Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Media Matters Daily Summary 11-11-09

Investor's Business Daily misleads to claim Hamilton is "Another Radical Judge"
In a November 11 editorial, Investor's Business Daily claimed that Judge David Hamilton, nominee for the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, is a "radical" judge. In addition to invoking Hamilton's views on "empathy" -- a favorite conservative attack -- the editorial misleadingly suggested that Hamilton discriminated against Christianity by banning the word "Jesus" from state legislature prayer, but allowing the word "Allah," and suggested that Hamilton is not qualified by citing his 1994 rating by the American Bar Association while ignoring Hamilton's current ABA rating of "well qualified." Read More

Abandoning earlier attacks, Fox now suggests Obama is "delay[ing]" Afghanistan decision to "push through health care reform"
Introducing a panel discussion about President Obama's consideration of whether to send additional troops to Afghanistan, Brian Kilmeade asked if it is "possible the president delayed making a decision in order to push through health care reform." Kilmeade's comments follow earlier Fox News attacks suggesting ulterior motives for Obama's deliberations on Afghanistan, first that he "delay[ed]" his decision in order to win the Nobel Peace Prize and later that Obama was delaying a decision until after the November 2009 elections. Read More

Right-wing media falsely implicate Holder in subpoena of website's visitor lists
Linking to a CBSNews.com story about a Justice Department subpoena of a news website's visitor lists, the Fox Nation featured the false headline, "Holder subpoenas Web site Visitor Lists," and other conservative media outlets and figures, including the Drudge Report, advanced similar claims that Attorney General Eric Holder was responsible for the subpoenas. However, Holder was not attorney general at the time the subpoena was issued by a Bush-appointed U.S. attorney; moreover, the story to which the Fox Nation and Drudge Report linked reported that a "Justice Department official" said that "the attorney general's office never saw" the subpoena, which was withdrawn in February. Read More

Hannity video switch-up is only the tip of Fox News' video-doctoring iceberg
On his Fox News show, Sean Hannity misleadingly aired video from the 9-12 March on Washington while discussing Rep. Michele Bachmann's (R-MN) much smaller November 5 anti-health care reform rally to claim that "twenty-thousand plus" people showed up to Bachmann's protest. Hannity's video switch-up -- which Jon Stewart highlighted on The Daily Show -- is just the latest example of Fox News hosts' extensive history of deceptively using video and photos to advance a false or misleading story line. Read More

Quick Fact: Limbaugh claimed "no backlash against Muslims," but hate crimes against them reportedly "soared" after 9-11
Referring to remarks by Gen. George Casey regarding potential backlash against Muslims in the military in the wake of the Fort Hood shootings, Rush Limbaugh claimed: "There is no backlash against Muslims in America. Zip, zero, nada." Limbaugh's claim that "there is no backlash against Muslims in America" is undermined by a 2002 FBI hate crimes analysis that found that "[a]nti-Islamic religion incidents" in 2001 increased "by more than 1,600 percent over the 2000 volume," and a San Francisco Chronicle article reported that "[h]ate crimes against Muslims soared after Sept. 11." Read More

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