1. Schieffer Touts Misleading Poll on Most Favoring 60 Vote Standard
Another day, another distorted media poll on blocking filibusters for judicial nominees. Barely an hour before a dozen Senate Democrats and Republicans announced a deal to avoid the "nuclear/constitutional option," CBS Evening News anchor Bob Schieffer noted how a CBS News poll found that a piddling ten percent were following the issue "very closely" but, nonetheless, he touted how "people we surveyed still favored needing 60 votes to confirm court nominees." The question, which presumed naivete ("As you may know, there are 100 Senators"), simply asked: "How many Senators' votes should it take to move ahead to confirm a federal judicial nominee? Should a majority of 51 votes be required, or is this something that should require a larger majority of 60 votes?" So, all that question elicited is that most people think it would be nice have a big majority, not any opinion on whether it's good to have anyone short of 60 votes, but still with a majority, blocked from ever getting a vote.

2. Couric and Gibson Blame America, First Lady Counters Their Claims
First Lady Laura Bush appeared from Egypt on all three broadcast network morning shows on Monday, and ABC and NBC demanded that Mrs. Bush address why the Middle East hates America. When Mrs. Bush suggested abuses like Abu Ghraib were an exception, not a rule, among the troops, NBC's Katie Couric countered: "In your view is the administration holding the people who are doing these things, and perhaps they are in the minority as you say, but do you think they're being held sufficiently accountable?" Mrs. Bush took exception to Katie's P-word: "It's not 'perhaps in the minority'...the sad news is that the coverage is so extreme of a handful of really, really bad cases." On ABC, Charles Gibson quibbled with what Mrs. Bush wrote at a Holocaust memorial: "You wrote in the visitors book, 'We commit ourselves to teach tolerance and to live in peace,' and yet there are Muslims who feel, given what's happened with Muslim detainees, that we are not tolerant and that given what's happened in Iraq, we are not bringing peace." In the show's second hour, ABC reported Mrs. Bush said to ABC that the protesters who encountered her in Israel didn't represent the people as a whole, but the soundbite they used was really of her commenting on the small number of abusive American troops.
  with audio

3. Meacham Touts Newsweek's Truth-Telling, Forgets Spiking Lewinsky
On Monday's Imus in the Morning on MSNBC, Newsweek Managing Editor Jon Meacham dismissed the perception of "a liberal media" as something that "comes out of really the Nixon years" and, he stressed, "a whole lot of liberals...think we're in the pocket of the right wing." Meacham insisted that at Newsweek "all we're trying to do is find out the facts and tell the truth as best we can see it." As for "people who are whacking Michael Isikoff around on the right, who say he's a liberal journalist who's trying to make America look bad, seem to have forgotten that this is the guy who basically impeached Bill Clinton seven years ago." Indeed, but Meacham overlooked a huge difference in how Newsweek treated Isikoff's two stories: The magazine immediately ran his one-source hit on the U.S. military for supposedly flushing a Koran down a toilet, but had spiked his better-sourced January of 1998 Monica Lewinsky piece, leaving it to Matt Drudge to reveal his scoop about the President's sexual relationship with an intern.

4. Jennings Visits ABC, World News Tonight Focuses on Prisoner Abuse
ABC's Charles Gibson concluded Monday's World News Tonight with a note about Peter Jennings, who has been off the air since early April as he battles lung cancer. Gibson relayed how Jennings "was in the office this afternoon helping us put together tonight's broadcast" and that "we had a great time, a lot of laughter, and he was keeping us on our toes, as usual." Might Jennings' presence explain World News Tonight's focus Monday on "disturbing, though hard to verify" allegations of prisoner abuse in Afghanistan?

5. You Read it Here First: FNC Picks Up on Rather's Praise of Mapes
You read it here first. In his "Grapevine" segment on Monday night, FNC's Brit Hume picked up on comments from Dan Rather in a CNBC interview aired Sunday night, which were uniquely quoted in Monday's CyberAlert. Hume recited Rather's praise for Mary Mapes, the since-fired producer of the 60 Minutes story which employed forged memos, as a "a very good pro" and "the kind of professional that the audience should want in television."

