Matt Barber's New Gig
Topic: The ConWeb
Matt Barber, whose anti-gay activism we profiled earlier this year, is leaving Concerned Women for America to work as associate dean for career and professional development with Liberty University Law School and director for cultural affairs with Liberty Counsel, the school's right-wing legal organization. (h/t Pandagon)

Ted Baehr's Anti-Gay Attack
Topic: WorldNetDaily

Ted Baehr uses his June 14 WorldNetDaily article to argue that there are so few homosexuals in the United States that not only should they not be allowed to get married, movies shouldn't be made that appeal to them.

No, really:

[O]n June 4, the Wall Street Journal reported that in advance of the "June 17th day that will live in infamy," "hotel chains, small inns and wedding venues [reported] a surprisingly small number of gay wedding reservations," even though the hotels were offering package deals and discounts rates to sodomite couples.

This seems to confirm what MOVIEGUIDE® has found with respect to homosexual movies. Although there are a lot of homosexual movies, there are very few homosexuals to support such movies. When I do interviews with hosts who have developed the effete accent of those who choose alternate lifestyles, I usually ask them, "If there are so many homosexuals, why don't you just show up and show off at the box office?

In fact, in the last five years, overt homosexual movies, including well-known films like "Brokeback Mountain" and "I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry" and such losers like "Transamerica," "Another Gay Movie," "Shortbus," "Breakfast on Pluto," "Kinky Boots," "The History Boys" and "Adam & Steve," averaged only $7.97 million at the box office. In contrast, movies with very strong Christian worldviews have averaged $76.97 million, or 10 times more money!

If there are very few homosexuals who show up at the box office, or who show up to get married, it could mean that the press, the government and businesses have vastly overrated their size and importance. That would mean that a very small minority is dictating the Judeo-Christian laws of the United States of America, or at least California.

[...]

I can only continue to challenge them to show up and show off at the box office. If they don't, then the movie industry should stop wasting money on this tiny group, and the government of California should be embarrassed that they have allowed a tiny group of Mensheviks to rule the state, destroy marriage and tyrannize the people!

Note the hatred Baehr is demonstrating toward gays with the use of terms like "sodomite couples" and the ridiculous stereotype that anyone who might speak in support of gay rights does so in an "effete accent."

Perhaps this is because Baehr can't figure out a way to make money promoting "overt homosexual movies"; after all, he was found a few years back to have accepted money to promote movies his Movieguide site positively reviewed without disclosing that financial relationship to its readers (a practice WND's Joseph Farah has defended -- perhaps not surprising given WND's long history of failing to disclose business and personal interests in the people and groups it promotes).

Baehr's column fits in nicely with WND's anti-gay agenda.

Depiction-Equals-Approval Fallacy Watch
Topic: NewsBusters

A June 15 NewsBusters post by Tim Graham declares that the Washington Post is "celebrating homosexuality and the oncoming push against the 'hateful' influence of traditional religion by putting the Capital Pride Festival on the front page of its Friday 'Weekend' section."

Huh? The article in question says nothing about pushing against the "hateful influence of traditional religion" -- or anything about religion, period -- nor does Graham offer any evidence the issue of religion was brought in any other related article.

And Graham plays into the Depiction-Equals-Approval Fallacy by claiming that the Post is "celebrating homosexuality" when it is merely publishing an article about people celebrating homosexuality. There's a difference, even if Graham wants to pretend there isn't.

Corsi Misleads on Gorelick
Topic: WorldNetDaily

A June 13 WorldNetDaily article by Jerome Corsi begins:

A panel of Democratic Party legal heavyweights speculated Jamie Gorelick, former deputy attorney general in the Clinton administration, could be appointed attorney general if Barack Obama were elected president.

But Corsi offers no evidence that this was, in fact, the case, other than Gorelick saying what she would do "if she were appointed attorney general in an Obama administration."

Corsi went on to claim:

Attorney General John Aschroft pinned blame on her for issuing a 1995 memo that established a "wall" between the criminal and intelligence divisions, hindering the ability of the U.S. government to detect the Sept. 11 plot.

Ashcroft contended the document by Gorelick [pdf file] helped establish the "single greatest structural cause" for 9/11, which was "the wall that segregated criminal investigators and intelligence agents."

In fact, as we've detailed, the "wall" was created in 1978, and Gorelick claims that her memo actually permitted freer guidelines regarding the exchange of information than what was eventually approved. Also, Ashcroft's Justice Department formally reaffirmed those guidelines in August 2001. Corsi failed to note Gorelick's response.

