Larry Craig

This from a man who describes himself as "an honest broker" -- something those who actually are aren't inclined to do.

During an argument with a caller to his radio show Monday about Schultz demanding that erstwhile inveterate Twitter pic taker Anthony Weiner resign from Congress, Schultz made a claim that sounded more than a little dubious (audio here) --

On Monday’s Joy Behar Show, after a segment on long-time journalist Helen Thomas’s recent outburst that Israeli Jews should "get the hell out of Palestine" and "go home" to Germany and Poland, host Behar held over guest and comedian Robert Klein to talk about his comedy show, titled Robert Klein: Unfair and Unbalanced. After Behar asked if the title was meant to be a jab at Fox News, Klein referred to the false premise that liberals are not included on FNC, and cracked that there have not been any liberals since on FNC since former host Alan Colmes was "sent back to Poland," which could be interpreted as a Nazi joke about Fox News: "They haven`t had a liberal on that thing since Alan Colmes was, you know, sent back to Poland. ... Emotional scars that boy has on that network." Behar added that Colmes and Helen Thomas are "on the train right now." Klein concluded that FNC’s "Fair and Balanced" theme is "pretty ludicrous." Colmes, notably, still appears regularly as an analyst on FNC.

Klein also made it known that he prefers to attack conservatives over sex scandals because of the hypocrisy issue, while the treating sex scandals of Democrats as less important because they are not "values guys" anyway:

On the Thursday, December 3, The View, on ABC, co-host Joy Behar found Tiger Woods worthy of being partially defended over his adultery saga – according to her, at least he’s not a "hypocrite" like "these pro-marriage, right-wing, kind of guys who is anti-gay," like former Republican Senator Larry Craig. As the group discussed the latest news of women who have alleged having affairs with the golf star, Behar offer up her defense of Woods, with conservative co-host Elisabeth Hasselbeck struggling to rebut her while Behar sang, "La, la, la, la," as Hasselbeck spoke:

In what was an otherwise critical story about President Obama signing an earmark-laden spending bill despite promising an end to such pork barrel projects, on Wednesday’s CBS Evening News correspondent Chip Reid decided to mention a modest earmark by former Idaho Senator Larry Craig: "And it's not just Democrats, about 40% of the earmarks were inserted by Republicans. Even retired lawmakers. Remember Republican Senator Larry Craig, arrested in a bathroom sting? He retired, but his legacy lives on through a million dollars in earmarks for Idaho." If Reid wanted to cite much more egregious Republican offenders he could have picked Alabama Senator Richard Shelby, who had $114 million in pet projects, or Missouri Senator Kit Bond, who had $86 million. Of course, neither of them were recently involved in sex scandals.

Other than the Craig mention, the piece was unusually tough on Obama, as anchor Katie Couric began the broadcast by declaring: "Also tonight, he campaigned against earmarks, but today President Obama signed a bill loaded with them behind closed doors." Reid reported: "The last thing the President wanted was a high-profile ceremony as he signed a bill stuffed with pork barrel spending...behind closed doors, it was, critics say, business as usual, as the President quietly signed a $410 billion domestic spending bill. 1,100 pages loaded with about 8,500 pet projects known as earmarks, inserted by members of Congress without legislative review...Some are the handiwork of former lawmakers who now work for the President. Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel has $6.5 million in projects for Illinois."

Well, isn't THIS interesting.

In a December post (at NewsBusters; at BizzyBlog), I reviewed ABC's online "The Faces of Political Scandal" slideshow, which featured mini-profiles of 14 politicians in recent years who have been tainted by scandal and/or crime.

At the time, I noted that:

Of the 14 politicians identified, seven are Democrats and seven are Republicans. Five of the seven GOP members are identified as such, while only two of the seven Democrats were flagged. The montage also has a couple of surprising factual errors.

Well, glory be, sometime in the past couple of months, ABC has made changes to the montage. Now each profile except for Bill Clinton's (which is excusable) identifies the politician's party. Additionally, two factual errors at the original profiles have been corrected. The year of Clinton's Lewinsky scandal which ultimately led to his acts of perjury and impeachment has been changed from 1995 to 1998, and an incorrect statement that sex-scandalized Florida Democratic Congressman Tim Mahoney had conceded to GOP opponent Tom Rooney before Election Day last year has been removed.

