By Clifford D. May

Wow! The Washington Post has identified “rabble-rousing outsiders!” I don’t think I’ve heard language like that since Southern segregationists complained about young civil-rights activists descending on Mississippi. So who are these interlopers stirring up the unwashed masses? No need to guess: It’s anyone who dares criticize plans for an Islamic center near Ground Zero in Manhattan. According to Jason Horowitz, the author of a story on the front page of the Post’s Style section, New Yorkers take a “dim view” of them.

Mr. Horowitz informs us that the planned Islamic center has become “the prime target of national conservatives who, after years of disparaging New York as a hotbed of liberal activity, are defending New York against a mosque that will rise two city blocks from Ground Zero.”

The hypocrisy! Have they no shame?

Mr. Horowitz was no doubt so busy reporting this big story that he missed the bulletins about Senate majority leader Harry Reid and former Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean — no nasty national conservatives, they — also opposing the Ground Zero Islamic project.

However, Mr. Horowitz did score an interview with Ali Mohammed, who sells “falafel over rice” in the besieged neighborhood and who has “reached his saturation point.” Opponents of the project, he says, “got nothing to do with New York and they don’t care about New York. They are trying to create propaganda.”

Yes, of course, this is a New York thing. Foreigners wouldn’t understand. The terrorists who brought down the Twin Towers had a bone to pick with the Big Apple. That explains why Mr. Horowitz doesn’t ask Mr. Mohammed who he thinks attacked us on 9/11, or what their ideology and goals were. Indeed, there is not a single sentence in his article relating to such matters.

Besides, New York City’s “entire political establishment” thinks the Islamic center is a dandy idea. And when a political establishment speaks, who has the right to question them? Certainly not politicians and reporters and bloggers from outside the five boroughs! The nerve of some people!

Mr. Horowitz also interviews Oz Sultan, a spokesman for the project, who sings from the same hymnal: “The people behind this [Islamic center] are New Yorkers. These are local yokels.”

How does that square with Mr. Sultan’s refusal to rule out the possibility that funds for this $100 million project may be raised in Saudi Arabia and Iran? Inquiring minds may want to know; Mr. Horowitz does not even ask.

Instead, he makes clear whom he does not view as local yokels or even real New Yorkers: “the city’s tabloids,” whose reporters and editors “know they have a good thing going” — in stark contrast to Mr. Horowitz and the prestige media, which cover stories like this strictly from a sense of civic obligation.

If this piece were exceptional, it would be unfair of me to give it such a tongue-lashing. But, as I’ve argued before, it’s part of a pattern, a trend — one that, despite criticism, continues to strengthen. A companion piece in the Post exclaims that the Islamic center will contain “a Sept. 11 memorial [!],” but never bothers to question what that memorial might say about the 9/11 attacks. Will they be described as an atrocity or merely a tragedy? Who will the memorial say was responsible, and on behalf of what belief system were they acting?

Similarly, a Washington Post interview with Daisy Khan, the wife of Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, the key organizer of the project, is headlined: “When Will Muslims Be Accepted?” Ms. Khan tells the veteran journalist Sally Quinn: “The Republicans are really going after us.”

Quinn responds by asking Daisy Khan . . . nothing. Nothing about the project’s funding; nothing about the imam’s past statements regarding 9/11 (American policies were an “accessory”), Osama bin Laden (“made in America”), Hamas (the imam would prefer not to characterize the group), or terrorism (“complex”) — nothing. It’s as though Daisy Khan has purchased an advertisement.

Another interview with Ms. Khan, this one by Tamer El-Ghobashy in the Wall Street Journal, also consisted of one softball question after another. For example:

How did you react to the Anti-Defamation League registering their opposition to the location of the center?

What are the features of the planned center that people may not have heard about?

What element of the fallout from this proposed center concerns you most?

A New York Times piece on the controversy similarly avoids any uncomfortable questions. Its reading of recent history: “On top of the fear and confusion in New York about Islam after 9/11, a movement had begun to spring up against Muslims seeking a larger role in American public life.” What movement would that be? Who leads it? Where do they meet? Shouldn’t the Times — the Times! — include some attempt to substantiate the announcement of the birth of such a terrible “movement”?

