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Rich Noyes on MSNBC |
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Rich Noyes, the
MRC's Director of Research, appeared on MSNBC to discuss leaks
of classified material and the role of the news media.
-- MSNBC News Live, 2:30pm EDT half hour, September
27 |
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Countdown Host
Keith Olbermann Rants Against Chris Wallace, Fox News
Sunday, and President Bush |
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Keith Olbermann:
"Finally tonight, a 'Special Comment' about President
Clinton's interview. The headlines about it are, of course,
entirely wrong. It is not essential that a past President,
bullied and sandbagged by a monkey posing as a newscaster,
finally lashed back. It is not important that the current
President's portable public chorus has described his
predecessor's tone as 'crazed.' Our tone should be crazed. The
nation's freedoms are under assault by an administration whose
policies can do us as much damage as al-Qaeda. The nation's
marketplace of ideas is being poisoned by a propaganda company
so blatant that Tokyo Rose would've quit.
"Nonetheless, the headline is this: Bill Clinton did what
almost none of us have done in five years. He has spoken the
truth about 9/11 and the current presidential administration.
'At least I tried,' he said of his own efforts to capture or
kill Osama bin Laden. 'That's the difference in me and some,
including all of the right-wingers who are attacking me now.
They had eight months to try. They did not try. I tried.' Thus
in his supposed emeritus years has Mr. Clinton taken forceful
and triumphant action for honesty, and for us; action as vital
and as courageous as any of his presidency; action as
startling and as liberating, as any, by any one, in these last
five long years.
"The Bush Administration did not try to get Osama bin Laden
before 9/11. The Bush Administration ignored all the evidence
gathered by its predecessors. The Bush Administration did not
understand the daily briefing entitled 'Bin Laden Determined
To Strike in U.S.' The Bush Administration did not try.
Moreover, for the last five years one month and two weeks, the
current administration, and in particular the President, has
been given the greatest pass for incompetence and malfeasance
in American history.
"President Roosevelt was rightly blamed for ignoring the
warning signs, some of them 17 years old, before Pearl Harbor.
President Hoover was correctly blamed for, if not the Great
Depression itself, then the disastrous economic steps he took
in the immediate aftermath of the Stock Market Crash. Even
President Lincoln assumed some measure of responsibility for
the Civil War, though talk of Southern secession had begun as
early as 1832.
"But not this President. To hear him bleat and whine and bully
at nearly every opportunity, one would think someone else had
been President on September 11, 2001, or the nearly eight
months that preceded it. That hardly reflects the honesty nor
manliness we expect of the executive. But if his own fitness
to serve is of no true concern to him, perhaps we should
simply sigh and keep our fingers crossed until a grown-up
takes the job three Januarys from now.
"Except for this: After five years of skirting even the most
inarguable of facts, that he was President on 9/11 and he must
bear some responsibility for his, and our, unreadiness, Mr.
Bush has now moved, unmistakably and without conscience or
shame, towards re-writing history, and attempting to make the
responsibility entirely Mr. Clinton's. Of course he is not
honest enough to do that directly. As with all the other
nefariousness and slime of this, our worst presidency since
James Buchanan, he is having it done for him by proxy. Thus,
the sandbag effort by Fox News Friday afternoon.
"Consider the timing: the very same weekend the National
Intelligence Estimate would be released and show the Iraq war
to be the fraudulent failure it is, not a check on terror, but
fertilizer for it. The kind of proof of incompetence for which
the administration and its hyenas at Fox need to find a
diversion in a scapegoat. It was the kind of cheap trick which
would get a journalist fired but a propagandist promoted:
Promise to talk of charity and generosity, but instead launch
into the lies and distortions with which the authoritarians
among us attack the virtuous and reward the useless. And don't
even be professional enough to assume the responsibility for
the slanders yourself, blame your audience for e-mailing you
the question.
"Mr. Clinton responded as you have seen. He told the great
truth untold about this administration's negligence, perhaps
criminal negligence, about bin Laden. Mr. Clinton was brave.
Then again, Chris Wallace might be braver still. Had I in one
moment surrendered all my credibility as a journalist, and
been irredeemably humiliated, as was he, I would have gone
home and started a new career selling seeds by mail.
"The smearing by proxy, of course, did not begin Friday
afternoon. Disney was the first to sell out its corporate
reputation, with The Path to 9/11. Of that company's crimes
against truth, one needs to say little. Simply put, someone
there enabled an authoritarian zealot to belch out Mr. Bush's
new and improved history. The basic plotline was this: Because
he was distracted by the Monica Lewinsky scandal, Bill Clinton
failed to prevent 9/11.
"The most curious and in some ways the most infuriating aspect
of that slapdash theory is that the right-wingers who have
advocated it, who try to sneak it into our collective
consciousness through entertainment, or who sandbag Mr.
Clinton with it at news interviews, have simply skipped past
its most glaring flaw. Had it been true that Clinton had been
distracted from the hunt for bin Laden in 1998 because of the
Lewinsky nonsense, why did these same people not applaud him
for having bombed bin Laden's camps in Afghanistan and Sudan
on August 20 of that year? For mentioning bin Laden by name as
he did so? That day, Republican Senator Grams of Minnesota
invoked the movie Wag the Dog. Republican Senator Coats of
Indiana questioned Mr. Clinton's judgement. Republican Senator
Ashcroft of Missouri, the future Attorney General, echoed
Coats. Even Republican Senator Arlen Specter questioned the
timing.
"And, of course, were it true Clinton had been distracted by
the Lewinsky witch hunt, who on Earth conducted the Lewinsky
witch hunt? Who turned the political discourse of this nation
on its head for two years? Who corrupted the political media?
Who made it impossible for us to even bring back on the air
the counterterrorism analysts, like Dr. Richard Haass and
James Dunegan, who had warned, at this very hour, on this very
network, in early 1998, of the cells from the Middle East who
sought to attack us here? Who preempted them in order to
strangle us with the trivia that was 'All Monica All The
Time'? Who distracted whom?
"This is, of course, where, as is inevitable, Mr. Bush and his
henchmen prove not quite as smart as they think they are. The
full responsibility for 9/11 is obviously shared by three
administrations, possibly four. But, Mr. Bush, if you are now
trying to convince us by proxy that it's all about the
distractions of 1998 and 1999, then you will have to face a
startling fact that your minions may have hidden from you. The
distractions of 1998 and 1999, Mr. Bush, were carefully
manufactured, and lovingly executed, not by Bill Clinton, but
by the same people who got you elected President.
"Thus, instead of some commendable acknowledgment that you
were even in office on 9/11 and the lost months before it, we
have your sleazy and sloppy rewriting of history, designed by
somebody who evidently read the Orwell playbook too quickly.
Thus, instead of some explanation for the inertia of your
first eight months in office, we are told that you have kept
us safe ever since, a statement that might range anywhere from
zero to 100 percent true. We have nothing but your word, and
your word has long since ceased to mean anything. And, of
course, the one time you ever have given us specifics about
what you have kept us safe from, Mr. Bush, you got the name of
the supposedly targeted tower in Los Angeles wrong.
"Thus was it left for the previous President to say what so
many of us have felt, what so many of us have given you a pass
for in the months and even the years after the attack: You did
not try. You ignored the evidence gathered by your
predecessor. You ignored the evidence gathered by your own
people. Then, you blamed your predecessor. That would be a
textbook definition, sir, of cowardice.
