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Looks like Chris Wallace was in the mood to give Breitbart's buddy James O'Keefe, another plug this week as his "Power Player of the Week." Wallace's omissions about O'Keefe's record were nearly as bad as O'Keefe's deceptive video editing. Shameful.

Media Matters has more -- Wallace's "Power Player" Designation For O'Keefe Ignores His History Of Deception:

For the second time, Chris Wallace named James O'Keefe Fox News Sunday's "Power Player of the Week." But Wallace ignored O'Keefe's history of discredited claims and allegations that O'Keefe deceptively edits his videos, including the NPR video that earned him the latest "Power Player" designation. [...]

Wallace Touted ACORN Sting, Promoted Upcoming Video Release. Wallace began his "Power Player of the Week" segment by touting O'Keefe's ability to go after "big targets" and get "stunning results," regardless of "[w]hether you admire or condemn his tactics." Wallace went on to tout how O'Keefe's ACORN videos "pushed Congress to cut off federal funding," and concluded by noting that a video from "an undercover sting of a public television executive" would be released by O'Keefe in the coming week. From the March 13 edition of Fox News Sunday: [...]

Wallace Ignored Deceptive Editing Of O'Keefe's Videos

Beck's Right-Wing Website Found "Questionable Editing" In O'Keefe's NPR Video. Citing an examination of the NPR video conducted by Glenn Beck's website TheBlaze.com, Politico's Ben Smith and Slate's David Weigel reported that the video of Schiller released by O'Keefe's Project Veritas was deceptively edited to portray certain statements by Schiller out of context. Smith described the editing as "some really serious, dishonest lily-gilding." [Ben Smith, Politico, 3/11/11; David Weigel, Slate, 3/11/11; The Blaze, 3/10/11]

In Touting ACORN Video, Wallace Ignored That O'Keefe Deceptively Edited Those As Well. Wallace noted that O'Keefe's ACORN videos "pushed Congress to cut off federal funding," but he didn't mention that the videos were edited to falsely suggest criminal violations by ACORN employees. Then-California Attorney General Jerry Brown's office conducted an investigation into the ACORN videos that concluded there was no evidence of illegal activity by ACORN, and that the videos were deceptively edited. According to Brown: "[T]hings are not always as partisan zealots portray them through highly selective editing of reality. Sometimes a fuller truth is found on the cutting room floor." [California Attorney General's Office, 4/1/10]

Wallace Plucked Schiller's Statement On NPR's Federal Funding Out Of Context

Read on...

Transcript below the fold.

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PBS’s Charlie Rose gave Mike Huckabee a softball interview this week that may as well have been given by one of Huckabee’s fellow Fox contributors. After a bit of his “aw shucks” routine on how the budget of the United States ought to be written so that the average American out there who’s lucky to even know what our three branches of government are, or who’s representing them in Congress is can understand it, he moved right into Chris Christie land with telling Americans that they ought to work until they’re dead by raising the age for Social Security benefits.

Let me just be the first to say that yes, I would never, ever support someone spouting the garbage you did here and if you ever decide to get off the dole at Fox like your sister Sarah and actually run for president instead of just milking it for time on the airways as she’s done, I hope my fellow Americans will line up to tell you the same thing as well.

Huckabee apparently doesn’t know that the age to receive full Social Security benefits is not 65 now, but 67. And as Matt Yglesias at Think Progress reported, all things are not equal when it comes to life expectancy and economic status and whether your average worker out there might ever see a dime of their Social Security benefits. But hey, Huckabee’s making the big bucks now as a propagandist at Fox, so what does he care?

We need to just raise the cap on what income is taxed and problem solved with any future shortfalls in Social Security's solvency. Not asking people to work until they're physically incapable of it or dead.

Here's the chart from Matt's post on life expectancy.

And his summation:

In percentage terms, raising the retirement age from 68 to 70 would have a small impact on the expected Social Security benefits of a rich person and a large impact on the expected Social Security benefits of a poor person. It’s very regressive and a healthy share of the fiscal benefit will be lost on the back end in terms of increased disability claims.

But hey, who said those Republicans weren't fiscally conservative, right? As I've said before, I wish everyone was listening to Thom Hartmann and his recommendation to lower the retirement age instead instead of wanting us peons to work until we're too old to enjoy it like good old boy HuckaJesus does here.

Unconventional Wisdom -- The Retirement Age is Too High.

If Huckabee really thinks his positions here are defensible, I'd love to see him come on Thom's show. I'm not holding my breath. Why should he when organizations like PBS are willing to give him as big of a pass as Rupert Murdoch's channel he works for?

