Do ya think? Not only did Anita Dunn take a really strong stand for President Obama over the Roger Ailes run FOX Noise Propaganda Network, she also called out the conservative-teabagger movement in its entirety.

Dunn: A week ago many conservative commentators had been rejoicing in the fact, celebrating in the fact that the United States didn't get the Olympics, one week later they seem to be somewhat bitter at the fact that an American President was awarded the Nobel peace prize. So I think people will draw their own conclusions abut the reflexive negativity on the part of some commentators regardless of what happens...

Dunn held back no punches and stated fact. That's nice to see.
Howard Kurtz was pretty comical with his questions, but he was trying to provide some pushback, I guess.

KURTZ: You were quoted this week in Time Magazine as saying of Fox News, it's opinion journalism masquerading as news. What do you mean, "masquerading"?

See what I mean? But he did have to ask that.

DUNN: Well, you know, Howie, I think if we went back a year ago to the fall of 2008, to the campaign, that, you know, it was a time that this country was in two wars, that we'd had a financial collapse probably more significant than any financial collapse since the Great Depression. If you were a Fox News viewer in the fall election, what you would have seen would have been that the biggest story, the biggest threats facing America were a guy named Bill Ayers and something called Acorn, when the reality of it is that Fox News often operates almost as either the research arm or the communications arm of the Republican Party.

Yep, that sums up FOX Noise. Then she delivered the knockout punch.

Think Progress writes:

Last month, President Obama appeared on five Sunday morning talk shows, including Univision’s Al Punto. He rejected Fox, however. Dunn revealed this morning that Obama did not appear on Fox because of its reflexive, partisan opposition to Obama. Obama will go on Fox in the future, Dunn said, but when he goes on, “he’s going on to debate the opposition.”

And then after Kurtz asked her if the president would go on FOX ever again, she said this too:

Dunn: That when he goes on FOX, he understands he's not going on, it really isn't a news network at this point, he's going to debate the opposition and that's fine.

The opposition, I loved that.

Howard asked someone from FOX to appear on Reliable Sources, but they refused and instead issued their usual statement. They'd rather have BillO speak to his audience than have anybody debate the facts -- especially, of course, on another network. FOX gives their usual argument that while they do have news, people really rely on their opinion programs. That's stunning really. MSNBC has their lefty hosts too, but during the day, you'll hear all the news and not MSNBC's opinion version of the news.

Kurtz did his best to find a few reporters that he thought weren't corrupted by Ailes so he mentioned Major Garrett. Do you think he's fair...Please say he's fair...Oh please oh please oh please. And Anita then calmly explained why they didn't go on Chris Wallace. Good for her.

And I told Major quite honestly that we had told Chris Wallace that having fact-checked an administration guest on his show -- something I've never seen a Sunday show do. And, Howie, you can show me examples of where Sunday shows have fact-checked previous weeks' guests, and I'd be happy to see those. We asked Chris, for an example, where he had done that to anybody besides somebody from the administration in the year 2009. And we're still waiting to hear from him.

She didn't stop there.

Dunn: Let's be realistic here, Howie. They are widely viewed as, you know, a part of the Republican Party. Take their talking points, put them on the air. Take their opposition research, put them on the air, and that’s fine. But let’s not pretend they’re a news network they way CNN is.

Kurtz did his best to try and get her to differentiate between the Beck's show and their little news nuggets, and she wouldn't back down. Where's the John Ensign coverage? she asks Howie. Hmmm, you won't see it much -- if at all -- on FOX. And that's only one example out of thousands.

David Frum spoke out this weekend about the reckless direction America's right-wing talk-show hosts are taking our national discourse -- embodied by the nuts bringing guns to events featuring President Obama:

Nobody has been hurt so far. We can all hope that nobody will be. But firearms and politics never mix well. They mix especially badly with a third ingredient: the increasingly angry tone of incitement being heard from right-of-center broadcasters.

The Nazi comparisons from Rush Limbaugh; broadcaster Mark Levin asserting that President Obama is "literally at war with the American people"; former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin claiming that the president was planning "death panels" to extirpate the aged and disabled; the charges that the president is a fascist, a socialist, a Marxist, an illegitimate Kenyan fraud, that he "harbors a deep resentment of America," that he feels a "deep-seated hatred of white people," that his government is preparing concentration camps, that it is operating snitch lines, that it is planning to wipe away American liberties": All this hysterical and provocative talk invites, incites, and prepares a prefabricated justification for violence.

