Matthew Philbin's blog

With the 2012 elections less than a year away, the liberal media are attacking President Obama's potential opponents on a number of fronts, but especially on religion. ABC, CBS and NBC have used religion in two ways, either painting the field of GOP primary challengers as a God Squad of religious zealots or playing up differences in their faith. Whether they're letting viewers know that "Rick Perry's gonna have to answer some questions about the people" he prays with, fretting that God "told Michele Bachmann," to enter politics, or devoting no less than 40 segments to the question of whether Mormonism is "a cult" or if "Mitt Romney is a Christian," the networks have repeatedly used faith against the GOP field.

Media preoccupation with the GOP candidates' faith is the exact opposite of how they covered (or didn't) candidate Obama's 20-year attendance at the church of a racist, anti-American pastor who subscribed to "black liberation theology," or Obama's half-Muslim heritage. The MRC's Culture and Media Institute studied network news reporting on the GOP candidates and religion from Jan. 1-Oct. 31, 2011, and compared it to coverage of the Democratic presidential primary candidates over the same period in 2007. The discrepancy, in both the amount and tone of the coverage, was striking. Network reporters, so disinterested in the beliefs of Obama and his rivals for the 2008 nomination, took every opportunity to inject religion into their coverage of the GOP field. (CMI's key findings after the jump)

With the news that an American air strike has killed the U.S.-born head of Al Quaeda in Yemen, Anwar Al Awlaki, the media will explain his significance in the terrorist organization, and his role in inspiring the Ft. Hood shooter and the “underwear bomber.” What they probably won’t tell you is that they once celebrated Al Awlaki as a “moderate” and a bridge-builder “between Islam and the West.”

Awlaki once served as imam of the Dar al-Hijrah mosque in Northern Virginia, the very same place that attracted many of the 9/11 hijackers and, later, Major Nadal Hasan, the Ft. Hood shooter.

If we post this story on Facebook, will the company remove it? According to a new study from the National Religious Broadcasters (NRB) and the American Center for Law and Justice, there's a good chance it will.

NRB conducted a study of "the practices of Apple and its iTunes App Store, Google, Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter, as well as Internet service providers AT&T, Comcast and Verizon." Its conclusion: with the notable exception of Twitter, "social media websites are actively censoring Christian viewpoints.

It’s hard to keep up with what the media and the left deem acceptable. Seems like just last year Anderson Cooper publicly took offense at a line from a movie. Come to think of it, it was just last year that the CNN anchor found “That’s so gay,” upsetting to his perfectly honed PC sensibilities.

Fast forward a year. Many people are accusing two currently prominent figures of being gay. But don’t hold your breath waiting for indignant coverage from Cooper and the rest of the media, because it’s liberals leveling the charge against conservatives.   

Take, for example, Marcus Bachmann, husband of GOP presidential candidate Rep. Michele Bachmann (Minn.). The Bachmanns have been married more than 30 years, and have five children. Mr. Bachmann runs a clinic that offers Christian counseling to people struggling with “unwanted” homosexual feelings – derisively termed “praying away the gay” by liberals.

Look out MSNBC. The market for “vicious, inaccurate, and inexcusable” cable news just got more crowded in New York.

The New York Times reported August 1 that Al Jazeera English will begin appearing in New York for the first time, “subletting air space from a channel owner.” This marks a victory in AJE’s campaign to gain widespread access to the U.S. cable market. It’s also a victory for the network’s liberal media supporters, including several at the New York Times.

“Al Jazeera English was lauded by the United States government and even by a few competitors for its broadcasts from Egypt and other Middle Eastern countries earlier this year,” the Times noted. Yes, and it was called “balanced and thorough.” But as the Culture and Media Institute has reported, the praise was overblown and stemmed more from a decidedly non-journalistic admiration for the network’s activism than the quality of AJE’s reporting.

Usually, it's easy to dismiss the moonbat ravings of the far left. But when liberals, always ready to indignantly accuse conservatives of "questioning my patriotism," start suggesting their political opponents are "committing treason," the hypocrisy merits notice. Doubly so when the allegation of treason is made on a website that takes money from George Soros.

