CBS anchor Bob Schieffer was profiled by Marketwatch, where we learn:

But don't get the false impression that Schieffer is a pushover for his important guests. When I asked him how he feels when subjects lie to him on the air or try to mislead the audience, he got right to the point.

"I want to jump across the table and choke them," he said.

Wow. First of all, this Marketwatch piece is largely about Schieffer's recent interview with former Vice President Dick Cheney. The irony is almost too much; as Colin Powell's former chief of staff Lawrence Wilkerson put it to Rachel Maddow:

This is the man who, after all, said we know with absolutely certainty Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction.  We know he has an active nuclear program.  We know he has contacts with Al-Qaeda.  This is the man who told more lies from a public pulpit than almost anyone else I know.

For the record, Schieffer did not choke Dick Cheney when he appeared on Face the Nation. He did seem weirdly proud of the interview, primarily because when he asked Cheney if he'd prefer Rush Limbaugh or Colin Powell's vision for the GOP, Cheney (totally unsurprisingly) picked Limbaugh. "I've never done anything that had as much resonance," says Schieffer.

Beyond that-- when it comes to misleading an audience, what about Schieffer's record?

--CBS Evening News anchor Bob Schieffer announced (2/9/06) that "for the first time President Bush confirmed today that in the months after 9/11, the government broke up another terrorist plot to fly a plane into the tallest building in Los Angeles." The fact that Bush says something does not "confirm" that what he is saying is true--and, in fact, earlier reporting by the Los Angeles Times casts doubts on Bush's claims. (FAIR Media Advisory, 2/13/06)

--CBS's Bob Schieffer (12/8/02) remarked of an earlier disavowal of banned weaponry by Hussein, "Saddam Hussein says he has no weapons of mass destruction, but should we believe him?" Schieffer asked a visiting senator on Face the Nation what would happen if U.S. experts "conclude that Saddam Hussein is once again lying, as he has so often in the past.claiming he doesn't have the weapons, when in fact we know that he has." (FAIR Action Alert, 2/1/08)

--CBS anchor Bob Schieffer asserted (6/6/04), "You could hate his policies, but it was hard not to like Ronald Reagan." But Reagan's "likeability" numbers did not score much higher than other modern presidents, including Jimmy Carter. (FAIR Media Advisory, 6/9/04)

Political Animal's Steve Benen (5/12/09) notes a recent Rush Limbaugh broadcast (5/11/09) that makes the racist subtext of the right's critique of Barack Obama virtually explicit:

The [economic] deterioration reflects lower tax revenues and higher costs for bank failures, unemployment benefits and food stamps. But in the Oval Office of the White House none of this is a problem. This is the objective. The objective is unemployment. The objective is more food stamp benefits. The objective is more unemployment benefits. The objective is an expanding welfare state. And the objective is to take the nation's wealth and return to it to the nation's, quote, "rightful owners." Think reparations. Think forced reparations here if you want to understand what actually is going on.

So Limbaugh thinks Obama is intentionally creating unemployment in order to boost food stamps, unemployment and welfare as a form of "forced reparations"; he's wrecking the economy, in other words, in order to benefit black people.  If Limbaugh is the voice of opposition to Obama, no wonder that opposition is so concentrated in the states of the old Confederacy.

In his op-ed "Take the Limbaugh Challenge," (L.A. Times, 3/29/09), conservative writer Andrew Klavan states as a "certainty" that L.A. Times readers don't listen to Rush Limbaugh's show:

If you are reading this newspaper, the likelihood is that you agree with the Obama administration's recent attacks on conservative radio talker Rush Limbaugh. That's the likelihood; here's the certainty: You've never listened to Rush Limbaugh.

What's more, Klavan claims to listen to Limbaugh frequently, and says he has never heard him "utter a single racist, hateful or stupid word."

