Recently exposed here by numerous blog posts on Newsbusters is the media's obsession with Military-mom-gone Anti-Bush in an attempt to portray a mass movement of military families turning against our fight in Iraq. Most past evidence indicates that military families and the military believe in our cause and in President Bush despite not receiving non-stop media coverage. (Probably because they would not want it in the first place.)

Some Blasts from the Past are regarding the military, their families and President Bush. (Families who are never spotted except in polling data.)

(Oct. 15, 2004) AP (Via CBS) military election polling:

Several media outlets on Friday couldn't resist trumping up President Bush's motorcade passing by Cindy Sheehan's protest camp. CNN's Situation Room put “BUSH WALKS ON BY” and “PRES. BUSH PASSES UP CHANCE TO MEET WITH 'PEACE MOM'”on screen during a story in which CNN viewers were treated to blurry video taken from inside a car in the caravan to show what Bush might have seen out his window. Reporter Elaine Quijano highlighted how “Sheehan held up a sign saying, 'Why do you make time for donors and not for me?'” On ABC's World News Tonight, Geoff Morrell relayed how “the President's motorcade passed by Cindy Sheehan en route to a $2 million Republican fund-raiser” and asked Shehean: “Are you disappointed he didn't stop?" Morrell also pointed out how “in the eleven days Mr. Bush has been on vacation, at least 37 troops have been killed in Iraq.”

Hosting MSNBC's Hardball, NBC's David Gregory floated the idea that Sheehan's protest may “represent a kind of tipping point in the country where people are really getting frustrated with the progress of the war.” Guest Dana Milbank of the Washington Post admired Sheehan's “extremely effective” PR strategy before he zinged President Bush: “The man has not been to a military funeral.”

On Friday night, reporting on the rise in the price of a barrel of oil to $66.87, CBS anchor Bob Schieffer inaccurately described that as a “record high,” ABC anchor Bob Woodruff erroneously referred to it as “another new high” and NBC's Brian Williams fallaciously declared: “Oil prices at an all-time record again today.” But NBC reporter Andrea Mitchell, in a piece on what is causing the rising prices of oil and gas, soon conceded the reality which her colleagues studiously avoid: “As bad as prices are now, the surprising fact is that gasoline is still cheaper than in 1981, at least adjusted for inflation.” A barrel of oil will need to top $90 to set an actual record high price.

Below is an August 12 MRC CyberAlert article, “Nets Falsely Cite 'Record High' Gas Prices, Target Oil Profits,” about Thursday night and earlier mis-reporting of energy prices:

Above the fold of today's New York Times was a story by Times reporter Philip Shenon that one would have thought was a news report on Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff's recent troubles. Abramoff was indicted on fraud charges in relation to his involvement in purchasing a fleet of gambling boats in 2000.

It took Mr. Shenon a mere 5 words before Jack Abramoff became of secondary nature to the story: "Jack Abramoff, the once-powerful Republican lobbyist involved in ethics allegations facing Representative Tom DeLay, was indicted in Florida on Thursday on unrelated fraud charges involving his purchase of a fleet of gambling boats from a businessman who was slain amid bitter wrangling over the sale."

With all the attention on Cindy Sheehan's camp-out at Crawford it looks like President Bush's comments about her and what she's doing got lost in the dust. Even though reported by the AP and Reuters, they're no where to be found online by the MSM (CNN, ABC, et al) yet. Here's what the President said to reporters:

"I sympathize with her. She feels strongly about her, about her position, and I am -- she has every right in the world to say what she believes. This is America. She has a right to her position. And I've thought long and hard about her position. I've heard her position from others, which is, 'Get out of Iraq now.'  And it would be -- it would be a mistake for the security of this country and the ability to lay the foundations for peace in the long run, if we were to do so. I grieve for every death," Bush said. "It breaks my heart to think about a family weeping over the loss of a loved one. I understand the anguish that some feel about the death that takes place."

ABC and CBS's morning shows ignored, and NBC only ran one newsbrief item on Friday morning, about the now-pulled and patently false NARAL Pro Choice America advertisement about Supreme Court nominee Judge John Roberts.

NARAL's 30-second ad, discredited by the non-partisan Annenberg Center Fact Check, ran only on CNN and a few local stations in Maine and Rhode Island (the home states of three pro-choice liberal-leaning Republican senators). Nonetheless, the controversy over the misleading and distorted claims was discussed on cable and hotly debated in the blogosphere, so ignorance of the controversy by the broadcast news desks is not the issue here.