Transcript below the fold.

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Here's Keith back in 2007 being interviewed by another person that I deeply regret is no longer on the air, Bill Moyers. Full transcript available here.

I thought I'd share one portion of the transcript here where Keith talked about leaving MSNBC during the Monica Lewinsky scandal and whether he'd ever do it again.

BILL MOYERS: Yeah, I noticed when you a sportscaster you never took sides between the teams on the field. But a lot of people think you've taken sides now. They think you've taken sides with the progressive or liberal story.

KEITH OLBERMANN: They didn't say that a lot during the Lewinsky thing. I always find that kind of ironic as I've seen some of the criticism from the right. But, what I've done on the air in the last 4 1/2 years, and particularly in the last year and a half since the special comments began, is really journalism. It's saying here's what you're being told. Here's the identifiable objective fact to the situation. This statement from the government may be a lie. And what we all did in this country, those who had voted for this president and those who did not, was to say we're in dire trouble. We've been attacked. Let's rally around him, give him all the support we can, and we will suspend our disbelief. The moment that it began to be obvious that we were being manipulated, used-- that was when my suspicions began to take voice.

BILL MOYERS: I watched you walk off when you were at MSNBC and they were covering the Lewinsky scandal. And I believe you said, "This is ridiculous."

KEITH OLBERMANN: Yeah.

BILL MOYERS: This is drip, right?

KEITH OLBERMANN: Right.

BILL MOYERS: You walked away.

KEITH OLBERMANN: Yeah.

BILL MOYERS: Would you do it again?

KEITH OLBERMANN: I think probably it won't happen. But I would say that there were circum-- there were circumstances in this show, there was one occasion where I was prepared to go out the door an hour before one of the shows because we had one of those conflicting moments. This is very early on again. This is 2003. When we were all still in that kind of, "Gee, should we suspend our disbelief? What if he's-- what if George Bush is right and this is the kind of threat that he portrays?" He-- it's probably exaggerated because he's a politician, number one. But number two, what if he's right? I think a lot of us were saying, "Well, okay, let's just tread gently." MSNBC hired a guy named Michael Savage. And he came on and did-- not only did he do a show once a week that was basically just spattering invective on people he didn't like and these people change from week to week, but it was terribly produced. I mean, it was an awful show. And he was-- he looked like he was standing in front of a chalkboard somewhere in somebody's basement with a camera. One night I walk in, my boss is out of town. And the guy actually running the show at the point said, at countdown, said-- "We're going to run a Michael Savage commentary. I've got to go now." And he ran away. And I said, "We're not running a Michael Savage commentary. That's in the"-- and he was gone.

I called my agent. Now, I'd just gotten back to MSNBC. I left, as you said, under the Lewinsky circumstances. A lot of bridges were burned. Came back. Everybody hugged. It's three or four months in. I'm enjoying it. I think I'm making a difference. I'm getting that little sort of skeptical thing back. And here we're going to have a Michael Savage commentary in the middle of it. So I finally got a hold of my agent. And I said, "I have to walk out, don't I?" She said, "Yep, you do." And I said, "Yeah, I guess so. Well, it was a nice career." I'm going to try to get a hold of my boss in Washington. And I called him and I said, "I can't"-- he said, "Can you find some reason not to run it that doesn't pertain to the politics?" I said, "Are you saying to me if I go and look at it and it doesn't meet production standards we don't have to run it?" "I might be saying that, yes. Just give me something to work with." And I went in and looked at it and the guy repeated himself nine times. So I called the guy back and said-- "It's very badly produced. He's repeating himself. I don't think you should run it." "Okay, good enough." But those things still happen, and I'm sure they'll still happen.

Here's part two.

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John McLaughlin wrapped up part one of his year in review show on PBS with pushing the rumor that Hillary Clinton might run against President Obama in 2012 even though that has been put to rest for some time now by Clinton herself who said she's not running for another elected office.

Pat Buchanan quickly threw water on the idea given that Secretary Clinton has a WikiLeaks problem which David Corn wrote about here at Politics Daily.

I'm surprised McLaughlin hasn't decided to pack it in yet given he's 83 years old now. The sad thing is PBS could always manage to replace the show with something even worse when he finally retires.

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During a panel discussion on John King USA about PBS's decision to edit out some of Tina Fey's remarks criticizing Sarah Palin while accepting The Mark Twain Prize, Mrs. John King Dana Bash points out that this is not the first time PBS has been "accused of editing to favor Republicans" and that PBS has been accused of being too liberal. It's too bad that the panel and Bash didn't bother to point out the fact that this edit by PBS of Fey's remarks shouldn't be all that surprising to anyone paying attention since the network took a turn to the right some years ago.

