Kurtz Offers Clinton, Edwards and Spitzer as Examples of Media's Balanced Coverage of Democrat Sex Scandals
CNN media analyst Howard Kurtz on Monday offered Bill Clinton, John Edwards, and Eliot Spitzer as examples of how the press don't give Democrats the benefit of the doubt when it comes to sex scandals.
Responding to questions about why the media have either ignored or taken sides on this weekend's brouhaha surrounding Congressman Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.), Kurtz sent the following absurd message via Twitter:
My first thought was that this was sent at about 5 PM on Memorial Day. Maybe Kurtz was at a picnic and had a couple too many beers.
After all, it is common knowledge that Newsweek's Michael Isikoff, who was working on the Paula Jones case for the magazine at the time, had the Monica Lewinsky story ready to go only to have it squelched by top editors.
If Matt Drudge hadn't broken the story, America might never have found out what was going on in the Oval Office.
Is this what Kurtz believes is an example of media not giving a Democrat the benefit of the doubt on a sex scandal?
As for John Edwards, the National Enquirer first broke his sordid story in October 2007.
It wasn't until July 2008 that mainstream media outlets thought it was newsworthy. By then, the junior senator from Illinois had already locked up the Democrat nomination for president.
Many political observers believe that if the media had jumped on this story sooner thereby knocking Edwards out of the race, Hillary Clinton would have taken the majority of his votes in the caucuses and primaries defeating Obama.
Is this also what Kurtz believes is an example of media not giving a Democrat the benefit of the doubt on a sex scandal?
As for Eliot Spitzer, he now has his own show on the cable news network that also employs Kurtz.
If Kurtz thinks this is the way conservatives are treated when caught with their pants down, one has to seriously wonder what the color of the sky is in his world.
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Comments
How Quickly We Forget
Submitted by Maestroh on Mon, 05/30/2011 - 6:31pm.
And let's not forget how the FIRST Bill Clinton scandal (Gennifer Flowers) was actually reported by the STAR tabloid in January 1992. Oh and there were audio tapes establishing that she knew Clinton quite well. Besides, every time they covered the Lewinsky story they always had a poll that showed a bunch of people didn't want Clinton impeached. That's call spinning the news since whatever folks thought was irrelevant to the legalities involved.
Kurtz as he is 90 percent of the time... WRONG
Submitted by Tomorama on Mon, 05/30/2011 - 6:31pm.
They are ALWAYS kicked dragging and screaming on "reporting or distorting" the story when it is a Demonrat........
John McCain and the NY Slimes, no facts at all,story published page one.
Kind of like "We know the story is true even if the proof is fake"......................
Howard diminishes himself
Submitted by d1carter on Mon, 05/30/2011 - 6:45pm.
Howard diminishes himself nowadays with everything he writes...CNN may want to rethink his contract. The Daily Beast may be the last stand for him.
Howard The Hack
Submitted by gAMEoVER on Mon, 05/30/2011 - 10:13pm.
Diminished himself long ago. Who listens to this schmuck? POS!
LOL - I'm starting to think Noel can type with his toes
Submitted by Dave. on Mon, 05/30/2011 - 7:11pm.
Seriously.
-Dave
Vote for the American in November
Uh hoh please....
Submitted by NeoKong on Mon, 05/30/2011 - 7:23pm.
The media never covered the Edwards scandal until Edwards himself confessed. It had been brewing for weeks but they wouldn't touch it with a ten foot pole. Then it became a "private matter" between he and his wife. They may have reported on the Spitzer thing but as usual it was to minimize the damage. As far as Clinton went they did everything they could to protect him and veraciously went after all his accusers. Paula Jones and Linda Tripp were hounded mercilessly. NBC even sat upon what some would call a credible rape charge against Clinton.
The idea that the media actually "reported" on these scandals is ridiculous.
A credible rape charge against Clinton
Submitted by needle on Mon, 05/30/2011 - 10:38pm.
“NBC even sat upon what some would call a credible rape charge against Clinton.”
That would be Clinton’s rape of Paula Jones. It was, and still is, credible, very credible; even the Village Voice begrudgingly admitted that. NBC was in the process of spiking the story until other news organizations hounded NBC to release the story, which they spun to minimize it. After that there was no follow up. After all, what was the big deal? Clinton is a Democrat. Sexual "aberrations" go along with the territory (when Democrats are involved.), along with Media Bias.
- Looking forward to the self-annihilation of the Manipulated Stories Machine.
Paula Jones?
