Media Matters' Karl Frisch Breaks Down the Obama Photo Smear
By Heather Sunday Jul 12, 2009 10:00am
Media Matters' Karl Frisch takes us through just how the right wing noise machine works, and a photo that starts out being criticized on Free Republic ends up making its way into the main stream media.
A classic example of how the right-wing noise machine works was unfolding before the American people. A non-story starts on a right-wing website and works its way into the mainstream. It usually involves Drudge, the fedora-wearing boy who cries wolf (almost daily) on the Internet, and mainstream news outlets follow his lead, offering up under-researched and factually inaccurate story lines.
Had the mainstream media done their job -- you know, checking the video to get the context from which the photo was taken -- they would have clearly seen that Obama was attempting to navigate high steps, while reaching back to help someone behind him do so as well. As Fox News host Greta Van Susteren said after airing video of the event, "Yes, a still picture can lie. And this one does."
Of course, the next morning after Van Susteren's show, the Fox & Friends crew went right back to trashing the president with lascivious speculation that was contradicted by easily accessible fact.
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it was a woman's butt and not that of a little boy, like the Cons seem to like.
Why not refer to these vile acting people as part of the Republiklan party for the way they act towards people. They act highly uncivilized.
At least when we trash conservatives it comes in the service to the poor and the middle class. They do it to keep the wealthy wealthy.
http://action.democratz.org
he wasn't looking.
The real Americans are real pathetic.
being peoples 10 second attention span.
... he's definitely conservative (and probably evangelical).
Whether he was admiring the goods or not, I don't know a straight guy who wouldn't check out an attractive 17 year old girl's ass.
of a sign civilization is going down the tubes.
humans have never been preoccupied with body parts until just recently, right?
animals obviously do.
.
it was important to me to draw women exhibiting cleavage well as possible. EDIT: I looked and looked, and showed off my work! Thank goodness for TV and print media.
has been going down the tubes for 3 or 4 Millenium.
MUCH longer...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus_of_Willendorf
Now if it were a guy looking at a 17 year old guys ass, you would be screaming pervert and pedophile. It's always OK for the dominant straight male species.
shows how far and fast we've de-evolved in this country that's for certain.
Sex is the cause of everything that's ever gone wrong with society. We get it.
Sex created Hitler, Stalin , Reagan , Bush and akmendentalcod just to name a few
There a lot of places where 17 is legal. What does the sex of the person being ogled have to do with anything?
so her age is moot.
I look at my dick when I pee ... does that make me gay?
hand.
Not that there is anything wrong with that or them. I have gay friends but none of them has ever offered to help me pee.
in public facilities.
Chasing cops around public airport restrooms is considered, sport?
If you look at the whole video, you'll see that Sarkozy actually is quite clearly looking at her ass.
I am 60 yrs old and had to watch the video twice. The first time was all her then the second time I noticed that Obama and Sarcozy were in the picture. I might be old but I'm not dead.
I work as a sports editor for small paper and I've been quizzed more than once by parents how come I don't take pictures of either the junior high or senior high cheerleaders. I tell them: "At some point, I'll accidentally cross the line and become just like a creepy old guy taking pictures."
I forget exactly what the response was, but Chris Wallace brought up the photo during FnS this morning. (iirc, one dumb joke was made about "men", and moved on.)
I'm disappointed. I thought he was lookin...I would have.
The knuckledragger sites and echo chamber made it up to smear the presdient, they have no shame. They are hypocrites who want to pretend to be morally superior while treating Repugnant infidelities and perversions with no concern. I hate them.
to justify their pathetic existence. Like high school jocks who can’t resist the urge to pummel the crap out of some book worm type every time the kid walks by them in the hall.
he didn't whistle at a white woman.
It started in freeperville, so easy even cavemen can do it.
have you got against cavemen?
:D
need cavemen to make cavebabies. It's all oraficestacting. Not to mention fun.
neglects for all of these fuckers, the powerful, married, cheating, oversexed white men in their midst.
And pictures DO lie.
Where is this Story
Conservative Blog Commenters Target Malia Obama With Racial Slurs:
Most of the heat is being generated by this Vancouver Sun story about the comments on a Free Republic article featuring 11 year-old Malia Obama:
“A typical street whore.” “A bunch of ghetto thugs.” “Ghetto street trash.” “Wonder when she will get her first abortion.”
These are a small selection of some of the racially-charged comments posted to the conservative ‘Free Republic’ blog Thursday, aimed at U.S. President Barack Obama’s 11-year-old daughter Malia after she was photographed wearing a t-shirt with a peace sign on the front.
http://www.mediaite.com/online/conservative-b...
