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1. NBC's "Random" Views: U.S. Warmongering or Committing Terrorism Monday's Today delivered what co-host Katie Couric described as "a random sampling" of public views on Iraq, but NBC's "random sampling" featured just three people, with two of those characterizing the U.S. as warmongering or as guilty of committing terrorism. A woman holding a holding protest sign, "We Are for Peace from the USA," declared: "There were no weapons of mass destruction. Too many people are dying daily around the world because of this lie!" In a second soundbite, she complained: "I'm so disappointed in our country at this time." A man on the street charged: "It's about America going and becoming terrorists themselves." 2. On War's 3rd Anniversary, ABC Allows Hope But NBC All Negative Asked to provide an assessment of how life is for ordinary Iraqis on the third anniversary of the start of the war, on Monday's ABC's World News Tonight and NBC Nightly News, Dan Harris and Richard Engel provided different pictures. ABC's Harris conveyed more bad than good, but acknowledged some hope expressed by an Iraqi family. NBC's Engel, however, stuck exclusively to the negative. "Iraqis today show a range of complex, competing emotions," Harris relayed as he profiled a family in which "the question of whether Iraq is better off three years later provokes debate" with the 15-year-old daughter pleased that "toppling the regime made Iraq free." Harris concluded with how the family expresses "the same, seemingly contradictory emotions, so common in Iraq today. They sometimes miss the days of Saddam, but don't want him back. They want the Americans to get out, but just not yet." A more dire Engel began with how "since the U.S. invasion, there has not been a single day without mortar fire, car bombings, or IED attacks. This is not the world Afrah wanted to bring her daughter into." He concluded with how one man told him that "when he leaves his house in the morning...he tells his family he might not see them again." Engel proceeded to tell anchor Campbell Brown about how "my closest Iraqi friend" thinks "his country is now lost." 3. CNN's Schneider on Feingold's Censure Move: Why Not Impeachment? To paraphrase that famous George Santayana phrase, perhaps political reporters who highlight liberal efforts to embarrass the President on Friday are destined to find those same moves inadequate on Monday. Having awarded, on the March 17 Situation Room, liberal Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold with the "Political Play of the Week" for his motion to censure President Bush, CNN senior political analyst Bill Schneider, during Monday's 4pm hour, cited the Doonesbury comic strip for support after he wondered why the Senator isn't proposing impeachment: "The philosopher George Santayana wrote those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. But sometimes that happens with those who remember the past all too well. Senator Russ Feingold's motion to censure President Bush raises a question. If he believes the President broke the law, why isn't the Senator proposing impeachment?" 4. ABC's Boston Legal Airs Anti-Bush Tirade that Raises McCarthy Era Another episode of ABC's prime time drama Boston Legal will air tonight (Tuesday). Last week's episode featured a plot line with over-the-top lawyer "Alan Shore," played by James Spader, delivering a five-minute-long closing argument, in defense of a woman who wouldn't pay income taxes, railing against the war on terrorism. Earlier, explaining to Shore her reasoning, the woman cited how her grandfather, who fought in World War I, would be "embarrassed" by "what's happening today." She listed "us torturing people, spying on our own people, squashing everybody's civil liberties. My grandfather would weep." To which Shore got in an obvious slap at FNC: "You need to change the channel. The awful things you speak of never happen on the 'fair and balanced' newscasts." In his closing, Shore cited a litany of misdeeds, including: "Now it's been discovered the executive branch has been conducting massive, illegal, domestic surveillance on its own citizens -- you and me. And I at least consoled myself that finally, FINALLY, the American people will have had enough. Evidently, we haven't." Shore soon compared the current climate to that of the McCarthy era, recalling what he read in a book by Adlai Stevenson: "Too often, sinister threats to the bill of rights, to freedom of the mind, 'are concealed under the patriotic cloak of anti-communism.' Today, it's the cloak of anti-terrorism." 5. Letterman's "Top Ten Reasons Dick Cheney Won't Resign" Letterman's "Top Ten Reasons Dick Cheney Won't Resign." NBC's "Random" Views: U.S. Warmongering or Committing Terrorism Monday's Today delivered what co-host Katie Couric described as "a random sampling" of public views on Iraq, but NBC's "random sampling" featured just three people, with two of those characterizing the U.S. as warmongering or as guilty of committing terrorism. A woman holding a holding protest sign, "We Are for Peace from the USA," declared: "There were no weapons of mass destruction. Too many people are dying daily around the world because of this lie!" In a second soundbite, she complained: "I'm so disappointed in our country at this time." A man on the street charged: "It's about America going and becoming terrorists themselves." Couric broke away to her "random" sampling in the midst of a relatively balanced panel discussion, in the 7am half hour of the March 20 show, with, as Couric described them: "Wendy Sherman was a top foreign policy adviser for the Clinton administration. Dan Senor served as a senior adviser for the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq. General Barry McCaffrey is an NBC News analyst. He commanded the 24th Mechanized Infantry Division during the first Gulf War and U.S. Navy Lieutenant Commander Richard Jadick was awarded a Bronze Star for his bravery in Iraq." Couric, the MRC's Geoff Dickens noticed, had opened the broadcast: "Good morning. The war in Iraq three years later. Saddam is gone but has it been worth the cost in lives and in dollars? This morning a hard look at the successes and the failures." As he subsequently did on the NBC Nightly News (see item #2 below), Richard Engel checked in with an all negative look at the situation in Iraq: "Good morning Katie. Many Iraqis today are doing just that, asking themselves are they better off now after three years of war and chaos and most of the Iraqis we spoke to said they don't think so..."
