Blogs

On the heels of last year's "documentary" by Gabriel Range concocting an assassination of President Bush in "Death of A President," Bill Hutchinson of the New York Daily News reported a new play in the Big Apple that also treads along the Bush-assassination theme. The playwright's thinly disguised Bush-resembling fictional president gets "whacked like Julius Caesar by a confidant."

A FAMED CITY theater group is inviting controversy by staging a play in which a character thinly veiled as President Bush gets assassinated. "President and Man" begins a five-day run at The Duke on 42nd St. tonight as one of eight one-act plays staged by the Naked Angels Theater Company, whose members include Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick. Conservatives are already panning it as another sick liberal jab at the President.

The April 11 edition of "The View" again discussed Don Imus’s recent racist and sexist remarks about the Rutgers women’s basketball team. Rosie O’Donnell likewise continued her tirade about Imus’ alleged "free speech." In a statement too bizarre even for Joy Behar, Rosie said the next step is the "thought police" locking everyone up in Guantanamo Bay without a lawyer. Perhaps Rosie is feeling the heat after her own controversial remarks.

JAMIE-LYNN SIGLER: I think people who have a public voice just need to be conscious then of what they’re saying and the effect that it can have and understand that there’s going to be consequences if they say things like that.

A week ago, I posted a snarky item about a Katie Couric vlog entry at CBSNews.com. In an April 4 page from her "Notebook," the "Evening News" anchor worried that kids entering college were unable to use a library for something as basic as locating a book needed for class. In doing so, she erroneously suggested colleges use the Dewey decimal system, when in fact most use Library of Congress Classification to arrange the bookshelves.

Now it turns out that not only did Couric not exactly do her homework, but that the producer who did it for her lifted some of the script from a Wall Street Journal column. That producer has since been fired.

CBS's Brian Montopoli explained how the vlogs are written and produced in a post today at CBS's "Public Eye" blog:

The mainstream media often uses polls to give a biased impression, and CNN’s Miles O’Brien used a recent AP/IPSOS poll to paint a rosy picture of the Democrat-controlled Congress. O’Brien reported on Tuesday that the Democrats were "riding pretty high" with a 40 percent approval rating. For some comparison, in September 2005, CNN’s Wolf Blitzer characterized a 40 percent approval rating for President Bush as "a low point," and used the figure to reenforce his report on the President’s "political troubles."

It’s interesting to note that another recent poll by Gallup puts the current approval rating of Congress at 33%. This is up 7 percent since October 2006, which was right before the election as well.

After sliming the Duke lacrosse players falsely accused of raping a stripper, Times sports columnist Selena Roberts returned to school on Wednesday with "A First Class Response to a Second-Class Putdown," about the Don Imus-Rutgers University women's basketball team controversy, in which the talk radio host denigrated the team by referring to them as "nappy-headed ho's." Roberts gushed about the Rutgers' players speaking truth to power:

"Of grace and dignity, without a single boob joke for ratings or a raunchy sidekick for on-air laughs, the women wearing Rutgers scarlet managed to capsize society’s power differential yesterday….But possessing the power differential means bullying someone your own size. With the ear of a national audience, Imus denigrated women who have revealed the courage to play a sport in its pure, fundamental form even though it is often branded inferior to the dunk style of men. The gals absorb enough put-downs as it is."

This marks huge hypocrisy on the part of Roberts, given that in the Duke lacrosse case, she eagerly sided with two separate bases of "power "-- an out-of-control local prosecutor, Michael Nifong, who now faces an ethics complaint from the North Carolina state bar*, as well as a politically correct college faculty and administration eager to side with what they considered an oppressed minority victim.

Jeff Greenfield has called it "the ultimate act of hypocrisy and cowardice" for long-time guests of the Imus show [file photo] to stay away now. Greenfield, who is leaving CNN to return to CBS as Senior Political Correspondent, appeared on this morning's "Early Show" and was interviewed by co-host Julie Chen.

CHEN: Did you hesitate to go on the show yesterday?

