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Politics : I Will Continue to Continue, to Pretend.... -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Sully- who wrote (34895)	7/20/2010 4:13:00 PM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

Documents show media plotting to kill stories about Rev. Jeremiah Wright .

To: Sully- who wrote (34895)	7/20/2010 5:04:35 PM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

Media Bias? What Media Bias? BOMBSHELL! Sarah Palin FaceBook Today at 2:26pm It’s encouraging for commonsense conservatives who are frustrated with media cover-ups and biases to see truth revealed. Remember the infamous “JournoList” – the listserv chat group of hundreds of “prominent” mainstream media personalities? It seems The Daily Caller obtained copies of the JournoList email exchanges from the 2008 campaign having to do with the media’s coverage of Rev. Jeremiah Wright, then candidate Obama’s pastor of 20 years. It’s everything you may have suspected. This, in the words of one JournoList member: <<< “I do not endorse a Popular Front, nor do I think you need to. It’s not necessary to jump to Wright-qua-Wright’s defense. What is necessary is to raise the cost on the right of going after the left. In other words, find a rightwinger’s [sic] and smash it through a plate-glass window. Take a snapshot of the bleeding mess and send it out in a Christmas card to let the right know that it needs to live in a state of constant fear. Obviously I mean this rhetorically. And I think this threads the needle. If the right forces us all to either defend Wright or tear him down, no matter what we choose, we lose the game they’ve put upon us. Instead, take one of them — Fred Barnes, Karl Rove, who cares — and call them racists. Ask: why do they have such a deep-seated problem with a black politician who unites the country? What lurks behind those problems? This makes them sputter with rage, which in turn leads to overreaction and self-destruction.” >>> That’s just one little excerpt. Read the whole thing here. It’s quite an eye-opener. It really says it all – though more will no doubt be revealed in the future, no doubt covering the lamestream media’s coverage of other issues and people. May the light keep shining!

To: Sully- who wrote (34895)	7/21/2010 11:59:34 AM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

These Angry Guys on the Left, Always Clenching Their Journo-Fists Morning Jolt . . . with Jim Geraghty [via NRO e-mail subscription] I am told by lefties who were on the old Journo-List how boring it was. How it was mostly about baseball and movies and books and all kinds of topics, and how controversial, incendiary, or scandalous comments were few and far between. But every time we get a leak from the archives, we see guys who have respected reputations -- at least among the mainstream media -- suddenly throwing tantrums that would leave John McEnroe telling them to grow up. As noted yesterday, between Weigel's talk of setting Matt Drudge on fire, Ezra Klein's off-color recommendation for Tim Russert, Spencer Ackerman fantasizing about putting conservatives through plate-glass windows, and the latest edition of an NPR producer fantasizing about Rush Limbaugh's death, I don't know whether these guys are just talking tough because they're typing in front of a screen, or whether they really have rage issues and violent fantasies that ought to be a concern. Guess who wrote the following: <<< "What's depressing is the way in which liberal journalists are not responding to events in order to find out the truth, but playing strategic games to cover or not cover events and controversies in order to win a media/political war. The far right is right on this: this collusion is corruption. It is no less corrupt than the comically propagandistic Fox News and the lock-step orthodoxy on the partisan right in journalism -- but it is nonetheless corrupt. Having a private journalistic list-serv to debate, bring issues to general attention, notice new facts seems pretty innocuous to me. But this was an attempt to corral press coverage and skew it to a particular outcome." >>> Ready? Andrew Sullivan. Ed Morrissey lays out how we're watching any benefit of the doubt burn to cinders: <<< "Ackerman wasn't talking about a strategy to expose real racists, in the media or anywhere else. The Washington Independent reporter wanted to conduct a campaign against any figure on the Right, including journalists like Fred Barnes, to smear him as a racist for the political purposes of electing a Democrat to the White House. Notice that Ackerman doesn't even bother to ask people to look for actual evidence of racism, but just suggests [picking] a conservative name out of a hat. Tellingly, the pushback from members of Journolist had less to do with the outrageous idea of smearing an innocent person of racism to frighten people away from the story than with whether it would work. Mark Schmitt, now at American Prospect, warned that it 'wouldn't further the argument' for Obama, and Kevin Drum objected because playing racial politics would 'probably hurt the Obama brand pretty strongly.' It certainly puts efforts by the Left to paint the Tea Party as racist in an entirely new light. It also calls into question the ethics and judgment of anyone who participated in that Ackerman thread. Finally, this first entry in the Journolist expos?s -- Tucker Carlson promises more to come -- shows that far from being a benign place to have chats among colleagues, Journolist also served as a place for journalists to plot against their political opponents and strategize to twist the news and propose smear campaigns." >>> At Legal Insurrection, William Jacobson concludes: <<< "The story is not just that liberal journalists are a bunch of conspiring liars and frauds. The real story is that liberal journalists manipulated the 2008 election by actively campaigning in secret for Barack Obama, and stifling debate on critical issues by smearing opponents as racist. This is no joke. We now are paying the price, both in the destruction of our economy and standing in the world, and the continued race-card playing antics of groups like Think Progress and the NAACP. The race card tactic was so successful in 2008, that it is being tried again and again. Don't get mad, get even . . . at the polls. Remember November." >>> At midnight, the Daily Caller revealed NPR producer Sara Spitz talking about how she would enjoy watching Rush Limbaugh die of a heart attack, and Jonathan Zasloff, a law professor at UCLA, and John Judis, a senior editor at The New Republic, talking about whether the federal government should try to shut down Fox News Channel by having the Federal Communications Commission "pull their broadcasting permit once it expires." .

