Meanwhile...
Topic: WorldNetDaily
We take to Huffington Post to do an overview of the extremist and birther background of Aaron Klein, who has jumped from WorldNetDaily to run Breitbart's new Jerusalem website. Read more >>

MRC Is Mad Media Won't Take Obama Quote Out of Context
Topic: NewsBusters

The Media Rsearch Center loves to complain about the media taking people out of context -- at least when it's not taking people out of context itself. Now, the MRC is complaining that the media won't take President Obama out of context.

Tom Blumer writes in a Nov. 16 NewsBusters item:

The obvious pull quote of the day from President Obama's contentious press conference in Antalya, Turkey is this statement: "What I’m not interested in doing is posing or pursuing some notion of American leadership or America winning or whatever other slogans they come up with ..." Obama then claimed that any ideas coming from those who believe in such a notion have "no relationship to what is actually going to work to protect the American people and to protect the people in the region."

Ed Driscoll at PJ Media believes that these words are "the president’s equivalent of Carter’s malaise speech" in the 1970s. Just in case he's right, related stories at the Associated Press and the New York Times have not mentioned Obama's statement, a clear indicator of his lack of genuine resolve, in their coverage.

Actually, if you put Obama's comment in its full context of his entire answer to the question he was asked -- something Blumer clearly has no interest in doing -- the president's reference to "some notion of American leadership or America winning" was clearly intended as a reference to an empty gesture done solely for posturing and which would not advance America's interest in the fight against terrorism, since he goes on to state (after Blumer cut it off) that such a posturing gesture "has no relationship to what is actually going to work to protect the American people" and that he to pursue what actually works.

But Blumer doesn't want to tell you about that, since it undermines the petty partisan sniping of his post.

Is Jesse Lee Peterson Secretly A White KKK Leader?
Topic: WorldNetDaily

Read the following:

Dear white people: your days are numbered

This has been a brutal couple of weeks for those with white skin.

It started with a three-ring circus at the University of Missouri, another landmark in the slow death of white America. And it drew to a close with the actual deaths of scores of French citizens.

[...]

The University of Missouri will never be the same now.

Weak, liberal whites have created monsters in their schools. The monsters are now eating them, and threatening to eat others.

By Thursday, chaos reigned across the country as students protested their schools and called for heads to roll.

The situation will not get better until white Americans put an end to it. In fact, it will only get worse.

[...]

And with clear evidence that white Americans are standing by as their country is going down in flames, Friday evening we heard news of the Paris attacks and concert hall massacre of mostly white French by Muslim terrorists.

Somewhere along the way, whites in Europe and America have lost their connection to God and have decided to give up defending their communities and freedoms. Europe has been in the process of handing their continent over to Muslims. And white Americans are handing over their country to black malcontents – and Muslims. Friday it was reported that the first wave of Syrian immigrants had arrived in New Orleans. Where was Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal to stop this? Where are the protests from outraged Americans?

If you stand up against the bullies – whether they’re radical black bullies on campuses, or Islamic bullies, they will go sit down.

But if you act with fear, they will run over you and your children.

You can’t prove anything to angry people. You just have to speak up, be honest and live your life. Telling the truth and setting a living example is the only way to change anything for the better.

The greatest civilizations in the world are being destroyed by the godless.

The godless have not been raised by decent parents. They’re looking for love in all the wrong places, and in the wrong way. And now they’re destroying the free world.

It’s time for whites in America, and in Europe, to stop the madness. If it isn’t stopped, your way of life – and possibly your life itself – will be stopped.

Who does it sound like wrote this? A leader of the Ku Klux Klan who believes in white supremacy?

Nope -- it was by Jesse Lee Peterson, a black conservative, at WorldNetDaily.

If these words had come from the pen of a white KKK leader, he would be universally rejected and condemned. But because it is Peterson saying it, he gets a pass (just like fellow WND columnist Mychal Massie).

Even more laughably, WND -- who's publishing his latest book as well as giving him a weekly column --  is trying to market Peterson as a "civil rights leader." Would any actual "civil rights leader" say such things?

Peterson leads nobody in the civil rights movement; he has no constituency other than white right-wingers who know he says the things that would be too racist for them to say.

Sadly, it seems that being a proxy for white racists is something Peterson actually appears to want to be.

MRC 'Study' Says It's 'Labeling Bias' To Refer To Conservatives As 'Conservatives'
Topic: Media Research Center

The Media Research Center has long had a very strange and ridiculous quirk in its "liberal media bias" business model: it regularly complains that it's somehow biased for media organizations to refer to "conservatives  when reporting on conservatives.

