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Sunday, September 28, 2014
The Rehab Continues: Newsmax Publishes Dick Morris' New Book
Topic: Newsmax

Since his spectacular punditry flameout during the 2012 presidential election, Newsmax has been giving Dick Morris the space to rehabilitate his image. Now Newsmax has arrived at the next step in the rehab process: the book.

A Sept. 24 Newsmax article by Jim Meyers is in full promotion mode:

What is Obama's real end game?

Now, for the first time, noted political strategist Dick Morris reveals Obama's secret strategy in his powerful new book "Power Grab: Obama's Dangerous Plan for a One-Party Nation."

In "Power Grab," Morris warns that America is at a crossroads — we can choose the path of the Founding Fathers and keep a strong constitutional government that thrives on our bipartisan spirit, or opt for President Barack Obama’s dream: a nation ruled by one political party with a far-left agenda.

Morris writes that almost all of Obama's key initiatives and agenda items have one common theme: They seek to turn America into a banana republic ruled by one party, by putting the Republican Party out of business — effectively ending America's long bipartisan system of government.

That's the dire warning from best-selling author and political insider Dick Morris and his co-author, Eileen McGann, in their compelling new book that is gaining national attention.

The authors make a convincing case that Obama has an overarching strategy in pushing his liberal agenda — one that grabs power from our traditional and bipartisan institutions in favor of a single party: his Democratic Party.


Meyers left a lot of things out of his article -- for instance, Morris' horrible history political prognostication and the fact that McGann is not just Morris' co-author, she's his wife. The biggest omission, however, is the fact that his employer is publishing Morris' book.

The Amazon page for Morris' book indicates that it's being published by Humanix Books. As we've documented, Humanix is Newsmax's book division.

Newsmax also gave Morris a Sept. 27 column to promote his book, in which he declares it to be "my new bestseller." That claim is hubristic at best and delusional at worst -- the book had been released only four days before Morris' column appeared, and as of this writing Amazon ranked the book at No. 146, which doesn't exactly scream bestseller status as of this point.


Posted by Terry K. at 8:29 PM EDT
Saturday, September 27, 2014
Obama Derangement Syndrome Watch, Supersize WorldNetDaily Edition
Topic: WorldNetDaily

So the choice Obama faces is between the potential loss of Democratic control of the Senate or the loss of his last remaining shred of credibility. Poor thing!

All this president ever wanted was “hope and change.” He “hoped” that he could sit cross-legged around a solar-powered heat source, sing “Kumbaya” with world leaders and they would all be friends. Then, with the money saved from his defense budget, he could “change” our economy from one based on work and reward to one where the government provides every need. Life really is unfair!

-- Jane Chastain, Sept. 17 WorldNetDaily column

The dumbing down of America has been on the runaway fast-track for more than 50 years and counting, just in time to brainwash unsuspecting sheep into voting for an America-hating Muslim community organizer dedicated to the fundamental transformation of the greatest nation on earth into some “social justice” hellhole.

-- Ted Nugent, Sept. 17 WND column

Why didn’t the gay community march on Washington after the gay couple was assassinated in accordance with the Shariah?

And so more gay people will be tortured and murdered by jihadists. But San Francisco officials and the enemedia, and Barack Obama himself, can congratulate themselves that they weren’t “Islamophobic.”

-- Pamela Geller, Sept. 21 WND column

The White House is surrounded by security details. There are cameras everywhere. Agents are locked and loaded, determined to prevent any existential threats to the first family and others. The nation is on heightened awareness of potential terrorist threats.

Yet, Omar J. Gonzales, 42, of Copperas Cove, Texas, made it all the way to the White House entrance unscathed.

What does this tell you?

It should tell you no one in America is safe as long as Obama is on watch.

-- Joseph Farah, Sept. 23 WND column

Unfortunately, in this world of politically correct freakzoids, the inexplicable self-inflicted curse of denial has festered the big lie of so-called animal rights, and these dishonest zealots remain maniacal in their clamor to ban hunting, fishing and trapping.

