From Accuracy in Media‘s Cliff Kincaid:
The Arab-funded Al-Jazeera is hosting a two-day inaugural “Al Jazeera U.S. Forum” in Washington, D.C., featuring Bob Woodward of The Washington Post among the celebrity journalists. But of particular interest is Politico’s revelation that Republican Senator John McCain showed up at the opening night of the forum to praise the channel’s coverage of the Middle East.
“Over dinner, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Sen. John McCain praised Al Jazeera’s role as a catalyst in the Arab Spring uprisings before a room of journalists…” the publication reported. In fact, the “Arab Spring” has resulted in a government in Egypt that is less friendly to the U.S. and more accommodating to the Iranians and the terrorist group, Hamas.
This was a shocker because the day before, on Sunday, The Washington Post had finally gotten around to publishing a semi-critical article on the channel, noting its double-standards and open bias on the matter of revolutions in the Middle East. The Post even acknowledged that WikiLeaks had released a U.S. cable describing the channel as a foreign policy instrument of Qatar, the Middle Eastern dictatorship which financially sponsors it and selects its personnel.
While ignoring evidence of Al-Jazeera’s links to al-Qaeda, Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood, the Post article by Thomas Erdbrink noted that the channel “built its reputation on its critical coverage” of the U.S. military intervention in Iraq—a war strongly supported by Senator John McCain. Al-Jazeera’s first managing director, Mohammed Jassem al-Ali, was exposed as an agent of the Saddam Hussein regime.
McCain’s praise of Al-Jazeera was also curious because the channel, during the 2008 presidential campaign, had savaged the McCain-Palin ticket by running a piece depicting Republican voters as country bumpkins and racists. Casey Kaufmann, the Al-Jazeera reporter who did the story, contributed $500 to the Obama-for-president campaign, a violation of basic standards of journalism ethics.
Last December Al-Jazeera published an article asserting, “McCain’s fervent opposition to [Obama’s] presidential policies, are and always have been, driven by spite and not statesmanship.” The author, a contributor to the Huffington Post, had written a book highly critical of McCain entitled, The Real McCain: Why Conservatives Don’t Trust Him—And Why Independents Shouldn’t.
But on the matter of Libya, Al-Jazeera and McCain see eye-to-eye, and this has apparently made all the difference in the world. McCain granted an interview to Al-Jazeera English, telling anchor Tony Harris, a former CNN employee, that he supports the Obama policy of so-called humanitarian intervention. This policy, conducted without Congressional approval, has been criticized as illegal.
The interview with McCain was conducted in the Al-Jazeera headquarters in Doha, Qatar’s capital. In another story, Al-Jazeera favorably highlighted McCain’s call for official recognition of the Libyan rebels, who include members of al-Qaeda.
The Post article in advance of McCain’s praise of Al-Jazeera noted that Qatar, the channel’s funder, “was the only Arab state to actively join in NATO operations” against the Libyan regime and that Al-Jazeera Arabic’s presenters called Libyan rebels killed in the conflict “martyrs,” and forces loyal to Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi were labeled “mercenaries.”
So Al-Jazeera’s coverage is hardly fair and balanced. Once again, the coverage is a reflection of the foreign policy of the regime that pays the bills.
A foreign media critic was quoted as saying that “Al-Jazeera Arabic changed from the most important Arab media voice against U.S. and European policies in the region to a champion and an apologist for such intervention.”
But the reason for this switch was not explained in adequate detail. It’s not because Al-Jazeera suddenly favors Western notions of human rights and real democracy in the Middle East. It’s because Gaddafi fell out of favor with more radical elements in the Middle East when he gave up his nuclear weapons program under pressure from the Bush Administration and started turning over the names of members of al-Qaeda to U.S. intelligence. This is one reason why Yussuf al-Qaradawi, a long-time Al-Jazeera TV personality and inspiration for the Muslim Brotherhood, called for Gaddafi’s death and issued a fatwa against him.
Politico reported that former Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, in remarks to the Al-Jazeera dinner in Washington, D.C. on Monday said, “I’m very delighted to be here with Senator McCain. When I accepted this invitation to speak here this evening, I didn’t realize that he was going to be here until I arrived. You can just imagine how happy I was to see him, because I was preparing for the onslaught of criticism that I was going to receive. But now I’m covered!”
Ignoring the views of those, including Judea Pearl, who have documented the channel’s pro-terrorist bent, McCain has indeed given the anti-American channel important “cover” at a time when it is anxious to obtain access to more American homes, including those of English-speaking Muslims susceptible to pro-Jihad propaganda messages.
