Newsmax, NewsBusters' Double Standard on Reporters Booted from Campaign Planes Topic: NewsBusters
An Oct. 31 Newsmax article by Rick Pedraza begins:
In what many are saying might be a disturbing sign of things to come if Sen. Barack Obama becomes the nation’s 44th president, the Democratic nominee’s campaign tossed several McCain-endorsing reporters from traveling on its plane.
Similarly, Matthew Sheffield writes in an Oct. 31 NewsBusters post:
In what could be seen as a disturbing sign for the future, the Barack Obama presidential campaign has blocked the Washington Times newspaper from traveling with the Democratic nominee in the final days of the election.
[...]
Update 9:57. Drudge is reporting (ht Blazer) that the New York Post and the Dallas Morning News are also blocked. Is it a coincidence that all three booted papers have endorsed John McCain for president?
Blocking the Post is even more of an outrage considering that it is the sixth most popular newspaper in the country with a circulation of over 600,000.
Neither Pedraza nor Sheffield mention -- let alone criticize -- the fact that John McCain's campaign has also booted reporters who wrote things they didn't like of his campaign plane. Time's Joe Klein and the New York Times' Maureen Dowd are just two of them.
Indeed, by contrast, NewsBusters defended McCain kicking Dowd off the plane. From an Oct. 2 post by Warner Todd Huston:
Let's face it, Dowd is not a journalist. She is an opinion editorialist. She does not report, she opines. She simply cannot be expected to present unbiased news. McCain knows that he cannot even breathe without Dowd calling it a crime against humanity so that makes her a perfectly legitimate target for dismissal. There is just no expectation of fairness with a Maureen Dowd. Everyone knows it.
If more campaigns did this to media types that merely express opinions as opposed to reporting what is going on with the campaign one might expect that we'd get more serious news as opposed to constant personal opinion.
So, good on ya, John McCain.
One more thing: If, as Pedraza writes, the booted reporters are "McCain-endorsing reporters," doesn't that mean they have a bias that reporters aren't supposed to have? Calling Brent Bozell ...
Speaking of Amnesia ... Topic: WorldNetDaily
An Oct. 30 WorldNetDaily article on Philip Berg's "lawsuit alleging Obama is ineligible to be president because of possible birth in Kenya" once again fails to mention its own previous reporting that Berg's lawsuit "relies on discredited claims" and that "A separate WND investigation into Obama's birth certificate [showing him to be born in Hawaii] utilizing forgery experts also found the document to be authentic."
Aaron Klein must have a serious short-term memory problem.
Just one day after Klein (grudgingly and under protest, we can presume) wrote an article acknowledging that John McCain has ties with Rashid Khalidi, an Oct. 30 article by Klein again obsesses on "Rashid Khalidi, who has been closely tied to Sen. Barack Obama" -- with no mention whatsoever of the McCain ties he had admitted just two short days ago.
What you won't find, of course, is any mention by Klein of what others are reporting about Khalidi: that he is "respected by people on the right as well as the left," and "someone who has always reached out to all sides in the debate about the future of Israel and Palestine."
Klein's simply too dishonest to tell both sides of the Khalidi story to his readers. He would rather smear Obama than tell the full truth.
Kessler Just Can't Quit Mitt Romney Topic: Newsmax
Like a lover checking up on an old flame, Ronald Kessler devotes his Oct. 30 Newsmax column to Mitt Romney's attacks on Barack Obama. Kessler gets a lilttle old-time fluffing in as well, promoting Romney's PAC and sycophantically asking him if he'll run again in 2012.
A newly posted video on YouTube has captured Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama appearing to suggest that America after World War II had similarities to Nazi Germany.
In the video, Obama is on WBEZ radio in Chicago discussing the Supreme Court opinions on civil rights during the time America was dealing with Jim Crow laws.
He states, "You've got the doctrines of Nazism that we are fighting against, that start looking uncomfortably similar to what's going on back here at home."
But WND and the video edit Obama's words. As Media Matters detailed when Sean Hannity did the same thing -- is WND simply treating what right-wing radio hosts say as actual news? -- Obama was specifically speaking in the context of the rights of African-Americans. Here's the complete statement made by Obama, with they key statement WND didn't report in bold:
[T]here's a lot of change going on outside of the court that, you know, the judges have to essentially take judicial notice of. I mean, you've got World War II. You've got the doctrines of Nazism that we are fighting against that start looking uncomfortably similar to what's going on back here at home. You've got African Americans who are returning from the war with certain expectations in terms of, "Why is it that I'm now in uniform and yet am denied more freedom here than I was in France or Italy?"
