Associated Press

You know those new hostages in Iraq? The ones whom the Washington Post describes as working for a "peace" group? You know, the one with lots of experience going into war zones?

The Chicago-based organization - supported by several Protestant denominations that believe Christianity forbids all war-making and violence - has sent activists into war zones, including Bosnia and Haiti, since the late 1980s. It has about 160 members around the world and about a dozen in Iraq.

Turns out they've got lots of experience in one particular war zone that the AP doesn't bother to mention:

Don't miss my latest writing for the Free Market Project: Media claims about a “housing bubble” are nothing new. Since before the 9/11 terror attacks, the media have been calling the housing market a “bubble” while predicting an imminent, devastating decline. Not only have they been wrong in forecasting such a top, they have thoroughly mischaracterized what an investment bubble is. Now that the market for homes has finally slowed a bit, the media are declaring the bubble has burst.

• A Bubble?: Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan has denied the existence of a national housing bubble for several years, but the media have used the term repeatedly.
• Strong Gains: The increase in real estate values the past five years has not resembled the rapid rise typically seen in a bubble. In 2000, the national median existing-home value was $139,000. This grew to $215,900 by the third quarter of 2005 – a 55-percent nominal increase but a 34-percent inflation-adjusted gain.
• Home Sales Still Going Up: New home sales jumped another 13 percent in October. While sales of existing homes were down 2.7 percent from September, the median national price rose to $218,000, a 16.6 percent increase since October 2004.

Associated Press reports today that routinely wacky CNN founder Ted Turner lectured at Kansas State University and echoed Howard Dean's line as a presidential candidate: "Media mogul Ted Turner said Monday that Iraq is 'no better off' following the U.S.-led invasion that ousted dictator Saddam Hussein in 2003."

Turner also said he thinks it's plausible that President Bush will launch a nuclear war:

He warned that a nuclear war could "kill everything on the planet" and said it could take place in an afternoon. Turner said he was afraid someone in power could make the mistake to launch a nuclear war, including President Bush, based on his previous decisions.

Dave Huber explains at Oh, That Liberal Media that the Boston Globe erred in its headline in an AP story with the words "Teacher Under Investigation for Alleged Liberalism":

The school superintendent whose district includes Mount Anthony Union High School has labeled "inappropriate" and "irresponsible" an English teacher's use of liberal statements in a vocabulary quiz.

"I wish Bush would be (coherent, eschewed) for once during a speech, but there are theories that his everyday diction charms the below-average mind, hence insuring him Republican votes," said one question on a quiz written by English and social studies teacher Bret Chenkin.

The Associated Press and United Press International are reporting that another Democratic hawk, Norm Dicks (D-Washington), has changed his position on the Iraq war. They are both quoting from and referencing a Seattle Times article first published about 16 hours ago entitled “Defense hawk Dicks says he now sees war as a mistake.” Yet, they are conveniently ignoring previous statements made by Dicks concerning the war that were also reported by the Seattle Times.

Today’s article stated:

For those who missed it, the Federal Open Market Committee released minutes from its November 1 meeting on Tuesday, and the stock market rallied as a result. Yet, depending upon which Associated Press story you read, you were either elated or despondent.

For instance, the AP’s Michael J. Martinez began his report: “Stocks extended their rally yesterday after the Fed's latest take on the economy raised hopes that the central bank's string of a dozen interest rate hikes are coming to an end.”

By contrast, Jeannine Aversa began her article: “Worried that high energy costs could spread inflation throughout the economy, Federal Reserve policymakers this month decided they should keep pushing interest rates higher.”

The Associated Press is at it again. In its continuing crusade against the Catholic Church, Richard Ostling has come up with a piece titled, “Catholics Disagree Over New Vatican Decree,” in which he attempts to use priests to chastise the church for the Vatican’s decree forbidding gay men to enter seminaries. A few samples:

"I have no idea how they will apply it. It will just be a nightmare," said the Rev. Eugene Lauer of the New York-based National Pastoral Life Center.

"Our seminaries are likely to be depopulated to a significant extent," said the Rev. Donald Cozzens of John Carroll University.

The Associated Press has its problems with religion. Newsbusters has documented many examples of the AP mentioning conservatives’ religious affiliations when they are actually irrelevant to the stories they publish.

Today however, they ran a piece called, Disasters Heighten Habitat's Profile, which dealt with the growing popularity of Habitat for Humanity, a group previously most known for its involvement with former president Jimmy Carter.

