Media Matters for America - Latest Items

Fox Nation ignores resident Chris Wallace

J.K.F. — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 18:42:19 EDT

On July 3, FoxNation.com features the headline "Obama Busted Stacking Town Hall ... What If Bush Had?" But the suggestion that Bush did not screen town hall audiences or questions was refuted by Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace, who said on the July 3 edition of Fox & Friends that "town hall meetings ... have always been something of an artifice, because I know in the Bush administration, George W. Bush, they had a lot of these town hall meetings, and they chose all the people there. So everybody has always tried to get a home-court advantage." Indeed, a March 12, 2005, Washington Post article on Bush's 2005 Social Security town hall events reported, "The carefully screened panelists [at a town hall in Memphis] spoke admiringly about Bush, his ideas, his 'bold' leadership on Social Security. If the presentations sound well rehearsed, it's because they often are. The guests at these 'Oprah'-style conversations trumpet the very points Bush wants to make."

In the wake of an October 13, 2005, "staged" public video conference Bush held with several soldiers in Iraq, an October 15, 2005, Washington Post article on that event called it "one of the stranger and most awkwardly staged publicity events of the Bush presidency." The article further reported:

Before they [Bush and the soldiers] spoke, Allison Barber, a mid-level Pentagon official, helped coach the troops on who would be asked what by Bush. Afterward, according to Reuters, she told reporters that "we knew that the president was going to ask about security, coalition and training" but not the specific questions.

This not a new technique for Bush; his White House has perfected the public relations strategy of holding scripted events featuring the president's supporters. During the first part of the year, Bush traveled the country to discuss his Social Security plan, while aides stacked the audience with Republicans and tutored participants in these town hall events on what to say.

From the March 12, 2005, Washington Post article titled "Social Security: On With the Show":

The few dissenting voices in the Cannon Center for the Performing Arts were quickly silenced or escorted out by security. One woman with a soft voice but firm opposition to Bush was asked to leave, even though her protests were barely audible beyond her section in the back corner of the auditorium. The carefully screened panelists spoke admiringly about Bush, his ideas, his "bold" leadership on Social Security.

If the presentations sound well rehearsed, it's because they often are. The guests at these "Oprah"-style conversations trumpet the very points Bush wants to make. Seniors on stage express confidence that Bush's plan to create private investment accounts would not eat into promised benefits, and the granddaughter of one spoke hopefully on Friday of a richer retirement if the president prevails.

These meticulously staged "conversations on Social Security," as they are called, replicate a strategy that Bush used to great effect on the campaign trail.

[...]

The White House follows a practiced formula for each of the meetings. First it picks a state in which generally it can pressure a lawmaker or two, and then it lines up panelists who will sing the praises of the president's plan. Finally, it loads the audience with Republicans and other supporters.

To help make its case, the White House recruits people such as Mark Darr, 31, an insurance agent from Benton, Ark., who joined the president on stage at a forum in Little Rock last month. In a subsequent interview, Darr said he believes he was chosen because he went to college with one son of Republican Gov. Mike Huckabee and provided insurance for another.

After the governor's office called, Darr said, he began receiving one call after another from the White House, quizzing him on his thoughts on Social Security and his family history, just as they did all the other candidates. "I'm sure they wanted to ... make sure they weren't going to embarrass the president," Darr said.

From FoxNation.com:

From the July 3 edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends:

DAVE RIGGS (guest co-host): Well, it's good to see this, some in the press corps firing back. But is this unprecedented, though, in terms of the pre-packaged presidency that we're seeing now? You mentioned that all presidents do this, but this is something in itself. I mean, we haven't seen anything to this -- this much packaging before, have we?

WALLACE: Well, yeah, as far as the town hall meetings, yes. I mean, there have been -- those have always been something of an artifice, because I know in the Bush administration, George W. Bush, they had a lot of these town hall meetings, and they chose all the people there. So everybody has always tried to get a home-court advantage.

Media Matters: Limbaugh's Off the Wall spin on Michael Jackson's death

K.V.F. — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 22:27:17 EDT

Mama-Say-Mama-Saw-Mama-Would have to hear it to believe it. This one doesn't really need much of a setup.

While fans the world over mourn the passing of the King of Pop, the King of Talk, Rush Limbaugh, put the death of Michael Jackson this way: He "flourished under Reagan," "languished under Clinton/Bush, and died under Obama." Over on MSNBC, both David Shuster and Chuck Todd poked Limbaugh for his unsavory take on the tragedy, with Todd quipping, "It's always Reagan, right?"

Meanwhile, El Rushbo's pals over at Fox News knew exactly how to interpret the wall-to-wall coverage of Jackson's death. An actual Fox News chyron alleged a "cover-up" because the media were devoting more coverage to Jackson than cap-and-trade legislation. Lord, the fun one could have using this very rationale to pick apart the stories Fox chooses to cover. I guess when you're a hammer, everything is a ... wild conspiracy designed to frighten your audience and fan the flames of their paranoia.

Other major stories this week:

Ricci-ing for the absurd

Several weeks ago, conservatives took a first run at undermining the nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor. But their everything-and-the-kitchen-sink attack plan -- charging that she is an unqualified, Marxist, radical activist and a reverse racist/normal racist who is also, interestingly, far too empathetic to be on the Supreme Court -- fell flat under the weight of serious examination.

This week, however, offered another opportunity for media conservatives to revisit their central criticism: that Sotomayor's "wise Latina woman" comment was a window into the prejudicial soul of the judge who ruled against hard-working white firefighters (and a Hispanic firefighter) simply because they weren't black.

First, the facts. On Tuesday, ABC's Bob Woodruff misstated the crux of the case, reporting that Ricci v. DeStefano involved firefighters "passed over for promotion in favor of less qualified black candidates." In fact, no one was promoted over anyone else. Rather, the results of a test to determine which members of the New Haven Fire Department could receive promotions were thrown out because city officials were unhappy with a racial disparity in the results and stated they feared being sued for racial discrimination. In the decision that Sotomayor joined denying en banc rehearing of the appeal of the district court's decision, Judge Barrington Parker -- a George W. Bush appointee -- wrote that "the City acted out of a concern that certifying the exam results would have an adverse impact on minority candidates" -- a view that fit cleanly within previous Supreme Court precedent. That decision was overturned by the 5-4 vote of the Supreme Court on Monday.

Instead of looking at the legal merits of the case, conservatives have drawn the conclusion that Sotomayor was actively seeking to promote African-American firefighters at the expense of everyone else. The Washington Times opined that the case showed how, "[i]n Judge Sotomayor's America, people are judged by the color of their skin, not the content of their character." Investor's Business Daily chimed in as well: "The Supreme Court's overturning of high-court nominee Sonia Sotomayor's ruling in the New Haven firefighter case exposes what lies at the core of her misguided philosophy: stark racial favoritism."

Of course, Limbaugh, who has accused Sotomayor of racism on numerous occasions since her nomination was announced, was the most vocal: "Sonia Sotomayor was following her basic instinct: She is racist."

Most judges nominated by Democrats are accused by the right of being radicals, and Sotomayor is no different -- numerous efforts were made this week to portray the court's reversal of Ricci as proof of Sotomayor's inherent radicalism. But the fact of the matter is, four Supreme Court justices, including Justice David Souter, whom Sotomayor was nominated to replace, agreed with her -- a fact that conservatives have done their best to cover up.

A number of media conservatives subsequently claimed that the court had unanimously rejected Sotomayor's reasoning. Ed Whelan (who can't use The Google) and Kathryn Lopez of National Review Online started the trend ("9-0 Against Sotomayor"), followed quickly by Fox News' Laura Ingraham and Rush. Ingraham's Fox News colleague Sean Hannity wasn't far behind. In fact, while Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote in her dissent that "[o]rdinarily, a remand for fresh consideration would be in order" and that "I would not oppose a remand for further proceedings fair to both sides," she concluded, consistent with the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision, which Sotomayor joined: "[W]hat this case does not present is race-based discrimination in violation of Title VII."

Furthermore, an article in Politico promoted the myth that a Supreme Court reversal is unusual, even though the court has reversed more than 60 percent of the federal appeals court cases it considered each year since 2004. In doing so, Politico was following The Washington Times, which had already argued that such an outcome would be an "extraordinary rebuke" of Sotomayor. It should come as no surprise, then, that Fox's Alexis Glick impartially described the ruling as "a major slap" to Sotomayor. And for MSNBC's Joe Scarborough, the whole episode showed that it isn't just Sotomayor who is out of touch: nearly half of the Supreme Court is, too.

When the AP and The New York Times failed to note false statements by Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions, they revealed just how far-reaching the problematic reporting on Sotomayor has become. It's clear that plenty of work needs to be done to ensure that she will have a fair hearing when she finally comes before the Senate. At least Jonathan Capehart is bringing some rationality to the discussion.

Franken victory sparks conservative media panic-fest

This week, the Minnesota Supreme Court ruled unanimously that Al Franken be officially certified as the winner of last fall's U.S. Senate election in the state. Shortly after the decision came down, former Sen. Norm Coleman conceded defeat, making it clear he wouldn't launch additional legal efforts to stop Franken from being seated.

Conservatives in the media were beside themselves. Franken, after all, made a handsome living sparring with the likes of Fox News, Limbaugh, and, perhaps most notably, Bill O'Reilly (still must see TV after all these years.)

Fox & Friends co-host Brian Kilmeade -- or "brown-haired guy who isn't Steve Doocy," as Stephen Colbert would say -- epitomized the conservative media's response to the official Franken victory. First, he was "in denial," describing Franken as someone who "is barely sane." Then he confessed that "it hurt" to call Franken "a senator from Minnesota" and wondered about "who's safe now." He wasn't done quite yet -- he would go on to call Franken an "embarrassment," "hateful," "maniacal," "angry, evil," and a "bitter partisan."

Kilmeade was hardly alone at Fox. It seems the entire network was "in denial." Saying a lot more about himself than Franken, Glenn Beck said, "This is like having me in the Senate. ... [I]t shows that we've lost our minds."

Limbaugh wasn't too happy with Franken's win, either. He compared the Iranian recount to the Minnesota Senate recount and called Franken a "genuine lunatic" to boot. Clear Channel's Jim Quinn shared Rush's assessment, saying Franken had "stolen" the election while pegging ACORN as a likely culprit. Is there anything media conservatives won't blame on ACORN?

Proving once again that the real joke during this hyper-extended campaign was not the fact that a former comedian might win, but the way the media covered the long legal battle, Politico's Mike Allen claimed Franken prevailed because "[h]e shut his mouth, and when you are Al Franken, that's not easy to do," while MSNBC's Mike Barnicle said that it was "kind of a surprise" that Franken "behaved like a responsible adult."

The global warming whistleblower who wasn't

It's hard to believe, but some conservatives aren't convinced that global warming is real. In fact, some of them think it's a left-wing, anti-American conspiracy, nothing more than propaganda pushed by the liberal media and traitorous members of Congress, all in the hope of turning you into eco-slaves. Scared yet? So is Fox News' Dick Morris, who, when it comes to this issue, is apparently one-third sane.

