Clay Waters Defends Republican Sen. Ted Cruz, Leaves Out The Defense Part (And The “Republican” Part)

MRCWatch Dept. - The recent antics of newly-minted Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz, offered in opposition to the nomination of Chuck Hagel for Secretary of Defense, have provoked comparisons to McCarthyism from some of Cruz’s Senate colleagues. Clay Waters, on Monday, whined that the New York Times, in a news story and op-ed column, had reported said comparisons. Waters declined to detail why Cruz is being subjected to them or to make any case for either the comparisons or the reporting of them being inappropriate. Waters’ article is unexceptional--basically Newsbusters’ usual nonsense--but it is a useful spotlight for the state of affairs in the Newsbusters' corner of the far-right fever swamp.

It's a standard Newsbusters technique to identify any view not emerging from that particular plot of ideological bottom-land as "liberal" and thus that of a blood enemy, even when it's being voiced by other conservatives--the kind of conservatives not approved by Newsbusters. The present fantasy narrative of the far-right’s activist base--the element of American politics the press carelessly labels "the Tea Party"[1]--is that of embattled reactionary rebels fighting not only an omni-powerful liberal Establishment but a hopelessly liberal, treacherous and entrenched Republican Establishment as well.[2]

Reflecting this fantasy, Waters’ headline refers to "Tea Party Sen. Ted Cruz" rather than “Republican Senator.” His opening identifies Cruz as a "Tea Party politician." Though Waters offers excerpts from some articles that identify Cruz as a Republican, he at no point does this himself. A particularly interesting departure given the fact that it's a standing gripe by Newsbusters that the press sometimes declines to provide a party identification for Democratic politicians caught in scandal.[3] Today alone, in fact, Newsbusters ran three different articles about various press organs failing to identify former Illinois Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr. as a Democrat.

But Waters, of course, doesn’t think Cruz’s behavior is scandalous and, in fact, doesn’t even tell his readers why it's being compared to that of Joe McCarthy. He just wants to write off the comparison as a smear, which necessitates leaving his readers in the dark about the messy details. Times reporter Jonathan Weisman, Waters breathlessly fumes, "even put a mike in front of not one but two liberal Democratic senators who likened Cruz to notorious Sen. Joe McCarthy." A big deal, perhaps, in Newsbusters Land, where any coverage of any comment by any liberal Democrat is portrayed as a scandal, but hardly a basis for any real complaint. That Weisman also "put a mike in front of not one but two" conservative Republican Senators, who also criticized Cruz along exactly the same lines, doesn’t slow Waters’ roll at all.

Rather, he approvingly quotes crackpot National Review writer Michael Auslin’s reaction:

"Having largely dropped the charge of racism once leveled against tea partiers, the MSM has clearly looked for another slander, and now they’ve found it. Expect to hear McCarthyism dropped around a lot in coming months, whenever Republicans push back hard against Barack (I’m Not The Emperor) Obama’s hard-left choices in his second term. [The NY Times' Jonathan] Weisman's reporting is too vapid to actually explore the reasons Cruz and his conservative Senate compatriots have voted the way they have; rather, it is interested only in portraying them as slightly less deranged than General Jack Ripper in Dr. Strangelove."

The present push-back, identified as a reaction against one of "Obama’s hard-left choices," is, in fact, aimed at Obama’s nomination of Chuck Hagel to head the Defense Department. Hagel is, in the real world, an extremely conservative Republican. A former Senator sporting an 83.7% lifetime rating from the American Conservative Union, Hagel would more readily serve as an example of Obama’s persistent habit, throughout his administration, of stabbing his liberal constituents in the back by choosing more conservative nominees for nearly every major post to which he's made an appointment.

Though Waters  wants to write off the McCarthy comparisons as a smear, he declines to challenge their validity in any way, other than merely labeling them as a smear, an approach not unlike that of McCarthy himself. Challenging them would require telling his readers exactly what Cruz had been doing and that would both validate the McCarthyism charge and expose the smear talk for what it really is.

