Greg Sargent has some observations (Plum Line, 3/4/09) about the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee's

new website up called "I'm sorry, Rush" that lampoons the many GOPers who have been forced to prostrate themselves before Rush Limbaugh after criticizing him and enduring the Wrath of Rush or his listeners.

The site appears to be off to a pretty decent start: Nearly 150,000 people have already visited in its first day, DCCC spokesperson Jennifer Crider tells me. The DCCC will blast out an email to supporters telling them of the visit numbers a bit later this afternoon.

Amazingly, the site has gotten this number of visits despite the fact that it isn't linked on Drudge!

Judging this "yet another measure of the public's appetite for the 'Rush wants Obama to fail' storyline," Sargent says the enormous "level of public interest" is "one of the main things driving the Democratic strategy of hanging Rush around the necks of Republicans."

Huffington Post journalist Sam Stein thinks (2/19/09) that "coming off of a tone-deaf cartoon that compared the author of the stimulus bill with a crazed, shot-dead chimpanzee, it seemed likely that, for the time being, provocative political metaphors would be put on hold"--but that would be discounting the offensive superpowers of hate radio staple Rush Limbaugh, whom Stein quotes (via Media Matters) having "pushed the envelope once more":

Within the confines of our Constitution, and the political arena of ideas, they [Democrats] must be stopped. I don't care why they see this country the way they see it. I don't care why a murderer does it. I don't care why a rapist does it. I don't care why this Muslim guy offed his wife's head. The NOW gang is out there saying 'oh, that's not domestic violence, that's just, uh, that's just....' What do they call it? 'Culturally honor killing'.... I don't care, I don't care why anymore.

But what's a little comparison to simple rapists and spouse-murderers for a media figure who's used Nazi references for his foes for years? Read the FAIR Action Alert: "When Are Nazi Comparisons Deplorable?: For Fox News, Only When Republicans Are the Target" (1/16/04)

FAIR issued a press release today (2/4/09) challenging the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation over false and biased claims made by its ombud after the CBC came under pressure from a campaign launched by groups that advocate for uncritical coverage of the Israeli government.

The campaign was launched in response to CBC's October 23, 2008 airing of the 2003 educational documentary Peace, Propaganda and the Promised Land (which can be viewed online here). The film cited a FAIR report on U.S. media coverage of the Israel/Palestine conflict, prompting the CBC's French-language radio ombud Julie Miville-Dechêne (12/08) to question the independence of FAIR’s research, referring to the organization as a "pro-Palestinian" and "militant group."

A peculiar finding, for as FAIR contributor Seth Ackerman, who authored the study, noted today in a letter to the CBC president, FAIR's spokespersons have appeared on several occasions on the CBC to discuss issues ranging from media coverage of the Kosovo War to radio host Rush Limbaugh.

Faulting the film for "failure to account for the withdrawal from the Gaza Strip,"  Miville-Dechêne also cited a 2001 FAIR study that found only 4 percent of U.S. network news reports "concerning Gaza or the West Bank mention that these are occupied territories" as an example of an "anachronism" in the documentary, because Israel had subsequently withdrawn military forces and settlements from Gaza.

In a press release issued today, FAIR noted that

Under international law, however, Gaza remains an occupied territory, because Israel continues to control its borders. FAIR's finding of a chronic failure by leading American media organizations to mention the occupation is actually even more true today: A search of the Lexis Nexis database during the most recent war (12/2/08-1/18/09) reveals that the percentage of network news programs about Gaza or the West Bank that mentioned the occupation has fallen from 4 to only 2 percent.

While the ombud characterized FAIR's finding that only 4 percent of U.S. news reports surveyed in 2000 mentioned the occupation as "shocking," FAIR noted that

the coverage on CBC's own evening newscast, the National, from the same period was roughly equivalent, with only 5 percent of reports concerning Gaza or the West Bank referring to occupation.

The mischaracterization of FAIR was far from the only problem with the ombud's report. One of the "factual errors" listed by the ombud: "Repeatedly, the documentary mentions the 'illegal' occupation of Palestinian territories by Israel." As independent journalist Justin Podur writes, "This merely suggests that the ombudsman lacks the most cursory understanding of international law. And, possibly, an understanding of what constitutes a factual error."

Given that the role of an ombud is to uphold standards of factual accuracy, this is an alarming state of affairs indeed. And one that warrants action.

