CNS Still Attacking People For Doing What Romney Campaign Is Doing Topic: CNSNews.com
CNSNews.com is still clinging to its misguided editorial policy of attacking anyone -- well, any non-conservative -- for claiming that the individual mandate in President Obama's health care reform law isn't a tax.
In a July 2 article, Patrick Burke goes back all the way to January 2011 to bash then-White House Council of Economic Advisers chairman Austan Goolsbee for claiming it's not a tax.
In a July 3 blog post, Eric Scheiner asserts that calling the mandate a penalty and not a tax is a "Jedi mind trick."
But as we've noted, Romney adviser Eric Fehrnstrom has pointed out that "the governor has consistently described the mandate in Massachusetts as a penalty" -- and went on to defend that description. Of course, neither Burke nor Scheiner -- like the other CNS writers making the same attack -- mentioned that inconvenient fact.
CNS has noted the debate in Romney's campaign over the issue -- but not in an original article. It's mentioned only in a July 4 Associated Press item.
WND Promotes Misleadingly Edited Video About Christian-Muslim Conflict in Dearborn Topic: WorldNetDaily
Chelsea Schilling began her June 28 WorldNetDaily article dramatically:
It happened in an American city: Hundreds of angry Muslim children and adults rioted against Christians, throwing chunks of concrete and eggs at their heads, spraying them with urine and cursing at them – while police stood by and threatened the victims with “disorderly conduct.”
The city of Dearborn, Mich., hosted its annual 2012 Arab International festival on Father’s Day weekend. As can be seen in a video of the attack, a group of people professing to be Christians holding signs was viciously assaulted by an angry mob of Arabs – as the crowd chanted “Allahu Akbar!” – Arabic for “God is the greatest!”
Schilling went on to claim that "police are nowhere to be seen."
Knowing Schilling's record of factual inaccuracies, it's a given that this isn't the full story about this incident. And it isn't.
The Christ and Pop Culture blog (h/t Bartholomew) has the full story that Schilling overlooks, and it appears these Christians weren't as "passive" as Schilling portrays them. According to the blog, the Christian group, led by street preacher Ruben Israel, was carrying a pig head on a pole -- as Israel explained to police, that's because Muslims are “petrified” of pigs and so it “keeps them at bay.” The Christian group was also shouting at the Muslims that they are going to hell and their religion is a lie.
Schilling does mention that "WND later learned that the Christian crowd had been carrying a pole with a pig’s head attached to the top and that "Christian street preachers shout, 'God is good, and God is not Allah!'"But an unedited video of the incident -- as opposed to the one Schilling used as the basis of her article --shows that Israel mocked the Muslims, and other preachers claimed that all they think about are violence and murder and hate.
But that's hardly a fully accurate representation of the provocation the Christians engaged in; Schilling is more interested in portraying Muslims as inherently violent.
Schilling's claim that police did little or nothing to protect the Christian provocateurs from the consequences of the behavior they incited is even more false. As Christ and PopCulture reports, the unedited video shows that not only did the police try to intervene several times, a Muslim man also tried to keep angry Muslims away from the Christians.
In short: These so-called Christians incited the Muslims, and now they're crying persecution. And Schilling is happy to regurgitate the misleading spin of a combative street preacher.
We've previously noted how WND has promoted Israel while hiding is virulently anti-gay views.
NEW ARTICLE: The MRC's Brent Bozell Problem Topic: Media Research Center
The head of the Media Research Center is spouting increasingly hateful and unhinged rhetoric. How does that reflect on the organization he founded? All too well, given the incivility spreading throughout the MRC. Read more >>
Obama Derangement Syndrome Watch, Erik Rush Edition Topic: WorldNetDaily
Erik Rush uses his June 27 WorldNetDaily column to go swimming in the same Obama-sleaze cesspool that Jerome Corsi wallows in:
On the bizarre side, there have been reports claiming Obama held membership in a gay men’s club in Chicago in years past. On the heels of this was the mother of slain Trinity United Church of Christ’s choir director Donald Young claiming that her gay son was killed (execution style in 2007) to protect Obama politically by erasing the trail of his alleged homosexual dalliances.
Rush doesn't tell us where these "reports" came from -- perhaps because if he did, he would have no credibility. Nevertheless, Rush continues to mainline the Obama-hate:
Several of my colleagues, as well as I and some credentialed experts, have postulated previously that psychological imbalance and perhaps even chemical dependency on Obama’s part may be among the many things being cloaked by the administration. Indeed, there is no manner by which that could be proven at this juncture, but it is possible that only those closest to the president would be privy to such things. Psychotics and junkies often have a singular talent for hiding their afflictions, even from family members.
