Double Standards

On the June 12 "Early Show," anchor Harry Smith again pounded Tony Snow, and Tony Snow again responded with a reprimand. Smith, who recently offered a puffy interview of Al Gore, continued his harsh interrogation of the White House press secretary. When discussing the G-8 summit, Snow asserted that Bush has "taken the lead" on initiatives such as climate change. Smith interrupted Snow like wise.

Video (0:37): Real (0.99 MB) or Windows (1.11 MB), plus MP3 (167 kB).

Can you remember the last time you heard "Today" or other MSM outlets describe, in terms such as "over the top," rabid anti-Bush protests by the likes of the Cindy Sheehan crowd, the Code Pink girls, or the folks pictured below ?  Neither can I. Conversely, when Bill Clinton receives enthusiastic receptions overseas, the MSM breaks out the "rock-star" analogies, with no sarcasm in sight.

But let President Bush receive a warm welcome from Eastern European crowds who appreciate his leadership on behalf of their freedom, and "Today" just can't take it.

On this morning's "Today" at 7:04 am EDT, NBC's Kelly O'Donnell reported from Bulgaria on the president's European trip, in which crowds in Bulgaria and notably in Albania greeted him very enthusiastically.

NBC CORRESPONDENT KELLY O'DONNELL: We've seen the president get a warm, sometimes over-the-top reaction here in Eastern Europe where countries send troops to Iraq and also generally back the president. So he may not be all that anxious to get back to Washington."

View video here

I know. The first thing you thought was, "well, DUH!" Of course Keith Olbermann "overstates". He is a raving lunatic, for Heaven's sake. But, it took long enough for the left leaning MSM to catch on and Public Eye is gently -- and I DO mean gently -- trying to get their truthiest of truthers back on track, apparently. After all, they don't want to hurt his widdle feelings, or nuthin'.

Public Eye's Matthew Felling starts by buttering up Olby's fragile ego with an estimate on how much "media capital" he's "earned" with his show, but soon wonders why he went to far into tin-foil hat territory with his rant that Bush was really responsible for the recent JFK Airport terror plot.

Well, it didn't take long for the MSM to start their attacks on Fred Thompson now that he is in the race. We are seeing more and more of them each day. Here on Newsbusters, Mark Finkelstein was curious what the line of attack would be and I found a few this week myself. Today, we find the next MSM attack line of the day being Thompson's supposed "lack of experience" for the office. Or in the phrasing by Jennifer Rubin of the New York Observer; Thompson is "Like Reagan Without the New Ideas." And, since Thompson supporters are warm to the idea that Fred is "like Reagan" it seems likely the MSM will delight in trying to paint Thompson as a faux Reagan because they know that this particular line of attack would harm him the most were his supporters to begin to believe it.

Just get a load of Rubin's first Republican-slamming paragraph:

If this isn't the ultimate hypocrisy? Here we have new NBC Universal Entertainment Co-chairman Ben Silverman, a highly positioned member of the MSM, getting all huffy over the fact that an eeeevil "Blogger" leaked his important, behind the scenes company operations on the Internet. "I hate the blog world. ... It ends up interfering with people's lives," says the NBC kingpin.

This is hilarious for it's disconnectedness. The MSM doesn't seem to feel THEY are "interfering with people's lives" when they do stories that destroy people (hello Richard Jewell, falsely accused as being the "Centennial Park Olympics bomber" by the MSM -- or "Scooter" Libby for that matter. And let's not forget how the "entertainment" media dogged poor Anna Nicole Smith to her death... and after!). Nor do they worry much about the propriety of leaks of information where it concerns national security (hello New York Times' constant disclosure of National security info). None of those things seem to worry the MSM when it is they being the exposer rather than the exposed (hello Dan Rather and "60 Minutes").

NewsBusters reader Paul Farmer (NoMoreClintons) sent along the following this morning a guest blog submission. Farmer touched on the decidedly vague guidance that the Associated Press gives reporters on when to include a politician's party affiliation.

Farmer has an older AP Stylebook than I have (I have the 2006 edition), but the portion on "party affiliation" he excerpts from his is nearly a word-for-word match with mine.