It's no wonder, then, that the conservative media sighs with relief when somebody wakes up and tells the truth! Someone honest and courageous. Someone like Alan Carlin, a "legendary" EPA official and co-author of an internal document disproving global warming -- a document that the agency then "suppressed," presumably stomping on it with a Birkenstock.

According to the EPA's own records, Carlin is an economist, not a climate scientist -- something Fox's Steve Doocy and Gretchen Carlson ignored when they hosted him on Wednesday to discuss his work. Furthermore, the report he authored made a false and deceptive claim: that global temperatures "have declined for 11 years," a reality he said the EPA ignored. Fox News duly reported it as gospel, as did CBSNews.com, without context or correction.

In fact, the EPA did review Carlin's work and decided it was flawed. No wonder, as Gavin Schmidt, a climate modeler at NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, described it as possessing "a number of basic flaws" and demonstrating a "complete lack of appreciation of the importance of natural variability on short time scales."

But who is a scientist like Schmidt to criticize someone who ... isn't a scientist? I mean, how about a little respect? Heck, even a reputable publication like The Washington Times says the earth is getting cooler. Let's not lose our heads here.

This week's media columns

This week's media columns from the Media Matters senior fellows: Eric Boehlert explains how ABC News debunked the Obama "honeymoon" myth; Jamison Foser looks at Howard Kurtz's wasted opportunity; and Karl Frisch lets us in on the right's super-secret 2010 census plan to end all plans.

Buy the book

Don't forget to order your autographed copy of Eric Boehlert's compelling new book, Bloggers on the Bus: How the Internet Changed Politics and the Press (Free Press, May 2009).

Do you Facebook or Twitter?

If you use the social networking site Facebook, be sure to join the official Media Matters page and those of our senior fellows Eric Boehlert, Jamison Foser, and Karl Frisch as well. You can also follow Media Matters, Boehlert, Foser, and Frisch on Twitter.

This weekly wrap-up was compiled by Karl Frisch, a senior fellow at Media Matters. Frisch also contributes to County Fair, a media blog featuring links to progressive media criticism from around the Web as well as original commentary.

After reporting on CBO analysis of partial health reform bill, ABC and CBS ignore analysis of full bill

M.G. & M.W. — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 20:43:59 EDT

During June evening news broadcasts, both ABC and CBS reported on the Congressional Budget Office's (CBO) June 15 preliminary analysis of an incomplete version of the Senate health committee's draft health care reform bill. Both the CBS Evening News and ABC's World News highlighted claims that the bill cost too much for the number of Americans it insured. However, on the July 2 edition of the programs, neither reported on the release of CBO's July 1 preliminary score of what the committee's chair referred to as the "complete bill," which included both a public health insurance option and an employer mandate requiring businesses with over 25 employees to either insure their workers or pay a fee per uninsured worker. The CBO calculated that the updated bill would cover more of the uninsured for a lower cost than it had estimated the earlier version of the bill would.

According to CBO's July 1 score of the Health, Education, Labor and Pension Committee's (HELP) bill, under the legislation, 21 million fewer Americans would be uninsured in 2019 than under current law. In a July 1 letter to members of the HELP committee, publicly released the following day, committee Chairman Ted Kennedy (D-MA) and Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT), Kennedy's chief deputy on health care reform, wrote that the "Congressional Budget Office has carefully reviewed our complete bill, and we are pleased to report that the CBO has scored it at $611.4 billion over 10 years, with the new coverage provisions scored at $597 billion" -- a cost they noted was a "significant reduction from earlier estimates." The preliminary score of the complete bill that the committee released stated that Title I of the bill would increase the deficit by $597 billion over 10 years.

By contrast, CBO's June 15 score of an incomplete version of the HELP bill -- which CBO director Douglas W. Elmendorf made clear did not include a public option or an employer mandate -- found that under the legislation, 17 million fewer Americans would be uninsured in 2019 than under current law, at a cost of approximately $1 trillion over 10 years.

Indeed, President Obama said in a July 2 statement that "[t]he Congressional Budget Office has now issued a more complete review of this bill, concluding that it will cost less and cover more Americans than originally estimated." Obama also stated that the bill "reflects many of the principles I've laid out."

Additionally, Obama noted, as did Kennedy and Dodd, that "[w]hen merged with the Senate Finance Committee's companion pieces, the Senate will be prepared to vote for health reform legislation that does not add to the deficit, reduces health care costs and covers 97% of Americans." Addressing this point, washingtonpost.com blogger Ezra Klein explained in a July 2 post that Medicaid expansion is under the Senate Finance Committee's jurisdiction and thus could not be included in the HELP bill. From Klein's post:

The short version is this: CBO estimates that by 2019 the bill will cover 21 million people at a cost of $597 billion. But -- and this is important -- the HELP Committee's bill doesn't include the Medicaid expansion, because Medicaid is under the sole jurisdiction of the Finance Committee. But if Medicaid is expanded to 150 percent, it will cover an additional 20 million at a cost of about $1 trillion. Add in the savings that Finance is expected to get from reforming Medicare and you're looking at a bill that will cost $1 trillion to $1.3 trillion and cover 42 million people (which would mean 97 percent of the legal population in 2019 would have health insurance) by 2019.

On the June 15 edition of ABC's World News, Jake Tapper reported that "this evening the Congressional Budget Office has offered an analysis" of the HELP bill and "concluded that the plan would cost at least $1 trillion over the course of 10 years with a net increase of 16 million people insured." George Stephanopoulos then stated that "Republicans are already weighing in on that report. They're doing some back-of-the-envelope math saying it's going to be $62,500 for every new person covered." As Media Matters for America noted, Tapper did not point out that the CBO had stated that its assessment was incomplete.

Similarly, on the June 16 edition of the CBS Evening News, Wyatt Andrews reported, "The Congressional Budget Office, CBO, said Senator Ted Kennedy's health care proposal could cost $1 trillion over 10 years and 36 million Americans would still be uninsured." Andrews also aired a clip of House Minority Whip Eric Cantor's assertion, "The news yesterday from CBO is the turning point in the healthcare debate."

From the June 15 edition of ABC News' World News with Charles Gibson (transcript from the Nexis database):

TAPPER: And George [Stephanopoulos, guest anchor], this evening the Congressional Budget Office has offered an analysis of a different Senate Democrat's plan -- that of Senator Ted Kennedy. They concluded that the plan would cost at least $1 trillion over the course of 10 years with a net increase of 16 million people insured. George.

STEPHANOPOULOS: And Jake, Republicans are already weighing in on that report. They're doing some back-of-the-envelope math saying it's going to be $62,500 for every new person covered. What's the White House saying about the report?

TAPPER: Well, they're saying, first of all, that the president is insisting that any plan be deficit-neutral, that it be paid for, and they're also saying that there are a lot of different plans on Capitol Hill, they're all going through the legislative process, and they have not seen the Congressional Budget Office report yet, so they cannot officially comment.

From the June 16 edition of the CBS Evening News with Katie Couric (transcript from the Nexis database):

JEFF GLOR (guest anchor): Still ahead on the CBS Evening News, health care reform. The president says he knows how to pay for it, but can he really afford the bills? A reality check.

[...]

GLOR: We always knew overhauling our health care system would not be cheap, but today we learned more about the staggering sums involved. At least a trillion dollars over the next ten years according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. And there are growing concerns that President Obama lacks a realistic plan to pay for this sweeping reform. Details now from Wyatt Andrews in tonight's "Reality Check."

[begin video clip]

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How are we going to pay for that, Mr. President?

ANDREWS: That one question, how the nation really pays for a health reform, just got a shocking wakeup call. The Congressional Budget Office, CBO, said Senator Ted Kennedy's health care proposal could cost $1 trillion over 10 years and 36 million Americans would still be uninsured.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's a preliminary set of numbers.

ANDREWS: Democrats called the numbers inconclusive. Even the CBO called its own report incomplete. But the sheer magnitude of what Congress is considering is undeniable.

REP. ERIC CANTOR (House minority whip): The news yesterday from CBO is the turning point in the health care debate.

ANDREWS: So what will health reform cost? The president has also estimated $1 trillion.

OBAMA: And will be deficit neutral.

ANDREWS: And claims he can achieve reform without raising the deficit. The fact is, this means raising taxes. And where the president claims he can raise $267 billion by limiting the tax deductions of high-income wage earners, the fact is most of Congress opposes this idea.

JONATHAN OBERLANDER (University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill): And if they're unwilling to do that, they`re going to have to pick an option that has other political difficulties. And so the question is which kind of poison do they want to drink?

ANDREWS: The president has also outlined more than 600 billion worth of spending cuts, some of which cut Medicare payments to hospitals. Last month, the hospitals claimed at the White House they would support billions in savings, the fact is they now say they never meant cuts, that payment cuts are not reform.

[end video clip]

ANDREWS: What's coming and very soon is a dog fight over that trillion dollars and every interest group that promised to compromise to achieve health care reform will be arguing someone else should go first. Wyatt Andrews, CBS News, Washington.

O'Reilly fill-in Williams provides platform for global warming misinformation

D.C.P. — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 17:57:38 EDT

During a July 1 O'Reilly Factor discussion about whether "the liberal media" are helping President Obama "advance his energy agenda by spreading global warming propaganda," guest host Juan Williams advanced falsehoods about global warming. Williams did not challenge Fox News contributor Bernie Goldberg when he falsely claimed that if journalists "did some real reporting, they would find out that in the past 10 years, the world temperatures haven't gone up." But climate scientists reject the idea that the fact that, in most datasets, annual global average temperatures have not surpassed their 1998 level is any indication that global warming is slowing or does not exist. Scientists have identified a long-term warming trend spanning several decades that is independent from the normal climate variability -- which includes relatively short-term changes in climate due to events like El Niño and La Niña -- to which they attribute the recent relatively cooler temperatures. Williams also did not challenge Goldberg's assertion that "this is déjà vu all over again. This is the 1970s, when journalists warned us of another climate, you know, catastrophe that was coming. That time it was global cooling. And they warned us of the coming ice age. They were wrong about that." But it is false to suggest, as Goldberg does, that in the 1970s there was a widespread scientific belief that the Earth was cooling that is tantamount to the current scientific consensus on global warming.

As Media Matters for America has noted, in a February 11 Guardian op-ed, Vicky Pope, the head of climate change advice at the U.K. Met Office Hadley Centre, wrote that claims about the pace of global warming based only on developments in the past 10 years or in the 1990s are not valid, "since natural variations always occur on this timescale." She continued, "1998 was a record-breaking warm year as long-term man-made warming combined with a naturally occurring strong El Niño. In contrast, 2008 was slightly cooler than previous years partly because of a La Niña. Despite this, it was still the 10th warmest on record." According to the Met Office, "Over the last ten years, global temperatures have warmed more slowly than the long-term trend. But this does not mean that global warming has slowed down or even stopped. It is entirely consistent with our understanding of natural fluctuations of the climate within a trend of continued long-term warming." This long-term trend can be seen in this graph of annual global average temperatures from the U.K. Met Office Hadley Centre:

Moreover, Goldberg's evocation of 1970s media reports about global cooling falsely suggests that the scientific basis for those reports is equivalent to the current scientific consensus on global warming. A September 2008 article in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society (a peer-reviewed publication) investigated the "pervasive myth" that "there was a consensus among climate scientists of the 1970s that either global cooling or a full-fledged ice age was imminent." The article found:

A review of the climate science literature from 1965 to 1979 shows this myth to be false. The myth's basis lies in a selective misreading of the texts both by some members of the media at the time and by some observers today. In fact, emphasis on greenhouse warming dominated the scientific literature even then.