It's impossible to imagine this lack of media scrutiny were it a conservative, pro-life group making false claims about the Supreme Court nominee of say a President John Kerry.

Though this little incident happened a few days ago -- Wednesday -- seeing David Gregory's name in a post today triggered my memory and I decided to post an entry on it. Subbing for Chris Matthews on "Hardball," Gregory was interviewing Katherine Harris, who has declared her candidacy for the Senate.

First, I must confess that I was disappointed in Katherine Harris's performance and I say this with reluctance, because I like and admire the woman. I continue to be impressed with her courageousness and tenacity during the 2000 Florida ordeal. But I wish someone would talk to her handlers. From beginnning to end, her interview with Gregory appeared to be a canned, forced, annoyingly unresponsive and programmed campaign harangue. No matter what Gregory asked her, she would briefly respond, if at all, and then immediately launch into generalities about her excitement to be in the race and working for the people, etc. I acccept all that as true, but she really didn't come off well in doing this.

Buried on page 3 of today's Metro section (and apparently absent from the national edition entirely) is the NYT's first whisper of the financial scandal at left-wing radio network Air America. The crack NYT staff got to the story less than three weeks after the New York Daily News first picked up on it July 26.

Not that the headline or subhead of the Times' story actually mention "Air America." Instead it reads: "Bronx Boys Club's Finances Investigated -- Officials Look Into Loans Made to a Liberal Radio Network." The two words "Air America" presumably couldn't fit into that 15-word space.

On July 31, The Sunday Times of Britain ran a story headlined, "Finger points to British intelligence as al-Qaeda websites are wiped out."

"Israeli intelligence agents have noticed something distinctly odd happening on the internet. One by one, Al-Qaeda’s affiliated websites have vanished until only a handful remain, write Uzi Mahnaimi and Alex Pell."

Apparently not true.  Uzi Mahnaimi, characterized to me as "not credible" by Yigal Carmon of MEMRI.org, is a purported former Israeli "spymaster" who writes books.  Alex Pell's byline appears on entertainment and media reporting in British newspapers.

My guess is that Pell wrote the unbylined Times story, and that he and Mahnaimi are shopping a book proposal.  See my column today on www.spectator.org for the whole story.

MSNBC's David Gregory took umbrage with criticism of the media’s coverage of Cindy Sheehan on last night's Hardball at around 7:53pm. The following is a brief exchange from a segment that featured talk show host Melanie Morgan and Democratic strategist Hilary Rosen:

Gregory: "Melanie, let me, let me begin with you. Does Cindy Sheehan have something important to say?"

Melanie Morgan: "I think that Cindy Sheehan believes that she has something very important to say and she has the right to say whatever it is she wants to say. But that doesn`t mean because the mainstream media has portrayed her as a very sympathetic, lone grieving mother, that actually represents the case. In fact..."

Gregory: "Well, hang on one second. Hang on. Let me just, I can`t let all these mainstream media attacks go by. How has the media done that? I will grant that you there`s a news vacuum in August and she`s become a national figure, when perhaps, another part of the year, she may not have. But, I mean, let`s not get so far away from this process that we don`t say that this is a grieving parent who lost a son in, in the war. So, I mean, you just assume that the media is trying to prop her up?"

Cindy Sheehan got a full segment Thursday evening on the NBC Nightly News as anchor Brian Williams framed her protest in the context of how “so far, 1,846 Americans have died in Iraq, nearly 14,000 have been wounded. And it doesn't help that a woman who lost a son in Iraq vows to wait outside the President's ranch until the Commander-in-Chief agrees to speak with her.” Reporter Kelly O’Donnell described Sheehan as “a media magnet," as if journalists have no ability to control that, but O’Donnell did at least note that “Sheehan also has some detractors." ABC’s World News Tonight ran a clip of President Bush rejecting her demands, but then anchor Bob Woodruff relayed how Sheehan retorted that “all we're asking is that he sacrifice an hour out of his...vacation to talk to us." MSNBC’s Countdownfeatured an interview with her and Keith Olbermann insisted that “now her story is about more than just her protest, it's about the role of dissent in a country founded on the right to dissent.”

