Permanent link to MTA daily media news

I will be a guest on Head-On with Bob Kincaid today at 6:00 PM ET.  Listen to Bob from 6:00 to 9:00 PM ET every weekday on the Head-On Radio Network.

Why We’re Liberals: The Polls Speak (Think Again by Eric Alterman, Media Matters)
If Americans overwhelmingly support progressive policies, why are so many of them afraid to call themselves “liberal”? Eric Alterman has an answer.

Cheney Ex-Aide ‘Scooter’ Libby Disbarred
Vice President Cheney’s former chief of staff, I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, was disbarred today by a District of Columbia court that ruled that his convictions last year for perjury and obstructing justice in a White House leak investigation disqualify him from practicing law.
Unfortunately, Libby may be the only person in that hell hole of an administration to pay any price whatsoever for his malfeasance.

Motive sought for Obama passport breach
WASHINGTON - The State Department says it is trying to determine whether three contract workers had a political motive for looking at Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama’s passport file.
Astute readers will remember that George H.W. Bush tried the same tactic with Bill Clinton.  But just as that trick didn’t hurt Clinton, security expert Larry Johnson says there’s nothing important to be found in Obama’s passport files.  What this incident does do, however, is give the opportunity to bring out, once again, Obama’s relative lack of foreign travels.

Obama’s Shallow Credentials on National Security Are Dangerous for the Country (by former ambassador Joseph Wilson, writing at No Quarter)
Senator Clinton has a long and well documented history of involvement in many of critical foreign policy issues we have confronted and will continue to confront as a nation. Critics can quibble about the details of the health plan she fought for in the 1990s, or whether hers was the decisive or merely an important voice in the Northern Ireland peace efforts, but there can be no denying that she has been in the arena for a generation fighting for what she believes in, gaining experience and developing leadership skills. She has traveled the world and met with international leaders both as the First Lady and as a respected senator on the Senate Armed Services Committee…

There will, in fact, be 3 a.m. phone calls for the next president. They are not make believe. I have been there for such calls. The next president cannot be afraid or hesitant of handling the enormous national security crises that President Bush will leave behind. One thing is certain — the calls will come. [Barack] Obama has only an abdication of his chief senatorial responsibility as a basis for assessing what his judgment might be if and when the phone rings. Which of his shifting coterie of volatile advisers would he turn to? Will it be the one who repudiated his withdrawal plan, exposing his real intention, prior to being forced to resign? Or will it be those advisers who remained silent until politically convenient — several years and several thousand lives after the shock and awe invasion, conquest and disastrous occupation of Iraq?

Hillary: “Huge Support” for Northern Ireland Peace Process (video, thanks to jayatl at MyDD)
Hillary traveled to Northern Ireland five times as First Lady and gave what Northern Irish leader and Nobel Laureate John Hume recently described as “decisive support” to the peace process in Northern Ireland. She focused especially on encouraging the emergence of women in the political process. In addition, Hillary’s work at the grass roots and behind-the-scenes helped cultivate the conditions necessary for the peace to take hold and last.

Analysis: Papers show highs and lows
NEW YORK - Newly released schedules from Hillary Rodham Clinton’s eight years in the White House portray an activist first lady who weighed in on policy, traveled the globe and won a race for the U.S. Senate. But they also serve as an unsettling reminder of her husband’s affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky and the subsequent impeachment proceedings.
They’ve just GOT to bring up Monica.  The AP is not friendly to Democrats.

NOTES FROM THE SANDBOX: (by Bob Somerby at the Daily Howler)
Yesterday, Hillary Clinton released 11,000 pages of White House schedules. The “journalistic” result was predictable. On the front page of the Washington Post (the day’s top story), Monica Lewinsky made paragraph 4—along with Vince Foster, of course. On page one of the Post’s Style section, Lewinsky made the fifth paragraph. Next to Libby Copeland’s piece, Style presented a giant graphic about philandering pols. Why did reporters want to review those records? Of course! So they could flip to the dates involving Lewinsky and laugh about what Hillary Clinton was doing! They stroked their thighs and pleasured themselves, praising “open government” as they did. The New York Times showed more restraint. Lewinsky doesn’t appear until paragraph 6. On the other hand, the Times’ John Broder still thinks she was an “intern.” The story is more pleasing that way—and pleasure is what it’s about. (In the Post, Copeland said “intern” too. Out on the paper’s front page, Peter Baker didn’t.)

