Showing posts with label Mainstream Media. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mainstream Media. Show all posts

Saturday, November 17, 2012

Bobby Jindal's looming Mainstream Media "Mirror Mirror" problems are closer at hand than I thought; Mark Hendrickson at Forbes.com on -what I see as Jindal's needless- "Jab At Mitt Romney Underscores Republicans' Dilemma"; Jindal is proving Rush Limbaugh's point about GOP self-regard


Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal gets played and walks into quicksand, led by CNN's Wolf Blitzer in his condemnation of Mitt Romney: 'We Don't Win Elections By Insulting Voters.' Jindal doesn't seem to fully appreciate the fact that if he were being equally critical of President Obama in his public comments as he was of Mitt Romney prior to his appearance here, he wouldn't be appearing on TV at all. Someone as experienced in dealing with the news media as Jindal should be smart enough to appreciate that he is on TV specifically because he fits the post-election Mainstream Media narrative, but he doesn't. Why? Is the lure of the red light on the camera that powerful to him? sadly, it would appear so, since it's easy to see that when he says something in the future that the same news media wants to exaggerate or misrepresent because it doesn't jibe with the narrative that they want to put forth to the country, who does Jindal think will help him when he's complaining about being left out to dry, the Republican governors? Hardly. It's so damn laughable.
And you'll notice that Jindal is so concentrated on blasting Romney and mouthing high-minded feel-good cliches that he never has the good sense to pivot and turn things around by saying, matter of factly, "On the other hand, Wolf, I sure don't envy you and CNN and the rest of the Beltway media on Inauguration Day trying to remind your viewers what the big idea or ideas proposed by President Obama during the campaign were. You know, the ideas or plans that you and CNN presumably plan on holding him to account for in the new year. No, I don't envy you because there weren't any.
" Nope! There's none of that sort of quick thinking on his feet. LOL! 
Uploaded November 15, 2012. http://youtu.be/IUsXAseSeXg
Bobby Jindal's looming Mainstream Media "Mirror Mirror" problems are closer at hand than I thought; Mark Hendrickson at Forbes.com on -what I see as Jindal's needless- "Jab At Mitt Romney Underscores Republicans' Dilemma"; Jindal is proving Rush Limbaugh's point about GOP self-regard

The Mark Hendrickson column at Forbes.com that I received late Friday night was clearly written before Friday morning's New Orleans Times-Picayune editorial blasting Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal for resisting creating an Obamacare health insurance exchange.


Forbes.com
Bobby Jindal's Jab At Mitt Romney Underscores Republicans' Dilemma



New Orleans Times-Picayune
Gov. Jindal is ignoring his people's needs: Editorial

In my opinion, despite all his many admirable qualities and talents, it's likely that Bobby Jindal will STILL likely be trying to reason with the national news media and East Coast elites over the next few years even as they're verbally lynching him by twisting his words and making him seem either ridiculous or dangerous (or both) in ways that he, his friends and supporters can't even imagine now.
Well after the point that it's been clear to me and many others I know that those elites are "just not that into him."

To them, Jindal's an interesting oddity, the fish-out-of-water that complicates their usual patronizing view of The South, so far from the norms of Manhattan and the Beltway.
He's the human anecdote to bring out when important guests come over and you've got the fine china out on the table and want to show you're refined.

For such a very smart guy, remarkable actually, he displays an air of unreality about him at times that's positively frightening, almost childlike, and truly disconnected from the political history of the past 25 years in this country, where people like him are left on the side of the road.

It's as if Jindal thinks -not unlike John Edwards or Bill Clinton- that he can single-handedly talk anyone and everyone he meets into agreeing that he's not only uniquer-than-unique, but also quite correct on the public policy as well.

In many uncomfortable ways, to me, after years of seeing interviews with him on every matter of policy shows and forums and reading what he's written, Jindal seems like Exhibit A from Central Casting in what radio host Rush Limbaugh regularly says about a certain sub-set of Republican pols and consultants who care, desperately, about what the Beltway news media and pundit class think about him.