To: Sully- who wrote (34895)	7/21/2010 1:19:53 PM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

At Washington Post, mum’s the word on JournoList By: Byron York Chief Political Correspondent 07/21/10 7:25 AM EDT If any large publication stands to suffer from the JournoList controversy, it’s the Washington Post. The paper hired JournoList founder Ezra Klein from the left-wing publication The American Prospect, and Klein continued to run JournoList while at the Post. In June, the paper quickly accepted the resignation of David Weigel, whom it hired from the left-wing publication The Washington Independent, over comments made on JournoList. (Klein announced he was shutting down the list-serv shortly thereafter.) It is not known whether other Post writers, some of whom also came to the paper from left-wing publications, took part in JournoList; I have asked a couple, and they haven’t yet responded. Now, courtesy of the Daily Caller, we’ve had a peek inside the discussions on JournoList, and it reveals some writers and staffers at left-wing publications like the Nation, as well as ostensibly mainstream outlets like NPR and Bloomberg, making intemperate remarks about conservatives, advocating that some conservatives be arbitrarily branded as racists, drawing parallels between Tea Partiers and Nazis, and appealing to fellow journalists on the list-serv to ignore the controversy over then-candidate Barack Obama and the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. But none of those now-published comments came from Post writers. So is there a problem for the paper? Potentially. Since the paper employs JournoList’s founder and proprietor, and since comments on JournoList led to Weigel’s leaving the paper, and since those events raise questions about whether other Post journalists took part in JournoList, and since there are likely more stories to come from the thousands of still-unpublished exchanges on JournoList, it is reasonable to ask what the Post’s management knows, and what it knew in the past, about Post journalists taking part in the list-serv. It’s reasonable to ask — but the Post isn’t going to answer. On Tuesday afternoon, I sent a list of questions to Post spokeswoman Kris Coratti. Does Post management know who among its employees participated in JournoList? If so, did management know at the time JournoList was active? Has Post management reviewed employees’ writings on JournoList? If not, does it plan to do so? Has Post management specifically reviewed the JournoList writings of founder Ezra Klein? Did the Post know about Klein’s involvement in JournoList when he was hired? (The list-serv’s existence and Klein’s involvement were first reported by Michael Calderone, then with Politico, before Klein went to the Post.) If the Post knew, did it approve of Klein’s involvement in the list? And did Post management order Klein to put an end to JournoList after the David Weigel controversy became news, or did Klein do it on his own? Finally, in light of the “call them racists” passage in Tuesday’s Daily Caller story on JournoList, I asked whether Post management believes that kind of organized behind-the-scenes conversation is appropriate for Post journalists to take part in. The Post’s response was brief. “We do not discuss personnel matters,” Coratti responded. “The Post has standards for its employees and we expect all personnel to follow them.” I asked whether the Post could add anything to that short answer. After all, this is a serious issue involving at least one high-profile Post journalist, and it is unlikely to go away in the near future. Does the Post really have nothing to say on the matter? “I’m sorry,” Coratti wrote. “That is all I have to offer.” Read more at the Washington Examiner: washingtonexaminer.com

To: Sully- who wrote (34895)	7/21/2010 1:27:18 PM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

