AIM Desperately Defends Benghazi Committee
Topic: Accuracy in Media

When House Majority Leader candidate Kevin McCarthy effectively admitted that the House Benghazi Select Committee was a scheme to drive down Hillary Clinton's poll numbers, right-wingers knew the game was up. Now comes Accuracy in Media's Roger Aronoff to deny the obvious, even insisting that AIM's own "Citizens’ Commission on Benghazi" kangaroo court is political:

Following a series of rather uneventful hearings on Benghazi, other than Hillary’s line, “What difference, at this point, does it make?” plus the stacked-deck hearing by the “independent” Accountability Review Board, we at Accuracy in Media (AIM) decided to do something about it. In July of 2013, we formed the Citizens’ Commission on Benghazi (CCB), with a group of top retired military leaders, former CIA officers, and congressmen, including the former chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Pete Hoekstra, with the purpose of doing our own independent investigation in an attempt to reveal the truth about what happened—before, during and after the terrorist attacks in Benghazi on September 11 and 12, 2012—and hold people accountable. We have made much progress, and are still at it.

We started off with an all-day conference in September 2013, which can be viewed here. Leading off the conference was Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA), who already had a House bill with approximately 185 Republican House members as co-sponsors, calling for a Select Committee on Benghazi. The advantage of a Select Committee is that it brings all facets of the investigation under one roof, rather than being divided up between various committees, each with a limited scope and purview. Plus, a Select Committee isn’t limited by the normal rules, in which each questioner has only five minutes, which can easily be eaten up by a single answer. Wolf was the real driving force in Congress behind the formation of a Select Committee. You can watch or read his comments here. It had nothing to do with driving down Hillary Clinton’s poll numbers.

Aronoff doesn't sound very convincing. He offers nothing to back up his assertion beyond insisting it wasn't political. And if AIM's little kangaroo court wasn't political, why is it filled with Obama-haters and birthers?

Indeed, we've been pointing out the kangaroo-court nature of the CCB since AIM announced it in 2013. Neither Aronoff nor AIM has disputed the fact that it's stacked with birthers and Obama-haters who cannot possibly be interested in an impartial view of the Benghazi evidence that does not implicate Obama or Clinton.

Now we know the CCB is no different from the House Select Committee in its partisan intent. Aronoff should stop pretending that politics isn't his primary motivation.

MRC Proves CNS 'Reporter' Really Is A Protester
Topic: CNSNews.com

The Media Research Center may be insisting that CNSNews.com "reporter" Sam Dorman is a real reporter, but its actions show that he really did serve as a "protester" in asking a loaded gotcha question to Nancy Pelosi, as the Washington Post originally called him.

When a real news organization's reporter gets slighted by a public figure, it usually doesn't try to build a PR campaign off it. The MRC, by contrast, is doing just that. An Oct. 6 CNS article by managing editor Michael Chapman touts how his boss, Brent Bozell, "wrote to Pelosi, noting that good reporters 'ask tough questions,' that her answer was 'disrespectful'; and that she should apologize to the reporter, CNSNews.com’s Sam Dorman."

Of course, Dorman's question wasn't "tough"; it was a gotcha question designed to mock her stance on abortion. Dorman had been going around to various Democratic members of Congress asking the very same question before hitting up Pelosi. Hurling the same gotcha question to multiple people is the act of a protester, not a journalist.

If Dorman's question wasn't an act of protest, the MRC wouldn't be trying to raise money off it. And that's exactly what it's doing.

An Oct. 6 email to followers contained a link to a page at CNS where it requests that readers send it money: "It costs $12,000 to fund an Intern at the MRC, and it is an example like Sam’s as to why your continued support for our MRC Internship Program is so vital!"

Wait, the internship program? Yep. It turns out that Dorman isn't even a real reporter -- he's an intern. The MRC has not admitted that until now, not even in the two stories on the situation written by his boss Chapman.

The MRC tries to elide that in its fanciful description of the Dorman-Pelosi encounter (bold in original):

Sam Dorman was excited to be the intern chosen to represent CNSNews.com at the weekly press briefing on October 1st. Armed with a laptop, recorder, and his journalist credentials, he entered the briefing with intention to ask truthful questions directly related to public policy. When called upon, Sam addressed leader Nancy Pelosi, simply asking:

“In reference to funding for Planned Parenthood: Is an unborn baby with a human heart and a human liver a human being?”