When Chuck Hagel got the Defense chief appointment, Cruz apparently decided that nomination was so noxious that he could justify throwing away anything remotely resembling moral or ethical standards when it came to opposing it. For example:

"We do not know... if he [Hagel] received compensation for giving paid speeches at extreme or radical groups... It may be that he spoke at radical or extreme groups or anti-Israel groups and accepted financial compensation."

Sounds rather serious, until one learns that the charges were based on nothing at all. Cruz pulled them straight out of an orifice. We don’t know if Hagel did such a thing in the same we we don’t know if he’s secretly Santa Clause--both propositions  are equally credible and have equal evidence in their favor.

Cruz was just getting started. Hagel had, for two years, worked for Corsair Capital, a private equity firm, work for which he was paid a total of $200,000. Like most employees, he didn’t know where his employer got the money with which it paid him, and Cruz saw this as an opportunity to inject even more poison:

"It is, at a minimum, relevant to know if that $200,000 that he deposited in his bank account came directly from Saudi Arabia, came directly from North Korea."

Propositions for which there is, again, no support at all. Cruz wasn’t finished:

"We saw with this nomination something truly extraordinary, which is the government of Iran formally and publicly praising the nomination of a defense secretary. I would suggest to you that to my knowledge, that is unprecedented to see a foreign nation like Iran publicly celebrating a nomination.”

...which is a bald-faced lie, a smear with, again, no basis in reality.

And so on. This is the business Waters is hiding from his readers, the reason Cruz’s behavior is being labeled “McCarthyism,” a characterization that is not only applicable but inescapable but that Waters would have us think is just a smear aimed by mean press liberals at a “Tea Party” pol.

--j.

---

[1] The “Tea Party” was nothing more than a faux “movement” created by professional astroturfers and elements of the far-right press. It had no numbers, no power and couldn’t elect anyone. The goal of astroturf though, is to present the illusion of a popular movement and in adopting "Tea Party" as shorthand for a portion of the same far-right activist base that has always been with us, the press is doing the astroturfers' jobs for them.

[2] In recent days, Karl Rove has become the poster child for this “Republican Establishment” and a hate-figure on the far right because of his just-stated goal of trying to support far-right Republicans who can actually win at the polls and of defeating the kind of openly batshit-crazy reactionaries who have no chance of winning a general election.

[3] When the press fails to provide the party identity of scandalized Republicans, Newsbusters is silent.

Papyrus Strips Ryan Robertson’s Objections Naked

MRCWatch Dept. - Get this: A strip of ancient papyrus has recently surfaced. On it is written, in ancient Coptic, what appear to be references, by Jesus (as in the Christ), to Mary, presumably Mary Magdalene, references in which he describes her as “my disciple” and as “my wife.” The document from which the papyrus comes is unknown, the translation of it open to question and it may even be an elaborate forgery but whatever the case may be, the major news networks picked up the story today, which really got Ryan Robertson’s goat. He’s full of that patented Newsbusters Outrage over the fact that while an anti-Muslim film "is still being blamed for the riots and murders in the Middle East, the national news media has no problem running a speculative story that disrespects the teachings of the Christian faith."

Robertson whines that by giving this a little time today, “the major networks treated the story as if it deserved a considerable amount of attention.” An odd conclusion, as, by Robertson's own account, the networks didn’t give it a considerable amount of attention.

As a rule, such discoveries are treated as, well, ancient history by the national news media. They're rarely given much coverage and what little is offered is usually quite flawed, a state of affairs that has contributed to Americans’ generally spectacular ignorance of these matters. The network coverage of this strip of papyrus was certainly sensationalistic and, as usual, ill-informed[1] and if Robertson had any interest beyond peddling to his backwards readers his show of being outraged, he could have made a case for both. With regard to Karen King, the Harvard Divinity professor who has presented the papyrus scrap, Robertson notes that "King has her share of critics, both among practicing Christians and secular scholars," but while he insists "neglecting to mention that fact is a deplorable oversight by the networks," he offers no details himself to make his case,[2] nor does he make any case that scholarly disagreement with King would discredit the papyrus itself.

