Post 1600

News is out on the future plans of Barack Obama.

No, we aren't talking about what to do with Obamacare.  Or Syria.  Or Iran.  Or Russia.  And not about North Korea, unemployment, stagnant wages, tepid economic results or national defense.

It turns out that Obama wants to transition from the most powerful man in the world, (though some say that's now Vladimir Putin), to host of SportsCenter.

From The Hollywood Reporter:

If you have any doubt as to how much of a sports junkie Barack Obama is, check in with the entertainment moguls who attended a private briefing with the president Nov. 26 before his speech at Jeffrey Katzenberg's DreamWorks Animation campus in Glendale.

At the end of the conversation -- which touched on a myriad of topics, from piracy to Iran -- Obama revealed what's at the top of his bucket list post-White House: "At least I know what I want to do when I retire … host ESPN SportsCenter's Top 10 list," Obama quipped as he turned to Disney's Robert Iger, whose empire includes ESPN.

 That day can't come soon enough.  Even the prospect of President Biden doesn't faze me.

Good riddance!!

Well....hell froze over today, but only in one small spot of the liberal universe.  Martin Bashir, of MSNBC ilk, has resigned.  About time, but unfortunately, it's not enough given the liberal pantheon of hate.

From Howard Kurtz at Fox:

Bashir had already apologized for what he called "offensive" comments about the former Alaska governor, whom he also called an "idiot" and "dunce." He told viewers in a scripted commentary last month that someone should defecate in Palin's mouth. He was invoking an old slave punishment in response to a speech by Palin, a Fox News contributor, comparing the national debt to slavery.

You see....it's ok for liberals to slam conservatives.  How many times was there the "Bushitler" reference?  The calls for Cheney to die of a heart attack?  The slurs and insulting characterizations of Palin?

But that all acceptable.  These are the right people, attacking those evil Republicans.  They are on the side of compassion and understanding.  Except for when they are the ones casting the hate.

Bashir took off two weeks for what was billed as a vacation, and criticism mounted as MSNBC took no disciplinary action against him, even as it booted Alec Baldwin over an alleged anti-gay slur hurled at a photographer. In retrospect, it's clear that by failing to suspend Bashir, MSNBC allowed public pressure to build to the point where the only way to control the damage was to sever its relationship with the British journalist.

Baldwin was an easy one to toss under the bus.  He had violated the rule of speaking ill of one of the Democrat's protected classes.  And he wasn't really a "journalist".  But by skating on Bashir, the hypocrisy over the double standard was too easy to juxtapose.  Attack gays -- get canned.  Attack Palin -- well, take a vacation.

Further, look what it took to get MSNBC to take action.  It wasn't the "idiot" or "dunce".  It was only when Bashir got scatalogical did he cross the MSNBC "line".  Shouldn't that line be much closer to the center?

So, MSNBC cleans its gene pool a bit.  The only question is whether they will now take a stand when the race-baiting Al Sharpton crosses the line.   Along with the others on their payroll.  My bet is that the word has gone out -- keep up the slanderous attacks, but stop short of human waste.

Which is kind of ironic since much of the output at MSNBC is just that.

Fair and Balanced??

If you need any more proof that the big networks have their own agendas (and they aren't for the people), look no further than how they treated a recent murder conviction in North Carolina.  You see, the guilty party was none other than Crystal Mangum, who falsely accused college students at Duke with the charge of rape.

When Crystal Mangum falsely accused several Duke lacrosse players of rape in 2006, there were 160 major television news stories in the first five days after the players were arrested, but in 2013, when Mangum was convicted of murder and sentenced to 14 years in prison, there were only 3 major television news stories, a difference in coverage of 5,233%.

You see, if it doesn't fit the narrative, it doesn't see the light of day.

Afterburner on fire

I've been a big fan of Bill Whittle ever since his days at Eject, Eject, Eject!  This episode of Afterburner finds Bill giving Fast and Furious the one-two, and then a couple of more KO blows.



Whittle is, in my opinion, one of the best communicators in the new media, as well as in the conservative
sphere.  He knows how to talk, how to get his message across, and how to relate to his audience.  And here, he's as persuasive, and pissed off, as I've ever seen him.

Combine Fast & Furious with a complacent media and you have all the reasons in the world to be enraged.

Share this with your friends.  And buy a beer for Whittle if you see him.

The South End of a horse facing north

Neil Cavuto, who has MS, takes the critics of Ann Romney to the woodshed for criticizing her horseback riding.  Take that Larry O'Donnell.




