Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Friday, April 20, 2007
Excellent Analysis and Coverage
In the aftermath of the whole Don Imus controversy, conservotalk radio goons have their undies in a bunch. They're scared their little party is going to come to a crashing halt. As playing the 'blame game' has always been their trademark, they're trotting out Hillary Clinton, George Soros, the mainstream media and all the other usual suspects. This time, though, the main target of their ire is media watchdog group Media Matters for America.
They claim MMfA has a hitlist. And they're frightened that MMfA won't stop until they take down every right-wing radio host with access to a microphone. In other words, they're scared shitless. They're also claiming that the group endlessly monitors right-wing radio and TV shows, scouring the broadcasts for even the slightest infraction, report on it, and then blitz the mainstream media with their findings. Well, no shit sherlock! They certainly don't hide that fact. And isn't that the same thing you guys do?Several things are always evident during any wingnut smear campaign. The name of George Soros often pops up. He's their top bogeyman. In fact, they claim that he's funded virtually every anti-wingnut and anti-George W. Bush internet and media venture out there, from Air America to MMfA. Well, we all know he opted not to invest in Air America, and MMfA has claimed time and time again that they've never received funding from George Soros. The closest remote connection between the two is that a few groups that received donations from Soros in turn helped out MMfA, minus Soros' involvement. The only activist ventures Soros is known to have invested in are the Center for America Progress, MoveOn, America Coming Together and the Democracy Alliance, in addition to the usual political donations. Granted, Soros is an interesting character. I've always been somewhat suspicious of his involvement in Carlyle Group, perhaps the tightest of the tightest of private equity funds, one who's members consist of or have consisted of the Saudi Royal Family, James Baker III, former defense secretary Frank Carlucci, former Time Magazine editor-in-chief Norman Pearlstine, the bin Laden family (yes, THAT bin Laden family) and, of course, both George Bushes. But again, what's the big deal about Soros anyway? Well, the wingnuts will never tell you he did anything shady, because, apart from some insider trading accusations, he hasn't really done anything evil like blow up buildings, fund Hezbollah, slaughter kittens or eat babies.
Oh, and he even had the balls to use phrases like 'draft dodger' and "philanderer," evidentially with no sense of personal irony whatsoever. Well, at least he didn't say "drug addict." Irony is always in abundant supply on Limbaugh's show. He claims to take the high road, and that he is "not demeaning people on this program in any way." Yeah, right.
Michael Savage Weiner claims MMfA is "run by a homosexual activist who hates anybody in the media who does not kowtow to the homosexual agenda." He had previously referred to Media Matters as "a gay website that attacks me every day" and called Brock "a psychopath." All of this sounds pretty ironic for a guy who used to write overly friendly letters to and skinny-dipped with beatnik poet Allen Ginsberg. It really makes one wonder whether 
One radio loudmouth who really is putting on an act is Tammy Bruce. The wingnut blogs are absolutely drooling over her appearance on Bill O'Reilly's show a few days ago on FOX 'News' where she claimed that there is a left-wing 'hit list' on conservojocks, and they're coming to put them all out of work. But let's call it like it is - Bruce is a fraud. She's not really a conservative. In fact, she started out doing liberal radio, until her job prospects started to look somewhat grim. Then, this pro-choice, pro-gay rights lesbian feminist shifted abruptly to the right, metamorphosing into some sort of 'conservative-but-not-really-conservative'. Or, as she describes herself, an "openly gay, pro-choice, gun owning, pro-death penalty, voted-for-President Bush progressive feminist." Her political orientation shifts back and forth with the breeze, adapting her outlook to whatever suits her arguments, employment prospects or FOX 'News' facetime. In other words, she flip-flops more than Mitt Romney. Newsflash to all wingnuts - she's a phony.Now, is there a problem with this? I accept this as fact in the radio industry. Let's be real here - it's all show business anyway. Talk radio at times seems no different than professional wrestling, ridiculous braggadocio and all. This is commonly referred to in the wrestling business by terms such as 'work' or 'kayfabe.' Where two menacing thugs go out and beat the living shit out of each other, steal each others' girlfriends and blow up each others' cars on TV every week, yet go out for beers and share steroid needles after the show is over. Talk radio is similar, except for the exploding cars and physical violence. Bruce is all kayfabe. When Limbaugh exploded on the national radio scene, I thought the same, like he's doing a parody of a conservative moron. And to be honest, I thought he was pretty good at it. Over time, I think he started believing his own bullshit, thanks to fame and all that money. At least the money his three ex-wives haven't taken. Same with Sean Hannity, who often sounds like he's reading straight from the RNC faxes. Most likely, these guys are probably putting on an act to some degree, call it 'whoring for dollars.' The sad reality is that, unlike wrestling which we all know is a put-on, radio listeners actually think all of what these folks say is legit.
