In a Feb. 20 NewsBusters post, Hadro complains that Ricky Gervavis said in a CNN appearance that it's "child abuse" for "religious fundamentalists" to tell "their five-year-old children that if they turn out gay, they will burn in hell." Hadro doesn't explain why Gervais' statement is so offensive to him, but it obviously is or he wouldn't have highlighted it.
Having to work out outrage every time somebody says nice things about gays in the media must be a difficult job.
NEW ARTICLE: WorldNetDaily's Birther Bribery Topic: WorldNetDaily
WND's Jerome Corsi instigated Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio's "cold case posse" investigation of birther claims. Are Corsi and WND also trying to buy a favorable result by writing fawning articles about Arpaio and even erasing him from a story about a lawsuit against his department? Read more >>
Sheppard went on another dumb freakout in a Feb. 18 post, bizarrely upset that singer Roberta Flack wanted to "Obama bump" CNN hosts Soledad O'Brien and Piers Morgan. Sheppard huffed: "As if the President and the First Lady originated this practice."
Let me get this straight: R&B legend Roberta Flack is wrapping up a segment of remembrances at Whitney Houston’s funeral, offers Soledad O’Brien a pound, rather than a handshake, and Ms. O’Brien is supposed to do what? Spit on Roberta Flack because she called it an Obama Bump? Perhaps launch into negotiations? “I will gladly accept your departing gesture, provided you re-moniker it in a less partisan fashion.”
[...]
Posting a flimsy blog item isn’t, itself, a high crime, but allowing partisan bitterness to intrude needlessly into a solemn occasion is shameful. Newsbusters should have given it a rest today.
As Mediaite also points out, the reason the fist-bump became associated with Obama in the first place is because of the MRC's favorite channel, Fox News, which accused Obama of engaging in a "terrorist fist jab."
A couple days later, Sheppard had a new post in which he recounts O'Brien's response to his silly post, and he gets huffy again:
@PoliticalPAW followed, "Granting you the ignorance plea, if heard, would you then have declined the 'Obama bump' offer?"
O'Brien replied, "i would have said: the fist bump is bipartisan. Which it is!"
Yes it is, but not when someone decides to name it after a president.
Did O'Brien truly not hear Flack say "Obama bump?"
I guess we'll have to take her word for it, but this goes to the gotcha game that media members like O'Brien play all the time, especially with Republicans.
If one of the GOP candidates made a similar error on live television due to not hearing what someone actually said, would they be able to so easily brush it off?
Consider that at the same time O'Brien was making her little gaffe which she now claims was an auditory mistake, media members were cherry-picking a 41 minute speech Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum gave earlier that morning in order to dishonestly accuse him of impugning Barack Obama's religious faith.
Santorum spent much of his Sunday trying to get numerous press members to better understand the full context of what he said but hasn't been able to change many minds for this false narrative continued Monday.
So why are America's media allowed to say I'm sorry, I mis-heard my guest, but the politicians they cover - I mean the Republican politicians they cover! - are held to the impossible standard of not being able to get their words accurately reported even when videotape supports their position?
Maybe that's something O'Brien should consider the next time she plays gotcha with one of her conservative guests.
So fist-bumps are no longer bipartisan because some entertainer -- not a news person -- related it to a politician? And Sheppard finds a way to steer this non-controversy to the tired MRC hobby horse of liberal bias?
This is the kind of "media analysis" that makes people not take NewsBusters seriously. Fortunately for our entertainment value, NewsBusters appears not to have realized this yet.
Oh, and Sheppard completely failed to mention Mediaite's deconstruction of his petty little attack.
WorldNetDaily has picked another winner as someone whose views are worth defending.
SeveralWNDarticleshavenoted that one of the plaintiffs in the Georgia birther case -- you know, the one that the birthers lost even though Obama's attorney didn't even mount a defense -- is a man named Cody Judy who, as WND's boilerplate reporting states, "is raising a challenge because he also wants to be on the ballot" as a presidential candidate.
