LA Times 'suppressing' Obama link to anti-Israel professor

Conservative author and counterterrorism expert Andy McCarthy is criticizing the Los Angeles Times for not releasing a 2003 videotape it obtained of Barack Obama giving a toast to an anti-Israel professor who formerly served as a spokesman for late PLO leader Yasser Arafat. The LA Times is being accused of "suppressing" a 2003 tape of a farewell gathering in Chicago for then University of Chicago Mideast studies professor Rashid Khalidi, who is a longtime virulent critic of Israel and has justified Palestinian terrorist attacks against the Jewish state. Barack Obama paid a special tribute to Khalidi that night and noted that he and Michelle were frequent dinner companions of the Khalidis.

Former Weather Underground terrorist Bill Ayers and his wife Bernadine Dohrn were also in attendance at the Khalidi bash. While Obama and Ayers served on the board of the left-wing Woods Fund together, they underwrote the Arab-American Action Network (AAAN) to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars. The anti-Israel group was started by Khalidi and his wife Mona.

Andy McCarthy, the chairman of the Center for Law and Counterterrorism at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies and the legal affairs editor at National Review, says it is obvious why the LA Times is not releasing the tape of the Khalidi bash.

"If either John McCain or Sarah Palin or another prominent Republican or prominent conservative had been at a party, basically in honor of somebody who is a terror apologist, at which terrorists were front and center in attendance, one can't even imagine the thought that the mainstream media, including the LA Times, would not only release that tape but actually fill us for days if not weeks with story after story about the gory details of it,"

This is yet another example, according to McCarthy, of the mainstream press "covering up" an event that is embarrassing and difficult for Obama to explain.

See also:
Obama's Ties to Funding Terrorists
Barack Obama's Friends
Photo from freerepublic.com

Military Death Tolls for the Last Twenty-six Years

This is an email I received yesterday. Very little editing has been done. The numbers are quite interesting. If true, they are also telling of the liberal media and those who oppose the war in Iraq, based on military losses. Here is the email:
Bet you didn't know the following! I surely did not. These are some rather eye-opening facts:
Since the start of the war on terror in Iraq and Afghanistan, the sacrifice has been enormous. In the time period from the invasion of Iraq in March, 2003 through now, we have lost almost 4,000 military personnel to enemy action and accidents. As tragic as the loss of any member of the US Armed Forces is, consider the following statistics. The annual fatalities of military members, while actively serving in the armed forces -- 1980 through 2006:

1980 ......... 2,392
1981 ......... 2,380
1984 ......... 1,999
1988 ......... 1,819
1989 ......... 1,636
1990 ......... 1,508
1991 ......... 1,787
1992 ......... 1,293 ----------------------------------------------------
1993 .......... 1,213
1994 ......... 1,075
1995 ........ 2,465
1996 ........ 2,318 8 Clinton years @13,417 deaths
1997 ......... 817
1998 ......... 2,252
1999 .......... 1,984 ---------------------------------------------------
2000 .......... 1,983
2001 ......... 890
2002 ......... 1,007 7 Bush years @ 9,016 deaths
2003 .......... 1,410
2004 ..... ..... 1,887
2005 .......... 919
2006........... 920 ---------------------------------------------------

If you are confused when you look at these figures... you are not alone. Do these numbers mean that the loss from the two last conflicts in the Middle East are LESS than the loss of military personnel during Bill Clinton's presidency; when America wasn't involved in a war? Even more confusing is that in 1980, during the reign of President Jimmy Carter (a Nobel Peace Prize winner), there were 2,392 US military fatalities!

These figures indicate that many of our media & politicians will pick and choose. They present only those 'facts' which support their agenda-driven reporting. Why do so many of them march in lock-step to twist the truth?

Additionally, our mainstream print and TV media, and many politicians like to slant that these brave men and women, who are losing their lives in Iraq, are mostly minorities!?! Wrong AGAIN -- just one more media lie! The latest census, of Americans, shows the following distribution of American citizens, by race:

European descent (White) ... 69.12%
Hispanic .................................. 12.5%
Black ....................................... 12.3%
Asian ....................................... 3.7%
Native American ................... 1.0%
Other ...................................... 2.6%

Now, here are the fatalities, by race; over the past three years of Operation Iraqi Freedom:

European descent (White) ... 74.31%
Hispanic .................................. 10.74%
Black ........................................ 9.67%
Asian ........................................ 1.81%
Native American .................... 1.09%
Other ....................................... 2.38%

These statistics are published by Congressional Research Service, and they may be confirmed by anyone.

Now ask yourself these two questions:
1. 'Why does the mainstream print and TV media never provide statistics like these?'
2. 'Why does the mainstream media hate bloggers as much as they do?'

You do the math! These figures don't lie ... but, media-liars attempt to sway public opinion with their "facts". THINK for yourself! Test their rhetoric against the actual record. And get the word out!

TOPIC: Take the 'Jesus Family Tomb' Coverage Challenge and Win

What media outlet did the worst job covering the Talpiot tomb news?