To someone like me who has been talking about racist, hateful and stupid Limbaugh remarks since the mid-'90s, and who co-authored FAIR's book The Way Things Aren't: Rush Limbaugh's Reign of Error, Klavan's charge that Limbaugh critics don't listen to his show is a familiar one. In dozens of appearances on conservative radio shows to talk about our book, it was rare that I was not confronted with this now-hackneyed charge, even though I have been listening to Limbaugh for 25 years, starting with his local show on Sacramento's KFBK.

As for Klavan's claim that Limbaugh doesn't say racist, stupid or hateful things, FAIR's book documents scores of Limbaugh statements fitting those categories, including such stupidly false claims as "the poorest people in America are better off than the mainstream families of Europe"; that "there are more acres of forest land in America today than when Columbus discovered America in 1492"; and that "not one indictment" resulted from the Iran/Contra scandal investigation.

As one of the Bush administration's most credulous media stooges, Limbaugh enthusiastically repeated raw government propaganda. For instance, after the invasion, Limbaugh trumpeted Iraq's nonexistent WMDs (4/7/03): "We're discovering WMDs all over Iraq.... You know it killed NPR to report that the 101st Airborne found a stockpile of up to 20 rockets tipped with sarin and mustard gas.... Our troops have found dozens of barrels of chemicals in an agricultural facility 30 miles northwest of Baghdad."

Limbaugh's gullibility also leaves him vulnerable to wacky far-right conspiracy theories. Shortly after Obama's election, Limbaugh attempted to work up his listeners with the ridiculous rumor that the new administration was planning to take over their retirement accounts: "They're going to take your 401(k), put it in the Social Security trust fund."

Limbaugh's falsehood was so egregious that it prompted L.A. Times reporter James Rainey to write:

To broadcast such a report--so drained of context as to constitute a lie--would be a shameless act at any time. But Limbaugh needlessly stirred the fears of the millions he holds in his thrall--making the 401(k) thievery sound like nearly a done deal. Shameless.

And why isn't Klavan familiar with years of hateful broadcasts where Limbaugh heaped abuse on homeless people and those with HIV, using his "Homeless Updates" to propose a "Homeless Olympics" with events including "the Dumpster dig and the hop, skip and trip"; and "AIDS Updates" where he talked about "Rock Hudson's disease" and introduced segments with the Dionne Warwick song "I Know I'll Never Love This Way Again"?

And what is it if not hateful to hope to see an American political convention erupt in violence? That's what Limbaugh said was the aim of his "Operation Chaos," which urged his listeners to support Hillary Clinton in order to divide the Democratic Party:

The dream end of this is that this keeps up to the convention, and that we have a recreation of Chicago 1968 with burning cars, protests, fire and literal riots and all of that. That is the objective here.

And speaking of racism, what about this gem where Limbaugh favorably compared victims of flooding in Illinois and Iowa, to Katrina victims in New Orleans, repeating discredited claims about rampant rape and murder in New Orleans in the process?

I want to know. I look at Iowa, I look at Illinois--I want to see the murders. I want to see the looting. I want to see all the stuff that happened in New Orleans. I see devastation in Iowa and Illinois that dwarfs what happened in New Orleans. I see people working together. I see people trying to save their property.... I don't see a bunch of people running around waving guns at helicopters, I don't see a bunch of people running shooting cops. I don't see a bunch of people raping people on the street. I don't see a bunch of people doing everything they can...whining and moaning---where's FEMA, where's Bush. I see the heartland of America. When I look at Iowa and when I look at Illinois, I see the backbone of America.

And has Klavan heard Limbaugh's commentary on Barack Obama? In his response to criticism of his expressed hope that Obama fails, Limbaugh notoriously declared:

We are being told that we have to hope he succeeds, that we have to bend over, grab the ankles, bend over forward, backward, whichever, because his father was black, because this is the first black president.