Tell us again how someone who peddles such hateful fringe theories -- which also include his belief that Malcolm X is Obama's real father -- got to be the "Vice President of Administration and Strategic Alliances" for Pink Pagoda Girls USA? Doesn't Pagoda Girls founder Jim Garrow worry abouthow the credibility of his organization is harmed with Rush in such a prominent position?
It's a new month, and you know what that means: a new CNSNews.com article by Edwin Mora blaming President Obama for U.S. troop deaths in Afghanistan:
Of the 1,912 U.S. military personnel who have died in the now nearly 11-year-long war in Afghanistan, 1,343 have died since President Barack Obama was inaugurated on Jan. 20, 2009.
Seventy percent of the Afghan War casualties have happened on Obama's watch.
As is Mora's practice, the words "Bush" and "Iraq" appear nowhere in his article even though, as we've documented, the troop death rate in Iraq at the height of that war was much greater than it has ever been in Iraq and more than twice as many U.S. troops were killed in Iraq than have been so far in Afghanistan.
Farah Picks Extremist Boykin As Romney's Preferred VP Topic: WorldNetDaily
Joseph Farah's July 1 column is all about "the kind of vice-presidential candidate Mitt Romney should consider if he is serious about winning the election and setting up the party with a viable successor in 2016 or 2020." Before listing his "safe, politically pragmatic choices that would be good for the country and for the future of the Republican Party" -- Scott Walker and Rand Paul -- Farah lists the "completely different list of personalities" he'd pick "if it were up to me to select the presidential nominee or vice-presidential nominee."
And who is at the top of Farah's list, ahead of even Michelle Bachmann, Jim DeMint and Allen West? Jerry Boykin. Farah elaborates:
I don’t know why America isn’t clamoring to get a man like this in the White House. He’s genuine hero – a spiritual man of vision who loves America and would always do what’s right for the country. He would make us all proud to be Americans, again.
What Farah doesn't tell you, which explains why America isn’t clamoring to get a man like this in the White House: Boykin is a far-right, anti-Muslim extremist who's prone to conspiracy theories.Right Wing Watch lists a few examples:
Boykin: President Obama has created a Hitler-style Brownshirt army to force Marxism on America
Boykin: Islam not protected under the First Amendment
Boykin: No mosques in America
Boykin: There can be no interfaith dialogue between Muslims and Christians because Islam is not an Abrahamic faith and has nothing in common with Christianity
Boykin: Christians must go on the offensive against Islam
Boykin: George Soros and Council on Foreign Relations members are working to create a Marxist, global government
As if to prove Boykin's extremism -- which is obvious, it seems, to everyone but Farah and his WND subordinates -- a July 2 WND article by Drew Zahn touts Boykin's new "video warning that Barack Obama is following in the footsteps of Fidel Castro, Joseph Stalin and others who have led communist revolutions in their nations." Because likening your political opponents to Castro and Stalin is a sure sign of vice-presidential timber.
Zahn fawningly describes Boykin as "a former senior Pentagon official who has battled Marxism around the globe." He also uncriticially repeats Boykin's bogus claim that Obama's reference to a "civilian national security force" is "the model that has been used when societies have moved to Marxism." WND has fearmongered about this for years, obscuring the fact that Obama was talking about an expansion of the foreign service.
MRC Curiously Silent About Right-Winger's Anti-Catholic Attack Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center loves to defend the Catholic Church against anyperceivedslight -- after all, MRC chief Brent Bozell is on the board of advisers for the right-wing Catholic League.
But there's one nasty anti-Catholic attack the MRC has remained utterly silent about: Last week, Iowa radio host Jan Mickelson asked a congressman whether he had "any power to pull the Nuns on the Bus over and pistol whip them."
Pistol-whipping nuns seems like the very thing Bozell and crew should be offended by. But, sadly, don't expect to see them come to these nuns' defense -- effectively condoning this threat of violence.
First, the MRC has been railing against the Nuns on the Bus tour -- designed to promote federal spending on social issues -- as nothing but a bunch of "lefty" nuns who are, in the words of Matt Hadro, causing "doctrinal chaos" and, thus, "needs reform."Similarly, Mike Bates dismissed them as "liberals attacking modest GOP efforts to control Federal spending."