But Pelosi responded with, “I do not intend to respond to your questions”.  

Pelosi even went so far as to belittle the credentials of our CNSNews.com intern.

Somehow, we doubt that the Capital's press office would give out credentials to an intern so easily; you might remember that a decade ago, WorldNetDaily essentially complained that the Senate Press Gallery's standards for press passes weren't low enough for WND to get one (which they eventually did). It may be that the credentials belong to CNS, and Dorman simply had access to them that day.

The MRC is just throwing the "credentials" stuff around to pump up the idea that CNS is a real news organization.

But the ultimate evidence of Dorman's intent comes from Dorman himself, in a statement underneath his picture: "At first I was nervous to ask the question, but after Pelosi erupted with anger, I knew I had pushed the right button."

Journalists try to gather information. Protesters try to push buttons. Dorman's admission that he was trying to push a button on Pelosi and provoke the response he got is all the evidence we need that he was in protest mode, not in journalist mode.

So, that settles it. Dorman is a protester, CNS is an ideological news organization, and the MRC is trying to exploit Dorman's ideological clash with Pelosi to raise money. It's almost as if the whole thing was planned this way.

NEW ARTICLE: The Coulter Cowards at the MRC
Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center is buddies with Ann Coulter, so you know they won't criticize her, even at her most anti-Semitic or anti-Catholic. Heck, the MRC will let anyone bash Catholics -- but only if they're conservative. Read more >>

CNS Managing Editor Not Concerned His Reporter Acts Like A Protester
Topic: CNSNews.com

CNSNews.com managing editor Michael W. Chapman kept up the Media Research Center's misguided defense of his alleged reporter Sam Dornan in the flap over his asking a loaded gotcha question of House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, redirecting his ire toward the Washington Post instead of his own reporter. Chapman whines in an Oct. 2 CNS article:

In Kelsey Snell’s story posted at 12:14PM at The Washington Post’s PowerPost,  the headline incorrectly read, “Nancy Pelosi shut down an abortion protestor’s question in a press conference.”

There was no “abortion protestor” at the press conference; the question was asked by a CNSNews.com reporter, who is credentialed with the U.S. Capitol.

In the lead of the story, Snell also incorrectly reported that Pelosi “was not interested in entertaining questions Thursday from an anti-abortion protestor who shouted a question to the California Democrat during her weekly press conference.”

There was no “anti-abortion protestor” and the question was not “shouted.” (See the video.) In addition, the lead is further misleading because it has changed from the headline’s  “abortion protestor’s” to “anti-abortion protestor.”

In the second paragraph of her story, Snell wrote that, “the protestor sat in the first row of the presser and spoke up over several reporters vying to ask a question of the Democratic leaders.”

Again, the reporter, Sam Dorman, was not a “protestor.”

Snell then wrote, “It was unclear who the questioner was and for which news organization they worked.”  Here the facts changed again somewhat, with Snell claiming the “questioner” – not the “anti-abortion protestor” – worked for a “news organization,” the identity of which was “unclear.”

Snell did not speak with CNSNews.com ‘s Sam Dorman at the press conference. She did not ask for his name or his news affiliation; and she did not email him or, even later, make a telephone call to CNSNews.com to clarify her report.

One hour after Snell’s inaccurate story was posted, CNS’s Dorman did tweet Snell, saying, “I am not an anti abortion ‘protestor.’ I am a credentialed member of the press. Please correct your story.”

Chapman seems not to understand the fact that he has to state three times in five paragraphs that his reporter is not an "anti-abortion protestor" is evidence of how unclear that was to Snell and other journalists present at the press briefing. Chapman also provides no evidence that Dorman identified himself and his employer before asking the question, thus further raising legitimate questions about whether he was a protester.

Chapman also failed to mention that, as we've pointed out, Dorman's tweet at Snell came from an account that did not identify his real name nor his occupation, so Snell could not possibly have known who he was. As of this writing, Dorman's Twitter account still does not list his real name or his occupation.

Chapman continues whining:

Snell did not name the “news organizations with an ideological perspective” to which she was referring. When CNSNews.com asked her by Twitter Direct Message if The Washington Post was one of the “news organizations with an ideological perspective,” Snell did not respond.

