Friday, Sep. 29

This morning, while taking the shuttle bus in to work, an advertisement on the radio urged listeners to get something or other taken care of before Christmas. I groaned to my co-workers exclaiming "it's not even Halloween yet... forget Thanksgiving!" Really, there ought to be a law banning Christmas decorations and advertising before Thanksgiving. In a similar vein, I think there ought to be a law preventing Fox News from hyping the "Liberal War on Christmas"® before Thanksgiving, too. That would have prevented yesterday's Grapevine segment:

A Christmas Education

If public school teachers want to tell their students about the religious history of Christmas, it's OK with U.S. Education Secretary Margaret Spellings.

The secretary responded to an e-mail from a teacher in Utah who was unsure about what she can say and what kinds of decorations she can use. Spellings wrote back that schools and teachers are free to celebrate the secular aspects of Christmas and may also teach about the religion and history behind the holiday.

No, it's not a story about a local ACLU chapter firebombing a Christmas pageant and shipping survivors off to atheist re-education camps, but it is a gentle reminder to good, honest, God fearing Christians that this administration is on their side.

Vote Republican in these next elections, folks, or there might not be a Christmas to celebrate this year!

Wed, Sept. 27

On Monday's Grapevine, Brit Hume came to the defense of colleague Chris Wallace (and Fox News) who found himself severly reprimanded by a Bill Clinton who was visibly angered by insinuations that his administration had not done enough to prevent the terrorist atacks of 9/11:

Not Fair and Balanced?

Chris Wallace's "FOX News Sunday" interview with Bill Clinton was one of six TV appearances the former president made last week. But despite Mr. Clinton's highly publicized objections to the recent ABC docudrama about 9/11, no one other than Wallace asked him about the aggressiveness of his pursuit of Usama bin Laden.

As for Mr. Clinton's assertion that Wallace did not challenge the Bush administration's pre-9/11 record on terrorism? In 2004, Wallace asked Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to answer the charge that "the Bush Administration largely ignored the threat from Al Qaeda," before 9/11, adding, "Mr. Secretary, it sure sounds like fighting terrorism was not a top priority."

A glance at the transcript for the Wallace/Rumsfeld interview shows, however, that the situation is a bit more nuanced than Hume presents it. The interview was granted in the midst of accusations, levelled by former National Security advisor Richard Clarke, that the Bush administration failed to take terrorism seriously pre-9/11. Here is the question that Wallace posed:

WALLACE: I think a lot of people in Washington are trying to figure out, to understand Richard Clarke, to make sense of what he has said and of apparent contradictions in his story — is he telling the truth, or is he pushing an agenda.

What do you make of his basic charge that, pre-9/11, that this government, the Bush administration, largely ignored the threat from Al Qaeda?

So yes, Wallace does ask about the Bush administration's focus pre-9/11, but when the question itself contains the seeds of its own refutation --as when Wallace mentions the "apparent contradictions in [Clarke's] story"-- then you know the questioner is being thrown the softest of softballs.

Now, Hume is correct that Wallace does press Rusmfeld somewhat on the issue, but as with most Fox News interviews with conservative figures (those who remain in the movement's good graces, at least) the questions are mostly non-specific and open ended, a chance for the politician to try out the latest talking point that the RNC has devised to counter the predictable charge in question. The video clips, statistics and 10 year old quotes that provide ammunition for the "gotcha" interviews of left of center politicians and activists on Fox are largely absent (there are video clips of Clarke levelling accusations, but no "gotcha" clips of Rumslfeld himself saying something that is now, in retrospect, embarrasing). Indeed, there are several "leading" questions that in and of themselves insinuate conservative talking points. Consider for instance this question, which echoes conservative criticisms of the need for a commission to study the intelligence failures that led to 9/11 (that is, the 9/11 comission.):

WALLACE: You've anticipated exactly where I wanted to go in this interview, which is to ask you — we are still in the middle of the war on terrorism. U.S. troops are still on the front line, in harm's way. Does this kind of an investigation, postmortem, if you will, make sense when we're still fighting the war?

And there's the following question, which apparently seeks to pre-emptively discredit the 9/11 commission's findings:

WALLACE: You have urged the 9/11 Commission to come up with a unanimous report, because you say it would make a stronger statement.

Do you worry — and you talk about the questions that we're asking, that everybody's asking in Washington this week.

Do you worry at all that, whether it's the debate over Dick Clarke's credibility, his charges, whether it's the fact that we're in the political season, that the important work you say the commission could do is going to get caught up in partisanship?

