March 28th, 2006

Who Could Be For T.V. Violence?

To hear Brit Hume tell it on today's Grapevine, this was a simple rally against television violence by a well-meaning Christian group, and was opposed, for no good reason, by intolerant anti-Christian San Fancisco legislators:

Twenty-five thousand evangelical Christians demonstrated against TV sex and violence in San Francisco this weekend. But that didn't go down well with the city council, which passed a resolution condemning the rally as an "act of provocation" to negatively influence what the council called America's "most tolerant" city.

The group, called "Battle Cry for a Generation," uses the Bible to counter what it calls corrupting influences in the media. But the San Francisco Chronicle reports that about 50 counter-protesters denounced the gathering as a "fascist mega-pep rally." And San Francisco's State Representative Mark Leno called the Christians loud, obnoxious, and disgusting, adding, "they should get out of San Francisco."

What Hume fails to mention, however, is that "Battle Cry for a Generation" indicated, by the invitation that it sent out for the event, that the rally was really going to be an anti-gay demonstration. As the AP reports:

A Battle Cry invitation had made plain the symbolism of gathering at "the very City Hall steps where several months ago, gay marriages were celebrated for all the world to see."

Guess you just forgot to mention that little tidbit, didn't you, Brit?

March 26th 2006

Ben who?

You'd think that after mentioning the stormy reception that greeted the Washington Post's hiring of right-wing blogger Ben Domeneche on March 23rd's Grapevine, Brit Hume would be eager to follow up with a story about Domenech's firing amid charges that he'd been plaigarizing articles since his college days and well into his tenure as writer for the National Review. You'd be wrong. Instead, in today's Grapevine Hume has decided to play a favorite game of Conservative commentators and ridicule: The French, Hollywood Celebrities, The Democratic Leadership and Fidel Castro.

Hume just isn't going to play that ridiculous "balance" game.

March 17th, 2006

On A Distant Planet

Brit Hume is so far out to lunch on today's Grapevine that he's just plain on a distant planet. This is one of those days when you can state, pretty much unequivocably, that the man is simply lying. To wit:

The liberal Federation of American Scientists is suggesting that nuclear weapons are just as safe in Iranian hands as they are in American hands.

In a press release announcing a FAS report claiming nuclear weapons "are surprisingly prominent in both the planning and command structure" in the administration's new national security plan — the group's vice president of strategic security says, "The United States cannot argue that Iran should give up its nuclear ambitions while advocating an aggressive strategy for pre-emptive use of American nuclear weapons."

FAS concedes the strategy is "primarily a non-nuclear mission."

It's really difficult to even know where to begin with this one, given that nothing in the press release even remotely resembles what Brit Hume claims it says. Or perhaps we should clarify this by saying that nothing in the press release resembles what Hume claims it "suggests." I suppose that the word "suggests" here is the operative term, given that Hume seems to believe that he can claim anything he wants about the press release as long as he uses the word "suggests" and doesn't flat-out claim that it "states" such a thing. Because, let's face it: the press release certainly doesn't "state" that nuclear weapons are just as safe in U.S. hands as in Iranian hands. And in all honesty, it doesn't "suggest" that nuclear weapons are just as safe in Iranian hands as U.S. hands any more than it "suggests" that purple cows play croquet on the dark side of the moon. What the press release does suggest --and says explicitly-- is that it is hypocritical for this administration to advance a strategy that expands the role of our own nucelar weapons to include preemptive strikes, while insisting that other nations not be allowed to seek a similar capability for themselves.

So all in all, this is just part and parcel with Brit Hume's characteristic dishonesty.

Tuesday, March 14th

I'm going to upset the chronology today to take a look back at an earlier episode of the Grapevine that was broadcast on Tuesday, March 14th. I had read this segment, but not having seen the Bill Mahr interview in question, couldn't really comment on Hume's take. Well, now Crooks and Liars has posted the video clip of the interview on their excellent website (it's my favorite blog, by far) and so I can comment. Here was Hume's take:

New York Times Baghdad bureau chief John Burns has long been highly pessimistic about the war in Iraq from the start. In an interview with TV host Bill Maher Friday night, Burns remained pessimistic, but he also said that now "U.S. military and political diplomatic leadership in Iraq ... is about as good as you could possibly get." And he said the U.S. team there has "got the formula more or less right."

But by the time the trade publication Editor and Publisher had edited and published the Burns interview you wouldn't have known any of that. The magazine ignored it all instead claiming that Burns for the first time was predicting failure.

Ok, now that you've read Hume's comments, why not hop on over to crooks and liars and watch the video, and decide for yourself whether Editor and Publisher painted a distorted picture of the substance of the interview. I think this citation pretty much sums up the segment, and shows how disingenuous Hume's criticisms really are:

Burns: ...there were many mistakes made, but my feeling is that if this fails -- as I have to say, on balance of the odds, it seems now likely to do-- it's probably not going to be because of American mistakes, but because the mission was impossible in the first place... and something else I'd like to say, which is that there were mistakes... of course there were serious mistakes, probably the most serious of them was what was allowed to happen at Abu Ghraib... but the American Military and the political and diplomatic leadership in Iraq now, it seems to me, is about as good as you could possibly get... if the American enterprise in Iraq can be brought to some kind of satisfactory conclusion, improbable as that seems to be, it will be in some measure because they do now have a team in Iraq, Ambassador Herozad, General Casey, General Abizaid, as the Middle East commander, and I think they've got the formula more or less right, but whether it can prevail, that's very uncertain...

It's really hard to imagine that Editor and Publisher could possibly have distorted the piece to draw a bleaker picture than that. But, you know... if you're Brit Hume, then grasping at straws is what you do for a living.

Tuesday, March 14th

Back in the saddle

It's been a while. Let's get back on track.

Today's Grapevine sees Brit Hume rehashing several of his favorite topics. Hume, always eager to do anything he can to help out his pal Scooter Libby, references a Vanity Fair article in which former Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee suggests that Richard Armitage may have been the first to disclose Valerie Plame's CIA identity.

Bradlee says, "That Armitage is the likely source is a fair assumption. I had heard about an e-mail that was sent that had a lot of unprintable language in it." Armitage was a known dissenter from the Bush Iraq policy and if he turned out to the first to disclose Plame's identity, it would be a blow to the conspiracy theorists who have long claimed that the White House leaked her name to intimidate her husband, also an Iraq policy dissenter.

Hume fails to mention that the Washington Post editorial board enthusiastically supported the Iraq war before it began, nor does he remind listeners that Karl Rove himself told MSNBC's Chris Matthews that Valerie Plame was "fair game" for political attack. No "conspiracy theory" is needed when the president's Chief of Staff announces that he intends to destroy Plame.

In other segments, Hume does his best to convince us that things are just going swimmingly in Iraq, and its just that nasty old liberal media that's making things seem bad over there. Also, you've got these uppitty negroes all hot and bothered because some white guy wants to put up a statue of some other white guys going to a baseball game. And finally, some guy at Yale is calling some other guy, formerly at Yale, a retard, and all. You know... important, Earth shattering stuff.