Eyeblast: Macaca's Revenge Topic: Media Research Center
The MRC's macaca complex is even worse than we thought: they built an entire video-oriented website as a reaction.
From an article in the May edition of the Watchdog, the MRC's print newsletter sent to donors, by Eyeblast executive producer Danny Glover:
In 2006, Democrat James Webb paid less than $1,000 to have a young volunteer track Republican Sen. George Allen of Virginia with a video camera. It was the best money Webb ever spent.
The volunteer was named S.R. Sidharth [sic], but he will forever be remembered as “Macaca,” the mocking nickname that Allen gave him in an unguarded moment. Sidharth captured that moment on film, the Webb campaign blasted it over the Internet, and Allen’s popularity collapsed. His once-unimaginable loss to Webb shifted control of the Senate to Democrats.
Look no further than the “Macaca” incident to understand why the Media Research Center launched Eyeblast.tv in April 2008.
Eyeblast is an online community built in part to capture the unguarded moments of liberals on film and blast them over the Internet. The liberal media won’t cover the politically correct confrontations on college campuses, and they suppress stories of liberals behaving badly. Going forward, conservatives will be able to tell the truth about those encounters on Eyeblast.
Yet another reason to doubt the MRC's previous claim that "Eyeblast does not discriminate based upon political view." That, and the headline on Glover's article: "MRC Launches Eyeblast.tv to Battle Liberal Video Presence on Internet."
No mention, of course, of the false smears of S.R. Sidarth by Dan Riehl that the MRC published on NewsBusters.
Newsmax Mag Misleads on Obama, Taxes Topic: Newsmax
A promo for the June issue of Newsmax magazine describes its lead story as an alarmist attack piece essentially predicting -- if the headline "President Obama and the Stock Market Crash" is any indication -- that electing Barack Obama will ruin the stock market. We haven't seen the actual article yet, written by conservative John Fund, but the promo distorts Obama's views on taxes.
The promo states:
Indeed, Obama makes no bones about his plans to go on a tax rampage. Not only would he increase the capital-gains tax rate from 15 percent to as much as 28 percent, he wants to allow the 2001 and 2003 Bush tax cuts to expire in 2010, which effectively raises taxes on Americans by tens of billions of dollars.
This ignores that Obama has said he plans to cut taxes for those making $75,000 a year or less. It also ignores that 28 percent was the capital-gains tax rate throughout the 1990s, which wedon't recall was a horrible time for the economy.
The promo also states:
He also wants to do away with the $102,000 FICA payroll tax cap, which means anyone making over $102,000 would pay an additional 7 percent in taxes on earned income.
In fact, Obama has never said he would "do away" with the current FICA (Social Security) cap. He has suggested raising the current limit and has also suggested he would consider a "donut hole" that would exempt income immediately above the current $102,000 cap from Social Security taxes, then resume taxes above a higher amount, such as $200,000 or $250,000.
Aaron Klein Anti-Obama Agenda Watch Topic: WorldNetDaily
Aaron Klein's 36th anti-Obama article (versus just one attacking John McCain) is a July 5 piece purporting to "clarify" that a Hamas official's criticism of Barack Obama's AIPAC speech "was specifically referring" only to the speech. This gives Klein an opportunity to once again reference his and John Batchelor's interview with a Hamas spokesman, Ahmed Yousef, who "endorsed" Obama. We've raised questions about the obvious partisan motivations of Batchelor and Klein and the extent to which the interview and the circumstances surrounding it were manufactured, as well as how much Yousef actively participated in forwarding Klein and Batchelor's anti-Obama agenda -- questions Klein has thus far failed to publicly address.
Curiously, Klein offers only two very brief paragraphs directly quoting Obama's AIPAC speech, and WND did no other original article on it. Why won't they report the speech in full? What are Klein and WND trying to hide?
As she exits stage left, we hear the haunting melody of Hillita’s fading farewell:
Please weep for me, Clintonistas. The truth is I never left you. Through each primary I changed my image To what the polls said You wanted from me.
Don’t gloat at me, Barackistas. The truth is you came from nowhere. When it was my next You took it from me. Why do this to me? I barely knew you.
