On Saturday’s Fox News Watch, regular panel member Jim Pinkerton of American Conservative magazine brought up a recent study from the Media Research Center – parent organization to NewsBusters – which found that broadcast network newscasts overwhelmingly placed more blame on Republicans than Democrats for the drawn-out budget fight. After asserting that the press are "carrying" President Obama, Pinkerton continued:

Geoffrey Dickens and Rich Noyes at the Media Research Center calculated that, by a three to one margin, the media are taking his side on this whole fight, so he doesn’t need to go over their heads. He just needs to go with their cheering him on.

Reading from the July 26 edition of MRC publication Media Reality Check, titled, "MRC Study: ABC, CBS and NBC Cast GOP as Debt Ceiling Villains," host Jon Scott then cited more numbers:

The Media Research Center – which is, after all, a conservative media watchdog group – but they compiled a study about the coverage of the debate. Here’s what they found: By a three to one margin, network newscasts put the blame for the debt impasse on Republicans from the period from July 1 to July 22. Eighty-five stories done, 56 – which is 66 percent – mainly blame the Republicans for the debt impasse, and 17 of them mainly blame the Democrats.

Below is a transcript of the relevant portion of the Saturday, July 30, Fox News Watch:

MONICA CROWLEY, FNC ANALYST: Poll after poll shows that 65, 75 percent of the American people are paying very close attention to the debt debate. It’s interesting because this President seems to think that he can take a page out of previous Presidents’ play books – Nixon, Ronald Reagan, and Bill Clinton – and go over the heads of the press directly to the American people to make his point, but those Presidents knew enough to use the Oval Office or use the East Room, use the power of the presidency in very rare, pointed, kinds of ways to persuade and educate and cajole the American people. This President seems to be engaging in campaign strategizing from the White House, which is why I think you see both criticism both from the right and the left.

…

JIM PINKERTON, AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE MAGAZINE: Let me just make just one point on what Monica said, basically agreement, but when she said "over the heads of the press," it’s because they’re carrying him. I mean, Geoffrey Dickens and Rich Noyes at the Media Research Center calculated that, by a three to one margin, the media are taking his side on this whole fight, so he doesn’t need to go over their heads. He just needs to go with their cheering him on.

JON SCOTT: Right, the Media Research Center – which is, after all, a conservative media watchdog group – but they compiled a study about the coverage of the debate. Here’s what they found: By a three to one margin, network newscasts put the blame for the debt impasse on Republicans from the period from July 1 to July 22. Eighty-five stories done, 56 – which is 66 percent – mainly blame the Republicans for the debt impasse, and 17 of them mainly blame the Democrats.

They say the movie theatres make more money on popcorn, candy, and soft drinks than they do on the movie tickets. If that’s true, theatre owners really ought to reconsider the previews they’re airing. They can make you sick to your stomach.

I don’t know why Hollywood moviemakers are so fascinated by with flatulence and excrement. It’s become almost an obsession, a formality of sorts in the “humor” oeuvre.

Watching a recent preview of the forthcoming movie “The Change-Up” is bad enough when you consider the plot – two men mysteriously switch bodies, and just how many times will they beat this horse to death? One is an uptight lawyer and family man, and the other a foul-mouthed slacker and relentless womanizer. Aha! The womanizer will be presented with the opportunity to have sex with another man’s wife! Genius!

There’s nothing original here, so enter Flatulence and Excrement. Just as the womanizer prepares to take the family man’s place in the marital bed – remember, any child in a movie theater can watch these previews — the wife gets a bad case of diarrhea, complete with a shot of her sitting on the john, defecating. Oh but there’s more. She then gets into the bed and backs up to her faux husband. Naturally, the disgusted womanizer exclaims, “Don’t back that thing up into me!” Har,
har!

This qualifies as a preview, a snapshot of the best this movie has to offer. Even if you find it funny, why must it be in the previews, where it can – and certainly will — gross out the majority of unsuspecting viewers?

That’s not the only scat prank in the plot. The film opens with the uptight lawyer (played by Jason Bateman) getting up with his twin babies to change them – when he gets a hot blast of diarrhea in his mouth. When the late Steve Allen talked about Hollywood sinking into the sewer for laughs, he meant so figuratively. Who knew Hollywood would eventually go there literally?

Bateman insists in interviews that he was so completely excited to star in this series of bathroom grossouts: “I was like, wait a second, this is how they're gonna start? All right, I'm ready, my knees are bent, I'm prepared for anything they're gonna throw me, and they didn't disappoint. It just kept coming."

What else kept coming? Gutter talk in front of small children was also mandatory. The Huffington Post reports that once Bateman’s body is taken over by the foul-mouthed slacker character, the film contains “a number of scenes in which he lets out a ferocious slew of curses in front of his six-year-old daughter… Bateman, a father himself, made sure to finesse those uncomfortable moments.”

Why would the cursing (and then the finessing) be necessary? Once again, this is where Hollywood finds the easy laughs – the shock value of scandalizing a kindergartener with “ferocious” cursing — and if a six-year-old actress has to hear these fusillades of profanity over and over again during filming, that’s just the price of doing business.

Bateman explains the “finessing” business thusly: “You spend 20 minutes apologizing to her and her mother and another 20 afterward and then while you're shooting, you just kind of let it fly. She was a great little actress, she got it, she understood the jokes." The child is patted on the head as a “great little actress” for tolerating all that garbage talk.

Six years old.

This new trend of R-rated summer comedies really took off with “The Hangover” last summer’s box-office surprise, earning a whopping $467.5 million worldwide to become the top grossing R-rated comedy of all time. (No question, there are points in that movie that are laugh-out-loud hilarious.) The streak continued this spring with the hit movie “Bridesmaids,” which proved a girl comedy could be just as disgusting as a male-centered one. It also contained a stomach-churning scene with the bridesmaids in fancy dresses vomiting and getting diarrhea and going to the bathroom in “comedic” places – in one scene the sink, and in another, the middle of heavy traffic.

Pamela McClintock at The Hollywood Reporter sounds positively aglow about the new success of R-rated yukfests. “Raunch and debauchery are sizzling at the worldwide box office.” McClintock insisted “The collective strength of these R-rated comedies is unprecedented and marks a major shift for Hollywood. A decade ago, studios thought the genre was washed up.”

You mean, like… diarrhea? Har, har!

The AP's coverage of the U.S. economy late Friday focused on high gas prices as the dominant, uh, driver of this year's anemic growth both visually and in its text.

As will be seen after the jump, the graphic at the AP's national site is of a gas price sign. The final sentence in the caption of the full-size version reads "High gas prices and scant income gains forced Americans to sharply pull back on spending."

The underlying report by Christopher Rugaber and Paul Wiseman predictably mentioned gas prices first and foremost, tagged debt-ceiling negotiations as a suddenly important contributor to economic uncertainty (where have they been while President Obama, his cabinet, his czars, and his hyperactive regulators have been injecting uncertainty in megadoses during the past two years?), and relayed Ben Bernanke's months-old warning that cutting back too much on government spending would hinder economic growth:

Here are a few later paragraphs from the pair's report:

… Since 1950, year-to-year growth has dipped below 2 percent 12 times. Ten of those times, the economy was already in recession or soon fell into one, says Mark Vitner, senior economist at Wells Fargo Securities.

… High gasoline prices leave people with less money to spend on other goods and services. And not all spending on gas contributes to the U.S. economy because some of the money goes to oil-producing countries. GDP figures are also inflation-adjusted, so spending $1 more for a gallon doesn't mean $1 of additional help to the economy.

… Add to those problems the uncertainty fanned by the political stalemate in Washington, with Republicans refusing to raise the federal government's $14.3 trillion borrowing limit unless Democrats agree to deep federal spending cuts on the GOP's terms.

… Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and other economists have warned Congress against cutting too much too soon because the economy remains so fragile.

Two points need to be made about the AP pair's cite of Ben "Electronic Printing Press" Bernanke and protecting the supposed sanctity of government spending.

First, it would appear that we don't have much to worry about on cutting spending "too much too soon," given that the GOP bill which passed the House yesterday reportedly "cuts" (i.e., barely reduces future spending growth) only $22 billion from fiscal 2012 — less than two-thirds of 1% of anticipated spending.

Second, maybe Chris and Paul should look at the chart which follows and ask why it shows that the private sector is still smaller than it was when the recession began, whether you peg it as beginning in the third quarter of 2008, as the "normal person" definition of recession would dictate, or in December 2007, when the National Bureau of Economic Research (wrongly) claims it began (Source: Table 3B at yesterday full GDP report; all figures are in billions):

Meanwhile the federal government's portion of GDP (representing purchases of goods and services, not welfare or other entitlement payments) has grown by double digits under either definition.

Guys, maybe, just maybe, it's the explosion in federal government spending — relatively inefficient and wasteful in comparison to private-sector spending and investment — which has caused overall economic growth to be so anemic, especially given how much of it has been spent to instill regulatory and other fear and fright in businesspeople, entrepreneurs and investors. It would be nice if you'd consider reporting that contention in the story. There's no shortage of people you could find who would gladly tell you that.

Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.

Well, the Washington Post reported it, but it was in the 21st paragraph of a 24-paragraph story on page A11, in an article entitled "White House is divided on how to portray Obama," no less:

New polling numbers suggest that voters have been unimpressed with Obama’s performance — with his once-sizable reelection advantage evaporating in a matter of weeks.

A survey published this week by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press finds that 41 percent of voters want to see Obama reelected next year, compared with 40 percent who favor a Republican. In May, Obama led by 11 points, 48 to 37. The explanation: The number of independents wanting an Obama victory fell from 42 percent in May to 31 percent now.

While the media have been doing their level best to lower the public's approval for conservatives and to sell the public on the notion that President Obama is the grown-up in Washington, the debt ceiling deadlock is souring Americas on the president, particularly self-described independents who would be a crucial voting bloc in 2012.

But leave it to the Post to bury that lede. Here's how staffers Peter Wallsten and David Nakamura opened their July 30 article, charitably papering over conflicting spins from the White House:

President Obama has been “getting absolutely no sleep” amid tireless work on the debt-ceiling crisis, according to senior aide Valerie Jarrett. No, countered press secretary Jay Carney, the president seemed “well rested and very focused.”

The apparent contradiction illustrated the White House choice as the budget battle with Congress nears its climax: whether to present Obama as a central player asserting his power to craft a deal, or as an above-the-fray observer waiting for a polarized Congress to do its job.

 

Earlier this week, NewsBusters managing editor Ken Shepherd had the opportunity to sit down with Tim Groseclose, a conservative political science professor from UCLA who's out with a new book about liberal media bias entitled "Left Turn: How Liberal Media Bias Distorts the American Mind."

In the interview, recorded on July 27, Groseclose explained how his research proves the media's liberal bias has a tendency to skew the electorate's perception of the political world, making all of us more liberal than we would be were it not for the media's liberal distortions.

[You can watch the full interview in the embed that follows the page break]

Groseclose also spent considerable time talking about how the media distort news pertaining to the abortion debate, particularly partial-birth abortion and briefly addressed media distortions about tax rates on "the rich."

Throughout his tenure, there have been several facets in which President Obama has been demonstrably weak on leadership, with the debt debate coming to the forefront in recent months.  Now however, lost in that news cycle has been another failure of leadership for the President – his own request to tone down violent rhetoric in this country.  For it was mere months ago that Obama stood in front of a crowd in Tucson that had anxiously sought leadership amidst the chaos of the Gabrielle Giffords shooting; a teachable moment that had The Guardian gushing about how the President had delivered “calm amid the toxic rhetoric.”

That moment of calm has long since dissipated.  Where once the President had denounced discourse that places “the blame for all that ails the world at the feet of those who think differently than we do”, we hear Republicans blamed for holding the American people hostage to their economic policies.  Where once we were urged to talk “with each other in a way that heals, not a way that wounds”, we now hear Tea Party members being denounced as terrorists.

Make no mistake, this ratcheting up of terrorism and hostage-taking discourse directly coincides with recent events in Norway.  The instant that Oslo terrorist, Anders Behring Breivik, was labeled as a ‘right-wing Christian’, liberals finally had their moment to seize upon – not just a chance to label conservatives as extreme ideologues but a chance to label them as violent ideologues.  This message has been a coordinated and vicious attack amongst the media, the Democrats, and most assuredly, the President.

Prior to the Norwegian massacre, references to the Tea Party as extreme were prevalent, but making the leap in logic to terrorism had been scant.  After the Norwegian massacre however, liberals defining the Tea Party as hostage-taking terrorists have become far more frequent.  In the last few days it has become practically commonplace.

This past Friday Politico ran an op-ed titled, The Tea Party’s Terrorist Tactics, which featured an illustration of an individual with a dollar sign-shaped bomb strapped to their chest, and argued that the party had progressed from hostage-taking to “the intentional infliction of harm on innocent Americans to achieve a political objective – terrorism.”

Joe Klein penned a piece for Time in which he accused Republicans of being beholden to ‘Tea Party robots’, and worse, that their perceived unwillingness to compromise is something that would have made Osama bin Laden proud.  The exact quote being that were he alive, bin Laden “could not have come up with a more clever strategy for strangling our nation.”

Rush Limbaugh ran a montage on his radio show to demonstrate that these attacks on the Tea Party aren’t limited to the ever-biased media, but have been coordinated with their liberal leaders in government.  That montage features Democrats echoing the same sentiment ad nauseam, with over 16 different politicians referring to the Tea Party or Republicans as holding the American people hostage.

Former Democratic Congressman, Martin Frost, also in the Politico, cuts right to the chase with an op-ed titled, The Tea Party Taliban.  Frost argues that “like the Taliban” the Tea Party sees “compromise as an unacceptable alternative”.  He claims that the party’s quest for political purity gives them “much in common with the Taliban.”

In lockstep with the sentiments of his colleagues, the President himself delivered a weekly address in which he denounced the Republican solution to solve the debt crisis as a plan that “would hold our economy captive to Washington politics.”

It is enough to make one wonder, where did our healing President go?  Where is the man that calmed during a time of toxic rhetoric?  Where is the man who urged Americans to talk in a way that helped rather than harmed? 

That man is a myth.  He simply does not exist.

We will never hear the President denounce such vile language from his side of the aisle.  In fact, we consistently hear the drone of silence from a supposed leader, where such silence equates to consent.

The better question is – Where has our leadership gone?

Rusty can be contacted at the Mental Recession

For general discussion and debate about politics, the debt ceiling, the economy, sports, or whatever else tickles your fancy.

The folks at CNN should be really proud of themselves.

In less than 24 hours, one of their current anchors – Fareed Zakaria – flat out lied about deficits, the debt ceiling, and the U.S. credit rating before a former host – Eliot Spitzer – falsely told viewers of HBO's "Real Time" that George W. Bush "gave us the deregulatory craziness that led us over the cliff" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

ELIOT SPITZER, FORMER CNN ANCHOR: Bill Clinton had a budget surplus. George Bush gave us the deficit, gave us the recession, gave us the deregulatory craziness that led us over the cliff. The Tea Party is the tail wagging the dog. It is the inmates running the asylum. It is people who don't know history, economics, politics, sociology, science. It is insane. And it is, it is time, I let you, I’m glad you [Bill Maher] said I’m an old school Democrat: I believe in science, facts…

MARGARET HOOVER: And spending.

SPITZER: …no, and responsible capitalism. That’s who I am.

Yes, that's who he is: a man willing to go on national television and lie to the American people.

As a reminder, up until a few weeks ago, he was doing this on CNN on a nightly basis.

It is a immutable fact that the two pieces of legislation that led to the credit bubble and our economy's eventual collapse were the Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999 and the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000.

The first signed by Bill Clinton in November 1999 – twelve months before Bush was elected – removed the last Depression era Glass Steagall constraints on the financial services industry thereby deregulating banks, securities firms, and insurance companies to invest in anything they wanted.

The second signed by Clinton in December 2000 a month before Bush was inaugurated deregulated commodities, in particular various derivatives including credit default swaps and collateralized debt obligations which were at the very heart of the eventual crisis.

These two bills George W. Bush had nothing to do with were the "deregulatory craziness that led us over the cliff."

Yet Spitzer, who accused Tea Partiers of not knowing "history, economics, politics, sociology, science" as he bragged about believing in "facts" on national television falsely pinned them on our 43rd President rather than the man whose signature is actually on both.

He concluded this diatribe by saying, "That's who I am."

Well, I can't argue with that.

In his daily "Best of the Web Today" feature, James Taranto at the Wall Street Journal mocked the Democrats (and their helpful friends at the Associated Press) for obsessing over South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley and whether she is white or Indian-American:

Remember when Southern Democrats were obsessed with racial distinctions? No, we don't mean in the 1850s or even the 1950s, but yesterday–literally. Here's an Associated Press dispatch dated July 28, 2011:

South Carolina Democrats on Thursday seized on a 10-year-old voter registration document for Gov. Nikki Haley to claim the Republican uses her Indian-American heritage when it's convenient because it lists her race as "W'' for white.

Haley was elected the state's first female governor in November and the nation's second Indian-American chief executive.

Her parents emigrated from India and Haley was born in Bamberg County, S.C., a county split between whites and blacks. Born Nimrata Randhawa, she frequently credits her different heritage with helping her get beyond race and finding problems that many have in common.

South Carolina Democratic Party Chairman Dick Harpootlian said the 2001 document the party unearthed shows the 39-year-old Haley plays on her race for political convenience.

"She can't even tell the truth about her racial heritage," Harpootlian said.

At least with a name like Harpootlian, you know he's as Caucasian as it's possible to be.

AP tried to sound like it didn't merely accept Democratic handouts, but took the extra step of locating their own copy: "The voter application Haley signed in March 2001 first was obtained by Democrats. The Associated Press independently viewed a copy Thursday provided by the Lexington County Commission of Registration and Elections."

One might think a diversity-endorsing Democratic Party that sells Obama birth certificate T-shirts to fight off those people who think people with global backgrounds are suspicious wouldn't be so quick to search old government documents for a-ha-you're-white moments.

 On Saturday’s World News, ABC anchor Dan Harris seemed to fret that the current debate over the budget is taking attention away from an "unprecedented assault" that is being "quietly" waged by conservatives "on environmental regulations." As the report from Blair, West Virginia, focused on a coal mining technique that destroys the tops of mountains, correspondent Jim Sciutto featured two soundbites supporting restrictions on such mining with only one opposed.

And, while Harris in his introduction shined a light on conservatives as the group who want fewer mining regulations, the one soundbite that Sciutto included in the report that was on the more anti-regulation side was centrist Democratic Congressman Nick Rahall of West Virginia. And no liberal label was used for those who were shown supporting the regulations, including environmental activist  Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

Harris set up the piece:

And back in Washington tonight, while everybody's been focused on that huge debt debate, conservatives in the House of Representatives have quietly mounted an unprecedented assault on environmental regulations, including limits on a form of mining that literally shears the top off of mountains in order to get coal. This kind of mining is incredibly controversial, even pitting families in coal country against one another.

Sciutto began his report: "The coal underneath these beautiful West Virginia mountains has provided a living for generations of families here. But now, some of those families are fighting back against the coal companies."

In addition to a local resident opposing the loosening of restrictions, there later came a soundbite of Kennedy, Jr.:

JIM SCIUTTO: At ground level, you get a real sense of the scale of this because, with mountain top removal mining, all of this goes … All of it dug up and pulverized for the coal underneath. But take a flight high above, and the landscape turns to moonscape. When environmental campaigner Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., saw it, filming a new documentary called The Last Mountain, he was overwhelmed.

ROBERT F. KENNEDY, JR., ENVIRONMENTALIST: If you try to blow up a mountain in the Berkshires or the Adirondacks or the Catskills or in Utah, you would be in, put in jail.

After noting a defense of the mining technique by the company that owns rights to the area – Massey Energy – then came a brief soundbite from Congressman Rahall: "What it means is jobs, and what it means is keeping our lights on."

Sciutto concluded his report by going back to those who object to the mining technique:

Some in the community agree (with Congressman Rahall), as well. But, on the other side of an increasingly bitter struggle, are families like the Aleshires, who say their jobs are important, but so are the mountains they grew up with. Jim Sciutto, ABC News, Blair, West Virginia.

Below is a complete transcript of the report from the Saturday, July 30, World News on ABC:

DAN HARRIS: And back in Washington tonight, while everybody's been focused on that huge debt debate, conservatives in the House of Representatives have quietly mounted an unprecedented assault on environmental regulations, including limits on a form of mining that literally shears the top off of mountains in order to get coal. This kind of mining is incredibly controversial, even pitting families in coal country against one another. ABC’s Jim Sciutto tonight reports from West Virginia.

JIM SCIUTTO: The coal underneath these beautiful West Virginia mountains has provided a living for generations of families here. But now, some of those families are fighting back against the coal companies. So they're going to shave the top off that mountain?

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Yeah.

SCIUTTO: Literally moving mountains.

KAREN ALESHIRE, AGAINST MOUNTAINTOP REMOVAL MINING: I told my grandchildren, you know, this place will be yours, but it may not be there.

SCIUTTO: Five hundred peaks and counting, literally blown up since the 1970s, all for the coal deep underground. At ground level, you get a real sense of the scale of this because, with mountain top removal mining, all of this goes: the trees, the soil, the ground I'm walking on, a couple of hundred feet up, a couple of hundred feet down. All of it dug up and pulverized for the coal underneath. But take a flight high above, and the landscape turns to moonscape. When environmental campaigner Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., saw it, filming a new documentary called The Last Mountain, he was overwhelmed.

ROBERT F. KENNEDY, JR., ENVIRONMENTALIST: If you try to blow up a mountain in the Berkshires or the Adirondacks or the Catskills or in Utah, you would be in, put in jail.

SCIUTTO: Massey Energy, which has the mining rights and is now owned by Alpha Resources, did not answer repeated requests to speak with us, but it’s called the mining cost-effective and safe, and claims to return the landscape close to its original state, filling in valleys to provide flat land for development. West Virginia Congressman Nick Rahall also defends mountaintop removal.

REP. NICK RAHALL (D-WV): What it means is jobs, and what it means is keeping our lights on.

SCIUTTO: Some in the community agree, as well.

CLIP OF PROTESTERS: A people, united.

SCIUTTO: But, on the other side of an increasingly bitter struggle, are families like the Aleshires, who say their jobs are important, but so are the mountains they grew up with. Jim Sciutto, ABC News, Blair, West Virginia