For more examples of Limbaugh racism, Klavan might have read this L.A. Times op-ed, written by FAIR founder Jeff Cohen and myself. We document many instances of outright racism, including his admission that he once told a black caller to "take that bone out of your nose," asserted that "all composite pictures of wanted criminals resemble Jesse Jackson," and said of a group with a 90-year commitment to nonviolence: "The NAACP should have riot rehearsal. They should get a liquor store and practice robberies."

At this late date, no one who's listened to Limbaugh can honestly say that he doesn’t say racist, hateful or stupid things. Which raises the possibility that Klavan doesn't actually listen to Limbaugh, at least with any real care. But what's the L.A. Times' excuse for publishing nonsense which has been debunked in its own pages for at least two decades?

Over on Media Matters' County Fair blog (3/12/09), Jamison Foser asks, "Is there any major-newspaper reporter who is more consistently wrong than Andrew Malcolm?" The latest gaffe by the Laura Bush flak-turned-L.A. Times writer comes in response to filmmaker Michael Moore's explaining what he sees as the difference between Democratic framing of Rush Limbaugh as the GOP's real leader and Republicans' similar claim about Moore and the Democratic Party:

But some commentators (Richard Wolffe of Newsweek, Chuck Todd of NBC News, etc.) have likened this to "what Republicans tried to do to the Democrats with Michael Moore." Perhaps. But there is one central difference: What I have believed in, and what I have stood for in these past eight years--an end to the war, establishing universal healthcare, closing Guantánamo and banning torture, making the rich pay more taxes and aggressively going after the corporate chiefs on Wall Street--these are all things which the majority of Americans believe in too.

Malcolm's LATimes.com piece, attempting to summarize this passage, said:

Moore lists numerous ways that Republican strategists went after him in past years--books, ads, funny photos and how he was booed off the Oscar stage even in liberal Hollywood for his early opposition to the Iraq War, Guantánamo, torture and other things. Did that help Democratic Senator Kerry not get elected in 2004? "Perhaps," Moore admits.

Foser points out that

if you read what Moore wrote, you'll notice that Malcolm is simply not telling the truth. Moore's "perhaps" was not an admission that Republican attacks on him helped to defeat John Kerry; not even close. Moore said "perhaps" there is some similarity between what Democrats are currently doing and what Republicans tried to do to him; he is not saying Republicans were successful. Malcolm simply made that up, and ripped Moore's comment out of context in order to hide the fabrication.

Actually, Foser's citation of the quote's actual context shows that, "In fact, Moore said the GOP's attacks on him backfired."

"10 Things You Didn't Know About Rush Limbaugh," item #10:

10. Limbaugh shares a secluded 24,000-square-foot beachfront mansion in Palm Beach with his cat, Pumpkin. A life-size oil portrait of Limbaugh hangs on the wall of the main staircase.

With all the recent headlines posing Rush Limbaugh as the GOP's de facto leader, Media Matters' Julie Millican and Nathan Tabak provide a timely look back (3/3/09) at the well-documented record of hateful views espoused by the most popular talk radio host in the United States:

On August 23, 2006, discussing the CBS reality TV program, Survivor, in which contestants were originally divided into competing "tribes" by ethnicity, Limbaugh stated that the contest was "not going to be fair if there's a lot of water events" and suggested that "blacks can't swim." Limbaugh stated that "our early money" is on "the Hispanic tribe"--which he said could include "a Cuban," "a Nicaraguan" or "a Mexican or two"--provided they don't "start fighting for supremacy amongst themselves."

Limbaugh added that Hispanics have "probably shown the most survival tactics," that they "have shown a remarkable ability to cross borders," and that they can "do it without water for a long time, they don't get apprehended and they will do things other people won't do." When the Survivor producers decided to dissolve the show's racially segregated "tribes" after only two episodes, Limbaugh declared that "there can only be one reason for this ... that is the white tribe had to be winning."

And that's just the tip of the iceberg. If you can stomach it, read lots more in this vein on FAIR's website.

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?