In a July 20 column on Alternet, Cliff Schecter, "president of Libertas, LLC, a progressive public relations firm," joined the echo chamber of liberals lamenting that the Republican Party had become radicalized by "the forces of the anti-American, gun-toting, religious and corporate Right that have taken over the GOP."

"It ought to be commemorated as the day of deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward forever more."

-John Adams, July 3rd, 1776

Seems like a lot of fuss over a document written to form a political agreement between some loosely unified colonies more than 200 years ago.

When Adams wrote that, a nation had been created, yes, but it had yet to win any significant victories in its war against the most powerful military in the world. Many states were nearly bankrupt and it wasn't certain they'd hang together. And for all its noble ideas about equality, the Declaration did nothing to end slavery, which Adams called "as offensive in the sight of God as it is derogatory from our own honor or interest of happiness."

It must be what's known in the military as "mission creep." Why else would an organization of professional librarians come out in support of the soldier alleged to be responsible for the largest security breach in U.S. military history?

When it meets for its annual conference in New Orleans June 23, the American Library Association will vote on a resolution calling on the Secretary of the Army and the Army Chief of Staff to "release Pfc. Bradley Manning from pre-trial confinement and drop the charges against him." (Documents are available here.)

These are tough times to be an American dad, and indeed, an American man. The recession, or "mancession," as it's been called, hit men harder than women; male unemployment was 8.9 percent compared to 8 percent for women in May. Adding insult to injury, leftwing journalists have sniggered about the plight of the "beached white male." In 2010, women became the majority in the work force for the first time in history. More women receive college degrees than men do.

Culturally, in article after magazine article, on TV and in films, fathers and men in general are portrayed as hapless bumblers at best, abusive deadbeats at worst.

It’s a “news”` outlet dedicated to coverage of the Middle East, but it ignores ongoing atrocities against Israeli civilians. Its Arab language sibling threw a lavish birthday party for a terrorist who infamously murdered a Jewish family, and its reporting during the Iraq War was called “vicious, inaccurate, and inexcusable” by the U.S. Secretary of Defense. The list of op-ed contributors to its website reads like a Who’s Who of left-wing and Muslim anti-Americanism.

It’s Al Jezeera English, and liberals and the U.S. media want to give it prestigious awards and greater access to the U.S. cable news market.

When you’re right, you’re right. Last month, the Culture and Media Institute reported that internet marketing material from preppy clothing maker J. Crew featured a photo of the company’s president painting the toenails of her young son hot pink.

"Lucky for me I ended up with a boy whose favorite color is pink," said the caption. "Toenail painting is way more fun in neon."

CMI pointed out that the gender-bending ad was a nod to the gay agenda. Fox News picked up the story and a media storm ensued. Liberals scoffed at social conservatives’ concerns that J. Crew was exploiting and normalizing the feminization of the boy with “blatant propaganda.”

But according to ABC News, CMI was onto something. A May 2, 2011 on-line story places “J Crew at Center of Gay Economics With Openly Gay Model.” The company’s May 2011 catalog “features employees as models, including a gay designer with his boyfriend, who are described as ‘Happy Together.’”

On April 8, MRC’s Culture and Media Institute started a debate  when it called attention to an e-mail ad from J Crew that featured a mother painting her young son’s toenails pink. The story gained national attention on radio, TV and the web. And now it’s made “The Daily Show.”

Video Below the fold.

On Tuesday, April 13, the Media Research Center’s vice president for business and culture appeared on the NBC ‘Today’ Show to discuss a recent controversy involving a J.CREW ad featuring a little boy wearing pink toe nail polish.

The two minute five second video segment provided a not-so balanced look at the nationwide debate surrounding the ad and the question of whether or not J.CREW executive creative director Jenna Lyons is exploiting her son’s favorite color to sell nail polish and clothing through her employer.

Video below the fold.

Never let it be said that Showtime ignores Christianity. In fact, the network that aired "The Tudors" is getting into the spirit of Lent and gleefully calling to mind some of the Catholic Church's centuries-old sins.

"The Borgias" is Showtime's new 10-part miniseries about the infamous 15thCentury Italian family of that name, and about a dark period in the history of the Church. Rodrigo Borgia, who as a cardinal fathered children with several mistresses, bought the papacy, becoming Pope Alexander VI in 1492, and misused his office in a variety of distinctly unholy ways. Rodrigo, his son Cesare and daughter Lucrezia made many powerful enemies and were accused of many crimes, including incest, adultery, rape, theft, bribery and murder. Much of it was slander and hearsay, but Showtime and director Neil Jordan didn't scruple to sort out fact from legend.

