New anti-McCain ad hitting airwaves

Greg Sargent over at TPM has the latest on the new anti-McCain video above, which began airing today:

Here's a first look at the first ad being run against John McCain by Progressive Media U.S.A., the new pro-Dem third-party group headed by David Brock that's planning to raise $40 million to bloody up the GOP nominee in advance of this fall's election. The ad, called "Out of Touch," will be running on cable beginning tomorrow and can be seen in D.C. on CNN and MSNBC — which is to say, it's a small buy aimed at an insider audience of potential future donors, political operatives, and the like.

My first thought when I saw this - "Excellent." In years and elections past, I might have thought to myself, "that's playing dirty." But, after seeing what the GOP shamelessly did to Al Gore in 2000 and most notably the Swiftboating of John Kerry in 2004, I hope there are many more efforts just like this one. When Democrats try to take the high road by being the "better party," they become the better, MINORITY party. Democrats won't retake the White House until they learn to fight Republicans on their turf. Is it dirty and nasty? Sure, but there's too much at stake right now to be worried about being portrayed by some as being just that - Republicans have been doing it for years, most notably since the early 1990s when an Arkansas governor decided he'd like to run for president.

It's also good to see that David Brock isn't resting on his laurels with all of his Media Matters success, although no one could blame him if he did. The more people like Bill O'Reilly hate people like Brock for what he is doing - exposing the lies and distortions of the right-wing media - the more I love and am thankful for guys like Brock.

h/t Crooks & Liars

New book: McCain's free ride in the media

A new book, Free Ride: John McCain and the Media, is due out on March 25. This one just shot up on my '08 reading list; the authors, David Brock (of Media Matters fame) and Paul Waldman discuss the free ride that McCain seems to be getting thus far from the press. I certainly agree with the book's premise; this trend doesn't look like it's going to end any time soon.

As Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone sagely said recently on Bill Maher's show, (I'm paraphrasing), you can label or call yourself just about anything, and the press will go along; run any shit up the flagpole, and the press will stand and salute it. And he's right. How did McCain get the reputation of being a Straight Talker? Because he painted it on the side of his bus. All of his lies and inconsistencies go unreported at worst, or vastly under reported at best. You cannot hear a story about McCain these days without hearing "straight talker" and/or "maverick."

Joe Connelly of The Seattle Post-Intelligencer recently wrote a pretty good column about McCain's free ride . In reads, in part:

McCain is allowed to dominate any and every issue on which he chooses to cross the aisle in Congress. He is omnipresent on Sunday talk shows.

Between 1997 and 2006, McCain had 135 appearances as a guest on Meet the Press, This Week and Face the Nation, far more than runner-up Joe Biden, with 91. McCain was usually able to hold forth alone rather than sharing the stage.

The favorable press coverage has airbrushed McCain's temper and remarks that would get any other politician in trouble.

It was, after all, McCain who referred to Leisure World as "Seizure World." He once joked: "The nice thing about getting Alzheimer's is you get to hide your own Easter eggs."

Connelly couldn't be more correct. Whenever you hear McCain call someone "my friend," you know he's pissed. And who could forget his stupid joke about "Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran," in a pathetic parody of a Beach Boys song? I can take a joke as good as the next person, but what kind of message does it send the rest of the world when a leading politician for president in this country makes such flippant, churlish jokes about bombing Iran, an idea which many war mongers in this country openly support?

Anyway, the premise of the book sounds like a good one, and a largely unexplored one at that. You can read more about the book or pre-order a copy from Amazon Here.

h/t Crooks & Liars

The Latest "Bush vs. Bush"

Bush vs. Bush is a recurring feature on The Daily Show, and this one is as good as any that Jon Stewart has done.

I've said it many times before, and I'll say it again - I love it when our political leaders can't run from the video tape. Dubya's administration, perhaps more than any before it, probably finds it decidedly inconvenient that there are people like Jon Stewart and David Brock around, who gleefully dig up footage of Bush and Cheney contradicting themselves.

Drudge screws up again

It never gets old pointing out when right-wing blogger Matt Drudge screws up a story.

According to Media Matters, Drudge has claimed that Media Matters is a "[George] Soros operation."