Here's the lineup of the "Faces of Political Scandal," and how their status changed:

A collection of "The Faces of Political Scandal," assembled by ABC News yesterday (HT to an e-mailer), once again demonstrates the media's relative reluctance to identify the membership of Democrats involved in scandal.

Of the 14 politicians identified, seven are Democrats and seven are Republicans. Five of the seven GOP members are identified as such, while only two of the seven Democrats were flagged. The montage also has a couple of surprising factual errors.

Here's the detail, slide by slide:

1. Current Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich -- Party not ID'd, while containing a quote with a Republican frame of reference ("Gov. Blagojevich has taken us to a new low," U.S. attorney Patrick Fitzgerald said. "This conduct would make Lincoln roll over in his grave.").

During MSNBC's live coverage of Tuesday's Democratic primaries, co-anchor Chris Matthews poked fun at Larry Craig's bathroom arrest during an interview with Minnesota Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar as he referred to Republican plans to hold their presidential convention in St. Paul, and joked that Craig would be starting his book tour at the airport. Moments later during an interview with Clinton campaign advisor Lisa Caputo, he joked about the Minnesota bridge collapse as an embarrassment Republicans would have to face when they come to the state: "We're having a little bit of fun here tonight with the opportunity of Republican conventioneers to arrive at the airport out there and immediately go to the Larry Craig Memorial Bathroom and check in and let everybody know they know some history. Then go to the bridge that fell down in St. Paul. There's a lot to celebrate for the Republican conventioneers as they get together." (Transcript follows)

Below is a transcript of the relevant comments from Matthews, which aired at about 8:09 p.m. during MSNBC's Tuesday coverage of the presidential primaries:

"Good Morning America" co-host Chris Cuomo somehow managed to make it through an entire segment on Kwame Kilpatrick, the scandal-ridden Democratic mayor of Detroit, without mentioning his political affiliation (other than a brief, non-verbal video graphic). Cuomo described Kilpatrick as the "beleaguered mayor," a "prominent politician," and, simply, "the mayor."

In contrast, while GMA's report on Kilpatrick was a rather straight forward recitation of the facts, the morning program wondered in August of 2007 if Senator Larry Craig's bathroom scandal could spell doom for the Republican Party. On August 28, 2007, guest co-host Bill Weir gravely wondered, "Is the GOP losing its grip?"

My colleague Brent Baker has painstakingly documented how the big three broadcast networks have gone out of their way to avoid labeling scandal-scarred New York Governor Eliot Spitzer as a “Democrat.” An examination of the fifteen ABC, CBS and NBC morning and evening news shows through Wednesday night finds Spitzer was called a Democrat just 20% of the time — twice on CBS, once on ABC, and never on NBC.

So how do the networks treat Republicans involved in sex scandals? Always, always as Republicans, and as problems for their party.

Last July, Louisiana Senator David Vitter’s name surfaced in the phone records of the “DC Madam,” Deborah Jean Palfrey. Over the next week, ABC talked about Vitter twice on World News and twice on Good Morning America, labeling him as a “Republican” or “conservative Republican” all four times.

MRC President and NewsBusters Publisher Brent Bozell appeared on today's "Fox & Friends" to discuss findings by MRC analysts that Gov. Eliot Spitzer's (D-NY) party affiliation (and Hillary Clinton superdelegate status) has been persistently overlooked in broadcast and print media outlets.:

BOZELL: ABC and then NBC "Nightly News" two days ago, not once mentioned that he was a Democrat. "Good Morning America," not once mentioned that he was a Democrat. ABC nightly news, not once mentioned that he was a Democrat. CBS, one mention on the nightly news, no mention on the morning news. AP did a three-paragraph breaking story, never mentioned that he was a Democrat, then they came out with a full story, never mentioned that he was a Democrat. Last night, NBC, never mentioned he was a Democrat. Last night, ABC never mentioned that he was a Democrat. It is unbelievable.

