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

Carlson: Obama campaign's targeting of young voters has "a Khmer Rouge quality to it"
On Tucker, discussing the targeting of 17-year-old Iowa voters by Sen. Barack Obama's presidential campaign, Tucker Carlson said the practice has "a Khmer Rouge quality to it," adding, "[I]t's scary." He also stated, "[I]f a right-wing candidate came and targeted my kids, I'd be mad about it. I don't want my kids near political candidates. ... They're creepy." Read more

Kornblut still struggling with Clinton quotes?
The Washington Post's Anne E. Kornblut and Dan Balz reported that Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton was "vague about how she would handle special interrogation methods used by the CIA." Adding, "She said that while she does not condone torture, so much has been kept secret that she would not know unless elected what other extreme measures interrogators are using, and therefore could not say whether she would change or continue existing policies." But blogger Greg Sargent later reported that Kornblut and Balz omitted from their article Clinton's statement that "I think we have to draw a bright line and say 'No torture -- abide by the Geneva conventions, abide by the laws we have passed,' and then try to make sure we implement that." Read more

Halperin: Dem president will "have a come-to-Jesus moment" when Bush and Cheney tell them "what's on the line every day"
On the October 10 edition of Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor, while discussing Democratic presidential candidates' positions on terrorism, Time political analyst Mark Halperin asserted that if Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (NY), Sen. Barack Obama (IL), or former Sen. John Edwards (NC) "get[s] in" to the White House, "I think they're going to have a come-to-Jesus moment where they sit down with Dick Cheney and George Bush." Host Bill O'Reilly interjected, "And change their minds." Halperin continued: "And get a little bit of an eye-opening about just what's on the line every day in that job now, post 9-11 -- how hard it is." O'Reilly then turned to Democratic strategist Liz Chadderdon and asked whether she would be "very disappointed" if this happened. He added: "You don't want aggressive action against the terrorists, do you?" Read more

Race/Affirmative Action

Gibson knew school shooter was white because "[b]lack shooters don't" shoot themselves; "they shoot and move on"
On his radio show, while discussing an incident in which a student shot four people at his Cleveland high school before killing himself, John Gibson asserted that "I know the shooter was white. I knew it as soon as he shot himself. Hip-hoppers don't do that. They shoot and move on to shoot again."
Read more

National Security/Foreign Policy

Print media ignored Bush's reported 2000 statement on "genocidal campaign" against Armenians
Reporting on a House resolution stating that the Ottoman Empire committed genocide against the Armenian people, numerous print outlets noted President Bush's opposition to the measure. However, none of those outlets mentioned that as a presidential candidate in 2000, Bush sent a letter to the Armenian National Committee of America, according to a press release on the organization's website, in which he wrote that "[t]he Armenians were subjected to a genocidal campaign that defies comprehension" and that if elected president, he "would ensure that our nation properly recognizes the tragic suffering of the Armenian people." Read more

Media

Carville on Coulter's "hideous" comments: "[I]f you have Ann Coulter on your show, you have to expect her to say things that are like that"
On the October 11 edition of CNN's The Situation Room, host Wolf Blitzer played clips from the October 8 edition of CNBC's The Big Idea, during which, as Media Matters for America documented, right-wing pundit Ann Coulter answered, "Yes," when asked by host Donny Deutsch, "It would be better if we were all Christian?" Coulter later added: "[W]e just want Jews to be perfected, as they say." During the Situation Room segment, Democratic strategist James Carville said of Coulter: "She's made other hideous comments, equally as hideously and equally as outrageous," adding: "[N]o one should be -- if you have Ann Coulter on your show, you have to expect her to say things that are like that." Read more

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