Media Matters takes on Bias FAUX News and Swift Boat liars

[Joanne98]

The new Swift Boat Vets ad is wrong -- but you wouldn't know it from watching FOX



On September 22, the discredited anti-Kerry group Swift Boat Veterans for Truth released for television a spurious new attack ad. FOX News Channel's Hannity & Colmes (on September 21) and FOX & Friends First (on September 22) both aired the ad, but neither show reported on the ad's inaccuracies. The new ad claims that Senator John Kerry "secretly met with enemy leaders in Paris," and it repeats the group's previous false charge that Kerry "accused American troops of committing war crimes on a daily basis."

While the ad claims that Kerry "secretly met with enemy leaders," the Paris meeting to which the ad refers was not a secret, as The Washington Post noted on September 22 and as text in the ad indicates (words at bottom of screen: "John Kerry's Senate Testimony: United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, April 22, 1971"). The ad is referring to the meeting that Kerry described in his 1971 public testimony before the Senate: "I have been to Paris. I have talked with both delegations at the peace talks, that is to say the Democratic Republic of Vietnam and the Provisional Revolutionary Government."

Kerry's visit to Paris was not to formally participate in negotiations with Communist leaders. According to the Post, the Kerry-Edwards '04 campaign said earlier this year that Kerry met with Nguyen Thi Binh, who was then foreign minister of the Provisional Revolutionary Government and a top negotiator at the talks. The Post went on to say that, "Kerry acknowledged ... that even going to the peace talks as a private citizen was at the 'borderline' of what was permissible under U.S. law, which forbids citizens from negotiating treaties with foreign governments. But the campaign said he never engaged in negotiations or attended any formal sessions of the talks." And as the Los Angeles Times reported on March 22, Kerry never supported formal meetings between North Vietnamese officials and American anti-war protesters: "Kerry recalled his opposition to VVAW leaders meeting with North Vietnamese officials. 'I thought that would be disastrous to the credibility of the organization,' he said, 'to the people we were trying to convince about the war.'"

While FOX News Channel gave the ad free airtime without mentioning that its claims were false, CNN had not aired the ad in its entirety as of this writing. On the September 22 edition of CNN's American Morning, scenes from the ad were shown without audio while co-host Kelly Wallace reported that the "ad claims Kerry met with 'enemy leaders' during a 1970 trip to Paris." Wallace reported that the Kerry-Edwards '04 campaign responded to the new ad by pointing to Swift Boat Veterans for Truth's lack of credibility and by stating that Kerry "went to Paris on a mission to get American prisoners of war released and to end the war." As of noon on September 22, MSNBC had neither aired nor reported on the ad.

http://mediamatters.org/items/200409220006

Here's BOTOX FACE Linda Vester

Vester said FOX vetted Swift Boat Vets



FOX News Channel host Linda Vester claimed on September 21 that FOX News Channel vetted the anti-Kerry group Swift Boat Veterans for Truth and the group's co-founder John E. O'Neill. Vester made the claim during a segment discussing the journalistic credibility of CBS in the wake of CBS's admission that it can no longer vouch for the authenticity of documents (which CBS aired on September 7) relating to President George W. Bush's National Guard service.

From the September 21 edition of FOX News Channel's DaySide with Linda Vester:

RICH MASTERS (Democratic strategist): I mean, FOX News ran to the air with the Swift Boat charges as well without anyone thoroughly vetting those charges, which have now proven completely false.



VESTER: Whoa, whoa, whoa. Rich, I love you to pieces, but you are going straight at me, and I spent a long time talking to John O'Neill and the Swift Boat Veterans, and, yes, we vet them, so I'm gonna make you, to walk back on that one, my friend.

— K.B.

Posted to the web on Wednesday September 22, 2004 at 6:00 PM EST


Contact:
Linda Vester Linda Vester
Contact:
DaySide with Linda Vester DaySide with Linda Vester
Contact:
FOX News Channel FOX News Channel
1-888-369-4762
[e-mail]
1211 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10036

http://mediamatters.org/items/200409220010

Here's RACIST Fox and Friends........

Kilmeade: "If your name is Yusuf Islam," airport security better "have a good close look"



On the September 22 broadcast of FOX News Channel's FOX & Friends, co-host Brian Kilmeade suggested that singer/songwriter Yusuf Islam's name alone should have alerted airport security to give him "a good close look." Kilmeade was referring to the United Airlines flight that was diverted when it was discovered that passenger Islam -- formerly called Cat Stevens, who changed his name when he converted to Islam in 1977 -- was on a government no-fly list.

Kilmeade's guest, Chicago-based syndicated radio host (and regular FOX & Friends contributor) Eric "Mancow" Muller -- who describes himself as "a conservative libertarian kind of guy," -- compared the singer's Muslim name to "American Killer" and "Hijacker" and said: "hen you change 'Cat Stevens' to 'Yusuf Islam,' it is going to be a little tougher to fly around." Kilmeade responded, "He got in the air. That's the scary thing. People on United got him on board."

Later in the program, Kilmeade explicitly ignored complaints from co-host E.D. Hill that he was advocating profiling:

KILMEADE: How did he get on board if he's on one ? See, I don't ... If your name is Yusuf Islam, you better have a good close look at him.


http://mediamatters.org/items/200409220007

[Joanne98]

1. And the piece of human garbage Rush Dope addict.......

Limbaugh called U.N. General Assembly "thugs and dictators"



Following President George W. Bush's September 21 speech at the annual meeting of the United Nations General Assembly, radio host Rush Limbaugh smeared the world leaders that comprised Bush's audience. Limbaugh described the General Assembly as "thugs and dictators" and claimed that they "don't condemn it because they wish to reserve it as an option should they need it."

From the September 21 edition of The Rush Limbaugh Show:

LIMBAUGH: The only problem with the speech was Bush was talking about freedom and democracy to a room full of thugs and dictators, but it didn't hold him back.

<...>

LIMBAUGH: Much of the leadership of the world doesn't consider terrorism as other than a means to an end. They don't condemn it because they wish to reserve it as an option should they need it. Remember who the audience at the United Nations General Assembly is.

Limbaugh's message that the United Nations is full of "thugs," "dictators," and potential terrorists is currently being broadcast to U.S. troops overseas via the taxpayer-funded American Forces Radio and Television Service (AFRTS). After exposing Limbaugh's comments downplaying, dismissing, and even endorsing the abuse of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib, Media Matters for America created an online petition calling for Limbaugh's removal from AFRTS. Nearly 45,000 people have signed the petition. On June 14, the U.S. Senate unanimously passed a resolution (pdf) calling for fairness and balance on AFRTS. Limbaugh is presently the sole politically partisan host featured on the service's talk channel. His comments may also inflame anti-American sentiment abroad, putting U.S. troops at risk.

— A.S.

Posted to the web on Wednesday September 22, 2004 at 5:32 PM EST


Contact:
Rush Limbaugh [e-mail]
Contact:
The Rush Limbaugh Show 1-800-282-2882
[e-mail]
fax: [phone]

The Rush Limbaugh Show
1270 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10020

http://mediamatters.org/items/200409220009