Abrams Report

Elizabeth Edwards authorized a friend to attack John Edwards over his infamous "she was in remission" interview on Nightline.  That's the stunning assertion of Sandra Westfall, the "People" magazine writer who authored the article [excerpt here] containing the friend's crticism. Westfall was a guest on tonight's Verdict with Dan Abrams.

DAN ABRAMS: Sandra, let me start with you. Is it fair to say that the story that you guys have in this week's magazine is effectively Elizabeth Edwards' side of the story?

SANDRA WESTFALL: You know, she authorized her brother and her best friend to speak to me on her behalf.

View video here.

We've seen Chris "Thrill Going Up My Leg" Matthews. Keith Olbermann admits to MSNBC viewers that his network doesn't give a "hard time" to Democratic candidates. Olbermann defends Barack Obama by humilating Matthews. Democratic stalwarts Lanny Davis and Ed Rendell blast MSNBC for not being fair to Hillary Clinton and for [Keith Olbermann] saying things that should put him on the Obama campaign payroll, respectively.

But when a Fox News Channel opinion show co-host states that he's a John McCain supporter? Well, that is just too much for "Verdict" host Dan Abrams!

Dan Abrams, apparently still smarting from the castigation he received in April from Karl Rove, just cannot let go. Despite the fact that the "high level" Republican operative, Jill Simpson, who accused Rove of orchestrating the prosecution of convicted Democrat former Alabama governor, Dan Siegelman, never actually met nor talked to Karl Rove and whose "high level" operative activities in her own words never rose above typical volunteer work, Abrams continues to wander into the swamp created by this much less than credible source. On Thursday, Abrams and Catherine Crier were salivating with glee on MSNBC's Verdict over the prospect that the House Judiciary Committee might issue something called an 'inherent contempt' arrest for Karl Rove (emphasis mine):

On last night's "Verdict" with Dan Abrams, Dan and guest [Constitutional Law Professor] Jonathan Turley dissected Sunday's "60 Minutes" interview with U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. After dissenting with Scalia's claim that it was Al Gore "who brought it (election 2000) into the Florida courts," Turley then made the following claim:

Look, both sides were challenging this question. The funny thing of course is that Al Gore appears to have won Florida. And so, when Justice Scalia says he brought this trouble upon himself, that‘s not exactly fair since he apparently won the state, did not get credit for the state and ultimately lost the presidency over that failure.

On Monday night, we were privy to Round II of Dan Abrams' (of MSNBC's Live with Dan Abrams pseudo-fame) lukewarm game show, "Rush Limbaugh -- UnAmerican".

Both times Abrams levied said assertion in response to Limbaugh's apparently effective (at least at tweaking the likes of Abrams) Operation CHAOS.

Which is what Limbaugh has dubbed his call for Republicans to cross over -- where legal -- to vote for Hillary Rodham Clinton in the Democratic Presidential primaries. In so doing he hopes to prolong as much as possible the Democrat primary process.

Limbaugh began Operation CHAOS in advance of the March 4th primaries and primary/caucus held in Ohio, Rhode Island, Vermont and Texas. It appeared to be at least somewhat effective beyond just ruffling Abrams' feathers, as HRC won three of the four (losing only in Vermont). Which is when Abrams first resorted to Limbaugh name calling -- at least in this regard.

Left wing think tank hatchet reporting

The Establishment Media's Weapon of ChoiceAnd you thought only the New York Times was engaged in not-for-profit journalism.

Behold the Center for Public Integrity (CPI), who on Wednesday made headlines across the nation with their report -- co-authored with the Fund for Independence in Journalism (FIJ) -- entitled "Iraq - The War Card: Orchestrated Deception on the Path to War".

The Establishment Media hailed the study's lead "finding" -- 935 false statements by Bush Administration officials in the two-year period leading up to the launch of the War. The Associated Press, CNN, MSNBC, the Washington Post and -- of course -- the New York Times were all exhilarated to once again climb aboard the "Bush Lied - People Died" Express.

An interesting discussion occurred on CNN's "Reliable Sources" Sunday when host Howard Kurtz raised the issue of MSNBC intentionally moving to the left politically, as well as its failed attempt to hire Rosie O'Donnell.

Maybe most shocking was conservative radio talk show host Michael Medved saying of the recent events at MSNBC, "I think it shows that they're getting smart."

