Spreading the Word

Media Research Center Founder and President and NewsBusters.org Publisher Brent Bozell issued the following statement on the meteoric rise in the ratings Rush Limbaugh has enjoyed since the inception of the Obama White House and the Democrats' all-out coordinated attack against him.

As announced yesterday, audience numbers surged for Rush-carrying stations across the country, including in several of the nation's largest markets like New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and Houston.  Since the orchestrated campaign continued into March, ratings could reach even greater heights for this month.

Bozell:

On the October 1 edition of "The View" Barbara Walters chastised Elisabeth Hasselbeck for allegedly never conceding a point, but never offered such a criticism for left-wing ideologue Joy Behar or even looney conspiracy theorist Rosie O’Donnell. This occurred just as rumors abound that Elisabeth is clashing with her fellow co-hosts.

Responding to more Sarah Palin bashing and Joy Behar labeling the Alaska governor "dumb" (talk about the pot calling the kettle black) Hasselbeck once again rose up as the lone voice on the panel, and even a hostile studio audience, in defending Governor Palin. Apparently taking issue with disputing some co-hosts’ assertion that Palin lacks the intellectual capacity to be vice president, Barbara Walters exclaimed "every single day you never ever say ‘maybe this is another point.’"

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We're almost finished with a massive back-end upgrade to NB. Feel free to go over today and kick the tires. Among the new features:

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I linked from drudge to an article on Breitbart re Couric's plagiarism flap to the story re the Wilson-Plame's settling in Santa Fe and this is media bias at its best.

Notice the underlinings done I assume by Breitbart?! Notice all of the allegations left hanging as facts, after all a liberal does not want to be confused with those nasty little facts. For example, that Plame was a "spy!" Was she really in charge of "wmds" for the CIA?! Wow, Deborah Baker must be some proud of her credentials to report "the news."

How big was the Imus story on this morning's "Today"? The show devoted the entire first half-hour and half of the second to it. Both Matt Lauer and Meredith Vieira seemed uncomfortable, struggling to sound the right note. But while Vieira had the gumption to confront Jesse Jackson with his own record of having made a bigoted statement, Lauer tiptoed to the edge and backed off when confronting Al Sharpton about his racially-charged past.

View video here.

In the first half-hour, "Today" simulcast its show with "Imus in the Morning," and had both Imus and Sharpton as guests. Here's how Lauer's brinksmanship, which came at 7:13 AM EDT, went down:

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Brent Bozell, President of the Media Research Center which operates NewsBusters, appeared Sunday night on FNC's Hannity's America. Sean Hannity set up the February 11 segment by playing an exchange Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton had in New Hampshire with a voter who wanted her to apologize for her pro-war resolution vote and to apologize for it. After Hannity ran video clips to contrast Clinton's current distancing from the Iraq war with how before the war she warned of the threat from Iraq and advocated war, Hannity and Bozell discussed how the news media have avoided pointing out such contradictions.

Video clip, including Hannity's collection of Clinton flip-flops (6:50): Real (5.1 MB at 100 kbps) or Windows Media (4.3 MB at 81 kbps), plus MP3 audio (2.4 MB)

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Sunday's episode of Showtime's drama centered around the lives of lesbians in Los Angeles, the L word, will feature the “Unauthorized Abortion of W,” a sculpture of a woman's body with an exposed womb displaying George W. Bush's adult face with each of his hands holding onto a rocket labeled “U.S. Air Force.” The rockets are angled to suggest they represent forceps. (Showtime is part of CBS.)

In a promo for the January 28 episode, character “Bette Porter,” the dean of a university's art school played by Jennifer Beals, tells a new character played by Marlee Matlin: “I'm bringing one of our biggest donors to tour the studio. There's a radical sculpture.” Through a male interpreter, the deaf Matlin character, whom the L word's Web site describes as “an artist whose work is politically incendiary,” observes: “He's not going to like that piece.” Porter/Beals confirms “no.” Then as a man comes into view, presumably the big donor, the camera quickly pans the figure of Bush in the womb as Matlin explains: “This is called the 'Unauthorized Abortion of W.'”

Video clip of Showtime's promo for the January 28 episode (45 seconds): Real (1.3 MB) or Windows Media (1.6 MB), plus MP3 audio (275 KB)

Yes, there was a crash. We're back to where we were earlier, minus today's comments that were made before the crash. Sorry for the inconvenience. Our hosting company dropped the ball and we'll soon be switching to a different one.

     This story has everything—“unnamed sources,” talkative white house “insiders,” “unidentified presidential aides,” and “speculating” psychiatrists.  What article would be complete without visual aids?  Neatly tucked in amongst the “startling revelations” is a picture of a very young-looking George W. Bush, flashing the middle-finger salute.  The only problem is, the picture was taken when Bush was the Governor of Texas and is cut from a video, when seen in its entirety, is clearly meant as a joke.   

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In case y'all might not have noticed, you can click on a person's name to call up their user info. From that page, you can reach another that has only that user's posts as well as link to that blogger's XML feed (sometimes called RSS).

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