It may not be "literally true" that Fox News anchors never ask any of these sorts of questions of their conservative guests, but the substance of Clinton's charge is largely accurate. In most instances, when conservatives are interviewed for Fox, they are thrown softballs, and allowed to knock them out of the ballpark.

September 19, 2006

Dishonest Brit

One of Brit Hume's favorite methods of attempting to discredit news stories of which he dissapproves is detailing how far into a story or how deeply into the pages of a newspaper supposedly damaging information is buried. Often times Hume simply gets it wrong as we've shown before. But sometimes, even when he gets it right, he gets it wrong. In Monday September 18's Grapevine segment, for instance, Hume takes the Associated Press to task for a story in which the news organization detailed the troubling five month detention without charges of one of its photographers working in Iraq. Hume notes:

Explosive Evidence?

The Associated Press has gone public with complaints about the U.S. military's detention of a freelance Iraqi photographer — who's been held for five months without charges.

Fallujah native Bilal Hussein, whose photographs of Iraqi insurgents were part of a Pulitzer Prize winning collection, was arrested in May with an alleged Al Qaeda leader and accused of being a security threat. The AP never reported the story.

But now the AP is calling for Hussein to be charged or released, saying it hasn't found any evidence to support that claim.

The military, however, says bomb-making materials were found in the apartment where Hussein was captured and that he tested positive for traces of explosives. The AP doesn't mention that until the 36th paragraph of its story on the matter.

But what Brit Hume never mentions at all is far more damaging (to Hume's argument) than what the A.P. supposedly buried. Here is the entire paragraph of the A.P. story from which Hume has selectively quoted:

The military said bomb-making materials were found in the apartment where Hussein was captured but it never detailed what those materials were. The military said he tested positive for traces of explosives. [A.P. Lawyer Scott] Horton said that was virtually guaranteed for anyone on the streets of Ramadi at that time.

So Brit Hume's dishonest game is again exposed. Indeed, the level of hypocrisy here is pretty stunning: Hume accuses the A.P. of burying mention of the evidence that the military claims to have gatheed on Hussein, while he himself completely omits mention of the vagueness and unreliability of said evidence.

Monday, September 18. 2006

Smearing Amnesty International

On the Thursday Sept. 14th edition of Grapevine, Brit Hume had this to say about a new Amnesty International report condeming Hizbullah missile attacks against Israeli civilian targets:

New Better Late Than Never?

Weeks after it condemned Israel for a bombing campaign it said amounted to indiscriminate attacks on Lebanese civilians, Amnesty International is now condemning the terrorist group that initiated the attacks. The human rights group is accusing Hezbollah of war crimes during its conflict with Israel, including "deliberate attacks on civilians."

While the report ruled out Israeli accusations that Hezbollah used civilians as cover during the conflict, it quotes Hezbollah officials who acknowledge keeping weapons in towns and villages. Secretary General Irene Khan said the two reports didn't cancel each other out, but "show both sides of the violence that took place."

Hume dishonestly implies that Amnesty International has been silent, up to now, on Hizbullah attacks against Israeli civilians. However a search of Amnesty International press releases uncovers numerous condemnations of Hizbollah rocket attacks throughout the conflict period. On July 13th, for instance, Amnesty called on all parties to end attacks against civilians noting:

The Israeli and Lebanese governments, and Hizbullah, must take immediate steps to end the ongoing attacks against civilians and civilian objects. Such attacks are a blatant breach of international humanitarian law and amount to war crimes.

...

“Hizbullah must stop launching attacks against Israeli civilians and it must treat humanely the two Israeli soldiers it captured on 12 July and grant them immediate access to the International Committee of the Red Cross...”

On July 27th, Amnesty International called for a military embargo of all parties to the conflict noting:

"Governments supplying Israel and Hizbullah with arms and military equipment are fuelling their capacity to commit war crimes. All governments should impose an arms embargo on both sides and refuse permission for their territories to be used for the transfer of arms and military equipment."

On August 4, Amnesty organized vigils calling for an immediate ceasefire. A spokesman noted:

"The human cost of this conflict is far too high. We demand that the international community call an immediate ceasefire. Civilians in both Lebanon and Israel cannot be left in the line of fire,"

And many more such examples of Amnesty International taking Hizbullah to task for comitting "war crimes" (A.I.'s characterization) against Israeli civilians can be found by anyone willing to spend a few minutes searching the rgoup's website.

The notion that Amnesty International is not an impartial defender of global human rights is one that, over the years, has gained much currency among right-wing ideologues such as Brit Hume. Yet as is the case with this particular segment of Brit Hume's Grapevine, the case is supported largely by innuendo, misrepresentation and distortion.