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

Will The Hill report that RNC fundraising letter mischaracterized its article on Clinton eavesdropping allegations?
In a fundraising solicitation, Republican National Committee chairman Robert M. "Mike" Duncan cited a Hill article to claim: "If you needed further proof that Hillary Clinton will do anything to win, a Capitol Hill newspaper is now reporting that she eavesdropped on Bill's political opponents during his time as Governor of Arkansas." In fact, The Hill reported that "Republicans are focusing on an allegation in a recent book by two Pulitzer Prize-winning reporters, which suggests Clinton listened to a secretly recorded conversation between political opponents." The Hill did not "report that she eavesdropped," but merely reported that a "recent book" -- Her Way, by Jeff Gerth and Don Van Natta Jr. -- makes that allegation. Read more

Media often report Giuliani supports abortion rights but ignore pledge to appoint judges like Scalia and Thomas
Numerous media reports have claimed that Republican presidential candidate and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani "supports abortion rights" or is "pro-choice" without noting, as Media Matters for America documented, that Giuliani has repeatedly said that if elected president, he would appoint "strict constructionist" judges and has specifically pledged to use as "model appointments" Supreme Court Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas -- both of whom have declared their support for overturning Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision finding that the Constitution protects abortion rights -- among others. In the past two days alone, reports by the Associated Press, The Economist, Slate.com , USA Today, NPR, CNN, and CBS have characterized Giuliani as a supporter of abortion rights: Read more

Noonan: Clinton "has to seem like a woman" to win
In her October 19 OpinionJournal.com column, Peggy Noonan claimed that Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's (D-NY) "problem is not her sex, as she and her campaign pretend. That she is a woman is a boon to her, a source of latent power. But to make it work, she has to seem like a woman" [emphasis in original]. Noonan wrote, "No one doubts Mrs. Clinton's ability to make war," adding that she "invented the War Room" and "listened in on the wiretaps," presumably a reference to an allegation that Clinton listened to a secretly recorded audiotape of a phone conversation involving Bill Clinton's political opponents during his 1992 presidential campaign. In reporting the allegation, which Clinton's presidential campaign said is "categorically untrue," Jeff Gerth and Don Van Natta Jr., co-authors of Her Way: The Hopes and Ambitions of Hillary Rodham Clinton (Little, Brown & Co., 2007), cited only a single anonymous source. Read more

Hannity named "Worst Person" for not disclosing his reported appearance at Giuliani fundraiser
During the October 18 edition of MSNBC's Countdown, host Keith Olbermann named Fox News host Sean Hannity the "winner" in his nightly "Worst Person in the World" segment for, as Media Matters for America documented, not disclosing, during a 21-minute interview with Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani and his wife, Judith, on October 16 , that he has reportedly helped raise money for Giuliani's presidential campaign. Olbermann stated: "Another Hannity interview of Rudy Giuliani this week -- yet another occasion when Hannity and Fox and [Fox News chairman and chief executive] Roger Ailes did not disclose that, on August [9th], Giuliani held a big-ticket fundraiser in Cincinnati and the man introducing him to the high-paying guests was Sean Hannity." Olbermann said Hannity "has now dropped down one more notch to Rudy Giuliani fundraising meat puppet," and that "even the other Republican presidential hopefuls should be screaming bloody murder about this." Read more

Health Care

Claiming he never attacked the Frosts, Limbaugh mimicked Graeme Frost and attacked Dems for "exploiting" family
Discussing Graeme Frost and his family on Hannity & Colmes, Rush Limbaugh claimed, "I never once attacked this family. I attacked the Democrats for exploiting them. I attacked the Democrats for putting lies into the head of a 12-year-old -- a 12-year-old they send out before microphones and cameras to sit there and say," and mimicking Graeme's voice, continued, " 'I only want health care for the rest of American children like I got, and George Bush is against it.' The 12-year-old can't write that garbage!" Read more

Politico, Wash. Times uncritically reported GOP claims that Democrats unwilling to compromise on SCHIP
In articles on the recent congressional vote to override President Bush's veto of the SCHIP bill, The Washington Times and the Politico uncritically reported that Republicans are urging Democrats to seek a compromise, but did not note that the legislation Bush vetoed represented a bipartisan compromise. Read more

