Media Matters for America summary, July 13, 2007
 
Date: Fri, 13 Jul 2007 22:03:07 -0400


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<p>Here are today's news items from <i>Media Matters for America</i>, 
click on the title or 'read more' to read the entirety of each story.</p>
<h1><a href="http://mediamatters.org/issues_topics/war_in_iraq?src=other">War in Iraq</a></h1>
<p><b><a href="http://mediamatters.org/items/dailyemail/200707130008?src=other">Echoing GOP attack, <em>Economist </em>falsely attributed "slow-bleed" rhetoric to Murtha</a></b><br />
A <a href="http://mediamatters.org//rd?http://economist.com/world/na/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9475911">report</a> in the July 14
issue of <i>The Economist</i> about
Democratic efforts to end the Iraq war asserted that after congressional
Democrats first proposed limiting the number of U.S. troops available for the conflict
-- in part by giving troops more time off between tours of duty -- one of the
authors of the Democrats&#39; approach, Rep. John Murtha (D-PA),
"admitted that it was a slow-bleed strategy to end the war." As <i>Media Matters for America</i> has noted
repeatedly (<a href="http://mediamatters.org//items/200702150009?src=other">here</a>, <a href="http://mediamatters.org//items/200702160003?src=other">here</a>, and <a href="http://mediamatters.org//items/200702160010?src=other">here</a>), Republicans seized on the phrase
"slow bleed" to attack Democrats after it first appeared in a
February 14 <i>Politico</i> <a href="http://mediamatters.org//rd?http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0207/2751.html">article</a> by John
Bresnahan, but the phrase was not used by Murtha or other Democrats to describe
Murtha&#39;s proposal. In fact, <i>Politico</i>
editor-in-chief John Harris "<a href="http://mediamatters.org//rd?http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0207/2934.html">confess[ed]</a>" that Murtha "had
nothing to do with" the phrase "slow-bleed" and that Harris was
"the author of the Democratic Party&#39;s &#39;slow-bleed strategy&#39; for ending the
war in Iraq."
<a href="http://mediamatters.org/items/dailyemail/200707130008?src=other" class="read">Read more</a></p>

<p><b><a href="http://mediamatters.org/items/dailyemail/200707130007?src=other">CNN's Malveaux uncritically aired Bush claim that Iraq terrorists "attacked us ... on September the 11th"</a></b><br />
On the July 12 <a href="http://mediamatters.org//rd?http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0707/12/sitroom.01.html">edition</a> of
CNN&#39;s <i>The Situation Room</i>,
during a report on President Bush&#39;s <a href="http://mediamatters.org//rd?http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/07/20070712-5.html">press conference</a> about the
administration&#39;s just-released <a href="http://mediamatters.org//rd?http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/07/20070712.html">Initial
Benchmark Assessment Report</a>, CNN White House correspondent
Suzanne Malveaux stated that according to Bush, U.S. troops "must now
stay in Iraq to fight Al Qaeda, the terrorist group that was largely absent
there before the U.S. invaded." Malveaux then aired a clip of Bush
asserting: "The same folks that are bombing innocent people in Iraq were the ones who attacked us in America
on September the 11th." Malveaux reported Bush&#39;s assertion without challenge despite numerous recent news reports that have
cited intelligence officials and other experts disputing the notion that the Sunni insurgent group "Al Qaeda in Iraq"
is linked to the group led by
Osama bin Laden, which was responsible for the 9-11 attacks. Indeed, as <i>Media
Matters for America</i> <a href="http://mediamatters.org//items/200707110007?f=h_latest">has</a>
<a href="http://mediamatters.org//items/200707120003?src=other">repeatedly</a> <a href="http://mediamatters.org//items/200707120007?src=other">noted</a>, several
members of the media have documented the Bush administration&#39;s efforts to
conflate the two in order to misleadingly claim that the war in Iraq is now
against bin Laden&#39;s Al Qaeda.
<a href="http://mediamatters.org/items/dailyemail/200707130007?src=other" class="read">Read more</a></p>