It’s an “understatement” that the church has a “messaging” problem. Cloud does not acknowledge that the Vatican is facing a hostile media that wants to distort and poison its image inside and outside the church walls – including Time magazine. It's easy for Sister Simone to "outflank the church hierarchy" by manipulating the radical feminists and secular leftists of the news media.
The second reason you won't hear the MRC denounce Mickelson is because he's a right-wing radio host -- and, as it just so happens, one of the judges for last year's annual MRC liberal-bashing awards. And the ones in 2010 and 2007 and for numerousotheryears all the way back to 1998.
In other words, Mickelson is a frind of the MRC. And the MRC is too cowardly to criticize its friends in public.
As we saw with RushLimbaugh's three days of misogyny against Sandra Fluke, the MRC simply does not, and will not, hold its fellow ideologues for the same behavior it excoriates in non-conservatives. It's another gutless, hypocritical performance for Bozell and Co.
So Jan Mickelson is free to pistol-whip away at those nuns, and Bozell won't lift a finger to stop him. Way to set an example, Brent.
WND Distorts Terrorism Study To Portray Right-Wing Extremists As Victims Topic: WorldNetDaily
Jack Minor's July 2 worldNetDaily article appears to be written to deliberately distort a federally funded report on terrorism.
Minor writes:
The government is once again promoting the idea of “those who are reverent of individual liberty” being terrorists with a new study funded by the Department of Homeland Security.
The study and related data were recently produced by the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism, or START, at the University of Maryland. START was launched with a $12 million grant from DHS and is recognized by the organization as one of its “Centers for Excellence.” In December, DHS announced it was renewing START’s funding with another $3.6 million.
[...]
However, examples of what START considers to be “right-wing” include “groups that believe that one’s personal and/or national ‘way of life’ is under attack and is either already lost or that the threat is imminent.” The report also goes on to describe right-wing “terrorists” as those who are reverent of individual liberty and suspicious of centralized federal authority.
Under such a definition, the Founding Fathers might have been considered right-wing terrorists.
Curiously, Minor fails to quote the full statement from the report regarding "extreme right-wing" terrorism:
Extreme Right-Wing: groups that believe that one’s personal and/or national “way of life” is under attack and is either already lost or that the threat is imminent (for some the threat is from a specific ethnic, racial, or religious group), and believe in the need to be prepared for an attack either by participating in paramilitary preparations and training or survivalism. Groups may also be fiercely nationalistic (as opposed to universal and international in orientation), anti-global, suspicious of centralized federal authority, reverent of individual liberty, and believe in conspiracy theories that involve grave threat to national sovereignty and/or personal liberty.
As the full quote in context illustrates, the report describes right-wing terrorists as paramilitary or survivalists before they are "reverent of individual liberty." At no point does the report describe being "reverent of individual liberty" as the sole evidence of terroristic behavior.
Minor's apparent intent to deceive is further illustrated by the fact that he also fails to mention that the report highlights paramilitary or survivalism as a key component of right-wing terrorism.
Minor also distorts previous findings on right-wing extremism. He claims that "the DHS had previously issued another report listing returning veterans and Christians who believed in end-time prophesies as dangerous right-wing extremists." In fact, the report did not describe all returning veterans as "dangerous right-wing extremists": it pointed out that "Rightwing extremists will attempt to recruit and radicalize returning veterans in order to exploit their skills and knowledge derived from military training and combat." It further stated that "Antigovernment conspiracy theories and 'end times' prophecies could motivate extremist individuals and groups to stockpile food, ammunition, and weapons. These teachings also have been linked with the radicalization of domestic extremist individuals and groups in the past, such as violent Christian Identity organizations and extremist members of the militia movement."
Minor also wrote: "A report issued by the Missouri Information Analysis Center warned law enforcement agencies to watch for individuals with bumper stickers for third-party political candidates including Ron Paul, Bob Barr and Chuck Baldwin. It also defined radical ideologies as opposing immigration, abortion and federal taxes." In fact, the MIAC report specifically focused on the militia movement; at no point did it state that "opposing immigration, abortion and federal taxes" by themselves made one a "radical."
CNS Attacks Obama, Pelosi For Doing What Romney Is Doing Topic: CNSNews.com
CNSNews.com has invented a new attack on the Obama administration, based on last week's ruling finding President Obama's health care reform constitituional.
The White House said Friday that the Obamacare insurance mandate tax is a penalty for not having insurance – a statement that directly contradicts what the Supreme Court ruled Thursday.
