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“Exposing & Combating Liberal Media Bias”
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Eleanor CliftEleanor Clift: White Male Reagan Dems Are Racist, SexistEleanor Clift's latest online column for Newsweek assumes that white male "Reagan Democrats" are racist and sexist, or at least they're sickened by appeals by too much focus on the "rights" of blacks and women.
Isn't that a bit simplistic? Couldn't there be a lot of reasons for white male Democrats to vote for Reagan? There's no room in Clift's racist/sexist analysis for the possibility that defections came because of issues like abortion, the Vietnam War and the "peace" movement, and later, in Reagan's case, the Carter mismanagement of the economy and the Iranian hostage crisis. Clift continued: Newsweek’s Eleanor Clift: Don’t Judge Obama on Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s RemarksOne of the criticisms of the media's coverage of Sen. Barack Obama's candidacy - both from his opponents on the right and on the left, has been that he's been given a free pass on a lot of issue. The latest in particular had been the recently uncovered of Obama's former church minister, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, who had made several incendiary remarks about race and the government. Eleanor Clift, known for her defense of Bill and Hillary Clinton on the syndicated show, "The McLaughlin Group," came to the defense of Obama in a March 17 appearance at The National Press Club in Washington, D.C. Clift Screams: Being Forced to Choose Between Obama and Hillary is a 'Tragedy'
The following is the full exchange as it occurred on the March 1, edition of "The McLaughlin Group":
Hillary-Barack Gridlock? Newsweek Ponders 'Al Gore to the Rescue'
Rich: Co-Panelists 'Pushed' O'Donnell Into Anti-Mormon Rant
Don't blame Lawrence O'Donnell for his ugly anti-Mormon rant. It was really the fault of O'Donnell's fellow panelists. That's Frank Rich's take on the unseemly episode on the McLaughlin Group a couple Fridays ago.In his NY Times column of today, Rich claims that O'Donnell was:
Questions: Clift Frets Over 'Right-wing, Libertarian Refusal to Let Government Spend Any Money'
In fact, as the Heritage Foundation's Brian Riedl outlined in a March report (PDF of it), “in 2006, inflation-adjusted federal spending topped $23,000 per household for the first time since World War II” as “federal spending has increased by 42% (23% after inflation) since 2001" and “defense and homeland security are responsible for just above one-third of all new spending since 2001.” So it's hardly as if the federal government, with an annual budget of $2.6 trillion, is starved for money. It's just being spent on adding a prescription entitlement to Medicare ($822 billion over ten years) instead of highways ($286 billion over six years). In 'Newsweek,' Eleanor Clift Applied Recycled Gun Ban Myths to Virginia Tech Shooting
Newsweek’s April 30 article by Eleanor Clift recycled old gun-control mythology and misleading statements with a renewed call for something to be done in the wake of the Virginia Tech shooting. The article mixed the usual anti-gun talking points with some subtle pining for the good ol’ days of President Clinton’s Federal Assault Weapons Ban (AWB) that supposedly made the streets safer by taking the extra, extra, super-scary looking guns out the hands of all Americans (except for the criminals who obtained them illegally, of course). Clift starts off with one of the more ridiculous statements (emphasis mine throughout):
NY Times Marks "Poignant Commentary on the War" from Bush-Bashing Sen. Webb
Eleanor Clift Declares Bush And Cheney Want War With Iran
Yet in her indictment of the President and Vice President over wanting war with Iran, Clift neither condemned any of Iran’s provocative actions, nor did she mention paths the Bush administration is pursuing to avoid war, such as working through the U.N. Security Council to impose sanctions. Newsweek's Eleanor Clift on Al Gore: 'Hooray That He is Back'
After giving her "Enough Already!" distinction to "Bush and Cheney," Clift championed Democrat James Webb as her "Person of the Year" at the end of the show: "Virginia Senator-elect James Webb, the former combat veteran, novelist won the race and has the stamina and the imagination to help lead the campaign to get this country out of Iraq." Utterly Disgraceful Eleanor Clift Column Regarding Sen. Johnson
Eleanor’s disgrace started with the headline: “Balance of Power; Tim Johnson's health crisis is a reminder of the fragility of the Democratic majority. What the party should do now.” Do you eat with the same hands you type with, Eleanor? Regardless of the answer, Clift began her abomination by suggesting Johnson’s malady might have been something prayed for by the President, and that Republicans are on their knees hoping for the worst (emphasis mine): McLaughlin Group Hypes Man-Made Global Warming, Calls Naysayers 'Neanderthals'On this past weekend’s edition of the "McLaughlin Group," panelist Eleanor Clift of "Newsweek" insisted global warming is man made, and called contrary opinions "theological arguments," and moderator John McLaughlin referred to those who do not accept Clift’s premise as "neanderthals." Ms. Clift also displayed her environmentalist sympathies, proclaiming "...[Republican Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma] has, like, a zero rating from the environmentalists. And he, thankfully, will not be chairing that [Environmental and Public Works] committee anymore in the Senate." In the opening segment of the program, McLaughlin brought up the subject of global warming. Token conservative on the panel, Pat Buchanan, asserted that though global warming is occurring, there is a real debate as to the cause, but he was outnumbered by his fellow panelists: Jay Carney of "Time," Clarence Page of "The Chicago Tribune," and Ms. Clift. McLaughlin: 'Should the Pope Abdicate?'; Clift Asserts Pope 'Needlessly Provocative'
