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

In NY Times book review, Senior adds to Her Way falsehood to assert Clinton's "spectacular disingenuousness" on Iraq
In the July 15 New York Times Sunday Book Review, Jennifer Senior, a contributing editor at New York magazine, wrote that in their book Her Way: The Hopes and Ambitions of Hillary Rodham Clinton (Little, Brown & Co., June 2007), authors Jeff Gerth and Don Van Natta Jr. were "right to expose the spectacular disingenuousness" of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's (D-NY) "claim that she thought she was authorizing additional diplomacy, not a war" when she voted for the 2002 resolution authorizing the use of force in Iraq. But Gerth and Van Natta's characterization of Clinton's explanation for her vote is based on a falsehood, as Media Matters for America has noted. And Senior introduces a falsehood of her own: Contrary to her claim that Clinton has said that she did not think that she was "authorizing ... a war," as Media Matters has previously documented, Clinton's comments at and since the time of her vote indicate that she was well aware that Congress' passage of the resolution could lead to war. But Clinton also made clear at the time of the vote -- contrary to Senior's suggestion that Clinton is now mischaracterizing her vote -- that she expected the president to use the authority given by Congress as leverage to force complete and thorough inspections in Iraq. Read more

Again ignoring his role as lobbyist, AP reported Thompson gave up political career on leaving the Senate
A July 16 Associated Press article on former Sen. Fred Thompson's (R-TN) donation of documents to the University of Tennessee from his Senate years reported that "Thompson donated the documents four years ago when he gave up his political career in favor of acting." But contrary to the AP's claim that "he gave up his political career," Thompson re-registered as a Washington lobbyist after leaving the Senate, as Media Matters for America has documented, and, according to CNN.com, Thompson remained active in Washington as he "helped shepherd Chief Justice John Roberts through the Senate confirmation process and ... raised money for the defense of I. Lewis 'Scooter' Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff." Read more

Ethics

Novak's disparate treatment: Reports Dem under FBI investigation, but only that GOP congressman's conduct "raised ethical questions"
In his July 16 syndicated column, after asserting that the legislative earmarks of Rep. Alan Mollohan (D-WV) "have provoked an FBI investigation," Robert D. Novak said of Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-CA) only that his "past earmarking has raised ethical questions." But according to an April 25 article in The Hill, "The Department of Justice (DoJ) has spent more than a year looking into Lewis's relationship with a lobbying firm and the millions of dollars in contracts its clients received from Congress." The article continued: "Lewis, the ranking member of the spending committee, has outlaid an estimated $900,000 on defense lawyers since the probe began, but the investigation has been quiet in recent months." In other words, Lewis, too, is reportedly under federal investigation. Read more

Global Warming

Kurtz failed to challenge claim by Townhall's Ham that Gore "uses 300 times" the energy "the rest of us use"
During a discussion on the July 15 edition of CNN's Reliable Sources of the news that Sen. David Vitter's (R-LA) phone number was among those in the records of alleged "D.C. Madam" Deborah Jeane Palfrey, host Howard Kurtz failed to challenge Townhall.com managing editor Mary Katherine Ham's claim that former Vice President Al Gore (D-TN) "uses 300 times" the amount of energy that "the rest of us use." While Ham did not indicate the source of her claim, she was apparently exaggerating unsubstantiated assertions made by the Tennessee Center for Policy Research (TCPR) about Gore's home energy bills, including a claim that his home energy usage was "more than 20 times the national average." Read more

Budget

Schneider asked how Dems would pay for health care, but not Republicans
On the July 13 edition of CNN's The Situation Room, CNN senior political analyst Bill Schneider said of health-care plans proposed by Democratic presidential candidates: "How are they going to pay for it? Some say they want to end the war in Iraq, some by ending President Bush's tax cuts for high-income Americans." Moments later, Schneider discussed Republican positions on health care and asserted that Republican presidential candidates "want to use tax incentives to empower consumers" without asking how the Republicans would pay for the revenue lost through such "tax incentives." Read more

War in Iraq

At Libby hearing, House Republicans repeatedly touted never-corrected March Wash. Post editorial
At a July 11 House Judiciary Committee hearing on presidential clemency powers -- particularly as they apply to President Bush's commutation of former vice presidential chief of staff I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby's prison sentence -- three Republican committee members touted a March 7 Washington Post editorial about the Libby trial, echoing the editorial's factual distortions on two key issues: Valerie Plame's status as a covert CIA operative at the time her identity was leaked, and Libby's reported role in leaking the information. The Post editorial page has yet to address these distortions. Read more

Propaganda/Noise Machine

Savage on "hate group" Media Matters: "The noose will wind up around their neck, not mine"
On the July 13 broadcast of his nationally syndicated radio program, Michael Savage responded to controversy surrounding remarks he made on his July 5 broadcast about a hunger strike by a group of California students that was highlighted in an item by Media Matters for America. The hunger strike was in support of a federal provision in the recently defeated immigration reform bill (S.1639) called the DREAM Act, which would provide a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants who arrived in the U.S. as children. After playing an audio clip of a student stating that some of the illegal immigrant students were studying engineering, Savage said, "[L]et them fast until they starve to death" and "Go make a bomb where you came from." The San Francisco Chronicle reported July 13 that more than 30 demonstrators appeared outside San Jose City Hall and called for local radio stations that air Savage's program to apologize for Savage's comments. Savage responded to the article, which quoted Media Matters Media Relations Director Karl Frisch, by describing Media Matters as "a radical homosexual group that continuously tries to get me fired, and they're never going to succeed. The noose will wind up around their neck, not mine." Read more

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