Iraq

MSNBC's David Gregory took umbrage with criticism of the media’s coverage of Cindy Sheehan on last night's Hardball at around 7:53pm. The following is a brief exchange from a segment that featured talk show host Melanie Morgan and Democratic strategist Hilary Rosen:

Gregory: "Melanie, let me, let me begin with you. Does Cindy Sheehan have something important to say?"

Melanie Morgan: "I think that Cindy Sheehan believes that she has something very important to say and she has the right to say whatever it is she wants to say. But that doesn`t mean because the mainstream media has portrayed her as a very sympathetic, lone grieving mother, that actually represents the case. In fact..."

Gregory: "Well, hang on one second. Hang on. Let me just, I can`t let all these mainstream media attacks go by. How has the media done that? I will grant that you there`s a news vacuum in August and she`s become a national figure, when perhaps, another part of the year, she may not have. But, I mean, let`s not get so far away from this process that we don`t say that this is a grieving parent who lost a son in, in the war. So, I mean, you just assume that the media is trying to prop her up?"

Cindy Sheehan got a full segment Thursday evening on the NBC Nightly News as anchor Brian Williams framed her protest in the context of how “so far, 1,846 Americans have died in Iraq, nearly 14,000 have been wounded. And it doesn't help that a woman who lost a son in Iraq vows to wait outside the President's ranch until the Commander-in-Chief agrees to speak with her.” Reporter Kelly O’Donnell described Sheehan as “a media magnet," as if journalists have no ability to control that, but O’Donnell did at least note that “Sheehan also has some detractors." ABC’s World News Tonight ran a clip of President Bush rejecting her demands, but then anchor Bob Woodruff relayed how Sheehan retorted that “all we're asking is that he sacrifice an hour out of his...vacation to talk to us." MSNBC’s Countdownfeatured an interview with her and Keith Olbermann insisted that “now her story is about more than just her protest, it's about the role of dissent in a country founded on the right to dissent.”

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CBS White House correspondent Bill Plante mistakenly characterized seasoned anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan's pilgrimage to Crawford, Texas, where Mrs. Sheehan daily protests the war and demands to speak with President Bush. Plante filed a report in the 7:00 a.m. half hour of The Early Show from Crawford which, while noting that opposition to Sheehan from other Iraq military families is starting to grow, mainly focused on support she is receiving from left-wing activist groups like MoveOn.org. Where Plante, and co-host Julie Chen mislead the viewer, however, is how they leave the impression that Sheehan is a political novice who has inspired professional activist groups on the Left to rally to her side. Plante fails to relay how Sheehan has been a vocal anti-war leader and Bush critic for quite a while now, including joining far-left Rep. John Conyers in June in calling for investigations into the Downing Street Memo.

On Thursday night, Keith Olbermann interviewed anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan on his Countdown show. While he did at least ask her about reports that her attitude toward Bush had changed since her meeting with him last year, he also did not challenge inflammatory accusations she made against the President, such as accusing him of the premeditated murder of her son. In reference to the Duelfer report, 9/11 Commission report, and Downing Street memos, she charged, "They show categorically that my son was, his murder was premeditated, that there was no reason to invade Iraq."

Also, when Olbermann asked about reports that members of her family were critical of her protest, she responded that it was her in-laws who were upset with her, and, while repeating the charge that Bush killed her son, she revealed, "When they supported George Bush in November and when they voted for the man who I consider killed their grandson, that's when, that was it. That to me was a betrayal of Casey, and it hurt me so deeply. I haven't spoken to them since." A complete transcript of the interview follows:

During the panel segment on tonight's (Thursday) Special Report with Brit Hume on FNC, Fred Barnes recalled Joe Wilson and Bill Burkett as he wondered, "is there any left-wing publicity hound who the media won't build up?” Zeroing in on Cindy Sheehan, Barnes criticized both her and the media's treatment of her:

“This woman wants to go in and tell the President that the war is about oil because the President wants to pay off his buddies. She's a crackpot, and yet the press treats her as some important protestor.”

