Tech Stuff
Topic: The ConWeb
We've added a FeedBurner RSS feed (large orange icon at bottom of right column). Through that, you can bookmark links to ConWebBlog items on del.icio.us, for those of you who are into that.

New Article: Rushing to Spin
Topic: The ConWeb
The ConWeb gallops to Rush Limbaugh's defense once more by repeating his lawyer's spin and deflecting all criticism. Read more.

Flashback: When the ConWeb Loved McKinney
Topic: The ConWeb
The ConWeb's has thrown its reporting energies into documenting Rep. Cynthia McKinney's alleged hitting of a Capitol Police officer. CNSNews.com has generated three articles out of it; WorldNetDaily has printed an article and a column by Les Kinsolving on it. (NewsMax has thus far run only Associated Press articles on the incident.)

But there was a time when the ConWeb was respectful of McKinney's opinions -- of course, she was bashing Al Gore at the time. Prior to the 2000 presidential election, McKinney assailed Gore for having a low "Negro tolerance level" because "I've never known him to have more than one black person around him at any given time." As ConWebWatch previously noted, NewsMax soberly reported McKinney's statement, while CNS and WND didn't find it offensive enough to note.

Ironically, WND's Kinsolving now cites her Gore statement as evidence that she's "looney," an assessment we could find no record of Kinsolving making at the time.

'There Is No MSM'
Topic: The ConWeb
In his thoughts on the Ben Domenech debacle, PressThink's Jay Rosen makes this important comment:

But in fact there is no MSM. No one answers for it. It has no address. And no real existence independent of the dreary statements in which it is bashed. Therefore it is not a term of accountability, which is one reason it's grown so popular. No one's accountable; therefore all rants can be right. If you're a blogger, and you write things like, "The MSM swallowed it hook, line and sinker," you should know that you have written gibberish.

Something for the ConWeb to think about. Not that they will, of course -- they're too invested in the MSM concept as a convenient target to abandon it.

They Like Us!
Topic: The ConWeb
Mercury Rising really likes us.

Thanks -- we appreciate it. We don't get this very often, so we'll take it where we can.

ConWeb Splits on Port Deal
Topic: The ConWeb
The ConWeb's opinions on the Dubai Ports World deal to operate at six U.S. ports has splintered.

NewsMax, after some initial ambiguity and despite individual columnists agitating against it (such as Geoff Metcalf and John LeBoutillier), is coming out for the deal. NewsMax's position was apparently solidified when Rush Limbaugh came out in favor of the deal, as described in a Feb. 27 article. Having thus received its marching orders, NewsMax is engaging in its usual tactics, like a Feb. 28 article highlighting a talking head claiming that Dubai Ports World will operate only nine of the 300 U.S. port terminals, adding, "Only in the American press does a 3 percent share of operations constitute 'taking control.'"

The Media Research Center hasn't picked an apparent direction as a whole, but its NewsBusters bloggers appear to be leaning toward supporting the deal, with posts such as highlighting CNN's Lou Dobbs' claim that DPW is trying to silence him, a false claim by Noel Sheppard that the "Antique Media and the Left" are the only ones who care about the issue and a lecture from Sheppard claiming that because "there have now been numerous revelations about who actually controls security at these ports regardless of the management, it might have been beneficial for all concerned if [Associated Press reporter Ted] Bridis [who did some early reporting on the issue] had done a little more research on this subject in order to impart a more accurate reflection of the facts that was less inflammatory."

Refuting Sheppard's claim about the "Antique Media and the Left" is WorldNetDaily, which has been highly critical of the deal. Between Les Kinsolving pointing out the UAE's links to the 9/11 terrorists to citing a conservative poll to Joseph Farah denouncing President Bush as either "tone deaf or brain dead" (but will Farah denounce his ol' buddy Rush for supporting it?) to Jerome Corsi listing presidential brother Neil Bush's links to the UAE (though we don't recall Neil Bush's past peccadilloes being considered newsworthy by WND before), WND has made its opposition quite clear.

New Article: Some Conservatives Are More Equal Than Others
Topic: The ConWeb
The ConWeb ignores doubts -- raised by their fellow conservatives -- about the credibility of Bill Tierney's claims about Saddam's weapons of mass destruction. Read more.