GREENFIELD: No. If you have the benefit of being on his show for 15 years -- and there is a benefit -- there's visibility, if you have a book [you can promote it], and also, to be blunt, it's a great deal of fun -- the banter. To stay away from the show when he gets in serious and deserved trouble, seems to me the ultimate act of hypocrisy and cowardice. But I went on the show and told him, I think quite bluntly, where things stood and where they have to go. All of us, he and some of us as guests, have not really stepped up to the plate in looking at the way race has been used on that show as humor.

No matter how deplorable and terrible you think Don Imus's remarks about the Rutgers women's basketball team are, the fact is, that his statements pale in comparison to the stuff pumped out daily by the American music industry.

Michelle Malkin has a big list of the various vulgarities that are routinely tolerated by the same media that is currently up in arms about Imus. Here's just one song:

Rich Boy sellin' crack
F*k niggas wanna jack
Sh*t tight no slack
Just bought a Cadillac (Throw some D's on that b*tch!)
Just bought a Cadillac (Throw some D's on that b*tch!)
Just bought a Cadillac

This, along with Roseanne Barr's recent anti-gay remarks are yet another example of our "neutral" media's double standards.

Discuss the news of the day and anything else...

UPDATE with video link below jump.

On the April 10 "Tonight Show," host Jay Leno joked about Democrats boycotting the Fox News Channel/Congressional Black Caucus Institute debate. Wondered Leno, "How are you going to stand up to terrorists when you're afraid of Fox News?"

Maybe Jay should ask Time magazine's Joe Klein, who called the Fox News debate a "sordid event" that was a clever ploy to "pander" to a Democratic interest group.

Here's the setup and punchline:

"Nappy-headed ho's" had been overused, so he went with the next best thing.

Sure, tbogg's a hypocritical racist, but making a racist attack on a conservative black woman is perfectly acceptable behavior for liberals.

Anticipate other liberal bloggers coming to his defense by sundown.

tbogg's comments echo those of Doonesbury cartoonist Garry Trudeau from April 7, 2004, which prompted this response:

Tuesday’s New York Times played up the big Monday rally against America in Najaf. The online headline hyped: “Huge Protest In Iraq Demands America Withdraw.” The front page of Tuesday’s Times was milder: “Protest In Iraq, Called By Cleric, Demands U.S. Go,” and that “Thousands Support Sadr.” 

Reporter Edward Wong began: “Tens of thousands of protesters loyal to Moktada al-Sadr, the Shiite cleric, took to the streets of the holy city of Najaf on Monday in an extraordinarily disciplined rally to demand an end to the American military presence in Iraq, burning American flags and chanting ‘Death to America!’”

Redstate.com reported the U.S. military estimated a crowd of 5,000 to 7,000, but media accounts routinely stated “tens of thousands” rallied, which would imply at least two tens, or 20,000 protesters. Wong mentioned the various estimates in paragraph 20, but disagreed with the military estimate:

Let's play a quick game of word association. I say "John McCain" and "reform." You say . . . I'm guessing . . . "campaign finance" or perhaps "McCain-Feingold." Am I right? And what's one of the biggest beefs that Republicans in general, and Republican primary-voting types in particular have with McCain? Correctamundo: his championing of campaign finance reform, which Republicans tend to oppose on philosophical grounds [unconconstitutional restriction of free speech] and pragmatic political ones [increases the power of the Dem-friendly MSM].

If further evidence were needed that it's hard for MSMers to understand Republicans, I refer you to Roger Simon's piece from yesterday at Politico.com, The Reinvention of John McCain. For what is Simon's advice to McCain for the reinvigoration of his campaign? You guessed it: that he return to his reformist roots.

I think we're good to go with the comments archiving. Please post on this thread if you do not notice a speedup.

An American tax-funded documentary, titled Islam vs. Islamists, a film on how moderate Muslims feel about the corruption of their religion by Wahhabi extremists and their experiences in facing those extremists, was axed by PBS for the very reason that it puts some Muslims in a bad light, says the film's producer in Tuesday's edition of the Arizona Republic. Rampant PCism is the charge, and it is hard to deny the claim once the whole story is put out there.

