NY Times Frank Rich: Fox News Trying to Portray Obama as a 'Closet Ter
Never mind the personal feelings of people, which they're entitled to have, over the notion of a mosque being built in close proximity to Ground Zero in Lower Manhattan. Those sensitivities have nothing to do with what's really going on. It's really all about President Barack Obama and his political opponents according to New York Times columnist Frank Rich. On MSNBC's Aug. 26 broadcast of "The…
Pataki Smacks Down Matthews: You Bash Limbaugh, How About Olbermann
Former New York Governor George Pataki on Wednesday got into a heated discussion with Chris Matthews over the Ground Zero mosque and the Republican opposition to it.In the middle of his second "Hardball" segment on MSNBC, Matthews played a clip of Rush Limbaugh saying on the radio earlier in the day, "If this is a nation that is Islamophobic, how do we elect a man whose name is Barack Hussein…
Time Celebrates Methodist Seminary's Move to Train Imams and Rabbis To
For centuries, theological seminaries minted trained and licensed ministers of their respective religious traditions. They took seriously their creedal and confessional commitments to their respective faiths and denominations. While comparative theology may have been taught, it was with a view to understand and critically evaluate them as rival truth claims, not equally valid truthful claims. But…
Joe Klein's Latest Adventure in Missing the Point: Taking Bill Kristol
Time magazine's Joe Klein yesterday did what he does best: take one paragraph from a neoconservative's column and blow it out of proportion and out of context in order to go on an extended screed bashing conservatives in general and neocons in particular.Writing for his magazine's Swampland blog yesterday, Klein addressed Bill Kristol's editorial for the August 30 Weekly Standard print edition…
ABC's Bianna Golodryga Knocks Franklin Graham for 'Adding to the Confu
[Updated] Good Morning America co-host Bianna Golodryga on Saturday chided the Reverend Franklin Graham, complaining that "one of the country's leading evangelicals is adding to the confusion" over Barack Obama's religion. Reporter Jake Tapper then played a clip of Graham being interviewed on CNN: "He was born a Muslim. His father was a Muslim. The seed of Islam is passed through the father. He's…
WaPo, Editorially a Proponent of Church/State Separation, Worries Abou
Those familiar with the Washington Post know that the paper is a staunch defender of a very liberal vision of the separation of church and state. For example, the paper's editorial board was heavily critical of the Supreme Court's Mojave cross ruling.But when it comes to the supposed dearth of Muslim chaplains at Virginia prisons, Sunday's Metro section went into full hand-wringing mode. "…
Bob Schieffer Blames Internet For Americans Believing Obama Is Muslim
Bob Schieffer on Sunday blamed the internet for the growing number of Americans that think Barack Obama is a Muslim.Namelessly referring to last week's Pew Research Center poll finding that eighteen percent now believe this, the "Face the Nation" host concluded Sunday's program saying that "in the internet age, ignorance travels as rapidly as great ideas." He continued, "Now, not only great minds…
NPR’s Michel Martin Links Timothy McVeigh to Catholicism: ‘Did Any
On Sunday’s Reliable Sources on CNN, during a discussion of the Ground Zero mosque controversy, after Bloomberg’s Margaret Carlson recommended that the mosque be moved as a compromise, NPR’s Michel Martin – formerly of ABC News – compared relocating the mosque to similarly treating a Catholic church after the Oklahoma City bombing.Even though McVeigh -- who described himself as "agnostic" despite…
NYT's Charles Blow: Obama Is Not Good For Jews
"Is President Obama good for the Jews?" asked New York Times columnist Charles Blow Saturday.His answer was quite surprising: "For more and more Jewish-Americans, the answer is no." In his piece marvelously titled "Oy Vey, Obama," Blow referred to Thursday's Pew Research Center report finding "33% of Jewish voters identify with or lean toward the Republican Party, up from 20% in 2008." From…
CNN Continues to Promote 'Islamophobia' Accusation From Time
CNN's T. J. Holmes brought back Time's Bobby Ghosh on Friday's Newsroom for more promotion of his "Islamophobia" cover story, and added two Muslim guests who largely agreed with his thesis that anti-Islamic sentiment was "coming into the mainstream," and how this was apparently a "reason for alarm." Holmes asked softball questions, and no one with an opposing viewpoint appeared during the segment…
Muslim Scholar on MSNBC: 'Vocal Minority' Spreading Fear, 'Demonize' I
During the 10 a.m. ET hour on MSNBC, anchor Chris Jansing spoke with Islamic scholar Hamza Yusuf Hanson about the Ground Zero Mosque controversy, who proclaimed: "I think there's a lot of fear....there has been a concerted effort by a certain segment. It's a very small minority, but their powerful and vocal, to demonize the Muslim community." Yusuf was on to discuss his founding of…
WaPo Publishes Puffy 25-Paragraph Story: 'When It Comes to Praying, Ob
"When it comes to praying, Obama prefers privacy." Thus reads the page A2 headline for Michael Shear's August 20 Washington Post story that reads like an extended Obama White House campaign press release. Shear opens with a story about how Obama prayed with "three Christian pastors" over the phone as he flew to Chicago to celebrate his 49th birthday. "As he celebrated his birthday, he was in a…
Todd: 'Anthropological' Obama Didn't Mean To Demean With Bitter-Clinge
"You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them…And they fell through the Clinton Administration, and the Bush Administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not."And it’s not surprising then they get…
NBC's Todd Frets Obama's Effort to 'Tackle' Nation's Problems Allowed
NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams cited a “stunning number” from “a reputable pollster” (Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life and the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press) – which discovered “just under 20 percent of the American people believe the President is a Muslim” when “he is not” – to justify a full explanation from Chuck Todd on the mischaracterization of Barack…
