Sheppard Thinks Press Releases Are News Stories Topic: NewsBusters
An Aug. 6 NewsBusters post by Noel Sheppard asserts that a challenge by anti-global warming author Dennis Avery to debate Al Gore on the subject was "reported by PR Newswire."
Um, Noel, PR Newswire doesn't "report" anything. It is a press release distribution service; it distributes only what businesses and organizations have paid to distribute. Sheppard doesn't mention that the organization that paid to distribute Avery's challenge is the Heartland Institute, whose press releases Sheppard has previously regurgitated while failing to note that it's an activist group with conservative leanings, secrecy regarding its funding and dubious ties to the tobacco industry.
Sheppard, strangely, does repeat a quote from the press release that "The Heartland Institute has run more than $500,000 of ads in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and Washington Times promoting a debate." That's right -- a half-million dollars spent on ads by one group. Did Marc Morano include this amount in the allegedly paltry $19 million he claims global warming deniers have spent (which Sheppard claimed without support were "actual hard dollar numbers)? We somehow doubt it.
Corsi Conspiracy: NAFTA Blamed for Bridge Collapse Topic: WorldNetDaily
Remember conservatives' eagerness to center any and every sort of conspiracy around Bill Clinton? The new bogeyman appears to be any economic cooperation whatsoever between the United States, Canada and Mexico, and WorldNetDaily's Jerome Corsi is the high priest of that little religion.
An Aug. 5 WND article by Corsi endeavors to blame the Minnesota bridge collapse on NAFTA. Really:
Evidence of increasing international trade truck traffic on Interstate 35 through Minnesota raises concerns that NAFTA Superhighway traffic contributed to last week's collapse of the freeway bridge in Minneapolis.
WND has unearthed a Federal Highway Administration report dating back to 1998 that warned increasing NAFTA truck traffic was expected to create a safety concern with bridges in states along the I-35 NAFTA Superhighway, including Minnesota.
Corsi eventually descends into his longtime activism against a transportation corridor in Texas, the only tangental link to Minnesota is that the corridor would run "parallel to Interstate 35." Corsi doesn't explain why transcontinental trade is a bad thing.
Corsi also rails against something called the North America's SuperCorridor Coalition, Inc. (NASCO), which "designates I-35 as a NAFTA Superhighway." he ominously adds: "The original 2005 NASCO website opened with a graphic map of I-35 that highlighted in yellow the continental nature of the I-35 NAFTA Superhighway, illustrating clearly the highway's links into Mexico and Canada."
But the NASCO map Corsi appended to his article shows that its interest in I-35 in Minnesota stopping short of full transcontinental ambitions. The map's representation of I-35 stops at Duluth, Minnesota and does not extend from there into Canada.
And thus, Corsi's bizarre bridge conspiracy starts to crumble.
UPDATE: An Aug. 7 article by Corsi repeats his conspiracy theory, but again, Corsi doesn't explain why trade between the U.S., Canada and Mexico is a bad thing or, if such trade is in fact a good thing, why new highways and trade corridors shouldn't be built and expanded.
Corsi needs to pick a conspiracy and stick with it.
Klein Keeps Up Hebron Whitewash Topic: WorldNetDaily
Aaron Klein's whitewash of the right-wing extremist aspects of a dispute over two Jewish families living without permission in a market in the West Bank town of Hebron continues.
An Aug. 6 article by Klein repeats his quoting of Shlomit Bar-Kochba without reporting that her father is Moshe Zar, a Jewish landowner West Bank who served prison time for his role in terrorist acts against Arabs in the 1980s, including a bombing that blew off the legs of one Arab West Bank mayor -- a clue to the extremist motivations of Bar-Kochba. Klein also quoted a member of Israel's National Union Party without describing its political persuasion -- that is, right-wing. By contrast, Klein is not shy about pointing out when Israeli political parties are left of center.
The main thrust of Klein's article was a report that some Israel Defense Forces infantry troops and two commanders have refused to participate in the planned evacuation of the families from the market. Klein described those resisting troops only as "mostly religious troops" who "reached their decision after consulting with their rabbis, who instructed them to not play any role in the evacuation, including an indirect one." But as with Bar-Kochba, other sources tell us what Klein does not.