"To enforce the lies of the present, it is necessary to erase
the truths of the past. That was one of the great mechanical
realities Eric Blair, writing as George Orwell, gave us in the
novel 1984. The great philosophical reality he gave us, Mr.
Bush, may sound as familiar to you as it has lately begun to
sound familiar to me.
"'The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not
interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in
power.' 'Power is not a means; it is an end.' 'One does not
establish a dictatorship to safeguard a revolution; one makes
the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. 'The
object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is
torture. The object of power is power.'
"Earlier last Friday afternoon, before the Fox ambush,
speaking in the far different context of the closing session
of his remarkable Global Initiative, Mr. Clinton quoted
Abraham Lincoln's State of the Union address from 1862: 'We
must disenthrall ourselves.' Mr. Clinton did not quote the
rest of Mr. Lincoln's sentence. He might well have. 'We must
disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country.'
And so has Mr. Clinton helped us to disenthrall ourselves, and
perhaps enabled us, even at this late and bleak date, to save
our country.
"The free pass has been withdrawn, Mr. Bush. You did not act
to prevent 9/11. We do not know what you have done to prevent
another 9/11. You have failed us, then leveraged that failure,
to justify a purposeless war in Iraq which will have, all too
soon, claimed more American lives than did 9/11. You have
failed us anew in Afghanistan. And you have now tried to hide
your failures by blaming your predecessor. And now you exploit
your failure to rationalize brazen torture which doesn't work
anyway, which only condemns our soldiers to water-boarding,
which only humiliates our country further in the world, and
which no true American would ever condone, let alone advocate.
And there it is, sir: Are yours the actions of a true
American? I'm Keith Olbermann. Good night and good luck."
-- Countdown host Keith Olbermann, MSNBC, Sept. 25, 2006 |
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MRC's Brent Bozell on
'Scarborough Country' |
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MRC President Brent
Bozell discussed the media's coverage of Pope Benedict's
remarks about Islam and the Muslim world's reaction to them.
-- MSNBC's Scarborough Country, September 19 |
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Flashback: Clinton Wagged
Finger at Jennings: 'Don't Go There!' |
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Peter Jennings:
"Fifty-eight historians, as I think you may know, did this
for C-SPAN. And they were all across the political spectrum.
And they came out, in general terms, that you were 21st. And
on public persuasion and economic management, they gave you a
fifth. Pretty good."
Former President Bill Clinton: "Pretty good."
Jennings: "They gave you a 41st on moral authority."
Clinton: "They're wrong about that."
Jennings: "After Nixon."
Clinton: "They're wrong about that. You know why
they're wrong about it? They're wrong about it."
Jennings: "Why, sir?"
Clinton: "Because we had $100 million spent against us
and all these inspections. One person in my administration was
convicted of doing something that violated his job
responsibilities while we were in the White House, 29 in the
Reagan/Bush years. I bet those historians didn't even know
that. They have no idea what I was subject to and what a lot
of people supported.
“No other President ever had to endure someone like Ken Starr
indicting innocent people because they wouldn't lie, in a
systematic way. No one ever had to try to save people from
ethnic cleansing in the Balkans and the people in Haiti from a
military dictator who was murdering them and all the other
problems I dealt with, while every day, an entire apparatus
was devoted to destroying him. And still, not any example of
where I ever disgraced this country publicly.
“I made a terrible public, personal mistake, but I paid for it
many times over. And in spite of it all, you don't have any
example where I ever lied to the American people about my job,
where I ever let the American people down. And I had more
support from the world and the world leaders and people around
the world when I quit than when I started. And I will go to my
grave being at peace about it. And I don't really care what
they think."
Jennings: "Oh, yes, you do, sir."
Clinton: "They have no-"
Jennings: "No, excuse me, Mr. President. You care, I
can feel it across the room."
Clinton: "No, no, I care-"
Jennings: "You feel it very deeply."
Clinton, raised his arm and menacingly pointed at Jennings:
"You don't want to go there, Peter. You don't want to go
there. Not after what you people did and the way you, your
network, what you did with Kenneth Starr. The way your people
repeated every little sleazy thing he leaked. No one has any
idea what that's like. That's where I failed.
“You want to know where I failed? I really let it, it hurt me.
I thought I believed in a, I thought I lived in a country
where people believe in the Constitution and the rule of law,
freedom of speech. You never had to live in a time when people
you knew and cared about were being indicted, carted off to
jail, bankrupted, ruined because they were Democrats and
because they would not lie.
“So I think we showed a lot of moral fiber to stand up to
that, to stand up to these constant investigations, to this
constant bodyguard of lies, this avalanche that was thrown at
all of us. And, yes, I failed once. And I sure paid for it.
And I'm sorry. I'm sorry for the American people, and I'm
sorry for the embarrassment they performed. But they ought to
think about the way the rest of the world reacted to it.
“When I, when I got a standing ovation at the United Nations
from the whole world, the American networks were showing my
grand jury testimony. Those were decisions you made, not me. I
personally believe that the standing ovation I got from the
whole world at the United Nations, which was unprecedented for
an American President, showed not only support for me, but
opposition to the madness that had taken hold of American
politics."
-- Exchange between then-anchor Peter Jennings and
President Bill Clinton, ABC News, “Bill Clinton: A Place in
History,” Nov. 18, 2004 |
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Terrorism Analyst
Michael
Scheurer Refutes President Clinton’s Claims about
Osama bin Laden |
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Harry Smith:
"Elizabeth Palmer live in Pakistan this morning, thank you.
I'm going to go back now to Michael Scheuer once again. Let's
talk about what President Clinton had to say on Fox yesterday.
He basically laid blame at the feet of the CIA and the FBI for
not being able to certify or verify that Osama bin Laden was
responsible for a number of different attacks. Does that ring
true to you?"
Michael Scheuer: "No, sir, I don't think so. The
president seems to be able, the former president seems to be
able to deny facts with impugnity. Bin Laden is alive today
because Mr. Clinton, Mr. Sandy Berger, and Mr. Richard Clarke
refused to kill him. That's the bottom line. And every time he
says what he said to Chris Wallace on Fox, he defames the CIA
especially, and the men and women who risk their lives to give
his administration repeated chances to kill bin Laden."
Harry Smith: "Alright, is the Bush administration any
less responsible for not finishing the job in Tora Bora?"
Michael Scheuer: "Oh, I think there's plenty of blame
to go around, sir, but the fact of the matter is that the Bush
Administration had one chance that they botched, and the
Clinton Administration had eight to ten chances that they
refused to try. At least at Tora Bora our forces were on the
ground. We didn't push the point. But it's just, it's an
incredible kind of situation for the American people over the
weekend to hear their former president mislead them."
Harry Smith: "And, and, and with this also further
revelation that, in fact, the war in Iraq has only exacerbated
the terrorist situation. Michael Scheurer, we thank you so
much for your time this morning."
-- Exchange between host Harry Smith and terrorism analyst
Michael Scheurer, The Early Show, CBS, Sept. 25, 2006 |
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Daily Show Host Jon
Stewart Trashes Columnist Robert Novak |
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Jon Stewart:
"I'm down in D.C. this weekend ... and I just wanted to
immerse myself in the atmosphere of the area, I wanted to get
the lay of the land, so I took tuned into, they have a station
down there called C-SPAN, which sort of covers local
happenings in the Washington-Baltimore area, and I'm watching
this show Washington Journal, and I'm just, I mean, I was
stunned. You, take a look."
