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ABC and NBC Refuse to Identify Corrupt Rostenkowski as a Democrat

Posted on August 11, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

Dan Rostenkowski (?-Ill), 1928-2010. Reporting the passing of Dan Rostenkowski, the ABC and NBC anchors on Wednesday night managed to gently note his ignominious departure from public life while also including a humanizing anecdote about his life (NBC: He “went back to live in the same house he grew up in in Chicago’s north side,” ABC: “In 1985, he famously asked Americans fed up with the tax system to write him”), but neither identified him as a Democrat. Nor did any on-screen graphic mark his party. In contrast, filling in as anchor of the CBS Evening News, Erica Hill managed to accurately describe the late Congressman as “a product of Chicago’s Democratic political machine.” Handling the anchor duties on ABC’s World News, George Stephanopoulos, a Democratic House staff member when Rostenkowski was at the zenith of his power, announced: We have a high profile political death to note tonight. Dan Rostenkowski was steeped in Chicago politics from the start. Elected to Congress at the age of 30, he served there 36 years, 13 of them as Chairman of the powerful Ways and Means Committee before a scandal that saw him serve time on fraud charges. In 1985, he famously asked Americans fed up with the tax system to write him. Viewers than saw a clip of Rostenkowski: “Even if you can’t spell Rostenkowski, put down what they used to call my father and grandfather, Rosty. Just address it to R-O-S-T-Y, Washington, DC.” Stephanopoulos finished: “Dan Rostenkowski was 82.” Over on the NBC Nightly News, fill-in anchor Ann Curry read this short item: Dan Rostenkowski, once one of the most powerful lawmakers in Washington, died today. He rose to become Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, but ended up at the center of the House Post Office scandal and was voted out of office in 1994. He spent 15 months in prison, then went back to live in the same house he grew up in in Chicago’s north side. Dan Rostenkowski was 82 years old. The Washington press corps had affection for Rostenkowski and his liberal policies. Here are representative flashbacks to three articles in the MRC’s MediaWatch newsletter: From the June 1994 MediaWatch : Rostenkowski’s Free Ride Media Mourn 17-Count Indictment as Tragedy for the Country Some reporters treated House Ways and Means Chairman Dan Rostenkowski’s 17-count indictment on embezzlement and jury tampering not as an outrage, but as a tragedy. On NBC’s Today May 25, Tim Russert declared: “It’s sad. It’s not something people are gloating over because the fact is, Bryant, Congressman Rostenkowski came here as a political hack from Chicago and turned into a very formidable national legislator.” NBC reporter Lisa Myers added: “It’s a big loss for the President, it’s a big loss for the Congress, and I think it’s a big loss for the country.” On ABC’s Good Morning America the next day, co-host Charles Gibson pleaded the chairman’s case: “What’s involved here is perhaps, what, some $50,000 in stamps and some phantom jobs for friends?…. Here, though, is a guy who passes bills or is shepherding bills worth billions of dollars risking his career for small amounts, or you think, amounts significant enough that there’s real corruption here?” Despite the unfolding of the House Post Office scandal since early 1992 and an ongoing Justice Department investigation of Rostenkowski, reporters have failed to ask him about it. CBS Face the Nation host Bob Schieffer interviewed him twice in 1993. On February 7, he asked only one question: “Mr. Chairman, I’d be remiss if I did not ask you… you’ve been investigated by a U.S. Attorney now for I don’t know how many months, can you tell us if you’ve