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The 2,765th CyberAlert. Tracking Liberal Media Bias Since 1996
6:20am EST, Wednesday November 5, 2008 (Vol. Thirteen; No. 210)
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2. ABC News Reporter Steve Osunsami Chokes Up in Joy for Obama's Victory
3. Oprah Exclaims: 'I Haven't Seen This Sense of Unity Since 9/11'
4. Mitchell: 'Centrist' Obama Will Rein in Congressional Liberals
5. Williams: Joe the Plumber Was Silly, a 'Rat Hole of Distraction'
6. Matthews Before Vote: We're 'Leaping Towards Something Better'
7. Obama-Brokaw? Caroline Kennedy: Anchor Made Obama's Short VP List
8. Surprise: Liberal NY Times Columnist Kristof Sees Media Bias
9. NYT: McCain's Insults & Threats, Defending Obama's Ties to Wright
10. ABC's Whoopi Goldberg, Like Wright 'I Cussed Out This Country'
After blurry video of Kenyans dancing and singing a song which "had only two words, 'Obama' and 'miracle,'" Friesen held up the front page of London's left of center The Independent and explained how the newspaper's headline "dubbed" Obama "The history man." She also decided to highlight: "The diplomatic editor of The Independent interestingly writing that now is the time to undo the damage done by George W. Bush. I think much of the world does see this as really turning a page, moving on from George Bush. And the diplomatic editor says there's a global yearning for a seismic shift in American foreign policy." For the article, "Farewell Dubya. Now to undo the damage done...; There's a global yearning for a seismic shift in American foreign policy -- but Barack Obama will be hamstrung by high expectations," by Anne Penketh, go to: www.independent.co.uk [This item, by the MRC's Brent Baker, was posted late Tuesday night on the MRC's blog, NewsBusters.org: newsbusters.org ] The CyberAlert item on Friesen's October 17 NBC Nightly News story, "NBC: 'If World Had a Vote, Barack Obama Would Win in a Landslide,'" recounted Friesen's earlier touting of world attitudes:
Pointing to Iraq as the primary culprit ("so many believed it was invaded on false pretenses"), Friesen also highlighted "other reasons," such as how "after Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay, the U.S. is perceived by many as a violator rather than an upholder of human rights" and "America is seen contributing, but not doing much to solve, global warming." From Istanbul, she concluded: "Here in Turkey, as in much of the world, people want to turn a page on the Bush years. In fact, polls show the image of the U.S. has improved slightly this year simply because President Bush is leaving. And, that if the world had a vote, Barack Obama would win in a landslide. Regardless of who wins, the world is clamoring for a new America in 2009." For more, see the October 20 CyberAlert: www.mrc.org Friesen, live from London on MSNBC at about 2:50 AM EST on Wednesday, November 5:
This morning, reaction is beginning to come in from around the world, from world leaders. French President Nicholas Sarkozy issuing a statement saying: "At a time when we must face huge challenges together, your election has raised enormous hopes in France, in Europe, and beyond." And from Hamid Karzai, the President of Afghanistan, he said, "I applaud the American people for the great decision and I hope the massive show of concern for human beings and a lack of interest in race and color while electing the President will go along way in bringing the same values to the rest of the world sooner or later." And as people in Britain wake and up head to work this morning, their morning papers show the face, pretty much, of one man. This is the cover of The Independent this morning. They've dubbed him "The history man." It's the headline. The diplomatic editor of The Independent interestingly writing that now is the time to undo the damage done by George W. Bush. I think much of the world does see this as really turning a page, moving on from George Bush. And the diplomatic editor says there's a global yearning for a seismic shift in American foreign policy. 
[This item, by the MRC's Brent Baker, was posted Tuesday night, with video, on the MRC's blog, NewsBusters.org: newsbusters.org ]
As he stood with cheering students, Osunsami told anchor Charlie Gibson:
Of course, the 47 percent who voted for McCain may not share Winfrey's unity. [This item, by the MRC's Brent Baker, was posted Tuesday night, with video, on the MRC's blog, NewsBusters.org: newsbusters.org ] She had prefaced that contention: "It's my town. My town's been vibrating all day. I mean, from the moment I left the building this morning -- the doorman, everybody vibrates, just great. It's one of the greatest experiences of, certainly my lifetime and it's been wonderful, I think, for everybody in the country who has called somebody or somebody has called them. Everybody was e-mailing everybody standing in line."