She also did not answer numerous questions that CNSNews.com sent to her by Direct Message, including who told her that the questioner was “an anti-abortion protestor”? Also, if it was “unclear who the questioner was,” then why did Snell report that it was a “protestor”? Where did she get this information?  And is she credentialed as a reporter at the U.S. Capitol?  Snell did not reply.

Is Chapman actually denying that CNS has an ideological perspective? Dorman's question alone -- whether "an unborn baby with a human heart and a human liver a human being" -- should answer any questions about intent and ideology.

Curiously, Chapman recites Snell's journalistic background (Medill, Politico, NPR) but not that of his own reporter, while still complaining Dorman was labeled as an "anti-abortion protestor." Does Dorman have an anti-abortion background Chapman doesn't want to mention, or some other activities in his past that betray Chapman's attempt to portray him as a straight-news reporter?

We'd ask Chapman about this, but he has blocked us from following him on Twitter, and questions we've previously sent to CNS through its "Contact Us" page have routinely gone unanswered. So Chapman should perhaps not whine about Snell not answering his questions unless he can start handling his own queries.

And instead of complaining about how the Post reporter misidentified Dorman, Chapman should be asking why his reporters are indistinguishable from protesters.

MRC's Defense of Fiorina Enters the 'Fake But Accurate' Phase
Topic: Media Research Center

The Media Research Center did not approve when the memos promoted by CBS as discussing George W. Bush's military service were described as "fake but accurate" and invoked the term repeatedly ever since.

Oddly, the MRC has been reduced to making a "fake but accurate" defense of Carly Fiorina's description of secretly recorded, dishonestly edited right-wing videos of Planned Parenthood.

Even though it's abundantly clear that the Center for Medical Reform doctored its Planned Parenthood footage by inserting video from elsewhere to spice it up, the MRC just won't admit it.

This is taken to new lengths in a Sept. 30 NewsBusters post by Erin Aitcheson, who responds to claims that Fiorina is lying about the Planned Parenthood videos by huffing: "Except she’s not lying. The video she described exists. If differs from the CMP-shot hidden camera footage, but it exists and Fiorina saw it. She has stood unwavering behind her statements."

Actually, if Fiorina is describing the video that "differs" as being shot by CMP inside a Planned Parenthood clinic -- and it appears she is -- she's lying. And CMP is being dishonest by presenting that footage as such. The fact Fiorina may have seen something she is currently lying about and "has stood unwavering behind her statements" doesn't make it any less of a lie, as Aitcheson seems to be suggesting. Indeed, the amount of "unwavering" Fiorina has expended in defending her lie is utterly irrelevant to its veracity.

Aitcheson is simply privileging Fiorina's lie. She (and the MRC) wouldn't do such a thing if it was a Democratic presidential candidate making a similar statement about an undercover liberal sting operation that included outside footage.

WND Columnist Defends Right-Wing Artist Who Fantasizes About Obama's Assassination
Topic: WorldNetDaily

Marisa Martin -- the pseudonymous WorldNetDaily columnist who hides behind a fake name so she doesn't have to take responsibility for her fringe views -- shows why she's a fake-name believer in her Sept. 25 column, in which she praises right-wing "street artist" SABO, who for some reason has linked up with Ted Cruz to the point where he has his own page in the Cruz campaign store:

SABO comes up swinging in response to juvenile media attacks on conservatives. Thus “Ted Cruz, Vampire Slayer” was born. SABO details his inspiration. “In response to the True Blood (HPO) episode that decided to call Republican women ‘Republicunts’ during what they portrayed to be a Ted Cruz rally, I decided to create this STREET poster,” he notes.

SABO was recently smeared by two “writers” from the Texas Tribune. Aman Batheja and Patrick Svitek found the artist guilty of controversial [conservative] statements, which are not tolerated in fluff media.

It isn’t hard to find something offensive by SABO, as he disdains diplomacy. Yet the Texas Tribune accused him of “rooting for the assassination of President Barack Obama, cheering on the beheading of journalists by ISIS and using racial epithets.” When taken into context and considering sarcasm (which apparently are no longer taught in journalism classes), SABO said nothing of the sort.

That didn’t stop FBI agents from knocking on his door about this musing: “Imagine if every Secret Service agent just up and left their jobs tomorrow, that would be brave. Taking a bullet for a turd is just stupid.”