Well done Neil.  Along with Santelli, it seems financial commentators can get their dander up.

Editing skills

Once again, creative editing skills are showing up at the MSM.  From The Corner:

Turns out that video of Mitt Romney gushing about Wawa was edited by MSNBC in such a way that some crucial context was lost, per blogger SooperMexican. Romney wasn’t just talking about the touchscreen at Wawa being “amazing”; he was talking about it being “amazing”  in light of his anecdote told just before about how inefficient government bureaucracy was.

Watch yourself.  MRC has put the MSNBC edit alongside a raw footage video of the event.  You can see how the critical part was removed to give a completely different spin to the clip.



Can there be any, any doubt that they are in the tank for The One?

Another socialist

Jon Stewart, fessing up to what he actually is. (And no, it's not being a "moderate")


What I really like is how he manages to think that a socialist is an "independent".  Self-delusion on display.

Thanks to MRC for the video, with a hat tip to Moonbattery.

The Boston Globe weighs in

When you are a Bay State Democrat and the Boston Globe says even a little something that isn't fawning adoration, you're in trouble.  From Saturday's Globe comes these words starting a long article on Fauxcahontas, aka Elizabeth Warren.

US Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren has said she was unaware that Harvard Law School had been promoting her purported Native American heritage until she read about it in a newspaper several weeks ago.

But for at least six straight years during Warren’s tenure, Harvard University reported in federally mandated diversity statistics that it had a Native American woman in its senior ranks at the law school. According to both Harvard officials and federal guidelines, those statistics are almost always based on the way employees describe themselves.

In addition, both Harvard’s guidelines and federal regulations for the statistics lay out a specific definition of Native American that Warren does not meet.

The documents suggest for the first time that either Warren or a Harvard administrator classified her repeatedly as Native American in papers prepared for the government in a way that apparently did not adhere to federal diversity guidelines. They raise further questions about Warren’s statements that she was unaware Harvard was promoting her as Native American.

Much more to read in the Globe article.

In the tank?

Brent Bozell writes about our unbiased media in a column at Townhall:

You'd think the largest legal action in American history in defense of religious liberty would be a major news story. But ABC, CBS and NBC don't judge news events by their inherent importance as relates to the future of our freedoms. They deliver the news according to a simple formula: Does it or doesn't it advance the re-election of Barack Obama?

If it doesn't, it isn't news.

On May 21, 43 Catholic dioceses and organizations sued the Obama administration over its ridiculously narrow idea of how a "religious institution" can be defined under the Obamacare law. Never has the Catholic Church -- or any order, for that matter -- undertaken something of this magnitude. It's truly jaw-dropping that ABC and NBC completely ignored this action on their evening newscasts, while "CBS Evening News" devoted just 19 seconds to this historic event.

No, let's be blunt: They spiked the news.

This is the worst example of shameless bias by omission I have seen in the quarter-century history of the Media Research Center. We recall the Chinese Communists withholding from its citizenry for 20 years the news that the U.S. had landed on the moon because it reflected poorly on their government. Never, never would the U.S. "news" media behave thusly -- they just did.

This is not an honest mistake. It was not an editorial oversight by the broadcast networks. It did not occur too late for the evening deadline. This was a deliberate and insidious withholding of national news to protect the "Chosen One" who ABC, CBS and NBC have worked so hard to elect and for whom they are now abusing their journalistic influence. Even when CBS mentioned the suit -- ever so briefly -- like so many others, they deliberately distorted the issue by framing it as a contraception lawsuit when it is a much broader religious freedom issue -- and they know it.

This should be seen as a very dark cloud on Obama's political horizon. The Catholic Church, with 60 million Americans describing themselves as Catholic, has unleashed legal Armageddon on the administration, promising "we will not comply" with a health law that strips Catholics of their religious liberty. If this isn't "news," then there's no such thing as news.

This should be leading newscasts and the subject of special, in-depth reports. So what trumped this story? ABC led their evening broadcast and devoted an incredible 3 minutes and 30 seconds to the sentencing of the Rutgers student who spied on his gay roommate with a web camera. NBC aired an entire story on a lunar eclipse. Both CBS and NBC devoted their first 3 minutes and 30 seconds to prostate-cancer screening.

Add in the deafening silence about Edward Klein's book "The Amateur" and it is clear....they continue to be the propaganda arm of the Obama White House.