<p><b><a href="http://mediamatters.org/items/dailyemail/200707130011?src=other">Reporting on Reid exchange, ABC's Tapper suggested without evidence that Sen. Graham wants "a new direction in Iraq"</a></b><br />
On the July 12 broadcast
of ABC News&#39; <i>World News with Charles
Gibson</i>, ABC News senior national
correspondent Jake Tapper aired a clip of Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) attacking
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid
(D-NV) and then asserted, "Republicans
on the Hill ... are
looking for a new direction in Iraq,
but say Democrats are not reaching out to them to forge a consensus for a
responsible way forward" --
an assertion for which Tapper provided
no support. In fact, Graham has argued in support of the current military
strategy in Iraq, and on July 11 issued a press
release in which he expressed support for President Bush&#39;s "belief that we must
give General [David] Petraeus [commander of U.S. forces in Iraq] and our troops
time to carry out the new strategy." 
<a href="http://mediamatters.org/items/dailyemail/200707130011?src=other" class="read">Read more</a></p>

<p><b><a href="http://mediamatters.org/items/dailyemail/200707130005?src=other">Frank Sesno's own "words": U.S. could "cut and run" from Iraq</a></b><br />
On the July 12 <a href="http://mediamatters.org//rd?http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0707/12/sitroom.02.html">edition</a> of CNN&#39;s <i>The Situation Room</i>, discussing a possible
American pullout from Iraq, CNN special correspondent <a href="http://mediamatters.org//rd?http://www.cnn.com/CNN/anchors_reporters/sesno.frank.html" title="http://www.cnn.com/CNN/anchors_reporters/sesno.frank.html">Frank Sesno</a> recounted a
conversation with "a senior Arab diplomat who is very worried that the
United States could precipitously cut and run -- not his words -- but
leave." If "not his words" -- that is, those of the "senior Arab diplomat" -- then "cut and run" was presumably Sesno&#39;s word
choice to describe plans for the withdrawal of U.S.
troops from Iraq.
<a href="http://mediamatters.org/items/dailyemail/200707130005?src=other" class="read">Read more</a></p>

<h1><a href="http://mediamatters.org/issues_topics/2008_elections?src=other">2008 Elections</a></h1>
<p><b><a href="http://mediamatters.org/items/dailyemail/200707130012?src=other">JustHillary.com misrepresented <em>Time </em>story to claim Clinton "ripped off Gore's flag story"</a></b><br />
On July 13, the political website JustHillary.com used the headline "REPORT:
SHE RIPPED OFF GORE&#39;S FLAG STORY" to <a href="http://mediamatters.org//rd?http://justhillary.com/index.php">link</a> to a July 12 <a href="http://mediamatters.org//rd?http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1643100,00.html" title="blocked::http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1643100,00.html">article</a> on <i>Time</i> magazine&#39;s website. But the Time.com article itself, written by two former speechwriters to Vice
President Al Gore, reached no definitive conclusion on the question raised by the article about whether Gore or then-first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton first used the
"flag story" in a speech. In fact, the article indicated that Clinton
told the story in question as long ago as 1996, and quotes Gore telling the
story three years <i>later</i>, in 1999.

<a href="http://mediamatters.org/items/dailyemail/200707130012?src=other" class="read">Read more</a></p>

<p><b><a href="http://mediamatters.org/items/dailyemail/200707130010?src=other">On KSFO, NewsMax's Kessler repeated Buchanan false claim about Clinton family's 9-11 accounts</a></b><br />
On the July 13 broadcast of San Francisco
radio station KSFO&#39;s <i>The Lee Rodgers
&amp; Melanie Morgan Program</i>, NewsMax chief Washington correspondent
<a href="http://mediamatters.org//rd?http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2006/6/5/164954.shtml">Ronald Kessler</a> accused
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) of "pathological lying" and, as
evidence, falsely claimed that Sen. Clinton "made up this story that
Chelsea [Clinton] was actually at the World Trade Center when the bombs -- the
planes hit [on September 11, 2001]. She&#39;s going to Starbucks, she was
jogging around, she heard the crash, she saw the smoke, oh my God, isn&#39;t
that scary." Kessler went on to assert that Chelsea Clinton later
contradicted her mother&#39;s account by writing in <i>Talk</i>
magazine that on that day she
"was sleeping over at a friend&#39;s house on the East Side of New
York. She watched it all on TV."
<a href="http://mediamatters.org/items/dailyemail/200707130010?src=other" class="read">Read more</a></p>