Schieffer Touts Misleading Poll on Most
Favoring 60 Vote Standard

     Another day, another distorted media poll on blocking filibusters for judicial nominees. Barely an hour before a dozen Senate Democrats and Republicans announced a deal to avoid the "nuclear/constitutional option," CBS Evening News anchor Bob Schieffer noted how a CBS News poll found that a piddling ten percent were following the issue "very closely" but, nonetheless, he touted how "people we surveyed still favored needing 60 votes to confirm court nominees." The question, which presumed naivete ("As you may know, there are 100 Senators"), simply asked: "How many Senators' votes should it take to move ahead to confirm a federal judicial nominee? Should a majority of 51 votes be required, or is this something that should require a larger majority of 60 votes?" So, all that question elicited is that most people think it would be nice have a big majority, not any opinion on whether it's good to have anyone short of 60, but still with a majority, blocked from ever getting a vote.

     Schieffer announced on the May 23 CBS Evening News: "Also in Washington, barring a last-minute compromise, the Senate appears to be heading for a vote that could change the rules tomorrow to eliminate the filibuster on judicial nominees. In practical terms, that means the President's nominees to the federal bench, including the Supreme Court, could soon be confirmed by a simple majority in the Senate rather than the 60 votes that are required with a filibuster in place. But despite the high political stakes, a new CBS poll out tonight finds only 10 percent of the public is paying very close attention to the debate. Even so, most people we surveyed still favored needing 60 votes to confirm court nominees."

     On screen, a graphic was titled "Require 60 vote majority to move ahead with confirming..." and below that the "yes" percents for "Federal Judges," at 63%, and for "Supreme Court Judges," at 64%.

     For a different part of the sample CBS had substituted "Supreme Court nominee" for "federal judicial nominee" in the question quoted above.

     Another silly question in the poll, but one not cited by Schieffer, pretended majority rule is an alien concept: "In order for someone to be confirmed as a federal judge, what do you think should happen first: 1) Republicans and Democrats in the Senate should both have to agree that a person should be a judge, even if that takes a long time, or 2) Because Republicans have the most Senators, Republicans should get to decide whether a person should be a judge, even if Democrats disagree?"

     "Must agree: 79%
     "Republicans decide: 14%"

     For the CBSNews.com rundown of the poll: www.cbsnews.com

     For the wording of the judicial confirmation-related questions in the survey, see this PDF: www.cbsnews.com

     Previous CyberAlert items on media hype for distorted polls regarding the blocking of Democratic filibusters:

     # April 26 CyberAlert: ABC and the Washington Post touted how a new poll found two-thirds opposed to a rul change to end Democratic filibusters of judicial nominees, but the language of the question led to the media's desired answer. "An ABC News poll has found little support for changing the Senate's rules to help the President's judicial nominees win confirmation," World News Tonight anchor Charles Gibson trumpeted Monday night. The Washington Post's lead front page headline, over a Tuesday story on the poll, declared: "Filibuster Rule Change Opposed." But the questions in the poll failed to point out the unprecedented use of a filibuster to block nominees who have majority support while they forwarded the Democratic talking point that "the Senate has confirmed 35 federal appeals court judges nominated by Bush" and painted rules changes as an effort "to make it easier for the Republicans to confirm Bush's judicial nominees," not as a way to overcome Democratic obstructionism. See: www.mediaresearch.org

     # April 27 CyberAlert: FNC's Brit Hume on Tuesday night pointed out how the wording of a Washington Post/ABC News poll led to its finding of overwhelming opposition to blocking Democratic filibusters of judicial nominees, an observation made in Tuesday's CyberAlert, and Hume noted how differently-worded polls led to opposite results. "If you doubt whether the framing of a poll question can influence the outcome," Hume asked, "consider this. When a Republican poll said quote, 'Even if they disagree with a judge, Senate Democrats should at least allow he President's nominations to be voted on,' 81 percent said they agreed." In addition, a Rasmussen survey found that when asked "should the Senate rules should be changed so that a vote must be taken on every person that the President nominates to become a judge?", 56 percent responded affirmatively. See: www.mediaresearch.org