Robert Novak: "Somebody mentioned the Jon Stewart
program. I've never seen that in my life, and I will go to my
grave never having seen it."
Stewart got out a pad and pen and said in an oozy voice,
joyous at the prospect of Novak reaching the grave:
"Really? You'll go to your grave never having seen it? When's
that scheduled for?" Then the show skipped back to another
C-SPAN clip:
Brian Lamb: "Why?"
Novak: "I don't see any reason for it. It's a
self-righteous comedian taking on airs of grandeur, and I
don't really need that."
Stewart: "'Self-righteous comedian taking on airs of
grandeur'?! You just said you've never seen it. You don't
even, listen, I'm not going to deny I'm a pompous ass, but
'airs of grandeur,' that couldn't have been what he said. I
should check, let me check this transcript."
As he put on a monocle and then put a pipe in his mouth,
Stewart joked: "Airs of grandeur. This is ridiculous, let
me just, hold on, oh, it's not. Hold on. Let me just, oh, God,
that's insane! I just, whoa, yes! We couldn't figure out how
to appropriately mock 'airs of grandeur.' Earlier we actually
tried rehearsing with a guy in a white powdered wig who walked
out with a scroll, but it felt too real.
"Yes, Robert Novak does not watch 'The Daily Show' or myself,
not surprising. You know, I keep reading all these articles
about how 'The Daily Show' is big amongst 115-year-old vampire
demons, but why does Robert Novak -- hate? And why me? I mean,
it's like I publicly revealed some piece of information he
didn't want people to know and ruined his career and then kept
asserting it was everyone else's fault but mine.
“Well, I don't like this bad blood between us, Robert. If
you're watching, and I know you're not, I think it's time we
buried the hatchet! We need to get together and talk. We'll
meet on neutral ground. You're on Fox, I'm on Comedy Central.
How about the Food Network? Rachael Ray seems like a
peacemaker.
“We can work this out because I know that you're a good person
deep down in your --[pauses for comedic effect, makes a series
of circular gestures with his chest] , the thing that they
replaced your heart with that pumps the, I know you have
redeeming qualities! I see your redeeming qualties. For
example, when you're on television, you let others shine while
you generously absorb all light and oxygen. When you leave an
area, it stops raining. And I know that in the past I have
referred to you as a douche bag. But that's not an air of
grandeur, that's just mean and sophomoric, and I only said
those things to you because I sincerely believe you're a
terrible person."
“… Sadly, Robert Novak isn't the only enemy of American
democracy. We have even more dangerous foes."
-- Host Jon Stewart, The Daily Show, Comedy Central, Sept. 19,
2006 |
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Olbermann: Bush Like Angry
3-Year-Old and Should Apologize |
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Keith Olbermann:
"And then there was that one most awful phrase. In four
simple words last Friday, the President brought into sharp
focus what has been only vaguely clear these past
five-and-a-half years, the way the terrain at night is
perceptible only during an angry flash of lightning, and then
a second later, all again is dark. 'It's unacceptable to
think,' he said. It is never unacceptable to think.
"And when a President says thinking is unacceptable, even on
one topic, even in the heat of the moment, even in the turning
of a phrase extracted from its context, he takes us toward a
new and fearful path, one heretofore the realm of science
fiction authors and apocalyptic visionaries. That flash of
lightning freezes at the distant horizon, and we can just make
out a world in which authority can actually suggest it has
become unacceptable to think.
"Thus the lightning flash reveals not merely a President we
have already seen, the one who believes he has a monopoly on
current truth. It now shows us a President who has decided
that of all our commanders-in-chief ever, he alone has had the
knowledge necessary to alter and reshape our inalienable
rights.
"This is a frightening and a dangerous delusion, Mr.
President. If Mr. Powell's letter -- cautionary, concerned,
predominantly supportive -- can induce from you such wrath and
such intolerance, what would you say were this statement to be
shouted to you by a reporter or written to you by a colleague?
'Governments are instituted among men, deriving their just
powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any
form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is
the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to
institute new government.' Those incendiary thoughts came, of
course, from a prior holder of your job, Mr. Bush. They were
the words of Thomas Jefferson. He put them in the Declaration
of Independence.
"Mr. Bush, what would you say to something that antithetical
to the status quo just now? Would you call it unacceptable for
Jefferson to think such things or to write them?
"Between your confidence in your infallibility, sir, and your
demonizing of dissent, and now these rages better suited to a
thwarted three-year old, you have left the unnerving sense of
a White House coming unglued, a chilling suspicion that
perhaps we have not seen the peak of the anger, that we can no
longer forecast what next will be said to, or about, anyone
who disagrees. Or what will next be done to them.
"On this newscast last Friday, constitutional law Professor
Jonathan Turley of George Washington University suggested that
at some point in the near future some of the detainees
transferred from secret CIA cells to Guantanamo will finally
get to tell the Red Cross that they have indeed been tortured.
Thus the debate over the Geneva Conventions might not be about
further interrogations of detainees, but about those already
conducted, and the possible liability of the administration
for them. That certainly could explain Mr. Bush's fury, but
that, at this point, is speculative. But at least it provides
an alternative possibility as to why the President's words
were at such variance from the entire history of this country.
"For, there needs to be some other explanation, Mr. Bush, than
that you truly believe we should live in a United States of
America in which a thought is unacceptable. There needs to be
a delegation of responsible leaders, Republicans or otherwise,
who can sit you down as Barry Goldwater and Hugh Scott once
sat Richard Nixon down, and explain the reality of the
situation you have created. There needs to be an apology from
the President of the United States. And more than one.
"But, Mr. Bush, the others, for warnings unheeded five years
ago, for war unjustified four years ago, for battle unprepared
three years ago, they are not weighted with the urgency and
the necessity of this one. We must know that, to you, thought
with which you disagree, and even voice with which you
disagree, and even action with which you disagree, are still
sacrosanct to you.
"The philosopher Voltaire once insisted to another author, 'I
detest what you write, but I would give my life to make it
possible for you to continue to write.' Since the nation's
birth, Mr. Bush, we have misquoted and even embellished that
statement, but we have served ourselves well by subscribing to
its essence. Oddly, there are other words of Voltaire's that
are more pertinent still, just now. 'Think for yourselves,' he
wrote, 'and let others enjoy the privilege to do so, too.'
"Apologize, sir, for even hinting at an America where a few
have that privilege to think and the rest of us wind up
getting yelled at by the President. Anything else, Mr. Bush,
is truly unacceptable. I'm Keith Olbermann. Good night and
good luck."
- Host Keith Olbermann, Countdown, MSNBC, Sept. 11, 2006 |
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NBC’s
Gregory Pushes Bush
on Geneva Convention Rule |
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President Bush:
"I must say, having gone through those gyrations, you're
looking beautiful today, Dave." (Laughter.)