These are basically the same lying scammers that allowed the Chicago community organizer to weasel his way to the presidency, nearly neuter America's defense system, increase the national debt like a crack whore in an opium mall, abandon security 101 in Benghazi and elsewhere, ignore a gunrunning attorney general, allow an IRS to operate like a third-world gang, unleash U.S. Fish & Wildlife agents to raid Gibson guitars and get away with it, cause America to lose all respect around the world with a foreign policy straight out of the Ann Arbor Hash Bash and cause myriad embarrassments by a government completely out of control.

-- Ted Nugent, Sept. 24 WND column

Possibly the surest sign that America is in decline is that the country twice elected Barack Hussein Obama to be its commander in chief. The chump hasn’t the know-how to be a crossing guard, but we gave him the same two terms we once gave George Washington and Ronald Reagan. As I said just prior to the 2012 election, I thought America could probably survive eight years of Obama, but I wasn’t so sure it could survive an electorate that would grant him a second term.

-- Burt Prelutsky, Sept. 25 WND column


Posted by Terry K. at 9:50 PM EDT
Friday, September 26, 2014
MRC Intern Denounces Opera She's Likely Never Seen
Topic: Media Research Center

Media Research Center intern Tianna DiMartino devotes a Sept. 22 item to ranting about Metropolitan Opera's upcomingh production of the John Adams opera "The Death of Klinghoffer," which she denounces as "disgusting, vulgar, and anti-Semitic." DiMartino sneers at the composer's defense of his opera:

Adams argued that he didn’t write The Death of Klinghoffer to be controversial or provocative and was “appalled at how hot some of the response was” to the opera. He felt he was trying to show the humanity in the civilians and Jewish family on board as well as the terrorists and wasn’t picking sides.

 “For all the brutality and moral wrong they,” the terrorists, “perpetrated in killing this man they’re still human beings and have to have had reasons for doing so,” Adams claimed. Seriously? What next? An opera about the 9/11 terrorist attacks and an effort to humanize those terrorists? A tacit justification of their motives?

DiMartino offers no evidence that she has ever seen the opera (or any opera, really) or examined its libretto beyond cherry-picking the most controversial segments out of context by regurgitating the claims of her fellow critics.

As such, DiMartino's attack on Adams botches the truth by ignoring the fact that he didn't write the libretto; Adams wrote music to Alice Goodman's libretto.

In fact, "The Death of Klinghoffer" is a much more emotionally complex production that DiMartino would have you think. Writer Robert Fink examined the issue of whether the opera was anti-Semitic in a 2005 monograph in the Cambridge Opera Journal. He states:

In summary: to call The Death of Klinghoffer anti-Semitic is to claim that it offends because it is an ideologically driven distortion of American Jewish identity, a caricature, ‘agit-prop’, as Rothstein would have it. But looking closely at the opera (and the controversial Rumor scene) in historical context, it becomes clear that theportrayal of American Jews was offensive and upsetting to New York Jewish audiences because it reflected perfectly their worst nightmares about their own conflicted identity as Jews back to them. Beset by Jewish-Gentile hyper-assimilation, the collapse of American–Israeli Jewish dialogue, and the incineration of Black–Jewish multicultural solidarity, American secular Judaism simply did not function anymore. With Klinghoffer, we are dealing not with an anti-Semitic caricature from outside, but a devastatingly accurate insider’s reflection of what Irving Howe sensed in 1989 as anunprecedented ‘deepening crisis in Jewish identity’. Two difficult years later, watching Klinghoffer laid the crisis bare for its New York audience; it was, evidently, akin to standing culturally naked in front of an unflattering music-dramatic mirror.

American Jews did not like what they saw.

Fink added: "This opera does not romanticise terror. It tries for something much more difficult, so difficult that its failure has been splattered for decades over the pages of the American press. The Death of Klinghoffer attempts to counterpoise toterror’s deadly glamour the life-affirming virtues of the ordinary, of the decent man, of small things."

Such examinations of the opera have been around for years -- the opera was first staged in 1991 -- bit DiMartino showed no interest in doing even the most cursory research about it, choosing instead to transcribe what critics were feeding her and adding her own uninformed outrage on top of it.

Apparently, that's all it takes to write for the MRC these days.