A Jerusalem Post article reports that the rebelling troops belong to a "hesder yeshivot" -- a program which combines advanced Talmudic studies with military service in the IDF. In other words, these are Orthodox or ultra-Orthodox Jews who are resisting their military command.
Further, the UK Guardian reports that Yaakov Amidror -- "a right-wing retired general" whom WND quoted approvingly in December 2004 -- as saying that he strongly opposed the evacuation but that soldiers had no choice but to carry out their orders: "There is only one thing that is worse than the decision to expel Jews from their homes in Hebron ... and that is to ruin the army. Disobeying an order is a sure way to ruin the army."
Will Klein ever put down the whitewash and describe the right-wing extremist motivations behind the Hebron occupation? If he cared about honest journalism he would, but sadly, we know better.
UPDATE: The Guardian article also adds one more pertinent detail that Klein has ignored. Klein writes that "Arab merchants illegally set up shop at the market but were asked by the Israel Defense Forces to leave after a series of clashes broke out in the mid-1990s," but there's much more to the story, according to the Guardian:
The two Jewish families have been squatting illegally in several apartments in the Hebron market for several months. The market has been closed since 1994, when the Jewish militant Baruch Goldstein opened fire in a shrine holy to both Jews and Muslims, killing 29 Palestinians. Settlers have been seeking to re-establish a presence.
We've previously noted Klein's reluctance to mention Goldstein's massacre in his stories set in Hebron or concerning the Tomb of the Patriarchs.
Sheppard Hates Hates Hates Newsweek Article on Global Warming Deniers Topic: NewsBusters
We suspect that NewsBusters' resident global warming denier, Noel Sheppard, would not take the Newsweek article about the big money behind the global-warming-denial industry very well.
Sure enough, in an Aug. 5 post, he goes to work attacking it, using the word "disgraceful" four times (plus "disgrace" in the headline) and "disgusting" twice, accusing the article of hypocrisy and complaining that it "painted a picture of an evil cabal whose goal is to thwart science at the detriment of the environment and the benefit of their wallets."
But Sheppard makes no effort to disprove any of the article's claims. And he engages in his own set of hypocrisies; as we've documented, he has cared little about the backgrounds of the deniers he has quoted -- indeed, this may be the first time he has been confronted with such evidence. Sheppard has also baselessly attacked Gore as a "charlatan who doesn't believe in anything but himself and attaining power" -- in other words, an evil cabal whose goal is to thwart (right-wing) science at the detriment of the environment and the benefit of their wallets.
We're verklempt. Talk amongst yourselves.
Sheppard followed up with an Aug. 6 post touting an attack on the Newsweek piece by Marc Morano, anti-global warming Sen. James Inhofe's communications director (and former CNSNews.com reporter). Again, Sheppard uses the word "disgraceful" to describe the article (twice), as well as "thoroughly offensive" and "piece of detritus."
Sheppard highlighted Morano's assertion that he gave Newsweek "the documentation showing that proponents of man-made global warming have been funded to the tune of $50 BILLION in the last decade or so, while skeptics have received a paltry $19 MILLION by comparison." Sheppard added: "Unlike Newsweek, Morano presented actual hard dollar numbers contributed by various groups to fund global warming research and the advancement of climate change hysteria. How was this information ignored by Newsweek which presents itself as a member of the media, and not a political action group?"
Perhaps because Morano is a paid shill who has a history of making misleading claims, both atCNS and as Inhofe's flack. Morano has shown that there's good reason not to trust him any farther than one than throw him. Perhaps Newsweek figured that Morano's numbers were gamed and unreliable -- a not-unreasonable assumption considering Morano's track record.
The overall tone we get from Sheppard's attacks is that no one is permitted to question him or his fellow global-warming deniers (yes, we know he hates that term). That's probably more disgraceful than anything Newsweek has done.
An Aug. 6 WorldNetDaily article reports that "WND White House correspondent Les Kinsolving is returning to the presidential press briefings this week after a one-on-one conference with White House Press Secretary Tony Snow – ending Kinsolving's 'boycott' of the daily press sessions brought on by what he considered Snow's disrespectful treatment of him." (Yes, the word "Kinsolved" is used in a front-page promo for the article.) Missing, of course, is the full context of the dispute.