     # April 28 CyberAlert: In a Wednesday online chat session, Washington Post National Editor Michael Abramowitz defended Washington Post/ABC News poll questions which CyberAlert and others argued had wording which inevitably led to the finding that an overwhelming majority oppose blocking Democratic filibusters of judicial nominees when other polls have found the opposite. "Filibuster Rule Change Opposed," declared the April 26 Washington Post lead front page headline even though the questions did not mention filibusters. Abramowitz maintained that the Post's polling chief, Rich Morin, "is scrupulously fair." Abramowitz asserted: "I thought the questions in this case were fine." Morin defended himself: "I believe the question does not plant biases that would unfairly favor Democrats or disadvantage Bush or the Republicans." www.mediaresearch.org

     # May 2 CyberAlert: In defending the wording of a Washington Post poll, which the paper plastered at the top of Tuesday's front page under the headline, "Filibuster Rule Change Opposed," Washington Post Ombudsman Micheal Getler cited a March Newsweek poll which also found majority opposition to ending Senate filibusters of judicial nominees. But that poll's formulation was just as slanted as the Post poll's wording, in contrast to a Rasmussen poll, that Getler didn't acknowledge, which used wording that led to a finding of opposition to the Democratic tactic. The Newsweek poll inaccurately told those surveyed that the filibuster "tactic has been used by both Democrats and Republicans to prevent certain judicial nominees from being confirmed." Like the Post poll, Newsweek treated Republicans as the ones wanting to use a political maneuver to their benefit: "Senate Republican leaders, whose party is now in the majority, want to take away this tactic by changing the rules to require only 51 votes..." See: www.mediaresearch.org

     # May 3 CyberAlert: Another distorted poll on the use of the filibuster by Senate Democrats to block judicial nominees. A CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll released Monday afternoon described how the filibuster tactic can be "used to prevent the Senate from passing controversial legislation or confirming controversial appointments by the President, even if a majority of Senators support that action." But then instead of posing the question at hand, whether the public agrees with the unprecedented Democratic use of the filibuster to deny votes to appeals court nominees, the poll posed a broader question not at hand: "Do you favor or oppose the use of the filibuster in the U.S. Senate?" Most, naturally, favored it as CNN's Bruce Morton relayed in a Monday Inside Politics story, as if eliminating the filibuster was an issue in play. See: www.mediaresearch.org

     # May 23 CyberAlert: Three days after Brian Williams touted on the NBC Nightly News an irrelevant poll finding about the filibuster debate as indicative of public opposition to the Republican plan to block the unprecedented Democratic filibusters of judicial nominees ("by a margin of 56 to 34, Americans want the Senate to weigh in on the President's judicial nominees rather than giving them blanket approval"), the AP followed suit with an AP/Ipsos poll. A Saturday AP headline declared, "Poll: Most Want Thorough Check of Judges," as if that can only be accomplished by filibustering them and any not filibustered will not get a thorough review. The AP's Will Lester trumpeted: "About four in five Americans want the Senate to thoroughly examine the President's nominees to be federal judges -- an attitude shared by a majority of Democrats, Republicans and independents questioned in a new poll. The rest say those nominees should get the benefit of the doubt and get approved by the Senate without much scrutiny, according to an Associated Press-Ipsos poll released Friday." www.mediaresearch.org

Couric and Gibson Blame America, First
Lady Counters Their Claims

      Mrs. Bush took exception to Katie's P-word: "It's not 'perhaps in the minority'...the sad news is that the coverage is so extreme of a handful of really, really bad cases." On ABC, Charles Gibson quibbled with what Mrs. Bush wrote at a Holocaust memorial: "You wrote in the visitors book, 'We commit ourselves to teach tolerance and to live in peace,' and yet there are Muslims who feel, given what's happened with Muslim detainees, that we are not tolerant and that given what's happened in Iraq, we are not bringing peace." In the show's second hour, ABC reported Mrs. Bush said to ABC that the protesters who encountered her in Israel didn't represent the people as a whole, but the soundbite they used was really of her commenting on the small number of abusive American troops.

