News Hounds

As expected, Bill O'Reily's Talking Points Memo last night 4/28/08 was all about Jeremiah Wright - his interview with Bill Moyers, and his speeches at the NAACP in Detroit and at the National Press Club event. Unlike Moyers, O'Reilly was sarcastic and caustic and unlike Wright, Billo was boring.
With video.

O'Reilly kept up the "Wright is anti-American" line. In all the coverage and Talking Points and discussions on the Factor I have not heard him inform his audience that Wright gave up his college deferment in 1961 and joined the military, first as a Marine and then in the Navy, serving six years in all.

Wright was shown saying: "This is not an attack on Jeremiah Wright; it has nothing to do with Senator Obama. This is an attack on the black church, launched by people who know nothing about the African-American religious tradition."

O'Reilly's interpretation: "If you criticize Wright, you criticize black church-goers. Therefore, you're a racist. How despicable is that?"

Nice "no spin."

O'Reilly made sarcastic and immature remarks about Bill Moyers' interview, chiding him for "exposing the gentle side of Reverend Wright." Of course that is verboten on FOX, where they want to continue ...   more »

News Hounds

Ann “Boombox” Coulter was back on Hannity & Colmes last night (4/28/08). Interestingly, her slots on the show have been moved back later and later, ever since she endorsed Hillary Clinton. So it was no surprise that she started to back off the endorsement and hinted, just as I had predicted, that she'd probably vote for John McCain after all. Then with slightly slurred speech, Boomie declared that the reason Democrats are favored over Republicans in 2008 is because George W. Bush has been so successful in the war on terror. Unbelievably, “Democrat” Doug Schoen agreed with her. With video.

I've listened to hours of accusations of anti-Americanism against Reverend Jeremiah Wright on FOX News. Yet there was Boomie Coulter, who can't seem to open her mouth without smearing a chunk of America, yet nobody on FOX ever bats an eyelash at her crazed vitriol.

Coulter did not come right out and admit that she was going to back off her publicity stunt of supporting Hillary Clinton but Boomie made it clear that a flip-flop is in the offing.

When asked by Alan Colmes whether she'd vote for Barack Obama if he's the Democratic nominee, Coulter replied, ...   more »

Think Progress

Previewing his interview with the CEO of Sasol, a South African company that produces coal-based liquid fuels, chief business correspondent Ali Velshi on Friday admitted that there “are issues with coal,” but minimized its problems:

There are issues with coal. It’s not the cleanest thing in the world. You see the signs for clean coal, 99 percent clean. I’m not 99 percent clean when I get out of the shower. . . I just look clean.

Watch it:

The Wonk Room explains how far Velshi is from the truth when he talks about “99 percent clean” coal.

URL: Think Progress

Think Progress

“The attempted assassination of President Hamid Karzai Sunday came as the latest sign of a trend” that the insurgency in Afghanistan “is spreading from the Taliban stronghold of the south to the central and northern regions of the country,” Christian Science Monitor reports. The attack on Karzai was the “biggest in Kabul since mid-March”:

A recent study by Sami Kovanen, an analyst with the security firm Vigilant Strategic Services of Afghanistan, echoed this assessment. He reported 465 insurgent attacks in areas outside the restive southern regions during the first three months of 2008, a 35 percent increase compared with the same period last year. In the central region around Kabul there have been 80 insurgent attacks from January through March of this year, a 70 percent jump compared to the first three months of last year.

URL: Think Progress

Think Progress

McClatchy reports that one of “the most powerful men in Iraq isn’t an Iraqi government official, a militia leader, a senior cleric or a top U.S. military commander or diplomat.” “Tehran’s point man in Iraq” is Brig. Gen. Qassem Suleimani, who commands the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. Suleimani has “ensured the elections of pro-Iranian politicians, met frequently with senior Iraqi leaders and backed Shiite elements in the Iraqi security forces that are accused of torturing and killing minority Sunni Muslims.” He has also:

–Slipped into Baghdad’s Green Zone, the heavily fortified seat of the U.S. occupation and the Iraqi government, in April 2006 to try to orchestrate the selection of a new Iraqi prime minister. Iraqi officials said that audacious visit was Suleimani’s only foray into the Green Zone; American officials said he may have been there more than once.

– Built powerful networks that gather intelligence on American and Iraqi military operations. Suleimani’s network includes every senior staffer in Iran’s embassy in Baghdad, beginning with the ambassador, according to Iraqi and U.S. officials.

– Trained and directed Shiite Muslim militias and given them cash and arms, including mortars and rockets fired at the ...   more »

Media Matters for America

In a report that first aired during the 4 p.m. ET hour of the April 24 edition of CNN's The Situation Room, CNN congressional correspondent Dana Bash said of Sen. John McCain's recent visit to New Orleans, "[H]is carefully scripted imagery was interrupted by a voter's question about Pastor John Hagee, who endorsed McCain and says things like this." Bash then aired an audio clip from the April 22 edition of Salem Radio Network's The Dennis Prager Show, in which Hagee said, "What happened in New Orleans looked like the curse of God." However, Bash did not air the portion of Hagee's comments in which he reaffirmed his previous assertion that Hurricane Katrina was at least in part the result of "sin" that Hagee identified as "a massive homosexual rally" that was scheduled in New Orleans that week. Similarly, during the 6 a.m. and 7 a.m. ET hours of CNN's American Morning on April 25, co-hosts John Roberts and Kyra Phillips, respectively, noted that Hagee said that "Katrina was God's punishment for sinful behavior in New Orleans" without noting that among the "sinful behavior" Hagee was referring to was the gay pride parade. Bash's report ...   more »