YouTube

Are liberal Democrats less likely to have social lives than conservatives?

According to Karl Rove, the answer to that question is yes. The Republican guru all but made that argument explaining why he thought liberals are more likely to be on the web than conservatives.

"I hate to sound sort of diffident about it but it strikes me that a lot of people on the right have got active lives and are doing other things," Rove said. "The idea of spending a lot of time on the internet and taking their talents and displaying them there is not something [conservatives] really do."

What is it about humor? It seems inevitable now. Whenever one of our NewsBusted episodes gets popular, it inevitably attracts left-wing haters who get enraged that something poking fun at their sacred cows is allowed to even exist at all.

I'll be checking in later today with a few choice examples of today's dose of liberal peace and love but in the mean time, have a look at the comments yourself. Notice also how many of these left-wingers blindly rate us "one-star" just because NewsBusted is conservative.

The Islamofascists are mad at YouTube... or at least there were. They aren't anymore, of course, because YouTube has folded to a cyberterror campaign launched in Islamabad, Pakistan. Islamists in Pakistan launched a cyber attack against YouTube over the video service's hosting of the trailer to a Dutch documentary that claims that Islamic doctrine is an "inspiration for intolerance, murder and terror."

So, in another strike against freedom of expression, YouTube has promised to eliminate any content that is deemed by extremist, Islamists half way across the world as "highly provocative and blasphemous" against Islam.

Once again, extremist, Islamists win another battle against the ever more weak spined and compliant west. And this win is ominous for the Internet because now the Islamofascists don't even have to take control of a government or a population to impose their oppression on the people of the world. They can do it all across the world at once with cyberterror.

If you haven't been asleep or out of the country the past seven days, you are fully aware of two rather controversial skits performed last Saturday on NBC's "Saturday Night Live."

In one, CNN Democrat debate moderators were depicted, "like nearly everyone in the news media," as being "totally in the tank for Senator Obama." Later, host Tina Fey basically gave a campaign speech for Hillary Clinton.

Videos of these skits began appearing at YouTube almost as soon as they were performed on the East Coast. Apparently for copyright infringement reasons, these unauthorized videos were pulled, sometimes within hours of them being posted.

Yet, as suggested by NewsBusters reader Myron Howard, there appears to be a political element at play for this clip from Saturday's show featuring Republican candidate Mike Huckabee was posted at YouTube on Sunday, and has not been removed:

Choice excerpts of Media Research Center Founder and President Brent Bozell on C-SPAN's Washington Journal on February 22, 2008.

Bozell speaks of the Bill Keller New York Times disaster, its implications for the 2008 Presidential race and more.

C-SPAN's posting of the full video of the 30-minute segment from Washington Journal.

Back in 1986, Time and other news organizations attempted to whip up hysteria about a new firearm on the market, the Glock 17, attempting to state that it could pass easily though airport metal detectors, and therefore become a favored weapon for terrorists or hijackers

The manufactured Glock hysteria was of course false; the barrel, slide, sights, and of course the pistol cartridges themselves are made of dense metals, and the promised "new guns made entirely of plastic" have never materialized on the consumer market.

Yesterday I ran across another attempt to create a false hysteria, this time about painted guns. Yes, really. (video below page break)

After provoking a small scandal among pro-lifers, YouTube has restored a video which it had previously removed from its database. The show, produced by the American Life League, was originally yanked by YouTube after being "flagged" as inappropriate by YouTube viewers.

Now that the video has been restored, it seems that this was yet another case of liberals abusing YouTube's flag feature. Originally designed to alert the video sharing service of inappropriate content or copyright violations, flagging is often the tool of angry people upset at speech they find disagreeable. (Many Muslims seem to be similarly inclined.)

Of course YouTube has every right to disallow any video they deem unworthy of their service, this goes without saying. But, when YouTube sets up it's own criteria for removing a video and then removes videos that do not fit its own criteria, then we have cause to wonder if a particular reason for banning videos is one that is kept secret from users. That secret reason would be a certain political bias used by Youtube to eliminate content. And, naturally, that bias is in favor of leftist causes and against the conservative ones.