     [The MRC's Tim Graham submitted this item to CyberAlert, based on the transcriptions completed by Jessica Barnes and Geoff Dickens.]

     On CBS's Early Show, Harry Smith asked two questions about the protests, but did not insist that America had a big repair job to do. He also asked uniquely about how Mrs. Bush responded to the news that the grenade found in a square in the Georgian capital of Tbilisi had the potential to explode.

     All three interviews were conducted with Bush in Giza, Egypt with a pyramid in the background.
     In the first interview segment of the 7am half hour of the May 23 Today, Katie Couric began with the First Lady, over video of the protesters: "I know that you faced some very emotional protesters on Sunday, demonstrating just how high passions are in the Middle East. Were you surprised to see how intense people felt? I know they're reportedly at the Dome of Rock, at the Dome of the Rock, rather, one protestor said, 'You're not welcome here. Why are you hassling Muslims?' You were met with some pretty strong words. Were you surprised?"
     Mrs. Bush downplayed the size of the protests: "Yes but there are only, I mean I wouldn't say I was really surprised. These are places of very high emotion but there was only one or two protesters not a lot of protesters by any means. And I was with the man who's in charge of the Dome of the Rock, who gave the tour to me, who was very welcoming as were most of the people that were around. As you know this is a place of very high tension. The Western Wall, the Dome of the Rock, later I met with Palestinian women and first I met with some Israeli women and both of them, all, both groups said that what they want is peace. They want to be able to live there in peace and they want the United States to be a part of the peace process."
     Couric returned to the anti-American sentiment: "I know one of the purposes of your visit is to help quell anti-American sentiment. You've had many discussions with many women over there and, and women and men I'm assuming. Have you learned about why the anti-American sentiment seems to be so strong in that part of the world?"
     After explaining that most of the Middle East players get a lot of U.S. aid and are interested in our help, Mrs. Bush turned to the question of U.S. hypocrisy: "And we are an example. And that's why the photographs that have come out are so particularly damaging because we're held to a higher standard that other countries because of our history of democracy. But when we look at our own history, we know that we have never done everything right. We started off with a perfect document, but didn't abolish slavery until almost 100 years later. Women didn't get the right to vote until less than a hundred years ago in the United States. So we know that we're held to a higher standard that makes us have to work harder, I think, to make sure that the various images that we've seen in the newspaper are an exception, which we know they are an exception. We know that our troops are serving with great distinction in the Middle East, and that both the Iraqis and the Afghanis want us to stay there as they try to build their democracies."
     Couric asked: "And Mrs. Bush when you talk about the photographs are you referring to the photographs from Abu Ghraib, are you referring to the photographs that were recently released of Saddam Hussein? Which ones in particular? The Newsweek item?"
     Mrs. Bush replied: "Well, both. Either one of those, any of those, I think, are damaging to our country, all of those."
     Then Couric suggested that it's a matter of opinion whether the majority of American troops are abusive to Muslims: "In your view, is the administration holding the people who are doing these things and perhaps they are in the minority as you say, but do you think they're being held sufficiently accountable?"

Mrs. Bush took exception to Katie's P-word: "Yes I do. I mean there's investigations going on the people are being held accountable and it's not 'perhaps in the minority.' We know it's very, very few people. A handful of people. We know that overall our troops are serving with distinction. They're very helpful to the people where they are. They're building schools, they're refurbishing schools. They're drilling well waters so that villages have clean water. They're helping both Afghanistan and Iraq as they build they're countries. They're training troops in Iraq and policemen there."

