1. Schieffer on Sheehan: "I Wonder Why" Bush "Doesn't Meet with Her?"
The CBS Evening News on Wednesday devoted a second segment to promoting the vigil of Bush-hater Cindy Sheehan. Bill Plante noted the obvious as he provided more publicity: "She's gotten a lot of media attention by camping out on the road that leads to the President's ranch." He pointed out that she "understands that it's very difficult for the White House to dismiss anyone in her position" and touted how "she also knows she's not alone. One recent poll shows that one out of three people now say it's time to bring all the troops home." Anchor Bob Schieffer ridiculously asked: "I wonder why the President doesn't meet with her." Plante replied that "you'd think it would be an easy thing to do," but noted that would lead to him having to "meet with a lot of people." Plante did point out that Sheehan did meet Bush last year, but "she says that wasn't a satisfying meeting." Plante didn't note her praise then for Bush.

2. Approaches from Right on Anti-Roberts Ad, "Un-Reaganesque" Pork
Two unusual approaches from the right on ABC and NBC on Wednesday night. ABC's Jake Tapper looked at a TV ad produced by the National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL) which "accuses Judge Roberts of supporting violent anti-abortion criminals." Tapper challenged NARAL's President: "Don't you think it's misleading, though, to talk about clinic bombings when the case didn't have anything to do with bombings?" He concluded by calling it a "misleading ad." All the stories on the gargantuan transportation bill signed by President Bush focused on its pork, but NBC's Chip Reid contrasted President Bush's embrace of such spending with how President Reagan rejected it: "In southern California, landscaping on the Ronald Reagan Freeway, a very un-Reaganesque $2.3 million. Ironically, it was Ronald Reagan who vetoed a highway bill in 1987. 'Too much lard,' he said. That bill had 152 pet projects, cost to taxpayers, $1.4 billion. But the bill President Bush signed today has 6,371 congressional projects; grand total: more than $24 billion."

3. Limbaugh Cites NewsBusters Blog, FNC Highlights Totenberg Quotes
You read it here first. Two items: First, Rush Limbaugh on Tuesday alerted his listeners to how the MRC has "put up a new blog. They've got their own blog called the NewsBusters and they've got an RSS feed so I subscribed to it last night. And it's cool." Second, on FNC on Monday, anchor David Asman highlighted how "the Media Research Center looked at NPR's legal affairs correspondent Nina Totenberg's many efforts to tag Judge Roberts as a died-in-the-wool conservative."

4. "Top Ten Strategies of Saddam Hussein's Attorneys"
Letterman's "Top Ten Strategies of Saddam Hussein's Attorneys."

Schieffer on Sheehan: "I Wonder Why"
Bush "Doesn't Meet with Her?"

     The CBS Evening News on Wednesday devoted a second segment to promoting the vigil of Bush-hater Cindy Sheehan. Bill Plante noted the obvious as he provided more publicity: "She's gotten a lot of media attention by camping out on the road that leads to the President's ranch." He pointed out that she "understands that it's very difficult for the White House to dismiss anyone in her position" and touted how "she also knows she's not alone. One recent poll shows that one out of three people now say it's time to bring all the troops home." Anchor Bob Schieffer ridiculously asked: "I wonder why the President doesn't meet with her." Plante replied that "you'd think it would be an easy thing to do," but noted that would lead to him having to "meet with a lot of people." Plante did point out that Sheehan did meet Bush last year, but "she says that wasn't a satisfying meeting." Plante didn't note her praise then for Bush.

     As recounted in the August 10 CyberAlert, on June 24, 2004 The Reporter newspaper in Vacaville, California quoted Sheehan after a meeting with President Bush: "I now know he's sincere about wanting freedom for the Iraqis...I know he's sorry and feels some pain for our loss. And I know he's a man of faith." For more on that see the link inside the August 10 CyberAlert which is linked below.

     The August 9 CyberAlert, see paragraph below, reported how Saturday's CBS Evening News dedicated a story to Sheehan's protest.