So in light of AP's pattern of obscuring the party affiliation of the recently indicted Rep. William Jefferson (D-La.) (as reported by NB's Lynn Davidson) and an initial lack of interest by some media in Jefferson's scandal (see this oldie but a goodie from 2005, the early days of NB), I'd thought I'd share Mr. Farmer's thoughts with you:

Ford's protracted sales slump continued in May, while every other major automaker showed gains:

DETROIT — Toyota Motor Corp.'s U.S. vehicle sales jumped 14.1 percent in May to its best monthly level ever and General Motors Corp.'s sales rose 9.7 percent, helping boost industry sales 5 percent, as both automakers credited in part the appeal of their more fuel-efficient offerings amid high gas prices.

For the second month this year, Toyota outsold Ford Motor Co., which saw sales fall 6.9 percent as it continued to cut low-profit sales to rental companies. Nissan Motor Co.'s sales gained 7.4 percent, DaimlerChrysler AG's sales rose 3.9 percent and American Honda Motor Co. rose 2.5 percent.

Even factoring in the change in sales to rental companies, the article goes on to say that Ford's retail sales were still down 3%.

As he did last month, George Pipas of Ford tried an advance PR stunt that fizzled, but left less-than-close observers thinking that the company might be doing better than it really is:

Update at bottom:

Maybe Michael Moore should listen to people who actually have socialized medicine—at least those who are allowed to disagree with their government’s policies. Singer Elton John’s partner David Furnish slammed Michael Moore and his latest docuganda “Sicko” for misrepresenting the quality of the US health care system. On June 02, Furnish stated, ”[America] was the only place to get good treatment”(emphasis mine):

Valerie Plame Wilson claims her life was ruined, her career ended, and national security possibly compromised because her CIA employ was made public, but of course she now wants to cash in with a memoir.

The CIA, for good reason, wants to make sure nothing that compromises national security gets published, and now Plame is literally making a federal case out of that, suing over CIA objections that her dates of employ are and should remain classified.

Another layer of hypocrisy at its finest, but the icing on the cake is the recent allegation that Plame perjured herself in congressional testimony.

Fortunately for her, Time's Jay Carney didn't notice in this oh-shucks post to "Swampland" today.:

Updated with video (13:50 EDT).

Is "Early Show" anchor Harry Smith stumping for an Al Gore presidency? On the May 30 edition of the show, it appeared like he did as he tried to place a "Gore 2008" pin on the former vice president’s suit. Before a tee ball interview, Smith demonstrated his desire for a Gore presidency to co-anchor Hannah Storm.

Video (0:29): Real (798 kB) or Windows Media (906 kB), plus MP3 (130 kB)

An Atlanta judge on Friday sentenced a child molester to life imprisonment for the sexual assault of two children.

However, during sentencing, Superior Court Judge Craig Schwall reserved his harshest criticism for the mother who allowed it to happen.

The following video of a WSB-TV report on the matter contains some possibly offensive language as it included specifics of the crimes committed by the assailant (extremely grateful h/t to our dear friend Ms Underestimated).

During Monica Goodling's testimony before the House Judiciary Committee testimony Dem congressman Steven Cohen of Tennessee quizzed the former Justice Department official regarding her Christian faith and the law school at Regent University, founded by Pat Robertson, that she attended.

An internet search reveals brief references to the interrogation in articles by Dana Milbank in the Washington Post and Maura Reynolds in the Los Angeles Times. But I saw no coverage of the grilling on any of the morning news shows, nor have CNN or MSNBC picked it up as far as I have noticed.

I'm setting forth the actual transcript below, taken from this article, with the following changes. In place of "Regent" university, I'm substituting the name of an apocryphal Islamic university, which I'm calling "Prophet." In place of Christian or Christianity, I'm substituting Muslim. And in place of God, Allah.

Now imagine what kind of MSM uproar there would have been if a Republican congressman had posed these questions to a person of Muslim faith.

Congressman: And it says you went -- chose Muslim universities in part because they -- value they placed on service. What was the other [reason] that you chose Muslim universities?

Imagine for a moment that a high-ranking Republican was accused by a Democrat of violating House rules in order to get a $23 million earmark approved for his district.

Would the media report it?