Listen/download audio clip Text of clip + audio archive

          The First Lady even suggested American media coverage of prison abuse was extreme: "So the, the sad news is that the coverage is so extreme of a handful of really, really bad cases. And the American people are sick about it. They don't want people around the world to have an image of Americans like that, because that's not the way Americans really are. And it's certainly not the way our troops, overall, serve anywhere around the world."
     Couric drew her out one more time: "And as you say U.S. soldiers, unfortunately, because this is so incendiary, have to be or sometimes, not have to be, but are sometimes held to a higher standard." Mrs. Bush said the country knows we have to live up to a higher standard as we promote human rights, and that we are "living what we are saying." Couric ended with a conventional question about whether Mrs. Bush is now comfortable in the political spotlight.

     On ABC's Good Morning America, as the screen read "Rough Reception" throughout the interview, Charles Gibson began his First Lady interview with the issue of Muslim hostility: "Mrs. Bush, it's nice to see you. First Ladies are used to being treated with some deference, and yet yesterday you got a real taste of some Muslim hostility, and I wondered what that moment was like as you heard their personal anger."
     Mrs. Bush replied: "No, I wouldn't say that at all. They were very hospitable and the people who were giving me the tour of the Dome of the Rock welcomed me there very much...."
     Gibson then quibbled with what Mrs. Bush wrote at a Holocaust memorial: "You mentioned your visit to Yad Vashem, the Holocaust history museum yesterday, and I saw that you wrote in the visitors book, 'We commit ourselves to teach tolerance and to live in peace,' and yet there are Muslims who feel, given what's happened with Muslim detainees, that we are not tolerant and that given what's happened in Iraq, we are not bringing peace."
     Mrs. Bush, in something rarely heard out of ABC News mouths, turned the question back to Islamic tolerance and peace: "Well, you know, there are also Americans who feel that way, too, after September 11th and feel like that was brought on us when we are a peaceful nation. And I know from having visited Afghanistan that many, many people in the Middle East, certainly in Afghanistan and in Iraq, are really glad that our American troops are there, that we are giving them the chance to build a country. I saw women in Afghanistan, I know President Karzai is going to be in Washington today with President Bush, who wanted me to send my thanks, their thanks to the women of America for standing with them in solidarity, and I think that is really the bigger picture. All of us, everyone -- Americans, Afghanis, Iraqis -- deplore the photographs that we've seen, the reports that we've heard of prisoner abuse, but that is not really what happens all the time and that's not what our troops really do. This is a handful of people and I think and I believe that many people here understand that. We're expected to be better in our treatment of people than any other country because we believe in human rights and because we believe in human dignity."
     Gibson's final question, again about the Muslims: "I know one of the purposes of your trip is to show concern to Muslims, to reach out to them. Do you feel this has been a help, this trip?"
     Mrs. Bush candidly said she didn't know: "Well, I hope so. You know, who knows? I mean, I don't know. I came here for a lot of reasons. I came first to speak to the World Economic Forum, which is where I went first, to Jordan, to talk about women's rights, to talk about how important women are to an economy."

     In the newscast beginning the second hour at 8am, anchor Ron Claiborne began: "First Lady Laura Bush meets with the wife of the Egyptian Prime Minister this morning during her five-day tour of the Middle East. Mrs. Bush said she was not surprised to be met with protesters during her tour of holy sites in Israel. She told us this morning that the demonstrators don't represent people as a whole."
     ABC followed that with a snippet of Mrs. Bush. However, as the MRC's Jessica Barnes noticed, it was not about the protesters, but came from where, in response to a question from Gibson, she deplored those in the U.S. military who abuse prisoners: "This is a handful of people and I think and I believe that many people here understand that. We're expected to be better in our treatment of people than any other country because we believe in human rights and because we believe in human dignity."

     Mrs. Bush did suggest to Katie Couric that the protesters were not numerous, but did not say that in the snippet ABC recycled.

