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Media and Technology
Fox News: 'McCain's TV Commercials Contain ... Out-Right Lies'
Posted by Steve Benen, Washington Monthly on September 5, 2008 at 2:01 PM.
We talked the other day about a surprising Washington Post editorial, which criticized John McCain's demonstrably false claims about Barack Obama's tax policies. Hiatt & Co., hardly a reliably liberal bunch, didn't pull any punches, concluding that "McCain's ads on taxes are just plain false," and noting his campaign's message is peddling a "phony, misleading and at times outright dishonest" line. The Post indirectly noted that candidates shouldn't "outright lie" about each other's policy positions.
How transparent are McCain's bogus claims? Even Fox News has noticed. Consider this report from Major Garrett:
Read the rest of the post on the flip side »
Van Halen, Heart, Others to GOP: Stop Using Our Songs!
Posted by Dave Burdick, Huffington Post on September 5, 2008 at 11:53 AM.
This campaign season, Republicans have been using a lot of songs from artists who wouldn't have given permission if asked, and some who have spoken up to ask that their songs not be used in the future.
Here's the No-Thanks-GOP playlist so far:
Van Halen - Right Now
Van Halen management tells us the band had no idea McCain was planning on using "Right Now" during his big entrance in Ohio telling us, "Permission was not sought or granted nor would it have been given."
Read the rest of the post on the flip side »
Jon Stewart Thrashes Rove, O'Reilly For Palin Hypocrisy
Posted by Staff, Huffington Post on September 4, 2008 at 10:31 AM.
Wednesday night on "The Daily Show," Jon Stewart hit Karl Rove and Bill O'Reilly with damning evidence of their hypocrisy regarding Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin.
While Rove recently praised Palin's experience as the mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, Stewart showed video of Rove trashing Virginia Governor -- and former Richmond Mayor -- Tim Kaine's executive experience, listing all the cities that are bigger than Richmond and calling such a pick "political."
Then, after recent video of O'Reilly describing Bristol Palin's pregnancy as a family issue, Stewart showed a clip of the Fox News host blaming Jamie Lynn Spears' parents for her teenage pregnancy.
Finally, after showing video of Dick Morris complaining about the rampant sexism in the media coverage of Sarah Palin, Stewart unveiled a clip of Morris saying that Hillary hides behind the sexism defense, and that anytime "the big boys" pick on Hillary, "she retreats behind the apron strings."
"In Dick Morris' defense," Stewart said, "he is a lying sack of sh*t."
Scarborough, Buchanan Completely Reverse Positions On Palin In Just Five Days
Posted by Ali, Think Progress on September 4, 2008 at 5:53 AM.
Yesterday, Joe Scarborough and Pat Buchanan enthusiastically endorsed Gov. Sarah Palin, praising her experience compared to Sen. Barack Obama’s (D-IL) and slamming criticism of her as sexist attempts to “destroy this woman”:
BUCHANAN: Maybe she doesn’t have the foreign policy experience to be president now. But she’s a great asset, and she’s not DC, so they want to kill her. They are trying to destroy her in a way. […]
SCARBOROUGH: How can Barack Obama’s campaign criticize an inexperienced number two on the Republican side when Democrats have picked, I would say, probably the most inexperienced person to run for President of the United States in the Democratic party probably in a century?
Watch a compilation:
What a difference five days makes. Awaiting McCain’s VP announcement on Friday, Scarborough and Buchanan sang a very different tune, declaring Palin too inexperienced and pointing out that Obama “validated himself with 18 million votes”:
Read the rest of the post on the flip side »
Rachel Maddow: 'I Have Never Watched More Than Three Consecutive Minutes of Fox News Ever.'
Posted by Faiz Shakir, Think Progress on September 3, 2008 at 12:27 PM.
MSNBC recently announced that liberal Air America radio host Rachel Maddow will get her own television show. We interviewed Maddow in St. Paul yesterday to discuss how the show came about and what she hopes to accomplish with it:
What’s the mission of the show going to be?
The mission of the show is…it seems kinda obvious, which is that, in the eastern time zone, Keith Olbermann is on at 8 and then Keith Olbermann is on at 10. It’s repeated. And there’s an hour in between. And Keith has very high ratings. … The idea is, in between two hours of Keith, what can we do to hold on to as many of those viewers as possible and even to attract new ones. And they think I’m the person to do that. So that’s the mission — keep Keith’s numbers.
The strategic approach we are taking…is figure out a way to do television that allows you to be yourself — that allows your personality to come forward. … If I’m competing on any other grounds other than my personality and my quirks and my take on things, I’m not going to win.
Are you going to be the left’s version of Fox News?