Contact info for the CBC-Radio Canada ombud and president:

Julie Miville-Dechêne
Ombud, Services français
Société Radio-Canada
Email: ombudsman@radio-canada.ca
514-597-4757

Vince Carlin
CBC English Ombud
P.O. Box 500, Station A
Toronto, Ontario M5W 1E6
Phone: 416-205-2978
Email: ombudsman@cbc.ca

Mr. Hubert T. Lacroix, President and CEO
CBC/Radio-Canada
P.O. Box 6000
Montreal QC H3C 3A8
ht.lacroix@cbc.ca

Blogger Brad Jacobson gives play-by-play (MediaBloodhound, 1/28/09) for an epic attempt by MSNBC's Chris Matthews to live down his one-time confession to having "felt this thrill going up my leg" during a Barack Obama speech. Matthews' reparation strategy: "How about facilitating a discussion about Obama's proposed stimulus plan with two lawmakers from the same party, the Republican Party?"

That's precisely what Matthews did during a segment on his January 27 edition of Hardball, inviting only Senator John Ensign (R-Nevada) and Representative Mike Pence, the House Republican conference chair, to discuss the plan.

Not enough? How about a segment exploring whether Rush Limbaugh is the "new voice of the GOP," but once again facilitating the "balanced" discussion with two people on the right and no one on the left or even center? (Never mind that Limbaugh has been the voice of the Republican Party for two decades and counting.) In the very same broadcast, Matthews did this as well, bringing on MSNBC analyst Pat Buchanan and right-wing radio talkshow host Heidi Harris. (You might remember that Harris, appearing on Hardball during the election season, had told Matthews that women vote for Democrats because they "tend to think with their hearts and not with their minds.")

But wait, there's more: "How about, in the process, framing a question based on Rush Limbaugh's assertions and posing it to these two other right-wingers while prefacing the question with the words, 'Let's get back to the facts here'?" To Jacobson, "this kind of fairness and balance not only rivals Fox News but threatens to out-Fox it"--not that this would be a new trend or anything; see the FAIR publication Extra! Update: "Struggling MSNBC Attempts to Out-Fox Fox" (2/05) by Peter Hart

Attacking the White House's proposed economic stimulus plan (1/26/09), Rush Limbaugh explained that the issue pits his favored "supply-siders," who see the holy grail in tax cuts, against what he repeatedly referred to as, at least what sounded like "kineesian economists," who he described as partial to "government spending on shovel-ready projects of all kinds." ("Kineesian"--rhymes with "artesian"--is my phonetic version of what Limbaugh said, but listen for yourself.)

As you might have guessed, what Limbaugh meant to say was "Keynesian" (this is confirmed by the corrected transcript at his site), a well-worn adjective derived from the name of John Maynard Keynes, one of the most influential economists of the last century or so.

Raw Story highlights a Daily Show clip (1/22/09) in which Jon Stewart plays an astounding array of "soft-on-terror" clips from Fox coverage of Barack Obama's first day as U.S. president. Stewart then reminds us how "criticism and dissent of the president's policies, especially Iraq, used to be viewed" by playing a March 30, 2007, "Talking Points" segment in which Bill O'Reilly says "this hate stuff, this rooting for the administration to fail in Iraq and other areas is un-American, unbecoming and unacceptable. Like him or not, Mr. Bush is the elected leader of this country." Raw Story's David Edwards and Ron Brynaert transcribe the subsequent Daily Show pay-off as follows:

Stewart showed conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh talking about how he wants Obama to "fail," during an appearance on Fox News' Hannity on Wednesday.

"I am hearing many Republicans say that--well, we want him to succeed and prominent Republicans," Limbaugh had said. "Yes, we wanted--they have laid down. They have totally--they're drinking the Kool-Aid, too."

"So I shamelessly say, no, I want him to fail," Limbaugh said later in the interview with Hannity.

For some background on corporate media's ideas about acceptable and unacceptable criticism, see FAIR's magazine Extra!: "Dissent, Disloyalty & Double Standards: Kosovo doves denounced Iraq War protest as 'anti-American'" (5-6/03) by Steve Rendall

Your daily dose of radio bigotry is brought to you by the super-hater team of Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter. Rush recently hosted Coulter on his radio show (RushLimbaugh.com, 1/16/09), where they got down to some of the racist banter they're so famous for:

Rush: Arianna [Huffington], you need a translator.

Coulter: And George Soros!

Rush: Yeah, him, too. I've never heard the Daily Kos guy speak.

Coulter: Yeah, he was brought up in someplace in Latin America. You can't understand them. They speak in foreign accents. They represent the Democratic Party.

Maybe this is just an example of their particularly xenophobic brand of "humor," but really, how witty is it to ridicule people who may, or may not, speak English with an accent?