Mere Words

Fox News anchors are even starting to protest about the blatant bias in the coverage of the network.

Early Friday morning on “Fox and Friends” co-host Brian Kilmeade was in a discussion with his co-hosts over this comment by Barack Obama while talking about his speech on race on a local radio show:

The point I was making was not that my grandmother harbors any racial animosity, but that she is a typical white person. If she sees somebody on the street that she doesn’t know (pause) there’s a reaction in her that doesn’t go away and it comes out in the wrong way.”

The other hosts were taking offense at the fact that Obama called his grandmother a “typical white person” and clipped the sound bite right there. Brian was trying to provide context to the comment and point out the fact that Obama’s campaign clarified that Obama was referring to the generational issue. When it became clear that the other hosts wouldn’t listen to reason and were just trying to push the controversy, Brian rose from his chair and stormed off the set.

Later on “Fox and Friends”, host of “Fox News Sunday” Chris Wallace came on the show and criticized the hosts for their obvious bias. After two straight hours of Obama bashing, he said the coverage was “excessive” when you consider the context. He pointed out there were other big stories that day, such as the passport files being breached or the Richardson endorsement.

When the news network’s own hosts rise up against the obvious attacks against a single candidate, you know there is a problem. I would hope that this would be a wake up call to Fox News management, but it doubt it will. They don’t have a great track history at accepting dissent.

Brian Kilmeade walks off set:

Chris Wallace on “Obama bashing”:

Casey Knowles, the sleeping girl in Hillary Clinton’s 3AM-Red phone ad, has spoken out against the “politics of fear” used in it. She says she rejects the tactics used that drive us apart. In an ironic turn of events for the Clinton campaign, Casey is actually an active Obama supporter and a was even a precinct captain in Washington’s caucus.

The Clinton campaign used stock footage of Casey (then 8 years old) sleeping at home in bed, then asked: “Which candidate would you want answering the phone at 3am?”. Clearly, it was fear mongering, an attempt to play upon voters deepest fears of an attack and scare up votes.

According to a CBS Poll on 3/20, Barack Obama will weather the Pastor Wright controversy with little damage to his viability as a candidate. CBS conducted a random poll among the same registered voters on 3/15, 3/18, and 3/20:

After his speech on race and his former pastor Tuesday, voters with a favorable opinion of him (43%) still outweigh those with a negative (30%).

A majority of Americans still believe he would unite the country (52%) though that is down from 67% in February.

70% of voters said the events would not effect their decision to vote for the Senator, 14% said it would make them more likely to vote for him, and 14% said it would make them less likely.

His standing with independents did drop slightly, with 13% saying it would make them less likely to vote for him, while only 11% say they would now be more likely to vote for him. And 75% say it will make no difference.

Among voters supporting Obama over McCain in the general election, 23% said they would no be more likely to vote for Obama. Only 6% said they would be less likely, and 69% said it would make no difference.

All in all, it appears that Barack will come out of the controversy relatively unscathed. 70% of Americans say it will make no difference in whether they will vote for him. Nearly 25% of his supporters now support him even more, and his standing with independents was not damaged as badly as some thought.

Good news for Obama supporters, and more proof that he really is a resilient candidate with the ability to win the general election.

Coming from Eschaton here’s a quote from former President Bill Clinton earlier today:

It’d be a great thing if we had an election where you had two people who love this country, who were devoted to the interest of the country and people could actually ask themselves who is right on these issues instead of all this other stuff which always seems to intrude on our politics.

I find it amazing that Clinton is able to condemn all this other “stuff” that intrudes into our politics and calling for debate on the issues, while in the same breath insinuating Barack Obama doesn’t love this country. He has the audacity to complain that the campaign is veering away from the issues, while pushing the Pastor Wright story to superdelegates?

Come on Bill, you are better than this…

Karl Rove on liberal bloggers:

….the left, when it comes to their channels of persuasion, are unpersuasive. They are, most of them are hate-filled, obscenity-clogged rants of anger and hatred. And it may be good for reinforcing those who are already true and tried, but it’s not good for reaching out to people who are up for grabs who might be going to the internet to find a source of information.

His absurd accusation that liberal bloggers are all full of anger and hatred fills me with so much hate that I might just let fly a few obscenities myself. No, wait. That would play right into is hand…

If liberal bloggers have been angry in the last few years, its been righteous anger based on the so called “leadership” that has been displayed by the Bush presidency.

