As if to promote our new article, Rush Limbaugh has graced us with yet another reference to anal sex:

I mean, General Motors is caving. General Motors has bent over grabbed the ankles. Chrysler has bent over, grabbed the ankles. What are we supposed to do here? Everybody's scared of Obama. Everybody's scared of the government.

Unsurprisingly, NewsBusters and WorldNetDaily are silent, as they have always been.

Posted by Terry K. at 12:15 PM EDT

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ConWebWatch now has a page on Facebook. If you belong to Facebook, become a fan.

And if you have any ideas about how we can best use our Facebook presence, let us know, because we're not quite sure ourselves.

Posted by Terry K. at 1:09 AM EDT

Updated: Monday, April 27, 2009 1:10 AM EDT

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The following ConWeb articles, columns and blog posts baselessly asserted or uncritically repeated claims that the anti-Obama tea parties happening today are "grassroots" or "bottom up" despite growing evidence to the contrary:

WorldNetDaily:

• March 15 article by Chelsea Schilling
• March 23 article by Andrea Shea King
  

Newsmax:

• March 9 column by Pat Boone
• March 30 column by Pat Boone

CNSNews.com:

• Feb. 20 column by Michelle Malkin
• March 4 column by Michelle Malkin

NewsBusters:

• March 23 item by Clay Waters
• April 7 item by Jeff Poor
• April 7 item by Clay Waters
• April 9 item by Jeff Poor
• April 11 item by Jeff Poor
  

Accuracy in Media

• April 14 blog post by K. Daniel Glover

Only one ConWeb article uncritically acknowledges claims that the tea parties aren't "grassroots": an April 13 WND article by Chelsea Schilling.

Posted by Terry K. at 12:26 AM EDT

Updated: Wednesday, April 15, 2009 12:35 AM EDT

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The ConWeb eagerly repeated a Washington Times editorial -- not a "news" article, an editorial -- asserting that "President Obama is quietly ending the federal firearms program, risking public safety on airlines in the name of an anti-gun ideology." The editorial contains no named sources or, really, any sources at all; only "multiple interviews" are cited, but no elaboration is provided.

The Times appears to extrapolate that claim from a report -- like the rest of the editorial, unsubstantiated -- that "The Obama administration this past week diverted some $2 million from the pilot training program to hire more supervisory staff, who will engage in field inspections of pilots." But the editorial does not explain how moving money from one program to another equals the end of that program, nor does it say how much total money the training program has.

Despite lacking any verified claims, the ConWeb shilled the Times editorial as if it were ironclad:

• Newsmax's David Patten cited "a report in Tuesday’s Washington Times" (again, it was an unsourced editorial, not a "news" article) to claim that Obama "wants to disarm U.S. pilots." Patten quoted "a Second Amendment advocate" criticizing the purported claim.
• CNSNews.com's Susan Jones also uncritically repeated the Times' claim and quotes the head of the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms criticizing it.

One thing neither Patten nor Jones bothered to do was contact anyone actually involved with the actual pilot training program -- the federal Transportation Safety Administration and the Air Line Pilots Association. According to FoxNews.com, the TSA called the Times editorial "inaccurate," and the ALPA stated that the editorial editorial "couldn't be further from the truth."

Newsmax's Jim Meyers has posted a rewritten version of the Fox News story, while CNS has thus far not been moved to tell both sides of the story.l

(h/t ChattahBox)

Posted by Terry K. at 1:52 PM EDT

Updated: Thursday, March 19, 2009 10:08 PM EDT

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When Norman Liebmann wrote for Newsmax, he was best known for his virulent, hateful smears of the Clintons and others. He left Newsmax in 2004 after a spat over virulent hateful smears of gays, posting his work at his own website, Firehat.

We figured he wouldn't take too kindly to another Democrat in the White House, and boy were we right. Below are excerpts from Liebmann's March 1 posting, "The Washington Shell Game Goes Black":

Obama announced to the black community, a policy of Don’t ask - Just take. Many blacks anticipated this policy long ago – and took.

Female groupies fawn over Barack Obama. Charles Manson enjoyed that same kind of adoration. For Negroes, Obama’s election is like eating birthday cake three times a day for the next four years. Inasmuch as there is no such thing as black icing, they can coat the cake with soot.