Meacham Touts Newsweek's Truth-Telling,
Forgets Spiking Lewinsky

     On Monday's Imus in the Morning on MSNBC, Newsweek Managing Editor Jon Meacham dismissed the perception of "a liberal media" as something that "comes out of really the Nixon years" and, he stressed, "a whole lot of liberals...think we're in the pocket of the right wing." Meacham insisted that at Newsweek "all we're trying to do is find out the facts and tell the truth as best we can see it." As for "people who are whacking Michael Isikoff around on the right, who say he's a liberal journalist who's trying to make America look bad, seem to have forgotten that this is the guy who basically impeached Bill Clinton seven years ago." Indeed, but Meacham overlooked a huge difference in how Newsweek treated Isikoff's two stories: The magazine immediately ran his one-source hit on the U.S. military for supposedly flushing a Koran down a toilet, but had spiked his better-sourced January of 1998 Monica Lewinsky piece, leaving it to Matt Drudge to reveal his scoop about the President's sexual relationship with an intern.

     The MRC's Jessica Barnes caught this from Meacham, who appeared by phone, at about 6:50am EDT on May 23:
     "I'll tell you what I think, which is that right now, I know a lot of people think there is a liberal media. That comes out of really the Nixon years, but if you talk to a whole lot of liberals, they think we're in the pocket of the right wing. So both sides at this point, in this incredibly divisive moment, think that the mainstream press is somehow or another tacking one way or the other. It sort of drives me crazy, because all we're trying to do, and we didn't do it in this case, but all we're trying to do is find out the facts and tell the truth as best we can see it. You know, Phillip Graham, who bought Newsweek and made it part of the Washington Post Company, said that journalism is the first rough draft of history. Sometimes you wish it weren't quite so rough some weeks, but that's what we're doing and it's not -- all I can speak for passionately is Newsweek -- we are not part of any liberal media agenda, we're not part of any conservative media agenda.
     "People who are whacking Michael Isikoff around on the Right, who say he's a liberal journalist who's trying to make America look bad, seem to have forgotten that this is the guy who basically impeached Bill Clinton seven years ago. Mike gave the Right Wing the best years of their life in the past 10 years or so, and that was simply Mike chasing the facts as best he could find them, and in one case, it led to the impeachment of a Democratic incumbent President, in other cases, maybe it's made Republicans uncomfortable. But he's doing what we should do at our best, which is simply trying to find out the truth, trying to hold up a mirror, trying to shed light, trying to keep the government accountable, whoever it is."

Jennings Visits ABC, World News Tonight
Focuses on Prisoner Abuse

     ABC's Charles Gibson concluded Monday's World News Tonight with a note about Peter Jennings, who has been off the air since early April as he battles lung cancer. Gibson relayed how Jennings "was in the office this afternoon helping us put together tonight's broadcast" and that "we had a great time, a lot of laughter, and he was keeping us on our toes, as usual." Might Jennings' presence explain World News Tonight's focus Monday on "disturbing, though hard to verify" allegations of prisoner abuse in Afghanistan?

     At the very end of the May 23 World News Tonight, Gibson conveyed: "I should mention that Peter Jennings was in the office this afternoon helping us put together tonight's broadcast. We had a great time, a lot of laughter, and he was keeping us on our toes, as usual. So, for Peter Jennings, and for all of us at ABC News, I'm Charles Gibson. Good night."

     Earlier, he had set up a story: "A few Afghan prisoners have been released and are talking about their time in captivity. Those stories are disturbing, though hard to verify. ABC News has had a chance to speak with one former detainee, who is now in Britain, and whose accusations of prisoner mistreatment are being taken very seriously by the Pentagon. Here's ABC's national security correspondent, Martha Raddatz."