Later he was asked why there are more liberal blogs on the net:

“I hate to sound sort of diffident about it but it strikes me that a lot of people on the right have got active lives and are doing other things,” Rove said. “The idea of spending a lot of time on the internet and taking their talents and displaying them there is not something [conservatives] really do.”

Obviously, liberal bloggers are all lazy, bigoted, and potty mouths. If Karl Rove says it, it has to be true, right?

Today I read a blog post by Roland S. Martin (a CNN pundit) discussing the controversy over Reverend Jeremiah Wright’s sermons. Deciding not to jump the gun and form a decision based on a 10 second sound clip, he researched and watched the sermon in question. I think it is illuminating, and when you take the quotes in context, while radical, they are much less controversial:

As this whole sordid episode regarding the sermons of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright has played out over the last week, I wanted to understand what he ACTUALLY said in this speech. I’ve been saying all week on CNN that context is important, and I just wanted to know what the heck is going on.
>I have now actually listened to the sermon Rev. Wright gave after September 11 titled, “The Day of Jerusalem’s Fall.” It was delivered on Sept. 16, 2001.

One of the most controversial statements in this sermon was when he mentioned “chickens coming home to roost.” He was actually quoting Edward Peck, former U.S. Ambassador to Iraq and deputy director of President Reagan’s terrorism task force, who was speaking on FOX News. That’s what he told the congregation.

He was quoting Peck as saying that America’s foreign policy has put the nation in peril:

“We took this country by terror away from the Sioux, the Apache, Arikara, the Comanche, the Arapaho, the Navajo. Terrorism.

“We took Africans away from their country to build our way of ease and kept them enslaved and living in fear. Terrorism.

“We bombed Grenada and killed innocent civilians, babies, non-military personnel.

“We bombed the black civilian community of Panama with stealth bombers and killed unarmed teenage and toddlers, pregnant mothers and hard working fathers.

“We bombed Qaddafi’s home, and killed his child. Blessed are they who bash your children’s head against the rock.

“We bombed Iraq. We killed unarmed civilians trying to make a living. We bombed a plant in Sudan to pay back for the attack on our embassy, killed hundreds of hard working people, mothers and fathers who left home to go that day not knowing that they’d never get back home.

“We bombed Hiroshima. We bombed Nagasaki, and we nuked far more than the thousands in New York and the Pentagon and we never batted an eye.

“Kids playing in the playground. Mothers picking up children after school. Civilians, not soldiers, people just trying to make it day by day.

“We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and black South Africans, and now we are indignant because the stuff that we have done overseas is now brought right back into our own front yards. America’s chickens are coming home to roost.

“Violence begets violence. Hatred begets hatred. And terrorism begets terrorism. A white ambassador said that y’all, not a black militant. Not a reverend who preaches about racism. An ambassador whose eyes are wide open and who is trying to get us to wake up and move away from this dangerous precipice upon which we are now poised. The ambassador said the people we have wounded don’t have the military capability we have. But they do have individuals who are willing to die and take thousands with them. And we need to come to grips with that.”

He went on to describe seeing the photos of the aftermath of 9/11 because he was in Newark, N.J., when the planes struck. After turning on the TV and seeing the second plane slam into one of the twin towers, he spoke passionately about what if you never got a chance to say hello to your family again.

“What is the state of your family?” he asked.

And then he told his congregation that he loved them and asked the church to tell each other they loved themselves.

His sermon thesis:

1. This is a time for self-examination of ourselves and our families.

2. This is a time for social transformation (then he went on to say they won’t put me on PBS or national cable for what I’m about to say. Talk about prophetic!)

“We have got to change the way we have been doing things as a society,” he said.

Wright then said we can’t stop messing over people and thinking they can’t touch us. He said we may need to declare war on racism, injustice, and greed, instead of war on other countries.

“Maybe we need to declare war on AIDS. In five minutes the Congress found $40 billion to rebuild New York and the families that died in sudden death, do you think we can find the money to make medicine available for people who are dying a slow death? Maybe we need to declare war on the nation’s healthcare system that leaves the nation’s poor with no health coverage? Maybe we need to declare war on the mishandled educational system and provide quality education for everybody, every citizen, based on their ability to learn, not their ability to pay. This is a time for social transformation.”

3. This is time to tell God thank you for all that he has provided and that he gave him and others another chance to do His will.

This doesn’t explain anything away, nor does it absolve Wright of using the N-word, but what it does do is add an accurate perspective to this conversation.