One of the more maddening aspects of the Cindy Sheehan story is the implicit argument that her virulent anti-Bush, anti-war attitudes represent a lot of military families, and perhaps even the secret views of soldiers themselves.

But during last year’s election campaign, the Annenberg Public Policy Center (definitely not part of the VRWC), polled members of the military and their families. While the October 16, 2004 press release (written by NYT alumnus Adam Clymer) stressed issues where service members and their families disagreed with the President, there was this gem back in the data tables:

The CBS Evening News on Wednesday devoted a second segment to promoting the vigil of Bush-hater Cindy Sheehan. Bill Plante noted the obvious as he provided more publicity: “She's gotten a lot of media attention by camping out on the road that leads to the President's ranch.” He pointed out that she “understands that it's very difficult for the White House to dismiss anyone in her position” and touted how “she also knows she's not alone. One recent poll shows that one out of three people now say it's time to bring all the troops home." Anchor Bob Schieffer ridiculously asked: "I wonder why the President doesn't meet with her." Plante replied that “you'd think it would be an easy thing to do,” but noted that would lead to him having to “meet with a lot of people.” Plante did point out that Sheehan did meet Bush last year, but “she says that wasn't a satisfying meeting." Plante didn’t note her praise then for Bush.

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Cindy Sheehan, the Vacaville, CA woman whose son was killed in Iraq in 2004, has been a major media phenomenon for the past several days since she showed up outside the President's ranch in Texas. But looking at the latest release from the AP, Grieving Mother's War Protest Draws Notice, you'd think they were breaking news.

The mother of a fallen U.S. soldier who started a quiet roadside peace vigil near President Bush's ranch last weekend is drawing supporters from across the nation. Dozens of people have joined her and others have sent flowers and food. One activist called her "the Rosa Parks of the anti-war movement."

Chutzpah defined, as the most influential newspaper in America criticizes the Bush administration for -- get this -- insufficiently publicizing Iraqi war heroes.

Damien Cave's Sunday piece "Missing in Action: The War Heroes" opens (italics added): "One soldier fought off scores of elite Iraqi troops in a fierce defense of his outnumbered Army unit, saving dozens of American lives before he himself was killed. Another soldier helped lead a team that killed 27 insurgents who had ambushed her convoy. And then there was the marine who, after being shot, managed to tuck an enemy grenade under his stomach to save the men in his unit, dying in the process. Their names are Sgt. First Class Paul R. Smith, Sgt. Leigh Ann Hester and Sgt. Rafael Peralta. If you have never heard of them, even in a week when more than 20 marines were killed in Iraq by insurgents, that might be because the military, the White House and the culture at large have not publicized their actions with the zeal that was lavished on the heroes of World War I and World War II."

And just what might that "culture at large" consist of? Professor Cori Dauber has a lot to say about the hypocrisy of the Times: "It is beyond nerve for the New York Times to come along at this point in the war and publish a piece tsk-tsking the White House and the military for not publicizing these men and women sufficiently. I love that out, that it's 'the culture at large,' you know, 'the zeitgeist,' no names please. Well which media outlet is more important to defining the zeitgeist than any other? Which media outlet has 650 or so subscribers to its wire service? Which media outlet is read by every television producer in the country before they decide which stories are 'newsworthy?' How many articles did the Times run on Sgt. Smith? On Leigh Ann Hester? On Rafael Peralta I found none."

Times Watch has more.

Hard to knock Today this morning for its take on the President's latest poll numbers. Today's theme? That while W's poll numbers on his handling of the economy are down, in fact the economy is up.

As Katie Couric put it: "The President's poll numbers on Iraq and economy are falling even though by all measures the economy is doing well."

Katie returned to the theme in her interview of Tim Russert: "The President's staff should be scratching their heads. In theory they have reason to crow" about the economy, yet the polls show that by a margin of 47%/41%, Americans disapprove W's handling of it.