And these types of conservative gasbags, in increasingly widespread delusions of paranoia, are once again playing the victim, claiming that Hillary, Soros, the media (which they are a part of anyway) and organizations like MMfA are out to squash them like the bugs they are. What they fail to mention is that MMfA wasn't even there first. Actually, they got the idea from the wingnuts themselves. James Dobson and his righteous ilk have been attacking the media and the entertainment industry for decades. Hotheaded wingnut Brent Bozell was next in 1987 with his Media Research Center (and later, sister blog NewsBusters). And there's more where that came from, in the form of 'Accuracy' in Media. Sure, they claim to be neutral, but they're always out front in claiming liberal media bias, while rarely attacking conservatives. And guess what? All of these groups do the exact same thing that they accuse MMfA of doing. Pot, say hello to kettle. But hey, it's all a 'work' anyway, right? Just like pro wrestling.
And as far as deep-pocketed political sugar daddies go, Soros is a Johnny-come-lately to the party. Conservatives and Republican'ts for years have been relying on eccentric moneymen to help squash anyone who stands in their way. Ever hear of Richard Mellon Scaife? This trust fund baby used some of his $1 billion inheritance to lash out at all things non-conservative. He made borderline illegal contributions to Richard Nixon's 1972 re-election campaign. He sent money to right-wing think tanks and political action committees. He bought a little newspaper in the Pittsburgh suburbs and turned it into an ultra-conservative attack rag. He threw money at magazines like the American Spectator, which in turn funded the Arkansas Project, a nefarious group whose sole purpose from the early 1990s onward was to dig up as much dirt on Bill Clinton as humanly possible. Scaife even funded this shady venture directly, and in many ways oversaw it. Ironically, one key journalist used in the smear campaign was none other than then-American Spectator writer David Brock, who later renounced his sordid muckraking past and flipped to the other side, founding MMfA. In essence, here was Scaife, a goofy billionaire who, with a right-wing group, was trying to overthrow the presidency. Hey, isn't that treason? Funny we don't hear Limbaugh, O'Reilly, Savage and Bruce talk about this crazy rich guy trying to silence the opposition. But I guess it would be a bit difficult to work that into a conversation on a daily three hour program, right? Oh, and Scaife himself directly sent money to the Media Research Center, further making this whole Soros thing moot.
Want more? Well, there's more where Scaife came from. Perhaps the grandaddy of them all is Sun Myung Moon, Korean leader of the Unification Church, an organization considered by many to be a high-powered cult. When authorities started to come down on his massive financial empire in the 1970s for fraud, conspiracy and tax evasion offenses, Moon sought to make some high-powered friends. He aligned himself with Republicans such as Nixon, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. In the ultimate suck-up gesture to the GOP, he gave them their own newspaper, the Washington Times, on which he has spent over a billion dollars on over the past two decades without ever seeing a profit. Not to worry, since he can always bilk more out of his followers anyway. Ironically, his efforts have been defended in the past by the ACLU, another frequent target of the conservative movement.And, need I mention Australian media baron Rupert Murdoch, who went down the same media road as Moon, minus the cult and the lawbreaking? We're all too familiar with that story, and he's kind of a lightweight compared to some of these other characters.
But this is just the tip of the iceberg. I could mention that the conservative movement has always been propped up by generous sugardaddies like Richard DeVos, founder of the Amway pyramid scheme, and countless others including many, many oil companies, media owners and defense contractors. But this article is getting way too long and off-track, so it's best that it come to a close.
So, wingnuts can go ahead and attack MMfA, Soros, Hillary, the media and all their other usual punching bags. But before they do, perhaps it's best that they take a good, hard look in the mirror at themselves and the people they're talking to. Their ideals are propped up by the billions of dollars coming from a traitor, a felonious Korean cult leader and a pyramid scheme ripoff artist. They'll realize that they're not so high and mighty after all. It's just them whining and ranting like the conservative crybabies they are.
Original article posted here.
Sunday, January 21, 2007
Media preaching hatred yet again, smearing Obama. So you want a Democracy?
This morning, Fox News featured a segment highlighting a right-wing report that Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) attended an Islamic “madrassa” school as a 6-year-old child.