As we've detailed, the crux of the dispute was that Snow accused Kinsolving of having "twisted" his words in WND articles. There's no mention of that here -- indeed, WND has never addressed that issue.
Instead, the article states: "Kinsolving and Snow reached an agreement during a phone conversation, after which an aide to Snow told Farah 'Tony is very fond of Les and holds him in high personal regard.'" We suspect that the aide said a lot more about Kinsolving than that.
Thus, WND and Kinsolving continue their overall dishonesty about the dispute. Can someone who does that really be held in "high personal regard" by Snow?
Another Aaron Klein Whitewash Topic: WorldNetDaily
Aaron Klein must have a new bucket of paint, because the WorldNetDaily Jerusalem reporter is engaging in a new round of whitewashing.
An Aug. 3 article by Klein asserted that "Prime Minister Ehud Olmert now has directed his forces to forcibly evict two families that moved into a market in Jewish sections of Hebron, the oldest Jewish community in the world." He features quotes taken from a Jersalem Post article about Shlomit Bar-Kochba, who moved back into the market with her husband and eight children.
But Klein leaves out one important detail that the Post reported: Shlomit Bar-Kochba is the daugher of Moshe Zar, who purchased large amounts of land in the West Bank (Samaria) to develop Jewish settlements. Neither the Post nor Klein tell the story of Moshe Zar -- and his terrorist past.
In the 1980s, Zar was a part of a "Jewish underground" group that targeted violence against Arabs in the West Bank and plotted to destroy the Dome of the Rock mosque in Jersalem. Zar served a short prison term for his role in the bombings of the cars of three Arab West Bank mayors. Nablus Mayor Bassam Shaka lost both legs in the bombing. A July 22, 1985, Washington Post article noted that Zar and 14 others put on trial over the bombings were "vigorously supported by leaders of the Jewish settlement movement in the West Bank and by many Israeli members of parliament from the Likud bloc and other right-wing parties."
In other words, these are no ordinary, everyday Israelis who are being evicted. They are right-wing activists trying to make a political statement -- something Klein utterly fails to address.
Klein's exclusion of the political aspect extends to his description of the Hebron dispute:
In January 2006, Jewish families took up occupancy to strengthen Jewish ties to the area following the murder of an infant by a Palestinian sniper, yards away from the market.
[...]
Following a standoff with the army last year, the Jews who had moved into the market decided to leave, reportedly after receiving promises from military officials they could return a few months later, after the court systems – which deemed the property Jewish – worked with the IDF to verify the legality of the Jewish residence.
Here's how the Jerusalem Post described the incident:
Back in 2006, hundreds of right-wing activists, mostly teens and young adults, had flocked to the city to defend the right of eight Jewish families to live in the stalls which had not been operated by Palestinian merchants since 1994.
But at the time, said Bar-Kochba, given the option for a peaceful outcome, her family and the others who lived in the former shops chose to avert violence, and the activists dispersed.
Again: These are right-wing activists doing this. Even the Jerusalem Post has admitted it. Why can't Klein tell that to his readers?
Because whitewashing the extremist backgrounds of the Israelis he sympathizes with is what he does. As we've documented, Klein has portrayed the AWOL Israeli soldier who killed four Arabs on a bus as being a murder victim when those who witnessed the soldier's shootings subdued and killed him, and he has hidden the violent, extremist backgrounds of other right-wing Israelis he has featured.
The whitewashing has apparently worked for Klein in the past, despite the existence of the Internet and, thus, the ability to learn what he's not reporting. And Joseph Farah apparently approves. Why would he bother to start being honest now?
NewsBusters' Meister Just Can't Stop Lying About Plame Topic: NewsBusters
Pam Meister begins her Aug. 3 NewsBusters post by writing, "The saying goes, if you tell a lie often enough, people will begin to believe it." She should know, since telling lies is exactly what she tries to do here.
In her attempt to disprove an assertion that Valerie Plame is an "ex-spy," Meister writes that "it's been established that Plame was not covert at the time that Robert Novak, via (as we now know) Richard Armitage, first mentioned Plame in one of his columns. Her own husband, Joseph Wilson, said as much when he appeared on CNN with Wolf Blitzer back in 2005," citing Wilson's statement that "My wife was not a clandestine officer the day that Bob Novak blew her identity." But as Media Matters points out, Wilson was saying that Plame ceased being a clandestine officer "the day that Bob Novak blew her identity."