Posted by Terry K. at 7:46 PM EDT
Aaron Klein's Lying Benghazi Book Fail
Topic: WorldNetDaily

Aaron Klein's Benghazi book is tanking -- as of this writing it's ranked at No. 6,845 at Amazon, a dismal ranking for a current-events book that's been out for less than a month -- so he and his publisher, WorldNetDaily, have to do something to gin up sales. So it's desperately trying to pick a fight with Media Matters.

Klein has already challenged Media Matters founder David Brock to a debate, complaining that the group has been "lobbing falsehoods and smears in a clear attempt to discredit the messenger.” As we've noted, WND is falsely denying that Klein is a birther in order to salvage what little credibility he has.

Now, WND and Klein is trying to play gotcha in a Sept. 24 WND article:

In a blog post Wednesday titled “Conservative Media Attack Clinton Allies In Desperate Ploy To Smear Her Over Benghazi,” Media Matters claims Klein’s book “attempted to smear another Clinton ally: former CIA deputy director Michael Morell.”

Continued Media Matters: “Klein suggested that Morell was ‘given’ his new job at the consulting firm Beacon Global Strategies (co-founded by Philippe Reines, a Clinton adviser), ‘in exchange for his silence in the talking points scandal.’”

However, those quotes never appear in Klein’s book. Thy were entirely fabricated by Media Matters.

Klein’s book never states Morell was “given” his job, nor does the quote “in exchange for his silence in the talking points scandal” appear anywhere in the book.

The relevant section of the book states: “Morell served 33 years in the agency and was a frontrunner for CIA director; it is doubtful he resigned to become a family man. Morell later reemerged as a counselor to Beacon Global Strategies, a consult group particularly close to Hillary Clinton. The firm is led by Philippe I. Reines, who served from 2009 to 2013 as Clinton’s Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Strategic Communications and Senior Communications Advisor.”

In fact, the Klein quote is not fabricated. From page 177 of Klein's "The Real Benghazi Story":

Morell later reemerged as a counselor to Beacon Global Strategies, a consult group particularly close to Hillary Clinton. Was Morell given this job in exchange for his silence in the talking points scandal?

It comes from a list of "76 key questions for Benghazi investigators to answer," which WND published on Sept. 14 noting that "Klein included the list of questions in his just-released book."

Either Klein is an extremely dishonest reporter, or he doesn't know what's in his own book.


Posted by Terry K. at 1:24 PM EDT
Thursday, September 25, 2014
At The MRC, The Truth Is A Distraction
Topic: Media Research Center

Conservatives had a field day with a picture of President Obama saluting troops with a hand that also held a coffee cup. But when the media. But when some media outlets highlighted a photo of then-President George W. Bush saluting the troops while holding his dog, Kyle Drennen used a Sept. 24 Media Research Center item to cry foul:

Running defense for Barack Obama on Wednesday's NBC Today, co-host Matt Lauer touted "some of the President's defenders" pushing back against a video of the commander-in-chief sloppily saluting Marines while holding a coffee cup by "circulating this photo of George W. Bush during his presidency...saluting service members while holding his dog, Barney."

Lauer noted that despite Obama gaffe going viral on social media and "sarcastically being called the 'latte salute,'" it "didn't take long for that photo [of Bush] to come out as well."

The hosts of Today's 9 a.m. ET hour revisited the subject, with Tamron Hall declaring: "President George W. Bush saluted as well in a way that was seen as controversial. He was holding Barney, the dog, there." She observed: "So you have people who don't care for President Obama who say, 'This is so disrespectful!' The supporters of Obama then show the picture of Bush. And then it goes back and forth."

News anchor Natalie Morales chimed in to defend Obama: "He's got a lot – he's got ISIS to deal with, a lot on his mind. So, I – you know, there's a lot more – bigger concerns in the world and we're focusing on a cup of coffee."

Rather then just cover the incident as a gaffe for Obama, the NBC morning show sought to muddy the waters by seizing on a photo of Bush put out by liberal spin doctors and dismiss the whole thing as just another "back and forth" between political partisans. 

Funny, we don't recall anyone at the MRC getting their knickers in a bunch when Bush did the same thing Obama did. That's not a distraction or "running defense" -- it's reporting facts.

