NewsBusters Archive

The Washington Post's Web site on Friday posted the Reuters' dispatch, "At 74, Ted Kennedy still roars." The piece was largely favorable, lauding the Massachusetts senator for "speaking out on such trademark issues as civil rights, education and health care." It's noted that Time magazine recently named Kennedy one of America's ten best senators and that he "has helped enact legislation to protect civil rights, expand health care, upgrade schools, increase student aid and crackdown on discrimination."

Naturally, no mention is made of the costs associated with Kennedy's initiatives or their impact on expansion of Federal power. There are two references to Chappaquiddick, identified as the "scandal that tarnished his reputation and prospects of becoming president." Later, the article states: "Kennedy was dogged by personal problems early in life, most notably a 1969 accident in Chappaquiddick, Massachusetts, that took the life of a young woman who drowned when his car plunged off a bridge after a night of partying."

On Friday's Countdown show, MSNBC's Keith Olbermann plugged the Rolling Stone cover story by historian Sean Wilentz which argued that George W. Bush may be the worst President ever, citing the opinions of over 400 historians. As he introduced his interview with Wilentz, Olbermann sympathetically referred to the recently fired CIA employee who leaked classified information on the agency's use of secret prisons in Europe in the War on Terrorism, calling her a "whistleblower," and asked the question: "President Bush, whose administration is now firing, perhaps prosecuting whistleblowers, is he simply the worst?"

While introducing the segment, Olbermann listed several of Wilentz's attacks against Bush without challenging their validity, including accusations of "fabricated evidence" of WMD, a "retro fiscal policy" of "massive tax cuts" for the wealthy that "racked up monstrous deficits," and a criticism citing an unnamed Republican strategist who claimed that the Republican Party is "the first religious party in U.S. history." Olbermann, who perennially makes comparisons between George Orwell's novel 1984 and the Bush administration, managed to work in yet another reference to Orwell as he ended the interview mocking the administration's use of the term "pre-9/11 thinking," charging that Bush would accuse Wilentz and the other historians of being "guilty of pre-9/11 thinking, as George Orwell might have said." (Transcript follows)

When Ellen Ratner went a couple weeks without any major liberal loopiness, one wondered whether perhaps Jim Pinkerton was having a salubrious effect on her. But things got back to normal this morning when Ratner let Pinkerton goad her into boasting that she supports "open immigration."

The opening topic on today's 'Long & the Short of It' segment on Fox & Friends Weekend dealt with Howard Dean's recent claim that job # 1 in his view is tougher border security.

A new book about former FBI Agent Mark Felt, the alleged "Deep Throat" of "All the President's Men" (Watergate) fame, says Felt believes journalist Bob Woodward violated an agreement not to describe him in print.

A Washington Post story by Lynn Duke about the new book "A G-Man's Life: The FBI, 'Deep Throat' and the Struggle for Honor in Washington," by Mark Felt and John O'Connor, leads with the information that Felt's late wife, Audrey Robinson Felt, committed suicide in 1984.

By paragraph four, however, the article reveals something entirely different:

...And the book tells of Felt's deep anger at what he believed was Woodward's violation of their source-reporter relationship. Felt did not want to be described in any way in print, but Woodward both described him and called him "Deep Throat" in 1974 in "All the President's Men."

"Mark has never seen himself as a chatterbox who gave up secrets," writes O'Connor in a lengthy introduction.

"If this book does nothing else, let it destroy that caricature. Deep Throat was a journalistic joke; the name never described Mark Felt. After Woodward revealed that he had a senior source in the executive branch, thereby breaking his agreement with Mark Felt, and after the journalist identified his confidant as 'Deep Throat,' the retired FBI man was furious -- slamming down the phone when Woodward called for his reaction" to the 1974 book.

Advice to any Republican loyalists planning to watch a replay of this evening's Hardball: hide the sharp objects, put the firearms under lock and key, flush any potentially poisonous potions. With lovely-but-lethal Norah O'Donnell sitting in for Chris Matthews, this might have been the most unrelenting gloom-a-thon since Watergate. Riffing off the latest polls showing W at 33%, it was one guest after another - from Bob Shrum to Kate O'Beirne to a panel of "hotshots" - painting a decidedly unrosy scenario. And just when things couldn't get any more dread, a former Clinton administration official popped in to predict millions might die from bird flu thanks to government inattention "in recent years."

Appearing on CNN’s The Situation Room April 20, real estate executive, and star of NBC’s The Apprentice, Donald Trump discussed his views of the Iraq war. During the 5:30pm interview, anchor Wolf Blitzer tried several times to get "the Donald" to use his famous catchphrase from his reality show to describe what he would do to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld if he were his boss:

Wolf Blitzer: "All right, now here’s the question. If Don Rumsfeld worked for you, what would you say to him?"

Trump: "Well, I know what you want me to say, you want me to say, ‘You’re fired.’ But I wouldn’t necessarily say that..."

Blitzer: "Why wouldn’t you fire Donald Rumsfeld if he worked for you, and helped get you into this mess, as you described it, in Iraq?"

Trump: "Well, I’m not saying I wouldn’t fire him. I’m saying I don’t think the President will...I don’t think this President will fire Secretary Rumsfeld."

Blitzer: "But let me press you. Would you?"

Blitzer was finally satisfied when Trump stated that he would "make a change" and would "get out of that war as soon as possible."

Liberal movie critic Manohla Dargis continues to mix popcorn and politics in her Friday review of "American Dreamz."

"But what gives the film its gleam of topicality, its suggestion of relevance, is that it directly sends up both the Bush presidency and 'American Idol,' those twin pillars of contemporary homespun populism. The problem being that, as Jon Stewart, among many others, habitually reminds us, both surrendered to self-parody some time ago."

See Times Watch for more New York Times bias, including Times Watch's just-released study on the paper's fawning coverage of Sen. Hillary Clinton as she prepared for a presidential run in 2008.

Something wild happens on Hardball whenever Chris Matthews ventures outdoors. It was during an outdoor panel when Zell Miller challenged Chris to a duel and last night outside the MSNBC studios Matthews called the current White House communications team: "Vicious, almost canine," and so sweaty that, "They wouldn't pass lie detector tests, they've got such a sweat problem."

Matthews posed the following question to Pat Buchanan at around 5:43pm on last night's Hardball:

Matthews: "Are they gonna bring in some nice people to work at the White House or more mad dogs? The next press secretary, will it be a good, nice fellow to deal with like Tony Snow or Tony Blankley or will it be one of these vicious, almost canine people they have working for them right now, who will do anything to advance their cause?"

Researchers from (where else) the University of California Berkeley claim to have conclusive proof that the Fox News Channel gives more votes to Republicans. The study is entitled "The Fox News Effect: Media Bias and Voting."

The conclusion:

Between October 1996 and November 2000, the conservative Fox News Channel was introduced in the cable programming of 20 percent of US towns. Fox News availability in 2000 appears to be largely idiosyncratic. Using a data set of voting data for 9,256 towns, we investigate if Republicans gained vote share in towns where Fox News entered the cable market by the year 2000. We find a significant effect of the introduction of Fox News on the vote share in Presidential elections between 1996 and 2000. Republicans gain 0.4 to