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MRC's Bozell on Hannity & Colmes Tuesday Night Re: Hillary/Bosnia

Brent Bozell, President of the MRC which runs NewsBusters, appeared Tuesday night on FNC's Hannity & Colmes. Topic: The delay in the media covering Hillary Clinton's inaccurate boast of coming under sniper fire when arriving in Bosnia in 1996. Sean Hannity also raised media coverage of Jeremiah Wright.

Prompted by Hillary Clinton's comments today, Tuesday's ABC, CBS and NBC evening newscasts all led with stories that featured the 1996 video undermining Clinton's claims.

The MRC's Rich Noyes got this whole thing going with his March 18 NewsBusters posting with CBS News video from our archive, video which was soon posted by many on YouTube. Rich's posting: "Hillary Shot At in '96? No Media Mention of Bosnia 'Sniper Fire."

Audio: MP3 clip of Bozell's appearance (6:00)

CBS Hits Hillary Again

Just as Noel Sheppard and Rich Noyes noted rare kudos to the "better late than never" coverage done by CBS in exposing Hillary's fabrications on her Bosnia trip as First Lady, I too was shocked that a major news outlet was actually giving the story coverage.  I know that many Newsbusters readers were as well.

Be prepared to be doubly shocked.  CBS did follow-up coverage with video again tonight.

Hillary had originally hyped her foreign policy experience with a lie that she landed there under sniper fire and that the welcoming committee was cancelled.  Newsbusters exposed the lie and CBS video surfaced showing the world beyond a shadow of a doubt that Hillary was caught in a lie. 

Flashback: Hillary's Daring Bosnia Mission w/ Sinbad Amuses Beckel

[This was first posted on January 1, 2008] On the Tuesday, January 1 Fox and Friends, Democratic strategist and FNC contributor Bob Beckel found amusing Hillary Clinton's contention that her trip to Bosnia in 1996, which Clinton has been accused of exaggerating as a dangerous mission despite the presence of daughter Chelsea and comedian Sinbad on the plane as she mentioned the need for a "corkscrew" landing and running on the tarmac in case of sniper attack, was evidence of her foreign policy experience. Clinton's comments, which were a response to Barack Obama's charges that her foreign policy experience consisted only of talking and "having tea" with foreign dignitaries, evoked an amused and cynical reaction from the liberal Beckel: "It's almost too hard to say this straight. I mean, I've had a few corkscrew landings myself, but I was not, well, it had been a long night before I did it. I mean, I don't know what that gives you in terms of foreign policy experience except a bad case of heartburn. I probably would have thought of something else besides that. I wonder what Sinbad did during that landing. I wonder if she hid behind him or not. Dangerous that would probably be." (Transcript follows)

So Dangerous, Bill Sent . . . Chelsea?

Hardball had some fun this evening at Hillary's expense over the mystery of The Sniper Who Didn't Fire. Credit Politico's Roger Simon with the most devastating remark.

Hillary's heroic claim has been that "we used to say in the White House that if a place is too dangerous, too small or too poor, send the First Lady." Simon said what in retrospect might be obvious but something I hadn't previously heard anyone else observe.

ROGER SIMON: She says I was there because it was too dangerous for the President. It was too dangerous--so he sent his wife and only child? It makes no sense.

View video here.

Russert Marvels at How Clinton Visits 'Godfather' of VRWC's Paper

Asked by anchor Brian Williams why Hillary Clinton chose Tuesday to assert that Reverend Jeremiah Wright “would not have been my pastor,” Tim Russert declared “the setting in which she did this is particularly striking.” The Washington Bureau Chief for NBC News proceeded to marvel at how she made her comments in an interview with reporters and editors at the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, owned by Richard Mellon Scaife whom Clinton's allies consider “the 'Godfather' of the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy.” Russert then recounted Scaife's presumed sins of questioning “the suicide of Vince Foster” and funding “investigations of Troopergate and Whitewater.” Russert pointed out:

The setting in which she did this is particularly striking. It's a newspaper in Pittsburgh owned by Richard Mellon Scaife, who is described by her allies as the 'Godfather' of the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy. The man who raised questions about the suicide of Vince Foster, the death of former party chairman Ron Brown, who funded investigations of Troopergate and Whitewater. It was that setting she decided to offer comments about Reverend Wright.