The only explanation that makes any sense is that Al-Jazeera constitutes another channel that can give—and has given—McCain favorable publicity. The Arizona Senator has a reputation as a favorite of the press who is always anxious to get in front of a TV camera. In this regard, Al-Jazeera simply constitutes another outlet, albeit an unsavory one, that he can use to promote himself. He may, however, find that it will turn on him—and the West—after Gaddafi is overthrown and the Muslim Brotherhood takes power.
From Accuracy in Media‘s Don Irvine:
Former Speaker of the House and now GOP presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich got caught in the liberal media’s desire to paint him as a racist for calling Obama the most successful food stamp president in American history.
This statement, which he first made in a speech to the Georgia Republican Party on Friday, was seized upon by the liberal media as a coded racially tinged message, since Obama is black.
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Gregory: What, what about jobs? Jobless rate now at 9 percent. You gave a speech on Friday in Georgia, and you said the following about this president:
Gingrich: You want to be a country that creates food stamps, in which case frankly Obama’s is an enormous success. The most successful food stamp president in American history. Or do you want to be a country that creates paychecks?
Gregory: First of all, you gave a speech in Georgia with language a lot of people think could be coded racially-tinged language, calling the president, the first black president, a food stamp president.
Gingrich: Oh, come on, David.
Gregory: What did you mean? What was the point?
Gingrich: That’s, that’s bizarre. That–this kind of automatic reference to racism, this is the president of the United States. The president of the United States has to be held accountable. Now, the idea that–and what I said is factually true. Forty-seven million Americans are on food stamps. One out of every six Americans is on food stamps. And to hide behind the charge of racism? I have–I have never said anything about President Obama which is racist.
MSNBC’s Ed Schultz also chimed in and accused Gingrich of taking an ugly shot at Obama with the food stamp comment. Schultz added that when Gingrich was asked about it by Meet the Press’ David Gregory, he played the victim.
And exactly how does Schultz feel about all of this supposed racism?
Schultz: The Republican Party still can’t win on issues so their only chance is to play the race card, again.
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Chris Matthews also couldn’t resist, calling Gingrich an alter cocker, saying that his ideas are “so old, so yesterday that he’s still talking like Reagan and food stamps and welfare queens.”
Matthews went on to say that we all got tired of that language in the ’70′s and ’80′s and that it had the tinge to it that we didn’t like so we dropped it.
The media have never been fond of Gingrich and he has certainly made his share of mistakes over the years. He certainly deserves to be scrutinized and criticized now that he is running for president.
But what he and other conservatives don’t deserve is for the media to twist simple statements of fact into charges of racism.
What was missing from all of these discussions was the blatant racism practiced by Jesse Jackson, Jeremiah Wright and other liberals. But since they’re black and Gingrich is white they wouldn’t possibly be accused of playing the race card or being racist themselves.
This is just another example of the hypocrisy and double standard by the mainstream media that conservatives have unfortunately grown accustomed to.
From Accuracy in Media‘s Cliff Kincaid:
The Washington Post noted that House Speaker John Boehner’s commencement speech at the Catholic University of America (CUA) was non-political. But the Post story about the speech was entirely political. The story slammed Boehner’s conservative Catholic views by using a student at the event—one of about 30 liberal “social justice” advocates—to argue that the Republican from Ohio isn’t compassionate enough toward the poor.
Here’s how the Post story by Katherine Shaver began:
“Katy Jamison strode toward her graduation from Catholic University on Saturday wearing the requisite black robe and mortar board—plus a neon green message to House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio). ‘Where’s the compassion, Mr. Boehner?’ said the 8-by-10-inch sign pinned to her chest.”
Jamison, it turns out, was one of “about 30” involved in this “protest,” out of 1,500 students receiving bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral graduates. And this is what the Post decided to emphasize. It is a case study of liberal media bias through deliberate distortion. The purpose was to portray Boehner as not only heartless but out of step with the teaching of the Catholic Church. But the ploy failed, based on the paltry numbers of protesters, according to the paper’s own account.
Boehner was selected, CUA said, because he is “A strong supporter of Catholic education in the District of Columbia, particularly the inner-city Consortium of Catholic Academies, [and] he co-chairs an annual dinner to benefit the organization.”