That is what he's suggesting though.

One of Newsbusters’ specialties is, of course, libelous character assassination and though he can’t be bothered to build a substantive case against the coverage in this matter, Robertson can’t resist repeating an outrageous second-hand libel aimed at King by Bill Donohue. Donohue (whose name Robertson misspells) is, among other things, an associate of MRC founder Brent Bozell, the public face of the Catholic League, and a vocal defender of sexually abusive priests (did you see what I just did?). In what Robertson quotes, Donohue wrote of the professor:

"King is known for her fertile imagination. For example, she previously claimed that Mary Magdalene was one of the apostles. Even better, in the book in which she made this extraordinary claim, she 'rejects his [Jesus'] suffering and death as the path to eternal life.' Not much left after that."

None of these are examples of King's "fertile imagination" though, nor are they examples of her expressing her own opinion. Rather, they are examples of King accurately relaying the contents of the non-canonical Gospel of Mary, in a book she wrote on the subject entitled "The Gospel of Mary of Magdala: Jesus and the First Woman Apostle." Donahue would be advised to pray to his god that King is merciful toward libels.

--j.

---

[1] Jesus’ marital status was treated as a great mystery this could help solve, there were references to Dan Brown’s godawful “DaVinci Code” and so on.

[2] One would be that King argues for an earlier date for authorship of the non-canonical Gospel of Mary than most scholars allow.

Tim Graham Sews Confusion on NPR and Anti-Gay Pol

MRCWatch Dept. - Once upon a time, not so long ago, there was a fellow in Maryland who sent a letter to Baltimore Ravens owner Steve Bisciotti. It was an ugly letter, from a politician with an ugly anti-gay history. The politician, a state legislator (and Baptist minister) who answered to the name of Emmet C.  Burns, had noticed that Ravens linebacker Brendon Ayabedejo was campaigning against a ballot initiative in Maryland aimed at overturning the state’s law allowing for same-sex marriage. He didn’t like that very much. When he wrote that ugly letter, it was to demand that the Ravens owner make Ayabedejo shut up, and not talk about this anymore. As he sat on the state legislature’s committee charged with regulating the Baltimore Ravens, this letter was rather threatening.

Less than a week ago, Ken Shepherd got his wires royally crossed and penned a brief whine about the very little coverage this story was receiving. Shepherd had become so lost in a political persecution fantasy--his view was that the story would be getting lots of coverage if the state legislator had been a Republican, rather than a Democrat--that he never seemed to realize the extent to which this lack of coverage worked so violently against Newsbusters' central premise of a "liberal press." An anti-gay state legislator tried to silence a same-sex marriage advocate and the press, for the most part, didn’t care.

A few days went by and National Public Radio did cover the story. Is Newsbusters happy?

No.

Newsbusters is complaining.

NPR interviewed Ayabedejo and Minnesota Vikings punter Chris Kluwe, who had written an open letter in response to Burns. That open letter becomes the point of attack today for NB’s Tim Graham, who called it “a profane, nasty open letter” and went on to pout:

"It's a little bit bizarre that NPR, that alleged beacon of quiet and civil discourse, wouldn’t take exception or even ask Kluwe about his profanity and rudeness."

Of course, Kluwe was responding to a hate-mongering politician who was trying to throw his weight around and get the owner of the Ravens to stifle the speech of one of his players. It’s hard to argue that a great deal of nastiness, profanity and rudeness isn’t entirely appropriate in such a situation but that’s exactly the case Graham tries to make. In the process, he turns reality on its head in classic Newsbuster fashion:

"His [Kluwe’s] first sentence was 'I find it inconceivable that you are an elected official of Maryland’s state government. Your vitriolic hatred and bigotry make me ashamed and disgusted to think that you are in any way responsible for shaping policy at any level.' Kluwe’s one of those intolerant leftists who thinks conservatives should never speak or have a place at the table. No wonder NPR likes him."