During live coverage on Tuesday's Today show, of Barack Obama voting in his home state, Andrea Mitchell postulated that he will have to confront a "liberal" Congress because Obama, himself, is a "centrist." The Senator with the most liberal voting record, according to Mitchell, will be the one to "rein in expectations from an empowered liberal majority in the House and Senate." [This item, by Geoffrey Dickens, was posted Tuesday evening, on the MRC's blog, NewsBusters.org: newsbusters.org ] Mitchell made the following proclamation on the November 4, edition of Today show:
ANDREA MITCHELL: If Obama is elected and if it is a big margin, two big "ifs" he's also gonna have to rein in expectations from an empowered liberal majority in the House and Senate. House might be harder to deal with than the Senate because they have been not only making promises but building expectations for people, for health care and for all sorts of reforms in Medicare and more benefits on.
[This item, by the MRC's Tim Graham, was posted Tuesday night on the MRC's blog, NewsBusters.org: newsbusters.org ] Williams also complained once again about the delay in his Sarah Palin interview, given his network's leading stature. "I went more than third -- I went fifth or sixth," even as he added: "I think she's a professional at her job, I try to be at mine, and we kind of quickly got over it." Sounds like he hasn't. The interview began with the plumber-bashing:
SMILEY: Has this campaign, honestly and frankly, gone on just too long? He returned to the theme just a few sentences later when asked if the networks did too much horse-race coverage:
WILLIAMS: A funny thing happened on the way to the nomination for President Giuliani and President Hillary Clinton, and that is it appears that if these polls hold and we've got it at 51-43 as of tonight, and our pollsters are very good, it looks like everybody else in this race ran smack into an American history movement. Ran smack into a changing of those iconic symbols at the front of all the classrooms we grew up sitting in, all those oval pictures, depictions of our presidents. It's about to change, after 43 of them, if these polls hold, and people need to get out to vote. Then came the Palin exchange:
SMILEY: You mentioned one woman a moment ago, Brian, of course, Hillary Clinton. There's another woman in this race, still in it as of this moment, Sarah Palin. Let me just ask you in a very forthright way. When you're sitting for a conversation, as you did days ago, with one Sarah Palin, and your own network, in fact, "Saturday Night Live," has made such a wonderful run of jokes about Sarah Palin, and they're not the only ones. But clearly, she has been ridiculed -- my words, not yours here -- ridiculed for being, shall we say, an intellectual lightweight. When you're going into an interview and you know that that's the rub, that's what's out there, how do you prepare for that conversation so that you don't get chastised for being too soft or too hard? Finally, Williams rather ridiculously claimed that no one, absolutely no one would have any idea of which presidential candidate he favors. Does he think no one noticed the difference between the pounding he gave McCain and Palin and the repeated hand-holding in interviews with Obama? But he implausibly claimed that he was a hard-core political agnostic:
SMILEY: Let me shift gears dramatically here. Obama, as you certainly know and have covered on the "NBC Nightly News," for whatever reason or reasons, has generated a certain level of enthusiasm and energy in the younger generation. You have two kids - I think 17 and 20. If my research is as good as yours, I think my facts are right. Seventeen and 20; and so they're in that age group that Obama has played so well to. Without betraying the confidence of your children, are you one news anchor who's had your children in your ear when you're not on the anchor desk about this campaign?