     Two previous CyberAlert items on how the networks have trumpeted Sheehan's cause:

     # August 9 CyberAlert: The broadcast networks and CNN on Monday morning trumpeted the vigil outside of President Bush's Texas ranch by a virulent Bush-hater, but didn't really fully convey her hatred. NBC's Katie Couric showcased her at the top of Today: "And a mother's vigil. Her son died in Iraq. Now this woman is camping outside the Bushes' Texas ranch and demanding a meeting with the President today, Monday, August 8th, 2005." On CBS's Early Show, news reader Julie Chen snidely played off of Bush's vacation: "President Bush may be on vacation in Crawford, Texas, but one mom wants to make sure he doesn't forget there's a war going on in Iraq." On Saturday, CBS anchor Thalia Assuras had noted how "while President Bush has heralded the sacrifice of the fallen, his words were met with anger today." That story featured Cindy Sheehan's accusation: "I'm never going to be able to enjoy another vacation because he killed my oldest son." See: www.mediaresearch.org

     # August 10 CyberAlert: Over video of Bush-hater Cindy Sheehan yelling at a Sheriff's deputy near Bush's Texas ranch, Charles Gibson opened Tuesday's Good Morning America by touting: "Standing her ground. She lost her son in Iraq, she opposes the war, now she's camped out at President Bush's ranch and says she won't leave until he meets with her. An exclusive interview on Good Morning America." Gibson at least forced her to react to a parent who wants the U.S. to complete the mission in Iraq and raised how she already had a meeting with President Bush, though he didn't point out how at the time, in June of 2004, she praised Bush. See: www.mediaresearch.org

     Schieffer set up the August 10 CBS Evening News piece: "President Bush is headquartering this month at his ranch in Texas, and Bill Plante is there tonight. Bill, I understand the Secretary of Defense is coming down there tomorrow. Are we going to see some sort of a strategy session? Is there any kind of change in policy coming?"

     Plante checked in from Crawford: "I don't think so, Bob. I think what you're likely to see is more of a coping strategy session. With the President's ratings continuing to drop, as the casualties in Iraq continue to rise, some of the President's closest allies outside the administration are grumbling very publicly about Defense Secretary Rumsfeld wondering whether he has an actual plan for getting out of Iraq. The insurgency continues, Iraqis are facing a deadline of Monday to write a new constitution, and U.S. officials tell me that they think that's going to slip at least by a little bit. Bob?"
     Schieffer: "And at the same time, we had this mother of a soldier who was killed in Iraq sort of camping out there down in Crawford. What's that all about, Bill?"
     Plante: "Well, Bob, Cindy Sheehan lost her son last year in Iraq, and she now wants the President to withdraw all the troops from Iraq. She's gotten a lot of media attention by camping out on the road that leads to the President's ranch. She knows that the President isn't likely to meet with her, but she also understands that it's very difficult for the White House to dismiss anyone in her position. And she also knows she's not alone. One recent poll shows that one out of three people now say it's time to bring all the troops home."
     Schieffer: "I wonder why the President doesn't meet with her."
     Plante: "Well, you'd think it would be an easy thing to do, but I think they fear that he would meet with a lot of people. They say he did meet with her once at Fort Lewis with other families. She says that wasn't a satisfying meeting."

     To comment on this CyberAlert article, go to the MRC's new blog, NewsBusters, where I'll soon post it so you can submit a "comment" about it. Go to: www.newsbusters.org

Approaches from Right on Anti-Roberts
Ad, "Un-Reaganesque" Pork

     Two unusual approaches from the right on ABC and NBC on Wednesday night. ABC's Jake Tapper looked at a TV ad produced by the National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL) which "accuses Judge Roberts of supporting violent anti-abortion criminals." Tapper challenged NARAL's President: "Don't you think it's misleading, though, to talk about clinic bombings when the case didn't have anything to do with bombings?" He concluded by calling it a "misleading ad." All the stories on the gargantuan transportation bill signed by President Bush focused on its pork, but NBC's Chip Reid contrasted President Bush's embrace of such spending with how President Reagan rejected it: "In southern California, landscaping on the Ronald Reagan Freeway, a very un-Reaganesque $2.3 million. Ironically, it was Ronald Reagan who vetoed a highway bill in 1987. 'Too much lard,' he said. That bill had 152 pet projects, cost to taxpayers, $1.4 billion. But the bill President Bush signed today has 6,371 congressional projects; grand total: more than $24 billion."

     The MRC's Brad Wilmouth corrected the closed captioning against the video for the two August 10 stories:

     # ABC's World News Tonight. Anchor Elizabeth Vargas intoned: "Here at home, the war of words over John Roberts' nomination to the Supreme Court escalated today. Less than a month before his confirmation hearings are scheduled to begin, both sides started running television ads. But as ABC's Jake Tapper reports, there are serious questions about the accuracy of one of those ads."