If they ever take a break from publicizing Charlie Sheen’s cocaine dos and dont's, or detailing the power politics within his Beverly Hills harem, the networks should grab a copy of the Society of Professional Journalists’ Code of Ethics. And they may want to pay special attention to this entry: “Show good taste. Avoid pandering to lurid curiosity.”

From Feb. 1 through March 6, the three networks distinguished themselves by devoting 20 times more broadcast time to Charlie Sheen’s porn stars and drug issues than to the Planned Parenthood video scandal and the subsequent vote in the House of Representatives to defund the organization.

(Video below the fold)

You can lead a network to a story, but you can't make it report. Certainly not if the story reveals the disturbing truth about one of liberalism's sacrosanct institutions - the largest abortion-provider in the United States. The broadcast networks' coverage of the scandal and potential defunding of Planned Parenthood by the House of Representatives has been disgraceful.

On Feb. 1, pro-life activist group Live Action released a video covertly filmed at a New Jersey Planned Parenthood office. The footage documented a Planned Parenthood employee giving advice to a man posing as a pimp about obtaining abortions and birth control for the underage foreign prostitutes he traffics.

In the decade since 9/11, the liberal media's patently false insistence that American Muslims were or would soon be the victims of a massive wave of hate crimes at least had the benefit of plausibility. The same can't be said of an effort to suggest that Islam can't get a fair shake in left-wing Hollywood.

Yet a recent Associated Press article uncritically detailed an initiative of the Muslim Public Affairs Counsel to bring 'a more representative picture of Muslim-Americans on the screen.'

It was no less depressing for being predictable. News of the horrendous Jan. 8 shooting of Democratic Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and 17 others had just broken when some on the left were exploiting it to malign conservatives.

Yet the left has blamed the “vitriolic” rhetoric of conservatives and the Tea Parties as inciting violence. The mainstream media has enabled and even joined liberals in tarring the right with inciting political violence, right down to the gossip, entertainment and “lifestyle” outlets.

Whether it’s “TMZ” polling readers with a leading questionnaire, “The Hollywood Reporter” publishing the thoughts of reliably left-wing celebrities, or “ET” trying to coax coherent sentences from vapid “young Hollywood stars,” sites noted for covering “pop tarts” are exploiting and scoring political points from the Tucson shooting.

On Dec. 14, 2010, the Culture and Media Institute reported that the Society for Professional Journalists (SPJ)’s Diversity Committee announced a year-long campaign to “educate journalists about the hurtfulness of phrases like ‘illegal immigrant,’ which is the term currently preferred by the influential AP Stylebook.”

After the Daily Caller picked up the story, the Fox News Channel followed suit. On Jan. 3, “Fox & Friends’” host Steve Doocy interviewed Leo Laurence, a member of SPJ’s Diversity Committee, who couched the society’s advocacy as a constitutional issue.

“The problem,” Laurence said, “is that under our Constitution, everyone, including non-citizens, are presumed to be innocent of any crime until proven guilty in the court of law. Therefore, only a judge can say when someone is illegal. So we're urging journalists to use the phrase, undocumented immigrant, not illegal immigrant.”

(Video below the fold)

Is America a special nation, chosen by God as “the shining city on the hill?” Do our founding documents, with their explicit invocation of natural rights, set us apart from the rest of the world?

Majorities of Americans believe so. Even the liberal Brookings Institution recently published a survey that found 58 percent of citizens believe: “God has granted America a special role in human history.”

American exceptionalism, as it is called, has been in the news quite a lot lately. In his victory speech Nov. 2, Florida Senator-elect Marco Rubio eloquently extolled American exceptionalism, provoking howls of outrage from liberals. “America is the single greatest nation in all of human history. A place without equal in the history of all mankind,” he said. The son of Cuban exiles declared that only in America could he and others have risen so far, with so few barriers to advancement.

Those Tea Partiers – is there anything in this nation they can’t spoil? They’ve already gummed up the president’s agenda with their rallies and signs and voting. Now, they’re trying to ruin “Dancing with the Stars!”