New Papers Expose the Clinton Machine’s NAFTA Lie (by David Sirota)
Finally, the dishonesty is being unmasked. Finally, we see just how much we’re being lied to when it comes to economic policy. Finally, we see it hasn’t just been Hillary Clinton lying about her role in championing NAFTA, but we see it is the entire Clinton machine.
Unfortunately for you, David, it’s your lie that has been exposed.  See below.

Fact Check: Organizer of NAFTA Meeting Said Hillary Was A NAFTA Critic (Hillary Clinton website)
The Obama campaign is claiming that the fact that Hillary attended a meeting on the subject of NAFTA organized by David Gergen is proof that she was a champion of NAFTA. Here’s what David Gergen said about Hillary’s views on NAFTA: “I was actually there in the Clinton White House during the NAFTA fight and I must tell you Hillary Clinton was extremely unenthusiastic about NAFTA. And I think that’s putting it mildly. I’m not sure she objected to all the provisions of it but she just didn’t see why her husband and that White House had to go and do that fight. She was very unhappy about it and wanted to move on to health care. So I do think there’s some justification for her camp saying, you know, she’s never been a great backer for NAFTA.” [David Gergen, Anderson Cooper 360, 2/25/08]
MyDD has the video of Gergen saying this.

EXCLUSIVE poll shows Clinton leads in Pa.
[W]e have the EXCLUSIVE results of the first in a series of the 6abc Franklin and Marshall polls. Hillary Clinton has increased her lead over Barack Obama in Pennsylvania. 51-percent of likely voters say they will back Clinton according to the poll. Only 35-percent say Obama is their choice… When asked what issue voters associate more with what candidate, 46-percent of Clinton supporters say healthcare followed by the economy with 17-percent. For Obama it’s the Iraq war with 26-percent

West Virginia Democratic Presidential Primary
West Virginia: Clinton 55% Obama 27%

Obama can’t win Massachusetts (by pollbuster at MyDD)
A new Survey USA poll has Obama and McCain tied in Massahusetts 47-47. If Obama can’t beat McCain in Mass, where can he beat him. It’s time for the super delegates to step in, and stop what is now beginning to look like a democratic defeat of historic proportions in November. We can’t afford another 8 years of GOP rule. By the way Hillary leads in Mass, according to Survey USA, by 13 points.
Well, I would have said “ISN’T winning”.  Things can always change.

Clinton takes lead over Obama in Gallup poll
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has moved into a significant lead over Barack Obama for the first time in weeks in the race for the party nomination, according to a Gallup poll. The March 14-18 national survey of 1,209 Democratic and Democratic-leaning voters gave Clinton, a New York senator, a 49 percent to 42 percent edge over Obama, an Illinois senator. The poll has an error margin of 3 percentage points… Gallup said polling data also showed presumptive Republican nominee John McCain leading Obama 47 percent to 43 percent in 4,367 registered voters’ preferences for the general election. The general election survey has an error margin of 2 percentage points. The Arizona senator also edged Clinton 48 percent to 45 percent but Gallup said the lead was not statistically significant.

Electoral College - Hillary +63; Obama -50 (by DaveOinSF at MyDD)
So I’ve updated Survey USA’s Electoral College prediction based on updated results in 15 states.  The results:

Hillary Clinton 294                John McCain 231                       Tie 13

John McCain 288                 Barack Obama 238                    Tie 12
Click through to see the maps.