Don’t trash-talk me, Obamistas. |The truth is I’m just one of you. I always have been. Now that you’ve ruined me, I’ll need some new perch To keep on cackling. Help rehab me, all you lefties. The truth is you owe it to me.
You mainstream newsies, It’s you who made me In your own image. Now don’t forsake me.
Say what you will, vast right-wingers. The sad truth, I still have Bubba. Or did the last time I thought I saw him. He owes me big-time, That big-mouth loser.
New Article -- Out There, Exhibit 46: Mychal Massie's Thesaurus Topic: WorldNetDaily
Why does the WorldNetDaily columnist use so many big, obscure words? Perhaps to mask his numerous false and misleading assertions -- not to mention that he's spouting claims that originated with a "white nationalist" group. Read more >>
WND Falsely Claims Klein 'Exclusive' Topic: WorldNetDaily
A June 4 WorldNetDaily press release promoting Aaron Klein's attack on Barack Obama's purported Nation of Islam ties starts by declaring:
*** BREAKING NEWS ***
EXCLUSIVE FROM AARON KLEIN
Except that it's not. As Klein himself admitted in his article, it originated from a five-month-old post by right-wing blogger Debbie Schlussel (who is none too happy about it).
As we've detailed, Klein offers no evidence that the anonymous (and apparent mole) "former key Obama insider" who is making the claims Klein is parroting can be trusted -- indeed, the fact that the mole is running to right-wingers like Schlussel and Klein is evidence that he/she can't be trusted. Klein's WND boss, Joseph Farah, has said that claims made by anonymous sources are "usually quotes made up out of whole cloth to help make the story read better."
Klein's demonstrated hatred of Obama -- which includes apparently conspiring a political hit job with right-wing radio host John Batchelor through their interview of a Hamas official who "endorsed" Obama -- coupled with his recent propensity for rummagingthrough right-wing blogs for any tidbit of anti-Obama sleaze, demonstrates that Klein can't be trusted any more than his anonymous mole source.
Schlussel: Aaron Klein Ripped Me Off! Topic: WorldNetDaily
Right-wing blogger Debbie Schlussel has read Aaron Klein's WorldNetDaily article on Barack Obama's purported Nation of Islam connections -- and she's not happy, since she wrote the same thing five months ago.
In a June 4 post, Schlussel points out that Klein's article is 'almost word for word an exact replica of most of my January exclusive." Schlussel adds:
Aaron Klein is notorious for doing this, and for making up information, which he does here. The only information in his plagiarized, non-exclusive "Exclusive" not already reported in exact words and details by me back in January, is information he made up and can't source.
Klein has a habit of dishonesty and making things up. He notoriously made up a "World Net Daily Exclusive," claiming that FOX News paid $2 million dollars to Palestinian terrorists to obtain the release of its two staffers, reporter Steve Centanni and cameraman Olaf Wiig. Klein was forced to retract the entire story. It was utter fiction.
In my own dealings with Klein--who, in marketing his book and his other "work," has repeatedly identified himself as an Orthodox Jew--the dishonesty is legion. When Klein was upset that I wrote about how another one of his "WorldNetDaily Exclusives" was actually ripped off from liberal website Crooks and Liars and had already been quoted all over the internet, Klein claimed--as his plagiarizing friend, Sean Hannity, often claims--that he doesn't read blogs. A complete lie, since most of what Klein "reports" is repeated carbon copy cut-and-paste of conservative blogs like Sweetness and Light's and BizzyBlog's newsbreaking stories about Barack Obama and other topics.
But what was really notable to me was that Klein e-mailed me his protest on the Jewish Sabbath. This is a guy who not only claims to be an Orthodox Jew but has marketed himself that way and sports a big black velvet yarmulke, a sign of very religious Orthodox observance. But the key requirement to be Orthodox is to keep the Jewish Sabbath, which includes no websurfing and e-mailing or computer use from sundown Friday Night until the nightfall Saturday Night. Then, to pimp his book, he appeared on FOX News Channel's "O'Reilly Factor" on an important Jewish holiday, an Orthodox no-no. This guy is a fraud. And he's not honest. I don't judge people by their level of religiosity or even their religion. But I do judge them by their level of integrity, and he ain't got none.