And indeed some conservative broadcasters are lovingly anticipating just such an outcome.

Frum notes that conservatives were quick to attack a Homeland Security bulletin warning law-enforcement officers of a looming threat from right-wing extremists -- only to have those warnings come all too true:

Newt Gingrich tweeted: "The person who drafted the outrageous homeland security memo smearing veterans and conservatives should be fired."

I don't think the former speaker could tweet such a thing today in good conscience. The person who drafted that homeland security memo has gained very good reason to be worried. The guns are coming out. The risks are real.

It's not enough for conservatives to repudiate violence, as some are belatedly beginning to do. We have to tone down the militant and accusatory rhetoric. If Barack Obama really were a fascist, really were a Nazi, really did plan death panels to kill the old and infirm, really did contemplate overthrowing the American constitutional republic—if he were those things, somebody should shoot him.

Frum was on CNN's Reliable Sources this Sunday and talked about it with Howard Kurtz:

HOWARD KURTZ, HOST: Um, just before I came out here, David Frum, I read a column that you wrote for The Week magazine about people who bring guns to these town meetings or Obama events. And you really took on some on the right, on your side, so to speak -- Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity -- you talked about hysterical talk about violence, you said that we have to tone it down, we have to tone down, excuse me, "the militant and accusatory rhetoric."

DAVID FRUM: Ah, we do. We do. Because --

KURTZ: Is it fair to blame the broadcasters for this atmosphere?

FRUM: Uh, yeah, it's very -- coping with a downward trend in advertising revenues for talk radio, the broadcasters have ramped up what they are saying. When you have broadcasters saying the president is, quote, literally at war with the American people, um -- literally at war is a very serious thing, Al Qaeda is literally at war with the American people.

KURTZ: And has a deep-seated hatred for white people.

FRUM: And has a deep-seated hatred -- so it's inflammatory. And the thing that is so enraging about all this, is obviously people are getting more excited about that, than they do about the details of health insurance.

Interestingly, Kurtz a little later discusses Fox's flaming hypocrisy in backing anti-Obama protesters when previously it had dismissed anti-war protesters as "loons", something they were called out for by Jon Stewart on The Daily Show:

KURTZ: [H]asn't Fox, in fact, flipped -- some Fox hosts, I should say -- from slamming liberal protesters to defending these anti-Obama protesters?

That, in fact, is part of the bigger picture: The teabaggers are being inflamed and openly encouraged to act irrationally and disruptively by Fox News and its right-wing radio cohorts, specifically because they know that no matter how crazy they act -- even bringing guns to events featuring the president -- they will be actively defended for it, instead of exposed for the thugs they are.

Transcript below the fold:

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(h/t David)

Oh poor, put-upon Bill O'Reilly. Those mean old "liberals" in the media are just itching to blame him for the assassination of Dr. George Tiller. Never mind that the only "liberal" cited is Olbermann, who flatly rejects the label and those who did actually call attention to the inciting rhetoric of O'Reilly in regards to Tiller were bloggers like C&L, who of course, were not invited by Howard Kurtz to give their point of view.

Kathleen Parker has the unenviable job of defending O'Reilly, though it's made easier by Kurtz's framing, which shows clearly where his sympathies lie:

KURTZ: Some liberal commentators couldn’t wait to accuse O’Reilly of inciting the violence that led to George Tiller’s murder. Fair or unfair?

PARKER: Irrelevant. I mean, yes, of course, it’s unfair. You can’t blame anyone for a crime except the person that commits the crime. Clearly, people on the far left are always looking for an excuse to attack Bill O’Reilly. And Keith Olbermann and O’Reilly tend to bounce off each other a good bit. So I’m not sure who this argument is really between.

Um, news flash to Parker, you absolutely CAN blame someone who incites violence, even if they don't actually commit the act. Ask Charlie Manson.

Parker's viewpoint is a little morally troubling, as she tries to play false equivalencies in the abortion debate and pooh-pooh the violent rhetoric as an "all's fair as each side tries to defend their stance":

KURTZ: What George Tiller was doing was legal, although many people did not like what he was doing, but I also want to mention he was shot in 1993 when there was no “O’Reilly Factor”, like there was no Fox News. Do you think, Kathleen, that the people pointing the fingers at O’Reilly with varying degrees of fervor are politicizing this tragedy?