Drennen's just upset that the media reported the truth, thus proving Stephen Colbert's adage that reality has a liberal bias to be correct yet again.


Posted by Terry K. at 8:02 PM EDT
WND's Jesse Lee Peterson Has Issues With Women
Topic: WorldNetDaily

Jesse Lee Peterson has some issues with women.

In August, the WorldNetDaily columnist defended ESPN commentator Stephen A. Smith for claiming that women provoke men into abusing them, insisting that "There is cause and effect to everything."

Peterson followed up in his Sept. 21 WND column by attacking the panel of women the NFL hired to look at domestic violence issues in the league in the wake of the Ray Rice and Adrian Peterson incidents:

Under pressure by feminist groups, [NFL Commissioner Roger] Goodell appointed four liberal activist women to head up a “social responsibility” panel that will oversee the NFL’s “policy and procedures” on domestic violence, including Anna Isaacson, Lisa Friel, Janet Randel and Rita Smith. This is like the fox guarding the hen house!

Why is Roger Goodell getting advice from a radical feminist? Why are four liberal women given power over an all-male sport, and which is watched and supported mostly by men? And why are the men going along with this?

[...]

Liberals are trying to tie the discipline of spanking to domestic violence.

Charles Barkley rightly noted, “Every black parent in the South is going to be in jail under those circumstances.”

I’m not defending what Adrian Peterson did, but notice how liberals distort situations. If a child is spanked with a thin switch, liberals claim that the parent used a “branch.”

Peterson doesn't mention that the "thin switch" Adrian Peterson used on his son left numerous cuts on the boy's body. Apparently that's OK with Jesse Lee Peterson because it wasn't a "branch."

But Jesse Lee isn't done ranting:

The real problem in our society is violence – man versus woman and woman versus man – born of unresolved anger, which must be rejected. But instead, anger is being used as a blunt instrument by feminists to beat down the NFL.

We on the side of truth must not be seduced by the emotional side of the lie because that’s how the left wins. If we go along with their definitions, it will make criminals out of decent men and women.

Men comprise the major block of NFL fans, but they don’t realize their God-given power. It’s time for men to use their power, and put an end to the feminists’ charade.

It's difficult for Peterson to suggest he's opposed to domestic violence when he's suggesting that Rice and Adrian Peterson are "decent men" and telling men to "realize their God-given power" to save football from "feminists."


Posted by Terry K. at 10:47 AM EDT
Wednesday, September 24, 2014
MRC's Double Standard on 'The Civil Discourse'
Topic: Media Research Center

Sometimes the double standards employed by the Media Research Center are breathtaking in their blatantness.

The latest column from Brent Bozell and Tim Graham is a screed against "The Daily Show," declaring that "time for 'The Daily Show' to be canceled" because "as is so typical of liberals who preach one thing while doing its opposite (Leonardo DiCaprio, call your office), Comedy Central has never felt any responsibility to 'the public discourse.'"

Yeah, like the MRC ever has. Remember when Rush Limbaugh denigrated Sandra Fluke as a slut for daring to talk in public about birth control? Bozell's MRC subordinates were totally down with that, while Bozell himself could muster no criticism of Limbaugh stronger than "Let’s all agree Limbaugh crossed a line," then launched an "I Stand With Rush" website.

On the same day that Bozell and Graham demand the cancellation of "The Daily Show" for offenses to the public discourse, they attack those who call out Limbaugh's offenses to the public discourse.

In a Sept. 24 NewsBusters post, Graham regurgitates Limbaugh's bitter attack on a campaign to dissuade businesses from advertising on Limbaugh's show because of his offenses to the public discourse, regurgitating unsubstantiated claims that the campaign is nothing but "leftist ... agitators trying to ruin his program among advertisers." Graham whines: "Ever since the national Limbaugh show began in 1989, the Left has been eager to 'Flush Rush' and get his show cancelled. Liberals don't really believe in free speech or a vigorous battle of ideas."