Last week, I was a guest on To the Point, a radio show broadcast on public stations around the country and moderated by Warren Olney, whom I consider both professional and fair. But, to my chagrin, he asked not a single question about Imam Rauf’s beliefs, and when I tried to quote the cleric he cut me off, saying that was a distraction from the real issue. Which is what? Warren later told me he thinks it’s “America’s tradition of religious freedom.” But I — and most critics of this project — have never argued that Imam Rauf doesn’t have a First Amendment right to build a mosque anywhere he owns property. I’ve argued that he should not be above scrutiny.

To some, that makes me an Islamophobe; and according to Time magazine, I have plenty of company. A cover story titled “Is America Islamophobic?” asserts that “many opponents” of the Islamic center “are motivated by deep-seated Islamophobia.” Not a shred of evidence is offered, though Time does cite a poll that finds 46 percent of Americans believe Islam is more likely than other faiths to encourage violence against nonbelievers.

Goodness, why would anyone think that? Could it have something to do with the fact that there have been close to 16,000 terrorist attacks carried out in the name of Islam since 9/11? Just last month, Time had on its cover the photograph of an 18-year-old Afghan girl whose nose and ears were sliced off by members of the Taliban because she had violated Islamic religious law as they interpret it by “running away from her husband’s house.” The word “Taliban” means “the students.” Students of what? Engineering? Dentistry? No. Of Islam.

Let’s say it one more time loudly for the media moguls in the cheap seats: Most Muslims are not terrorists. But in the 21st century, most of those slaughtering women and children in the name of religion are Muslims. This is a movement. This is a reality. And it is a problem. It ought to be seen by Muslims as very much their problem — a pathology within their community, within the “Muslim world,” within the ummah.

Instead, the richest and most powerful Islamic organizations — often financed by oil money from the Middle East — incessantly play the victim card. Daisy Khan tells ABC’s Christiane Amanpour that in America, it’s “beyond Islamophobia. It’s hate of Muslims.”

Time encourages this grievance mentality (or tactic) by asserting that “to be a Muslim in America now is to endure slings and arrows against your faith — not just in the schoolyard and the office but also outside your place of worship and in the public square, where some of the country’s most powerful mainstream religious and political leaders unthinkingly (or worse, deliberately) conflate Islam with terrorism and savagery.”

No, they don’t. What they conflate with terrorism and savagery are al-Qaeda, the Taliban, Hezbollah, Hamas, Lashkar-e-Taiba, al-Shabaab, Abu Sayyef, Fatah Al-Islam, the Muslim Brotherhood, and dozens of other groups that justify their terrorism and savagery based on their interpretation of Islamic doctrine.

Many of the country’s religious and political leaders would like to hear more of their Muslim neighbors say plainly: “Not in my name! Not in the name of my religion!” They are distressed when they learn — not through the mainstream media — that Imam Rauf has said instead: “The United States has more Muslim blood on its hands than al-Qaeda.”

He said that some time ago, when he was still answering questions from the media. In recent weeks, as a national controversy has swirled around the biggest project in which he has ever been involved, he has been ”unavailable.” Time does not criticize him for stonewalling as they would criticize any non-Muslim who declined comment for a cover story. Instead, Time excuses him, saying he seems to have been “stunned into paralysis” by the unfairness of it all.

Is this moral posturing or cowardice or self-delusion or the byproduct of the multicultural ideological mush that so much of the media has been both eating and dishing out? Whatever the cause, they really have gone mad. Small wonder that the rabble is becoming roused — with or without the help of those pesky outsiders.

The Upshot reported Tuesday that the AP started using the phrase “Ground Zero mosque” in some headlines in late May. The New York Times, for one, has consciously avoided that phrasing.

The AP began using the phrase as the controversy over the proposed Islamic cultural center and mosque in Lower Manhattan started bubbling up to the national level. Many news organizations, across platforms, routinely dub the project the “Ground Zero Mosque.”

The AP has always been clear in the text of stories that the project would be built two blocks from Ground Zero and not on the actual site. But AP headlines, at times, ran with the phrase adopted by opponents of the project and amplified by the media.

Now the news organization is taking steps to make sure that no longer occurs.

“We should continue to avoid the phrase ’ground zero mosque’ or ’mosque at ground zero’ on all platforms,” said Tom Kent, the AP’s deputy managing editor for standards and production, in the memo the news organization shared with The Upshot. (The full memo can now be viewed here).