PARKER: Well, of course they are. This is…this is the Topic du Jour anyway, because of Obama’s recent address to Notre Dame. It’s on everyone’s mind. And you know, any opportunity for the pro-choice people to make their case more strongly is going to be taken advantage of, and same…and vice versa. I mean, we’re always listening to the extremes on either side. They’re the squeakiest wheels, the loudest voices and they get the attention.

So denouncing organizations that foment violence like Operation Rescue is the equivalent of shooting women's health providers? Defending the rights of women to make a legal choice is an extreme position? Really? Ugh, the morality of the "Moral Majority" is enough to make you sick.

But here's where it gets funny. After denouncing the media for going after Bill O'Reilly, Parker actually agrees with all those liberal talking heads (seriously, someone point out to me where these multitudes of liberals are, I need to do some DVR programming) that this tragic event should illustrate how important it is not to broadcast such violent rhetoric:

PARKER: I would love for the outcome of this to be that O’Reilly—and all of these talking heads who become so completely over the top so many times—just to say look, this is a teaching moment. We’re not gonna do this anymore. We’re not …we’re gonna make our cases as strongly, we’re going to be passionate, but we’re going to tone down the rhetoric. I mean, wouldn’t that be a great result?

Well, yes, it would, Kathleen...and that's why we're saying that Bill O'Reilly should take responsibility for that kind of violent rhetoric. Is that so hard to understand?

PARKER: The media followed the fire, clearly. You know, wherever the heat is, that’s where—and I’m part of the media, I know how this works, I’ve done this for a long time—where the action is. But there is, I think, the media are always going to defend the pro-choice position. They’re less likely to portray sympathetically the pro-life position, that’s just a fact.

Damn, and just when I thought you were getting it, Kathleen. The media (which is neither monolithic nor particularly liberal-leaning) is not defending the pro-choice position, you nimrod. That's the law of the land, whether you like it or not. Violating laws--like murder and terrorist acts--and trying to disrespect civil rights of others is not a sympathetic position for anyone to advocate.

If you want an example of how "centrism" is its own specially blinkered ideology, check out the rant from David Zurawik, the Baltimore Sun's media critic, yesterday on CNN's Reliable Sources with Howard Kurtz:

OLBERMANN: You saved no one, Mr. Cheney. All you did was help kill Americans.

In the name of God, go.

(END VIDEO CLIP) KURTZ: David Zurawik, what do you make of a cable culture where some of these anchors and hosts get really, really mad, or upset or emotional, and it seems to work for them?

ZURAWIK: Howie, they're speaking for a visceral response. And honestly -- I don't want to overstate this, Howie, and you know from time to time I do -- risk that. But it's really that path lies fascism.

I mean, what we need as a democracy is reliable information. This is the opposite of it.

And by the way, that clip of Olbermann just really, I think, encapsulates it. This is a bizarro world or cartoon version of Edward R. Murrow with the cadence and this arch rhetoric and all this, but he is saying madman stuff.

So, heated debate is the sign of fascism? Sounds like Zurawick has been reading Jonah Goldberg.

A clue for David Zurawick: Keith Olbermann may have been contentious and even tendentious, but there's a factual case behind his observations that Dick Cheney likely did not save any lives -- after all, 3,000 Americans died on his watch on 9/11, and there is simply no public evidence whatsoever that the measures he enacted afterward actually thwarted any serious terrorist acts -- and his actions in promoting the invasion of Iraq in fact cost thousands of American lives, and over a hundred thousand Iraqi civilians' lives.

That's called robust debate. Fascism, on the other hand, entails the antithesis of debate -- it argues for the elimination of the opposition, not engagement. And it acts accordingly. When we see Keith Olbermann organizing or simply encouraging street thugs to go out and beat up Dick Cheney and his supporters, then he might have a legitimate concern about fascism.

Moreover, there's nothing quite as overheated, as contentious and tendentious, as calling people fascists, is there? -- particularly when you use the term as carelessly and thoughtlessly as Zurawick does here. Hello, pot, meet kettle.

But the really bizarre aspect of this is that Zurawick is really most upset about MSNBC in general, who he attacked throughout the segment (he doesn't like their weekend fill-in programming, but exactly what kind of media critic tries to claim that fill-in programming is evidence that MSNBC doesn't staff its national bureaus? Besides an utterly ignorant one, that is?).

Moreover, Zurawick seems to think the MSNBC invented the ideologically leaning opinion-news format that has him so worked up:

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TIME"s Joe Klein went after Rush Limbaugh and didn't hold back any punches. The topic was Wanda Sykes and her routine at the WH Correspondents Dinner. She hit Rushbo. and conservatives are so upset.