Bozell, meanwhile, proves he's even more of a blowhard than Graham, declaring the campaign to be "a blatant left-wing attack on the First Amendment" from "a small handful of hacks trying to intimidate small business owners who advertise on conservative radio." Bozell went on to rant:

The ultra-left's hatred of conservative media and conservative voices is so extreme that they're willing to put mom and pop shops across America out of business to silence them. Hate is the only word to describe what they're doing.

Like Lois Lerner at the IRS, I'm sure Media Matters and Daily Kos believe that the pain and misery they're inflicting on innocent Americans with their war on free speech is justified, but intimidating small business owners with threats and lies is indefensible.

Let's get this straight: Bozell and Graham -- who are nothing if not small-time hacks -- demand the cancellation of "The Daily Show" for offending their conservative sensibilities, then turn around and rant against a group of liberals seeking to cancel the radio show of their right-wing buddy. (Remember, the MRC gave Limbaugh its inaugural "William F. Buckley, Jr. Award for Media Excellence" in 2007.)

Bozell and Graham have demonstrated that they're the ones who don't believe in free speech. Apparently, Bozell and Graham's concerns about preserving "the civil discourse" apply only to liberals -- right-wingers like Limbaugh have free rein to be as uncivil and disgusting as they want.

Like we said, the hypocrisy is breathtaking.


Posted by Terry K. at 6:34 PM EDT
Updated: Wednesday, September 24, 2014 6:45 PM EDT
WND's Mitchell Lies About Obama And ISIL
Topic: WorldNetDaily

You'd think that someone running for office would not want to be caught telling blatant lies. But that's not the way Molotov Mitchell, a candidate for North Carolina legislature, rolls.

In his Sept. 23 WorldNetDaily video, ol' Molotov lies right off the bat by repeatedly and falsely calling President Obama an "imam." Then, Mitchell invents a reason why Obama uses "ISIL" instead of"ISIS":

When Barack Obama uses the term ISIL, he's tipping his hat toward these terrorists. He's saying you're not just the lords of Iraq and Syria, no, you're the lords of Iraq and the Levant. Imam Hussein Obama is implying that Israel is part of their fight, that he's giving ISIS more territory than they actually have. Way more, in fact, and that's bad.

But here's the kicker. By using "Levant," Imam Hussein Obama doesn't even have to say Israel's name. It's almost as if Israel doesn't exist. Everybody knows Imam Hussein Obama is no friend of Israel, so it's no surprise that he uses the one term that undermines them as a nation.

Despite inventing an answer, Mitchell concludes by claiming the "million-dollar" question is why Obama uses ISIL. 

If ol' Molotov had bothered to do any research before making his video, he would have found that, as we've previously noted, use of "Levant" is a more accurate translation of the group's name, and ISIS aggravates numerous women named Isis.

If Mitchell can't do basic research before spouting off in one of his videos, how can he be trusted to act competently as the political officeholder he wants North Carolinians to vote him as?


Posted by Terry K. at 1:22 PM EDT
Tuesday, September 23, 2014
NEW ARTICLE: Bob Unruh's Anti-Gay Agenda
Topic: WorldNetDaily
As befits a WorldNetDaily reporter, Unruh believes only one side of LGBT-related stories should be reported -- the side of those who hate gays and transgenders. Read more >>

Posted by Terry K. at 7:25 PM EDT
MRC's Graham: Don't Talk About Non-Heterosexuals On Sunday
Topic: Media Research Center

The Media Research Center's Tim Graham has yet another transgender freakout in a Sept. 21 NewsBusters post:

The Washington Post has made it clear that Sunday is not the Lord’s Day. It’s the best day for LGBT preaching. In 2012, they splashed across the front page “TRANSGENDER AT FIVE.” In this Sunday edition, it’s an 18-year-old girl: “WHEN NO GENDER FITS.”

As usual, “the world” is having trouble sympathetically understanding girls who don’t want to be their “assigned” gender. Over a large color photograph of the girl in question tying her own necktie are the words “The world insists, in a host of way, that Kelsey Beckham choose: Male or female? But what feels most right to Kelsey is neither.”

The Post goes all out when it has lessons to teach: splashed across the front page, and then two whole pages inside, with eight color pictures taking up everything above the fold, with the words inside (in caps): “A QUEST TO BE JUST A PERSON.”