New Poll: Americans Skeptical of Obama’s Race Speech (by andrewalker08 at MyDD)
Insider Advantage is out today with a new poll that measures the reaction of Americans’ to Barack Obama’s speech on race earlier this week and the numbers don’t look good. Of the 1,051 Americans surveyed, 52% of them said they were “less likely” to vote for Sen. Obama after his Tuesday speech

Open Mouth, Insert Foot (by Fleaflicker at No Quarter)
Yesterday former Democratic nominee and Obama supporter John Kerry confirmed everything that Geraldine Ferraro said. Not only that, he took it a few steps further, In an interview with the New Bedford Standard Times Senator Kerry stated that: “the color of Obama’s skin makes him uniquely qualified for president and even reach out to the moderate Islam world”… But Kerry took it even further. According to him electing Barack Obama would somehow redeem the United States… Apparently Senator Kerry seems to think that electing Barack Obama would not only help us get rid of our awful white guilt about our slavery past.
JUST as Shelby Steele said.  Oh, and does Kerry now have to leave the campaign for mentioning skin color?  What he’s saying isn’t much different from what Geraldine Ferraro said.  But what both of them have said is vastly different from what Rev. Wright said.

The Obama-Wright Factor (The Caucus, The New York Times)
Geraldine Ferraro, a former vice-presidential candidate, blasted the senator for mentioning her in his speech.  It was just last week that she stepped down from her role on Hillary Rodham Clinton’s fund-raising team after she insisted publicly that Mr. Obama’s political success was only due to his race. In the same small newspaper she made that comment, The Daily Breeze in Southern California, Ms. Ferraro objected to the point in Mr. Obama’s recent speech when he suggested her remarks were cut from the same cloth as Mr. Wright’s.  “To equate what I said with what this racist bigot has said from the pulpit is unbelievable,” Ferraro said. “He gave a very good speech on race relations, but he did not address the fact that this man is up there spewing hatred.”

Obama blew it (by Michael Meyers, executive director of the New York Civil Rights Coalition and a former assistant national director of the NAACP, writing in the Los Angeles Times)
[In his] “momentous” speech on race… [Barack Obama] should have presented us a pathway out of our racial boxes and a road map for new thinking about race. He should have depicted his minister, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., as a symbol of the dysfunctional angry men who are stuck in the past and who must yield to a new generation of color-blind, hopeful Americans and to a new global economy in which we will look on our neighbors’ skin color no differently than how we look on their eye color. In fact, I’d say that considering the nation’s undivided attention to this all-important speech, which gave him an unrivaled opportunity to lift us out of racial and racist thinking, Obama blew it… The man or woman who talks plainly about our commonality as a race of human beings, about our future as one nation indivisible, rather than about our discredited and disunited past, is, I predict, likely to finish ahead of the pack and do us a great public service.
Instead of reconciliation, Obama tries to smear Bill Clinton with the Wright brush.  See below.

Photograph of Bill Clinton and Rev. Wright Surfaces (The Caucus, The New York Times)
During one of the most difficult periods in the presidency of Bill Clinton, he addressed a group of clerics at an annual prayer breakfast in September 1998… Among those in attendance, was the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr., who is seen shaking hands with Mr. Clinton in a photograph provided [Thursday] by the Obama campaign… In providing the photograph to The New York Times, the Obama campaign appeared to be trying to divert some attention to the Clintons after a week in which Mr. Obama’s relationship with Mr. Wright has left him facing one of the biggest challenges of his campaign. There is nothing in the picture or the note that addresses whether Mr. Clinton had met Mr. Wright prior to the White House meeting or whether he or Mrs. Clinton knew anything about Mr. Wright’s views.
Hey, I met Bill Clinton, too.  And he didn’t know a damn thing about my politics.  This move reeks of desperation.  And they try to smear Hillary’s prayer group.  See below.

Hillary’s Nasty Pastorate (by Barbara Ehrenreich)
There’s a reason why Hillary Clinton has remained relatively silent during the flap over intemperate remarks by Barack Obama’s former pastor, Jeremiah Wright. When it comes to unsavory religious affiliations, she’s a lot more vulnerable than Obama. You can find all about it in a widely under-read article in the September 2007 issue of Mother Jones, in which Kathryn Joyce and Jeff Sharlet reported that “through all of her years in Washington, Clinton has been an active participant in conservative Bible study and prayer circles that are part of a secretive Capitol Hill group known as the “Fellowship,” aka The Family. But it won’t be a secret much longer. Jeff Sharlet’s shocking exposé, The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power will be published in May… In 2002, writer Jeff Sharlet joined the Family’s home for young men, foreswearing sex, drugs, and alcohol, and participating in endless discussions of Jesus and power.
They help troubled kids.  Shocking.