The producer of a tax-financed documentary on Islamic extremism claims his film has been dropped for political reasons from a television series that airs next week on more than 300 PBS stations nationwide.

Producer Martyn Burke claims that PBS, in order to be allowed to continue with the project, tried to make him fire some of his associates on the film because they belong to a Conservative Think Tank and that they still axed his film anyway when all was said and done.

So, what is all the fuss over with this film?

Elizabeth Edwards, wife of Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards, has not let her tragic news get in the way of a little partisan fearmongering and classist snobbery. In a USA Today article, the AP reports that, even though she’s never met him, John Edwards’ wife said she is scared of the gun-carrying “rabid, rabid Republican” who lives on what Elizabeth Edwards called a “slummy” property, which is across the street from candidate’s luxury compound in a woodsy part of Orange County, NC (video here):

Elizabeth Edwards says she is scared of the "rabid, rabid Republican" who owns property across the street from her Orange County home — and she doesn't want her kids going near the gun-toting neighbor.

 

On Tuesday's Hardball on MSNBC, substitute host David Gregory pressed civil rights activist and Reverend Al Sharpton over his double standard in condemning Don Imus's racist comments while refusing to apologize for his own role in the Tawana Brawley false rape accusations against white police officers. Gregory: "You didn't go as far as apologizing to the people who you hurt through that incident. This was, the courts have concluded, a hoax, accusations against whites by a young black woman about a race-based assault. A court ordered you to pay restitution for a defamation suit against people whose reputation you hurt. You didn't apologize for that."

ABC, CBS and NBC led Tuesday night with two stories each about the Don Imus racist-insult controversy, but only the CBS Evening News exploited Imus's “nappy-headed ho's” racial insult, directed at the Rutgers University womens' basketball team, as an opportunity to portray all African-Americans as economic “victims” of an unfair U.S. society. Reporter Richard Schlesinger highlighted Democratic U.S. Representative Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick of Detroit: “We're always the last hired, the first fired. We're always the one, we have the highest crime, the worst schools. It's unfortunate in the richest nation in the world, but those are the facts of reality.” Schlesinger elaborated, over matching graphics: “Here's part of what Congresswoman Kilpatrick is talking about. The latest Census figures show the median income for African-American households is almost $20,000 less than white households. Whites are about twice as likely than blacks to get a college degree, and the Justice Department says blacks are five times more likely than whites to go to jail.”

Later in his piece framed around victimology, as if African-Americans have no control over their destiny, Schlesinger showcased Susan Taylor of Essence magazine who, Schlesinger explained, contends that “to describe black women in Imus' terms...ignores generations of suffering that has been left to African-Americans today.” Taylor used the Imus incident to bring up slavery: “If you think about black women being auctioned off on an auction block naked, standing before the crowds, bidding on them, all that is race memory.”

Is Don Imus worth the fury? Lost in all the media attention focused on the “nappy-headed ho's” racial insult by radio host Don Imus last week directed at the Rutgers University womens' basketball team -- all three broadcast network evening newscasts led with multiple stories on it Tuesday night after it topped CBS and NBC on Monday night, to say nothing of the non-stop cable coverage -- is how few actually heard his remark live since his ratings are so low. Monday's USA Today pegged his MSNBC audience at 354,000 daily viewers in March, about half the 692,000 who tuned in FNC's Fox & Friends and about 1/17th the audience of about 6 million who view NBC's Today show.

And he doesn't do much better on the radio side. “Putting things in perspective,” Dave Hughes, on DCRTV.com, pointed out Tuesday that in Washington, DC, “despite all the Washington 'power players' he has on his show, and all the press he gets, almost no one inside (or outside) the Beltway listens to him. In the latest Arbitrends, Imus, via Clear Channel talker WTNT [570 AM], was tied for 25th place in morning drive with Fredericksburg country outlet WFLS [93.3 FM],” a station most in the DC area can't even receive. Nationally, a Talkers magazine analysis of Arbitron ratings in markets across the country, for the cumulative number of listeners per week in the fall of 2006, documented that at least 19 nationally syndicated radio talk hosts have an audience larger than does Imus. Though he's on in the morning drive, when the most people listen to the radio, his audience is just one-sixth of that of Rush Limbaugh.