Susan Jones targeted Nancy Pelosi with that attack in a July 2 article:
On Thursday, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld Obamacare’s individual mandate as a tax, but on Sunday, Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) refused to use that word, insisting that the mandate is a really a penalty.
Just one problem with that line of attack: A Romney campaign official is doing the exact same thing.
Romney adviser Eric Fehrnstrom has pointed out that "the governor has consistently described the mandate in Massachusetts as a penalty" -- and went on to defent that description.
Certainly we can look forward to Jones or Cover cranking out a story any day now about how the Romney campaign is calling the individual mandate a penalty when the majority of the Supreme Court calld it a tax, right?
WND Columnists Attack Roberts Over Health Care Reform Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily writers have not been taking Chief Justice John Roberts' opinion in favor of the constitutionality of President Obama's health care reform plan very well -- by waging personal attacks on Roberts.
The incestuous legal and political establishment has struck again. Appointed by Republican “royal blue blood” President George W. Bush in yet another stupid and incompetent act, Chief Justice John Roberts has just cast the final straw toward and thus triggered a new American Revolution. Ironically, like King George III in the years leading up to the Declaration of Independence in 1776, Roberts has ” ruled” against and deep-sixed the rights and freedoms of the people and rubber stamped the legislation that came to be known as Obamacare. Roberts, casting his lot with the other leftist justices who sit on the Supreme Court, in his majority opinion upheld the constitutionality of Obamacare Thursday. To try to justify its “constitutionality,” Roberts recast the illegal health-care mandate – where Americans are forced to buy health insurance or be financially penalized with a stiff fine – as the equivalent of a new tax. King George III would have been proud!
[...]
While destructive, outrageous and illegal, Roberts’ actions will prove to be historic in another important way. It confirms to the American people that we have no Supreme Court, much less a judiciary, that is willing to protect us from the tyranny of the other two branches of government. And, who will now protect us from the judiciary itself? It is now crystal clear that We the People need to take matters into our own legal hands and do what must be done, without fear, to protect and preserve the freedoms our Founding Fathers pledged their sacred honor and risked their lives and fortunes to win. The new revolution has begun in earnest!
If we sometimes forget that under those black minister robes lie corrupt and corruptible men and women of flesh and blood, then Thursday’s ruling by SCOTUS should have been a sobering wake-up call for all Americans who love and revere the U.S. Constitution. Rush Limbaugh, citing a Politico editorial two days before called “Justice Roberts big moment,” pulled back the veil to reveal the real intent of what was at stake: Will Justice Roberts’ name live on for the ages as a darling of the progressive/liberal establishment and will he be invited to all the “right” D.C. cocktail parties, or will he (like Justices Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia) be treated as a leper in Washington, D.C., and on the pages of the Washington Post, L.A. Times, New York Times and on all the liberal news networks – MSNBC, CBC, ABC, CBS, CNN, et al.?
[...]
It is obvious Chief Justice Roberts took the traitors path. Roberts’ unholy alliance with the liberals on the court upholding the individual mandate of Obamacare was a Faustian bargain he made with the devil to establish and preserve his judicial legacy over the next three decades he will probably serve on the bench. Truly, Thursday’s decree marked a dark day for both the original intent of framers of the Constitution as well as legitimate jurisprudence that venerates the rule of law.
Bozell Smears Anderson Cooper Over Admission He's Gay Topic: Media Research Center
Even by Brent Bozell standards -- he did call President Obama a "skinny ghetto crackhead," after all -- this is pretty disgusting.
After Anderson Cooper admitted publicly that he's gay, the hed of the Media Research Center took to Twitter to comment, "Can @andersoncooper give us his expert opinion on teabagging now?"
You'll recall that Bozell and the MRC took great offense to others in the media referring to tea party activists (including Cooper himself) as "teabaggers," alternately calling the term "vulgar and childish," "incredibly juvenile,"and "disgusting."
Bozell, apparently, doesn't find this term offensive when he can use it to insult someone. What a sleazy hypocrite.
WND Serves Up More Race-Baiting, Finds A Way to Blame Obama For It Topic: WorldNetDaily
Colin Flaherty's latest sleazy bit of race-baiting for WorldNetDaily informs us of "several black mob attacks on – and robberies of – Jewish people in Brooklyn over the last two years, leaving broken bones and life-threatening injuries in their wake." Time to race-bait, Colin:
The assaults are part of a larger pattern in the New York area and around the country: Black mobs assaulting, robbing, destroying property and creating mayhem – hundreds of times in more than 60 cities.
