Right-wing echo chamber promotes doctored and deceptive audio clip of Al Gore.
Right-wing echo chamber promotes doctored and deceptive audio clip of Al Gore.
Earlier this week, the Business & Media Institute (BMI) – a right-wing front group founded by Brent Bozell – spliced and doctored an NPR interview of Al Gore in order to allege that Gore said something which he did not. The organization published a false headline which blared that Gore called the Myanmar cyclone a “consequence” of global warming. Drudge promoted it on his site:
But in the NPR interview, Gore asserted that melting polar ice caps — not cyclones — were a “consequence” of global warming (which is unequivocally due to global warming). BMI inverted Gore’s comments to make it seem like his remarks about the cyclones followed from his remarks about “the consequences of global warming.” Yesterday, Fox News promoted the doctored clip to make the same false allegations about what Gore actually said. The Wonk Room’s Brad Johnson, who broke the story, has the full details here.
Isikoff: Drudge is ‘much less of a factor than he was five years ago.’
Isikoff: Drudge is ‘much less of a factor than he was five years ago.’
In their book, The Way To Win, Mark Halperin and John Harris praised right-wing internet gossip Matt Drudge’s influence on the media, saying, “Matt Drudge rules our world.” But yesterday, Newsweek’s Michael Isikoff — whose Monica Lewinsky reporting was famously leaked to Drudge — declared at “Q & A Café” that Drudge is “is much less of a factor than he was five years ago.” “I think he has lost a little bit of his edge,” said Isikoff.
Drudge hijacks headlines to peddle global warming denial.
Drudge hijacks headlines to peddle global warming denial.
Continuing his constant, unrelenting assault on the science of global warming, Matt Drudge posts these misleading headlines on the Drudge Report today:
Do the stories behind these headlines tell the tale that global warming alarmists have “hijacked” the political debate surrounding global warming, despite a “lack of natural disasters” and no rising temperatures “since 1998″?
Quite the opposite, actually. The Wonk Room explains.
Right wing rejoices over ThinkProgress’ mistake.
Right wing rejoices over ThinkProgress’ mistake.
The right wing has been jubilantly celebrating the fact that ThinkProgress made an error in claiming John McCain had plagiarized a speech by Adm. Timothy Ziemer. Drudge, Weekly Standard, National Review, and Instapundit have all referenced our mistake. On its “political grapevine” segment this evening, Fox News reported our error as well. Fox host Bret Baier said, “The left-wing blog ThinkProgress has had to eat its words.” Watch it:
The actions we took in the wake of our mistake demonstrate this site’s commitment to maintaining credibility and transparency. Unlike many of our critics, we took responsibility for our actions once we realized that it was Ziemer who had plagiarized McCain. We immediately issued a correction, apologized for our error, and expressed our regret to the McCain campaign.
At the end of the segment, Fox News referenced this website as “ThinkProgress.com” in an on-screen chyron. Note to Fox: we’re actually ThinkProgress.org. It’s ok — we all make mistakes.
Industry-Led Smear Campaign Against SiCKO Makes Its Way To Drudge
Industry-Led Smear Campaign Against SiCKO Makes Its Way To Drudge
Currently atop the Drudge Report is a gigantic ad by “Health Care America,” which states, “In America you wait in line to see a movie. In government-run healthcare systems, you wait to see a doctor”:
The ad is part of the industry-led smear campaign against Michael Moore’s movie SiCKO. The group is “financed in part by pharmaceutical and hospital companies.” Its Advisory Board includes President Bush’s former HHS Secretary Tommy Thompson. In June, the organization “staged a conference call that drew nearly 20 reporters from around the country,” with the purpose of discussing “what Michael Moore left out of his movie.”
Additionally, the PR firm MultiVu is distributing a “fake news video” smearing SiCKO. The firm receives funding from Health Care America.
These industry-funded organizations attacking Moore argue that the United States has the best health care system in the world. But in reality, the United States is behind in preventing asthma-related deaths, vaccinating children against polio, and providing flu shots to seniors. Americans also, on average, die at a younger age compared to the average age of death of comparable nations. Yet health spending “per capita in the United States is much higher than in other countries — at least 24% higher than in the next highest spending countries, and over 90% higher than in many other countries that we would consider global competitors.”
UPDATE: Michael Moore will be conducting a live chat at Crooks and Liars on Sunday afternoon at 4pm (EST), 1pm (PT).
Drudge implicates Israel behind Lieberman’s call for bombing Iran.
Middle East Progress responds:
Whatever one thinks of Senator Lieberman’s statements on Iran, implying as the Drudge Report does, that Senator Lieberman made his proposal based not on his views as a United States Senator but on his relationship to Israel is despicable. …. That picture has no relation, either temporally or substantively, to the statement Senator Lieberman made on CBS’ Face the Nation on Sunday.