been given any indication if that is about to conclude?” On May 16, he asked nothing about it. Today’s Bryant Gumbel interviewed Rosty twice in 1993, May 17 and August 15. He also asked nothing about the investigation. On the day after Rosty won a primary election in March of this year, Gumbel asked only about the campaign and nothing about the charges. On June 27, 1993, Rostenkowski appeared on Meet the Press, but no one asked about his ethics. The only NBC exception came on the September 28, 1993 Today, when Stone Phillips asked: “You have had your own legal troubles of late, subject of an investigation into the House Post Office scandal. How much of a distraction is that for you and how much will it continue to be?” On May 18, 12 days after the news leaked that prosecutors planned to indict Rostenkowski, Tom Brokaw interviewed him on the NBC Nightly News but failed to ask anything about it. In the more than two years before the indictment leak, the Big Three networks aired only 22 stories on Rostenkowski’s possible crimes. In the first two months of 1988, the Big Three networks did 26 stories on Ed Meese’s connection to an Iraqi pipeline deal. Meese was never indicted. From the August 1995 MediaWatch : A Tale of Two Schieffers Worrying About Rosty, Not Newt On February 7, 1993, Rep. Dan Rostenkowski (D-Ill.) appeared on CBS’s Face the Nation. A very apologetic Bob Schieffer waited until the end of the interview to slip in a tepid question about an ongoing ethics investigation: “I’d be remiss if I did not ask you, your office has been investigated, you’ve been investigated by a U.S. Attorney now for I don’t know how many months. Can you tell us if you’ve been given any indication if that is about to conclude and do you feel in any way if that’s going to impede your authority to work on these economic problems?” On the July 9, 1995 Face the Nation, Schieffer and U.S. News & World Report Senior Writer Gloria Borger fired four questions at Speaker Newt Gingrich about his ethics. This year Schieffer lacked the “when can we get on with business” tone. While he was concerned that a long investigation into Rostenkowski may have impeded his authority, with Gingrich it smelled of a cover-up: “Maybe this sounds as an odd question, but, you know, until the ethics committee announced on Friday that they were indeed going to call you and Rupert Murdoch, there had been charges, most of them from Democrats, that the whole thing was being, been dragged out. That the ethics committee had taken no testimony under oath, that they had subpoenaed no documents. Eric Engberg of CBS had reported that they hadn’t even gotten a briefing from any relevant agencies. Do you think the ethics committee has been dragging its feet on this? And would you like to tell them to speed up to at least clear up all of this?”      From the May 1996 MediaWatch : Rosty Dearest On April 9, former Illinois Congressman and Ways and Means Committee boss Dan Rostenkowski pled guilty to two felony counts of corruption while in Congress. The night of and morning after the plea, the Big Three networks read anchor-briefs on his conviction. Time, U.S. News and World Report, and Newsweek also kept the conviction to tiny one- or two-paragraph blurbs in their April 22 editions (although  Newsweek broke the plea story the week before). ABC’s Cokie Roberts was the only network reporter to address the story. On the April 14 This Week, Roberts hurled a softball to Rosty about his good intentions. She recalled that in 1992 she asked him, “‘Why are you running for re-election when you could just go home and have this money.’ You said ‘I want to get healthcare done, I want to hang that scalp on my wall.’ Here it is four years later, you’ve spent $2 million in legal fees, you’re about to go to jail and health care isn’t done. What are you feeling?”