Interestingly, Schlussel is now backing away from the anonymous source that supplied her with her January "exclusive":
My Obama source claims that WND's Aaron Klein approached him, via e-mail, to do this story, and that the source responded in writing that the story was mine and that I already wrote it. Yet Klein ripped me off anyway (and the sleazy source helped him do it, just as he helped Obama win his U.S. Senate race, despite Obama's anti-Semitic and anti-Israel comments, and remained silent until recently).
The source also said he agrees with me that Aaron Klein made up the claim that he has NoI sources and that Shakir Muhammad was a Farrakhan bodyguard.
Since they're both very dishonest, it's hard to believe either of them, frankly.
Schlussel concludes: "Hey Aaron, take that yarmulke off. It's as phony as you are."
In a June 4 Newsmax column, Ronald Kessler purports to "reveal the secret to former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan’s conversion to Bush basher" -- summarized in the headline as "greed" and "liberal pressure."
So, may we safely speculate that greed and conservative pressure were the reasons for Kessler's conversion from McCain basher to McCain fluffer in the span of a few short months?
MRC vs. Real Journalists on Decreased Iraq War Coverage Topic: Media Research Center
One major trope of the Media Research Center is to portray media coverage of the Iraq war as liberally biased. We've previously noted that the MRC's examinations of Iraq war coverage are overly focused on the broadcast networks (a frequent MRC target) and make a point to exclude Fox News (unless it can spin Fox's coverage as "fair and balanced").
One recent example of a flawed MRC examination is a Feb. 28 "Media Reality Check" by Rich Noyes claiming that "[w]hen U.S. casualties began to steadily decline, TV coverage of Iraq dramatically decreased" on the TV networks. That study excluded cable news coverage, uncritically repeated Bush administration talking points claiming that "the President’s surge strategy is well on its way to succeeding," and never proved that correlation equals causation (a common logical fallacy) in this instance -- that the only reason war coverage declined was because U.S. casualties did. Despite that, Brent Baker referenced the study in a June 3 MRC CyberAlert.
Meanwhile, someone without an obvious partisan axe to grind took a look at the same issue of declining news coverage of the war and, unsurprisingly, came to a dramatically different conclusion. In an article in the latest issue of the American Journalism Review, Sherry Ricchiardi actually went out and talked to newspaper and TV news officials (what a concept) and found:
Why the dramatic drop-off? Gatekeepers offer a variety of reasons, from the enormous danger for journalists on the ground in Iraq (see "Obstructed View," April/May 2007) to plunging newsroom budgets and shrinking news space. Competing megastories on the home front like the presidential primaries and the sagging economy figure into the equation. So does the exorbitant cost of keeping correspondents in Baghdad.
No one questioned the importance of a grueling war gone sour or the looming consequences for the United States and the Middle East. Instead, newsroom managers talked about the realities of life in a rapidly changing media market, including smaller newsholes and, for many, a laser-beam focus on local issues and events.
Ricchiardi found that, despite the MRC's suggestion that only Fox News is adequately covering the war, its airtime is getting cut back as well:
John Stack, Fox News Channel's vice president for newsgathering, has no qualms about allotting more airtime to the presidential campaign than to Iraq. "This is a very big story playing out on the screen every night... The time devoted to news is finite," Stack says. "It's a matter of shifting to another story of national interest."
Indeed, Fox News has devoted less airtime on the war in Iraq in recent months than rival cable networks CNN and MSNBC, according to the The Pew Project for Excellence in Journalism's State of the News Media 2008 report -- another rpresumed reason the MRC doesn't want to focus too much on cable news.
The Bush administration plays a role as well, according to Ricchiardi:
Americans might care if they could witness more of the human toll. That's the approach the Washington Post's Dana Milbank took in an April 24 piece titled, "What the Family Would Let You See, the Pentagon Obstructs."
When Lt. Col. Billy Hall was buried in Arlington National Cemetery in April, his family gave the media permission to cover the ceremony — he is among the highest-ranking officers to be killed in Iraq. But, according to Milbank, the military did everything it could to keep the journalists away, isolating them some 50 yards away behind a yellow rope.