Drudge’s picture, which has now been taken down, depicts Lieberman shaking hands with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert:
Internet Gossip Monger Matt Drudge Blasts Olbermann As A ‘Phony’
Internet Gossip Monger Matt Drudge Blasts Olbermann As A ‘Phony’
On his Sunday night radio program, Matt Drudge blasted Keith Olbermann as a “phony,” calling him “complete and utter camp.”
Drudge — the operator of the right-wing pseudo news site Drudge Report — was talking about the Venezuelan government’s shutdown of the country’s oldest private TV station when he veered the discussion into a hit piece on Olbermann. “When we start hearing that the National Guard is seizing television stations, alright then I’m on board,” Drudge said. “Then I’m on board, Olbermann. Until then, it’s all pancake, makeup, and Edward R. Murrow ‘good night and good luck’ and…complete and utter camp.”
“What’s being peddled over there at MSNBC” is “phony — phony lights, phony music, and everything there,” said Drudge, an Internet gossip who frolics in “the most salacious aspects of American politics.”
CLICK HERE TO LISTENIn 1998, Matt Drudge ran a TV series on Fox. Olbermann said at the time that Drudge “has gone from being an idiot with a modem to an idiot with a modem and a television show on the most irresponsible network in America.”
Transcript: Read the rest of this entry »
Matt Drudge inflates his popularity.
Drudge yesterday: “DRUDGE REPORT’S TOP MONTH IN ITS 12 YEAR HISTORY: MARCH 2007! … MANY THANKS FOR YOUR CONTINUED SUPPORT… THE LOVERS AND THE HATERS.” Here’s a shock: Drudge is lying.
Right Wing Smears Pelosi As ‘Subservient’ For Wearing Scarf - What About Laura Bush?
Right Wing Smears Pelosi As ‘Subservient’ For Wearing Scarf - What About Laura Bush?
Yesterday, right-wing Internet gossip Matt Drudge posted a photo of Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) wearing a headscarf while visiting the tomb of John the Baptist inside the Umayyad mosque in Damascus.
As Mahablog points out, the right-wing is now seething:
HotAir: “The campaign commercial practically writes itself. Ah well. A woman must know her place when entering a mosque. … It pains the left too, I’m sure, to see the most powerful woman in America having to yield, however slightly, to a misogynistic culture’s expectations, but they can’t vent their anger at the people responsible so they’ll vent it at Charles or me or whomever instead.”
Instapundit: FEMINIST IN AMERICA, subservient in Syria.
The New Editor: “This picture disgusts me. What message is Nancy Pelosi trying to send? Are women equal to men, or not? Why is modesty foisted only upon women?”
Little Green Footballs: “Pelosi in a Hijab. The modern Democratic leadership. How … quaint.”
Apparently they never saw Laura Bush when she visited al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem:
More photos at Mahablog.
Drudge Smears CNN’s Michael Ware As Alcoholic Activist, Ware Responds
Drudge Smears CNN’s Michael Ware As Alcoholic Activist, Ware Responds
CNN’s Baghdad correspondent Michael Ware has reported from Iraq for four years and regularly corrects the record when politicians mislead about conditions on the ground there. Now he’s under attack.
Yesterday, right-wing Internet gossip Matt Drudge posted an “exclusive” report — based on an anonymous, unnamed source — claiming that Ware had acted inappropriately during a weekend press conference and implying that Ware is an alcoholic:
During a live press conference in Bagdad, Senators McCain and Graham were heckled by CNN reporter Michael Ware. An official at the press conference called Ware’s conduct “outrageous,” saying, “here you have two United States Senators in Bagdad giving first-hand reports while Ware is laughing and mocking their comments. I’ve never witnessed such disrespect. This guy is an activist not a reporter.” […]
This morning on CNN, Ware said the attack was a fabrication: “I did not heckle the senator. Indeed, I didn’t say a word. I didn’t even ask a question. In fact, when I raised my hand to ask a question, the press conference abruptly ended.” Watch it:
Drudge’s “exclusive” also implies that Ware is an alcoholic, quoting an appearance last year on Bill Maher’s HBO comedy show:
Michael Ware has also publicly expressed his views on the war last year in an interview with Bill Maher, saying, “I’ve been given a front-row ticket to watch this slow-motion train wreck … I try to stay as drunk for as long as possible while I’m here … In fact, I’m drinking now.”
It’s clear from the video, which you can watch below the fold, that Ware was joking when he talked about his drinking habits.
UPDATE: AmericaBlog has more. Read the rest of this entry »