Probably on front-pages all across the country, and on morning and evening network newscasts for days, right?

Well, last Thursday evening, Politico reported (emphasis added throughout):

Update below.

The left never ceases to amaze and confound an honest man. As we have seen reported on Newsbusters, Jimmy Carter called President George W. Bush the “worst” president in history then lied about it claiming that his words were "careless or misinterpreted.” Carter was seen on the "Today" show trying to get the nation to imagine he didn’t really say what he said attempting to make it seem as if the newspaper that first reported his outrageous, intemperate language had somehow gotten it wrong. In essence, Carter was trying to make it out as if the paper was doing the lying, not him.

The newspaper, however, can prove without the shadow of a doubt that it is Carter who is lying. He did say what was first reported and there is no “carelessness” or “misinterpretation” over his words.

The fact that a former president is caught in a bald faced lie should be big news. You’d think the MSM would be all over the lies of a man who lost his office in one of the biggest landslide elections in history. Yet, here we have Editor & Publisher compounding Carter’s lies by assisting him to avert the subject from his own culpability and to reinforce the “Bush is worst” theme Carter was trying to develop in the first place by obfuscating the fact that Carter was caught in a straight out lie.

The sudden force that the liberal press brought to bear on the falsely accused Duke lacrosse team has been curiously absent on a much more grisly crime committed against a white couple by a group of black youths.

Personally, I don't think that local crime issues should ever be covered in the national press but if the media are going to cover them, they need to be consistent. My friend La Shawn Barber has a must-read post on the matter:

Early this year, a white couple was carjacked, tortured, raped, and murdered by a group of black thugs. Christopher Newsom (23) was gang-raped, shot and set on fire. There are unconfirmed reports that the killers cut off his penis while he was still alive. The going-to-straight-to-hell murderers made Channon Christian (21) watch, and then they gang-raped her over four days and left her to die. There are unconfirmed reports that her breasts were cut off while she was still alive. (Also see this story and the Wikipedia entry)

The Volokh Conspiracy reported that yet another college has cracked down on a conservative student paper. The Primary Source, published a fake ad called “Islam--  Arabic Translation: Submission.” It satirized the events of an upcoming Islamic Awareness Week which quoted verses from the Koran and included unpleasant but true statements about Islam and ended with the statement, "If you are a peaceful Muslim who can explain or justify this astonishingly intolerant and inhuman behavior, we'd really like to hear from you!" This earned the students a quick trip before a disciplinary committee facing charges of "harassment and creating a hostile environment." The school ultimately decided not to punish the students, but from now on, TPS must identify who created which content.

Liberally-minded people and liberal institutions may say that they support free speech, but that claim is parsed down to what the definition of “is” is. This is yet another example of “hate speech is not free speech.” Stepping on and even burning the American flag is allowed (as it should be), but stepping on a flag that has the name of Allah written on it, such as a Hamas flag is not. It is fine for atheists to criticize or make fun of Christianity, but they are not allowed to criticize Islam. A liberal calling Condoleeza Rice Bush’s “house n***a” is acceptable, as is using digital blackface, but conservatives  who say “tar baby”  are hounded. The idea of “hate speech” is rarely applied equally.

The religion of the left seems to be environmentalism, and the everyone knows what happens when religious figures on the right are exposed as hypocrites. Ted Haggard, Jim Baker and others have claimed to stand for one thing and privately lived a life that conflicted with their stated beliefs, and the media covered it non-stop. In contrast, the media ignore that the darling of the Democratic presidential candidates has again been nailed as an environmental hypocrite.

Barack Obama was outed as an SUV driver in 2006, who said at the same time, "the blame for the world's higher temperature rests on gas guzzling vehicles." Now, a year later, the Detroit Free Press' on-line site Freep.com reported similar contradictory behavior today and stated, "his choice to drive a V8 Hemi-powered Chrysler 300C emits a whiff of hypocrisy along with its exhaust fumes."  (emphasis mine throughout):

Wedge issues, those subjects on which basically everyone has an opinion and those opinions are hard and fast, are generally something most politicians try to avoid if at all possible. Usually, it's because their party base takes a very strong stand on a subject that most Americans disagree with in part or in whole. If used properly, wedge issues can be used to separate a politician from the general public.