Source: ChristianityToday.com

The only thing more ridiculous than filmmakers' claims that a tomb outside Jerusalem once held the bones of Jesus of Nazareth, Mary Magdalene, a son of Jesus, and other family members is some of the media coverage those claims have garnered.
It's hard to top James Cameron when he says things like, "This is the biggest archeological story of the century. It's absolutely not a publicity stunt." But some media outlets seem to be trying hard to do so. Here's a sample, from Nashville's WKRN, which began its report:

For many mainstream or traditional Christians, the belief that Jesus was resurrected from the dead is essential to their very faith[,] so hearing that scientists have used DNA samples to prove that his remains were once in a buried stone casket, if true, would cause them to re-think most everything they have ever believed. In response, many Christians refuse to listen.

While we're pretty comprehensive in surveying the mainstream media, there surely will be even better gems than this. So it's contest time...

What media outlet has the most credulous,
exaggerated, or otherwise wacky report
on the "tomb of Jesus"?

Entries (use their feedback form) are due by Friday, March 9. The winner will receive a one-year subscription to Christianity Today (or one of our sister publications) and a copy of The Tomb of Jesus (the tie-in book to the Discovery Channel "documentary").
The winner will be determined purely at the whim of one or more editors here at CT. So don't take the contest too seriously. We hope you're not taking the documentary too seriously, either.

TOPIC: Liberal Bias in the Media -- PROVEN
I'm not a big John Gibson fan, but his latest My Word notes something The Sope-Bocks has been saying since Day One (post regarding this bias are here, this one and one other). Here is the transcript from Gibson's MyWord:

"I have long thought the mainstream media is decidedly left wing. Now there's proof. The Center for Media and Public Affairs did an accounting of the network newscasts from September 5 thru October 22 and found an overwhelming liberal bias. On the "Big Three" network newscasts, the audit showed a clear jihad against the Republican Party. Only 12 percent of election stories that aired on NBC, ABC, or CBS could be regarded as remotely "favorable" to Republicans.
In contrast, as The Washington Times put it this morning, "Democrats basked in glory." The study showed that 77 percent of news accounts in the six-week period offered favorable evaluations of Democratic candidates and lawmakers. Robert Lichter, director of the CMPA, said: "The numbers are pretty striking. The coverage has become a referendum on Republican leadership."The killer stat from this study: Midterm elections in 2002 warranted only 35 stories from the "Big Three." Midterms in 2006 got 167 stories, and 77 percent were pro-Democrat.
Now, we've known for many years that reporters, editors and news executives are overwhelmingly liberal or Democrat. There really isn't much point debating that anymore. But what's changed here — this time around — is the willingness to come out of the closet. Instead of just tilting left in the story while pretending to be objective, the mask is now off.
The mainstream media, typified by the "Big Three," is rooting for the Democrats to win, and slant coverage to make it happen. They want to make sure the conservative argument is shouted down, buried and made entirely disreputable. They do it with coverage: story selection, interview selection, sound bite selection and snarky scripts, and lead the viewers to their network conclusions that were set in stone at the 9:00 a.m. meeting.
These are people who think so little of their own vaunted tradition of objectivity that they are willing to throw it all away just to see their favorites win an election. And why is that? It all comes down to Bush. It all comes down to the huge number of elites in this country who think it is their duty to bring the Bush era to an end, to bury it, and marginalize anyone who says Bush was really right all along.
Stand by. More of this is coming, especially if the Democrats win and they get subpoena power. This is what they have been living for.
That's My Word." -- John Gibson

What EVERYONE needs to key on from the transcript is this: "The mainstream media, typified by the "Big Three," is rooting for the Democrats to win, and slant coverage to make it happen. They want to make sure the conservative argument is shouted down, buried and made entirely disreputable." Bernard Goldberg was an award winning reporter for CBS -- and has written a book about the left leaning bias of the mainstream media. It's a very good read for anyone questioning the validity of bias claims.
This morning, Jennifer Harper, of The Washington Times, penned an article regarding the same study. Here are a couple of good quotes:

• CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric (aka Katie Communist), for example, said yesterday that 2006 would prove a "wave election, where public dissatisfaction changes the political environment" and "incumbents are washed away."

• On NBC, Brian Williams led a report from Ohio with the phrase, "Could this red state end up going blue?"

• ABC News' Jake Tapper also showcased Ohio voters, saying they showed "an extra layer of disillusion with the Republican Party."

Like negative campaign ads, negative news reports may have a destructive rebound effect on a fickle viewing public. "For the past week, the mainstream media has run story after story about the nastiness of this year's campaign ads -- perhaps as a way to distract our attention from their own dirty tricks," observed Stephen Spruiell of National Review Online yesterday.
"Viewers can get sick of negative TV coverage. They consistently rate the news coverage as one of the worst parts of a campaign, specifically citing negative content," Robert Lichter (Director of the CMPA) said.