Fox & Friends host Steve Doocy pointed out that madrassas are “financed by Saudis” and “teach this Wahhabism which pretty much hates us,” then declared, “The big question is: was that on the curriculum back then?” Later, a caller to the show questioned whether Obama’s schooling means that “maybe he doesn’t consider terrorists the enemy.” Fox anchor Brian Kilmeade responded, “Well, we’ll see about that.”
The Fox hosts failed to correct the false claim that Obama is Muslim. One caller, referring to Obama, said, “I think a Muslim would be fine in the presidency, better than Hillary. At least you know what the Muslims are up to.” Anchor Gretchen Carlson responded, “We want to be clear, too, that this isn’t all Muslims, of course, we would only be concerned about the kind that want to blow us up.” Obama is Christian, a member of Chicago’s Trinity United Church of Christ since 1988. Watch it:
As a child, Obama spent four years in Indonesia with his step-father, a non-practicing Muslim, and his mother. Between ages 6 and 8, Obama attended a local Muslim school in Jakarta; after that, he was enrolled in a Roman Catholic school. In his book Dreams Of My Father (p.142), Obama writes:
In Indonesia, I’d spent 2 years at a Muslim school, 2 years at a Catholic school. In the Muslim school, the teacher wrote to tell mother I made faces during Koranic studies. In the Catholic school, when it came time to pray, I’d pretend to close my eyes, then peek around the room. Nothing happened. No angels descended.
In his more recent book, The Audacity of Hope, Obama writes (p.274), “Without the money to go to the international school that most expatriate children attended, I went to local Indonesian schools and ran the streets with the children of farmers, servants, tailors, and clerks.”
Original article posted here.Monday, December 25, 2006
The Propaganda Prize
In October 24 appearances on Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor and Hannity & Colmes, ABC News political director Mark Halperin claimed that the "old media" -- broadcast news outlets and major newspapers -- were "biased against conservatives; there's no doubt about it." He stated, "I think we've got a chance in these last two weeks [before the then-upcoming midterm elections] to prove to conservatives that we understand their grievances. We're going to try to do better." But if "try[ing] to do better" to not appear "biased against conservatives" meant offering viewers conservative misinformation, Halperin shouldn't have worried; a review of dozens of items by Media Matters for America identifying and correcting conservative misinformation from ABC suggests that Halperin's network was "try[ing] to do better" throughout 2006.
This year saw ABC air The Path to 9/11, a two-part miniseries that placed the blame for the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the Clinton administration and whitewashed some of the Bush administration's failures leading up to the attacks. Additionally, the network's news coverage frequently reported Republican spin as fact, passed on falsehoods propagated by conservatives, and missed numerous opportunities to challenge or question the administration's actions during solo interviews with Bush and key members of his administration.
These examples, and many more, earned ABC the distinction of being named Media Matters' Misinformer of the Year for 2006. The selection of an entire network for the honor represents a change from previous years, when individual media figures -- Fox News' Bill O'Reilly in 2004 and MSNBC's Chris Matthews in 2005 -- received the award. But a look at some of its most flagrant examples of conservative misinformation confirms that ABC won the Misinformer of the Year the old-fashioned way: The network earned it.
The Path to 9/11
On September 10 and 11, ABC aired The Path to 9/11, a miniseries the network initially claimed was based primarily on the 9-11 Commission report but which many Democrats and even several conservatives criticized as "inaccurate" and even "defamatory." The principal controversy revolved around several fabricated scenes that depicted former Clinton administration officials undermining efforts to capture Osama bin Laden in the years prior to 9-11. As Media Matters documented, ABC gradually backed off its original claim that the film was an "epic" and "historic" "dramatization of the events detailed in The 9/11 Commission Report" that "absolutely ... get[s] it right."
Two weeks before its broadcast, however, various members of the right-wing media had begun promoting the "docudrama," including radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh (subscription required) and websites FrontPageMag.com and Human Events Online.
In conjunction with the miniseries, Scholastic Inc. and ABC released a "Discussion Guide for the Classroom" aimed at high school teachers nationwide to "[e]ncourage your students and their families to watch The Path to 9/11 and use the accompanying" discussion guide as part of their lesson plan. But a Media Matters review of the material found it to be rife with conservative misinformation. The material omitted critical information regarding the Bush administration's pre-Iraq war weapons of mass destruction claims; falsely suggested a tie between Iraq and 9-11; gave upbeat accounts of reportedly dire conditions on the ground in both Iraq and Afghanistan; suggested that military responses to bin Laden by the Clinton administration could have "hinder[ed] the U.S. stance on the war on terror"; and asked students to debate whether the media "hinder our national security." Under intense criticism --including by Media Matters -- over its discussion guide, Scholastic pulled the guide from its website, stating, "[T]he materials did not meet our high standards."