Back in 1993 Judy charged onto the stage in front of 15,000 Mormons gathered to hear Mormon President Howard W. Hunter. He threatened Hunter with a “detonator” and suitcase that he said contained a bomb, demanding that Hunter read a document describing how God planned for Judy to lead the church. Hunter refused and Judy was subdued. He served 8 years in jail.
"The Daily Show" did a segment on Judy back in 2002, when he was running for Congress, in which he says he was actually saying he had a BOM -- the Book of Mormon.
NewsBusters Gets Hypocritical Over Context Again Topic: NewsBusters
Noel Sheppard uses a Feb. 20 NewsBusters post to complain that "America's media collectively cherry-picked from a 41 minute speech to completely misrepresent what [Rick] Santorum actually said" when he attacked President Obama's "phony theology."
But NewsBusters' outrage over out-of-context statements is highly selective. As we'vedocumented, it happily pulls Obama's words out of context and criticizes anyone who points out the cherry-picking.
Yikes: We Have Buchanan to Blame for WND Topic: WorldNetDaily
Kevin DeAnna's Feb. 18 WorldNetDaily article is a fluffy treatment of Pat Buchanan following his ouster as a commentator for the "liberal cable news network" MSNBC. DeAnna, however, makes no mention of the borderline racist, anti-Semitic and homophobic views that ultimately led MSNBC to get rid of Buchanan.
DeAnna also makes one other disturbing yet unsurprising revelation:
Pat Buchanan was also delighted to learn that the founders of WND, Joseph and Elizabeth Farah, actually met at a Buchanan conference. WND itself is one of the legacies of the Buchanan Brigades.
WND publishes Buchanan's column, and its online store sells Buchanan's latest book.
NewsBusters' Sheppard Touts Dubious Dick Morris Claim Topic: NewsBusters
The Media Research Center just loves it when someone accuses a member of the media of acting on White House orders.
In a Feb. 13 NewsBusters post, Noel Sheppard touted Dick Morris' claim that ABC’s George Stephanopoulos is a "paid Democratic hitman" who is on the ABC payroll specifically for "making points for the Democratic Party," as evidenced by asking Mitt Romney "all those contraception questions" during a debate.
Sheppard followed up in a Feb. 16 post, regurgitating Morris' claim that the tactics Stephanopoulos allegedly used against Romney were "similar to how the Clinton White House got the media to do its bidding against its opponents." Sheppard wrote, "Was this orchestrated as Morris said by the White House in order to develop a narrative prior to the release of this edict, or were all these questions about a largely irrelevant issue in the campaign up to that point mere coincidence?"
Sheppard doesn't mention that Morris offers no evidence whatsoever to back up his claim. And he completely ignores that a prominent conservative Fox News employee has mocked Morris' claim.
On his Twitter account, Fox News' Brit Hume -- whom the MRC has awarded its William F. Buckley Jr. Award for Media Excellence -- pointed out that Morris "couldn't substantiate" his claim. In another tweet, Hume said of Morris: "often wrong, never in doubt."
If one of the MRC's favorite conservatives is mocking Morris' claim, why is Sheppard rushing to portray Morris as correct?
Alan Caruba Still Peddling Global Warming Denialism Topic: Accuracy in Media
Climate denier Alan Caruba has a lengthy history of misleading about global warming. He keeps it up in a couple recent columns posted at Accuracy in Media.
In a Feb. 14 column, Caruba blames "the global warming hoax" for an alleged insufficiency of electricity in Europe as it deals with unusually cold temperatures because, he claims, countries have been "spending billions for wind power when they should have been building coal-fired and other sources of energy to heat their homes and businesses." Caruba goes on to note how "Serbia has started implementing power cuts in a desperate bid to stave off the collapse of its national grid as the country suffers the effects of days of freezing temperatures."
In fact, the UK Telegraph article from which Caruba pulled the Serbia story makes no mention of "wind power" -- in fact, it states that "Temperatures as low as -30C have sent demand soaring but also interrupted coal production, restricting supplies to Serbia's coal-fired power stations."
Indeed, nowhere in Caruba's article does he provide any evidence that power sources that aren't coal- or oil-based have any responsibility whatsoever for deaths from extreme cold.
