Day: July 29, 2008

Obama’s ‘Honeymoon’ With MSM Just Another Republican Fantasy

Buck Banks

There are numerous myths swirling around the candidacy of Sen. Barack Obama. He’s a Muslim. He hates Jews. His wife is uppity. But one of the most enduring chestnuts — that Obama gets a pass in the media while Old Maverick Sen. John McCain has to answer the hard questions (like what’s the diff between a Shiite and a Sunni) has been demythified by the new report from the Center for Media and Public Affairs.

Major findings (based on a scientific content analysis of election news stories that aired on ABC World News Tonight, CBS Evening News, NBC Nightly News, and Fox Special Report) include:

Since the primaries ended, on-air evaluations of Barack Obama have been 72 percent negative (versus 28 percent positive). That’s worse than John McCain’s coverage, which has been 57 percent negative (versus 43 percent positive) during the same time period.

This is a major turnaround since McCain and Obama emerged as front-runners in the early primaries. From the New Hampshire primary on January 8 until Hillary Clinton dropped out on June 7, Obama’s coverage was 62 percent positive (38 percent negative) on the broadcast networks; by contrast, McCain’s coverage during this period was only 34 percent positive (66 percent negative).

Obama ran even farther behind McCain on Fox News Channel’s Special Report with 79 percent negative comments (21 percent positive), compared to 61 percent negative comments (39 percent positive) for McCain since June 8. During the primaries Obama had a slight lead in good press on Fox, with 52 percent favorable comments (48 percent unfavorable), compared to 48 percent favorable (52 percent unfavorable) for McCain.

Obama’s bad press has come at a time when he was much more visible than McCain. Since June 8, he has been the subject of 120 stories on the three network evening news shows, 50 percent more than John McCain’s 80 stories.

So where does this myth come from and why is it perpetuated? You guessed it — Fox News. Here are results from a recent Fox survey:

Nearly seven in 10 Americans (67 percent) say they believe most in the media want Obama to win the November election — while a scant 11 percent think the media are pulling for John McCain. Moreover, only about one in 10 (11 percent) volunteers the belief that the media is neutral on the race to become the 44th President of the United States.

When asked to rate the objectivity of media coverage of the campaigns, Americans feel Obama gets more of a positive spin by a better than seven-to-one margin (46 percent more positive toward Obama; 6 percent more positive toward McCain). Just under four Americans in 10 (36 percent) says both campaigns are being covered objectively.

Fox asked fair and balanced questions like “Have you heard any of your friends and neighbors say there is something about Barack Obama that scares them?” To which 49 percent said yes and 50 percent said no. To be fair, they asked the same question about McCain, and only 36 percent said their friends and neighbors found McCain scary.
[…]

Rightwing Terrorist Who Opened Fire in Liberal Church Owned Books By O’Reilly, Hannity and Michael Savage

Jon Ponder

Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. -Gal. 6:7

Considering the hatred for liberals spewed by the rightwing noise machiners like Rush Limbaugh, Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity, Michael “Savage” Weiner and the rest, it is a miracle there aren’t more terrorist incidents like this:
Police found copies of “Liberalism is a Mental Health Disorder” by radio talk show host Michael Savage, “Let Freedom Ring” by talk show host Sean Hannity, and “The O’Reilly Factor,” by television talk show host Bill O’Reilly, in the killer’s home.

Jim Adkisson, the 58 year old man being held in a Knoxville, Tenn., jail on murder charges stemming from a shooting during a children’s musical at the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church on Sunday, is said to have had a array of right-wing political books in his home, along with brass knuckles, empty shotgun shell boxes, and a handgun discovered by police who searched his home.

Police reportedly found books by O’Reilly, Hannity and Weiner in Adkisson’s home:

Knoxville Police Department Officer Steve Still requested the search warrant after interviewing Adkisson. who was subdued by several church members after firing three rounds from a 12-gauge shotgun into the congregation.

Adkisson targeted the church, Still wrote in the document obtained by WBIR-TV, Channel 10, “because of its liberal teachings and his belief that all liberals should be killed because they were ruining the country, and that he felt that the Democrats had tied his country’s hands in the war on terror and they had ruined every institution in America with the aid of media outlets.”

Adkisson told Still that “he could not get to the leaders of the liberal movement that he would then target those that had voted them in to office.”

Adkisson told officers he left the house unlocked for them because “he expected to be killed during the assault.”

Inside the house, officers found “Liberalism is a Mental Health Disorder” by radio talk show host Michael Savage, “Let Freedom Ring” by talk show host Sean Hannity, and “The O’Reilly Factor,” by television talk show host Bill O’Reilly.

The shotgun-wielding suspect in Sunday’s mass shooting at the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church was motivated by a hatred of “the liberal movement,” and he planned to shoot until police shot him, Knoxville Police Chief Sterling P. Owen IV said this morning.

