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.

Propaganda/Noise Machine

O'Reilly accuses guest of lying -- but "hateful" Clinton comments he claims he removed are still on website
During the July 26 edition of Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor, host Bill O'Reilly claimed to have "exposed" the Daily Kos blog "as a hate website" and went on to criticize the decision by some Democratic presidential candidates to attend the YearlyKos convention. In response, Fox News contributor Jane Hall said to him, "You had hateful comments on your website about [Sen.] Hillary Clinton [D-NY]." O'Reilly then claimed: "No, I didn't. We took them off." He later added, "That's a lie, and I can't let you say a lie on this broadcast." After cutting Hall's microphone, O'Reilly again asserted, "I can't let Jane lie. We don't allow hateful comments on BillOReilly.com. When they come up and we find them, we take them off." In fact, as of 5 p.m. ET on July 27, several comments about Clinton that were documented by Americablog (here, here, and here) remain on O'Reilly's website, including one that has led Huffington Post blogger Lane Hudson to ask for a Secret Service investigation: Read more

Wash. Times report contradicted by another Wash. Times article
A July 27 Washington Times article on President Bush's speech in Philadelphia the day before -- in which Bush criticized Democrats in Congress for allegedly "dragging their feet" on the "12 basic spending bills that are needed to keep the government running" -- falsely reported that "the Senate has yet to pass one of the annual 12 spending bills." In fact, as The Washington Times itself reported in a separate article published in the same day's edition, the Senate passed the Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act for 2008 at 10:49 p.m. ET on July 26. That bill is one of the 12 annual spending bills for fiscal year 2008. Read more

Graphic on Limbaugh's website identified bin Laden as a Democrat
A graphic on the front page of radio host Rush Limbaugh's website depicted a screen shot of C-SPAN's Washington Journal doctored to show Osama bin Laden appearing as a guest identified as "Mr. Osama bin Laden, D-Afghanistan." Read more

Ignoring ABC's own poll, Stephanopoulos claimed Congress "is even more unpopular" than Bush
On the July 27 edition of ABC's Good Morning America, chief Washington correspondent George Stephanopoulos reported that the Bush administration is calling "just politics" the decision by the Senate Judiciary Committee to subpoena White House senior adviser Karl Rove over the administration's firings of U.S. attorneys. He added, "And they feel that's their best political ground right now because the Congress is even more unpopular than the president right now." In fact, the most recent poll conducted by Stephanopoulos' own network -- a July 18-21 Washington Post-ABC News poll -- showed President Bush with a lower approval rating than Congress. The poll found that Bush has a 33-percent approval rating and a 65-percent disapproval rating, and that Congress has ratings of 37 percent approval and 60 percent disapproval. Read more

Latching onto Republican talking point, media report "do-nothing" Congress, not GOP obstruction
Several media outlets have reported recent claims by Senate Republicans, President Bush, and members of his administration that Democrats are currently presiding, or may soon preside, over a "do-nothing Congress" without challenging the claim in any way. These claims are apparently part of a strategy laid out in a "talking-points memorandum" reportedly "circulat[ed]" by Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) that advises Republicans to attack congressional Democrats for their supposed lack of legislative accomplishments. In fact, Republicans have blocked Senate action at an unprecedented rate -- apparently putting into action a strategy that Senate Minority Whip Trent Lott (R-MS) described as "obstructionist." Read more

2008 Elections

Wash. Post's Solomon uncritically quoted Thompson "mocking global warming"
In a July 27 Washington Post article on presumptive Republican presidential candidate Fred Thompson displaying his "conservative credentials" through his online writings, staff writer John Solomon wrote, "Thompson seems to have taken particular pleasure in mocking global warming" in commentaries he posted on National Review Online (NRO). Solomon quoted Thompson's March 22 NRO entry, which said, "It seems scientists have noticed recently that quite a few planets in our solar system seem to be heating up a bit, including Pluto," and continued, "This has led some people, not necessarily scientists, to wonder if Mars and Jupiter, non signatories to the Kyoto Treaty, are actually inhabited by alien SUV-driving industrialists who run their air-conditioning at 60 degrees and refuse to recycle." But missing from Solomon's report was any indication that Thompson's claim -- that warming on other planets is evidence that warming on Earth is the result of natural circumstances, and not largely caused by humans -- is one, according to a scientist interviewed in National Geographic about the theory, that is "completely at odds with the mainstream scientific opinion." Read more

Cleavage within Wash. Post over Givhan's Clinton neckline coverage
In a July 25 column, The Washington Post's Ruth Marcus criticized Pulitzer Prize winner Robin Givhan's July 20 Washington Post Style section article in which Givhan wrote that the "cleavage on display" during Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's (D-NY) July 18 speech on the Senate floor was "startling" in the case of Clinton, "someone who has been so publicly ambivalent about style, image and the burdens of both." Another Post columnist, Dana Milbank, also seemed to distance himself from the Givhan article during a July 26 appearance on MSNBC News Live. Read more

