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.

Health Care

NY Post contradicts itself, misrepresents what Clinton said about proof of health insurance
A September 19 New York Post article on Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's (D-NY) proposed health-care plan bore the headline: "Hill Care-ried Away: Employees Must Prove Insurance" and reported that Clinton said "everyone eventually would have to prove they have health insurance when they apply for a job." But in the next sentence, Post correspondent Geoff Earle quoted Clinton saying that "she could envision a day when 'you have to show proof to your employer that you're insured as a part of the job interview,' " [emphasis added], not that workers will "have to prove they have health insurance." Read more

CNN's Borger asserted Clinton has "a bit of a credibility problem" on health care, despite contrary poll
CNN's Gloria Borger claimed that Sen. Hillary Clinton "has a bit of a credibility problem when it comes to health care because ... she had the debacle in 1993." But polling shows that, if Clinton were to be elected president, most voters believe her past experience during the Clinton administration would help her in reforming health care.
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The Hill reported Clinton's health care proposal "comes at a heavy price tag," failed to fully report her plan to pay for it
An article in The Hill described Sen. Hillary Clinton's health care plan as "com[ing]" with "a heavy price tag complete with federal mandates and vague in some key areas," adding, "She estimated it would cost $110 billion per year." While the article quoted from a Clinton campaign press release describing the plan, it did not note that the release addresses how the plan would be paid for. Read more

2008 Elections

Reporting on Giuliani ad attacking Clinton, media don't note he blamed troops for missing weapons
In reports on a new Rudy Giuliani campaign ad criticizing Sen. Hillary Clinton's position on the Iraq war, several media outlets highlighted a quote from the ad in which the narrator says: "[J]ust when our troops need all our support to finish the job, Hillary Clinton is turning her back on them." But none of these reports mentioned Giuliani's claim in October 2004, that U.S. troops, and not President Bush, were responsible for the missing explosives at the Al Qaqaa weapons depot.
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NY Times cited RNC release on Clinton health plan, but did not identify the RNC's "commentators and analysts"
A New York Times article on Sen. Hillary Clinton's proposed health care plan noted that "the Republican National Committee [RNC] sent an e-mail message challenging Mrs. Clinton's promise that her plan would not be government-run or produce new bureaucracy, quoting eight commentators and analysts who assert that government would inevitably expand." But the article didn't identify the RNC's "commentators and analysts" -- a group that included Tucker Carlson, the Orange County Register editorial page, right-wing think tank analysts, and former Republican officials. Read more

Gender Discrimination/Equality

Armstrong Williams: By "B-word," Thomas just meant that sexual-harassment plaintiff is "a tough broad"
On Hardball, during a discussion of a sexual-harassment lawsuit against Isiah Thomas, Armstrong Williams asserted, "I think sometimes guys use it [the word "bitch"], like, let's say, for Isiah Thomas, if the woman did spurn his advances and if she found him offensive and did not give him the kind of attention that he's accustomed to getting from women, because he's supposed to be the celebrated athlete and not president of the New York Knicks, then he referred to her as a B, because he did not get her way. Still, he's implying here she's a tough broad." Read more

Polling

Ignoring polling, The Note blamed Reid for ensuring "the return of polarized Iraq politics"
ABC News' The Note claimed that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, in favoring legislation calling for troop withdrawal timelines, "virtually ensured the return of polarized Iraq politics -- and is giving the left the showdown (take two) it craves." But polling repeatedly shows that a significant majority of the country supports withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq in -- at most -- a timeframe that comports with what Reid has suggested. Read more

Media

O'Reilly: Tasered UF student "biggest wimp in the United States of America"
During the September 18 edition of his Fox News television show, while discussing the recent incident involving University of Florida student Andrew Meyer, who was shocked with a Taser after a confrontation with police that began while he was asking questions of Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) during a September 17 campus forum, Bill O'Reilly asserted: "I've been tasered for a story, and all I can say is: He is the biggest wimp in the United States of America." O'Reilly added: "And I don't say that with any kind of bravado, but the overreaction to being tasered -- it's not -- it's an electrical shock is what it is." Also, only moments after showing a video clip of Meyer being shocked, during which the he cried out, "Don't tase me, bro. Don't tase me," O'Reilly stated: "It's not pleasant, but that idiot, he wanted this to happen. He wanted the cops to do it." Read more

LGBT Issues

Savage responds to "fascist, gay website named Media Matters"
On his radio show, Michael Savage responded to a Media Matters item noting that his website used the following headline in linking to an article: "BULL-DYKE FASCIST TASERS STUDENT WHO ASKS KERRY TOO MANY QUESTIONS." Savage asserted that "a fascist, gay website named Media Matters has attacked me for pointing out that it was a so-called feminist type who tasered the student who asked [Sen. John] Kerry too many questions." Read more

Terrorism

NY Times misrepresented Mukasey ruling on Bush's authority to hold detainees
The New York Times stated that attorney general nominee Michael B. Mukasey "has repeatedly spoken out to support the administration's claim to broad powers in pursuing terrorist threats, especially in conducting electronic surveillance of terrorism suspects and in imprisoning them before trial." But Mukasey's ruling as a district court judge on the detention of terrorism suspects went beyond what the Times reported. In the case of Jose Padilla, Mukasey ruled that the government had the legal authority to imprison Padilla, a U.S. citizen arrested within the United States, without trial. Read more

Electoral Reform

CNN's Keilar reported that "the Senate voted to stop debate" on DC voting rights bill -- but it was the Republicans
CNN's Brianna Keilar reported, "Today the Senate voted to stop debate on a bill that would have given Washington, D.C., residents their first ever representative in the U.S. House." But Keilar did not note that it was 41 Republicans and one Democrat who voted to block the bill, denying proponents the 60-vote supermajority needed to end their filibuster.
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