Here are today's news items from Media Matters for America, click on the title or 'read more' to read the entirety of each story.

2008 Elections

Media echoed, applauded Giuliani's distortion of Paul's comments about 9-11 attacks
Several media figures mischaracterized a response that Rep. Ron Paul gave at the Republican debate, with some asserting that Paul had "blamed" the United States for the 9-11 terrorist attacks and others simply accepting Rudy Giuliani's misrepresentation of Paul's statement -- that the United States had "invited the attack." In fact, Paul did not blame the United States for the 9-11 attacks or say that the United States had "invited" them.
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Media heaped praise on Huckabee's "sexual dig" at Edwards
Media figures and outlets heaped praise on Mike Huckabee's comment, during the May 15 Republican presidential debate, that "[w]e've had a Congress that's spent money like John Edwards at a beauty shop," a reference to reports that former Sen. John Edwards spent $800 of campaign money (which Edwards said was reimbursed) on two haircuts. ABC News' The Note, as well as The Politico's Mike Allen called the line an "instant classic," while The Politico's Jonathan Martin predicted that it "will dominate the news coverage in the days ahead." Read more

Wash. Post's Solomon falsely claimed Edwards "opposes" subprime lending
During a May 16 online discussion on washingtonpost.com, Washington Post money and politics reporter John Solomon claimed that the articles he has co-authored on Democratic presidential candidate and former Sen. John Edwards' (NC) connections to Fortress Investment Group "legitimately raised" the question of "whether a candidate who says he opposes off-shore tax havens and subprime lending should have worked for a firm that engaged in both practices." Edwards, however, has not said he opposes subprime mortgages, and his campaign website refers to them as "a valuable alternative for families with poor credit." Read more

Media outlets uncritically reported Giuliani's misquotation of Clinton's view of free markets
CBSNews.com and Newsday uncritically reported Rudy Giuliani's assertion during the May 15 Republican presidential debate that Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton said "that the unfettered free market is the most disastrous thing in modern America." In fact, Clinton said she agreed with the following quote, which she included in her book It Takes a Village: "The unfettered free market has been the most radically disruptive force in American life in the last generation." Explaining further, Clinton said "that the market is the driving force behind our prosperity ... but that it cannot be permitted just to run roughshod over people's lives as well." Read more

Contrary to poll results, LA Times suggested Dems are dissatisfied with presidential candidates
A May 16 Los Angeles Times article about a possible third-party presidential candidacy in 2008 claimed, "Voter dissatisfaction with some top-tier presidential contenders and with extreme Republican and Democratic partisanship" and "[d]iscontent" have "fueled speculation about a possible self-financed bid" by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Despite the article's suggestion that the "dissatisfaction" and "discontent" comes from both sides, recent polling shows that Democrats are far more satisfied with their presidential candidates than Republicans are. Read more

Following a pattern, CNN's John King equated "mixing God with politics" and opposition to abortion rights
On the May 15 edition of CNN's The Situation Room, CNN chief national correspondent John King said that the state of South Carolina "has a history of mixing God with politics" and, therefore, would be a "critical testing ground" to gauge whether "a former big city mayor who supports abortion rights" - former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani -- can win the Republican presidential nomination. Read more

Domestic spying

ABC and CBS evening news shows did not cover Comey's testimony about wiretapping power struggle
Of the three national nightly news broadcasts, only NBC's Nightly News reported on former deputy attorney general James B. Comey's May 15 congressional testimony regarding what Nightly News anchor Brian Williams called a "rare glimpse of a high-level, late-night power struggle" among the Justice Department, the FBI, and the White House over the National Security Agency's warrantless domestic wiretapping program. As NBC News justice correspondent Pete Williams reported, Comey told the Senate Judiciary Committee that current Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, who was then White House counsel, and Andrew Card, then-White House chief of staff, attempted to pressure then-Attorney General John Ashcroft, "at his [hospital] bedside ... to approve an extension of the secret NSA warrantless eavesdropping program over strong Justice Department objections even though Ashcroft was seriously ill," and did not have power as the attorney general during his recovery from surgery. Read more

Global Warming

WSJ falsely suggested high court EPA ruling was a win for Bush administration
In a May 15 article (subscription required) on President Bush's recent announcement that his administration will begin the process of deciding how to regulate motor vehicle pollution, The Wall Street Journal falsely suggested that an April 2 U.S. Supreme Court ruling was a victory for the Bush administration. The Journal reported that, according to "[a]dministration officials," the court ruled that "the administration has legal authority to regulate so-called greenhouse gases through the federal Clean Air Act" which "opened the door to the new regulatory initiative" announced by Bush. However, the Supreme Court actually ruled against the Bush administration on April 2, deciding that the Environmental Protection Agency violated the Clean Air Act by refusing to regulate vehicle carbon dioxide emissions, as various news outlets reported. As The New York Times noted, the administration "has maintained that it does not have the right to regulate carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases under the Clean Air Act, and that even if it did, it would not use the authority." Read more

Propaganda/Noise Machine

One endnote short of a diagnosis? Bay Buchanan suggests possible psych disorder in Sen. Clinton, but purported support missing
In her new book The Extreme Makeover of Hillary (Rodham) Clinton (Regnery Publishing), Republican strategist Bay Buchanan notes that she is not "a medical professional" but nonetheless asserts that Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) is defined by a "debilitating" "lack of confidence and self-esteem," adding that "[a]fter days of research, I was led to a fascinating field of study involving narcissistic personality style." Referring to an endnote that apparently does not exist, Buchanan purports to offer "symptoms of the related disorder." While claiming in the book that she "pass[es] no judgment as to whether this shoe fits the Lady Hillary," Buchanan reportedly does not refrain from suggesting dire consequences if her suspicion of such a disorder is accurate. In a May 14 Human Events article on the book, news producer Ericka Anderson quoted Buchanan saying, "[W]e are talking about a clinical condition that could make her [Clinton] dangerously ill-suited to become President and Commander-in-Chief." Read more

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