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ABC and NBC Refuse to Identify Corrupt Rostenkowski as a Democrat

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Liberal Think Tank Destroys Myth Bush Tax Cuts Favored Rich

Posted on August 11, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

For approaching ten years, America’s media have depicted the tax cuts implemented by former President George W. Bush as almost exclusively favoring the rich. This dishonest characterization has picked up steam recently as these tax cuts are about to expire, and the tax-loving press have campaigned for their departure as if a plague on the society. For his part, President Obama is advocating the expiration of tax cuts only to couples making over $250,000 a year and individuals making more than $200,000. With this in mind, the Tax Policy Center, a division of the liberal Brookings Institution, published a report on July 29 that included Treasury Department estimates of tax revenue losses that would accompany an extension of Bush’s cuts. Inside the accompanying PDF was evidence the Left and their media minions have been misrepresenting the beneficiaries of these cuts for a very long time: As this is likely very difficult to read, there are three crucial components to this report: This shows that the total ten-year cost of extending the Bush tax cuts is estimated by Treasury to be $3.675 trillion. Next, Treasury estimated the ten-year revenue gain of not extending these cuts to couples making over $250,000 and individuals making more than $200,000: This shows that by following Obama’s recommendations, Treasury is estimated to receive $679 billion extra in the ten years after 2010. Finally, Treasury estimated the ten-year cost of extending the Bush tax cuts except to Obama’s description of high-wage earners: So, let’s put all the pieces together. According to Treasury, the total ten-year cost of completely extending the Bush tax cuts is $3.675 trillion. The ten-year cost exclusively associated with extending tax cuts to folks Obama, the Democrats, and the media consider rich is $679 billion. This means that almost $3 trillion of the cost associated with the Bush tax cuts over the next ten years, or 82 percent, is not for benefits to the so-called rich. As such, despite what the Left and their media minions have been claiming, 82 percent of the Bush tax cuts benefited the poor, middle-class, and upper-middle class in this country. And, despite the preceding appearing at a conservative website, this data was originally published by a division of a liberal think tank.  As the media love quoting reports from the Brookings Institution, I’m sure we’ll see this information splashed all over a TV set near you in the coming days…but I wouldn’t hold my breath!