Co-host Steve Doocy noted that this is not new for the news media, recalling the 2001 Gary Condit saga. Condit, you will recall was suspected in the disappearance of former intern Chandra Levy:

CNN correspondent Carol Costello, in a report on Monday’s "The Situation Room," tried to put the Eliot Spitzer scandal into a better light by focusing entirely on past Republican scandals, and only mentioned two examples of Democrats caught in scandal -- Bill Clinton and Massachusetts Congressman Barney Frank -- in passing.

Other than Idaho Senator Larry Craig, Costello brought up Republicans who had been accused of misbehavior by pornographer Larry Flynt. She only mentioned Spitzer at the very beginning of her report, and then immediately went to her first example, Louisiana Senator David Vitter. "Maybe Larry Flynt would say of Eliot Spitzer, there will soon be one less known hypocrite in government. That's how he described Louisiana Senator David Vitter. Flynt accused him of having been a client of the alleged D.C. madam, Deborah Palfrey, after the senator's number was discovered in her phone records."

Costello then turned back the clock ten years, and instead of focusing on Bill Clinton and the Monica Lewinsky affair, she brought up the Republicans that had been caught by Flynt.

NewsBusters posters have already given Old Media deserved grief about its reluctance to pin the Democratic Party label on Eliot Spitzer, who, as of this moment, is still governor of New York (Brent Baker on evening news show coverage; Ken Shepherd on the BBC; Shepherd on the AP).

But, as blogger Ace noted last night (warning: some profanity at Ace's link), ABC has outdone the other outlets one better.

ABC's "Political Sex Scandals Redux" popup slideshow has a series of 13 slides relating to current and past politicians. If Republicans are or were involved, the network, with one rare and minor exception, consistently applies the "R" label almost immediately. With Democrats, with one very old exception, the party label isn't there.

Here are the specifics:

Update (18:18 EDT): BBC has updated their article to note the Democratic party affiliation in the 3rd graf (link). Our tipster DB informs us that the BBC's North America editor Justin Webb replied to his e-mail with a promise to "try to get it changed."

The BBC initially noted Gov. Eliot Spitzer is a Democrat, in an early draft of an online news article. The mention was in the 6th paragraph. But that stuck for all of 37 minutes as NewsBusters reader DB informs us (screengrabs shown below page break):

The BBC's first draft mentioned that Spitzer was a Democrat in the 6th
para:
http://i27.tinypic.com/20zr48m.jpg

The second draft removed all mention:
http://i31.tinypic.com/2lbfddc.jpg

DB also noted that the BBC has placed Republican Party affiliation in the lede paragraph in political scandal stories where the offenders (Sens. Vitter and Craig) are members of the GOP.:

Last year's most bizarre and famously icky sex scandal was, of course, Senator Larry Craig's airport bathroom incident, in which the Idaho Republican was alleged to have been soliciting homosexual sex from an undercover cop. Suffice it to say no one who came across the story could walk away without knowing Craig's party affiliation, and in some cases his record as a conservative with some libertarian-friendly stances.

So how did the Associated Press's Bill Poovey treat a former Democratic Tennessee judge with an arguably nastier, kinkier, more disturbing sexual predilection? Not one mention of John B. Hagler's Democratic Party affiliation in Poovey's 23-paragraph January 2 story, even though the judge's sex fantasy recording sure spooked at least one veteran police officer (emphasis mine, h/t NB reader Chris Mario):

What do you know? Time magazine ran a list of the Top Ten Editorial Cartoons of 2007, and the only American political figures coming in for lampooning were . . . conservatives.

Four of the cartoons were not explicitly political [sex habits of the elderly, contaminated products from China, VA Tech shootings, Barry Bonds steroids scandal].

But of those that satirized political figures, all were Republicans or conservatives:

File this one under "Mental Images We Could Do Without."

Discussing her attempt to straddle the Iran issue, Chris Matthews has accused Hillary Clinton of a "wide stance." For some time, the "Hardball" host has been making the point that while Hillary now claims she voted for the 2002 Iraq resolution only for purposes of authorizing more diplomacy, at the time everyone and his uncle knew that it was a war authorization.

For example, interviewing Hillary advisor Howard Wolfson on "Hardball" back in July, Matthews stated: "Anybody who didn't think we were going to war in the months leading up to the war in Iraq wasn't paying attention."

