Bush acknowledged he lied about Rumsfeld, but media refused to call him on it
Reporting on President Bush's announcement of Donald Rumsfeld's resignation, media outlets, with few exceptions, have avoided characterizing Bush's assertion the previous week that he wanted Rumsfeld to stay on as a "lie" or intentional misrepresentation -- this, despite Bush's own admission of a deliberate deception. Some outlets even failed to acknowledge Bush's previous statement that Rumsfeld would stay on as defense secretary until the end of his presidency. Read more
Coulter dismissed Democratic electoral gains as "pathetic" by historical standards
In her syndicated column, Ann Coulter claimed that the Democratic Party made "pathetic gains" in the November 7 midterm elections. In fact, the Democrats' gains in the House are just slightly under the average for the party out of power in the White House in the sixth-year midterm elections over the past century, and the Democrats' Senate gains are above the average. Moreover, the 2006 elections were the first sixth-year midterms since 1918 in which control of both houses of Congress switched parties. Read more
Wash. Post editorial acknowledged Republicans dominated in "negative campaigning" but said it was "because they were the ones on the defensive"
In an editorial, The Washington Post asserted that "[t]he worst offenders" of "negative campaigning" were "Republicans, but that probably was because they were the ones on the defensive." In fact, Republicans also employed vicious smears in winning the 2002 and 2004 elections. Read more
Limbaugh greets Democrats as liberators
On the November 8 broadcast of his nationally syndicated radio show, Rush Limbaugh claimed to "feel liberated" by Democratic victories in the House and Senate on November 7 because he is "no longer going to have to carry the water for people who I don't think deserve having their water carried." Limbaugh added that the Republican Congress has produced "some of this legislation coming out of there that I have just cringed at, and it has been difficult coming in here, trying to make the case for it when the people who are supposedly in favor of it can't even make the case themselves -- and to have to come in here and try to do their jobs." Read more
Matthews "going to miss" Republican incumbents who were "sent out to pasture" in midterm elections
On the November 8 edition of MSNBC's Hardball, host Chris Matthews said of Republican congressional incumbents who lost in the November 7 midterm elections: "I'm going to miss a lot of them, [Rep.] Anne Northup [R-KY], [Rep.] Jim Leach [R-IA], a lot of good people that have been sent out to pasture early in life because of this political wave." Later in the broadcast, while discussing the Virginia Senate race between Democratic challenger Jim Webb and Republican incumbent George Allen, Matthews called Allen a "cool guy," "a very whole person," and "a man who was headed toward the presidency just a few months ago" who had "his heart ripped out over this 'macaca' comment." In addition, during MSNBC's special election coverage, Matthews described Northup and Sen. Lincoln Chafee (R-RI) as "innocents" who were defeated because of the Iraq war. As Media Matters for America has documented, Matthews has displayed a pattern of heaping praise on Republicans. Read more
LA Times editorial crowned McCain the "winner" of Arizona immigration "referendum" -- but he campaigned for at least two of the losers
A Los Angeles Times editorial described Arizona's 2006 midterm election results as "[a] referendum on immigration policy" and proclaimed Sen. John McCain its "winner," even though he personally campaigned for and endorsed candidates whose defeat the editorial touted as evidence of McCain's supposed victory. Read more
Will media acknowledge they were too credulous in touting Rove's pre-election optimism?Contrary to Karl Rove's pre-election assertions -- which the media accorded significance despited his presumable responsibility to express optimism -- Democrats won control of both houses of Congress. This raises the question of whether the media were wrong in treating Rove's optimistic predictions as anything more than a job requirement. Read more
Beck cherry-picked ballot initiatives to baselessly claim "the majority of Americans seem in favor of classically Republican points of view"
Glenn Beck cited several "ballot initiatives" that voters "turned out yesterday to weigh in on" as purported evidence that "the majority of Americans seem in favor of classically Republican points of view." But Beck failed to note votes on initiatives that undermine that claim, such as approval of hikes in the minimum wage and rejection of parental notification laws. Read more
Wash. Post's Birnbaum suggested -- contrary to the evidence -- that midterm election results bode well for McCain in '08, not Clinton
The Washington Post's Jeffrey Birnbaum reported that Sen. John McCain has "long been seen as a champion of independents" and the "good news" for him is that this voting bloc played a significant role in determining the outcome of this year's elections. However, that logic overlooks the fact that independents cited the Iraq war -- which McCain supports -- as one of their top reasons for voting Democratic this year. Read more
NY Post op-ed cherry-picks polling to suggest McCain and Giuliani would "trounc[e] Democratic frontrunner Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton" in 2008
In a New York Post op-ed, Deborah Orin-Eilbeck used a poll conducted by a Republican firm to suggest that both Sen. John McCain and Rudy Giuliani would "trounc[e]" Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton in the 2008 presidential election. However, recent independent polls show Clinton either favored or much closer in those matchups. Read more
After midterms and Rumsfeld resignation, only pro-war non-Dem senators scheduled on Meet the Press
The weblog Think Progress reported that, in what will be its first broadcast on November 12 since Democrats gained control of Congress and Donald H. Rumsfeld resigned as defense secretary, NBC's Meet the Press is scheduled to feature two non-Democratic senators who have strongly supported the war in Iraq -- Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) and Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman, who, although pledging to caucus with the Democrats, ran for re-election as an independent following his loss in the Connecticut Democratic primary. Read more
Gibson on Rumsfeld's resignation: Are bin Laden and Saddam "dancing"?
While discussing Donald H. Rumsfeld's resignation as secretary of defense with Fox News military analyst Oliver North on the November 8 edition of Fox News' The Big Story, host John Gibson asked: "Is there a cave somewhere in Afghanistan with a tall guy dancing? Is there a cell in Iraq with a bearded guy dancing?" Gibson was presumably referring to Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein, respectively. Responding to Gibson, North claimed: "If they are, John, they ought to be very careful about where they dance" because U.S. troops are "looking for those kinds of terrorists" and will "kill them just as sure tomorrow as they would when Don Rumsfeld was secretary of defense." Read more
On Hannity & Colmes, DeLay falsely claimed House ethics committee never called for him to stop House violating rules
Tom DeLay falsely claimed that Alan Colmes told a "lie" when Colmes noted that the House ethics committee, in the course of admonishing DeLay for objectionable fundraising and improper use of a federal agency, called on DeLay to "temper your future actions to ensure you were in compliance with House ethics rules." In fact, the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct did indeed ask DeLay to "temper [his] future actions" to assure "full compliance ... with the applicable House rules and standards of conduct." Read more
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