There is no space -- none -- for any dissent from the LGBT hard line.

First: We didn't realize it was forbidden to talk about things that didn't relate to heterosexuality on "the Lord's Day."

Second: there is no transgendering going on per se. It's about a biological teen girl who doesn't see herself as either gender. Sexuality is not even discussed in the Post article.

Thrid: It says something about Graham's hatred for non-heterosexuals that he sees someone who's on "a quest to be just a person" to be a "hard line" view. Apparently, he believes any article on a gay or transgender person should be "balanced" by someone like Scott Lively or the Westboro Baptist Church explaining how that person is a deviant and going to hell.

Again: We can't talk about non-heterosexuals on Sunday? Really, Tim?


Posted by Terry K. at 2:12 PM EDT
Monday, September 22, 2014
CNS-Mark Levin Lack of Disclosure Watch
Topic: CNSNews.com

It appears that CNSNews.com remains incapable of being honest with its readers about its relationship with Mark Levin, despite presenting itself as a "news" operation that purports to abide by journalistic standards including disclosure of conflicts of interest.

A Sept. 17 CNS item by Michael Morris plays stenograher to Levin's pearls of wisdom yet again,  detailing how Levin "addressed Eric Holder, Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, Justice Thurgood Marshall, 'leftists, liberals, and statists' about the issue of race." The next day, a "news" article by Susan Jones transcribed how Levin declared that "We're surrounded by knuckleheads, and the problem is, they're supposed to be protecting the country."

Neither item mentioned the fact that CNS, through its parent the Media Research Center, is in a business arrangement with Levin in which Levin promotes the MRC on his radio show and the MRC touts Levin's endorsement.

On top of that, CNS reporter Penny Starr goes all fangirl on Twitter: "Outstanding routine from Levin tonight on big government! You are awesome!"

CNS should just officially give up the pretense to objectivity and declare that it will fluff conservatives and refuse to treat liberals fairly. That's what Starr, Jones and the rest of the CNS crew are already doing.

Posted by Terry K. at 5:48 PM EDT
WND's Klayman: Nuke ISIS!
Topic: WorldNetDaily

Larry Klayman proves himself to be just as incompetent a military adviser as he is a lawyer with his advice on how to deal with ISIS in his Sept. 19 WorldNetDaily column. And because Klayman is a rabid Obama-hater, he includes his usual dose of Obama derangement:

Indeed, in taking on the Muslim caliphate, now being spearheaded by ISIS, we need to take a lesson from President Harry Truman in ending World War II. Showing real grit and leadership, Truman and his advisers correctly concluded that even if thousands of Japanese civilians had to be sacrificed in dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, this seemingly unthinkable strategy would save countless lives in the end. And, not just the lives of U.S. servicemen who were then fighting in the Pacific theater, but by bringing the war to a close quickly also countless Japanese lives as well.

Had “W” and Dick Cheney similarly authorized the use of tactical nuclear weapons on the Taliban in the days following Sept. 11, not only would Osama bin Laden had been killed many years earlier, but the United States could have wiped out this terrorist group completely and we would not be faced today with its resurgence. And, as importantly, we would have taught the Muslim enemy and our adversaries around the world – including but not limited to the Nazi-like Russian President Vladimir Putin and Islamic Iranian leaders – a strong lesson. Namely, attack the United States and its people, and we will wipe you out, period. Instead, Bush and Cheney decided to respond in kind, and we see the results today. Notwithstanding the Muslim president’s traitorous acts furthering the planned Islamic caliphate over the last six years, Bush and company sowed the seeds that Obama then exploited to further the insidious plans of his Middle Eastern Muslim brothers to again enslave Jews and now Christians to a world where Shariah law rules the school under the devilish hand of their god, Allah.

So the time has come to return to the strategy of President Truman and face reality. If we really want to destroy ISIS and set an example for other radical Muslims and the Putins of the world to fear us and leave us in peace, we must use the tools that can do this. Put simply, we should employ tactical nuclear weapons to wipe out the enemy. We cannot worry that Islamic civilians will be killed in the process. In the end this strategy, as was true of the Japanese in World War II, saves not just American but Muslim lives as well.