Around twelve hours ago, NewsMax broke a story about Rep. John Murtha (D-Pennsylvania) having urged former President Clinton to remove U.S. troops from Somalia in 1993:

“Clinton took the advice and ordered the withdrawal - a decision that Osama bin Laden would later credit with emboldening his terrorist fighters and encouraging him to mount further attacks against the U.S.”

At this point, a Google news search identified only a handful of media sources – including Rush Limbaugh, The American Thinker, and Village Soup – as having picked up this story. Yet, there are a number of articles from September 1993 that appear to confirm the NewsMax story, so many so that one has to wonder if and when any mainstream press outlets are going to report this.

For instance, Rowan Scarborough with the Washington Times at that point reported on September 6, 1993:

The liberal press of late has been enamored of late of collecting gaffes from Pat Robertson on his "700 Club" broadcasts, with an assist from that liberal opinion-show watchdog website. But AP's Kristen Hays is reporting -- without any disagreement or comment from conservatives within the article -- that "The leader of the largest branch of American Judaism blasted conservative religious activists in a speech Saturday, calling them 'zealots' who claim a 'monopoly on God' while promoting anti-gay policies akin to Adolf Hitler's."

What? A major Jewish leader comparing conservatives to Nazis?  Here's the money quote from Rabbi Eric Yoffie, president of the liberal Union for Reform Judaism: "We cannot forget that when Hitler came to power in 1933, one of the first things that he did was ban gay organizations," Yoffie said. "Yes, we can disagree about gay marriage. But there is no excuse for hateful rhetoric that fuels the hellfires of anti-gay bigotry." For his smear in Houston before a gathering of Reform Jews, AP reports, "The audience of 5,000 responded to the speech with enthusiastic applause."

The AP on Sunday significantly misrepresented President Bush's public statements on pre-war intelligence. It's not the first time, it won't be the last, and it long ago ceased being surprising. But it is unacceptable journalistic malpractice. This story begins in earnest about a week and a half ago, when after months of being hammered by critics on the left as having "lied," the President finally stood up and addressed the issue of pre-war intelligence. His speech, addressing the reality that he's been constantly under attack for the past two years, represented an attempt to defend himself and his administration. It was, of course, immediately called an "attack" by the Associated Press, and others of their stripe. But they apparently didn't listen to, or read, what he actually said. Otherwise, they'd never have been able to write the following:

After fiercely defending his Iraq policy across Asia, President Bush abruptly toned down his attack on war critics Sunday and said there was nothing unpatriotic about opposing his strategy. "People should feel comfortable about expressing their opinions about Iraq," Bush said, three days after agreeing with Vice President Dick Cheney that the critics were "reprehensible."

The President "abruptly toned down" nothing. In the speech that caused all of the initial uproar, he said the same things. He said "when I made the decision to remove Saddam Hussein from power, Congress approved it with strong bipartisan support. I also recognize that some of our fellow citizens and elected officials didn't support the liberation of Iraq. And that is their right, and I respect it." He said "it's perfectly legitimate to criticize my decision or the conduct of the war." So the comments that the AP is portraying as "abruptly toned down" are the same comments that he made at the time of "his attack on war critics." Those comments are nothing new. There's just another opportunity for the AP to misrepresent the President, and cast him in a negative light. And that's nothing new, either...

Lyflines - Lyford's other blog…

This headline from AP yesterday seemed accurate: "Iraq War Criticism Stalks Bush Overseas." But who are the stalkers? It's another way of saying "Reporters Stalk Bush Overseas." They are the black clouds following him everywhere, touting the death toll and his poll ratings for dishonesty in every story. As in this paragraph: "An AP-Ipsos poll earlier this month found a significant drop in the share of Americans saying Bush is honest. Also, with the U.S. death toll now above 2,080 in Iraq, nearly two-thirds of the country disapproves of Bush's conduct of the war." AP reporter Jennifer Loven's first words are "His was policies under siege at home..."

It's good to remember, as Powerline pointed out last year, that Loven is married to an environmentalist advocate who was touted by John Kerry's campaign as a major supporter.

Newsweek’s Howard Fineman, in a new article entitled “Bush at the Tipping Point,” joined an expanding list of media representatives that have not only completely ignored statements made by Rep. John Murtha (D-Pennsylvania) concerning his disappointments with the Iraq war that came before his Thursday call for troop withdrawals, but also thoroughly misrepresented the level of support that Murtha gave to the initial war resolution back in October 2002:

“Murtha was the one-man tipping point. Initially a strong supporter of the conflict, he had voted for it and the money to pay for it. But on his last trip to Iraq, he had become convinced not only that the war was unwinnable, but that the continued American military presence was making matters far worse.”