The point that I have always made as a journalist is that our job is to seek the truth, and not the partial truth.

Overnight, Barack Obama dealt a blow to Hillary Clinton’s nomination hopes by picking up the support of the nation’s only hispanic Governor, Bill Richardson of New Mexico. This could be a key endorsement for Barack since it may help to shore up his apparent weakness with the hispanic vote. The Governor had this to say about Obama:

“I believe he is the kind of once-in-a-lifetime leader that can bring our nation together and restore America’s moral leadership in the world….

As a presidential candidate, I know full well Sen. Obama’s unique moral ability to inspire the American people to confront our urgent challenges at home and abroad in a spirit of bipartisanship and reconciliation.”

This story was to priceless not to post. An unlucky British women was bit on the leg as she sat on the toilet, apparently oblivious to the 9 inch large beast inside. Unfortunately, she says she now lives in fear of more rats attacking in retaliation of after she drowned the first. She even uses a bucket instead of the toilet while she waits two weeks for the free exterminators…..

Best line: “You don’t expect to sit down to spend a penny and be bitten by a rat.”

I will now be referring to all of my bowel movements as spending a penny. It must be some cute British euphemism.

Yesterday, I brought you a snippet from an interview with Dick Cheney regarding the Iraq war. Here’s a refresher:

“Q Let me go back to the Americans. Two-thirds of Americans say it’s not worth fighting, and they’re looking at the value gain versus the cost in American lives, certainly, and Iraqi lives.

THE VICE PRESIDENT: So?”

Today, the White House Press Secretary Dana Perino was questioned by Helen Thomas over Cheney’s blatant disregard for the opinion of the public.

“Q Let’s set aside the meaning of the word “so” for a second, and get to something the Vice President then said… is the Vice President saying it really doesn’t matter what the American public thinks about the war?

MS. PERINO: No, I don’t think that’s what he’s saying… what he went on to say is that President should not make decisions based on polls. And we fully recognize that people across America are unhappy with the war; possibly they didn’t agree with the decision in the first place…

But what the President has said is that while people might not like the decisions that he makes, he has to do what he thinks is right for the country, and he cannot try to chase an opinion poll and try to make things better that way. “

The president can’t make decisions based on what people want done in Washington! His opinion is all that matters!

Q …There is the impression that the Vice President doesn’t care about what the American people think in policy like that. Is that a wrong impression? And does the President share that impression?

MS. PERINO: I think that is the wrong impression. I think that the Vice President and the President both, together, all of us across the administration, would like for people to support the President’s decisions. We realize that that’s unrealistic, especially in a time of war — and in particular this war. And while we’re not able to change public opinion, we also have to follow a principle and stand on principle. And you have to ask yourself, what kind of a person do you want in the Oval Office?

So we believe that the President stood on his principle. He hasn’t chased public opinion polls. He’s aware of them, but he hasn’t made decisions because of them….”

President Bush wishes people would agree with him, but since they don’t he thinks its best just to ignore them.

“Q The American people are being asked to die and pay for this, and you’re saying they have no say in this war?

MS. PERINO: I didn’t say that, Helen. But, Helen, this President was elected –

Q Well, what it amounts to is you saying we have no input at all.

MS. PERINO: You had input. The American people have input every four years, and that’s the way our system is set up.”

What Ms. Perino has said is that Americans get their voices heard once every 4 years, and a dictatorship the rest. That sounds like a democracy, doesn’t it?

“MS. PERINO: And we listen to different points of view. The President, in fact, had many meetings with members of Congress leading up to his decision about the surge.

Q Isn’t this supposed to be a government for the people, of the people, by the people?

MS. PERINO: I would submit to you that people across America, if asked what type of a President do you want: one that stands on principle or that one that chases polls? And I think that they would want one who stands on principle.

I would submit to Ms. Perino that people across America, if asked, would want a President that listens to what they want and crafts his policy accordingly. Americans would want the true reason behind a war, and to not be misled with false accusations of WMD’s.

Americans want a president who cares more about fixing problems today, than how historians will view him years from now. They want one who is worried about providing a leg up for the poor and disenfranchised, not giving tax cuts to the top 1%. We want a president who listens voice of the populace, not one hitting the mute button.

Helen Thomas asks one last question before Dana brushes her off and moves on. I think its a question a lot of Americans are starting to ask. When they go to the polls in November, they will demand an answer…

“Q What’s the principle of going to war against the people who did nothing to us?”

This comes courtesy of Moxiegrrrl.com