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

BBC's Kay said "values voters" can "take a gamble with Giuliani" because Supreme Court is already conservative
On the November 11 edition of the NBC-syndicated Chris Matthews Show, during a discussion of whether Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani, if he "does make it to the general election," would "stick with the pledge" he made to "appoint Supreme Court justices like [Samuel] Alito and [Antonin] Scalia," BBC Washington correspondent Katty Kay said, "In a way he's quite fortunate, because he's already got a conservative Supreme Court that he's inheriting. In a sense, I think, that's what he's able to hide behind at the moment. That's what the values voters are also able to hide behind." Kay continued: "They'll be able to say, 'We can take Giuliani as our president because we know we've got a Surpeme Court that is already very conservative.' ... [T]hey can take a gamble with Giuliani because Giuliani's selling fear of two things: he's selling fear of Osama and fear of Hillary. And Hillary trumps in this case." Read more

On Special Report, Krauthammer asserted that Giuliani's recommendation of Kerik for DHS secretary "is, in some odd way, exonerating"
On the November 9 edition of Fox News' Special Report, during a discussion of how Republican presidential candidate and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani has "dealt with" his former police commissioner Bernard Kerik's recent 16-count federal indictment, syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer asserted that "the fact that [Giuliani] recommended [Kerik] for [secretary of the Department of] Homeland Security is, in some odd way, exonerating." Krauthammer continued: "[T]he man is not an idiot. If he had actually thought there was real criminality here, as we see in the indictment, you don't recommend a guy for a post like that if you assume he really is linked with the Mafia, he really has been involved in corruption." But according to a November 3 New York Times article, in 2006 Giuliani "acknowledged" in "testimony to a state grand jury" that "the city investigations commissioner, Edward J. Kuriansky, had told him that he had been briefed at least once" about Kerik's connections to Interstate Industrial Corp., which the Times described as a company "suspected of links to organized crime." Additionally, according to the Times, Kuriansky also briefed Giuliani's chief of staff and had documentation of those "sessions," both of which occurred before Giuliani appointed Kerik as police commissioner in 2000. Read more

CNN's Yellin on Clinton's alleged failure to tip: "[W]hy get into a tiff with a working woman?"
On the November 11 edition of CNN's Late Edition, discussing the Democratic presidential candidates, congressional correspondent Jessica Yellin asserted that Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) has "had a very bad few weeks" and added, "There was also the story of the tip with the waitress where she said she did leave a tip, but why get into a tiff with a working woman?" As Media Matters for America noted, a November 8 National Public Radio (NPR) report had claimed that waitress Anita Esterday did not get a tip after Clinton and her staff ate at the Iowa restaurant where Esterday works. However, a November 8 AP article reported that restaurant manager Brad Crawford said a tip was left, adding, "If something happened with the disbursement [of the tip], it's probably my fault." The New York Times reported November 9: "After NPR broadcast the report, Mrs. Clinton's campaign responded by saying the candidate and her aides had in fact left a tip: $100 on a $157 check at the diner." The Times report also noted that Crawford "confirmed" that Clinton "and her retinue had indeed left a tip, though he did not say how much." Read more

Russert misleadingly cropped Obama comment to claim he wasn't "firmly wedded against the war"
Interviewing Barack Obama on Meet the Press, Tim Russert read a quote he attributed to Obama to suggest that he has "not been a leader against the [Iraq] war": "In July of 2004, Barack Obama: 'I'm not privy to Senate intelligence reports. ... What would I have done? I don't know,' in terms of how you would have voted on the war." Russert did not quote the very next sentence of Obama's statement, which was, "What I know is that from my vantage point the case was not made" for authorizing the war. Read more

On C-SPAN's Book TV, Matthews repeated his claim that McCain "deserves to be president"
On the November 10 edition of C-SPAN's Book TV live from the 2007 Miami Book Fair International, while promoting his new book Life's a Campaign: What Politics Has Taught Me About Friendship, Rivalry, Reputation and Success (Random House, October 2007), MSNBC host Chris Matthews was asked, "[A]re there any success lessons from [Sen.] John McCain [R-AZ]?" During his answer, Matthews said: "I'm allowed to like certain people. I like [McCain], I like [Gov. Bill] Richardson [D-NM], I like some of these people. I like [Sen. Joe] Biden [D-DE]. There's some guys in this business that most people would like." He continued: "You don't have to think they should be president, although if John McCain were president tomorrow morning, I'd be happy, because even though I might not vote for -- or vote for him depending on the options, I just feel if he became president he would deserve it for what he's done for the country." Matthews added: "[D]eserve's a hard word, but he would deserve it. He served this country and the other guys haven't." Read more

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