But of course, Hussein Obama will never authorize this strong action. In the last six years since he took over as our so-called commander in chief, he has ordered our brave servicemen not to fire on Muslims unless they were essentially fired upon first. The result: More men and women in our armed forces have died and been maimed, percentage wise, during the Afghanistan war than in all other American wars.

And, all of this points out that We the People not only have a Muslim enemy in the Middle East to defeat, but also a Muslim sympathizer in the White House that is bent on destroying our Judeo-Christian heritage and way of life.


Posted by Terry K. at 1:08 PM EDT
Sunday, September 21, 2014
MRC's Graham Misleads to Obscure Existence of Conservative Media Bias
Topic: Media Research Center

As we've previously detailed, the Media Research Center's Tim Graham likes to pretend that conservative media bias doesn't exist. He engages in another game of pretend in a Sept. 17 NewsBusters post.

Graham uses the post not to complain that the new owner of a Washington, D.C., TV station is pushing slanted news coverage but, rather, to complain that it was pointed out:

The Washington Post demonstrated a sudden interest in the political bias of local TV news on Wednesday. WJLA-TV, the ABC station in D.C., was purchased by Sinclair Broadcasting, which is now airing its conservative commentator Mark Hyman in Washington. They warned in a headline, "Under new owner, WJLA airs more conservative content."

Media reporter Paul Farhi  organized a parade of horrified liberals – except he didn’t identify any of them as liberals. In large type on the front page of the Style section was Charles Lewis of the leftist Center for Public Integrity: “They are stuck with an idiosyncratic owner with its own political views and agenda. It’s a nightmarish scenario for journalists.”

It’s “nightmarish” if you’re a dyed-in-the-wool liberal. But this critique is bizarre. The Center for Public Integrity has left-wing sugar daddies like George Soros and Pierre Omidyar with their own political agendas.

If the Center for Public Integrity is so "left-wing," how does Graham account for the fact that John Solomon served as its director between stints as editor of the right-wing Washington Times? Or that CPI originally funded reporting attacking Al Gore during the 2000 presidential election (for which the work's ultimate publisher, WorldNetDaily, had to apologize for the numerous false claims the work contained)?

Graham also complains:

Farhi’s assertion that WJLA has long been “nonpartisan” flies in the face of the 2010 firing of reporter Doug McKelway for “insubordination” after he reported on a Greenpeace protest calling the group “far left” and noting President Obama received a lot of Big Oil donations.

In fact, McKelway's reporting on Obama's purported "Big Oil donations" was false. As Media Matters noted, McKelway falsely claimed that Obama "accepted $77,051 in campaign contributions from BP" when, in fact, all but $1,000 of that money was from BP employees, not BP itself. And the report itself was not the "insubordination" for which McKelway was fired, as Graham claims; it was a "shouting match" with his boss over the factually flawed segment that prompted the firing.

And where is McKelway working now? Fox News, where he has racked up many more examples of his brand of biased news.

All of Graham's dishonest fulminations are designed to distract from the fact that he refuses to admit that conservative media bias exists.


Posted by Terry K. at 8:47 PM EDT
Saturday, September 20, 2014
MRC Plucks Quotes From Roosevelt Documentary Out of Context
Topic: Media Research Center

A Sept. 20 NewsBusters post by Jeffrey Lord is devoted to whining that Rush Limbaugh was taken out of context when he lamented that guys can no longer wheedle sex with women by claiming "that 'no' means 'yes' if you know how to spot it." Lord asserts that "Rush has millions of listeners who, yes, actually listen to what he says, understood his context."

As usual at the Media Research Center, however, it's still perfectly fine to take non-conservatives out of context.

In a Sept. 16 MRC item, Kyle Drennen attacks the new PBS documentary on the Roosevelts:

During the first installment of PBS's The Roosevelts: An Intimate History on Sunday, historian Clay Jenkinson and former Newsweek editor turned historian Evan Thomas slammed Theodore Roosevelt as a bloodthirsty "imperialist" who promoted the "glorification of war" and built up a "cult" of personality. [Listen to the audio]

Speaking on Roosevelt's command of the Rough Riders during the Spanish-American War, Jenkinson proclaimed: "There's no question that Roosevelt is an imperialist. Apologists like to try to play this down. But the fact is he's probably the most significant imperialist in American history." Jenkinson seemed troubled by Roosevelt's call for the United States to "take our place in the world's arena."

