Blogs

ACORN Controversy Provides Case Study in Combating Media Liberalism

The scandal surrounding the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now has provided a number of case studies in liberal media bias. The initial silence of the vast majority of media outlets on the story, the attempts by leftist commentators to excuse ACORN and discredit the group's critics, and Andrew Breitbart's strategy of rolling out video exposes periodically to counter those commentators, all speak to the liberal media paradigm, and activists' efforts to combat it.

Breitbart and his filmmaking proteges James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles have released another video showing an ACORN employee volunteering her help in establishing an underage prostitution business. This employee, Lavelle Stewart, had been trumpeted by liberal pundits as a shining example of ACORN's refusal to aid in criminal deeds. Stewart, they claimed, had refused to help Giles and O'Keefe as many other employees had.

But the new videos (Part 1 video embedded below the fold) tell a different story. "There are ways, people do it all the time," Stewart told O'Keefe when asked if he could launder prostitution money into his congressional campaign. "Yeah there are ways, especially out here in California," she added. Stewart, who works in an ACORN office in Los Angeles, was the latest staffer of the organization to volunteer her services in smuggling underage girls into the country, setting up a prostitution ring with those girls, and laundering the proceeds into a political campaign.

Newsweek's Miller Complains 'Abortion Is Not the Only Moral Issue' in Health Care Debate

"This week's abortion conversation is about politics. Let's not pretend it's about anything else," Newsweek's Lisa Miller huffed in a November 18 Newsweek.com post, complaining about how the moral issues surrounding abortion are taking on a life of their own in the health care debate.

We suffer, this week, from a moral myopia. Thanks to the passage in Congress of a health-reform bill, abortion is in the news again, but with the same old warriors brandishing their same old spears.

But while Miller went on to list both pro-life and pro-choice "old warriors," it's hard to believe her beef is with both sides of that fight equally. Miller laments that:

Our entire health-care system (and the proposed reform) is rife with "complex moral issues." To activate our consciences only in the realm of abortion relieves those consciences of too much responsibility. 

'The Blind Side': Predictable Liberal Critics, Predictable Criticism

I haven’t seen “The Blind Side” yet, so I won’t say anything about the quality of the film. But based on the trailer and the true story, my wife and I are as excited about this as any film in a long time. It tells the true story of the adoption of Michael Oher by the Tuohy family in Tennessee and how they helped him go from homeless teenager to professional football star. The book was incredible, the story miraculous. We’re especially excited because we’re big adoption advocates, currently in the middle of our first of many planned adoptions. Also, the Tuohys happen to be conservative Christians like we are, and we don’t normally get to see families like that on screen, at least in movies that are watchable.

Apparently, this makes me a racist.

You see, Michael Oher happens to be black, and the Tuohys happen to be white. I actually think that’s pretty cool, especially because they live in Tennessee, and what gets us farther from the evil days of segregation than an increased number of mixed-race families? One would assume that liberals especially would be excited about that, right?

Not so fast.

USA Today Religion Blog: Is Bible-defacing 'An Acceptable Political Statement'?

Openly gay actor Ian McKellen recently told Details magazine that he proudly defaces Bibles left in hotel nightstands, ripping out pages containing verses which condemn homosexual behavior. USA Today's Leslie Miller picked up on this yesterday for the paper's "Faith & Reason" blog, after spying a blog post by colleague Barbara De Lollis in a November 16 post for her Hotel Check-In blog for USA Today.

For her part, De Lollis relayed the news item and wondered, "Could word of McKellen's habit spark a movement?" De Lollis went on to ask:

Bonnie Erbe: Palin 'Loony' But Levi Johnston 'Believable'

Veteran Sarah Palin hater Bonnie Erbe is at it again, today proclaiming the former Alaska governor is "loony" for saying that she would open her dinner table at Thanksgiving to the father of her grandson:

Say what, Sarah? This is the guy who refused to marry her daughter, Bristol, pregnant. This is the guy who has made a career (or tried to) by telling the Palin family secrets. And they are not pretty.

Erbe then went on to quote some of Johnston's (unsubstantiated) claims, before rendering her verdict:

ABC's 'Blotter': Hasan Had Multiple Ties to Jihadi Groups, Styled Self As 'Soldier of Allah'

Richard Esposito, Mary-Rose Abraham and Rhonda Schwartz of ABC's "The Blotter" have a fresh post up on ABCNews.com about Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan's ties to jihadi groups. It's a fascinating read.

Esposito and his colleagues report that:

Conservative Activist, Author Talks to Bloggers About New Book on 1980 Reagan Campaign

Earlier today I had the pleasure of attending the weekly blogger's briefing hosted by the Heritage Foundation. Conservative activist and public relations consultant Craig Shirley was the featured guest, and he spoke about his new book "Rendezvous with Destiny: Ronald Reagan and the Campaign That Changed America."

Shirley noted the remarkable parallels between the Republican Party that Reagan and the conservative movement revitalized in the late 1970s and early 1980s with the situation facing conservatives today.