Crude, vulgar and tasteless, but not a threat by any means. Being appalled by the idea of “taking a bullet” for the president is part of their job description. If it were a “threat,” every anti-war protester and pacifist opposed to “taking bullets” for the nation would be under investigation as well.

Interestingly, Martin fails to present the supposedly sarcastic context in which she demands they be properly viewed. As the Hollywood Reporter noted, Sabo had prepared for his encounter with the Secret Service by plastering his apartment walls with posters bearing the name "Oswald." He (like Martin, he hides behind a fake name) tweeted regarding Obama's visit at a fundraiser (apparently he's capable of only tweeting in all-caps): "IT REALLY WOULD BE A CRYING SHAME IF SOMEONE CALLED  TO REPORT A MAN WITH A RIFLE IN THE AREA ON THIS NIGHT."He has also tweeted: "DEAR GOD! I PRAY YOU MAKE ZOMBIES REAL AND THE FIRST ONE I HOPE REANIMATES IS OSWALD. :) - THANK YOU GOD."

Yes, Marisa, please explain the context that would make Sabo's tweets something other than the creepy threats they are. And we doubt Martin would give the same artistic license to a left-wing artist who tweeted the same things about a Republican president.

Instead, Martin hides comfortably behind her fake name, spouting questionable views and defending assassination obsessives.

Hilariously, Sabo is quoted as saying in that Texas Tribune article (after the Cruz campaign declined to comment about Sabo's assassination threats) that he stands by every threat and that "I'd appreciate it if you didn't try hanging my statements around his neck." Don't expect, again, to see someone like Martin or Sabo granting the same privilege to a similarly provocative left-wing artist similarly tied to a Democratic presidential candidate.

Indeed, after lavishing praise on Sabo, Martin spends  much of the rest of her column dismissing left-wing street art, huffing, "It’s a politicized media assault on the sanity of Americans who can’t escape (short of living in sod huts until the indignation has passed)."

P.S. Fantasizing Obama's assassination is not even a new thing at WND; Molotov Mitchell was extremely enthused that in a recent movie, Obama's head ""pop[s] like a pinata to the triumphant sounds of 'Ode to Joy,'" expressing his own sick joy that he got to watch " a real-life dictator's head blow up."

Rosa Parks Derangement Syndrome
Topic: WorldNetDaily

I for one have been well aware of Rosa Parks’ dubious association with Planned Parenthood, which is exactly why I have made it a point not to sing her praises over the years like so many others have.

[...]

If liberals cared one iota about the quality of life of blacks who thoughtlessly praise Rosa Parks, they would point to the fact that Rosa Parks as an active NAACP board member fought for fairness at a time when fairness was defined by the “for whites only signs” of white Democrats. They would tell the truth that Parks and many other blacks had been deceived into willfully advocating for and participating in the extermination of black people.

But for that to happen liberals would have to be honest and truthful – something that as a collective is alien to them on every quantifiable level.

The liberal organizations that applauded the trap Cruz and Rubio fell into are by their actions the modern-day equivalents of Adolf Hitler. The difference is that Hitler’s active extermination of Jews led to his demise and Germany’s defeat.

-- Mychal Massie, Sept. 28 WorldNetDaily column

CNS Unemployment Numbers Distortion Watch
Topic: CNSNews.com

CNS' monthly distortion of unemployement numbers -- an Oct. 2 article by Susan Jones -- follows its recent pattern of cherry-picking by obsessing over the labor force participation rate.

But the number of jobs created in September gets bumped up to the second paragraph, instead of being buried in a bullet point at the end as per usual. Why? Because the number was "disappointing."

CNS is so committed to obsessing over the labor participation rate, in fact, that Jones wrote a companion article focusing just on the participation rate for men.

Prediction: If a Republican is elected president in 2016, CNS will start caring a lot less about the labor participation rate unless it can somehow blame bad news regarding it on Obama.

MRC's Gainor Attacks Amazon CEO, Can't Grasp Basic Financial Concepts
Topic: Media Research Center

Media Research Center VP of business Dan Gainor -- a right-wing apparatchik who once attacked the Muppets for not being sufficiently conservative -- is back, and this time his target is Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos, who also owns the Washington Post.

In a Sept. 30 NewsBusters post, Gainor rants about the Post publishing articles about income inequality, then attacks Bezos:

According to the Sept. 29, Daily Mail: “But it was Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos who has emerged as the biggest overall gainer, adding a whopping $16.5 billion to his war chest in a single year after his company posted a quarterly profit in July.”