Domestic spying

Wash. Times, The Hill failed to report FBI director's testimony contradicting Gonzales
Articles in the July 27 Washington Times and The Hill reported that Senate Democrats are seeking a perjury investigation into Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales' congressional testimony but did not report on July 26 testimony by FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III, in which Mueller, responding to a question posed by Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX), joined former Deputy Attorney General James Comey and Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte in directly contradicting Gonzales' sworn testimony. Read more

NBC's Nightly News reported on Democratic call for perjury investigation of Gonzales, but not the alleged lie
On NBC's Nightly News, correspondent Chip Reid reported that senators "called for a special counsel to investigate whether Attorney General Alberto Gonzales perjured himself on matters ranging from the administration's domestic eavesdropping to the firing of U.S. attorneys," but he did not repeat any of the testimony Gonzales gave that the senators alleged were false or misleading, nor did he note FBI Director Robert Mueller's July 26 testimony before the House Judiciary Committee, which called Gonzales' testimony into question. Read more

War in Iraq

On MSNBC, The Hill's Stoddard claimed Democrats "have an Al Qaeda problem"
On the July 24 edition of MSNBC's Tucker, host Tucker Carlson asserted that President Bush "made the case" in a July 24 speech "that Iraq is basically the front lines in our war now against Al Qaeda" and added, "I think that's a very hard argument for [Democrats] to respond to. What are they going to say, 'No. That's not true'? It is true." A.B. Stoddard, associate editor of The Hill, replied: "I agree with you. ... The Democrats have an Al Qaeda problem." Stoddard provided no support for her assertion or for the suggestion that it is Democrats and not the Bush administration or its congressional supporters who "have an Al Qaeda problem." She made no distinction between Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda and Al Qaeda in Iraq, a group identified in the recently released National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) as its "affiliate." But contrary to her assertions, Democrats have addressed both. Read more

Interviewing Novak, Blitzer confirmed Novak's description of him as a "soft interviewer"
On the July 25 edition of CNN's The Situation Room, host Wolf Blitzer interviewed conservative columnist and former CNN host Robert D. Novak about his new memoir Prince of Darkness: 50 Years Reporting in Washington (Crown Forum, 2007), which Blitzer called "must reading for a lot of young aspiring journalists." But Blitzer -- described by Novak in Prince of Darkness as "a soft interviewer who seldom pressed on-air guests" (Page 604) -- did not challenge Novak to explain key contradictions in his version of events regarding the leak of Valerie Plame's CIA identity. Read more

Ethics

Blitzer failed to challenge Snow's suggestion that Mueller did not contradict Gonzales
On the July 26 edition of CNN's The Situation Room, host Wolf Blitzer did not challenge White House press secretary Tony Snow's claim that there was no inconsistency between testimony by FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III and that of Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales over which surveillance program was discussed during a March 2004 confrontation in the hospital room of then-Attorney General John Ashcroft. Gonzales, who was White House counsel at the time, and another administration official went to the hospital to try to persuade Ashcroft to overrule then-Deputy Attorney General James B. Comey, who had refused to reauthorize the National Security Agency's (NSA) warrantless domestic wiretapping program. In his July 24 testimony, Gonzales told Congress that the "disagreement that occurred, and the reason for the visit to the hospital ... was about other intelligence activities. It was not about the terrorist surveillance program that the president announced to the American people." However, in a July 26 House Judiciary Committee hearing, Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX) asked Mueller whether the warrantless wiretapping program was discussed at the meeting, and Mueller replied that he "had an understanding" that Gonzales' hospital "discussion" with Ashcroft, which Mueller did not witness firsthand, was about an "NSA program that has been much discussed, yes." Nevertheless, after Blitzer said that Mueller was "contradicting what Alberto Gonzales says," he allowed Snow to respond, unchallenged: "Does Bob Mueller once use the phrase 'terrorist surveillance program'? I'll save you the wait. The answer is no." Read more

Media

O'Reilly named "Worst Person" runner-up for equating Daily Kos and David Duke
On the July 26 edition of MSNBC's Countdown, host Keith Olbermann named Fox News host Bill O'Reilly the "runner-up" in his nightly "Worst Person in the World" segment for, as Media Matters for America documented, asking "[w]hat is the difference between" white supremacist David Duke and the blog Daily Kos. Olbermann stated that, according to blogger Mike Stark, "the Secret Service is now investigating" comments on BillOReilly.com regarding Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY), including one -- noted by Americablog.com -- that read: "If she wins which hopefully she won't. My guns are loaded for the revolt are yours??" Olbermann went on to address O'Reilly: "So, Bill, you're complaining about hate speech on a website while the Secret Service is investigating your website for hate speech and death threats?" As Media Matters noted, O'Reilly has ignored the objectionable comments on his website while repeatedly attacking the Daily Kos in recent weeks. Read more

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