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“Exposing & Combating Liberal Media Bias”
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John MurthaMorning Show Hosts Skip News of Ethics Probe of Dems, Play Dress-up for Halloween
However, ABC’s Good Morning America, NBC’s Today show and CBS’s Early Show somehow managed to ignore this potentially damaging problem for the Democratic majority. Instead, NBC’s hosts found time to dress up as Star Wars characters. (Ann Curry appeared as Darth Vader.) Early Show co-anchor Harry Smith went drag and impersonated Julia Child for a cooking segment (See video and blog here.) Even though it’s October, GMA promoted a new version of A Christmas Carol. It seems unlikely that these news outlets would ignore a similar story that involved possible allegations about a group of mostly Republican lawmakers who are in charge of earmarking federal funds. Washington Post staff writer Carol D. Leonnig explained: Dem Congressman: 'Republicans Want You To Die Quickly'; What Will the 'Civility' Crowd Say?
The Politico's Jonathan Allen reported last night that Democratic Congressment Alan Grayson of Florida let loose on the House floor. (UPDATE: Politico now has a YouTube video of Grayson's performance at the link.) Hopefully, Allen himself was only being sloppy with his own wording:
"Warned"? As if "Republicans want you to die quickly" is a fact? What follows, via Politico's Glenn Thrush, is what you can't say about a President: Heavy Coverage of Sanford’s Woes, But Where Are Democratic Scandals?
The morning after Sanford announced his affair, on the June 25 Good Morning America, longtime correspondent Sam Donaldson used the scandal to broadly charge Republicans with being “sanctimonious. They thump the Bible. They condemn everyone else, and when they [act] human, they don’t have much credit in the bank for forgiveness.” Unlike when New York Democratic Governor Eliot Spitzer was caught consorting with a prostitute in March 2008, all three broadcast networks immediately identified Sanford’s party ID. A number of top Democrats are enmeshed in embarrassment or facing allegations of wrongdoing, but the networks have far less interest in publicizing those cases. A rundown of ABC, CBS and NBC morning and evening coverage so far this year: Name That Party: 3 Dems in FBI Probe, Party Affiliation Omitted/BuriedI think it is finally getting to the point that when an Old Media story goes out over the wires without mentioning the party affiliation of troubled politicians, people naturally assume that all the criminal actions in said story are being perpetrated by Democrats. But, that assumption aside, we are still seeing reports nearly every day that omit the "Democrat" in any story involving criminal Democrats. Here is yet another one. The Associated Press posted a story on the FBI's probe of questionable campaign donations to Senator Patty Murray and Representative Norm Dicks of Washington state. The possibly worrisome donations were from PMA Group, a lobbying firm founded by an aide of Representative John Murtha of Pennsylvania. With all these politician's names being thrown around in the AP report, though, it is curious that not a one of them were ever identified as Democrats. Not once. AP Attempts to Minimize Murtha's 'Racist' and 'Redneck' Comments
The facts are that Murtha is not clearly ahead in the polls (ahead by not much here, behind by more here), that he may very well be behind in reality against challenger William Russell, and that Murtha directed his "racist" characterization at 12th District residents in general, not just "some" of them. Here are the key paragraphs from Helfing's report: Networks, Papers Barely Touched John Murtha's 'Racist' Accusations; News Mags Skipped It
Among the networks ABC was the worst (but also the first) to raise Murtha on the Sunday morning program This Week on October 19. But they utilized a separate, slightly less insulting interview with the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review: What KDKA and CNN Kept Out of Their Murtha 'Surge Has Worked' Coverage
Noel covered portions of Pennsylvania Congressman John Murtha's Thursday interview with Pittsburgh TV Station KDKA used by CNN's "Situation Room" on Friday (transcript here [Murtha segment is about halfway through]; video here). CNN carried KDKA footage showing that Murtha has grudgingly acknowledged the obvious: That the troop surge in Iraq has, in his words, "in the short-term ..... certainly reduced incidents," but that "I'm not sure whether it's because of the Iraqis are just worn out, but certainly the way they're doing it today makes a big difference." What KDKA decided to keep from TV viewers is arguably at least as important as what the station showed. In interview footage left on the cutting room floor, Murtha falsely claimed that less than 1/3 of the Iraqi benchmarks have been met, and that the majority of Americans "want us out" of Iraq as fast as possible. But most explosively, the Pennsylvania congressman claimed that a major reason why the troop surge has been successful is that before that time "we broke down doors, we went in and we killed people inadvertently." CNN: Murtha Flip-flops on Surge
Yet, apart from CNN, his statements appear to have gone largely unnoticed. This of course is in stark contrast to the media frenzy that occurred in November 2005 when Murtha called for an immediate withdrawal of troops. I guess we should be thankful that CNN discovered the report done by CBS affiliate KDKA on Thursday, and shared the news with its viewers during Friday's "The Situation Room" (video available here): CNN Covers, ‘Big 3' Networks Ignore Murtha ‘Surge is Working’ Story
Murtha, who became a bit of a media darling for his anti-Iraq war stance, recently came back from a trip to Iraq. The Pittsburgh Post Gazette quoted Murtha as saying, "I think the 'surge' is working." Murtha then went on to say that the Iraqis "have got to take care of themselves." Story of 'Hijacked Airliner' Hijacked by ReporterThis article appeared a couple of days ago in the Johnstown (PA) Tribune-Democrat, but it just came to my attention today. It's about Republican William T. Russell, the career Army man who is launching a campaign to unseat Rep. Democrat John Murtha in Pennsylvania's 12th District in 2008. What stands out isn't the topic of the article. It's this little paragraph inserted close to the midway point:
A hijacked jetliner? Which one would that be? Goodness, there have been so many hijackings in the past decade, it's hard to keep count. The Disinformation Campaign Against the Haditha Marines ContinuesThe disinformation campaign against the Haditha Marines continues despite exonerations and dismissed charges. This was quite evident during Thursday night’s discussion on Hannity and Colmes. Jason Mattera, the young man who dared confront John Murtha about his claims of “cold blooded murder” was a guest and Jane Fleming Kleeb represented the dissenting viewpoint. Alan Colmes gave us a hint about the latest tactic to diminish the results of the 2 year Haditha investigation when he questioned the integrity of General James Mattis. AP Gives Anti-War Dems Cover Over Ignoring Military Budget Debate
Let's start with the very first paragraph of the story titled Democrats to Wait on War Funding Debate.