Whopping indeed. Bezos made 899,521 times the median household income in the United States -- $52,250. Were Bezos a nation, the $16.5 billion would give him a GDP rank of 150, just below Kosovo and above 81 nations including Guinea and Iceland.

It seems that Gainor doesn't understand a very basic financial principle, the difference between income and net worth.

As Forbes points out, that $16.5 billion was created by a increase in the value of his stock in Amazon; he owns 18 percent of the company. Even a first-year business student can tell you that unless Bezos cashes in that stock -- which he hasn't -- the rise in its value is not considered income. That makes Gainor's rant that Bezos "made 899,521 times the median household income in the United States" look foolish.

Gainor doesn't mention what Bezos actually makes as Amazon CEO -- probably because it would make him look even more foolish.

Bloomberg reported that in 2013 Bezos' Amazon salary was ... $81,840. No, really. And he asked the company not to pay him any more than that. He does, however, receive $1.6 million in compensation to cover security arrangements.

We're pretty sure that even Gainor makes more in salary than Bezos does -- indeed, Gainor made more than $122,000 in 2010, a figure we can only assume has increased since then. Given that he can't grasp basic financial concepts despite being the head of the MRC's operation targeting business news, he seems overcompensated.

Mission Accomplished: MRC's Bozell Relishes That Media Lacks Credibility
Topic: Media Research Center
In his recent interview with Rush Limbaugh, Media Research Center chief Brent Bozell admitted that the mission of the MRC is to destroy the media's credibility: "It’s not how liberal the media are. The question is: How much are they believed, how much are they trusted? You’re never going to stop the press from being left-wing. You can’t do a thing to stop that. But what you can do is expose their lack of credibility. You have to do it every single day. That’s what motivates me, because it works."

Well, mission accomplished: a new Gallup poll states that the public's trust in the mass media has reached an historic low.

Needless to say, the MRC couldn't be more thrilled -- after all, this is the result Bozell and Co. has spent millions of dollars a year over the past nearly 30 years trying to accomplish.

"ALL TIME LOW," screamed the headline on a Sept. 29 CNSNews.com article by Terry Jeffrey reporting the results. (That's how important this poll result is to the MRC: the editor-in-chief at CNS wrote the article.) Jeffrey was particularly tickled by the finding that "an all-time low of 7 percent of Americans say that they have a great deal of trust and confidence in the media."

Bozell takes similar joy in the Gallup poll in his (and Tim Graham's) Sept. 30 column, crowing, "One quarter of the population has no trust in the press. Nada. Nothing. Zero. Zip." Of course, Bozell didn't mention that this is the result he and his fellow right-wing activists have bought.

Bozell and Graham then engage in a personal attack against a Washington Post reporter who defended the media, insulting him as "one of those self-impressed Watergate babies" and a "snooty elite." They rant that the "spiel" the reporter is selling that the media  is not organized enough to ram a liberal agenda "is not selling," again staying silent about how much they've spent to sell their own spiel.

But Bozell's project to destroy the media has a fatal flaw: He has not put up anything to replace it. If he really cared about media bias as an issue, he would have created a news organization that truly plays it straight, with none of the bias -- liberal or conservative -- he claims spoils the news.

Instead, Bozell's CNSNews.com is even more biased than he has ever accused the "liberal media" of being -- and has even less credibility as a "news" organization, given that people can't tell the difference between CNS reporters and right-wing protesters.

Bozell could have fixed this alleged problem. Instead, he made it worse. And because he cares more about ideology than the media, he can't see past his glee that the media's credibility is being destroyed to figure out that his own media's credibility has been destroyed as well.

In other words, he's burning down his own house. Maybe he should dial back that appetite for destruction a little bit.

CNS Gotcha-Question Hurler Insists He's A 'Credentialed Member of the Press'
Topic: CNSNews.com

Meet Sam Dorman. He works for CNSNews.com. It's unclear exactly what he does -- he's not on the CNS staff list, and his archive page lacks a bio. We are guessing he's a reporter of some kind, but we're not sure.

Anyway, Dorman has been running around D.C. to various members of Congress this week to hurl a single gotcha question at them: “Is an unborn baby with a human heart and a human liver a human being?”