Just like former GOP senator from Wyoming, Alan Simpson, who was never more popular with the Beltway and East Coast MSM than when he was publicly disparaging the House Republicans in the '90's, esp. Newt Gingrich.
As I know even better, that was especially the role carved out by the media for Indina Senator  Richard Lugar, who for so many years played the role of shadow Secretary of State, even while taking things for granted back in Indiana, where I went to school.
It's also one of the chief reasons he lost the GOP primary to Richard Mourdock in a landslide

Sen. Lugar had become the very picture of the media-absorbed pol, albeit a very smart and articulate one, and it was hard fro me not to notice, even before I came back to South Florida in 2003, that he was increasingly getting on TV, on the front pages of major newspapers or being cited in Thomas L. Friedman columns not because of what he had to say about foreign policy, but because he was so consistently willing to publicly criticize other Republicans' policies or ideas.
The MSM found him a 'useful idiot' for their purposes of supporting Democratic policies.

All of that is something that was discussed back on May 16th in a post titled, Richard Mourdock: Precursor or anomaly? Greg Garrison and Charlie Cook adroitly pinpoint where Sen. Richard Lugar eventually lost his way, started losing the trust of Hoosier voters, then lost in a landslide due to the dis-connect. Points largely lost on a predictably apoplectic Beltway MSM
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2012/05/richard-mourdock-precursor-or-anomaly.html

What Limbaugh says about that is 100% true, in large part because it's simple human
nature, as I witnessed for 15 years while living and working in D.C. with many Republican
friends who were staffers who worked for bosses on The Hill or the agencies who were constantly being fooled into thinking that someone in the Beltway media and Think Tank Cool Crowd really liked them.

Who doesn't want to be liked? 
That was the central conceit with many new younger male Members of Congress, many of whom were fortunate to be born with either  connections, money or good looks because they sure WEREN'T very bright.
They were so used to people deferring to them that they couldn't tell when they were being played.

Those folks didn't like them, of course, they just wanted to have them around long enough to have some fun at their expense, before eventually tiring of them and sending them packing like Mean Girls -dismissed!

Unless he wises up pretty soon and recognizes reality and stops caring so much what the national news media thinks about him, that's Bobby Jindal's future -mockery and put-downs by the very news media that he so desperately wants to persuade thru his genuine brilliance.

Monday, October 29, 2012

re South Florida Sun-Sentinel:When are Broward County residents FINALLY going to get the "whole truth" from the Tribune Company's South Florida Sun-Sentinel and some public explanation for their continued reluctance to report it and useful context in Broward County news? Their problems with facts & bias are getting worse by the month; Joy Cooper's red-light camera friends and supporters; Sun-Sentinel's pro-Debbie Wasserman-Schultz bias is a continuing insult to readers; @MayorCooper

I sent the following email on Friday to some of the known members of what for lack of a better word I'm calling the "Central Editorial and Management Brain" of The Tribune Company's South Florida Sun-Sentinel, though it is, admittedly, somewhat incomplete since the Sun-Sentinel does not currently list it's own top management executives and Dept. heads on its own website. Oh, well.
You work with what you have.

You can well imagine why they choose to keep readers in the dark about who is responsible for the final product, much less, their contact information.
No, you're right.
They're not so big on transparency when it comes to themselves as when they rail against others.

I should think that at this point, regular readers of the blog hardly need me repeat here and now why it was sent, as the email is pretty self-explanatory -and long overdue.
And the fun is just beginning...

I've deleted the email addresses below.
-----

Subject: When are Broward readers going to get the entire truth from you? re South Florida Sun-Sentinel's continued reluctance to report the truth and useful context in Broward County
To: Dana Banker, Rosemary Goudreau, Gary Stein, Douglas Lyons
Cc: Michael Mayo, Brittany Wallman, Brittany, 
And to the following management executives from the Miami Herald: Aminda Marques, Rick Hirsch

October 26, 2012

Dear Messrs Banker, Goudreau, Stein & Lyons:

I'll be honest.
I'm writing today to get you to admit the truth, because the truth has been sadly absent or elusive from far too many stories, columns and editorials over the past year in the Sun-Sentinel, and curiosity has been M.I.A.
Frankly, the truth seems to have become a much lower priority for Sun-Sentinel the past few months in its news accounts of local government and politics.

Since I still have a lot of errands to run this afternoon, I'll mention just two here out of the many that I'm already personally aware of.

#! 1 - Before the Sun-Sentinel printed Hallandale Beach Mayor Joy Cooper's Op-Ed on July 22, 2012, supporting both the idea of and the expansion of red-light cameras throughout South Florida, 
did anyone from your Editorial Board or senior management think to ask her whether or not she had received or expected to receive campaign contributions from any company associated with that particular issue?

