Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Media Matters Daily Summary 08-27-08

Fox News aired two minutes of Democratic keynote address, discussed Ayers instead
On August 26, Fox News aired just over two minutes of former Virginia Gov. Mark Warner's keynote address to the convention. After returning from a commercial, Alan Colmes stated, "In other election news, an independent group supporting John McCain released an ad last week attacking [Sen.] Barack Obama's ties to former Weather Underground leader Bill Ayers," and aired an ad from the Obama campaign responding to the independent ad. Colmes and Sean Hannity then interviewed Rudy Giuliani. Read More

AP "FactCheck" distorted Dems' claim that McCain voted with Bush "90 percent of the time"
Purporting to give "[s]ome examples of who said what -- and what they left out," an AP "FactCheck" pointed to Pennsylvania Sen. Bob Casey's and Gov. Ed Rendell's statements that Sen. John McCain votes with President Bush "90 percent of the time" or more and stated that "McCain wasn't always a staunch Bush backer. In 2005, his support for Bush's position on legislation reached a low of 77 percent." But contrary to the AP's suggestion, neither Casey nor Rendell asserted that McCain was "always a staunch Bush backer." Read More

Minutes after Begala debunked the falsehood, CNN caption claimed Casey "was denied a speaking role ... because he opposed abortion rights"
During CNN's Democratic National Convention coverage, Paul Begala debunked the claim that Bob Casey Sr. was not allowed to speak at the 1992 Democratic convention because of his opposition to abortion rights. Less than 15 minutes later, CNN displayed the false on-screen caption: "FACT: Casey's father was denied a speaking role at the 1992 Democratic convention because he opposed abortion rights." MSNBC's Chris Matthews also repeated the false claim. Read More

KSFO's Rodgers: "With that screechy, fingernails-on-the-blackboard voice of hers, it is impossible for Hillary Clinton to deliver a great speech."
KSFO's Lee Rodgers said of Sen. Hillary Clinton's speech at the convention, "With that screechy, fingernails-on-the-blackboard voice of hers, it is impossible for Hillary Clinton to deliver a great speech." Rodgers later said that Bill and Hillary Clinton are hoping Sen. Barack Obama "falls flat on his face so the Hilldebeest can have another run in four years, and Billy Bentpecker can hide behind the curtain in the Oval Office telling Hillary what he wants her to do as president of the United States." Read More

Brokaw misquoted and misrepresented Bill Clinton remark he described as "pretty provocative"
Misquoting and misrepresenting what he described as a "pretty provocative" remark by former President Bill Clinton, Tom Brokaw claimed that Clinton said, "[Y]ou've got candidate X and candidate Y. Candidate X, you agree with everything that he stands for, but you have some real doubts about his experience. Candidate Y only believes in half the things but you really trust his experience -- who you gonna vote for?" But Clinton did not raise the issue of "experience" in his remarks, and Brokaw did not mention -- as he did when discussing Clinton's remarks earlier on MSNBC Live -- that Clinton said the hypothetical he described "has nothing to do with what's going on now." Read More

On Fox & Friends, Trump claimed unchallenged that Obama plans to have "everybody ... pay double and triple the taxes"
During an appearance on Fox & Friends, Donald Trump claimed, "The worst thing that can happen [in this economy] is everybody has to pay double and triple the taxes, and that's what [Sen. Barack] Obama is looking to do." Fox & Friends co-hosts did not challenge Trump's claim, even though it is false. Obama has proposed cutting taxes for low- and middle-income families and raising taxes only on households earning more than $250,000 per year in income. Read More

PolitiFact's Adair falsely suggested his site found equal lack of truth this summer from Obama and McCain camps
PolitiFact.com editor Bill Adair falsely suggested that Sen. Barack Obama's and Sen. John McCain's campaigns have been equally guilty of making what PolitiFact has characterized as inaccurate claims in public statements and political ads this summer. In fact, since June 7, 57 percent of Obama's claims assessed by PolitiFact were rated "mostly true" or better, while 62 percent of McCain's statements assessed by PolitiFact were described as "half true" or worse. Further, McCain has twice received PolitiFact's sharpest critique, "pants on fire," a designation not given to any Obama statement. Read More

AP's Fournier counts the "I's" in Clinton's speech, but her focus was often outward
In an AP "analysis," Ron Fournier asserted that Sen. Hillary Clinton's convention speech, which he described as "laced 17 times by some variation of the pronoun 'I,' " was part of the "bill" Sen. Barack Obama had to pay for Clinton's agreement to "end[] her historic bid for the presidency in a manner that, however messy, still left Obama in a stronger position than Kennedy left Jimmy Carter in 1980, when the Massachusetts senator extracted platform concessions and shrank from the traditional unity show at the final gavel." In fact, Media Matters counted 21 instances in the speech in which Clinton used "I." But in at least 13 of these instances, Clinton was not focusing on herself and was instead making one of three points: her support for Obama's election; the importance of the 2008 election; and who really matters in this election. Read More

Despite lack of evidence, Fox News suggested Clinton's speech was "more diss than endorsement for Obama"
On America's Newsroom, during a segment about Sen. Hillary Clinton's convention speech, Fox News aired on-screen text that asked: "Was Hillary Clinton's speech more diss than endorsement for [Sen. Barack] Obama?" But at no point during the segment did Fox News present evidence that Clinton's speech was, in fact, a "diss" of Obama. Read More

Quinn introduced segment about Hillary Clinton by playing Elton John's "The Bitch Is Back"
On the August 27 edition of the syndicated radio program The War Room with Quinn & Rose, co-host Jim Quinn introduced a segment on Sen. Hillary Clinton by saying, "By the way, that brings us to our Hillary Heads-Up," and then playing audio of the Elton John song "The Bitch Is Back." Quinn then said, "I was going to play 'Ding Dong, the Witch is Dead.' But you know what, I -- you never know with the Clintons." Read More

Dick Morris: Biden ran for president "because of a menopausal midlife crisis"
During the August 27 edition of Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor, host Bill O'Reilly asked whether Sen. Barack Obama will "have to say" why he didn't choose Sen. Hillary Clinton as his running mate. Fox News contributor Dick Morris responded, "No. He'll just talk about what a wonderful guy Biden is. But when you think about it, who's Joe Biden? He ran 20 years ago for president. He only got into the race this time because of a menopausal midlife crisis. He was leaving the Senate, and he figured, 'I'll just do one more shot and run for president before I fade from the scene.' He was retiring." Read More

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