So as Graham sees it, Burns, who actually did try to silence someone, isn’t the one who gets this abuse. Instead, Kluwe, for objecting to this effort, is the intolerant fellow who would silence those with whom he disagrees.

Graham also complains that the interview offered "no consideration of conservative questions" (from the questions he lists to demonstrate this, it offered no consideration of any liberal ones, either) and asserts that "one way the 'mainstream' media makes the liberal position the 'mainstream' is by ignoring the religious, conservative opposition..."[*] That persecution narrative again. The "religious, conservative opposition" in this case is a politician whose hatred of gays led him to blatantly use his position to try to silence someone for the crime of publicly disagreeing over same-sex marriage. Can anyone other than Graham seriously argue we should feel bad that he wasn’t interviewed, as well?

--j.

---


[*] The press doesn’t have to make "the liberal position the ‘mainstream'"; it already is the mainstream. Polling has shown overwhelming public support for official recognition of same-sex relationships extending back at least 8 years and majority public support for same-sex marriage since May 2011.

P.J. Gladnick Rewrites History of Occupy Wall Street Coverage

MRCWatch Dept. - Marking the first anniversary of Occupy Wall Street, P.J. Gladnick turned his Smarminess Meter up to 11 and attempted a major revision of history with regard to the early coverage offered that movement:

"Reuters has noted the one year anniversary coming this Monday of the Coffee Party, oops, I mean Occupy Wall Street. I can be forgiven for the error since both proved to be as big a flop as Joe Scarborough’s No Labels. All of these failed movements had one other thing in common: they were given a boost at birth with extreme media hype."

Later, he asserted that the Occupiers "must feel really down after the artificial buildup given to them by the MSM shortly after their birth last year."

In the real world, of course, the journalistic scandal of 2011 was the almost-complete lack of any significant coverage of Occupy Wall Street in its earliest days. Much of what little notice was paid the movement by the national press was sneering, contemptuous and dismissive.

Five days after the demonstrations began, the initial press blackout of the OWS demonstrations drew a rebuke from Current TV’s Keith Olbermann. Later, Jim Naureckas of liberal press watchdog Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR) would punch the ol’ Nexis buttons for newspaper stories that mentioned Occupy Wall Street during the 5 days leading up to that broadcast. There were 17 articles, 10 of which were in foreign newspapers and 4 of which were in the same small Missouri paper. There was 1 article each in 3 different New York papers. And that’s all. Two days after Olbermann's objection, FAIR echoed it, rhetorically asking, “What if the Tea Party occupied Wall Street?” The article provided some info on the coverage to date:

"The anti-corporate protests have been lightly covered in the hometown New York Times: One piece (9/18/11) largely about how the police blocked access to Wall Street, and one photo (9/22/11) with the caption 'Wall Street Protest Whirls On.'

"The protests have been treated with brief mentions on CNN, like this one from host Wolf Blitzer (9/19/11): 'Protests here in New York on Wall Street entering a third day. Should New Yorkers be worried at all about what’s going on?'

"From the ABC, CBS and NBC network news, we could find nothing at all in the Nexis news database. On the PBS NewsHour (9/19/11), the protests got a brief reference, tacked on to the end of the stock market report."

The complaints about this lack of coverage didn't lead to any real coverage at first either. Instead, parts of the press began to cover their own non-coverage and to cook up rationalizations for not covering the demonstrations.

This is Gladnick's "extreme media hype."

