Wednesday, May 23, 2007

Media Matters for America, May 23, 2007

Interviews of Buchanan contained falsehoods about Clinton's '02 vote on war resolution

In television appearances to promote her new book, Bay Buchanan claimed that Hillary Clinton said in a magazine article that she "didn't know" her vote in favor of the 2002 resolution authorizing the use of force against Iraq "was a vote for war." In fact, Clinton is not quoted as saying -- as Buchanan claimed -- that "I didn't know it was a vote for war," or "I didn't vote for war," and the article's context makes it clear that Clinton knew what the bill authorized. Read more



SF Chronicle called Edwards' speech fee "whopping" but ignored Giuliani's much larger fees
In a May 21 entry

to the San Francisco Chronicle's Politics Blog, Chronicle political reporter Carla Marinucci wrote, "Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards, who recently proposed an educational policy that urged 'every financial barrier' be removed for American kids who want to go to college, has been going to college himself -- as a high paid speaker, his financial records show." According to Marinucci, Edwards "charged a whopping $55,000 to speak to a crowd of 1,787 [at] the taxpayer-funded University of California at Davis on Jan. 9, 2006," before Edwards declared his intention to seek the presidency. However, Marinucci made no mention of Republican presidential contender Rudy Giuliani, who reportedly charged Oklahoma State University $100,000 for a speech he delivered in 2006 and an additional $47,000 for the use of a private jet. Read more




For the second time in a week, Dobson suggested the loss of U.S. cities to an Islamic terror attack
On the May 16 edition of his Focus on the Family radio show, Focus on the Family founder and chairman James C. Dobson broadcast an interview with evangelical pastor Michael Youssef, founder of The Church of The Apostles and host of the syndicated radio and TV program Leading the Way, from an earlier event held in Naples, Florida, in which the two discussed "Insights on Radical Islam." During the broadcast, Dobson said that "it's a matter of time" before a terror attack destroys "a city or two or three or four." Two days earlier, Dobson had cited the "danger" posed by Iran and the possibility of subsequent "pile on" attacks by "North Korea and Russia and China."
Read more



On Fox, Morgan blamed Media Matters for apparent PBS ban

On the May 21 edition of Fox News' Hannity & Colmes, conservative radio host and Move America Forward chairman Melanie Morgan addressed a May 17 statement by Linda Winslow, executive producer of Public Broadcasting Service's The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, in response to viewer complaints regarding the discussion between Morgan and VoteVets.org chairman Jon Soltz on the May 8 edition of the NewsHour. Winslow wrote: "Since the program is produced live, we can't do much to eliminate rude guests from your television screen once the segment has begun; what we can do is guarantee you will never see that person on our program again." On Hannity, Morgan accused Media Matters for America -- which published a May 9 item on Morgan's NewsHour appearance -- of encouraging "their people" to call PBS and get her banned from the network. Morgan further stated: "I am demanding an apology from Linda Winslow, because this is a woman who clearly is lying about the situation." Morgan also asserted: "PBS has a blatant anti-conservative bias. They don't want to hear a proud pro-American, pro-troop point of view," adding, "I think that ... PBS should be ashamed of itself." Read more



Glass houses? O'Reilly derided "talk show nuts" who believe U.S. will "nuke Iran"

On the May 18 broadcast of his nationally syndicated radio show, while discussing May 17 Senate negotiations on a comprehensive immigration bill, Fox News host Bill O'Reilly asserted: "Now, the far right, the hard right, somehow believes that, in the United States of America, the federal government at some point is gonna form federal squads to go in and grab people where they live or where they work and throw them out of the country. These are the talk show nuts who are telling you that they're gonna nuke Tehran." In fact, as Media Matters for America has documented, O'Reilly is among those who have predicted that the United States will eventually bomb Iran. O'Reilly's statements include:Read more

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