Good job, Colin! You keep up the string of race-baiting that WND is paying you to produce.
So where does Obama fit into this? Flaherty doesn't mention it, but WND promotes his story as if he did, declaring in a promotional email that this is somehow Obama's fault because " the election of Barack Obama supposed to heal the nation of any racial and religious divide."
Apparently, it's going to be a long, hot summer of race-baiting for Flaherty and WND.
Terry Jeffrey takes the Media Research Center's anti-gay agenda to a new, stupid level in his June 27 CNSNews.com column:
So, what does Obama's "marriage equality" mean for bisexuals?
According to Merriam-Webster, homosexual means "characterized by a tendency to direct sexual desire toward another of the same sex." Bisexual means "characterized by a tendency to direct sexual desire toward both sexes."
Obama, we now know, believes homosexual men have a "right" to marry other men, and homosexual women have a "right" to marry other women. So, who does he believe bisexuals have a "right" to marry?
In Obama's world, does a bisexual man have a "right" to enter into a bigamous union with one other man and one woman? Or can the state force him to limit his marriage to the union of just two people?
And if that is the case, how would Obama, within his philosophy of government, justify prohibiting a bisexual from forming a tripartite marriage?
Of course, as anyone without an anti-gay agenda knows, bisexuality is not the same thing as polygamy, or does it preclude someone from having a monogamous relationship.
Then there is the regime of Barack Hussein Obama. Having defrauded American voters that he is eligible to be president, given that he is not a “natural born citizen” as required by the Constitution, for “good measure” he spent the next four years not only foisting his evil socialist, anti-Christian, anti-Semitic, pro-Muslim agenda on our nation and Israel, but also compromising the national security of both countries. His latest criminal atrocities include, but are not limited to, releasing into the public domain highly classified national security information about how we spy on Iranian nuclear sites, select drone targets to eliminate terrorists, how we killed Osama bin Laden, how we used cyber-warfare to attack Iranian atomic bomb plants, how we plan to wage war against Iran if we are drawn into a unilateral Israeli attack on the nuclear bomb plants and a host of other outrageous national security breaches and acts (such as not destroying the drone that fell into Iranian hands), which were intended or have the affect of aiding and abetting foreign enemies of the United States. These treasonous acts – undertaken not just to boost his re-election prospects but obviously also to help his Muslim brothers in Iran and elsewhere – are so severe that even hapless and two-faced members of the Washington establishment club, like Republican Sen. John McCain, have been forced, thanks to my and your outcries, to finally speak up in protest – having been largely silent for the better part of Obama’s presidency. Obama’s treasonous acts are the most serious and damaging in American history!
This is the most important thing to be remembered: What [Obama] did last week is not even a breath of what he will do if he is re-elected without a Congress that will hold him in check. What he did will pale in comparison to the things he will feel empowered to do. He and his wife will drop the thinly veiled pretense of public servant and reveal themselves as the hardcore Marxist-Leninists and redistributionists they are. The Constitution will mean nothing to them. They will openly disdain and abuse it even more freely. She will vacation and spend like the taxpayer welfare queen she aspires to be, and he will drop all pretense of working with Congress.
This is an ugly question and many of us sensitive souls recoil from it, but doctors, first responders and historians often recoil from what their professions push their faces into. And aren’t we columnists supposed to be like “caddies” to historians, providing the world the “first draft” of history?
C’mon, now, caddies. Push the weeds aside with a five-iron and reveal the answer to this: “How did a country like America ever get saddled with a president like Obama?”
If you’re expecting a Niagara of negatives here – “This president is the worst, the most incompetent, the most dangerous” – please move along. I’m a “paramedic” for this one, not an anti-Obama partisan expressing dismay at this “worst,” least competent, most dangerous etc. We owe history a non-emotional answer; how did we wind up with Obama?
Everyone, including those on Obama’s side of the aisle, knows exactly how the N.Y. Times was fed those various items intended to make Obama look like a combination of Alexander, the philosopher king, and Gen. George “Old Blood and Guts” Patton. As I see it, he either placed a phone call, had Eric Holder run an errand or hand-delivered the self-aggrandizing information himself.