Now, it claims to have an entire study based on complaining that it's "labeling bias" to call a conservative a conservative, at one point even complaining that it's "heavy-handed" to do so.

Rich Noyes wrote about this so-called study in an Oct. 28 NewsBusters post, to which he referred in a Nov. 7 post:

From September 25 to October 23, MRC analysts reviewed all 82 ABC, CBS and NBC morning and evening news stories about John Boehner’s resignation as House Speaker and the race to succeed him. CBS provided the most coverage (31 stories, totaling 54 minutes of airtime). NBC was next (30 stories, 38 minutes), followed by ABC, which aired just 21 stories (24 minutes) on its morning and evening newscasts during this period.

In these stories, MRC analysts documented how network reporters assigned a whopping 106 ideological labels to House Republicans — either to individual members of Congress, or factions within the GOP.

Overwhelmingly, the networks used “conservative” tags to talk about Republicans. Fully 98 percent of these labels (104) talked about “conservatives” or those “on the right;” just two referred to either “moderate” Republicans or a “mainstream” Republican (that would be Representative Kevin McCarthy, according to ABC’s Martha Raddatz on the September 27 Good Morning America).

One-third of the conservative labels (35) painted the targets as somehow extreme: “far right,” “hardline,” “very conservative” or “ultra-conservative.” Such deliberate labeling is designed to stigmatize conservatives, casting them as outside-of-the-mainstream ideologues, as compared to their (usually unlabeled) adversaries.

Noyes, however, fails to concede that such ideological labeling is relevant, given that Boehner's resignation was driven by conservative Republicans, who cheered the news. He also can't be bothered to review, say, Fox News to offer a comparison of how the word "conservative" is used on a conservative-friendly network. Which makes this about as meaningless as most other MRC studies.

Noyes whined that the House Freedom Caucus of farther-right conservativfes were, in fact, described as being farther right:

According to its mission statement, the Freedom Caucus in the House of Representatives stands for “limited government, the Constitution and the rule of law.” While the group has clearly generated a debate among conservatives about specific political tactics, there’s nothing radical about the group’s obviously mainstream conservative positions.

Network reporters also assured audiences that, despite the misgivings of some conservatives, there is no reason to doubt Paul Ryan’s conservative credentials. On the October 9 Today show, NBC’s Willie Geist said Ryan was “highly respected among conservatives and Republicans on the Hill.” Then on the October 21 Evening News, CBS’s Cordes insisted Ryan “should be a conservative’s dream Speaker.”

Noyes didn't mention that Ryan couldn't get the 80 percent support from the Freedom Caucus that would have generated an automatic endorsement from the group. Nor does he explain why Freedom Caucus members are justified in rejecting him as speaker.

Noyes bizarrely decries use of the word "conservative" in the media as away to "marginalize conservatives." It's very confused logic. At no point does he offer a term that would be somehow less marginalizing -- perhaps because he's using the word himself.

Newsmax's Ruddy Defends O'Reilly Over Reagan Book, Says Will Should Quit Fox
Topic: Newsmax

Newsmax editor and CEO Christopher Ruddy has had enough of the feud between Bill O'Reilly and George Will over O'Reilly's book "Killing Reagan" -- and he taking O'Reilly's side.

In a Nov. 11 column, Ruddy notes that Newsmax has published criticism of O'Reilly's book from historians like Craig Shirley over O'Reilly's suggestion that Ronald Reagan was not fully engaged during the finalyears of his administration, but fawns over Reagan being "a lion, a great visionary who created the greatest economic boom in American history as he brought down the Soviet Empire" and adds, "I would take an 80 percent Reagan over a 100 percent Obama any day."

Ruddy then complains about Will's "seemingly personal jihad against O'Reilly":

Will has gone well beyond offering legitimate criticisms of the book. He has attacked O'Reilly’s integrity as a journalist. O'Reilly stated during their TV exchange last week that Will had agreed to speak with him by phone before he completed his article on the book.

Interestingly, Will accuses O'Reilly of not talking to people involved before publishing his book.

While I have disagreed with O'Reilly on numerous issues through the years, I don't think that there's any evidence he is a person that seeks to mislead people or is an “expert” in such activity, as Will asserts.

O’Reilly is probably one of the most highly-scrutinized media figures of our time. While he sometimes has strong and passionate opinions, he has always been a straight shooter and fair-minded.

[...]

Criticism of O'Reilly's book is totally appropriate. But Will’s primary assertion that O'Reilly is “something of an expert on willfully misleading people” and guilty of “extreme recklessness” is simply not substantiated by the contents of O'Reilly's book or his long track record as a media personality.

