The Dumbest "Gotcha" Ever!

Via Memeorandum:

Are there editors at Media Matters who read the posts before they're put out there for the world to see? Exhibit A: EXCLUSIVE: Media Matters confirms student at center of Fox fueled Jennings controversy was of legal age

Right-wing media have claimed that 21 years ago, when Jennings was a 24-year-old
teacher at ConFor several days now conservatives in the media have been on a witch-hunt for Kevin Jennings, the U.S. Department of Education's director of the Office of Safe and Drug-Free Schools. Led by Fox News, the cord Academy in Massachusetts, he "cover[ed] up statutory rape" by not reporting to authorities a conversation he had with a student who told him about being involved with an "older man."

They have attacked Jennings with homophobic, anti-gay rhetoric,
falsely accused him of covering up or encouraging "statutory rape" and asked for his
resignation or firing.

Media Matters for America has exclusively obtained the Massachusetts drivers' license of the student confirming that at the time of the incident, he was at least
sixteen years of age -- the legal age of consent in Massachusetts.

Gotcha! He was sixteen! Ha! Except..

Wasn't it Jennings himself who said that the boy was fifteen? Sooooo? Let's take the boy's age out of it and look at the review of Jennings from Nice Deb:

•Jennings failed to report a case of statutory rape of a *15 year old who confided in him that he had had sex with a much older man at a train station. Jennings’ did express concern that the boy use a condom.
•Jennings wrote the forward to a book called “Queering Elementary Education”. Bonus: Another familiar face wrote one of the endorsements on the book jacket—Bill Ayers. Ayers, of course, is the former Weather Underground bomber, an Obama pal, and ghostwriter, who worked with him on school related boards in Chicago during the nineties.
•Jennings and his organization, GLSEN sponsored conferences where homosexual activists instructed children age 14 and up on how to perform homosexual acts. How bad was it? When a recording from one of these conferences became public, the firestorm that ensued became known as “fistgate”.
•Jennings in 1997 reportedly praised Harry Hay of the North American Association for Man-Boy Love Association (NAMBLA), which promotes the legalization of sexual abuse of young boys by older men. You can read the transcript of Jennings asserting that “one of the people that’s always inspired me is Harry Hay”, here.
•Jennings has a history of ridiculing and demeaning Christians: Reportedly said of Christians—“ F___ ‘em” while speaking at Marble Collegiate Church in March of 2000.

So, when Media Matters can debunk the above I'll give Jennings another look. For now, he doesn't belong anywhere near schoolchildren.

Media Matters Uses Editing to Gin Up Its Beck Story

Via Instapundit:

Ed Morrissey at Hot Air has two videos of Glenn Beck's discussion of the undercover video taken at the ACORN office where aemployee claimed that she had killed her husband.

First Media Matters' edited version:




And now the full clip aired by Glenn Beck:



Media Matters claimed, falsely, that Glenn Beck had aired the ACORN video without questioning it and then they edited their version to scrub out Beck's actual remarks. This isn't sloppiness on Media Matters part, this is blatant dishonesty and shameful manipulation of the facts.

Read Morrissey's post.

Bloviateing, Media Matters Style-UPDATED

Via Memeorandum:

Media Matters, showing a total lack of perspective, has done Nancy "Crocodile Tears" Pelosi a one up on the "crazy right wingers as assassins" meme. I believe it is called "bloviating."

Kashner's fascinating cover story actually chronicles the professional struggles of writer William Manchester who was tapped by the Kennedy family, after the president's assassination, to write the definitive book about the shooting. The Vanity Fair articles details the power struggles, and epic lawsuits, that ensued prior to
Manchester's publication.

But this unnerving passage from VF caught my eye. In it, Kashner
retraces Manchester's step as he researched his book. It's unsettling because if
you insert "Obama" for every "Kennedy" reference, it reads like 2009...

Yes, well. When it comes to ratcheting up the rhetoric Media Matters is doing one hell of a good job. My memory isn't as short as Media Matters; from ZombieTimes:

And who can forget that little film "Death of a President":

Spare us your mock hand wringing and outrage. It wasn't called dangerous rhetoric back then, it was called "dissent" and it was patriotic. Nothing has changed except on the right our rhetoric pales compared to yours.