Journalists, conservative pundits, and the film's star, actor Harvey Keitel, pressured ABC to correct the film's inaccuracies and set the record straight regarding the Clinton administration's counterterrorism efforts. In response, ABC released a statement, claiming that "[n]o one has seen the final version of the film, because the editing process is not yet complete, so criticisms of film specifics are premature and irresponsible" -- even though the network had reportedly previously said that the film was "locked and ready to air" and had released copies to members of the conservative media, including Limbaugh.
When ABC broadcast the miniseries, it did so with numerous inaccuracies still in it. The first night of the two-part miniseries included a fabricated scene that depicted Clinton administration officials declining to authorize the CIA to capture bin Laden. ABC retained the controversial scene despite the fact that it is contradicted by the 9-11 Commission report and had even been disputed by conservative media figures. The second half of the miniseries, which aired on September 11, also contained scenes that were factually inaccurate -- this time showing Bush taking aggressive action there is no indication he ever took. The film also misrepresented American Airlines and former FBI counterterrorism expert John O'Neill, who died on September 11, 2001, in the World Trade Center, where he was head of security.
In November, the Liberty Film Festival, "a forum for conservative thought on film," awarded the festival's "Freedom of Expression Award" to ABC's Judith Tukich, the vice president of Synergy and Special Projects, a right-wing evangelical who has described her mission as "evangeliz[ing] the world ... through the media," for her role in assisting the production and promotion of The Path to 9/11.
Propagating conservative misinformation
Following Bush's State of the Union address in January, Good Morning America co-anchor Charles Gibson cited after-speech poll results from previous years to claim that Bush may get a "pretty good size boost in his polls" after the 2006 address, even though ABC News polling director Gary Langer had dismissed such polls as a highly unreliable indicator of the entire country's view of the speech. [1/31/06]
Discussing a report detailing wasteful government spending or so-called "pork" on Good Morning America, Washington correspondent Jake Tapper claimed that Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) is "such an opponent of pork he's almost kosher." [4/5/06]
During an interview with first lady Laura Bush on This Week, host and chief White House correspondent George Stephanopoulos failed to correct a claim by the first lady that when Bush's "poll numbers were good," the press did not put them "on the front page." [5/14/06]
Discussing a May 15 ABC News/Washington Post poll, Stephanopoulos stated that "a president just shouldn't be at 33 percent when you've got 89 percent of the country optimistic about their future." Stephanopoulos focused on the administration's handling of Iraq as an "opportunity ... if things can turn around in Iraq" while omitting other results, both from that poll and others, that provide other reasons for Bush's low approval ratings. [5/16/06]
In reporting on a trip to Arizona Bush took to promote his immigration reform proposals, then-World News Tonight co-anchor Elizabeth Vargas claimed that "it was clear [Bush] is passionate about the very issue that has so many members of his party up in arms: allowing people now here illegally the chance to become American citizens." However, she completely ignored the fact that the White House reportedly supported a controversial immigration bill proposed by Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner (R-WI) that would have made it a crime to be an illegal resident of the United States. [5/18/06]
Shoddy coverage of Democrats
Vargas reported that "Congress voted to raise the national debt limit to nearly $9 trillion" but omitted the fact that all Senate Democrats voted against the increase, along with three Republicans. [3/16/06]
In citing the results of an ABC News/Washington Post poll on Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY), Tapper ignored the positive results and claimed that "a daunting 42 percent of all Americans say they will never vote for her." He added that "[s]ome think she's too liberal. Others think she's untrustworthy." Tapper did not mention the poll found that a majority of respondents said Clinton is, in fact, "honest and trustworthy" and that her views are "about right," while a minority thought she is "too liberal." [5/31/06]
Tapper uncritically reported an argument made by conservatives that raising the minimum wage will result in job losses and discourage job creation, even though numerous studies have found that increasing the minimum wage does not result in job loss or negatively affect employment. Further, neither Tapper nor business correspondent Betsy Stark reported that congressional Republicans tied a minimum-wage increase to legislation cutting the estate tax -- a measure that would disproportionately benefit the wealthiest Americans. As well, both Tapper and Stark did not report that Democrats have been pushing for years to increase the minimum wage. [8/02-8/03/06]
Chief White House correspondent Martha Raddatz argued that Democrats "don't want" to call for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq because "the lesson from Vietnam ... was you have to support the troops or there's tremendous backlash." In other words, supporting the United States' withdrawal from Iraq is not supporting the troops. [8/13/06]
In a report on the campaign advertisement wars of the 2006 election cycle, Nightline co-anchor Terry Moran reported that "both sides are playing a serious game of hardball" with "mudslinging" attack ads hitting "below the belt." Moran wondered: "How low can they go?" Despite Moran's insistence that the "low punches" were being thrown by both Democrats and Republicans, he provided no examples of Democratic-sponsored attack ads that matched the level of distortion and personal attack found in Republican commercials. [10/25/06]
Missed opportunities in solo interviews with Bush administration officials.