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Liberal Think Tank Destroys Myth Bush Tax Cuts Favored Rich

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Top Obama Adviser Valerie Jarrett, Vanity Fair Editor Pine for Days of ‘Responsible’ Media

Posted on August 11, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

Vanity Fair’s national editor Todd Purdum has a long piece in the most recent issue (in the print edition only, as far as I can tell) bemoaning what he argues are the new and unique challenges facing the Obama administration, including the state of the news media. Purdum’s opinions on the state of the news business boil down to a call for the press’s continuing political uniformity. He offers a quote from White House adviser Valerie Jarrett that also captures the author’s opinions on the issue. Purdum writes: Obama’s senior adviser Valerie Jarrett looks back wistfully to a time when credible people could put a stamp of reliability on information and opinion: “Walter Cronkite would get on and say the truth, and people believed the media,” she says. Today, no single media figure or outlet has that power to end debate, and in pursuit of “objectivity,” most honest news outlets draw the line at saying flatly that something or other is untrue, even when it plainly is. Purdum’s and Jarrett’s statements are comprised of one part revisionist nostalgia, and one part liberal elitism. “Objectivity” was never really present. What they’re longing for is the reliable white-collar liberalism of the 20th century news media. The uniformity of political views among the media and governing elite feeds a longing for an era of objectivity that was never really there. Jarrett’s comment about Cronkite – and Purdum’s endorsement of that comment – demonstrate the insularity of the elite liberal worldview. Cronkite was hardly the paragon of “objectivity” that so many journalists and academics make him out to be. As NewsBusters has documented, Cronkite had an agenda, and occasionally used his massive soapbox to promote it. His occasional activism included, FBI files recently revealed , aiding Vietnam war protesters – hardly a sign of political objectivity for the man who, according to media lore, set in motion events that turned public support against the war effort. Purdum seems aggravated that journalists “draw the line at saying flatly that something or other is untrue, even when it plainly is.” If Cronkite is a model of journalistic objectivity, yet famously opined against the war effort, it stands to reason that he believes what Cronkite was reporting (that the war was not winnable) was simple fact. But as we now know, Cronkite was not weighing in from a position of objectivity. He was politically inclined to oppose the war, as demonstrated by his aid to protestors. So what Purdum is advocating in waxing nostalgic about Cronkite is in fact journalistic activism – injecting political opinion into ostensibly “straight-news” reporting. That Purdum is also concerned about the liberal elite’s loss of control over the news cycle – that he longs for a “responsible” party to “control” the news – demonstrates that he is only comfortable with the Legacy Media having the power to use their pulpit to weigh in on political issues. Purdum obviously considers some facts to be “plainly” correct, and therefore worthy of an on-air opinion or two. But surely Cronkite thought his view of the futility of the Vietnam war was “correct.” His longing for Cronkite’s era of journalism has nothing to do with contemporary citizen-reporters expressing opinions. It has to do with them expressing the wrong opinions. He and Jarrett, given the chance, would return the United States to a media environment in which a small group of liberal elites retained a strangle-hold on the news cycle and used it to promote the correct opinions. And who has the correct opinions? Why the 20th century New York/DC media gatekeepers, of course. Purdum writes that “the capacity to assert, allege, and comment is now infinite, and subject to little responsible control.” This is where the element of liberal elitism comes in: Purdum is concerned that modern media gatekeepers have not satisfied the prerequisites for traditional purveyors of information. Increasing numbers do not have Ivy League degrees, did not attend journalism school, and have not been privy to the upper-middle class, urbane lifestyle that pervaded and defined the 20th century newsroom. “Responsible control” in this context means control wielded by professionals who have the proper credentials, and share the homogenous values and experiences of the intelligentsia. Purdum and his ilk are concerned that the great unwashed masses are gaining influence over the national dialogue. In fact, those masses can define the conversation. And that, by Purdum’s account, is the problem. A single blogger can upload an iPhone video of a congressman saying something stupid, the Drudge Report can pick it up, and almost instantaneously the entire country can be talking about it. All without aid from traditional media outlets! It’s a frightening loss of control for those who dominated the news cycle for so long – and determined what was and was not news. Journalists have always been keen on telling Americans that the Republic could not survive without the media elite. That’s a convenient position for people with such power. Now that they stand to lose that power, it’s full court press on their respective soapboxes to convince Americans that they, the traditionally-defined media, are needed. Hence, Purdum’s dire tone. Is journalism-by-the-masses less polished? Certainly. Does it spell the downfall of traditional news outlets? Maybe. Would the demise of a news cycle dominated by individuals with a uniform worldview and the consequent homogeneity of their left-of-center politics be a total disaster for the nation and its government? Only if you’re a member of that declining elite. Purdum clearly is, and worries that the “wrong” opinions are making inroads into the national political dialogue through new media, talk radio, and the Fox News Channel. The latter, by Purdum’s account, “is waging a fiercely partisan war against the administration.” The partisanship, though, is nothing new. What is new, and Purdum fairly notes this fact, is the omnipresence of an unprecedentedly large number of opinions, many of them very strong, some of them hostile. Writes Purdum: The world is so constantly with us that the White House press office no longer even tries to hold a daily morning “gaggle,” when beat reporters used to ask press secretaries about the expected news of the day, because it will almost certainly be overtaken by events. Under the 20th century, Old Media conception of the news cycle, the White House did not need to respond to events in real time. Barring some major event, it could hold one press briefing every 24 hours covering the day’s events, and providing comment for the following day’s print edition or the evening news broadcast. The proliferation of citizen journalism demands that official respond to more people, and face questions of a broader nature and variety. In that sense, it does not change the essential nature of the news cycle, but only broadens it. But the “hyperkinetic” news cycle, as Purdum dubs it, changes the means by which officials must respond to reporters and handle information. There are changes to which governing officials and reporters must adapt. Purdum is wrong to wish for a return to the 20th century model, where the opinions of elites were more worthy than those of the “the masses.” A diversity of opinions among the gatekeepers of information enhances, not diminishes, the national dialogue. That is a change all Americans should welcome.

