"We Report, You, uh, oh never mind"

Time for FAUX FOX News to change its name....

Summary: In an article about a lawsuit against Fox News and hosts Steve Doocy and Brian Kilmeade for repeating as fact an online parody news report of a school prank that included fabricated quotes attributed to the superintendent, the AP reported that the case has been dismissed and that the judge called Doocy and Kilmeade "gullible." But the Fox & Friends segment in question marked at least the third time since 2004 that Fox News has issued a retraction and apology for airing a fake news report that repeated false information.

How can an organization use "news" in its name when it is so terribly gullible and stupid?

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Media bias borders on mental illness

Via Media Matters, Craig Crawford, columnist for Congressional Quarterly, answered Joe Scarborough's "assertion that former President Bill Clinton is 'divisive' " during the Jan. 26 MSNBC's Morning Joe. Snip (with emphasis):

CRAWFORD: You know, I have sat down here in Florida for the last month. And I have watched the coverage, and I really think the evidence-free bias against the Clintons in the media borders on mental illness. I mean, I think when Dr. Phil gets done with Britney [Spears], he ought to go to Washington and stage an intervention at the National Press Club. I mean, we've gotten into a situation where if you try to be fair to the Clintons, if you try to be objective, if you try to say, "Well, where's the evidence of racism in the Clinton campaign?" you're accused of being a naïve shill for the Clintons. I mean, I think if somebody came out today and said that Bill Clinton -- if the town drunk in Columbia [South Carolina] came out and said, "Bill Clinton last night was poisoning the drinking water in Obama precincts," the media would say, "Ah, there goes Clinton again. You can't trust him." I really think it's a problem. You know what? You guys make him stronger with this bashing. This actually is what makes the Clintons stronger.

According to Media Matters, Crawford's remarks followed a video clip cued up by Joe's co-host Mika Brzezinski in which Bill Clinton said (with emphasis):

[T]hey have systematically polarized the country, the right-wing Republican faction has. They first took over the Republican Party. And then they performed reverse plastic surgery on all the Democrats, right? ... And it worked for them every single time, except with me.

Joe then pontificated, "it's amazing how divisive he is compared to [Democratic presidential candidate] Barack Obama, who asks Republicans and independents to vote for him. And here's Bill Clinton fighting the right-wing Republicans. It's just like 1998 all over again, isn't it?"

[Keep reading... more after the jump.]

No, Joe, it's you and your kind that spread falsehoods -- like you did with Margaret Carlson -- and who refuse to hold Republicans accountable for using polarizing tactics. Like you do. How many news consumers have been informed of the unprecedented obstructionism by Senate Republicans? Are media reporting the facts about who's behaving divisively? Hell, no. The dumbed-down script for more than a decade is it's Clinton's fault and Hillary is polarizing.

When media manipulate the narrative into potshots at either Clinton and the Democrats, they keep the heat off the culprits responsible for the damage. It was the GOP that injected divisive issues such as the racially-exploitive southern strategy, attacks on abortion, gay marriage, and "amnesty" for illegal aliens, to name a few. They continue to misuse the Iraq war to taint Democrats as defeatists waving the white flag of surrender for advocating troop withdrawals. Forget that a majority of the nation supports leaving Iraq. That's an inconvenient fact the mainstream press corps readily dismisses when given a chance to bash Democrats.

That's how Big Media plays the game -- distorting and fabricating "evidence" -- and some foolish dupes fall for this crap. As Bob Somerby and Media Matters have documented for years, our mainstream press corps has unfairly attacked Al Gore and the Clintons sometimes with little proof other than innuendo, worthless trivia, and sometimes with blatant lies. And still do.

