1. PBS Analysts Ridicule Eminent Domain Concerns of Conservatives During PBS's coverage Wednesday of the Senate hearing with Supreme Court nominee John Roberts, analysts ridiculed the concern of some conservative Senators over the Supreme Court's recent eminent domain ruling and mocked the role of naive talk radio hosts. During a break at about 4:45pm EDT, Boston Globe columnist Tom Oliphant was befuddled by "the vigorous nature of this opposition to a rather mundane eminent domain case from New London, Connecticut, this Kelo thing. I mean, as you know, this issue has been around for decades, especially connected with urban renewal."... continue reading
1. Hearing Framed from Left; Williams Touts Specter's "Independence" Some noteworthy quotes from Tuesday's broadcast network evening newscast coverage of the Senate's confirmation hearing for Supreme Court nominee John Roberts. ABC's Linda Douglass saw civil rights through a liberal prism as, over a picture of Roberts with Ronald Reagan, she relayed how "Democrats hammered him about things he wrote as a young government lawyer 25 years ago, when the Reagan administration was fighting against expanding civil rights laws." Conservatives would contend Reagan was just trying to ensure equal treatment of all races. Douglass also highlighted questions about the improper influence... continue reading
1. Confused About Poll, ABC Skips How More Blame Locals Than Bush ABC News can't seem to figure out what percent of whites in their latest poll believe that the response to Katrina would have been faster "if the victims were wealthy and white," with World News Tonight anchor Elizabeth Vargas (20 percent), an on-screen graphic (21 percent) and ABCNews.com (24 percent) all offering a different percentage. And while Vargas highlighted Monday night how "dissatisfaction...with the government's response to the hurricane is growing and hurting President Bush's overall approval rating. It now stands at just 42 percent, the lowest it's... continue reading
1. Stephanopoulos Pushes Racism Claim as Reason for Slow Response ABC's George Stephanopoulos on Sunday gave legitimacy to the charge that racism was behind the slow rescue of hurricane victims in New Orleans. "Did government neglect turn a natural disaster into a human catastrophe and was it rooted in racism?" Stephanopoulos asked on This Week before playing a clip of Kanye West's allegation that "George Bush doesn't care about black people." Stephanopoulos soon contended to Senator Barack Obama: "So many people in this country have looked at so many of the victims being African-American, the sluggish federal response and said... continue reading
1. NBC's Williams Seemingly Endorses Racism Explanation for Delay After insisting that "I don't do opinions," on Thursday's Daily Show on Comedy Central, NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams seemed to come dangerously close to endorsing the view that racism was behind the slow rescue of residents in New Orleans as he approvingly relayed how, a "refrain" he heard from "everyone watching the coverage all week," was "had this been Nantucket, had this been Boston, Cleveland, Chicago, Miami, Los Angeles, how many choppers would have-" At that point, applause caused him to cut off his sentence as he gestured toward... continue reading
1. Olbermann Compares Bush Supporters to Lincoln's Opponents On Wednesday night's Countdown, MSNBC's Keith Olbermann, one night after he scathingly attacked President Bush's handling of hurricane relief, made what seemed to be a bizarre comparison between those who approve of Bush's handling of disaster relief and those who voted against Lincoln's re-election in 1864. Olbermann relayed his belief that the current political climate was a "re-creation" of the "mindset of the national politics of the year 1864," when 45 percent of American voters voted for Democratic candidate George McClellan, "whose campaign platform consisted entirely of promising to immediately end the... continue reading
1. Olbermann Delivers Anti-Bush Diatribe Pegged to Chertoff Slip Olbermann's arrogant hypocrisy. On Tuesday's Countdown, MSNBC's Keith Olbermann misidentified Tom DeLay as the House "Minority" Leader, an error for which he soon conceded that "I'd like to give you a good explanation for it, but there wasn't one. I just kicked it." But the night before, Olbermann had launched a five-minute diatribe which pegged great meaning to Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff's miscue that "Louisiana is a city that is largely underwater." Olbermann thundered: "Well, there's your problem right there. If ever a slip of the tongue defined a... continue reading
1. CBS Commentator Charges Bush Doesn't Give "a Damn" About Blacks CBS News Sunday Morning "contributor" Nancy Giles, in the only commentary aired on the show on Sunday, delivered a blistering diatribe in which she charged that "if the majority of the hardest hit victims of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans were white people, they would not have gone for days without food and water" and insisted that "the real war is not in Iraq, but right here in America. It's the War on Poverty, and it's a war that's been ignored and lost." She complained that "we've repeatedly given... continue reading
1. On CBS Man Blasts Bush for Stuporous Response Compared to Iraq In the middle of a Thursday CBS Evening News story on the destruction in Slidell, Louisiana, across Lake Pontchartrain from New Orleans, reporter Mark Strassmann showcased a distraught man "with a message for the President" who blasted Bush for how he responded in Iraq while not doing so for Louisiana. Anthony Nata charged: "You can go into Iraq and come in with big helicopters and set stuff up for people, but you can't do this for us? Come on, Bush. You can do better than that." 2. CNN's... continue reading
1. Sawyer Hits Bush with Liberal Spin, Iraq or Aid Katrina Victims? Live from the White House in the 7am EDT half hour of Thursday's Good Morning America, Diane Sawyer pressed President George W. Bush to respond to a series of liberal talking points, starting with how "people have worried that the National Guard is stretched too thin" with "so many overseas" in Iraq. Later, she demanded: "Do we have to make a choice, at some point, between what we're doing in Iraq and what is needed, right now, to funnel massive amounts of money" to the hurricane victims? She... continue reading