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Politics : American Presidential Politics and foreign affairs -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: DuckTapeSunroof who wrote (44302)	7/24/2010 10:57:30 AM
From: DuckTapeSunroof	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 71588

The Conservative Pseudojournalist Method Jonathan Chait July 21, 2010 \| 4:00 pm tnr.com By now, the story of USDA staffer Shirley Sherrod is familiar. Conservative media magnate Andrew Breitbart obtained a video of her speaking to an NAACP convention. In it she discussed not wanting to help a farmer because he was white. Here was explosive evidence of the reverse racism that Breitbart and some conservatives find so endemic. She was quickly fired. It turned out that Breitbart's story was wildly misleading. Sherrod in fact told a story in which she recounted earlier in her career, while working for a nonprofit, feeling resentment about helping a white farmer. But, she continued, she later understood that such an attitude was wrong. The white farmer later testified that Sherrod in fact helped them save their farm. Breitbart claims he did not splice the video, and that he obtained it in the misleading, fragmentary form in which he published it. Coincidentally, Breitbart was the victim of the exact same trick earlier. Last year, Breitbart published video purporting to show a man dressed as a pimp soliciting help from Acorn. It turned out, the video was deceptively edited. He dressed as a pimp for the cameras, but wore conservative attire to meet with Acorn. In meeting with Acorn, he presented himself not as a pimp but as a law student trying to rescue his prostitute girlfriend from a pimp. Yet the narrative presented by Breitbart took hold from the outset. When pressed, he claimed here too that he was the victim of deceptive editing. A similar tactic is at work in the Daily Caller's expose on Journolist. It is the selective presentation of fragments of data, containing multiple factual misstatements, and filtered through the reporter's deceptive analytical take, to present a "discovery" as something wildly at odds with reality. The story takes hold as news because it is, literally, new information. But the information bears no resemblance to what the conservative journalist claims it is. This seems to be the method of the new breed of conservative pseudo-journalists. The mentality at work is not hard to understand. The proprietors of this story believe that the mainstream media is fundamentally a liberal conspiracy, whose claims of objectivity are not merely an unattained or unattainable idea but a lie to cover a political agenda. Here is Breitbart: No steadfast journalism rule is unbendable when it comes to justifying and protecting the racket that is modern journalism, specifically, political journalism in the United States today. The ends justify the means for the Democrat Media Complex. They lie when they claim to be objective. They lie when they claim to be unbiased, because these so called “truth seekers” are guilty of engaging in open political warfare. ... most media organizations are either complicit by participation in the treachery that is Journolist, or are guilty of sitting back and watching Alinsky warfare being waged against all that challenged the progressive orthodoxy. The scandal predictably involves journalists posing as professors posing as experts. But dressed down they are nothing but street thugs. When this is your analysis of mainstream media ethics -- when you think the mainstream media is not merely failing to overcome its liberal bias but is actually street thugs -- that informs the kind of journalism you produce. There is room for enterprising journalism from conservatives. The problem is that the product of sites like Breitbart's Big Government and the Daily Caller is not journalism but pseudo-journalism. It does not hew to conventional journalistic standards. It is opposition research -- bits of data placed in the most damaging possible context and packaged in such a way as to encourage other reporters or pundits to pick it up and hopefully repeat its analytic thrust. Now, opposition research can be useful, and it often produces good journalistic leads. But people who do hew to conventional journalistic standards do need to be very cautious when handling pseudo-journalistic stories. You can't assume that the information is being provided in context, or that the interpretive frame bears any relation to reality.

To: DuckTapeSunroof who wrote (44302)	7/24/2010 8:23:00 PM
From: Peter Dierks	2 Recommendations Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 71588

Throwing Others Under the Bus Over Race by David Limbaugh 07/24/2010 I realize that the hot topic today is racism and that both liberals and conservatives are falling all over themselves to prove how non-racist they are and, in the process, throwing anyone and everyone under the bus just to prove their bona fides. I think it's sad, especially when the people who are emerging unscathed from this are far from blameless and those accused of the dastardly deeds of reporting this incompletely aren't quite the villains they're being portrayed as. It bothers me how little courage people have to stand up for what is right on the issue of race, mainly for fear they'll be stigmatized with charges of insensitivity toward race or, worse, racism. It seems to me that President Obama's unchecked liberalism is in such disfavor among the electorate that supporters of his agenda often invoke the race card against opponents of his agenda both to distract attention from substantive issues and to demonize conservatives. I truly don't believe this Shirley Sherrod story is primarily about sloppy, negligent or even malicious reporting. Obviously, fairness dictates that quotes should be reported in context. And it is indefensible for a reporter to misrepresent a person's meaning intentionally, whether from failing to provide the context or otherwise. Having met Andrew Breitbart, I sincerely doubt he reported this story with any intent to mislead. But even if we are willing to assume, for purposes of discussion, the worst about Breitbart and condemn him for whatever reason -- e.g., because it makes us feel superior, makes us appear above racism ourselves, or serves a political cause to demonize him (and thus tea partiers and conservatives) -- where does that leave us? Let's just say Breitbart is the worst human being on the planet (though I reject that he's even a bad guy). Are we going to allow ourselves to be distracted from the rest of the back story and from all the other vitally important issues facing us today? Have all those who are patting themselves on the back for pointing out how badly Shirley Sherrod was mistreated studied her views? Do they automatically give her a pass for some of the other things she did say that at least bear on her class warfare mindset or, even more to the point, her willingness to imply -- unfairly -- others are racists? My friend Andy McCarthy at National Review Online highlighted certain statements of Sherrod's in that same speech. She was presumably referring to the people who established slavery at this nation's founding (but don't take my word or even Andy's for what she said; listen to or read her words yourself, because there's not enough space to include her entire speech). She said: "So that's when they made black people servants for life. That's when they put laws in place forbidding them (i.e., blacks and whites) to marry each other. That's when they created the racism that we know of today. They did it to keep us divided. And ... it started working so well they said, 'Gosh, looks like we've come upon something here that could last generations.' And here we are, over 400 years later, and it's still working." McCarthy goes on to quote Sherrod apparently addressing the motives of some of Obamacare's opponents. She said: "I haven't seen such a mean-spirited people as I've seen lately over this issue of health care. Some of the racism we thought was buried. Didn't it surface? Now, we endured eight years of the Bushes, and we didn't do the stuff these Republicans are doing because you have a black president." Do we not see the irony in this mad rush to lionize Shirley Sherrod because she was falsely depicted as a racist by someone who took her comments out of context, when that very same Shirley Sherrod seems to be, in effect, unfairly and categorically demonizing people as racists? How about the irony in the castigation of Breitbart for smearing someone as a racist by people who routinely smear an entire group of people (conservatives) as racists? To be clear, I'm not suggesting two wrongs make a right. But I am saying that we shouldn't allow this incident to distract us from: a) other important issues; b) the troubling statements that Sherrod did make (in context); or c) the ongoing malicious charges of racism constantly leveled against tea partiers, other conservatives and other Obama opponents, even by many of the people exploiting this incident. You've surely read about the JournoList scandal involving discussion by mainstream liberal journalists to deliberately smear conservatives, including Karl Rove and Fred Barnes, with charges of racism? Racism is an indefensible sin, but false charges of racism are right up there with it -- bearing false witness against people and putting them in the worst possible light. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mr. Limbaugh is a nationally syndicated columnist and author of Bankrupt: The Moral and Intellectual Bankruptcy of Today's Democratic Party, Absolute Power and Persecution. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- humanevents.com