Hat tip to What If? for the pointer.

Ministry of Propaganda

No, I'm not referring to ABC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC and the New York Times.  Buzzfeed brings us the story of legalizing domestic propaganda by the government.

An amendment that would legalize the use of propaganda on American audiences is being inserted into the latest defense authorization bill, BuzzFeed has learned.

The amendment would “strike the current ban on domestic dissemination” of propaganda material produced by the State Department and the independent Broadcasting Board of Governors, according to the summary of the law at the House Rules Committee's official website.

The tweak to the bill would essentially neutralize two previous acts—the Smith-Mundt Act of 1948 and Foreign Relations Authorization Act in 1987—that had been passed to protect U.S. audiences from our own government’s misinformation campaigns. 

Moonbattery passes on some possible new poster art from the government, designed by The People's Cube.

Race War

The brilliant Thomas Sowell has a column at NRO on the hidden race war now on in America:

When two white newspaper reporters for the Virginian-Pilot were driving through Norfolk, and were set upon and beaten by a mob of young blacks — beaten so badly that they had to take a week off from work — that might sound like news that should have been reported, at least by their own newspaper. But it wasn’t.

The O’Reilly Factor on Fox News Channel was the first major television program to report this incident. Yet this story is not just a Norfolk story, either in what happened or in how the media and the authorities have tried to sweep it under the rug.

Similar episodes of unprovoked violence by young black gangs against white people chosen at random on beaches, in shopping malls, or in other public places have occurred in Philadelphia, New York, Denver, Chicago, Cleveland, Washington, Los Angeles, and other places across the country. Both the authorities and the media tend to try to sweep these episodes under the rug.

In Milwaukee, for example, an attack on whites at a public park a few years ago left many of the victims battered to the ground and bloody. But when the police arrived on the scene, it became clear that the authorities wanted to keep this quiet.

I try to avoid generalizations about race.  When you have a nation of 300+ million people, there will be bad, and good, actors in all groups.  And mass generalizations about races or nationalities invariably would have large numbers that don't fit.

However, to ignore reality, especially by the press and police, is to place the public in danger.

Read the whole article HERE.

This says so much

Newsweek has this as its next cover.

If you needed any more evidence that the failing MSM is in the tank for The One, look at this cover. It even surpasses this photo of Obama.

We've gone from the artistic halo to actually putting one over his head.  Or is it just a rainbow-colored hula hoop that happened to be flying overhead when the photo was taken?

Stewart Alsop is turning in his grave.

The disconnect is real

David Eldridge of the Washington Times reports on Tom Brokaw's thoughts on the White House Correspondents Dinner and what it does to the image of the press.

Former "NBC Nightly News" anchor Tom Brokaw said Sunday that the glitzy annual White House Correspondents' Association dinner is damaging the perception of the press among the American public.

"It's time to rethink that," the longtime newsman said Sunday in an appearance on NBC's "Meet the Press."

He said the annual black-tie affair, which features Washington reporters and editors drinking, joking and partying with Hollywood stars and the city's top lawmakers -- including the president -- is contributing to the public's mistrust of the media.

"If there’s ever an event that separates the press from the people they’re supposed to be serving, symbolically, it is that one." he said.

"That’s another separation between what we’re supposed to be doing and what the people expect us to be doing, and I think that the Washington press corps has to look at that, and by the way I’m a charter member of the White House Correspondents Association, I was there early on and often enjoyed it, but it’s gone beyond what it needs to be.”

 And you're only figuring it out now??  I guess it's better late than never.
 

From the best podcaster

Adam Carolla's podcasts have become a regular highlight for the OC.  Real Clear Politics has a story of one of his recent shows.

Adam Carolla ripped Leslie Stahl of CBS's "60 Minutes" and those on the Left for complaining about enhanced interrogation techniques used by the U.S. after 9/11 to extract information from known terrorists. Carolla's main issue, other than Stahl's incessant questioning of Jose Rodriguez Jr., the chief of the CIA's Clandestine Service, was that the critics of such practices don't have a viable alternative to them.

Carolla said he hates when people use the explanation that if we stopped killing terrorists then perhaps they would stop hating us. Carolla called that type of thinking bull and said they hate us because of our way of life.

On the Thursday podcast of "The Adam Carolla Show," the host also explained his disappointment that those getting angst from reporters like Stahl, never throw their outrageous outrage back at them.