These guys are mostly unformed proto-humanoids, even cavemen had better sense than thesebraying jackasses.
even RimJob thought so, and the thread was pulled. but before it WAS pulled, I think over 120 comments were celebrating racism, shittiness to kids because they are black, and the whole fabulousness that is the white wing.
This is my first post here after discovering C&L and after reading the Vancouver Sun story and checking out the FreakRepug I'm just shaking What is wrong with these people.........
Certainly didn't help me with my own "We are doomed" attitude but I'm certainly glad to have found this site. Thanks (I guess)
SHOULD BE ABC!
Yes, Republican blogs and Drudge spread gossip, lies and hate.
But that's what they have ALWAYS done, and we shouldn't be suprised.
However, ABC's "The Note" is supposed to be a PROFESSIONAL mainstream news source
that, you know, checks it's facts?
The problem isn't the awful liars like Drudge and Fox which everyone knows aren't credible, but
the media outlets that masquerade as "serious news" like ABC's "The Note, and buffoons like Dana Milbank and Chris Cillizza at the Washington Post. These clowns are the ones
that are destroying journalism.
Of course it's moving off the radar ... and we all know how it works.
The "trickle up" process moves the lie-of-the-week up the Republican "news" chain.
First some obscure out-of-context snippet -- then Drudge, O'Reilly, Rush, Hannity pick it up -- then FOX puts it's blessing on it, so it trickles back down on all of us.
Then the blip of a lie is over in a few days, just in time for a new one. Every week brings a new round of braying by the republican jackass brigade.
Wash, rinse, repeat. Haven't we all noticed by now?
Don't these Christian piles of shit have gods that ordered them not to bear false witness?
God damned fucking hate-filled racist cultists.
On July 5h a San Antonio Express News reporter noted that some Texas Board of Education members said Governor Rick Perry was considering appointing Cynthia Dunbar as chair of that board. Dunbar is a serious right wing whack job. Governor Perry's office offered no comment. The Houston Chronicle ran a story the nest day, reporting Dunbar's consideration by Perry to be "chatter" from her allies on the board.
A blog, Slacktivist picked it up July 9, and C&L linked to that blog at 5:00 p.m. July 9 with pretty serious post about just what a whacko Dunbar is. Both blogs focused on what a goofball Perry was for wanting to appoint her.
By the next day it had reached the MSM. Friday evening Keith Olbermann named Perry his "Worst Person in the World" for considering appointing Dunbar. Olbermann did not credit days old Texas newspapers or the day old C&L Post, but repeated many of the items contained in C&L about what a nut Dunbar is.
Problem? Earlier in the day Perry made public his appointment of Gail Lowe to Chair the State Board of Education.
Proof there is no monopoly on bias from blogs filtering up to the MSM? To me it is simply proof the MSM is lazy and stupid.
I agree that the MSM is lazy and stupid, but this is a poor example. If you'd been following the Texas BOE story, you'd know that Dunbar had been considered the leading candidate as chair ever since fellow creationist nutball Don McLeroy was (barely) removed. The Slacktivist story and subsequent buzz was only because it was expected to be announced imminently. Perry deserves Worst Person In The World for even considering Dunbar, as well as for actually appointing both McLeroy and Lowe. For that matter, a large portion of the Texas electorate deserves it collectively for electing these fools. These are the people who want to teach not only creationism but also "alternative theories" for astronomy to explain redshift observations (no kidding).
that is so clever of you to notice I had not "been following the Texas SBOE story." That is why I chose it to write about.
I do know that other right wing SBOE members were promoting the
appointment of Dunbar, and that Perry, needing the right in his reelection primary fight would be stupid to tell them he would not "consider" her. There was, however no "on the record" indication he ever did consider her seriously, and the Senate had just weeks previously created the vacancy by refusing to confirm a less (barely) radical right Perry appointee to the position, as you note.
The fact that Olbermann named Perry "Worst" hours after someone else had been appointed fits with the critique of "under researched and factually inaccurate" reporting this post is about.
Your point about how bad the right wing members of the SBOE are for education is one I completely agree with.
They are praying to their Jeebus that Obama be a Clintonesque horndog so the can bring his policies and this country to a fncking stand still, spending money we don't have to investigate it, feeding a 24 hour 'news' cycle we'd be SO much better without.
The video shows President Obama being a gentleman and helping a lady down a possibly treacherous step. The photo doesn't even really show the lady the President helped like the video clearly does. Looking at the video, it's not even apparent that the President even saw the other girl. It looks like President Sarkozy may have seen and looked at her. But, President Obama seems to be more concerned that the lady he was helping descend the stair safely.