Submitted by Kingfish17 on Tue, 05/31/2011 - 5:14am.
Are you sure you mean Paula Jones?
"You can’t go take a trip to Las Vegas...on the taxpayer’s dime." Barack Obama
It wasn't Jones. It was Juanita Broaddrick
Submitted by Galvanic on Tue, 05/31/2011 - 8:54am.
Broaddrick charged that in 1978, Arkansas Attorney General Bill Clinton raped her in her Little Rock hotel room while she was attending a convention. She had contacted the Clinton for Governor campaign about doing volunteer work, and Clinton suggested they 'talk about it' in private. The rape left her with a swollen lip; she claimed that Clinton bit it. Her friend, a nurse who was attending the convention with her, attended to Broaddrick's wounds immediately after the assault, and later verified that Broaddrick told her the sex was non-consensual.
The media mentioned it briefly, but didn't pursue it.
Talk about Spitzer damage control
Submitted by optimist on Mon, 05/30/2011 - 10:46pm.
Didn't they label him as a Republican and then come up with some BS excuse for putting the R there?
Sex scandals -MSM's obvious bias in digging/reporting/confirming
Submitted by Gary Hall on Mon, 05/30/2011 - 7:28pm.
Sex scandals - MSM's obvious bias in assigning staff - in digging - in reporting - and, in confirming..
Speaking of John Edwards. At the time, not only had the national media shelved any interest in vetting candidate Obama, they had little interest in exposing Democrat candidate John Edwards.
A rare admission of the MSM's inexcusable bias was offered by one of the Los Angeles Times liberal standard bearers, staff opinion columnist Tim Rutten, in August of 2008.
Rutten spilled the beans, as he allows that the decision in such matters is from the top (an excerpt):
Sadly, no one in the MSM, including so-called media watchdog Howie Kurtz, appears to have considered Rutten's obvious truths.
NewsBusters' readers know well enough that such direction from the top is not limited to sex scandals. During the 2008 presidential campaign, for example, in the case of Gov. Sarah Palin it's rather obvious that onions were in full bloom, while in the case of Sen. Obama, it would appear that the top was saying, "well, make a few calls, but don't really push for an answer."
In the case of John Edwards, all they found were rose petals -- and they were not to be disturbed.
.. and that is the Rutten tooten truth.
(;~/ gary
Weiner roast
Submitted by Rackie on Mon, 05/30/2011 - 7:40pm.
BTW, the little kosher dork hadn't been married 10 months before crusing the net looking for a little strange.
I bet his wife sees right through this hoser. She is probably the last woman you'd want to slip around on as she's probably thinking " honor killing" right now.
Hahaha.................
Submitted by djwolf12 on Mon, 05/30/2011 - 7:48pm.
Weiner's pickle is in a little bit of a bun right about now
The elephant in the room here
Submitted by Van Halen on Mon, 05/30/2011 - 9:18pm.
The elephant in the room here is that YFrog and Twitter need to be contacted as to whether a hack occurred and whether they now look bad because it DID occur. Will they defend their reputations or are they going to fall on their swords for the Weiner?
VH
Submitted by bkeyser on Mon, 05/30/2011 - 9:24pm.
That's already been determined. Swords up, ready, fall.
To scumbag liberals,
Submitted by djwolf12 on Mon, 05/30/2011 - 7:35pm.
The National Enquirer is only relevent in stories about Rush Limbaugh. I will say that they were right in regards to Limbaugh, but They were right about alot of Democrats too.
"Liberals love to forget the past. To them, History only begins every morning a Democrat is in the White House." - Me, 5/30/2011
Thank you Noel
Submitted by bkeyser on Mon, 05/30/2011 - 7:53pm.
for finally addressing this. CNN reported on it today, video available here.
Interesting comments by Weiner to the CNN reporter. He's not his usual obnoxious self, he seems much more guarded. He does manage to blame republicans as one might expect, though I'm not sure how he justifies continuing to use his hacked account, and the fact that police are indicating that they're not investigating any wrongdoing.
With heir recent victory in NY-26, you'd think this would be the perfect play for democrats- if the account was hacked, that can be pretty easily verified and whether they find the culprit or not (and they may not want him or her actually caught) they can play this up as republican chicanery. However, by not calling for an investigation and Weiner continuing to use the account, this smells a lot less like hackery, and more like an "uh oh, I forgot to send that by private message." If that's the case, it at least as agregious as Chris Lee, and Weiner should follow his lead. Yeah, right.