But O'Reilly has no "integrity as a journalist," and he does have a track record of misleading people. This is, after all, a guy who cited "The Paris Business Review," a publication that doesn't exist, to claim success in a boycott of France, and he has misled about reporting from a combat zone during the Falklands War. Further, O'Reilly's previous book on John F. Kennedy's death contains a false claim about the purported suicide of one of the figures in the case. Ruddy can read more about O'Reilly's actual track record here if he'd like.

Nevertheless, Ruddy concludes his column with how he would handle Will:

I run my own network. It's called Newsmax TV and we encourage a healthy dialogue among anchors, commentators and guests. Disagreements make for great television. But what George Will said crossed the line.

If George Will was a paid commentator on my network and made such claims about our lead news host, I would have promptly gotten Will on the phone.

Here's how the brief conversation would have gone: "George, you are a respected columnist and I respect your opinions. You have every right to criticize Bill and his book. He knows you do and he had the cojones to put you on his own show to hear them out. But you did something more than that.

"You went after him personally and said he's a liar, and that he's made a career of misleading the public. You have used other outlets to attack him. If you feel so strongly about our lead news host, shouldn't you just do the honorable thing and resign from the network?"

After that I would expect Will would do the decent thing and resign from a network where he collects a nice paycheck, in part, thanks to the very host he is crusading against. If he didn’t quit, I would terminate his contract, killing George Will.

End of story.

Interestingly, Ruddy doesn't say he would investigate the veracity of the claims before reflexively defending his host and firing Will.

ConWeb Censors GOP Candidates At 'Kill The Gays' Conference
Topic: The ConWeb

Last weekend, Republican presidential candidates Ted Cruz, Mike Huckabee and Bobby Jindal all spoke at the National Religious Liberties Conference in Iowa, hosted by anti-gay pastor Kevin Swanson. How anti-gay is Swanson? During his wildly ranting speech at the conference, he called for gays to be executed. Swanson also introduced Cruz, Huckabee and Jindal to the stage for their speeches.

But if you read the ConWeb, you wouldn't know anything about what happened at this conference.

There was some promotion of the speech on the ConWeb beforehand; for instance, it was advertised at WND beforehand -- and, strangely, well after it ended; the above screenshot was taken on Nov. 13. The Media Research Center attempted a little damage control before the event, with both NewsBusters and CNSNews.com highlighting Cruz being asked on CNN if he is “endorsing conservative intolerance” by appearing at the conference. But the MRC would only describe Swanson as an "activist pastor," playing down his well-documented anti-gay history.

But after the conference? Nothing. Zip, zilch, nada.

No mention at WND, even though WND columnists Jason and David Benham spoke at it and even though WND is enough of fan of Swanson that it sells his books. No clips from the event at CNS, even though managing editor Michael W. Chapman loves posting anti-gay clips.

Not a word at NewsBusters, though it did publish a post referencing Jeremiah Wright, who did not avocate the killing of an entire group of people. Even the MRC couldn't be aroused enough to complain about Maddow highlighting the event.

Even Accuracy in Media -- home of noted homophobe Cliff Kincaid, who actually supported the proposed "kill the gays" bill in Uganda -- hasn't said a word about Republican candidates lending their support to, and receiving it from, a pastor who supports executing gays.

To demonstrate how radioactive Swanson currently is, WND columnist (and noted gay-basher) Michael Brown distanced himself from Swanson and the event -- but not at WND. He penned his distancing at fringe right-wing site BarbWire, run by professional gay-basher Matt Barber. Brown even ran to the defense of the andidates, claiming that "I also feel confident that, had they known in advance what Kevin Swanson, the conference’s chief organizer, planned to say, they would not have attended the rally."

The ConWeb's silence on Swanson's hateful remarks , and on Republican presidential candidates who are effectively condoning that hate by appearing with the man who spewed it, tells us the underlying anti-gay nature of the ConWeb. But you knew that already.

Obama Derangement Syndrome Watch, Supersize WorldNetDaily Edition
Topic: WorldNetDaily

Slowly, the truth is being unearthed for the world to see, and this is that Barack Hussein Obama and his Cabinet, past and present, are war criminals of a particularly malevolent order.

In the interest of restoring the republic however, it is imperative that Obama and his sordid pantheon of demons are not allowed to cheerfully pass the torch to the next equally corrupt administration in January 2017. They all must be brought to justice, and in a very public way, whatever the cost.