If Obama wins the Democratic nomination, expect to read and hear how divisive Barack is. Think it won't happen? Pat Buchanan has already floated a trial balloon raising the alleged rift between Hispanics and African-Americans. Earlier on Hardball, he insidiously alluded to Obama's campaign phrase -- "Yes, we can" translated "Sí, se puede" -- as "the cause of the illegal immigration movement and the amnesty movement." If you read of Buchanan's views on the invasion of America, his remarks weren't intended to flatter Obama's can-do message. At Faux News, Ted Kennedy's endorsement of Obama provided E.D. Hill with the opportunity to spout (with emphasis):

...Barack Obama, who has -- I mean, on his website, you look at it and sort of the whole thing is devoted to "I'm a man of change because I want to get away from all that -- the hate speech and the partisanship that you've seen in Washington." Ted Kennedy, you know, is that. You know, if you talk about the people of have sort of gone to the farthest wings, Kennedy certainly represents that. So it seems like an odd coming together, unless that's the direction Barack Obama is headed.

Par for the course, you know, of the scurrilous GOP-dedicated network.

Watch for how media begin to transform Obama's anthem of "change" into change for the worse. It won't matter if it's false. Not to them. You can count on our fetid press corps to "swift-boat" the nominated Democratic WH contender as they did in 2004. Using a tested strategy, when they're not yapping at shadows, media lapdogs will idly sit, giving air time to dubious claims without challenging the GOP surrogate or politician smearing the Democratic candidate.

That's the way they sell crazy.

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Our rotting press corpse stinks again

They just can't help themselves (with emphasis):

On the December 6 edition of MSNBC's Morning Joe, during a discussion of former Arkansas Gov. and Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee's role in the 1999 release of convicted rapist Wayne DuMond, who was convicted of raping and murdering another woman after being released and was suspected in another rape and murder, host Joe Scarborough asked MSNBC correspondent David Shuster, "Do you think this is going to be a big issue?" Shuster responded: "No, I don't, because the reason -- the reason I think it was a big issue for [1988 Democratic presidential candidate] Mike Dukakis was because it played into the idea of a Massachusetts liberal soft on crime. Mike Huckabee has sentenced more people to death and carried out the death penalty more than anybody else, so it doesn't really fit that narrative."

Oh, I get it. We've come to expect a conservative to exemplify little compassion, to contradict a pro-life position by executing the death penalty more than anybody else, to accept that Republicans are a hard-hearted, blood-thirsty clan. And fallacious, too.

Later in the discussion, Shuster stated, "[T]here are a lot of ways that I think that Mike Huckabee can get out of this, and again, because he's a conservative guy from a conservative state, I just don't think it carries the same weight as Mike Dukakis in '88."

Follow Shuster's reasoning with me. Maybe I'm missing somethin' redemptive. Maybe not.

[Keep reading...]

A liberal pegged as soft on crime in liberal Massachusetts, who supported a weekend furlough system in which a felon raped, committed physical violence and armed robbery was a big story.

But, a conservative who went soft on crime in a conservative state, who -- against the objections of sexual assault victims -- made a bad and politically questionable decision that led to rape and murder is no big deal. Uh huh. IOKIYARIARS? The families of murder victims Sara Andrasek and Carol Shields probably wouldn't agree.

Reading my friend Blue Girl added a different and relevant perspective to Shuster's specious gaffe. Read her whole post. For now, a few snips:

If not for the family connection between the victim and Bill Clinton, Dumond would have rotted in an Arkansas prison and died, unknown and unmourned. That would have been justice.

Instead, the Arkansas GOP went into full-froth mode...Dumond was innocent! He was railroaded by that bastard Clinton! He must be freed!

Bullshit. He was a predator and a rapist and a murderer. That mattered not a whit...

...The Huckster pressured the parole board behind closed doors, and they granted the murdering monster parole - without Huck having to affix his signature to the release. When the victim pleaded with Huckabee to keep the man in prison, he dismissed her, telling her that he believed that the man was reformed and repentant, and would pose no future threat. (Haven't we heard that "looked into his soul" line of crap before?)

I do not believe for one second that anyone in Arkansas thought the bastard was reformed.

If they truly believed he was reformed, why was one of the conditions of his parole that he had to leave Arkansas???

Steve Benen also provided an excellent overview on Huckabee's involvement in the DuMond parole.

And what's this in today's Sunday NYTimes? Sho 'nuff, they finally caught up to the liberal bloggers.

