NewsBusters.org - Exposing Liberal Media Bias

NBC's Todd: Palin Will Attract 'Car-Wreck Watchers;' All Call Palin Decision 'Bizarre'

Brent Baker — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 20:46:18 -0400

Sarah Palin's “bombshell” holiday announcement that she will resign as Governor of Alaska managed to trump Michael Jackson as the lead on the ABC, CBS and NBC evening newscasts Friday night as NBC's Chuck Todd predicted she will now make fundraising appearances for GOP candidates where she'll draw in “car-wreck watchers.” CBS reporter Nancy Cordes reflected the tone of the stories when she described “a rambling, at times confusing announcement,” while on all three newscasts Palin's decision was called “bizarre.”

NBC News White House reporter Chuck Todd, who suggested she decided to quit so she could “make a lot of money” on the speaking circuit free of ethics complaint hassles, also predicted she will bring in big crowds at fundraisers for GOP candidates which will also entice those not so impressed by her:

She may spend the next year campaigning for Republicans all across the country. She's probably going to be the person that can attract the largest crowds, some it is car-wreck watchers -- you know, they just are coming, kind of curiosity-seekers. It doesn't matter. She can attract a lot of people.

Before Todd, NBC reporter Peter Alexander applied the “bizarre” label: “It was just the latest bizarre twist for the self-described maverick...”

ABC and CBS reporters refrained from using that description themselves and left it to others in their July 3 coverage. In the World News story by David Wright, ABC's own Cokie Roberts maintained:

It's mystifying. It was a bizarre statement. It didn't make a lot of sense and it doesn't seem to be the kind of thing someone would do if someone was running for President.

On the CBS Evening News, in the piece from Nancy Cordes, the Politico's Mike Allen, a veteran of Time magazine, declared:

This is very unusual, even bizarre. Governors just don't stop in the middle of their terms when there's no clear reason.

Following Cordes, CBS News political analyst John Dickerson, also a veteran of Time, told fill-in anchor Maggie Rodriguez:

It's bizarre and there's no good explanation. And if she were trying to do away with the kind of speculation that she says has so irritated her, this not the way to do it.

HuffPoster: 'Palin Will Run In '12 On More Retardation Platform'

Noel Sheppard — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 19:52:39 -0400

This is about as disgusting as Palin Derangement Syndrome can get.

A blog just published at the Huffington Post is disgracefully titled "Palin Will Run In '12 On More Retardation Platform."

The author, fiction and comedy writer Erik Sean Nelson (pictured right), actually wrote the following (readers are seriously warned to proceed with caution as this is really vile stuff):

In Sarah Palin's resignation announcement she complained about the treatment of her son Trig who always teaches her life lessons. She said that the "world needs more Trigs, not fewer." That's a presidential campaign promise we can all get behind. She will be the first politician to actually try to increase the population of retarded people. To me, it's kinda like saying the world needs more cancer patients because they teach us such personal lessons.

Her first act as President: To introduce a Pre-K lunch buffet that includes lead paint chips. Sort of a Large HEAD-START Program.

She will then encourage women to hold off on pregnancies until their 40's just to mix up some chromosomes.

She now is in favor of abortion only in case of diploid birth.

Her policies will increase jobs because Wal-Mart is building new stores each day and someone has to be the greeter.
This will lead to smaller government because fewer Americans will have the cognitive ability to hold a government job

Wow. Is this what passes for comedy today?

It will be interesting to see how long this post stays up before someone at HuffPo pulls it.

Stay tuned.

*****Update: The article has been pulled, apparantly by the author who claimed: "I got some emails from offended loved ones of the retarded. No one was seeing the absurdity of Palin hiding behind her children, so my piece was not accomplishing anything good."

Imagine that.

Well, for posterity purposes, here's a screen-cap of the piece courtesy NB reader Brett Scheer:

Nice job, Erik. Don't be a stranger.

CNN's Sanchez: Is Palin Quitting Because She's Pregnant Again?

Noel Sheppard — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 18:06:14 -0400

In today's Sarah Palin Derangement segment, CNN's Rick Sanchez actually asked Candy Crowley if the Alaska Governor is stepping down because she's pregnant again (h/t multiple NB readers):

For more examples of PDS, please read Judy Silver's piece at The New Agenda.

Press Is Under-reporting and Understating Police State Capabilities of China's New 'GD Software'

Tom Blumer — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 17:18:58 -0400

Today's dispatch from the Associated Press about the Chinese Communist government's attempt to require that a state-developed program called "Green Dam Youth Escort" be installed on all new personal computers sold in that country is all too typical of the awful reporting on this potentially frightening development.

I will refer to Green Dam Youth Escort as "the GD software" for the balance of this post. Many readers will find this abbreviation particularly appropriate once they fully understand everything the GD software could potentially do.

The latest news about the GD software is that the government has delayed what was to be a July 1 installation requirement, but that it intends to go forward with that mandate at some point. In the meantime, for reasons not fully vetted, many PC makers have begun shipping units with the GD software either already installed or included on an accompanying CD.

Considering the gravity of what the Chinese Communist government is trying to do to its people, worldwide media coverage of the GD software has been much lighter than justified. Somehow, what may happen to the free speech and free expression rights of 1.3 billion people isn't anywhere near as important as what's happening in connection with an entertainer who has been dead for a week.

Here are key paragraphs from Joe McDonald's AP story, as carried at USA Today (bolds after title are mine:

PC makers voluntarily supply Web filter in China
Several PC makers were including controversial Internet-filtering software with computers shipped in China on Thursday despite a government decision to postpone its plan to make such a step mandatory.

Beijing's decision this week to delay the requirement that the filtering software — known as Green Dam — be pre-installed or supplied on disk with all computers sold in China averted a possible trade clash with the United States and Europe. But the move by some makers to include the software anyway could re-ignite complaints by Chinese Web users.

Also Thursday, a government newspaper said regulators will revive the plan to make Green Dam mandatory at some point, a move that would disappoint opponents who hoped the government would drop the effort.

Taiwan's Acer— the world's No. 3 PC maker —Sony and China's Haier said they were shipping Green Dam on disks with computers for sale in China. China's Lenovo, the No. 4 producer, said it would offer the software pre-installed or on disk. Taiwan's Asus said it was preparing to supply Green Dam disks with PCs. Taiwanese laptop maker BenQ said the system was on the hard drives of its computers.

Acer was supplying Green Dam because disks were already packed with PCs before the government postponed the plan, that had been due to take effect Wednesday, said a company spokeswoman, Meng Lei. Lenovo said it also was going ahead with plans made before the Green Dam order was postponed.

Hewlett-Packard, the world's top PC manufacturer, said it was working with the U.S. government to get more information and declined to comment further. No. 2 Dell said it was not including Green Dam with its PCs.

..... An official of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology quoted Thursday by the China Daily said regulators will revive the plan to make Green Dam mandatory.

..... Beijing operates extensive Internet filters to block access to material considered obscene or subversive. Still, Chinese Web users were outraged by Green Dam, which would have raised screening to a new level by putting it on each computer.

As you will see, calling the GD software a form of "Internet filtering" is like calling a telephone eavesdropping device a "call screener."

Here, from an Epoch Times article that was originally in Chinese, is a more complete description of what the GD software actually can do:

The regime says Green Dam can block pornography, filter illicit content, control web surfing time, and check browsing records. In fact, the software is capable of blocking politically sensitive websites, filtering out content based on a list of keywords, recording keystrokes and passwords, taking screenshots every 3 minutes, and recording all of the websites visited along with all of the user’s other internet activity.

….. Computer hackers in China have cracked open Green Dam’s keyword library and administrative codes.

According to the information produced by these hackers, Green Dam has 2,700 keywords relating to pornography, and 6,500 politically sensitive keywords. While these keywords include references to the Tiananmen Square massacre and Tibet, the great majority of the keywords refer to Falun Gong, the spiritual practice the Chinese regime banned and began persecuting in 1999.