-- Erik Rush, Oct. 21 WorldNetDaily column

Chaos is on the rise in our cities. And I blame Barack Obama for stoking it. He has opened the gates of hell on America.

There are reasons to destabilize cities. Far left politicians like Obama know that good men and women won’t vote for them. So why not populate cities with those who will help bring their “change”?

Another reason to destabilize a city is to use its debased condition as an excuse to take guns from law-abiding citizens – the main opposition to tyrants.

One of the “best” ways to destabilize a city is to place its police department under federal control. Enter Obama’s 21st Century Policing program, with its goal of body cameras on cops and civilian (i.e.: often troublemaker) review boards.

-- Jesse Lee Peterson, Oct. 25 WND column

ALERT, America! Had this been an actual presidency, your beloved nation would not be in this cleverly and dastardly engineered suicidal downward spiral to hell. Had this been a real presidency, the words and policies emanating from your White House and from most of your elected employees would not sound like rejected nonsense from Alfred E. Neuman too loony to be found in the pages of Mad Magazine.

Had enough real Americans performed their basic “we the people” responsibilities to monitor, guide and prod our elected employees to strictly adhere to their oath to the U.S. Constitution, to remain in touch with common sense, logic and perform but a modicum of professional accountability, we would have never allowed the psychopathic liar in chief and his gang of commie goons to continually run amok with their America-hating “fundamental transformation” of what was at one time the greatest country ever found on earth.

-- Ted Nugent, Nov. 4 WND column

Although average American news viewers remain blissfully ignorant of this, Europeans have been turning out by the thousands in protest of their governments’ intention to throw the doors open wide to innumerable Muslim refugees from regions in which Barack Hussein Obama’s mercenary army (otherwise known as ISIS or Islamic State) and other militant Islamists have made life as they know it untenable.

[...]

Regular readers will take it as given that Barack Hussein Obama’s design of inundating America with Muslims is but one component in his grand plan of sabotage, and that he is also doing the bidding of malignant globalist interests that have long wished to see America brought low.

-- Erik Rush, Nov. 11 WND column

Is it a foreign, Third-World dictator who is attacking America's Christian heritage and the American Constitution?

Is it a foreign, Third-World dictator who is defending, supporting and promoting America's sworn enemies?

Is it a foreign, Third-World dictator who is lying to the American people on a daily basis?

Is it a foreign, Third-World dictator who has transgressed the Constitution and behaved badly more than 1,063 times in the last six years?

Finally, is it the American people who have tolerated those who have committed the crimes of a foreign, Third-World dictator in their own country? Why, yes, it is!

"When God wants to judge a nation, He gives them wicked rulers. – John Calvin, Leviticus 26:14-46, Deuteronomy 28:14-68

-- Bradlee Dean, Nov. 12 WND column

Now, in the last couple of weeks President Obama has sent 50 Special-ops troops into Syria! Why? This man should not be trusted with our military! His wrongful decisions on foreign policy has lead to millions being displaced in the Middle East, Christians being virtually wiped out by ISIS, and our soldiers and allies dying without a just cause.

President Obama hasn’t avoided war! He’s set the stage for World War III, and it’s time Americans knows it.

-- Carl Jackson, Nov. 13 WND column

WND and CNS Complain: Obama Didn't Mention Islam In Denouncing Paris Attacks
Topic: WorldNetDaily

Speaking of exploiting the Parris terrorism attacks, WorldNetDaily and CNSNews.com are demonstrating how they'll do so: by portraying all Muslims as terrorists.

The first step in that: Attacking President Obama for not immediately blaming Islam in his initial statement condemning the attack.

WND does so forthrightly in a Nov. 13 article by Douglas Ernst in an article headlined "Obama leaves 'Islam' out of Paris terror statement":

All the hallmarks of Islamic terror attacks in Paris, France, on Friday weren’t enough to convince President Obama it would be prudent to use the word “Islam.”

[...]

Obama used Friday’s address to condemn the attempt “to terrorize innocent civilians,” but refused to specifically identify the Islamic element of extremist groups.

Ernst did note that Obama's statement was made while the attacks were still going on and that he said "until we know from French officials that the situation is under control, and we have for more information about it, I don’t want to speculate." But Ernst attacks him anyway.

At CNS, Susan Jones manages to demonstrate her organization's word-counting obsession and put words (parenthetically) in Obama's mouth while still zinging the president forrefusing to blame all of Islam for the actions of terrorists ina Nov. 14 article:

President Obama, speaking as the attacks in Paris were still ongoing, used the word "terrorist" or "terrorize" seven times, and the word "extremist" once, in his brief remarks on the situation Friday evening.