So says the left and many in the media agree. Now that newly resurgent conservatives have handed them a crushing mid-term defeat, liberals are seeing nefarious Tea Party plots everywhere – including in silly entertainment shows. And they’re taking plenty of shots at Bristol and, predictably, her mother.

Sarah Palin’s daughter Bristol, 20, has done remarkably well in this season’s “Dancing with the Stars” competition on ABC. As she’s advanced from week to week, buoyed by viewer voting, entertainment reporters and liberals have become increasingly frustrated.

Video below the fold.

Fresh from mocking Americans concerned about illegal immigration (and from making a mockery of a congressional hearing), comic Stephen Colbert showed his disdain for another group of Americans: Tea Partiers.

In the introduction to the Oct. 4 "Colbert Report" on Comedy Central, the host said, "Then, the Tea Party reaches out to kids - I assume for help with spelling."

That's a harmless enough little joke, except that it comes from the man who once called Sara Palin "a f***ing retard."

In keeping with hi theme of contempt for conservative America, without pause, Colbert said, "And my guest Eugene Robinson has a new book about the four groups that make up black America."

Liberals are never so alive as when they’re speaking out against anachronistic straw men. That’s why, in their estimation, the Tea Parties are racist lynch mobs and conservatives who wonder about President Obama’s ties to anti-American radicals are sinister McCarthyites.

So it’s not surprising that The Huffington Post is making a big deal of “Banned Books Week.” The house organ for the self-important Hollywood left – you know, all those “artists” constantly threatened by censorship – featured a string of articles on various aspects of the banned book topic. The week, according to contributor Jonathon Kim, “celebrates the wonderful freedom of being able to read whatever one likes, and reminding us that it's a freedom that must be fought for constantly.” Kim’s article had to do with a new movie about the 1950s obscenity trial of beat poet Allen Ginsburg’s work, “Howl.” (To their sorrow, an awful lot of English majors know first-hand that Ginsburg won.) Elsewhere, HuffPo linked to a New York Times article that suggested “Ten Ways to Celebrate Banned Books Week.” These are for readers to do “with your students, your children and anyone who believes in having ‘the freedom to read.’”Readers can adopt a “challenged” book (one that parents or civic groups have demanded be removed from school or public libraries). They can “create a map of challenges to demonstrate that book bans and challenges are not isolated phenomena, even in the United States.” (In other words, even parents who don’t live in jerkwater conservative areas care what their kids read.)

In the current federal tax debate, the media are "really helping out the liberals" just by choosing certain words over others, according to the Business & Media Institute.

In an appearance on Fox Business Network Sept. 21, BMI's Julia Seymour told host Charles Payne that the mainstream media - "particularly the cable primetime shows that we looked at," had been framing "the debate as tax cuts, rather than tax increases."

Seymour was referring to BMI research showing that the media was using the language of the left and the Obama administration when reporting on the tax issue. MSNBC's Keith Olbermann said on Sept. 13 that "Democrats want to cut everybody's taxes," despite the president's stated intent to raise taxes on the rich. "It was 27 tax cut-framed stories, versus two tax increase stories," Seymour told Payne. The media were thus 13 times more likely to put a positive spin on the Democrats' intentions than to characterize the move as a tax increase.

Here's a delightful little story from the Sept./Oct. issue of Mother Jones, the far-left political magazine. It's called "Rick Santorum's Anal Sex Problem," and, with its helpful creative artwork, it's not something you want to read over lunch.

Thanks to the efforts of a vindictive liberal writer, anyone Googling conservative former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum is fairly likely to get an unpleasant surprise. Among the top three results will probably be a nauseatingly offensive website based on making "Santorum" a "sexual neologism," according to Mother Jones' Stephanie Mencimer.

Back in 2003, Santorum expressed a traditional Catholic view on the issue of homosexuality and same-sex marriage. Then talking in general about "orientations" always excluded from understandings of marriage, he included pedophilia and bestiality along with homosexuality.

"The ensuing controversy," wrote Mencimer, "prompted syndicated sex columnist Dan Savage, who's gay, to start a contest, soliciting reader suggestions for slang terms to "memorialize the scandal." Having selected the nastiest entry, "Savage launched a website, and a meme was born."