….. Analysts believe that Green Dam gives the regime the ability to tighten its control by collecting personal information and secretly sending it to a central database, while strengthening the regime’s ability to censor the internet. The collected information could then be used to persecute dissidents.

In 2003 the Chinese regime launched the Golden Shield, also known as the Great Firewall of China, an internet filtering system that cost tens of billions of yuan. The Internet Freedom Consortium believes Golden Shield is the world’s most stringent web filtering system.

….. However, Golden Shield can be circumvented by such popular anti-filtering software programs as FreeGate, UltraSurf, and Garden. Green Dam can block these programs.

Chinese users of Green Dam have found that the Green-Dam injects a dll file into Internet Explorer that prohibits the usage of FreeGate. Analysts predict that Green Dam will in its future updates add code that will prohibit the usage of proxy servers, another anti-blockage technology.

The makers of Green Dam claim that, while the software will be pre-installed, users can remove it.

A mainland Chinese computer expert discovered the truth after he installed and uninstalled the screening software. He said, “When we used its [Green Dam] uninstallation program to uninstall the software, about half of Green Dam’s 110 system files continued to reside in the computer. After restarting the computer, Green Dam’s screening program is running actively in the background. The only part of the software uninstalled is its user interface.”

The expert added, “Pre-loading the screening software and providing an uninstallation program that does not actually uninstall the software is an act of coercion. Green Dam project is a coercive software.”

What I have seen from the AP has consistently described the GD software as "Internet filtering" at least as far back as this June 21 report.

This June 12 Christian Science Monitor article by Peter Ford confirms that the GD software goes well beyond blocking only pornographic material and terms, and that "its makers, Jinhui, boast on their website that Green Dam offers “real-time screen captures, detailed Internet usage records for post-facto monitoring,” and a tool to disable proxy servers, which many Chinese Internauts use to get around the “great firewall” and into sensitive political sites that would otherwise be blocked by existing filters.

Clearly, the GD software is intended to complete the task of perfecting the Chinese police state's control of computers and communications. If that actually occurs, the world described by George Orwell in "1984," at least technologically speaking, would look like a relative picnic.

Only four things appear to stand in the way of the GD software's success:

PC maker resistance, which appears weak to noncommittal;
Pressure from other governments, which appears to be mostly the same;
Technical problems -- the software is very buggy, according to this review of the program by three members of the Computer Science and Engineering Division at the University of Michigan, though it's tough not to wonder if the Chinese Communists really consider some of the alleged "bugs" to be "features";
World opinion, which thanks to light establishment media reporting, has been mostly muted.

The Western press's failure to give prominence to news about the GD software, its totally inaccurate description of its capabilities, and its failure to explore potentially horrible implications for the human rights of the Chinese people may someday be seen as an unforgivable journalistic failure.

A related post is at BizzyBlog.com.

Weekend Captionfest

NB Staff — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 16:00:32 -0400

President Obama before the taping of a weekly Radio Address in the Roosevelt Room of the White House.

Washington Post Hired Left-Wing Obama Enabler as Its 'Chief Digital Officer'

Brent Baker — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 15:52:55 -0400

The Washington Posts's first ever “chief digital officer” came aboard the newspaper, where he also oversees Newsweek's online efforts, after three years of working diligently to help elect liberals and Democrats to office -- including Barack Obama. A short profile of Vijay Ravindran, in the July issue of Washingtonian magazine, noted that “Democratic strategist and entrepreneur Harold Ickes,” a veteran of the Clinton administration and 1996 re-election campaign, enlisted “Ravindran to build Catalist, a national voter database for Democratic candidates and liberal organizations. From the fall of 2005 through the election of Barack Obama, Ravindran built systems for Catalist.” His title at Catalist: Chief Technology Officer.

Catalist, which dubs itself “The Future of Progressive Organizing,” lists a who's who of left-wing groups and causes on its client list, from ACORN and the AFL-CIO to Wellstone Action, with MoveOn.org, the National Resources Defense Council and Obama for America (the official Obama campaign) alphabetically in between.

In an interview last November with the “Sepia Mutiny” blog about South Asians, Ravindran recounted his political/career odyssey, including how “I feel somewhat embarrassed that I didn't appreciate the Clinton years.”

(Meanwhile, one of Ravindran's colleagues is sliding over to the Obama administration. The Post's “Federal Eye” blogger, Ed O'Keefe, disclosed Wednesday: “Washington Post Digital Vice President and General Counsel Sherrese Smith will join the FCC as legal adviser to chairman Julius Genachowski.” O'Keefe described Obama nominee Genachowski as “a close friend of President Obama” who “also worked on his presidential campaign and helped raise money from the telecommunications sector.”)

Hat tip to DCRTV.com for both job moves.

An excerpt from Ravindran's comments to Sepia Mutiny about his personal political odyssey:

I cared enough to vote, and always had strong feelings about voting Democratic prior to 2004, but I didn’t do anything beyond that. Looking back, I feel somewhat embarrassed that I didn’t appreciate the Clinton years. I was a college 1st year when Clinton got elected to his first term. I was happy, but not as happy as I should have been. And as someone who had the summer off before joining the workforce in 1996, I barely paid attention to the re-election. And volunteering never crossed my mind.

My wife has always been a personal trail blazer for me. She’s the reason I moved to Seattle and took the first job I could find in 1998 (Amazon). She became active in 2000 campaigning for Gore and Cantwell, and protesting the outcome after the election was stolen.

But like so many other people I know, my eyes were opened to how important politics and which political party is in power by the aftermath of 9/11. In small ways, I got more involved in 2004; I gave money for the first time, caucused in Washington State during the primary, and canvassed in South Seattle for Kerry/Gregoire. But my imagination really got stirred when I heard tales from two of my friends who I had worked with at Amazon, who had retired prior to 2004. They had volunteered in Cuyahoga County & DC and actually did technology related work for the Kerry Campaign and the DNC respectively. I had never realized that my day job skills could be put to such relevant use. So that definitely got me thinking, but it was a pipe dream at that point. I’m not much of a career roadmap guy, so I didn’t know what to do with the pipe dream. But then lo and behold, my wife who had been working on her PhD in Seattle got a great faculty offer from the University of Maryland at College Park, and we decided to move to Washington DC. Through my two politically active Amazonian friends, I was connected to Harold Ickes. We hit it off really well, and things just fell into place. It was meant to be...

Ravindran, who also holds the title of Senior Vice President of the Washington Post Company, donated $4,600 to Obama's campaign last year a little less to John Kerry and Wesley Clark in 2004, according to a Huffington Post list.

Catalist's self-description:

Catalist is transforming the way progressive organizations communicate and campaign by creating a comprehensive, well-maintained national database of all voting-age individuals in the United States, along with the tools and expertise needed to make this database broadly accessible, at an affordable price.

Ravindran's job may be a support role to distribute the work of journalists, but he also decides which content to promote. In “Can This Geek Save the Post?” Harry Jaffe reported that Ravindran, who joined the Post's staff in February, “delivered his first 'product,' a streaming conversation for the Post Company’s online magazine, Slate, across Twitter and Facebook. The first installment was a five-part series about the use of animals in medical research. He hopes it will be one of the 'kernels' to build Post revenues.”

An excerpt from the magazine item posted Tuesday on the Washingtonian's “Capitol Comment” blog (which has a picture of Ravindran):

...Ravindran, 35, is a sweet, mild-mannered geek. He grew up in Norman, Oklahoma, where his father taught industrial engineering. He graduated from the University of Virginia in 1996 and went into software development for American Management Systems.

“I cut my teeth as a programmer,” he says.