Meister continues: "In fact, there was no violation of any laws concerning covert agents whatsoever." Her "proof" of this is a February 2005 NewsMax article repeating an assertion by conservative activist Victoria Toensing making that claim. In fact, as Media Matters also points out, the Washington Post op-ed by Toensing that NewsMax referenced makes several false or misleading claims about the case and fails to mention Toensing's longtime friendship with Novak, whcih arguably colors her perception of the case.
Meister also asserted that "Plame was not 'unmasked' as she had no cover to blow. She was, at that point, an analyst with a desk job, not risking her life undercover in Russia or the Middle East." In fact, Fitzgerald found that "It was clear from very early in the investigation that Ms. Wilson qualified under the relevant statute (Title 50, United States Code, Section 421) as a covert agent whose identity had been disclosed by public officials, including Mr. Libby, to the press. From Fitzgerald's "unclassified summary" of Plame's CIA employment history (via Media Matters):
On 1 January 2002, Valerie Wilson was working for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) as an operations officer in the Directorate of Operations (DO). She was assigned to the Counterproliferation Division (CPD) at CIA Headquarters, where she served as the Chief of a CPD component with responsibility for weapons proliferation issues related to Iraq.
While assigned to CPD, Ms. Wilson engaged in temporary duty (TDY) travel overseas on official business. She traveled at least seven times to more than ten countries. When traveling overseas, Ms. Wilson always traveled under a cover identity -- sometimes in true name and sometimes in alias -- but always using cover -- whether official or non-official cover (NOC) -- with no ostensible relationship to the CIA.
At the time of the initial unauthorized disclosure in the media of Ms. Wilson's employment relationship with the CIA on 14 July 2003, Ms. Wilson was a covert CIA employee for whom the CIA was taking affirmative measures to conceal her intelligence relationship to the United States.
Interestingly, according to her NewsBusters bio, Meister "did her senior thesis on bias in media." By regurtitating false and misleading conservative talking points and ignoring the truth about Plame, Meister is certainly adding to media bias.
Morgan Misrepresents Ron Paul Topic: WorldNetDaily
In her Aug. 3 WorldNetDaily column, Melanie Morgan misrepresented Ron Paul's claims about the relationship of American foreign policy to terrorism:
Quixotic presidential candidate Ron Paul explained on Bill Maher's left-wing cable show that we were responsible for the acts of violence by Islamic jihadists.
According to Paul and others, the bombing of the USS Cole, the 1993 World Trade Center attack and thousands – yes, thousands – of previous acts of terrorism by the jihadists are really our fault. These people are either ignorant of history or are intentionally dishonest in an effort to advance their misguided ideology.
In fact, Paul never said that "we were responsible for the acts of violence by Islamic jihadists"; he specifically assigned blame on the "blowback" of U.S. foreign policy to the policy itself. From the May 25 edition of HBO's "Real Time with Bill Maher":
PAUL: I think it's been known for quite a few decades that our foreign policy has what the CIA calls blowback. It has unintended consequences. You can go back to 1953, when we put the Shah into power, or us supporting Osama bin Laden and radicalizing the Islamics to go after the Soviets, and that comes back as blowback. Our support for Saddam Hussein in the 1980s. And this comes back to haunt us.
[...]
MAHER: I know that some people have tried to get you out of the Republican debates and to just make you go up to the blackboard and write a thousand times, "They hate us for our freedom."
PAUL: That's right.
MAHER: But you won't do that.
PAUL: But we have Mr. Giuliani studying tonight. He's home reading all those books. And he's going to come back and he's going to apologize to me. And he's going to say, "I'm sorry, Ron, I just didn't know that that's the way foreign policy works. I didn't even know that you just can't blame Americans for our foreign policy, that it's the policy that's at fault. It's not the fault of the Americans who are victimized by these evil, monstrous, murderous people who come over and kill us. It's the fault of the policymakers. It's policy that counts."
Morgan also curiously leaves out the fact that Paul is a Republican in an effort to tie him to "left-wing" Maher.
