It is bizarre to see Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly denying that pundits from her network compare people to Nazis–contrasting this reticence to Rep. Steve Cohen (D.-Tenn.), who said calling healthcare reform a "government takeover of healthcare" was "a big lie. Just like Goebbels." In fact, such comparisons are common currency on Fox News and in much of right-wing media, as FAIR has documented (Action Alert, 1/16/04; FAIR Blog, 4/2/09, 8/9/09, 4/28/10; Extra!, 3/10). Fox's Glenn Beck, a leader in this trend, compared the auto bailout to "the early days of Adolf Hitler" (4/1/09), said that Barack Obama's plans to [...]
Jan
21
2011
Concern for Human Rights Starts at the Water's Edge
By 12 Comments
As Sam Husseini noted, one of the things we'll miss about print newspapers is ironic juxtaposition of stories. The front page of Yesterday's New York Times (1/20/11) provided a classic example: There was a story about Chinese President Hu Jintao visiting the White House, headlined (in the late print edition) "Obama Raises Human Rights, Pressing China." And right next to it was an article about how the Obama administration was acknowledging that Guantanamo would stay open indefinitely, with some prisoners to be held forever without trial, while others would be tried by military tribunal instead of a civilian court because [...]
Dec
20
2010
Thank Goodness Dana Milbank Is Not Insufferable
By 6 Comments
Washington Post columnistDana Milbank (12/19/10) derides WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange for being "insufferable"–apparently because he emerged from prison talking about prisonconditions. Milbank sarcastically noted, "As if nine days in an English jail fighting extradition to Sweden on sex charges made him a regular Nelson Mandela." You can decide for yourself whether that's insufferable. (Assange said, "I had time to reflect on the conditions of those people around the world also in solitary confinement, also on remand, in conditions that are more difficult than those faced by me. Those people also need your attention and support." Milbank ended this quote after [...]
Nov
10
2010
Fox News: The No. 1 Name in Murder Fantasies
By 58 Comments
Bill O'Reilly's recent "joke" about decapitating Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank was only the latest example of a demented Fox News culture that permits on-air personalities to fantasize about assassination and other forms of violence against those deemed enemies of the station, its personalities or their worldview. During the cable channel's 2008 election coverage, in what she later called an attempt at humor, Fox News contributor Liz Trotta linked Osama bin Laden to Barack Obama as people who both should be assassinated: And now we have what some are reading as a suggestion that somebody knock off Osama, uh Obama. [...]
Mar
16
2010
Dana Milbank's Equal-Opportunity Mockery
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Washington Post columnists Dana Milbank and David Broder are both committed guardians of the establishment center, but they don't always interpret their role in the same way. Milbank led the cheers for White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel as chief dragger to the right (FAIR Blog, 3/2/10), whereas Broder saw his blame-the-boss disloyalty as unseemly (3/4/10); on the other hand, it was Broder who thrilled recently to the "pitch-perfect populism" of Sarah Palin (2/11/10), while Milbank's column today (3/16/10) finds a similar spiel by Dick Armey to be as worthy of ridicule as, say, single-payer advocates (FAIR Blog, 6/12/09). [...]
Mar
02
2010
Only Rahm Emanuel Can Save You Now
By 11 Comments
White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel has always been a controversial figure–famously profane and short-tempered, and politically speaking a center-right Clinton Democrat. As of late, though, there's been a strange effort–particularly in the Washington Post–to present Emanuel as the confidant whose political advice Barack Obama has too often ignored and who offers a clear path to political rehabilitation. This only makes sense in a Beltway media that views Obama as too far to the left, and in need of Emanuel's pragmatic centrism to pull him back to the middle. This campaign was kicked off by a February 21 Dana [...]
Feb
16
2010
Dana Milbank, Snow and Climate Change
By 7 Comments
Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank thinks it's pretty silly for Republicans and climate change deniers to say that the recent snowstorms mean that climate change is phony. BUT…. don't think for a second that Milbank's going to let "greens" off the hook that easy. No way. As he put it on Sunday (2/14/10): "There's some rough justice in the conservatives' cheap shots. In Washington's blizzards, the greens were hoist by their own petard." How so? Climate activists "have argued by anecdote to make their case," especially Al Gore, who has warned of a whole menuof negative consequences from climate change. [...]
Aug
09
2009
WaPo 'Screw-You' Video Follows 'Mad Bitch' Offense
By 2 Comments
Guest Women In Media & News blogger Adele M. Stan (8/5/09) has some more to say about the WashingtonPost.com's "now-infamous 'Mad Bitch' video": Last Friday, Talking Points Memo's Brian Beutler shone a light on a video produced by the Washington Post that featured one of the two columnists hosting the piece suggesting that, at a future White House beer summit, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton be given a brew called "Mad Bitch." Then all hell broke loose. The Post apparently thought it could fix the problem by simply pulling the video. A note was posted above the hole where the [...]