Ravindran sharpened them developing software for Amazon.com. He had seven jobs in as many years, eventually “running teams working on the guts of the Amazon platform.” He developed ways to make it easier for customers to buy more things more easily. When his wife landed a teaching job at the University of Maryland, Ravindran came east and asked: “What next?”

Democratic strategist and entrepreneur Harold Ickes helped answer the question by enlisting Ravindran to build Catalist, a national voter database for Democratic candidates and liberal organizations. From the fall of 2005 through the election of Barack Obama, Ravindran built systems for Catalist. After the election, Amazon board member — and Smithsonian board chair — Patricia Stonesifer introduced him to [Post Publisher Don] Graham.

“We hit it off really well,” says Ravindran. “He knew there was a strong need to innovate in the digital space and the Post had to make an investment to grow internally.”...

For more revolving door names, check my early May posting: “Third CNN Staffer Joins Obama's Team, As Does ABC Vet; Revolving Door Up to Ten.”

Loudon Wainwright III Sings 'The Krugman Blues'

Noel Sheppard — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 12:45:47 -0400

Somehow New York Times columnist Paul Krugman seems a terrible subject for a song.

Yet, Loudon Wainwright III, who admits to being a Times fan, performed "The Krugman Blues" in New York's Madison Square Park a few weeks ago:

I read the New York Times, that's where I get the news. Paul Krugman's on the Op Ed page, that's where I get the blues.

In Wainwright's view, given the current state of the economy, "I guess that I identify with that pissed off look on [Krugman's] face" (video embedded below the fold):

Daily Kos: GOP Is Like A Perpetually Greedy and Spoiled Two-Year-Old

Tim Graham — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 11:28:15 -0400

On his Midday Open Thread Thursday, Daily Kos chief Markos Moulitsas found it very easy to associate the Republican Party ethos with spoiled tots:

I remember writing this about my son:

Right now, he's a Republican.
What's his is his, and he won't share.
What's mine is his, because he "wants it".
And if he gets angry and frustrated,
He hits people, preemptively!

He's now five and has evolved somewhat past this, developing a nice sense of empathy. But my 2-year-old daughter is VERY MUCH in her Republican phase. So the baton has been passed...

It sounds just a little like the infamous Peter Jennings post-election commentary in 1994, doesn't it?

"Ask parents of any two-year-old and they can tell you about those temper tantrums: the stomping feet, the rolling eyes, the screaming. It's clear that the anger controls the child and not the other way around. It's the job of the parent to teach the child to control the anger and channel it in a positive way. Imagine a nation full of uncontrolled two-year-old rage. The voters had a temper tantrum last week....Parenting and governing don't have to be dirty words: the nation can't be run by an angry two-year-old." -- Peter Jennings ABC Radio commentary, November 14, 1994 (later retracted).

(Hat tip: Dominating Dentist)

John Ziegler Exposes How Palin Derangement Syndrome Works

Noel Sheppard — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 11:22:21 -0400

Although almost eight months have passed since last year's elections, Palin Derangement Syndrome continues to manifest itself throughout America's press.

As NewsBusters' Mike Sargent reported Tuesday, Vanity Fair's Todd Purdum is gravely afflicted with the illness, and needs to see a team of doctors quickly if he ever wants to be taken seriously by anyone other than the extreme Left.

With that in mind, Palin documentarian John Ziegler had a fascinating radio interview with Politico's Mike Allen Wednesday that shed some light on how PDS works and why it's so pernicious.

To set this up, Allen was on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" earlier in the day, and defended Purdum's piece (15 minute audio available here):

MIKE ALLEN, POLITICO: Nobody can agree on what exactly went wrong with that disastrous campaign. Todd has a great phrase in there where he refers to it as "A Bermuda Triangle of a campaign." [...]
I know that she was advised after the campaign to disappear, to study, to learn foreign policy, to learn economics, learn some of these issues and come back in two years when she was ready. She didn't do it, instead she did a series of stupid interviews that just dug her deeper..." [...]
Sure, she has incredible star power as you point out. She's wanted for fundraisers. We all cover her. But Joe, I don't think she's taken seriously as a policy person. I don't think that that's the sort of circus act the Republicans are looking for. I think she'll get tons of coverage. It's hard to see her at this point being taken as a serious person.

After playing these audio segments, Ziegler asked Allen: "Which really stupid interviews that Sarah Palin did were you referring to specifically?"

Reasonable question, correct? Yet, no matter how many times Ziegler asked it, Allen never gave one example of Palin giving a stupid interview despite telling MSNBC's Joe Scarborough earlier in the day, "she did a series of stupid interviews that just dug her deeper..."

And therein lies the heart of Palin Derangement Syndrome: making totally false statements about the Alaska governor without being able to back them up.

Sadly, as this is what most media outlets want -- dirt about Palin irrespective of veracity -- the mudslingers not only easily get away with it, but are revered for doing so.

Fortunately, Ziegler was having none of it, and pointed out the hypocrisy to his guest:

You made a very serious allegation that you seem to be backing off of that you can't substantiate, and I'm just. You're a very good reporter. You're not a lefty that I can tell. But I was disappointed that you would make an allegation like that on MSNBC where you're obviously, you know, that's what the audience wants to hear, and then you're not willing to back it up. You're a good reporter, Mike. I would think that you would have some substance behind an allegation like that. [...]
You're saying that there's a perception that's out there. You're presuming that perception is reality, and then you're not, you're making allegations based upon that perception that you have no substance behind. As a reporter, don't you find that at all troubling? If someone else did that, wouldn't you criticize that kind of reporting?

Allen didn't answer those questions either demonstrating how the state of America's media is such that so-called journalists don't have to substantiate negative allegations concerning Republicans. They can say or write whatever they want about politicians they don't like -- irrespective of facts -- with total impunity.

And therein lies a very serious problem.

Bravo, John. Bravo.

What's Going to Happen Between N. Korea and U.S. on July 4th?

NB Staff — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 10:21:53 -0400

Open Thread

NB Staff — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 10:17:58 -0400

For general discussion and debate. Possible talking point: Will N. Korea or won't N. Korea?

U.S. missile defenses are prepared to try to knock down the last stage of a Taepodong-2 missile that North Korea is expected soon to launch if sensors detect the weapon threatens U.S. territory, the commander of the U.S. Northern Command told The Washington Times. "The nation has a very, very credible ballistic-missile defense capability. Our ground-based interceptors in Alaska and California, I'm very comfortable, give me a capability that if we really are threatened by a long-range ICBM that I've got high confidence that I could interdict that flight before it caused huge damage to any U.S. territory," said Air Force Gen. Victor E. "Gene" Renuart, Northcom commander.

Thoughts?

CNNMoney: 'White House Staff Safe From Obama Tax Hike'

P.J. Gladnick — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 08:52:13 -0400

Doesn't the title of this story from CNNMoney.Com make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside? "White House Staff Safe From Obama Tax Hike." I bet you were biting your fingernails in worry about whether White House staffers would be hit with the higher taxes that President Obama promised would only happen to those making over $250,000 per year. Here is the "reassurance" from CNNMoney that the White House staffers won't be burdened by higher taxes due to Obama's sacred pledge:

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President Barack Obama's White House staff appears to be safe from a tax increase, for now.
The White House on Wednesday issued its annual report to Congress listing the salaries of all staff, revealing that everyone gets paid less than $200,000.
During the election campaign, Obama promised no income tax increase for anyone making under $250,000.

Uh-oh. That "for now" in the first sentence sounds somewhat ominous. Sort of like when Hugo Chavez of Venezuela says "por ahora." More on that later but "por ahora" let us revel in the fact that White House staffers won't be paying higher taxes according to CNNMoney:

The report, which did not include the president's salary, showed that David Marcozzi, the director of public health policy, is the top paid White House staffer at $192,934 a year, with better-known figures such as Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and Senior Advisor David Axelrod getting $172,200.
Obama froze all salaries above $100,000 upon taking office, affecting 146 staff members including his personal aide Reggie Love, who is paid $102,000 a year.
Other notables are Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary, and National Economic Council director Lawrence Summers -- both at $172,200- - and Nancy-Ann DeParle, director of the White House office for health care reform, at $158,500.