     Tapper began: "The ad accuses Judge Roberts of supporting violent anti-abortion criminals."
     Clip of television ad: "Supreme Court nominee John Roberts filed court briefs supporting violent fringe groups and a convicted clinic bomber."
     Tapper: "The advertisement from the National Abortion Rights Action League focuses on a Supreme Court case from 1991 which had nothing to do with bombing clinics. It had to do with anti-abortion protesters blocking access to clinics. Roberts, then a Justice Department official, argued in his brief that state laws were sufficient to prosecute law-breakers."
     Judge John Roberts, Supreme Court nominee, on PBS on August 7, 1991: "What we did not do is take a position supporting the activities of the Operation Rescue protesters."
     Tapper: "Walter Dellinger, a former Solicitor General for President Clinton and a supporter of abortion rights, says the NARAL ad is misleading." Walter Dellinger III, former Solicitor General: "It is not fair to characterize Judge Roberts' brief or argument in any way as a position that would excuse violence of any kind."
     Tapper: "NARAL stands by their ad."
     Tapper to Keenan: "Don't you think it's misleading, though, to talk about clinic bombings when the case didn't have anything to do with bombings?"
     Nancy Keenan, NARAL Pro-Choice America President: "This is the case that had the tool that clinics used to stop the bombing, and they took that tool away."
     Tapper, over video from the ad of an injured woman and a bombed building: "The ad also uses images from a clinic bombing from 1998."
     Tapper to Keenan: "The woman in that ad, that was a bombing that took place seven years after this case."
     Keenan: "This is about the violence that was happening at that moment in our history. She is just the reflection of what was going on."
     Tapper: "The White House released this memo Roberts wrote in 1986 in which he condemns abortion bombers as 'criminals' who 'should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.' We contacted four leading abortion rights groups and the Democratic leaders of the House and Senate today. Not one of them expressed any problem with this misleading ad. Jake Tapper, ABC News, the Supreme Court."

     Annenberg's "Fact Check" page assessed the ad as "false." For their detailed analysis: www.factcheck.org

     # NBC Nightly News. Brian Williams introduced NBC's look at the transportation bill: "President Bush took a break from his vacation to travel to Illinois today from Texas to sign the highway bill into law. Officially, it's called the Transportation Equity Act. It provides a whopping $286.4 billion for roads, bridges, rail, and bus facilities, bike paths and recreational trails. The President says the bill will create jobs, even save lives. Critics say that while much of the bill is necessary, it is also loaded with more pork than a southern barbecue stand. Here is NBC's Chip Reid."
     Reid offered some examples of the pork spending: "When completed, it will be christened the Gravina Island Bridge, but critics already call it the 'Bridge to Nowhere,' from the Alaskan mainland to an island, population 50, high enough for cruise ships to pass underneath. Cost to taxpayers, $223 million. In Vermont, the bill calls for new snowmobile trails, a cold $5.9 million. In Michigan, help for the Henry Ford Museum, a not very affordable $1.5 million. And in southern California, landscaping on the Ronald Reagan Freeway [video of "Ronald Reagan Freeway" sign], a very un-Reaganesque $2.3 million. Ironically, it was Ronald Reagan who vetoed a highway bill in 1987 [video of Reagan in 1987]. 'Too much lard,' he said. That bill had 152 pet projects, cost to taxpayers, $1.4 billion. But the bill President Bush signed today has 6,371 congressional projects; grand total: more than $24 billion. The bill, so hefty it apparently takes two to hoist it [vide of Bush and Hastert holding up huge package], was signed today in the district of Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert. The former wrestling coach muscled $207 million into the bill for a parkway in his fast-growing district."
     Karen McConnaughay, Kane County, Illinois Official: "We need the Prairie Parkway in order to give the citizens of this area some relief."
     Reid: "But here in Hastert's district, some people are not at all happy with this new parkway, especially farmers. This cornfield, for example, has been in the same family since 1836. The parkway would run right through it."
     Marvel Davis: "How all that farmland is going to be sacrificed."
     Reid: "Seventy-eight-year-old Marvel Davis has lived here most of her life."
     Davis: "I think they really don't understand a person's ability to love the land."
     Reid: "Local activist Jan Strasma says congressional pet projects too often favor developers and political contributors." Jan Strasma: "My major gripe is that you've got the politicians and the lobbyists doing the highway planning."
     Reid: "Leaving people like Marvel Davis all but powerless to stop them. Chip Reid, NBC News, Big Rock, Illinois."

Limbaugh Cites NewsBusters Blog, FNC
Highlights Totenberg Quotes

     You read it here first. Two items: First, Rush Limbaugh on Tuesday alerted his listeners to how the MRC has "put up a new blog. They've got their own blog called the NewsBusters and they've got an RSS feed so I subscribed to it last night. And it's cool." Second, on FNC on Monday, anchor David Asman highlighted how "the Media Research Center looked at NPR's legal affairs correspondent Nina Totenberg's many efforts to tag Judge Roberts as a died-in-the-wool conservative."