For Republicans the wedge issues tend to be abortion, creationism, and racial politics. Democrats have these issues too, however the left-dominated media almost never focus on them as Ace writes:

The media loves close questioning about abortion. And Bob Jones University. And the Confederate flag. And etc., and etc., and etc. -- every issue that cuts against Republicans, where the wedge divides base from center, always gets an enormous amount of attention from the Washington press corps.

And what about Democrats' wedge issues? Not only does the media refuse to ask such questions, except in the easiest softball way -- allowing candidates to give their carefully-vetted focus-group-tested non-answers without having to survive the scrutiny of a follow-up -- the media is often insistent that even asking such questions is "divisive" and therefore unethical, if not unAmerican.

Despite its huffy, self-righteous editorial page, the New York Times never has been anywhere close to a paragon of moral consistency. The latest example of the Grey Lady's hypocrisy is on the subject of data-mining, a subject which the editorial side of the paper repeatedly condemned last year. Data-mining is basically a fancy way of compiling user data in an advanced manner. According to the Times, data-mining is wrong when it is done to help fight terrorism. When it's done to fatten the wallets of fatcat liberal newspaper execs then it's ok.

The left-wing Village Voice caught the Times:

Barely a year after their reporters won a Pulitzer prize for exposing data mining of ordinary citizens by a government spy agency, New York Times officials had some exciting news for stockholders last week: The Times company plans to do its own data mining of ordinary citizens, in the name of online profits.

Milwaukee Alderman Micheal McGee, Jr. is definitely a chip off the ol' racist, hateful, block. After his father was recently suspended from WNOV for stating that the death of a conservative talk show host's mother was the "vengeance of God", Michael McGee, Jr. has taken over the show for him. On his first day on the job he lost no time in referring to whites as "dumb devils" and starting his own blog. Here is a quick sample of of his racist rambling:

With Rosie O’Donnell’s announced departure of "The View" other networks such as NBC and CBS are apparently interested in the very controversial comedienne. Broadcastingcable.com reports that Rosie may offer commentary on "The Early Show" in an effort to boost its third place ratings.

"Sources say O'Donnell will meet with CBS brass soon to discuss its offer, which could open the door to regular guest appearances on The Early Show. Her views have generated the type of buzz that could allow CBS to finally lift the perennial third-place program out of the morning-show cellar."

After stating on the air that the death of a conservative talk show host's mother in a tragic fire was "the vengeance of God", you would think that liberal talker Michael McGee would be apologizing in an attempt to keep his job.

Wrong.

He has merely stepped up his ridiculous attacks. In his recent followup interview with the local Fox 6 news, he compared Charlie Sykes to Satan and Hitler and then said the only thing that he regretted was that “his stringy haired ho son wasn’t layin’ there with her” when Katherine Sykes died in a tragic fire.

Yahoo picked up a fluff AP article that distorted Democratic NJ Governor Jim McGreevey’s 2004 resignation. It perpetuated the success of what should have been a politician’s attempt to cover allegations of corruption by using his closeted sexuality to distract an incurious and complicit media. This puff piece kept alive McGreevey’s pattern of announcing something socially startling to draw attention away from the incredible graft, scandal and alleged sexual harassment that would have otherwise defined his administration. When threats to McGreevey's reputation arise, he uses his status as a gay man to deflect unwanted attention, and the AP went along with it by reporting this latest “shocker” and omitting his political affiliation while identifying his opponents’ party (emphasis mine throughout):

Jim McGreevey has gone from altar boy to mayor to the nation's first openly gay governor.

From the moment he stood at a podium in 2004 and announced he was a "gay American" who was resigning because of an affair with a male staffer, people wondered what McGreevey's next act would be.

Now we know: He wants to become a preacher and a teacher.

Directly following the tragic death of Katherine Sykes, the mother of the Wisconsin conservative radio talk show host and blogger Charlie Sykes, liberal talk show host Micheal McGee, Sr. has come out with this statement, live on his radio show (via Channel 12):

“Mother Sykes, she dead. To me it’s the vengeance of God. I ain’t got no tears. Matter of fact a woman that would have a fool like that deserve whatever is coming her. She raised a sure enough idiot,” McGee said on his radio show. “My instincts say Charlie Sykes killed his momma, cuz she live out in this big palace in Mequon all isolated. He got tired of waiting for her money.”

