from Flopping Aces

CNN is just having a dickens of a time finding unbiased “reporters” and anchors these days. Most don’t seem to have the self discipline to contain their emotions during newscasts and interviews. But finally the nation may have seen where CNN’s threshhold just may be.

Octavia Nesr, CNN’s Senior ME correspondent, found herself canned by the nation’s second media news giant after twittering her sorrow over the death of Hezbollah terrorist, Sayyed Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah. She spent the next hours trying to undo what she had done with more clarification:

Facing an immediate and harsh backlash, she backpedaled Tuesday in a blog post, saying she didn’t endorse the life work of Fadlallah – who was labeled a terrorist by US officials.

“Not the kind of life to be commenting about in a brief tweet. It’s something I deeply regret,” she wrote. Still, she praised Fadlallah for being a pioneer on “woman’s rights,” and warning Muslim men against abusing their wives.

Despite recognizing an instant faux pas, her backpeddling wasn’t going to cut the mustard with CNN’s heads, who rightly noted her “credibility” was shot. But then, to listen to the lib/prog site, Think Progress, they’re convinced that CNN “caved” to “right wing neocons”….. right. Since when? heh

So that’s one down. Got a few more that should go. How about Susan Roesgen, and her decidedly less professional encounter at an April 2009 tea party? See the videos at FreedomEden blogsite, and here’s the transcript below:

SUSAN ROESGEN: (Reading some of the signs held by protesters) Uh, let’s see… ‘Drop the taxes,’ ‘Drop socialism.’ OK. Let’s see. You’re here with your two-year-old and you’re already in debt. Why are you here today, sir?

MAN: Because I hear a president say that he believed in what Lincoln stood for. Lincoln’s primary thing was he believed that people had the right to liberty, and had the right…

ROESGEN: Sir, what does this have to do with taxes? What does this have to do with your taxes? Do you realize that you’re eligible for a $400 credit…?

MAN: Let me finish my point. Lincoln, Lincoln believed that people had the right to share in the fruits of their own labor and that government should not take it. And we have clearly gotten to that point.

ROESGEN: Wait, wait… Did you know that the state of Lincoln gets $50 billion out of the stimulus? That’s $50 billion for this state, sir.

MAN: Ma’am, ma’am, ma’am, I…I…I…

MAN #2: Sir, sir, sir…

MAN: Can you stop this, sir? Hold on, hold on.

ROESGEN: OK, well, Kyra, we’ll move on over here. I think you get the general tenor of this. Uh, it’s anti-government, anti-CNN, since this is highly promoted by the Right-wing conservative network, FOX. And since I can’t really hear much more, and I think this is not really family viewing. Toss it back to you, Kyra.

KYRA PHILLIPS: I know Susan Roesgen is having a hard time hearing me, but wow. That is the prime example of what we’re following across the country there. Susan pointed out everything plain and clear of what she’s dealing with.

sigh…. since when are reporters on the scene supposed to be editorializing during an interview? Perhaps we should remind her that David Gregory has already filled Tim Russert’s seat at MTP.

But wait, there’s more… Breitbart’s got one of the CNN anchors of their morning show, American Morning, sympathizing with the Times Square bomber’s family after their house got foreclosed on. WTF? Below is a slightly longer blurb…

This, of course, dredges up 2006 memories of CNN’s int’l correspondent, Nic Robertson, and his led-by-Hezbollah’s-nose coverage in Beirut. Prior to this little episode, his major claim to fame was a 2001 mention by People Magazine as being the sexiest news correspondent.

Back on July 18, Hezbollah took Robertson and his crew on a tour of a heavily damaged south Beirut neighborhood. The Hezbollah “press officer” even instructed the CNN camera: “Just look. Shoot. Look at this building. Is it a military base? Is it a military base, or just civilians living in this building?”

In his original story, Robertson had no complaints about the journalistic limitations of a story put together under such tight controls, and Robertson himself at one point seemed to agree with the Hezbollah propaganda claim that Israeli jets had targeted a civilian area: “As we run past the rubble, we see much that points to civilian life, no evidence apparent of military equipment.”

Challenged by Reliable Sources host (and Washington Post media writer) Howard Kurtz on Sunday, Robertson suggested Hezbollah has “very, very sophisticated and slick media operations,” that the terrorist group “had control of the situation. They designated the places that we went to, and we certainly didn’t have time to go into the houses or lift up the rubble to see what was underneath,” and he even contradicted Hezbollah’s self-serving spin: “There’s no doubt that the [Israeli] bombs there are hitting Hezbollah facilities.”

But the closest Robertson came to making any of these points in the taped package that aired last week was admitting that “we [he and his CNN crew] didn’t go burrowing into all the houses,” after pointing out (for the second time) that “we didn’t see any military type of equipment” in the area Hezbollah chose to let them tour.

Five days later, Robertson argued that “journalistic integrity” required skepticism: “When you hear their [Hezbollah’s] claims, they have to come with more than a grain of salt, that you have to put in some journalistic integrity. That you have to point out to the audience and let them know that this was a guided tour by Hezbollah press officials along with their security, that it was a very rushed affair.”

Roesgen, the CNN anchor, and Robertson are, of course, still gainfully employed. But one can always hope the “neocon right wingers” can once again influence CNN’s head honchos… /snark

And we should all be grateful this isn’t about MSNBC reporters…. it would be a much longer post!

also:

What is the Cost of Looking the Other Way at Black Racism?

Obama’s Dept. of Justice has given Black Panthers a pass to demand the deaths of white babies!

What do you suppose would happen if someone with ties to the Republican Party were to come out of a house with the sign “Whites Only, no blacks allowed” and spout racial hatred suggesting we need to kill blacks and their children?

It would be front page news wouldn’t it? And the entire Republican Party would be called upon to repudiate the racist.

So, why is there not only silence when a black man does the reverse but with a seeming wink and nod coming from Obama’s Dept. of Justice?

National Geographic, not Fox News, presents this view of the hate that emanates from the New Black Panther party in Philadelphia:

Note that Samir Shabazz and Jerry Jackson, seen together in this video, were also the defendants in a prosecution dropped by Obama’s Dept. of Justice for voter intimidation outside a polling place in 2008. Note also that Mr. Jackson, the taller man, is a registered Democrat poll watcher in Philadelphia and an elected member of the Democratic Committee in that city.

It’s hard to square the large message of “PEACE” on the front door of one of the houses the two men leave in the video with statements by Shabazz that “It’s time to Kill Some Crackers! You’re gonna have to Kill their babies!” Archived views of Jackson’s web site (now scrubbed) are equally vile.

But even more troubling are the accusations of J. Christian Adams, a former Dept. of Justice lawyer, who recently testified before the U.S. Civil Rights Commission that his political bosses at DOJ were “hostile” to enforcing any law where blacks victimized whites. “Payback time” is the attitude Adams observed while still at Justice.

With all the phony charges of racism directed at Tea Partiers without a shred of evidence, one might think that the same standard would be applied here. Especially when the New Black Panthers seen here are so willing to make their racial hatred public. In the Tea Party case, reporters sought out elected GOP leaders asking them to repudiate even the unfounded allegations. Can you find multiple examples of where elected Democrats are asked to do the same here?

Can it be that the New Black Panther hatemongers feel empowered by what is obviously a two sided enforcement strategy by Obama’s Dept. of Justice? How sad that Attorney General Eric Holder, perhaps even Obama himself, fail to understand that by looking the other way they encourage racism from all sides!