KLEIN: This is just comedy. And we're talking about a guy in Rush Limbaugh who is inappropriate half the time I hear him on the radio.

CARPENTER: Yes, but he doesn't go to the White House Correspondents' Dinner to... (CROSSTALK)

KLEIN: But he describes himself as an entertainer. Wanda Sykes, entertainer. This is entertainment.

CARPENTER: But would you hold up Rush Limbaugh at these dinners to tell those jokes?
KLEIN: So could Rush. He could be in a lot better taste on a daily basis in which he is delivering misinformation, lies to a large audience in America. That is far more serious than telling a couple of jokes at a banquet.

KURTZ: Well, "lies" is a strong word, but we'll come back to that another time.

Klein was surprisingly candid in his assessment of Limbaugh and what he says on the air. Kurtz got stunned when Joe called Rush an outright liar. He also defends Sykes right to do what she will as a comedian.

(transcript below the fold via CNN)

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(h/t Heather at Video Cafe)

Howard Kurtz hit FOX News for their promotion of the "Tea Party" protests on CNN's Reliable Sources. He actually says the shows are now "a full-fledged Fox fight."

Transcript:

KURTZ: The folks at Fox News have found something to be fore in this age of Obama. They are firmly in favor of tea parties.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KURTZ (voice-over): On Wednesday -- that would be April 15th -- there will be tax protests around the country on the theme of the original Boston Tea Party. TaxDayTeaParty.com says it was inspired by that rant against President Obama's mortgage aid plan by CNBC's Rick Santelli.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: President Obama, are you listening?

NARRATOR: From sea to shining sea, in every city, we, the people, take our nation back.

KURTZ: Among those backing what's being billed as a grassroots movement, a conservative blogger, Michelle Malkin, a Fox contributor. Newt Gingrich, the former House-speaker-turned-Fox-analyst, will also will be attending one of the parties. Fox News, whose new online slogan is "Just Say No to Biased Media," began publicizing the protests, and soon some hosts were signing on.

GLENN BECK, FOX NEWS: We're getting ready for next week's Tax Day tea parties. All across the country, people coming together to let the politicians know, OK, enough spending.

SEAN HANNITY, FOX NEWS: And, of course, April 15th, our big show coming out of Atlanta. It's Tax Day, our Tax Day tea party show. Don't forget, we're going to have "Joe the Plumber."

KURTZ: Now, the hosts at Rupert Murdoch's network all make up their own minds, right? But soon the tax protest became a full-fledged Fox fight.

BECK: Fox News with "Your World With Neil Cavuto" is going to be live in Sacramento, California at 4:00 p.m.. That's 4:00 p.m. Eastern, 1:00 p.m. Pacific. Our show is going to be at the Alamo at our regular time. Then "Hannity" will be in Atlanta, Georgia, at 9:00 p.m. Eastern, 6:00 p.m. Pacific. And then Greta is live in Washington, D.C., 10:00 p.m. Eastern, 7:00 p.m. Pacific Time.

KURTZ: These hosts said little or nothing about the huge deficits run up by President Bush, but Barack Obama's budget and tax plans have driven them to tea.

On the other hand, CNN and MSNBC may have dropped the ball by all but ignoring the protests.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KURTZ: Glenn and company joining the somewhat over-caffeinated tea parties. They are commentators who are paid for their point of view, and these aren't Republican Party events. At least not officially. Obviously, they're playing to their conservative base.

The test for me is whether these Fox hosts occasionally find something nice to say about President Obama. In the interest of being fair and balanced, of course.

The right-wingers want to know how FOX is financing this movement? It's because they are endlessly promoting it on every show that has. The hosts are saying they will be covering the event as if it's a presidential debate.

And that type of publicity costs, ladies and gentleman. It costs big time, and FOX is giving thousands upon thousands of dollars of free advertising to a movement that is being financed by right-wing special-interest groups who DO NOT care about the working class in America. It's shameful for a TV network to engage in such slobbering programming, but it's FOX and Roger Ailes. They use their media as a wedge to attack liberals and Democratic politicians every single day. It's what Ailes has lived for ever since he was a Nixon operative.

It's nice that Howard Kurtz admits that FOX is acting like a propaganda network, but when he says CNN and MSNBC might be missing the boat, he cheapens his complaints somewhat. CNN and MSNBC are smart enough to know what's happening here. They've obviously made a conscious choice not to feed the Bonfires of Wingnuttery.