Limbaugh responds to JournoList death wish report By: Byron York Chief Political Correspondent 07/21/10 9:35 AM EDT This morning I asked Rush Limbaugh what he thought of references to him on the private left-wing journalist discussion group JournoList. As reported in the Daily Caller, Sarah Spitz, producer* of the KCRW public radio program “Left, Right and Center,” which is heard on a number of NPR stations across the country, wrote on JournoList that if she witnessed Limbaugh dying of a heart attack, she would “laugh loudly like a maniac and watch his eyes bug out.” “I never knew I had this much hate in me,” Spitz wrote, according to the Daily Caller account. “But he deserves it.” So I asked Limbaugh: What do you make of the fact that people in positions of influence on the Left don’t just want to see you fail, don’t just want to see you marginalized, but would actually like to witness you dying a painful death? “Not having wished anyone dead, nor having fantasized about watching someone die, I cannot possibly relate to this,” Limbaugh responded. <<< I can only surmise. I think most people on the left live in a world where merit is irrelevant. Theirs is a world in which connections, networking, kissing ass and obedient sameness are rewarded. I am the antithesis of all that. I am a legitimate, achieved and accomplished Number One and I’ve made it on my own and without them and without having followed their proscriptions. I think they are also jealous that I just sold my NY condo for a 125 percent profit while their homes are worthlessly underwater. Funny thing….a number of my friends sent me the Daily Caller piece and the most shocking thing to them in the story was the advocacy of having government shut down Fox News. That the left wants me dead was not a big deal to them because it was nothing new to them. I think that’s hilarious. And about that: how about the LAW professor who thinks the FCC can pull Fox’s license? Fox does not have a license. The FCC does not grant Fox its right to exist. And this guy teaches law. >>> A few minutes later, Limbaugh emailed an additional thought. “And it is not just that they hate how I became who I am,” he wrote. “They literally hate ME. They hate me because I am the most prominent, effective and unrelenting voice of conservatism and they have not been able to stop me.” Limbaugh will certainly have more to say about this on his program, but his response does point to a central dilemma for some on the Left: Would they rather see Fox out of business or Limbaugh dead? That, for the journalists of JournoList, would be a very hard call. UPDATE: Not long after this was posted, Limbaugh wrote to add a more complete statement: <<< And it is not just that they hate how I became who I am. They literally hate ME. They hate me because I am the most prominent, effective and unrelenting voice of conservatism and they have not been able to stop me. These people and their tactics are not new, we’ve seen them before in other countries and other times. They want to destroy contrary and opposition voices and views. They will climb over the law and the people to achieve their aims. Earlier in this administration, the president and his hacks targeted me, his party targeted me and their groups targeted me. They are all the same. They are leftists, disguised as lawyers, judges, scholars, professors, teachers, reporters, anchors, senators, representatives, legislative aids, congressional staff, federal bureaucrats, etc. There is NO Media. We know that now. There is just an incestuous relationship among all these various groups and a revolving door connecting them all. >>> *The Daily Caller originally described Spitz as an NPR producer. Read more at the Washington Examiner: washingtonexaminer.com

To: Sully- who wrote (34895)	7/22/2010 2:07:24 PM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

Meet Cabalist: A newer, more exclusive JournoList By: Charlie Spiering Online Community Manager 07/22/10 7:00 AM EDT What happens when an organization becomes divided unto itself? Reformation. As the Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg notes, a purified, more exclusive JournoList is forming. Cabalist. <<< The heretofore secret Cabalist, which unlike Journolist, has only 173 members, rather than 400, but which in other ways resembles Journolist (such as in the propensity of Cabalist members to leak ostensibly private information to non-Cabalist members, including to yours truly). The 173 members are mainly veterans of Journolist, and don’t ask me what happened to the other 227. >>> Speaking of JournoList, the latest piece from the Daily Caller is up. Today’s topic? The 'plot' against Sarah Palin. Its going to be a long summer. Read more at the Washington Examiner: washingtonexaminer.com

To: Sully- who wrote (34895)	7/22/2010 2:14:05 PM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