The "de facto ban on media at Arlington funerals fits neatly" with White House efforts "to sanitize the war in Iraq," and that, in turn, has helped keep the bloodshed out of the public's mind, Milbank wrote in his Washington Sketch feature.
Will the MRC address an examination of Iraq war news coverage based on facts instead of partisan speculation? Don't count on it.
UPDATE: Oops! Forgot to link to the AJR article. It's there now.
Aaron Klein Anti-Obama Agenda Watch Topic: WorldNetDaily
Aaron Klein's 35th anti-Obama article (versus just one attacking John McCain) is a June 3 article claiming that "Barack Obama employed and continues to employ senior staffers who belong to the Nation of Islam, and the presidential candidate has some 'worrying' ties to the controversial group headed by Louis Farrakhan." Klein's only source for this claim is an anonymous "former key Obama insider" -- remember that Klein's boss, Joseph Farah, calls claims made by anonymous sources "usually quotes made up out of whole cloth to help make the story read better."
Klein added:
The former insider said he quit, in part, because of Obama's ties to the Nation of Islam and the senator's positions on Israel.
He previously also talked with columnist Debbie Schlussel, who first wrote about the Nation of Islam employees on Obama's staff.
The fact that the purported "former insider" is running to right-wing sources of dubious credibility like Schlussel and WND to peddle his/her claims (anonymously, of course) suggests that he/she was nothing more than a mole out to dig up dirt on Obama. Such an obvious partisan motive makes his claims suspect, as does his anonymity.
Schlussel, by the way, has a history of making bizarre and hateful claims (including accusing a congressman who was simply trying to respond to her attacks against him of stalking her, as we detailed) and may be an even more virulent Obama-hater than Klein.
The Schlussel post from which Klein cribs his article was written way back in January -- more evidence that Klein is doing some desperate mucking around in the fever swamps of right-wing blogs to scrape up Obama sleaze, as we'venoted.
Klein, meanwhile, has shown himself as eager to embrace anyone dishing dirt on Obama -- even apparently conspiring a political hit job with right-wing radio host John Batchelor through their interview of the Hamas official who "endorsed" Obama.
Consider the source -- WND, Klein, Schlussel, and the cowardly anonymous "insider."
A May 30 WorldNetDaily article touting Craig R. Smith's new gas-price-protest site, OilSolution.org, neglects to tell readers that Smith is a WND columnist and, through his Swiss America Trading Corp., a WND advertiser. The article also describes Smith as "co-author of the book Black Gold Stranglehold" while failing to mention that WND published the book.
This is the latest installment in WND's persistent failure to disclose personal and business interests in the subjects of its news articles.
Farber Ignores McCain Flip-Flop on Iraq Occupation Topic: Newsmax
In a June 3 Newsmax video, Barry Farber rehashes his May 16 Newsmax column in which he claimed that a MoveOn.org ad quoting John McCain John McCain "saying he doesn't care if America is in Iraq for a hundred years or a thousand years or ten thousand years" is "awful" and "dirty politics," adding:
Obviously the perpetrators of that ad do not believe John McCain wants that raging war killing American troops on and on and on. Obviously he's saying he has nothing against a situation like Germany, Japan, South Korea, Kuwait, England, Italy, etc. where American troops are peacefully billetted and non-violently engaged.
Farber makes the same point in his video interview with Newsmax's Ashley Martella:
FARBER: Every thinking person -- now, there are too few left in America -- every thinking person knows good and well that what John McCain meant was he has nothing against remaining in Iraq indefinitely as long as there's no fighting and no dying. American troops have been in Germany and Japan since 1945, in Korea since 1950, they're in over 20 other countries around the world. I would have something called political malpractice, and I'd like to get the formulators of that ad in the witness chair and I'd like to say, "Can you show me one moment of your life where you ever opposed in any way American troops in Germany, in Japan, in Italy, even in Kuwait, in Bosnia, in Alb" -- no, there's no fighting, there's no dying, but the clear intent of that ad is to make people think, "Oh, my lord, John McCain doesn't care if this awful war goes on for 10,000 years." That is the dirtiest ad of my lifetime.