You Tube

Steve Kroft visited the set of Reliable Sources to talk about his interview with President Obama on 60 Minutes.

KURTZ: Now, one of the things you asked about that's making some headlines this morning was Vice President Cheney, who was on "STATE OF THE UNION" last Sunday, was asked by John King about Barack Obama's presidency. And Cheney pointed out, the closing of the Guantanamo Bay prison, or the plans to close it, I should say, and said that he believes that President Obama is making America less safe.

You asked Barack Obama about that, and the president said, "How many terrorists have actually been brought to justice under these Cheney philosophy?" Obama said, "It hasn't made us safer. What it has been is great advertisement for anti-American sentiment."

Were you surprised that he went back at Cheney as hard as he did?

KROFT: I guess I was a little bit surprised. I thought there were going to be two responses. I think that either the first response was going to be, "I don't want to talk about Dick Cheney, it's Dick Cheney," or he was going to tee off on him, which he decided to do very, very aggressively. So I was a little surprised.

I'd like to know when Kurtz is going to ask if anyone was surprised that Vice President Cheney "teed off" on President Obama rather than asking if he deserved the same treatment back. Once Cheney opened his mouth as far as I'm concerned, the gloves were off. The President has a right to defend himself against the likes of Cheney, ex-Vice President or not.

Every "news organization" in town used Cheney's interview as an excuse to repeat his right wing talking points as a lead in to question Democrats with for a week or two straight after he gave that sorry excuse for an interview with Mr. Human Events John King. I would have been disappointed had the President not responded the way he did.

[media=7644 showimage] (h/t Heather)

ON CNN's Reliable Sources, Howard Kurtz tells us that what Sean Hannity says makes him a "relevant" news source.

KURTZ: Come back to this sort of scapegoat argument, because we had some conservative pundits -- I mean, the thing here is that both liberals and conservatives are equally ticked off I think about the bonuses. We had some conservative commentators like Sean Hannity saying Tim Geithner, the Treasury Secretary, should be fired. And then within about a day or two, I would see stories that would say, "Tim Geithner: Can He Survive?"

So, again, are we stepping out of the reporting role, into the role of trying to nail some of these officials?

ARAVOSIS: I think what is interesting in this case with Geithner is you see a lot of liberal critics as well. And Paul Begala, this morning on CNN, compared Geithner to Rumsfeld going into the war. And not in a good way. The fact that you have so many liberals bringing up the fact that they're not sure that Geithner should have been there to start with and that he should remain -- Sean Hannity is irrelevant. I mean, he's like Rush Limbaugh.

KURTZ: But he's not irrelevant.

ARAVOSIS: Of course he's going to criticize. I know, but my point is, Sean Hannity and the right will always say those things. They don't create the news. What's created the news is the fact that liberals have also joined in. That's newsworthy and that's interesting.

John makes a good point. And you wonder why our country is so messed up. I'd like Howard Kurtz to explain to us why anything Sean Hannity says about Democratic politicians or anything in politics is relevant? He's a right wing talking point machine that misquotes and lies at every turn and gets paid millions of dollars to do so, but to Howard, he's relevant. Relevant to whom and/or what?

I'll tell you. Hannity is relevant to the Village insiders because, as Howard said, as soon as Hannity said Tim should be fired, the media picked up on it immediately. Why does that happen? Is Glenn Beck relevant too? Will the media be looking for those FEMA camps with him? We highlight on C&L these right wing propagandists to expose how insane their positions are and how they influence the "liberul press." It's basically been part of our mission statement from the beginning. Before liberal blogs came aboard, the right wingers were able to run roughshod over the media and our country without any critical analysis or context for the most part. That has changed dramatically, as most of America is turned off by the likes of The Limbaugh National Committee.

This even came as a surprise to me as much as it did to Howard Kurtz via CNN.

KURTZ: Before we go to break, author Bernard Goldberg was scheduled to appear on this program to talk about his new book on media bias – until Friday, when he abruptly canceled, without explanation, even though his people had approached us.

Now, I assume Bernie respects my work. His book, about the press supposedly being in the tank for Barack Obama, quotes me and my articles several times. There it is. He’s been out flogging the thing with Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly, Lou Dobbs – people who agree with him. Do you think, maybe, he doesn’t want to leave his pals and face some skeptical questioning? Come on, Bernie, we’ll have a good debate on this issue, one-on-one, without bias. You’re welcome here anytime.

