Mar 18 2009

An anchor around CBS’s neck

Category: election 2008,media,Palinharmonicminer @ 9:32 am

The “most trusted man in America” has had his name used to shower kudos on surely one of the least trustworthy news anchors in America, Katie Couric, who has fewer daily viewers than Rush Limbaugh has listeners, if I’m reading the chart here correctly.

Don’t you know, it’s always profound journalism to attack anyone from the Right.   The simplest way to get professional recognition in academia and journalism is simply to be very left.  Advocate for the, uh, “right” stuff, and you’re a cinch to receive some award from somebody for something.

So you thought Katie Couric did the tough job of revealing “the real Sarah Palin” by demonstrating that she doesn’t read, and is incoherent?

In Media Malpractice, John Ziegler tells the truth about Katie Couric’s deliberate hit-job on Sarah Palin, proving with complete interview excerpts that:

1)  A widely circulated “incoherent answer” from Palin was actually her attempt to answer an incoherent question from Couric, which was always conveniently removed from the replay that “went viral”.  When you see the question, suddenly Palin’s answer makes sense, though everyone from CNN to SNL focused only on the answer without providing the context of what the question was.

2)  Palin’s refusal to list the exact things she reads for Couric,  which was nothing more than Palin’s refusal to be a good little schoolgirl and recite for the schoolmarm, was widely and deceitfully used by Couric and others to imply that Palin doesn’t read anything.

3)  Couric deliberately phrased questions to attempt to remove the best answers from the table before Palin could reply.  “Other than trying to reform Fannie and Freddie, what’s the most important thing John McCain has done to improve regulation?”  That’s about like asking, “Other than Social Security, what’s the most important thing FDR did for old people?”    And then, insanely, when Palin answered that fixing Fannie and Freddie WAS the most important thing McCain had tried to do in the regulation arena, other reporters (like Major Garrett, still impersonating an officer) said she hadn’t even given THAT answer, to Couric’s great joy, of course.  Garrett appears not even to have the grace to be embarrassed about it.

Sure, I wish Palin had mentioned something else just to show she knew McCain’s record, like campaign finance reform, but maybe she thought (justifiably) that “campaign finance reform” was actually a bad idea, and didn’t want to put a positive spin on it.  In any case, the entire episode was among the LEAST revealing bits of journalism around, other than showing very clearly the agenda that motivates let’s-pretend-journalism at CBS.

Media Malpractice has much more, including all the real gaffes committed by Joe Biden when he was interviewed by Couric, which were conveniently downplayed, or totally deepsixed, and to which no follow up questions were asked.

For example, Ed Morrisey reports here:

I guess the USC Annenberg Norman Lear Center never saw Katie’s crack journalistic work with Joe Biden. CBS crabbed at YouTube and got the video taken down, but the flavor remains:

Joe Biden’s denunciation of his own campaign’s ad to Katie Couric got so much attention last night that another odd note in the interview slipped by.

He was speaking about the role of the White House in a financial crisis.

“When the stock market crashed, Franklin Roosevelt got on the television and didn’t just talk about the princes of greed,” Biden told Couric. “He said, ‘Look, here’s what happened.'”

FDR wasn’t President when the stock market crashed, and he didn’t get on TV until a decade later, but Couric never seems to notice either gaffe. Why? She wasn’t out to get Joe Biden.

And that’s pretty much about the size of it for most of what passes as journalism these days. When the Left flubs, it isn’t even news, but creating news by misrepresenting the Right is always fair game.

The schadenfreud of watching CBS News’ ratings in free-fall is delicious.  Keep up the great work, Katie.  I’m sure you can land a nice sinecure teaching journalism somewhere to wide-eyed graduate students who want nothing more than to learn how “the pros” do it.  On the other hand, cheer up:  maybe the clowns you helped elect will send a nice bailout to CBS.