Kent said in the memo that the AP has “very rarely used this wording, except in slugs” — shorthand descriptions of stories sent over the wire.

“The site of the proposed Islamic center and mosque is not at ground zero, but two blocks away in a busy commercial area,” Kent continued. “We should continue to say it’s ‘near’ ground zero, or two blocks away.”

Kent said the memo was written with the guidance of  Chad Roedemeier in the New York City bureau and Terry Hunt in Washington.

Here are some ways Kent advised referring to the project in short headlines: “mosque 2 blocks from WTC site,” “Muslim (or Islamic) center near WTC site,” “mosque near ground zero,” and “mosque near WTC site.”

“We can refer to the project as a mosque, or as a proposed Islamic center that includes a mosque,” Kent said.

He added that “it may be useful in some stories to note that Muslim prayer services have been held since 2009 in the building that the new project will replace” and that the building proposal  includes not just a mosque, but “a  swimming pool, gym, auditorium and other facilities.”

Last night, the AP fact-checked several claims of opponents and stated clearly where the project would be: “No mosque is going up at ground zero.”

By Cliff Kincaid  

President Obama’s Big Government socialism is threatening the profits of The Washington Post, and Post reporter Steven Pearlstein can remain silent no more.

Not only does a Post company now stand accused of fraudulent practices, two high-powered law firms are considering lawsuits on behalf of the shareholders of the Post against the company’s directors, including Warren Buffett and Bill Gates’ wife Melinda.

The company, Kaplan, is part of The Washington Post Company and “has provided the handsome profits that have helped to cover this newspaper’s operating losses,” admits Pearlstein in an extraordinary August 11 column. “Although we in the Post newsroom have nothing to do with Kaplan, we’ve all benefited from its financial success.”

Please understand that Kaplan is facing the threat of tough new federal regulations from the Obama Administration.

Isn’t it interesting how profits are now being defended when they benefit liberal journalists? Continue Reading

The Taliban provided two high-profile instances of their deliberate targeting of civilians in the past week.

By Bill Roggio

The Taliban’s responsibility for the vast majority of civilian deaths is perhaps the most underreported story from Afghanistan since the war began. A United Nations report, which was released today, shows that more than three-fourths (76 percent) of civilian deaths in Afghanistan over the past year have been caused by the Taliban (12 percent of the civilian deaths can be traced to Coalition forces):

Tactics of the Taliban and other Anti-Government Elements (AGEs) are behind a 31 per cent increase in conflict-related Afghan civilian casualties in the first six months of 2010 compared with the same period in 2009, the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) said today in releasing its 2010 Mid-Year Report on Protection of Civilians in Armed Conflict…

From 1 January to 30 June 2010, UNAMA Human Rights Unit documented 3,268 civilian casualties including 1,271 deaths and 1,997 injuries. AGEs were responsible for 2,477 casualties (76 per cent of all casualties, up 53 per cent from 2009) while 386 were attributed to PGF activities (12 per cent of all casualties, down 30 per cent from 2009).

While some consider the report of Mullah Omar’s directive to target civilians, including women, to be a fabrication of information operation by the U.S. military, the UN report tracks with Omar’s directive.  The following is from the UNAMA report:

Among those killed or injured by the Taliban and other AGEs were 55 per cent more children than in 2009, along with six per cent more women. Casualties attributed to Pro-Government Forces (PGF) fell 30 per cent during the same period, driven by a 64 per cent decline in deaths and injuries caused by aerial attacks.

“Afghan children and women are increasingly bearing the brunt of this conflict. They are being killed and injured in their homes and communities in greater numbers than ever before,” said Staffan de Mistura, Special Representative of the Secretary-General…

Analysis by UNAMA Human Rights Unit identified two critical developments that increased harm to civilians in the first six months of 2010 compared to 2009: AGEs used a greater number of larger and more sophisticated improvised explosive devices (IEDs) throughout the country; and, the number of civilians assassinated and executed by AGEs rose by more than 95 per cent and included public executions of children.

The Taliban provided two high-profile instances of their deliberate targeting of civilians in the past week: The execution of 10 members of a medical team in the north, and the flogging and murder of a pregnant woman in the province of Balkh.

Oddly enough, media outlets focus an enormous amount of energy on reporting the relatively few accidental deaths caused by Coalition forces, but put little emphasis on the deliberate murders inflicted on the Afghan people by the Taliban.