Notice the only CNN host Kurtz mentioned Goldberg interviewed with?. Dobbs. He's right up there with Hannity and friends. Is Bernie afraid of Kurtz? I wouldn't have thought so.

I'll bet Goldberg didn't want to face questions about matters such as this:

In yet another instance of mangling the facts to show purported media favoritism toward then-presidential candidate Barack Obama, Bernard Goldberg writes in his new book: "Finally, in the last month of the campaign, the [New York] Times returned to the Obama-Ayers story, but only after McCain and (mostly) Palin began making it an issue on the campaign trail." In fact, in what ABC News' Imtiyaz Delawala reported was the "first time" Gov. Sarah Palin raised Obama's connection to former Weather Underground member William Ayers, Palin actually cited the October 4, 2008, New York Times story to which Goldberg refers. Indeed, a Media Matters for America search* of the Nexis database found no reports of Palin mentioning Obama's connection to Ayers prior to the publication of the October 4 Times article.

Here's the video:

Reliable Sources asked a question about the talking heads on TV that have been chattering about the VP picks.

Matthew T. Felling, makes a great point about holding them accountable for a change and that's something I've talked about also:

Felling: I wish that we would see some accountability, where if somebody gets it right, you know, they get a little bit more airtime in the fall, but if somebody gets it wrong, they are grounded.

Pundits taking a little responsibility for their opinions for a change. Wow, what a concept. I'd love to keep a score card on all of them and see how their opinions come out. Would Bill Kristol have racked up so many demerits for his views  by now that he'd be kicked off TV already? Fat chance.

I wrote this post with Michael Hanlon in mind: C&L’s Accountability for the Punditocracy Proposal

Here’s a few things the networks can do to clean up their act.

1) Set up an Ombudsman with a staff for each network that isn’t an employee of their corporation and have a weekly segment devoted to policing the media. They will also be available to take complaints reported by individual citizens and investigate them thoroughly.

2) Replay clips of each pundit when they’ve been proven wrong and let them explain their positions and why they thought they were right and ask them how they will correct their mistakes in the future.

3) Keep track of their infractions and set up a benchmark, like a 3 strikes your out rule for pundits. When they hit the benchmark, suspend them for a period of time so they can reflect on their mistakes.

4) When they return to work, ask them why they should be believed in the future.

5) It would be nice if they stopped using pundits that we know have been wrong over and over again.

(transcript below the fold)

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Since Scotty McClellan came out with his new book called "What Happened," in which he was very harsh on President Bush over a host of issues including partisianship, the Iraq war and the Valerie Plame leak---there has been a very interesting response to it. It's expected that the White House and the rest of the 28%ers would attach him as not qualified for the job, incompetent, a traitor, a phony and a kook, but I think the media has offered up some of the most informative opinions on him and in essence about themselves because he attacked on their war coverage. Martha Raddatz, ABC chief White House correspondent not surprisingly defends her coverage and then tells us something that I would have expected to come from the lips of from David Frum.

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RADDATZ: Yet, he seemed like a robot with a new software program on this one. I mean he was on message. It was just a very different message that he was -- he was delivering.

Is he a Cylon or part of the Borg!

He's not even human now. But she was never pressured to change her coverage.

RADDATZ: First of all, we're not a monolithic thing here. But my own experience, and I say this from the bottom of my heart, I was never pressured at all. But in the end, and I think Scott McClellan writes this, George Bush decided to take the country to war even though most people believe there were weapons of mass destruction. It was his decision that sent us to war. But I got absolutely no pressure

Some people needed that push and some people didn't.

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Howard Kurtz covered the Military General propaganda story that the NY Times story uncovered last Sunday morning and did a very good job with it. (I'm usually fairly critical of him) Colonel Ken Allard, a former military analyst for NBC, said that there certainly were conflicts of interest that these former Generals held when they went on TV as pundits selling the positive side of the Iraq war. Lawrence DiRita, the former Pentagon spokesman under Secretary Don Rumsfeld, was on to offer the "other side" of the issue. Sure thing, LDR. Kurtz did call him out:

Download | play Download | play

" It sounds like you were kind of manipulating these folks."

DiRita had a good laugh at our expense over the fact that the Times called the propaganda manipulation war machine a "sophisticated program." That's really hysterical. This is a horrible affair that has led to so much destruction and broken lives that I don't know how DiRita can even show up on the set of CNN and sit there and still peddle his destructive talking point garbage. But Allard levied the real charges against the Generals and the Pentagon when he admitted:

KURTZ: Do you think it was a conflict of interest of some of your fellow former officers to be in that kind of a...