Waters Falsely Suggests Conservatives Didn't Spread False Obama Rumor
Topic: NewsBusters

In a June 13 NewsBusters post (and TimesWatch item), Clay Waters responded to a New York Times claim that rumors of a video of Michelle Obama "making a racially tinged speech" was "circulating on conservative blogs" by asserting: "Hate to break it to the Times, but this rumor first appeared on Hillary supporter and (liberal loose cannon) Larry Johnson's blog No Quarter back on May 16, a full two weeks before the Obama site's timeline showing that Limbaugh mentioned the rumor on his radio show."

But that doesn't disprove the claim that the rumor was "circulating on conservative blogs." Indeed, a blog post on May 16 -- the same day Johnson made his post -- at conservative TownHall.com repeats Johnson's claim, teasing, "it might be big -- if it's true." Free Republic also repeated the rumor that very same day.

So the answer to Waters' headline question -- "Did 'Conservative Bloggers' Spread Michelle Obama Video Rumor?" -- is a very emphatic yes, despite what Waters wants you to think.

MRC's Praise of Russert At Odds With Reality
Topic: Media Research Center

A statement by the Media Research Center's Brent Bozell reacting to the death of "Meet the Press" host Tim Russert reads in part:

Whenever I’ve been asked to give examples of a fair, balanced and honest journalist, Tim Russert’s name was the first name that came to mind. This was a view shared by everyone and the ultimate testimony to his professionalism.

Er, not quite everyone at the MRC. From a June 5 NewsBusters post by Noel Sheppard promoting a rant by right-wing radio host Mark Levin:

Playing audio clips of NBC's Tim Russert and MSNBC's Chris Matthews, Levin accurately demonstrated how the sycophantic adoration exhibited by the press for the junior senator from Illinois during this campaign is a bias and a journalistic disgrace likely worse than anything Americans have ever witnessed concerning a presidential candidate.

A May 28 NewsBusters post by Geoffrey Dickens criticized Russert for having "built up [Scott] McClellan's credibility" regarding McClellan's new book "as he trumpeted, 'This is not Moveon.org.'"

A Feb. 28 CyberAlert item suggested Russert was "engaged in a childish game of gotcha" during a Democratic presidential debate by asking Hillary Clinton who the successor to Russian president Vladimir Putin is:

But if the fact that Dmitry Medvedev will assume the Russian presidency is an important fact, Russert and his co-moderator, NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams, have utterly ignored it as journalists.

[...]

Russert may have thought he was exposing the candidates' lack of knowledge, but he also exposed the superficiality of NBC News.

And a Feb. 27 NewsBusters post by Seton Motley ripped "Meet the Press" as an example "of all that is wrong with the Jurassic Press" because Russert had as a guest historian Doris Kearns Goodwin, whom Motley accused of plagiarism.

And that's just this year. There are likely other instances in which the MRC has called Russert something other than a "fair, balanced and honest journalist."

We're all for speaking nice of the dead -- something the MRC learned the hard way -- but such praise should perhaps have at least some basis in reality.

Obama Derangement Syndrome Watch
Topic: WorldNetDaily

The Barack Obama campaign phenomenon increasingly resembles the 1973 science fiction movie "Soylent Green" more and more with each passing day.

[...]

Replace the movie's scenes of huge crowds who desperately gathered for food with the television images of Obama's super-sized campaign rallies, where disaffected voters frantically gather to see the pseudo-messianic figure of Obama deliver vacuous promises of "change" and "hope."

I feel a bit like Charlton Heston's character from the movie, knowing the secret of what was in Soylent Green, but finding it difficult to get people to wake up to the sickening reality.

-- Melanie Morgan, June 13 WorldNetDaily column

Another WND Promo Disguised As 'News'
Topic: WorldNetDaily

Apparently learning the WorldNetDaily ropes, Alyssa Farah dips her toe in the promotion-disguised-as-a-"news"-story pool with a June 11 article claiming that "Bookends, a non-profit organization that provides used children's books to LAUSD inner-city schools," rejected the donation of copies of the WND-published children's book "Jose Gonzalez, Great American" -- which purports to impart the lesson that "it is personal pride, self-reliance and a love of learning, not special preferences, that are the keys to becoming not just a good citizen but a great American" -- as "unfit" for the Los Angeles schools.

What's wrong with this article?

• Farah quotes only the book's author, Tony Robles; she made no apparent attempt to talk to anyone from Bookends.
• While Farah puts "unfit" in quotes, she never attributes it to anyone.
• Farah offers no evidence whatsoever that this incident actually happened -- only Robles' one-sided story.

