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

Fox & Friends' Doocy falsely claimed Clinton would make driver's licenses for illegal immigrants "necessary"
On the November 1 edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends, discussing criticism of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's (D-NY) comments on a proposal by New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer (D) to provide driver's licenses to illegal immigrants, co-host Steve Doocy asserted that Clinton said in an October 31 campaign statement, "As president, her goal will be to pass comprehensive immigration reform that would make this necessary." Fox displayed an on-air graphic of the text as read by Doocy, who then asked, "So what's that mean?" Co-host Gretchen Carlson replied, "I don't know. It's hard to understand, and I guess that might be the point, guys." But as The Washington Post and The Boston Globe both reported November 1, the statement issued by the Clinton campaign actually said: "As President, her goal will be to pass comprehensive immigration reform that would make [the New York proposal] unnecessary" [emphasis added]. Read more

MSNBC commentators hyped presidential debate "fight night" as "last chance" for Dem candidates
On September 26, MSNBC correspondent Monica Novotny previewed the Democratic presidential debate airing that night on MSNBC by asserting: "For most of the candidates, it may present the last chance to try to make a dent in the lead enjoyed by the front-runner, [Sen.] Hillary Clinton [D-NY]." Slightly more than one month later, on October 30, MSNBC sponsored another Democratic debate, and various MSNBC commentators similarly cast the event as the "last chance" for several or all of the other candidates "to make the case that they are better than Senator Hillary Clinton." Read more

MSNBC's Carlson invoked Lorena Bobbitt to claim Clinton is tapping into women's anger toward men
On the November 1 edition of MSNBC's Tucker, while discussing the response by Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's (D-NY) presidential campaign to the October 30 Democratic debate, host Tucker Carlson asked whether Clinton can "claim to be a grizzled veteran of rough and tough politics and then cry 'No fair!' when her male opponents fire a few jabs at her." Carlson then said that Clinton "clearly is playing the gender card" and asked MSNBC political analyst Pat Buchanan, "Does that work?" Buchanan rejected Carlson's assertion, stating, "I don't think she's saying that." Carlson went on to state, "I think whenever she appears tough, I think it's good for her. I think she actually is tough. But the one thing we learned from the Lorena Bobbitt case is there's a great deal of resentment among women aimed at men. That's why Oprah's huge." Carlson continued: "I'm serious. Women are angry at men in a lot of ways. They don't say much about it, but they are. And she's pandering to that resentment and anger, and it's wrong." Nationally syndicated radio host Bill Press responded: "I think men have a reason to be angry at women based on what Lorena Bobbitt did." Carlson replied, "Well, I couldn't agree with you more. No man would ever defend the corollary. But women are like, 'Oh, I understand why Lorena did that.' I mean, they're really mad. And she's taking advantage of it." Read more

Olbermann named Kondracke "Worst Person" "winner" for waterboarding comments; Gibson "runner-up"
MSNBC's Keith Olbermann named Roll Call's Mort Kondracke the "winner" of his nightly "Worst Person in the World" segment for asserting on Fox News' Special Report: "I'm sure [waterboarding] feels like torture, you know, it doesn't result in any lasting damage, but it feels like torture." Olbermann also named Fox News' John Gibson the "runner-up" for criticizing an "NBC news anchor" for offering Sen. Barack Obama advice on what he "needs to say" about Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton -- one day after Gibson himself had offered Obama advice. Read more

Slate teaser: "Is Hillary Clinton a Manly Girl or a Scary Girl?"
On November 1, the Slate.com homepage teased a blog entry on public perceptions of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) as follows: "Is Hillary Clinton a Manly Girl or a Scary Girl?" However, in the October 30 entry, posted on Slate's blog The XX Factor, literary editor Meghan O'Rourke criticized the prospect of presidential election coverage that is "full of talk about manly girls." She cited a recent Associated Press/Ipsos poll in which 37 percent of respondents said that of seven Democratic and Republican presidential candidates, "a costume made to look like" Clinton "would be scariest." O'Rourke also cited a recent Pew Research Center poll that found that 67 percent of respondents consider Clinton "tough." She went on to write: Read more

The Hill falsely claimed "Clinton skip[ped] Senate hearing she called for"
An article in the November 1 print edition of The Hill falsely claimed that "Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) skipped an Environment and Public Works Committee hearing Wednesday [October 31] that she called for earlier this year." The article continued, "But if Clinton was seeking answers from administration officials [on the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository in Nevada, which Clinton opposes] she was not doing it from the committee dais. She was nowhere to be seen at Wednesday's hearing." Read more

