outrage after its pulled its ads from a reality show about American Muslims. The retail giant bowed to pressure from an evangelical Christian group, which called for a boycott against the chain of home improvement stores." Morales added that a "California state senator, meanwhile, says he is considering a boycott and legislative action if the company does not reverse its decision."
Josh Elliott on ABC's Good Morning America used the "facing a backlash" line and continued that "Lowe's pulled the ads from TLC's 'All-American Muslim,' after a conservative Christian group complained that the show, which follows families from a Detroit suburb, is Islamic propaganda."
What's Balan's problem? We're not sure. The group that is leading the boycott against "All-American Muslim," the Florida Family Association, is a conservative evangelical Christian group. That's entirely accurate. There's nothing ambiguous about the group's agenda.
The closest Balan gets to an actual, substantive complaint is lamenting, "By contrast, when the Big Three networks first covered the Occupy Wall Street protests during the first 11 days of October 2011, only once did one of their reporters label them 'liberal.'" Which, of course, has nothing whatsoever to do with this story.
NEW ARTICLE: Anatomy Of A Cain-Gasm Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily helped promote the presidential campaign of Joseph Farah's friend, Herman Cain. But when allegations of sexual improprieties kept popping up, Farah didn't want to talk about it. Read more >>
Even More Trump-Fluffing Doesn't Keep Trump from Quitting Newsmax Debate Topic: Newsmax
Perhaps Newsmax should have seen this coming.
Newsmax began the day the way it has the pastfewdays -- by refusing to tell its readers about Donald Trump's qualms about the GOP presidential debate he was planning to host with Newsmax given that only two candidates indicated any interest in taking part.
Indeed, things kicked with yet another bit of Trump-fluffing: an article by Margaret Menge and John Bachman on an "exclusive interview" with Trump at yet another signing appearance for his new book -- the second such article Newsmax has done in the past three days.
A couple hours after that fawning article was posted, however, Trump announced he was withdrawing as debate moderator.
Newsmax's article on Trump's withdrawal features an open-ended comment from Newsmax editorial director Steve Coz:
“We are very disappointed as we believe Mr. Trump would have made a tough and fair moderator. However, we respect his view that the role may have presented a conflict of interest in light of the fact that he now wishes to keep his options open to run for the presidency himself.
“We join Mr. Trump in thanking candidates Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum for their commitment to the debate.”
Of course, Trump had said last Friday that he wanted to keep open the option of running for president -- Newsmax just hadn't bothered to mention that to its readers until now.
Coz was careful not to say whether the debate would go foward without Trump as figurehead, though Trump himself was less reticient about speculating. Trump said on Fox News that he didn't think it would go forward without him, adding, "They really wanted me to do it."
This would be the second time this year that Newsmax has gotten burned by Trump. Ronald Kessler's relentless puffery of Trump's presidential ambitions culminated in a series of rewritten articles trying to nail down whether Trump would actually announce his candidacy. And even when it became clear that he wouldn't, Kessler still carried a flame for him.
Newsmax, theoretically, had fair warning of Trump's mercurial nature. Yet it still decided to work even closer with him to set up this ill-fated debate.
Yeah, Newsmax should have seen it coming. Now it has to deal with the fact that its attempts at trying to enhance its prestige has been undermined by spending too much time hanging around Donald Trump.