No so, says the Website:

"In fact, Media Matters has never received funding from progressive philanthropist George Soros," read a statement earlier today on the site.

Soros has donated millions of his billions to liberal causes and organizations, including about $25 million of his own money in 2004 to PACs to try and get President Bush out of the White House.

My guess is, MM irks Drudge by exposing his lies. MM does it in quick fashion, too - I'm not sure how many people work for the Website, but they are always on top of questionable stories from the right-wing noise machine.

If you aren't familiar with MM, and you enjoy reading the news behind the news, then MM is a can't-miss Website. MM was founded in 2004 by David Brock to fight back against right-wing talk radio, Fox News and any other right-wing leaning organizations that don't have any problem putting misleading stories in the media.

Brock is an ex-conservative - he used to write for The American Spectator, a far-right, conservative magazine. During the Clarence Thomas hearings, Brock famously wrote in the Spectator's pages that Anita Hill was, "a little bit nutty and a little bit slutty." He also participated in a few of the more notable stories to attempt to discredit Bill Clinton before and during the early years of his presidency, including Troopergate and The Arkansas Project.

Brock repented and wrote Blinded by the Right: The Conscience of an Ex-Conservative and never looked back. He even apologized to President Clinton, Anita Hill, and many other people he smeared during his career as a right-wing hatchet man.

Founding Media Matters for America is part of his transformation.

Gone are the days when people like Drudge can print something with the flimsiest of proof (if any), only to take the story off of his Website when the truth came out (if, in fact, it did at all).

Drudge's clumsy attempt to smear CNN's Michael Ware, after he made a fool of Judas John McCain about Iraq, fell flat. And Drudge's motives were transparent, too - Ware made McCain look bad, so it was payback time.

I urge you to visit MM often, and support the site if you have the means. It really is a one-stop shop for the liberal looking to debunk the right's lies, distortions and smears.

I click it every day and use a great deal of the media available on the site.

Fox's lame Plame lies & distortions

Like this was predictable. Fox News had its inaccurate take on the first day of the Valerie Plame testimony, so it bears a closer examination. I got this clip and info. for this post from Media Matters.

Thank God for Media Matters - a truly great organization founded by recovering Republican hate monger David Brock. MM is dedicated to uncovering the spin, hypocrisy and outright lies of the Right Wing Noise Machine that is so prevalent in our mainstream media today.

Anyway, watch the clip above before reading on. (Since YouTube is now getting suckier by the minute, thanks to corporate attorneys, it may be removed by the time you view this. If the clip isn't available, lemme know and I'll try reposting it.)

In this clip, Republican strategist Edwina Rogers appeared on the March 16 edition of Fox News' Your World with Neil Cavuto to "discuss" (distort) the testimony of outed CIA operative Valerie Plame. During her appearance, Rogers falsely claimed that Plame "had been in Vanity Fair before any of this came out, sitting in a Jaguar, and she did not get permission from the CIA, which is required." As usual, a complete and total lie, fabrication, whatever you want to call it. But hey, it's Fox News, so what are the odds that it was an honest mistake? About as low as the president's approval ratings.

Rogers also states that posing in such a photo "was unacceptable for the CIA."

Rogers also claimed that Plame's husband, former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, who went to Niger to discover whether or not Saddam Hussein had sought to purchase uranium for his phantom nuclear program, "had come back and didn't give the report to the CIA, but he turned it over in an Op-Ed to The New York Times." Another total lie, and testimony from the Libby trial bears this out. A CIA agent testified in the Libby trial that Wilson's findings were described in detail to the CIA more than a year before his Op-Ed was published in the Times. I

n his Op-Ed, Wilson asserted that "[i]n early March, I arrived in Washington and promptly provided a detailed briefing to the C.I.A. I later shared my conclusions with the State Department African Affairs Bureau."

It's painfully evident that this hack Rogers did no reporting or researching of her own, simply read off a script that Fox News gave her, or simply intentionally lied in another clumsy attempt to smear Plame. Does the right think that no one on the "left" side of things does any research or checks on these things? Anyway, Rogers alleges that because of these missteps, Plame "was already in the hot seat with the CIA."

The fact is, Plame's photos appeared in Vanity Fair several months after Robert Novak's July 14, 2003, column disclosed her identity, and Wilson's July 6, 2003, Times Op-Ed appeared long after he delivered his report on Niger to the CIA.