My question remains: How is it they dare to prosecute Julian Assange and Pfc. Bradley Manning over the classified documents posted on Wikileaks, but not the various Fifth Columnists at the New York Times? So far as I can see, the biggest differences between the two entities are that the Times, unlike Wikileaks, is in the tank for Obama and publishes a better crossword puzzle.
As I wrote yesterday, Maraniss, like all other mainstream biographers, tells us not a single word about the life of Obama’s mother, Ann Dunham, in the six months leading up to Obama’s birth.
In discussing the birth itself, Maraniss reports that Obama was born at 7:24 in the evening of Aug. 4, 1961 at Kapi’olani Hospital. As reference, he cites “State of Hawaii Certificate of Live Birth,” presumably the one posted online in April 2011.
Although his book is otherwise exquisitely detailed, Maraniss adds not a single shred of information regarding the circumstances of Obama’s birth. The reader has no idea how Ann got to the hospital, who accompanied her, how difficult was the labor, how big was the baby, who took her home, or where she went when she left the hospital.
Barack Hussein Obama’s recent plaintive mewling about the Romney campaign’s criticism would seem, at first glance, to highlight Obama’s brittle hypocrisy. Glorious Leader Obama and his gunrunning minions have never tired of violating tradition and decorum when blaming previous administrations for Obama’s failures, nor when apologizing for the United States abroad. No less a political genius than the increasingly haggard Janeane Garofalo has proclaimed that it is “appropriate” to criticize George W. Bush, whereas mere mortals must only rarely (one presumes) disagree with King Barack.
Speak ill of Obama’s policies and he’ll unleash hordes of attack-watching, dot-gov-flagging, truth-teaming leftists to “get in your face” and shout down your opinion (when they’re not simply phoning in your heresy to the newest White House hotline-for-heresy). The same people who thought it hilarious when someone hurled a shoe at Dubya consider it the height of offense to interrupt King Obama when he is busy lying to reporters. The same man who has repeatedly insulted and threatened the United States Supreme Court for daring to disagree with him cannot abide a single lawmaker shouting “You lie” when he is, well, lying. One must never speak out, even to one’s fellow proles, in opposition to His Political Highness.
Whether you’re a veteran political operative, a sometimes armchair political pundit, or someone only now waking to the nightmarish Obama reality, “The Great Destroyer” provides a cerebral meal both full of substance and easy to digest. Its comprehensive format provides answers to the crucial questions the liberal media and DNC aren’t willing to ask or answer.
It’s the most comprehensive breakdown I’ve yet found of President Obama’s sickening abuses of power (and believe me, I’ve been looking).
The bottom line is this. Obama’s unconstitutional amnesty-by-fiat has exposed and confirmed for millions of voters the true character of the Obama administration: It is lawless.
Obama is also gambling that all Hispanic voters share his enthusiasm for Hugo Chavez’s dictatorial style of leadership. That may prove to be the other major miscalculation behind this cynical election-year ploy.
I’ll ask once more: Is it a coincidence that the [Boy Scouts of America] National Board Member James Turley came out swinging against the century-old policy to ban gays from leadership and that he has such close affiliations with the pro-gay Obama administration?
How does the adage go?
If two people think so much alike, you can bet that one person isn’t thinking.
Or maybe a more fitting adage here might be: You scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours.
MRC's Graham Mocks Study Showing Media Bias Agaist Women Topic: NewsBusters
Apparently, as far as the Media Research Center is concerned, the only media bias that could possibly exist is "liberal media bias."
Tim Graham uses a June 26 NewsBusters post to mock as "feminist" a study noting that the majority of people quoted in the media about abortion, birth control and Planned Parenthood are men. Graham adds:
The notion that abortion or birth control should be defined as “women’s issues” strangely ignores that women can’t get pregnant or feel the need to use contraceptives without having intercourse with men. It also ignores that roughly half of the aborted babies are boys.
But as even Graham notes, the male-female split isn't anywhere close to half-and-half: Men were the sources of 81 percent of the quotes in abortion stories, 75 percent of birth-control stories, and 67 percent of stories on Planned Parenthood.
Still, Graham went on to snark: "It didn’t matter if the men were radical feminists, only that they were male."
Of course, these kind of counting analyses are a staple of MRC's so-called media research -- for instance, a May 30 "media reality check" making the shocking discovery that liberal MSNBC host Ed Schultz had on numerous "union activists, liberal journalists and Wisconsin state Democrats" to criticize "conservative Republican" Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker.
If this "feminist" analysis is illegitimate, as Graham suggests, so is much of the MRC's work.