In today’s new racism, white criminals are criminals, but black criminals are largely victims.
By Dennis Prager

The title of this column seems unbelievable, but it is in fact what happened in America this past week. And almost no one has noticed.

After 50 years of being inundated with stories of white racism, and being taught in college that in this white-dominated society only a white can be a racist, the American public has been properly brainwashed into accepting the otherwise incredible: A black man murdered eight white people at his place of work because they were white, and the media story is about the murderer’s alleged experiences of racism.

Here’s the Associated Press report from August 7, four days after the murders. It was reprinted in the Washington Post and throughout America:

To those closest to him, Omar Thornton was caring, quiet and soft-spoken. . . . But underneath, Thornton seethed with a sense of racial injustice for years that culminated in a shooting rampage Tuesday in which the Connecticut man killed eight and wounded two others at his job at Hartford Distributors in Manchester before killing himself.

“I know what pushed him over the edge was all the racial stuff that was happening at work,” said his girlfriend, Kristi Hannah.

“He always felt like he was being discriminated [against] because he was black,” said Jessica Anne Brocuglio, his former girlfriend. “Basically they wouldn’t give him pay raises. He never felt like they accepted him as a hard working person.”

Thornton changed jobs a few times because he was not getting raises, Brocuglio said.

The New York Times’s August 3 headline read: “Troubles Preceded Connecticut Workplace Killing,” and in the second paragraph, the Times reported: “He might also have had cause to be angry: he had complained to his girlfriend of being racially harassed at work, the woman’s mother said, and lamented that his grievances had gone unaddressed.”

On August 7, the Washington Post’s headline read, “Beer warehouse shooter long complained of racism.”

In fact, just before he started shooting, Thornton had been told he had the choice of quitting or being fired for stealing beer, and there was video proof of his doing so. But this fact — the one indisputable and most pertinent pre-murder fact — got lost within the larger context of Thornton’s claims of being a victim of whites.

Those preoccupied with Thornton’s charges of workplace racism might wish to reflect on this: Racists and otherwise bigoted murderers always blame their victims. Medieval Christians who murdered Jews blamed the Jews for poisoning wells, using Christian children’s blood in making their matzo, or some other terrible crime. Whites who lynched blacks blamed those blacks for rape or some other terrible crime. Nothing is new about the Thornton racist murders except that the society in which they occurred concentrated on the racist’s excuses rather than on his murders.

Just as leading liberals would not ascribe Islamist motives — until there was no possibility of denying them — to recent Muslim attacks on Americans, so the liberal media — i.e., almost all news outlets in America — are not branding these Connecticut murders for what they are: racist. Thornton actually told the 911 operator, “I wish I could have gotten more of the people [i.e., whites].”

We are repeatedly told by liberals — both whites and blacks — that America needs an honest dialogue on race. Needless to say, they don’t mean it, because the moment a white or a black says anything critical of black behavior, he is labeled racist or Uncle Tom. So most nonliberal whites and blacks just keep quiet.

One result is this morally upside-down reporting of the murders in Connecticut.

Another example is the liberal narrative on blacks in prison: “There are more black men in prison than in college.” Every decent American regards this fact as a major tragedy. But most Americans believe that the fault lies primarily with the black criminals, not with a racist society. Most Americans believe that blacks who mug, rape, rob, or murder commit those crimes for the same reason whites do — they lack a sufficiently strong conscience.

But the dominant liberal narrative is that while white criminals are criminals, black criminals are largely victims.

Another example was the liberal narrative of the 1992 “Rodney King riots” in Los Angeles. It was perfectly expressed by the major newspaper of that city, the Los Angeles Times. During the riots, in which innocent Koreans, whites, and others were beaten, maimed, and killed and their businesses burned to the ground, the daily special section on the riots in the Times was titled “Understanding the Rage.” When blacks riot, whites are the reason. When a black murders eight whites in Connecticut, whites are the reason.

One terrible consequence of this liberal attitude toward black violent crime is that too many blacks come to believe that less is expected of them morally than from whites. And the truth is that most Americans on the left do expect less from blacks.

But saying any of this gets us nowhere because it is simply labeled racism. If you don’t believe me, check leftist reactions to this column on the Internet.

Most liberal leaders want an honest dialogue about race as much as they want to honestly describe the murders in Connecticut.