After Engel, Couric turned to her panel and she noted how "in a recent poll of Iraqi citizens, more than 60 percent said they remain optimistic about their future." Setting up the "random" views, however, she recited how "the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll found that 57 percent of American people surveyed were less confident there will be a successful conclusion in Iraq. Before we finish on where we go from here and how to get, convince the American people to stay the course, if in fact that is necessary, we did a random sampling of people's views on the, on the war. Let's take a listen and then we'll finish up."
On War's 3rd Anniversary, ABC Allows Hope But NBC All Negative Asked to provide an assessment of how life is for ordinary Iraqis on the third anniversary of the start of the war, on Monday's ABC's World News Tonight and NBC Nightly News, Dan Harris and Richard Engel provided different pictures. ABC's Harris conveyed more bad than good, but acknowledged some hope expressed by an Iraqi family. NBC's Engel, however, stuck exclusively to the negative. "Iraqis today show a range of complex, competing emotions," Harris relayed as he profiled a family in which "the question of whether Iraq is better off three years later provokes debate" with the 15-year-old daughter pleased that "toppling the regime made Iraq free." After relating how a man in a long gas line maintained such a line "never would have happened under Saddam," Harris pressed him: "Would you really rather have Saddam back, or long gas lines? 'We don't want Saddam. But we need a better economy and more security.'" Harris concluded with how the family expresses "the same, seemingly contradictory emotions, so common in Iraq today. They sometimes miss the days of Saddam, but don't want him back. They want the Americans to get out, but just not yet." A more dire Engel began with how "since the U.S. invasion, there has not been a single day without mortar fire, car bombings, or IED attacks. This is not the world Afrah wanted to bring her daughter into." Engel highlighted how callers to a radio show "complain about kidnapings, police death squads and murders between Sunnis and Shiites." He concluded with how one man told him that "when he leaves his house in the morning...he tells his family he might not see them again." Engel proceeded to tell anchor Campbell Brown about how "my closest Iraqi friend" thinks "his country is now lost." [This item was posted Monday night on the MRC's blog, NewsBusters.org. To post your comments, go to: newsbusters.org ] ABC's World News Tonight devoted its entire air time to the third anniversary of the war, while CBS and ABC dedicated their first four stories to the subject.
Dan Harris began his March 20 World News Tonight piece, from Iraq, in which he narrated what Iraqi's told him:
From Iraq, Richard Engel, over video of fires in the aftermath of explosions, opened his March 20 NBC Nightly News piece:
Anchor Campbell Brown: "And Richard, you've been there a long time. You have a lot of Iraqi friends and colleagues. Are they telling you the same thing?"
CNN's Schneider on Feingold's Censure Move: Why Not Impeachment? To paraphrase that famous George Santayana phrase, perhaps political reporters who highlight liberal efforts to embarrass the President on Friday are destined to find those same moves inadequate on Monday. Having awarded, on the March 17 Situation Room, liberal Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold with the "Political Play of the Week" for his motion to censure President Bush, CNN senior political analyst Bill Schneider, during Monday's 4pm hour, cited the Doonesbury comic strip for support after he wondered why the Senator isn't proposing impeachment: "The philosopher George Santayana wrote those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. But sometimes that happens with those who remember the past all too well. Senator Russ Feingold's motion to censure President Bush raises a question. If he believes the President broke the law, why isn't the Senator proposing impeachment?"
