Glenn Beck

Being a Liberal

Liberals
Monday, January 17, 2011

“But if by a “Liberal” they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who cares about the welfare of the people — their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights, and their civil liberties — someone who believes we can break through the stalemate and suspicions that grip us in our policies abroad, if that is what they mean by a “Liberal,” then I’m proud to say I’m a “Liberal.”

John F. Kennedy

Acceptance Speech of the New York

Liberal Party Nomination

September 14, 1960

Wapo Reporter Achenbach Defends His Friend's Time Magazine Puff Piece on the Dangerous Glenn Beck

Glenn Beck, GOP, Jamison Foser, Joel Achenbach, Media, Media Matters, Nutjobs, Time Magazine, Washington Post

Glenn BeckM E D I A  M A T T E R S

WaPo reporter and “close friend” of Von Drehle defends Beck profile; attacks me

September 18, 2009 12:06 pm ET – by Jamison Foser

Washington Post reporter Joel Achenbach leaps to his “close friend” David Von Drehle’s defense, calling my criticism of Von Drehle’s Glenn Beck profile “shrill,” and accuses me of criticizing the article “because one of the targets of Dave’s story is Media Matters itself. Which Foser doesn’t bother to note.”

Let’s take that part first: Ludicrous. Von Drehle makes only passing mention of Media Matters; here it is:

“[T]here are ancillary industries feeding on the success of Beck and others like him. Both left- and right-wing not-for-profit groups operate as self-anointed media watchdogs, and one of the largest of these — the liberal group Media Matters for America — has a multimillion-dollar budget. Staff members monitor Beck’s every public utterance, poised to cherry-pick the most inflammatory sentences. (Conservative outfits do the same for the likes of MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann.) These nuggets are used in turn to rev up donations to political parties and drive ratings for the endless rounds of talking-head shows.”

Really? That’s what led Achenbach to conclude that “one of the targets of Dave’s story is Media Matters,” and that I was motivated by a desire for revenge? Seems pretty weak.

Achenbach’s defense of his “close pal” David Von Drehle, and his attack on me, curiously avoids any discussion whatsoever of my central point: That Von Drehle failed to indicate a single falsehood Beck has ever told. That Von Drehle portrayed “liberal” estimates of the size of last week’s anti-Obama rally as no more valid than estimates from conservatives — estimates of 1 to 2 million people. Despite the fact that there clearly were not a million people at the rally. And despite the fact that the “liberal” estimates in fact came from news organizations and the DC fire department.

Since Achenbach ducked all that, here are some simple questions for him:

Continue reading →

FreedomWorks Makes Shit Up, Michelle Malkin Uncritically Repeats It, Wingnuts Uncritically Link to Malkin — Then Blame Media

Anchorbaby, Dick Armey, Douchebaggery, Freedomworks, Glenn Reynolds, Michelle Malkin, Newsbusters, Pajamas Media, Right-Wing Spin Machine, Teabaggers, Wingnuttery

F I R E D O G L A K E

brain_bleach

By: Blue Texan

Sunday September 13, 2009

Here’s a fascinating little case study in wingnut BS transmitting.

The Anchor Baby got the ball rolling.

Police estimate 1.2 million in attendance. ABC News reporting crowd at 2 million — tweets Tabitha Hale from D.C.

Teeny, tiny fringe, huh?

Wingnut bloggers from Glenn Reynolds to the Pajamas putzen to Newsbustards start jerking off excitedly link to the Anchor Baby.

Estimates for crowd sizes are starting to come in. We’re talking at least a million people, folks.

Wingnut “experts” confirm the Anchor Baby’s “reporting” with super-scientific analyses.

I did a back-of-envelope based on the photos and reports. A pretty dense crowd is about 1.8 people per square meter, and the National Mall alone is about 125 hectares, 1.25 million square meters. So that would be 2.3 million people.

Wingnut BS is then, rather predictably, exposed as total BS.

Conservative activists, who organized a march on the U.S. Capitol today in protest of the Obama administration’s health care agenda and government spending, erroneously attributed reports on the size of the crowds to ABC News.

Matt Kibbe, president of FreedomWorks, the group that organized the event, said on stage at the rally that ABC News was reporting that 1 million to 1.5 million people were in attendance.

At no time did ABC News, or its affiliates, report a number anywhere near as large. ABCNews.com reported an approximate figure of 60,000 to 70,000 protesters, attributed to the Washington, D.C., fire department. In its reports, ABC News Radio described the crowd as “tens of thousands.”

Wingnuts, with egg on their faces, blame media.

I’ve been talking all night to people who are there and involved. The 2 million number was generated by the media, but truly seems to be a gross inflation of what is there.

Damn liberal media. Always exaggerating the size of right-wing protests, just to discredit wingnuts.

Thers has more.

Congresswoman Wants To Bring Fairness Doctrine To Cable; Hannity/Hume Spontaneously Combust

Brit Hume, Cable, Chris Wallace, Douchebags, Fairness Doctrine, FOX News, Media, Politics, Radio, Roger Ailes, Rupert Murdoch, Sean Hannity, Television

San Francisco Peninsula Press Club

eshoo

Congresswoman Anna Eshoo,  D-Palo Alto, said Monday she will work to restore the Fairness Doctrine and have it apply to cable and satellite programming as well as radio and TV.

“I’ll work on bringing it back. I still believe in it,” Eshoo told the Daily Post in Palo Alto.

The Fairness Doctrine required TV and radio stations to balance opposing points of view. It meant that those who disagreed with the political slant of a commentator were entitled to free air time to give contrasting points of view, usually in the same time slot as the original broadcast.

The doctrine was repealed by the Reagan administration’s Federal Communications Commission in 1987, and a year later, Rush Limbaugh’s show went national, ushering in a new form of AM radio.

Conservative talk show hosts fear the doctrine will result in their programs being canceled because stations don’t want to offer large amounts of air time to opponents whose response programs probably wouldn’t get good ratings.

Eshoo said she would recommend the doctrine be applied not only to radio and TV broadcasts, but also to cable and satellite services.

“It should and will affect everyone,” she said.

She called the present system “unfair,” and said “there should be equal time for the spoken word.” (Photo credit: Ian Port, Daily Post)

Posted by San Francisco Peninsula Press Club at 12:05 AM