Terse AP Report Avoids Cynical Politics Behind Prop 8 Repeal Failure
In one of those "I guess we have to mention it, but we'll get it out of the way quickly" reports, the Associated Press on Monday, April 12 tersely told its readers the following about the failure of an attempt in California to repeal California's Proposition 8 (reproduced in full for fair use and discussion purposes): What AP chose to avoid telling the rest of the nation is why "more…
Time’s Klein: Beck, Palin Potentially Committing Sedition against U
Liberals are all too often eager to charge conservative personalities of using hyperbole to gain a political advantage, especially when it contradicts their world view - whether it's suggesting the Obama administration is taking the country down the path of socialism, fascism or any other -ism. However, it could be argued there's a different set of standards for those same people when they want…
AP Item on Tea Party's 'Extremist' Concerns Recycles Racial Slurs Myth
Soooo predictable, Item 2 (Item 1 from earlier this morning at NewsBusters; at BizzyBlog). Reporting from Jefferson City, Missouri, David Lieb of the Associated Press understated the number of people expected to attend rallies through the US ("thousands"), misrepresented a previous March 20 incident involving alleged racial slurs at the U.S. Capitol, and waited until his fourteenth paragraph to…
How AP Feels About Today's Tea Party Gatherings
This is sooooo predictable. An unbylined Associated Press item on today's Tea Party Express tour wrap-up in Washington uses a word that the wire service almost never (if not absolutely never) applies to truly violent leftist groups. The Google page carrying the AP report also has an interesting lead "Related article." Here's the brief AP item (produced in full for fair use and discussion…
Fineman: Private Campaign Financing More 'Sordid' Than Spending Money
In Howard Fineman's mind, the real "sordid" story behind the now infamous RNC/Voyeur Club kerfuffle is not the inappropriateness of the venue or the expensing of the outing on the donors' dime, but the whole system of raising money from large-dollar private donors in the first place. The Newsweek writer complained in the April 19 print edition:Talk about bondage. It feels like we are in thrall to…
What Goes Around, Comes Around: NBER Not Ready to Declare 'Recession
The "normal person" definition of a recession is two or more quarters of economic contraction as measured by Gross Domestic Product (GDP). This definition was perfectly acceptable to everyone until the 1970s, when the "non-partisan" National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) was tasked with deciding when recessions begin and end. In December 2008, the NBER declared that a recession had begun…
Bitter AP Report's Absurd Contention: Stupak Was 'Absolutely' Certain
Associated Press writer John Flesher seems to be one bitter guy. Flesher, along with whoever (possibly Flesher himself) came up with the headline for his Saturday report on Bart Stupak's decision not to run for re-election in Michigan's 1st Congressional District, tells readers that: Tea Partiers are poor winners. The residents of Stupak's district are federal money-grubbers who can be…
HuffPo's Ryan Grim: RNC Fundraising 'Obnoxious;' Relies on 'Extreme Pa
In the 2PM ET hour on MSNBC on Tuesday, left-wing Huffington Post writer Ryan Grim commented on the Republican National Committee spending scandal: "You know, what Republican donors do, generally, is pretty obnoxious to the American people. What did they have to cancel? They had to cancel a polo match, some yachting, you know, trips to bondage clubs." Grim went on to claim: "if you want to get…
Misappropriating Ronald Reagan: Liberals Use Icon to Promote Agenda fr
Once upon a time, liberals didn't much like Ronald Reagan - his policies, his ideology or even just because they thought he was a lousy executive and an "amiable dunce." "The Tower commission did not find Reagan a lousy orator; they found him a lousy president," Rep. Barney Frank said of Reagan to Time magazine in the aftermath of the Iran-Contra Affair in 1987. And more recently, those on the…
HuffPo: Academic Thesis Worse Than Felony Sexual Offense
Pop quiz: which of the following political candidates would you be less likely to vote for: one who had written things offensive to many women in a master's thesis, or one who was convicted of trying to solicit sex from a minor?If you think the felony conviction is a more condemnable offense for a political candidate, you may want to give up your dream job as a Huffington Post columnist. In the…
Helen Thomas Laments Impending End of Old Media's Information Monopoly
There is hardly a more fitting figure to trumpet Old Media's fear of Internet-powered citizen journalism than Helen Thomas. The 89-year-old reporter has covered every president since Jack Kennedy. But when it comes to the inevitable decline of her brand of journalism, her fears are unfounded and misplaced."Helen Thomas," reported Lloyd Grove for the Daily Beast, "is worried that all the…
Mediaite Attempts to Elevate Pseudo-Con David Frum to Biblical Status
Is it possible to be so wrapped up in a media culture that one could minimize a sacred religious holiday in a shoddy attempt to write a clever headline? Mediaite's Tommy Christopher and his editors seemed to have pulled this feat off. Christopher, who has had a much-publicized run-in with Andrew Breitbart, has a new hero, former American Enterprise Institute scholar David Frum. Christopher…
Stupak's Startling Statement to Catholic News Agency Ignored Elsewhere
This item may not surprise those of us who have watched politicians take the safe way out at any opportunity, but it will give any voters who come across it reason to doubt any Democratic congressman who says that he or she voted no on principle against Obamacare on Sunday, March 21. This explains why it hasn't been covered much -- and maybe not at all -- in any establishment media outlet. On…
NewsBusters Interview: Jason Mattera, Author of 'Obama Zombies
Are young people completely in the tank for Barack Obama and the left? They voted for Obama over John McCain by a greater than 2-1 margin. Obama was young, cool, good looking, and well-spoken -- all the characteristics for a winning candidate in the eyes of the nation's youth.But it was more than just Obama's charisma that handed him the youth vote in 2008. He was abetted by lapdogs in the press…