A few minutes later, in his closing commentary about the election, Matthews (a potential Democratic Senate candidate in 2010) offered a not-very veiled endorsement of Barack Obama, suggesting his election would mean a "leap towards something better and uniting our country as never before in our history." So we'll be more united than we were after 9/11? More united than during World War II? Maybe the bartender who serves the Obama Kool-Aid at MSNBC had better cut Matthews off -- he's had a few too many. [This item, by the MRC's Rich Noyes, was posted Tuesday afternoon on the MRC's blog, NewsBusters.org: newsbusters.org ]
During a panel discussion of the significance of Obama's election (which seemed to be the assumption of all of Matthews' guests on Sunday), Time magazine's Joe Klein announced how the election of an African-American president would be a "huge" and "profound" development: A few moments later, Matthews announced that election night would be emotional: "I'm glad you used the word 'huge,' Joe, because I think election night is going to be emotional for all of us. And I think, even those of us who do it for a profession, if this election goes -- particularly if it goes in that historic direction, it's going to be very emotional for everybody. I mean, everybody." Of course, there are a lot of conservatives who will be quite distressed if Obama wins -- not because they are against any progress by African-Americans but because they are disturbed thinking about the laws that might be passed by a liberal House and Senate and signed by the liberal President Obama in the White House.
Matthews revisited the theme in his closing thoughts on his November 2 show:
[This item, by the MRC's Tim Graham, was posted Tuesday evening on the MRC's blog, NewsBusters.org: newsbusters.org ] Rose also curiously worried that a President Obama might end up being a very cautious centrist: "What do you make of him? Tell me what you see there. Because I was talking to a friend of mine, and he said, I see someone who is clearly aspirational, someone who is clearly bright, someone who is clearly ambitious in the best sense of that, but who is clearly cautious, and in the end, he may very well be a man of the center." Later, he came back to the same idea: "Let me come back to Obama. Is he, in your judgment, even though he has a liberal voting record in the Senate, essentially a man of caution, a man of the center, a man who doesn't want a whole lot of dissension around him?"
Brokaw strangely suggested Obama was a cautious centrist running for the Democratic nomination, which is certainly not how he ran, especially in highlighting his eternal opposition to a war in Iraq, to the delight of MoveOn.org and Code Pink: Brokaw came on the October 30 PBS show to plug the paperback edition of his book on the 1960s, titled "Boom!" He stuck to his odd assertion from early this year that ideology is playing no role in this election: "I think what is unique about it is -- certainly in contemporary terms is that all of the assumptions of the last several election cycles have been utterly scrambled in all of this. I said last spring, I think, values will still be an important part of it, but this not an election about ideology, as the last several election cycles have been. This is about solutions and finding new ways." Rose then recirculated an October 26 column from pseudo-conservative New York Times columnist David Brooks, who wrote about how the Republican Party needs to "modernize" and reject its Reaganite, free-market aspects. Brokaw then seemed to disagree with himself, that the election did have an ideological result. It showed conservatism was leading to the GOP's destruction:
ROSE: This is David Brooks, I'm sure a column you saw called "Ceding the Center," and he ends it with this paragraph. "He has become an experienced legislative craftsman," he is talking about John McCain. "He is stalwart against the country's foes and cooperative with its friends, but he never escaped the straitjacket of a party that is ailing and a conservativism that is behind the times. And that is what makes the final weeks of this campaign so unspeakably sad." What comes out of that is whether -- is this so much more about the party and the time than the man? For Brooks's October 26, 2008 column in the New York Times, see "Ceding the Center," at: www.nytimes.com Earlier in the program, Brokaw suggested McCain sort of put his authentically centrist self at home to win the GOP nomination: "I think -- this is speculation on my part, and he may not welcome it, but I think that part of it, he had to make a bit of a deal to get the nomination that was -- ran a little counter to his truest beliefs as a Republican."