The Bulletin also noted several other "examples of modern writers perpetuating the myth of the 1970s global cooling scientific consensus."

In addition, Williams criticized CBS correspondent Scott Pelley's reported statement that, in Williams' words, "when he was doing a piece about global warming, he would not, in fact, interview anybody who had any doubts as to the veracity of the global warming charge. He said that would be like doing a piece about the Holocaust and talking to Holocaust deniers." In fact, the 2006 CBS article in which Pelley's comments were reported also reported that Pelley "says he tried hard to find a respected scientist who contradicted the prevailing opinion in the scientific community, but there was no one out there who fit that description." From the March 23, 2006, CBS article:

Pelley's most recent report, like his first, did not pause to acknowledge global warming skeptics, instead treating the existence of global warming as an established fact. I again asked him why. "If I do an interview with Elie Wiesel," he asks, "am I required as a journalist to find a Holocaust denier?" He says his team tried hard to find a respected scientist who contradicted the prevailing opinion in the scientific community, but there was no one out there who fit that description. "This isn't about politics or pseudo-science or conspiracy theory blogs," he says. "This is about sound science."

But doesn't the fact that there are a lot of Americans who are skeptical of global warming -- not well respected scientists, perhaps, but ordinary people watching the segment -- warrant at least some recognition of the other side? "There becomes a point in journalism where striving for balance becomes irresponsible," says Pelley.

From the July 1 edition of Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor:

WILLIAMS: In the "Impact" segment tonight: Is the liberal media helping Barack Obama advance his energy agenda by spreading global warming propaganda? Joining us now from North Carolina, my friend Bernie Goldberg, the author of the best-selling book A Slobbering Love Affair. Bernie, thanks so much for coming in.

GOLDBERG: My pleasure, Juan.

WILLIAMS: Now, Bernie, I don't know if you saw this, but Scott Pelley of 60 Minutes recently wrote that when he was doing a piece about global warming, he would not, in fact, interview anybody who had any doubts as to the veracity of the global warming charge. He said that would be like doing a piece about the Holocaust and talking to Holocaust deniers. Can you believe this?

GOLDBERG: Yeah. Yeah, I can, because I read the interview and I saw the piece he did. It was a completely one-sided piece about global warming. And when he was questioned about it, he said precisely what you just reported -- that if I interview somebody who believes in the Holocaust, do I have to find in the name of balance a Holocaust denier?

This amounts to journalistic malpractice. That -- it's as simple as that. Journalists need to do a little reporting and not merely be cheerleaders for Al Gore and Barack Obama's version of manmade global warming. And if they did some reporting, they would learn that the number of skeptics of manmade global warming is rising. It's growing, the number of skeptics. And these include some very prestigious scientists.

But you don't see a lot of that on Page 1 of the newspaper. And if they did some real reporting, they would find out that in the past 10 years, the world temperatures haven't gone up but may have even come down a little bit. But you don't hear that on the evening news.

Juan, we're going -- this is déjà vu all over again. This is the 1970s, when journalists warned us of another climate, you know, catastrophe that was coming. That time it was global cooling. And they warned us of the coming ice age. They were wrong about that. They never looked back. They never apologized. And if and when they're wrong about this, they'll just move on to the next crisis.

WILLIAMS: Now, Bernie -- Bernie, let me just protect you. You're not saying they're wrong. You're just saying there are two sides to the story. Because the U.N. scientists, the G-8 scientists, they've all said that air temperatures are rising, ocean temperatures are rising. You see ice caps melting. You're not saying you know. You're just saying, let's give everybody a fair say.

GOLDBERG: Yeah, thank you for -- thank you for clarifying that. I am, needless to say, I am not a scientist. I am willing to accept that there are two sides to this story, and both sides have legitimate scientists arguing their point. But you wouldn't know that from the mainstream media.

WILLIAMS: All right, so Bernie --

GOLDBERG: Not by and large, anyway.

WILLIAMS: Bernie, let me ask you about the politics of this, because to me, the numbers are very interesting. If I am talking to Republicans -- Republicans, Bernie -- 60 -- I think it's something like 48 percent say yes to global warming. There is global warming.

If I'm talking to independents, 67 percent say, "Yes, there is global warming." But if I'm talking to Democrats, Bernie Goldberg, then I'm up to 87 percent say yes to global warming.

Why do you get 48 percent of Republicans saying, "Yeah, it might be global warming," but 87 percent of Democrats? Why the politics around this?

GOLDBERG: That's a very good question. I think it has something to do with the media again. Republicans are less likely to believe or accept hook, line, and sinker what the media tells them. And liberal Democrats are more likely to believe it because a lot of the media is made up of liberal Democrats.

So, I think -- I think the filter that we get this global warming that it comes through is the media. And a lot of us on the right, we don't trust the media as much as liberal Democrats do.

And again, Juan, the media gets a lot of these things wrong. They got global cooling wrong. Why should we necessarily believe that they got this story right? And what bothers me the most about this is that they have absolutely fallen into line with Al Gore's version of global warming -- that it's manmade, case closed, I don't want to hear about it. Scott Pelley's example is the best one you can come up with.

WILLIAMS: Yeah, so you're an "Earth is flat" kind of person if you disagree with Al Gore. All right, let me move on --

GOLDBERG: Yeah, exactly, exactly.

Jamison Foser: Howard Kurtz's wasted opportunity

J.F. — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 14:27:52 EDT

Howard Kurtz is almost certainly the nation's best-known and most influential media critic. With a regular Washington Post column, virtually unlimited space on the paper's web site, and his own television show on CNN, all dedicated to covering the media, Kurtz has an unrivaled platform from which he can opine about the Fourth Estate. Unfortunately -- though perhaps not coincidentally -- that opportunity is wasted on Kurtz.

Much has been written about Kurtz's (frequently undisclosed) conflicts of interest, his fondness for right-wingers like Michelle Malkin, and his tendency to give their critique of the media more credence than more substantive and factual critiques from progressives. I think it's clear that, whether or not Kurtz personally leans a bit to the right, his media criticism certainly does.

But that isn't why many of his readers and viewers find him so frustrating. What is really bothersome about Kurtz is that he so often gives the impression that he simply lacks the competence to critique the media. He frequently seems to overlook the obvious -- and when it is pointed out to him, it sails right over his head.

Kurtz's output this week is a perfect illustration. From Sunday through Wednesday, Kurtz hosted Reliable Sources on CNN, wrote one column for the print edition of the Post and three for the paper's website, and took reader questions for his "Media Backtalk" online discussion. (Kurtz also recorded an "Online Media Notes" video for the Post's website, which focused on the question of whether there has been too much coverage of Michael Jackson. His conclusion, as far as I can tell, was "Maybe.")

Let's start with Reliable Sources, where Kurtz hosted his Washington Post colleague Dana Milbank, Huffington Post reporter Nico Pitney, and conservative writer Amanda Carpenter.

Milbank had used his Post column to attack Pitney and the Obama White House for alleged coordination relating to a question Pitney asked the president during last week's press conference. Milbank, along with some other establishment media figures and a bunch of conservatives, were -- or pretended to be -- outraged that Obama apparently knew that Pitney was going to ask a question about Iran.

That is a strange complaint, given that reporters agree upon interview topics with subjects all the time. When reporters like Milbank or TV hosts like Kurtz want to interview an elected official, they discuss the topics they want to cover with the official's staff. Indeed, Kurtz had "coordinated" with his guest Dana Milbank when Milbank was booked to discuss Pitney's question on Reliable Sources. Somehow, though, it never occurred to Kurtz -- during a discussion about whether it is appropriate for a reporter and a subject to "coordinate" on the topic of a question -- to point out that he and the three people he was interviewing had "coordinated" on the topics he would ask about.

Or, to put it more simply: Kurtz knew that Milbank had just participated in precisely the same kind of "coordination" that he was denouncing -- because Milbank had "coordinated" with Kurtz! Yet Kurtz somehow missed this rather glaring hypocrisy.

Even when it was spelled out for him, Kurtz showed no sign of grasping the absurdity of reporters attacking Pitney and Obama for things those same reporters do every day. Kurtz eventually acknowledged, via Twitter, that he agrees on topics in advance with guests -- "it's only fair," he says -- but still hasn't managed to make the connection to the complaints about Pitney and Obama. (For the record, while Obama had strong reason to believe Pitney would ask about Iran -- Pitney had drawn widespread praise for his coverage of that country's disputed election -- there is no indication that Pitney committed in advance to asking about that topic. And as pretty much everyone agrees, Pitney's question was a good and difficult one that Obama did not directly answer.)

On Monday Kurtz had a column in the print edition of the Post, an expanded version of which appeared on the Post's website, in which he wrote: "MSNBC is down to just five daytime hours of straight news, which once formed a counterpoint to its liberal evening programming." Kurtz didn't mention former Republican congressman Joe Scarborough, who hosts a daily three-hour program on MSNBC, thus giving the false impression that MSNBC's "liberal evening programming" has no conservative "counterpoint."

This fits neatly into a pattern with Kurtz. He is convinced that MSNBC leans to the left. It's certainly his prerogative to think that -- and he is certainly not alone in that view. But Kurtz frequently places a thumb on the scale in order to make his case for MSNBC's liberalism. Sometimes, he fails to mention Scarborough's existence, as on Monday. Other times he acknowledges Scarborough, but goes to great lengths to suggest Scarborough's show isn't all that conservative, while omitting any such qualifiers for the "liberal" hosts he identifies.

And Kurtz points to Chris Matthews as evidence of MSNBC's liberalism, describing Matthews as "a former Democratic strategist who recently pondered running for the Senate from Pennsylvania as a Democrat" without noting that Matthews voted for George W. Bush, spent years gushing over Bush and ridiculing Democrats and liberals, waged war on both Clintons and Al Gore, and reportedly decided not to run for the Senate because he realized there wasn't anything he wanted to do as a senator -- not exactly signs of a reliably progressive person.

Surely, any halfway-competent media critic could recognize the problems with a news report that stacks and slants its case that egregiously. But Kurtz not only routinely does it, he appears to have no idea why it draws criticism.

A few hours after that column appeared on Monday, Kurtz hosted his weekly online discussion, where the first question pointed out his omission of Scarborough:

Scarborough Country: You wrote today: "MSNBC is down to just five daytime hours of straight news, which once formed a counterpoint to its liberal evening programming."