ALLARD: I absolutely do, because the reason why you're there is to offer the public, for whatever the reason you have, however good you are, whatever your opinion matters, is an honest opinion. You offer that without any hope of remuneration, without any hope of reward. That's basically -- the reward you're getting is what CNN, Fox or NBC News pays you to be there. That's it.

KURTZ: Fox analyst Tim Eads was quoting as saying that when he talked about the war or terrorism on television, he held his tongue for fear that "... some four-star could call up and say, 'Kill that contract.'" He was involved in military contracts.

Glenn Greenwald has a great piece posted whhich typifies that MSM's non-response to this story on Salon called: Brian Williams' "response" to the military analyst story

After I wrote about Williams' blog item yesterday, his blog was deluged with commenters angrily demanding to know why he has failed to address the NYT expose. In response, Williams wrote a new blog item last night in which he purports -- finally -- to respond to the story, and I can't recommend highly enough that it be read by anyone wanting to understand how our establishment journalist class thinks and acts. The essence of Williams' response: he did absolutely nothing wrong. Nor did any of the military analysts used by NBC News. Nor did his network. These are all honest, patriotic men whose integrity is beyond reproach. Here's but a sampling of Williams' defense...read on

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Emails are circulating that Jason Leopold has apparently decided to leave Truthout to start his own site, BackgroundBriefing.org, sometime in the next few months. Truthout's Executive Director Marc Ash assured readers that Leopold's departure is in no way related to Leopold's reporting back in May of '06 that Karl Rove had been indicted and that he had tendered his resignation -- stories that every last one of us who waited so impatiently for Fitzmas remembers all too well -- stories that never panned out but Marc Ash asserts that Truthout "stood by the factual accuracy of our reports, and we stand by them now." While that's probably true enough as that all happened more than a year and a half ago, certainly that whole saga took a heavy toll on the organization ever since.

In Leopold's defense, perhaps we may yet find out someday that his sealed indictment story was right all along but it seems a safer bet that he was punked by Rove and Co., and in Jason's case, that sure wouldn't be the first time he tried to deliver the goods on a story bigger than most journos out there could handle and came out on the short end of the stick. I will say that there's something to be admired for even being willing to try to unravel one of the biggest corporate scandals of all-time and to come out so strongly against a venomous White House like he did, but there's also been a lot of harsh criticism of Leopold's work along the way: Two that stand out is this one in the Columbia Journalism Review and another in WaPo by Howie Kurtz, so it comes as quite a surprise (Nicole spotted it) that Howie apparently just last week decided to post a comment at the bottom of the year and a half old CJR article, blasting the author and defending Leopold's reporting, which he wrote "has since proved reliable and trustworthy."

That's quite an endorsement from a former critic-- if it's true that Howie Kurtz wrote it and it wasn't someone else posing as him in the comments. I'm just sayin', because if it was Howie, doesn't he owe Jason something in an article to that effect, and not just some buried comment on an ancient thread that seemingly goes against what he's previously said in print?

I watched in amazement last Sunday to the opening segments of his telecast of Reliable Sources. Kurtz covered the WGA strike and wondered if Jon Stewart and Jay Leno should just get off their asses and write some of their own material. And Stewart should maybe do more interviews. I'm not kidding, this is the Washington Post and CNN media critic and he has no clue how difficult it is to write one episode of a show. The Daily Show employs a football team of writers on their staff to come up with the brilliant TV that we see. We expect the wingnut critic Medved to feed into the "Hollywood is bad" meme so why does Leno suck come naturally to him, but Kurtz should know better. Pozner explains that the strike is all about union busting....

MICHAEL MEDVED:...And this clearly just weakens the whole institution of television.

It's also very disillusioning, as you were indicating before, Howie, that some of the funniest people in America who are famous for their adlibs and their quickness are so reliant on writers. I think it makes people like Jay Leno look bad.

KURTZ: I've sort of wondered myself why Leno and Letterman and Jon Stewart don't try -- and maybe they will eventually be forced to do this -- to put on a different kind of show without writers where you rely more on interviews and so forth.

KURTZ: Stagehands also went on strike yesterday, closing down all the major plays in New York. So it seems like there is a plague of this.