Today's article wasn't Gladnick's first effort at sending this history down a Memory Hole. Back in February, he challenged the conclusion about the OWS coverage offered by a Current TV documentary:

"Few people watch Current TV so perhaps Christof Putzel, correspondent of that channel’s Vanguard show, thought he could broadcast a whopper on The 99 Percent episode about the Occupy Wall Street protests without being called on it. And Putzel’s grand fib (as one would politely label it) was his claim that 'much of the mainstream media mocked and dismissed the Occupy Wall Street movement.' Later in the show, Putzel doubled down on his whopper and flat out declared with no qualifiers that 'The mainstream media paints an unflattering portrait of the Occupy Wall Street movement.'

"And what samples does Putzel cite for this supposed disrespect for OWS? Since he can’t find any from the alphabet networks of NBC, CBS, ABC, and PBS which have broadcast overwhelmingly glowing reviews of OWS, he was forced to show only clips from FOX News which sounded some discordant notes amidst the wall of general acclaim the OWS received from the MSM."

In fact, Putzel or anyone else examing the matter will, with fairly minimal effort, find a wealth of examples of the "unflattering portrait" of OWS painted by a lot of the press. On 21 Sept. 2011, the same day Olbermann complained about the press blackout, the Associated Press offered a piece that would come to typify the sneering contempt a lot of the “mainstream media” offered OWS:

"In a small granite plaza a block from the New York Stock Exchange, a group of 20-somethings in flannel pajama pants and tie-dyed T-shirts are plotting the demise of Wall Street as we know it… Welcome to the headquarters of 'Occupy Wall Street,' a place where topless women stood Wednesday morning on the corner shouting 'I can't afford a shirt!'"

Two days later, the New York Times ran its first major article on the demonstrations, an utterly contemptuous rant against OWS by Ginia Bellafante. Three days later, the Boston Globe’s Joanna Weiss wrote:

"It’s hard to take a protest fully seriously when it looks more like a circus–some participants seem to have taken a chute straight from Burning Man..."

A few days after this, the sarcasm-laden contempt was virtually seeping through the pores of CNN anchor Erin Burnett--so much so that it seemed to get in her eyes and she didn’t bother to get her story straight. At the New Republic, Alex Klein was telling the same story. Appearing on CNN on 16 Oct., the Wall Street Journal’s Bret Stephens asserted that OWS was made up of “the same kind of extreme fringe you find at Ramsey Clarke marches.” Then, of course, there’s what the far-right press was saying about it. And on, and on, and on.[1]

Gladnick's "wall of general acclaim the OWS received from the MSM."

It’s worth noting that, while Gladnick slams Current’s Putzel for allegedly being "forced to show only clips from FOX News" to back up the charge that the press had portrayed OWS in an unflattering light, Gladnick himself, in grasping for a substantive example to support his case that OWS was "given a boost at birth with extreme media hype,"[2] not only offered the same comment by NBC’s Brian Williams in both his article today and in the one from back in February but also had to completely misrepresent it to use even it. Here’s what Williams said on NBC Nightly News on 5 Oct., 2011 (weeks, it should be said, after OWS began):

"We begin tonight with what has become by any measure a pretty massive protest movement. While it goes by the official name 'Occupy Wall Street,' it has spread steadily and far beyond Wall Street, and it could well turn out to be the protest of this current era."

Gladnick describes this as a "loving paean" to OWS and "the most laughable of the media hype" of OWS.

Sort of says it all, doesn’t it?

--j.

---

[1] After some weeks, OWS started getting regular coverage but mostly because of the insanely violent law-enforcement attacks on demonstrators.

[2] In the February piece, he also referenced a general Media Research Center "study" of coverage. For a look at what, in every case, passes for a “study” from the MRC, see here and here and here and here.

Sheppard Misleads His Flock In Fact-Checking Fact-Check

MRCWatch Dept. - Noel Sheppard has attempted to fact-check a fact-check offered by Minneapolis CBS affiliate WCCO-TV of an Americans for Prosperity ad. The ad is a blatantly misleading attack on Obamacare and admirably, the local news operation challenged it. That got Sheppard's dander up but lacking any real basis for his a priori conclusion that the fact-check was "truly bogus," Sheppard reverts to telling his sheep to believe his words rather than their own lying eyes.