After all of these inaccuracies, host Neil Cavuto asked: "But [Plame] was in the hot seat - she was in the hot seat after she was in the hot seat, right? I mean, after this stuff came out, right?" But other than that, he let Rogers' inept assertions stand without correcting her numerous inaccuracies.

More facts that destroy the otherwise minuscule credibility of Rogers and Cavuto, from Media Matters:

Plame and Wilson appeared in the January 2004 issue of Vanity Fair, and the pictures in which she and Wilson appeared "in a convertible Jaguar" were taken on November 18, 2003 - a full four months after Robert Novak revealed Plame's identity in his column.

Media Matters also previously noted that on the October 11, 2005, edition of Fox News' Hannity & Colmes, nationally syndicated radio host Laura Ingraham similarly suggested that White House senior adviser Karl Rove could not have outed Plame as an undercover agent because her identity was already known after she appeared "in Vanity Fair with her scarf and her sunglasses on."

These morons don't ever let facts get in the way of a good smear campaign, do they?

The unfortunate part about all of this is that there are plenty of sheep out there who willfully watch Faux News and believe whatever they see and hear at face value. (I know many of these people.) The lies just don't seem to matter, or Fox-o-philes simply dismiss the real facts as liberal lies presented to counter-argue the Fox lies.

These lies are intentional, too. Another example that readily comes to mind of Fox intentionally lying to make a Republican look better - the Mark Foley scandal. I'll never forget Sean Insanity, with nothing left to say and no way to spin the Foley mess, saying during a broadcast of Hannity and Colmes, "I don't mean to bring Clinton into this, but Monica Lewinsky was 19 when they had an affair." She was 22, but by saying she was 19, a total, intentional lie, it brought Monica's age closer to the age of the underage teenagers Foley was trying to bang.

As a Democrat, I realize that there are often people who aren't going to see things my way, and that's fine. But, have difference based on philosophy and beliefs, not lies.

Oh well - no one is above being smeared by the right-wing noise machine. If they can smear a presidential candidate with three Purple Hearts, they sure as hell can go after the likes of Plame.

As I watched the rest of this clip, it just amazed me how these arrogant imbeciles smear Plame. She's the victim here. Her identity was revealed in a national column, planted by members of the Bush Administration, to try and even a political score.

Lost in this whole thing, and certainly ignored by Repubes, is how her outing could have caused the her death, or other agents. Who knows if she's even in danger now? Or her husband? Kids? I've seen nothing in the mainstream media about that. She was simply a civil servant, doing her duty, and then her cover was blown.

Yet, there are a remarkable number of people who treat Scooter Libby, Robert Novak and Dick Cheney as victims.

To restate - Fox and its roster of right-wing hacks are smearing Plame for being outed as a CIA Agent. This has to anger all but the most extreme Republicans.

Franken bids adieu, declares for '08

I felt just a little bit older on Thursday. That's because I spent the drive to work listening to Al Franken's last broadcast of The Al Franken Show via podcast. I fondly remember Franken (above, taking off his headset for the last time after his show on Wednesday) on Air America Radio when the network made its debut.

At first, I had mixed emotions on Franken the radio broadcaster (above, after his last show). I've always loved his books, going all the way back to Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot. It was clear from the outset that he was a neophyte in the radio business - his transitions were awful, his voice not much better, and the show wasn't always as planned as it should have been.

But, it didn't take Franken long to find his voice. His show began in March 2004, and I started listening on the Internet as soon as it became available. Looking back, '04 was a pretty big, exciting year for me politically; presidential election years always are for me, but 2004 was more so than any other so far in my life. At the risk of sounding sappy, Franken built up liberals and progressives, and then built us up again after the disaster that November.

Along the way, Franken honed his skills as a host, and sharpened his wit and rhetoric. The last year of his show, Franken really rounded into form - he ratcheted down the sarcasm and ramped up his game, bringing top notch guests to the show every week, including Joe Conason, a noted and respected author; David Brock, the founder of Media Matters; Jonathan Alter of Newsweek; Thomas Oliphant of The Boston Globe; Melanie Sloan and Norm Ornstein. Heavyweights all, and some of them were Republicans.