That said, I don't expect anything better from anyone on CNN. Introspection as to how our media is not serving their basic purpose as the fourth estate in America isn't exactly their strong point to put it lightly. Since sadly Bill Moyers left the air at PBS... again... I'm not sure why anyone would perceive that network to be "too liberal" other than from listening to the Villager's on their television sets telling them that it is day in and day out. If anyone thinks that The McLaughlin Group or the PBS Newshour or Charlie Rose are liberal, they're not watching those shows. I consider Frontline to be fairly neutral in their reporting and that's about the extent of what I might watch on that network on any kind of a regular basis. They've got Tavis Smiley on there on a nightly basis but his show sure as hell doesn't make up for the shows that lean to the right or the loss of Bill Moyers. He just gave right wing hack Dennis Miller a sad and sorry softball interview on the same night this panel segment aired.

Here's what got ignored during this segment where they made light of the editing of Tina Fey's remarks.

PBS Panders to Right With New Programming:

A new public television program called the Journal Editorial Report, featuring writers and editors from the arch-conservative Wall Street Journal editorial page, will debut tonight on public television stations around the country. The show joins Tucker Carlson: Unfiltered, hosted by conservative CNN pundit Tucker Carlson, and a planned program featuring conservative commentator Michael Medved as part of what many see as politically motivated decisions to bring more right-wing voices to public television.

According to reports in the public broadcasting newspaper Current (1/19/04, 6/7/04) and in the New Yorker (6/7/04), conservative complaints about the alleged liberal bias of the program Now With Bill Moyers contributed to the momentum to "balance" the PBS lineup. The new programs seem to be the result of that pressure. In fact, Now will soon see its role on public television diminish, as the program is cut from one hour to 30 minutes when Moyers voluntarily leaves the program later this year. He will be replaced by co-anchor David Brancaccio, formerly of the public radio business show Marketplace, who expresses no obvious ideology. If Carlson, Medved and the staff of the Wall Street Journal editorial page are all necessary to balance the liberal Moyers, by 2005 there will be no one on PBS to balance them. Read on...

And there's this.

PBS Stolen by Right Wing in Cunning Bait and Switch:

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After John McLaughlin fawning over "dueling divas and media darlings" Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann, he asks if the tea partiers are looking for a national leader. Eleanor Clift points out that most people don't think Palin is qualified to be president, calls the tea parties a Ron Paul movement and now foot soldiers for the Republican Party.

Monica Crowley pulls out the old 40% of the tea party is Democrats or Independents bull-pucky we've debunked before here at C&L. Then she plays the evil feminist women won't let Sarah Palin into their ranks because she's not a liberal nonsense. He reasoning; liberal women don't support Palin and Bachmann politically. Eleanor Clift points out how ridiculous that is. If anyone thought this show was bad before they let Crowley on there, she's really just taken it straight into the ClusterFox talking points sewer. Hey Monica... besides Eleanor's points, maybe most liberal women don't support them because they're both bats**t crazy. How about that for some food for thought?

Pat Buchanan tries to portray the tea partiers as "swing voters". McLaughlin asks Mort Zuckerman (who's on the liberal side of the panel where he doesn't belong btw) what he thinks of Bachmann's "gangster government" comment. Zuckerman says the "rhetoric is misplaced" and "unnecessarily arousing" isn't sure who they're appealing to. Besides being the understatement of the year there, I can tell you exactly who they're "arousing" Mort and one of them is sitting across the aisle from you. Eleanor Clift thankfully corrects Pat's nonsense about them being "swing voters". Monica Crowley of course defends Bachmann's over the top rhetoric.

McLaughlin wraps up the segment by asking if a Palin/Bachmann ticket is plausible or a conservative fantasy. Even Palin's fanboy Buchanan thinks it's a bit much. Eleanor Clift calls them the Thelma and Louise of the Republican Party, even Crowley admits that will never happen and Mort Zuckerman admits Palin is going to have a problem with her voice being "shrill". Yeah, like fingernails on a chalkboard Mort.

It was like watching an episode of the Twilight Zone hearing even the possibility of those two running together on a national ticket; Thelma and Louise indeed. Bill Moyers is leaving PBS and this relic is probably going to stay on there until he's 100... just ain't right...(sigh).