Even when Newsweek presents a global warming critique, it spins it – in this case around the globe. The April 16 issues of Newsweek don’t just dwell on global warming, they almost celebrate it. But while the U.S. edition includes more than 33 pages of warming hysteria, the international edition has a piece poking holes in the climate change dogma.

The article by M.I.T. Prof. Richard Lindzen contradicts much of what was in the American edition. “Recently many people have said that the earth is facing a crisis requiring urgent action. This statement has nothing to do with science. There is no compelling evidence that the warming trend we've seen will amount to anything close to catastrophe,” wrote Lindzen.

“What most commentators – and many scientists – seem to miss is that the only thing we can say with certainly about climate is that it changes,” he added.

A year after Lars Mortensen’s documentary “Doomsday Called Off” was made, the Canadian non-profit organization Friends of Science created another video skeptical of anthropogenic global warming (h/t NB member dscott).

Entitled "Climate Catastrophe Cancelled: What You're Not Being Told About the Science of Climate Change," the piece similarly used scientists from around the world to debunk theories the organization felt were devoid of facts (videos available here in both Windows Media and Quicktime).

The video was described in an April 13, 2005, press release (emphasis added throughout):

New York Times reporter Manny Fernandez attended one of the Rev. Al Sharpton's weekly "action rallies" at his Harlem headquarters ("Meetings Are Part Revival, Part Rally, but All Sharpton") for Sunday's edition -- convenient timing, given that disgraced radio host Don Imus would be appearing on Sharpton's radio show the next day to apologize for his "nappy-headed ho's" comment denigrating the Rutgers University womens' basketball team.

Fernandez, for whatever reason, apparently didn't interview the great man himself. Still, Sharpton was on safe territory, given that the paper has rarely if ever challenged him on his past hateful statements and inflammatory acts, which include spreading the incendiary Tawana Brawley hoax. In 1987, Sharpton insisted that the black teenager was raped by a group of white men, including prosecutor Steve Pagones. The Brawley case fell apart, and Pagones eventually won a huge settlement against Sharpton for defamation.

"It is not easy being a tomato picker," declared Ali Velshi on CNN's "American Morning" April 10.

Velshi was "Minding Your Business" about McDonalds' agreement with a company representing immigrant farm workers. The deal is that Mickey D's will pay a penny more for every pound of Florida tomatoes and the extra cents will go directly to the workers.

But fast food royal Burger King was not treated kindly by Velshi and anchor Miles O'Brien. The CNN reporters criticized BK for not making the same agreement.

"Burger King has been approached about the same thing and their comment, which is the comment you get from any businesses, not our problem how our suppliers pay their workers," said Velshi.

The site's been so slow that I've decided to take some measures to get things fast again until our upgrade is fully complete within the next two weeks.

You also might have noticed that comments have been missing today. That's because of a test I'm doing which once concluded should make the site much faster. Late tonight, all the old comments (except ones made today) will be restored. Then I will delete all of the really old comments from 2005 and early 2006. They were bogging down the server. This should speed things up significantly.

In the interim, if you have something of genius to say (or want to save someone else's stupid comment) that you must have for the future, save a copy of it locally. Also, please post on this thread if you think the changes have made a difference.

Rosie O’Donnell may be worried about her job after her recent extreme remarks. After a week long vacation, "The View" co-hosts returned to discuss radio talk show host Don Imus’s recent inflammatory remarks. Elisabeth Hasselbeck came out strong against Imus and stated his punishment was not harsh enough.

ELISABETH HASSELBECK: I said he should have a time-out, and they gave him a time out.