NBC’s David Gregory: "Mr. President, critics of your
proposed bill on interrogation rules say there's another
important test -- these critics include John McCain, who
you've mentioned several times this morning -- and that test
is this: If a CIA officer, paramilitary or special operations
soldier from the United States were captured in Iran or North
Korea, and they were roughed up, and those governments said,
well, they were interrogated in accordance with our
interpretation of the Geneva Conventions, and then they were
put on trial and they were convicted based on secret evidence
that they were not able to see, how would you react to that,
as Commander-in-Chief?"
Bush: "David, my reaction is, is that if the nations
such as those you named, adopted the standards within the
Detainee Detention Act, the world would be better. That's my
reaction. We're trying to clarify law. We're trying to set
high standards, not ambiguous standards.
"And let me just repeat, Dave, we can debate this issue all we
want, but the practical matter is, if our professionals don't
have clear standards in the law, the program is not going to
go forward. You cannot ask a young intelligence officer to
violate the law. And they're not going to. They -- let me
finish, please -- they will not violate the law. You can ask
this question all you want, but the bottom line is -- and the
American people have got to understand this -- that this
program won't go forward; if there is vague standards applied,
like those in Common Article III from the Geneva Convention,
it's just not going to go forward. You can't ask a young
professional on the front line of protecting this country to
violate law.
"Now, I know they said they're not going to prosecute them.
Think about that: Go ahead and violate it, we won't prosecute
you. These people aren't going to do that, Dave. Now, we can
justify anything you want and bring up this example or that
example, I'm just telling you the bottom line, and that's why
this debate is important, and it's a vital debate.
"Now, perhaps some in Congress don't think the program is
important. That's fine. I don't know if they do or don't. I
think it's vital, and I have the obligation to make sure that
our professionals who I would ask to go conduct interrogations
to find out what might be happening or who might be coming to
this country, I got to give them the tools they need. And that
is clear law.
Gregory (first interruption/follow-up): "But sir, this
is an important point, and I think it depends --"
Bush: "The point I just made is the most important
point."
Gregory: "Okay."
Bush: "And that is the program is not going forward.
David, you can give a hypothetical about North Korea, or any
other country, the point is that the program is not going to
go forward if our professionals do not have clarity in the
law. And the best way to provide clarity in the law is to make
sure the Detainee Treatment Act is the crux of the law. That's
how we define Common Article III, and it sets a good standard
for the countries that you just talked about. Next man."
Gregory (second): "No, but wait a second, I think this
is an important point --"
Bush: "I know you think it's an important point."
(Laughter.)
Gregory (third): "Sir, with respect, if other countries
interpret the Geneva Conventions as they see fit -- as they
see fit -- you're saying that you'd be okay with that?"
Bush: "I am saying that I would hope that they would
adopt the same standards we adopt; and that by clarifying
Article III, we make it stronger, we make it clearer, we make
it definite. And I will tell you again, David, you can ask
every hypothetical you want, but the American people have got
to know the facts. And the bottom line is simple: If Congress
passes a law that does not clarify the rules, if they do not
do that, the program is not going forward."
Gregory (fourth): "This will not endanger U.S. troops,
in your -- "
Bush: "Next man."
Gregory (fifth): This will not endanger U.S. troops --
Bush: "David, next man, please. Thank you. It took you
a long time to unravel, and it took you a long time to ask
your question."
-- Exchange between NBC reporter David Gregory and
President Bush, NBC News, Sept. 15, 2006 |
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President Bush Pokes Fun
at Liberal New York Times |
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President Bush:
"Let's see, New York Times, Sheryl."
Sheryl Gay Stolberg: "Hi, Mr. President."
Bush: "Fine. How are you doing?"
Stolberg: "I'm well today, thank you." (Laughter.)
Bush: "Did you start with, hi, Mr. President?"
Stolberg: "Hello, Mr. President."
Bush: "Okay, that's fine. Either way, that's always a
friendly greeting, thank you."
Stolberg: "We're a friendly newspaper."
Bush, with look of disbelief: "Yeah. (Laughter.) Let me
just say, I'd hate to see unfriendly." (Laughter.)
-- Exchange between NYT reporter Sheryl Gay Stolberg and
President Bush, Fox News Channel, Sept. 15, 2006. |
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Sean
Penn: Bush Caused
'Enormous Damage to Mankind,' Fascism Too? |
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Larry King:
“All right. Some other things. Iraq. Getting any better? The
military now controls itself.”
Sean Penn: “No. It's -- I think -- to me the situation
is pretty simple. I mean, the devastation of the situation is
pretty simple. Right now, you know, what these party clowns
like Don Rumsfeld could be described as, as far as I'm
concerned, except for the enormous damage he's done this
country and mankind -- and our President -- and saw that
they're getting out there and they're beating this drum, to
drown out, as they did in 2002, to drown out other -- in that
case it was Enron. Now we have another situation, so it's this
war on terror, boom, boom, boom. Drown out the reality of
what's really happening.
“I think the American people have a choice. In my idea, it's
about an eight to ten-year proposition of Iraqis and Americans
and others dying in Iraq. The same amount will be dead of
Iraqis, innocent, in ten years without the Americans as they
will with the Americans there. We'll just have more Americans
dead. So shamefully, we have to -- you know, it's what Nixon
called 'peace with honor,' to get out of Vietnam.
“I think that, you know, 'cut and run' is something that's
meant to make people feel like cowards if they do it. Well, we
did make a mistake. It is time to pull our troops out. It's
time to rebuild our military because we've got a bad world and
they've inflamed terrorism around the world. I think that's
very clear to most people. So what's happened there is a civil
war that's going to get worse with us or without us. It's time
for us to strengthen ourselves and to try to help them through
diplomacy and with money.”
King: “But when the President says we should support
emerging democracies, because democracy's better for the
world, is that -- isn't he right?”
Penn: “I think he's devastated our democracy. I think
you have to start with our democracy. He's made us divided. I
have a lot of very good friends who are Republicans, who are
right-wing Republicans. And when you are with people and you
talk to people as people, and not as Republicans and
Democrats, you find that's why his numbers are down. Because
people have common sense. They're going to vote, you know, in
a few months, and they're going to say, well, are we going to
be suckers again? Are we going to be suckers to partisan
policy and politics and all of that stuff?
“By the way, no Democrat that doesn't have a plan to get our
troops out of Iraq should be voted for. Not one of them. You
know, there's got to be some courage expressed, and that's
what I'm worried about is that we're not going to have good
choices.”
Exchange between Larry King and Sean Penn, Larry King
Live, CNN, Sept. 14, 2006. |
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The View Co-host
Rosie O’Donnell Equates “Radical Islam” with “Radical
Christianity” |
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Rosie
O'Donnell: "Hold on one second. We were attacked not by a nation and,
as a result of the attack and the killing of nearly 3,000 innocent people, we
invaded two countries and killed innocent people in their countries."
Elisabeth Hasselbeck: "But do you understand that, that the
belief funding those attacks, okay, that is widespread. And if you take radical
Islam and if you want to talk about what's going on there, you have to-"
O'Donnell, interrupting: "Wait just one second. Radical
Christianity is just as threatening as radical Islam in a country like America
where we have a separation of church and state. We're a democracy." (loud
applause)
Hasselbeck: "We're not bombing ourselves here in the country.
We are being attacked."
O'Donnell: "No, but we are bombing innocent people in other
countries. True or false?
Joy Behar: "But Christians are not threatening to kill us.
There’s that difference. This group is threatening to kill us."