Why do you keep pretending Joe Scarborough's three hours a day don't exist? It undermines your crediblity when you do this. Your case for MSNBC's liberalism must be pretty weak if you have to resort to burying counter-evidence.

Howard Kurtz: My pretense hasn't been very consistent, since I've written lengthy pieces on both Joe and Mika. Morning Joe figured into my calculation, in that it's an opinionated show (with Scarborough balanced a little bit by Brzezinski) that no one would confuse with straight news. They get three hours; Matthews, Schultz Olbermann and Maddow are on from 5 to 11. But my point is the shrinking of garden-variety newscasts on MS during the day.

The question was obviously about Kurtz ignoring Scarborough's three hours in writing that MSNBC's "liberal evening programming" lacks sufficient "counterpoint." The problem in omitting any mention of Scarborough should be self-evident. But Kurtz's response indicates a complete failure to grasp this point. He responds that at some other time he has written about Scarborough. Well, fine -- but that doesn't make it OK to omit any mention of Scarborough from Monday's article. Not when Scarborough's three hours directly undermine the point Kurtz made in that article.

Can it really be possible that Kurtz doesn't understand the problem with failing to mention Scarborough in an article in which he writes "MSNBC is down to just five daytime hours of straight news, which once formed a counterpoint to its liberal evening programming"? Or is he just pretending?

Kurtz addressed the topic further Monday night, again via Twitter. Here he is at 10:09 p.m.: "Since I've written about Joe & Mika and watch it regularly, I'm as familiar with conservative-hosted Morning Joe as with MS's lib iineup [sic]."

OK, so why did he omit any mention of it, leaving the impression that MSNBC's "lib lineup" lacked a "counterpoint"?

A few minutes later, Kurtz Tweeted again: "I don't get the criticism, @markosm, since I included Joe in my math: 3 conservative hrs, 6 liberal hrs, and now 5 for 'regular' news at MS."

Kurtz may have included Scarborough in his "math," but he included neither Scarborough nor that "math" in his article. Somehow, Kurtz still can't grasp that concept -- or he pretends not to.

(For the record, Kurtz ignored responses pointing out that, in fact, he omitted Scarborough from his article. Also for the record: I don't agree with Kurtz's assessment that MSNBC features "6 liberal hours," but I won't address it now, as my primary point here is not that his assessments of such things are incorrect, but rather that Kurtz does not seem to understand basic concepts that should be second nature to someone in his position.)

A little later in his online discussion, a reader took issue with Kurtz's contention that Scarborough is "balanced a little bit" by co-host Mika Brzezinski:

Balanced by Mika?: I love Morning Joe and don't watch the evening chatter on any cable. I do not know what Mika's politics are, but I often find her marked by deference to her men (reminds me of a "powerful" woman in '40's screwball company). Today's show featured Mika interviewing noted philanderer Rudy Giuliani regarding Sanford and political affairs. Instead of having Rudy talk about his own broad and deep experience on the subject, including the use of public funds on mistresses, she allowed it to become a discourse on Bill Clinton. Oy.

Howard Kurtz: Look, it's Joe's show, he's a former Republican congressman and an unabashed conservative (albeit one who hasn't hesitated to criticize his party). Mika is a lifelong journalist, not a liberal advocate, with views that are certainly to the left of Scarborough's. All I said is that she added a little balance. It's not set up like Crossfire where their views have equal weight.

Once again, a reader's point appears to have flown over Kurtz's head. Does he really not see the problem with Mika Brzezinski hosting Rudy Giuliani and allowing him to criticize Bill Clinton's affair without ever once mentioning Giuliani's? How could he miss it? Isn't that the kind of thing that the nation's most famous media critic should notice. And, you know ... criticize?

The very next question made the same point:

"balanced by Mika": Hey Howie, here's an example of how Mika brings that liberal balance to the Scarborough show, while interviewing Rudy Giuliani about adulterous politicians:

"Giuliani "Let's look at Bill Clinton."

Brzezinski: "Yeah.""

I'm assuming the irony of that premise is obvious. Am I overestimating you?

Howard Kurtz: I brought up Bill Clinton (and Spitzer and McGreevey and Edwards) on my program yesterday after running through the list of recent Republican miscreants (Sanford, Ensign, Vitter). How can any discussion of philandering politicians not mention the impeachment of a president? Of course, I'm sure Rudy would rather talk about that than how he started dating his current wife while living with his then-wife in Gracie Mansion.

The questioner was clearly pointing out -- as the previous one did -- that Brzezinski allowed Giuliani to bring up Bill Clinton's infidelity without challenging him on his own. But Kurtz still couldn't wrap his mind around this simple concept. Instead, Kurtz responds as though the question was about the propriety of Bill Clinton being mentioned at all.

It's as if someone had pointed out that two plus two equals four, and Kurtz responded "Duluth."

The rest of the discussion went on like that. A reader pointed out that neither John McCain nor Newt Gingrich, both of whom famously had affairs, were mentioned in media coverage of Mark Sanford's affair. Kurtz missed the point entirely. A reader asked about the Pitney controversy; Kurtz misstated facts about it in his response. Another reader asked about Pitney's statement that Milbank had quietly called him a name during the Reliable Sources taping, a charge Kurtz had been aware of for a day, and had addressed on Twitter. Kurtz responded that the video is inconclusive -- but gave no indication that he took the basic step of asking Milbank about it, despite the fact that they share a newsroom.

On Wednesday, Kurtz included a lengthy excerpt of a defense of Milbank in his online column. Despite widespread criticism of Milbank's Reliable Sources appearance, the only criticism of Kurtz's fellow Postie that made it into any of his columns was a pox-on-both-their-houses excerpt on Monday.

On Monday, Kurtz touched briefly on the Post's decision to get rid of Dan Froomkin:

Liberal bloggers have been lambasting The Post for dropping Dan Froomkin and his White House Watch column. Washington City Paper Editor Erik Wemple reports that the main issue was Froomkin's $100,000 contract and his declining traffic:"

Kurtz then quoted a few paragraphs of Wemple's work. And that's all he's written about Froomkin. Note that Kurtz didn't actually quote any of the "liberal bloggers" (or others) who have been critical of the decision to drop Froomkin, or even indicate what their points were.

And Kurtz's description of Wemple's piece is just wrong. Wemple didn't "report" that the main issue was Froomkin's contract and traffic; he asserted that to be the main issue. That may seem like a subtle distinction, but it is an important one -- and it should be an obvious one to the nation's most famous media critic.

Just to spell things out: the best-case scenario for Howard Kurtz's employer is for people to think that Froomkin was let go for financial and traffic reasons. And Howard Kurtz overstated the extent to which Wemple established that Froomkin was let go for financial and traffic reasons. Given his access to the people involved, you would think Kurtz might do some original reporting rather than simply hyping Wemple's Post-friendly take on the story. But he hasn't.

So two of the biggest media stories of the past few weeks have involved Kurtz's Washington Post colleagues. And in both cases, he has not only managed to avoid criticizing those Post colleagues in his column, he has also neglected to quote anything more than token criticism from others, while using his Post column to misleadingly promote defenses of the Post.

Finally, Kurtz got scooped by Politico on an explosive story about his own newspaper becoming "a facilitator for private lobbyist-official encounters" and selling lobbyists access to its reporters:

For $25,000 to $250,000, The Washington Post is offering lobbyists and association executives off-the-record, nonconfrontational access to "those powerful few" -- Obama administration officials, members of Congress, and the paper's own reporters and editors.

The astonishing offer is detailed in a flier circulated Wednesday to a health care lobbyist, who provided it to a reporter because the lobbyist said he feels it's a conflict for the paper to charge for access to, as the flier says, its "health care reporting and editorial staff."

The offer -- which essentially turns a news organization into a facilitator for private lobbyist-official encounters -- is a new sign of the lengths to which news organizations will go to find revenue at a time when most newspapers are struggling for survival.

So The Washington Post is selling access to its "own reporters" to corporate lobbyists -- and we learn about it not from Washington Post reporter Howard Kurtz, the nation's highest-profile media critic, but from Politico. (Kurtz, meanwhile, was relegated to playing damage control with a follow-up article featuring Post executive editor Marcus Brauchli denying that the newsroom will play any role in the lobbyist sessions. Kurtz neglected to mention any of the flurry of criticism the Post received over the proposed sessions.)

While Politico's Mike Allen was drinking Kurtz's milkshake, Kurtz was busy writing a piece about whether "racial and gender identification" on the part of African-American women who cover Michelle Obama "produces a gauzier, more favorable portrayal of Obama." I don't recall Kurtz devoting a column to the possibility of white male reporters producing "gauzier" portrayals of their white male subjects than a more diverse news corps might.

And remember: All of this was in just four days.

Unfortunately, it is typical of Kurtz's work. Media Matters' Eric Boehlert describes it as Kurtz "playing dumb." And, indeed, it's hard to imagine that Kurtz really doesn't understand, for example, what's wrong with omitting any mention of Joe Scarbrough while claiming that MSNBC's liberal hosts lack "counterpoint." It's hard to imagine that he really doesn't get what's wrong with Mika Brzezinski allowing Rudy Giuliani to criticize Bill Clinton's affair without ever once pointing out Giuliani's own high-profile affair. Sixth-graders understand concepts like these.

But, to a certain extent, it just doesn't matter whether Kurtz is "playing dumb" or whether he is simply a bumbling and clueless reporter. Either way, he's squandering two extraordinary platforms.

Wash. Times publishes op-ed promoting discredited "global cooling" claim

T.A. — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 12:23:43 EDT

On July 2, The Washington Times published a "commentary" by Cato Institute senior fellow Richard Rahn criticizing Congress for passing "the largest tax increase in American history this past Friday, under the claim it was a vote to save the climate." In the op-ed -- which was referring to the cap-and-trade energy bill recently passed by the House -- Rahn stated that "proponents claim this tax bill will reduce U.S. carbon dioxide emissions, which are purported to cause global warming" and then responded to that claim, in part, by asserting: "None of the climate models predicted the unexpected global cooling of the last decade." However, climate experts reject the idea that relatively cooler global temperatures during the past decade are any indication that global warming is slowing.

As Media Matters for America has noted, annual global average temperatures have both risen and fallen over the past 11 years, and there have been some relatively cooler years during that period -- including a decline in each of the past three years relative to the year before. But climate scientists have identified a long-term warming trend spanning several decades that is independent from the normal climate variability -- which includes relatively short-term changes in climate due to events like El Niño and La Niña -- to which they attribute the recent relatively cooler temperatures.

From Rahn's July 2 Washington Times op-ed:

Why did a bare majority (219-212) of the members of the U.S. Congress vote for the largest tax increase in American history this past Friday, under the claim it was a vote to save the climate?

Before you answer the question, consider the following facts. The proponents claim this tax bill will reduce U.S. carbon dioxide emissions, which are purported to cause global warming. First, despite the claims of President Obama, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and many in the media, there is no consensus in the scientific community about how much climate change, other than the normal cycles, is taking place, nor how severe it will be, and how much man-made CO2 is responsible. None of the climate models predicted the unexpected global cooling of the last decade.