But Farber doesn't mention that McCain himself has said that a Korea-like long-term occupation of Iraq by the U.S. is not possible "because of the nature of the society in Iraq and the religious aspects of it."
Former WorldNetDaily writer Paul Sperry has resurfaced at FrontPageMag with a June 3 article claiming that "GOP powerbroker Grover Norquist" is heading a "wicked project to dress Islamists up as patriotic Republicans so they can infiltrate the government."
We haven't heard much from Sperry since he left WND in 2003 or so, beyond his 2005 anti-Islam book "Infiltration" (published under the Nelson Current imprint but likely contracted before WND ended its book partnership with Thomas Nelson, which renamed the WND Books division to Nelson Current while WND took its imprint elsewhere). Indeed, Sperry's personal website has apparently not been updated in a good three years.
Further evidence that Sperry does not have a steady gig these days: His bio at the end of the FrontPageMag piece lists as his first claim to fame "Hoover Institution media fellow." Hoover's media fellows program is a one-week program in which journalists (with an emphasis on right-leaning writers like Sperry) "have the opportunity to exchange information and perspectives with Hoover scholars" and "have access to the full range of research tools that Hoover offers."
Sperry has gone through two of these programs, in 2000 and 2006 -- meaning that he apparently considers those two one-week periods the most important journalistic achievement of his life.
That arguably trumps Sperry's previous presumed highs: suggesting we fight Muslims in Afghanistan by "that we've enlisted Afghani moles to contaminate their water supplies with pig's blood" and pestering then-President Clinton about supposed scandals at a White House picnic that was not an on-the-record press availability.
Sheppard Praises Buchanan's 'Honest' Views on Race Topic: NewsBusters
One rarely sees the words "Pat Buchanan" and "honest discussion about race" in close proximity, but Noel Sheppard does so in a June 3 NewsBusters post, declaring that Buchanan's assertion that, in Sheppard's words, "it's acceptable for blacks to vote for Barack Obama because he's black, but racist for whites to vote for Hillary Clinton because she's white" (which Sheppard insisted was "a consistent media theme") to be "likely a far more honest discussion about race and racism in this nation then what Obama offered to the American people on March 18 when he tried to explain his connection to Rev. Jeremiah Wright."
Does Sheppard also think Buchanan's recent claim that blacks aren't grateful enough to whites for hauling them out of Africa as slaves is an similarly "honest" assessment of "race and racism"?
WND Article Features Folks Offended That Gays Exist Topic: WorldNetDaily
We've previously noted that one thread of WorldNetDaily's anti-gay agenda is objection to anything in a given school curriculum that dares to suggest the mere existence of homosexuals. That tradition continues in a June 2 article by Sterling Meyers in which he claims "Christian leaders are speaking out against a Clovis, N.M., high school yearbook that included photos of and interviews with same-sex couples."
The exact offense, according to Meyers: "The Clovis yearbook features photos and interviews with two lesbian couples on a two-page presentation along with nine heterosexual couples." That's right: Even though the lesbian couples were outnumbered by the straight ones 9-to-2, that wasn't enough for these "Christian leaders" -- in fact, Meyers names only two, "a community member and leader of a Clovis church group" and an "associate pastor at Central Baptist Church in Clovis" -- they apparently no public acknowledgement that gays exist in Clovis.
Meyers goes on to uncritically write that one of these "leaders" "wrote in a letter to the editor that religious beliefs aside, a majority of Americans still feel that homosexuality is offensive, just as a majority might find pornography and child predators, and other 'social anomalies' offensive." No evidence is given as to support the claim that homosexuality is no different than pornography and pedophilia, nor does Meyers allow anyone to respond to this or any other claim made by the "Christian leaders."
BTW, who is Sterling Meyers? He's apparently a summer intern, a graduate of the World Journalism Institute -- which was founded under the aegis of of conservative Marvin Olasky's World magazine, features a heavily right-skewing slate of teachers and speakers, and claims a mission "to recruit, equip, place and encourage Christians in the mainstream newsrooms of America" -- who most recently interned at the Washington Times. Apparently, making sure conservative Christians get the last word is part of the curriculum there.