Then as now liberal Democrats claimed the presidency and liberal ideology seemed ascendant following the tenure of Republican presidents who expanded the size and scope of government (Nixon) and/or were inept (Ford). Now as in the late 1970s, it is conservatives standing outside the establishment who can be the revitalizing and reforming force for the GOP and more importantly the country.

During a roughly 30-minute Q&A session, Shirley answered a series of questions from bloggers in attendance, and shared among other things the following observations:

Reuters, PBS Noted Faith's Role in Fall of Berlin Wall

I believe in miracles. They happen everyday.

Like Reuters, of all news outlets, acknowledging the role that religious faith played in the dissident movements in East Germany leading up to the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.

Sarah Pulliam Bailey picked up on that in a November 9 post at Get Religion yesterday:

With Bon Jovi, Angela Merkel and Mikhail Gorbachev likely to steal the spotlight at the Berlin wall 20th anniversary celebration, Reuters’ Tom Heneghan says Protestant leaders feel overlooked:

Time's Newton-Small Focuses On Cao Vote, Glosses Over 15.1% of Dems Defecting On PelosiCare

Saturday's vote to pass ObamaCare out of the House of Representatives was a nail-biter, passing with two votes to spare over the bare-minimum majority of 218. The final vote, 220-215, had 39 Democrats join all but one Republican in voting no.

Yet while a solid 15 percent of the Democratic caucus bucked the party leadership with their no votes, the media have latched on to the sole Republican defector: pro-life, social conservative Catholic Rep. Joseph Cao (R-La.), who has a tenuous hold in a solidly liberal Democratic district once held by the corrupt William Jefferson.

Time's Jay Newton-Small made much of the solitary Republican defection in Swampland blog post on Saturday, painting it as an abject failure of House GOP Whip Eric Cantor's "promise" to keep the opposition unified. Newton-Small had to add an update later clarifying Cantor made no such explicit promise:

Campaign Dirty Trick Targeted Gay GOP Alderman Candidate, MSM Fail to Run with Story

An openly gay city council candidate is targeted by malicious campaign literature suggesting he may be a pedophile and subsequently loses his bid for alderman.

It's the type of story highlighting bigotry and homophobia that the mainstream media would love to trumpet and it happened just days ago in the 2009 city elections in Annapolis, Md.

Unfortunately for Scott Bowling, he's a Republican in the liberal capital city of Maryland.

Aside from coverage in the Annapolis Capital and the Baltimore Sun's Maryland Politics blog, a Google News search and Nexis searches of the AP wire, major newspapers, and network transcripts revealed no coverage of the story in the mainstream media:

CBS Paints Pro-Traditional Marriage Petitioners as 'Anti-Gay Rights'

"Should Anti-Gay Rights Petition Signers Be Exposed?" asked a teaser headline [screencap shown at right] on CBSNews.com's front page.

"Hot Topic: Battle Rages in Washington State over Privacy of Petition Signers" the subheader read. 

While the November 3 article itself by staffer Brian Montopoli was balanced -- giving room for a social conservative activist to defend keeping the names and addresses of signatories of the Referendum 71 petition from being made public -- the headline sets the tone for readers to see pro-traditional marriage backers in Washington State as folks motivated to deprive fellow citizens of their "rights."

So what does Referendum 71 actually do? According to Montopoli:

Erbe: Dems Losing on Election Day Have Fizzled Bush Hatred to Blame

If Democrats get a spanking at the polls today, it's not because American voters are trending conservative or are frustrated with the direction liberal Democrats are leading the country, but because the electorate's disdain for the former Bush administration has abated.

That according to liberal PBS "To the Contrary" host and U.S. News contributing editor Bonnie Erbe.

From her November 2 blog post (emphasis mine):

Couric's Notebook Nag: Don't Let Cereal Cartoons Parent Your Kids

Perhaps hopped up on the nutritious goodness of Mueslix, CBS "Evening News" anchor Katie Couric took to her Notebook vlog on Friday to nag parents about the need to keep their kids away from the siren song of sugary cereals (transcript hers):

Froot Loops, Cookie Crisp, Reese's Puffs - I almost got a cavity just reading that. Yet, they're the kinds of sugary cereals children beg for at the grocery store.

The boxes and T-V ads usually have a colorful cartoon character on them. But, one group of researchers is not amused.

NYT's Zeleny Again Involved in Obama Story Scrub

NYTlogoWithPaper2009Bloggers and their readers have "joked" about the New York Times being the official house organ of the Obama White House. Maybe it's not a joke.

Earlier this month (as seen at NewsBusters; at BizzyBlog), several bloggers caught the Times making significant changes to its initial coverage of Chicago's humiliating loss of its bid to host the 2016 Summer Olympics, and of President Obama's involvement in that loss. The first Times report by Peter Baker was fairly harsh, questioning the President's judgment in getting involved, while citing his slipping poll ratings.