Coming in a close second was Jennifer Pozner of Women in Media and News stating with a straight face "the majority of the people who host shows on MSNBC are either centrists or conservative," and that Keith Olbermann "is a liberal host, but he doesn't necessarily promote liberal candidates or promote liberal projects."

Deliciously, that might not have been the most absurd statement from Pozner this day (partial transcript follows with emphasis added for your entertainment pleasure):

Presuming Bush administration dissembling and illegality, NBC anchor Brian Williams considered it “big” news Thursday night that the administration “secretly authorized abusive interrogation techniques for terrorism suspects, including torture, despite denial from everyone from President Bush on down. And the policy remains even though the Supreme Court ruled against it.” Picking up on the front page New York Times disclosure of the classified documents, which neither the ABC nor CBS evening newscasts considered newsworthy, the NBC Nighty News ran a very slanted story that, other than one short soundbite from White House Press Secretary Dana Perino about how “they were safe, necessary and lawful, these techniques, and have helped save American lives,” aired only condemnatory comments as reporter Andrea Mitchell assumed the methods are torture.

She reminded viewers that “after a political firestorm, devastating pictures from Abu Ghraib and a Supreme Court ruling,” last year the President promised “the United States does not torture” and “I will not authorize it,” yet the New York Times reported that in 2005 the Justice Department under Alberto Gonzales issued memos “authorizing much harsher techniques, including head-slapping, waterboarding, frigid temperatures and 'combined effects' -- using several practices simultaneously, despite dissent on his staff. Today leading Democrats vowed to pass new laws.” Without any consideration for how the memos could have been written to allow the use of the techniques in only the most dire circumstances, and thus the techniques may not have been employed, Mitchell warned: “There's also a big impact on foreign policy. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has promised U.S. allies that the administration does not use torture, even though officials say she knew about the memos.”

The New York Times might be thankful that it is not on trial with Dan Abrams serving as prosecutor.  The impassioned argument he made against the journalistic value of the Times' lengthy account of the Duke rape case in today's paper, Files From Duke Rape Case Give Details but No Answers, might have sent the paper to the Big House for years to come.

Interviewed by Tucker Carlson, Abrams, who until taking over as head of MSNBC had his own justice-oriented show on the network, came out guns ablazin'.

"I thought it was shameful. I think it was an editorial on the front page of what is supposed to be the news division of the newspaper."

Reporters for rival networks of Fox News had unkind things to say about Dick Cheney's preference for Fox when staying at hotels.

MSNBC's "The Abrams Report":

"And he wants brewed decaf coffee and all the televisions must be tuned to the home team, Fox News. Horrors to think he might encounter other networks while flipping the channel himself on his way over... It's got me thinking I should make some demands of my own. From now on whenever I travel, I want a bottle of wine waiting, not just any wine, but fine wine. I want the TV tuned to MSNBC."

CNN reporter Carol Costello said on "American Morning":

"And, yes, all the TVs set to C -- no, to Fox News."

To which anchor Soledad O'Brien quipped, "Not really a shocker on that front."

Jack Cafferty on CNN's "The Situation Room" used his trademark "F-word network" putdown.

You know the old challenge: try to describe a spiral staircase without using your hands.

This evening's Abrams Report on MSNBC managed to pull off an equally impressive feat: describing a gay porn and sexual exploitation ring without mentioning that it was just that, or indeed even that males were involved.

It goes without saying that there are all sorts of predators on the internet, including many adult heterosexual men seeking to exploit underage girls. The purpose of this report is not to single out gays, but to draw attention to the PC-manner in which MSNBC approached an issue.

Abrams Report guest host Lisa Daniels had as her guest NY Times reporter Kurt Eichenwald. In this Times article, Eichenwald had broken the story of Justin, a young teenager who had hooked up a web cam, and in looking for friends on the internet, was gradually lured into becoming an internet porn star. In the segment, and in seeing him elsewhere on air, Eichenwald comes across as a good guy and a solid professional. Particularly in light of his employment at the NY Times, he deserves credit for taking up the story in the first place.

In discussing the perpetrators, Daniels and Eichenwald referred to them variously as "they" and "the predators," with Eichenwald going so far as to call them "evil." But neither ever managed to mention that the consumers of the porn were men. For all we knew, these were Desperate Housewives on line. But in fact, as Eichenwald did reveal in his Times article, this was a gay porn ring, and indeed the abuse went beyond the internet - Justin ultimately was physically molested by a number of men.