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Feb 07 2009

“Troopergate,” having died some time ago, is unceremoniously buried

Category: election 2008,media,Palinharmonicminer @ 8:45 am

After nine paragraphs essentially admitting that there was nothing to the “troopergate” allegations against Sarah Palin, but without quite coming out and saying so, we finally get this in paragraph number ten from the AP:

Palin herself initiated a separate investigation by the Alaska State Personnel Board and said she would abide by it instead. This investigation found there was no probable cause to believe Palin or any other state official violated the Alaska Executive Ethics Act. [emphasis mine]

The fact that the state legislature found a few witnesses “in contempt” because they failed to appear when subpoenaed but later gave written statements instead, following advice on their options from the state attorney general (who was busy challenging the subpoenas in court), hardly seems worth a comment even from the AP, but of course the media can’t resist any opportunity to throw mud at Palin, however miniscule that opportunity actually is, and regardless of the thin gruel making up the mud.

Let’s not kid around.  The Alaska legislature had all kinds of options if it wanted to take the matter seriously, none of which it took, because the whole thing was a witch-hunt from the get-go.

Media Malpractice:  How Obama Got Elected and Palin Was Targeted” is going to tell the whole story on the media in the last election cycle, coming out soon.

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Jan 08 2009

John Ziegler’s interview with Sarah Palin for his new film

Category: election 2008,media,Obama,Palin,politicsharmonicminer @ 10:11 am

I’ve mentioned John Ziegler’s efforts before to correct the record about How Obama Got Elected. As part of making his new movie, “Media Malpractice: How Obama Got Elected and Palin Was Smeared” he has interviewed Sarah Palin. Some of his comments on that interview are here. (you may need to scroll down)

the most important part of my visit to the Palin house is that there is a big difference between thinking that something is true and knowing for sure that it is. I now know that Sarah Palin is who I thought she was.

I also know now, with moral certitude, that the media assassination of her, her character and her family was one of the greatest public injustices of our time and I am totally justified in devoting my life to correcting the historical record in my forthcoming film “Media Malpractice…How Obama Got Elected and Palin Was Smeared”

I’ll keep linking to developments on this, but I think this is going to be a gangbuster’s film, with so much content in making its case that no one, no matter how avid a media consumer, has seen it all, and many people are going to be surprised at the strength of the case Ziegler makes.

Stay tuned.

UPDATE:  Early rumblings in the main-stream media about the Palin interview are here, including Palin pointing out the obvious disparity in the treatment of Caroline Kennedy’s candidacy for the Senate as opposed to Palin’s for the veep slot, even though Kennedy is angling for an appointment and won’t even be vetted by the voters til 2010, while Palin would at least have to have been elected to start with.

UPDATE:  Of course, in the coverage linked here, John Ziegler is a “conservative film maker,” not merely a “documentary film maker.”  I wonder if the makers of anti-Bush films in the last 8 years are usually referred to as “liberal film makers”?   How about all the anti-war stinkeroos that have died in the box office in the last few years?  In the reviews, are their writers, producers and directors referred to as “liberal filmmakers”?  The double standards here are so obvious that pointing them out is like shooting fish in a barrel with a howitzer…  but I suspect Ziegler is going to be the target of a great deal of ad hominem attack and attempts to label him out of relevance.

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Oct 08 2008

Time to unload gaffe-prone VP candidate?

Category: Biden,humor,Palinsardonicwhiner @ 9:31 am

Sarah Biden by Victor Davis Hanson. More at the link.

Journalists continue to ask, “What was John McCain thinking in selecting the gaffe-prone Gov. Sarah Palin?”

In what has now become a disturbing pattern, the Alaska governor seems either unable or unwilling to avoid embarrassing statements that are often as untrue as they are outrageous. Recently, for example, in an exclusive interview with news anchor Katie Couric, Palin gushed, “When the stock market crashed, Franklin D. Roosevelt got on the television and didn’t just talk about the, you know, princes of greed. He said, ‘Look, here’s what happened.’ ” Apparently the former Alaskan beauty queen failed to realize that in 1929 there was neither widespread television nor was Franklin Roosevelt even President.

Holy moley… EVERYBODY knows FDR wasn’t president yet in 1929, and there was no broadcast TV yet. That Sarah…. she’s just a country bumpkin, definitely not ready for prime time.