His principal objective is to smooth out the bumps in America for the blacks. We may soon see traffic signs at every intersection that read, “Stop Whitey, Go Bro”.

Where in the past the blacks resented injustices, now they collect them. Revenge has become their recreational drug. The most marked characteristic is complaining. Ghetto dwellers resent the Oscar award going to a movie about a slum in India when it is their own slums that need to be further glamorized.

It is fitting that Hillary, the Bitch Goddess, has been replaced by Michelle – the Bride of Blackenstein. During the campaign Obama cautioned, “My wife is ‘out of bounds’”. Maybe he should have asked around.

Barack Hussein Obama is Islam’s Man in America. It needs no other. The Obama Administration is now Islam on the Potomac. 

Muslims are spreading over the world like a pox. Cure that plague and the economy will take care of itself.

The Obama Administration is the ghettos’ ATM machine. Giving stimulus money to irresponsible people is like slopping the hogs. No matter how often they are slopped, they are still hogs.

Obama may next force Congress to guarantee homosexuals equal time with heterosexuals on talk radio to present their kinky world view – perhaps to be called The Fagness Doctrine.

Nothing happens in The Beltway that does not devolve on the question of race. In his pursuit of his Negroöcracy, Obama is loading up Washington with hostile blacks in demographic overkill. He has appointed Eric Holder his Attorney General. Holder’s anti-Caucasian inclination will likely promote a forced integration of lawn jockeys.

The Stimulus is Hurricane Katrina revisited. If Katrina has demonstrated anything it is Obama’s belief that the blacks are incapable of rescuing themselves. This time they don’t have to loot. The Feds will be passing out $13 a week – which is hardly a lucky number. Hopefully, the survivors will not grab the rescue lines and drag the Coast Guard helicopters down out of the sky.

The Obama Administration is likely to be as beneficial to the American Military as the Bataan Death March.

The Prince of Darkness has been replaced by the Prince of Blackness. Obama has become a one person elite among Negroes. The rest are as they were. The semi-urbane Obama comports himself as though he is the Cary Grant of the Inner City. Being black is no longer considered a race, but a mystique.

Socialism is made to order for some ethnicities. If Karl Marx hadn’t invented Communism, he might have invented Hip Hop.

The nation trembles before one arrogant aborigine. Hope and change has been replaced with qualms and quaking. The major question of our time is - at Obama’s command will American soldiers fire on American citizens?

Wow. Just ... wow.

And the folks at Free Republic can't quite agree on whether Liebmann is racist or prescient.

Posted by Terry K. at 1:31 AM EST

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We've previously reported on John Ziegler's film purporting to prove that the ABC miniseries "The Path to 9/11" is being censored by "the left," and its false claim that the miniseries told the "real history" of events leading up to 9/11.

It appears that Ziegler is embarking on a new project: portraying Obama supporters as uninformed idiots. Nate Silver at fivethirtyeight.com detailed how a Zogby poll commissioned by Ziegler contains misleading statements and is, for all intents and purposes, a push poll. Ziegler didn't take too kindly to the criticism -- "I should not have expected much from the followers of a false Messiah virtually installed by an adoring media" -- and demanded an interview with Silver.

Which Silver did. He then posted the transcript of it, which shows Ziegler to be a foul-mouthed thug. Not to mention discrediting his own "documentary" with his hostile anti-Obama bias.

Posted by Terry K. at 11:10 AM EST

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Having seen its side lose the election, the ConWeb is now engaging in little cleansing ritual: throwing John McCain under the bus and defending Sarah Palin from criticism.

Newsmax has been the leader so far. A Nov. 5 article by Dave Eberhart blamed McCain's loss on "the woeful campaign they said John McCain had run and how blatantly biased the media has been." After noting revelations that Palin's "infamous shopping expeditions for her entire family were even more outrageous than previously reported," Eberhart spun it as best he could: "But the McCain campaign failed to turn the clothes issue into positive spin: Palin was an "average Jane" who wasn't a millionaire like the Obamas." He continued:

Criticism of her deflected the real missteps McCain was making, including his spasmodic response to the financial crisis that gripped the nation. McCain, a self-proclaimed maverick, quickly embraced Washington's bailout of Wall Street.