The article repeated an old smear regarding that same Obama radio interview claiming that Obama "suggested his disappointment that the U.S. Supreme Court never had gone beyond the constraints of the Constitution and established wealth redistribution plans." In fact, he suggested no such thing.
Speaking of smears, Joseph Farah uses his Oct. 31 column to claim that the radio interview WND keeps lying about "leaves no doubt that Obama, the likely next president of the U.S., believes the Constitution needs to be scrapped, rewritten or, even more dangerously, reinterpreted by activist judges to permit what it clearly does not permit in plain English – the use of government to redistribute wealth to achieve what he terms "economic justice in society."
But Farah makes the mistake of relying on his own website for evidence of this. The Oct. 27 WND article to which Farah links as evidence to support his claim contains numerous false and misleading claims about Obama's words, as we've noted.
How can lies make something "clear" to Farah? How can Farah be so dishonest as to present such an opinion to his readers on the basis of lies?
MRC-Fox News Appearance Watch Topic: Media Research Center
An Oct. 30 appearance by the MRC's Seton Motley on "Fox & Friends" followed the template: Motley appeared solo, and he's not identified as a conservative partisan.
An Oct. 29 appearance by Motley on Fox News' "America's Election HQ" followed the template as well. In his discussion with host Megyn Kelly of a videotape of Barack Obama and Rashid Khalidi that the Los Angeles Times won't publicly release, neither Kelly nor Motley mentioned that Khalidi also has ties to John McCain, as even MRC division CNSNews.com has reported.
An Oct. 26 Fox News appearance (in two separate segments) by Motley followed the template too. In discussing the Obama campaign's shutout of an Orlando TV station over harsh questions to Joe Biden, neither Motley nor his Fox News host mentioned that McCain does the same thing.
Does Motley (not to mention the MRC) have an exclusive deal with Fox News that he gets only softball questions, is never identified as a conservative, and is never forced to appear with anyone who might contradict his McCain-ordained talking points?
Meanwhile, Over At HuffPo... Topic: The ConWeb
In case you missed the original, we now have a version of our article on ConWeb writers desperately smearing Barack Obama up at Huffington Post.
An Oct. 30 WorldNetDaily article by Bob Unruh uncritically repeats attacks on ACORN made by the conservative Capital Research Center's Matthew Vadum -- right down Vadum's headline smear "ACORN: Who Funds the Weather Underground's Little Brother?" As we detailed, Vadum's attempt to link ACORN to the Weather Underground is a lie because ACORN is not a terrorist group, and Vadum also makes several false and misleading claims about ACORN.
It's typical lazy Unruh reporting, based only on Vadum's CRC report, with only a token phone call to ACORN headquarters to create the illusion that he was interested in telling both sides of the story (apparently oblivious to the fact that there are numerous other places he could obtain that information).
Newsmax Bashes Obama, Ignores That McCain Engaged in Same Behavior Topic: Newsmax
An Oct. 30 Newsmax article by David Patten called Barack Obama "the first presidential candidate to opt out of the public system of financing presidential campaigns" and regurgitated the McCain campaign's criticism of Obama for opting out.
But Obama is not the first candidate to "opt out of the public system of financing presidential campaigns" and break a promise in doing so -- McCain is.
McCain took part in the campaign finance system for the primary, and his campaign even took out a bank loan using the matching funds he would get through the system as collateral. But once he began doing better in the primaries, McCain declared he was opting out of the system for the primaries (coincidentially, as he was reaching the system's spending limit for the primary season), despite an opinion from Federal Election Commission chairman David Mason that McCain cannot legally opt out of public financing for the primary season without FEC approval and despite using public matching funds as loan collateral.
Patten makes no mention of this.
Similarly, an Oct. 30 article by Dave Eberhart reporting that "John McCain has highlighted the fact that throughout the campaign, his opponent Barack Obama's 'definition of rich has a way of creeping down.'" without also noting that McCain's definition of "rich" begins at $5 million.
In an Oct. 30 FrontPageMag article taking Christopher Hitchens to task for endorsing Barack Obama and criticizing Sarah Palin, David Horowitz repeats numerous false claims about Obama.