Unfortunately for the White House staffers...and most of the rest of us...all of Obama's promises have an expiration date. And the expiration date for his "no new taxes" pledge for those earning under $250,000 appears to be arriving soon. Both David Axelrod and Robert Gibbs have recently hinted that the Obama tax pledge is about to the thrown under the bus. And CNNMoney in another story, contradicting their fairy tale above, has told us Why taxes will need to go up:

"Ultimately, the long-term budget outlook will necessitate serious tax and spending changes," says the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, which is led by tax and budget experts from the left and the right.
And "ultimately" really means ASAP, say some tax experts. That's because the financial and economic crises have exacerbated an already tough budget outlook.
...Obama has promised to make permanent the tax cuts for everyone except high-income households. It's an expensive promise. The federal coffers will see roughly $2.1 trillion less in revenue over the next 10 years than it would if the tax cuts expired for everyone, according to estimates from the Joint Committee on Taxation.
...But the pay-for debate over health care will be a mere warm-up to the resistance Congress will face if it tries to put the budget on more stable footing.
Politicians understand the issue behind closed doors, Gale said. But when they're in front of the cameras, he noted, "Republicans say 'no new taxes.' And Democrats say 'no new taxes for 95% of all households.' Neither one of those is a starting position for sensible fiscal reform."

...Without making significant changes to lessen the country's debt burden, the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget said, "we face the real threat of a fiscal and economic crisis more severe than what we've already endured."

Of course, the most important "significant change" will mean tax increases for those making under $250,000 per year. Any idea of cutting spending is simply out of the question for the Obama administration and the Democrat-controlled Congress.

And the worst aspect of Obama breaking his pledge would be the increased tax burden on the White House staffers. This "tragedy" almost takes your mind off the wall-to-wall news coverage of Michael Jackson.

WaPo Publisher Still Complaining Dinner Parties At Her House Didn't Compromise Journalism

Tim Graham — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 08:15:53 -0400

The Washington Post may have canceled its $25,000-a-plate dinners matching lobbyists with top officials, but Publisher Katharine Weymouth is still not seeing it the way journalists do: paying for private dinners at the publisher’s private home looks like deal-making rather than news-making. Howard Kurtz’s Friday story revealed the Weymouth worldview:

Weymouth, who had not seen the marketing copy, said that "we will never compromise our journalistic integrity." But she said other news organizations sponsor similar conferences and that she remains comfortable with the basic idea of lobbyists or corporations underwriting dinners with officials and journalists as long as those paying the fees have no control over the content.

But precisely what would be acceptable remains unclear. Asked whether the forums she envisions might still be viewed as buying access to Post journalists, Weymouth said, "I suppose you could spin it that way, but that is not the way it would have been done." She said the situation would be comparable to a company buying an ad in the newspaper while knowing that it "might hate the content" on that page.

But an ad in a newspaper is public and visible, unlike a private dinner. Kurtz brought in a former Miami Herald editor to offer the newsroom view:

Tom Fiedler, dean of Boston University's College of Communication, said news organizations should be a neutral broker among differing interests and that "what The Post was looking to do was to make a profit on the role of the convener. . . . The idea of crossing a boundary line that seems to me painted so brightly white, I'm astonished that it got this far."

Kurtz reported that Post editor Marcus Brauchli said he told the Post marketing division that his journalists would participate on a number of conditions, including "multiple sponsors for an extended series of forums, rather than companies financing a single dinner involving their industry; a balanced lineup of participants from across the political spectrum; and no charge for the invited guests."

Other media companies do convene top officials and CEOs and top journalists, and charge for the events – but they’re often public, available for journalists to attend, taped and even streamed live on the Internet. Kurtz explained:

A number of media companies charge substantial fees for conferences with big-name executives and government officials, but in many cases the sessions are open for news coverage.

This week, for instance, Atlantic Media is sponsoring the Aspen Ideas Festival, underwritten by Altria, Boeing, Booz Allen Hamilton, Ernst & Young, Mercedes-Benz, Philips, Shell and Thomson Reuters. Speakers include White House economic adviser Austan Goolsbee, U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice, Education Secretary Arne Duncan, Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer and Google CEO Eric Schmidt, along with journalists for Atlantic and other media outlets.

In March, the Wall Street Journal brought together global finance leaders -- including Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd -- for a two-day conference sponsored by Nasdaq and hosted by Robert Thomson, the Journal's top editor, and other editors and reporters. Outside journalists were invited to the session, which was on the record and webcast by the Journal. Participants, who paid several thousand dollars to attend, also had a White House meeting with economic adviser Lawrence Summers, which was off the record at his request.

The Journal also holds conferences with its All Things Digital unit. A session in May, described as offering "unmatched access to the technology industry's elite," was sponsored by Hewlett-Packard and Qualcomm, among others, and featured the CEOs of Microsoft, Yahoo, NBC Universal, AT&T and Twitter, as well as Weymouth.

These kind of events can still signal coziness among the elites, but it’s much more public than the "salons" the Post proposed.

As could have been predicted, the Post newsroom was completely up in arms yesterday:

Many Post journalists were stunned by the Politico story and angry about the fliers. Weymouth told the staff in an afternoon e-mail that the flier "completely misrepresented what we were trying to do," but added: "We do believe that there is a viable way to expand our expertise into live conferences and events that simply enhances what we do -- cover Washington for Washingtonians and those interested in Washington."

AP's Hyperbole Masquerades as Journalism

Warner Todd Huston — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 08:01:24 -0400

For the Associated Press, Tim Klass shows that taking liberties with facts by enveloping them in wild hyperbole can sex up a boring story into something much more alarming. Unfortunately, what one ends up with is not a presentation of news, but a promulgation of a narrative that befits a particular political agenda. And this time writer Klass uses his hyperbolic style to advance the guns-are-evil story line.

The headline startles the reader by screaming out "Powerful weapons found in Northwest drug raids." One immediately imagines an image of dozens of high powered and dangerous guns, those above and beyond the norm, in the hands of these felonious drug dealers. One imagines enough guns to arm an army with the police sorely out numbered. But, when the story is read in its entirety, it becomes obvious that "powerful weapons" turns into one high powered pistol, the rest being your average, everyday firearms seen all over the place.

Federal agents busted a drug-trafficking ring that distributed methamphetamine and cocaine from Mexico in Washington state and carried unusually powerful weaponry, injecting a dangerous new factor into drug crime in the region.

The "unusually powerful weaponry" in discussion appears to be a .50-caliber Desert Eagle pistol. This pistol is a bit heavier than the average .45-caliber ACP automatic that the U.S. Army once issued by the thousands. The AP piece also describes a few other weapons.

A .50-caliber Desert Eagle pistol, AK-47-type semiautomatic assault rifle and 14 other weapons shown to reporters Thursday were among 23 guns seized in Operation Arctic Chill when 35 search warrants were served in the past two weeks. Also seized were 19 pounds of methamphetamine, a quarter-pound of cocaine, 22 vehicles and $60,000 in cash, and 31 people were arrested.

Yes, the one Desert Eagle is a powerful pistol and it isn't all too common to see one of these expensive pistols in the hands of drug dealers. But the other weapons listed are not "unusually powerful" at all. In fact, they are common as dirt both in the U.S. and in Mexico.

Then we get more hyperbole in this:

The Desert Eagle pistol can "blow a hole the size of a Mack truck through a person," said Leigh Winchell, regional chief of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

A "Mack truck"? What over-the-top foolishness. A big hole, yes, but this is simple-minded hyperbole was meant to make the one high powered pistol they found take on gargantuan proportions. This is a government official trying to puff up his actions to make himself look better, nothing more.