Despite the multiple fumbles, McCain aides remain fixated on Palin's wardrobe. 

Eberhart concluded: "Sarah Palin demonstrated real charisma and will remain a force in the GOP for years to come."

A Nov. 6 article by Jim Meyers was even harsher on McCain and more defensive of Palin:

McCain campaign aides have launched a full-scale smear attack on Sarah Palin to blunt criticisms that they bungled a winnable election.

[...]

But the Times even had to acknowledge the real reason for the post-election sniping.

“But beyond those episodes may be a greater subtext: anger within the McCain camp that Ms. Palin harbored political ambitions beyond 2008,” Elisabeth Bumiller disclosed in The Times.

A Nov. 6 article by Rick Pedraza featured right-wing radio host Michael Reagan asserting that "Palin is not the reason McCain lost the presidential election to Barack Obama." That blame, he said, goes to "George Bush and his lack of leadership in Washington, D.C. with his own party."

At CNSNews.com, a Nov. 6 article by Susan Jones headlined "The Post-Election Sliming of Sarah Palin" lamented that "Disgruntled McCain staffers apparently are behind media reports critical of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin":

Newsweek magazine, in an article called “Secrets of the 2008 Campaign,” says Palin spent extravagantly on new clothes. One angry aide characterized her shopping spree as, "Wasilla hillbillies looting Neiman Marcus from coast to coast." That anonymous aide said the truth will come out when the Republican Party audits its books.
 
Fox News reports that anonymous McCain aides are complaining about Palin's grasp of basic civics and geography.

And The New York Times also reports on “internal battles” that divided the McCain and Palin camps. 

That's the entire article; Jones doesn't offer detail on any of the claims.

Even normally friendly Fox News reporters weren't immune to scrutiny for telling the truth about Palin. A Nov. 6 NewsBusters post by Sharon Hughes complained that "Carl Cameron of FOX News reporting for the "O'Reilly Factor" took the low road yesterday in repeating rumors and gossip from unnamed staffers in the McCain camp about Sarah Palin: her knowledge, temperament, being a shopoholic, etc." Hughes continued:

In failing to mention the names of the accusers, or input from staffers who disagree with the rumors, Cameron failed the 'fair and balanced' creed of FOX News. Plus Cameron's somewhat fevered manner in repeating the rumors, was not only surprising, but showed his lack of objectivity.

[...]

The most popular Governor in the United States with an 80% approval rating in her own state of Alaska, continues to be portrayed negatively by the media. Perhaps it will be found that one of more of these nameless cowards in the McCain camp were plants, or idealogues who took the job but ended up sabotoging the effort, ie the handling of Palin with the press. Time will tell if 'fair and balanced' reporters will investigate.

Hughes makes no effort to disprove the claims, nor does she provide a video of Cameron making the claims so that her readers can judge for themselves (that would be here). She also fails to explain that having "an 80% approval rating in her own state of Alaska" (in fact, it's currently 65 percent) has nothing whatsoever to do with the accusations made by those unnamed McCain staffers.

Posted by Terry K. at 12:36 AM EST

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For the second day in a row, the ConWeb lies and misleads about Barack Obama's 2001 comments to a public radio station.

The Media Research Center's Brent Baker claimed that "Barack Obama regretted that 'the Supreme Court never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth, and sort of more basic issues of political and economic justice in this society.'" CNSNews.com similarly asserted that Obama "lamented in a 2001 radio interview that the civil rights movement had failed to cause 'redistributive change.'" The claim that Obama "regretted" or "lamented" those things are pure inventions on Baker's and CNS' part (who, in turn, are just regurgitating Matt Drudge); rather, Obama merely factually stated that those things did not take place.

At NewsBusters, Lyndsi Thomas complained that NPR didn't report that "John McCain specifically addressed the recently surfaced audio and even quoted Obama as saying, 'One of the tragedies of the Civil Rights movement was because the Civil Rights movement became so court-focused I think that there was a tendency to lose track of the political and community organizing and activities on the ground that are able to put together the actual coalitions of power through which you bring about redistributive change.'" But Thomas failed to report that McCain falsely described the statement as meaning that "one of the quote -- 'tragedies' of the civil rights movement is that it didn't bring about a redistribution of wealth in our society." Scott Whitlock echoed Baker's lie that "Obama lamented to a radio interviewer that 'the Supreme Court never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth.'" And P.J. Gladnick misleadingly claimed that Obama "called for legislative means to redistribute the wealth."

