Wednesday, October 18

Tawdry Republicans

In today's Grapevine Brit Hume reports on the race for Texas State Comptroller:

"Two-Faced Hypocrite"

The race for state comptroller in Texas is getting down and dirty — and not in the usual way. Democratic candidate Fred Head is calling Republican rival Susan Combs a "two-faced hypocrite" for writing what he calls "a pornographic book."

The tome in question is a romance novel called "A Perfect Match" that Combs published in 1990. Head has posted excerpts of the book on his Web site that feature what the people who buy romance novels want them to feature — steamy romance.

All of this has enraged the 9,000 member Romance Writers of America — which is headquartered in and has many members from — Texas. One novelist wonders why Head posted parts of the book on his Web site if it is in fact pornography. Another says she's a Texan, a Christian, a grandmother who has written 46 novels — and a registered Democrat — but she's not voting for Fred Head.

But what Hume fails to mention is that in addition to the sort of steamy naughtiness that would make Scooter Libby blush (or maybe not), Comb's roman à l'eau de rose, is filled with indigestible prose that's almost as turgid as seasoned NSA super-spy Ross Harding's manhood at the moment in which he lowers himself upon NSA analyst Emily Brown "with devastating slowness" and an eye toward filling "the aching void at her center."

October 17, 2006

Wow, $750,000? That's a Lot of Money.

In today's Grapevine, Brit Hume writes about allegations of financial improprieties bedevilling Senate minority leader Harry Reid:

Holiday Cheer

Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid is taking more heat today for his financial decisions. The Associated Press reports Reid used campaign donations to pay for holiday gifts for workers at his $750,000 Washington D.C. condo. Federal election law prohibits using campaign funds for any housing costs. Reid calls it a "clerical error" and is promising to reimburse his campaign.

Reid has also announced he is amending his ethics reports following an AP story that he did not properly account for a Las Vegas land deal that allowed him to collect more than a million dollars for property he had not personally owned in three years.

There are two figures quoted in the AP story (1) the relatively paltry sum of $3,300 which was sum total value of the Christmas bonuses in question, and (2) the princely sum of $750,000 which is the value of Reid's condominium, but which is completely irrelevant to the allegations of financial impropriety Hume is reporting on. So, which figure do you think Hume feels is most relevant, and most important for his viewers to mull over? And why do you think that is?

The answer to these questions is left as an exercise for the reader.

October 16, 2006

Oh, the Hypocrisy

On Thursday's Grapevine segment, Brit Hume has this to say about a Tennessee television station's post-debate analysis of the Harold Ford vs. Bob Corker Senatorial campaign debate:

Mea Culpa

The news director for Knoxville, Tennessee TV station WBIR is apologizing for not including a supporter of Republican Senate candidate Bob Corker in an analysis of Corker's debate with Democrat Harold Ford Jr. Tuesday night.

Bill Shory says last minute changes beyond his control left the station with a Ford supporter on set — but no one from Corker's camp. He calls it "a failure of planning and judgment" and says the mistakes will be corrected.

But this sort of thing is standard fare for Brit Hume's "Special Report", where round panel discussions (including Fox News' post-debate analyses which are usually assigned to Hume) frequently include right-wing pundits Bill Kristol and Fred Barnes, editors of the conservative opinion journal The Weekly Standard, right-wing opinion columnist Charles Krathammer, Roll-Call editor Mort Kondracke (a so-called "conservative Democrat" with an emphasis on the conservative part) , and a non-partisan member of the mainstream media (often NPR's Mara Liasson), with no representative from a self-professed partisan left-wing publication to counter-balance Kristol, Barnes or Krauthammer's heavily pro-Republican spin.

Monday, Oct. 16 2006

Lyin' Again

I was very skeptical of the factual content of the segment on Ted Turner that Brit Hume ran on Tuesday's Grapevine, but was, at the time, unable to find a transcipt of Turner's remarks to check them against Hume's claims. This is what Hume has to say about the founder of CNN's comments to the National Press club:

Be Neutral

CNN founder Ted Turner has objected to displays of the American flag by journalists — saying they should have a more neutral posture. And now Turner says that he was not sure which side he was on in the War on Terror following the 9/11 terror attacks. Turner spoke to the National Press Club in Washington yesterday, and referred to a quote by President Bush in February of 2002:

"Our president said it very clearly. He said 'either you're with us, or you're against us.' And I had a problem with that because I really hadn't made my mind up yet." Turner did not say whether he has since made up his mind about which side he's on.

Fast forward to today and I find that my suspicions of bias and misrepresentation confirmed. You can read about it this story on Media Matters for America's website, (the story is about Sean Hannity, but the critique applies just as much to Hume's Grapevine segment) . I was also able to verify the site's critiques by following the link to the C-Span broadcast of Turner's remarks. Turner did make the above comments, but the comments that Hume dishonestly claims were remarks on the "war on terror" which was launched "following the 9/11 terror attacks" were actually an answer to a question about Turner's criticisms of the war in Iraq, and whether his patriotism had been questioned by supporters of the war. The back and forth on the subject begins at minute 43:14 with a question about Jane Fonda, Turner's ex-wife, and this exchange in particular starts at 44:05. Listeners will note that the context is clearly Iraq, and the "9/11 terror attacks" are not even mentioned in the question.

Monday, October 2nd

Not much to report

Not much of interest in recent Grapevine segments, however there are some interesting developments on the Brit Hume front in other venues. Since I want this blog to focus exclusively on the Grapevine segments, I'll merely link to my more general political blog and the current entry on Hume.