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

NPR reported on McCain's criticism of Romney over waterboarding issue, but not his support for Mukasey
NPR's Ari Shapiro reported on Sen. John McCain's criticism of Mitt Romney "for refusing to say outright that the interrogation technique of controlled drowning known as waterboarding is torture," adding that "Attorney General Michael Mukasey almost was not confirmed based on his refusal to classify waterboarding as torture." But Shapiro did not note that, notwithstanding his criticism of Romney, McCain supported Mukasey's nomination for attorney general despite Mukasey's "refusal to classify waterboarding as torture."
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NY Times article quoted only Republicans in support of claim that Democrats "fear ... sharing the ticket" with Clinton
In a December 4 front-page New York Times article, staff writer Carl Hulse asserted that "the possibility" that Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) will be the Democratic presidential nominee "is already generating concern among some Democrats in Republican-leaning states and Congressional districts, who fear that sharing the ticket with her could subject them to attack as too liberal and out of step with the values of their constituents" and reported that "House Democrats do not like to discuss the idea of reverse coattails for fear of giving it too much credence and angering the Clinton camp." However, while Hulse quoted several Republicans supporting the theory that Democrats have something to "fear" from Clinton becoming the party's nominee, he quoted no Democrats, by name or anonymously, who said they "fear ... sharing the ticket" with Clinton. Read more

In "Clinton Chapters" segment, Hannity omitted key points from journalist on whose reporting he based the segment
During a Hannity's America "Clinton Chapters" segment highlighting Hillary Clinton's alleged "connections with a communist law firm," host Sean Hannity omitted key points from reporting by The New York Sun's Josh Gerstein despite Hannity claiming his report was "based on reporting from ... Gerstein." Specifically, Hannity asserted that Jessica Mitford, the wife of one of the partners at the firm where Clinton held a summer internship, "decided to use her connection to the Clintons to get the state of Arkansas to drop the extradition or to completely pardon" an escaped fugitive after Bill Clinton had become Arkansas governor. But Hannity didn't note Gerstein's reporting that the Clintons rebuffed the request. Hannity also questioned whether Hillary Clinton had "sympathy with the Communist Party" in deciding to clerk at the firm but failed to note Gerstein's reporting quoting a partner in the law firm calling Clinton "much more of a classic liberal than the rest of us." Read more

Chicago Sun-Times ignored problems with Wash. Post's reporting on Obama's Hopefund
In a December 3 article, Chicago Sun-Times Washington bureau chief Lynn Sweet and reporter Jennifer Hunter asserted that recent reports by Congressional Quarterly and The Washington Post "suggested" that Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) "walked up to -- and may have crossed -- a legal line" regarding donations his Hopefund political action committee sent to Democratic candidates "in the early voting states Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, as well as to other Democrats." However, in reporting that Post staff writer John Solomon's November 30 article "suggested" Obama crossed "a legal line," Sweet and Hunter did not note a subsequent reported assertion by Federal Election Commission chief counsel Lawrence Noble, who was quoted in the article questioning the legality of Hopefund's contributions and who later claimed that Solomon quoted him "out-of-context," adding: "The facts as played out in the Washington Post piece are not exactly what I was told. ... I was assuming there was more." Read more

Wash. Post media critic differs with editors and reporters on paper's Obama madrassa story
In a December 3 washingtonpost.com online chat, Washington Post media critic Howard Kurtz asserted that a November 29 Post article about discredited rumors that Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) attended a madrassa as a child "was [not] well executed" and "failed to make ... clear" that the madrassa "charge is bogus." Similarly, as Talking Points Memo reporter-blogger Greg Sargent noted, in his November 30 "Media Notes" column, Kurtz wrote: "I can't understand why the story didn't mention that the official at the Indonesian elementary school alleged to have been a madrassa -- according to an unsourced story in the conservative online magazine Insight -- had told CNN it had always been a public school and not a religious school." By contrast, on the December 2 edition of CNN's Reliable Sources, Kurtz noted criticism of the article by "liberal bloggers" but did not note the substance of the criticism and said, "Washington Post editors say this [article] was actually intended to knock down the rumors." Similarly, according to Sargent, Post reporter Perry Bacon Jr., who wrote the November 29 article, told Sargent that he thought the article made "clear" that Obama "is a Christian"; and the Post's Peter Baker and Lois Romano have also defended the article as, sufficiently, in Romano's words, "chronicl[ing] his denials." Read more