[This item, by Clay Waters, was posted Tuesday afternoon on the MRC's TimesWatch site: www.timeswatch.org ] A longer excerpt fro Kristof's November 4 post: Conservatives are utterly convinced that the mainstream news organizations have been deeply unfair to the Republican ticket, and they have some points they can cite as evidence. For example, the Project for Excellence in Journalism found that there were twice as many favorable Obama stories after the convention as favorable McCain ones. Conversely, twice as many McCain stories were negative. The Center for Media and Public Affairs found that network TV coverage of Obama was 65 percent positive, compared to 31 percent positive for McCain. As Politico.com put it: "in the closing weeks of this election, John McCain and Sarah Palin are getting hosed in the press." Indeed, one of the editors of Politico.com received a scolding note about bias from his own mother. Then there's also the well-known fact that national reporters for major news organizations are disproportionately likely to vote Democratic. Slate.com polled its staff and found that Barack Obama won 55 votes, and John McCain 1. That's partly because Slate's staff is composed of young, urban, highly educated techies, but still -- that's some margin. SUSPEND Excerpt In the media's defense, Kristof argued that negative McCain coverage was natural, given that the campaign had "made a series of mistakes" and that it was arguable "that any mainstream bias to the moderate left in the national newspapers and networks is balanced by an extreme right tilt" on the Fox News Channel and talk radio. But he expressed discomfort with that argument. He concluded by saying that the liberal lean of reporters wasn't a major problem in explicitly political stories, but when it came to social issues, he wasn't sure the media was "that even-handed." More Kristoff: Lately we've been pursuing George W. Bush because he's in power, but if Obama wins then he'll be the object of tough scrutiny even by journalists who share much of his world view. But on the social issues -- gun control, abortion, gay marriage, religion -- I'm not sure we're that even-handed. The fact is that there are plenty of political conservatives in the Northeast, for example, but not nearly so many social conservatives. Journalists move easily in the world of business Republicans, less easily in the world of Evangelical Republicans. So that makes it easier to slip into caricaturing social conservatives at times, and we should try harder to avoid it. END of Excerpt For Kristof's blog posting: kristof.blogs.nytimes.com Kristof even praised former Public Editor Dan Okrent's "brave and wise" piece that began: "Is the Times a liberal newspaper? Of course it is." More on Okrent: www.timeswatch.org
Highlights from the MRC's TimesWatch site on liberal bias in the New York Times this week: "Obama Wins IN, VA, NH, NM? Bad for McCain. McCain Wins PA? Anti-Obama Racism," "One Last Biased Glance Backward Before Election Day," "Did McCain Really 'Tolerate Insults and Threats' of Obama?" and "One Last Time: Defending Obama's Ties to Jeremiah ('God Damn America') Wright." Some noteworthy items by Clay Waters on the MRC's TimesWatch site: # Obama Wins IN, VA, NH, NM? Bad for McCain. McCain Wins PA? Anti-Obama Racism
Full TimesWatch analysis: www.timeswatch.org
Frank Bruni: "In Philadelphia in March, Mr. Obama delivered a set-piece speech that sought to do nothing less than explain centuries of racial enmity and move Americans past it...In recent weeks, the ire and ugly catcalls of some supporters of the McCain-Palin ticket have suggested a division in this election that goes well beyond tax policy or Iraq strategy." Complete TimesWatch article: www.timeswatch.org
Reporter Elisabeth Bumiller also paints a distorted picture of John McCain's "devastated" reaction to Rep. John Lewis comparing him to segregationist George Wallace. Full TimesWatch post: www.timeswatch.org
Lame excuse for Obama from Michael Falcone: "After Sept. 11, 2001, [Rev. Jeremiah] Wright delivered a sermon suggesting that the terrorist attacks were a consequence of American foreign policy. But there is no evidence that Mr. Obama was present for this or the other sermons cited." Entire TimesWatch article: www.timeswatch.org
Aiding Whoopi's tirade against Elisabeth Hasselbeck, Sherri Shepherd defended Obama's decision to forego public financing "because they're swift boating Barack Obama with this Jeremiah Wright stuff." Shepherd and Goldberg also scolded Hasselbeck for allegedly not understanding black issues and Reverend Wright's bitterness towards his country. [This item, by the MRC's Justin McCarthy, was posted Tuesday on the MRC's blog, NewsBusters.org: newsbusters.org ] Adding to the pile on, Joy Behar, for her part, claimed she did not want to sit in judgment as a white woman, stating: "I don't really think that I have any business to discuss what goes on in a black church because I am not black." When Hasselbeck called out Behar for defending Wright when "Obama hasn't," Behar comically denied defending Wright. When Hasselbeck questioned Obama for sitting in Wright's church for 20 years, Behar made a bizarre comparison, claiming: "A lot of people sat, a lot of people sat for eight years while Bush committed his little atrocities. So let's not cast stones." The transcript from the relevant portion of the November 4 show:
ELISABETH HASSELBECK: She is cleared, okay, on the record cleared. And if we're going to investigate that, there are things that have happened in this election that have been bold faced broken promises. What about- you want to talk about improper use of power when Barack Obama, look- -- Brent Baker
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At about 2:50 AM EST Wednesday morning, MSNBC went live to NBC News reporter Dawna Friesen in London for world reaction to Barack Obama's election and she triumphantly declared: "It's not an overstatement to say that this is what the world wanted. Poll after poll done in countries around the world over the past few months has showed that people wanted Barack Obama to win." 