But, the AP wasn't done quoting this spittle-specked official.

"Knowing that you have meth traffickers on the street carrying .50-caliber handguns or assault rifles is very sobering and is of great concern to us," Winchell said.

Again, we have one Desert Eagle here. Not an Eagle in every drug dealer's pockets. But this doesn't stop these self-justifying officials from buttering up the press with wild claims. "This number of weapons is unprecedented" adds U.S. Attorney Jeffrey C. Sullivan.

Now, remember. They found 23 guns total from multiple raids and one high powered pistol.

Raids were conducted in Tacoma, Olympia and nearby communities; Vancouver, Wash.; several Seattle suburbs; and Oakdale, Calif., where Moorin said a "superlab" capable of producing 10 pounds of meth at a time was found in a home.

Is 23 guns such a monumental amount from raids that took place over a large swath of the Pacific Northwest?

Now, there is no question that Mexican drug violence is getting worse and has spilled across the border into our country. There are a lot of troubles here, to be sure. But this story is filled with hyperbole that makes a mockery of the real troubles going on and is a perfect example of fitting in hyperbole where facts are needed.

Bozell Column: Oliver Stone, Lousy Historian

Brent Bozell — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 07:35:34 -0400

Dear Oliver,

Many years ago, when Bill Maher’s comedy show was hosted by Comedy Central and he was funny, his formula for success was truly unique. Every week two sets of political and/or cultural opposites were pitted against each other, and he refereed with humor. It was all designed for a good laugh and succeeded because once upon a time Bill Maher was truly funny.

Some producer really thought in extremes when they pitted Oliver Stone and Brent Bozell for one episode. I have to say that you were gracious, charming, engaging, and we enjoyed ourselves – except for that moment when I chastised you for claiming you’re an historian. You bristled and denied ever claming that moniker. I cited the source, an interview in some West Coast paper (I can’t recall which one now). “I’m a filmmaker, that’s all,” you told me.

It turns out that you were right (in the article) and I was wrong. You are an historian whether you believe it or not. You make films about history and historical figures. You record history, and that makes you an historian.

Being an historian is not the problem. It’s that you’re a lousy historian.

Your last project was the movie W. I confess I didn’t watch it: I knew it would be a predictable left-wing spin about Bush being dumb and evil, and it could be worse because it could have been Cheney. Yawn. It bombed.

You were back on Maher’s show the other day talking about historical figures. Maher wanted to know why you haven’t done a film about Ronald Reagan, since “that is the type of character you could do very well with.” God only knows what he meant by that, but when you gave your answer, you were pretty blunt.

“Nixon always said Reagan was a dumb son of a bitch,” you said, and the audience laughed, and you smiled and decided to take that statement further by agreeing with it. So you said, “You know, I think that he was,” and the audience now cheered and hooted and applauded.

See what I mean when I say you’re a lousy historian? Don’t take my word for it, Oliver.

I turned to Frank Donatelli, the White House Political Director under President Reagan from 1987 through 1989. I asked him what he thought of your observation. Here’s what he has to say:

“Bill Maher and Oliver Stone have both made careers of ad hominem attacks on their political opponents. As Reagan would say, 'It's not that they're ignorant. It's just that they know so much that isn't so.' The literature as written by conservative and liberal observers is overwhelming in concluding that Ronald Reagan was fully engaged in implementing policies during his presidency that resulted in the longest economic expansion in our history and the end of the Cold War and the defeat of Communism. His presidential reputation is growing and history will remember Reagan as one of the great presidents in our nation's history."

Ouch. I went to Richard Allen, Reagan’s National Security Advisor and asked him what he thought. Apparently he didn’t think much.

“Every respectable academic and popular analysis in the large and growing literature of the Reagan presidency and Reagan's presence on the national scene proves beyond any doubt the utter foolishness of the Oliver Stone remark. Stone has made an unsuccessful career of falsification, especially when it comes to Ronald Reagan. The actual dumbsumbitch is easy to identify.”

That’s gotta hurt. I asked Morton Blackwell. He was Special Assistant to the President between ’81 and ’84. You didn’t score points with him, either.

“Stone must be jealous,” he thinks. “All Reagan did was restore American prosperity, deep-six the Soviet Empire, restore the morale of the American people, and win two national elections by landslides. By comparison, Stone gained his notoriety by smearing people.” Blackwell adds this observation as well: “Stone must be jealous. Reagan was principled, charming, and as honest as any politician can be. Stone revels in his own his image as a slimy slug on a toadstool.”

Oh, my. Gary Bauer was Domestic Policy Advisor under the Gipper for two years. “That ‘dumb son a bitch’ ran circles around people like Oliver Stone and the other creepy Hollywood elites,” he says. “He outwitted the Kremlin, restored the confidence of the American people, rebuilt our military, sent malaise packing and unleashed years of economic growth when he lowered taxes. Most Americans loved him then and miss him now. Oliver Stone is clueless.”

Al Regnery is an historian – a real one. “Dumb like a fox. Reagan always prided himself on the fact that people underestimated him… Stone, the dumb son of a bitch, is just the latest one to fall to the trap.”

Finally, I couldn’t resist. I asked Ann Coulter what she thought. She was quick. “Two uneducated, historically ignorant boobs sitting around talking about which president they think was the dumbest – now that’s some good TV.”

We’re all still laughing, aren’t we, Oliver? Oliver?

CBS Doesn't Mention Obama as Unemployment Hits 26-Year High

Brent Baker — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 20:39:58 -0400

The unemployment rate in June jumped to 9.5 percent, the highest since 1983, as 467,000 jobs were lost, yet the CBS Evening News managed to air a story that didn't mention President Barack Obama or his “stimulus” bill while the NBC story only touched Obama's policies by running a soundbite of the President defending the lack of positive impact so far from his policies: “It took years for us to get into this mess and it will take us more than a few months to turn it around.” CBS reporter Anthony Mason remarked: “Hopefully it's a one-month blip.”

In contrast, ABC anchor Charles Gibson teased Thursday's World News: “Tonight, job jolt. Unemployment reaches a 26-year high. Where are all those jobs the economic stimulus was supposed to produce?” Setting up ABC's lead (CBS and NBC began with Michael Jackson), Gibson proposed: “The rising unemployment raises questions about the economic stimulus, which was supposed to create jobs.”

(Refusing to hold Obama accountable for his economic policies is nothing new. See the early June post, “Finding the 'glass half full,' nets and newspapers find good news about job loss, ignore failure of stimulus to halt rising unemployment,” from the MRC's Business & Media Institute.)

The Thursday, July 2 NBC and CBS stories focused not on Obama administration policy but the plight of the unemployed.

From the start of the story on Thursday's NBC Nightly News:

BRIAN WILLIAMS: We turn to tonight's news on the U.S. economy and new numbers that prove what a lot of Americans already know, employers are continuing to fire and not hire. The unemployment rate now at 9.5 percent. Hasn't been that high in 26 years. 467,000 more jobs disappeared in the month of June alone, a surprise to a lot of the experts because May hadn't been that bleak. On Wall Street, the Dow, NASDAQ, S & P were way down on today's trading. CNBCs Trish Regan has more on the numbers and some of the real people behind them.

TRISH REGAN: In New York City some instructions for the newly unemployed. It's become an increasingly popular class. And now news today that unemployment is at a 26-year high.

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: It took years for us to get into this mess and it will take us more than a few months to turn it around.

REGAN: With the recession in its twentieth month, nearly 15 million Americans are out of work....

The complete CBS Evening News coverage:

KATIE COURIC: Turning to the economy now, while there have been signs the recession is easing, unemployment is only getting worse. The Labor Department reported today it's up to 9.5 percent now. That is the highest in 26 years. And 467,000 more jobs disappeared last month. Anthony Mason has the story.