TimesWatch's Clinton Equivocation Topic: Media Research Center
Joining NewsBusters' Matthew Sheffield in going into Clinton Equivocation mode on the ties between Rudy Giuliani and Rupert Murdoch -- as detailed in a New York Times article -- is TimesWatch's Clay Waters, who echoed the lament that Bill Clinton's ties to Rick Kaplan are much more important and to downplay the Giuliani-Murdoch link.
Waters was quick to dismiss Giuliani's disproportionate airtime on Fox News: "Since Giuliani has been leading the Republican field in almost all the polls taken so far, it's hardly a surprise that he would also lead in coverage at Fox News. And it's not exactly out of character for Sean Hannity, who is after all paid to have opinions, to favor a particular Republican candidate." Don't expect anyone at the MRC to avoid criticizing, say, Keith Olbermann because he "is after all paid to have opinions."
Waters glossed over Giuliani's efforts to have Time Warner, the cable TV company in New York City, to carry Fox News, saying only that "Giuliani tried (and failed) to convince Time Warner to add the then-fledgling cable channel." In fact, as the Times article noted, the Giuliani administration announced plans to broadcast Fox News on a municipal-run station, an action a federal judge blocked after calling it "special advocacy" to "reward a friend and to further a particular viewpoint."
A blurb currently on the Media Research Center's front page linking to Waters' item carries the headline, "A Double Standard on Media Conflicts." Isn't the real double standard the MRC's refusal to condemn a "media conflict" among conservatives that it purports to find offensive when liberals are involved?
Gladnick Won't Admit That Libby Was Plame Leaker Topic: NewsBusters
An Aug. 3 NewsBusters post by P.J. Gladnick attacks Alec Baldwin for stating that, in a Huffington Post item on what he'd do if he were president, he would "prosecute whoever is responsible for outing Valerie Plame as a CIA agent" by insisting that Richard Armitage -- and only Armitage -- leaked Valerie Plame's name:
At this point you would think that Baldwin would lash out at the leaker, Richard Armitage, or at Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald for protecting Armitage by failing to prosecute him despite knowing that Armitage was the guilty one from the very beginning of his laughable investigation.
[...]
All this outrage and Baldwin still continues to miss the obvious targets of Armitage and Fitzgerald.
[...]
Of course, facts won't deter Baldwin from flailing foolishly away. He concludes his blog with another demand for the prosecution of whoever leaked (hint: Richard Armitage) the sacred name of St. Valerie:
[...]
And, Alec, you owe us an explanation of how you could write an entire rant about prosecuting whoever leaked Valerie Plame's name without once mentioning the name of the leaker, Richard Armitage, or the Special Counsel, Patrick Fitzgerald, who refused to prosecute him.
Nowhere does Gladnick even mention the name Scooter Libby, despite the fact that Libby did in fact also leak Plame's identity to reporters. Gladnick -- like fellow NewsBusters Noel Sheppard and Mark Finkelstein -- is making the absurd argument that because Armitage leaked Plame's name to Robert Novak, and Novak was the first to report it ahead of the reporters to whom Libby leaked, Libby's leak somehow magically didn't happen.
Kincaid's Old-News Attack Topic: Accuracy in Media
An Aug. 1 Accuracy in Media column by Cliff Kincaid asserts that Rupert Murdoch should "clean house" of the "liberal and left-wing writers" at his newly acquired Wall Street Journal. But Kincaid offers no evidence of "liberal and left-wing" journalism currently being practiced at the Journal; in fact, he spends much of his column attacking someone who hasn't worked at the Journal for 35 years.
A. Kent MacDougall, Kincaid tells us, "declared that Karl Marx was his favorite journalist" and "generated some controversy in the late 1980s when he wrote two articles for the socialist Monthly Review about 'boring from within' at the Journal and the Los Angeles Times." MacDougall's most dastardly deed, according to Kincaid? "MacDougall had boasted in the Monthly Review about how he was able to get front-page articles in the Journal that favorably portrayed left-wing economists and their ideas." Horrors! But, as Kincaid also notes, "He left the Journal in 1972."
Kincaid notes another Journal reporter, Jonathan Kwitny, who allegedly "also achieved notoriety for writing major articles with a left-wing slant." But one of the stories he cites -- "attacking the Reagan Administration's anti-communist effort in El Salvador" -- betrays the old-news aspect of this allegation as well.