"I don’t want to speculate at this point in terms of who was responsible for this," he said. "It appears that there may still be live activity and dangers that are taking place as we speak."

Nevertheless, Obama went on to describe the attacks as a clash of values: "human progress" on one hand (Western values), and a "hateful vision" (radical Islam) on the other:

As is his usual practice, the president never used the words "radical Islam." (On Sept. 10, 2014, when he announced his anti-ISIL strategy, Obama declared, "ISIL is not 'Islamic.'")

Jones probably wouldn't describe Scott Roeder, who murdered abortion doctor George Tiller, as "Christian" despite his claiming to act on Christian principles, so why should she assume that all Muslims approve of ISIS?

MRC Whines About Comedian 'Exploiting' Paris Attacks, Ignores Right-Wingers (And MRC Employee) Doing Same Thing
Topic: Media Research Center

The Media Research Center's Geoffrey Dickens got his dudgeon up in a hurry in a Nov. 13 NewsBusters post:

Disgusting! Comedian Michael Ian Black Exploits Paris Attack

Actor/comedian Michael Ian Black wasted no time, on Friday, exploiting the Paris attack as he tweeted within an an hour of the breaking news: "Awful, awful, awful news in Paris. 18 shot dead. If only we could get our daily shootings down to 18 here in America."

This isn't the first time the member of the '90s comedy improv group The State and star of the cult flick Wet Hot American Summer propagandized for gun control. After the Roseburg, Oregon shooting in October he raged: "Another massacre. Don’t wait to talk about it. Gun control now."

Dickens, however, has remained silent on right-wingers exploiting the attack. Like Newt Gingrich:

And Dickens' very own MRC co-worker, Dan Joseph (h/t Chastity):

That's probably not "disgusting" at all to Dickens. Right-wing expoitation of a tragedy is perfectly fine at the MRC, it appears.

WND Quickly Walks Back Claims That Mizzou Racial Incidents Were A Hoax
Topic: WorldNetDaily

Well, that was quick.

In a Nov. 11 WorldNetDaily article, Douglas Ernst was proclaiming that the reports of racial tension at the University of Missouri were all based on "unsubstantiated rumors." To wit:

Perhaps the most egregious claim by students at the University of Missouri involves a story of a swastika made out of human waste. The symbol was allegedly written in a dormitory bathroom Oct. 24. Reporting by the Federalist on Monday indicates there is no evidence such an event ever happened.

Billy Donley, president of Mizzou’s Residence Halls Association, said he did not witness the event. Instead, he read about it “via a flyer posted on the walls,” the website reported.

Donaley would not speak to the Federalist for its story, but two other RHA staffers did. Neither of them said they witnessed the swastika made of human waste. One staffer did not know of any photographic evidence of the alleged incident.

The website also called the University of Missouri Police Department, which investigated claim. Again, no evidence was provided.

Concerned Student 1950 also failed to provided photographic or documentary evidence of the swastika.

Contrast that with Ernst's article the next day, in which he pretends he never accused the swastika story of being a hoax:

It took media pressure and a Freedom of Information Act request filed with the University of Missouri’s custodian of records, but the infamous “poop-swastika” photo and police report were released late Wednesday.

The reaction by school officials to an Oct. 24 incident in the university’s Gateway Hall was used by activists to pressure system’s president Timothy Wolfe to resign. Wolfe stepped down on Monday, but up until late Wednesday the school resisted requests to provide its records.

Concerned Students 1950, the group organizing campus protests, charge that Wolfe and administrators did not adequately respond to the incident. A police report obtained by the Daily Caller and emails released to the Federalist on Thursday challenge that claim.

• A police report was filed shortly after the incident.
• The university’s Title IX office was immediately notified.
• Gateway Hall hall coordinator Susan Cohn contacted multiple school officials.
• Representatives of the school’s minority communities were informed.
• Officials held discussions on the best way to respond.
• The executive director of Mizzou Hillel was contacted.

Officials had an idea who the culprit was, but could not definitively prove he was guilty.

Salama Gallimore, the lead investigator in the university’s Title IX office, wrote Gateway Hall coordinator Susan Cohn about an incident between a Jewish student and a group of minorities just days before the swastika was found.

Note the new framing -- it's suddenly no longer about whether it was a hoax, it's now about whether campus official adequately responded.

At no point does Ernst state that just the day before he was accusing the swastika story of being an "unsubstantiated rumor," and his earlier story proclaiming the purported hoax remains uncorrected.

UPDATE: WND still hasn't corrected Ernst's earlier story; instead, it has added a link to  Ernst's later story proving the swastika story as a "related story."