Hannity ignores CBO to attack cap and trade as regressive

J.K.F. — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 09:20:55 EDT

During the July 1 edition of Fox News' Hannity, Ralph Reed, chairman of the Faith and Freedom Coalition, stated that "[t]here's a new study from the Tax Foundation that shows, by a margin of 5-to-1, the cap-and-tax burden falls heaviest on the poor and the lower middle class." Host Sean Hannity added: "Poor, elderly, farmers." But the Tax Foundation's study did not consider the effect of the government's distribution of revenue generated by a cap-and-trade system to lower-income households. Additionally, Hannity and Reed ignored the Congressional Budget Office's (CBO) June 19 analysis of the version of the American Clean Energy and Security Act that passed the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which found that households in the lowest income quintile would see an average net benefit of about $40 per year.

The Tax Foundation's most recent analysis of a cap-and-trade system, a March 2009 "Working Paper No. 6," which the Tax Foundation described as a "new study" in its Summer 2009 newsletter, considered "a typical cap-and-trade system," not the system detailed in the House committee's version of the energy bill. The study found that the lowest income quintile would bear a burden of $617, or 6.2 percent of income under a typical cap-and-trade system, while the top quintile would bear a burden of $2,091 or 1.4 percent of income. But the Tax Foundation analysis specifically stated that it did not consider how the revenue generated by a cap-and-trade program "may be disposed by lawmakers in various ways that may affect these household burdens":

In this analysis we focus primarily on the burden of cap and trade to households in the form of higher consumer prices. As noted above, cap and trade also generates government revenue that may be disposed of by lawmakers in various ways that may affect these household burdens. Because of uncertainty about how lawmakers may or may not dispose of future cap-and-trade revenue, we present only household burdens from higher consumer prices throughout the body of the study.

According to the CBO analysis, the "net impact" of the energy act's cap-and-trade system "would reflect both the added costs that households experienced because of higher prices and the share of the allowance value that they received in the form of benefit payments, rebates, tax decreases or credits, wages, and returns on their investments." CBO also stated that the distribution of revenue under the legislation would offset much of the cost of the bill to households. In its June 19 analysis of the energy act, CBO stated that "[i]n the aggregate, most of these [higher consumer] costs would be offset by income or other benefits provided to households as a result of the distribution of the value of the emission allowances."

From the CBO analysis:

The GHG cap-and-trade program established under H.R. 2454 would impose costs on U.S. households and provide some financial benefits, as well as the benefits associated with any changes in the climate that would be avoided as a result of the legislation. (This analysis addresses only those financial benefits.) The costs would be incurred through higher prices for the goods and services that households consumed, and the incidence of those costs would be determined primarily by households' consumption patterns. In the aggregate, most of those costs would be offset by income or other benefits provided to households as a result of the distribution of the value of the emission allowances.

CBO provided the following chart breaking down the cost of the bill by income quintile:

From the July 1 edition of Fox News' Hannity:

RALPH REED (chairman of the Faith And Freedom Coalition): Yeah, look, the fact of the matter is the Democratic brand is starting to lose a lot of its shine, because this is a president who ran promising hope and change, saying he wouldn't be an old-style Democrat, saying we weren't going to re-fight the battles of the 1990s, saying he didn't have, you know, a stake in the fight in the 60s in the culture wars.

And what we've gotten, Sean, is classic liberal, big bureaucracy, big government, massive tax increases. Under cap and tax, electric utility bills are going to go up 90 percent --

HANNITY: Nationalized health care.

REED: -- the price of a gallon of gas is going to go up 74 percent.

And here's the tragedy. He promised that no one making less than $200,000 a year would see a dime in a tax increase. And --

HANNITY: And he said it over and over again.

REED: -- and let me finish this point. There's a new study from the Tax Foundation that shows, by a margin of 5-to-1, the cap-and-tax burden falls heaviest on the poor and the lower middle class.

HANNITY: Poor, elderly, farmers.

REED: It's a highly regressive tax that falls hardest and punishes those least able to pay.

HANNITY: All right. Here's --

POWERS: Can we just get back --

HANNITY: Go ahead.

POWERS: -- to this idea, though, that the Democrats are unhappy with Obama? I mean, that's just not reality.

Hannity repeats earmark falsehood to smear Obama

L.Y. — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 08:04:44 EDT

On the July 1 edition of his Fox News show, Sean Hannity again falsely claimed that Obama made a campaign promise of "no earmarks." Fox News contributor Karl Rove responded: "And, again, he broke that one." In fact, as Media Matters for America has noted, during his presidential campaign, Obama actually promised to reform the earmark process and cut wasteful spending, not to end all earmarks.

Hannity has repeatedly made the false claim that Obama promised to ban all earmarks. On March 6, for instance, Hannity aired a clip of Obama stating, "We are going to ban all earmarks, the process by which individual members insert pet projects without review." However, in those comments, which were taken from a January 6 media availability -- not during the presidential campaign, as Hannity suggested -- Obama was actually referring to his desire to "ban all earmarks" from his "recovery and reinvestment plan," which he specifically distinguished from "the overall budget process."

Numerous other media figures have also misrepresented Obama's statements regarding earmarks to accuse Obama of breaking a promise.

From the July 1 edition of Fox News' Hannity:

ROVE: How many times have we in the, like, last couple of months, have we seen him break these solemn promises that he made in the campaign? Now some of the promises I'm glad he broke. You know, I'm -- you know, his thing about "I'm not going to hold terrorists indefinitely in Gitmo."

Well, he broke that just literally last Friday by having an executive order that said he would hold them indefinitely. But we're going to see on a whole wide range of fronts that he's going to break his promises. Remember, he had --

HANNITY: All right. But let's go through this. He said he wouldn't --

ROVE: Yeah.

HANNITY: He said he wouldn't Mirandize. He's doing it. The one you just mentioned.

ROVE: Doing it.

HANNITY: He said no lobbyists in my administration. He broke that early.

ROVE: Lobbyists in the administration.

HANNITY: He said no earmarks, right? That was another one of his.

ROVE: And, again, he broke that one.

HANNITY: All right. So, well, these seem like major promises. What does that tell us about him? Is he dishonest?

ROVE: Well, look, he's a cold, calculating, ambitious politician who feels very comfortable saying one thing in the campaign and doing something entirely different. Whatever was necessary in order to get elected he was willing to say it.

-- L.Y.

Karl Frisch: The right's super-secret plan to end all plans

K.V.F. — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 19:48:52 EDT

Pssst. Hey, conservatives ... I want to let you in on a devious little plan being hatched by your leaders in the media.

It goes something like this: President Obama, the Democratic Congress, and the federal government are evil. They already have too much power and want to take even more control over your life. They're out to take away your guns, liberty, freedom, paycheck, and perhaps your mother's apple pie! Worse yet, now they want to count you. Have they no shame?

That's right. In Obama's unyielding quest to impose a socialist-fascist-communist-Marxist police state, the president is going to send his minions from ACORN to your door to count you for the decennial census.

And their solution to the president's pompous power grab? Sitting out the census.

Seriously.

Over the past few months, an increasing number of conservative media figures and news outlets have encouraged their audiences not to complete the 2010 U.S. census or expressed support for those who've decided to skip the count. Some have even stated that they wouldn't complete it, either -- even though the law requires respondents to complete it.

They often cite the participation of the community organization ACORN -- the right's bogeyman du jour -- in the recruitment of workers who will collect data as a reason to be wary, even frightened of the census.

Never one to skip an opportunity to put his special brand of crazy on full display, Fox News' Glenn Beck recently said of the census, "[T]here's a lot of people that are concerned with it because they don't want to fill it out. They're not comfortable with ACORN members coming to find out all this information." One can't be sure where Beck got such precise numbers -- "a lot of people" -- but it's a safe bet the U.S. Census Bureau won't be following his methodology. Later in the segment, Beck confessed that he's "considered not filling it out."

Over on Clear Channel's The War Room with Quinn & Rose, a caller stated that he, too, wouldn't fill out the census because of ACORN's involvement, prompting co-host Rose Tennent to Beck-ingly say, "ACORN being recruited by Obama for a mission -- that is so frightening," adding that "it scares me to think that these thugs are getting this information from us."

Then there's syndicated radio host and convicted Watergate felon G. Gordon Liddy -- a man who has acknowledged plotting, but not following through on, a few murders, kidnappings, and a bombing. He praised Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota for her refusal to complete the census, saying that "she's worried about the involvement of ACORN ... in next year's census. ... I hope that she refuses, and I hope that they charge her, and then I hope she takes ... that thing right up to the Supreme Court of the United States and gets this question resolved." You see, Liddy is no fan of government "intrusion." During the 1990s, he reportedly instructed his radio audience on multiple occasions on how to shoot Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms agents.

All this ACORN paranoia from the right is pretty nutty, but it is hardly its only problem with the census.

On his radio show, Neal Boortz told a caller, "I received a census form the other day asking me a whole bunch of questions about my small business. I threw it in the trash. I'm not going to answer it. None of their damn business." He added that "the federal government and the state government, they have a legitimate reason for knowing how many people live where. ... [M]ost of the rest of the information is designed to help the government steal from you in order to pass off your property to the moochers. They're looters."

A sentiment apparently shared by former Bush administration speechwriter Meghan Clyne. She recently wrote that the census questions "forc[e] Americans to disclose sensitive information about their finances, health and lifestyles." While Clyne did let readers know that answering the census is mandatory, she went on to write, "The good news is that I called the help number on my form and a Census representative finally conceded that the government was unlikely to pursue punishment if I didn't respond, saying it would be 'a waste of time and money.' " Apparently, Clyne doesn't mind if folks break the law, so long as the law isn't likely to be enforced.

I suppose this would a good time to let conservatives know why their war against the census is both politically naïve and tremendously foolish.

Those detailed questions that seem to be causing conservatives such heartburn? They help determine where federal money is best spent. The U.S. Census Bureau notes, for example, that "long-term care providers and community planners use information about disability to help them decide where to locate services and facilities." It would be a shame if conservatives actually listened to the right-wing chattering class, skipped the census, and missed out on badly needed public service projects.

Of a more pressing concern to political junkies: The census helps determine population shifts throughout the country that inform the redistricting of congressional seats and truly impacts the balance of power in Washington. So, if conservatives aren't counted, they could lose seats in Congress -- something a high school government student would likely know.

If the right wants a path back to power, it might first consider putting an end to this fool's errand, lest it cut off its nose to spite its face.

Karl Frisch is a senior fellow at Media Matters for America, a progressive media watchdog and research and information center based in Washington, D.C. Frisch also contributes to County Fair, a media blog featuring links to progressive media criticism from around the Web as well as original commentary. You can follow him on Twitter and Facebook or sign up to receive his columns by email.