Today went so far as to trot out a variety of statistics making the case that the economy is doing well, pointing to strong numbers on GDP growth, home ownership and home prices, and low unemployment.

For more on the Raging Grannies that Brent "The Scourge of Media Bias" Baker posted, see additional lame leftist song lyrics here. The Grannies' official page at the Tucson chapter of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (even more lame lyrics) is here. Are they radical lefties? A look at their Spring newsletter shows they chant "Free Lori Berenson," who is an American leftist convicted of aiding a Marxist terrorist group in Peru. That's not so peaceful...

While today's Cyber Alert details the media coverage the networks have given Cindy Sheehan---a California woman who lost her son in the war in Iraq last year---Sheehan's previously positive comments about her visit with President Bush last year has caught the attention of the Drudge Report and prompted a reprint by The Reporter newspaper of Vacaville, California, in order to clear up concerns by left-wing bloggers that Drudge simply lifted comments out of context to "smear" Sheehan.

The newspaper's editor was concerned that comments were lifted out of context which presented Sheehan as having a very positive regard for President Bush last year:

Everyone has seen the ubiquitous ads run by the ‘Video Professor’ on all cable networks 24/7. The smiling bald guy introduces his ‘product’ with which anyone can learn anything about operating a computer. Then the ad cuts to the bewildered woman who says, “My three-year-old knows more about using a computer than I do.”

The New York Times has just demonstrated that it is collectively dumber than a three-year-old, in an article on 9 April, 2005, entitled “One Mother in Crawford.” It is about Cindy Sheehan from Vacaville, California, whose son was killed in Iraq after he reenlisted and returned there. The article says:

“Mr. Bush obviously failed to comfort Ms. Sheehan when he met with her and her family. More important, he has not helped the nation give fallen soldiers like Casey Sheehan the honor they deserve....

Monday's Today on NBC devoted over seven minutes of its last half hour to a friendly story and interview with “raging grannies,” some elderly women in Tucson who hold small rallies outside military recruiting offices where they don big, colorful hats and sing song parodies, such as “we're here to stop the war machine, don't get in our way!", "Halliburton profits from war," “taxes unending, military spending, what a waste, what a waste!" Reporter Peter Alexander trumpeted their efforts: "With their will and their words as their only weapons these grannies from 53 to 93 years of age protest on this downtown street corner every Wednesday." As they sang, “Down with the one who would drive the country under," the camera showed a George W. Bush doll decked out in a black and white striped prison shirt with an American flag draped on his shoulder. Four of the grannies then sat for an interview with a delighted Natalie Morales who tossed softballs at them, such as “What do you hope...that people will get out of this, out of seeing you be an activist and protesting the war in Iraq?" Morales didn't follow up when one one proclaimed that “we'll try and remove our President from his office because he is lying to the public and making war all over the world. It's, it's just unacceptable.” Morales soon hailed their “witty lyrics” and sounded in awe as she wondered: “Tell me what it's like to be able to, to speak and to be a voice for a demographic that, generally we don't hear that much from, especially as activists?"

Transcript follows. Real and Windows Media video also available.

On last night's Hardball on MSNBC, Chris Matthews did his best to keep morale down here on the home front when he brought on anti-war parents of a fallen soldier and asserted American lives were being "wasted" on Iraq like "pouring water into a sand hole." The following is just some of the exchange. Read on for more.

MATTHEWS: Let me ask you, Mr. Schroeder, why do you think we`re in this war? What do you think is the real reason for this war in Iraq?

PAUL SCHROEDER: Well I really don`t know why. I could guess, which might be unfair. But I would guess it has to do with oil. It has to do with deposing a dictator that we used to love and came to hate.

MATTHEWS: Yeah.

The Pentagon has admitted an "egregious" fault in using the same quote from an anonymous Iraqi in two press releases 11 days apart.

Besides one brief mention last week, however, there's been no comment from the New York Times, which is rather surprising -- or perhaps not, given the Times' own quote-recycling history.