I saw an interesting article yesterday about this: Would your spouse buy it?
Now, I did a photoshop on this yesterday, but since I've complained on more than one occasion about NB's johnny-come-lately approach to this story, I won't post it. RedState actually pulled the link because someone over there was offended, so maybe it's better this way. I'm glad someone wrote about it though and I'd like to see more follow up. So far, I've only seen CNN covering this in the MSM.
Isikoff, Newsweek, and the MSM had been on the Clinton sex
Submitted by Jer on Mon, 05/30/2011 - 7:54pm.
scandals like a blanket, and the Monica affair was covered extensively--with Isikoff leading the charge [even collaborating with Ken Starr]. Here's a Tripp down memory lane.
Jer
Clinton scandals covered 'like a blanket", eh?---
Submitted by matthewdean on Mon, 05/30/2011 - 8:15pm.
Openly, non-partisan, and in a timely manner, too, no doubt.
Strictly a liberal Democrats' take, Jer, and just another knee jerk reaction.
What took you so long?
As I said once before, you sure pick some low level life forms to defend; but then again, being a liberal Democrat, what else do you have to pick from?
Might want to get ahead of the curve for a change and start in with Anthony W.'s damage control.
MD
Jer
Submitted by well99 on Mon, 05/30/2011 - 9:28pm.
Only after Drudge.Oh great job by the msm on Edwards.
Newsweek held the story back, Jer
Submitted by Galvanic on Mon, 05/30/2011 - 9:30pm.
It was Drudge's report that Newsweek had the story that flushed out the story because once Drudge mentioned it, the other MSM bureaus would be on it like flies and possibly scoop Newsweek. .
There is something else that the MSM has in common in reporting on these three Democrats: In all three cases, the MSM -- as Kurtz has repeated here -- treated the stories as sex scandals.
But here are the real issues in those cases were violations of the law:
1) Clinton perjured himself in front of a grand jury -- a felony.
2) Edwards may have used campaign money to pay off his mistress -- a felony.
3) Spitzer employed prostitutes -- a misdemeanor.
The MSM actively or passively cooperates with Democratic spin doctors to divert public attention away from the legal issues.
.
The diverted the attention away from the real issues by
Drudge alleged
Submitted by Cool Arrow on Mon, 05/30/2011 - 9:43pm.
Drudge alleged that Newsweek was sitting on the story. Turns out Newsweek was, but that is what passes for coverage among the liberals.
Newsweek lost a lot of money...
Submitted by Red Jeep on Tue, 05/31/2011 - 8:03am.
...protecting their president.
And now, back to
Submitted by Van Halen on Mon, 05/30/2011 - 8:39pm.
And now, back to Weinergate...
Pornstars
High school girls
Pictures of private parts
Girls tweeting that Weiner is their 'boyfriend'
Weiner's PR guy lies about the timeline of what happened
Weiner erases all evidence when hacking the account of a Congressman would certainly be investigated as a Federal crime
Leftwing media sites go into damage-control mode by ignoring story when you know if this were Todd Palin...
I wonder what Weiner's wife thinks of all this?
That Weiner sure is slippery
Submitted by Cool Arrow on Mon, 05/30/2011 - 9:43pm.
Must not want to leave any Weiner tracks.
I havent heard one PEEP from the MSM..
Submitted by NJRightWinger12 on Mon, 05/30/2011 - 9:01pm.
About this, and Ive had Fox on ALL weekend. Only thru HERE did I learn about it. Now, maybe tomorrow, when all the talk show hosts are back from their weekend vacation will I hear something bout it, maybe. BTW, why the hell does EVERYBODY in the media take off for FOUR days, and where the fu*k do they all go to? Do they vacation together or something?
I remember people from the
Submitted by redfish on Mon, 05/30/2011 - 9:07pm.
I remember people from the left were telling me when the Lewinsky scandal was everywhere on TV that it was proof that the media wasn't biased.
Forget that the whole story was spun in most outlets into "this evil Republican Kenneth Starr is going after the President for having an affair, with his evil henchwomen Linda Tripp and Lucianna Goldberg" with the message taken away being "Republicans are hypocrites obsessed with the President having sex". And forget that every other news broadcast they'd have a story titled "is the media covering this too much?"
I told you Kurtz was a
Submitted by buddyc on Mon, 05/30/2011 - 10:15pm.
I told you Kurtz was a hack.
The only one they covered was Spitzer.
Edwards, Weiner, Clinton, they were all MIA.
Weiner? Lewd Pictures?