I ask because shortly after you provided Cooper with that giant platform to sing the praises of something that has NOT worked in this city -despite her aggressive manhandling efforts to cram it down the collective throats of Hallandale Beach residents, something proven by a report issued by the city weeks ago that  showed there actually was an increase in accidents 
Mayor Cooper received several thousands of dollars from Arizona-based ATSAmerican Traffic Solutions, the very company that installed their equipment here in Hallandale Beach.

Was Cooper ever asked whether or not ATS had ever paid for any meal or given her any gift while she was the elected President of the Florida League of Cities, or whether they gave the League any money before or while she was President and had the cameras installed in Hallandale Beach, when they were desperately scouring the state looking for pliable Florida pols to initiate it in their communities as a money-maker for them and the city, even while
arguing that it would decrease accidents?

If not, why not?
Why has your newspaper refused to mention these easily-verified facts in the three months since that her words appeared in-print and online?

2. For months, your newspaper has refused to make mention of a negative story involving Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz that has appeared in newspapers large and small throughout the United States.

The story concerned the-then new e-book written by the POLITICO's Glenn Thrush on the 2012 presidential campaign. 
The short version of the story is that among employees at Obama HQ in Chicago, DWS was by far their least-favorite Obama surrogate.
Not earth-shattering news, of course, but still news, especially for your newspaper given where it is distributed.
In fact, it's actually much more newsy than most of the pieces you run on DWS, of which there are too many in my opinion, as opposed to the almost complete lack of anything mentioning Frederica Wilson, who for another 11 days represents me and tens of thousands of your readers.

(You were certainly late to catching onto the fact that she had among the ten worst attendance records in the entire U.S. Congress in 2011, even before her surgery. 
And what bills has Wilson sponsored in two years that have moved anywhere?
None.)

It's quite noticeable that your newspaper, the local newspaper for her purposes, has, on too many occasions, gone out of its way to avoid printing it, mentioning the Thrush e-book or even alluding to it in articles, columns, essays, blogs or Letters to the Editor.
I know because I have actively looked for any signs of it -to no avail- even after checking your archives.
I checked hoping I was wrong and just missed it -nope, I was correct.
You never mentioned it.

It's almost like there's an invisible shield around the newspaper, or more accurately, a choke-collar around editors' collective throats, that interferes from treating this particular elected official like any other.

But an arm's-length relationship with her seems to be something that your newspaper seems incapable of achieving because it acts like it wants so very much more.

Frankly, that sort of continual submissiveness in a newspaper does nothing for its current and longstanding reputation among readers of not just being a lapdog for all things DWS, but practically being a member of her Inner Circle, a Golden Lapdog or whatever she calls people or groups she plays for fools.

Yes, there are many, many intelligent and well-informed people in South Florida who believe that she has you right where she wants you -on a short-leash.
The central problem is that you think it's out of affection, while she no doubt sees it as neutralizing the one newspaper that is most likely to print her foibles and problems and have them broadcast far beyond her congressional district.

(Though you may not think so, or like the comparison, among people who ARE paying attention in HB and Hollywood with respect to your coverage of DWS, your newspaper is viewed no differently than the taxpayer-subsidized faux newspaper in HB, the South Florida Sun-Times, in its fawning coverage of Mayor Joy Cooper, who, along with her husband, previously threatened to run the owners out of business many years ago after they printed something that was just slightly critical of her.)

(I didn't have that article handy when I sent Friday's email but have since found it.
It was a guest column that appeared on December 4, 2003, written by then-Hallandale Beach City Commissioner Anthony "Tony" Musto, and it was titled, appropriately enough, "Is there really a magic act going on in Hallandale Beach?"
In it's next-to-last paragraph re the state's Sunshine Laws and the city's very strange and un-democratic reading of it under Mayor Joy Cooper and the City Commission, which included Bill Julian, it concludes with this line that rings as true today as it did almost nine years ago. 
"The mayor, however, has fostered a closed-door mentality that minimizes the dissemination of information and citizen involvement.)

Frankly, in my opinion, the remaining shreds of your journalistic objectivity disintegrate completely when people in a responsible position at your newspaper decide to allow Anthony Man to engage in his over-the-top coverage of DWS's every single movement at various times throughout the year, even while he neglects to mention the time of day to give readers any sense of perspective.
It's so unseemly, not to mention, so uninformative and boosterish, that I've had to throw the paper in the garbage bin rather than in the recycling bin to prevent the stink from it fouling up my kitchen.