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On CNN, Tavis Smiley Sees Racism in Rangel, Waters Probes; Actress Trashes Limbaugh

Posted on August 11, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

PBS talk show host Tavis Smiley guest-hosted on CNN’s Larry King Live on Tuesday night, and perhaps unsurprisingly, encouraged the view that there’s racism in the congressional ethics investigations of Charlie Rangel and Maxine Waters. “Facts are facts. The names that keep coming out happen to be members of the Congressional Black Caucus.” Smiley never seemed to consider whether the charges had merit — on the content of these politicians’ character — only on the color of their skin. He asked actress Aisha Tyler about this alleged outbreak of racism in the Democrat-dominated Congress, and Tyler unleashed an attack on Rush Limbaugh for suggesting the media thinks Michelle Obama’s entitled to a lavish vacation in Spain because of America’s sordid racial past: SMILEY: I wanted to raise this with Aisha. Maxine Waters on this radio show, on “The Tom Joyner Show” today — and I’m paraphrasing here — makes the point that this committee is established under Democrats, but the names that keep leaking out on the folks under investigation happen to be African- American members of Congress. Eight names of members of the Congressional Black Caucus, including, of course, Charlie Rangel, including Maxine Waters, have leaked out. What do you make of that? TYLER: Look, if I was a conspiracy theorist, or if I was a little bit more dead inside that I already am, if I had been deadened more by the political process over the last two years than I already have been, you would see a pattern of trying to besmirched the president’s name by association. I think what we have generally — I mean, when you look at something like the FLOTUS trip to Spain and everyone criticizing her for not taking American trips — she’s already taken four American vacations here. There’s this ongoing effort to call regular kind of common behavior into question and associate it somehow with race. Taking a lavish trip to Spain with 60 Secret Service agents isn’t “common behavior,” even if Mrs. Obama can’t travel without an entourage. Limbaugh’s brief commentary was addressed to the point that the liberal media have long defended the Obamas in everything they do, with the added psychoanalysis that the Obama deserve a different, more charitable standard of analysis because they are the historic first black family in the White House. What was seriously phony in this conversation was Tyler and Smiley expressing oh-so-great reluctance to see racism in every criticism of a black politician: TYLER: I hate to be in that want place. I don’t ever want to be in that place mentally. It’s not a fun place for me to be, to be always thinking about things being motivated racially. SMILEY: But — I think the R-word is over-used in this country. But facts are facts. The names that keep coming out happen to be members of the Congressional Black Caucus. STEPHANIE MILLER: As you know, it’s a complete mistake when Fox News is talking about Shirley Sherrod and runs footage of Maxine Waters by accident, and talking about John Conyers and runs footage of William Jefferson by mistake. You know that’s just a mistake. TYLER: You don’t even want to say what the subtext is in there. It’s such a clam. You know what I mean? You don’t even want to bring it up. I do think the word racism is over-used in this country. At the same time, what I do think is happening right now is there’s more of a subtext of racialism, where when you have somebody like Rush Limbaugh saying that the reason that Michelle Obama went to Spain is that black people are trying to get some of what white people have enjoyed. I mean, come on. Smiley was so enjoying Tyler’s attacks on Limbaugh that he returned to encouraging them after a commercial break: SMILEY: Welcome back to Larry King Live, joined now by our panel. Before the break, Aisha, you were starting to lay out for us your formulation at least about the Michelle Obama trip to Spain. I want to go around the horn, but go ahead and finish your point. TYLER: The thing that I’m really struggling with here — and I’m not going to call Rush Limbaugh, but that is a racialist attitude to say that somehow black people have never traveled abroad until the First Lady got her shot at Spain. I mean, look, I speak three languages. I lived in Europe. I lived overseas. The idea that somehow she’s getting back at white people for slavery by paying her own way to take her daughter to Spain is just extraordinary hyperbole of the highest order. And it’s ridiculous. Tyler was the one picking up the “extraordinary hyperbole” in alleging Limbaugh had said “black people have never traveled abroad” or that Michelle is “getting back at white people for slavery” with the Spain trip — neither of which he said.

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On CNN, Tavis Smiley Sees Racism in Rangel, Waters Probes; Actress Trashes Limbaugh

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The Quitting Tale That Suckered the Whole Internet [Hoaxes]

Posted on August 10, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

Photos of an aspiring broker purportedly telling off her boss garnered widespread news coverage and more than 105,000 Facebook “likes” Tuesday. Too bad the story was published by two guys who have pranked the media before. More

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Ground Zero Mosque on Greg Gutfeld’s Plan for Gay Islamic Bar: Respect ‘Sensibilities of Muslims’

Posted on August 10, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

As we noted in this morning’s Open Thread , Greg Gutfeld is planning on building the first gay bar catered to Muslim men next to the impending “Ground Zero Mosque.” Gutfeld wrote at his blog , the Daily Gut, that he has “already spoken to a number of investors, who have pledged their support in this bipartisan bid for understanding and tolerance.” On Twitter today, Gutfeld and the official twitterers of the Park51 project – the official name of the mosque – duked it out in what was a very telling exchange. See a full graphic of the back and forth below the fold, courtesy of Johnny Dollar  (pic at right by way of Jim Treacher ). “He’s got a point,” notes Allahpundit in reference to Park51’s tweet concerning “Muslim sensibilities.” “Construction projects that fail to consider local cultural sensitivities aren’t very conducive to dialogue, are they?” Indeed, the entire exchange seemed to strengthen Gutfeld’s position. He shouldn’t offend Muslim’s sensibilities? Well what about New Yorkers’ sensibilities? How is Park51’s total disregard for those sensibilities any more constructive in building a dialogue than Gutfeld’s? Outrage over Gutfeld’s move only reinforces the point his project is making (whether or not he intends it): yes, everyone has a right to build wherever they like, as long as they do it legally, but that “sensibilities” are a two-way street. Since Park51 has apparently taken a stance against Gutfeld’s bar, will media liberals condemn the mosque’s proprietors as homophobes the same way they condemned mosque opponents has Islamophobes? Individuals who opposed the mosque’s construction have been dubbed ” bellicose ,” ” xenophobic ,” ” Nazis ,” and ” intolerant know-nothings ,” while the mosque itself has been labeled a ” monument to religious tolerance .” The Twitter exchange today demonstrated the double standard espoused by the mosque’s proprietors. Will the media personalities who so vilified the mosque’s opponents endorse that same double standard? Or will they defend Gutfeld’s attempt to promote a dialogue about the treatment of homosexuals in most Muslim nations and communities, even if it means offending a few people?