-- ABC's The View, September 12, 2006 |
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Olbermann: Bush's
'Impeachable Lies...Crime Against' 9/11 Victims |
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Keith Olbermann: "The only positive
on 9/11 and the days and weeks that so slowly and painfully
followed it was the unanimous humanity, here and throughout
the country. The government â€" the President, in particular
â€" was given every possible measure of support. Those who did
not belong to his party tabled that. Those who doubted the
mechanics of his election ignored that. Those who wondered of
his qualifications forgot that.
"History teaches us that nearly unanimous support of a
government cannot be taken away from that government by its
critics. It can only be squandered by those who use it not to
heal a nation's wounds, but to take political advantage.
Terrorists did not come and steal our newly-regained sense of
being American first, and political, fiftieth. Nor did the
Democrats. Nor did the media. Nor did the people. The
President and those around him did that.
"They promised bipartisanship, and then showed that, to them,
'bipartisanship' meant that their party would rule and the
rest would have to follow or be branded, with ever-escalating
hysteria, as morally or intellectually confused, as appeasers,
as those who, in the Vice President's words yesterday,
'validate the strategy of the terrorists.' They promised
protection, and then showed that to them 'protection' meant
going to war against a despot whose hand they had once shaken,
a despot who we now learn from our own Senate Intelligence
Committee, hated al-Qaeda as much as we did. The polite phrase
for how so many of us were duped into supporting a war on the
false premise that it had something to do with 9/11 is lying
by implication. The impolite phrase is 'impeachable offense.'
"Not once in now five years has this President ever offered to
assume responsibility for the failures that led to this empty
space, and to this, the current and curdled version of our
beloved country. Still, there is a snapping flame from a final
candle of respect and fairness: Even his most virulent critics
have never suggested that he alone bears the full brunt of the
blame for 9/11. Half the time, in fact, this President has
been so gently treated that he has seemed not even to be the
man most responsible for anything in his own administration.
"Yet what is happening this very night? A miniseries, created,
influenced, possibly financed by the most radical and cold of
domestic political Machiavellis, continues to be televised
into our homes. The documented truths of the last fifteen
years are replaced by bald-faced lies; the talking points of
the current regime parroted; the whole sorry story blurred by
spin to make the party out of office seem vacillating and
impotent, and the party in office seem like the only option.
"How dare you, Mr. President, after taking cynical advantage
of the unanimity and love, and transmuting both into
fraudulent war and needless death, after monstrously
transforming it into fear and suspicion and turning that fear
into the campaign slogan of three elections? How dare you, or
those around you, ever spin 9/11? Just as the terrorists have
succeeded, are still succeeding, as long as there is no
memorial and no construction here at Ground Zero, so too have
they succeeded, and are still succeeding, as long as this
government uses 9/11 as a wedge to pit Americans against
Americans.
"This is an odd point to cite a television program, especially
one from March of 1960. But as Disney's continuing sell-out of
the truth, and of this country, suggests, even television
programs can be powerful things. And long ago, a series called
The Twilight Zone broadcast a riveting episode entitled 'The
Monsters Are Due On Maple Street.' [over black and white video
of the TV episode] In brief: a meteor sparks rumors of an
invasion by extraterrestrials disguised as humans. The
electricity goes out. A neighbor pleads for calm. Suddenly his
car, and only his car, starts. Someone suggests he must be the
alien. Then another man's lights go on. As charges and
suspicion and panic overtake the street, guns are inevitably
produced. An 'alien' is shot, but then he turns out to be just
another neighbor returning from having gone for help. The
camera pulls back to a nearby hill, where two
extraterrestrials are seen, finally, manipulating a small
device that can jam electricity. The veteran tells his novice
that there is no need to actually attack, that you just turn
off a few of the human machines, and then 'they pick the most
dangerous enemy they can find, and it is themselves.'
"And then, in perhaps his finest piece of writing, Rod Serling
sums it up with words of remarkable prescience, given where we
find ourselves tonight. 'The tools of conquest,' he said, 'do
not necessarily come with bombs and explosions and fallout.
There are weapons that are simply thoughts, attitudes,
prejudices, to be found only in the minds of men. For the
record,' he said, 'prejudices can kill and suspicion can
destroy, and a thoughtless, frightened search for a scapegoat
has a fallout all its own for the children and the children
yet unborn.'
"When those who dissent are told time and time again -- as we
will be, if not tonight by the President, then tomorrow by his
portable public chorus -- that he is preserving our freedom,
but that if we use any of that freedom, we are somehow
un-American; when we are scolded, that if we merely question,
we have 'forgotten the lessons of 9/11'; look into this empty
space behind me and the bipartisanship upon which this
administration also did not build, and tell me this: Who has
left this hole in the ground? We have not forgotten, Mr.
President. You have. May this country forgive you.
"Our coverage of the President's address is next. From Ground
Zero, I'm Keith Olbermann. Good night and good luck."
- Host Keith Olbermann, Countdown, MSNBC, Sept. 11, 2006 |
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Lauer Worries With
Hillary, Then Pounds Bush on Interrogations |
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Matt Lauer:
"Now more of my interview with President Bush. I spoke to him
on Friday in the Oval Office at the White House and President
Bush has said nothing is more important to him than keeping
the American people safe. On Sunday, on Meet the Press, Vice
President Cheney added it's no accident there hasn't been an
attack on U.S. soil since 9/11. Well in a spirited exchange I
asked the President to respond to those who say his
administration may have gone too far, for example, in
interrogating terror suspects?"
[George W. Bush]
Lauer: "Well That's an interesting point and you said,
'within the law.' And yet you admitted that there were these
CIA secret facilities."
Bush: "So what? Why is that not within the law?"
Lauer: "The head of Amnesty International says secret
sites are against international law."
Bush: "Well, we just agree to disagree with him. And
plus, my job is to protect you. And most American people, if I
said that we had who we think's the mastermind of the 9/11,
they would say, 'Why don't you see if you can't get
information out of him without torturing,' which is what we
did."
Lauer: "These, these alternative methods you talked
about in terms of extracting information from these suspected
terrorists. Were you made personally aware of all of the
techniques that were used, for example, against a Khalid
Shaikh Mohammed? And did you approve all of those techniques?"
[Bush]
Lauer: "It, it's been reported that with Khalid Shaikh
Mohammed he was what they called, water-boarded."
[Bush]
Lauer: "I, I don't want to let this 'within the law,'
issue slip though. I mean if, if in fact there was
water-boarding used with Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and for the
viewers that's basically you strap someone to a board and you
make 'em feel as if they're gonna drown, you put 'em
underwater. If, if that was legal and within the law why
couldn't you do it at Guantanamo? Why did you have to go to a
secret location around the world?"
Bush: "I'm not going to talk about techniques. And, I'm
not going explain to the enemy what we're doing. All I'm
telling you is that you've asked me whether or not we're doing
things to protect the American people, and I want the American
people to know we are doing so."
Lauer: "At some point, Mr. President, if, if
techniques, these alternate, alternative techniques are used-"
[Bush]
Lauer: "I'm not gonna ask you to specifically say
anything about say about them. But if they are used, are you
at all concerned that at some point, even if you get results,
there is a blurring the lines of, between ourselves and the
people we're trying to protect us against?"
[Bush]
Lauer: "President George W. Bush speaking to me Friday
in the Oval Office at the White House."