Friday's NBC Nightly News devoted a story to how around the world "people want to turn a page on the Bush years" and, as if it's relevant, "if the world had a vote, Barack Obama would win in a landslide." A suggestion to viewers on what they must do to restore America's honor? Reporter Dawna Friesen warned that the next President "faces a grim reality: Much of the world deeply distrusts, even dislikes, the United States" and she rued "much of the sympathy and solidarity that existed after 9/11 evaporated during the Bush years." 
You know, it's not an overstatement to say that this is what the world wanted. Poll after poll done in countries around the world over the past few months has showed that people wanted Barack Obama to win. And in Kenya, overnight -- that is the country that is the ancestral home of Obama's late father -- overnight, they were all up in the little village where his extended family still lives watching the results come in. And when they realized that their favorite son was going to become America's 44th President, the dancing, the singing began. Apparently the song had only two words, "Obama" and "miracle." Kenya's President has announced that tomorrow will be a national holiday in honor of Barack Obama. 
NBC anchor Brian Williams appeared on the Tavis Smiley show on PBS on Monday night and trashed Joe the Plumber's anti-tax cause as a silly issue, not a serious question about the redistribution of wealth: "Look at how our attention was able to get pulled into pigs and lipstick and plumbers. We got a plumber who's the third member of the GOP ticket, in effect, and that's, it's all of our fault, yes, and there will be time to bloody our own backs with chains, but it's also the sorry state of our discourse as if, Tavis, we don't have enough serious issues to concentrate on." Williams added: "I think we may find out it was a movement year, we may find out we all had to step aside and just let it happen, and we may decide we went down too many rat holes of distractions on our way there." 
On his syndicated Chris Matthews Show on Sunday, the conspicuously pro-Obama MSNBC host announced how he expected that "election night is going to be emotional for all of us....Particularly if it goes in that historic direction, it's going to be very emotional for everybody. I mean, everybody." 
In a Thursday night appearance on the PBS show Charlie Rose, it was revealed that the Democratic ticket could have been Obama-Brokaw. Rose reported: "I think it was Caroline Kennedy who said that when they have the short [running mate] list for Barack Obama, there was a name down there somewhere?" Tom Brokaw replied: "My name was on it." Rose pestered Brokaw to go into public service after his latest NBC stint ends: "There comes a time, you are reminding me of a conceited anchorman who once said to raise your right hand to enlist." Brokaw didn't utterly reject the idea of serving a new administration: "I understand the need to step up from time to time, and if the right opportunity came along, I would certainly be willing to take a good, hard look at that." 
Nicholas Kristof, the occasionally iconoclastic liberal columnist for the New York Times, does it again with an Election Day post at his nytimes.com blog. The topic: Liberal bias. Surprisingly, Kristof basically assents to large swathes of the conservative argument: "But on the social issues -- gun control, abortion, gay marriage, religion -- I'm not sure we're that even-handed....Journalists move easily in the world of business Republicans, less easily in the world of Evangelical Republicans. So that makes it easier to slip into caricaturing social conservatives at times, and we should try harder to avoid it." 
Double standards on the front page on Election Day from Katharine Seelye. While Obama wins in Indiana, Virginia, and other states would be a "disaster" for McCain, a McCain win in Pennsylvania would bring "grave pronouncements about racism." 
Whoopi Goldberg, in defending Reverend Wright, admitted to, at times "cuss[ing] out America." On the November 4 (Election Day) edition of ABC's daytime show The View a conversation about Sarah Palin's clearance in the "Troopergate" probe quickly morphed into a fight (three on one) over Reverend Wright. In justifying Wright's "God damn America" remark, Goldberg confessed: "I have been guilty of cussing this country out because we have not always shown our best and put our best foot forward."