The ad tells the story of a Canadian woman named Shona with a "life-threatening brain condition." She allegedly sought care in her home country, was allegedly told it would be months before she could see the relevant specialists--a title card says "Canada’s government-run health-care system was failing her"--and came to the U.S. for treatment instead. "I knew then that the [Canadian] system had become far more dangerous for patients than I had ever realized," she tells the camera. A title-card reads "But under President Obama, America’s health care is becoming more like the Canadian system that failed Shona." Shona tells the camera "the American system was there for me when I needed it and its time for Americans to get engaged in this debate" and the ad ends with an announcer intoning, "To protect America’s patient-centered care, we must replace President Obama."

The WCCO criticism of this was rather extensive and quite damning[1] but Sheppard zeroes in on only a single element of it:

"The Americans for Prosperity ad is based on a false premise--that the new healthcare law creates a government-run system. But it’s just not true. The U.S. has a private, insurance-run program."

This is where Sheppard objects; he says it's "not true" that the ad says Obamacare creates a government-run system. Apparently so confident that his readers will believe him rather than their lying eyes, he even provides a transcript of the ad. "Maybe WCCO needs a fact-checker to fact-check itself and its reporters," he suggests. Or maybe certain Newsbusters could benefit from some remedial classes in basic reading comprehension.

--j.

[1] The fact-check noted that Shona was afflicted with a Rathke cyst, which, WCCO reports, is “a slow-growing, benign lesion that causes vision loss.” The Mayo Clinic, where Shona sought treatment, diplomatically notes this is not something that is “typically fatal.” There is, in fact, no waiting period in Canada for treatment of life-threatening illnesses. WCCO cites figures that 8% of Canadians requiring surgery do wait up to 6 months but “only for non-threatening elective operations.” Sheppard doesn’t touch any of this.

New York Times Commits Journalism on 9/11, Newsbusters Vehemently Objects

MRCWatch Dept. - It started this morning, the 11th anniversary of the terror attack on the U.S., when, rather than following the general media trend of constant content-free wallowing in oh-so-solemn misery over the memory of those attacks, the New York Times actually decided to use the occasion for some serious journalism on the subject and ran an op-ed by former Times reporter Kurt Eichenwald.

It’s been a matter of public record for more than 8 years that then-“President” Bush was given a warning about a coming terrorist attack in a briefing by the CIA on 6 Aug., 2001. The content of that briefing was reflected in its title, “Bin Laden Determined To Strike in U.S.” It included information that a group of bin Laden operatives were in the U.S., that there may be preparation for a plane hijacking, that there had been surveillance of buildings in New York. Bush’s response was to take a long vacation and 36 days later, the terrorists struck. Eichenwald’s piece in today’s Times, "The Deafness Before the Storm," outlines how that 6 Aug. briefing was only one of many early warnings the Bush administration ignored. The intelligence community had, in fact, spent 3 months before that briefing repeatedly and vehemently warning the “President” about an impending strike, all to no avail.

The Newsbusters immediately recognized the explosive potential of the piece. Their response began early today, with an uber-short piece by Mark Finkelstein. His spin:

"For the New York Times, what better way to observe the 11th anniversary of 9-11 than by exploiting it for political purposes and seeking to blame George W. Bush?"

The reader will render whatever judgments he will about a writer from the resolutely Bush-supporting Newsbusters accusing anyone else of "exploiting" 9/11 "for political purposes." Of Eichenwald’s information, Finkelstein says

"Its gruel is thin when it comes to actually assembling a case of any real Bush-administration negligence.  And that is the best evidence that Eichenwald and the Times were not motivated by any sincere desire to review the historical record with the goal of preventing future lapses. Rather, this is cheap political exploitation and finger-pointing at its basest."