To: DuckTapeSunroof who wrote (44302)	9/21/2010 3:30:53 PM
From: Peter Dierks	2 Recommendations Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 71588

Top Obama DOJ Officials Involved in Decision to Drop Black Panther Case According to Evidence Obtained by Judicial Watch Withheld Records Contradict Testimony by Assistant Attorney General Thomas Perez that No Political Leadership was Involved in the Decision Contact Information: Press Office 202-646-5172, ext 305 Washington, DC -- September 21, 2010 Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, today released a draft Vaughn index prepared by the Department of Justice (DOJ) that shows that the two top political appointees at the DOJ were involved in the decision to dismiss the voter intimidation case against the New Black Panther Party for Self Defense (NBPP). The index, obtained pursuant to a Judicial Watch Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit, contradicts sworn testimony by Thomas Perez, Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division, who testified before the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights that no political leadership was involved in the decision. The Vaughn index produced by the DOJ describes documents that are currently being withheld in their entirety. The index details a series of internal DOJ emails regarding the Black Panther case between the highest political appointees inside Justice, including former Deputy Attorney General David Ogden and the Associate Attorney General Thomas Perrelli. For example, a May 10, 2009, email from Associate Attorney General Perrelli, the third highest ranking official in the DOJ, asks Deputy Associate Attorney General and former Democratic election lawyer Sam Hirsh, “Where are we on the Black Panther case?” The email also includes Deputy Attorney General Ogden’s “current thoughts on the case.” Another email from former Acting Assistant Attorney General Lorretta King, dated May 12, 2009, was distributed to Attorney General Eric Holder through Odgen and Perrelli. Entitled, “Weekly Report for the Week ending May 8, 2009,” the email “Identifies matters deemed significant and highlights issues for the senior offices, including an update on a planned course of action in the NBPP (New Black Panther Party) litigation.” The index produced to Judicial Watch seemingly contradict testimony by Assistant Attorney General Thomas Perez, before the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights on May 14, 2010. The Commission, an independent, bipartisan unit of the federal government charged with investigating and reporting on civil rights issues, initiated a probe of the DOJ’s decision to drop its lawsuit. During the hearing, Perez was asked directly regarding the involvement of political leaders in the decision to dismiss the Black Panther case. COMMISSIONER KIRSANOW: Was there any political leadership involved in the decision not to pursue this particular case any further than it was? ASST. ATTY. GEN. PEREZ: No. The decisions were made by Loretta King in consultation with Steve Rosenbaum, who is the Acting Deputy Assistant Attorney General. Perez also suggested that the dispute was merely “a case of career people disagreeing with career people.” The index describes 122 documents (totaling at least 611 pages) that the Obama Justice Department is withholding from the public in their entirety. A federal court hearing in the matter is scheduled on October 5, 2010 in Washington, DC, before U.S. District Court Judge Reggie B. Walton. “This new evidence shows that the Obama team lied when it said politics did not influence the Black Panther dismissal,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “We now know that top political leaders inside Obama Justice Department were involved in the call to drop the Black Panther case. And we also know that at least one top Justice official said otherwise under oath. In the meantime, we will ask the Court to require the Obama Justice Department to release these (and other) secret documents about this scandal and its cover-up.” The DOJ filed its lawsuit against the New Black Panther Party following an incident that took place outside of a Philadelphia polling station on November 4, 2008. A video of the incident, showing a member of the New Black Panther Party brandishing police-style baton weapon, was widely distributed on the Internet. According to multiple witnesses, members of the New Black Panthers blocked access to polling stations, harassed voters and hurled racial epithets. Nonetheless, the DOJ ultimately overruled the recommendations of its own staff and dismissed the majority of its charges. judicialwatch.org