When McCain picked Palin, liberal journalists coordinated the best line of attack By Jonathan Strong The Daily Caller Published: 3:09 AM 07/22/2010 In the hours after Sen. John McCain announced his choice of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin to be his running mate in the last presidential race, members of an online forum called Journolist struggled to make sense of the pick. Many of them were liberal reporters, and in some cases their comments reflected a journalist’s instinct to figure out the meaning of a story. But in many other exchanges, the Journolisters clearly had another, more partisan goal in mind: to formulate the most effective talking points in order to defeat Palin and McCain and help elect Barack Obama president. The tone was more campaign headquarters than newsroom. The conversation began with a debate over how best to attack Sarah Palin. “Honestly, this pick reeks of desperation,” wrote Michael Cohen of the New America Foundation in the minutes after the news became public. “How can anyone logically argue that Sarah Pallin [sic], a one-term governor of Alaska, is qualified to be President of the United States? Train wreck, thy name is Sarah Pallin.” Not a wise argument, responded Jonathan Stein, a reporter for Mother Jones. If McCain were asked about Palin’s inexperience, he could simply point to then candidate Barack Obama’s similarly thin resume. “Q: Sen. McCain, given Gov. Palin’s paltry experience, how is she qualified to be commander in chief?,” Stein asked hypothetically. “A: Well, she has much experience as the Democratic nominee.” “What a joke,” added Jeffrey Toobin of the New Yorker. “I always thought that some part of McCain doesn’t want to be president, and this choice proves my point. Welcome back, Admiral Stockdale.” Daniel Levy of the Century Foundation noted that Obama’s “non-official campaign” would need to work hard to discredit Palin. “This seems to me like an occasion when the non-official campaign has a big role to play in defining Palin, shaping the terms of the conversation and saying things that the official [Obama] campaign shouldn’t say – very hard-hitting stuff, including some of the things that people have been noting here – scare people about having this woefully inexperienced, no foreign policy/national security/right-wing christia wing-nut a heartbeat away …… bang away at McCain’s age making this unusually significant …. I think people should be replicating some of the not-so-pleasant viral email campaigns that were used against [Obama].” Ryan Donmoyer, a reporter for Bloomberg News who was covering the campaign, sent a quick thought that Palin’s choice not to have an abortion when she unexpectedly became pregnant at age 44 would likely boost her image because it was a heartwarming story. “Her decision to keep the Down’s baby is going to be a hugely emotional story that appeals to a vast swath of America, I think,” Donmoyer wrote. Politico reporter Ben Adler, now an editor at Newsweek, replied, “but doesn’t leaving sad baby without its mother while she campaigns weaken that family values argument? Or will everyone be too afraid to make that point?” Read more: dailycaller.com .

To: Sully- who wrote (34895)	7/22/2010 2:20:44 PM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

What Media Bias? Part 178: the Unfolding Journolist Scandal By Mark Noonan on MSM This just gets worse and worse for the left by the day – these are the supposedly unbiased people who will just bring us the facts: <<< LAURA ROZEN: People we no longer have to listen to: would it be unwise to start a thread of people we are grateful we no longer have to listen to? If not, I’ll start off: Michael Rubin. MICHAEL COHEN, NEW AMERICA FOUNDATION: Mark Penn and Bob Shrum. Anyone who uses the expression “Real America.” We should send there ass to Gitmo! JESSE TAYLOR, PANDAGON.NET: Michael Barone? Please? LAURA ROZEN: Karl Rove, Newt Gingrich (afraid it’s not true), Drill Here Drill Now, And David Addington, John Yoo, we’ll see you in court? JEFFREY TOOBIN, THE NEW YORKER: As a side note, does anyone know what prompted Michael Barone to go insane? MATT DUSS: LEDEEN. SPENCER ACKERMAN: Let’s just throw Ledeen against a wall. Or, pace Dr. Alterman, throw him through a plate glass window. I’ll bet a little spot of violence would shut him right the (Expletive Deleted) up, as with most bullies. JOE KLEIN, TIME: Pete Wehner…these sort of things always end badly. ERIC ALTERMAN, AUTHOR, WHAT LIBERAL MEDIA: (Expletive Deleted) Nascar retards… >>> The leftist bias of the MSM has been so pronounced for a couple decades now that only leftists and MSMers were willing to deny it with a straight face. At this point, however, you just have to be stupid to not admit it. And the thing is, if they would just admit it, the issue would go away – what bothers people about the MSM is not the bias, but the pretense that there is no bias. As usual, the cover up is worse than the underlying crime. .

To: Sully- who wrote (34895)	7/22/2010 2:37:17 PM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

The TRUTH is not part of the LIBERAL AGENDA Chip Bok from Creators Syndicate creators.com

To: Sully- who wrote (34895)	7/22/2010 4:24:55 PM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

Post-Journolist Shame? Kathryn Jean Lopez The Corner Maybe we're seeing a sense of it in that NPR public radio* producer's non-apology apology? I'd like to hope so. But anyone who is remotely surprised that someone engaged in politics on the Left would have "so much hate" in her as to say that she would be glad to see Rush Limbaugh die — and as graphically as she did — did not see my inbox the night Rush found himself in a Hawaii hospital months ago. They haven't seen the e-mails I receive whenever I write his name. Hearing such ugly things about himself has become second nature to him. And no one deserves that. But it comes with success, with having a voice today. We get them here — I and many of my colleagues receive them on a regular basis, especially when we write on the most hot-button issues of the day. Sean Hannity has had fun with the reality, with his "Hate Hannity Hotline" feature. I don't pretend that people on the Right don't express hate-filled thoughts. But I also know that there is way too much of this tolerated by those who present themselves as the ideology of tolerance. And a lot of it is about Rush, who, apparently, like Fox News, just needs to be shut down by the government! Thank goodness for the Fairness Doctrine in the legislative side pocket. I do hope that there is some sense of shame about that out there in the liberal media world. The problem isn't that anyone got caught, the problem is this is the way people talk about each other. And influential people who frame news and shape policy and opinion and our culture. We need to expect more of ourselves and one another. *CORRECTION: Spitz worked for a public-radio station, but not NPR. .