Full CyberAlert article follows. For all of today's MRC CyberAlert items, click here.

CBS White House correspondent Bill Plante mistakenly characterized seasoned anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan's pilgrimage to Crawford, Texas, where Mrs. Sheehan daily protests the war and demands to speak with President Bush. Plante filed a report in the 7:00 a.m. half hour of The Early Show from Crawford which, while noting that opposition to Sheehan from other Iraq military families is starting to grow, mainly focused on support she is receiving from left-wing activist groups like MoveOn.org. Where Plante, and co-host Julie Chen mislead the viewer, however, is how they leave the impression that Sheehan is a political novice who has inspired professional activist groups on the Left to rally to her side. Plante fails to relay how Sheehan has been a vocal anti-war leader and Bush critic for quite a while now, including joining far-left Rep. John Conyers in June in calling for investigations into the Downing Street Memo.

A couple of years ago, there was a bit of a media firestorm, at least on the web, when New York Times' columnist Maureen Dowd was caught removing a portion of a comment that the President made. The omission rendered a clear and straightforward statement as a delusional and misleading one. Eventually the Times was forced to "correct" the quote.

Well, the New York times is "Dowdifying" quotes again, leaving out crucial information with no indication that they're doing so. Only now, instead of merely doing it in a Maureen Dowd opinion piece, which is bad enough, they're doing it in an actual news story. (Big tip of the hat to Michelle Malkin, who's been all over this story.)

As anyone who's been paying attention on the internet knows, the liberal Air America radio network has been operating, in part, on a "loan" of $875,000 from a Bronx Boys and Girls Club. Anyone reading the New York Times did not know it until today, and still doesn't know much. In any event, Franken spoke about the story on the air yesterday, and the Times quoted him. Sort of.

Tom Brokaw recalled Peter Jennings on Imus this morning: "Peter was a very opinionated guy. I mean, He had very strong feelings about things. He didn't hesitate to let you know them. Sometimes you'd have to kind of pull him down off the wall, or off the ceiling, and say 'hey, wait a minute, Peter, there's another way of looking at this,' or whatever, and that was part of his strength, and part of what made him interesting." This is not the first time Brokaw's said this (on "Hardball," to name another), but what is he trying to say? Was he trying to say Very Opinionated Peter couldn't keep the passion out of his newscast?

In one of the replies to Brent Baker's Grannies post, Phil R. took exception to the "good luck" comment NBC anchor Natalie Morales gave the "Raging Grannies" the other morning, raising the question: how much can we complain about anchors' well-wishing at the end of interviews? We hate to sound uber-touchy. Certainly, a certain amount of politeness is required, both for guest and viewer. Matt Lauer said "good to have you here" to Bernie Goldberg yesterday, for example. But our Geoff Dickens was struck by what Morales said:

Morales: "Pat Birnie, Dorothy Richmond, Betty Schroeder and Connie Graves. Thank you all so much for your time this morning. And good luck to you."

Raging Granny: "Come join us."

Rep. Curt Weldon (R-PA) has opened a Pandora’s box.  Weldon has unearthed information suggesting that military intelligence had identified four suspected members of a terrorist cell operating in Brooklyn, NewYork in 2000.  The group included several 9/11 hijackers including ringleader Mohamed Atta. 

According to the Associated Press, the 9/11 Commission’s former chief spokesman, Al Felzenberg, acknowledged that the commission decided not to include this information in its final report.  The military intelligence unit, “Able Danger,” did not share the information with the F.B.I. because of legal concerns. 

On Thursday night, Keith Olbermann interviewed anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan on his Countdown show. While he did at least ask her about reports that her attitude toward Bush had changed since her meeting with him last year, he also did not challenge inflammatory accusations she made against the President, such as accusing him of the premeditated murder of her son. In reference to the Duelfer report, 9/11 Commission report, and Downing Street memos, she charged, "They show categorically that my son was, his murder was premeditated, that there was no reason to invade Iraq."

Also, when Olbermann asked about reports that members of her family were critical of her protest, she responded that it was her in-laws who were upset with her, and, while repeating the charge that Bush killed her son, she revealed, "When they supported George Bush in November and when they voted for the man who I consider killed their grandson, that's when, that was it. That to me was a betrayal of Casey, and it hurt me so deeply. I haven't spoken to them since." A complete transcript of the interview follows: