The Administration in power, with party control of both houses of Congress and a newly-minted supreme court justice on the bench has taken aim at one of the most prominent news organizations charged with the so-called “fourth estate” watchdog function over government.
So obviously, the other news organizations, network, cable, radio and the newly-minted blogosphere have circled the wagons, cried “censorship!” and defended their Foxy brethren and Susteren.
No?
“A White House attempt to delegitimize Fox News – which in past times would have drawn howls of censorship from the press corps – has instead been greeted by a collective shrug, reports the non-partisan Politico.
“We’re doing what we think is important to make sure news is covered as fairly as possible,” a White House official told POLITICO, noting how the recent ACORN scandal story started because Fox covered it “breathlessly for weeks on end.”
Not because a major nation-wide organization receiving hundreds of millions in tax dollars didn’t blink at supporting a purportedly depraved criminal enterprise bent on child prostitution and white slavery.
Politico continues with an analysis of Fox News’ legitimacy:
Fox denies its news coverage is slanted, and even White House aides say the network’s top correspondent there, Major Garrett, is a straight shooter. But in its non-news hours, Fox mixes in a steady diet of criticism of President Barack Obama by its prominent conservative commentators Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck. It’s a formula that works for Fox, with the highest ratings in cable news.
Others say the attacks only strengthen Fox.
“This is an effort in effect to quarantine Fox News and to discourage other media outlets from picking up on stories that originate here,” Fox Washington Bureau Chief Brit Hume said on “The O’Reilly Factor.” “My guess is it won’t work….Look at Glenn Beck, he’s having a field day with this.”
At least one prominent Washington journalist publicly embraced the White House’s anti-Fox crusade, Politico reports.
“By appearing on Fox, reporters validate its propaganda values and help to undermine the role of legitimate news organizations,” former Slate editor Jacob Weisberg wrote in Newsweek. “Respectable journalists—I’m talking to you Mara Liasson—should stop appearing on its programs.”
Liasson, a National Public Radio reporter who is a regular on Fox News’s “Special Report,” did not respond to an e-mail seeking comment.
On the other hand, the lone voice fighting for the press seems to be ABC’s Jake Tapper.
“It’s escaped none of our notice that the White House has decided in the last few weeks to declare one of our sister organizations “not a news organization” and to tell the rest of us not to treat them like a news organization,” Tapper confronted White House Spokesman Robert Gibbs. “Can you explain why it’s appropriate for the White House to decide that a news organization is not one.”
MediaMatters.org reported that Tapper seemed “completely baffled and quite insulted” by the administration’s stance toward Fox in Jake Tapper can’t figure out how Fox News is different from ABC News?
Of course, Media Matters is more interested in tearing down Conservative outlets like Fox. But what Eric Boehlert seems not to notice is Tapper’s lone stand against the Administration is focused more on who gets to define who is and isn’t a news outlet - a fundamental 1st amendment issue:
Tapper: I’m not talking about their opinion programming or issues you have with certain reports. I’m talking about saying thousands of individuals who work for a media organization, do not work for a “news organization” — why is that appropriate for the White House to say?
Gibbs: That’s our opinion.
And the Administration’s opinion is also that other organizations should shun and discredit Fox News because the Administration doesn’t agree with those opinions - as stated recently by senior advisor David Axelrod and Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel.
Since Richard Nixon, when has a U.S. Administration generated so much buzz talking about enemies?
Despite claims from the right that the so-called Mainstream Media (MSM) has been in bed with the administration from it’s early campaign days, Obama has run the white house more like Nixon than any other U.S. president - from staging press conferences to spotlighting Fox News as media enemy number one.
“They’re not really a news station,” Obama advisor David Axelrod told ABC’s This Week. “It’s not just their commentators, but a lot of their news programming if you watch, it’s really not news … .The bigger thing is that other news organizations like yours ought not to treat them that way, and we’re not going to treat them that way. We’re going to appear on their shows. We’re going to participate, but understanding that they represent a point of view.”
“It’s not a news organization so much as it has a perspective,” Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel said on CNN’s State of the Union. “More importantly, is to not have the CNNs and the others in the world basically be led in following Fox, as if what they’re trying to do is a legitimate news organization.”
“The White House must be panicking at the thought that the “legitimate” media will only ignore these stories for so long before the lure of bigger, Foxier ratings finally proves too much,” Hot Air’s Allahpundit had to say about their opening salvos on the War on Fox. “So here he and Emanuel are, leaning on them not only to ignore Fox but to ignore stories that Fox covers, as if the underlying facts are somehow tainted by association (“Let’s make sure that we keep perspective on what are the most important stories”). Creepy.”
While many observers still agree that the “War on Limbaugh” is a “just and necessary war,” even the former supporters of the war effort are now labeling the War on Fox an “unnecessary war of choice” and claim that the cable channel had nothing to do with Obama’s falling approval numbers.
But while the President drapes his unpopular policies with concern for the well-being of American journalism, more and more editors, reporters, and even unionized janitorial staff are beginning to oppose their commander-in-chief for trying to “win” an unwinnable war with their hands, instead of just using executive powers to ban all dissenting speech.
“I would gladly sacrifice any number of my fellow Americans to advance my agenda - but this is a dumb war and a rash war,” Keith Olbermann of MSNBC told The People’s Cube outside a congressional office he visited to demand a government crackdown on dissidents. “Why must we in the field put our reputations on the line when this Congress has the power to simply confiscate Rupert Murdoch’s assets and put Beck, Hannity, and Coulter in jail?”
Just One Minute put on an ironic smile and presented a “party” button for supporters of the president to show their loyalty.
I imagine this iconic image on buttons, posters, billboards - anywhere loyal journalists want to show their commitment to continuing the Good Fight for Hope and Change:
When we see Keith Olbermann, Rachel Maddow and Anderson Cooper proudly wearing these buttons we will know that America’s opinion leaders are going to Stay The Course To Victory!
I feel safer already.
“How much you want to wager he’ll soon be announcing appearances on Fox News?” Jammie Wearing Fool asked after posting this poll graphic:
Earlier this month, Tommy Thompson, former governor of Wisconsin and the Health and Human Services (HHS) secretary under President George W. Bush, along with former Democratic House Majority Leader Richard A. Gephardt, urged Congress to overcome their differences and get the job done on health care reform. And while Thompson admitted there still remained many “troublesome and unresolved” issues in the Baucuscare bill, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) wasted no time in exploiting this as the latest example in ‘bi-partisan support’ for the president’s health care reform legislation. An advertisement produced by the DNC asserts that Thompson along with fellow prominent Republicans like Senator Bob Dole, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, Senator Susan Collins, and former Senator Bill Frist support the same health insurance reform proposal they do.
However, Tommy Thompson, appearing on Your World with Neil Cavuto on Fox News this afternoon, insists that what the DNC advertisement is perpetuating is simply not true. He argues that what he and fellow Republicans featured in the commercial signed onto was the notion that Republicans should work for reform, not, as Rahm Emanuel would care to suggest otherwise, that they should pass the reform plan created by the White House and the Congressional Democratic leadership. The advertisement, which has since been pulled from the airwaves, used Thompson’s image without his permission in order to attack Republicans. This was never his intention, the former Wisconsin governor said; his purpose was to bring the two sides together on the issue of health care reform for all Americans. He insists there is eighty percent of this current health care bill that both parties can support and that is what Democrats and Republicans in Congress should be focusing their efforts toward.
This has been a rough week for ACORN, and it still isn’t over. Yesterday, Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty pulled all state funding from the local ACORN groups; his reason: “recent reports of questionable behavior and potentially illegal activity.” ACORN officials say that they don’t receive any funding from Minnesota, but Gov. Pawlenty is having it investigated. Gov. Pawlenty wants all ties with ACORN to be severed.
“‘Unless the state is legally obligated’ to pay ACORN, all state funding of the beleaguered group should be halted, Pawlenty said.”
If there is no money coming from the state, it will still be a hit because this is a state backing away right after the federal government. The Starr Tribune, a Twin Cities newspaper, has quoted Kevin Whelan, deputy political director for the Twin Cities area, saying that the Governor’s action “seems like it’s motivated by politics or publicity.”
The White House has also spoken out against ACORN’s actions this week. The White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said, “Obviously, the conduct that you see on those tapes is completely unacceptable. I think everyone would agree to that.” Below is Gibbs’s response to being asked about the ACORN situation. He says that they must be held accountable for what happened.
The blow back from the ACORN scandal has been intense. Investigators have been trying to catch more ACORN mess-ups since the video about the employee giving tax advice to a prostitute and pimp, the video below is of Tresa Kaelke. She later told news people that she was messing with them, telling them she used to be a call girl and that she killed her ex-husband. San Bernadino homicide investigators have been in to talk to her and see her ex-husbands and have no reason to think she was telling the truth about murdering her ex-husband. Even with it all being a game, it looks bad for ACORN. It just adds to the public relations nightmare that this has become for ACORN, and also makes people wonder if ACORN is properly directing its people on how to speak to the press.
In case you missed the video, Click Here to see watch the Glenn Beck Video breaking the ACORN story!
So the real question is what will ACORN do now? Is this the end of the group? We are going to have to wait and see.
It seems like not a day goes by, in which someone criticizes or even questions President Obama and the Democratic plan to overhaul healthcare gets labeled as a racist or an extremist. Some cases you can somewhat understand where those doing the labeling might get that idea from. But in some cases it just seems like they are pulling reasons out of thin air.
Today’s example comes to us courtesy of the Athens Banner-Herald editorial board. For those of you unfamiliar with the Athens Banner-Herald it is considered the paper of record for Athens, Georgia. Athens is of course the home of the University of Georgia, and a tiny drop of blue in an otherwise red area of north Georgia.
In their article the Athens Banner-Herald accuses Senator Saxby Chambliss of referring to President Obama as being “uppity” in an interview on the Fox News Channel on the run up to President Obama’s speech to Congress. The Only problem is that Senator Chambliss did not use the term “uppity”.
According to the Banner-Herald this is the phrase they take exception with
“I think what you’re looking at is folks on my side anxious to see what the president has to say (Wednesday) night. I think he’s going to have to express some humility based on what we’ve seen around the country during August, and that’s not his inclination.”
Of course, this seems like a completely fair statement to make, unless of course you are the Banner-Herald, which I cannot even start to understand their logic. So let me use the Banner-Heralds own words.
“Take a closer look at those two sentences. Sen. Chambliss states clearly that “to express some humility … is not (Obama’s) inclination.” It’s not an unfair parsing of the senator’s remarks to see them as coming uncomfortably close to suggesting the president is “uppity.”The word “uppity” is defined as “assuming airs beyond one’s station,” and - intended or not - that’s a clear subtext of Chambliss’ suggestion that the president is insufficiently humble. Additionally, using the word “uppity” in connection with a black person is seen widely as something of a racial slur.”
I guess that logic makes sense if your readership is one of the most liberal in the State of Georgia, or the nation for that matter.
Thursday afternoon, John McCain sent out a campaign e-mail urging supporters to sign a petition against government-run health care reform.
Last night, during his speech to a joint session of Congress and the nation, President Obama outlined his new proposal for health care reform. While I respect the President’s point of view, and hope for an eventual compromise, I believe his proposal amounts to an egregiously expensive and expansive form of government-run health care.
McCain, who is in no danger of losing his Senate seat according to polling numbers, used the e-mail to position himself against big government and vowed to stand against “health care reform that adds to the out-of-control spending spree the Democrats in Congress have gone on this year.”
But, does that mean McCain is a solid “no” on Democrat health care reform? Well, he is a definite “no” on any plan that includes a public option.
Listening to President Obama’s address on health care Wednesday night, however, certainly makes it appear as if McCain’s vote is still up for grabs. The President mentioned McCain by name twice in his speech - even giving the Arizona senator unwanted credit for one of Obama’s many talking points in support of a public option.
In the meantime, for those Americans who can’t get insurance today because they have pre-existing medical conditions, we will immediately offer low-cost coverage that will protect you against financial ruin if you become seriously ill. This was a good idea when Senator John McCain proposed it in the campaign, it’s a good idea now, and we should embrace it.
Obama went on in his speech to hold the partisan carrot of tort reform out as a potential compromise with Republicans.
Finally, many in this chamber – particularly on the Republican side of the aisle – have long insisted that reforming our medical malpractice laws can help bring down the cost of health care. I don’t believe malpractice reform is a silver bullet, but I have talked to enough doctors to know that defensive medicine may be contributing to unnecessary costs. So I am proposing that we move forward on a range of ideas about how to put patient safety first and let doctors focus on practicing medicine. I know that the Bush Administration considered authorizing demonstration projects in individual states to test these issues. It’s a good idea, and I am directing my Secretary of Health and Human Services to move forward on this initiative today.
While hardly viewed as a serious promise by many conservatives, the prospect of tort reform could very well position the self-proclaimed Maverick of the Senate as one of the key votes to watch in a post-public option world where even House Speaker Nancy Pelosi seems willing to compromise on what was a deal-breaker only a week ago to get a reform bill passed this year.
I would never go into negotiations and say something is non-negotiable. (House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.)
In a recent interview with ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos, McCain acknowledged that dropping the public option and adding in tort reform could bring Republicans - including his own - votes to health care reform.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Would you agree to the kind of insurance reforms the president is talking about, that you can’t be denied health insurance for a pre-existing condition, you can’t lose it if you get sick?
MCCAIN: You can’t be denied it, and certainly, if you have it, you shouldn’t have to lose it. But under the president’s plan, you would have to lose it, in my view, because of the government option. I believe that one of the fundamentals for any agreement would be that the president abandon the government option. That may be hard…
STEPHANOPOULOS: No pun intended.
MCCAIN: Yes, excuse me, the public option. I think he’d have to abandon the public option and that I think is what a lot of Americans now are concerned about.
STEPHANOPOULOS: If he does you’re willing to sit down and talk about insurance reforms and agree to that?
MCCAIN: I think that Republicans are more than agreeable to sit down and talk about various reforms.
The prospect of McCain’s vote - and the bipartisan credibility that would come with having the 2008 Republican presidential candidate on board - may prove too much for the Obama White House to resist as they currently do not have the Democrat votes to pass a health care plan that does not include a public option in the House but currently don’t have the Democrat votes in the Senate to push through a bill that includes the government-run program.
Keep a close eye on Senator McCain and the Senate Finance Committee - who must produce a bill that does not include a public option if McCain and Senate Republicans are going to get behind the reform effort - in the coming weeks to see if his health care reform vote is on the auction block.
It hasn’t always been pretty - to see media bias in the light of a politician’s passing, especially a powerful player during a high stakes debate like Ted Kennedy and health care reform.
In the first reports, available now, the tune has been respectful after Mr. Kennedy, 77 died at his home in Hyannis Port, Mass., even conservative-leaning outlets like FoxNews and the Washington Times.
These reports are more likely to point out the balance early in the story, humanizing the “Lion” as a man who’s “personal foibles and his celebrity sometimes outpaced his significant work in Congress,” - the Washington Times.
Fox mentioned his struggles with alcohol, the death of Robert Kennedy campaign aid Mary Jo Kopechne in a Chappaquiddick car accident, cheating at Harvard and his association with rape charges against his nephew William Kennedy Smith.
While more liberal outlets like the Washington Post - who’s online version stretches through four jumps - reserve most of that information for below the fold - after the first jump. Others only mention Kopechne.
On his legacy too, the Post paints broad strokes then goes on to devote paragraphs to each bill:
For decades, Kennedy was at the center of the most important issues facing the nation, and he did much to help shape them. A defender of the poor and politically disadvantaged, he set the standard for his party on health care, education, civil rights, campaign-finance reform and labor law. He also came to oppose the war in Vietnam and, from the beginning, was an outspoken opponent of the war in Iraq.
While more conservative outlets like the Wall Street Journal open with specifics: the 1965 immigration law, Title IX sports gender equality, 1974 campaign rules, Americans with Disabilities act in 1990, “several minimum wage increases” and President George W. Bush’s No Child Left Behind Act.
Wait till this afternoon or evening, when our legions of pundits get their turn to prove that they have torn out their hearts to pawn for political capital.
In the cruel world of American politics, a dutiful staffer will toil long into the night mulling over phone banking lists and reviewing profiles of high-power donors. He exchanges his personal life for 6 a.m. conference calls and his car becomes a billboard in transit. His diet consists of stale coffee and an endless supply of nicotine. An unenviable existence, to say the least, but one that is endured in hopes of seeing his boss declared victorious on election night and of seizing the resulting opportunities that lay ahead.
For David Axelrod, those opportunities were beyond imagine. As Barack Obama’s top campaign adviser, Axelrod carefully formulated the strategy and framing that ultimately earned the far Left U.S. Senator from Illinois the Democratic Party’s nomination and eventually, the White House. Such a feat was to be rewarded even more handsomely than previous campaign managers, who typically cram themselves into strategic, though often unwelcome, roles in the new administration.
President Obama bestowed upon Axelrod the title of “Senior Adviser” for his fledgling administration. After all, the president certainly made no secret of his plans to fill the White House with his Chicago-based allies. Axelrod joined the ranks of Windy City natives, such as then-Congressman Rahm Emanuel, who later became the White House Chief of Staff, and his brother, Dr. Ezekiel “Zeke” Emanuel, who was tasked with crafting health care reform legislation for the Administration. As if hanging out with his hometown buddies wasn’t enough of an incentive, Axelrod was encouraged by his national agenda-setting role and a $200,000 annual salary.
Despite all the perks of living a politico’s dream of further expanding his sphere of influence, Axelrod appeared dissatisfied by the substantial pay cut of shifting from the private to public service sector. According to a November 2008 Politico report, the political strategist’s firm collected more than $35 million in profits since 1998 for their extensive lobbying and consulting work, $2.5 million of which came from Obama’s presidential campaign, and Axelrod would be forced to decide whether to take a leadership role in the most liberal White House in American history, or to stick with his firm in Chicago.
Luckily for David Axelrod, he never actually had to make that choice. Axelrod began his work in the White House, but did not entirely abandon his booming consulting company. Certainly, this seems like a bit of a dilemma of ethics, with one man receiving a taxpayer-funded salary, while also maintaining private sector-based income in the same field. But in typical Obama Administration fashion, this sort of moral conundrum would not deter the President’s senior adviser, who sought to capitalize on the country’s current hot button issue: health care reform.
While Axelrod worked behind the scenes to craft policy that would lead to a government overhaul of the medical industry, his firm in Chicago lobbied special interest groups to earn massive media contracts that would help dictate political discourse during the debate. According to an August 19, 2009 Associated Press report, President Obama’s efforts to push his health care reform agenda have created a “financial windfall in the election offseason to Democratic consulting firms that are closely connected” to the President and Axelrod.
These coalition groups are currently running “at least $24 million in pro-overhaul ads” with the help of GMMB, a consulting group led by a “top Obama campaign strategist” and AKPD Message and Media, the firm owned by none other than David Axelrod. Michael Axelrod, David’s son, now manages the day-to-day affairs of his father’s AKPD Message and Media, aided in part by his employee, David Plouffe, Obama’s presidential campaign manager.
One of their biggest clients, Americans for Stable Quality Care, is comprised of political and financial heavyweights like the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), American Medical Association (AMA), FamiliesUSA and PhRMA, the last promising to pony up $150 million to promote the President’s health care reform agenda.
While the Associated Press concedes that there is “no evidence that Axelrod directly profited from the group’s ads,” they also admit that he will draw $2 million from the firm over the next four years. The larger issue, Sheila Krumholz, executive director of the Center for Responsive Politics, contends, is a “network of relationships and overlapping interests” that could become a “problem as Obama tries to win the public over on health care and fulfill his promise to change the way Washington works.”
Indeed, candidate Obama repeatedly condemned such “inside baseball” dealings, lamenting that this sort of behavior leads to the American people distrusting lawmakers to govern responsibly. Even if Axelrod is not, as he claims, directly profiting from these contracts, is it not political patronage for his firm, and really, his son, to enjoy profitable deals with longtime Obama cohorts, like the SEIU?
And even despite attempts of both David Axelrod and AKPD to distance themselves from each other, AKDP and GMBB, a partner firm in the health care reform media blitz, both “proudly proclaim their connections to Obama on their Web sites.”
AKPD has a full page on Axelrod that includes pictures of Obama. In one photo, Obama hugs Plouffe on election night.
“We are deeply honored to have been part of Barack Obama’s historic campaign to change America and the world,” GMMB says on its Web site. GMMB’s partners include Jim Margolis, a senior strategist for Obama’s presidential campaign.
“To victor go the spoils. The health care message is very much like a campaign message and it’s not surprising they would use the same vendor that knows the substance of the administration’s issues,” Gross said.
It seems that the two consulting groups have even more explaining to do, as it is apparent they have profited tremendously from David Axelrod’s political affiliations on a national level (Associated Press).
Both GMMB and AKPD also have worked for Democrats this year. The Democratic National Committee paid AKPD at least $106,000 for polling, media production, communication consulting and travel costs from February through April. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee paid GMMB roughly $75,000 from February through June for ads. And GMMB took in at least $9,000 this year from Senate leader Reid’s political action committee for communications consulting.
Republicans argue that such patronage is deplorable and should serve as a cause for alarm for the American people (Fox News).
But House Republicans insist PhRMA had a hand in hiring the firms — and continue to question the motives of both the drug lobby and the White House.
“Out of all the firms Pharma could choose to do their media work, they chose David Axelrod’s firm, which still maintains Axelrod’s son on the payroll and owes Axelrod himself $2 million,” House Republican Conference spokesman Mike Lloyd wrote in an e-mail.
“It’s hard to believe the public can be assured that David Axelrod isn’t influenced by any of this in the course of the health care debate. For an administration that promised ‘change’ and to be above even an appearance of impropriety this does not even come close to passing the smell test,” Lloyd wrote.
When President Obama proclaimed that he wanted to bring about “change,” what he really meant was that he wanted more of the same, just with liberals at the helm. He got his wish with David Axelrod.
Political opportunist Senator Arlen Specter held a town hall event in the rural western Pennsylvania town of Kittanning on Thursday, August 13th. This was the now-Democratic senator’s fourth town hall meeting in three days.
Griff Jenkins, a FOX News correspondent who was covering the health care forum for On the Record with Greta Van Susteren, said that about a thousand people filled the parking lot where the event was being held, but only two hundred were actually able to make it inside.
Still, passions on both sides of the debate clashed – not violently, but quite loudly – out in the parking lot before the meeting began. Flopping Aces pointed out a woman who was in favor of the president’s public-option health care proposal holding a sign that said, “Yelling is Counter Productive!” And yet, if you watch the video below, you will notice the woman shouting several times, including chants of “Health care now!” Hmm, hypocrites? Nah!
That woman was just one individual out of three busloads of ACORN/Union drones brought in from the inner city to intimidate local residents and create the faux appearance of support for President Obama’s health care legislation in rural America. Healthcare for America Now, a front organization for rich liberal like George Soros, organized and paid for the thugs to be bused in.
Thankfully, very few of them, if any at all, were able to actually make it into the location of the town hall meeting. A commenter named Judy over at Greta Wire had this to say:
“Acorn supplied 2 bus full of protestors but they arrived too late to be admitted into the meeting. Many of us here in Western PA were privy to the automated calls and emails telling supporters to arrive at 1pm (for a 3pm town hall!!) We all showed up at 11-noon and beat them to the punch. BTW the acorn buses pulled into the lot precisely at 1pm.”
And here is a video of the crowd in the parking lot shouting “Don’t Come Back!” as the buses full of the ACORN drones leave:
In St. Louis, the local Missouri ACORN organization held a ‘massive’ rally on Friday, August 14th, in the University City Loop, which is conveniently located near both Senator Claire McCaskill’s office and the St. Louis HQ for SEIU. But, despite the proximity to both Democratic-based locations, the turnout was (to say the least) underwhelming. Sharp Elbows StL has provided the video clip below as well as bit more extensive coverage of the event on their website.
President Obama’s own personal civilian army – volunteers for Organizing for America – were outside a town hall event in Ohio for Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown. An interviewer asked these volunteers, mainly college students or recent graduates, direct questions about the president’s public option health care proposal. Their responses are vastly disappointing in that it demonstrates how little these paid volunteers (there’s an oxymoron if you ever heard one) know about the legislation they are advocating for.
It is absolutely amazing, isn’t it? Only after Nancy Pelosi told an interviewer that health care town hall protestors brandished swastikas did such images finally begin to surface and be picked up by the mainstream media. Pure coincidence, right? Wrong! Nothing in life is coincidental.
Take for example what occurred at a town hall meeting last Thursday, August 6th, hosted by Representative for the 15th Congressional District of Michigan John Dingell. Plastered all over – CNN, Rachel Maddow, Keith Olbermann, and every other far-left mouthpiece available – is the image of a black man holding a five-foot poster of President Obama with a Hitler mustache. Not to endorse this sort of practice, but isn’t it a bit hypocritical for the mainstream media and others on the left to alter their attitudes toward Hilter/Nazi imagery used to protest governmental officials now that Obama is president after it had been used so abundantly and portrayed so positively during the eight years of George W. Bush’s presidency?
Well, guess what? The black man holding the Obama-Hitler poster was … a Dingell supporter! Radio host Frank Beckmann over at News/Talk 760 AM WJR out of Detroit talked to an eyewitness who said “not only were union thugs let in through a side door before anyone else was let into the venue, but that he clearly saw from his vantage point that very Obama as Hitler poster in that back hallway after the union thugs took their seats.”
Then someone over at Free Republic posted this bit of juicy information:
“A couple that were at Dingals TH meeting said there was a black man outside with a sign comparing Obama the Adolf Hitler. After the meeting ended and when everyone was leaving this same man was handing out Dingal campaign flyers.”
And here is the video of Neil Cavuto at FOX News speaking to the couple, Bill and Barb Cornish, who said it was all staged so that the protestors looked bad.
Want to know what the real kicker about this is? The couple who came forward with this information … are Democrats! Oh, it’s just those right-wing extremists! Yeah, not so fast!
Wait! It gets even better. Apparently the poster of President Obama with a Hitler-esque mustache was first seen at a rally for single-payer health care sponsored by Healthcare Now! that took place in Washington D.C. on July 30th. A political organization called LaRouche PAC, which supports single-payer health care, was behind it. It is featured prominently on their website! Click on the button on their home page that says “Stop Obama’s Nazi Health Plan” and it will take you to a page filled with material equating Obama with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party. And, yep, right there you can see the now famous Obama-Hitler image.
Here is a video of Stephen Gutowski at Eyeblast.tv breaking down the mainstream media’s lies concerning the Obama-Hitler sign:
Then there is the other story you’ve probably heard about – the one where a black woman at a town hall event in St. Louis, Missouri, sponsored by Senator Claire McCaskill, was dragged out by police after trying to start a fight with a man who took a sign she had placed rolled up on the seat in front of her and crumpled it up.
It is difficult to know exactly what to believe about this story. This appears to be yet another example of the mainstream media making something out to be something that it isn’t. There are several versions about what was actually on the sign – most media outlets are claiming it had a picture of Rosa Parks, but at the same time the woman involved, whose name is Maxine Johnson, said on CNN this afternoon that it contained the words, “Please Pray for President Obama.”
In either case, the mainstream media is jumping on this as a prime example that racism is a rampant component in the health care town hall protests. And yet at the same time Sen. McCaskill has spoken to Anderson Cooper on CNN and said that this was hardly a case of racism:
There is very little information about who the man was affiliated with. A representative for Sen. McCaskill indicated that the man involved, who was later arrested, was not associated with either Sen. McCaskill or the college where the event took place.
A woman identifying herself as the daughter of the man involved had this to say in the comment section of the article covering the story in St. Louis Today:
The “sign grabber” is my father, a man who stops to help people stranded alongside the road, dedicates his time weekly to the poor, gives all his money to the church, and would do anything for ANYONE! our family grew up around African Americans, 3 out of 5 of his children have dated individuals of color whom my father has treated like his own children. He is not racist, he does not see color. He sees people. He is not an aggressive person. He did not even know the contents of Ms. Johnson’s poster; he was upset by the fact that her breaking the “no poster” rule was being rewarded by positive media attention. My father did not see this individual as a women, as African American, or any other separatist adjective you can blow this into. He said to me in explaining the story, “it just wasn’t fair.” Now granted, it wasn’t his duty to remove the poster from this women’s possession, and he realizes this now. But there was no assaulting nor physical harm to the individual, just misjudgement from both parties involved. I’m sure if given the opportunity, my father would be falling over himself to apologize for his misjudgement and promise Ms. Johnson there was nothing racial about it.
And here’s some food for thought – Organizing for America (Obama’s campaign arm) signed up 636 people to attend the event, while the St. Louis Tea Party group was not officially attending since they had already met with Sen. McCaskill.
What’s so amusing (and irritating) about all of this is that the mainstream media is going gangbusters over this story. So a ‘poor’ woman got her sign – which, by the way, she wasn’t suppose to have inside the event in the first place – ripped up. Cue the world’s smallest violin! Umm, where are the stories excessively covering how SEIU thugs tried to smash a woman’s face in, how they put a black conservative man in a wheelchair, or slammed another man against a wall and left lacerations on his chest?
Healthcare Horserace contributors Christopher Lagan and Ellen Carmichael have already covered how Representative for the 18th Congressional District of Texas Sheila Jackson Lee took a cell phone call in the middle of her town hall event (interrupting a cancer-survivor who was asking her a question) and that she called on a fake doctor who went on to defend Obamacare, but here’s a little added information on the latter story:
Lone Star Times secured a phone interview with Ms. Mayer who “admitted to impersonating a physician, saying – get this – she thought it would help her credibility.” What’s more is that if you look closely, you will notice she is seated right next to a woman named Maria Isabel.
And who is Maria Isabel? She ran the Obama campaign office in Houston – complete with a flag with everyone’s favorite mass murderer, Che Guevara. Once again, The Lone Star Times has the complete story. Pure coincidence? Again, nothing in life is coincidental.
And, finally, let’s round out this rather lengthy addition of Town Hall Diaries (apologies) with another Obama/Democrat plant story. And, boy, is this a big one! Remember that town hall meeting President Obama held in New Hampshire this past Tuesday? You know, the same one where he said, “I don’t want people thinking I just have a bunch of plants in here.” That one? Well, guess what? Organizing for America (there they are again!) bussed in supporters of the president’s health care proposal the day of the event. Surprise, Surprise, Surprise! A local New Hampshire news stations, WMUR, has the full video.
As the late-Billy Mays would say, “But, wait – there’s more!” Remember a man named Mr. Peter Schmidt who asked President Obama the first question of the town hall meeting? Click here to watch a video of the question and response to refresh your memory. Turns out he really is who he says he is … leaving out, of course, the part where he’s a Democratic Representative for the state of New Hampshire.
And let’s not even get started on the thirteen-year-old girl – daughter of a substantial Obama donator and supporter – who was ‘randomly’ chosen to read an index card with a pre-written question that helped the president seguewa into talking about conservative/Republican ‘fear-mongering’. Michelle Malkin, Flopping Aces, and Hot Air Pundit have complete details.