To: Sully- who wrote (34895)	7/22/2010 4:53:06 PM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

Fred Barnes on Conservative Journalism By: Robert Costa The Corner From his excellent take on JournoList in the Wall Street Journal: <<< Until JournoList came along, liberal journalists were rarely part of a team. Neither are conservative journalists today, so far as I know. If there's a team, no one has asked me to join. As a conservative, I normally write more favorably about Republicans than Democrats and I routinely treat conservative ideas as superior to liberal ones. But I've never been part of a discussion with conservative writers about how we could most help the Republican or the conservative team. My experience with other conservative journalists is that they are loners. One of the most famous conservative columnists of the past half-century, the late Robert Novak, is a good example. I knew him well for 35 years. He didn't tell me what stories he was working on nor ask what I was planning to write. He never mentioned how we might promote Republicans or aid the conservative cause, nor did I. What was particularly pathetic about the scheme to smear Mr. Obama's critics was labeling them as racists. The accusation has been made so frequently in recent years, without evidence to back it up, that it has little effect. It's now the last refuge of liberal scoundrels. The first call I got after the Daily Caller unearthed the emails involving me was from Karl Rove. He said he wanted to talk to his "fellow racist." We laughed about this. But the whole episode was also sad. I didn't sputter at the thought of being called a racist. But it was sad to see what journalism, or at least a segment of it, had come to. >>> .

To: Sully- who wrote (34895)	7/26/2010 9:15:06 AM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

JournoList Michael Ramirez from Creators Syndicate creators.com

To: Sully- who wrote (34895)	7/27/2010 12:38:13 PM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

What does it take to be a ‘hero’ of JournoList? By: Byron York Chief Political Correspondent 07/27/10 10:35 AM EDT The Daily Caller has published still more excerpts from the left-wing journalism chat room JournoList. This time the theme is “Heroes of JournoList.” The phrase refers to lefty journalists who on at least one occasion overcame their ideology to defy the conventional wisdom of JournoList’s 400 participants. And what qualifies as heroism on JournoList? The following: Asserting that Gen. David Petraeus did not betray his country, as a notorious 2007 MoveOn.org ad asserted. Apparently the JournoList discussion of the ad focused on whether it was effective or whether it was counterproductive from the Left’s perspective. It took the Guardian’s Michael Tomasky to note that “no one has yet plainly called the ad objectionable on the merits…” For that entirely reasonable observation, Tomasky wins an honorable mention among the Heroes of JournoList. Asserting that Maj. Nidal Hisan murdered 13 people in an act of Islamist terrorism. Apparently the JournoList community was not impressed by the number of facts pointing to an Islamist motivation in the Ft. Hood massacre; some wanted to avoid fostering the impression that such terrorists are in the United States. It took the New Yorker’s James Surowiecki to observe that he found it “bizarre that anyone would argue that an accurate description of what happened is somehow pointless…Describing Hasan as a violent Islamist terrorist is much closer to the truth than describing him as a disturbed individual.” For that, Surowiecki is a Hero of JournoList. Recognizing the fact that Obamacare involved government giveaways to the pharmaceutical industry. When the Huffington Post ran a story to that effect, it was criticized on JournoList — bad for the cause. Dan Froomkin stepped up to defend it, saying, “I’m awfully sorry this makes Obama look bad. Not my problem.” Of course, Froomkin was the Huffington Post editor who handled the story. Still, standing up for his own organization’s work earns Froomkin a place among the Heroes of JournoList. There are a few others. JournoList founder Ezra Klein wins the Daily Caller’s plaudits for being generally agreeable, and the New Yorker’s Jeffrey Toobin wins for saying favorable things about Rush Limbaugh. But what is remarkable about the Heroes of JournoList is how small their acts of “heroism” were. Yes, they stepped up to disagree with others on the list-serv, but was commonsense independence of thought so rare on JournoList that their statements qualify as heroic? Read more at the Washington Examiner: washingtonexaminer.com