By The Prowler

The leftist group Free Press, which has been pressing the Obama Administration and the Federal Communications Commission to impose stiff regulations on the Internet, celebrated the announcement Thursday that the FCC had ended its weeks-long negotiations with a group of companies like AT&T, Google and the cable TV association. The negotiations ended with no agreement, and it appears now that the FCC will attempt to impose Internet regulations on its own, despite warnings from Congress that it does not have the authority to do so.

The meetings were an attempt by the FCC to get broad agreement from many of the players they regulate on a set of so-called “net neutrality” policies. Such an agreement, which most likely would have had to be put in place via Congressional action, would have given the FCC the authority to regulate broadband and wireless networks that connect to the Internet, but under a far narrower set of regulatory rules that would have been agreeable to those companies that operate broadband networks or Internet sites.

In a statement, Free Press said: “We welcome the FCC’s decision to end its backroom meetings. Phones have been ringing off the hook and e-mail inboxes overflowing at the FCC, as an outraged public learned about the closed-door deal-making and saw the biggest players trying to carve up the Internet for themselves. We’re relieved to see that the FCC now apparently finds dangerous side deals from companies like Verizon and Google to be distasteful and unproductive.”

The only problem with that statement, it turns out, is that Free Press was part of those “backroom meetings” and at the time the FCC negotiations were canceled, Free Press officials were actually holding a private meeting with FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski in his office.

Free Press, which was founded by Marxist Robert McChesney, and is run by well-known political activist Josh Silver, is a founding member of the Open Internet Coalition. The OIC’s executive director, Markham Erickson, had a seat at the table during every negotiating session held by the FCC.

“Silver and Free Press knew more about what was going on behind closed doors at the FCC than the two Republican commissioners of the FCC,” says an FCC official. “They had Erickson telling them everything that was going on, which company was proposing what. We assumed given Markham’s hardline negotiations that he was doing Free Press’s bidding in the meetings.”

According to FCC sources, Genachowski chief of staff Edward “Eddie” Lazarus, who chaired the negotiations, at several points believed he had brought the negotiating parties close enough that an overarching policy framework was achievable. “But every time we thought we had agreement, Markham came up with some other complaint or issue. It was absolutely maddening,” says the FCC source. “Even the Google folks were unhappy with the proceedings, and they generally support guys like Markham.”

Free Press, however, took pride in derailing the negotiations, sending out a fundraising appeal to its membership after taking credit for scuttling the talks.

By Daniel Oliver

Lee Bollinger, president of  Columbia University, host to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and newly appointed head of the New York Federal Reserve Bank, says government should get into the business of subsidizing journalism. Like other Obama appointees, he says he is concerned that, with the changes in the financial structure of journalism, Americans might be deprived “of the essential information they need as citizens.”

It’s not difficult to imagine that one of those “needs” would be a more “balanced” view of President Obama. Can anyone doubt that an administration that was willing to Madoff General Motors’ bondholders in favor of its own union supporters would not exercise maximum bias in subsidizing the press? Mr. Bollinger, practicing the glib and oily art to speak and purpose not, is a harbinger of Venezuelan-style gangster journalism.

Bollinger writes, “American journalism is not just the product of the free market, but of a hybrid system of private enterprise and public support.” It is?

“In the 1960s,” he writes, “our network of public broadcasting was launched with direct public grants and a mission to produce high quality journalism free of government propaganda or censorship.”

Is there anyone in the room who thinks NPR (National Public Radio, supported by the U.S. government) is not an organ of the liberal intelligentsia?

Is there anyone who does not understand why liberals agitate for the return of the “Fairness Doctrine”? That’s the government regulation that used to require radio and television stations to broadcast as much liberal programming as conservative programming.

The problem for liberals was, and is, that liberal programming is not popular, which is why a liberal radio station, Air America, couldn’t survive in the broadcast marketplace. Conservative talk radio, on the other hand, is hugely popular. Whatever the effect of the Fairness Doctrine when it was first promulgated in 1949, the point of reinstituting it now would be to hobble conservative radio. Because stations would have to broadcast as much unpopular (i.e., money-losing) liberal programming as popular (i.e., money-making) conservative programming, it would make sense not to broadcast either kind, and to use the time instead to broadcast popular programs that had no ideological content. Everyone, roughly speaking, knows that. The Fairness Doctrine was — and may be again — an example of brazen government manipulation of the media.