Adkisson, 58, of Powell wrote a four-page letter in which he stated his “hatred of the liberal movement,” Owen said. “Liberals in general, as well as gays.”

Adkisson opened fire on the congregation while the children’s play was underway, allegedly killing two people in their sixties and injuring seven other adults.

Report: Loyal Bushie Monica Goodling Fired US Attorney on Mistaken Belief Attorney Was Gay

Jon Ponder

In April, NPR reported that Department of Justice investigators were pursuing charges that, Monica Goodling, the political hack installed by the GOP at the department who famously used an applicants’ qualification as a “loyal Bushie” as a litmus test for employment, had fired a senior official because Goodling suspected the woman was gay.

Now, according to a report from the DOJ inspector general, it appears that the rumor was true:

In the second of a series of reports on the politically charged tenure of former Atty. Gen. Alberto R. Gonzales, the department’s inspector general found that two former Justice aides used sexual orientation as a litmus test in deciding whom they would hire or fire.

The report describes an alleged “sexual relationship” between a career prosecutor and a U.S. attorney, who were not named. Margaret M. Chiara, the former U.S. attorney in Grand Rapids, Mich., said in an interview with The Times that she now believed she was fired because of the erroneous belief that she was having a relationship with career prosecutor Leslie Hagen.

“I could not begin to understand how I found myself sharing the misfortune of my former colleagues,” Chiara said of the eight other U.S. attorneys who were fired. “Now I understand.”

Justice officials said after her firing that Chiara was let go because of mismanagement and because she had caused morale in her office to sink. Chiara said Monday she believed those concerns were raised by the same people who spread rumors about her and Hagen.

“I guess now I am persuaded with deep regret that this is what was the basis,” she added. “There is nothing else.”

The investigators found that Hagen lost a coveted assignment in Washington after rumors of the supposed relationship reached Gonzales aide Monica M. Goodling.

And:

Monday’s report also said that Goodling used an Internet search that included the words “gay” and “homosexual” to screen candidates and their backgrounds.

Investigators found that Goodling used the same search parameters as Jan Williams, who served as White House liaison before Goodling. The report said that Williams had used the string in late 2005 and early 2006 to research candidates for positions on a national advisory commission on violence against women.

Goodling, a graduate of a college operated by televangelist Pat Robertson, was also found to have nixed the hiring of a terrorism expert because his wife was a Democrat.

Draft-Dodger Cheney’s Security Requirements Too Much for Disabled Vets Convention

Jon Ponder

During the Vietnam war, Dick Cheney applied for and received no less than five deferments from the draft. Decades later he told a reporter that he had “other priorities” that outweighed going to Vietnam. So because Dick Cheney sat out the war, another young man went in his place, and that soldier may have been among the 58,000 who died or the 300,000 who were permanently disabled in Vietnam.
During his Senate confirmation hearings as defense secretary in 1989, Cheney falsely claimed under oath, “I would have obviously been happy to serve had I been called.”
This is an interesting historical footnote today in light of news that the Disabled Veterans of American, better known as the DAV, has rescinded its invitation to Cheney to speak at their convention next month because his security requirements would have caused extreme physical strain on DAV members.

Cheney would have required the predominantly elderly veterans, many of whom lost limbs in battle, to assemble in the meeting hall at 6:30 a.m., after which the doors would be closed and no one could leave the room, even to go to the restroom, until after Cheney’s speech. Since Cheney was scheduled to begin his remarks at 8:30 a.m., and probably would have spoken for the better part of an hour, the vets would have been trapped in the room for nearly three hours.

“It was a huge imposition on our delegates,” added David Autry, [a] Disabled American Veterans official.

Autry said vets would’ve had to get up “at Oh-dark-30 and try to get breakfast and showered and get their prosthetics on.”

Once inside, they “could not leave the meeting room, and the bathrooms are outside,” he said.

A Cheney aide denied that it was his security that caused the rift:

Spokeswoman Megan Mitchell said the two-hour rule is “a recommendation, not a requirement,” and “we always work to make sure the bathrooms are within the security perimeters.”

“The vice president would never let us do anything that didn’t help facilitate the needs of our veterans,” Mitchell added.

Another interesting note about Cheney’s draft dodging is that he apparently lied about it during the Senate hearings on his nomination as defense secretary in the Bush I administration. When asked about his deferments, Cheney falsely asserted under oath that he “would have obviously been happy to serve had I been called.” He was called — five times — and each time he came up with a way to escape service.

Quote du Jour

Buck Banks

Freedom is not a gift received from a State or a leader but a possession to be won every day by the effort of each and the union of all.

— Albert Camus (1913-1960), French-Algerian author, existentialist