Sex (inuendo), Lies and Videotape

I know it shoudn't but it does still surprise me at how far modern journalism has fallen from its lofty place. The death of many newspapers reflects this sorry state and news stations are not far behind. They days when journalism sought to be our watchdog, warning us when public figures lied and acting as the guardian of truth are fast going into the recycle bin, to meet a similar fate: we hope something good will be made of it, but suspect it will probably be found at the landfill with the other things of our lives we have no further use of.

So where to begin. first with the sexual inuendo:

Bozell: "Now the News Isn't Just Biased, It's R-Rated. MSNBC and CNN Owe the Public An Apology over at MRC.

Alexandria, VA – WARNING: The following contains material that parents may find unsuitable for younger children. It contains material that is apparently wholly appropriate from alleged “journalists” on MSNBC and CNN.

Rather than report the news, the networks were utterly derisive and dismissive of the TEA Parties and their participants. Worse still, both used the oral sex slang-term “tea-bagging” to disparagingly depict what ordinary Americans were said to be doing in attending them. (“Tea-bagging” in the sexual sense is inserting one’s testicles into someone’s mouth.)
MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow and her guest, liberal Air America’s Ana Marie Cox, combined to use the term “teabag” at least 51 times in a 13-minute segment. At one point, Cox said there’s “a lot of love in tea-bagging.”

Maddow’s MSNBC cohort, anchor David Shuster, also uttered the vulgar phrase and made a total of twelve separate oral-sexual puns in his April 13th attack on the event.
The next night, CNN’s Anderson Cooper twice interrupted his guest, analyst David Gergen, to gleefully declare “tea-bagging” while Gergen was stating that he thought Republicans had nothing to say, and then followed Gergen’s statement with the guttural “It’s hard to talk when you’re tea-bagging.”

Over at Powerline they have their own inuendos but make a good point:

There is something funny going on here, if not exactly where Cooper, Maddow and Sullivan find it. Cooper is widely reputed to be homosexual. Maddow and Sullivan are of course public homosexuals. It is funny in an ironic sort of way that these folks choose to disparage the tea party protesters from somewhere inside the homosexual subculture. Why not just call the protesters girly boys and let everyone in on the joke? Or would that spoil the fun?

There is not only something funny going on here, there is a story here. These supposed journalists and their networks (or publisher, in Sullivan's case) have rather seriously insulted the citizens who colorfully took to the streets to air respectable views in a most civil fashion. If they had any decency, Cooper et al. would apologize for their vile reference to sexual practices in the context of ordinary citizens exercising their First Amendment rights. (more)

Now for the lies.

Over at Fact Check we find that Obama (gasp!) may be playing a bit foot loose with the facts:

President Obama says 90 percent of Mexico's recovered crime guns come the U.S. Not true.

How about the widely (all the way down under) publisized lie that Obam is blazing new trails with the rest of the world. Not true,

"Imagine if, only a year ago, the President of the United States had visited Turkey, addressed its parliament, then kissed the Prime Minister on both cheeks.

"That might have been considered far-fetched, but so, too, would have been the President's affirmation that his country was not at war with Islam and that being Muslim in the US is part of the fabric of life.
"It is indeed unimaginable that George Bush would have embraced such thoughts, words and deeds."

Pardon? "Unimaginable?" Only to the spectacularly uninformed. (more)

Same Iraq strategy. Same kissing up to the Saudis (and it pissed us off then too)


Now for the videotape:

It's Staged. NBC News Washington's Tea Party Video On-Line Is a FAKE

From Vocal Minority: Folks, it's two days after the April 15 Tea Parties and the local page of NBC News Washington on-line still has this video of a Tea Party protest that took place across the street from the White House (mockingly entitled "Scenes from the Most Important Protest in Political History"): This is a fake, people. It's staged. These are not Tea Party protesters. It's a left-wing group called either The Billionaire Boys or Billionaires for Bush.


And finally we have this from Cairn H/T doctorbulldog:

CAIR Caught Selling Jihadist & Anti-Judeo-Christian Books to Public