Clinton won’t deny pushing the Wright story. She won’t even answer the question. (by Joe Sudbay at AMERICAblog)
Shameless.
My comment: Is it your position, Joe, that Democrats shouldn’t have found out about Rev. Wright until the general election? Do you truly believe that we shouldn’t have had this information available before making up our minds who to vote for?

It’s Out There (by digby)
McCain has “suspended” a staffer for circulating a nasty video about Senator Obama. He says there is no tolerance for such behavior in his campaign and he will fire anyone who does it. He is so adamant about it that he alerted the media and told them all about it. And the media dutifully reported McCain’s fine decision, citing his commitment to running a clean campaign and disowning of this horrible video — and then they showed the name and URL on the Youtube site, just in case anyone needed to see the scurrilous video over which the good man McCain so righteously suspended his campaign staffer. I’m sure that staffer will be amply rewarded for taking the bullet to get that video “out there.” That was, after all, the point.

Former Rove aide Sara Taylor becomes MSNBC pundit. (Think Progress)
Today, MSNBC brought on former White House political director Sara Taylor to talk about how right-wing groups plan to attack Sen. Barak Obama (D-IL) over his former pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Taylor was a top aide to Karl Rove and intimately involved in both the U.S. Attorney scandal and the politicization of federal agencies. The White House had originally blocked her from testifying to Congress, which had issued a subpoena for her appearance.

“Torture Porn” Makers Shrug Off Label (by Rachel Corbett, Women’s eNews, posted at AlterNet)
As “torture porn” movies deepen their imaginative excursions into violence against women, some of their creators are calling their work feminist.

How Much Bad Debt? The Economists Who Were Right Say $1 Trillion (by Dean Baker)
The NYT has an article today noting how the bad news in credit markets is having an impact throughout the economy. The article, which relies exclusively on economists who were surprised by the recession, tells readers that “the size of the bad debts remains a mystery, with estimates reaching $400 billion.” Actually Nouriel Roubini and I have both estimated the amount of bad debt in the financial system will exceed $1 trillion. Unlike the economists cited in this article, we anticipated the collapse of the housing bubble and the resulting chaos in financial markets.

Doesn’t Everyone Know that It’s Not a Subprime Problem? (by Dean Baker)
Subprime is so yesterday as people up and down the income ladder are defaulting on their mortgages in record numbers. After all, why pay off a $400k mortgage on a home that is worth $300K? I thought that everyone understood this point by now. The problem is the collapse of the housing bubble… [W]ord has not yet filtered through to the NYT… [I]f the problems were just in the subprime market we would not be facing a meltdown of the banking system and the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. The problems run right through the entire $10 trillion mortgage market. That is why the Fed folks are staying up late and working weekends. If it were just subprime, they could deal with it in normal business hours and still have time for lunch.

Media Matters for America headlines

• So that’s why NBC and MSNBC wanted Clinton’s schedules?

• Some MSNBC journalists identify a media double standard in coverage of McCain gaffe; others demonstrate it

• NY Times uncritically quoted McCain supporter falsely asserting that McCain “spent all those years in a P.O.W. camp and he doesn’t talk about it”

• On Glenn Beck, Blackwell’s false claim: Obama “basically said that, while he was in Reverend Wright’s church, he embraces Louis Farrakhan”

• O’Reilly on Media Matters: “Any of the presidential candidates who can deport those swine — I’m voting for them”

• David Gregory allowed Republican strategist to claim: “Barack Obama’s talked about paratroopers in Islamabad”

• ABC’s Ross falsely claimed that McCain has already released his tax returns

• Today aired YouTube video “hit[]” on Obama’s “patriotism,” “pastor, and his faith”

• Scarborough claimed Clinton used “code language” when saying “no matter where you worship or the color of your skin … we are all equal in the voting booth”

• Limbaugh falsely claimed minister who attacked Obama is “pro-Hillary”

Hundreds of Iraqi Journalists Forced Into Exile
NEW YORK Hundreds of Iraqi journalists have been forced into exile since the war started five years ago, Reporters without Borders announced in a report released Wednesday. Most fled to Jordan or Syria after receiving threats or surviving murder attempts, according to the Paris-based advocacy group. “These journalists are safe again after escaping the hell of Iraq, the world’s deadliest country for the media,” the press freedom organization said. “But exile does not mean the end of their problems.”

