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

Will Blitzer ask GOP candidates comparable questions on Iraq, budget?
Media Matters offers questions for CNN's Wolf Blitzer to ask Republican presidential candidates in the hope that candidates from both parties will be held to the same standard regarding the Iraq war and other topics. Read more

Hume claimed "spear-chucker" Glenn "buffaloed" Thompson's campaign finance probe, ignored GOP role
On the June 3 edition of Fox News Sunday, discussing a 1997 Senate Governmental Affairs Committee investigation led by then-chairman Fred Thompson (R-TN) into President Clinton's 1996 campaign finances, Fox News Washington managing editor Brit Hume claimed that Sen. John Glenn (D-OH), then the committee's ranking Democrat, had "effectively buffaloed" Thompson, with the result that the probe "went nowhere." Hume added that Glenn is "not somebody you would normally think capable of being a real partisan spear-chucker who could undo an investigation." But, in fact, Thompson reportedly suspended the investigation after Republicans expressed concern that committee Democrats planned to investigate potentially embarrassing GOP fundraising practices, including those of two Republican committee members, as Media Matters for America documented. Read more

Matthews repeated disputed claim about Sen. Clinton's presidential ambitions
On the June 3 edition of NBC-syndicated The Chris Matthews Show, host Chris Matthews asserted that, in their forthcoming book, Her Way: The Hopes and Ambitions of Hillary Rodham Clinton (Little, Brown & Co., June 2007), Jeff Gerth and Don Van Natta "charge[] that more than 20 years ago, the Clintons 'planned two terms in the White House for Bill and, later, two terms for [Sen.] Hillary [Clinton (D-NY)].' " However, as Media Matters for America has noted, Gerth and Van Natta's claim that the Clintons expanded their purported "twenty-year project" to include a Hillary Clinton presidency is based on a source who has referred to the account as "preposterous." Read more

Propaganda/Noise Machine

O'Reilly: Man with TB acted on "secular-progressive" values, "put[ting] his own welfare above everything and everybody else"
On the June 1 edition of Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor, discussing the recent news that attorney Andrew Speaker traveled by airline while infected with an antibiotic-resistant strain of tuberculosis, host Bill O'Reilly asserted that the "the story comes down to ... philosophy of life." O'Reilly explained: "Traditional-values people put others on a par with themselves. ... Secular progressives put themselves above all others. That philosophy says, 'Me first, then I'll worry about you.' As a nation, the USA has been successful embracing the traditional point of view. But today, that's being challenged. And this TB case is a great example." He added: "Did Speaker put his own welfare above everything and everybody else? You bet he did." Read more

Novak falsely claimed GSA meeting "targeted no candidate for support"
In a June 4 column, syndicated columnist Robert Novak claimed that deputy White House political director Scott Jennings "targeted no candidate for support" during a January 26 political briefing for General Services Administration (GSA) administrator Lurita Doan and more than 30 of the agency's political appointees. In fact, according to a May 18 report by the U.S. Office of Special Counsel, Jennings' briefing specifically targeted dozens of Republican candidates for support and Democratic candidates for opposition. Read more

Race/Affirmative Action

Gibson, self-proclaimed "black man's best friend," launches false attack on Media Matters over "ooga booga fever" fallout
During the June 1 edition of his nationally syndicated radio program, Fox News anchor John Gibson responded to posts on Media Matters for America and Think Progress about his comment on the May 31 edition of Fox News' The Big Story that "every time a story pops up about somebody who has suddenly contracted some strange or incurable disease, it's somebody who is either from the third world, or was traveling through some godforsaken hellhole, and somehow managed to contract ooga booga fever." Gibson responded: "Well, the whitest man in America, who is the black man's best friend, is now being alleged to be a racist for having invented something called ooga booga fever." He also said, "I should have said Ouagadougou fever," a reference to the capital of the African country Burkina Faso. Read more

Books

On GMA, Gerth and Van Natta dodged discussion of claim that alleged "pact" included two terms as president for Hillary Clinton
In an advance copy of Her Way, Jeff Gerth and Don Van Natta Jr. claim that Bill Clinton and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton made a "secret pact" early in their careers to "capture the presidency for Bill," which the Clintons later expanded to include two terms as president for her. In an appearance on Good Morning America, Gerth and Van Natta dodged questions about the latter claim. Read more

Polling

Dobbs falsely asserted Democratic Congress is less popular than Republican-led predecessor
During CNN's pre-debate coverage on the June 3 edition of Lou Dobbs Tonight, host Lou Dobbs noted that Congress has a "33 percent approval rating" and asserted that "this Congress [is] get[ting] hammered even more in these opinion polls than the previous Congress." Dobbs then asked: "What in the world does that say about Democratic leadership?" In fact, Congress' current approval rating in most polls is higher than that of the previous, Republican-controlled Congress, for much of its tenure, and one recent poll that broke down approval by party found that respondents approved of Democrats much more than previous samples had approved of Republicans when Republicans held the congressional majority. Read more

Media

Beck speculated that Kucinich's wife must be under influence of "date rape drug"
On the May 4 broadcast of his nationally syndicated radio show, Glenn Beck said of Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) and his wife, Elizabeth Harper Kucinich: "How did that happen? ... You think it's dope?" Beck went on to speculate whether she was under the influence of "some sort of ... date rape drug." Beck described the drug he had in mind as "not powerful enough to actually knock you out, but it's powerful enough to, like, make you think that you're not standing next to Dennis Kucinich and making out with him." Beck continued: "I was thinking cyanide. That would be the only thing that would really dull the senses enough. Even then, your dead body would be like, 'Dennis Kucinich has his tongue in my mouth.' " Additionally, Beck compared Kucinich to Gollum, a character in J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings trilogy. Beck said: "You take his shirt off and put him in a loincloth, and he's Gollum." Read more

This mail was sent by Media Matters for America to 'news@energy-net.org'. Please visit us at http://mediamatters.org

You can help support our work; become a volunteer media monitor, or donate to Media Matters for America.

To change your email subscription preferences, visit http://mediamatters.org/users/prefs.html

If you'd like to unsubscribe from all Media Matters for America emails, you can just click on http://mediamatters.org/users/unsub/_TFiSm6WIkiaci7iLu6ZtH8gu6JaPh8t_vLvpt4dfhY.

To contact us directly, reply to this mail or visit http://mediamatters.org/contact_us