Lauer's treatment of Bush contrasted sharply with these
softball questions he threw to Clinton as the two stood by
Ground Zero in the interview aired in the 7am half hour:
Lauer: "New York's junior senator Democrat Hillary
Rodham Clinton will be here at Ground Zero all morning long to
help commemorate those lost on 9/11. Senator Clinton good to
have you here. Good morning."
[Sen. Hillary Clinton]
Lauer: "Let me ask you the question that so many
Americans are gonna ask each other and their leaders this
morning and that is are we safer today, five years after these
attacks of 9/11?"
[Clinton]
Lauer: "We, we conducted a poll and we asked people are
they safer, do they at least feel safer? 74 percent said, 'Yes
I feel safer today than I did prior to, or you know right
after 9/11.' How much credit does the Bush administration
deserve for that number?"
[Clinton]
Lauer: "Is in some ways, some have called it a numbers
game. And, and I'm curious how you feel about this? Do you
think that there are more or less people today? More or fewer
people today who want to bring harm to the United States than
there were in the days prior to 9/11 and the actions we've
taken post-9/11?"
[Clinton]
Lauer: "But our, our response to 9/11, in particular
Senator, has it created more enemies in your opinion?"
[Clinton]
Lauer: "The President announced and confirmed last week
something most of us have, have thought for quite a while that
the CIA had secret sites around the world where they
interrogated and detained terror suspects, people like Khalid
Shaikh Mohammed and used alternative question, questioning
methods. Are you comfortable that the United States did not
break the law in conducting that kind of interrogations in
those secret sites?"
[Clinton]
Lauer: "Do the ends justify the means?"
[Clinton]
Lauer: "Senator Clinton, good to have you here."
-- Matt Lauer, Today, NBC, Sep 8, 2006 |
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CBS Host Ferguson Pays
9/11 Tribute: 'The Flag Was Still There' |
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"I'm here, my son
is an American, I pay my taxes in America, I pay alimony in
America. I feel I'm assimilated to you. And so I feel part of
this. I think the world is part of this. Anyone who cares
about anything, when these rat bastards flew those planes into
those buildings, if you're a human, it would insult everything
inside you. And if you've watched TV at all in the past few
days, you'll have seen plenty of talk on 9/11, and I don't
really know what kind of show we do here. If you've watched
this for any length of time, you'll know I'm not kidding about
that. I don't really know what we do, but I'm not going to run
away from this.
"This is a defining moment for our generation. For one
generation, it was the assassination of Kennedy, for another
it's 9/11. It's 'Where were you on September the 11th?' So
here's where I was. I was here in Los Angeles. I was married
at the time, and I got an early phone call from my
then-father-in-law. I was awake. I mean, my son was less than
six months old at the time, so I was awake. And my
father-in-law worked on Wall Street near Ground Zero. And he
said turn on the TV, World War III has broken out, it's crazy.
And we turned on the television, and watched unfold like the
most of the country, I saw the second plane hit as it happened
live, and I didn't hear from my father-in-law again for four
hours. The phone service was down. And we eventually heard
from him. He like a lot of people just walked uptown. They
just headed to Central Park covered in dust, did whatever they
did, and they got out of there. And I remember the feeling of
when the news reports later in the day, they said the planes
had, the rest of the planes in America, the air traffic has
ceased and all the planes were safely landed, I felt a strange
sense of relief. America felt like a very small town that day.
You know, that kind of, get everybody home, that sort of
thing.
"And back then I was working on the Drew Carey Show. I was
still in show business then. I was working on the Drew Carey
Show. And around about noon, the stage manager called, we used
to shoot the show on a Tuesday, and he called and he said
we're not going to tape today, and I said, 'What, is Drew okay
with that because you know lunch is catered on Tuesdays?'
(Laughter) So where we taped the show was at the Warner
Brothers studios, which is in Burbank here. So a few days
later, we went back to work. Air travel was still shut down.
The country was still reeling and mourning. And everyone, it
seems strange to say it now, but I remember thinking, we
thought this was World War III. When's the next one coming?
Tomorrow? The day after? And there was all these memorial
services everywhere. People in work places all over the
country, you know, I'm sure you remember, people would get
together and pray and sing and hold hands and do whatever they
could.
"And Warner Brothers was no different. And they had a memorial
service on the back lot. You know, the studio police, the
studio fire department, all the people that worked there. The
Teamsters, the cast from Friends were there, the cast of the
Drew Carey were there. Drew Carey cast looked like they were
Teamsters. And we were all in the back lot, and the back lot
of Warner Brothers, it's where they shoot the Gilmore Girls.
It's Main Street, USA. It's made to look like that. You know,
it's a quaint little town. It's got a town square. It's got a
band stand in the middle. They've got a town drunk. He runs
the studio (laughter). You know, it's everything. It's really
Main Street, USA. And the street was packed with everyone who
worked there, and we're all huddled together. And back then,
Warner Brothers had, this is before 9/11, they used to have
this giant flag. You remember they used to have? They used to
have this giant Stars and Stripes on the side of one of the
sound stages. It's a huge thing, this flag, about the size of
a city block.
"And for the service, the Teamsters had jerry-rigged this flag
on some scaffolding in the town square. You know, it was this
flag on some scaffolding, it was held on with clips, you know,
this was jubilee clips or whatever they call them, just
holding this flag on. And it was a very, very hot day like you
get in Burbank in September. It was horrible, and this flag up
there, there was some shade so everyone was huddled under the
shade of the flag. And it seemed very poignant at the time
that everyone was frighten and everyone was, you know, but we
all kind of huddled under this flag for protection. And at
this time of year, the Santa Anas start to blow in Los
Angeles. The winds start to blow, and they can pick up a bit.
And halfway through the ceremony is the, you know, everyone is
saying their peace.
"This flag started to ripple with the winds that are coming up
and it started to ping loose from the jerry-rigging, the flag
started to kind of move, and I thought, 'God, we can't have
this now. This flag can't fall down on us now. There's
something very wrong about that.' And a couple of these little
clips pinged out, but the flag stayed where it was. And it's
something that I'll never forget because for all the fear and
terror that 9/11 brought, I thought then when I saw that flag
stay there, I thought that's the way it is here. This is an
ill wind and it moved the flag and a couple of clips popped,
and the country reeled back from it, and for all the arguments
and all the rascals and the scoundrels on either side of
political debates, all across who try and claim this awful,
awful day as something they own, there is argument and debate
in America, and that's what makes us the country that we are.
And when that wind blew, and when that ill wind blew in
America, the flag was still there. The flag was still there
(applause). Maybe somebody should write a song about that.
We'll be back in a minute."
--
Craig Ferguson,
Late Late Show, CBS, Sep 11, 2006 |
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Olbermann Skips Own
Hypocrisy, Castigates Bozell on 9/11 Movie |
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Keith Olbermann:
“But the winner, in a related topic, Bozo the Clown:
Right-wing hysteric Brent Bozell weighing-in in his usual
light-weight manner on the controversy over The Path to 9/11
movie, he writes, quote: 'As a docudrama, it has taken certain
poetic license with history.' Three years ago in the middle of
the controversy over the CBS docudrama about Ronald Reagan,
Mr. Bozell said quote: 'There is no such thing as creative
license to invent falsehoods about people. I don't care who
you are, you don't have that right.' Hey, Brent, when you look
in the mirror, how many faces do you see? The rest of us count
at least two. Brent Bozell, today's Worst Person in the
World!"