Hill correction raises more questions than it answers
As Media Matters for America documented, a November 1 article in the print edition of The Hill newspaper falsely claimed that "Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) skipped an Environment and Public Works Committee hearing Wednesday [October 31] that she called for earlier this year" and that Clinton "was nowhere to be seen at Wednesday's hearing." The same day, The Hill posted a correction on its website, acknowledging that Clinton had, in fact, "attended and asked questions" at the hearing. Read more

Politico claimed "[o]ther recent polls ... placed Giuliani ahead of Clinton" but did not report which ones
A Politico article discussed the results of a recent poll showing that in the 2008 presidential election, registered voters would choose Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton over Rudy Giuliani by a margin of 51 percent to 43 percent. It also reported that "[o]ther recent polls, however, have placed Giuliani ahead of Clinton in a head-to-head race." The Politico did not cite any of these "other polls," and, in fact, of eight polls released in October that featured questions about such matchups, just one found Giuliani leading Clinton. Read more

In report on debate "back-and-forth," CNN's Crowley rearranged Clinton's quotes
On the 4 p.m. ET segment of the October 31 edition of CNN's The Situation Room, senior political correspondent Candy Crowley, reporting on the October 30 Democratic presidential debate, purported to show a "back-and-forth on giving driver's licenses to illegal immigrants, as proposed in New York" by Gov. Eliot Spitzer (D), but aired quotes by Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) out of order, falsely suggesting that Clinton had directly contradicted herself. Read more

Torture

NY Times claimed Mukasey "promised to review legality of" waterboarding -- not if previous Times reporting is correct
In an October 31 article, The New York Times claimed that Michael B. Mukasey, President Bush's nominee for attorney general, had, in an October 30 letter to the Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee, "promised to review the legality" of an interrogation method known as waterboarding, if confirmed. The article, by reporter Scott Shane, reported that, Mukasey "declared Tuesday that waterboarding and other harsh interrogation techniques 'seem over the line or, on a personal basis, repugnant to me' and promised to review the legality of such methods if confirmed." In fact, in his letter, Mukasey did not promise that, if confirmed, he would review the legality of waterboarding, but that he would "review any coercive interrogation techniques currently used by the United States Government and the legal analysis authorizing their use to assess whether such techniques comply with the law." However, if Shane's reporting the day before is correct, Mukasey's promise appears not to cover waterboarding. Shane reported in an October 30 Times article that "former agency officials have said" that "[t]he C.I.A. stopped using waterboarding by the end of 2005." Additionally, according to Mukasey's letter, " 'waterboarding' cannot be used by the United States military because its use by the military would be a clear violation of the Detainee Treatment Act [DTA]." Read more

CNN caption during report on Mukasey's waterboarding answers: "Political Torture Over Nominee"
On the October 31 edition of CNN's Situation Room, host Wolf Blitzer teased a report on attorney general nominee Michael B. Mukasey by stating: "Happening now, political torture. Michael Mukasey's nomination to be attorney general is at risk, the issue -- waterboarding. Is it torture?" Congressional correspondent Jessica Yellin subsequently reported "on the uncertainty and confusion ... surrounding this nomination," noting that several Democrats have expressed their opposition to the nomination following Mukasey's unwillingness to declare the interrogation technique known as waterboarding to be torture in an October 30 letter to Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT). During Blitzer's teaser, the on-screen text read: "POLITICAL TORTURE." Yellin's report was accompanied by on-screen text reading: "Political Torture Over Nominee: Attorney General Candidate At Risk." Read more

Propaganda/Noise Machine

Hannity channels The Onion? Claims "liberal" Halloween "teach[es] kids to knock on other people's doors and ask for a handout"
On the October 31 edition of Fox News' Hannity & Colmes, co-host Sean Hannity claimed that "Halloween is a liberal holiday" and "is teaching our kids to be liberals." Hannity explained that "we're teaching kids to knock on other people's doors and ask for a handout." Co-host Alan Colmes responded by asking if that meant that Christmas is a "liberal holiday." Colmes asserted that Halloween represents "the act of giving," and asked: "Isn't that a Christian thing, to give, to share with your community?" Hannity replied: "Not to teach your kids to beg for a handout." Read more

Wash. Post quoted Rep. Putnam saying Bush "longs for" bipartisanship, ignored Putnam's false attacks on Democrats
A Washington Post article quoted House Republican Conference chairman Adam Putnam saying that President Bush "sort of longs for those days [as Texas governor], when both sides were genuinely interested in getting along and getting a deal." But the Post did not note the many instances in which Putnam himself has leveled false and baseless accusations against his Democratic colleagues. Read more

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