Sudden Respect

Liberal Journalists Love Republicans—Right After They Leave Office
By Matthew Sheffield | August 21, 2011 | 7:23 PM EDT

As someone who runs a business specializing in commercial and political web consulting, I sometimes tell people that were I to suddenly become interested in advising Democratic campaigns or liberal groups, my ability to get free media plugs for my business would probably triple overnight, just simply by virtue of the fact that I would become so much more useful to the left.

The same phenomenon exists with regard to Republican political figures. The moment they're out of power and no longer a threat to the current Democratic powers-that-be, they begin to be regarded as statesmen and great leaders by America's media elite--particularly when compared to the extremist yobs who call themselves Republicans today. This sudden respect for the likes of Ronald Reagan or Dwight Eisenhower is quite humorous to behold, particularly because it's so laughably incorrect. The Republican party has indeed drifted in a direction but it's been leftward.

Hillary Clinton Claims Al-Jazeera Puts American Media to Shame
By Rusty Weiss | March 2, 2011 | 9:37 PM EST

Is Rush Limbaugh’s fear of a state-run media coming to fruition?

Hillary Clinton spent the morning on C-Span defending the State Department’s need for funding, because she feels private media in the U.S. has fallen woefully behind the likes of Al-Jazeera, the Chinese, and Russia. 

Via Business Insider, Clinton said:

"Al Jazeera is winning. The Chinese have opened up a global English language and multi-language television network, the Russians have opened up an English language network. I've seen it in a couple of countries and it's quite instructive."

Has she watched MSNBC or CNN lately?  The coupon book in the local newspaper is far more informative than the American media.

More perplexing is that Clinton seems to be blurring the line between popular media and the need to disseminate information via her State Department.  Essentially, because the Republicans want to slash the State Department budget in half, efforts to spread U.S. propaganda through new media will suffer.  Without money, her department cannot spread information to Arabic and Farsi language audiences.  This apparently, is the fault of Republicans cutting spending, and a private American media that can no longer compete.  Enter the state-run media.

(Video below the fold)

Parker/Spitzer: Splitser
By Tom Blumer | February 25, 2011 | 11:22 PM EST

CNN announced tonight that Kathleen Parker is leaving Parker/Spitzer:

CNN co-host Kathleen Parker leaving show

 

Atlanta, Georgia (CNN) -- Kathleen Parker, the Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist who co-hosted CNN's 8 p.m. show, is leaving just five months after the show debuted, the company announced Friday.

 

"I have decided to return to a schedule that will allow me to focus more on my syndicated newspaper column and other writings," Parker said in a statement.

After Two Years of Disrespect, CNN Now Teams Up with Tea Party for GOP Debate
By Rich Noyes | December 21, 2010 | 10:46 AM EST

Late last week, CNN announced its plan to team up with the Tea Party Express to co-sponsor a Republican presidential debate in September. While this creates the possibility that Republican candidates will actually face questions of interest to Republican primary voters (as opposed to the typical liberal media agenda), it’s also probably the first time a media organization will partner with a group that its on-air correspondents and commentators have trashed over the past two years.

CNN’s liberal commentators have been savage to the Tea Party. Back in 2009, longtime CNN house liberal Paul Begala slammed the Tea Party as “a bunch of wimpy, whiny, weasels who don’t love their country.” A couple of weeks before this year’s election, CNN’s 8pm ET co-host Eliot Spitzer said the Tea Party was “vapid” and leading America “down a dangerous road....They’re going to destroy our country.”

But CNN’s supposedly objective correspondents and anchors have showcased a similar hostility to the Tea Party, attacking them as racist, extremist, pawns of Fox News, or using the vulgar “tea-bagging” nickname favored by left-wing activists to disparage the group. A few of the choicer examples from the MRC’s archive (including video):

AP's Elliott Looks for Post-Delaware Primary 'Expert' Commentary From Lincoln Chafee
By Tom Blumer | September 26, 2010 | 7:32 PM EDT
http://i739.photobucket.com/albums/xx40/mmatters/Lincoln ChafeeThis goes back eleven days, but the entertainment value is too good to let it slide by without notice.