"That's your news. That's '60 Minutes.' That's the best we have to offer. Hard at fucking work. I always wish that people just throw it back at them. What's your plan then, Leslie? What would you like to do? How would you like to extract information from people who wanted to see Americans die and don't want to give up any information," Carolla said.

"And find me a country that does it in a more humane fashion than we do? Or shut the fuck up. You have no story. There's not a story here. Hey, show me the huge pile of bodies from waterboarding. They'll be right next to the huge bodies of second-hand smoke. They don't fucking exist," he said.

 Carolla tells it like it is.  RCP has the 20 minute audio file HERE.

Most transparent

Keith Koffler at White House Dossier notes another lack at the Obama White House.

President Obama has held just one full length, multi-topic, solo press conference in the last six months, effectively abolishing the most accessible venue for American citizens to observe the thinking and learn the views of their leader.

It’s May, and the president has stood for only a single such news conference this year, a March 6 event in the briefing room. He’s had only three since last June, counting a November press conference in Hawaii that was supposed to be devoted to the just-held Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit but which veered off into other issues.

Nor does Obama generally allow questioning during brief appearances at the White House, such as when he makes statements with foreign leaders. Previous presidents, including George W. Bush, routinely took a couple of questions on the topic of the day at such gatherings.

Bush also held fewer press conferences than he should have. But this doesn’t excuse Obama, who would seem especially obligated to appear before the press given his pledges to maintain an “openness” administration.

Instead, the White House does its best to control access to Obama, presenting him to local and sometimes national reporters in “one-on-one” settings.

Of course, since most all of the MSM is in the tank for Obama, they don't need to do any real journalism. Why ask a question when you already know the answer you'll put into your columns.

Seriously??

Jonah Goldberg, author of the new book Tyranny of Cliches, posted this on National Review Online's The Corner:

I'm Embarrassed

So, I was on Piers Morgan’s show on CNN tonight. It was a shameful spectacle. He pretended to be a serious interviewer and I spent far too long pretending he was one too. My apologies to everyone who tuned in. I will have a more comprehensive response tomorrow on the Tyranny of Cliches blog.

Now, if everyone else on the right will come to that same conclusion.  And apply it to most of the rest of the MSM.

More Breitbart

A followup to our previous post on Andrew Breitbart's memory.  From outside the White House Correspondents Dinner.

I like it.  Never let them forget that we are out there.

Missing details

While there is media attention on the situation in Beijing, it might be difficult to know why Chen Guangcheng is a political dissident in China.

From Tim Carney at the Washington Examiner:

Is Chen Guangcheng a rebel without a cause?

Chen Guangcheng is a Chinese “dissident” and a “lawyer” who was jailed by the Chinese government and held in house arrest after his sentence, until he escaped over the weekend, presumably to U.S. custody.

You’ll learn all that from this 1300-word Washington Post story today, but you’ll never learn why the Communist Chinese regime wanted to silence him -- that he has exposed the horrors of China’s one-child policy, including forced abortions and forced sterilizations.

Honestly. Search the article. “Abortion” never appears. Nor does “one-child” “family-planning,” or “sterilization.”

Of the five Post news articles I found discussing Chen, only one of them has the word "abortion."

The Post wasn’t the only one to make this weird omission. CBS News’s Norah O’Donnell doesn’t mention abortion, sterilization, or the one-child policy at all.

Others simply buried this detail, making sure to describe Chen generically as a “legal activist”

Thanks to Pundit & Pundette for the link.

Liberal media catfight

Piers Morgan delivered this smackdown to hip, urban Touré on CNN:

Piers Morgan concluded the interview saying, "I like to think of myself as a professional journalist, Touré. I think that you are something else." 

See the interview at Breitbart.
 

The circular logic of the MSM

I have stayed away from commenting on the Trayvon Martin death for a number of reasons.  Chief being that too many facts are not known to the public.  That said, this observation really strikes home.

From the Last Refuge:

One of the media narratives you’ll probably see reported upon quite a bit is a recent CNN poll of people’s opinion about whether George Zimmerman should be arrested.

Think about it.   This is how the media justifies their false narrative.  The very opinions they survey are based on what people know about the story.  And where does the majority of that knowledge come from?  Yep, the same media reporting the poll results.

See how that works.  Create a false narrative of guilt by supposition without presenting the facts, then justify your supposition reporting of guilt by citing the poll showing people have the same suppositions.

Never quite thought of it that way.  It's the media version of the self fulfilling prophesy.  And it comes into play in many more situations than just this one.