20070827 CyberAlert

CyberAlert

Monday August 27, 2007 (Vol. Twelve; No. 148)

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1. Shields: 'Overkill' by 'Right-Wing Radio' Will Help Hillary "Overkill" from "right-wing radio," in criticizing Senator Hillary Clinton, is her "secret weapon" that will "transform her into a figure of sympathy by a majority of people" -- and presumably help elect her President -- syndicated columnist and PBS NewsHour political analyst Mark Shields contended Friday night. On Inside Washington, a weekly panel show produced by ABC's Washington, DC affiliate which airs it on Sunday mornings after it first runs Friday night at 8:30pm on DC's PBS affiliate, WETA-TV channel 26, Shields argued: "I think the secret weapon for Senator Clinton, if she is the Democratic nominee, is not simply Rudy's shortcomings, the perceived shortcomings of her opponent, I think you'll see on the part of right-wing radio -- conservative talk, however you want to call it -- such overkill that it will make her, transform her into a figure of sympathy by a majority of people." NPR's Nina Totenberg then chimed in: "That happened in her first Senate run."

2. Kristol Astounds Lauer by Rejecting Media Touting of Warner & NIE Matching the theme of NBC Nightly News from the evening before, the Today show on Friday morning portrayed Republican Senator John Warner's call for 5,000 troops to return home by Christmas as "a major defection" and "sharp rebuke" to President Bush, but to the astonishment of co-host Matt Lauer, who described Warner as "a pretty heavy domino" falling against Bush, guest Bill Kristol rejected the media's presumptions about the importance of Warner's stand. Andrea Mitchell trumpeted "a major defection from the most authoritative Republican Senator on all things military. It is a sharp rebuke to the President" from "the Senate's most influential Republican on the Armed Services Committee." When Kristol made clear he didn't think Warner's comments were such a big deal since he remains opposed to a pull-out timetable, Lauer argued: "What about the signal it sends to moderate Republicans in Congress? You know everybody talks about some sort of large scale defection. Isn't John Warner a pretty heavy domino?" Kristol countered: "No, because it hasn't fallen. He's not going to vote against the President in September, that's the more important thing." Turning to the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iraq, which Mitchell had described as "grim," Kristol highlighted positive findings about defeating al-Qaeda, prompting an incredulous Lauer to wonder: "Are they looking at the same country that you just saw?"

3. Newsweek's Michael Hirsh Ridicules 'Harsh' Vietnam Aftermath In a "Web-exclusive" commentary posted Thursday, Newsweek Senior Editor Michael Hirsh ridiculed President George W. Bush's warning that a precipitous pull-out from Iraq could lead to the humanitarian horrors that followed the American pull-out from Vietnam. Recalling a trip he made to Vietnam in 1991, Hirsh reported that he found a nation looking to the West and capitalism, adding that "today Vietnam remains" only "nominally communist." He then snidely asserted: "This was the 'harsh' aftermath that George W. Bush attempted to describe this week when he warned against pulling out of Iraq as we did in Vietnam." James Taranto, in his Friday "Best of the Web Today" posting for OpinionJournal.com, asked: "Could that last sentence be any more disingenuous? To Hirsh, the 'aftermath' of America's withdrawal from Vietnam didn't begin until 1991, more than 16 years after Saigon fell. About events between 1975 and 1991, he has only this to say: 'Yes, a lot of Vietnamese boat people died on the high seas; but many others have returned to visit in the ensuing years.'"

4. CBS: Mass. Health Insurance Mandate, Subsidy Don't Go Far Enough A year and a half after the CBS Evening News celebrated the then-upcoming Massachusetts mandate requiring everyone to buy health insurance and the state subsidizing it for those with lower incomes -- "Imagine this: Virtually everyone guaranteed health insurance coverage. It's happening in one state, and it could be a model for the rest" -- Friday's newscast found it has come up short. Anchor Katie Couric teased the upcoming story on how the law didn't go far enough in providing subsidies, "Universal health insurance: It is supposed to mean everyone is covered. But in the only state that has it, hundreds of thousands are not. That story next." Reporter Wyatt Andrews highlighted how state-subsidized coverage saved one man's life, trumpeting that as "the state's achievement. Out of 400,000 uninsured residents last year, around 170,000 now have insurance." But, he continued, "the gap that remains is huge. It includes some 130,000 young adults, most of them middle income men who have to pay their own premiums. They either don't want insurance or can't afford it." For expert advocacy, Andrews turned to the head of a liberal group, Health Care for All: "Health care advocate John McDonough praises the state for a good start but says that gap in affordability has to be filled."

5. CNN's 'God's Warriors' Reflects MSM's Bias Against 'Big 3' Faiths Christiane Amanpour's six-hour "God's Warriors" mini-series first aired Tuesday-Thursday nights last week on CNN reflected less of the reality of "fundamentalist" monotheists -- Jews, Muslims, and Christians -- and more of liberals' attitudes about these faiths. It is clear, given how CNN and Amanpour covered each faith, that they have sympathy towards Muslims in the U.S., "concern" with the Jewish settlers in the West Bank, and are uncomfortable towards the beliefs and practices of Christian evangelicals. Tuesday night's "God's Jewish Warriors" focused on the cause of the "right-wing" Jewish settlers. The term "right wing" was used seven times to describe the settlers and/or their supporters in Israel and in the United States, and "fundamentalist/-ism" was used three times, once in reference to Christian supporters of the settlers in the U.S. On Wednesday night's "God's Muslim Warriors," "fundamentalist/-ism" was the more prevalent term, used 11 times. "Right wing" was used twice, only to describe Geert Wilders, a member of the Dutch Parliament.

6. FNC's Fox News Watch Shows MRC Home Page with CyberAlert Headline You saw it here first. FNC's Fox News Watch on Saturday set up a segment, on a Pew Research Center for the People and the Press poll on how Americans distrust the media and see it as biased, by showing screen shots of the home pages of a couple of media watchdog groups, including the Thursday CyberAlert headline on the MRC's home page, "Networks: Bush's Vietnam Lesson Hypocritical & Invalid."

A usually-daily report, edited by Brent H. Baker, CyberAlert is distributed by the Media Research Center, the leader since 1987 in documenting, exposing and neutralizing liberal media bias.

The 2,475^th CyberAlert. Tracking Liberal Media Bias Since 1996
11:15am EDT, Monday August 27, 2007 (Vol. Twelve; No. 148)