And that’s pretty much it. Finkelstein suggests its a slim case, then makes no case for it being so or for it being inaccurate in any particular. He simply attributes to it "low partisan purposes" without offering the first shred of evidence for this and leaves it at that.

That wasn’t enough, so Newsbusters returned to it a little later in an article by Matthew Balan, who wrote about Eichenwald's appearance on CBS This Morning. Balan's opening, echoing Finkelstein, says the morning show was hosting Eichenwald "eight weeks before the presidential election," an utterly gratuitous notation intended to suggest a political motive where none is in evidence. Balan called Eichenwald's article a "finger-pointing op-ed" and said Eichenwald was promoting a "new Bush-bashing book, where he hinted at the supposed religious extremism of the former President during the lead-up to the Iraq war." So the author is probably just some anti-Christian bigot trying to sell his book. Balan asserts that John Miller, a former assistant director of national intelligence, "tossed cold water on Eichenwald's accusations," which is a most curious characterization for what Miller actually said. In reality, Miller supported Eichenwald's "accusations":

"Well, I think what Kurt [Eichenwald] has stumbled into here is a bit of a well-worn path. We knew some of that. What he has added is the granularity of the actual memos and some of the actual words that were–that were there in front of the White House and the national security team. But, you know–and Richard Clark, who is the national security adviser for terrorism, in his book, 'Against All Enemies', he said all the lights were blinking red, and we were pushing this in front of Condi Rice every day and it was hard to get any priority on this. In George Tenet’s book, he details the briefings they were given. So, some of this we knew and… there’s some of it in terms of the level of detail we didn't know."

Newsbusters' third bite of the apple came a little over an hour later in the form of a Clay Waters article about the original Times op-ed. Waters cites Eichenwald's conclusion that Bush’s reaction to what he was being told, for months, by the intelligence community "reflected significantly more negligence than has been disclosed" and counters:

"Eichenwald's evidence of Bush's 'negligence'? Well, just trust him. The information is not public, and what he offers from his perusal of classified briefings is pretty thin"

The information "is not public," of course, because the Bush administration intentionally concealed it. Eichenwald did what journalists are supposed to do, what they should have been doing 11 years ago: he dug  it up and put it before the public. Real journalism of this sort is a rare thing in "journalism" today and, being absolutely essential to the sound functioning of a democratic society, merits praise. But because, in this case, it makes a significant right-wing public figure look significantly bad on a significant issue, Waters greets it with that snide remark, "Well, just trust him." Later, he notes that "Eichenwald is making the liberal media rounds," by which he means CBS This Morning, not any part of the actual liberal media--this, in Newsbusters-speak, is meant to impugn Eichenwald's integrity.

Waters' most remarkable moment comes when he quotes heavily from Eichenwald's piece, showing that the intel community had, indeed, been warning Bush about an attack for months, then, astonishingly, writes:

"As demonstrated, Eichenwald is suspiciously low on specifics to back his hyped-up accusation of Bush 'negligence.'"

I suppose one could call that the "don’t believe your lying eyes" defense. With "suspiciously," he manages to smear Eichenwald and, one supposes, he hopes no one notices the absurdity of berating the reporter for failing to provide extensive details in a brief op-ed. The article was based on research conducted for a book--those details will be forthcoming.

Waters writes that eight years earlier, when the memo of that damning 6 Aug. briefing was released, "several Times stories hit President Bush for allegedly missing clues to 9-11, despite the memo's distinct lack of detail." The notion that the memo lacked detail is tendentious, at best. As subsequent information--including today’s Times op-ed--has made abundantly clear, that briefing, to the extent that it was generalized, was so only because of Bush’s complete failure to demand investigation of the warnings he was being repeatedly given for a period of months. Bush, when faced with these warnings, didn’t try to get to the bottom of them. He didn’t put the government on high alert. He chose, time and time again, to do nothing.