I know very little about media. I don’t have a television. I have never watched more than three consecutive minutes of Fox News ever, ever. I’ve never even seen a single segment of a single Fox News program. So I don’t know all that much about what they do. […]
I know that what MSNBC wants from me is for me to be myself, to be open about where I’m coming from, and to be entertaining and to have integrity. … So if people look at me…and they say ‘wow, she’s like O’Reilly but with even less hair,’ then you know, fine. Ok whatever. Other people’s opinion of what I do is less important to me than me feeling like it’s something I’m proud of and having fun doing.
Watch it:
(Video and more Maddow goodness after the flip)
Read the rest of the post on the flip side »
Conservatives: Candidates' Children Off-Limits (Unless Their Parents Are Dems)
Posted by Clif, Sadly, No! on September 3, 2008 at 5:28 AM.
With all the right-wing finger wagging about the inviolate right of children of candidates and officials to be above comment, I thought we might fire up the flux capacitor and travel back to that distant time in the past when Chelsea Clinton’s parents were in the White House and see what the right-wing was saying about Chelsea:
Why is Chelsea Clinton so ugly? Because her father is Janet Reno.
Columnist Molly Ivins reported (Arizona Republic 10/17/93) this incident from Limbaugh’s TV show–”Here is a Limbaugh joke: Everyone knows the Clintons have a cat. Socks is the White House cat. But did you know there is a White House dog?” And he puts up a picture of Chelsea Clinton. Chelsea Clinton is 13 years old.
Read the rest of the post on the flip side »
Fight Back Against Police Brutality at the RNC
Posted by Tana Ganeva, AlterNet on September 3, 2008 at 2:49 AM.
On Monday several journalists covering the RNC protests, including Amy Goodman, host of Democracy Now!, and two of her producers, were violently manhandled by Minneapolis police and arrested on bogus charges.
The problem with using excessive force to illegally arrest members of the press, though, is that they have things like cameras and radio shows and popular websites with which to publicize assaults on their rights. While the mainstream media have ignored the story, it has exploded in the progressive press.
Help push the story further into the public eye and make officials accountable by signing this Free Press letter demanding that "press intimidation cease immediately and that all charges be dropped."
By signing the letter:
... you're sending a powerful message: Officials must rein in aggressive and violent tactics by local law enforcement, stop the targeting of journalists and immediately drop all charges against them.
The letter will be sent to St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman, Ramsey County Attorney Susan Gaertner, St. Paul City Attorney John Choi, and the Host Committee of the Republican National Convention.
Click here to show your support for press freedom. Free Press needs 10,000 signatures in the next 24 hours, so sign now.
As the Facts Get Stranger the Media Ask: Will McCain Drop Palin?
Posted by dday, Hullabaloo on September 2, 2008 at 9:19 AM.
When I last left the Internet for a delightful Labor Day barbecue, the questioned raised about Sarah Palin were merely the stuff of blog comment sections and the like. It took what ought to be a private occurrence of the Governor's 17 year-old daughter's pregnancy, but the traditional media has now caught on that this pick is exceedingly strange, and that the only people who knew less about her than the American public were John McCain's Vice Presidential vetting team.
Greg Sargent has a great rundown.
* The news that Palin once backed the Bridge to Nowhere went national.
* It emerged that Palin has links to the bizarro Alaska Independence Party, which harbors the goal of seceding from the union that McCain and Palin seek to lead.
* The news broke that as governor, Palin relied on an earmark system she now opposes. Taken along with the Bridge to Nowhere stuff, this threatens to undercut her reformist image, something that was key to her selection as McCain's Veep candidate.
* The news broke that Palin's 17-year-old daughter became pregnant out of wedlock at a time when the conservative base had finally started rallying behind McCain's candidacy.
* Barely moments after McCain advisers put out word that McCain had known of Bristol Palin's pregnancy, the Anchorage Daily News revealed that Palin's own spokesperson hadn't known about it only two days ago.
* A senior McCain adviser at the Republican convention was forced into the rather embarrassing position of arguing that McCain had known about the pregnancy "last week" -- without saying what day last week he knew about it.
* It came out that Republican lawyers are up in Alaska vetting Palin -- now, more than 72 hours after it was announced that she'd been picked.
* Palin lawyered up in relation to the trooper-gate probe in Alaska -- a move that ensures far more serious attention to the story from the major news orgs.
Read the rest of the post on the flip side »
Thuggish Cops Get Physical with ABC Reporter in Denver
Posted by Blue Texan, Firedoglake on August 29, 2008 at 8:27 AM.
As Jane noted yesterday,
Police in Denver arrested an ABC News producer today as he and a camera crew were attempting to take pictures on a public sidewalk of Democratic Senators and VIP donors leaving a private meeting at the Brown's Palace Hotel.
... Eslocker and his ABC News colleagues are spending the week investigating the role of corporate lobbyists and wealthy donors at the convention for a series of Money Trail reports on ABC World News with Charles Gibson.