Fox & Friends baselessly suggested Walpin, Carlin, and Weiderhold all "Watchdogs Silenced by Administration"

J.M. — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 19:30:12 EDT

On the July 1 edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends, co-hosts Steve Doocy, Gretchen Carlson and Brian Kilmeade baselessly linked three purported "whistleblowers": recently dismissed Corporation for National and Community Service inspector general Gerald Walpin, Environmental Protection Agency research analyst Alan Carlin, and Amtrak inspector general Fred Weiderhold, whose retirement was announced by Amtrak on June 18. While talking about Weiderhold's resignation, Fox & Friends also aired on-screen text that read: "America's Endangered Species. Watchdogs Silenced by Administration." However, the hosts of Fox & Friends cited no evidence that the Obama administration had anything to do with the resignation of Weiderhold, who serves at the discretion of Amtrak president and CEO Joseph H. Boardman, a former Bush administration official who was named head of Amtrak by the organization's Bush-appointed board of directors.

Moreover, Carlin and Walpin have nothing to do with Weiderhold. Carlin is not a "whistleblower"; the report he co-authored that Fox News is claiming was improperly excluded from an EPA report on greenhouse gas emissions has been criticized by climate scientists. As for Walpin, the White House provided a list of reasons for his termination, which included a complaint filed by the acting U.S. attorney over his conduct.

Weiderhold's retirement came after a report he commissioned yielded conclusions critical of Amtrak management. On February 11, Weiderhold retained an independent law firm to, according to the law firm, "review and analyze several Amtrak policies and practices relating to oversight of OIG [Office of Inspector General] audits, investigations, and operations." The firm's report concluded that the OIG's work was "being substantially impaired" by Amtrak officials:

Amtrak OIG's independence and effectiveness are being substantially impaired by a number of policies and practices at the corporation relating to Law Department oversight of OIG investigations, OIG personnel matters, and OIG funding.

[...]

These policies and practices constitute significant impairments to the Amtrak OIG's effectiveness and its actual and perceived independence under the standards of the Inspector General Act, 5 U.S.C. app. 3 ("IG Act") as well as published guidance of the Office of Management and Budget ("OMB") and the Government Accountability Office ("GAO").

The law firm, Willkie Farr & Gallagher, submitted its report to Weiderhold on June 18. Amtrak released a statement on June 18 announcing that Weiderhold had resigned after 35 years of service.

As The Wall Street Journal reported, "citing concerns about oversight at the publicly funded [Amtrak] corporation at a time when it is set to spend more than $1 billion in federal stimulus funds," the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee "launched an investigation" into Weiderhold's resignation on June 29. In their letter to Amtrak Chairman Thomas Carper, Reps. Edolphus Towns (D-NY) and Darrell Issa (R-CA), the chairman and ranking member of the House Oversight Committee, cited the independent report Weiderhold had commissioned and stated:

According to press reports, the Inspector General retired abruptly on June 18, 2009, after he presented this report to Amtrak officials. We understand that Amtrak has appointed a former Amtrak human resources executive, with no experience in the Inspector General community, to serve as acting Inspector General.

These reports cause us grave concern about the circumstances surrounding the Inspector General's departure. We are further concerned that the board and management of Amtrak have compromised the effectiveness of the Inspector General by interfering with the independence and authority that Congress has explicitly granted to the Inspector General by statute.

The letter did not in any way suggest that the White House played a role in Weiderhold's retirement. According to the Goverment Accountability Office, "[t]he Amtrak IG is appointed, and may be removed, by the head of Amtrak." Boardman, a former Bush administration official, is the current interim president and CEO of Amtrak. In 2005, President Bush appointed Boardman to head the Department of Transportation's Federal Railroad Administration, in which capacity Boardman also reportedly served "as the U.S. Department of Transportation designee on the Amtrak Board of Directors." On November 24, 2008, the Amtrak board of directors, comprised of Bush administration appointees, chose Boardman to become Amtrak's president and CEO for a one-year term.

According to the Wall Street Journal report, Amtrak has denied any " 'relationship between the timing of Mr. Weiderhold's retirement' and the report critical of Amtrak management."

As Media Matters has noted, the EPA has reportedly said Carlin "is not a scientist," and Gavin Schmidt, a climate modeler at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, has pointed to "a number of basic flaws" in Carlin's report, including "the complete lack of appreciation of the importance of natural variability on short time scales, the common but erroneous belief that any attribution of past climate change to solar or other forcing means that CO2 has no radiative effect, and a hopeless lack of familiarity of the basic science of detection and attribution." Additionally, in an interview with TPMMuckraker published July 1, Carlin acknowledged of his report, "I didn't have time to fix all the problems -- and they still aren't fixed." Carlin reportedly claimed that he produced his report over the span of "a few days," whereas he "normally write[s] research papers and reports, which take six months to a year." Carlin also stated that he similarly provided global warming reports to the EPA when President Bush was in office but that "[t]o the best of my knowledge, the Bush administration never followed up on my ideas."

Walpin's suspension from his position as inspector general was announced on June 11. The Obama administration provided a list of reasons for Walpin's June 11 termination, including but not limited to the board of the corporation's concerns over Walpin's behavior and conduct, as well as a complaint filed by acting U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of California Lawrence G. Brown regarding Walpin's actions during his investigation into the misuse of AmeriCorps grants given to a nonprofit organization in Sacramento, California. In his April 29 letter, Brown alleged that Walpin and his staff "did not include" or "disclose" relevant information regarding the case to Brown's office; that Walpin repeatedly discussed the case in the press after being advised "under no circumstance was he to communicate with the media about a matter under investigation"; and that Walpin's "actions were hindering our investigation and handling of this matter."

Media Matters has previously noted that on-screen text aired during the June 17 edition of Fox & Friends asserted as fact that Walpin was "fired for protecting taxpayers."

From the July 1 edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends:

DOOCY: Yesterday, we were telling you a little bit about a guy from the EPA who had written a report that was critical of the global warming consensus in the federal government.

KILMEADE: Yeah. He said it wasn't happening.

DOOCY: He said that the temperature's been going down. His report was then discounted and not included in the EPA's final thing. And then remember about a month and a half ago that fellow by the name of Gerald Walpin? He was the inspector general of AmeriCorps, and he was calling into question some of Barack Obama's pals, in particular, the now-mayor of Sacramento and how they had -- he had mis-- and his organization -- had misspent hundreds of thousands of dollars. Well, now we're learning that another whistleblower, a fellow who -- by the name of Fred Weiderhold who's the inspector general at Amtrak, suddenly got abruptly retired after he made some critical comments.

CARLSON: It's all in the words, isn't it? It's all in how this happens. He wasn't fired. He wasn't let go. He was retired. But why? Well, some people are questioning this this morning because apparently he was looking into money and the way in which it was being spent at Amtrak. Remember, Amtrak is pretty much government-funded, and I believe it received a lot of the stimulus money.

KILMEADE: 1.3 million.

CARLSON: All right, so questions would be, of course, for taxpayers, how was that money being used? And if you're the inspector general, remember, these are people who have no political ties, apparently. They are there to be the watchdog of what's going on and how these organizations are spending your money. Now, this guy looking into Amtrak, told to retire.

KILMEADE: Yeah. Senator [Chuck] Grassley [R-IA] said look out for this. A lot of people are scared when they come up with this 80-page report that said how bad Amtrak is run, even though I have a great time when I'm on there --

DOOCY: Sure.

KILMEADE: -- and the food's semi-good, and I often tip the guy at the end. At least it's edible -- a bit of a surprise.

DOOCY: The conductor?

KILMEADE: Yeah, the conductor. I usually tip my conductor.

DOOCY: He is the guy at the end.

KILMEADE: Yeah, he's got a little --

CARLSON: He's talking about the waiter who's bringing his drinks.

KILMEADE: Right, no, he's usually -- the conductor usually brings my drinks. It's good. Anybody with a vest.

DOOCY: Right.

KILMEADE: But here's the deal. This guy's fired. He has no idea why. The other guy that visited us last week, Gerald Walpin: fired. They questioned his sanity; they said he's too old. Now this guy, Alan Carlin, his job -- he's fired by saying there might not be any global warming.

CARLSON: No, he was not fired. His report was not admitted into the final analysis --

KILMEADE: OK.

CARLSON: -- but he still has his job.

KILMEADE: And he's gotta not feel too strongly about it, judging by the track record. [Rep.] Darrell Issa [R-CA] on the House side and Senator Grassley are all saying we want explanations for these actions. And who knows, maybe if Senator Jim DeMint [R-SC] does come in and talk about his book, we could ask him when he sits on the couch.

DOOCY: He's going to be here in just a minute, but ultimately -- and I think Grassley, the senator from Iowa said these interventions have systematically violated the letter and spirit of the Inspector General Act. Remember, the inspector generals are out there looking out for us. And yet, if they gotta worry about whether or not they are going to be abruptly retired because they are critical of the system, and in the particular case regarding the Amtrak guy, he also blew the whistle on the fact that they apparently have retained a number of outside law firms, and they are shielded from the inspector general's reach. So, in other words, they bring in these outside law firms, and they -- the government watchdog can't keep an eye on them because they're from outside. Interestingly enough, Michelle Malkin sums it up this way. She's got a great column about this today. She said "watchdog out, lapdog in."

KILMEADE: Lapdog in, yep. Absolutely.

CARLSON: Who would want to be an inspector general now? That's the big question. And fear of retaliation. Let's talk about some new polls that are out.

Distorting article, Fox Nation claims "Pelosi Requires All Homes to Meet Eco-Standards Before ... Sold"

M.G. — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 15:46:53 EDT

On July 1, the Fox Nation linked to an article from the conservative news organization CNSNews.com under the headline, "Pelosi Requires All Homes to Meet Eco-Standards Before They Can Be Sold" -- a claim not supported by the CNS article. CNSNews.com's Matt Cover reported that the American Clean Energy and Security Act recently passed by the House of Representatives "contains a new federal policy that residential, commercial, and government buildings be retrofitted to increase energy efficiency, leaving it up to the states to figure out exactly how to do that." Cover then theorized that this policy "means that homeowners, for example, could be required to retrofit their homes to meet federal 'green' guidelines in order to sell their homes."

As Media Matters for America has documented, the Fox Nation has frequently featured false and baseless assertions in its headlines.

From the Fox Nation:

Fox News runs with global temperature decline falsehood

C.S. — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 13:11:57 EDT

Following allegations that the EPA "suppressed" an internal document that was skeptical of climate change, several Fox News figures have advanced the document's false claim -- previously repeated by CBS -- that, in Fox News host Steve Doocy's words, "for the last 11 years, temperatures had been dropping." In fact, Doocy's claim simply is not true.

A draft of the EPA document stated in one of its "principal comments" that "[g]lobal temperatures have declined -- extending the current downtrend to 11 years with a particularly rapid decline in 1907-8 [sic]." The document went on to state that "[g]lobal temperatures have declined (Figure 1a) -- extending the current run of time with a statistically robust lack of global temperature rise to eight years (Figure 1b), with some people arguing that it can be traced back for 12 years."

In fact, as Media Matters for America has noted, annual global average temperatures have both risen and fallen over the past 11 years, and while there have been some relatively cooler years during that period -- including a decline in each of the past three relative to the year before -- climate scientists reject the idea that those temperatures are any indication that global warming is slowing or does not exist. Scientists have identified a long-term warming trend spanning several decades that is independent from the normal climate variability -- which includes relatively short-term changes in climate due to events like El Niño and La Niña -- to which they attribute the recent relatively cooler temperatures.