<p><b><a href="http://mediamatters.org/items/dailyemail/200707130009?src=other">Still more Carlson on Obama: "[W]hy has Barack Obama suddenly turned into Oprah?"</a></b><br />
On the July 12 edition of MSNBC&#39;s <i>Tucker</i>, host Tucker Carlson teased an
upcoming segment on the New Hampshire book clubs Sen. Barack Obama&#39;s
(D-IL) presidential campaign <a href="http://mediamatters.org//rd?http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-bookclub_12jul12,1,2990842.story?coll=chi-news-hed">recently established</a> by
saying: "Well, everybody knows that a book club is no place for a man. So
why has Barack Obama suddenly turned into Oprah? [Producer] Willie Geist rounds
up the girls, brings the chardonnay, and heads to the Oprah book club -- or the
Obama book club -- when we come back." Carlson&#39;s suggestion that
Obama&#39;s book clubs are "no place for a man" is merely the
latest manifestation of Carlson&#39;s apparent fixation on Obama, this time
with an explicit reference to Obama&#39;s
masculinity. As <i>Media Matters for America</i>
<a href="http://mediamatters.org//items/200707110003?src=other">documented</a>, Carlson recently referred to
Obama&#39;s "rhetoric" as "kind of wimpy" and said
that Obama "seems like kind of a wuss." Carlson also said that
Obama "<a href="http://mediamatters.org//items/200707070002?src=other">sounds like a pothead</a>."
<a href="http://mediamatters.org/items/dailyemail/200707130009?src=other" class="read">Read more</a></p>

<h1><a href="http://mediamatters.org/issues_topics/lgbt_issues?src=other">LGBT Issues</a></h1>
<p><b><a href="http://mediamatters.org/items/dailyemail/200707130004?src=other">Olbermann named O'Reilly "Worst Person" for his attack on gay pride event at baseball game</a></b><br />
On the July 12 edition of MSNBC&#39;s <i>Countdown</i>, host Keith Olbermann named Fox
News host <a href="http://mediamatters.org//issues_topics/people/billoreilly?src=other">Bill O&#39;Reilly</a> the
"winner" of his nightly "Worst Person in the World"
segment for his comments during the July 11 edition of Fox News&#39; <i>The O&#39;Reilly Factor</i> about a gay
pride event held at the San Diego Padres&#39; Petco Park the same night as a
hat giveaway for children. Olbermann observed, as <i>Media Matters for America</i> <a href="http://mediamatters.org//items/200707120004?src=other">documented</a>: "[H]e described the two
promotions as, &#39;almost unbelievable. Thousands of gay adults showed up
and commingled with straight families.&#39; " Olbermann responded to
O&#39;Reilly&#39;s comments, stating: "Commingled? Bad news for you, Bill-O. It ain&#39;t a virus. It
ain&#39;t catching. And, by the way, gays commingle with straight people
every day, even at ballparks. Where -- and I hate to ruin your day -- even some
of the players are gay."
<a href="http://mediamatters.org/items/dailyemail/200707130004?src=other" class="read">Read more</a></p>

<p><b><a href="http://mediamatters.org/items/dailyemail/200707130006?src=other">O'Reilly: "[T]housands" of gays in one place "can be confusing to children"</a></b><br />
During
the July 12 edition of Fox News&#39; <i>The
O&#39;Reilly Factor</i>, host <a href="http://mediamatters.org//issues_topics/people/billoreilly?src=other">Bill O&#39;Reilly</a> responded
to a viewer&#39;s email regarding his July 11 <a href="http://mediamatters.org//items/200707120004?src=other">report</a> on a gay pride night at the San
Diego Padres&#39; Petco Park the same night as a hat giveaway for children,
during which O&#39;Reilly called it "insane" to "cluster"
gay men and lesbians during a "hat giveaway for any kid under 12." In
his email, the viewer stated that O&#39;Reilly&#39;s "position seems
to imply that putting gays and kids together in one place is a bad thing"
and claimed that "kids are around gays every day." O&#39;Reilly
responded: "But not thousands of them, sir. That can be confusing to
children." 
<a href="http://mediamatters.org/items/dailyemail/200707130006?src=other" class="read">Read more</a></p>




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