Despite the Huckster's denials, "Two former parole board members in Arkansas said yesterday that as governor, Mr. Huckabee met with the board in 1996 to lobby them to release the convicted rapist, Wayne DuMond, whose case was championed by evangelical Christians." And... "The Los Angeles Times reported yesterday that three of the seven members of the parole board said Mr. Huckabee had pressured them, echoing earlier reporting by The Arkansas Times and other local news media."

Yet, according to MSNBC's David Shuster, the DuMond case ain't nuthin' for Huck to sweat. If a complicit media covers Huckabee's behind, maybe he's got a point.

When Shuster defended his argument with the excuse that Huckabee is a conservative guy from a conservative state, I thought that dog won't hunt, bubba. That's plain conservatard punditry. Without thinking (our mainstream press unwittingly and sometimes willfully sneaks in rightwing talking points, they're so insidiously ingrained like shoe polish on their wingtips), Shuster revisited the myth, a Serious Idea, that liberals are soft on crime and conservatives aren't -- a favorite narrative of the GOP. Bless his pea-picking heart, his mouth ran away from his brain.

So few Molly Ivins and Lars Erik Nelsons remain alive to demonstrate to the pups how to think independent of an approved script. Tragic but true especially on tee-vee.

The next day on the Dec. 7 Morning Joe, Shuster almost -- almost! -- acted like a journalist asking pertinent questions before fumbling as he pressed the waterboarding debate with Joe Scarborough. (Crooks and Liars). When he suggested that the CIA torture tapes may have been disposed to "cover up war crimes, and that torture doesn’t work and is barbaric and wrong," Joe launched his best "Sean Hannity impersonation" and issued a forceful "torture apologia" that vented his wingnut spleen.

"Because...we live in a dangerous world!" Joe vehemently defended, all bowed up and thunderin' like Moses in a Cecil B. DeMille production.

Now if Shuster -- "naive" is what Joe called him -- could realize how a "conservative guy in a conservative state" contributed to a dangerous world, maybe he'd understand why northwest Missouri thinks Huck's "guilty of felony murder."

But, for the life of me, I can't figure out how soy lattés on the upper West Side of New York City factor in a clash over the depravity of torture.

Oh, the mysteries of our rotting press corpse.

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Cranking Up the Mighty Wurlitzer

As they always do when they have no facts or precedent to make their case, the right-wing noise machine has been cranking non-stop in an effort to smear Nancy Pelosi and her trip to the Middle East.

None of the sources criticizing Pelosi has mentioned the five Republican congressmen who were in the Middle East this week and who also met with the Syrian president.

To hear them tell it, Ms. Pelosi is setting up a shadow presidency and only wants to embarrass the idiot in the oval. The ABC website actually implied criminality might be charged.

Please.

I would like to refer those screaming the loudest to 1997, when two different Speakers of the House truly did usurp presidential authority:

From Digby:

In 1997, Rep. Dennis Hastert (R-IL) led a delegation to Colombia at a time when U.S. officials were trying to attach human rights conditions to U.S. security assistance programs. Hastert specifically encouraged Colombian military officials to “bypass” President Clinton and “communicate directly with Congress.”

…a congressional delegation led by Rep. Dennis Hastert (R-IL) which met with Colombian military officials, promising to “remove conditions on assistance” and complaining about “leftist-dominated” U.S. congresses of years past that “used human rights as an excuse to aid the left in other countries.” Hastert said he would to correct this situation and expedite aid to countries allied in the war on drugs and also encouraged Colombian military officials to “bypass the U.S. executive branch and communicate directly with Congress.”

Subsequently, U.S. Ambassador to Colombia Myles Frechette sent a cable complaining that Hastert’s actions had undermined his leverage with the Colombian military leadership.

In other instances, Hastert actually guided congressional staff to unilaterally reach deals with Colombian officials:

House Foreign Affairs Committee staff, at the direction of the Hastert group, would fly to Colombia, meet with the nation’s anti-narcotics police and negotiate the levels and terms of assistance, the scope of the program and the kinds of equipment that would be needed. Rarely were the U.S. diplomatic personnel in our embassy in Bogata consulted about the “U.S.” position in these negotiations, and in a number of instances they were excluded from or not even made aware of the meetings.