-- Horowitz references "Syrian criminal Tony Reszko [sic], who gave him his house." Rezko did not "give" Obama his house; he purchased the vacant lot next door, the sale of which was a condition of Obama being able to purchase the house.
-- Horowitz writes: "It was in [William] Ayers’ living room that Obama launched his campaign for Alice Palmer’s left-wing seat." In fact, Obama formally announced launched his campaign at a Ramada Inn, and numerous home gatherings, like the one at Ayers' home, were held around the same time.
-- Horowitz writes, "it was Ayers himself who hired Obama to spend the $50 million Ayers had raised to finance an army of anti-American radicals drawn from ACORN and other nihilistic groups to recruit Chicago school children to their political causes." In fact, "Ayers himself" played no apparent role in hiring Obama as chairman of the board of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge. Further, actual educators have said that the CAC's work actually "reflected ... mainstream thinking among education reformers," not the views of "nihilistic groups."
-- Horowitz writes: "When his benefactor Alice Palmer changed her mind about passing him her senate seat, he refused to give it back. When she and two other black candidates attempted to challenge him in the primaries, he went to court to prevent them from running at all. He preferred to disenfranchise their supporters than win in an election." In fact, Obama challenged the petition signatures to put Palmer and the other opponents on the ballot -- a common procedure used to combat electoral fraud, which is supposed to be a big deal to people like Horowitz when ACORN is allegedly engaging in it.
When he isn't lying about Obama, Horowitz is engaging in a lengthy anti-Obama screed. But if Horowitz can't get basic facts right, why trust him on his ranting?
WND: Obama Is Manchurian Candidate Topic: WorldNetDaily
Earlier this year, David Kupelian set the tone for WorldNetDaily's rabid, falsehood-laden anti-Obama jihad by endorsing John McCain. Kupelian is back, declaring in an Oct. 30 column that Barack Obama really is the Manchurian candidate:
Barack Obama was programmed for years by his atheist, Muslim father, by the communist sex pervert Frank Marshall Davis, by con man Tony Rezko, by domestic terrorist Bill Ayers and others – most of all by black liberation theology screamer Jeremiah Wright. Obama's resume is largely manufactured. There is a total blackout on his college years. His campaign obscures what he did as a "community organizer." All his radical associations are denied or minimized. His miserable legislative record (voting "present" over 100 times to avoid taking a stand), his lack of achievement, his radical views and so on – all have been laundered through the magic of public relations into the near-sacred saga of "The One" who has been sent to serve, and to save, America.
[...]
America has a choice Tuesday between a genuine war hero and a genuine Manchurian candidate.
The funny thing is, just a few years back, WND was promoting the idea that McCain was the Manchurian candidate.
An August 2001 WND column by Samuel Blumenfeld bashed "Republican liberal" McCain for contemplating an mavericky "Bull Moose" approach that would harm the Republican Party. Noting McCain's "sudden metamorphosis from conservative to liberal," Blumenfeld stated that "It is highly probable that McCain learned at least as much about the Marxist class struggle while undergoing forced communist indoctrination during his five years at Hanoi as any American student learns at a liberal state university." After citing a Camille Paglia column suggesting that McCain might be a Manchurian candidate, Blumenfeld writes:
The implication is that McCain subliminally absorbed communist doctrine as a result of his five-year captivity. If that is the case, then he ought to subject himself to deprogramming. The strength and vehemence of his liberal convictions, the fact that he considers himself to be a war criminal, would indicate that he very profoundly absorbed the communist critique of the American system. Is it possible that the communists have perfected a time-release form of indoctrination? That would account for the sudden switch in ideology at a very crucial period – a campaign for the presidency. Leaving speculation aside, however, we don't need conjecture to face this hard fact: The last thing America needs in the White House is a self-admitted war criminal.
As we've documented, virtually all criticism of McCain on WND's news pages disappeared when McCain became the de facto Republican nominee back in February. Thus, you won't see Kupelian referencing a column by Jack Wheeler WND published before McCain clinched the Republican nomination, in which he called McCain "psychologically unstable" and a "nutcase wack job," then asserted that McCain "collaborat[ed] with his Communist captors" while a POW -- not even to denounce it. Nor will Kupelian reference Blumenfeld's column calling McCain the Manchurian candidate.
Why? Probably because he hates Obama too much to remind their readers that he, despite all his blather about McCain being a "genuine war hero," secretly hates McCain too.