In a Feb. 16 column, Caruba ranted about the release of documents from the conservative Heartland Institute, revealing its strategies to promote global warming denialism:
This week, a major smear campaign against the Institute erupted as the result of an act of deception and thievery that may well result in criminal charges against its as yet unknown perpetrator.
The President of the Institute, Joe Bast, immediately informed its supporters, directors, donors and friends that someone pretending to be a board member had sent Heartland an email claiming to be a director and asking that documents regarding a January board meeting be re-sent.
A clever ruse, but the result was that elements of the confidential documents were then posted on a number of so-called climate blogs and from there to various members of the media who, with the exception of The Guardian, took no steps whatever to verify the authenticity of the documents, some of which Heartland says were either a concoction of lies or altered to convey inaccurate information.
By contrast, Caruba describes the release of stolen emails from climate researchers connected to East Anglia University as nothing but a "leak." Caruba obviously had no moral qualms over that deception and thievery -- after all, those documents "revealed the extent of their efforts to spread the hoax and to suppress any expression of doubt regarding it." (Except that they didn't.) To our knowledge, Caruba has never demanded that "criminal charges" be filed against the "as yet unknown perpetrator" who stole the East Anglia emails.
Further, the Heartland Institute itself effectively confirmed the authenticity of the documents by complaining that they were "stolen." Caruba offers no evidence that he or anyone else attempted to verify the authenticity of the stolen East Anglia emails before writing about them.
Double standard? Obviously. But Caruba has not exactly been known for his honesty in his denier activism.
Bozell Criticizes JFK's Affairs, Stay Mum on Gingrich's Topic: Media Research Center
Brent Bozell unloads on John Kennedy's infidelities in his Feb. 15 column:
The problem is that any honest historian couldn't claim that Jackie was JFK's sweetheart. He had lots of 'em. And now CBS has utterly ignored what NBC just exploited — er, reported — in prime time: Former White House intern Mimi Alford has written a memoir revealing how President Kennedy pressured her into Jackie's bed in 1962 to take her virginity. This affair began when she was 19 and four days into her internship. It would last until the eve of Kennedy's assassination.
It's shocking enough to read about Kennedy cornering this young girl, plying her with daiquiris and bedding her. But there's more: Alford says that the president told her to perform oral sex on his aide Dave Powers by the swimming pool, and she complied. It's perhaps most shocking that NBCs "Rock Center" put this woman on the air in prime time.
This is a tawdry interruption. The narrative must continue. At all costs, the Camelot mythology must stay alive.
[...]
As we know from our liberal media, sleazy White House affairs with interns are never meant to make the president look sleazy. These rotten-to-the-core husbands are lauded for their heroism and their "magnetism" and "electricity" for all posterity. Instead, we demean their coquettish "conquests" for daring to write about it from their viewpoint.
But Bozell can't quite bring himself to issue the same criticism of Newt Gingrich's extramarital affairs. In fact, as we documented, Bozell decreed that Gingrich's affairs shouldn't be covered at all, and he tried to denigrate ex-wife No. 2 for talking about the affair by suggesting that she wasn't telling the truth.
Apparently, as far as Bozell is concerned, conservatives don't have sleazy affairs -- only Democrats do. We can just add this to the long list of MRC double standards.
CNS AP Headline Alteration Watch Topic: CNSNews.com
When real news organizations published the Associated Press article on Amine El Khalifi for plotting to detonate a suicide vest in the U.S. Capitol, they used headlines like "Terror suspect arrested near Capitol in FBI sting."
We're pretty sure the AP did not use the phrase "Illegal Alien Moroccan" in the headline it sent out. Just call this yet another instance of CNS adding right-wing bias to the headlines of AP articles, something that may very well violate AP guidelines.
Ellis Washington Just Can't Stop Likening Obama to Hitler (While Pretending He's Not) Topic: WorldNetDaily
For the thirdtime in eight months, WorldNetDaily's Ellis Washington feels the need to liken President Obama to Hitler, and for the second time he's denying he's actually doing so as he does it. Frim Washington's Feb. 17 WND column:
President Obama’s fascist tactics reminds me of an earlier, radical age 80 years ago and the rise of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party in Germany. No, I’m not saying Obama is Hitler; however, writer Eric Metaxas, a biographer of Christian martyr Dietrich Bonhoeffer, in chapter 12 of his revelatory new book on Bonhoeffer, wrote these prophetic words describing the demonic and consensus Zeitgeist that dominated Germany in the early 1930s[.]