And from Glenn Greenwald:

This is, of course, totally different than the right-wing outrage scandal de jour:

New York Times, March 31, 1997 -- reporting on a trip to China by House Speaker Newt Gingrich, one week after Vice President Al Gore's trip:

Speaking with startling bluntness on an issue so delicate that diplomats have tiptoed around it for years, Newt Gingrich said today that he had warned China's top leaders that the United States would intervene militarily if Taiwan was attacked.

As he left for Tokyo after a three-day trip to China, Mr. Gingrich said he had made it absolutely clear how the United States would respond if such a military conflict arose.

Referring to his meetings with China's leaders, Mr. Gingrich said: ''I said firmly, 'We want you to understand, we will defend Taiwan. Period.'"

He also said, ''I think that they are more aware now that we would defend Taiwan if it were militarily attacked.''

Mr. Gingrich, the Speaker of the House, delivered his message, among the most forceful ever given about Taiwan by a visiting United States official, to Wang Daohan, China's chief representative in talks with Taiwan. Mr. Gingrich said he had given the same message to President Jiang Zemin and Prime Minister Li Peng in Beijing last week.

Chinese leaders offered no public response to Mr. Gingrich today. But on Friday, Mr. Jiang urged him to treat the Taiwan issue with care. . . .

Asked about Mr. Gingrich's statements, a Clinton Administration official in Washington said Mr. Gingrich had received briefings about American policy toward China, but that Mr. Gingrich ''was speaking for himself'' in his conversations with Chinese leaders.

The White House issued a statement saying that the policy of the United States was to ''meet its obligation under the Taiwan Relations Act, including the maintenance of an adequate self-defense for Taiwan,'' and that the Administration would maintain its ''one-China policy, the fundamental bedrock of which is that both parties peacefully address the Taiwan issue. . . ."

In an interview on Friday, Mr. Gingrich said he had spoken with Mr. Clinton, and with Mr. Gore on several occasions, to make sure that their messages to Beijing dovetailed. At the time, he did not mention his message on Taiwan.

Several days later, Gingrich's remarks in China led to this -- New York Times, April 4, 1997:

China admonished the United States today to speak with one voice on foreign policy and accused Newt Gingrich of making ''improper'' statements on Washington's commitment to defend Taiwan from any military attack by the mainland.

The criticism was made by the Foreign Ministry spokesman, Shen Guofang, who earlier this week had expressed basic satisfaction with remarks made by Mr. Gingrich, the Speaker of the House, during a three-day visit to China.

The visit followed Vice President Al Gore's first trip to Beijing. Both men spoke on issues of contention between Washington and Beijing, but Mr. Gingrich's remarks were noteworthy for their directness and for exceeding the normal State Department formulations on American commitments to Taiwan.

China's decision to criticize Mr. Gingrich came after he traveled to Taiwan on Wednesday and met with President Lee Teng-hui.

Back then, the media treated Gingrich like he was the American Prime Minister, and his right-wing supporters had no problem with the House Speaker travelling and expressing his own foreign policy views which deviated from the Clinton administration's.

Desperate, ain’t they?

Meanwhile, I just love this bit from a Saudi paper:

U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi reminds us of the ambitious office worker surrounded by dunderheads who can't or won't get the job done. So she rolls up her sleeves and says for all the world to hear: 'Well, it looks like I'll have to do it myself.'

This is, of course, a non-issue. Just like the military jet was a non issue. I’m not a hyper-sensitive feminist, seeing misogyny in every shadow, but there just might be an element of that.

It’s a faux scandal because they have nothing real to object to. So they crank up the slime machine and slander the most competent politician working today because she is speaking truth to power, and it is scaring the power shitless.

Good for her.

I just think it's terribly sad that Speaker Pelosi had to give up her time off with her large Catholic family to do the job that Condi-the-incompetent has failed miserably at lo these many months.

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