Submitted by jdripper on Mon, 05/30/2011 - 10:28pm.
I would think just having Horshack fully dressed would be lewd enough all by itself.
Jack
rt tu, Brute?
Submitted by neutron on Mon, 05/30/2011 - 11:07pm.
Back when we laughed at "Uncle Milty" and believed "Uncle Walter," The news media had respect and clout.
We just witnessed Joe Klein on "The Chris Matthews Show" say that Barack Obama has a better relationship with the military than George W. Bush did.
Almost on cue, Gallup released a poll Monday finding military personnel and veterans give Obama lower marks than the rest of the population. /HT Newsbusters.
Next, Newsbusters points out the HOWLER: "CNN media analyst Howard Kurtz on Monday offered Bill Clinton, John Edwards, and Eliot Spitzer as examples of how the press don't give Democrats the benefit of the doubt when it comes to sex scandals."
Give me a break! Newsbusters clearly documented how the MSM canned the story of Monica Lewinsky, which almost single-handedly created Matt Drudge and his news empire... what B.S. is this?
How more obvious can it be that the liberals in the news media will say any lie without evidence, that supports Obama and belittles anyone opposing him.
False headlines to follow from the typical media outlets:
"Palin kills African-American children! Film at 11!"
"Herman Cain has 100+ children with unwed mothers"
"Obama cures AIDS victims in inner-city Detroit"
How ludicrous it all would be, except the above headlines are already facts in the liberal media mind, waiting for an opportunity to deploy.
Nerf Critic
Submitted by Chris Norman on Mon, 05/30/2011 - 11:42pm.
Kurtz spends more time defending and making excuses for the media than he does exposing their bias and mistakes. He splits hairs, misidentifies their failures, and equivocates. He may occasionally come close to what's wrong, then quickly veers away. He's what I would call a "Nerf critic" - everything he says is padded to do the least amount of damage to his targets.
Reuters labelled Spitzer as a REPUBLICAN
Submitted by MrSnuggles on Mon, 05/30/2011 - 11:59pm.
Have we forgotten about this Newsbusters story?
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/d-s-hube/2008/03/18/reuters-didnt-mislabel-...
Monica?
Submitted by okiehawk44 on Tue, 05/31/2011 - 8:14am.
Jer can a CEO or President of the United States of America for that matter diddle a subordinate at the office or in the office or next to the office anytime he/she feels like it with no consequences like an immediate termination?
Jer, Monica Lewinsky was a 22-year old intern for pity's sake.
Do you have any morals Jer or are you just a loyal Democrat today, tomorrow and always?
William Jefferson Clinton should have resigned. Period Jer!
And then there's The Unspeakable
Submitted by Galvanic on Tue, 05/31/2011 - 9:11am.
During Starr's investigation, the lucid Lewinsky cited a particularly despicable episode that took place in the Oval Office.
According to Lewinsky, Clinton received a phone call from a Congressman, which he took at his desk. He referred to the Congressman by his nickname, so Lewinsky wasn't sure of exactly who it was.
The conversation was about a deployment of US troops overseas, and Clinton was persuading the Congressman to support his position. While on the phone, Clinton unzipped his fly and motioned to Lewinsky to fellate him, which she did.
So, as he discussed a military mission that could put the lives of American service personnel at risk, the President was getting a hummer in some sort of sexualized power trip.
Starr confirmed from WH phone records that the phone call did occur as Lewinsky recounted.
AND WHEN THIS WAS REVEALED, THE MSM WAS SILENT! AND THE STORY REMAINS UNMENTIONED IN THE MSM TODAY.
You see, in the MSM's so-called 'narrative,' these lurid facts are about sex and privacy, and none of our business.
The press gave the Nancy Reagan Nooners-with-Sinatra
Submitted by Quasi-socialist on Tue, 05/31/2011 - 11:49am.
story WAY too much time when it was simply a unsubstantiated rumor in Kitty Kelley's book about the Reagans. That's what I said when they came to Clinton's defense about how his affairs were "none of our business"--they sure were worth talking about when they were salacious rumors about Republican families!!
This is the same facile "refutation" that liberals spew all the time. If the press publishes one bad word, no matter how delayed, there is no end to libs that will cite that as "balanced".
"Look! He has less sheen! How can that not be balance?!"
It's kind of like the "proof" that if a corporation makes money enjoying the free market that they are "conservative" in some convenient sense for liberals to then argue that if anything, we would be wary of conservative bias in the news. It's that feckless "refutation" of preaching to the choir.