As this graph of annual global average temperatures from the U.K. Met Office Hadley Centre shows, the claim that, in the words of Doocy, "for the last 11 years, temperatures had been dropping" is simply not true:

Nonetheless, Doocy and other Fox News personalities used the document's statements to advance false claims about global temperature. For example:

On June 30, Fox & Friends interviewed EPA research analyst Alan Carlin -- one of the authors of the "suppressed" document. After Carlin stated that he wrote the document because the "EPA, in my view, needed to look at the science behind global warming and not depend on reports issued by the United Nations," Doocy replied, "And, in fact, it's problematic because for the last 11 years, temperatures had been dropping." Carlin did not challenge Doocy's statement.

On the June 29 edition of Hannity, former Alabama Supreme Court chief justice Roy Moore said that Carlin "is with the EPA, and he put a report -- 98-page report out," at which point host Sean Hannity interjected, "That they hid." Moore continued, "[T]hat said there was no increase in temperature; in fact, it's been going down for the past 11 years. And the Obama administration stopped the report." Hannity later stated that "[Sen.] James Inhofe [R-OK] is saying ... that they purposefully hid this information. They buried it."

On the June 29 edition of The Live Desk, Fox News vice president of news and Washington managing editor Bill Sammon said: "There was an important report issued by an EPA scientist, about 100 pages long -- almost 100 pages long -- that said that maybe we really shouldn't be regulating carbon dioxide. After all, global temperatures have fallen for the last 11 years."

By contrast, Gavin Schmidt, a climate modeler at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, wrote in a June 26 RealClimate.org post that in reading the internal EPA document that Carlin co-authored, "[o]ne can see a number of basic flaws [in its main points]; the complete lack of appreciation of the importance of natural variability on short time scales, the common but erroneous belief that any attribution of past climate change to solar or other forcing means that CO2 has no radiative effect, and a hopeless lack of familiarity of the basic science of detection and attribution."

From the June 30 edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends:

DOOCY: Welcome back. As Congress debated energy legislation just last week, a disturbing story was quietly spreading about an internal report at the EPA that had to be used or hushed -- what is the word? Hushed, before anyone heard about it. The report debunked the science behind global warming, and its conclusions proved so inconvenient that that report was shelved.

GRETCHEN CARLSON (co-host): All right, so we have the person who wrote this report, Alan Carlin, a researcher at the EPA and the author of that controversial report. He joins us live this morning from D.C. Good morning to you, Mr. Carlin.

CARLIN: Good morning.

CARLSON: All right, so most of us are not scientists. You are. You've worked for the EPA for 38 years. Tell us in a nutshell what your report said this spring.

CARLIN: The most important finding was that EPA, in my view, needed to look at the science behind global warming and not depend on reports issued by the United Nations, which is what they were thinking of doing and have done.

DOOCY: And, in fact, it's problematic because for the last 11 years, temperatures had been dropping.

From the June 29 edition Fox News' Hannity:

MOORE: Let me tell you what Alan Carlin said. Alan Carlin is with the EPA, and he put a report -- 98-page report out --

HANNITY: That they hid.

MOORE: -- that said there was no increase in temperature; in fact, it's been going down for the past 11 years. And the Obama administration stopped the report.

HANNITY: James --

BOB BECKEL (Fox News contributor and USA Today columnist): Roy, Roy --

HANNITY: Hang on.

BECKEL: -- you know what's amazing about that is that you actually quoted a federal government document in defense of something --

HANNITY: Wait, wait. Wait, wait. There's more to that, though.

BECKEL: -- which is something you've never done. Wait a second.

HANNITY: James Inhofe is saying --

BECKEL: In that --

HANNITY: -- wait a minute -- that they purposefully hid this information. They buried it.

MOORE: The people in this country don't know that, that somebody from the EPA under the Obama administration came out and said, "There's no evidence of this."

HANNITY: That's a great point.

MOORE: They stopped the report and said, "You can't have it."

From the June 29 edition of Fox News' The Live Desk:

TRACE GALLAGHER (co-host): I wanted to point out, Bill, the story that you kind of informed us about earlier: these emails. The EPA kind of suppressing this scientific information, scientific evidence, that maybe global warming is not as bad as we think and maybe carbon dioxide emissions are better today than they were 50 years ago. Talk about those emails more.

SAMMON: There was an important report issued by an EPA scientist, about 100 pages long -- almost 100 pages long -- that said that maybe we really shouldn't be regulating carbon dioxide. After all, global temperatures have fallen for the last 11 years.

He listed a number of other pieces of data such as, for example, the ice in Greenland is not melting as fast as everybody thought it was. The EPA is now accused of ignoring this guy's dissenting report and forwarding their own sort of politically arrived-at conclusion.

Fox hosts on Franken victory: "in denial"; Franken and nation crazy; Coleman originally won

E.H.H. — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 11:20:44 EDT

After Norm Coleman conceded the 2008 Minnesota Senate race to Al Franken (D), several Fox News hosts expressed bewilderment, disappointment, and denial about the outcome. For instance, Glenn Beck said of Franken's victory, "[I]t shows how crazy our country has gone." He added: "[I]t shows that we've lost our minds." Sean Hannity claimed that Franken is "not all there," and later claimed, "I, in my heart of hearts, do not believe that Al Franken won that election." And Brian Kilmeade said he's "in denial" about Franken, who he said was "barely sane." Gretchen Carlson responded to Kilmeade by again falsely claiming that Coleman "won in the original election."

As Media Matters for America has documented, Fox News personalities have repeatedly promoted baseless claims of fraud in the Minnesota race and claimed that there was a lack of impartiality in the recount process to accuse Franken of "stealing" the election. However, in its unanimous 5-0 ruling, the Minnesota Supreme Court stated that "[n]o claim of fraud in the election or during the recount was made by either party" and that "Coleman's counsel confirmed at oral argument that Coleman makes no claim of fraud on the part of either voters or election officials." The St. Paul Pioneer Press reported that experts said there was a "lack of crookedness in the election" and that Loyola Law School election law professor Rick Hasen "said the court's ruling Tuesday was so thorough that it also ruled out the possibility that either candidate -- or their lawyers -- could be accused of stealing the election."

Beck said on The O'Reilly Factor: "You don't want me as a senator. This is -- what is that? I mean, this is the -- it's -- it shows how crazy our country has gone. You don't want me as a senator. You don't want Al Franken as a senator." Beck added: "[I]t shows that we've lost our minds. It's like we've slipped through a worm hole. It's like this looks like the country I grew up in, but, no -- Al Franken would never be a senator." Beck also claimed that "Franken coming into office" means we "have entered a place to where there isn't statesmanship anymore."

During the June 30 edition of his program, Hannity suggested vote fraud by claiming, "[Y]ou have counties as they did in Minnesota where you had more votes than you did people registered to vote on Election Day." While Hannity did not expand on his claim, a May 28 Minneapolis Star Tribune article reported that a conservative group, the Minnesota Majority, sued Minnesota Secretary of State Mark Ritchie, claiming that "vote totals from [Minnesota election] canvassing boards exceed the stated number of registered voters by 406,398." The Star Tribune article stated that Minnesota Majority's report on registration listed one county as "having zero registered voters." The article also said that "Ritchie disputed the claims" in the lawsuit. From the article:

Ritchie said Thursday that his office updated voter registration lists in April and continues to do so. "All lists are updated every day of the week," he said. "People die, people move. The counties continuously update the lists."

He said the goal was to match voter registration and the certified canvassing board totals within 1,000 names. "You'll never get a perfect correlation between the two," he said. "We were at 40,000 in April. We're at about 30,000 now."

[...]

Ritchie said he didn't know why some counties turned up with zero registered voters in Minnesota Majority's report. "Their number is so far different from the actual number in the database that it's not possible for me to speak to it," he said.

Aitkin County was listed in the report as having zero registered voters and 9,455 certified ballots. But Auditor Kirk Peysar said his county had reported its registered voters and that the number matched the ballots.

Previously, as Media Matters noted, on January 5, Hannity said of the recount, "We've got one county -- ended up with 177 more ballots." Hannity's guest, Fox News contributor Dick Morris, added, "Yeah, Ramsey County -- 177 more ballots than people voted." In fact, according to a December 14 Star Tribune article, which cited election officials explaining human and technological errors in the voting process, a "machine jammed in Maplewood, resulting in 177 ballots going uncounted until the final day of the recount in Ramsey County."

On the July 1 edition of Fox & Friends, Kilmeade said to his co-hosts, "Just don't tell me Al Franken won until the end of the show." After Carlson noted that Franken won, Kilmeade said, "I'm in denial still." Kilmeade later said that Franken is "barely sane if you read his books, and quite angry in every facet of his life." When Kilmeade asked former Minnesotan Carlson to "explain yourself," Carlson said: "Excuse me, I'm under personal attack. I haven't lived there since I was 17, but I do still consider it home, and I have nothing to do with the political process there."

Carlson then falsely claimed that "Coleman won in the original election, but after the recount that some considered suspicious, Franken is now the new senator." Carlson previously claimed on April 3: "[T]he last time I checked, Norm Coleman won the election after election night." However, while Coleman was ahead in the vote count after election night, he was not certified the winner; state law mandated a recount because of the closeness of the results. Fox News' Bill O'Reilly has similarly repeatedly falsely claimed Coleman "was certified the winner" in the race.

Later during the program, Kilmeade said of Franken: "[L]et's talk about who's safe now that Al Franken's going to be in the Senate. He's a senator from Minnesota -- yes, I said it out loud, and it hurts, but I said it."

From the June 30 edition of Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor:

BECK: It makes me very sad that we are living in a country -- look, I have no problem when President Bush did something wrong, saying he did something wrong, and saying he did something right. Same with President Obama. President Obama is my president. I didn't vote for him. I think that he is way off base.

But he's still my president. I still support the office of the United States. It is -- we have entered a place, I mean, with Al Franken coming into office, we've entered a place to where there isn't statesmanship anymore. The president has not elevated himself to a higher standard.

[...]

MONICA CROWLEY (guest host): All right, let's move on to Al Franken.

BECK: Yeah.

CROWLEY: So, we've got Norm Coleman, the incumbent Republican senator who put up a very valiant effort over many months. He has now conceded. The governor of Minnesota, Tim Pawlenty, now says he will certify Al Franken as his replacement in the Senate. This gives the Democrats a 60-vote, filibuster-proof majority. What does this mean?

BECK: This is like having me in the Senate. You don't want me as a senator. This is -- what is that? I mean --

CROWLEY: Al Franken.

BECK: -- this is the -- it's -- it shows how crazy our country has gone. You don't want me as a senator. You don't want Al Franken as a senator.

CROWLEY: Glenn, doesn't it show that anything is possible in America?

BECK: No. It seems -- it shows that we've lost our minds. It's like we've slipped through a worm hole. It's like this looks like the country I grew up in, but, no -- Al Franken would never be a senator.