I have written on this subject many times and the truth is that the Miami Herald is no better on this subject, having never mentioned the DWS/Thrush story either.
But then it's common knowledge among Broward residents who pay attention that their management and editorial team don't really consider Broward County to be a real place, full of living, breathing people/consumers/voters, just a place marked terra incognita on their maps, a fact that is proven when they go 6-7 months without anything anyone or anything re Broward County govt., politics, personalities or current events, much less, public policy, even appearing in their predictable four-page Sunday Op-Ed section.
The very same section where they can't go two weeks without mentioning Cuba or Haiti on their four pages, but something on where a good chunk of their readership lives, NADA.

Their consistently terrible coverage of local news and govt. in Broward County and unwillingness to have a Broward-centric columnist is their problem to solve, but it's no excuse for your newspaper and its its employees consistently ignoring what is in plain sight, even while it's now become par for the course for both of you.

But you at least have the advantage of geography, so what's your excuse for always being so slow on the uptick and always late to the news? 
Or not even present?
Or consciously NOT printing news that's not favorable to powerful or influential people with whom you deign to stay on good terms with?

It's all very curious and does not at all encourage either respect or future support. 

DBS, Nine-year resident of Hallandale Beach

Tuesday, September 18, 2012

#MUSLIMRAGE - 2010 video is perfect follow-up to my last post on problems associated with Muslim immigration to Sweden, inc. inability or unwillingness to adopt Western norms re free speech, are proven in video thru use of heckler's veto to stop performance, attack caricaturist Lars Vilks in Uppsala


BeTheBalls video: The Muslim attack on noted Swedish caricaturist Lars Vilks in Uppsala, Sweden 2010 - "the Entire Event". Uploaded May 27, 2010. http://youtu.be/lbpyk1uHNWY
Be sure to watch the woman in the second row wearing the multi-colored sweater, holding cell phone. This was captured by the TV operation of newspaper Upsala Nya Tidning in Uppsala.


I knew that I had the links to this video somewhere saved in Draft on my Gmail account, it's just that it wasn't yesterday when I really needed it to buttress my points in my blog post that eventually got around to the subject of Muslim immigrants' assimilation in Sweden, which is not going so well, owing mostly to the fact that many new refugees, mostly male, think they can out-smart the system that demands they make an honest effort to do several things, including adopting the norms of the country they're now living in, not being held hostage to the ones of the country they left behind in the rear-view mirror.
re Fouad Ajami's Washington Post essay: Why is the Muslim world so easily offended?; What Muslim "moderates"?; Målmo as the European canary-in-the-coal-mine doesn't auger well for the success of Muslim "moderates" or assimilation efforts; #MUSLIMRAGE
http://www.hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2012/09/re-fouad-ajamis-washington-post-essay.html

This 2010 video of a rather shocking display of anti-democratic behavior by Muslims attending an event in Uppsala that I heard about a day or two after it first happened, serves as a friendly yet-chilling reminder that unlike authoritarian regimes in Muslim-controlled countries around the world, when you live in a real democracy, like the U.S. or Sweden, it doesn't mean that you have a right to NOT have your personal feelings or religious sensitivities hurt, nor do you have a right to prevent other citizens from exercising their guaranteed rights, like freedom of speech.

You can always choose to not attend events that will be upsetting, but you get the sense in watching the video that the whole thing was almost pre-meditated if not pre-ordained, given the reaction that you can see for yourself.

Unfortunately, as we have seen for the past week with respect to the protests/riots in Egypt and Libya, and the premeditated murder of the U.S. Ambassador to Libya, this concept of tolerance continues to elude both many Muslims who leave the Middle East, as well as ones who stay there and who seem to go out of their way to continuously be outraged.

That's made worse by many in the American Mainstream Media who ought to know better, but who instead of dealing with them realistically, and call them on what they say and do, instead, coddle them, like ABC News' Christiane Amanpour, wife of a former Clinton State Dept. spokesman, Jamie Rubin, now an executive editor at Bloomberg News.