ROSIE O’DONNELL: They did give a time out.

HASSELBECK: For two weeks, not long enough in my opinion, but they certainly did suspend him.

JOY BEHAR: How long should he stay- have time out?

If Dr. Roy Spencer was an anthropogenic global warming believer, he’d probably be a household name given his superior credentials as a former Senior Scientist for Climate Studies at NASA.

Sadly, due to his position on this controversial issue, Spencer is part of a growing list of skeptical scientists across the globe that the media ignore as they advance the existence of a consensus concerning climate change that is anything but.

With that in mind, Dr. Spencer wrote an article for National Review Tuesday that was highly critical of the media’s arrogant, one-sided view of global warming. Particularly in the cross-hairs was Vanity Fair, whose recent “Green Issue” has been the subject of previous disfavorable reports by NewsBusters here and here.

Spencer marvelously began (emphasis added throughout):

Monday's lead story in the New York Times by Alissa Rubin and the Times' resident surge pessimist Edward Wong, "Patterns of War Shift in Iraq Amid Buildup of U.S. Force -- Military Fatalities Grow in Baghdad in a Struggle to Create an Island of Calm," is suffused with Wong's usual pessimism about the prospects for success regarding the increase of U.S. troops on patrol in Baghdad.

On a Monday morning discussion on Nancy Pelosi’s Syrian misadventure, NPR talk show host Diane Rehm sneered at the idea of a "so-called liberal press" when some national newspapers were harshly critical of Pelosi’s bungled remarks abroad. (It's about nine minutes into the show if you want to hear the audio.) She asked her guest John Podesta, the former chief of staff to Bill Clinton:

REHM: John, as you well know, there’s been a great deal of criticism about the so-called "liberal press." How do you account for the fact that so many newspapers as cited here this morning came out very critically against Nancy Pelosi?

PODESTA: Well, I don’t know that you know, the Washington Post editorial page, let alone the Wall Street Journal editorial page, I would characterize, particularly on the Middle East, as being liberal.

Calling the Fox News debate a "sordid event," Time magazine's Joe Klein offered Barack Obama the journalistic version of the cinematic slow clap with an April 9 post to Time's "Swampland" blog:

First, congratulations to Barack Obama for dropping out of the Congressional Black Caucus Institute-Fox News debate. With John Edwards already out, that means this sordid event is over...Back in 2004, I remember raising an eyebrow or two when it was announced that Fox would sponsor a debate in partnership with the CBC, of all groups. Roger Ailes' strategy seemed classic:

On Tuesday’s "Good Morning America," co-host Diane Sawyer reported on the second day of her tour of Afghanistan. Unlike previous trips to Syria and Iran, the anchor had no dictator to coddle. She did, however, have time to ask somewhat bewildering questions to members of the United States military. Speaking to one soldier who just had his tour extended, Sawyer wondered if the young man ever felt like just giving up:

Diane Sawyer: "How do you make it through 15 months out here? I mean–"

U.S. Military member [Name not given]: "Well, it's just one of those things. I mean– We, we have a job to do."

Sawyer: "How many times a month do you say, I don't know that I can do another month of this? A day?"

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s make-believe Secretary of State routine in Syria has been painted by the press as a sign of emboldened Democrats taking on Team Bush’s neocon bumblers. Chris Matthews echoed his colleagues’ sentiments when he joyously declared she would "open the doors to peace."

It was, of course, an outrage, a direct slap at the President, an effort to humiliate him on the international stage. President Bush, Vice President Cheney, and White House spokesman Dan Bartlett were quoted decrying Pelosi’s diplomatic freelancing. Conservative talk radio was livid. But where, oh where, were the congressional Republicans?

More to the point, where is the GOP leadership? I haven’t seen the polling data, but it would surprise me if one in ten Americans could even name them, so absent are they from the scene. John Boehner and Roy Blunt lead the House; Mitch McConnell and Trent Lott lead the Senate. Other than an occasional spot on the Sunday talk shows, they might as well adorn milk cartons with most Americans.