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On Tape: Rage over McNuggets Not Being Served

Posted on August 10, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

(CBS) Call it a case of McNuggets Rage. Police in Toledo, Ohio have just released surveillance video of an incident from New Year's Day. They say it shows 25-year-old Melodi Dushane driving up to a McDonald's drive-through window with a neighbor at about 6:30 in the morning, and objecting strongly when told she couldn't get Chicken McNuggets at that hour, because the eatery had started serving breakfast at 2:30. See is seen getting out of the car and hitting the drive-through employee in the mouth. At that point, the manager comes over, Dushane swings a few more times, and the manager tries to pull her up through the window by her hair. Other employees prompt the manager to let her go. They close the window as Dushane tries to push it open – but she then breaks it with an object she takes out of her car. The passenger's mother says it was the employees who allowed it all to escalate. Police later charged Dushane with vandalism. added by: TimALoftis

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Leaked CIA doc: "Use Plight of Afghan Women to Win Public Support for War"

Posted on August 10, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

Between the Bomb and the Burqa Her voice was thick with passion as she argued for ending violence against fellow Afghan women, but the men didn't listen. Instead they hurled insults at her; they called her a prostitute and a traitor to her religion. The stubborn men's insults were abusive and frustrating, but it had been worse for other women in her position. They were threatened and hunted down. Some of them were killed. Like many recent reports in the media, this story conjures up images of a brave Afghan villager struggling against the tyrannical rule of a Taliban court or insurgent militia, but that's not case: the woman in this story is an unnamed member of the Afghan Parliament supported by the United States. The verbal abuse is recounted by another female Afghan official in a recent Human Rights Watch (HRW) report. The men who called her a prostitute were her colleagues and fellow legislators, the supposed enemies of the religious fanatics fighting for control of Afghanistan. Such accounts shed doubts on the narrative of female liberation following the initial toppling of the Taliban, as the reinvigorated debate over the occupation has renewed the media's interest in the abuses suffered by Afghan women at the hands of America's enemies. Human rights advocates may be pleased, but media critics say the plight of Afghan woman is being used to rally support for the war, and as a recent military leak reveals, the government secretly considered such a media strategy as recently as this spring. Time magazine became the poster child for this trend last week with a cover story featuring the disfigured face of a young Afghan girl named Aisha with the ominous headline: “What Happens if We Leave Afghanistan.” “They are the people that did this to me,” Aisha told the Time reporter as she touched her damaged face, disfigured as part of Taliban punishment for running away from her abusive in-laws. “How can we reconcile with them?” Aisha's heartbreaking plea reveals the harsh reality of living in a war-torn and ultra-religious society. She puts a face on the Afghan dilemma, but critics contend that the Time article on Aisha oversimplifies a complicated issue. “Feminists have long argued that invoking the condition of women to justify occupation is a cynical ploy and the Time cover already stands accused of it,” wrote Priyamvada Gopal, an English professor at Cambridge University, in The Guardian UK. “Misogynist violence is unacceptable, but we must also be concerned by the continued insistence that the complexities of war, occupation and reality itself can be reduced to bedtime stories.” A careful editorial by Time editor Rick Stengel insists that the magazine is not “either in support of the US war effort or in opposition to it,” but its intention is also an attempt to counterbalance the recent WikiLeaks release of more than 90,000 documents detailing the military actions in Afghanistan. According to Stengel, the leaked documents cannot provide “emotional truth and insight into the way life is lived in that difficult land,” but a different WikiLeaks release does provide some insight on using Afghan women to promote war. The Red Cell CIA Leak An internal Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) document released by WikiLeaks in March reveals a secret plan to use the plight of Afghan women and refugees in developing media strategies to “leverage French (and other European) guilt” during an especially bloody summer of military escalation. The confidential document was prepared by the Red Cell, a secretive group that consults the US intelligence community. In response to the news that Dutch forces would soon withdraw from Afghanistan, the Red Cell outlined a plan to use Afghan women and refugees in developing media strategies to ensure that more NATO allies would not succumb to public pressure and follow suit. The memo claimed that a “not our problem” sentiment toward the Afghan conflict allowed European leaders to ignore voter's vast disapproval of the occupation, but “forecasts of a bloody summer” could provoke a public backlash. The forecast was correct: June and July were the deadliest months for NATO and US forces to date. The record number of body bags coupled with the firing of former US Gen. Stanley McChrystal and the bloody revelations provided by the massive WikiLeaks release has pushed international support for the war to a new low. Bloomberg reported last week that, in the wake of the WikiLeaks release, approximately 70 percent of Germans want their troops to leave “as soon as possible.” Germany has the third largest military presence in Afghanistan. READ MORE AT LINK: http://www.truth-out.org/between-bomb-and-burqa62110 added by: pinkpanther