Breitbart's Big Journalism
CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: WEST IS EXTREME, NOT ISLAMISTS
by William Bigelow  
15 Sep 2012 




ABCNews video: Christiane Amanpour, Martha Raddatz, and Brian Ross join guest host Jake Tapper to discuss political issues sweeping across the Middle East. Uploaded September 16, 2012. http://youtu.be/A0wPXV-BL5k



ABCNews video: Muslim Violence, Anti-American Protests, Fallout From Middle East: 'This Week' Roundtable. Uploaded September 16, 2012. http://youtu.be/miqHPq5l3SE

Friday, September 14, 2012

Mounting public anger & criticism of Obama & Hillary's dithering foreign policy failures in aftermath of Cairo & Benghazi attacks; Facts finally starting to penetrate MSM's pro-Obama narrative and defense shield on this story even while ABC's "World News With Diane Sawyer" lays one egg-after-another


publiusforum video: CNN's Nic Robertson Interviews Brother of Blind Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman in Cairo on September 10, 2011. Uploaded September 13, 2012. http://youtu.be/tPszLCEyu-I
Story at: http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Journalism/2012/09/13/Cairo-Riots-Were-Not-Over-Offensive-American-Movie-Freedom-of-Blind-Sheik-The-Goal

*FYI: CIA Director David Petraeus will be meeting with House Intelligence Committee members this morning*


Though it's the newscast that I always watch and prefer, Thursday night's "ABC World News with Diane Sawyer" was one of the worst in quite some time, more noteworthy for what they neglected to say than anything they actually reported -never a good sign.

This case of collective hysterical amnesia at the alphabet network seemed especially curious in light of interesting news reports that emerged over the course of the day that only gathered steam as the day went on, as they made even more preposterous many of the Mainstream Media's claims of the day before and that morning's daily newspapers.

The facts simply wouldn't cooperate and fit their assumptions. 

These were all "facts" that that you reasonably expected to see mentioned at some point in a national newscast when the subject of the riots and murder in Benghazi and Cairo came up

and yet...

Yes, sometimes even when Diane Sawyer is standing right there in the middle of it, the absence of evidence is evidence itself, and so is the refusal of her news program to mention these inconvenient facts when it goes against the Mainstream Media narrative of that morning.

Here's just a small list of what WASN'T mentioned on Thursday night's "ABC World News with Diane Sawyerhttp://abcnews.go.com/WN/


1.) Libyan government announced that organized and heavily-armed groups used the so-called film protests as a cover to stage coordinated attacks.

Yes, the rocket-propelled grenades are always a tip-off that civic discourse is not at the top of someone's agenda.

[And why so much reluctance by ABC News and the rest of the Mainstream Media in the U.S. to mention how often variations of "Osama, we are with you" was heard a week at the protests one week  after the DNC mentioned Osama Bin Laden 21 times with respect to their famous hunter Obama practically killing Bin Laden himself. 


TV and print reporters in other countries who speak Arabic and who are there on the ground are mentioning it, so why aren't U.S. reporters mentioning how often the words "Osama" and "Obama" are mentioned in the same sentence, and not in a positive light?

Speaking of speaking the language of the place you are reporting from, how's Barbara Raddatz's Arabic? 
Perhaps Paul Ryan will ask her at the October 11th Vice-Presidential debate she is moderating. 


No need to do that, I can answer that question for you.

ABC News reporter Barbara Raddatz, like so many other American A-list reporters routinely go to countries where they don't speak the language -like Arabic- and have to be totally dependent on others to explain what in the hell is going on. 
So, why do we need to hear from her then? 
Good question.

But ABC News doesn't care that she doesn't actually understand what is being said all around here while she is supposed to be reporting. 

To them, the most important thing is that she's there -is showing the ABC flag.
That's NOT the most-important thing to me -facts are. 
(She was in washington on Thursday night)


2.) Why nothing at all about this f-ed up situation with Larry Schwartz at the U.S. embassy in Cairo? Guess they were too busy trying to find another Republican in DC to criticize Romney.
Anonymously, of course.

Foreign Policy magazine

The Cable blog
Inside the public relations disaster at the Cairo embassy
Posted By Josh Rogin
September 12, 2012 - 8:48 p.m.
One staffer at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo was responsible for the statement and tweets Tuesday that have become grist for the presidential campaign, and that staffer ignored explicit State Department instructions not to issue the statement, one U.S. official close to the issue told The Cable.
Two additional administration officials confirmed the details of this account when contacted late Wednesday by The Cable.
Read the rest of the post at:
http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2012/09/12/inside_the_public_relations_disaster_at_the_cairo_embassy

3.) All Thursday morning and afternoon, credible reports emerged that despite what President Obama said about the Libyan security forces helping transport Ambassador Christopher Stevens to another building per their protocol, credible stories that members of the Libyan security forces had in fact signaled to the armed organized groups that were there to storm the consulate that the move was taking place.
The groups already knew that Stevens would be moved, they just weren't sure where.
Once they knew, it was easy to fire their rockets right at him.