UPDATED:

Ed Driscoll has written an an excellent piece "Media Matters Metaphor Meltdown"

Are there nuts on the right? Of course; there are nuts in any group that contains millions of people. But despite a boomer history that begins right around the time Donald Draper moved into the corner office at Sterling-Cooper, just as not all wars are Vietnam part II, not all scandals are Watergate Part II, and not all protests are the South of the early 1960s.

James Piereson noted in his book that immediately upon being told that Lee Harvey Oswald had been arrested for assassinating her husband, Jackie Kennedy replied, “He didn’t even have the satisfaction of being killed for civil rights. It had to be some silly little Communist. It even robs his death of any meaning.”

Also from Allahpundit at Hot Air "Media Matters: This right-wing frenzy is reminiscent of Dallas 1963":

Follow the link to Media Matters and you’ll search in vain for any mention of the name of the man who pulled the trigger on November 22, which leads me to believe either (a) Eric Boehlert is a Kennedy assassination conspiracy theorist or (b) Eric Boehlert is in the habit of hiding inconvenient facts from his audience, which, if true, makes him a perfectly mainstream Media Matters employee. For the record, I think Kaus is totally right that Glenn Beck should tone down the apocalyptic/coup rhetoric, but that doesn’t give me the right to paint revisionist portraits of the political sympathies of presidential assassins. Evidently the rules are different for the Brock bunch. Um, why?

Did Media Matters Even Watch Andrew Breitbart On Fox Before They Started Whining?

Via Memeorandum:

Media Matters has a hit piece on Andrew Breitbart's Fox appeareance with Megyn Kelly. During the appearence, Breitbart didn't mince words about the coverage the various "ACORN videos" at CNN. Media Matters accused Breitbart of "whining." Problem is, Breitbart wasn't "whining" as Media Matters claims, he was making a statement of facts. CNN has slanted its coverage in favor of ACORN. CNN rather than reporting the story, has basically regurgitated the ACORN talking points.

I seem to remember from a long ago journalism class that news reporting consists of who, what, where and why. If CNN wants present an opinion piece on the ACORN story then the should label it as such. Media Matters can't be taken seriously when it defends a lack of basic journalism.

Media Matter's Dishonest Spin

Via Memeorandum

Matt Finklestein writing in Media Matters begins and ends his post with essentially that same thought:

Beginning:

Today marks the second time this month that "hate-oriented" extremists have opened fire in public, which is exactly the kind of tragedy the DHS anticipated.

Ending:

Today marks the second time this month that "hate-oriented" extremists have opened fire in public, which is exactly the kind of tragedy the DHS anticipated.

Will Republicans admit that their partisan "outrage" was misplaced?

There has indeed been two despicable terrorist attacks in the United States. Each was motivated by hate. The first by hate of Jews, Christians, and the United States military. The second by hate of Jews and African Americans. The first occurred on June 1st when a Islamic terrorist shot two soldiers standing in front of a recruiting station. Today the second attack was carried out at The Holocaust Museum by a white supremacist. Finklestein is factually correct in both of his statements.

However, if you follow Finklestein’s link you see that he wasn’t referring to Pvt. Long’s murder at the hands of an extremist, he was referring to the murder of Dr. George Tiller which occurred on May 31st. My point isn’t that Finklestein misspoke when he twice said, “this month.” I am accusing Finklestein of ignoring, thus discounting, Pvt. Long’s murder because a: it doesn’t fit his narrative of “right-wingers gone wild” and b: his ideology doesn’t recognize the death of a US soldier by a Muslim as extremist or murder.

If Finklestein were an honest and honorable man he would have noted that there have been three Americans murdered in separate terrorist attacks in the United States in the last month. Instead, he intentionally Pvt Long’s murder because he couldn’t use this young man’s death for his own agenda. He meant to slander conservatives. He ended up demeaning himself.

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