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NewsBusters Celebrates Five Years of Success

Posted on August 9, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

In the summer of 2005 the Media Research Center (MRC) launched a pivotal project that would quickly transform the speed and breadth of exposing liberal media bias into real-time documentation:  NewsBusters.org . Within 24 hours, top talker Rush Limbaugh raved to his millions of listeners that “NewsBusters rocks” and today, five years later, the award-winning blog has become a hub for conservative media personalities who daily cite and source its work.  The blog has authored more than 40,000 posts that have generated more than 1.2 million comments; produced the recurring political comedy show NewsBusted ; and created a community of more than 40 around-the-clock contributing analysts including Charlie Daniels and other notables. NewsBusters has become the online clearinghouse for instantaneous evidence of liberal media bias and is backed by the MRC’s gargantuan archive of more than 390,000 hours of broadcast and cable news recordings dating back to 1987.  NewsBusters has become a critical component to the mission of the Media Research Center. Before a newscast is even complete, Americans have hard evidence, video and analysis of the latest liberal slant – and the real story – at their fingertips  It is an invaluable tool in exposing the so-called ‘news’ media and I look forward to what the next five years will bring. The blog is also the recipient of several notable distinctions including the ” Top 10 Independently-Owned Websites in 2008 ” as ranked by comScore Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR) and Technorati named it the #8 top  U.S. Political Blog  as recently as last week. We will also be making some significant upgrades to our homepage in the next couple of weeks. But we do need the help of our readers in that effort. Please consider making a tax-deductible donation to help us upgrade the site. Call it a birthday present! Thank you all for your support over the last five years, and for ensuring the next five are even better.

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NewsBusters Celebrates Five Years of Success

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‘Recovery Summer’ vs. ‘Mission Accomplished’: Will MSM Immortalize Obama’s Laughable Proclamations?