On the Thursday after Christine O'Donnell defeated Mike Castle in the GOP primary for Delaware's open U.S. Senate seat, the Associated Press's Philip Elliott apparently felt the need to seek out an one-time Republican (or at least that's what he said) -- one of only a very few Republicans whose positions were or have been to the left of Castle's.

That would of course be former Rhode Island senator Lincoln Chafee (pictured at top right). To pick just one example to demonstrate Chafee's liberalism, during 2006 and 2005, his final two years as a Senator, his grades from the Club for Growth came in at 27% and 26%, respectively. Castle's grades in the House during those same two years were 48% and 43%.

Gosh, Phil, was there any doubt over how Chafee would feel about Castle's defeat and O'Donnell's win? Is this news?

Here are a few paragraphs from Elliott's brief report, including a Chafee prediction that may be disproven in 5-1/2 weeks:

Amidst Media Battering of Boehner, MSNBC Actually Portrays His Upbringing Positively
By Matt Hadro | September 13, 2010 | 3:46 PM EDT
Amidst a war of words with the White House, character attacks from the Left, and a New York Times hit piece on his connections with lobbyists, House Minority Leader John Boehner has received positive media coverage – from MSNBC of all places. The network ran a portrait of Boehner's childhood on its 11 a.m. news hour, and again on "Andrea Mitchell Reports" at 1 p.m.

"The public hears a lot of the arguments against [Boehner] from the Left," remarked NBC correspondent Luke Russert on the 11 a.m. MSNBC news hour Monday. "They hear that he's a country club Republican, if you will, with extensive ties to lobbyists. But it's quite interesting. He's a man who comes from very humble beginnings, starting out in a big Catholic family in Reading, Ohio."

Russert narrated a piece on Boehner's upbringing in Ohio, as one of 12 children. He interviewed one each of Boehner's brothers and his sisters, as well as his high school football coach.
A Brutally Liberal Cartoonist: The Secret to Newspaper 'Credibility and Prestige'?
By Tim Graham | September 6, 2010 | 8:07 AM EDT

Long-time Los Angeles Times political cartoonist Paul Conrad has died, but the most interesting paragraph of his obituary in The Washington Post is the little hint by Post writer Matt Schudel that great newspapers only gain that reputation once they become liberal:

He won his first Pulitzer in 1964, then left Denver for Los Angeles. Mr. Conrad's incisive cartoons, which he drew six days a week, helped raise the reputation of the once-moribund Times, which had parroted the Republican Party line for decades.

A similar version of this trope appeared in the Los Angeles Times itself in a story by James Rainey, but at least it suggested that there might be a difference between mediocre reporting and a Republican viewpoint. Conrad viciously attacked Nixon and Reagan with his pen, which was and is apparently the secret of media prestige:

Flashback: Media Promoted Military Criticism of President Bush
By Lachlan Markay | June 22, 2010 | 2:03 PM EDT

No general should criticize his or her commander, and Gen. Stanley McChrystal is no exception. But the mainstream media is primarily concerned with the political fallout of McChrystal's apparent insubordination as revealed by a piece in Rolling Stone. They are not concerned with whether his critiques are accurate, in stark contrast to other military officers' critiques of war policy under the Bush administration.

During Bush's tenure, active duty generals that spoke out against administration policy were portrayed as courageous whistleblowers. Retired generals were treated as ever-wise sages of military policy. None were scrutinized as McChrystal, pictured right, has been in the hours since Rolling Stone released its article.

The most prominent active duty general to earn the media's affection was Gen. Eric Shinseki, current Secretary of Veterans Affairs (to the media's delight). He insisted in 2003 that, contrary to Defense Department policy as iterated by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, the United States would need to send "hundreds of thousands" of troops to Iraq during the initial invasion. The media ate it up.

Pentagon Rescinds Franklin Graham’s Invitation, Al Sharpton is Welcome at White House
By Colleen Raezler | April 23, 2010 | 10:21 AM EDT
The Pentagon rescinded the invitation of evangelist Franklin Graham to speak at its May 6 National Day of Prayer event because of complaints about his previous comments about Islam.