     Raddatz began, as corrected against the closed-captioning by the MRC's Brad Wilmouth: "British-born Moazzam Begg was held for three years on suspicions he was a terrorist. Begg had made several trips to training camps in Afghanistan, and moved there with his wife and children just three months before 9/11. Three months later, he was taken to a U.S. military detention center."
     Moazzam Begg, former detainee, in English: "They left me there tied up, with my hands behind my back, hog tied, with a hood over my head, and kicked and punched me several times."
     Raddatz, over Begg's drawings: "Begg said he was transferred from Kandahar to Bagram Air Base. He sketched out the facility, showing his cell -- number six -- and the others nearby. Begg said that in June 2002, word spread that a prisoner in cell number three had tried to escape."
     Begg: "Shortly after that, within minutes, I saw two guards with whom I'd been friendly -- one in particular -- who dragged the body of this limp detainee across into the medical room. And within half an hour or so, they carried out a stretcher with a body that was covered -- its face was covered. From that, I assumed that the person had been killed."
     Raddatz: "The Pentagon says Army investigators interviewed Begg about the incident but were more interested in a murder they believe Begg witnessed six months later. Begg, now in cell one, said the prisoner was right outside his cell."
     Begg: "A lot of the period, he was actually suspended with his hands tied above his head with the shackles to the ceiling area with a hood placed over his head."
     Raddatz: "Begg said the prisoner shouted for help and went limp."
     Begg: "Because he wouldn't stand, they started punching him in the kidneys."
     Raddatz: "That was the last time Begg saw the inmate. The Pentagon says there were two murders that month at Bagram. Twenty-eight soldiers have been implicated. One pleaded guilty to assault just last Friday. Begg was later transferred to Guantanamo. There, by contrast, Begg says he was not mistreated and saw no serious abuse. Martha Raddatz, ABC News, Washington."

     So Guantanamo isn't so bad afterall?

You Read it Here First: FNC Picks Up
on Rather's Praise of Mapes

     You read it here first. In his "Grapevine" segment on Monday night, FNC's Brit Hume picked up on comments from Dan Rather in a CNBC interview aired Sunday night, which were uniquely quoted in Monday's CyberAlert. Hume recited Rather's praise for Mary Mapes, the since-fired producer of the 60 Minutes story which employed forged memos, as a "a very good pro" and "the kind of professional that the audience should want in television."

     Hume's last Grapevine item, on the May 23 Special Report with Brit Hume: "Former CBS News producer Mary Mapes may have been heavily responsible for the Bush National Guard story that brought Dan Rather to grief -- and led to her firing -- but that hasn't changed Rather's opinion of her, or what he thinks the public's opinion of her ought to be. Mapes, you may recall, was the producer of the story involving the discredited documents purporting to show that President Bush got favored treatment, and skirted his duties in the National Guard. But, in an interview over the weekend on CNBC, Rather called Mapes quote, 'a very good pro,' adding quote, 'She's the kind of professional that the audience should want in television.'"

     Monday's Grapevine is posted at: www.foxnews.com

     The May 23 CyberAlert recounted: Interviewed by Tina Brown in a session aired Sunday night on CNBC, Dan Rather praised Mary Mapes, the producer of the 60 Minutes story based on forged memos, as "a very good pro," and insisted that "she's the kind of professional that the audience should want in television." Asked by Brown if "after the flap over the National Guard story, do you feel inhibited?", Rather contended he's never "inhibited when it comes to news and trying to do fair-minded, accurate reporting on important stories." Then Brown wanted to know: "What are the realistic chances that you're going to be able to do a story that really shakes and rattles the Bush administration?" Rather maintained they are "excellent" since "CBS News has a culture, has a history that those of us who work here, it's very real -- that we see it as a sort of magical mystical kingdom of journalistic knights."

     For more, go to: www.mediaresearch.org

     Hear the Bias: As part of a new feature the MRC is soon to launch, we have begun to post downloadable MP3 audio clips of biased comments in the media. The May 23 CyberAlert item on Rather now includes an audio clip of him making his "magical mystical kingdom of journalistic knights" remark.

-- Brent Baker