No one could deny this is a remarkable story. It’s an important historical story. It’s a story that raises all sorts of questions. For political reasons, though, the Newsbusters gang is not only completely uininterested but thinks it proper to repeatedly attack, without any real basis, the integrity of both the reporter who has gone through the trouble to dig it up and inform we, the people, of it and the news outlets who have given him the space to do so.[*] All three Newsbusters articles suggested it was particularly inappropriate to carry the story on the anniversary of 9/11; all three made it plain their authors thought it was inappropriate to cover it at all. Newsbusters, the spirit of Anti-Journalism.

--j.

---

A personal note: I’m probably among the most vehement of the sane critics of the Bush administration (excluding, by "sane," nutty conspiracists or those who treat facts as optional) but I’ve always been quite critical of those who wanted to assign what I considered to be an inordinate amount of blame to the Bush administration for failing to prevent the terror attacks on the U.S. A terror plot happens between a few people sitting in a room somewhere in the world and there's simply no reasonable expectation that any government will be able to prevent all the mayhem that can ensue from that. Insisting on the expectation that it do so merely creates a rationale for an increasingly repressive government. In the end, that can't make anyone any safer but it can make everyone a lot less free. Bush’s actions prior to 9/11 were idiotic, totally irresponsible and negligent on a scale the subsequent carnage suggests was absolutely criminal and it is an important matter that should be documented. But ultimately, Bush is only human and the government he ran only a government.

Ken Shepherd Inadvertently Exposes the Myth of a "Liberal Media"

MRCWatch Dept. - In a bumbling effort to outline his latest right-wing persecution fantasy, Newsbuster Ken Shepherd inadvertently makes the case against Newsbusters’ central premise of a “liberal media”:

"Suppose there were a Republican state legislator in Georgia, who also happens to also be an ordained Baptist minister, who sent a letter to the owner of the Atlanta Falcons–on official state legislature letterhead no less–demanding he keep his players from speaking out in favor of same-sex marriage. The media firestorm would be predictable."

As the astute reader can guess, this is exactly what did happen, but in Maryland, not in Georgia, and with a Democratic legislator, not a Republican one. Maryland Democratic delegate Emmet C. Burns, the Baptist minister in question, sent an outrageous letter to Baltimore Ravens owner Steve Bisciotti complaining that Ravens linebacker Brendon Ayanbadejo is campaigning against a ballot initiative aimed at overturning a Maryland law that allows for same-sex marriage:

"I find it inconceivable that one of your players, Mr. Brendon Ayanbadejo would publicly endorse Same-Sex marriage, specifically as a Raven Football player. Many of my constituents and your football supporters are appalled and aghast that a member of the Ravens Football Team would step into this controversial divide and try to sway public opinion one way or the other.

"Many of your fans are opposed to such a view and feel it has no place in a sport that is strictly for pride, entertainment and excitement. I believe Mr. Ayanbadejo should concentrate on football and steer clear of dividing the fan base.

"I am requesting that you take the necessary action, as a National Football League Owner, to inhibit such expressions from your employees and that he be ordered to cease and desist such injurious actions. I know of no other NFL player who has done what Mr. Ayanbadejo is doing.

"Please give me your immediate response."

Burns, who has a long and ugly anti-gay record, is on the state’s Economic Matters committee, charged with regulating, among other things, the Baltimore Ravens, which makes his tirade particularly sinister.

So an anti-gay pol tries to silence a supporter of gay marriage using utterly inappropriate strong-arm tactics. And where is the "media firestorm"? Shepherd is so lost in the usual right-wing persecution fantasy--he’s trying to insist there would be outrage if this was a Republican legislator--that he accidentally makes a significant point:

"...while there has been media coverage since the story broke in the middle of last week, it’s mostly been in print and online sources. A search of Nexis found no reporting by the broadcast network newscasts on this controversy."

So much for the "liberal media."

--j.