And, like Olbermann, Franken spent a considerable amount of time taking shots at Bill O'Reilly (whom he christened "O'Lielly" in one of his books - and as readers of The Journey know, I've been carrying that flame). Originally, Franken dubbed his radio show The O'Franken Factor. He's had some legendary run-ins with BOR and even Fox News. In 2004, the network tried suing him for copyright infringement for using its term "fair and balanced" in his book Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right. The judge overseeing the case, in the midst of throwing Fox's suit out of court, noted the irony of a news network, which is supposed to protect First Amendment rights of free speech, suing someone over their right to free speech.

Anyway, at the end of Franken's show on Wednesday, he declared his candidacy for the U.S. Senate in 2008. Franken will face Norm Coleman, who won Paul Wellstone's seat in the aftermath of Wellstone's death in 2004. Wellstone and Franken went back many years - both are from Minnesota, and the two had a close relationship. It will be poetic justice if Franken wins the seat next year.

I know there are many who will sell Franken short because of his history as a comedian. Those who underestimate him do so at their own peril. Personally, I can't wait to see Franken tear Coleman to shreds. If Franken holds to form, he will realize success as a candidate just like he has as a comedian, author and radio host.

However, one can predict the Coleman and his staff's plan of attack. For starters, there are literally hundreds if not thousands of audio clips available that can and will be taken out of context by his opponent(s).

On Wednesday, Franken offered up an example of just what his opponents had in store for him. He likes to use a joke about John McCain (that McCain now uses himself). It goes something like this -

People paint John McCain as some sort of war hero, but I don't know why. Real heroes fight, but McCain sat out the war for five-and-a-half years. I don't see how he's a hero.

Even McCain thinks it's funny. But, according to Franken, some people have criticized him for the joke, opining that he's making fun of a war hero.

There'll be a lot more of that in the next 18 months. I'm rooting like crazy for Franken, and whatever happens, he will certainly add a lot of wit and wisdom to the 2008 election.

I've got $20 that says Coleman won't debate Franken more than twice, if at all. (Assuming Franken gets the nomination.) Matching wits with Franken would be a very bad idea for Coleman.

Very bad.

In the meantime, Thom Hartman (above) will take Franken's place on Air America Radio. The future of the fledgling network is still uncertain, but the network was recently approved to emerge from Chapter 11.

Clearly, there's a market for a liberal radio network; Air America has merely been the unfortunate victim of bad management.

For the moment, I've dropped my subscription. I'll admit that Franken was the biggest reason for my subscribing to Air America. It irked me that I had to subscribe at all, but Air America doesn't have an affiliate in Philadelphia, and its satellite agreement is with XM Satellite Radio, and I'm a Sirius man. So, I was paying to listen to Air America's podcasts a day late. But, I'm spending enough money on subscriptions right now, so Air America loses out. Maybe in the future again, someday.

I'll wait and see how Hartman's received, and then maybe sometime in the future I'll subscribe again. (Above, Hartman's bulletin board outside his radio studio.)

I'm certainly rooting for Air America's success, just like Franken's. God only knows that there needs to be more voices to combat the far right blowhards like Insanity and Limbaugh.

It's Nancy smearin' time! Yee Haww!

This flattering picture of Nancy Pelosi, the (hopefully!) future Speaker of the House, appeared on The Drudge Report today, with another ham-handed attempt at a smear. Read on...

This one's got my blood boiling a bit. As any reader of my blog knows, I'm a fan of Media Matters, a Web-based, non-profit progressive research and information center dedicated to comprehensively monitoring, analyzing, and correcting conservative misinformation in the U.S. media. So basically, it debunks conservative bullshit in the media. It's a big, tough job - there's a lot out there.

MM is headed by David Brock, a former conservative media talking head who played integral roles in the smearing of Anita Hill during the Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings (Brock opined that Hill might be "a bit nutty and a bit slutty") and also the Troopergate story that led to Paula Jones filing a lawsuit against President Bill Clinton. In short, Brock had some making up to do, and he's done just that. He's authored a must-read for people interested in what he calls the Republican Noise Machine called Blinded by the Right: The Conscience of an Ex-Conservative. (Confession, I have it, but am yet to read it - too many other books keep getting in the way, but it was a NYT best seller, and I've heard and read nothing but good things.) Okay, back to my boiling blood...