MRC's Bozell, Regular Fox Guest, Loved The Fox Business GOP Debate
Topic: Media Research Center

 

 

 Two things to know about Media Research Center chief Brent Bozell: He loves Fox News -- so much so that he has been given a weekly segment for the past few years, which currently airs on "Hannity" -- and he doesn't like Donald Trump.

These two things are directly reflected in the way the MRC pushes its anti-media "liberal bias" agenda. When Trump complained about how Fox News anchors moderating the first Republican presidential debate displayed liberal bias against him, the MRC ignored him and refused to criticize Fox News. By contrast, Bozell and the MRC couldn't stop whining about the questions at the CNBC-hosted Republican debate despite being unable to demonstrate any actual "liberal bias" at a network whose financial news caters to conservative-leaning viewers.

Given that history, how do you think Bozell reacted to the Republican debate hosted by Fox Business? Well, "fawning" isn't nearly strong enough a word. Try "slobbering."

The MRC telegraphed its reaction in an email sent the day of the debate in which it confidently declared: "FOX Business and The Wall Street Journal will be moderating tonight’s fourth Republican presidential debate this evening. Unlike the rabidly left-wing, anti-conservative CNBC moderators, we expect tonight’s moderators to exhibit journalistic integrity and basic decency."

Apparently, the MRC's idea of "journalistic integrity" was for the moderators to refuse to correct the candidates when they got a fact wrong, or even to answer the questions that were asked; as TPM's Josh Marshall noted, it was a debate "debate structured around letting candidates say absolutely anything -- because scrutinizing candidates is liberal."

Needless to say, Bozell couldn't be happier. (Was it better than sex, as he creepily declared it was for him when Republicans squawked about the purported bias at the CNBC debate? He hasn't shared that with us yet.) Bozell issued a statement immediately after the debate that did suggest some orgasmic satisfaction:

"Fox Business promised to best CNBC in the management of a debate. Fox did not best CNBC, Fox utterly humiliated their competition. Quite simply, this network did a fantastic job moderating both of tonight’s GOP primary debates. They asked fair serious, substantive questions, and did so respectfully.

"It’s amazing what you can learn from debates when obnoxious liberal moderators aren't there. I hope CNBC and future debate moderators took notes. The Fox Business moderators didn’t engage in personal insults or ad hominem attacks. Fox Business completely outclassed CNBC."

And to further demonstrate he knows what side his bread is buttered on, Bozell appeared on Fox Business -- a channel he likes to appear on -- to slobber all over the Fox Business debate, asserting that the moderators "asked good questions, it was all about the candidates, and this is what a debate is supposed to be about." Bozell added that "you certainly in three minutes got more out this Fox Business debate than in two ours, or seemingly eight hours, on CNBC."

Of course Bozell will proclaim his love for the Fox Business debate. He wants to continue appearing on Fox Business and Fox News, after all.

In other words, he has skin in the game, which is more than enough reason to dismiss his opinion on debate quality.

WND Attacks Mizzou Football Team For Taking A Stand Against Racism
Topic: WorldNetDaily

Race-baiter Colin Flaherty isn't the only one in the ConWeb who feels the need to attack the University of Missouri football team for taking a side on racially charged incidents on campus. WorldNetDaily joins the bashing in an unbylined Nov. 10 article:

It wasn’t the campus radicals who forced the administration at the University of Missouri into defeat.

It was the football team.

But the team’s record off the field has some commentators crying foul. And ostentatiously missing from the hype over the team’s activism over claims of racism on campus are details of the other claims that have erupted.

Claims of sexual assault against team members. And rape.

Within hours of African-American football players at the school declaring they were on strike until the school’s president was booted, both President Tim Wofle and Chancellor R. Bowen Loftin had resigned.

Gary Pinkel, Missouri’s head football coach, supported the strike, which the Kansas City Star tied to Pinkel’s “experiences with civil rights and activism in the past.”

But what is perhaps more relevant is Pinkel’s experience as a coach of a football team with a problematic record regarding sexual assault and violence against women. Several recent investigations allege the University of Missouri has been negligent in handling claims of sexual assault and rape against multiple members of the football team.

WND also trotted out columnist Gina Loudon -- who devoted a column to rationalizing her teenage daughter dating a middle-aged actor -- to complain about thepurported "hypocrisy" of criminal black football players (they appear to be one and the same at WND) making a civil rights stand: “To overlook sexual assault by athletes and turn around and hail them as heroes shows these people are about an agenda and they don’t really care about how flawed that agenda is.”

