Topic: NewsBusters
NewsBusters blogger Tom Blumer has had a very bad past couple of days.
First, in a March 20 post, he threw a fit over PolitiFact rating Ted Cruz's assertion (echoing right-wing climate deniers) that there has been no global warming for 17 years "mostly false." Blumer is very upset that PolitiFact put the claim in context, noting that it "contains an element of truth but ignores critical facts that would give a different impression." PolitiFact also points out that deniers who make the claim are "cherry-picking a timeframe that starts at an extremely warm year and ignores that the first decade of the 21st century."
But Blumer don't need no stinkin' context:
Ocean temperatures aren't rising, and there is some evidence of serious data manipulation issues in the ocean-related data (and elsewhere). Antarctic sea ice has recently reached record levels.
Cruz's statement to Meyers was and remains absolutely true.
As a result, I rate [PolitiFact writer] Lauren Carroll's work "Completely Lame."
How very mature of Blumer to do that.
Blumer followed up this performance with a March 22 rant headlined "Not News: Obama Admin's 'Lying Weasels' Delisted Iran and Hezbollah As Terror Threats." He begins by ranting:
From all appearances, only Fox News, CNS News, and a few Israel-based outlets and U.S.-based center-right blogs care about the fact, acknowledged by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, that Iran and Hezbollah, in the words of Fox's Greta Van Susteren, "are suddenly MIA from the U.S. terror threat list."
Just one problem with that for Blumer: It didn't happen.
As PunditFact points out, the only U.S. government list of terrorist organizations that counts is from the State Department, and that list still has Iran and Hezbollah on it. The DNI assessment being referred to by Blumer is not an official list of terrorist organizations but is, as its title states, a "Worldwide Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community."
Blumer does note that DNI told CNS the purported downplaying of Iran and Hezbollah was due to a "format change" in the report, but he doesn't mention that State, not DNI, keeps the official terrorist list. CNS, in the March 18 article by Patrick Goodenough Blumer is referencing, also fails to report that DNI does not keep the official terrorist list.
But as with context, Blumer don't need no stinkin' facts. He concludes his post by ranting, "There is no defensible reason why these disturbing developments have not received wider media visibility."
Um, how about because it's not true? That seems like an entirely defensible reason.