American history abounds with examples of this type of racial smear. It's a standard form of behavior that used to be prevalent and accepted, especially when white men were intent on persecuting black men. Is it still accepted/acceptable in this day and age, especially when it involves our President? How is that acceptable or civil?
Besides, what kind of prude would even suggest that looking at a girl is offensive anyway? I choose not to live in such a puritanical mindset myself. If I look at someone and find that person attractive, so what? What's the crime? I believe it's a small minority of very narrow-minded people in this country who would like to make that a crime. And they are often those who make news in public sex scandals like Newt Gingrich and his multiple marriages and the horrible treatment of his wives, or Senator Ensign of Nevada who recently was exposed to have had an affair with one of his aide's wives, and, of course, Governor Sanford, who "hiked the appalachian trail." These men, because I view them as being so tortured and sexually fucked up themselves, are not the types I would trust to dictate to me what's proper in sexual etiquette. And, I certainly think they have no right proposing any kind of mores or standards. They are not the exemplary moral citizens that they would have everyone else be. But, I guess, because they take their religion (fundamentalist Christianity) so seriously, that makes them exempt from rules that they would set up for everyone else to follow! They do not speak for me or represent me and I resent that their repressed and twisted views on human interaction or sexuality are expressed publicly at all. If they are so obsessed with what others do, they are violating the rights of other people and they should butt out. I'm sick of this repressed, sexually narrow, "family values" group of loudmouths. As far as I'm concerned, they should just STFU. It's none of their business. They have no rights dictating to me or anyone else who I can LOOK AT!!! My advice to Drudge and his followers: Get out of other people's personal business. If it does not involve you and harms no one, you have no right to comment on it. So, STFU.
Exactly right on. If he was looking at the very nice ass of that woman stepping up the stairs what would have been the problem? The party of Insign, Sanford and Gingrich have a problem with a man looking at a woman's ass? And how many sites were all hot and bothered by Obama in a swimsuit? "Oh, the manufactured outrage!"
One should always ask to see the observee's photo id before checking out any body part. If the observee is underage then one can avert one's eyes before being labeled a pediophile. Come on folks we are going well beyond political correctness here. I am an adult male and sometimes wear shorts during work. Women have commented on my legs, usually positive. Should I think of them as perverts for looking?
Obama may or may not have been looking, the other guy was obviously leering.
Naked Lunch that comes to mind, but I could not get it past the site monitor despite its literary value.
Our jails are overflowing from non-violent drug offenders who made the mistake of getting caught.
Let's see it again.
Obama clearly is not looking at her.
Let's see it again.
Sarkozy may be looking.
Let's see it again.
Let's see it again.
Let's see it again.
Let's see it again.
Let's see it again.
Yup, he's definitely looking now.
Tell a lie often enough...
http://www.dailykostv.com/w/001915/
The extent of the deliberation of smearing just appalls me on big name news maker. It's not news, and hasn't been news for awhile, but a propaganda machine.
http://images.google.com/images?client=firefo...
That's not booty watchin, this is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jIpgIC_UGQ
...is there nothing wrong with looking at a woman's ass (or my ass for that matter-- though, unless you're past 50, I'd be seriously inclined to question your taste), but Michelle Obama has a nice one. Much better than any Republican's I can think of. Asses were made to be looked at among other naturally happifying pursuits.
Geez, Republicans are so sexually hung up. They're almost as bad as feminists.
http://www.womanist-musings.com/2008/09/more-...
Wow, President Obama is very, very married.
Seriously, I'm not saying he should be ogling 17-year-old girls (I still don't know how Obama was supposed to know her age. Does he know every person on stage with him at those types of gatherings?), or 30-year-old women, but really, Fox? This is how you're going to come at the President?
This is a man who pulled off the unthinkable; this is a man who has spent his entire adult life disciplining himself to meet every conceivable criterion to becoming President of the United States of America and your best shot is manipulating an image to make him look like a sex-crazed black man? I don't know if the people at Fox and their soul mates at Drudge really believe Obama is that careless, that undisciplined, or if they're just desperate to lump Obama with Ensign and Sanford. In either case, this smear is simply too weak and stupid for words.
This whole "incident" is a non-story.
Yet, because the right-wing noise machine chooses to think and react with their collective minds in the gutter, a response has to be made which diverts attention from the real issues facing this country.
We on the progressive side have to be smart enough to respond with truth and expose the bottom feeders who inhabit the nutjob right-wing. They are the real enemies of freedom and justice and equality in this country, not foreign terrorist and despots.
I smell the stench of Reslug desperation again and again. Just more stupidity from the party of losers!!
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