China orders video Web sites to close
HONG KONG - China will shut down or punish dozens of video-sharing Web sites for carrying content deemed pornographic, violent or a threat to national security under rules that tighten Internet controls, a regulator said Friday.

Danish PM condemns views of Dutch film-maker
COPENHAGEN (Reuters) - Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen on Wednesday distanced himself from remarks made by an anti-Muslim populist Dutch film-maker, saying he condemned attempts to demonize religious or ethnic groups.

British Papers Blunder in Missing Girl Case
Several tabloids have apologized to the parents of a missing 4-year-old for their faulty reporting in the case.

Lynndie England blames media for photos
BERLIN - Lynndie England, the public face of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, told a German news magazine that she was sorry for appearing in photographs of detainees in the notorious Iraqi prison, and believes the scenes of torture and humiliation served as a powerful rallying point for anti-American insurgents.

AP CEO pushes for more open government
WASHINGTON - At a time of continued government secrecy, the news media should press the presidential candidates on whether their administration would enforce “the spirit as well as the letter of the law” protecting the public’s right to know, Associated Press President and CEO Tom Curley said Tuesday.

Three New York Moguls in Talks to Buy Newsday
The three bidders are Rupert Murdoch, chairman of the News Corp; Mortimer B. Zuckerman, who owns The Daily News; and James L. Dolan, whose family controls Cablevision.

As Deadline Nears,Confusion Clouds Clear Channel Buyout
Confusion surrounded the buyout of Clear Channel Communications Inc. [Wednesday] amid escalating tensions between the private-equity companies behind the deal and the banks that have agreed to finance it.

The digital march of Penguin Books (video)
Mar 18 - The 73-year-old book company is launching an Alternate Reality Game in its latest effort to engage readers through new technologies.

NYP Shuts Down PageSix Standalone Site After Less Than Four Months (Paid Content)
PageSix.com, the entertainment gossip site that gained independence from its original home as part of the NYP.com in December, has been shuttered, Gawker reported. A rep for the News Corp.-owned tabloid told Gawker that it decided to pull the plug on the standalone PageSix.com due to the tanking economy. Apparently, the site had difficulty getting a toe hold in a market already saturated with established gossip sites, like TMZ and PerezHilton.

A Company Promises the Deepest Data Mining Yet
Amid debate over how much data companies like Google and Yahoo should gather about people who surf the Web, one new company is drawing attention — and controversy — by boasting that it will collect the most complete information of all. The company, called Phorm, has created a tool that can track every single online action of a given consumer, based on data from that person’s Internet service provider. The trick for Phorm is to gain access to that data, and it is trying to negotiate deals with telephone and cable companies, like AT&T, Verizon and Comcast, that provide broadband service to millions.

Wireless Spectrum Winners Are Revealed; Google Bids But Verizon Wins (Paid Content)
The FCC finally unveiled the winners of the federal spectrum auction that closed earlier this week and raised a record-breaking $19.6 billion. The FCC said Verizon Wireless was one of the biggest winners, paying $4.7 billion for the C-block, which will require Verizon to build a network that will provide open access to devices and applications. The high-profile auction received a lot of attention because it provided a way for a newcomer to enter the wireless market. But most of the winners were incumbents, such as Verizon Wireless and AT&T. The FCC confirmed that Google, which lobbied hard to get the open-access provisions, did not win any licenses.

DISH may plan mobile TV with new airwaves: analysts
NEW YORK/LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - DISH Network Corp’s surprise win of wireless airwaves in an auction may be the first step toward building a mobile television service or a bet on a scarce commodity by CEO Charlie Ergen, analysts said on Thursday.

Google’s wireless-auction loss called possible win
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Google Inc’s losing bid for coveted wireless airwaves may prove a victory for the Web search leader as it still stands to get access to mobile networks without spending tens of billions of dollars to build one, analysts said on Thursday.