At WorldNetDaily, the poll question of the day is: "What's your reaction to Obama saying the Constitution is defective?" Of course, Obama said no such thing. Given that lie, it's no surprise that the leading response by far is, "Obama is defective, not the Constitution."

Posted by Terry K. at 3:07 PM EDT

Updated: Tuesday, October 28, 2008 6:32 PM EDT

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It's clear that the ConWeb cares nothing about facts when it comes to Barack Obama. It's demonstrated again with its overheated misinterpretation of, and outright lies about, a statement Obama made in 2001.

Obama said:

I mean, I think that, you know, if you look at the victories and failures of the civil rights movement and its litigation strategy in the court, I think where it succeeded was to invest formal rights in previously dispossessed peoples so that I would now have the right to vote, I would now be able to sit at the lunch counter and order in, as long as I could pay for it, I'd be OK. But the Supreme Court never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth and sort of more basic issues of political and economic justice in this society.

And, to that extent, as radical as I think people try to characterize the Warren Court, it wasn't that radical. It didn't break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution, at least as it's been interpreted, and Warren Court interpreted it in the same way that, generally, the Constitution is a charter of [unintelligible] liberties -- says what the states can't do to you, says what the federal government can't do to you, but it doesn't say what the federal government or the state government must do on your behalf, and that hasn't shifted.

And one of the -- I think the tragedies of the civil rights movement was, because the civil rights movements became so court-focused, I think that there was a tendency to lose track of the political and community organizing, and activities on the ground that are able to put together the actual coalitions of power through which you bring about redistributive change. And, in some ways, we still suffer from that.

In full context, Obama was saying that the civil rights movement relied too much on the court system to advance its agenda instead of promoting change from the bottom up, and the Warren Supreme Court was not as radical as right-wingers claim it to be because it refused to take up "more basic issues of political and economic justice."

But that's not what the ConWeb will tell you Obama said.

NewsBusters' P.J. Gladnick howled that "Barack Obama explicitly calls for the 'redistribution of wealth'" in the interview -- which he doesn't. NewsBusters' Mark Finkelstein claimed Obama said "he laments the Supreme Court's insufficient radicalism in pursuing redistribution and refers to the civil rights movement's failure to develop a better strategy to bring about wealth redistribution as a 'tragedy[']" -- which he didn't.

David Patten wrote in an Oct. 27 Newsmax article:

One of the tragedies of the Civil Rights movement is that it failed to lead to income redistribution in the United States, Barack Obama appears to state in an audio excerpt of a Chicago public radio program recorded in 2001.

Obama, who then was an Illinois state senator, also stated that people continue to “suffer” because there is no government program to take money from the rich and redistribute it to Americans who are less well off.

Also wrong. 

Susan Jones asserted in an Oct. 27 CNSNews.com article that "The audio clip makes it clear that redistribution of wealth, or 'redistributive change,' is something Obama’s been aiming at for years." Again, not true; Obama could have been referring to political power as well, or exclusively. Similarly, Terry Jeffrey asserted that Obama "expressed disappointment that the Supreme Court 'never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth.'"

The Media Research Center's Seton Motley cited "damning new evidence of Illinois Democratic Senator and Presidential nominee Barack Obama's radical views on how we need to 'break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the founding fathers in the Constitution' because it 'doesn't say what the federal government or state government must do on your behalf.'" Obama didn't say that.

Motley also quotes MRC chief Brent Bozell saying of this story: "We will monitor who does - and doesn't - cover this story, and we'll document it." We'll be doing the same thing -- but monitoring and documenting how Bozell and his fellow travelers lie and mislead about Obama's words.

