Monday, October 16, 2006

Media Matters Latest, October 16, 2006

Wash. Post uncritically reported Shays's phony excuse for bringing up Chappaquiddick
The Washington Post uncritically reported Rep. Chris Shays's (R-CT) purported explanation for his reference to Chappaquiddick, claiming that he made his comment in the context of Sen. Edward M. Kennedy's appearance with Shays's opponent, Diane Farrell, whose calls for Speaker J. Dennis Hastert's resignation over the Mark Foley scandal, Shays said, were made before the evidence of Hastert's "serious mishandling" of the scandal had come out. But Shays himself was one of the first Republicans to comment on evidence that the House leadership knew of some of Foley's alleged communications with pages. He was quoted in The New York Times on October 1 -- two days after the scandal broke -- saying that if any House leaders "knew or should have known the extent of this problem, they should not serve in leadership." Read more



After ignoring Hastert land deal, Time highlighted Reid real estate controversy
Time reported that Democrats "got an unwelcome distraction this week when Senate minority leader Harry Reid ... found himself embroiled in a real estate scandal," but the magazine has ignored reports from June that House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert made almost $2 million on the sale of land in Illinois after reportedly taking an active role in the inclusion in a transportation spending bill of an earmark for a highway project near the property. Read more


Suggesting that both Clinton and Bush buckled on NK nuke program, Russert ignored halt of plutonium production under Clinton
NBC host Tim Russert suggested that both the Bush and Clinton administrations "talk[ed] tough with North Korea" but allowed its nuclear program "to go forward." But Russert ignored the fact that North Korea did not produce any plutonium, nor build or test any nuclear bombs, during Clinton's eight years in office. Read more


Hume smeared "[un]popular" and not "respected" "Speaker Nancy Pelosi," claimed she would harm an '08 Clinton presidential bid
Fox News' Brit Hume baselessly smeared House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), stating that she "is not a popular figure or respected figure nationally." Hume asserted that having Pelosi as speaker of the House "would not be terrifically positive" for "the possibility of Hillary Clinton being nominated or even elected in 2008," but he cited no specifics to support this claim, and recent public opinion polls do not back up his suggestion that the public has formed a negative view of Pelosi. Read more


Woodward criticizes White House press corps' "wrong tack by asking [Bush] general questions"
During a discussion about President Bush's October 11 press conference on the October 15 edition of NBC's The Chris Matthews Show, author and Washington Post assistant managing editor Bob Woodward advised White House correspondents to be more "specific" in their questioning of Bush because "so often, they go off on the wrong tack by asking general questions." Woodward stated: Read more

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