As reported by NewsBusters here, Congressman Murtha first voiced dissent for this war in September 2003, and then again in May 2004. However, maybe most important, the record before the war resolution passed on October 11, 2002 shows Murtha as having initially been against invading Iraq, and only getting onboard when a revised resolution was proposed on October 2. Prior to those revisions authored by Democrats in the House to assuage dissenters like Murtha, the Congressman was quite vocal against an invasion:

In August 2005, the Associated Press was put on notice by readers and editors that the stream of negative AP reports from Iraq needed to be balanced with positives from Iraq. The AP responded by posting FAQ’s (Frequently Asked Questions) on their website explaining how the war is covered. Based on a review of Associated Press articles in October 2005, the FAQ’s should be renamed the “falsely answered questions”.

The AP claimed their stories focused on “political developments in Iraq, writing daily about both political success and stalled efforts”. Based on Internet searches, the AP published approximately 207 articles about the war in Iraq during October 2005. Out of the 207 articles, 127 began with negative titles. In addition, titles of 65 articles referred to deaths in Iraq.

As is their practice, the Associated Press once again demonstrates that some of their writers will often use quotes by Republican conservatives out of context to damage them; even if that context is one of their own reports. In addition, they will distort and even mis-report facts when it suits their purposes.

In his latest, GOP's Legislative Agenda Losing Steam, the ever-reliable David Espo doesn’t disappoint. He opens his gloom and doom piece explaining the GOP agenda is in trouble due to, “President Bush's sagging poll numbers, an unstable leadership lineup in the House and growing concern about congressional elections less than a year away.”

Media Wrong About Dollar: As the frequency of pessimistic reports increases, their accuracy seems to decline.

Since the stock market’s collapse between March 2000 and October 2002, the                    Free Market Project    media have continually been making gloomy and bearish economic forecasts, from predictions of a housing bubble implosion to gasoline prices heading to $5 per gallon and even an economic downturn due to Hurricane Katrina. As The Free Market Project has reported, none of these have panned out.

Other examples of media gloom and doom that ended up being inaccurate were the press’s opinions of the falling dollar at the end of last year, and what they believed were the likely consequences. Tom Fenton of CBS News went so far as to link the decline to the start of the Bush presidency. “Since the end of the Clinton administration – or to put it another way, since the beginning of the Bush administration – the dollar has been heading south at an alarming rate,” he argued in a Dec. 6, 2004, piece.

The Associated Press continued the media crusade against Scooter Libby continued today by clarifying the aims of his enemies, but revealed a typical omission instead. The cleverly-titled piece, “Democrats Don't Want Libby to Be Pardoned,” speaks volumes about its bias.

AP special correspondent David Espo began by quoting a letter from Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid to the White House:

"We also urge you to state publicly whether anyone in the White House -- including White House counsel Harriet Miers or Vice President Cheney -- has already discussed the possibility of a pardon with Mr. Libby."

Regardless of economic data, press accounts are typically negative and pessimistic.

The economy has been growing at a very strong clip since October 2001. Real estate prices are at their highest levels in history, as are homeownership and Americans’ average net worth. Unemployment also is lower than the average during any of the past three decades. Yet Americans are very down, and one third even think the economy is in a recession. Is consistently negative media coverage influencing public attitudes? Might headlines like “Job growth less than expected” and “Jobs come up weak” have something to do with the gloom being felt across the country?

The Labor Department announced unemployment numbers for October on November 4, and despite a decline in this rate and an addition to payrolls, the media reported the gains as “surprisingly meager,” “stalled,” “damped,” and “disappointing.”

The AP proves once again that it can take a poll and create any conclusion about the findings that it wants.

So naturally, it was all doom and gloom for recent Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito in the latest AP-Ipsos poll. The headline: "Poll: Early Public Support for Alito Weak." (Via Times Argus.) Adding that "The survey put public sentiment for Alito closer to the level of early backing for the failed nomination of Harriet Miers." Interestingly enough, the AP Could have also run the headline "Early Public Opposition to Alito Weak - Fewer People Opposed to Alito than were opposed to Roberts, Miers." Obviously, the AP did not go that route.

