While it's true that activists on board the Mavi Marmara tried to defend themselves against Israeli naval commandos and fought with the Israelis (War in Context, 6/6/10), the Journal’s framing of the incident gets what happened on board the ship backwards, implying that it was the activists who first started the clash.

Regardless of who initiated the violence on board the ship first--and witnesses claim that soldiers started shooting even before they landed on the Turkish ship (Common Dreams, 6/5/10)--when heavily armed commandos invade a ship in international waters without legal authorization to do so, that in itself constitutes an attack. The Israeli navy attacked the boat in international waters even as it was moving away from Gaza’s coast (Ali Abunimah, 6/7/10).

The Wall Street Journal’s reporting is the latest in a pattern of U.S. corporate media reporting the Israeli assault through Israel’s eyes (FAIR Media Advisory, 6/1/10). What Israel says goes, it seems--what actually happened during the flotilla raid is apparently of little interest.

Don't buy it.

The MSNBC headline-- sure to be repeated everywhere on Fox News today-- is straight-forward: "Tea Party More Popular Than Dems, GOP." The numbers tell you that Republicans are viewed positively by 28 percent of the public, the Democrats are at 35 percent, while the Tea Party is at 41 percent.

But look at the poll a little more closely. The first thing to know is that most people don't know what the Tea Party movement is--25 percent said they "know very little," 23 percent "know nothing at all." So the question that elicited the 41 percent approval mark had to give people some idea of what it's about. And NBC's poll question offered a remarkably upbeat description:

As you may know, this year saw the start of something known as the Tea Party movement. In this movement, citizens, most of whom are conservatives, participated in demonstrations in Washington, D.C., and other cities, protesting government spending, the economic stimulus package and any type of tax increases. From what you know about this movement, is your opinion of it very positive, somewhat positive, neutral, somewhat negative or very negative? If you do not know enough to have an opinion, please say so.

In other words, the "no-tax-hike, responsible spending" party that you've never heard of is a little bit popular.

A few weeks ago, MSNBC's First Read had an item questioning whether President Obama "knows too much" about healthcare policy. The piece complained that the president is willing to offer Americans details about reform....

The Wall Street Journal's Jonathan Weisman raised a similar concern today, arguing that Obama cares too much about policy details....

This, apparently, is criticism, not praise. The president who inherited a devastating economic crisis is interested in U6 numbers--a measure that includes the unemployed, those who are working part-time but want full-time employment, and those who've simply given up--and this, we're told, is somehow evidence of excessive interest in detail.

Benen thinks that too-skeptical-for-the-Washington Post Dan Froomkin "has this just right" when writing that "there are all sorts of legitimate reasons to be concerned about Obama's approach to governing" but "intellectual curiosity is one thing journalists in particular should celebrate, not sneer at."

In Benen's closing thoughts he really "can't help but wonder if" reporters might simply "prefer a more superficial president because they have a more superficial perspective?"

I put the word "savings" in quotation marks because this 6.9 percent is not what most people think of as savings. It is not money in the bank to draw out on the "rainy day" when one is laid off as unemployment rates rise. The statistic means that 6.9 percent of national income is being earmarked to pay down debt--the highest saving rate in 15 years, up from actually negative rates (living on borrowed credit) just a few years ago. The only way in which these savings are "money in the bank" is that they are being paid by consumers to their banks and credit card companies.

Explaining how "income paid to reduce debt is not available for spending on goods and services," Hudson says "it therefore shrinks the economy, aggravating the depression"--leading back to his main question: "So why is the jump in 'saving' good news?":

It certainly is a good idea for consumers to get out of debt. But the media are treating this diversion of income as if it were a sign of confidence that the recession may be ending and Mr. Obama's "stimulus" plan working. The Wall Street Journal reported that Social Security recipients of one-time government payments "seem unwilling to spend right away," while The New York Times wrote that "many people were putting that money away instead of spending it."

For more on stimulus misreporting, see the FAIR magazine Extra!: "Stimulus Snake Oil: Media Promote Nonsensical GOP Talking Points" (3/09) by Peter Hart.