Matthews objected to religious questions at GOP debate, but not colleague Russert's religion question at Dem debate
Discussing religious questions asked at the November 28 CNN/YouTube Republican presidential debate, Chris Matthews said: "[T]hese questions are getting very liturgical. How literal do you take the [Bible]? Where did Jesus stand on capital punishment? ... Why are candidates for the presidency being asked religious questions?" But Matthews voiced no objections over the September 26 Democratic debate, which was moderated by Matthews' NBC colleague Tim Russert, who asked of the candidates, "[W]hat is your favorite Bible verse?"
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Fox News' Hill's take on newspaper article: "[S]omething about what Sen. Clinton said just sort of drove [Eisenberg] over the edge"
During the December 3 edition of Fox News Live, while reporting on the arraignment of Leeland Eisenberg, the man accused of taking hostages at the Rochester, New Hampshire, presidential campaign office of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY), host E.D. Hill reported that Eisenberg's wife "claim[ed] -- and this is according to the Sunday Citizen newspaper -- her husband had been binge drinking for three weeks and desperately wanted help with his problem." She added, "He claimed that he couldn't afford health care. And something about what Sen. Clinton said just sort of drove him over the edge. That's kind of what it appears to sound like." In fact, in a December 2 article, The Citizen of Laconia reported that Eisenberg's estranged wife, Lisa Eisenberg, "said her husband had been binge drinking for more than three weeks and 'ran out of options,' " and that Eisenberg "watched a televised campaign ad for Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Rodham Clinton. In it, a man identified as Joe Ward tells viewers Clinton helped him get health insurance so his son could have a life-saving bone marrow transplant, Lisa Eisenberg said." Read more

War in Iraq

CNN's Henry reported that Murtha said "surge is working," ignored his continued call for Iraq withdrawal
On CNN, Ed Henry reported that "Democrats ... like Congressman John Murtha ... are now saying that the surge is working," and suggested that, as a result of such comments, it "is going to be more and more difficult for Democrats" to argue that President Bush should sign a war funding bill that includes a provision for troop redeployment. But Murtha, who voted in favor of the bill, actually said, "I think the surge is working, I think -- but that's only one element. ... [T]he thing that has to happen, the Iraqis have to do this themselves." In a subsequent statement, Murtha added: "The fact remains that the war in Iraq cannot be won militarily, and that we must begin an orderly redeployment of U.S. forces from Iraq as soon as practicable."
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Taxes

In Giuliani ad fact-check, Kurtz asserted "fierce dispute among economists" on tax cuts and revenues, but cited only one economist
In an analysis of Rudy Giuliani's new campaign ad, Howard Kurtz asserted that Giuliani's claim that "reducing taxes produces more revenues" is "a matter of fierce dispute among economists." As evidence of this dispute, Kurtz provided the opinion of only one economist, Larry Kudlow, who agreed with Giuliani's assertion. But a day before Kurtz's analysis appeared in print, a Washington Post editorial had quoted Edward Lazear, chairman of President Bush's Council of Economic Advisers, stating, "I certainly would not claim that tax cuts pay for themselves." Several other current or former Bush administration officials have also disagreed with the assertion that tax cuts produce more revenue. Read more

Propaganda/Noise Machine

Politico uncritically cited anonymous White House aides touting Bush "vindication" on stem cells, air traffic improvements
The Politico's Mike Allen and Jim VandeHei wrote that unnamed "Bush advisers are considering ways to call attention to scientists' announcement, which the White House believes was lost in Thanksgiving week, about discoveries that could lead to the creation of stem cells without embryos -- a vindication, in the view of Bush's aides, of his reservations about approving broader federal funding of embryonic stem cell research." But Allen and VandeHei did not note that the senior author of the paper that announced that discovery, James Thomson, wrote in a Washington Post op-ed that the research "[f]ar from vindicat[es] the current U.S. policy of withholding federal funds." Read more

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