Media Matters for America summary, September 12, 2007
 
Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2007 22:03:03 -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/2008_elections?src=other">2008 Elections</a></h1>
<p><b><a href="http://mediamatters.org/items/dailyemail/200709130001?src=other">Accusing  Clinton of "mimicking black dialect," Walter  Williams didn't note she was reciting hymn in Selma speech</a></b><br />
Syndicated columnist Walter Williams accused Sen. Hillary Clinton of "insulting 
blacks" during her Selma speech on March 4 by "mimicking black 
dialect." He wrote, "Commemorating a key point in American history is one thing, 
but a white person mimicking black dialect is demeaning and insulting." But as 
Clinton herself stated during the speech, she was quoting from a hymn by Rev. 
James Cleveland.

<br />
<a href="http://mediamatters.org/items/dailyemail/200709130001?src=other" class="read">Read more</a></p>

<p><b><a href="http://mediamatters.org/items/dailyemail/200709120003?src=other">Hitchens falsely claimed that Clinton "suddenly decide[d] that she's a person of faith"<br /></a></b><br />
On MSNBC's <em>Morning Joe</em>, columnist Christopher
Hitchens asserted that "[t]he Democratic candidates are all pretending to
be as pious as they possibly can be," and stated of Sen. Hillary Rodham
Clinton: "It can't be that she suddenly decides that she's a
person of faith. She has never particularly mentioned it before." In
fact, Clinton
has publicly discussed her faith for years, including in her 1996 book and in
interviews at least as far back as 1993.
<a href="http://mediamatters.org/items/dailyemail/200709120003?src=other" class="read">Read more</a></p>

<p><b><a href="http://mediamatters.org/items/dailyemail/200709120005?src=other">Matthews on description of Giuliani as a "street-corner conservative": "It works for me"</a></b><br />
Chris Matthews continued his pattern of heaping praise on Republican
presidential candidates, saying of Rudy Giuliani: "Street-corner conservative sounds a
little ethnic, a little gritty, a little big city. It works for me."

<br />
<a href="http://mediamatters.org/items/dailyemail/200709120005?src=other" class="read">Read more</a></p>

<p><b><a href="http://mediamatters.org/items/dailyemail/200709120004?src=other">CNN again failed to report on  Thompson's inconsistent abortion record</a></b><br />
On the September 11 edition of CNN&#39;s 
<i>The Situation Room</i>, senior 
political analyst Bill Schneider aired Republican presidential candidate Fred 
Thompson&#39;s statement that "[m]y record is -- eight years in the Senate -- was 
100-percent record against abortion or anything related to it." Schneider did 
not note, however, that Thompson has reportedly taken <a href="http://mediamatters.org//items/200706010008?src=other" title="http://mediamatters.org/items/200706010008">inconsistent</a> <a href="http://mediamatters.org//items/200706290007?f=i_related" title="http://mediamatters.org/items/200706290007?f=i_related">positions</a> 
on 
abortion 
during 
his 
political 
career. 
As 
<i>Media Matters for America</i> has noted (<a href="http://mediamatters.org//items/200708190002?src=other" title="http://mediamatters.org/items/200708190002">here</a> 
and <a href="http://mediamatters.org//items/200707260009?src=other" title="http://mediamatters.org/items/200707260009">here</a>), CNN has repeatedly failed to 
mention 
Thompson&#39;s 
earlier 
reported 
statements 
in 
support 
of 
abortion 
rights. 

<a href="http://mediamatters.org/items/dailyemail/200709120004?src=other" class="read">Read more</a></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/200709120007?src=other"><em>Wash.  Post</em>, <em>USA</em><em> Today</em> uncritically reported Petraeus  troop withdrawal recommendation; ignored constraints on  military</a></b><br />
In articles on President Bush's expected endorsement of Gen. David Petraeus' 
recommendation to begin drawing down U.S. troops from Iraq in early 2008, 
<em>The Washington Post</em> and <em>USA Today</em> uncritically reported that 
"White House aides" said "the president plans to emphasize that he is in a 
position to order troop cuts only because of the success achieved on the ground 
in Iraq," and that, according to "senior administration 
officials," "[t]he final number [of troops 
withdrawn] will be based on security conditions at the time." But Petraeus 
himself has stated that "active brigade combat teams were going to come 
out of" Iraq anyway and that "the strain on 
the force ... was very much one that informed the recommendations."
<a href="http://mediamatters.org/items/dailyemail/200709120007?src=other" class="read">Read more</a></p>

<p><b><a href="http://mediamatters.org/items/dailyemail/200709120008?src=other">O'Reilly: Middle Easterners just want to eat, smoke, "go  to the mosques" and  "sit around," but U.S. should stay in Iraq another  year</a></b><br />
During the September 10 edition 
of his nationally 
syndicated radio show, <a href="http://mediamatters.org//issues_topics/people/billoreilly?src=other" title="http://mediamatters.org/issues_topics/people/billoreilly">Bill O&#39;Reilly</a> said that the United 
States should remain in Iraq for at least another six months: "I think that this thing is 
worth another six months in the sense that [Gen. David] Petraeus comes in." O&#39;Reilly also 
asserted that the "people of Iraq have said": "[M]ost of us are either too 
afraid ... or too 
steeped in crazy religious fanaticism that we&#39;d rather kill people than have a 
country that runs in an orderly way." He later added that "we cannot count on the 
Muslim world to help us defeat the jihadists." By the time of his Fox News 
television program later the same day, O&#39;Reilly had increased the amount of time 
the United States should stay in Iraq to at least another year, stating: "My 
feeling is that we should allow General Petraeus the resources he needs within a 
year&#39;s time. After that, the Iraqi army must step up and provide their own 
security with a few American battalions in support. For the future of both the 
USA and Iraq, 
that is probably the best course of action in a truly painful 
situation."
<a href="http://mediamatters.org/items/dailyemail/200709120008?src=other" class="read">Read more</a></p>

<h1><a href="http://mediamatters.org/issues_topics/terrorism?src=other">Terrorism</a></h1>
<p><b><a href="http://mediamatters.org/items/dailyemail/200709120009?src=other">Krauthammer's  claims about Bush's "steely" resolve against Al Qaeda conflict with reported  facts</a></b><br />
Among the reasons cited by Charles Krauthammer that Al Qaeda has not and 
cannot 
"hit us" is because the 
Bush administration has waged an "incredibly effective war in Afghanistan" that 
he said has "expelled Al Qaeda and scattered it, and has kept it off-balance for 
six years now." In fact, the July 2007 National Intelligence Estimate concluded 
that Al Qaeda "has protected or regenerated key elements of its Homeland attack 
capability" including a "safehaven" in Pakistan. Krauthammer also credited 
"secret prisons and the interrogation which yielded and interrogated people like 
Khalid Shaikh Mohammed"; but even supporters of 
the CIA's interrogation and detention program reportedly acknowledge that much 
of the information that coercion produces, including information gathered from 
Mohammed, is unreliable.

<br />
<a href="http://mediamatters.org/items/dailyemail/200709120009?src=other" class="read">Read more</a></p>




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