Such is obviously the case with the recent removal of a video created by the American Life League that criticizes several promiscuous Planned Parenthood condom advertisements. The videos were removed, according to Youtube, because of an "inappropriate nature" and also because of complaints by YouTube members. But, the claim by YouTube that the ALL's ad breached Youtube's "inappropriate nature" rule does not stand up to logic or scrutiny, nor does it seem to fit their own publicly stated rules.

Last Monday, ALL received an email message from YouTube announcing the decision. The ALL website reports that, "The e-mail sent to American Life League said, 'After being flagged by members of the YouTube community and reviewed by YouTube staff, the video below has been removed due to its inappropriate nature.'"

Allahpundit has the video of Fox News anchor letting the former Al Gore [fashion] adviser have it in a posting over at Hot Air. This happened in the 3 o'clock half hour of "Studio B." Here's an excerpt:

SHEP SMITH to NAOMI WOLF: I want to apologize to you for pointing my finger at you. I just get tired of people like you saying every time you're challenged on something that you say that it's something about Fox. It's not something about Fox. I don't have a horse in this race and for you to suggest such a thing is both inaccurate and insulting.

WOLF: Okay, Shep, if you knew my long relationship with Fox--

SMITH: I do know your long relationship with Fox, but I don't think it's fair to just take shots at us because we ask questions. And I think to say that we want to get our babies out of Iraq -- last time I checked everybody over there's at least 18.

I mentioned earlier how whenever one of our "NewsBusted" episodes gets especially popular on YouTube, it inevitably attracts left-wing haters who simply can't take the joke being on them. It's pretty much axiomatic. Popular "NewsBusted" creates angry liberals.

Read past the jump for some of the vile stuff the hate-filled left is saying about the current "NewsBusted" episode now that it's the #1 comedy video on all of YouTube and #4 in all categories:

Is CNN capable and professional enough to host presidential debates? After last week’s CNN-YouTube debate fiasco, even Tim Rutten, a media writer for the left-leaning Los Angeles Times, was giving CNN a big fat F for failure: "In fact, this most recent debacle masquerading as a presidential debate raises serious questions about whether CNN is ethically or professionally suitable" to host debates. CNN had the opportunity to perform a journalistic swan dive. Instead it produced an enormous belly flop. It’s far worse when you realize this mess of a production was the highest-rated primary presidential debate in history.

Back in May, after the Democrats stiff-armed the Fox News Channel invitation to debate, many conservatives believed the Republicans should return the favor with CNN and its proposed CNN-YouTube debate. I disagreed. I suggested in this space that Republicans should accept debates on CNN, but be more forceful in setting the terms and selecting the hosts. It seemed correct to assume at the time that CNN would attempt to be more fair and balanced simply because so much was riding on the outcome, namely CNN’s very credibility as an impartial observer of the political process.

I was wrong. We can’t expect CNN to be an honest broker.

CNN Washington Bureau Chief David Bohrman appeared on Sunday’s Reliable Sources to defend the CNN selection of liberals and Hillary supporters in disguise as questioners at the CNN-YouTube debate. Bohrman made several odd claims. They Googled Gen. Keith Kerr, the gay endorser of Hillary Clinton, but didn’t find the Hillary campaign documents, which was allegedly new to Google when it was found in minutes during the debate. They stopped investigating Kerr because he had a "great question...regardless of where he was from." Bohrman took the same position with the Edwards supporter they used. CNN does not agree that investigating the backgrounds of alleged grass-roots questioners is important. And in the wake of the Kerr backlash, CNN wishes they’d decided on a different Victim of Social Conservatives: "Let's use the gay linguist from Guantanamo who was dismissed."

First, the ever-changing Google exchange:

Here’s an update on the St. Petersburg Times report on CNN’s snarky response to conservative bloggers. Eric Deggans, one of the reporters on the CNN-YouTube debate, brought his own skepticism on Friday to CNN’s responses to the secret Hillary Campaign questioner on his blog The Feed. (Deggans is not a conservative, as my earlier Koulter Klan blog illustrates.)

Deggans mentions the anti-CNN complaints of bloggers on both sides, but suggests the liberals should consider how they would respond if the shoe was on their foot: "even though some liberal bloggers are saying the political background of questioners shouldn't matter, I have a hard time believing they would have tolerated seeing Hillary Clinton asked a tough question on an issue important to conservatives by someone with hidden ties to Rudolph Giuliani or George W. Bush."

CNN is defending its job in vetting questions for last night's debate, reports Politico's Kenneth Vogel:

The retired general who quizzed Republican presidential candidates about gays and lesbians in the military was not the only person linked to a Democratic presidential candidate who got to ask a question at Wednesday’s CNN/YouTube debate.

CNN also aired questions from supporters of Democratic candidates John Edwards and Barack Obama.

And that’s fine by the network, which is standing by its question selection process and lashing out at critics who say the debate demonstrated CNN’s liberal bias.

“We’re focused on the questions, not the questioners,” said Sam Feist, CNN’s political director.

There might be something to that approach. As our own Brad Wilmouth reported, the questions largely pressed the Republican field from the right.:

As YouTube is gearing up with CNN to host a Republican presidential debate on Wednesday, the video-sharing service is finding itself embroiled in another censorship controversy with an Egyptian blogger named Wael Abbas:

The video-sharing Web site YouTube has suspended the account of a prominent Egyptian anti-torture activist who posted videos of what he said was brutal behaviour by some Egyptian policemen, the activist said.

Wael Abbas said close to 100 images he had sent to YouTube were no longer accessible, including clips depicting purported police brutality, voting irregularities and anti-government demonstrations. YouTube, owned by search engine giant Google Inc, did not respond to a written request for comment. A message on Abbas's YouTube user page, http://youtube.com/user/waelabbas, read: "This account is suspended."

"They closed it (the account) and they sent me an e-mail saying that it will be suspended because there were lots of complaints about the content, especially the content of torture," Abbas told Reuters in a telephone interview. Abbas, who won an international journalism award for his work this year, said that of the images he had posted to YouTube, 12 or 13 depicted violence in Egyptian police stations.

If the preview shown on "CNN Sunday Morning" is any guide, Wednesday's CNN/YouTube Republican debate will likely be dominated by questions posed from the left, just as the CNN/YouTube Democratic debate also featured questions posed from the left. CNN correspondent Josh Levs showed clips of several sample questions, including a question from a gay Republican who charges "a vote for you is a vote against my family," a question from a woman concerned about "returning the civil liberties to the American people and stopping these outrageous attacks on our security and our privacy," and a question about CEO salaries increasing faster than the minimum wage. While Levs cautioned that he does not know whether any of the questions used in his piece will be chosen for the debate, none of the questions that appeared in the report were posed from a conservative point-of-view. (Transcript follows)

Below is a complete transcript of the segment from the November 25 "CNN Sunday Morning":

As we at NewsBusters have noticed, the media often pass off professional or semi-professional liberal activists as average Joes and Janes. The effect, of course, is to give a feel of authenticity to the problems, real or perceived, that these folks are struggling with, and often demand government intervention for.

So it's not surprising that the "undecided voters" in the recent Democratic debate in Vegas were often liberal activists. Bryan Preston of Hot Air looked into it. You can check out his blog entry here, or watch the embedded video posted above. (h/t Michelle Malkin)

Bad economy! Bad, bad, bad economy!

Business & Media Institute director Dan Gainor appeared on ‘Fox Business Live' November 15 to discuss the media's focus on the negative parts of the economy. Two of the networks, NBC and CBS led with positive news of the year's second best day of the year, but then focused on high gas prices this week.

"It goes beyond ‘it bleeds, it leads.' This is a consistent theme we've been watching for several years...Any time you have any sort of negative news they hype that and any sort of positive news, they undercut it," said Gainor.

"Stop, hey, what's that sound?" Nuclear power getting put down. Again.

In 1979, musicians such as Bonnie Raitt, Graham Nash, and Jackson Browne were hailed "the energy source everyone had been looking for" to fight against nuclear power. The result of their support was termed a "chain reaction." The group has returned, picking up where it left off nearly 30 years ago.

And what better to bridge the gap into the new millennium than YouTube. (Video after the break)

Christmas is still nearly seven weeks away, and already the media are offering a “Bah, Humbug” for retail sales and the U.S. economy.

CNN shoveled coal at the positive economic news on November 2 and immediately moved into full Grinch mode.

“You know, just earlier this week the broadest measure of the economy, Kyra, the GDP, came in at 3.9 percent, stronger than expected. What’s working against it, though, the financials, concerns that we’re going to have a lot more carnage coming from that very important sector, consumer spending …” said “Newsroom” correspondent Susan Lisovicz.

On September 24 of this year, Alexis Christoforous of “CBS Morning News” warned, “It could be a blue Christmas for many of the nation’s retailers.”

See YouTube video after the jump.

It's difficult to forget the image of Hillary cackling away on the morning shows a few months back - talking about health care. After we finished laughing ourselves, we here at BMI took the time to put together a video of the best (or worst) of Hillary's chortles. This video was posted on YouTube and was subsequently picked up by a few others. Like the Newsbusted video, this is another example of how so-called "new media" can spread like wildfire. It received more than 24,000 views on one of these pages alone.

Clearly, Hillary's view of how to handle health care is not going away. In case you haven't seen it you can check it out right below the fold:

Yesterday during the 7 p.m. hour of FBN’s “America’s Nightly Scoreboard” the Business and Media Institute’s Director Dan Gainor went head to head with John Coifman of the Natural Resources Defense Council. The topic of discussion was “business going green” and whether or not it can put businesses in the red. The first part of the video can be seen below.

David Asman asked Gainor, “What’s wrong with going green?”

On Thursday’s CBS "Early Show," host Harry Smith and reporter Jeff Greenfield analyzed the effectiveness of YouTube videos for 2008 presidential candidates.The segment described how a an Edwards campaign video "...says let's get serious about what matters," while Giuliani and Romney are examples of how candidates can "...die by YouTube."

After they described how successful videos were for Democrats, Smith decided it was time to analyze the effect on Republican campaigns: "... but there is a whole other backlash on this, as well, right?"

This is some of the analysis of Democratic candidates:

GREENFIELD: ...for instance, Dennis Kucinich, no money, no organization, so he goes to YouTube, puts out an ad. It's not particularly compelling. He's talking about a peace tower as a way of symbolizing peace. This has been seen about 6600 times, which isn't much, but how many times does a candidate like Kucinich get to talk to 6600 people at virtually no expense?"

While MSNBC's Keith Olbermann can hardly contain his glee at smacking around Rush Limbaugh over the taken-out-of-context "phony soldier" remark, it's notable that Olbermann himself essentially smeared Gen. David Petreaus as a phony at best and a traitor at the worst well before the Iraq war commander ever gave his assessment before Congress.

Indeed, before MoveOn.org issued the infamously juvenile "Betray Us" ad, Olbermann's minions plastered "Will Petreaus Betray Us?" in on-screen graphics during his August 16 program. [See also YouTube video appended at bottom of post]

Chatting with guest and liberal journalist Jonathan Alter on that program, Olbermann trashed the Petreaus report as a "ghost-written" concoction of the Bush White House, bound to be replete with partisan spin. Alter agreed, saying Petreaus has always been a "political" general, although he backtracked a bit to also say Petreaus was a "straight-shooter."