There was a lot of media excitement today surrounding the rare “closed session” called in the Senate by Democratic Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada). In fact, a Google news search identified 684 articles and postings on the subject. For example, Reuters reported:

“Democrats forced the Senate into a rare closed session on Tuesday to protest what they decried as the Republican-led body's inattention to intelligence failures on Iraq and the leak of a CIA operative's identity.

“Invoking a little used rule, Democrats temporarily shut down television cameras in the chamber, cleared galleries of reporters, tourists and other onlookers, forced removal of staff members and recording devices and stopped work on legislation.”

MSNBC, with the assistance of the Associated Press, even reported this event as a huge win for the Democrats, with a sub-headline, “Following unusual closed Senate session, Democrats claim victory.”

Yet, from what I can tell, there was little if any discussion by most media outlets including Reuters, MSNBC, and AP concerning how rarely this rule is invoked, and under what circumstances in American history it has been employed.

As stated at the Senate’s website:

The Bush administration is preparing the announcement of a national plan for dealing with a possible influenza pandemic. According to the Associated Press, the plan will cover stockpiling of vaccine, improved vaccine manufacturing capabilities and the potential for travel restrictions. On the whole, it's a news story, dealing in a fairly straightforward manner with the possibility of a pandemic, and the actions and reactions that would be necessary to handle it. But that doesn't seem to be good enough. No, we apparently can't get an AP story that doesn't go out of its way to criticize the administration. So, in the very first sentence, unrelated to anything else in the story, we get the obligatory reference to past failure.

The Bush administration, battered by criticism over its hurricane response, is getting the nation prepared for a possible travel ban and other restrictions in the event of a worldwide flu outbreak. (emphasis mine)

What did the "criticism over its hurricane response" have to do with anything else in the story? Nothing. It was gratuitous and completely unnecessary.

Which is, of course, not a first for the AP...

Mary Mapes, the former CBS News producer who became famous for her involvement in a “60 Minutes II” segment last year concerning President Bush’s involvement in the Air National Guard, had an excerpt of her upcoming book, “Truth and Duty,” printed in the December issue of Vanity Fair.

An Editor and Publisher article published last evening stated the following:

“Mapes writes that she had felt the Guard segment was a big success after airing on Sept. 8, 2004, until the following morning at 11 a.m. when she learned that a bunch of ‘far-right’ Web sites were claiming that documents were forged.

"That same day about 3 p.m. she recalls staring at the Drudge Report and seeing a big picture of Rather at the top and a headline saying that he was ‘shaken’ and hiding in his office. The phone rang and it was Rather, telling her he'd just heard about the Drudge deadline and he wanted to assure her that he was not 'shaken' and was not hiding out.

"He signed off with a favorite expression of his: ‘FEA’ for ‘---- them all.’"

One of the easiest things to predict was that President Bush's nomination of Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court would be met with cries of dismay from the left. (Indeed, Sen. Schumer's nonsense - "he had to pick a nominee likely to divide America instead of choosing a nominee...who would unify us" - notwithstanding, it's difficult to conceive of a potential Bush nominee who would NOT have provoked an outcry on the left.)

And one of the first issues that was certain to arise was the abortion issue. There are a couple of reasons why abortion was inevitable. The first is that Roe v. Wade is the single biggest flash-point between Conservatives and Liberals when it comes to the courts. When the Supreme Court issued Roe v. Wade (and its companion Doe v. Bolton), the issue was virtually removed from the sphere of practical legislation, a victory for the American left that it guards jealously. Because of that, abortion is going to be issue number one for virtually any nominee of a Republican president. But beyond that, Alito issued a dissenting opinion in the Planned Parenthood v. Casey case in 1992 that the Supreme Court eventually disagreed with, as it re-affirmed and expanded the scope of Roe v. Wade. And that dissent is going to spawn a flood of criticism, much of it inaccurate, or incomplete at best. Such as today's AP article, Alito Has Affirmed Abortion Restrictions. In it, the AP states that Alito is pro-life and implies that he would let that color his judgement on cases before the court.

The Associated Press, in its continued obsession with the religious affiliations of Supreme Court justices and nominees--as long as they are Catholic--released its first story of the day concerning the rumored pick of Samuel Alito for the high court: Alito Would Be Fifth Catholic on Court.

The brief story notes, “If confirmed, Samuel Alito would be the fifth Roman Catholic on the current Supreme Court and the 11th Catholic to serve in the court's history.” It then goes on to list the names of those eleven.