The only contemporary evidence Kincaid cites comes not from the Journal's news pages but from its notoriously conservative editorial page -- which apparently aren't conservative enough for Kincaid because of its "radical commitment to open borders and free trade at any cost."
An accompanying press release similarly fails to offer contemporary evidence of the bias he alleges, and it cites the case of MacDougall without noting he hadn't worked for the paper in 35 years.
Sheffield's Clinton Equivocation Topic: NewsBusters
An Aug. 2 NewsBusters post by Matthew Sheffield takes your usual Clinton Equivocation-style attack, asserting that Bill Clinton's relationship with former CNN head Rick Kaplan is much more important and serious than Rudy Giuliani's relationship with Fox News head Roger Ailes, as detailed in a New York Times article, even though they are quite similar.
While recounting a long list of bullet points about Klein and Clinton, Sheffield would say only that Giuliani and Ailes "are friends and have done a few activities together," not mentioning that one of those activities involved Giuliani presiding over Ailes' marriage. Sheffield asserted that "Kaplan skewed coverage in favor of his friend," but he didn't note that the article's claim that Giuliani has appeared on Fox News more than any other presidential candidate.
Among Sheffield's bullet points of Kaplan's sins was that he "had been a political operative for a liberal presidential candidate before jumping to journalism," but Sheffield failed to note Ailes' history as a conservative political operative and media consultant for three Republican presidents before jumping to journalism.
Ignoring those points allowed Sheffield to claim that the only "dirt" the Times article had was that "Giuliani tried to get his city to carry FNC shortly after its launch when local cable monopoly TimeWarner, then in the process of buying CNN." What Sheffield fails to note: the Giuliani administration said it would broadcast Fox News on a municipal-run station, an action a federal judge blocked after calling it "special advocacy" to "reward a friend and to further a particular viewpoint."
In other words, your classic Clinton Equvocation double standard -- it's offensive to Sheffield when a Clinton does it, but not when a conservative does it.
We nailed Media Mythbusters' Lorie Byrd on a false claim, forced her to issue a correction, and now fellow MMB blogger Terresa Monroe-Hamilton, in a July 29 post, is suggesting we're dishonest.
ConWebWatch who touts themselves as a media watchdog site seems to be very bothered by the fact that the current contributors to Media Mythbusters are all conservative. This is true… However, we launched only a week ago and have had a number of tips from contributors not listed who are liberal. The point to this venture is to expose misrepresentations in the media, falsehoods, mistakes and items that need correction. Frankly, being conservative or liberal has nothing to do with it. Facts are facts and truth is truth. But we would like to thank those detractors linking to us for the exposure and the competition. The more the web keeps the media honest, the better we like it - whether we do the exposing or someone else does. There’s enough work to go around for everyone.
The one item I did take an exception to was the dig at Lorie Byrd and her correction on the Sunni Burning Six story. Lorie candidly did a correction and did what she felt was right - she should be lauded for this, not criticized. When I see ConWebWatch do a correction or retraction, maybe I’ll take them a bit more seriously. Right now it sounds like serious sour grapes.
That's a weird statement: "When I see ConWebWatch do a correction or retraction, maybe I’ll take them a bit more seriously." Is Monroe-Hamilton suggesting we've made false statements? If so, she should back that up; we don't like being accused of something we didn't do. If I have made any significantly false claims, the websites I write about would have made a big stink about it by now in order to discredit me, and, well, they haven't. And by the way, we have issued corrections when we've gotten things wrong (here and here, for example).
And "serious sour grapes"? Please. ConWebWatch been in the misinformation-correction business a lot longer than Media Mythbusters has, so we know what we're doing; in addition, we work for a certain other media watchdog. We do, however, profess amazement that Byrd has such an "in" at a metropolitan daily newspaper that she can commandeer precious free space within to promote her nacent venture, while the rest of us have to write letters to that same paper to get our views across and then hope that the editor decides to print them. The "sour grapes" appear to be on the part of Media Mythbusters for our having caught Byrd in her error.
While we may have been gloating a bit about this, we somehow doubt that Byrd would not have corrected it on her own if we had not written the Examiner -- after all, it was not until that letter was published that Byrd issued her correction. Byrd's claim that the AP "retracted" the "Sunni Burning Six" story would otherwise have become another misleading conservative meme.