If you have to explain that you're not likening Obama to Hitler, you're likening Obama to Hitler.
As we've documented, Washington loves to go Godwin on Obama.
Noel Sheppard's School of Headline Cliches Is Back in Session Topic: NewsBusters
NewsBusters' Noel Sheppard is still up to his headline cliche tricks. Here are Sheppard's overuse of his two favorite cliche -- "schools" and "smacks down" -- since the beginning of the year:
CNS' Starr Has Another Smithsonian Freakout (And Gets A Key Fact Wrong) Topic: CNSNews.com
Does Penny Starr spend all of her waking hours wandering around Smithsonian museums looking for something to offend her? It seems so.
The highly biased CNSNews.com reporter has a long history of manufacturing outrage over Smithsonian exhibits, most notoriously freaking out over a gay-themed art exhibit at one museum. Now she's at it again.
In a Feb. 14 CNS article, Starr is a couple hundred years late to the story of Thomas Jefferson's edited version of the Bible, the subject of a new Smithsonian exhibit. She complains that Jefferson's Bible omits Jesus' resurrection, suggesting that the Smithsonian is calling Jefferson a "genius" for editing the Bible.
But Starr can't get her facts straight. She writes:
In an exhibition that runs through May at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, Founding Father and U.S. President Thomas Jefferson is described as a “genius” and “revolutionary” who created his own Bible by cutting and pasting the verses he preferred into a separate compilation.
[...]
The Web site states Jefferson’s “New Testament” is “an extension of his revolutionary spirit” and that, “In religion as in politics, he imagined liberating contemporary minds from inherited misconceptions and superstitions.”
In fact, the video applies that description to Jefferson's home, not his Bible. The video's very first words are "Monticello -- a brick and mortar glimpse into the mind of a genius." The Jefferson Bible itself is not mentioned until nearly two minutes into the video.
Given that Starr's central grievance has no factual basis, all she's left with is complaining that a revered figure in American history interpreted the Christian faith differently than she does. Is that really something to make a "news" article out of?
WND Discovers Shocking Evidence That Candidates Try To Appeal to Various Groups of People Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily has made the completely unsurprising discovery that Barack Obama's re-election campaign -- like any person running for office -- wants to appeal to as many different types of voters as possible.
But because WND has a hatred of Obama that goes well beyond the irrational to well nigh psychotic, it has to twist that into something sinister. Which brings us to Bob Unruh's Feb. 17 article:
Barack Obama repeatedly has said he wants to have Americans work together, share the burden, “spread the wealth” and have everyone play by the same rules.
But that apparently comes only after Americans are divided up, categorized and separated by race, ethnicity, even religion.
The evidence comes from Obama himself, even though he once said, ” I have asserted a firm conviction – a conviction rooted in my faith in God and my faith in the American people – that working together we can move beyond some of our old racial wounds, and that in fact we have no choice if we are to continue on the path of a more perfect union.”
But his campaign divides people into the following categories: African-Americans, Asian Americans & Pacific Islanders, Jewish Americans, Latinos, LGBT Americans, people of faith, veterans & military families, women and young Americans.
Again: This is not news. But WND has decided to hatefully twist it into something that is. That's how much Unruh and WND despise Obama.
MRC's Bozell Unleashes Anti-Obama Tirade Topic: Media Research Center
Media Research Center chief Brent Bozell went on an anti-Obama tirade a few days ago on Mark Levin's radio show:
“There was no complaint here,” Bozell continued. “There was no outrage here. There was no problem that the Obama administration needed to fix. This is a desire on their part to destroy the Catholic Church. This has nothing to do with contraception.”
[...]
“[T]his is the radical pro-aborts,” Bozell said, adding that Obama is “as fanatical as they come where abortion is concerned.”
Can the head of a tax-exempt organization be allowed to engage in such partisan political activity?