     # Rush Limbaugh On Tuesday, at about 1:15pm EDT (the second hour), cited NewsBusters when he introduced his reading of an excerpt from a posting Noel Sheppard, "Economic Disconnect is All in the Reporting," a contributor to the American Thinker blog:
     "I have a piece here today by the American Thinker by Noel Sheppard. Noel Sheppard is an economist, he's a business owner and he contributes to the Media Research Center's NewsBusters squad. Brent Bozell and his boys have put up a new blog. They've got their own blog called the NewsBusters and they've got an RSS feed so I subscribed to it last night. And it's cool."

     For RushLimbaugh.com's transcript of this portion of his August 10 show (see the fourth paragraph): www.rushlimbaugh.com

     For Sheppard's posting: newsbusters.org

    
    
# In his "Asman Observer" segment at the end of Monday's 12pm EDT hour Fox News Live, host David Asman noted: "Conservatives were putting a game face on news that Judge John Roberts did legal work -- free legal work -- for gay rights activists. While they say it's not going to affect their support for the President's Supreme Court pick, it's clear they're worried that Judge Roberts may turn out to be a liberal justice. At the same time the Media Research Center looked at NPR's legal affairs correspondent Nina Totenberg's many efforts to tag Judge Roberts as a died-in-the-wool conservative. Here's a sampling:"

     With the text of the quotes on screen, Asman then read aloud four quotes from Totenberg:

"...there's nobody who knows John Roberts who doesn't think he's a bedrock conservative..." -- Nina Totenberg, NPR, July 19

"...this is a very, very conservative man." -- Nina Totenberg, Good Morning America, July 20

"...one might even say [a] cocky advocate of very, very conservative positions." -- Nina Totenberg, NPR, July 23

"He's got adopted children. I mean, he's a conservative Catholic....a hard-line conservative." -- Nina Totenberg, Inside Washington, July 23

     Asman resumed: "Get the message? So if liberals find Judge Roberts too conservative and conservatives are afraid he's too liberal, well does that mean he's mainstream? Stay tuned."

     CyberAlert items on Totenberg's labeling of Roberts:

     -- July 21 CyberAlert: There's no doubt in NPR reporter Nina Totenberg's mind that Judge John Roberts is "very conservative," it's just a matter of how "very." On NPR's All Things Considered on Tuesday night, she prefaced "conservative" with three verys, describing him as "a very, very, very conservative man." But in a taped soundbite on the next day's Good Morning America on ABC, she cut back to two modifiers, dubbing him merely "a very, very conservative man." For the quotes in full: www.mrc.org

     -- July 25 CyberAlert: NPR's Nina Totenberg, who last week tagged Supreme Court nominee John Roberts as "very, very conservative" and "very, very, very conservative," on Inside Washington over the weekend described him as merely "very conservative." But she couldn't resist adding a modifier every time she applied the conservative label, also dubbing him "a really conservative guy," "a hardline conservative" and "a clear conservative." Plus, she emphasized how he's "a conservative Catholic." See: www.mrc.org

     -- August 1 CyberAlert: A parody of herself? NPR's Nina Totenberg, who has tagged Supreme Court nominee John Roberts as "very conservative," "very, very conservative" and "very, very, very conservative," as well as "a really conservative guy," "a hardline conservative" and "a clear conservative," to say nothing of being "a conservative Catholic," on Inside Washington over the weekend relayed that after she "spent five hours reviewing all of his documents from when he worked in the Justice Department," she "was actually quite surprised at how, how very, very conservative he was." Apparently, she didn't listen to herself. www.mediaresearch.org

"Top Ten Strategies of Saddam Hussein's
Attorneys"

     From August 9 Late Show with David Letterman, the "Top Ten Strategies of Saddam Hussein's Attorneys." Late Show home page: www.cbs.com

10. "Play up the "at least he didn't do steroids" angle

9. Pin everything on Saddam's scheming brother, Larry Hussein

8. Answer every question with, "No, you're thinking of Iran."

7. Explain he was driven insane by the intense flavor of new Spicy Nacho Doritos

6. Brand prosecutor's list of 12,000 witnesses as "flimsy"

5. Brighten mood by calling to the stand the always charming Tony Danza

4. Request one of those "confined to your 153-acre estate" punishments like Martha got

3. Give Saddam white suit and turkey leg -- make him hilarious Boss Hogg-like figure

2. Let Saddam Hussein go nuts and execute everyone in the courtroom

1. "If the underpants don't fit, you must acquit."

     # Have you checked out our new blog, NewsBusters, yet?. Many CyberAlert items will be posted there, allowing you to share your thoughts on the bias they document or how CyberAlert reported the bias. NewsBusters is designed to expose and combat liberal media bias -- but we need your input. Go to: www.newsbusters.org

-- Brent Baker