Who can think it would be any different if the ideas of people like Lee Bollinger were put into effect to subsidize print journalism?

Bollinger writes: “There are examples of other institutions in the U.S. where state support does not translate into official control. The most compelling are our public universities and our federal programs for dispensing billions of dollars annually for research.”

We must hope this man Bollinger is only naïve. When I was general counsel of the Department of Education in the early ’80s, we sought to have an open competition for the awarding of millions of dollars to organizations that did research on educational issues. When Congress found out about the proposed competition, it blocked it, and required the department to continue to fund the organizations that had been awarded grants by the Carter administration.  In other words, the point of the program was not research. It was payola, to favored constituents. Is it really possible that a university president doesn’t understand that?

Government financing without government influence?  It can’t be done. Who decides which organizations get the money? What are the odds Bollinger and his colleagues would have financed upstart William F. Buckley Jr.’s upstart magazine, National Review (described by George Will as “the most consequential journal of opinion ever”) or its modern-day equivalent? About the same as finding a chaste maid in Cheapside.

Bollinger writes: “Trusting the market alone to provide all the news coverage we need would mean venturing into the unknown — a risky proposition with a vital public institution hanging in the balance.” Come again?

It would be comforting to say that this is the most extraordinary statement from a government official we have seen in a generation.

Alas, it is not so.  Dr. Donald Berwick, who, in a recess appointment, has just been made head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, has said things just as extraordinary. Daniel Henninger collected a great swatch of them in a piece for the Wall Street Journal, which I referred to in my own piece on Berwick.

Said Dr. Berwick: “I cannot believe that the individual health care consumer can enforce through choice the proper configurations of a system as massive and complex as health care. That is for leaders to do.”

And:  “Please don’t put your faith in market forces. It’s a popular idea: that Adam Smith’s invisible hand would do a better job of designing [health] care than leaders with plans can.”

And this: “A progressive policy regime will control and rationalize financing — control supply.”

There are many more Berwick quotes — Henninger’s piece is one of the most important to be published this year — and they clearly demonstrate the mindset of this administration and its cronies, and, no doubt, of the experts who would be involved in “designing” journalism for the American people.

Berwick, of course, is talking about health care, which is important: it is one-sixth of the U.S. economy. But is it as important as journalism? Surely not. Journalism is what permits a democracy to function in any polity larger than a village. That’s why the Founding Fathers included freedom of the press in the First Amendment.

All the more reason, then — for socialists like Berwick and Bollinger and Obama — to have government finance the press. That will enable the leaders of a progressive policy regime to design the proper configuration of the free-press system, which a free market has failed to do.

Besides, putting government in charge of the press may be the only way to get Obama’s popularity numbers up.

On the other hand, that hasn’t worked for Hugo Chávez in Venezuela.

Clarice Feldman

Ezra Klein’s vetting process left a lot to be desired, if we are to believe his claim that he kept political operatives off Journolist. As Daily Caller reports:

Despite its name, membership in the liberal online community Journolist wasn’t limited to journalists. Present among the bloggers, reporters and editors were a number of professional political operatives, including top White House economic advisors, key Obama political appointees, and Democratic campaign veterans. Some left government to join Journolist. Others took the opposite route. A few contributed to Journolist from their perches in politics. At times, it became difficult to tell who was supposed to be covering policy and who was trying to make it.

Two of the administration’s chief economic advisors, Jared Bernstein, the vice president’s top economist, and Jason Furman, deputy director of the National Economic Council, were members of Journolist until they began working officially for Obama.

Ilan Goldenberg, now an advisor on Middle East policy at the Pentagon, was a member until he joined the administration. Moira Whelan left Journolist to work at the Department of Homeland Security. Anne-Marie Slaughter left to work at the State Department. Former Journolist member Ben Brandzel is now a top staffer at Organizing for America, the political arm of the Obama White House.

Josh Orton, a former spokesman for Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NM), became Obama’s deputy director of new media during the 2008 presidential campaign. After the election, he joined Journolist.

By  Jason Rantz

In the world of 24/7 cable news coverage, blogs where anyone can claim to be a reporter, and talk-radio stations that seem to put just about anyone on the air, it’s never been more important to be selective in who you go to for honest news coverage. Some so-called journalists are so leftist or progressive, they completely reinvent and reinterpret facts of various events—what’s worse, they often do it in a snarky, holier-than-thou way making it near impossible to watch without feeling nauseous.

