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

NY Times falsehood: pro-Obama PAC allows supporters to break legal contribution limits
The lead sentence of an August 7 New York Times article on Vote Hope, a political action committee that says it "intend[s] to deliver California for Barack Obama" in the 2008 Democratic presidential primary, asked: "Have some of Senator Barack Obama's supporters figured out how to give more than the $2,300 legal maximum to back their candidate?" The article's claim -- that Vote Hope donors who have already given the maximum to Obama's campaign directly are exceeding legal limits "to back their candidate" -- is false. The $2,300 figure cited by the article is the maximum supporters can donate to a candidate's primary or general election campaign, not to "back their candidate," as the Times reported. As the article later makes clear, Vote Hope was "formed by supporters independent of the Obama campaign" and "cannot coordinate with the Obama campaign," and donors can contribute a maximum of $5,000 to the group, in accordance with campaign finance law. Read more

Falsehood, schmalsehood: Post's Cohen reports "Grandpa's" claim about Clinton and hedge funds
In his August 7 column, written as a fictional conversation with his deceased grandfather, Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen reported that while Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) supports changing the tax law so that compensation received by hedge fund managers based on the gains their funds realize will no longer be taxed at the capital gains rate, she will avoid the issue on the campaign trail. In the fictional dialogue, Cohen's grandfather says of Clinton's opposition to the current tax law: "She's not going to campaign on that. She'll let this Chuck character [Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-NY)] take the heat, and she'll do nothing." In fact, Clinton has campaigned on this issue. In a July 13 speech in Keene, New Hampshire, she called for changing the law and described the current system of taxing hedge fund compensation as a "glaring inequity." Read more

On MSNBC, Crowley called Edwards a "metrosexual," "the prettiest one of the Democrats"
On the August 7 edition of MSNBC's Morning Joe, MSNBC political analyst and nationally syndicated radio host Monica Crowley referred to Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards as "the metrosexual in the race" and said he is "the prettiest one of the Democrats." In response, co-host Mika Brzezinski said: "I think he and [Republican presidential candidate] Mitt Romney are taking a spa day." Read more

Bill Sammon reported contrast in Obama, Bush positions on Pakistan, but not Bush flip-flops
On Special Report, The Washington Examiner's Bill Sammon asserted that, in contrast with Sen. Barack Obama's recent statement, President Bush said at a press conference, "[W]e'll go after terrorists in Pakistan, but we'll work with Musharraf to do that," as Sammon put it. In fact, Bush refused to give a direct answer about whether he would pursue terrorists in Pakistan without Musharraf's consent, and he has given conflicting statements on this issue in the past. Read more

MSNBC's Reid aired "Strangelove" attack, but didn't note Romney's agreement with Obama on substance
During an interview with Barbara Comstock -- an adviser to Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney -- on the August 7 edition of MSNBC Live, congressional correspondent Chip Reid uncritically aired Romney's claim during an August 5 Republican presidential debate that Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) "went from going to sit down to tea with our enemies, but then he's going to bomb our allies. I mean, he's gone from Jane Fonda to Dr. Strangelove in one week." Romney's reference to Dr. Strangelove was an attack on Obama for saying in an August 1 speech that "[i]f we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets" in Pakistan, "and [Pakistani] President Musharraf won't act, we will." In fact, as Media Matters for America has noted, Romney and fellow Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani both acknowledged during the course of the August 5 debate that they agree substantively with Obama's remark, that they would retain the option to act against Al Qaeda in Pakistan, even without Musharraf's consent. Read more

O'Reilly named "Worst Person" for attack on Dodd; Ingraham named "runner-up"
During the August 6 edition of MSNBC's Countdown, host Keith Olbermann named Fox News host Bill O'Reilly the "winner" of his nightly "Worst Person in the World" segment for attacking Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Chris Dodd (CT) after he brought up O'Reilly's comment regarding an Al Qaeda attack on San Francisco, as Media Matters for America documented. Olbermann stated: "In an interview, Senator Chris Dodd of Connecticut reminded Orally that he had once talked about how this country should let Al Qaeda attack San Francisco. Bill did not deny it. He just demanded Dodd present a quote and a date. Senator Dodd who, having a life, does not keep handy a list of Bill O'Reilly's top 3,000 inhuman and inaccurate statements, could not produce either." Olbermann continued: "Bill-O barked, 'No, you're wrong, I did not say it here. You don't know what the hell I said, with all due respect.' Bill, Bill, Bill, it's you who've never known what the hell you said." Olbermann went on to quote from the November 10, 2005, comment that Dodd cited, in which O'Reilly reacted to San Francisco's passage of a ballot measure urging public high schools and colleges to prohibit on-campus military recruiting. O'Reilly said that if he were president, he would tell San Franciscans that "if Al Qaeda comes in here and blows you up, we're not going to do anything about it. We're going to say, look, every other place in America is off limits to you, except San Francisco. You want to blow up the Coit Tower? Go ahead." Read more

Terrorism

Couric ignored Bush dodge on Pakistan during joint press conference with Afghanistan's Karzai
In a news brief on President Bush and Afghan President Hamid Karzai's August 6 joint press conference during that day's edition of the CBS Evening News, anchor Katie Couric reported that "President Bush and Afghan President Karzai vowed today to finish off the Taliban once and for all." She did not report that during the same press conference, Bush did not directly answer the question "[I]f you had actionable intelligence about the whereabouts of top al Qaeda leaders in Pakistan, would you wait for [Pakistani President Pervez] Musharraf's permission to send in U.S. forces, even if it meant missing an opportunity to take them out?" Bush ignored the part of the question about "wait[ing] for Musharraf's permission," replying, "I am confident that with actionable intelligence, we will be able to bring top al Qaeda to justice," without addressing whether or not Bush would "wait for Musharraf's permission" to do so. Read more

Economy

Matthews can't believe that public favors Dems on fiscal issues
On the August 6 edition of MSNBC's Hardball, referring to the results of a July 27-30 NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll that found that a higher percentage of respondents thought the Democratic Party "would do a better job" than the Republican Party on the issues of "reducing the federal deficit," "controlling government spending," and "dealing with taxes," host Chris Matthews said: "I don't think it's fair, but it is public opinion right now. The people now think the Democrats are better at balancing the budget. The Democrats are better at reducing government spending. The Democrats are better at lowering taxes. Give me a break." Read more

Krauthammer mischaracterized new FISA law as limited to foreign-to-foreign communications
On the August 6 edition of Fox News' Special Report, nationally syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer falsely suggested that the recently approved amendments to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) allow the administration to intercept without a warrant only foreign-to-foreign communications that happen to be routed through telecommunications switches in the United States. In fact, the recent changes to FISA also permit warrantless monitoring of Americans' international communications -- so long as the government surveillance is "directed at" someone the government "reasonably believe[s]" to be outside the United States. Indeed, in an August 6 article, The New York Times quoted White House spokesman Tony Fratto as acknowledging, in the Times' words, that "the new law went beyond fixing the foreign-to-foreign problem, potentially allowing the government to listen to Americans calling overseas." Read more

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