CNN: Video ‘Seemingly Contradicts’ Clinton’s Account of Bosnia Trip

NewsBusters.org - Media Research CenterCNN’s Dan Lothian, during a report on Tuesday’s "The Situation Room," downplayed Hillary Clinton’s "sniper fire" statement on her trip to Tuzla, Bosnia during her time as First Lady, referring to it as a "misstep." Lothian, in his introduction to the report, referenced the "dangerous 1996 visit to Bosnia" and played Clinton’s now-famous false account of her arrival in the war-torn country. As file footage of Clinton’s arrival played, Lothian pointed out how the "video shot that day seemingly contradicts her version of events. No one seems to be running or ducking, and there does appear to be a ceremony." The video, which was first pointed out on NewsBusters by Rich Noyes, flatly proves Clinton’s statement to be false, not just "seemingly contradict" it.

Daily Kos Flashback -- or -- Memo to Dan Abrams

| NewsBusters.org | Media Research Center |

On Monday night, we were privy to Round II of Dan Abrams' (of MSNBC's Live with Dan Abrams pseudo-fame) lukewarm game show, "Rush Limbaugh -- UnAmerican".

Both times Abrams levied said assertion in response to Limbaugh's apparently effective (at least at tweaking the likes of Abrams) Operation CHAOS.

Which is what Limbaugh has dubbed his call for Republicans to cross over -- where legal -- to vote for Hillary Rodham Clinton in the Democratic Presidential primaries. In so doing he hopes to prolong as much as possible the Democrat primary process.

Limbaugh began Operation CHAOS in advance of the March 4th primaries and primary/caucus held in Ohio, Rhode Island, Vermont and Texas. It appeared to be at least somewhat effective beyond just ruffling Abrams' feathers, as HRC won three of the four (losing only in Vermont). Which is when Abrams first resorted to Limbaugh name calling -- at least in this regard.

WaPo's Magazine Mocks O'Reilly, Limbaugh, Even Olbermann

Sunday’s Washington Post Magazine carried a cover story titled "Getting Hosed." Over a cartoon of Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh, and Bill Maher (who looked more like Robin Williams), "investigative humorist" Gene Weingarten, calling himself an "unapologetic, unreconstructed New Deal liberal," resolved to absorb 24 hours straight of punditry on TV, radio, and the Internet, and disdained Bill O’Reilly, Rush Limbaugh, but also Keith Olbermann. In an online chat, Weingarten said this about conservatives: "I continue to believe that far right wing conservatives are either intelligent, rich people protecting their self interest, or poor, misguided, deluded fools who have been conned by the first group into working against their best interests."

Weingarten selected Valentine’s Day for his experiment, and the hot issue of that day was Jane Fonda dropping a C-word in promoting "The Vagina Monologues."

Clearly, Rush and Bill are courageously willing to address this shocking and distasteful subject even at the risk of driving their audiences into multi-orgasmic rapture.

Will Media Pay Attention to Obama Girl's New Video Highly Critical of Hillary?

When Obama Girl's "I Got a Crush...On Obama" video hit YouTube on June 13, 2007, the mainstream media went nuts.

In the next two weeks, there were over 100 press reports, including television features about the video and its star on ABC, CBS, CNN, FNC, NBC, and MSNBC.

As a result, to date, there have been over 7 million views of this piece at YouTube.

On Tuesday, the producers, Barely Political, released another Obama Girl video, this time highly critical of Hillary Clinton thereby raising an important question (video embedded top right, vulgarity warning):

New Special Report: Apostles of Atheism

In all the brouhaha last week over the incendiary comments made by Barack Obama's pastor the media seemed to forget to partake in their traditional Holy Week Christian-bashing excercise.  There were a few entries in the "Easter Hit Parade," like the Comedy Central show "Root of All Evil" which my boss, Brent Bozell, wrote about in a column recently, and an episode of "Law and Order" which featured another Christian-stones-someone storyline.

I suppose it's good news that there was less faith flagellation courtesy of the liberal media, and yet at the same time it's sad that I was expecting to find it at Easter time.  But the fact remains that Christmas and Easter are generally times when the media attacks on Christians are more pronounced.

For atheists it's a different story.

'Today' Refuses to Label Kwame Kilpatrick a Democrat

Picking up where the broadcast network evening news shows of last night and yesterday's ABC's Good Morning America left off, Tuesday's "Today" show failed to note the party affiliation of Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick. NBC News' Natalie Morales had a total of three opportunities to mention that Kilpatrick was a Democrat but failed to do so in two news briefs and one introduction to a Michelle Kosinski story about the mayor's indictment. The show's graphic department also failed to slap a (D) next to Kilpatrick's name simply labeling Kilpatrick as "Detroit Mayor."