Both Loudon and Jesse Lee Peterson -- who, as far as we know, have never visited the Mizzou campus -- go on to assert that there are no racial issues there:

“One thing I am 100 percent sure of is that they were not concerned with racial justice because there is no racial problem there,” he said to WND. “The whole thing by black students that they don’t feel protected and they’re not safe – is a lie, it’s an illusion, it’s just a way to manipulate and to put fear into the president of the school and others so they can get rid of them and replace them with people who are going along with them. And they are mostly liberals who are racist against whites and oppose conservative blacks and the Republicans.”

Loudon concurred.

“I don’t buy that there is even a real issue here,” she charged. “I reject the premise that there is a racial situation at hand on Mizzou campus at all. It is created by those who endeavor to use blacks and other minorities."

WND also echoed Flaherty by suggesting that the football team's record disqualifies them from speaking out, noting that "The team is 4-5 on the season and has lost four in a row." At least WND didn't call the team "subliterate," like Flaherty did.

MRC's Bozell Proves CNN Correct By Defending Carson, Whining About Obama
Topic: Media Research Center

On CNN, host Chris Cuomo asked Republican strategist Matt Lewis: "Why are there those ironically on the right side of the media defending Ben Carson so zealously against routine vetting and planting all these seeds about they didn't talk about Obama that way." Lewis responded that Republicans are "defensive" about previous alleged bias: "I think there's an overreaction. I think there's a circling of the wagons. Whenever it's perceived that a Republican is being attacked, rather than ask whether or not it's fair, a lot of times conservatives reflexively push back. And I think that's sometimes counterproductive."

As if to illustrate what Cuomo and Lewis were talking about, Media Research Center chief Brent Bozell chose that very same day to issue a column -- so special it was published at Fox News instead of an MRC joint -- that does exactly what they discussed: zealously defend Carson against being vetted while also complaining that Obama wasn't. And we mean exactly:

This vetting process is not designed as a disinterested pathological examination of a pertinent statement or significant event.

No, the objective of the vetting process is to impair, even to fatally damage, the image of the conservative target du jour.

Dr. Ben Carson recently topped the charts in some national polls, and immediately the long knives came out.

In 96 hours there were three media bombshells:

1. CNN reported breathlessly that contrary to Carson's assertion that his youth was plagued by anger, it had located no less than nine acquaintances that maintain he was a nice kid a half century ago.

2. Politico published a national broadside suggesting Carson's campaign had admitted he'd "fabricated" a story about applying to West Point.

3. The Wall Street Journal disclosed it could find no records validating his anecdote about a Yale course called "Perceptions 310" and in fact there is no evidence of a course by that name taught.

Ben Carson is a fraud.

Except that he's not.

[...]

It continues to amaze me that the national "news" media believe anything, no matter how trite, or how old, is newsworthy -- if the author is a conservative Republican. If the author is a Democrat, everything is unimportant and anything in the past should remain there.

Consider Barack Obama's autobiographies “Dreams from My Father” and “The Audacity of Hope.” During his 2008 campaign there was nothing but fawning praise for these books.

[...]

What if Cruz lied this way?

So what. Why vet when there's a president to elect?

So Obama was showered with accolades instead. According to Time magazine's Joe Klein: "’Dreams from My Father’ may be the best-written memoir ever produced by an American politician."

MSNBC’s Chris Matthews found it "unique" and "refreshing."  "It's almost like Mark Twain. It's so American, it's so textured. It's picturesque."

Years later they're still at it. Matthews’ MSNBC colleague Lawrence O'Donnell recently stated he believes “’Dreams from My Father’ stands today as the finest literary work ever authored by a president of the United States. The book doesn’t contain the whole truth of Barack Obama’s life. Books can’t do that, but it is, by far, the most honest and open book, an artful book, ever written by a president.”

Of course, Bozell is lying when he claims Obama was never vetted before his election in 2008. As The Daily Show's Trevor Noah points out (with accompanying video), "they vetted Obama to the point where they questioned that he was a legitimate, natural-born American citizen." And as Paul Waldman details, in the 2008 campaign the supposedly liberal New York Times mentioned Jeremiah Wright "in no fewer than 419 stories in the Times. William Ayers was mentioned in a mere 130 Times stories in 2008."

Further, as Bozell and Tim Graham (who also probably actually wrote the above column as well, since he ghost-writes for his boss) admitted in their sour-grapes 2013 book "Collusion," Obama's 1995 memoir admitted that some people in it were composites and some conversations are "necessarily an approximation of what was actually said or relayed to me." So there was not an urgency to do anything.