It was literally like he was herded into the scene of his death.
This was not mentioned at all on ABC's newscast 

Uh-oh! Mira!
Here's something finally penetrating the MSM's invisible force field
Notice that this is being given a 6:45 am time stamp, even though I heard this yesterday before 1 p.m.

CBS News

September 14, 2012 5:23 AM
Official: Libyan insiders may have aided assault
Updated 6:45 a.m. ET


(CBA/AP) BENGHAZI, Libya — Heavily armed militants used a protest of an anti-Islam film as a cover and may have had help from inside Libyan security in their deadly attack on the U.S. Consulate, a senior Libyan official said Thursday.
As Libya announced the first four arrests, the clearest picture yet emerged of a two-pronged assault, with militants screaming "God is great!" as they scaled the consulate's outer walls and descended on the compound's main building.

Read the rest of the article at:

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-202_162-57512847/official-libyan-insiders-may-have-aided-assault/



4.) Surprise! Reports throughout the day emerged that U.S. Ambassador to Egypt Anne Patterson wouldn't allow U.S. Marines guarding the embassy compound to carry live ammunition.
http://nation.time.com/2012/09/13/whats-worse-no-marines-or-possibly-unarmed-marines/

With all their resources and personnel, how is ABC News unable to either confirm or deny this story by 6:30 p.m. Eastern? 

Or mention that she was in Washington at the time?
Really, how can that be?

If it turns out to be true, like you, I can hardly wait to hear the future interviews with the Marines and their leaders back in Washington on the fact that the very people most-responsible for the safety of U.S. personnel were reduced to playing the role of Barney Fife, who, lovable as he was, famously, wasn't allowed to have a loaded gun while he was on-duty in Mayberry.

And as if I even have to mention it, Ambassador Ann Patterson's name was never spoken on-air Thursday. Again.
Hmm-m...

Honestly, what is it about female U.S. Ambassadors posted to the creepy patriarchal Middle East, and their own feelings of protocol and or inadequacy, that actually cause them to threaten U.S.lives thru their queer policy pronouncements?


If true, unfortunately, Anne Patterson's bad decision-making will remind many of us that after the bombing of the U.S.S. Cole in 2000, the last year of the Clinton Administration, the U.S. Ambassador to Yemen, Barbara Bodineimposed all sorts of rules on the U.S. officials sent to investigate the bombing that took place on her watch.

She seemed to be the very stereotype of a spiteful feminist who wanted to keep men at a distance even though they were the ones who had any power on the block she lived on.
Instead of letting common sense prevail, she said that allowing so many FBI and CIA agents -read assertive men- would send the 'wrong signals' about who really ran U.S. foreign policy.

She forgot that it wasn't her. 

She was the worker bee who works for us, not the other way around.

In case you forgot or never knew the exact details, Bodine was the stick-up-her-ass PC U.S. Ambassador to Yemen who tried to thwart the Cole investigation and famously took steps to revoke the visa of FBI Special Agent John O'Neill, the FBI's leading expert on al Qaeda and on-scene commander in Yemen after he arrived from New York with his team of counter-terrorism agents.
Yes, really.

Among so many other things that seem contrary to U.S. interests, Bodine famously intervened and prevented his re-entry into Yemen after he'd flown back to New York for Thanksgiving 2000. 
O'Neill, of course, died ten months later in the 9/11 attacks on the Twin Towers

See PBS's Frontline "The Man Who Knew" 