Newsmax keeps up the scary anti-Obama headlines with an Oct. 29 article by Nat Helms blaring, "Obama Presidency an Illegal Immigrant’s Dream."
Helms features someone named Mickey McCarter, whom he called an "immigration expert." No, he's not; according to his bio at HSToday, "the leading media provider of information to the homeland security community," McCarter is the newsletter's "Senior Washington Correspondent," who claims "more than a decade of experience in reporting on military affairs and information technology" and "shifted into reporting on homeland security matters after witnessing the aftermath of the terrorist attack on the Pentagon on 9/11." No special expertise in "immigration" is mentioned.
Kincaid Expands His Conspiracy Topic: Accuracy in Media
We've previously noted that Cliff Kincaid is building a conspiracy theory that the global financial crisis was created by George Soros in order to elect Barack Obama. He expands on it in an Oct. 28 Accuracy in Media column by adding Hank Paulson to the conspiracy:
The crisis was man-made. It is a fact that President Bush’s Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, who worked for a Democratic firm, Goldman Sachs, and has very close ties to Communist China, is the one who convinced Bush to demand hundreds of billions of bailout dollars from Congress.
This is when McCain began falling in the polls.
But don't worry -- Soros is still playing a role in the big conspiracy:
One wonders if the Democrats controlling Congress will want to investigate or even aggressively question the multi-billionaire. It is significant, as I noted in a January column, that Soros pours millions of dollars into the Democratic Party, its front groups and candidates. But his agenda goes far beyond making himself rich. He provides funding for causes ranging from marijuana legalization to rights for immigrants, criminals, and prostitutes.
The same column I wrote noted that the Wall Street Journal in January had reported that hedge fund operator John Paulson received a visit from Soros, who is also a public supporter of and contributor to the Obama campaign, after Paulson had made about $4 billion betting on a housing market collapse. Soros wanted to know how he had done it. But Soros wouldn’t talk to the Journal about his meeting with Paulson. Why?
Soros gets away with a “no-comment” because he pours money into journalism organizations, including the Center for Investigative Reporting, the Fund for Investigative Journalism, and Investigative Reporters & Editors, thereby guaranteeing that they won’t investigate how and where he gets his money. Isn’t this convenient?
Not quite as wacky or disturbing as Kincaid's sexual obsession with Obama and Frank Marshall Davis, but still vaguely entertaining to watch.
New Article: Who's The Most Desperate to Smear Obama? Topic: The ConWeb
A rogue's gallery of ConWeb writers do whatever it takes to slime Barack Obama. Who did the worst? Read more >>
Is Corsi Taking Cues From Andy Martin? Topic: WorldNetDaily
Is Jerome Corsi, currently traipsing around Hawaii, following in the footsteps of Andy Martin? That's what Martin says:
Jerome Corsi began his book with a citation to my original work on Barack Obama. Now Corsi has filed a copycat request for Barack Obama's original birth certificate, after I filed a lawsuit in Honolulu seeking the same document. Why didn’t Corsi seek Obama's birth certificate before he wrote his book, not months afterwards?
It looks like I started something.
[...]
A couple of weeks ago Corsi was in Kenya saying Obama was born there. Now he is in Hawai'i accepting my theory that Obama was born in Hawai'i. Corsi can't seem to make up his mind between Kenya and Hawai'i. Maybe he is waiting for me to tell him the facts. Perhaps he knows better than to believe his own b.s. Corsi knows whom to believe: me. He might even buy my book, Obama: The Man Behind The Mask.
[...]
Mr. Corsi's breathless disclosure of newspaper announcements from 1961 is also old news. We have had those for months. Why is Corsi undercutting his "Kenya" theory? Or is it "We all believe Andy, because Andy is the only real investigator in this parade?"
Remember, WND believes Martin is a credible source -- Aaron Klein affirmatively cited Martin to attack Obama. Those of us in the reality-based community, meanwhile, know that Martin is an anti-Semitic nutjob, and even Fox News has apologized for booking Martin onto Sean Hannity's weekly Obama smear-fest (though, strangely, Hannity himself has not).
Martin, by the way, also believes that Obama's father is Frank Marshall Davis. When will Corsi be reporting that? Well, he's close: an Oct. 30 article claims that Obama and Davis sold drugs together, citing yet another of those anonymous, unsubstantiated yet somehow "credible" sources.