Well, now, see the good news? The Dems have a strategy! But, this strategy consists of depriving our soldiers of the funds they need to keep moving forward. Yet the AP presents it as a mere political strategy, as if it were a story about funding Social Security or Medicare -- just an average funding battle. The AP gives it as benign a presentation as they can. Then the AP goes on, still ignoring the actual target of the funding debate: Heck With Ethics: Murtha Nabs $150 Million in Earmarks
Please bear in mind that nothing in the just-passed bill sitting on the President's desk would in any way prevent those earmarks, or these: LAT Highlights Republican 'Culture of Corruption' Ignores Dem Troubles
So, the L.A.Times gives us the hero Democrat Party who has quashed that "culture of corruption" and cleaned up Congress' "sullied image." Yaaa, Democrats and boo Republicans who are so "corrupt." Read on for some fair-and-balancedness that'll curl yer hair! Murtha Brushes Off Brookings Report on Iraq as ‘Rhetoric' on CNN's ‘American Morning'Ken Pollack and Michael O'Hanlon's surprising op-ed in the New York Times on improvements in Iraq may have been ignored by NBC Nightly News on Monday , but CNN's John Roberts thought it was worthy enough to mention the article in an interview of Representative John Murtha on Tuesday morning. Murtha, a frequent guest on CNN when the subject of discussion is the Iraq war, dismissed the Pollack/O'Hanlon assessment. "I dismiss it at as rhetoric. I dismiss it as -- you know, in my estimation, the things that I measure are not -- oil production, electricity production, water. Only two hours of electricity. I don't know where they were staying. I don't know what they saw. But I know this, that it's not getting better. It's rhetorical is what is getting better. It's over-optimist. It's an illusion." Follow-up: National Media Ignore Congresswoman's Walkout on General's Iraq TestimonyAs noted here at NB yesterday, Kansas Congresswoman Nancy Boyda walked out of a House Armed Services Committee hearing on Friday after hearing General Jack Keane testify about the potential impact of a bill meant to micromanage troop deployment. Keane also testified about progress being made in the counteroffensive that has come to be known as "the surge." Boyda walked out because the objections to that bill, and the descriptions of an improving situation in Iraq, were apparently too much to bear. She said as much when she returned. Boyda and the fly in her pocket (based on her several references to "we") went into full-rant mode (painfully long and slow-loading audio is here; scroll down to July 27's entry and click on "Audio Transcript"; Boyda's tantrum is about 60% of the way through it; also note that at least a half-dozen hecklers and demonstrators had to be removed during the hearing):
Tim Russert Agrees Liberal Bloggers Are Pushing Democrats to the Left
On Wednesday, following in the footsteps of the Washington Post’s David Broder and Time’s Joe Klein, and just days before Democrat strategist Bob Beckel, NBC’s Tim Russert jumped on the “Netroots Are A Danger to Democrats” bandwagon. Appearing on Fox News’ “Hannity & Colmes,” Russert seemed incredibly at ease with both co-hosts as he made statements that had to shock conservative and liberal viewers alike. Hannity set up the first interesting exchange thusly (video available here): ABCNews.com: ‘Murtha Ties Foiled JFK Plot to U.S. in Iraq’
Well, Sunday morning, ABCNews.com actually went one better by using a statement made by John Murtha (D-Pennsylvania) on “This Week” as the headline for the video of George Stephanopoulos’ interview with the Congressman: “Murtha Ties Foiled JFK Plot to U.S. in Iraq.” In reality, Murtha was brought on to counter the “things are getting better” in Iraq after the surge viewpoint expressed by the previous guest, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani (video available here). Yet, about one minute into Stephanopoulos’ interview with Murtha, the Congressman said (video available here): Is CNN Moving to the Right?
Last week, CNN was the only major American news outlet other than Fox News to cover the al Qaeda torture manual story. On Tuesday, unlike virtually every press organization that did its best to sidestep the issue while covering Cindy Sheehan’s resignation from the peace movement, Kiran Chetry actually said on “American Morning” “she renounced her ties to the Democratic Party.” And, as reported by Allah at Hot Air Thursday: Media Ignore Congressman Murtha’s Potential Rules Violation
Would the media report it? Probably on front-pages all across the country, and on morning and evening network newscasts for days, right? Well, last Thursday evening, Politico reported (emphasis added throughout): |
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