PBS FRONTLINE: The Man Who Knew - Parts 5 of 8
http://youtu.be/s7T5gAD1SSI


Here is what PBS says on their Frontline website about that situation in October of 2000.
I usually would not put so much of that here, but it's important that you see what part of her decision-making rings familiar today, considering Patterson's orders.
Arriving in Yemen, O'Neill finds challenging field conditions. His agents confront 102-degree heat and a cramped, unsecured hotel for their quarters. O'Neill soon finds himself clashing with Barbara Bodine, the U.S. ambassador to Yemen, who is concerned about the number of FBI agents and military personnel flooding into the country after the bombing. O'Neill argues that the FBI needs resources to thoroughly investigate the attack. Bodine has different priorities, including maintaining good relations with Yemen. "I had to act as a cultural interpreter. They have endured first British colonialism, and then the Soviets. These people have only had foreigners telling them what to do. Now O'Neill and his men were coming in, doing essentially the same thing," Bodine later told Britain's The Sunday Times.
As relations between the two sour, the number of topics they disagree on multiplies. O'Neill wants a heavily-armed security presence; Bodine wants the agents to be unarmed. O'Neill wants to have direct access to Yemeni officials; Bodine feels she should supervise encounters. As O'Neill starts to seek support from Barry Mawn and other FBI officials back in the U.S., the cables sent by Bodine to the State Department become increasingly critical of O'Neill. It reaches the point where Louis Freeh and Janet Reno become personally involved in the dispute.
Meanwhile...
CNN IGNORES REAL GOAL OF CAIRO RIOTS: FREEDOM OF BLIND SHEIK
by WARNER TODD HUSTON  
14 Sep 2012, 2:47 AM PDT

-----

Monday, September 3, 2012

The fallacious Fact Check epidemic: As the U.S. Mainstream Media's bias becomes ever more apparent, some are naming names and shaming the guilty and aggressively pushing back; TheWrap on Dinesh D'Souza calling-out the AP's Beth Fouhy; PolitiFact Florida "rulings" show a pro-Democrat bias according to MediaTrackers.org



Fox News Channel video: "Fox News Watch" -Media coverage of the RNC; Host: Jon Scott, Special Guests: Judith Miller, Jim Pinkerton, Alan Colmes, Cal Thomas. Uploaded September 1, 2012. http://video.foxnews.com/v/1818497994001/
See the entire show at: http://www.foxnews.com/on-air/fox-news-watch/2012/09/03/media-coverage-rnc

Seinfeld's Cosmo Kramer once famously felt compelled to share with his best friend what he was doing with some of his free time when we didn't see him -"I'm watching the watchers, Jerry.' 

Similarly, former LA-based Slate blogger Mickey Kaus, long a favorite of ours, and now with a media perch at The Daily Caller, takes a scalpel to the the U.S. Mainstream Media over their new "Fact Check"-ing obsession and wonders if what they're really doing is simply walking onto more thin ice -and only MORE BIAS.; Kaus adroitly observes that it "opens up a giant sluice for the introduction of concealed bias, esp. when “facts” are fed to the fact-checkers by the competing campaigns"

The Daily Caller
Credulous fact-checkers fall for scam
By Mickey Kaus
September 2, 2012
Why the Fact-Checkosphere is failing: So, as I understand it, this year the MSM will righteously strike back against “Post-Truth Politics” through rigorous fact-checking, followed by a manly, non-balanced, yet authoritative calling out of transgressors for the liars that they are.  James Fallows and Jay Rosen, among others, have heralded this great new day. One problem, of course, is the ease–rather, the constant temptation–of presenting debatable policy issues as right/wrong fact issues, a problem emphasized by dissenter Ben Smith yesterday. Another is the way what Smith calls “the new pseudo science of fact-checks” opens up a giant sluice for the introduction of concealed bias, especially when “facts” are fed to the fact-checkers by the competing campaigns.
Read the rest of his post at:

Earlier this afternoon, TheWrap had the story on an effort by one prominent conservative media personality to push back at what they see as the guilty parties. In this case, reporter Beth Fouhy at the AP who seems to have a history of... well, you be the judge, and take a look at what one well-known conservative media website says.

Can they really be so wrong about one person who has such a proven track record like Fouhy's, many of whose pieces appear in the Miami Herald
That would have to be an awful lot of coincidences for her to be correct every time, wouldn't you say? http://newsbusters.org/people/beth-fouhy

TheWrap
'2016: Obama's America' Author Dinesh D'Souza Fires Back at Associated Press 'Fact Check'
By Todd Cunningham
September 03, 2012 @ 2:37 pm

Author Dinesh D’Souza, who wrote and co-directed “2016: Obama’s America,” told TheWrap Monday that a recent Associated Press report “fact-checking” his hit documentary is “a crude and inaccurate attack masquerading as a news story.”