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David Brooks excuses Liz Cheney and his "friend" Bill Kristol's fear mongering ad by saying we've been too mean to Dick Cheney. Instead of actually addressing how corrosive their attacks have been, Brooks tries to write it off as politics as usual. Sorry David, but it's not politics as usual unless you think the sort of rhetoric used by McCarthy should be considered part of our civil discourse now.

Transcript via PBS.

JIM LEHRER: Let's go to another disagreement...

JIM LEHRER: ... the so-called al-Qaida seven. Liz Cheney and her group have criticized some Justice Department lawyers because they once represented some Guantanamo detainees.

Where do you come down on that?

DAVID BROOKS: Well, I think the ad, which sort of accused whose values do they have, do they have al-Qaida or Taliban values, I thought that was tremendously unfortunate.

I mean, it's just part of a long range of corrosive language. And, to be fair to Liz Cheney, if you Google Taliban and Liz Cheney, millions of people have called her a member of the Taliban and made similar charges. But it's a series of steps away from the, you know, normal way any of us should be talking to each other.

MARK SHIELDS: The idea of the al-Qaida seven, I mean, there are those of us who are old enough to remember the Chicago Seven, when incitement to riot and the seven protesters, militants, whatever you want to call them, disrupted as a matter of course, and it became a famous court case at the time and trial.

I just thought it was more than unfortunate. I thought it was offensive. And I thought it was, frankly, un-American, in the true sense of the word.

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Bill Moyers reaired part of his interview with Howard Zinn from Dec. 11, 2009.

Howard Zinn died at the age of 87 on January 27, 2010

"They're willing to let people think about mild reforms and little changes, and incremental changes, but they don't want people to think that we could actually transform this country."

Transcript via Bill Moyers Journal.

BILL MOYERS: Like Richard Trumka, the historian Howard Zinn, who died this week, was a man who believed that working people couldn't wait for a better life - they had to fight for it.

He once wrote, "historically, government, whether in the hands of Republicans or Democrats, conservatives or liberals, has failed its responsibilities until forced to by direct action: sit-ins and freedom rides for the rights of black people, strikes and boycotts for the rights of workers, mutinies and desertions of soldiers in order to stop a war. Voting is easy and marginally useful, but it is a poor substitute for democracy, which requires direct action."

Howard Zinn didn't just write history, he lived it, practicing what he preached, gaining enemies and critics by leaping into the fray himself. A working class kid from Brooklyn, he came home from fighting for America in World War II, to fight alongside other Americans for justice, peace, and jobs.

His fame and popularity came from helping us see America from the ground up - as ordinary people struggling to gain and hold their place in it. When no history book told that story as it should be told, he wrote the book himself -- A PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. It became a perennial best seller.

He appeared on the JOURNAL just last month to tell us about a television special, THE PEOPLE SPEAK, based on his people's history. Here is a little of what we talked about:

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January 15, 2010 PBS McLaughlin Group

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As much as I disagree with them on so many issues, I'm glad to see David Brooks and the Wall Street Journal actually calling this terrorism fear mongering out for what it is. Playing politics to pretend there's ever any hope of catching everyone that might slip through the cracks with any security measures that are taken with our airlines.

Brooks reiterated some of what he wrote in his column at the New York Times during this interview on The Newshour on PBS. I'm quite sure the right won't be happy with them for acknowledging that the Muslim, socialist, left wing, terrorist loving, weak on national defense, non-waterboarding President Obama and his TSA might not be able to catch every one of those Underwear Bombers unless you want to do a cavity search on everyone that flies on an airplane performed personally by Dick Cheney... but somehow I think Brooks and the Wall Street Journal will survive the outrage on the right and continue to be a souce for more hackery we post about here later.

Brooks: They do a pretty good job of reducing the risk of terrorist attack. Occasionally, somebody gets through. That is going to inevitably happen.

We should have some sort of steady, level-headed response. That is the sign of a resilient nation. We don't have it. We have had the last week of the whole country going -- or at least the punditocracy -- going into semi-hysteria over this. And it's just not the sign of a serious country. And I think nobody has covered themselves with glory in all this.

John Amato:

I really hope I'm wrong, but it's probably going to happen again unfortunately. There are too many variables to control for a terrorist to always fail, but as a society we can react with maturity and a level head instead of the knee jerk FOX News led--GOP fearmongering assholes, who's only mission is to attack a Democratic president at every turn. Too bad our media doesn't use sensibility when something bad happens. Instead they point their microphones immediately at the first right wing hack that has nothing constructive to say.

Transcript via PBS below the fold.

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