Posted on August 9, 2010 by Benny Hollywood| Leave a comment

For the media, “Mission Accomplished” represents everything that was wrong with the George W. Bush administration and its war policy. The image of Bush declaring unequivocal victory mere weeks after the invasion of Iraq has been ballyhooed as a visual representation of Bush’s arrogance, naivete, even dishonesty (the media contrived most of this meme – more on that below). Will Barack Obama have a “Mission Accomplished” moment? That is, will the media seize on something he or his administration has said as evidence of the large gap between his rhetoric and the effects of his policies? In fact, the gap already exists. The White House’s ” Recovery Summer ” initiative and Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner’s statement, ” welcome to the recovery ” are completely divorced from economic reality. The only question is whether the media will seize on the catchy and baseless slogans (the two criteria of the “Mission Accomplished” media standard) coming from the White House to illustrate the sizable gap between this administration’s rhetoric, and the facts on ground, so to speak. First, it should be noted that the “Mission Accomplished” meme, as trumpeted by the media since May, 2003, is largely a myth. Bush never delivered those words in the context portrayed by many media liberals. The phrase was never actually uttered on the USS Abraham Lincoln, where Bush spoke in front of a banner displaying the infamous phrase. In fact, the banner was draped from the ship with little involvement or input from the White House. And Bush, during the speech on May 1, 2003, made sure to note that “Our mission continues” and that “We do not know the day of final victory, but we have seen the turning of the tide.” In other words, Bush plainly stated that the overarching mission was not  accomplished. Granted, he did say the following to a group of troops a month later: “America sent you on a mission to remove a grave threat and to liberate an oppressed people, and that mission has been accomplished.” But in the context of the time – when the search for weapons of mass destruction was still ongoing and Saddam Hussein had just been deposed – that statement was true. A grave threat in the Iraqi dictator had been removed, and the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis that bore the brunt of his dictatorial rule had been liberated. The lesson: truth matters less than perception and a coherent narrative in the creation of iconic images that promote or dog entire presidencies. The media’s “Mission Accomplished” meme abandoned truth in favor of a pithy and memorable way to get across a point they were already trying to make: the war effort was a bad idea. The Chicago Tribune channeled the media’s less flustered critics of the “Mission Impossible” statement, calling it ” dramatically premature .” The New York Times, on the other hand, labeled it a product of the president’s ” Never Never Land ” mentality on Iraq. “Welcome to the recovery” is certainly no less deserving – more so, in fact – of the iconic status afforded “Mission Accomplished” and the media’s disdain. Short, catchy, and lacking any real basis in reality, the phrase perfectly captures the Obama administration’s fingers-in-the-ears attitude towards their own economic policies. Three days after Geithner made his “welcome to the recovery” proclamation in the op-ed pages of the New York Times, the economy shed 131,000 jobs. The administration and its left-wing media cheerleaders touted the 71,000 private sector jobs created, not mentioning of course that about double that number would need to materialize for the economy to keep pace with new entrants in the job market. Ed Morrissey explains the numbers in more detail: This isn’t a Recovery Summer. It’s a slow slide, certainly better than the rapid disintegration of 2009, but we haven’t replaced those jobs yet, either. Job losses are cumulative. In a normal recovery with proper economic policies of lower barriers to investor entry, we would see a rapid replacement of jobs in this time frame that would take us back to somewhere around 80% of what was lost, with the remaining 20% being the most difficult to recover. We have not yet even begun that ascent. I’ll update this with a couple of slides later this morning to demonstrate the problem. Expect the White House to hail the best private-sector job creation numbers since March, but economists won’t get fooled. We’re still descending, and will until we get job creation solidly above 100,000 new additions per month. That Geithner’s “welcome to the recovery” statement was “dramatically premature” seems an understatement. is Tim Geithner stuck in Never Never Land? The Treasury Secretary’s declaration of the non-recovery recovery came in the middle of what the White House has formally dubbed its “Recovery Summer” campaign. The effort aims to promote “the surge in Recovery Act infrastructure projects that will be underway across the country in the coming months – and the jobs they’ll create well into the fall and through the end of the year,” according to a release. “Summer 2010 is actually poised to be the most active Recovery Act season yet,” the White House claimed in June. Total job losses during “Recovery Summer” have totaled 352,000 so far. The unemployment rate, meanwhile, has declined slightly, indicating that thousands of Americans have given up on their searches for jobs. Meanwhile, only a fifth of Americans believe the economy is improving, while three quarters believe the stimulus either had no effect on the economy, or has actually made things worse. In short, the “Recovery Summer” label is a joke, even given the modest (and that’s putting it generously) private-sector job creation so far this year. But will the media treat it with the disdain they did Bush’s “Mission Accomplished”? Will they call out Geithner for welcoming Americans to a non-existent recovery? If the economy doesn’t start gaining some steam, media neutrality will truly be put to the test.

See the rest here:
‘Recovery Summer’ vs. ‘Mission Accomplished’: Will MSM Immortalize Obama’s Laughable Proclamations?

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