UPDATE: Newsmax's Phil Brennan severely misinterprets Obama's words, turning Obama's declarative statement that the Warren court "didn’t break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the founding fathers in the Constitution" into a false question by putting words in Obama's mouth, under the headline "Obama Attacks Founding Fathers, Constitution":

According to Obama if the Constitution "didn’t break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the founding fathers in the Constitution, at least as its been interpreted and [the] Warren Court interpreted in the same way, that generally the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties." [emphasis added]

Obama didn't say "if the Constitution"; that's a fabrication by Brennan. Yet Brennan lies that Obama "shows a shocking ignorance of the purpose of the United States Constitution" and "would have sent shivers up the spine of Thomas Jefferson, et al."

UPDATE 2: WorldNetDaily joins the parade, falsely claiming that Obama "said in a radio interview the U.S. has suffered from a fundamentally flawed Constitution that does not mandate or allow for redistribution of wealth."

Posted by Terry K. at 3:41 PM EDT

Updated: Monday, October 27, 2008 5:18 PM EDT

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The Capital Research Center's Matthew Vadum likens ACORN to terrorists by titling his new CRC report "ACORN: Who Funds the Weather Underground's Little Brother?" Vadum doesn't bother to support his suggestion that ACORN is tied to terrorism -- in fact, he demonstrates it's not true.

(Vadum promoted his report in an Oct. 25 NewsBusters post.) 

The sole piece of evidence Vadum provides that's even related to the claim: ACORN founder Wade Rathke was a member in the 1960s of Sudents for a Democratic Society, a group that later splintered, one faction becoming the Weather Undreground. But Vadum specifically states that Rathke was among "[t]hose who rejected terrorist violence" -- that is, he was not a part of the Weather Underground.

Nevertheless, Vadum goes on to smear ACORN as a "sibling" of the Weather Underground.

Vadum also clings to the discredited idea that the 1977 Community Reinvestment Act -- which he claims "opened up banking to ACORN-style
agitation" -- led to the meltdown of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. In fact, only about 20 percent of today's subprime housing loans were made by lending institutions not subject to the CRA.

Vadum again claims that Project Vote was "an ACORN affiliate" in 1992 when Barack Obama directed a Project Vote voter registration drive," adding that "Obama supporters tried to confuse the issue" by claiming otherwise. In his NewsBusters post, he writes that the claim is " fave of Seth Colter Walls at the Huffington Post." That's a reference to Walls ciriticizing and debunking Vadum's previous attacks on ACORN (which, peripherally, resulted in Vadum attempting a lame beatdown on us for agreeing with Walls).

But now, as then, Vadum offers no evidence to support his claim that Project Vote was "part of ACORN" in 1992. As ACORN itself stated, "At that time, Project Vote had no more connection to ACORN than it did with dozens of other national and local organizations with which it partnered on local registration drives. In 1994, over a year after Obama left Project Vote, ACORN and Project Vote began working much more closely together." Vadum neither mentions nor contradicts ACORN's statement; instead, he claims that such factual defenses are an effort "to confuse the issue."

That Vadum thinks facts "confuse the issue" -- on top of his headline smear -- says all we need to know about Vadum's partisan agenda.

Posted by Terry K. at 12:16 PM EDT

Updated: Sunday, October 26, 2008 12:31 PM EDT

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On Oct. 23, the ConWeb pounced on a McCain campaign volunteer's claim that she was mugged and attacked, including having a "B" carved onto her cheek, in Pittsburgh because her alleged assailant spotted a McCain bumper sticker on her car. CNSNews.com and Newsmax did articles, while NewsBusters' Noel Sheppard, in a post with the screaming headline "Obama Supporter Maims McCain Volunteer, Will Media Care?" howled: "it's going to be very interesting to see how this disgusting incident gets reported by Obama-loving media."

But with the "victim" now admitting the attack was a hoax, how will the ConWeb react?

CNS posted an updated story, though the original story remains posted and has not been updated to state that the attack in a hoax.

Newsmax and Sheppard are silent thus far.

UPDATE: Sheppard has updated his post to note the hoax, but leaves his original histrionics intact. Will he ever apologize for not applying even a smidge of skepticism to the woman's claims before touting them so enthusiastically?

UPDATE 2: Newsmax has posted an updated article, but the original remains posted without any notice that it's a hoax.

Posted by Terry K. at 2:54 PM EDT

Updated: Friday, October 24, 2008 4:50 PM EDT

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