Of course, if all you're doing is running around asking important people a single gotcha question with the sole purpose of advancing a political cause, you're not really a reporter -- you're an activist. Given that Dorman has mostly been going targeting Democratic congressmembers with his gotcha question, one could also  say he's making a political statement by doing so. Acting as a protester, if you will.

When the Washington Post did an article on Dorman hurling his gotcha question at House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi, the reporter, Kelsey Snell, referred to Dorman as an "anti-abortion protester."Snell didn't identify Dorman by name, noting that "It was unclear who the questioner was and for which news organization they worked."

For some reason, Dorman got all huffy about this. He tweeted at Snell: "I am not an anti abortion 'protestor'. I am a credentialed member of the press. Please correct your story."

But one does not have to have "credentials" to act as a journalist in America; he may be referring to what it takes to get into Pelosi's press conference, but the fact he has them means the standards are low enough that his insistence that he has them is a laughable attempt to pull rank.

And, again, if you're just asking a single gotcha question to your ideological enemies, you are, in fact, a protester, not a reporter.

Another curious thing about Dorman" His Twitter account fails to identify his real name (it lists only @blah2k as the handle and "freedorman" as the name) or his employer; there' no description of the use at all. Thus, Dorman's tweet to Snell was a complete failure because she has no idea who's tweeting her.

Further, it appears from Snell's description of the Pelosi encounter and from the accompanying video that Dorman never announced who he was or who he was with before hurling his gotcha question at Pelosi. For a self-proclaimed "credential member of the press," Dorman sure doesn't want many people to know about it -- or maybe he just wants it known when he gets caught acting more like an ideological protester than a journalist.

Wait, wasn't it just yesterday that Dorman's boss, Media Research Center chief Brent Bozell, was ranting about media transparency? Yes, he was.

Bozell might have a little credibility on the issue if his own so-called reporters weren't so determined to hide their identities in public.

UPDATE: It took two MRC staffers -- Kristine Marsh and Katie Yoder -- to write about this for NewsBusters. They insist that Dorman is a "journalist" and a "reporter" despite him offering no proof of it, and they ignore the fact that Dorman apparently never identified himself before hurling his gotcha question at Pelosi. They also tout his tweet to Snell despite the fact there's nothing at Dorman's Twitter account that would identify him as Dorman or as a CNS employee.

MRC's Bozell Demands Media Transparency. Yes, The Same Guy Who Wasn't Transparent About Who Wrote His Columns.
Topic: Media Research Center

Brent Bozell, His Eternal Huffiness*, has spoken:

The hypocrisy meter is going off the charts at CNN, ABC, NBC and CBS. In their reporting about the Planned Parenthood videos, they refer to them as 'edited' or 'heavily edited.' Well guess what? Each and every day these same TV news outlets edit and heavily edit their own news segments -- including their stories about the Planned Parenthood videos.  Hours upon hours of footage is collected for every two to three minute segment they air, and the overwhelming amount of that footage hits the cutting room floor, never to see the light of day.
 
What are these networks not showing the American people? What are they cutting? Don't the American people have a right to see it? The difference between these networks and the Center for Medical Progress is that CMP is far more honest and transparent in disclosing the full footage and posting it online.  These "news" networks have a responsibility to do the same.

Today, I am calling on CNN, ABC, NBC and CBS to make public all the footage they collect for all of the news segments they produce, just as the Center for Medical Progress has done. Until they do, they have no right to question CMP's professionalism.

So Bozell -- who spent 15-plus years hiding from his readers the fact that he didn't write his own syndicated column, and still hasn't publicly apologized for his laziness and deceit a year and a half after the charade was exposed, let alone given the guy who actually wrote them, Tim Graham, retroactive credit for his work -- is demanding that others in the media be transparent? It is to laugh.

* We stole "His Eternal Huffiness" from Arkansas columnist John Brummett, who used the term to describe Mike Huckabee during his tenure as governor, which tells you how much Huckabee has moderated (somewhat) his persona for his TV gigs and presidential run.

Meanwhile...
Topic: CNSNews.com

A few weeks back, we wrote an item for the Huffington Post summarizing the dishonest attacks on Margaret Sanger pushed by right-wing professor Paul Kengor at places like WorldNetDaily. Kengor responded in a column at the American Spectator, which was reprinted at CNSNews.com.

We've taken to HuffPo to show why Kengor is still dishonest, at least up to the point where he finally admits Sanger wasn't a rabid racist who wanted to kill blacks.