Bozell is also silent on what happened on his own side -- specifically, how the right-wing media's "vetting" of Obama was even more inept than what he accuses the "liberal media" of doing to Carson. From claiming Obama went to school at a radical Islamic madrassa (he didn't) to pushing birther claims (and pretending they were never discredited), right-wing media so botched things that Americans assumed that every look into Obama's past would be similarly tainted. Bozell never took his fellow right-wingers to task for that; indeed, his MRC did little to shoot down birther claims it must have known were false.

Bozell could have chosen to counter the "liberal media" with a media outlet that  was truly fair and balanced. Instead, he created CNSNews.com, which is, if nothing else, even more biased that the media he makes his living criticizing. But Bozell won't talk about that either.

Bozell must content himself with having just proven Chris Cuomo correct. Sad, really.

WND Friend Colin Flaherty Smears Mizzou Football Players Who Supported Protest As 'Subliterate'
Topic: WorldNetDaily

WorldNetDaily may have had to back away from race-baiter extraordinare Colin Flaherty after his "black mob violence" obsession nearly cost it advertising revenue when Google declined to be associated with it, but it still regularly features him on the website. In June, for example, WND played up how YouTube (briefly) suspended Flaherty's video channel, and just last month WND quoted Flaherty opining about Louis Farrahkan.

So WND still has a hand in promoting Flaherty. Meanwhile, Flaherty himself has to resort to even fringier venues to vent his race-baiting rage, like American Thinker.

Which brings us to Flaherty's Nov. 10 American Thinker column on the racially charged situation at the University of Missouri, in which he makes things worse by saying, "A mediocre team of subliterate football players is now running the University of Missouri. Maybe no one will notice the difference."

Yep, he went there -- forwarding the apparent racial smear that if you're black and play football, you can't possibly be that bright.

Of course, one has to have mastered some level of literacy to play football for a major college in in the Southeastern Conference, considered among the most competitive in college football. Mizzou football is ranked third academically in the SEC, and 26 Mizzou football players landed on last fall's SEC Honor Roll.

Flaherty goes on to irrelevantly mock the Mizzou players as a "sub .500 football team," as if their support of the protesters would have more validity if the team had a winning record.

Finally, he twists things around to his favorite obsession:

The real story on and around the Mizzou campus is just the opposite of the fairy tale these Black Lives Matter wannabes would have us believe: Crime and violence in Columbia, Missouri is a big problem -- and it’s a black thing.

Just two weeks ago, a local TV station documented all the violence that exists just off campus -- with dozens of assaults and robberies in the space of just a few months in this small college town.

Some of the assaults were on a hiking and biking trail popular with students. Others episodes of violence were in the downtown area that surrounds the campus.

The reporter did not say what is easily found out in public records at the city police and campus police web sites: the predators are overwhelmingly black. The victims are not.

In the self-made video he claims douments this, he highlights a few random stories of violence near the MU campus, then compains a TV report on the incidents doesn't identify the alleged assilants as black and that MU students are "soft targets" for crimes by blacks. He also rants that "black victimization" is "the greatest lie of our generation."

This is a guy, after all, who thinks white people and dogs can take part in "black mob violence," so it's best not to take any of Flaherty's assertions on the subject at face value.

But Flaherty's branding of black football players who object to racism as "subliterate" gives away what his obsession is all about. Even WND should be able to see that.

At The MRC, Questioning A Republican Is 'Verbal Assault'
Topic: Media Research Center

The Media Research Center takes its unquestioning defense of Ben Carson's biography -- and its hatred of anyone who dares to question it -- to a ludicrous extent in a Nov. 6 post by Curtis Houck, whose headline screams that CNN's Alisyn Camerota engaged in a "verbal assault" on Carson. No, really:

What evidence does Houck have that Camerota engaged in a "verbal assault" on Carson? Not much; he asserts, but doesn't prove, that it was "an extremely tense and combative interview," and he calls Camerota a "liberal anchor" and a "liberal co-host," as if the simple act of questioning a Republican while on a network that isn't Fox News automatically makes one "liberal." Houck also complained that Camerota played a Carson video clip "from the far-left site Mother Jones," but doesn't deny that Mother Jones got the clip correct.

Houck also gives Carson's crack to Camerota that "I can't believe used to work on Fox" a pass, even though it's probably more of a "verbal assault" than anything Camerota said, as well as an indicator of the kind of softball treatment he's used to from conservative Fox News.

We somehow doubt Houck -- or anyone else at the MRC -- was concerned about any bias Camerota expressed while a Fox News employee.