ANTHONY MASON: With another brutal month of job cuts, nearly 15 million Americans were out of work in June, disappointing analysts looking for green chutes.

STUART HOFFMAN, CHIEF ECONOMIST, PNC FINANCIAL SERVICES GROUP: Right now, we need more than chutes. We need branches, leaves, and flowers to get the economy to look better.

MASON: Already a dozen states and the District of Columbia have unemployment rates above ten percent with Michigan the highest at more than 14 percent. Only two states, Nebraska and North Dakota, have rates lower than when the recession began. Many businesses are trying desperately to hang on to workers. At Tri-Star Industries, a metal working factory in Connecticut, owner Andrew Nowakowski laid off six of his 36 employees and was going to cut more until the state came to the rescue.

ANDREW NOWAKOWSKI: The program allows us to maintain our full-time workforce intact.

MASON: Under Connecticut's work share program, Nowakowski he has cut back his workers to three and four-day weeks, but the state makes up half of their lost wages with unemployment funds. Seventeen other states have similar programs.

JAMES CASSIDY, TRI-STAR EMPLOYEE: If I didn't have this, I'd probably be trying to get on the welfare line.

MASON: But rising unemployment has retailers hurting. At Stride-Rite and Payless shoes, CEO Matthew Rubel says he doesn't expect to see a rebound for at least another year.

MATTHEW RUBEL, CEO, COLLECTIVE BRANDS: There's still one out of every 10 people looking for a job, so you can do whatever you want with Wall Street numbers. Main street, they're still looking for work. Until we get them back working, they're not going to go out and spend.

MASON: And the picture gets worse when you add those people who settled for part-time work or given up looking. The so-called underemployed rate, is now a record 16.5 percent. Katie.

COURIC: Some very unwelcome news tonight, Anthony.

MASON: Hopefully it's a one-month blip.

An Internal Discussion Between the Press and White House

Mike Sargent — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 18:15:41 -0400

By this time, the NewsBusters connoisseur will have surely heard about yesterday’s unofficial celebration in the White House press briefing. Like many parties, it was somewhat louder than normal, a bit tense at points, and the press – specifically Chip Reid and Helen Thomas – topped off the early Independence Day festivities by roasting (figuratively, of course) Press Secretary Robert Gibbs.

That, incidentally, does not normally happen at parties – even at the White House.

The Robert Roast was, of course, in reference to the recent spate of staged White House press events. The White House press corps, apparently, do not enjoy heavily produced events, such as the “town hall” meeting with DNC volunteers and union members. However, Carl Bernstein, appearing on the July 2 Morning Joe, did not take kindly to the gentle press-corps broiling:

BERNSTEIN: In fact, I think that it's much more effective to go into Gibbs' office as Gibbs suggested rather than do what Helen did, which is to create this great hubbub that makes us look as if we're petty. This is an internal matter. It's not a matter of national policy.

Hold on just one hot second. The (ostensibly) independent White House press corps and the White House Communications Office should conduct an internal discussion of the White House’s extreme aversion to dispensing un-canned information?

Does that not imply (rather strongly, in fact) that the White House press corps is part of the White House Communications office?

Chuck Todd, MSNBC’s chief White House correspondent and political director, disagreed strongly, for obvious reasons:

TODD: And I want to disagree with Carl. I do think – in the press briefing with Gibbs, it is certainly an appropriate place to bring that up. I don't think it's appropriate to bring it up to a President or something like that, but that is – Robert's job is to interact with us and I think --

BERNSTEIN: That's fair.

TODD: Put him on the spot. Because I'll say this. You will get one answer, put him on the spot in public. Make him defend the decision to coordinate with a questioner in public because, as you know, Carl, you will get one answer to that question when there's no camera. You'll get another when there is a camera and, you know what, it's interesting to see how they react when the camera is on.

Now that Gibbs’ somewhat dense response is plastered all over the internet, it must be difficult for Bernstein to disagree.

NBC Puffs Al Franken with Softball Questions to New Senator

Scott Whitlock — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 17:44:08 -0400

On Thursday's Today, Meredith Vieira tossed mostly softballs to Senator-elect Al Franken, offering no hard questions about the disputed 2008 election, instead fawning, "...Are you more worried about becoming a target for the GOP or a target for Saturday Night Live, your old stomping ground?" In regards to the post-election wrangling for the Minnesota Senate seat, the best Vieira could do is to wonder, "It did get a little contentious, didn't it?"

To be fair, she did reference the closeness of the election. Noting Franken's 312 vote margin of victory, Vieira observed, "Are you conscious of that as you head to Washington D.C. next week?" However, there was no mention of the reports of irregularities in the state. If the co-host wished to challenge the incoming senator, she could have read from a July 1 Wall Street Journal editorial which asserted, "Mr. Franken now goes to the Senate having effectively stolen an election."

Today has a history of fawning over the former comedian. On May 29, 2007, reporter Jamie Gangel informed viewers that Franken is "smart" and "Harvard smart."

A transcript of the July 2 segment, which aired at 8:49am, follows:

MEREDITH VIEIRA: Now to politics and the man who will give the Democratic Party a super majority in the U.S. Senate. Following 239 days of legal wrangling, Minnesota's Supreme Court now declared former SNL cast member Al Franken the state's junior senator. We spoke on Wednesday and I began by asking him how it feels to be senator-elect.

SENATOR-ELECT AL FRANKEN: It sounds good. Senator is going to sound just a little bit better.

VIEIRA: Just a little bit better. Well, this has been a long time coming. You are a guy known for your great sense of humor. You kind of shoot from the hip a lot. Was it hard to keep your mouth shut and just let this thing, sort of, play out over the past seven-plus months?

FRANKEN: Well, fortunately I lost my sense of humor right away. So, I didn't have a problem.

VIEIRA: It did get a little contentious, didn't it?

FRANKEN: Well, I tried not to make it about that, and it, you know. Minnesota has a real process here. Minnesotans should be proud of our process. It's thorough. We can say that. And it's transparent, and our election officials acted with incredible integrity. So Minnesotans should be very proud.

VIEIRA: You talk about a close election. 2.9 million votes were cast. You won by just 312 votes.

FRANKEN: Yep.

VIEIRA: Are you conscious of that as you head to Washington D.C. next week?

FRANKEN: I'm very conscious of it. I know that there are a lot of Minnesotans who didn't vote for me and it's up to me to show that I'm going to be working for them. You know, there's going to be a lot of talk and you brought it up, the talk of super majority. I don't see myself as the 60th Democrat in the Senate. I see myself as the second Minnesota senator.

VIEIRA: And finally, are you more worried about becoming a target for the GOP or a target for Saturday Night Live, your old stomping ground?

FRANKEN: I'm not worried about either. I'm most concerned about hitting the ground running, and getting the job done.

The Employment Report: AP Misses Noting Worst June Since Before WWII

Tom Blumer — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 17:15:47 -0400

At the Wall Street Journal's Best of the Web today, Jim Taranto noted that it took the Associated Press's Jeannine Aversa until the 15th paragraph of her expanded dispatch on today's Employment Situation Report to find something mildly positive to write.

Aversa, who has been one of the wire service's chief silver lining make-up artists during the Obama presidency's disastrous economic stewardship offered up this contention:

Even with higher pace of job cuts in June, the report indicates that the worst of the layoffs have passed.

The charts from Uncle Sam's Bureau of Labor Statistics that follow show that the evidence for her claim is scant to non-existent.

First, let's look at the most recent seasonally adjusted and not seasonally adjusted job growth/loss figures:

The red box on the left in the NOT seasonally adjusted data shows that the situation got decidedly worse in June. From February through May, the differences in year-over-year monthly job gains and losses on the ground before seasonal adjustment narrowed in by about 60% from -680,000 to -264,000. But June's -371,000 difference went the wrong way, causing the seasonally adjusted number (the result of smoothing results to account for seasonal variations) to move sharply upward.