Today, Matthews employed the infelicitous metaphor for purposes of accusing Hillary of pulling a similar stunt on Iran.

View video here.

After the "Today" show aired yet another portion of Matt Lauer's prime time interview with Larry Craig and his wife, NBC's Meredith Vieira asked Tim Russert to analyze the ramifications the Craig scandal could have on Republicans in '08 and noted that the Democrats had "been quiet so far." The "Meet the Press" host responded by highlighting the obvious harm the Craig scandal could have on the GOP but observed the Democrats felt "it's best left unspoken." Of course that's easy for the Democrats to do when NBC News is doing all the speaking about Craig for them. So far "Today" has buttressed Lauer's Tuesday night prime time special with four segments on Craig in the past two days alone.

The following is the relevant exchange from the October 17, "Today" show:

He might be a middle-aged white guy from the Mountain West, but Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho) suddenly understands the travails of people stopped for "DWB": driving while black. In the course of his interview with Matt Lauer, aired last night and excerpted on this morning's "Today," Craig tried to play the profiling card.

MATT LAUER: The fact that these motions seemed to replicate a well-established sequence of signals for soliciting anonymous sex, it's a coincidence?

View video here.

TV Newser reports "NBC News has released details of Matt Lauer's weekend interview with Sen. Larry Craig. The interview will air in a Matt Lauer Reports special tomorrow night at 8pmET on NBC and on the Today show Wednesday morning." The airport bathroom sting, worthy of prime time? (UPDATE: It was promoted in Monday's prime time, as the picture shows.)

Did NBC take Patrick Kennedy's Ambien Driving Tour into prime time? Will NBC have a prime-time interview with Rep. William Jefferson on his bribe money in the freezer? Lauer doesn't usually show up in prime time unless he's interviewing Britney Spears. How can the NBC News folks not look partisan in putting this in prime time?

A quick Nexis shows the Today show has never aired more than a brief anchor-read story on May 27, 2006 on William Jefferson’s bribery scandal….but they’re hounding Craig. By contrast, in August 2007, in the first seven days of the Craig scandal, Today mentioned Craig in the show’s opening six of seven days (every day from Tuesday through Sunday), and aired ten reports or interviews and another six anchor briefs.

Democratic mayor Robert Levy, accused of being a phony soldier of sorts, went AWOL on September 26, failing to report to work on behalf of the citizens of Atlantic City, New Jersey. Reported the AP in an October 9 article:

Levy has been mired in scandal for nearly a year.

Last fall, the Press of Atlantic City reported that the Vietnam veteran's claims that he was a member of the Green Berets were untrue. He apologized.

But federal authorities have been looking into whether the 64-year-old Levy made that claim to increase his veteran's benefit payments.

Hmm, no party label? Even though this is not just resume embellishment but a possible case of veterans benefits fraud?

Were you aware that embattled Idaho Senator Larry Craig has been inducted into the Idaho Hall of Fame? If you journeyed over to MSNBC.com, you couldn't miss [this AP] story; their 8:30am EDT update highlights it not once, not twice, not three times, but four times in different sections of their main page. Here's one from the "Inside MSNBC.com" segment:

Jack Cafferty opened his CNN "Situation Room" shtick today at 4:07 p.m. EDT by asking about Larry Craig:

Which was worse? Making sexual advances toward a police officer or lying to the whole world by saying you're going to resign your Senate seat and then announcing you're not going to resign?

Answer: saying you don't want Craig to resign because you "can't wait" for televised hearings describing all the lurid details of what happened in that stall.

Which is exactly what Cafferty went on to do.

Mimicking NBC's Matt Lauer on "Today" with Tom DeLay a few weeks ago, the Washington Post's Howard Kurtz chose Monday to address a number of political scandals in America, all of them of course dealing with Republicans.

Yet, there was a brewing campaign finance scandal conspicuously absent from Kurtz's list. Need a hint what it might be?

Maybe Glenn Reynolds' comical quip will help: "Hsoot, it's on the tip of my tongue..."