Whether you want to call them journalists or propagandists, one thing is for sure: these five should be avoided like the plague:

5: Rick Sanchez of CNN is one bizarre character. He talks to the audience like they’re mentally disabled (though it is CNN, so perhaps this is forgivable) and he has this annoying habit of narrating what he’s going to do on the show: “Coming up, I’m going to show you a picture of the BP oil well. You will see oil seeping from the well; it will frighten you; it will be awe-inspiring. Producer Joe, why don’t you bring up that picture on the screen for my audience.” Hey, Rick, just show the damn picture.

Beyond his amateur news delivery, Sanchez is a liberal who is notorious for presenting half-truths and innuendo to his (meager) audience. In an effort to demonize Republicans last month, Sanchez tried to tie big oil to the GOP—but, of course, he omitted the fact that President Obama in 2008 received mega-bucks from BP.

And who could forget Sanchez’s attack on Latinos who work at Fox News. On his Twitter account, Sanchez wrote: “do u know how much money i’d make if i’d sold out as hispanic and worked at fox news, r u kidding, one problem, looking in mirror. if i didn’t believe in doing right thing, i’d be rich anchoring at fox news.”

The implication, of course, is that Latinos who work for the evil conservative Fox News are sell outs. Do you trust a man who thinks like this to accurately analyze the stories of the day?

4. Joy Behar inexplicably has a news analysis show that airs weeknights on HLN. Far from being a journalist or having any legitimate training in news media, Behar provides crude, insipid commentary on the news of the day, alongside typical liberal hack guests.
To borrow an oft-used phrase in the conservative blogosphere, Behar suffers from ‘Palin Derangement Syndrome’ and takes any opportunity she gets to slam the former Alaska governor. She features discussions about whether or not Trig is really Palin’s son, calls Palin “dumb,” and slams her followers as mean and evil. Behar is a second-rate comedian with a platform on a news network to promote hate and stupidity—viewers are encouraged to stay the hell away.

3. Stephanie Miller is a nationally syndicated talk-radio show host who is a frequent guest on network news shows. In an effort to be funny(?) and relevant (?), Miller continues to attack Tea Part members as “teabaggers.” One can only assume that Miller has some weird sex fantasy to keep bringing this term up, because surely she doesn’t think people are actually amused by it, right? Sure, hearing Anderson Cooper say “teabagger” was funny the first five times he said it on CNN, but by week two when just about everyone was using the term, it went from mildly amusing to lame. If I wanted hackneyed comedy from a dunce trying to give me analysis, I’d watch Joy Behar. No, thank you.

2. Chris Matthews on MSNBC pretends to be a hard-hitting journalist who asks hard-hitting questions—(he once asked a man who carried a gun to a protest: “You brought a loaded gun to the protest; was your gun loaded?”—asked and answered, Chris!)—equally to both sides of the aisle, but that sure isn’t factually accurate. From cozying up to nut-job Rep. Alan Grayson of Florida, to maintaining an erection through any Barack Obama speech, Matthews is someone who lost relevancy years ago, and is doing just about anything he can to get attention away from Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow. That would include referring to West Point as an “enemy camp” and repeatedly attacking former Vice President Dick Cheney as dangerous, evil, a “troll”, and other catch phrases the left likes to use to demonize the right. Yes, he asks questions in a rapid fire way, but the questions aren’t intelligent or fair, and they expose his leftists beliefs.

1. Keith Olbermann on MSNBC likes to think he’s smart, but he’s a scared, insecure man unable to face anyone on the air with an opposing viewpoint. Night after night, Olbermann features guests that read from liberal talking points and parrot his own far left views. He doesn’t have guests on to debate the issues, because not only can he not defend his own views, but he’s so egotistical and arrogant that he actually believes you’re stupid for not agreeing with everything he says.

He’s a pompous guttersnipe who talks at you, not to you. He is notoriously difficult to get along with, and he has hissy fits when people who he thinks should worship him, start to get annoyed and talk back to him. Olbermann is without a doubt, the most dishonest and one-sided news analyst on television—a title he, no doubt, relishes—and is not worth your time (given his pathetic ratings, many progressives are even starting to agree).

Enlarge