The following segment, as it occurred on the March 25 "Today", was typical of the show's Kilpatrick coverage:

NATALIE MORALES: Today Detroit's mayor is facing arraignment on 12 felony charges including perjury. The charges come amid allegations of sex, lies and text messages. More now from NBC's Michelle Kosinski.

[On screen headline: "Indicted, Detroit Mayor Facing Felony Charges"]

MICHELLE KOSINSKI: The mayor in a mug shot. Kwame Kilpatrick was the youngest mayor Detroit ever elected. He once talked about turning the Motor City around. Now the storm of allegations against him of corruption, cover-ups and sexually explicit text-messages has swirled into an indictment.

Bozell Column: Obama's Clintonesque Speech

Barack Obama came to Philadelphia on March 18 not so much to address his poisonous pastor, Jeremiah Wright, but to talk vaguely of race relations. The news media swooned. No one was giddier than MSNBC’s Chris Matthews, who rhapsodized that Obama’s speech was one of the greatest speeches in American history, worthy of Abraham Lincoln, and should be read by school children like "The Great Gatsby" and "Huckleberry Finn." This, after all, is the Chris Matthews who said he "felt this thrill going up my leg" over Obama.

Obama said he could no more disown Wright than his own white grandmother, whom he disparaged as mired in racial stereotypes. ABC’s George Stephanopoulos deemed that part of the speech an "act of honor" -- even if it publicly humiliated Grandma, and even if Wright’s record of paranoid ranting and raving about racism is anything but honorable.

AP Reporter's Tone and Stats Obscure Housing Market in Possible Recovery

Yesterday's Existing Home Sales report for February issued by the National Association of Realtors had better than expected news: On an annualized basis, sales were up. They were expected to go down. Someone interested in getting to the bottom of things would have found that the improvement reported by the NAR may be an early indicator a broader recovery in existing-home unit sales and sales prices.

That appears to be the last thing the Associated Press's Martin Crutsinger was interested in yesterday. In his report, he instead seemed determined to do all he could to portray the increase as a one-month respite in a long-term gloomy scenario. Additionally, he, in my opinion, presented changes in annualized sales volume as if they were one-month changes in actual sales, causing readers to possible believe that the housing market remains more in the doldrums than it really is.

Here is how his report began:

CNN Launching Fake News Comedy Show

Interesting news today out of Los Angeles. Looks like CNN is going to try and tap the political entertainment market that was formerly served by the departed "Half Hour News Hour." My comments below the fold:

Headline News will be sacrificing newsmakers to the comedy gods with "Not Just Another Cable News Show," a half-hour skein set for the 7 p.m. timeslot Saturdays and Sundays starting April 5. It will re-air at 9 p.m. and midnight. [...]

"News Show" will pull footage from CNN's archives as well as from recent news.The first episode will feature commentators including Time.com's Washington editor Ana Marie Cox, L.A. Times columnist Joel Stein, Republican strategist Amy Holmes, Huffington Post media editor Rachel Sklar and comic Hugh Fink.

Whoopi Goldberg a 'Big Fan' of Dr. Kevorkian

Jack Kevorkian, AKA Dr. Death, has a celebrity in his fan club, "View" co-host Whoopi Goldberg.

Discussing the notorious suicide assisting doctor’s run for Congress on the March 25 edition, Goldberg said she’s a "big fan" of Kevorkian "because he believed that he could help people who were in, in a place where no one was helping them." Joy Behar wondered: "Why is he a bad guy? I don’t understand it...it’s over my head somewhere." [Audio available here.]

Elisabeth Hasselbeck expressed concern about a "gray area" and "lines blurring," if for example the one responsible for a suffering person’s care has financial motives for that person’s death. Sherri Shepherd, besides a few jokes, did not contribute much to the conversation. Transcript follows:

Mortality Socialism: We Should All Live Exactly The Same Number of Years

In today's "The Heck With Equal Opportunity, We Want Equal Outcome" segment, the New York Times on Sunday accidentally introduced a new concept to readers: mortality socialism.

For those unfamiliar -- please count me amongst this woefully ignorant group until a few minutes ago!!! -- the Times feels that something has to be done to make sure that everybody's life expectancies are exactly the same regardless of income, wealth, or lifestyle.

I wonder if that's what Robin Hood had in mind all along.

While you ponder, please extinguish all cigarettes, fasten your seatbelts, and prepare yourself for one of the most inane gripes ever published at a major American newspaper (emphasis added, h/t Moonbattery via NBer Roger the Shrubber):