-- Keith Olbermann, Countdown, MSNBC, Sept. 8, 2006 |
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MSNBC’s Chris Matthews
Grills Conservative Writer Michelle Malkin |
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Michelle Malkin:
"Why don't people ask him more specific questions about the
shrapnel in his leg?"
Willie Brown [the other guest]: "He didn't get shot at
in Alabama..."
Malkin: "There are legitimate questions about whether
or not..."
Brown: "He didn't get shot at..."
Malkin: "... it was a self-inflicted wound."
Brown: "... a fighter pilot in Alabama."
Chris Matthews: "What do you mean by self-inflicted?
You say he shot himself on purpose? Is that what you're
saying?"
Malkin: "Well, did you read..."
Matthews: "I'm asking you a simple question. Are you
saying he shot himself on purpose?"
Malkin: "I'm saying that some of these soldiers..."
Matthews: "I'm asking a question."
Malkin: "And I'm answering it."
Matthews: "Did he shoot himself on purpose?"
Malkin: "Some of those, some of the, some of the
soldiers have made allegations that these were self-inflicted
wounds."
Matthews: "No, no, no one has ever accused him of
shooting himself on purpose."
Malkin: "These, that these were self-inflicted wounds."
Matthews: "No, no, are you saying he shot himself on
purpose?"
Malkin: "I'm saying that I read the book..."
Matthews: "That's a criminal act."
Brown: "Chris, that is the most irresponsible thing
that..."
Malkin: "I read the book..."
Matthews: "Are you saying he shot himself on purpose? I
want an answer yes or no, Michelle."
Malkin: "Some of the veterans say..."
Matthews: "No, there are..."
Malkin: "Yes. Some of the veterans say that!"
Matthews: "No one has ever accused him..."
Shuster: "No, none of them say that. What they do say
in their book is that John Kerry, quote, ‘got hit by a piece
of shrapnel from a grenade that he had fired himself. He fired
it too close to the shore, and it exploded on a rock or
something.’ If that actually caused Kerry's injury, it would
be called in military terms a self-inflicted wound. But to the
military, it is a descriptive term, not a damning one. And
there is still no evidence Kerry intended to harm himself."
Matthews: "Is there a direct accusation in any book
you’ve ever read in your life that said John Kerry shot
himself on purpose to get a credit for Purple Heart? On
purpose? On purpose? Yes or no, Michelle?"
Malkin: "In the February 19, 1969..."
Matthews: "Yes."
Malkin: "In the February 19, 1969 event..."
Matthews: "Did they say he did it on purpose?"
Malkin: "There are doubts about whether or not..."
Matthews: "There are doubts about, that's..."
Malkin: "... there was intense rifle fire or not."
Matthews: "... the kind of, just tell me for a fact..."
Malkin: "And I wish you would ask these questions of
John Kerry instead of me."
Matthews: "I had never heard anyone say he shot himself
on purpose."
Malkin: "Have you, have you tried to ask?"
Matthews: "And I haven't heard you say it."
Malkin: "Have you tried to ask John Kerry these
questions?"
Matthews: "If he shot himself on purpose? No, I have
not asked him that."
Malkin: "Have you, don't you wonder?"
Matthews: "No, I don't. It's never occurred to me."
-- Exchange among host Chris Matthews, writer Michelle
Malkin, and former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown,
Hardball, MSNBC, Aug. 19, 2004. |
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Rush Limbaugh Discusses
Patriotism on the CBS Evening News’ “freeSpeech”
Segment |
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Rush Limbaugh:
“My friends., it's time to face a hard cold fact: Militant
Islam wants to kill us just because we're alive and don't
believe as they do. And they have been killing us for decades.
It is time to stop pretending these are mere episodic events
and face the reality that our way of life is in grave danger.
Now, this threat is not just going to go away because we
choose to ignore it.
“Some say we try diplomacy. Yeah, well tell me, how do we
negotiate with people whose starting point is our death? Ask
them to wait for 10 years, before they kill us? When Good
negotiates with Evil, Evil will always win. And peace follows
victory, not words issued by diplomats.
“But some Americans, sadly, are not interested in victory. And
yet they want us to believe that their behavior is Patriotic.
Well, it's not. When the critics are more interested in
punishing this country over a few incidents at Abu Grahib and
Guantanamo Bay than they are in defeating those who want to
kill us; when they seek to destroy a foreign surveillance
program which is designed to identify those who want to kill
us and how they intend to do it; when they want to grant those
who want to kill us, U.S. constitutional rights, I don't call
that patriotic.
“Patriotism is rallying behind the country, regardless of
party affiliation, to defeat Islamo-Fascism. Patriotism is
supporting our troops on the battlefield, not undermining the
mission and morale. But let there be no doubt about this.
America will prevail. We're the same country that survived a
bloody Civil War, defeated the Nazis and the Soviets. Each
generation has a responsibility to the next. Our generation
will not disappoint.”
-- Rush Limbaugh, “freeSpeech,” CBS Evening News, CBS,
Sept. 7, 2006 |
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MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann
Depicts President Bush as “Un-American,” makes comparison to
Sen. Joe McCarthy |
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Keith Olbermann:
"And now a special comment about the President's speech
today. It is to our deep national shame, and ultimately it
will be to the President’s deep public regret, that he has
followed his Secretary of Defense down the path of trying to
tie those loyal Americans who disagree with his policies, or
even question their effectiveness or execution, to the Nazis
of the past, and the al-Qaeda of the present.
Olbermann: "Today, in the same subtle terms in which
Mr. Bush and his colleagues muddied the clear line separating
Iraq and 9/11, without ever actually saying so, the President
quoted a purported Osama Bin Laden letter that spoke of
launching, quote, 'a media campaign to create a wedge between
the American people and their government.'
Olbermann: "Make no mistake here, the intent of that is
to get us to confuse the psychotic scheming of an
international terrorist, with that familiar bogeyman of the
far right, the, quote, 'media,' unquote. The President and the
Vice President and others have often attacked freedom of
speech, and freedom of dissent, and freedom of the press.
Olbermann: "Now, Mr. Bush has signaled that his
unparalleled and unprincipled attack on reporting has a new
and venomous side angle: The attempt to link, by the simple
expediency of one word, 'media,' the honest, patriotic, indeed
vital questions and questioning from American reporters, with
the evil of al-Qaeda propaganda. That linkage is more than
just indefensible. It is un-American. Mr. Bush and his
colleagues have led us before to such waters. We will not
drink again.
Olbermann: "And the President’s re-writing and
sanitizing of history so it fits the expediencies of domestic
politics today, is just as false, and just as scurrilous."
George W. Bush from speech: "A failed Austrian painter
published a book in which he explained his intention to build
an Aryan super state in Germany and take revenge on Europe and
eradicate the Jews. The world ignored Hitler's words and paid
a terrible price."
Olbermann: "Whatever the true nature of al-Qaeda and
other international terrorist threats, to ceaselessly compare
them to the Nazi state of Germany serves only to embolden
them. Moreover, Mr. Bush, you are accomplishing in part what
Osama bin Laden and others seek, a fearful American populace,
easily manipulated, and willing to throw away any measure of
restraint, any loyalty to our own ideals and freedoms, for the
comforting illusion of safety.