Where is the outrage? Only one small local media outlet, Channel 12, and a number of blogs (Badger Blogger, Marquette Warrior, Michelle Malkin and Gop3.com) have covered it. If this story was reversed, and a conservative said this about McGee's mother, the entire national media along with Sharpton and Jesse Jackson would be on the scene. The article on Channel 12 has indicated that McGee's next show will not air but subsequent shows are not in jeopardy yet. Without public outcry, this type of double standard will continue.

When a lie makes it into print once, it's happenstance. A mere accident, no doubt, due to a lapse of judgment in editing the news feed. What, then, is it called when a lie is repeated countless times without apology? Apparently, it's called "business as usual" for the media. Whenever a funeral is presented by photographers embedded in the Palestinian territories, we're faced with dozens of photographs of crowds of weeping, screaming, shouting people parading around in the streets. We're also inevitably presented with a caption describing how the Israeli occupiers are responsible for the deaths, and how Israel is pouring out suffering all over the innocent, helpless Palestinian people. While these photos always make for a powerful statement, and are picked up by news organizations worldwide for their raw emotional appeal, the information presented along with them isn't always what it appears at first glance to be.

 Over the past few days, Gates of Vienna discussed a very troubling story about Finnish blogger Mikko Ellila, “who has been summoned by the police for a hearing next week, all because of the content of his blog posts.” Mikko posts in Finnish but contacted several people in English about this, such as the Australian blogger Prodos, who owns the site that hosts the potentially criminal blog.  Mikko explained to Prodos why he is going to be questioned by Finnish police:

According to the letter, I am suspected of “hate speech” merely
 because I have pointed out that Islam is a fascist ideology that
 advocates killing Jews, atheists, homosexuals etc.

 Fellow Finnish blogger Vasarahammer explained more about Mikko's problem:

Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) is involved in a scandal that so far the media has completely ignored. David Keene reports:

Anyone who knows much about real power in Congress knows that almost every member of the House and Senate lusts after a seat on the Appropriations Committee and hopes one day to achieve the status of Cardinal. The Cardinals, of course, are the folks who chair the various Appropriations Committee subcommittees and literally control the billions of dollars that pass through their hands.

California Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D) chairs the Senate Rules Committee, but she’s also a Cardinal. She is currently chairwoman of the Interior, Environment and Related Agencies subcommittee, but until last year was for six years the top Democrat on the Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies (or “Milcon”) sub-committee, where she may have directed more than $1 billion to companies controlled by her husband.

If the inferences finally coming out about what she did while on Milcon prove true, she may be on the way to morphing from a respected senior Democrat into another poster child for congressional corruption.

It always amazes when the MSM congeals an entire presidential administration into a form that posits that every member of that administration is the president. Like when they claim that "Bush Lied" about the faulty intelligence that led to the presentation to the UN to garner support for the action in Iraq given by then Secretary of State Colin Powell. Yet, when the MSM wants to exonerate a single member of any particular administration, suddenly the President is forgotten as a part of the discussion and the individual administration official the press is currently in love with is held as a man responsible for his own decisions and exonerated on that basis.

This week's new media darling is former CIA chief George Tenet, one of the worst directors of the CIA we've seen in decades. The MSM have suddenly found him to be an honorable and serious man because of his newly published Bush bashing tell-all.

NBC's Today show loves to promote former administration officials with scathing tell-alls, so long as they're criticizing a Republican president. Tom Brokaw's prodding of George Tenet to criticize the Bush administration's path to war was just the latest example of Today show's love of former GOP administration officials with an ax to grind.

Back in 2004, then Today co-host Katie Couric praised former Bush Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill's book for its critiques of President George W. Bush. However if the tell-all slights a Democratic administration, as George Stephanopolous did with his book, Today takes a decidedly more skeptical tone. Of his 1999 tome, All Too Human, Couric called Stephanopolous' revelations "creepy" and wondered if he was "a turncoat."