Repeating a False Claim
Topic: The ConWeb
Via Atrios, we learn that the New York Times issued a correction for its repeating of a claim in Kate O'Bierne's feminist-bashing book "Women Who Make the World Worse" that feminist professor Catharine MacKinnon said that "All heterosexual intercourse is rape." As the Times and Snopes point out, MacKinnon has denied saying that, and it's a statement repeated by conservatives to discredit her.

This sounds like the sort of thing that the anti-feminist ConWeb would be eagerly repeating. So we checked and found the following examples of this trope:

-- Glenn Sacks repeats the claim in a Nov. 6, 2001 CNSNews.com column. (We also found a bizarre March 3, 1999 "humor" item by David Burge imagining MacKinnon as a stripper at a "feminist" strip club to benefit President Clinton's legal defense fund.)

-- A Jan. 28, 2001, WorldNetDaily article by Julie Foster claims that MacKinnon "argues that male sexual desire can be compared to rape -- whether women consent to sex or not."

-- David Kupelian repeats the claim in a Sept. 15, 2003, article claiming that MacKinnon "in her recent book compares male sexual desire to rape – whether women consent to sex or not." Kupelian repeats it again in an April 7, 2005, article.

Dubious Poll?
Topic: The ConWeb
Last week, both CNSNews.com and NewsMax touted a poll conducted by Richard Viguerie's ConservativeHQ.com, which claims among other things that 77 percent of respondents are either seriously disappointed with Republican Congressional leaders or want them replaced and that 70 percent would support a "principled conservative challenger" running against an "established incumbent Republican" in a 2006 GOP primary.

But one question not answered by any documentation released thus far: How reliable is this poll? ConservativeHQ states only that it was an "on-line poll of 1,028 conservative activists and donors." "Online poll" conjures up images of unreliable, easily gamed opt-in polls; an earlier memo from Viguerie, however, states that the poll was sent to "tens of thousands of conservative donors and grassroots activists around the country."

So, while this poll is likely not as unreliable as an opt-in poll, it is also not as reliable as a regular poll conducted by a polling firm. Only a thousand or so responses from "tens of thousands" sent out is not necessarily representative, since only the most motivated and/or frustrated will take the time to respond to it. The quickness to which conservative outlets such as NewsMax and CNS and Viguerie's history as a conservative organizer and motivator (not to mention the descriptions of "principled conservative challenger" and "established incumbent Republican," which implants the image in the respondent's mind that the incumbent is, by definition, not "principled") also indicate that it's a poll to be taken with at least a small grain of salt.

When Automated Content Goes Bad
Topic: The ConWeb
From the MSNBC TV front page at around 12:30 p.m. ET today:



The box is promoting an entry on Scarborough's blog with that as a headline.

A larger screen shot of the page is here.

ConWebWatch Speaks!
Topic: The ConWeb
Read an interview with me at Bloggasm.

Why Project 21 Won't Be Denouncing Hillary Clinton
Topic: The ConWeb
A Jan. 17 press release by Project 21 -- the black conservative group that is the home of Mychal Massie -- issued a statement condemning recent remarks by New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin. Project 21 member Council Nedd said of Nagin: "Now he is practicing plantation politics in an attempt to keep his job."

Looks like the members of Project 21 are trying to keep their hypocrisy in check after ConWebWatch caught Massie denouncing Rep. Charles Rangel for saying that "George Bush is our Bull Connor" despite his own history of likening Democrats to Bull Connor.

New Article: Slanties 2006: Brokeslant Mountain
Topic: The ConWeb
Who in the ConWeb will haul home the hardware for producing the year's most biased news coverage and outrageous commentary? Read more.

Torture Update
Topic: The ConWeb
We've updated our Dec. 13 article on torture to add the very latest: WND's Joseph Farah declaring that the U.S. doesn't torture and NewsMax declaring that basic military training is torture.

New Article: Tortured (and Waterboarded and Electro-Shocked) Logic
Topic: The ConWeb
The ConWeb learns to love U.S. torture of detainees, either by redefining it or wholeheartedly embracing it. Read more.