Minutes later, Jenkinson launched a more pointed attack against the nation's 26th president: "This is really important. There is a blood lust in Theodore Roosevelt. He was a killer. You can't – you can't sanitize that."

Thomas added to denunciation, declaring: "Teddy Roosevelt, although he's a wonderful figure and a glamorous figure, is a dangerous figure in some ways. This glorification of war can't be a good thing in the long run....And it was an illusion that this country from time to time succumbs to."

[...]

The Ken Burns documentary even brought on conservative columnist George Will to scold Roosevelt's belligerency: "Theodore Roosevelt, we should say this bluntly, liked war....And it gave him an unpleasant dimension, which, after a century of war, which the 20th century became, should cause us to look back on Theodore Roosevelt with dry eyes."

But if you look at the transcript Drennen supplies and the accompanying text, it's obvious that Drennen has pulled all of these quotes out of context and fails to fully report what the documentary was saying.

As the full video of the Roosevelt documentary shows, the segment from which Drennen cherry-picks these statements is about Teddy Roosevelt's adventures in the Spanish-American War. The segment starts at 1:20:12; the Jenkinson clip is prefaced with a quote from Roosevelt about "the supreme triumph of war" trumps the triumph of peace and how "it is through strife, or the readiness for strife, that a nation must win greatness."

There's a 13-minute gap betwen the George Will quote and the second Jenkinson quote Drennen cites, during which it's recounted how Roosevelt was unusually eager to fight the Spanish in Cuba and how his reckless behavior  got many of his fellow Rough Riders wounded or killed.

Between the second Jenkinson quote and the first Evan Thomas quote is a short segment about how Roosevelt lobbied to receive a Medal of Honor for his work in Cuba although he was ineligible for one because he was a volunteer. Between the two Thomas quotes is a segment on how Roosevelt's later political career could be traced to his self-proclaimed heroism.

Curiously, for all of his plucking out of context, Drenne never contradicts anything in the documentary. Instead, he whines about Obama for some reason:

It should be noted that Theodore Roosevelt never brought the United States to a war as president and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for negotiating the end of the Russo-Japanese War in 1905. Unlike Obama, Roosevelt actually earned his peace prize.  

Drennen doesn't mention the fact that the part of the seven-part documentary from which he cherry-picked covered Roosevelt's life before coming president. Part 2 of the documentary, which covers Roosevelt's presidency, does cover Roosevelt's Nobel Peace Prize.


Posted by Terry K. at 9:59 PM EDT
Friday, September 19, 2014
MRC Hides Fox News' Biased Coverage of Benghazi Hearing
Topic: Media Research Center

Matthew Balan writes in a Sept. 17 Media Research Center item:

CNN and MSNBC viewers on Wednesday would have to switch channels if they wanted to watch the first hearing of the House Select Committee on Benghazi. CNN aired a 15-second news brief at the top of the 10 am Eastern hour, mere minutes before the nearly three-hour meeting began, but didn't cover the proceedings live. MSNBC set aside 12 minutes worth of segments to the event, and sometimes showed split-screen video, but didn't provide the audio.

By contrast, Fox News Channel provided nearly 41 minutes (40 minutes, 51 seconds) of live coverage of the congressional committee's hearing during the 10 am and 11 am Eastern hours.

What Balan did report: Fox's coverage of the hearing was probably biased.

Media Matters monitored Fox's hearing coverage the previous day and found that the channel emphasized the question from Republican members of Congress while cutting away from questions by Democratic members. In all, Fox devoted twice as much time to Republican questions than to Democratic questions. This is something Fox frequently does, but Balan won't tell you that either.

Balan also won't mention Fox's freakish obsession with Benghazi -- nearly 1,100 segments on it since the incidence occurred in September 2012.

Why? Because Fox's agenda is the MRC's agenda. If Fox is obsessed with Benghazi, Balan must be as well.


Posted by Terry K. at 7:26 PM EDT

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