See for yourself. Ugly stuff.
Is the Love Affair Over? McCain Gets Combative With Reporters
Posted by Steve Benen, Washington Monthly on August 28, 2008 at 2:54 PM.
John McCain became a media darling by offering extraordinary access to campaign reporters. The candidate and the journalists would spend hours hanging out on a bus, enjoying the gabfests, on and off the record, about any subject that came to mind. The media ate it up, and rewarded McCain with the kind of fawning, sycophantic coverage most politicians can only dream of.
Asked during the primaries if he'd maintain his signature style if he got the Republican nomination, McCain told reporters, "You think I could survive if I didn't? We'd never be forgiven." McCain even had a sofa installed on his plane, in order to make his chats with the media more relaxed.
That was, of course, before Karl Rove's team took over the McCain campaign operation. Howard Kurtz recently had a good item detailing the remarkably curtailed access the senator now offers reporters, and the ways in which McCain replaced "straight talk" with stale talking points. To see just how dramatic a transformation this has been, take a minute to read this fascinating interview between McCain and Time's James Carney and Michael Scherer:
Read the rest of the post on the flip side »
With the Dem Nomination in Hand, Time Portrays a Darker Image of Obama
Posted by Michael Shaw, BAGnewsNotes on August 28, 2008 at 9:02 AM.
As the convention pivots, turning its attention to the nominee, I'm concerned in advance as to how the traditional media will frame (poor choice of words, I hope) Barack Obama. If the cover of TIME's convention preview is any indication, however, we're in trouble. (By the way, I have examples in hand of three more convention-related publication covers that will really trouble you. I just need to find a scanner from the middle of the media/blogging beehive I'm in to bring them to you.)
Read the rest of the post on the flip side »
Why are the Police Protecting Big Money from Public Scrutiny in Denver?
Posted by Jane Hamsher, Firedoglake on August 28, 2008 at 4:00 AM.
Hillary Rosen, who does commentary for CNN, told me yesterday that despite the fact that cable news has decided the war between Clinton and Obama supporters is the story of the convention, they're actually having trouble finding delegates who reflect that.
From here on the ground, the real story is the unhealthy relationship between Democratic politicians and their bigwig donors, but woe to anyone who wants to look into it:
Police in Denver arrested an ABC News producer today as he and a camera crew were attempting to take pictures on a public sidewalk of Democratic Senators and VIP donors leaving a private meeting at the Brown's Palace Hotel.
Police on the scene refused to tell ABC lawyers the charges against the producer, Asa Eslocker, who works with the ABC News investigative unit.
Read the rest of the post on the flip side »
Fox News Aired Only Two Minutes of Democratic Keynote Address, Discussed Ayers Instead
Posted by Jamison Foser, Eric Boehlert, Media Matters for America on August 27, 2008 at 4:04 PM.
In its August 26 coverage of the second night of the Democratic National Convention, Fox News aired just over two minutes of former Virginia Gov. Mark Warner's nearly 20-minute keynoteaddress to the convention.
Rather than air Warner's entire speech, Fox News cut to commercial, then Fox News host Alan Colmes stated, "In other election news, an independent group supporting John McCain released an ad last week attacking [Sen.] Barack Obama's ties to former Weather Underground leader Bill Ayers," and aired an ad from the Obama campaign responding to the independent ad.
Colmes and co-host Sean Hannity then interviewed former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who is supporting Sen. John McCain.
In contrast, both MSNBC and CNN aired the entirety of Warner's address.
(Watch it after the flip)
Read the rest of the post on the flip side »
McCain's Ad Scam: Why Pay For What the Media Will Do For Free?
Posted by Steve Benen, Washington Monthly on August 27, 2008 at 11:14 AM.
Just about every day, the McCain campaign releases a new "ad," which is released to the media along with a vague promise that the commercial will air somewhere, at some point. Cable networks, predictably, run the ad over and over again, for free, as part of their coverage of the campaign. This has been especially true this week, with a series of McCain campaign "ads" featuring Hillary Clinton.
The WSJ's Aaron Rutkoff noted that this is part of a well-executed scam that the news networks keep falling for.
Read the rest of the post on the flip side »
Maureen Dowd is Dishonest and a Very Bad Writer
Posted by Booman, Booman Tribune on August 27, 2008 at 7:06 AM.
If you're keeping score Maureen Dowd has now penned four of the thirty-three columns she will write between August 13th and the November election. Here is how Dowd stands after today's piece(which was helpful to McCain).
Columns helpful to Obama: 1
Columns helpful to McCain: 2
Columns helpful to no one: 1
If she keeps to form, she'll use her next column to make fun of Republicans. We'll see. Evidently, Dowd has found nothing inspiring in the first two nights of the Democratic convention. Her only comment on Michelle Obama's speech?
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