From the June 30 edition of Fox News' Hannity:

HANNITY: Well, do you think now, with a filibuster-proof Senate, and our good friend -- who, by the way, folks --

MICHAEL STEELE (Republican National Committee chairman): Yeah.

HANNITY: -- this guy, Franken, he's not all there. All right. But do you think with him in a filibuster-proof Senate, do you think this is now problematic for the Republicans to stop it in the Senate?

STEELE: No, I don't think it's problematic for this reason: because unlike the House, the Blue Dogs in the Senate do not have the cover that Nancy Pelosi gave the Blue Dogs in the House.

They could afford to vote against this bill because they had the votes they needed to get it passed. And the Senate is a different story. You're much more exposed. Every vote counts, every vote is on the board, and I think it's going to be a lot harder for those Blue Dogs, especially, to stand up there and then go back home and justify --

HANNITY: Yeah.

STEELE: -- raising people's utility bills as they want -- as this administration plans to do.

HANNITY: All right. What do you think -- I believe that Norm Coleman -- when you have counties as they did in Minnesota where you had more votes than you did people registered to vote on Election Day, and when you have different standards apply, I understand why he took it this far, and I understand why he stopped it today. He did it for the people of Minnesota.

STEELE: Yeah.

HANNITY: But I, in my heart of hearts, do not believe that Al Franken won that election. Do you?

STEELE: I don't either. I think that this is just craziness at its worst here. You have one part of the state that voted where the ballots were accepted, and other parts where ballots weren't accepted with the exact same vote.

It makes no sense. They were counting folks who, you know, in counties that didn't exist. I mean, the whole thing is suspect at best. But, look, my hat goes out to my good friend Norm Coleman.

He fought the good fight. He really was a good public servant for the folks of Minnesota. I think they're going to rue the day on this vote. I think they already have, Sean, quite frankly. I've talked to enough Democrats in the state --

HANNITY: Yeah.

STEELE: -- who said, you know, if we could do a do-over, the results, I think, would be a little bit different.

From the July 1 edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends:

STEVE DOOCY (co-host): Meanwhile, it's only taken eight months, but Minnesota finally knows who their next senator will be. But it's more than just a victory for Al Franken. Can you say supermajority? We're going to explain all that.

KILMEADE: Just don't tell me Al Franken won until the end of the show.

[...]

KILMEADE: Meanwhile, at the top of the hour, so much going in all facets of the news world, from Michael Jackson to Honduras and more.

CARLSON: And to Al Franken in Minnesota, the new senator.

KILMEADE: I'm in denial still.

CARLSON: But let's start with -- let's start with Iraq.

[...]

KILMEADE: I would relabel that. How about this bizarre -- you thought it was crazy when a wrestler became governor of your fun city. I thought that was a little --

CARLSON: State.

KILMEADE: -- insane -- state. And then all of a sudden we got a chance to meet him, and he was even crazier than we thought. Now we find out that Al Franken, who's barely sane if you read his books, and quite angry in every facet of his life, is now the senator from Minnesota. Explain yourself, Gretchen.

CARLSON: Excuse me, I'm under personal attack. I haven't lived there since I was 17, but I do still consider it home, and I have nothing to do with the political process there. But Al Franken is the new senator from Minnesota. Norm Coleman said enough is enough yesterday.

The Minnesota Supreme Court came back and said that those couple hundred votes that Franken got in the recount -- remember, Coleman won in the original election, but after the recount that some considered suspicious, Franken is now the new senator, and Coleman says I'm not going to take this to the United States Supreme Court.

COLEMAN [video clip]: I just had a conversation with Al Franken congratulating him on his victory, and I told him it's the best job that he'll ever have, representing the people of the people of the Minnesota.

FRANKEN [video clip]: I received a very gracious call from Senator Coleman a little while ago. He wished me well. I wished him well. And we agreed that it is time to bring this state together.

DOOCY: So they got a comedian in charge -- the junior senator from the great state, the land of 10,000 comedians, Minnesota.

[...]

KILMEADE: But straight ahead, let's talk about who's safe now that Al Franken's going to be in the Senate. He's a senator from Minnesota -- yes, I said it out loud, and it hurts, but I said it. The huge impact on the balance of power in Washington.

Hill advances claim that Obama is "siding" with Chavez and Cuba

D.C.P. — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 07:53:28 EDT

In a June 30 post on its Briefing Room blog, The Hill's Michael O'Brien advanced the conservative claim that President Obama is siding with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Cuban leaders on the June 28 ousting of Honduran President Manuel Zelaya. O'Brien did not report that the European Union and United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon have also condemned the ouster. O'Brien wrote that former House Speaker Newt Gingrich "blasted Obama" on Twitter "for opposing the coup in Honduras, which the former GOP leader insisted would have left in place a 'leftist dictatorship.' " He then reprinted several of Gingrich's posts on Twitter, one of which stated: "Sadly the obama administration has joined castro and chavez attacking honduran supreme court and congress for defending their constitution."

As Media Matters for America has documented, Fox News' Glenn Beck, Wall Street Journal editorial board member Mary Anastasia O'Grady, and Internet gossip Matt Drudge have all advanced the claim that Obama is siding with Chavez and Cuban leaders, without noting that other world leaders have also condemned Zelaya's ouster.

On June 28, Obama released the following statement on the situation in Honduras:

I am deeply concerned by reports coming out of Honduras regarding the detention and expulsion of President Mel Zelaya. As the Organization of American States [OAS] did on Friday, I call on all political and social actors in Honduras to respect democratic norms, the rule of law and the tenets of the Inter-American Democratic Charter. Any existing tensions and disputes must be resolved peacefully through dialogue free from any outside interference.

At a June 29 joint press availability with Colombian President Álvaro Uribe, Obama stated: "All of us have great concerns about what's taken place there. President Zelaya was democratically elected. He had not yet completed his term. We believe that the coup was not legal and that President Zelaya remains the President of Honduras, the democratically elected President there. In that we have joined all the countries in the region, including Colombia and the Organization of American States." He later stated: "So we are very clear about the fact that President Zelaya is the democratically elected President, and we will work with the regional organizations like OAS and with other international institutions to see if we can resolve this in a peaceful way."

On June 29, the European Union posted on its website a "Declaration by the Presidency, on behalf of the European Union, on Honduras," which states:

On 28 June Foreign Ministers of the European Union strongly condemned the military actions which were directed against democratically elected President Zelaya and part of his cabinet and have violated the constitutional order of Honduras. The EU urges the immediate release of all detained governmental representatives and calls on all relevant parties and institutions to refrain from violence and to strive to find a swift and peaceful solution to the current situation. This should be in accordance with the existing constitutional order of Honduras, the principles of rule of law and democracy.

And on June 28, the office of the spokesperson for the UN secretary-general issued a release stating that Ban "condemns the arrest today of the constitutional President of the Republic. He urges the reinstatement of the democratically elected representatives of the country." From the statement:

The Secretary-General is deeply concerned about the latest developments in Honduras. He expresses his strong support for the country's democratic institutions and condemns the arrest today of the constitutional President of the Republic. He urges the reinstatement of the democratically elected representatives of the country and full respect for human rights, including safeguards for the security of President Zelaya, members of his family and his government. He calls on all Hondurans to engage peacefully and in the spirit of reconciliation to resolve their differences.

The Secretary-General welcomes the prompt diplomatic efforts of the Organization of American States, whose Permanent Council is holding a special meeting this morning. He trusts that international and domestic efforts will succeed in the promotion of a peaceful solution to the crisis through democratic means.

From the June 30 Briefing Room post:

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich accused President Obama of siding with Cuban dictator Fidel Castro and Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez when it comes to the recent coup in Honduras.

Gingrich blasted Obama for opposing the coup in Honduras, which the former GOP leader insisted would have left in place a "leftist dictatorship."

Gingrich tweeted Tuesday:

Sadly the obama administration has joined castro and chavez attacking honduran supreme court and congress for defending their constitution

Having castro call for defending democracy should convince any reasonable person that honduras was on the edge of a leftist dictatorship

Media cast public plan option as too controversial for passage in Senate

J.M. — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 19:07:42 EDT

In recent reports on competing health care proposals coming out of the Senate, several media outlets have advanced the notion that inclusion of a public insurance plan in a health care reform bill would make the bill too controversial to pass and promoted what they refer to as the "compromise" or "fallback" option of a cooperative plan. They advance these positions by reporting as fact or uncritically repeating the claim that any health care reform legislation would require 60 votes to pass in the Senate. As a result, they say, a "compromise" cooperative plan would have a far better chance of getting the 60 votes necessary to overcome a filibuster.

But beyond the media's tendency, identified by Media Matters for America, to characterize the plan option as the left-most position, the claim that a health care bill would require 60 votes to pass ignores a procedural option available to the Senate leadership -- that of including health care reform legislation in a budget reconciliation bill that is not subject to filibuster and requires a simple majority to pass. As Bloomberg News reported, this option "would allow" health care measures "to pass the Senate with a simple majority rather than the 60 votes that would be needed to overcome stalling tactics by Republicans."

Nonetheless, the media frequently report that health care reform legislation would require 60 votes. For example:

In a June 28 Washington Post article, staff writer Ceci Connolly reported that "in the Senate, where the Democrats do not have the 60 votes needed to stop a filibuster, members are weighing alternatives such as a nonprofit cooperative or a 'fallback' provision that would kick in only if market reforms fail." Media Matters for America has previously identified several flaws in her June 28 article, following a series of other misleading reports by Connolly on the effort to pass health care reform legislation.

A June 15 USA Today article reported that "one variation" of health care reform proposals being discussed in Congress, "proposed by Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D., is the creation of a non-profit cooperative managed by its membership. Because it would not be run by the government, the co-op could offer a compromise to attract the 60 votes needed to overcome a filibuster and take a final vote in the Senate, Conrad said."

A June 14 Associated Press article reported that "leading" the "pack" of "compromise" health care legislation that did not include a public plan was "the cooperative approach, similar to rural utilities that have government financial support but operate independently. Sen. Kent Conrad, the North Dakota Democrat who chairs the Budget Committee, has offered the co-op idea as a way to avoid a bruising and protracted political wrangle on Capitol Hill." The AP further reported:

"This really isn't, to me, a matter of right or wrong," Conrad said. "This is a matter of: Where are the votes in the United States Senate?"

That political situation has guided most of the talks. While Democrats control both chambers of Congress, they have only 59 senators -- one short of the number needed to end a Republican filibuster. Even if Al Franken were seated as Minnesota's second senator, Kennedy and Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., are suffering health problems that could preclude them from casting votes to end the procedural delay.

"I think you are in a 60-vote environment. And that means you have got to attract some Republicans, as well as holding virtually all the Democrats together," Conrad said. "And that, I don't believe, is possible with the pure public option. I don't think the votes are there."

As Media Matters has noted, Republicans used the reconciliation process to pass legislation including the Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001, the Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003, and the Tax Increase Prevention and Reconciliation Act of 2005.