Media Matters Is On The Case

A new video being pushed by the wingnut blogosphere purports to show President Obama plotting a secret government takeover of health insurance. The first thing that should be obvious is if this was supposed to be a secret then why exactly was then Senator Obama talking it about it in speeches and in interviews? That was enough to make me call bullshit but I realize that doesn't really qualify as evidence.

Enter Media Matters where they work tirelessly to debunk these kinds of stories before they can take hold. Here is what they found.

Video crops Obama comments to suggest employer coverage would be "eliminated" by his plan

Contrary to cropped video, Obama did not suggest "employer coverage" would be "eliminate[d]" in 10 to 20 years. Obama stated: "But I don't think we're going to be able to eliminate employer coverage immediately. There's going to be potentially some transition process. I can envision a decade out or 15 years out or 20 years out where we've got a much more portable system" [cropped comments in italics].

Obama stated during forum that under his plan, employers "still have the option of providing coverage." Following the remarks included in the YouTube video, Obama stated that under that "much more portable system": Employers still have the option of providing coverage, but many people may find that they get better coverage, or at least coverage that gives them more for health care dollars than they spend outside of their employer. And I think we've got to facilitate that and let individuals make that choice to transition out of employer coverage."

Later in forum, Obama stated that under his plan, pooling options would exist "in addition to the employer based system." Obama stated: "[O]ne thing that I think is important is to recognize that there are a lot of small employers who would like to get health care for their workers but they themselves can't afford it because they don't have access to large enough pools to allow them to save money. That's why I think it's going to be important for us in whatever system that we set up to make sure that in addition to the employer based system that we've got an alternative system that individuals who aren't getting it through the job can access."

I have to wonder if we would even have a President Obama without a Media Matters to help beat back all the lies and smears floating around about him last year. And now with the fight for health care reform they are just as imporatant in helping to keep the wingnuts from taking over the framing of the issue.

Some Nobody

I would venture to say that 99% of Americans don't have a clue who Michael Savage is. But evidently he has carved out some kind of niche right wing hate audience on the radio. And because MediaMatters has been documenting his hate speech evidently he decided to threaten them, kinda standard fare for right wing extremists these days. Well evidently MediaMatters isn't intimidated at all.



MediaMatters does great work and I am very happy to see that they won't allow anyone to use fear tactics on them.

Why Does MSNBC Continue To Give Pat Buchanan a Platform?

Media Matters runs down his record.

I honestly can't understand why this man is on my Tee Vee everyday.

The Love Them Some Liz

Steve Benen asked the folks at MediaMatters to tally up just how many times Liz Cheney had been on Tee Vee lately. You would probably not be surprised to know that it was 12 times over nine and a half days. Thats 12 times for her to defend her daddy's torture program without having any direct knowledge of what happened. What a fucking joke our media is.

The Myth Of George Will

I have never been a fan of George Will which is really only natural. He is a die hard conservative Republican propagandist in my opinion so there wouldn't be many topics that he and I would agree on. It didn't help that he has been factually challenged quite a few times recently. But I always thought that Will MUST have at some point been a "serious" writer to justify his continued employment in the journalism field. I guess I just figured that the Washington Post kept him around because of his reputation and because he has a reputation as a "great conservative mind". But after reading this MediaMatters profile of George Will it makes you wonder why this guy still has a job after all these years. It is now apparent that he has always been a hack and has always had problems with being truthful in his articles. Yet while genuinely qualified journalists are now finding themselves unemployed, Will continues to draw a generous salary for writing on the level of a petunlant 3rd grader. Here are a few nuggets about the many over the years from the article.

During the 1980 presidential campaign, for example, Will secretly helped coach Ronald Reagan for a debate, using a briefing book stolen from Jimmy Carter's campaign. After the debate, Will appeared on ABC's Nightline, where he praised Reagan's performance without disclosing his role in prepping the candidate. In 1996, Will defended a speech by GOP presidential candidate Bob Dole without noting that his wife, a top Dole aide, had helped write it.

During the 1988 presidential campaign, Will treated Jesse Jackson quite differently, ambushing him with an arcane question about "the G-7 measures of the Louvre Accords" -- a question interpreted by many as an effort to do little more than embarrass Jackson and compared by some to the literacy tests used to disenfranchise African-American voters until they were banned in the 1960s.

Whatever the reason for Will's treatment of Jackson, he behaved far differently toward George W. Bush during the 2000 presidential campaign, when he penned a Washington Post column about Bush titled "He's No Intellectual -- And So What?" During that campaign, Will met privately with Bush shortly before the candidate appeared on ABC's This Week. Why? To go over a question in advance so he didn't "ambush" Bush with "unfamiliar material." Will even went so far as to give Bush an index card containing a portion of the question he would ask.

snip

Will's pattern of global warming falsehoods has been well-documented in recent days. It's a pattern that goes back at least 16 years:

Will confronted Gore on the issue of global warming: "Gore knows, or should know before pontificating, that a recent Gallup Poll of scientists concerned with global climate research shows that 53 percent do not believe warming has occurred, and another 30 percent are uncertain."
It was Will, however, who should have read the poll more carefully "before pontificating." Gallup actually reported that 66 percent of the scientists said that human-induced global warming was occurring, with only 10 percent disagreeing and the rest undecided. Gallup took the unusual step of issuing a written correction to Will's column (San Francisco Chronicle, 9/27/92): "Most scientists involved in research in this area believe that human-induced global warming is occurring now." Will never noted the error in his column.

snip

In more recent years, Will has made false claims about the Voting Rights Act and the New Deal. He made a claim about China drilling off the coast of Florida that was so wrong, even then-Vice President Cheney -- who cited Will in repeating the claim -- acknowledged it wasn't true. When even Dick Cheney thinks you've gone too far in spouting pro-drilling falsehoods, you have a problem. But neither Will nor the Post corrected the error.

Last year, Will claimed in his Newsweek column and on ABC that Social Security taxes are levied based on household income. Not true. He claimed that McCain won more votes from independents during the primaries than Obama did. Wrong. He claimed most minimum-wage earners are students or part-time employees. False. Will has even lied about Hillary Clinton's Yankees fandom.

Now in return for spreading obviously false propaganda as well as never EVER correcting himself George Will gets to be a requenct guest on several talking head shows on cable news programs as well as having a platform to continue disseminating false information. Isn't it about time that we demand better from our mainstream media sources? I don't know that it will do any good but I believe that we should not let the latest controversy over his column denying global warming by using bogus quotes and statistics die. Perhaps if we continue to put pressure on the Washington Post to correct George Will that for once people will have to take notice of the fact that this man doesn't come close to living up to the reputation that the Village has created for him. We deserve better from our media outlets and we should demand better. Its time to take a stand.

Update: Wouldn't you know it, just so happens that today the ombudsman for the WaPo, you know the guy whose ass hilzoy broker her foot off in, put up his information in the Washington Post website. I think he should hear from all of us to let him know that his explanation of why George Will got by without a correction is totally unacceptable. Perhaps we could even include hilzoy's article. For those who are so inclined here is his information.

You can communicate with me in three ways. E-mail me at ombudsman@washpost.com. Leave a message on the ombudsman's line at 202-334-7582. Or write to me, care of The Post, at 1150 15th St. NW, Washington, D.C. 20071.