During an exclusive interview with Bush on World News Tonight, Vargas echoed the White House line that Bush "doesn't read the polls"; uncritically accepted Bush's explanation for Katrina failures, despite citing the House Katrina committee report critical of the White House's response; omitted the key distinction that a Dubai company seeking to take over operations at port terminals at six major U.S. ports is state-owned, allowing Bush to falsely attack port deal critics; and ignored a number of other issues, including warrantless domestic spying and the Plame investigation. [2/28/06]
During his interview with Bush, Stephanopoulos did not challenge Bush on several statements that directly contradicted previous statements and actions, including when Bush asserted that his administration has "never been stay the course" in Iraq. [10/22/06]
In an interview with White House senior adviser Karl Rove, correspondent Ann Compton asked Rove three questions about Sen. John Kerry's (D-MA) "botched joke" about Bush and Iraq but none about other contemporaneous topics of greater significance. The only questions Compton asked not relating to Kerry were whether Rove believed that Bush would be able to "mobilize the Republican base and those independents and undecideds" and if "this [is] George W. Bush's last campaign and yours." [11/1/06]
During an interview with Vice President Dick Cheney, Stephanopoulos prompted Cheney to blame the recent upsurge of violence in Iraq on an insurgent "strategy" to "influence" the midterm elections, asking Cheney if "that mean[s] that a Democratic victory is a victory for the insurgents." Additional portions of the interview showed that Stephanopoulos let Cheney repeat the administration's self-serving and dubious assertions on Democratic tax plans, Iraq, and the economy. [11/3/06: first part; second part]
Misinformation from Mark Halperin
In an online article, Halperin asserted that Republicans had "an advantage" over Democrats in the then-upcoming midterm elections on "national security and taxes." In fact, polls suggested that Democrats actually held the advantage over Republicans on both issues. [10/17/06]
On The Sean Hannity Show, Halperin falsely suggested that while progressive 527 organizations with ties to the Democratic Party attacked Bush during the 2004 election, there were no comparable groups on the right. However, one of the most prominent 527 groups during that time was the Swift Boat Veterans For Truth, a group with ties to both the GOP and the Bush-Cheney '04 campaign, whose attacks on Kerry received broad coverage in the media. [10/23/06]
During a report about the controversy surrounding Limbaugh's attacks on actor Michael J. Fox, who has Parkinson's disease, Halperin claimed that "[i]n the past, conservatives let liberal entertainers kind of have a free ride," but now "they're saying, under George W. Bush, if you get involved in politics, we're going to come after you and the Democrats you're supporting." In fact, Fox was campaigning for candidates who support embryonic stem cell research; in 2004, he appeared in a campaign ad for Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA). [10/29/06]
Miscellaneous
During a report on ties between Rep. Katherine Harris (R-FL) and disgraced defense contractor Mitchell Wade, correspondent John Donvan reported that Wade "made illegal contributions to her campaign" but added, "[T]hough she gave the money back, it's what reporters in Florida keep asking about. Even this week it came up." In fact, while Florida newspapers continued to raise questions about the illegal campaign contributions, they also focused on Harris' subsequent request to the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee for a $10 million earmark that would have benefited Wade's company. [3/21/06]
On Good Morning America, 20/20 co-host John Stossel claimed that it is a "myth" that "women earn less" than men for "doing the same work." Stossel acknowledged that women "earn less" than men overall, and concluded that "[t]he truth is" that "men are more willing to take lousy jobs" and "work longer," and that is why they yield higher wages. In fact, numerous studies and data indicate that, on average, men earn more than women regardless of occupation. [5/12/06]
On Good Morning America, discussing whether conflicts in the Middle East heralded the potential coming of the Apocalypse, co-host Robin Roberts asked of the authors of the Left Behind series: "You see what's going on: the bombing in Haifa and Israel and it's so close to the valley of Armageddon. And when you think about that, and people see this and think about [it], is it indeed Armageddon?" Throughout the segment, the onscreen text read: "Apocalypse Now: Is The End Near?" [7/27/06]