How this "indicates that the worst of the layoffs have passed," as Aversa claims, is beyond me.

How bad was June? On the ground (not seasonally adjusted), the monthly job loss of 110,000 is the worst June performance listed in 71 years of monthly data BLS has available on the web (1939-2009). Though it is subject to revisions in the next two months, it doesn't seem likely that it will change by much in a positive direction when those revisions arrive.

Here, for the record, is the full collection of monthly changes since 1939 (it appears that monthly recordkeeping might not have begun until February 1939):

Again, how this "indicates that the worst of the layoffs have passed," as Aversa claims, is beyond me.

One of these days, someone at AP will dig into the data and produce a report on the monthly employment situation worthy of what is supposed to be "The Essential Global News Network." One of these days ....

Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.

Dr. Snyderman's Unhealthy Prediction

Sarah Knoploh — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 16:31:42 -0400

The Trust for America's Health and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation released on July 1 the “F as in Fat Report,” which studied obesity rates in America While it is certainly worth reporting the facts of the study, NBC managed to take its report to another level. On the July 2 “Today,” host Meredith Vieira interviewed NBC News Chief Medical Editor, Dr. Nancy Snyderman. Snyderman used the report to give her over-the-top personal opinions about America’s role in the world and drive through pharmacies.

Vieira cited study findings, saying that obesity has tripled since 1980 in children and not a single state has decreased its obesity rate in the past year. Snyderman chimed in, “And we know that now almost forty percent of these heavy kids- teenagers- have diabetes, they already have plaque in their arteries, they grow up to be bullies. These are kids who already start to have problems sort of fitting in.”

Snyderman then made this observation in relation to exercise: “I was in Florida this last winter. I came to an intersection. On each corner, a different pharmacy all with a drive up window. What that told me was in America, when you are unhealthy, don’t worry about getting out of your car and walking up and getting your medicine. Drive up, get your medicine.” She didn’t explain exactly how making Florida septuagenarians walk through hot parking lots to get their meds will solve America’s “obesity epidemic.”

To Snyderman, the report wasn’t just discouraging, it was apocalyptic. “I wonder if America hasn’t peaked and we’re really going to have to figure a way to turn this all upside down or I don’t think we’re can be a world power if we’re this unhealthy,” she said. Again, she didn’t explain this intriguing connection between calorie consumption and geopolitics.

More should be expected of Snyderman. She started hosting her own shown a MSNBC on June 29. Howard Kurtz, of “The Washington Post” reported that when Snyderman asked her producer, Shannon High, about “how they might deal with a renewed panic over swine flu,” High replied, “You will be the voice of reason. You will be the calm, cool, collected surgeon who says what's real and what's not real.” Too bad she didn’t try on that “voice of reason” about obesity.

But talking up a national health care problem serves the purposes of the liberal Snyderman, since she’s already started using her new show to promote President Obama’s health care policies. She stated, “The White House, their health care agenda continues to be our agenda.”

Update: Washington Post Kills 'Salon' for Lobbyists Program In The Crib

Marie Mazzanti — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 16:21:00 -0400

In an update on Tim Graham's earlier post about The Washington Post’s flier that circulated to Beltway lobbyists, the Post abruptly canceled its "salon" program to offer "exclusive access" to "Obama administration officials, Congress members, business leaders, advocacy leaders and other select minds" for between $25,000 and $250,000. (View an image of the flier.)

According to the Washington Examiner, Post company spokeswoman Kris Coratti issued a statement Thursday morning claiming that the flier was a "draft" that hadn't been "properly vetted" before being dispatched.

"As written, the newsroom could not participate in an event like this," Coratti said, "We do believe there is an opportunity to have a conferences and events business and that the Post should be leading these conversations in Washington, big or small, while maintaining journalistic integrity. The newsroom will participate where appropriate."

There was an e-mail posted by Washington Independent columnist David Weigel from Brauchli which said that the "language in the flyer [sic] and the description of the event preclude our participation."

"We will not participate in events where promises are made that in exchange for money The Post will offer access to newsroom personnel or will refrain from confrontational questioning. Our independence from advertisers or sponsors is inviolable," Brauchli's e-mail states "There is a long tradition of news organizations hosting conferences and events, and we believe The Post, including the newsroom, can do these things in ways that are consistent with our values."

"This should never have happened. The fliers got out and weren't vetted," Weymouth told her paper. "They didn't represent at all what we were attempting to do. We're not going to do any dinners that would impugn the integrity of the newsroom."

Confused: MSNBC’s Touré Doesn’t Understand Why 'White Americans' Think Jackson Coverage is Excessive

Jeff Poor — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 16:18:05 -0400

Feeling a little overwhelmed by the amount of media attention the networks have given to Michael Jackson? You're not alone, according to a recent Pew Research Center poll, and that fact puzzles MSNBC contributor Touré.

Touré and David Wilson of TheGrid.com appeared on the July 2 broadcast of Nancy Snyderman's MSNBC's show "Dr. Nancy" to examine the premise that Michael Jackson's death was getting too much attention. Snyderman cited statics from the Pew Research Center for People & Press July 1 poll about the Jackson coverage.

"And of course, the Jackson coverage raises a question," Snyderman said. "Has the media been spending too much time covering the Michael Jackson story? Certainly, it's something you can't get away from right now. A new poll by the Pew Research Center shows that 64 percent of people surveyed think that the coverage of the Jackson story is excessive. Three percent think, too little, 29 percent just about right."

The poll broke down the statistics by race and other prominent news stories, but Snyderman focused on the racial aspects of the poll.

"But let's take a look at the coverage and how it's seen through different eyes," Snyderman continued. "African-Americans versus white Americans - 70 percent of whites thought there has been too much coverage compared with just 38 percent of African-Americans. And another way of breaking down these numbers, more than half of African-Americans said the coverage has been just right compared with only one in four whites, 25 percent."

The breakdown was unfathomable to Touré - who failed to understand why "white Americans" or anyone might be experience fatigue from the coverage of Jackson's death.

"Michael Jackson was the biggest star, not black star - the biggest star, period - of his period," Touré said. "He's still in a moment of his fame. So, we're already talking about him, he's about to do a big concert. So he's still in the moment of his fame. And so, sudden death - the chair is pulled out from under us. So we're in shock. So we need to talk about it. I don't understand why all these white Americans are saying, ‘It's too much.' This is a major American story. It's not that the media shoving it down our throat, people want to hear about it."

Wilson noted how abrupt Jackson's departure was and said that may have played a role in the onslaught of news coverage.

"And he's been around for 45 years in American homes - for 45 years. So he's an American icon," Wilson said. "You know and he's a treasure. So I think that the fact that, like you said, we lost him so suddenly pretty much shocked everybody.

However, Snyderman cited a June 26 Vanity Fair article by Maureen Orth that chronicled the Jackson's trouble, troubles that were lost in the round-the-clock news coverage, according to Orth.

"Maureen Orth, who contributes to Vanity Fair and NBC, was pretty damning in what she said, you know, early on," Snyderman said. "This man was a pedophile, this man had drug abuse, we are, forgive the pun - whitewashing all of this."

Wilson countered that Jackson had never been found guilty of pedophilia, despite settling out of court in 1993 in a civil case for $22 million when those accusations were made. Touré told Snyderman those issues should be neglected for months, if not years, in the media blitz.

"Repeatedly exonerated, that is correct," Touré said. "I think Maureen Orth in particular has been completely inappropriate at this time. He just died. Let us grieve as a nation. Let his body get into the ground. Let his spirit rest. Let's take a moment, even a couple of months, if not a couple of years, before we come back to say, ‘OK, there are other parts of this story.'"