After Times organ grinder -- er, reporter -- Jeff Zeleny got a hold of the story, most of the harshness went away, as did Baker's original story. All of a sudden, at the same URL, there was no reference to tarnished presidential prestige. A dismissive assertion that the embarrassment "would fade in a news cycle or two" appeared. There was also a mention of Obama's 25-minute meeting with Afghanistan General Stanley McChrystal that was not in the original. The reference to falling poll numbers also disappeared.

Well, the Times has just pulled a similar stunt in its coverage of President Obama's Wednesday night/Thursday morning visit to Dover Air Force Base. Once again, Jeff Zeleny is involved.

Liberal PBS Host Slams Obama From Left For...Shooting Hoops with the Guys

Barack Obama is just as much a woman-hater as the late conservative North Carolina Senator Jesse Helms in the wild eyes of radical abortion-mongering feminist and PBS "To the Contrary" host Bonnie Erbe.

And just why is Ms. Erbe so steamed at President Obama? Because, and I kid you not, the commander-in-chief doesn't shoot hoops with women.

Erbe -- who has still not gotten over Obama losing to her favored Democrat Hillary Clinton -- explained in her October 27 Jefferson Street blog entry in U.S. News & World Report:

HuffPo's New Obsession: Take Down the U.S. Chamber of Commerce

Every time the White House has a new enemy, left-wing Web-based media outlets take up the cause to defend the Obama administration.

Earlier this year when CNBC personalities criticized the Obama administration, the Huffington Post and other components of the left-wing noise machine watched every word said on the financial network - an effort that has since petered out. The Huffington Post also asked readers to supply reports to undermine the credibility of the tea party protests that were critical of the Obama administration.

So it should come as no surprise that the Huffington Post is making a call for all hands on deck to aid the White House with its latest feud with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The Huffington Post now wants to know who gives money to the Chamber of Commerce.

The Left Is Warned: Don't Call Them FOX!

Some blog posts about Fox News on the Daily Kos blog are so bizarre you wonder if they are real. The diarist "Brentbent" fussed on Wednesday that the socialist bloc should never put Fox in capitals:

CNN and MSNBC are supposed to be all caps because they are acronyms...each letter represents a word. Fox is not an acronym. If marginalization is the goal then people should stop capping it like CNN or MSNBC. It is Fox News or Fox but it is not FOX...Let's stop equating Fox as an equal to MSNBC or CNN by stopping the capping of Fox.

Yes, I am being a bit pedantic here but, in the long run, these things matter. If you grow up seeing MSNBC, CNN, and FOX on your screen over and over it seems to legitimize Fox as a real news agency. So I am hoping to curtail this phenomenon at least amongst the progressive community, where I see it happen all too often. And we all know spelling it FOX will cause a massive butterfly effect that will end up with the soul of Hitler inside Jenna Bush running the nation and starting World War 4. (The media elites kept WW3 hidden from us.) So whatever you do don't spell it FOX!

Fox News: Objective As... Air America?

Cenk Uygur of the leftist "Young Turks" radio show wrote up a funny list of "three categories of media" for the Daily Kos, putting Fox News in the category "partisan press" with Mother Jones and National Review magazines, but putting ABC, CNN, the New York Times, and the MSNBC "News Programs" on a list called "Straight News."

He also suggested they're about as much a news organization as...Air America radio.

In a Monday blog post insisting the White House is "100% Right" to suggest Fox isn't a real news network, Uygur insisted "The Obama White House has taken on Fox News channel in an effort to point out they are not a legitimate news network. This is very important because out of all the outlets mentioned above, they are the only ones being dishonest about what category they are in." Here's the list:

MSNBC's Shuster Tickled Pink by Green Hoax

MSNBC's David Shuster declared yesterday's fake Chamber of Commerce presser at the National Press Club the "Best prank of [the] week" on his Twitter page shortly before 5:30 p.m. EDT today. He added a link taking readers to the left-leaning blog Talking Points Memo.

A group of liberal environmentalist activists punked some journalists by throwing a press conference claiming to represent the Chamber of Commerce. In the fake presser, the pranksters claimed that the Chamber was reversing its opposition to so-called cap-and-trade legislation.

In a follow-up Tweet, Shuster added:

Andrew Breitbart on Battling the 'Democrat-Media Complex'

In an interview with the Wall Street Journal on Friday, Andrew Breitbart, founder of such center-right online powerhouses as Big Government and Big Hollywood, blasted what he dubs the "Democrat-media complex." He spoke of his most recent exposes on the administration's political malfeasance and the mainstream media's refusal to cover those scandals.

Breitbart rocketed into the national spotlight with his work with James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles, the young conservatives responsible for the ground-breaking ACORN sting operations that led to congressional votes to de-fund the community organizing group.

"I had a 20-year-old and a 25-year-old and my integrity on the line if we were going to launch this," Mr. Breitbart says. "It was so obvious that the mainstream media, given this information, would not cover it and would, in effect, attempt to cover it up." So he devised an intricate strategy of rolling out the videos one at a time, anticipating Acorn's defenses and rebutting each in turn with the next video...