The AP article, posted Friday and written by Beth Fouhy, was headlined “Fact Check: Anti-Colonial Obama Not Plausible.”
Read the rest of the post at:

Closer to home, the problem of media bias, and even institutional bias, is even more rampant on a local level because there are not only fewer people paying close attention and who know all the details and context about what's REALLY GOING ON, there are fewer people in newsrooms who will stand up and stop it from airing or going into print.
They just look the other way and make a mental note of it.

A SUBTLE FORM OF BIAS IN LOCAL NEWS


And just so there's no confusion on this point, let me be clear.
In my opinion, despite the efforts of Journalism Schools to inculcate a stronger sense of pro-active ethical probity into their students the past thirty years, the evidence to date suggests that in an era of news reporting retrenchment and uncertain economic futures, fewer people in the press corps will stand up to their own corporate management team, editorial superiors or Editorial Board when those people engage in untoward behavior and bias, and in some cases, don't even try to hide it,.The reason?
Because, hello, those are the very same people who will have a say in who is around a year from now in that very newsroom.

NATIONAL USC ANNENBERG-LOS ANGELES TIMES POLL SHOWS LOCAL TELEVISION NEWS RULES WITH VOTERS
Posted August 24, 2012

That is especially true in South Florida, where despite what you may want to believe, the general level of ethics in the news room down here is certainly no higher than you'd find in the offices at City Hall, County Halls and the State Capitol that are being followed. 
That level of newsroom ethics in South Florida is largely below-average compared to the rest of the country, and some have been able to keep jobs despite how well-known their own biases and proclivities are for looking the other way and making excuses for shoddy journalism practices. 

Over the next week, I'll be pointing-out some examples of this to you readers here on the blog by putting some sunshine on some stories and news angles that you haven't seen mentioned or reported upon elsewhere.

MediaTrackers.org
PANTS ON FIRE: PolitiFact Florida Rulings Show Clear Bias in Favor of Democrats, Against Republicans
By Sean Davis
30TH AUG 2012 AT 12:36

Recent posts of mine on media bias in its various guises include my April 16, 2012 blog post, titled, Despite self-congratulatory declarations, Tampa Bay Times' PolitiFact's bias in analyzing "facts" over past few years is becoming increasingly apparent to everyone, and Breitbart's Big Journalism's Tony Lee points out some recent examples re Romney.

as well as my January 1, 2012 post, Florida voters shake their heads in wonder as Tampa Bay Times continues flogging their stories re their poll of "political insiders" -favoring incumbents in 2012. Surprise! 

Tuesday, August 28, 2012

Coals to Newcastle, Mainstream Media to Tampa's strip clubs! But when it's damn cute 36DD porn actress and Sarah Palin lookalike Lisa Ann, they just can't help themselves. It's a perfect MSM narrative for the Dems. But what will be its counterpoint in Charlotte next week?; @thereallisaann


WUSF-TV video: Sarah Palin Stripper Talks Politics, RNC. Uploaded August 26, 2012.

Coals to Newcastle, Mainstream Media to Tampa's strip clubs! 
But when it's damn cute 36DD porn actress and Sarah Palin lookalike Lisa Ann, they can't help themselves. It's a perfect MSM narrative for the Dems. 
But what will be its counterpoint in Charlotte next week?; @thereallisaann

The Washington Post
Lisa Ann, Sarah Palin impersonator, brings political message to Tampa strip club
By The Reliable Source
Posted at 05:00 AM ET, 08/27/2012
TAMPA — Lisa Ann is pro-guns, but anti-hunting. She’s all in favor of gay marriage and wants to save Obamacare. But don’t ask her about the economy; it’s not really her issue. Her business is porn, and that, she says, is “a pretty recession-proof industry.”

Read the rest of the post at:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/reliable-source/post/lisa-ann-sarah-palin-impersonator-brings-political-message-to-tampa-strip-club/2012/08/26/462d07b6-efd8-11e1-adc6-87dfa8eff430_blog.html


The Huffington Post
Lisa Ann, Porn Star Impersonating Sarah Palin, Performs 'Nailin Paylin' At GOP Convention (PHOTOS)
By Kathleen Miles 
Posted: 08/27/2012 8:02 pm 
Updated: 08/28/2012 3:30 pm


"How dare you impugn the Mainstream Media's seriousness of purpose in doing these sorts of in-depth investigative stories," he thundered indignantly! 
I went to Journalism School, I'm a professional!
I know what sorts of questions to ask her... 

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@thereallisaann  http://twitter.com/thereallisaann