Media Matters Daily Summary 07-31-08

First reported allegation in Corsi's Obama attack book is false
A WorldNetDaily.com article about author Jerome Corsi's forthcoming book, The Obama Nation, asserts that the book "points out" that "Barack Obama admitted using drugs in his autobiography but never revealed if or when he stopped." In fact, Obama wrote in his autobiography, Dreams from My Father, that he "stopped getting high" shortly after moving to New York City to attend Columbia University. Read More

After suggesting Obama was "running for Antichrist," KSFO's Sussman now says if Obama "were on trial for being a Christian ... I think [he] would walk"
While guest-hosting The Lee Rodgers Show, Brian Sussman said: "If Barack Obama were on trial for being a Christian, would there be enough evidence for a jury of his peers to pronounce him guilty? I doubt it. I think Obama would walk." Sussman had previously said of Obama's speech in Berlin, "I could have sworn he was running for Antichrist." Read More

NY Times uncritically quoted McCain's false assertion that young people won't receive Social Security
On the New York Times political blog The Caucus, reporter Michael Cooper uncritically quoted Sen. John McCain saying: "But we have to work together to save Social Security. This young man standing right in front of me -- Social Security benefits won't be there for him when he retires." In fact, according to the Social Security and Medicare Boards of Trustees, if no legislative changes are made, "Tax income would cover 75 percent of scheduled benefits in the final year (2082) of the 75-year projection period." Read More

Front-page LA Times article presents McCain's troop snub charge as he-said-she-said, but McCain camp admitted it "seem[s]" to be false
A front-page Los Angeles Times article reported that Sen. John McCain "has attacked [Sen. Barack] Obama for canceling a visit to wounded U.S. soldiers at a military hospital because he couldn't bring reporters along. Obama's campaign has angrily disputed the charge as false and misleading." But in depicting the issue as a point of contention between the Obama and McCain campaigns, the article did not note that the McCain campaign has since acknowledged that the attack, which it had included in a campaign ad, "seem[s]" to be inaccurate. Nor did the article note that numerous reports, including a separate Times article that same day, have supported the Obama campaign's position that the attack is "false and misleading." Read More

MSNBC's Buchanan adopts "hubris" theme from Milbank's falsehood-laden column, says of Obama: "[W]ho ... the heck does this guy think he is"
Pat Buchanan criticized the McCain campaign attack ad that refers to Sen. Barack Obama's "celebrity," but said "there is a truth behind all this." Touting Dana Milbank's falsehood-laden Washington Post column as "credible," Buchanan said, "[W]ho is he and who ... the heck does this guy think he is, is becoming a real issue for Barack Obama." Read More

CNN quoted far-right blogger Steve Sailer on Obama, without noting background denigrating minorities
In a CNN.com article accompanying the network's "Black in America" project, Steve Sailer, who was quoted in the article, was identified only as a "columnist for The American Conservative magazine." The article omitted any mention of Sailer's racially tinged views or his extremist associations, including his writing for VDARE.com, an "anti-immigrant" website that acknowledges publishing the work of "white nationalists." Read More

Dobbs cited Obama's "newly painted Boeing 757 aircraft" as an example of hubris, but McCain has a jet too
Lou Dobbs pointed to Sen. Barack Obama's "newly painted Boeing 757 aircraft, sprayed with, of course, the Obama campaign slogan" as an example of Obama's alleged "hubris." But Dobbs neglected to note that in June, Sen. John McCain unveiled his own Boeing 737 jet, with the words "JohnMcCain.com" emblazoned on it. Read More

Kitty Pilgrim baselessly suggested that nearly all undocumented immigrants are uninsured, study found otherwise
On CNN's Lou Dobbs This Week, Kitty Pilgrim baselessly suggested that nearly all undocumented immigrants in the United States are uninsured, asserting that "there are an estimated 47 million people in this country who don't have health insurance," and that "illegal aliens likely make up 40 percent of the uninsured in this country." For Pilgrim's assertion to be true, 18.8 million undocumented immigrants would have to be uninsured, but the National Institute for Health Care Management has estimated that there are 5.6 million uninsured undocumented immigrants. Read More

Hannity repeated false allegation that Obama distributed Western Wall prayer to media
On his radio program, Sean Hannity repeated the already debunked allegation that Sen. Barack Obama leaked a written prayer he placed in the Western Wall during his visit to Jerusalem. While a spokesman for Ma'ariv reportedly told other Israeli publications that the Obama campaign approved the publication of the prayer and that Obama gave copies of it to the media before he went to the Western Wall, The New Republic's Zvika Krieger wrote in a blog post: "I finally heard back from the Ma'ariv spokesman, who denied that the Obama campaign leaked the memo to them or gave them approval to print it, and who disavowed the alleged spokesman who gave quotes to at least four Israeli publications." Read More

WSJ's Taranto falsely suggested that Obama gave "something of an endorsement" to cash payments as reparations for slavery
The Wall Street Journal's James Taranto wrote that remarks Sen Barack Obama made at the UNITY '08 Convention "seem[ed] to be something of an endorsement of the idea of 'reparations for slavery,' which is usually taken to mean cash payments." However, when specifically asked at the convention whether he supported "offering reparations to various groups," Obama replied that "the best reparations we can provide are good schools in the inner city and jobs for people who are unemployed." Read More

ABC baselessly suggested both campaigns are equally guilty of "negative attacks"
On World News, Charles Gibson and David Wright suggested that Sen. Barack Obama's and Sen. John McCain's presidential campaigns were equally guilty of "negative attacks." However, Wright provided no evidence that Obama had engaged in negative attacks, stating only that Obama is "constantly comparing McCain to President Bush." Read More