In between Blankley and Zuckerman, Newsweek's Eleanor Clift denounced the Pope's perspective in which he had quoted a 14th century Byzantine emperor on how Mohammad brought “things only evil and inhuman.” Clift argued: “If he's going to go back and quote somebody from 500 years ago, let's get the rest of the context. He's talking about violent religions -- Christendom has some violence in its past as well.” She soon charged: “This was needlessly provocative when the former Pope did so much for peace and justice in the world.” How Low Can We Go? Cheney Attacked By Both Imus And Alter This Morning
Alter continued his ongoing diatribe against the administration, implying that the administration is un-American for wanting defined rules of interrogation for terror suspects, rather than a broad statement banning anything that "offends the decency of mankind" that is open to broad interpretation and could lead to interrogators later being accused of war crimes. Alter framed the debate as a debate between "heroic" figures like Senators John McCain, John Warner, and Lindsey Graham who want to limit interrogation tactics to our "American values," and the "chicken hawks" in the administration who allegedly favor torture. Clift Raises Ire of Canadian Journalist When She Calls Bush 'Dictator Who's Ineffective'
Clift opined that of those attending the G-8 summit, Russian President Vladimir Putin is “the only one of those leaders who goes in there with a commanding popularity among his own people, because he is perceived to be an effective dictator. What we have in this country is a dictator who's ineffective." Freeland, shouting over panelists who were trying to move on to other points, retorted: "But he's not a dictator! I mean we can't use, no we can't use these terms so loosely." Clift backtracked a bit: “Well we have an authoritarian President who is ineffective." But Freeland stood her ground, pointing out: "You guys can elect your Presidents and there can be a free choice. That's not the case in Russia." Video clip (53 seconds): Real (1.6 MB) or Windows Media (1.8 MB), plus MP3 audio (320 KB). Eleanor Clift Expresses Sane, Accurate Views For a Change
This is what makes her column on Friday quite shocking, for it not only deviates from the party line that she rarely strays from, but is also written without her normal inflammatory hyperbole for anything right of center. And, even more surprising, Clift actually had negative things to say about her left-leaning brethren. Clift’s rare moment of sanity was evident right in the first paragraph:
She continued with the importance of Zarqawi's death: Have Media Made Hillary Clinton a Dead Candidate Walking?
For Hillary Clinton and her terminally unfaithful husband, last week must have seemed like a Wes Craven version of an old musical comedy reworked and entitled “A Ghastly Thing Happened on the Way Back to the White House.” With Hillary leading in most polls as the prohibitive favorite to be the Democratic presidential nominee in 2008, many party loyalists and typically favorable media members appear to be jumping off her bandwagon. At the same time, these very folks are falling over themselves to assist in the makeover and revitalization of former vice president Al Gore. Coincidence? Unlikely. In fact, this is starting to resemble what these same folks did to Howard Dean during his 2004 presidential run. For those that have forgotten, Dean was riding high in the polls in the winter of 2004. However, few top-ranking Democrats believed that he could beat President Bush in November. As a result, Time and Newsweek both ran cover stories on January 12, 2004 questioning his “electability” beyond the primaries. As Eric Boehlert wrote in Salon on January 13: Eleanor Clift: Media 'Regret' How 'Al Gore was Mocked and Ridiculed in 2000'
Clift: Hillary the New Reagan Eleanor Clift, Newsweek's resident genius, had another stroke of brilliance
Sunday with a column on the many similarities between Hillary Clinton
and Ronald Reagan. Aside from that very arguable point, I couldn't help
but notice this gem that somehow worked its way through Newsweek's
legions of fact-checkers:
The late great Jerry Garcia used to say the Grateful Dead were like black licorice. People who loved them loved them a lot. People who hated them really hated them. "Hillary Clinton is black licorice," says a Democratic strategist. "There's a huge upside, and there's a huge downside. And we don't know how it will balance out."For comment on the substance of the piece (such as it is), head over to Captain's Quarters. Eleanor Clift Almost Blames Democrats For Something
This is why it must have been shocking for many readers to see the sub-headline of her most recent Newsweek piece (emphasis mine): “The Original Old-Fashioned Liberal: The descendant of Irish immigrants, Ted Kennedy badly wanted a reform bill. In the end, his own party stopped him.” Now, before you get all excited over the possibility that Eleanor either had an epiphany or a rare moment of clarity, be advised that, in the end, she really didn’t blame the Democrats for anything. | |