ABC's John Stossel: 'I Hate It That ABC Didn’t Run My Piece'

Scott Whitlock — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 15:52:29 -0400

John Stossel on Monday blogged about the fact that ABC bumped a planned segment of his that is skeptical towards universal health care, saying, "Yes, I am sick of the coverage of Michael Jackson. I hate it that ABC didn’t run my piece." According to TV Newser, the report, which would have aired on the June 26 edition of 20/20, has now been rescheduled for the July 17 edition of the show.

The five minute segment will look at the problems that countries such as Canada and Britain have faced with government-run health care. In an online version of the story, Stossel (see file photo above), Andrew Sullivan and Andrew Kirell wrote, "In England, shortages of dentists have caused hundreds of people to wait in line just for an appointment. The queues can be so long that some people have resorted to pulling out their own rotting teeth, using vodka and pliers as tools."

Stossel concluded his blog post by accepting the Michael Jackson coverage as an indicator of the free market: "Free markets sometimes encourage pandering to the masses. I still say, bless the market. The good outweighs the bad."

—Scott Whitlock is a news analyst for the Media Research Center.

NYT's Egan: Bush Years of 'Sanctioned Torture and War Built on Deceit'

Clay Waters — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 15:26:10 -0400

Liberal New York Times reporter turned liberal nytimes.com blogger, Timothy Egan, posted "Capture the Flag" on Thursday, on how heartening it was to see American flags pop up in liberal domains. The post was ostensibly a plea for people of all political views to have faith in the future good of America. But Egan excused liberals for their lack of public patriotism during the Bush years, citing "years of sanctioned torture and war built on deceit."

Traveling in California and New York over the last couple of weeks, I noticed something in the summer landscape of these two deeply blue states that is more reminiscent of rural America this time of year -- a surfeit of American flags.

Among the offerings of street vendors in Harlem and outdoor stalls near the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the flag is often fused with the image of President Obama, a burst of color against a bleak wall, sometimes with a Superman motif. In California, I saw Old Glory on bicycles in the Bay Area, on backpacks in Yosemite and at campgrounds under the redwoods.

It's not unusual to see a flag in liberal provinces, of course. But in the Bush years of sanctioned torture and war built on deceit, many Americans withdrew from overt displays of patriotism. Some said they were ashamed of their country.

....

I wondered whether urban Americans, overwhelmingly Democratic, had something against the flag, or if they felt the country was no longer theirs. Now you can ask the same question of the other side of the political spectrum.

After giving Obama a pass on the flag-pin controversy, Egan insisted that a fringe secessionist movement in Texas matched the unrelenting Bush-hatred shown by the left for eight years (while ignoring Texas's unique entry into the Union, which makes talk of secession less odd than it would in other states).

At the same time, in deep red states like Texas, where secession talk heated up in the first months of the Obama presidency, there has been a passionate public embrace of the vaunted Lone Star flag, symbol of independence dating to the days of the Republic of Texas. Incidentally, the blue in that flag stands for loyalty, as defined by state code.

NBC's Meredith Vieira to Dick Morris: GOP Plan to 'Sit and Watch Obama Fail?'

Scott Whitlock — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 14:47:54 -0400

NBC's Meredith Vieira on Thursday conducted a defensive interview with Fox News contributor Dick Morris, at one point skeptically wondering if "the Republican tactic from this point on" would be "to sit and watch Obama fail." Later, when Morris pointed out the problems with the Canadian health care system, the Today host retorted, "But, the President clearly has said that's not the road he's headed down."

On one level, NBC should be commended for actually featuring Morris to talk about "Catastrophe," his new anti-Obama book. But, the interview didn't air until 8:51am, long after many Americans had left for work. Co-host Matt Lauer dominated most of the program's first two hours, reporting live from the late Michael Jackson's Neverland ranch.

This led Morris to make a dig at the show's excessive coverage. Speaking of Canada's government-run health care, he quipped, "So in Canada, there's a 16 percent higher death rate from cancer than in the United States. And that's not Neverland, that's U.S."

After Vieira read aloud the lengthy subtitle of Morris' book, which accuses Obama of making the recession worse, the journalist fretted, "What an indictment of the administration. Where do you come up with that?" She responded to a litany of the author's complaints about economic policy by insisting, "But, then why, Dick, do you think a majority of Americans, 56 percent by our latest poll, think he is doing a good job?"

The NBC co-anchor recited a comment from the National Republican Senatorial Committee chairman, Senator John Cornyn, in which he asserted that now that the Democrats have Al Franken seated and 60 votes, the "era of excuses" is over. Misrepresenting what Cornyn said, Vieira spun, "Is that essentially going to be the Republican tactic from this point on, to sit and watch Obama fail?"

A transcript of the July 2 segment, which aired at 8:51am, follows:

MEREDITH VIEIRA: Dick Morris is a veteran political strategist and co-author of the new book "Catastrophe: How Obama, Congress and the Special Interests are Transforming a Slump Into a Crash, Freedom Into Socialism and a Disaster Into a Catastrophe and How to Fight Back." Dick Morris, good morning.

DICK MORRIS: Well, is the segment over after you read the title?

VIEIRA: What an indictment of the administration. Where do you come up with that?

MORRIS: Well, he inherited a disaster that was the recession. And the first thing he did was to spend over a trillion dollars in stimulus and supplemental appropriation and it has done no good. In August [sic], the American people got $50 billion of stimulus money. Their income rose $121 billion but the savings rose $131 billion. They saved it all. Nobody spent it and now Obama has doubled interest rates, mortgage rates are up by a point in the last six weeks, entirely to fund the stimulus package that's not stimulating.

VIEIRA: But, then why, Dick, do you think a majority of Americans, 56 percent by our latest poll, think he is doing a good job?

MORRIS: Well, because we- it takes awhile for us to adjust to the idea that the recession began under Bush is basically winding down, and the recession that's being caused by Obama's policies is revving up. In fact, I believe that not only will this- look, I used to work for Bill Clinton. Bill Clinton balanced the budget, eliminated the deficit and cut capital gains, lowered interest rates. Obama-

VIEIRA: But, he didn't inherit the mess that Obama inherited.

MORRIS: Obama- Obama raised interest rates, doubled the deficit and is raising taxes. Clinton inherited quite a mess and the idea that you solve that problem by increasing the deficit and elbowing everyone aside at the loan window to get in there first is just wrong. So, I think that he's giving us several more years of recession, followed by inflation. The money supply has tripled since October.

VIEIRA: Meanwhile the super majority in the Senate, now that Al Franken has won his seat. Texas Senator John Cornyn chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee had this to say. He said, "With that super majority, the era of excuses and finger pointing is now over." Is that essentially going to be the Republican tactic from this point on, to sit and watch Obama fail?

MORRIS: Well, it will be, hopefully, to save the country's health care system. I mean, the big stakes that are up this summer is health care and it completely stands to reason that you cannot take the same number of doctors that treat 250 million covered Americans and ask them to treat 300 million without creating some scarcity. Now, obviously, that new 50 million has got to be covered, but the right thing to do is to expand the number of doctors and then expand the number of patients so you don't have shortfalls. My wife, Eileen McGann and I, who wrote this book together, rushed the book into print. We finished it on May 6. It was in stores six weeks later, because we wanted to get the facts of the Canadian health care system out.

VIEIRA: But, the President clearly has said that's not the road he's headed down.

MORRIS: It's the road he's headed down because what he's going to do is ask fewer doctors to cover more patients, and that's going to cause rationing and government-managed care. So in Canada, there's a 16 percent higher death rate from cancer than in the United States. And that's not Neverland, that's U.S.

VIEIRA: All right. Dick Morris, thanks so much. That's U.S., according to Dick Morris. We'll be back after your local news.