Domestic spying

NY Times mischaracterized GOP eavesdropping measure
A New York Times article adopted House Republicans' characterization of their proposed measure to revise the RESTORE Act, a bill amending the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The article claimed that "on its face," the measure "asked lawmakers to declare where they stood on stopping Osama bin Laden from attacking the United States again." In fact, the measure would have exempted the president from requirements of the bill as long as he claimed to be acting to protect the country from attack. Read more

USA Today, Fox News falsely claimed Dems' bill first to require court order to intercept terrorism suspects' calls to U.S.
An October 19 USA Today article falsely claimed that the Senate Intelligence Committee's proposed revisions to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) "would require the nation's foreign intelligence court for the first time to approve surveillance of overseas terrorism suspects who communicate with persons in the USA." Similarly, on the October 17 edition of Fox News' Special Report, chief Washington correspondent Jim Angle, echoing an earlier report, asserted that "the [House] Democratic bill would require a warrant if a foreign terrorist ever calls the U.S., something [FISA] has never required in its 30-year history." In fact, as Media Matters for America documented, with few exceptions, FISA -- as enacted in 1978 -- required the government to obtain a court order to conduct "electronic surveillance," which the law defines in part as "the acquisition by an electronic, mechanical, or other surveillance device of the contents of any wire communication to or from a person in the United States, without the consent of any party thereto, if such acquisition occurs in the United States." Read more

Civil and Human Rights

Goldberg criticized O'Reilly for "kissypoo interview" with Coulter
During the October 18 edition of The O'Reilly Factor, Fox News contributors Bernie Goldberg and Jane Hall criticized host Bill O'Reilly for not challenging right-wing pundit Ann Coulter during her October 15 appearance on his program over comments she had made the previous week on CNBC's The Big Idea. Coulter had said to host Donny Deutsch that "we" Christians "just want Jews to be perfected." Goldberg stated: "[Y]ou got very passionate about the Catholic sacrilege in San Francisco, but when Ann Coulter made her comment about how everybody should be a Christian, including all the Jews, because they should be more perfected, man, I was waiting for you two to French kiss. I mean, it was -- you weren't the old Bill O'Reilly." O'Reilly claimed that he "ignored the controversy" because he "never debate[s] theology with a non-theologian, ever." O'Reilly then stated: "Ann Coulter is a commentator. She says some crazy thing that I think is unjustifiable. But why do I want to debate it with her? She doesn't have any credibility in the area," to which Hall replied: "But Bill, you said everybody should be challenged." O'Reilly responded: "I did challenge her in the interview, Jane. It wasn't a kissypoo interview." Goldberg countered: "Yes, it was." Read more

War in Iraq

On Hannity & Colmes, Limbaugh again misrepresented his "phony soldiers" controversy
During an interview on the October 18 edition of Fox News' Hannity & Colmes, Rush Limbaugh offered another version of the conversation preceding a remark he made on the September 26 broadcast of his nationally syndicated radio show characterizing service members who support U.S. withdrawal from Iraq as "phony soldiers." On October 18, Limbaugh said that during the September 26 broadcast he spoke with a caller to his show who "claims to be a Republican and claims to be a soldier, we're losing, why don't I just admit we're losing? Why can't we get out of there and save the soldiers, and so forth?" Limbaugh then said that a second "guy calls after that and says, you know, I hate these guys. The media always goes and finds these guys that do not support the mission. And these guys that never served, and they're just fake. And I said, yeah, the phony soldiers." In fact, at no point preceding his "phony soldiers" comment in the September 26 conversation did either Limbaugh or the caller mention "guys that never served" who are "just fake." While Limbaugh subsequently posted a transcript of the Hannity & Colmes segment in which the words "And these guys that never served, and they're just fake" do not appear within quotation marks, Limbaugh gave no indication on Hannity & Colmes that the caller on September 26 did not actually say those words. Read more

Media

CNN provided one Limbaugh explanation for "phony soldiers" remark, ignored his subsequent contradiction
On the October 19 edition of CNN's The Situation Room, national correspondent Susan Candiotti provided one of Rush Limbaugh's original explanations for his remarks characterizing U.S. service members who support U.S. withdrawal from Iraq as "phony soldiers," but she failed to note Limbaugh's subsequent, contradictory explanation of that comment. Describing the controversy surrounding Limbaugh's September 26 comments, Candiotti stated that Limbaugh "denied" he was "criticizing soldiers who are publicly opposed to the war," and "instead said that he was criticizing just one individual, someone who was actually convicted for pretending to be a soldier, who had bashed the war." Read more

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