Why do the right wingers seem to almost always lie and distort the truth...? They seem to like to be in attack mode -- look at the time, energy, and money they spend going after Clinton (and Kerry)...Could Rush, Hannity, O'Reilly, Savage, Drudge, The National Review, The Weekley Standard and others done some real investigative jounalism instead of playing off Rove's radical right wing agenda.??...the right wing attack media outlets have helped to divide our country in such a profound way...They went after Clinton with a vengence...They helped impeach him for a lie about private matters...Yet, they FAILED to hold Bush accountable for runaway deficit spending, reckless environmental protection and Bush administration lies that took us into a pre-emptive war...The right wing media and attack dogs are full of hypocrits...they highlight and promote the SMEARvet ads before they were factchecked -- we now know many of their claims have been debunked by The Washington Post and others...David Brock used to work with the right wing smear artists and has left the dark side...here's his new book which I would highly recommend...
mediamatters.org
Misstating the State of the Union: Right-wing media distortions about the Clinton and Bush presidencies
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> Read the introduction to the book by David Brock
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On FOX News, the economy is "growing like crazy."
On the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal, new jobs at great wages are being created at a blistering pace.
On The Rush Limbaugh Show, seniors have no difficulty getting the medicine they need.
Back on FOX News, parents needn't worry about the arsenic and mercury in their kids' drinking water.
In the rest of America, of course, none of these things are true. Yet conservative pundits, commentators, and "journalists" tell these lies and others on a daily basis, misleading and misinforming the American people.
For years, these right-wing propagandists have been peddling their "up-is-down," "black-is-white" take on the state of the union.
They've been lying to you at every turn: lying about the economy, lying about the budget, about health care, about education, the environment, national security . . . lying about everything, and skewing the debate over important issues in the process.
We're here to set the record straight.
In the following pages, we'll look at the misinformation being peddled by right-wing pundits like Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, Ann Coulter, and Brit Hume (and some mainstream news sources, too).
We'll cut through their spin, lies, and distortions to bring you the truth about the issues that matter most.
Hannity, Limbaugh, Coulter and the rest relentlessly mislead their audiences, pushing an ultra-right agenda with no regard for truth-or for the disastrous effect the policies they advocate have on America.
On issue after issue, progressive policies have proven far more successful than conservative policies. Progressive policies have led to the largest budget surplus in history, declining crime rates, improved education, increased funding to fight deadly diseases, an effective retirement security program for seniors, and responsible environmental protections.
Conservative policies, meanwhile, have led to soaring deficits, a stagnant job market, arsenic in our drinking water, increased crime, and a diminished world stature for our nation. They've made America less secure at home and less respected abroad.
And there's something else, something even worse than right-wing pundits' relentless support of failed policies, going on here, too.
Because they are too often used without full consideration of their meaning, the words "demagoguery" and "sophistry" have lost their impact. But demagoguery and sophistry are exactly what the right-wing pundits are up to.
Conservative commentators, faced with the failure of the policies they espouse, have not chosen to move forward to explore new solutions to our shared problems. Instead, they have chosen to employ debating tactics more appropriate to nursery school than to national discourse. They ignore the facts, they yell, they call their opponents names, they claim not to have said words they uttered only moments before, and they continue to insist, no matter what, that they are right.
They overstep the bounds of decency. Ann Coulter sneers that America's seniors are "39 million greedy geezers." Bill O'Reilly calls the poor "irresponsible and lazy." Rush Limbaugh smears environmentalists as "wackos." O'Reilly has called the Pope a "Saddam enabler." Michael Savage tells his listeners, "When you hear 'human rights,' think only someone who wants to molest your son, and send you to jail if you defend him. Write that down, make a note of it."
Their statements are often prefaced by phrases like "we all know," and end with "write this down," or "and you know it." They lie, and then just assume you agree.
They lie, and they defend their right to lie by saying they are "pundits" or "commentators" or "entertainers" or just offering their "opinion." Well, they have a right to their opinion, as everyone does.
But when Rush Limbaugh claims the federal government spends three times as much on education as on defense, that isn't a matter of "opinion." That's a lie. A flat-out lie. When pundit after pundit says the budget went into deficit because of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, that's not a matter of "opinion." It's a lie: The Congressional Budget Office announced in August 2001 that the budget had gone into deficit.
But the right-wing commentators and pundits keep right on lying, and when, every once in a while, they admit that they don't have the truth on their side, they claim they're just giving their "opinion," and opinions can't be wrong. But not everything is an opinion.
That way lies madness.
No, they must know that there are such things as facts. They just don't care.
They must believe that Americans are fools; that we are incapable of seeing the truth and will believe their lies if only they repeat them often and loudly enough. They must believe that yelling, name-calling, and lying are more persuasive than logic and reason and fact and civility.
Either way, they are wrong, and they should be ashamed of themselves.
But they are not ashamed. They keep yelling, and name-calling, and lying. And they will keep doing so until America stops falling for it.
Unfortunately, their form of discourse has become the dominant form. The airwaves are filled with shouts and shouted responses; with hosts screaming at guests, guests yelling back at hosts, and no room for the truth in between. The media, by and large, has abdicated its role as truth seeker and its position as impartial judge of fact and fiction.
Vice President Cheney can say publicly, "John Kerry is, by National Journal ratings, the most liberal member of the United States Senate . . . And it's not based on one vote, or one year, it's based on 20 years of service in the United States Senate"-a charge that is flatly, demonstrably false; it's a lie-and know that nary a soul in the press corps will challenge him on his statements.
What's more, many of them will repeat his charge as fact; others (even those who must know the truth: Kerry isn't even in the top ten in the National Journal rankings, much less number one) will simply quote Cheney's attack, without bothering to provide the facts.
When the media won't do their job, when many of them actively and intentionally lie and mislead, it's time to look elsewhere for the facts.
That's where both this book and the work Media Matters for America does every day come in.
The American public is confronted at every turn by misleading, inaccurate, and sometimes just plain false information about issues that have tremendous impact on their lives. This misinformation, spread by conservative pundits, commentators, columnists, and broadcasters, skews the public debate and makes it extraordinarily difficult for even the most civic-minded citizens to reach well-informed opinions about our nation's priorities. With this book, we provide a counterbalance to the hot air, facts to rebut the lies, and truth to counter the misleading statements. With this book, we expose the misinformation flooding our airwaves, and the conservative media figures who delight in spreading it.
But this book is only a small part of the process.
Media Matters for America is a web-based, not-for-profit progressive research and information center dedicated to comprehensively monitoring, analyzing, and correcting conservative misinformation in the U.S. media-news or commentary presented in the media that is not accurate, reliable, or credible, and that forwards the conservative agenda.
Media Matters for America's website-www.mediamatters.org-is the principal vehicle for disseminating research and information through a range of initiatives, from daily monitoring and analysis to activism programs that can help you hold the media accountable.
This book is but a small hint of what the talented and dedicated people at Media Matters for America produce every day. Our staff works tirelessly to collect, analyze, or correct conservative misinformation wherever we find it-and to publicize our work in an effort to bring about real change. We hope you'll join the more than one million people who visited our website in our first three months, and that you will help us correct the right-wing spin and distortion in the media.
David Brock
Washington, D.C.
August 2004 |