Jennifer Pozner, it kind of reminds me of baseball. There's plenty of money in TV, lots of profit being made. It seems like there should be enough money to work out a reasonable settlement.

Do you think that on some level the Hollywood studios want this strike?

POZNER: I think -- I think that they are looking to bust the union. I think that they know that Internet downloads, distribution to cell phones, iPods and even technologies that aren't in creation yet are the way that we, the majority of people, are going to be seeing television, you know, content, not on the actual tube.

The last time that the Writers Guild had an agreement, we didn't have DVDs. We didn't have the Internet. We didn't have any of the new technology and distribution systems. So what the writers are looking for is basically any type of piece of that pie. They're looking for fair compensation. It's a basic labor issue.

And as we know, corporate media companies are trying to drive every last red cent out of the writers' content. There would be none of these TV shows that, Michael, you said people want to see. There would be no content without the writers, and the writers are trying to get anything. It's the height of nickel and diming. Well, not even nickel and diming. They're not even asking for a dime.

KURTZ: Maybe...

POZNER: And they don't want to give them a nickel.

KURTZ: Maybe self-destructive for all sides.

"Self destructive for all sides," is Kurtz' answer. My god, who writes his material? Oh, he does, nevermind....

CNN's Howard Kurtz accused MSNBC of going "left" because they dared to offer Rosie O'Donnell a job. He picks up on a theme that Bill O'Reilly promotes daily because he's upset at Keith Olbermann for calling him out on his inaccuracies and refuses to name him. This is nothing new for Howard. He hasn't found a right wing talking point that he doesn't embrace. Here's Howie:

Download | play Download | play

KURTZ: Let me show you a little bit on this question that kind of sparked a debate about whether or not MSNBC is moving to the left. Let me show you a little bit of what you get in prime-time MSNBC, followed by Rosie O'Donnell on her blog, a video of her talking about the deal that fell apart.

Who has started a debate about this, Howard? Only Bill O'Reilly and the Malkinites. If a Presidency has started an immoral war, illegally spied on Americans, incorporated torture as national policy (and many more atrocities against the Constitution)---why does it make MSNBC a lefty for pointing "facts" out that are NEWS instead of spinning it?

Thankfully, Jennifer Pozner of Women in Media and News was on. She had to set him straight on this idiocy and actually Howie cut her off  (just like BillO) because she destroyed his talking point. Watch him defend Morning Joe because he's a Republican and should have opinions, but seems to have forgotten that Phil Donohue got FIRED for being against the Iraq invasion.

POZNER: You know what? I have to say, having done commentary on FOX News a number of times and having done Joe Scarborough's show on MSNBC, I've always had a tougher time from Scarborough. He struck me as the single-most conservative host of any show I've ever done, and I've been on "O'Reilly" and I've been on "Hannity & Colmes."

KURTZ: But what's wrong with that. It's Scarborough's...

POZNER: No, no, no. It's...

KURTZ: Hold it. It's Scarborough's job to be opinionated.

POZNER: Right. Right. Right.

KURTZ: He's a former Republican congressman.

POZNER: Yes. But when I'm saying is it's disingenuous to say MSNBC is tilting left when the majority of the people who host shows on MSNBC are either centrists or conservative.

Olbermann is a liberal host, but he doesn't necessarily promote liberal candidates or promote liberal projects. The one single show that was hosted by an actual person who called himself a leftist and had liberal and progressive guests and such was Phil Donahue's show, and it was cancelled in the run-up to the Iraq war...

KURTZ: Right, exactly.

POZNER: ... because they said from a memo from the top down they didn't want to provide an antiwar face for MSNBC.

KURTZ: OK. I've got to cut in here.

POZNER: It's about money. It's not about ideology.

KURTZ: I've got to cut in here. I want to get to Ray Richmond.

And let's look at what Howard's opinion is on FOX News' embrace of the Republican party while trying to tell everyone that they are the only "fair and balanced" network for news.

KURTZ: I think the argument that I’ve heard Olbermann make in the past about Fox News — it’s not an argument that I embrace — is that, because it poses as a news organization and puts out dangerous misinformation –

BECK: But that’s what he’s doing!

KURTZ: – and is — is a cheerleader for the Bush administration, that it’s misinforming our society. But you know what?

BECK: Howard –

KURTZ: They’re entitled to do that.

Howard, you ignorant slut! They are not entitled to do it if they want to be considered a f*&King news organization. What planet are you living on? Please, just stop masquerading as a media critic. You're entitled to your opinions also, but get honest.