Olbermann: "It thus becomes necessary to remind the
President that his administration's recent Nazi 'kick' is an
awful and a cynical thing. And it becomes necessary to reach
back into our history, for yet another quote, from yet another
time and to ask it of Mr. Bush: 'Have you no sense of decency,
sir?'"
-- Host Keith Olbermann, Countdown, MSNBC, Sept. 5,
2006 |
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Clunky Debut of CBS
Evening News Anchor Katie Couric |
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Katie Couric:
“I'm Katie Couric, tonight, it was the first front in the
war on terror, and in Afghanistan now the Taliban are back
with a vengeance. Lara Logan has an unprecedented encounter
with al Qaeda's best friends. A gusher in the gulf. The
biggest U.S. oil find in years, but does that mean you'll find
cheaper prices at the pump? 'Free Speech.' Everyone is
entitled to his or her opinion, and we're giving folks a
chance to express them right here.”
Norman Spurlock: “Nobody wants to hear what we have to
say because we don't foam at the mouth, call your momma names
or say anything that's gonna juice the ratings.”
Couric: “And in something we're calling 'Snap Shots,'
Vanity Fair has the baby picture everyone has been waiting
for. And tonight, so do we.”
Audio of Walter Cronkite: “This is the CBS Evening News
with Katie Couric."
Katie Couric, at anchor desk: "Hi, everyone. I'm very
happy to be with you tonight. For many Americans today, it was
back to work and back to school. But in the War on Terror, you
have to wonder: Is it back to the drawing board? It's easy to
forget Afghanistan is where that war began, and that 21,000
U.S. servicemen and women are still there. Now, nearly five
years after U.S. forces defeated the Taliban and scattered the
al-Qaeda terrorists they were protecting, the Taliban and
their terror tactics are back. This year, roadside bombings
are up 30 percent, suicide bombings up 100 percent. More than
100 U.S. and NATO troops have been killed. In response, the
allies have launched a counter-offensive against the Taliban,
killing as many as 60 today alone. Our chief foreign
correspondent, Lara Logan, had unprecedented access to some
Taliban fighters in one of their new strongholds in Ghazni
province. Here's her exclusive report.”
-- Katie Couric’s clunky debut as anchor of the CBS
Evening News, CBS, Sept. 5, 2006 |
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New CBS Evening News
Anchor Katie Couric Praises Bob Scheiffer |
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Bob Schieffer:
“Well, as I mentioned earlier, tonight brings to an end my
year and a half here in New York. Next week, I’ll be back on
my old beat in Washington, but we’re ending jus the way I
like, with a scoop. The first look at our new state of the art
news room. I can’t give you a tour because it’s not quite
finished yet, but here is someone who will be a permanent
fixture, my friend, Katie Couric.”
Katie Couric: “Hey Bob. You know, I can’t imagine
following in the footsteps of a kinder, more gracious person,
so thank you so much for everything. Of course, you’ll
continue to play a very important role in this broadcast, and
before you head back to Washington though, we want to take a
look back because you’ve had quite a ride.”
-- Exchange between CBS Evening News anchors Katie Couric
and Bob Schieffer, CBS, Aug. 31, 2006 |
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Dan Rather Dismisses Media
Bias on Re-aired CBS Special |
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Dan Rather:
"One way a reporter in this country should be judged is how
well he or she stands up to the pressure to intimidate. I
remember the first time someone accused me of being an
'N-lover.' [video of Rather in the middle of a crowd of black
people and video of civil right protests] There was a lot of
that during the '60s when I covered the civil rights movement.
Then you move forward from civil rights into the Vietnam War."
Rather, in video from Vietnam: "How can so many die in
a war that's supposed to be so small?"
Rather, back in present day: "'We're going to hang a
sign around you which calls you some bad name: 'Anti-military,
anti-American, anti-war.' Then, when Watergate came into
being-"
Rather, old footage with White House in background:
"How high up in the White House does it go?"
Rather, picking up rest of remark: "-was the first time
I began to hear this word 'liberal' as an epithet thrown my
way."
Viewers then saw a montage of video clips and shots of Web
sites with text accusing Rather and CBS of being "liberal,"
including shot of the Media Research Center's logo and an MRCs
page on Dan Rather:
Pat Buchanan: "He is the quintessence to millions of
Americans of liberal bias on the network news."
Unidentified man's voice: "He's the personification of liberal
media bias."
Joseph Scarborough clip #1: "Bias."
Scarborough clip #2: "Bias."
Scarborough clip #3: "-bias and CBS and Dan Rather-"
Rather claimed: "People who have very strong biases of
their own, they come at you with a story: 'If you won't report
it the way I want it reported, then you're biased.' Now, it is
true about me, for better or for worse, if you want to see my
neck swell, you just try to tell me where to line up or what
to think and mostly what to report."
-- Dan Rather, Dan Rather: A Reporter Remembers, CBS,
broadcast March 9, 2005 and Sept. 1, 2006 |
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CNN Runs Story on MRC
Study of Liberal Media Coverage of
Illegal
Immigration |
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Anchor Kitty
Pilgrim: "Tonight, this nation's major newscasts are being
accused of being blatantly sympathetic to illegal aliens. This
broadcast has continually made the distinction between legal
and illegal immigration in this country. And a group that
regularly criticize network news coverage says networks refuse
to make that distinction. Casey Wian reports."
Casey Wian, from Los Angeles: "When the House of
Representatives passed the Sensenbrenner border security bill
in December, the three broadcast television networks did not
report the development during their evening newscasts. But
months later, when illegal alien advocacy groups organized
street protests against the bill, the networks gave those
demonstrations glowing coverage. That's just one of the
charges in a study released this week by the conservative
Media Research Center. It claims ABC, CBS, and NBC News have
been promoting illegal immigration."
Tim Graham, Media Research Center: "You've had these
illegal aliens marching down the streets en masse in white
shirts waving American flags, and it really was a long
organized political commercial instead of being a real story
about the immigration debate."
Wian: "The study examined network news coverage of the
issue from March 24th through May 31st. Among the findings,
illegal alien amnesty advocates appeared in about twice as
many soundbites as supporters of border security. Not
surprisingly, President Bush appeared on both sides. Networks
routinely ignored polls showing the vast majority of Americans
favor stronger border security. And the study concluded: 'The
networks seemed to offer honorary citizenship to anyone
crossing the border.' The broadcast networks did not respond
to requests for comment on the study, but one media watchdog
says it overstates their perceived support of illegal
immigration."
Margaret Engel, Newseum: "When you have really
significant numbers of people in the streets protesting
something, you can't avoid it simply because the Gallup polls
show the numbers are 81 percent in a different direction."
Wian concluded from street-side in Los Angeles: "The
study also examined language used in coverage of illegal
immigration. It found the label 'conservative' used 89 times,
but 'liberal' was used just three times. One surprise, network
reporters and anchors used the word 'illegal' more than five
times as often as the politically correct term,
'undocumented.' However, the word 'alien,' as in 'illegal
alien,' was only used seven times in more than 300 reports.
One network reporter even referred to protests in support of
those who critics 'call' illegal."
-- Story about MRC study of liberal media coverage of
illegal immigration, Lou Dobbs Tonight, Aug. 31, 2006 |
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