The Military Religious Freedom Foundation expressed its concern over Graham's involvement with the event in an April 19 letter sent to Secretary of Defense Robert Gates. MRFF's complaint about Graham, the son of Rev. Billy Graham, focused on remarks he made after 9/11 in which he called Islam "wicked" and "evil" and his lack of apology for those words.

Col. Tom Collins, an Army spokesman, told ABC News on April 22, "This Army honors all faiths and tries to inculcate our soldiers and work force with an appreciation of all faiths and his past comments just were not appropriate for this venue."

Is CNN Reaching Out to Conservatives for Publicity?
By Rusty Weiss | April 8, 2010 | 1:23 AM EDT
In what is generally being interpreted by most as a surprise move, CNN has recently decided to cover the Tea Party movement from an angle foreign to most in the main stream media - combating stereotypes that are heavily promoted by liberals. 

There is no doubt that the piece by Shannon Travis, Reporter's notebook: What really happens at Tea Party rallies, deserves credit for being one of the first to offer fair coverage of the Tea Party movement outside of Fox News.  NewsBusters has seen the value in such reporting from CNN.  As Matthew Balan reported yesterday evening, "Travis's article is a welcome breath of fresh air, especially when you consider that it was former CNN correspondent Susan Roesgen who lashed out at an early point against the Tea Party movement a year ago in April 2009."

That comparison alone raises some questions, however.  How does a network which featured the Roesgen debacle, suddenly find respect for the movement?  How does the organization whose award-winning journalists refer to the people as ‘tea baggers', seek to dispel the degrading stereotypes propagated in the media?  And how does a network, who just over a week ago minimized a Nevada Tea Party Event of roughly 20,000 people, by speculating that ‘at least dozens' were in attendance, suddenly believe the movement to be legitimate and important?

Most importantly, is the network actively seeking a shift to more fair and balanced coverage, or are they seeking the admiration of conservatives driving the ratings of Fox News?  Michelle Malkin for one is skeptical, calling it a desperate move for a ‘ratings-starved CNN'. 

The curiosity of the CNN shift has only been exacerbated by the network's desire to have the story covered by conservative writers.

(Explanation after the jump...)

Media Attack GOP for Filibuster Flip-flop, Silent About Dems' Newfound Love of 'Reconciliation'
By Lachlan Markay | February 24, 2010 | 5:59 PM EST
"I pray God when the Democrats take back control we don’t make the kind of naked power grab you are doing." - Joe Biden, 2005

Few Americans would be shocked to hear that members of Congress are not always consistent, and occasionally outright hypocritical. Very often, however, the liberal media attempts to downplay Democratic double standards and highlight Republican ones.

Each recent change in the congressional majority, it seems has brought calls from the newly dominant party for an end to the filibuster. This Democratic majority is no different.

When noting rhetorical inconsistencies, however, the mainstream media has jumped at the chance to note that Republicans, now using the filibuster as a potential means to block Democratic health care legislation, were ardent advocates of majoritarianism in the Senate only a few years ago (as demonstrated in the video below the fold).
With Bush Gone, NYT More Concerned With National Security Than Freedom of the Press
By Lachlan Markay | February 16, 2010 | 8:00 PM EST

The New York Times has apparently discovered its inner patriot. The paper decided after a request from the White House to hold off publishing key information about the war effort in Afghanistan for fear of alerting the enemy to key U.S. intelligence.

The Times and its executive editor Bill Keller, who defended the decision, have left the nation collectively uttering, "It's about time." Now that's change we can believe in.

Keller told WNYC radio today that two Times reporters had a story ready to go on Thursday about the capture of Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the Taliban's top military commander in Pakistan. The paper decided to hold off on running the story until today, the date the White House requested.

The National Security Council, Keller recalled, "thought it had been a clean snatch and they were afraid once the word got out, other Taliban officials would go deeper underground or take measures to cover their tracks. So they asked us to hold off for a while."