MRC Still Won't Admit Fiorina's Misleading About Planned Parenthood
Topic: Media Research Center

The Media Research Center, in contradiction of its self-proclaimed mission to get the media to "Tell the Truth!", has been enabling Carly Fiorina's misleading claims about the contents of a series of secretly filmed, dishonestly edited anti-Planned Parenthood videos.

Curtis Houck is the latest Fiorina apologist. In a Sept. 27 NewsBusters post, he complains about Fiorina being called for her dishonesty by NBC's Kristen Welker, who pointed out that fact-checkers (which Houck will only refer to in scare quotes) have discredited her claim to have seen a certain bit of footage in the videos. Houck huffed in response: "While Welker and 'fact checkers' may say that they multiple videos released by the Center for Medical Progress, it’s fair to say that astute conservatives such as The Federalist’s Mollie Hemmingway [sic] would beg to differ with their assessments."

As we've pointed out, Hemingway does not actually back up Fiorina's specific claim. In her Federalist post to which Houck is referring, she can't identify merely says that Fiorina "is likely referring to the entirety of the 10 videos."

Houck gets further incensed in a Sept. 29 post, upset that Fiorina's campaign manager is being taken to task by CNN's John Berman for her candidate's dishonesty. Berman notes that even Fox News has noted the dishonesty, and that the doctored clip in question "shows someone describing the scene. You hear someone describing the scene and then see file video which doesn't show what Carly Fiorina says it shows." The campaign manager, meahwhile, is in full kill-the-messenger mode, asserting that "the non-partisan fact checkers aren't as non-partisan as you pretending that they are."

All Houck offers in response is this: "For further reading on this matter about whether these unnamed “non-partisan fact checkers” are right, check out this fine piece compiled by the staff of The Federalist."

But that Federalist post conceded that the video was, in fact, doctored by the insertion of an outside video and is "obviously not the same baby as the one [the Planned Parenthood staffer in question] harvested the brain of."

The Federalist, however, then invokes the fake-but-accurate defense the MRC loathed when Dan Rather invoked it, claiming the doctored footage "helps viewers to understand what a 19-week old baby looks like when hearing the testimony of an ex-employee who harvested brains from babies of the same age. Illustrating stories with appropriate images is a common journalistic technique, one used by all media outlets."

Given that neither Hemingway nor The Federalist dispute or contradict the fact that the "Center for Medical Reform" used doctored footage in their videos -- and are apparently the best the anti-abortion forces have in defending Fiorina -- perhaps Houck shouldn't have cited them at all.

Coulter Cowards: MRC Gives Stays Silent on Ann Coulter's Catholic-Bashing
Topic: Media Research Center

 

So the Media Research Center won't publicly criticize Ann Coulter for making an anti-Semitic tweet. Nor will the MRC chastise any conservative who bashes the Catholic Church.

How do you think the MRC will react to Coulter bashing Catholics? That's right: stone silence.

During Pope Francis' visit to America last week, Coulter tweeted that the Catholic Church was "largely built by pedophiles," and claimed that the pope's criticism of economic inequality is "why our founders (not "immigrants"!) distrusted Catholics & wouldn't make them citizens."

You'd think that NewsBusters blogger Dave Pierre, who reflextively defends the church against any mention of its sex scandals, would have something to say. But he, along with the rest of the MRC, are keeping their mouths zipped.

By contrast, Bill Donohue of the Catholic League -- on whose board of advisers MRC chief Brent Bozell sits -- approached the issue in his usual way:

What do Ann Coulter and the Westboro Baptist Church have in common? Both are obscene anti-Catholics. Indeed, they are the worst of Pope Francis' vile critics to emerge during his visit to the United States.

Coulter tweeted last week that the Catholic Church was "largely built by pedophiles." This is the kind of comment we might expect from the likes of Bill Maher.

No wonder these two bigots are best of friends. Coulter also tweeted, "I'm an American and this is why our founders (not ‘immigrants') distrusted Catholics and wouldn't make them citizens."

If she doesn't already belong to the Klan, they would love to have her. 

Donohue is a NewsBusters blogger, but you won't find the above commentary there (we found it at Newsmax). That language is apparently too strong for the MRC.

Heck, any criticism at all of Coulter is too strong for the MRC. Call them the Coulter Cowards.

(Photo: MRC)