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Oct 01 2008

Imagine……. (dreamy, puffy clouds here)

Category: Biden,election 2008,media,Palinharmonicminer @ 9:17 am

In an alternate universe, Mitt Romney is the Presidential candidate for the Republican party. His vice-presidential candidate, Sarah Palin, will be debating Joe Biden exactly once. The moderator of the debate will be Hugh Hewitt, author of A Mormon in the White House?: 10 Things Every American Should Know about Mitt Romney.

The main stream media makes no objection to the selection of the moderator, knowing that Hugh Hewitt is a professional journalist who can put aside his own self-interest in selling books, and his own obvious political commitments, for the sake of journalistic objectivity in moderating the debate.

(suddenly jerking awake)

Man, that WAS a pipe dream. 

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Sep 30 2008

Imagine: the vice presidential debate moderated by, oh, George Will… or even Hugh Hewitt

Category: Biden,election 2008,media,Obama,Palin,politicsharmonicminer @ 10:08 pm

Michelle Malkin reports on the “completely objective” reporter who will “moderate” the vice presidential debate.

My dictionary defines “moderator” as “the nonpartisan presiding officer of a town meeting.” On Thursday, PBS anchor Gwen Ifill will serve as moderator for the first and only vice presidential debate. The stakes are high. The Commission on Presidential Debates, with the assent of the two campaigns, decided not to impose any guidelines on her duties or questions.

But there is nothing “moderate” about where Ifill stands on Barack Obama. She’s so far in the tank for the Democratic presidential candidate, her oxygen delivery line is running out.

In an imaginary world where liberal journalists are held to the same standards as everyone else, Ifill would be required to make a full disclosure at the start of the debate. She would be required to turn to the cameras and tell the national audience that she has a book coming out on Jan. 20, 2009 — a date that just happens to coincide with the inauguration of the next president of the United States.

The title of Ifill’s book? “The Breakthrough: Politics and Race in the Age of Obama.” Nonpartisan my foot.

…. Continue reading “Imagine: the vice presidential debate moderated by, oh, George Will… or even Hugh Hewitt”

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Sep 19 2008

The Echo Chamber, with shorter and shorter wavelengths

Category: Palinharmonicminer @ 11:53 pm

Sullivan: Palin Pick Most Irresponsible Act a Candidate Ever Made | NewsBusters.org

If you needed any more evidence as to how frightened liberals are of Sarah Palin, you got it during Friday’s “Real Time” on HBO.

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Sep 17 2008

More Palin-phobia

Category: election 2008,media,Palin,politics,Uncategorizedharmonicminer @ 9:43 am

Now they’re accusing Palin of making rape victims pay for their own rape kit.

At the link above, you can read all about it, and about what was omitted from the USA Today story that made the charge.

The USA Today story continues the pattern of the NYTimes, of quoting Palin enemies in Alaska, without counterbalancing perspectives, and leaving out essential facts.

Continue reading “More Palin-phobia”

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Sep 16 2008

Defending Sarah Palin

Category: election 2008,McCain,media,Obama,Palin,politicsharmonicminer @ 9:21 am

The Bidinotto Blog has a nice summary of the failure of the mud-slinging by the Left at Sarah Palin.

A sure sign that the pro-Obama camp’s quiver has run out of arrows is that its partisans are desperately stooping to pick up mud.

It’s worth a read, and has links you can follow up, if you doubt the accuracy of his presentation.

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Sep 15 2008

The New York Times (Obama surrogates all) interviews 14% of Alaska: bumped for Powerline update below

Category: election 2008,media,Palinharmonicminer @ 4:21 pm

It would seem that the New York Times has discovered Sarah Palin is actually a politician.

Once Elected, Palin Hired Friends and Lashed Foes

This was the headline for the NYT article detailing all the investigative reporting done by the Obama campaign….er, I mean, the New York Times staff of professional reporters and researchers.

Since Palin has an 86% approval rating, and since the NYT seems not to have interviewed much of anyone who actually likes Palin, they must have just canvassed the 14%.

Continue reading “The New York Times (Obama surrogates all) interviews 14% of Alaska: bumped for Powerline update below”

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