I caught this one today and it just had me laughing. It's a revealing journey that reveals how hacks like Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Lielly and worst of all, Matt Drudge, plant exaggerated stories, half truths or outright lies in the media, and they get picked up and reported as news. Drudge is the biggest offender of all; he's been doing it for years, and shows no signs of slowing down.

Normally, I don't like to cut/paste stuff to my blog, but this one is worthy. It'd be more entertaining if so many people didn't obediently hear/read this stuff and believe it without questioning it.

Anyway, there it is - my comments are in (italics).

Where is Nancy Pelosi? A 'How To' Guide for Advancing Conservative Misinformation
How a Bogus Claim from a GOP Organization Ended Up on MSNBC

From Media Matters, November 3, 2005

Washington, DC -- The Republican noise machine is at it again. In a last-ditch effort to distract voters, Republicans are playing pickup game of "Where is Nancy Pelosi?" It began with a widely distributed email, obtained by Media Matters for America (See it Here), claiming that House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) is almost entirely absent from the campaign trail. The email landed on the Internet gossip site Drudge Report, and the story reached a peak today when MSNBC's Norah O'Donnell asked NBC correspondent Mike Viqueira where Pelosi has "been in the last week."

In fact as the blog ThinkProgress.org noted, on November 1, "Pelosi appeared at a sold-out rally at the Warfield Theater with former President Clinton. Portions of the rally were broadcast on television." On the same day CNN aired a feature interview with Pelosi.

Jamison Foser, Managing Director of Media Matters for America, called the media out for participating in the GOP's election-year stunt.

"This is a textbook example of a journalist mindlessly repeating false Republican spin designed to muddy the waters and distract the public. The media have a responsibility to check the facts instead of simply parroting GOP operatives," Foser said. "Better yet, they should focus on substantive issues that matter to real people instead of these increasingly absurd efforts to change the subject."

The Freedom Project sent out the email, titled "Where is Nancy Pelosi?" on October 31, claiming that Pelosi has been absent from the campaign trail and posing possible reasons why. It wasn't long before the claim was picked up and mentioned in the mainstream media. Internet gossip Matt Drudge posted a report on November 2 repeating the Freedom Project's false claims. Drudge wrote: "The woman who would be speaker, Nancy Pelosi, has oddly stayed out of the national spotlight in the week leading up to the big vote." The following morning, on the November 3rd edition of MSNBC News Live, O'Donnell brought up the issue with Viqueira. (Watch it below)



Three Easy Steps to Advancing Conservative Misinformation
1. Write a scathing email or press release. Resist the use of facts. Rely heavily on buzzwords and spin.
2. Distribute the email or press release far and wide. Pray that someone in the mainstream media picks up the story. If that doesn't work, make sure you get a copy of your hit piece to the Drudge Report.
3. Watch and smile as the mainstream media report on Drudge Report items as legitimate news. 4. Complain about a liberal bias in the press.

Thankfully, Viqueira shot down O'Donnell's question by refuting the blatantly false idea, forwarded by "Republican operatives," that Pelosi is "trying to run out the clock instead of engaging in the issues that matter to the American people." Viqueira went on to note that Pelosi has continued to do fundraising and media interviews.

###

So, there you have it - I guess O'Donnell's idea of doing legwork for political stories is to simply read Drudge's Website.

A few thoughts on this...

1. Hey GOP blowhards, um, wasn't Pelosi just on 60 Minutes recently? (Which, by the way, was an outright disgrace, where Pelosi had to suffer the indignity of Leslie Stahl's remarks about her clothing, what she ate, as well as Stahl's blatantly misogynistic and provoking questions. Watching the interview, I thought she was working for the Bush White House, but I digress.)

2. For those of you reading who think I'm full of it about Matt Drudge being in bed with the Republican Party, think again. One, if you read his site, you know it's true, but, most importantly, GOP leaders have acknowledged as much in interviews. Ken Mehlman, the head of the RNC, feeds talking points to Drudge regularly. Knowing that, you don't think that some misleading and/or false material finds its way into those updates? You'd better believe it. Drudge has had to publish several retractions for things that were outright lies.

Funny how that never gets much press.