Boehner has long been an advocate of the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program (DC OSP) to provide poor or low-income students an opportunity to receive a scholarship to attend a D.C. private school of their parents’ choice. He invited some of the students benefiting from the program to be his guests at the State of the Union. One of the students, Lesly Alvarez, was described as an outstanding eighth-grade student who attends Sacred Heart School, a private Catholic school where 100 percent of eighth-graders graduated on-time during the past three years. “Without the OSP scholarship,” noted a report on WUSA in Washington, D.C., “Alvarez would not be able to attend the private school that charges around $8,100 per child.”
But President Obama, who sends his children to exclusive secular private schools, opposed the Boehner initiative.
Giving poor parents the ability to send their children to a private Catholic school so they can get a better education doesn’t qualify as “social justice” to the students and their faculty advisers putting on the anti-Boehner protest.
The attack was not unexpected; the Post had already run an article in advance of Boehner’s appearance noting that a group of liberal Catholic professors had taken issue with the House Speaker’s desire to cut government spending and debt. Not surprisingly, the Shaver article regurgitated what had already appeared, in order to make it appear that the protest of about 30 students was the dramatic culmination of what the professors had set in motion. In truth, the protest demonstrated that most students wanted no part of this political show.
The show was staged by a group of liberal professors, led by Stephen Schneck, director of the Institute for Policy Research & Catholic Studies, who decided to use the university and manipulate students for the purpose of serving as cannon fodder against the Republican Party as 2012 rolls around.
The Post of course cannot be counted on to point out that Schneck is a board member of the George Soros-funded Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good (CACG), a “progressive” front group that is designed to counter the conservative and pro-life tendencies that many Catholics, including John Boehner, embrace. Schneck, who does not include this outside affiliation on his official CUA bio, works closely with White House official Alexia Kelley, former executive director of CACG and a speaker at his recent conference.
The CACG has been described by some observers as inactive, but in fact it continues to organize support for “progressive” Catholic functions at places like CUA.
There was a new development, as far as the Post was concerned. “A letter signed by 83 students and sent to university president John Garvey on Thursday said Boehner was an inappropriate keynote speaker because the fiscal 2012 budget resolution that he had championed severely cut funding for food assistance, programs for low-income children and help for the homeless,” the paper said.
Out of a total enrollment of 3,470 undergraduate and 3,240 graduate students, the liberal-left could muster only 83? This was big news for the Post, desperate to make Boehner look bad.
The number of signers in fact “swelled” to 86 in the final version, which attacked Boehner for opposing illegal immigration and several federal welfare state schemes.
The Post failed to note that the campus student paper took a very different view than those 86, editorializing, “Finally, a speaker allowed to come to the University that we can be proud of.”
Less than two weeks earlier, Schneck and his allies had organized a campus forum in tribute to “social justice” featuring former AFL-CIO President John Sweeney and Washington Post columnist Harold Meyerson, both of them members of the Democratic Socialists of America.
Sweeney accused university officials of union-busting—a charge that the university dismissed as a gross misrepresentation. Meyerson, a non-Catholic, told the forum that he was a follower of Michael Harrington, the Catholic-turned-atheist. He thought this was a good role model for students on campus to follow.
What the campus socialists tried to do under the nose of CUA President Harvey was to undermine and taint the commencement address by House Speaker Boehner and put this great Catholic University into the Obama-for-President camp. They failed, despite the Post’s feeble attempt to pump some life into this pathetic “protest.”
True to form, Boehner broke down in tears as he described to the CUA students his Catholic upbringing. For Harvey, however, it is not a time for tears but action. The politically “progressive” Obama supporters at CUA who masquerade as professors tried to ruin the university’s commencement ceremony. Harvey—and CUA alumni—may not forget that.
Over at the LA Times, Andrew Malcolm asks, “Why do one-in-five American voters now believe Osama bin Laden is still alive?“
This incredulity phenomenon is a curious creation of a high-speed global media so full of unverified and unverifiable information floating about, combined with a modern cynicism about political leaders masquerading as voter wisdom.
After so many lies and misleading claims by politicians over the decades since the Kennedy assassination and its conspiracy theories (“I am not a crook” “I did not have sex with that woman”), the safest way to look wise and experienced these days is to dismiss virtually any public official’s statement as a talking point and/or lie.
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One of the reasons I’m such a big fan of Warren Farrell’s book Why Men Are The Way The Are is because it helped me look at an important aspect of my life from a different angle.
You see, although I do plan to get married, I can’t help but note that most of my friends who are my age have already gotten married and had kids. So, have I waited too long to get around to it?
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