P.S.: Monroe-Hamilton asks in another July 29 post: "Why would the media blithely believe sources within our enemies’ ranks?" Good question. Go ask Aaron Klein.
A July 31 CNSNews.com column by Kevin Martin -- a member of the black-conservative group Project 21, just like Erebus-obsessedMychal Massie -- makes misleading claims about auto efficiency and safety, gratutiously slamming the hapless AMC Pacer in the process.
After noting that Barack Obama doesn't drive a hybrid car despite supporting increased fuel efficiency, Martin writes:
I choose to drive a Suzuki Grand Vitara. It gets me 18 miles per gallon inthe city and 22 miles per gallon on the highway. I need an SUV because my job as an environmental contractor requires me to carry both equipment and people to building sites. I can't do that in a hybrid Honda Insight.
Besides, I can't even buy a Honda Insight anymore. Honda discontinued it last year due to poor sales, and it just announced it is discontinuing its Accord hybrid for the same reason.
Aside from falsely suggesting that the Honda insight and Accord are the only hybrids on the market and nobody wants to buy them (has he never heard of the Toyota Prius) Martin is suggesting he would buy a hybrid SUV. Allow us to suggest the Ford Escape, the Mercury Mariner, or (if Martin can afford it, which his wingnut welfare just might do) the Lexus RX400 -- all hybrid SUVs of which beat his Grand Vitara in mileage and can still haul his equipment and people.
Then, after claiming that "approximately 2,000 deaths per year since 1975 can be attributed to smaller vehicles that were downsized to increase their fuel efficiency," Martin adds: "Raising fuel economy requirements again wil make the reincarnation of a car-safety blunder like the AMC Pacer almost a certainty."
Huh? While there were many issues with the Pacer (not the least of which is that Garth drove one), safety was not one of them. In fact, it was designed to incorporate many safety features. It was also not as fuel-efficient as intended; designed around a Wankel engine that GM ended up canceling, the Pacer used heavy, inefficient engines from other AMC cars and actually got somewhat worse mileage than Martin's Grand Vitara.
Martin needs to do a bit more research on hybrids before putting pen to paper again -- and not lie about AMC products.
Clinton Derangement Syndrome Watch Topic: Media Research Center
Brent Bozell's Aug. 1 column takes a stab at a quasi-defense of Alberto Gonzales -- not by actually defending the guy, but by attacking his attackers, specifically Sen. Charles Schumer, and rather lamely playing the Clinton Equivocation card by rehashing misleading Clinton-scandal talking points. Bozell writes:
How many Democrats would suggest that Hillary Clinton should resign, or should have never run for office, for hiding Rose Law Firm documents from the special prosecutor in the Whitewater investigation for several years (until they were discovered near her private office in the White House quarters)? Special prosecutor Robert Ray found Hillary Clinton provided factually false statements to the special prosecutor in the Travel Office case. Neither Rep. Schumer nor Sen. Schumer cared.
Bozell, of course, leaves out important information in order to bash the Clintons. He offers no evidence that Clinton was deliberately "hiding" the records, nor does he note that the records don't implicate her in any way in the Whitewater scandal. And Bozell conveniently ignores that Ray also ruled regarding the travel office:
The decision to fire the Travel Office employees was a lawful one. The Travel Office employees served at the pleasure of President Bill Clinton, and they were subject to discharge without cause.
[...]
[T]he evidence is insufficient to prove to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt that either Mr. Watkins or Mrs. Clinton committed perjury or obstruction of justice during the course of their testimony before GAO, the Congress, and this investigation.
[...]
Thus, absent persuasive, corroborated, and admissible evidence to the contrary, there is insufficient evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Mrs. Clinton's statements to this Office or to Congress were knowingly false.
Bozell added:
This controversy is supposedly about the dismissal of seven U.S. Attorneys. So where was Chuck Schumer when the Clinton administration dismissed all 93 U.S. Attorneys in 1993? Back then, it was perfectly fine. Now he’s outraged. No one in the “news” media cares about the hypocrisy.
As we've repeatedlydocumented, there's no comparison -- no matter how much Bozell and his MRC minions insist there is -- between the Clinton's dismissal of U.S. attorneys at the start of his administration and the Bush administration's dismissal of attorneys he appointed, apparently because they refused to inject politics into their prosecutions.