Our friend Brian Maloney at Radio Equalizer has an excellent run-down of Media Matters (MMA) latest attack on another of its favorite bogeymen: Rush Limbaugh. Earlier this week it was sharpening its knives over Bill O'Reilly:

 

Not content to wait until Bill O'Reilly's hoped- for demise, the George Soros- funded Media Matters / mainstream media smear machine has added a second target: Rush Limbaugh.

And this time, the distortion of words may actually be more severe than in O'Reilly's case.

Now, Media Matters has twisted and edited Rush's words in a way that makes it appear he's insulting the troops. They've taken the false idea that he called anti- war soldiers "phony troops" and spread it across the Internet. But Limbaugh said nothing of the sort.

Maloney explains that MMA took out of context a remark Limbaugh made about "phony soldiers:"

There's a fabulous column by Ed Driscoll (HT to NixGuy in an e-mail) about the evolution of media and reporting from the invention of radio to our current circumstances.

It's the title of Driscoll's work, "Atlas Mugged: How a Gang of Scrappy, Individual Bloggers Broke the Stranglehold of the Mainstream Media," that misses the mark a bit.

Ed has the "stranglehold" part nailed:

By the early 1970s, mass media had reached its zenith (if you’ll pardon the pun). Most Americans were getting their news from one of three TV networks’ half-hour nightly broadcasts. With the exception of New York, most big cities had only one or two primary newspapers. And no matter what a modern newspaper’s lineage, by and large its articles, except for local issues, came from global wire services like the Associated Press or Reuters; it took its editorial lead from the New York Times; and it claimed to be impartial (while usually failing miserably).

Upset that a University of Florida student was tasered by campus police at a John Kerry event, MSNBC's Chris Matthews, on Tuesday's, "Hardball" feared it was a result of the "fascistic notion" of American troops "forcing" democracy on Iraqis at "gunpoint", filtering back home.

Chris Matthews: "You know when we walk into those, every night on television you watch pictures of American soldiers risking their lives to break into homes in Baghdad, at gunpoint, telling people to go along with the government that we've set up over there. Democracy at gunpoint. I wonder if it's filtered back here at home. I wonder if it's drift back home? The idea that democracy is something you do at gunpoint. ‘Either you behave and do it this way and show up by putting your fingers in the ink and doing it this way or you're an insurgent, therefore, we can round you up and if you resist we can kill you.' That notion it's a bit fascist and it's certainly a fascistic notion of democracy we're forcing, forcing on people over there. They didn't invited us into Iraq and I wonder now whether we are picking up some of the bad habits of the war front?"

Video and additional transcript below the fold.

After CNN and YouTube organized a fairly silly and yet seriously liberal presidential debate for the Democratic presidential candidates this summer, GOP contenders developed cold feet about placing their ambitions at the feet of these groups. When only two GOP candidates accepted invitations for a proposed CNN/YouTube debate in September, the event was called off. In response, a set of conservative bloggers started a website called Savethedebate.com, urging that “Republicans cannot afford to write off the Internet” and risk “denigrating” the youth vote and the way they communicate. Five GOP candidates have now agreed; the new date is November 28.

These bloggers are fine conservatives, but no one should be under the illusion that writing off one website is “writing off the Internet.” That said, GOP candidates do not have the Democrats’ luxury of ignoring hostile media outlets like FOX as if they did not exist.

As the 2008 presidential campaign moves into high gear, a common conservative complaint has been that Democrat candidates have so far been largely asked softball questions by liberal moderators at their debates, while the Republicans have actually been vigorously challenged by media personalities in theirs.

On CNN's "Reliable Sources" Sunday morning, former Capitol Hill correspondent for ABC, and current contributing editor to the National Journal, Linda Douglass, made it quite clear that she agrees with such concerns.

Host Howard Kurtz, after playing a video clip of musician Melissa Etheridge asking Hillary Clinton (D-New York) a question at a recent debate, posed the following:

Linda Douglass, my question is with those kinds of personal, first-person, emotional queries, do we really need journalists at these debates? Aren't these questions sort of better than the kind of questions that reporters ask?

Douglass couldn't disagree more: