BY DAN K. THOMASSON

WASHINGTON — There is a striking resemblance to covering the White House and nourishing an infant.

You know the kind of activity parents engage in when they feed the baby by pretending the spoon full of apple sauce is a loaded airplane or helicopter and the mouth is a hanger. This is accompanied by aeronautical noises aimed at diverting the kid’s attention from the true objective.

This happens in most administrations, but the current one is more adept at it than usual, particularly since the spoon is often empty of any sustenance for a thinning cadre of correspondents hungry for excitement and eager to convince the world and themselves that what they are doing is not only a glamorous journalistic assignment but enormously important.

President Obama and his minions, on the other hand, seem to have decided that long-held traditions of a ubiquitous free press geared to reporting everything big or small in his day is actually a detriment to his goals. He has even on at least one occasion shaken the press pool to its foundation by hustling secretly off without reportorial accompaniment, utterly ignoring the possibility that something might happen to him without the knowledge of his subjects, the American people.

Meanwhile, his seemingly part-time press secretary, raised on the pap of Capitol Hill and completely lacking in enthusiasm not to mention charisma, treats the care and feeding of the press with bored disdain, according to most assessments, preferring apparently to provide the president with his wise assistance in other matters and hoping some day to take over the job of chief political adviser from David Axelrod, who plans to head off before too long to help his messiah win re-election.

Probably the most disillusioning and in some ways embarrassing performance in a nation where a free and open press is a symbol of everything else we stand for came during the recent Nuclear Security Summit attended by the heads of 46 countries. Also on hand was a glorious gathering of the world’s press, eager to be in a country where openness and journalistic acceptance are celebrated. Well, at least that’s what they thought.

But that was before they were locked out of nearly everything being debated by their own presidents and foreign ministers in the two days of meetings.

According to reports, the “summit” was so tightly managed that reporters were given access that lasted literally less than 60 seconds. Nearly all the agenda of individual meetings carried a “no press” notice. This of course is at the behest of a president who soon will attend the White House Correspondents Association dinner, where there are more Hollywood stars present than working journalists and whose organization has been reduced to listening to Obama filibuster his own press conferences with long answers to planted questions from those picked to be called upon ahead of time.

A wise mentor once said that no one wants to hear reporters whine about how they have been mistreated. On the other hand, it is difficult to take lightly the disregard for the press held by a Chicago organizer who made it all the way to the White House in record time largely from publicity and enormously favorable treatment from the very journalists he now appears to eschew.

There is something much bigger at stake here. If Obama has decided that he now doesn’t need anyone looking over his shoulder, it is a sad day for all of us, and that contention needs no further explanation. Those who are satisfied with only what he wants to tell them without question deserve what they get.

So the always overrated job of covering the White House has become even more so. It is about as glamorous as cleaning stalls, with the product of the labor about the same. The president joked recently about the press being angry with him after he sneaked out to go to his daughter’s soccer game.

There really was nothing funny about it.

also: from Flopping Aces

Politicizing OK City bombing to attack dissent to O’agenda

Spinning the lazy susan of political debate on the kitchen table around, this particular Hank Stuever WaPo article today, promoting Rachel Maddow’s MSNBC special, “”The McVeigh Tapes: Confessions of an American Terrorist” , did a serious raising of eyebrows… The mainstay of Maddow’s presentation, “remembering” the Oklahoma City bombing, is actually a thin disguise for a story bent on warning against our current “anti-government” voices of dissent today. Instead of “remembering”, it’s some sort of bizarre link that the nation, protesting the Obama/Pelosi/Reid leaderships, is going to go McVeigh or Waco on us.

But in a demented defense of MSNBC’s la femme whacko, she’s not alone in her quest to not “let a perfectly good crisis go to waste”. The DNC’s #2 darling, Bill Clinton, is jumping on that same bandwagon. See also Teflon Bill’s op-ed in the New York Times…

And then, of course, there’s Obama’s FBI appointee, Robert Mueller, saying the same thing.

And add CBS’s Brian Montopoli, championing the flogging of that same dead horse.

Thirty-eight percent of Americans now see domestic terrorism as a more serious threat than international terrorism, according to a new CBS News poll; that’s up eight points from 2002. On Monday, MSNBC is airing a documentary called “The McVeigh Tapes” detailing McVeigh’s motivations and perspective on his crime — and raising questions about the dangers of the extreme rhetoric that influenced him.

With all the media mouthpieces playing the demonizing game, why wouldn’t “thirty-eight percent of Americans” be worried about their fellow citizens? This all begs the real question that should be asked by a responsible-but-non-existent media … just who’s the one stirring the pot here, and what are their motivations?

This not-so-new-thrust at dissing the opposition’s voice nestles nicely with Obama’s Homeland Security appointee, Janet Napolitano, and her DHS report last spring, warning about “right wing extremism”, singling out American military as prime suspects.

Getting the idea now? Politicizing the very sad events of the Oklahoma City bombing is quite justified these days, if it shuts up the opposition.

Whoa Nellie there. First of all, I’m finding it somewhat disingenuous to focus more exclusively on “domestic” citizens as the biggest threat. And if that were the truth, I’m still waiting for some mea culpa on agency actions that could have prevented the Ft. Hood shooter. Instead we get the Obama CIA, ordering a hit on Yemen cleric, Awlaki… again to the sounds of crickets by the media. Isn’t this the same thing the media circus was chasing Cheney and the Bush WH around on just a few years ago?

(more…)

From Powerline

The New York Times–described by a reader earlier today as “the junk-bond issuing, Mexican-controlled New York Times”–continues to decline. The paper’s grasp of history is illustrated by these corrections, just a few days apart. First, from a travel article on Friesland:

An article on Nov. 22 about the Dutch province of Friesland included a number of errors.

In reference to Friesland’s history, it was the feudal lords — not the Romans — who had no success conquering the Frisians in the 13th and 14th centuries.

Hey, they were only off by a milennium. Next, from today’s paper, an error that every American middle-schooler is taught not to make:

A television review on Friday about “Return to Cranford,” on PBS, misidentified, at one point, the period in which the story is set. As the review noted elsewhere, it is set in 1844 — the mid-19th century, not “the mid-18th century.”
(more…)

from Big Government

It was the biggest story of 2009.

If you doubt, ask ACORN. Or Van Jones. Or the So We Might See campaign. You won’t need Time magazine’s once clout-filled “Man of the Year” issue to figure it out, either. Just take a look back at the bestseller lists, the ratings of Fox News or simply turn on your local AM radio dial.

The single most important news event of 2009 was the emergence of The Virtual Newsroom. A newsroom run by a virtual army of conservative journalists famous and unknown, their individual and collective impact multiplied exponentially by millions of Internet users, radio listeners, readers and television viewers.

How did this happen? How does it work in practice?

First, perspective is needed here. Like other big news events, it didn’t happen overnight. There is history, lots of it.

In the afterglow of World War II, at the dawn of the Cold War, the ideology of American liberalism reigned supreme. What began at the beginning of the 20th century as the “progressive movement” — an ideology that believed government control in some fashion was The Answer to the everyday lives of Americans — was now riding herd.

Politically, on the one-to-ten scale, Communism was at a thousand. Beginning with the Soviet Union, entire nations had succumbed to the idea of state control of everything, run by the famous Marxist dictum of “from each according to his ability, to each according to his need.” In America, adherents to the driving principle of government control were spread out along the scale below, from socialists like Norman Thomas at a ten to progressives like FDR Vice President Henry Wallace at a nine and on down the line, ending with the weakest strain of the germ as exemplified by liberal Republicans like the New York Governors Thomas E. Dewey and Nelson Rockefeller.
(more…)

By Dick Morris

Is FOX News “an arm of the Republican Party” as White House Communications Director Anita Dunn says?

Democratic and Independent voters beg to differ. A national survey shows that 46% of those who watch FOX News “just about every day” are Democrats or Independents as are 50% of those who watch it “several times each week” or more.

Overall, the survey showed that 21% of all American voters watched FOX News every day and 18% watched it several times each week. So, combined, 39% watched the station several times each week or more.

• Among Democrats, 17% watched it several times each week or more

• Among Independents, 46% the station several times each week or more

• And among Republicans, 55% tuned in several times each week or more

The survey indicated that 11% of all American voters watched CNN “just about every day” and 20% watched several times each week or more.

Combined, 31% watched CNN several times each week or more.

For MSNBC, the totals were 10% watched just about every day and 8% watched several times each week. Combined, 18% watched MSNBC several times each week or more.
(more…)

From Flopping Aces

In 2007, Sebelius said she was for a single payer system “eventually.” Mind you, this is the same person who will be establishing the “level playing field” between the government plan and private coverage.

What a great bit of double talk from the director of HHS. How can the citizens of the US trust her to appropriately run the proposed health care scheme? Yes, it is looking more likely that it will take a conservative to clean up this mess in 2012.

also:

Obama & Company New Brilliant Strategy? Freeze Fox News Out

When a liberal rag tells Obama and company they need to get ahold of themselves:

The Obama administration really needs to get over itself.

First, the president and his aides go to war with Fox News because the network maintains a generally anti-Obama slant.

Then, an anonymous administration aide attacks bloggers for failing to maintain a sufficiently pro-Obama slant.

These are not disconnected developments.

An administration that won the White House with an almost always on-message campaign and generally friendly coverage from old and new media is now frustrated by its inability to control the debate and get the coverage it wants.

They should listen.

But noooooo. The Mao lover, and Obama aide, gives a rundown on the administrations modus operendi: (more…)

From Red Maryland

–Richard E. Vatz

I have for longer than I can remember been fascinated by the ideological agendas and biases of major newspapers and other major media. More specific, over the years, newspapers’ protestations of disinterest coupled with blatant, liberal bias (examples too plentiful to cite; just look at The New York Times’ coverage of the 2008 presidential election as synecdoche) have made claims of good journalism in major newspaper outlets laughable.

Worse, many major newspapers have visited draconian measures upon those who criticize them in the media. For about six years I was blacklisted from writing any politically-related articles or letters in the Sun and then for a time from writing anything. Unfair journalistic practices ranged from censorship to politically correct coverage of the news, wherein important issues and important evidence were neglected in order to support liberal perspectives, liberal principles and liberal principals. In the 2006 election year there was not one — not one — article supporting Maryland’s sitting governor accepted or printed by the Sun on the op-ed page (or anywhere else). On a personal note, I had long been disabused of my childhood fantasies of journalists’ generally being the good guys.

Over the last couple of years, some significant, unannounced correctives have occurred. There is nothing worse than criticizing untoward behavior and not noting when significant efforts are made to rectify that behavior, and so let me make the following observations:

First, a few words about The Baltimore Sun. The most liberal, censoring and unprofessional editor I have ever encountered, Dianne Donovan, and several of her acolytes and ideological brethren have been removed from that paper. The new editor, officially the “Head of Maryland Voices,” Andrew A. Green, is a man I met when he covered several of Gov. Robert Ehrlich’s visits to my class. He is an excellent journalist and a man of integrity – all the qualities necessary to practice journalism well. His op-ed editor, Michael Cross-Barnet, is now free to do his job with integrity. The newspaper is now open to conservative voices. Ron Smith has a regular column on the op-ed page. None of this means that The Sun lacks a liberal bent, (more…)

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact:
Meghan Tisinger
Meghan@FamiliesUnitedMission.com
(202) 510-5304

Nation’s Largest Military Family Organization Asks News Organizations to Refrain from Using Gruesome Image of Fallen Hero

Washington, DC – Merrilee Carlson, President of Families United For Our Troops and Their Mission, the nation’s largest military family organization, released the following statement concerning the Associated Press decision to publish a photo of Lance Cpl. Joshua M. Bernard of New Portland, Maine, in his final moments of life. Lance Cpl Bernard was struck by a rocket-propelled grenade in a Taliban ambush on August 14th in southern Afghanistan. Lance Cpl Bernard’s father had asked the Associated Press not to publish the image of his dying son.

“As a Gold Star mother, I know the horrific pain that comes with the death of a child. The last thing that a mother or father wants to see is their child in immense pain and dying on the battlefield. Unfortunately because of AP’s tactless and insensitive decision to disregard the request of a grieving father, Lance Cpl Bernard’s family will be forced to relive their pain every time that photo is republished.

Publishing this photo is not worth the pain that it has and will continue to inflict. This family should be able to move on with the difficult task of remembering their son as he lived, not as he died. This photo only serves to magnify the grief of a family who has already suffered enough.

LCPL Bernard and his fellow fallen Heroes have made the ultimate sacrifice to defend freedom of speech and freedom of the press. AP’s right to publish this photo should not come at the cost of causing this family additional pain. Associated Press should honor the sacrifice of Lance Cpl. Joshua M. Bernard and honor the request of his family by not reprinting this tragic photo.

Note – Merrilee Carlson is President of Families United For Our Troops and Their Mission. Her son, Sgt. Michael Carlson, was killed in Iraq in 2005. To schedule an interview with Merrilee Carlson please contact Meghan Tisinger at 202-510-5304.

About Families United for Our Troops and Their Mission (more…)

From Red Maryland

–Richard E. Vatz

For years I have been writing about the invalid media public opinion polls which preponderantly inhabit our political landscape. People wonder why so many polls are wrong beyond their margins of error. Neil Newhouse of the NBC-Wall Street Journal poll stated after the 2008 New Hampshire Democratic polling debacle that “We just didn’t see it coming” and “…any shred of reputation that pollsters have for being accurate barometers of public opinion goes out the window.”

Polls are typically error-prone for a number of reasons, including the polling of unrepresentative samples of respondents, the wording of polling questions, and, in the case of pre-election polling, the lack of attention to the intensity of respondents. Some polls have included this information in unpublished or hard-to-find “internals,” but few have ever given such salience to the strength of support for candidates as does today’s (August 16, 2009) Washington Post.

Why is intensity so important? Well, for accuracy in interpretation of public opinion, of course. But there are important consequences for candidates as well.

Say I am running against Kurt Schmoke (whom I like, parenthetically – no subtle negativism implied here) for the mayoralty in Baltimore, and a poll is taken in January of the election year in which he is not so popular; he may win 90%-10% regardless. As I become better known and people want “change,” to coin a slogan, this 80% difference may shrink significantly, as the difference did shrink in 1986-1987 when Clarence H. “Du” Burns ran against him for the Democratic nomination.

But by then it was too late, as Burns had problems financing his campaign, due in large part to supporters’ losing confidence in his viability due to his low standing in the polls.

The serial failings in the polls regarding the Democratic presidential nomination in 2008 were probably due to their either not measuring or not publicizing the intensity of the results among many candidates or just then-Senator Barack Obama and then-Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton. Predictably, some – actually, many – Obama supporters worried about polling inaccuracy due to the mythical “Bradley Effect,” which alleged phenomenon argued that a racially biased electorate would tell pollsters one thing to show themselves racially bias-free, while in the privacy of the voting booth they would turn around and reveal their manifest racism.
(more…)

From Powerline

Several years ago we noted the emergence of a remarkable phenomenon: a New Yorker, whose name I can’t readily find, had been quoted in newspaper articles as a “man in the street” something like 150 or 200 times. How does that happen?

This morning’s “Public Editor” column in the New York Times sheds light on how “random” Americans get quoted or cited in newspapers:

Last Monday, a front-page article said that technology — e-mail, Twitter, Facebook, texting and the like — has completely altered family routines at the start of the day, creating tensions in many households. Like similar trend stories, it began with an example: the Gude family of East Lansing, Mich. — Karl and Dorsey and their two teenagers.

The Gudes’ story was fascinating, but the reporter, Brad Stone, did not find them by chance. Stone and Karl Gude used to work together at Newsweek, though both said they had not talked in 10 years. Then there was a source identified only as “Gabrielle Glaser of Montclair, N.J.” She is a freelance writer who has been published 54 times in The Times and is married to Stephen Engelberg, a former Times reporter and editor.

Three other sources were all media-savvy veterans. Naomi Baron, a professor at American University, has been quoted seven times in other Times articles and has written once for the Op-Ed page. James Steyer has been quoted 13 times and is the co-founder of Common Sense Media, a nonprofit that deals with children and entertainment issues. Liz Perle, identified only as “a mother in San Francisco,” is the other co-founder of Common Sense Media and is its editor in chief. …

An anonymous blog, www.nytpick.com, revealed most of the sources’ connections, embarrassing The Times. Craig Whitney, the standards editor, said, “You can’t do a story on a national trend with so little evidence.” …

Gude said it didn’t occur to him that there might be a problem. (more…)

From Red Maryland

–Richard E. Vatz

When an iconic journalist is better than all of his peers but is still flawed, should he be eulogized as flawless? The eulogies to CBS’s anchor of anchor’s, Walter Cronkite, are nostalgically worshipping, over-the-top, and in many cases partly inaccurate.

One of the best, most responsible lines in any tribute to a deceased national hero was Teddy Kennedy’s regarding his assassinated brother, Bobby. He said memorably and compellingly, “”My brother need not be idolized or enlarged in death beyond what he was in life. [He should] be remembered simply as a good and decent man, who saw wrong and tried to right it, saw suffering and tried to heal it, saw war and tried to stop it.”

Some puffery and some oversimplification there, but the eulogizing is not unreasonable and is not unrecognizable as Robert F. Kennedy.

The eulogizing of Walter Cronkite has been undiluted by criticism. I have not come to blaspheme Mr. Cronkite, but can we all be realistic?

Since there have been so many tributes to Cronkite, let us focus on one prototypical one, the praising by NBC’s former “Nightly News” anchor, Tom Brokaw, in today’s lead op-ed piece in The Washington Post.

Mr. Brokaw, a generally responsible newsman himself, plays fast and loose many points in his paean to Cronkite, titled “A Nation’s Anchor.” Let’s look at just a couple of his arguments:

 Cronkite “grew up to become the most trusted man in America by a vote of his countrymen.” There are no quotes around “most trusted man in America” in the article, and there was no reference to the Roper Poll which provided the category. Many more people in polarized America trusted Cronkite because unlike almost all of the nation’s principals involved in public persuasion, even when wrong, he tried to let the evidence dictate his conclusion. His misreading of the outcome of the Vietnam War’s Tet Offensive, an offensive which yielded a defeat militarily for the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese, was honest but simply incorrect. It came across as reluctant testimony, since he had reversed his opinion, and this fact enhanced his nationwide credibility tremendously.

 Brokaw repeats a variation on what I have researched and found to be in 99.5068% of the articles eulogizing Cronkite: “…President Johnson knew that if he had lost Cronkite, he had lost Middle America.” As I recall, if LBJ used Cronkite’s dissent to imply that therefore public support was irretrievably lost, it was post hoc ergo propter hoc reasoning. The war’s unpopularity had been building inexorably, and only a self-deluding president would have thought that Cronkite’s position was the definitive sign of his (the president’s) losing the public’s support.

To his credit, Brokaw does at least reference the wealth of liberal causes to which Cronkite dedicated himself in his last 15 years or so which caused many conservatives to see him as just another journalist who, when scratched, was yet another liberal.

For this conservative, Walter Cronkite should be remembered as a “a good and decent man, who saw wrong and tried to right it…saw war and tried to stop it.” He also was a news anchor who admitted he was liberal, but naïvely thought that he could report on news without that political disposition having any effect, as he explained in recent years to CNN’s Howard Kurtz.

Finally, Walter Cronkite was, over many years, a damned hard-working journalist with impressive integrity and a wonderful temperament, but, like us all, he was flawed.

Professor Vatz teaches an advanced course in Media Criticism at Towson University

From Red Maryland

Memo to Laslo Boyd:

Put down the matches and step away from the straw man.

When ever Gazette columnist Laslo Boyd turns to the subject of conservatives or conservatism, my internal BS detector sounds an alarm for the imminent burning of straw men.

Boyd’s latest column, a profile of sorts on my friend Ron Smith, set the alarm screaming.

Let me start by acknowledging that I’m not a big fan of talk radio. In fact, I rarely listen and have usually turned down invitations to be on after one of my columns. But, it’s clear that talk radio — particularly the conservative version —has a following and impacts the political debate in Maryland and the nation.

With the goal of understanding the phenomenon better, I recently spent part of an afternoon with Ron Smith, host of a popular talk show on WBAL in Baltimore. Actually, Smith is more than popular. His name is practically synonymous with talk radio in that market, having been on the air for 25 years as of this coming August…

Smith credits Rush Limbaugh with inventing the modern form of talk radio by demonstrating that politics could draw large audiences. Of course, entertainment has to be part of the package, and any radio host has to be enthusiastic and have a rapport with his audience.

Still, despite the homage to Rush Limbaugh and the anti-government slant of much of what Smith discusses and his callers are eager to endorse, I came away from my afternoon thinking that Smith doesn’t neatly fit into the category of a right wing ideologue. One very specific example of his sometimes unpredictable perspective was his early opposition to the war in Iraq, which, Smith says, cost him 30 percent of his audience for a time…

If I listened regularly to the “Ron Smith Show,” I’m pretty sure I would disagree with him on many issues. And I wouldn’t want to debate him because he is so skilled at what he does. But I have to give him credit for being more thoughtful and complicated than the image I had started with.

None of that experience, however, changes any of my views about Rush Limbaugh and my willingness to criticize his irresponsible rants. Having spent time with Ron Smith, I know that he’s no Rush Limbaugh. I hope he will forgive me for revealing that to his listeners.

Ron Smith is no Rush Limbaugh? Really I had no idea. That Boyd feels he needs to reveal that obvious fact to Ron’s listeners says a great deal about his condescension toward consumers of talk radio.

Sadly this all too predicable. (more…)

From Red Maryland

–Richard E. Vatz

On local radio and television periodically and in a class I run consistently, I respectively engage in and teach Media Criticism.

The fact that liberal biases inhere in most newspapers doesn’t mean: 1. that all newspapers are liberal; 2. that generally liberal newspapers are liberal throughout; or 3. that there are no surprises on a day by day basis.

Let me begin by saying that one of the most liberal daily metropolitan newspapers in the country, THE BALTIMORE SUN, has two – two – fairly conservative pieces on their op-ed page today: long-time journalist Len Lazarick’s “Vaunted StateStat Falls Short of Real Accountability” which critiques the inadequacies of the Maryland Democrats’ StateStat plan that which purports to evaluate government programs, and Jerusalem resident Aron U. Raskas’ “Settlements Are No Threat,” a critique of the Obama Administration’s Israeli settlement policy, a piece almost as good as Charles Krauthammer’s “The Settlements Myth” of June 5, 2009.

I simply recall no two such conservative lead pieces in the SUN on a given day. In a future blog I shall share some of the depredations of erstwhile SUN editors Dianne Donovan and her acolytes — the spiking of Ron Smith’s column last Friday is just indefensible, and they have offered no defense, so maybe they felt guilty and produced today’s pieces as repentance — but, today, let me just say “Good Show.”

On THE WASHINGTON POST side, let me just say, “Better Show.” (more…)

From Red Maryland

–Richard E. Vatz

I continue to be fascinated by WASHINGTON POST scribe Howard Kurtz and his CNN show, “Reliable Sources” (RS).

The show is about media criticism, and I have taught a course entitled “Media Criticism” for over 15 years at Towson University.

The show deals with ideological bias and evaluation of print and electronic media excellence, including blogs as a prominent medium as well, but other media are not emphasized nearly as much, including books, films and podcasts. I gave Kurtz a “Vatzian Media Excellence Award” a couple of years ago on WBAL Radio.

I like the show so much that it is a frequent object of analysis in my course. The show is an hour long and includes 6-8 segments, more or less. Much of RS shows deals with ideological bias.

As one might imagine, the segment have a range of value, but when there are strong liberal and conservative points of view well-represented, the show crackles. Some excellent conservative media spokespeople on RS have included Amy Holmes, Amanda Carpenter, Michael Medved, Tucker Carlson and Bill Bennett.

Now, in regard to bi-partisan representation, as I have indicated in this blog previously, RS and Kurtz often have both liberal and conservative points of view well-represented, but not always. In addition when there are 3 guests, as there are often, the divide is usually 2-1 liberal, and I simply do not recall seeing a 3-0 conservative advantage.

As just one example of imbalance, I have written about an RS show on media coverage of Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin, whose nomination, parenthetically, I vigorously opposed on these pages and on electronic media from the start. RS sported the predictably liberal Anne Kornblut (THE WASHINGTON POST), Julie Mason (THE HOUSTON CHRONICLE) and Frank Sesno (CNN). None of them had the professional discipline to seriously consider conservative complaints concerning her (Palin’s) coverage by the mainstream media.

Ironically, today’s RS (May 24, 2009) had a segment on “Prime Time Partisans,” starting with the eminently debatable premise that CNN is balanced, whereas other networks are openly partisan. Let me say that a case could be made for the relative even-handedness of CNN, but on an absolute scale, CNN trends and has always trended liberal. When in news analysis segments they have a preponderance of liberal commentators and one or two conservatives, they flatter themselves that they are, again, “balanced.”

Also on the show today, historically liberal David Zurawik of his BALTIMORE SUN’s “Z on TV” blog was right down the middle but strong, clear, interesting and provocative on the danger of MSNBC and others’ empty, partisan, and overwrought political diatribes. His captivating contribution was, however, diluted by mostly bland and unfocused inanities of Lauren Ashburn, managing editor of “USA Today Live” and Matt Frie, anchor of BBC World News, especially the latter, who included a dose of psychobabble to support his muddled arguments. (more…)

From Red Maryland

– Richard E. Vatz

I think I have rarely seen such a sanitized news report as Brian Williams’ in the May 11, 2009 NBC Nightly News segment on The White House Correspondents Association Dinner held over the weekend.

The critical facts were these: Comedian Wanda Sykes said of conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh that in view of his stated hope that President Barack Obama fail, he was guilty of “treason” and “I hope his [Limbaugh’s] kidneys fail — how about that?” She further speculated that “maybe Rush Limbaugh was the 20th hijacker, but he was just so strung out on OxyContin, he missed his flight.”

The remarks were outrageous, tasteless and said in a style of aggressive hostility, not good-natured toughness, as were President Obama’s humorous remarks concerning former Vice President Dick Cheney. What was President Obama’s reaction to Sykes’ inappropriate ugliness? According to THE NEW YORK TIMES, “Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary, said he hadn’t talked specifically with Mr. Obama about the joke. But he had a ready answer at the daily press briefing on Monday: ‘I think there are a lot of topics that are better left for serious reflection, rather than comedy…There’s no doubt that 9/11 is part of that.‘ ”

Conservative talk show hosts and callers were appalled, making the observation that were the remarks made by Republicans about Democrats, the latter would have been apoplectic.

Mr. Williams’ news report of the dinner was lighthearted throughout, beginning with this description: “It’s really kind of a prom for adults…feelings were hurt, umbrage was taken, excuses were issued so it must have been a successful event.”

Ms. Sykes according to Williams: she “really stirred things up with her attack on Rush Limbaugh.”

That was the entirety of his report of the Sykes controversy. He simply implied that there were no serious issues regarding the comportment of Ms. Sykes. (more…)

From Red Maryland

–Richard E. Vatz

If there is a serious and convincing argument that there is little or no left-wing political bias in most of the major mainstream U.S. newspaper news and op-ed pages, I have yet to hear it. The best counter argument is that there are some print reporters who successfully try to be balanced, but preponderantly the bias is liberal and very frequently so.

What disinterested source should regularly point this out? A newspaper ombudsman, the position charged with monitoring “fairness, accuracy and balance,” according to the mostly fair, accurate and balanced web site of the Organization of News Ombudsmen.

There are times when the ombudsman position is simply a sycophant of the newspaper he or she serves, as was the case in the short dabbling with the position by THE BALTIMORE SUN a couple of years ago.

The area historically neglected by ombudsmen has been the “balanced” criterion. Ombudsman columns have been around for 40-some years in a small number of newspapers, but serious accusations of political bias predated them. THE WASHINGTON POST has had a slew of excellent such overseers, but they have largely neglected the issue of political imbalance. In THE NEW YORK TIMES, also generally absent such criticism, Dan Okrent surprised most newspaper readers when he wrote a column regarding such bias (“Is The New York Times a Liberal Newspaper?” July 25, 2004), but no major mainstream newspaper ombudsman to my knowledge had written any sustained analysis of liberal bias until Deborah Howell.

Ms. Howell, to her considerable consternation, learned in the latter stages of 2008 that to criticize leftwing newspaper bias and to include examples from the newspaper she superintended, the POST, earns unrelenting venom from those readers (and some staffers) who find evidence irrelevant. One hopes she also felt some satisfaction in bravely and honestly taking on an issue for which the reward is intrinsic satisfaction in having done a job with integrity.

Today, May 3, 2009, the (relatively) new POST ombudsman, Andrew Alexander, wrote his first serious column on political bias in the POST pages, “A Column Feeds Perceptions of Bias.” The article reports on the outrage of POST readers at Tom Shales’ ode to President Barack Obama’s press conference which included much worshipful prose and little serious analysis (e.g., President Obama is “a truly flabbergasting president. And in a good way – not the way some of his predecessors were.”).

Mr. Alexander reports related criticisms from readers and critics of “liberal bias” without adjudicating them, but does conclude that respecting Shales’ authorship, it might be salutary for the newspaper to identify his work as a “review.” (more…)

Crossposted from Flopping Aces

Where are all the jerks who were upset over the Valerie Plame case? Where is their outrage here?

And the leaks continue on…..wonder who’s leaking it?

As the secrets about the CIA’s interrogation techniques continue to come out, there’s new information about the frequency and severity of their use, contradicting an 2007 ABC News report, and a new focus on two private contractors who were apparently directing the brutal sessions that President Obama calls torture.

According to current and former government officials, the CIA’s secret waterboarding program was designed and assured to be safe by two well-paid psychologists now working out of an unmarked office building in Spokane, Washington.

Bruce Jessen and Jim Mitchell, former military officers, together founded Mitchell Jessen and Associates.

Both men declined to speak to ABC News citing non-disclosure agreements with the CIA. But sources say Jessen and Mitchell together designed and implemented the CIA’s interrogation program.

Anyone wonder why the leaks are coming?

In speaking to reporters Wednesday, Holder also said it is possible the United States could cooperate with a foreign court’s investigation of Bush administration officials.

Oh, and they found another FORMER agent who thinks pouring water on someone’s face is torture….idiots.

From this day forward our intelligence services can be considered neutered and our nations security at greater risk then ever before.

Can we consider Obama and his henchmen treasonous yet?

also:

Obama Administration Releases New Terrorist Interrogation Training Film

This will make the bad guys talk!

And one more time…. We only waterboarded THREE terrorists and thousands of American lives were saved as a result!

Finally:

Obama Won’t Declassify Memos Which Prove Waterboarding Saved Lives!

Suddenly, he rediscovers the need to protect secrets!

Obama’s press conference last night has been likened more to beauty pageant questioning than serious journalism. However, in between softball questions such as how “enchanted” President Obama was with his new job, there were a few significant issues addressed. Jake Tapper of ABC News brought up the subject of waterboarding and torture.

In response we got a classic rambling Obama answer which reminds me of the 4 hour speeches Fidel Castro used to deliver.

The money quote from Obama’s answer came when he suggested that his “no torture” policy would:

“Make us safer over the long term because it will put us in a — in a position where we can still get information. In some cases, it may be harder, but part of what makes us, I think, still a beacon to the world is that we are willing to hold true to our ideals even when it’s hard, not just when it’s easy.”

It’s that “may be harder” part that really should stand out in the minds of every American. Especially those who work in tall buildings.

In a follow-up by Mark Knoller, Obama was asked if he had read the memos which former Vice President Cheney described which document the information we learned from enhanced interrogations which saved lives? Obama admitted he had read the memos but refused to go into detail about the information learned and the plots they stopped. No mention was made on whether he would release these memos for all to see.

Don’t hold your breath.

The Obama Administration found it easy to release memos which they knew would cause a backlash against the prior Administration. They won’t find it so easy to release the memos which show how vital Bush Administration enhanced interrogations were to saving American lives.

Somehow they’ll claim protecting national security prevents them from declassifying those memos.

All I can say is THANK GOD FOR PRESIDENT BUSH! He so decimated Al Queda’s ability to attack the U.S. that it might even save us from the inexperienced, naive and foolish Obama!

But if we are attacked again, it may be because Obama preferred to play politics with national security and pander to his left wing base rather than govern like an adult.

…….sad that it is the only one so far. So where is the rest of the MSM???

FACT CHECK: Obama disowns deficit he helped shape

WASHINGTON – “That wasn’t me,” President Barack Obama said on his 100th day in office, disclaiming responsibility for the huge budget deficit waiting for him on Day One.

It actually was partly him — and the other Democrats controlling Congress the previous two years — who shaped the latest in a string of precipitously out-of-balance budgets.

And as a presidential candidate and president-elect, he backed the twilight Bush-era stimulus plan that made the deficit deeper, all before he took over and promoted spending plans that have made it much deeper still.

Obama met citizens at an Arnold, Mo., high school Wednesday in advance of his prime-time news conference. Both forums were a platform to review his progress at the 100-day mark and look ahead.

At various times, he brought an air of certainty to ambitions that are far from cast in stone.

His assertion that his proposed budget “will cut the deficit in half by the end of my first term” is an eyeball-roller among many economists, given the uncharted terrain of trillion-dollar deficits and economic calamity that the government is negotiating.

He promised vast savings from increased spending on preventive health care in the face of doubts that such an effort, however laudable it might be for public welfare, can pay for itself, let alone yield huge savings.

A look at some of his claims Wednesday:

OBAMA: “We began by passing a Recovery Act that has already saved or created over 150,000 jobs.” — from news conference.

THE FACTS: This assertion is flawed on several levels. For starters, the U.S. has lost more than 1.2 million jobs since Obama took office, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Even if Obama’s stimulus bill saved or created as many jobs as he says, that number is dwarfed by the number of recent job losses.

But Obama’s number is murky, at best. The White House has not yet announced how it intends to count jobs created by the stimulus bill. Obama’s number is based on a job-counting formula that his economists have developed but have not made public. Until that formula is announced — probably in the coming week or so — there’s no way to assess its accuracy.

Whatever the formula, economists who study job creation say it will require some creative math. That’s because Obama has lumped “jobs saved” in with “jobs created.” Even economists for organizations that stand to benefit from the stimulus concede it probably is impossible to estimate saved jobs because that would require calculating a hypothetical: how many people would have lost their jobs without the stimulus.

___

OBAMA: “We must lay a new foundation for growth, a foundation that will strengthen our economy and help us compete in the 21st century. And that’s exactly what this budget begins to do. It contains new investments in education that will equip our workers with the right skills and training; new investments in renewable energy that will create millions of jobs and new industries; new investments in health care that will cut costs for families and businesses; and new savings that will bring down our deficit.” — news conference.

THE FACTS: While the budget does set a roadmap for achieving the president’s goals, it says nothing about how to pay for his health plan, expected to cost more than $1 trillion over the next 10 years. And while the deficit, under the plan, would drop to $523 billion in 2014, it achieves it with unrealistic assumptions, such as projections that spending in Iraq and Afghanistan will amount to only $50 billion a year.

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Q. Why do hookers deserve more respect then the media? A. Because sometimes hookers tell the truth.

I apologize to all the hookers I insulted by comparing them to journalists, but the truth is that the MSM are the paid prostitutes of the Democratic party. Why? Here is one example among thousands.

Note: Hat Tip to Laryn for the article.

Anderson Cooper gags

His not-so-innocent dig at the Tea Parties revealed more than just the usual liberal bias.

I have debated with myself all day over whether to quote Cooper. Am I adding to the coarsening of the American conversation?

The Tea Parties on Wednesday were mocked by MSNBC and CNN but given the same treatment as an Obama rally by Fox News.

The idea that one should report the news straight is foreign to MSNBCand CNN, which is why watching MSNBC and CNN for news is so foreign to most Americans.

Fox News regularly draws more viewers than the two combined and Wednesday was no exception. According to Drudge the prime time viewership was

FOXNEWS 3,390,000
MSNBC 1,210,000
CNN 1,070,000
CNN HEADLINE 909,000

Fox News reported on the competition’s coverage, “Cable Anchors, Guests Use Tea Parties as Platform for Frat House Humor.”

Fox as being kind. It was bathroom humor that played on an oral sex reference in tea bagging.

CNN and MSNBC refused to take the news event serious. Instead of reporting the news, they mocked it.

Cooper at one point said: “It’s hard to talk when you’re teabagging.”

It was classless and even if it were a commentary, it was over the line. No real journalist would say such a thing without an immediate apology.

That comment was obviously not an accident.

A new low for the mainstream media..

Fortunately, 99.7% of America was not watching.

Another Blog reports:

Liberal reporters used gutter sexual slang to describe the Tea Party protesters.
FOX News reported:
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From Red Maryland

So it has finally come to this. Newspapers are hemorrhaging readership due to shoddy performance and political bias. And now, it looks like Maryland’s own Ben Cardin wants to throw them a lifeboat:

Struggling newspapers should be allowed to operate as nonprofits similar to public broadcasting stations, Sen. Benjamin Cardin, D-Md., proposed Tuesday.

Cardin introduced a bill that would allow newspapers to choose tax-exempt status. They would no longer be able to make political endorsements, but could report on all issues, including political campaigns.

Advertising and subscription revenue would be tax-exempt, and contributions to support coverage could be tax deductible.

Now, there are a couple of interesting caveats to this, of course. Not the least of which is the fact that, theoretically, newspaper companies could already operate in a non-profit status. There are a number of non-profit organizations that produce publications and periodicals; why do we need a federal law to create a new classification of newspaper. Maybe a lawyer could fill me in more on this matter.

Secondarily, a little more disturbing to me, is the idea that we would have any federal legislation addressing the corporate status of newspapers. Right now, newspapers and newspaper ownership is not covered by any facet of federal law. I have a bad feeling that Cardin’s legislation is the foot towards the regulation and the overregulation of newspaper ownership. We have already seen what happens when government proposes the regulation of television and radio station ownership; it was government policies of both Democratic and Republican administrations that led to the consolidation of radio station ownership, the demise of locally owned and operated radio stations, and the elimination of good locally based radio content. Cardin’s bill starts us down a dangerous and slippery slope, a slope all the more dangerous when you consider the Democrats seemingly fervent opposition to the First Amendment.
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From Red Maryland

–by Richard E. Vatz

In the plethora of interviews and public appearances by President Barack Obama of late, one expects the most serious and informative exchanges to come from the gold standard of interview shows: “60 Minutes.”

Regarding the “60 Minutes” interview by Steve Kroft of President Obama tonight, a few thoughts:

Where was the Steve Kroft who interviewed with some toughness candidate Barack Obama a year ago February? Where was the “60 Minutes” (Scott Pelley) that did that wonderful interview of the CIA interviewer who inveigled great substantive information out of the captured Saddam Hussein?

Was Kroft as bad as Barbara “Follow-up Questions Ruin My Interviews” Walters? No…every once in a while there was a hint of a least a non-pressing follow-up question.

The mark of a bad-interview-which-appears-to-be-a-good-interview is the asking of good, relevant questions combined with the neglect of follow-up questions. It allows the respondent — in this case the President – to say whatever he wants without worrying about the interviewer’s insisting that the respondent answer the question asked.

Kroft asked President Obama whether as a Constitutional lawyer he was concerned about the constitutionality of taxing the gains of AIG executives at a confiscatory rate to punish them for gaining from a legal contract. An interesting question, that.

Obama said something to the effect that the Administration was doing the best it could to solve the situation, avoiding the interesting question.

No follow-up.

Kroft asked about the growing doubts concerning the mettle and ability of Secretary of Treasury Tim Geithner to do his job as well as the growing number of people who want him to leave his position. Obama stated firmly, as he has done before, his unambiguous support.

No follow-up.

Kroft asked Obama about his attack on former Vice President Dick Cheney’s criticism that the Obama Administration had left American less safe through its anti-terrorism weaknesses and incompetencies. After the President talked about how Cheney and President Bush has made the country more vulnerable through its insensitivity toward the Muslim world,
Kroft had his first apparently good follow-up: What about the terrorists who had been released who had gone back to supporting terrorism? Obama avoided the question and rhetorically asked how many terrorists the Bush Administration had brought to justice.

Did Kroft say, none, but they were prevented from engaging in terrorism, were they not? No. There was no follow-up.

Then came part Two…don’t ask…Kroft channeled Walters and asked what was “the most frustrating part of the job.” He (Kroft) was fascinated by what the President called the Rolls Royce of swing sets. And there were more touchy-feely questions about the Presidential family, about whom the viewer was as convinced of their essential decency and cuteness. An attentive viewer was also convinced about the irrelevance of such time-consumptive matters at a moment of overwhelming domestic and foreign crises.

How about a question on contradictory presidential rhetoric: Obama said on the “Tonight Show” that one of the problems in Washington is that “everybody’s always looking for someone else to blame.” How does that square with the President’s repeated claim that the country’s economic problems were “inherited” by his administration? (more…)