All of which are violations of basic journalistic practice and ethics. This tells us that her dad, WND editor Joseph Farah, is falling down on his homeschooling by failing to properly instruct his daughter in the ways of journalism.

Jeffrey Hates Public Transportation
Topic: CNSNews.com

Terry Jeffrey really, really hates public transportation.

in his June 12 column, the CNSNews.com editor claims that "Recent evidence that automobile use is declining in America and that some Americans are making significant -- and in some cases not readily reversible -- changes in their lives because of escalating gas prices should be worrisome signs for those who love liberty."  One of those changes is a move to "socialized transportation" -- better known to the rest of us as public transportation.

Jeffrey does grudgingly admit that "roads generally are constructed by government, albeit with funds extracted from the earnings and gasoline purchases of drivers" -- though he doesn't admit that such a scheme is arguably socialist too -- then goes on to complain that "In a socialist transportation system, the government takes the taxpayers' money and purchases vehicles -- often buses or trains -- for itself or a government-funded agency. Where and when these vehicles go is determined by the government."

Jeffrey went on to express shock that one change people have made in reaction to record-high gas prices is that "8 percent have taken public transportation"; he responds that "Hopefully, the 8 percent who have taken to socialized transportation represents a trend that can be reversed."

The hilarious thing about Jeffrey's column is that his place of employement, aka the Media Research Center headquarters, is located within walking distance of a stop on one of the better public transportation systems in the world (the Washington Metro), as well as an stop for Amtrak and a regional passenger railroad. Further, several bus lines run within a few blocks of MRC HQ.

Somehow, we suspect that Jeffrey doesn't take the Metro to work (and we're almost certain he doesn't take the bus). But we also suspect that a number of MRC employees do. Does the MRC provide free parking? And are there enough parking spaces at MRC world headquarters for all of them?

Seems like Jeffrey and the MRC should be putting their money where his mouth is. 

Aaron Klein Anti-Obama Agenda Watch
Topic: WorldNetDaily

Aaron Klein's 37th anti-Obama article for WorldNetDaily (versus just one attacking John McCain) is a June 12 piece essentially claiming that Obama is lying when he says he "has never been a Muslim" because he purportedly was "quite religious in Islam" as a child.

As we pointed out the last time Klein tried to bring this desperate smear up, Klein wants you to believe that what Obama did as an 8-year-old has direct bearing on him now -- that's like holding people who dreamed of being, say, cowboys or ballerinas as a child accountable for not being cowboys or ballerinas now.

As he failed to do then, Klein offers no evidence now why this should be the standard to which anyone should be held, let alone Obama.

Noel Sheppard Double Standard Watch (Again)
Topic: NewsBusters

One favorite NewsBusters trope is to cherry-pick a generally obscure pro-Republican, andi-Democratic factoid and dare the "liberal media" to report it -- while, of course, itself engaging in the double standard of refusing to note corresponding factoids that make Democrats look good/Republicans look bad.

Noel Sheppard -- who did this very thing a few days ago -- does it again in a June 11 post, this time about a Democratic senator who won't endorse Obama (but will still vote for him).

But lookie here:

At least 14 Republican members of Congress have refused to endorse or publicly support Sen. John McCain for president, and more than a dozen others declined to answer whether they back the Arizona senator.

Do you think that Sheppard or any other MRC employee will make note of this? Highly unlikely (though a commenter on Sheppard's post does).

Ponte: Webb Not Racist Enough for Democrats
Topic: Newsmax

In a June 11 Newsmax column, Lowell Ponte asserted that "liberal press began a furious attack on one of presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama’s most likely vice-presidential picks, Virginia Sen. Jim Webb." The only examples Ponte provides, though, are from Slate's Timothy Noah and a writer for the Politico -- and Ponte offers no evidence that either of them are "liberal."

Ponte claimed that "The current senior Democrat in the U.S. Senate, Robert Byrd of West Virginia, is a former Grand Kleagle in the Ku Klux Klan. Both Clinton and Obama have knelt to kiss his ring." He then went on to suggest a reason why Democrats purportedly don't like Webb:

Is Webb’s sin that he is not racist enough to be trusted to stay in the political party of the slave owners, that once backed the Klan, Jim Crow, Bull Connor, and racial preferences?

Ponte, by the way, has done his own bit of ring-kissing for racists in the form of approvingly quoting Strom Thurmond in a 2004 column.

Ponte also claimed that Obama has "a voting record the impartial National Journal called the 'most liberal' in the U.S. Senate" without mentioning the subjective nature of NJ's scorecard; for instance, a vote to implement the bipartisan 9-11 Commission's homeland security recommendations was considered to be "liberal."