Yep. Nowhere was Norman Hsu to be found. Instead, here's what concerned Kurtz (emphasis added):

We Get it: You Don’t Like Fox

In an interview with Playboy magazine, MSNBC host Keith Olbermann actually fulminated that "Fox News is worse than Al Qaeda." He then went on to compare his cable rival to the Ku Klux Klan and rail against Rudy Giuliani. And this is the guy who is hosting football coverage on NBC? Live?

Live From the Bathroom

Speaking of Fox News, the network proved this week that it’s not always "fair and balanced." FNC reporter Laurie Dhue anchored a segment entitled "Lavatory Lust" that re-enacted the infamous Larry Craig bathroom incident. Before ending the "Geraldo at Large" piece, Dhue editorialized that it was sad Craig "had to go to a public place, and that’s the shame of homosexuality in this country right, today — at least the shame that the Republican Party puts on it."

Marshall University psychology professor W. Joseph Wyatt should probably stick to psychology as oposed to attempting media analysis. However, he has decided to write an op-ed in the Huntington, West Viriginia Herald Dispatch claiming that media bias is a myth. Professor Wyatt begins by claiming that,

However, a 2002 Gallup poll showed that slightly more than a third of journalists describe themselves as Democrats, meaning that the vast majority are something else, and unlikely to be liberal.

Unfortunately for the good professor, a 2007 Gallup poll as reported in the American Journalist actually found that,

When it came to the subject of party affiliation, 36% of the journalists said they were Democrats in 2002 compared with 44% in 1992.

Touting it as a “Geraldo at Large investigation you won’t soon forget,” FNC’s Laurie Dhue filed a report from inside a men’s bathroom on what supposedly happened last June between Senator Larry Craig and an undercover police officer, with actors in separate stalls rubbing their feet together.

After pointing out that the chances that Craig’s conduct was simply misunderstood by the police officer were “extremely low,” Dhue suggested that any stigma on homosexual behavior was the fault of the Republican Party.

Dhue declared: “I think the sad part about all this is that Larry Craig had to go to a public place — if it’s true, if he is gay — he had to go to a public place, and that’s the shame of homosexuality in this country right, today — at least the shame that the Republican Party puts on it.”

The blogs and MSM sure paid a lot of attention to Senator Craig, his wide stance, and restroom etiquette.  I wonder why they are not paying as much attention to the ACLU chief getting seven years for child porn?

I wonder, especially, when it involves sexual torture of infants and toddlers....why isn't this getting any coverage?

Many of us here, of course, take it for granted that the news media focuses far more on any scandals or troubles that occur with Republicans while at the same time they try their level best to ignore those that are perpetrated by Democrats. Sometimes that claim is open to interpretation, sometimes it seems too obvious to doubt, but that the media favors the Dems seems beyond doubt. The MRC recently had a much talked about media bias report that went a long way toward proving with statistics that our contention is true (Rise and Shine on Democrats), at least as far as morning TV shows go.

But, it's always helpful to get as many statistics as possible to buttress our case. I have here another small indication of how the GOP is treated unequally with the Democrat Party revealing Media Bias in the form of a Nexis* search of two ongoing, but not equally treated, scandals in the news. Our search parameters covered the last 90 days from September 6th back.

Bill Clinton’s appearance on Wednesday’s "Larry King Live" gave new life to the old nickname for CNN as the "Clinton News Network." Host Larry King fawned over Clinton during the 40-minute interview, asking the impeached former president questions on wide range of topics. King asked Clinton if Osama bin Laden was ever going to caught. After Clinton gave the standard Democrat line that not enough resources are being sent to Afghanistan in the hunt for the al Qaeda leader, King added, "You almost got him." Clinton answered affirmatively, and added that he "never had a chance to deploy large numbers of troops to Afghanistan."

NBC's "Today" show devoted its entire 7:30am half-hour of its Wednesday morning program to Bill and Hillary Clinton as it invited on the former president to tout his wife's candidacy and his new book. During almost 13 minutes of one-on-one interview time with Clinton, Matt Lauer brought up the issue of too much money in politics but never asked about Bill's or Hillary's fundraising scandals, asked about Republican Larry Craig's sex scandal, but didn't mention Bill's own personal indiscretions and even let Clinton rant about the GOP's "Swift boat tactics" against Hillary.