For details about Schneider's Friday praise for Feingold, check the March 20 CyberAlert: www.mediaresearch.org
Schneider then highlighted four panels from the March 19 Doonesbury, Gary Trudeau's left-wing cartoon strip:
ABC's Boston Legal Airs Anti-Bush Tirade that Raises McCarthy Era Another episode of ABC's prime time drama Boston Legal will air tonight (Tuesday). Last week's episode featured a plot line with over-the-top lawyer "Alan Shore," played by James Spader, delivering a five-minute-long closing argument, in defense of a woman who wouldn't pay income taxes, railing against the war on terrorism. Earlier, explaining to Shore her reasoning, the woman, "Melissa Hughes," cited how her grandfather, who fought in World War I, would be "embarrassed" by "what's happening today." She listed "us torturing people, spying on our own people, squashing everybody's civil liberties. My grandfather would weep." To which Shore got in an obvious slap at FNC: "You need to change the channel. The awful things you speak of never happen on the 'fair and balanced' newscasts." In his closing, Shore cited a litany of misdeeds, including: "When the weapons of mass destruction thing turned out not to be true, I expected the American people to rise up....And, now it's been discovered the executive branch has been conducting massive, illegal, domestic surveillance on its own citizens -- you and me. And I at least consoled myself that finally, FINALLY, the American people will have had enough. Evidently, we haven't." Shore soon compared the current climate to that of the McCarthy era, recalling what he read in a book by Adlai Stevenson: "Too often, sinister threats to the bill of rights, to freedom of the mind, 'are concealed under the patriotic cloak of anti-communism.' Today, it's the cloak of anti-terrorism."
Check the posted version of this item for a couple of video and audio clips, where the MRC's Michael Gibbons should have them up within an hour of this e-mail being sent: www.mediaresearch.org The Internet Movie Database's page for the show: www.imdb.com
ABC's bio page for Spader: abc.go.com
Boston Legal wasn't the only prime time drama last week to work in some left-wing political advocacy from a leading character. As recounted in the March 17 CyberAlert:
For more, including video, go to: www.mediaresearch.org
# "Melissa Hughes," a secretary at the law firm, in a jail cell explaining why her grandfather, who fought in WWI, wouldn't want her to pay taxes: "He was such a proud American and I just start thinking how embarrassed he would be by what's happening today."
# In court, Hughes testifies about how she was "embarrassed" by the "whole weapons of mass destruction thing. Maybe we lied, maybe we made a mistake, but either way, as goofs go, to start a war? Hello?"
# Shore's closing statement consumed almost exactly five minutes, a very long time in TV time. Here's virtually all of it, saving space by skipping some of his banter with the judge: "And what I'm most sick and tired of, is how every time somebody disagrees with how the government is running things, he or she is labeled 'Un-American.'"... "I object to government abusing its power to squash the constitutional freedoms of its citizenry. And God forbid, anybody challenge it, they're smeared as being a heretic. Melissa Hughes is an American. Melissa Hughes is an American."... "Last night, I went to bed with a book. Not as much fun as a 29 year old, but the book contained a speech by Adlai Stevenson. The year was 1952. He said, 'the tragedy of our day is the climate of fear in which we live,' and 'fear breeds repression.' Too often, sinister threats to the bill of rights, to freedom of the mind, 'are concealed under the patriotic cloak of anti-communism.' Today, it's the cloak of anti-terrorism. Stevenson also remarked, 'it's far easier to fight for principles than to live up to them.' I know we are all afraid, but the Bill of Rights, we have to live up to that. We simply must. That's all Melissa Hughes was trying to say. She was speaking for you. I would ask you now to go back to that room and speak for her." Again, check the posted version for two video clips.
Letterman's "Top Ten Reasons Dick Cheney Won't Resign" From the March 20 Late Show with David Letterman, the "Top Ten Reasons Dick Cheney Won't Resign." Late Show home page: www.cbs.com 10. Trying to fix up Condi Rice with his daughter 9. Turns out when you shoot somebody, if you're not vice president, you gotta do time 8. Bush leaves at two every day and then it's margaritas and Fritos 7. Set the solitare high score on his office computer 6. Wants to see if he can help Bush get his approval rating under ten 5. Too hard to give up Vice Presidential Discount at D.C. area Sam Goody stores 4. Wants to stay on the job until every country in the world hates us 3. Extra-zappy White House defibrillators 2. Undisclosed location has foosball and whores 1. Why quit when things are going so well?
-- Brent Baker
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