Ponte's weird gushing over Webb (Ponte says he and Webb "were both in the Reserve Officer Training Corps at the University of Southern California at the same time during the early 1960s") ignores the fact that Republicans mounted a desperate campaign against him in the 2006 Virginia Senate race against George Allen, to the point that CNSNews.com apparently worked in concert with Allen's campaign to smear Webb by portraying what he wrote in his novels as the views of Webb himself.

More Catholic-Bashing Coverage At WND
Topic: WorldNetDaily

WorldNetDaily has some problems with Catholicism -- it has suggested that the Catholics who run Georgetown University aren't even Christian, it quoted anti-Catholic comments after the pope decreed that Protestants did not belong to the "true church" (remember, WND editor Joseph Farah is an evangelical Protestant), and it has virtually ignored anti-Catholic comments by Rev. John Hagee (whom Farah considers a "friend").

WND's anti-Catholic bias shows up again in a June 11 article reporting that "A Catholic priest has been sentenced to three years of probation after he pleaded no contest to groping an undercover male sheriff deputy at a nude beach in California." Why do we consider this anti-Catholic? We had a difficult time finding an example of WND reporting on any Protestant minister involved in sexual proclivities, even though there are many to choose from.

Further, as we've noted, WND was all too eager to report on claims made by anti-Clinton activist Matthew Glavin, head of the conservative Southeastern Legal Foundation, while Bill Clinton was in office -- but WND devoted no original coverage to Glavin's arrest for public indecency in 2000 after being caught fondling himself (and an undercover officer) in a Georgia park.

It's interesting that of all the people to whom WND could have devoted original coverage regarding sexual proclivities and the law, it chose to focus on a Catholic priest.

New MRC Report Can't Back Up Its Claims
Topic: Media Research Center

A new report by the Media Research Center and the MRC's Culture and Media Institute purports to argue against a return of the Fairness Doctrine by claiming it's a myth that, among other things, "major corporations are muzzling liberal opinion on the radio, so Americans are not hearing both sides of issues." But this argument lacks any real evidence to support it.

The report counters claims about the dominance of conservatives on talk radio by asserting that "Public radio offers consistently liberal news/talk programming produced by four separate networks." The report offers no evidence that public radio is "consistently liberal," even though it's not shy about end-noting things (there are 54).

These kinds of baseless claims permeate the report. It similarly insists that "every major broadcasting network leans to the left," and that "No major conservative-leaning broadcast television network exists," without offering any evidence to back it up. It also claims that CNN, CNN Headline News and MSNBC are "liberal-leaning"; supririsingly, it does state that Fox News is "conservative-leaning," contrary to the MRC's longtime efforts to pretend otherwise.

It further claims that the "weekly news magazine medium," as represented by Time, Newsweek, and U.S. News and World Report, "is composed exclusively of liberal-leaning sources." That's unsupported as well -- in fact, it's wrong. U.S. News has historically tilted conservative, and doesn't George Will have a column at Newsweek?

Regarding newspapers, the report claims:

America’s leading newspapers overwhelmingly tilt to the left. Twenty-one of the 25 newspapers with the highest daily circulation lean liberal, three lean conservative, and one paper fits in neither category.  The paper with the second greatest circulation, The Wall Street Journal, has a famously conservative editorial page, but the Journal’s news pages are among the nation’s most liberal, so we list the WSJ as “mixed.”

Again, no evidence is provided to back up these assertions of newspapers' political "tilt." Indeed, evidence shows the report's classifications of the "tilt" of the top 25 papers is not accurate at all:

• The Washington Post is described as "liberal" even though it shares numerous editorial positions with the admittedly conservative Wall Street Journal.
• The Orange County Register is described as "conservative" even though it considers itself to be libertarian. 
• The San Diego Union-Tribune is described as "conservative" for reasons known only to the report's authors. The Union-Tribune was the paper that broke the story of the corruption scandal involving Republican congressman Duke Cunningham.

It's not a report, it's a polemic with a hole at the center of it -- claims about political slant it can't factually back up. Which makes it par for the course of overall MRC "research."

Noel Sheppard Double Standard Watch
Topic: NewsBusters

Noel Sheppard asked in a June 8 NewsBusters post: "Will Media Report Anti-Semitic Article at Obama's Website?"

The more important question: Will Sheppard report anti-Semitic comments at John McCain's website? (Not to mention derogatory slurs on Obama and Hillary Clinton.)

I think we know what the answer to the latter question is.

Sheppard, by the way, has a long history of engaging in double standards.