20071029 CyberAlert

CyberAlert

Monday October 29, 2007

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1. CBS Uses Fires to Remind Viewers Bush 'Never Stopped' for Katrina ABC and CBS on Sunday night pivoted from the success, of the aide efforts for fire evacuees at San Diego's Qualcomm Stadium, to make political points: ABC highlighted a protest about "immigrant rights" and CBS focused on how President Bush's visit to victims contrasted with how after Katrina Bush "flew home from vacation" in Air Force One "thousands of feet above the evacuees" and "never stopped." Reporter Seth Doane contended, over 2005 video on the CBS Evening News of the Superdome evacuees, Bush peering out the window of Air Force One and that plane flying over the stadium, that "for many it was a sharp contrast with another football stadium two years ago: The Superdome in New Orleans during Katrina -- overcrowded, miserable conditions, all under a leaking roof, while thousands of feet above the evacuees, President Bush flew home from vacation in Air Force One and never stopped." Doane suggested: "Contrast this past week when the President came to a burned-out area to press the flesh..."

2. Elevating Publicity Stunts: Lauer Asks Condi About Code Pink Matt Lauer's Friday morning interview with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice ended badly. It wasn't that Rice brought bad answers to the interview. It wasn't that Lauer mocked or insulted Rice. It was that Lauer elevated a tired publicity stunt from the radical leftists at Code Pink to something approaching "newsworthy" status: "Let me end on just a different subject. On Wednesday you were set to appear before the House Foreign Relations Committee, and a protestor walked right up to your face, Madam Secretary, and said, with red paint on her hands and said, quote, 'the blood of millions of Iraqis is on your hands.' She was taken out of the room. Not on a policy level, on a personal level, what was your response to that moment? Were you angered? Were you upset? Were you frazzled? How did you respond to it?"

3. GMA Doubts U.S. 'Credibility' on Iran; Celebrates Hillary's 60th According to former Bill Clinton operative George Stephanopoulos one reason the United States wouldn't start a war with Iran is because the Bush administration doesn't possess the "troops or the allies or the credibility that it would take to launch a war right now." Stephanopoulos, who is now the host of ABC's This Week, slipped that take into a discussion on Friday's Good Morning America of new sanctions the White House is imposing on Iran. Would the network journalist ever casually assert that his old boss is lacking in credibility? Perhaps if the issue was inappropriate relationships in the workplace? It seems unlikely. A few minutes earlier, guest co-host Deborah Roberts could hardly refrain from gushing while she reported the details of Hillary Clinton's 60th birthday party on Thursday night. The ABC correspondent lauded: "And a lovely touch from former President Clinton who said at 60, his wife looks very beautiful. Isn't that nice?...Isn't that sweet?" Fellow guest co-host Elizabeth Vargas swooned over the "beautiful" birthday song with which rocker Elvis Costello serenaded the 2008 candidate. GMA regular Chris Cuomo enthused: "She definitely enjoyed it. I can guarantee you that."

4. Latest Postings on the MRC's TimesWatch Site: NY Times Bias Headlines from postings last week on the MRC's TimesWatch site dedicated to documenting and exposing the liberal political agenda of the New York Times.

5. Don't Miss 'NewsBusted' Comedy Videos Making Fun of Liberals Have you yet watched the MRC's "NewsBusted" comedy video show posted on our NewsBusters blog? If not, two fresh two-minute editions were posted last week. "NewsBusted" is a new, twice a week, comedy show with jokes about politics, Hollywood and media bias.

6. Worst 'Notable Quotables' of Past 20 Years: Potpourri of Idiocy

Now Online with 50 Flash Videos: 20th Anniversary Notable Quotables with more than 100 of the most outrageous quotes from our past two decades, many accompanied by audio and video clips. Last week, the MRC's Rich Noyes posted, on the MRC's NewsBusters blog, a daily installment of quotes from the anniversary issue. The one posted Friday: Potpourri of Idiocy. For sheer wackiness, it's hard to top then-CNBC anchor Geraldo Rivera, who sang his disdain for independent prosecutor Kenneth Starr during the height of the Lewinsky scandal, July 21, 1998, on his Rivera Live program, to the tune of "Twinkle, twinkle, little star."

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A usually-daily report, edited by Brent H. Baker, CyberAlert is distributed by the Media Research Center, the leader since 1987 in documenting, exposing and neutralizing liberal media bias.

The 2,518^th CyberAlert. Tracking Liberal Media Bias Since 1996

6:35am EDT, Monday October 29, 2007 (Vol. Twelve; No. 191)

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