"THIS is CNN..." (Includes Updates)

Hugh Hewitt has about the best summary of the CNN Democrat (I mean) Republican debate last night that I have read:

[...] Last night's fiasco was so thorough that it will take a while to settle in just how damaging it was to CNN's reputation as a news organization. From the awful judgment displayed with the opening guitar serenade through the preposterous selection of topics and questions right to the stark reality that CNN either was easily and completely manipulated by the Dems with planted question after planted question or were totally complicit in the hijacking of a Republican debate designed to serve Republican primary voters about who ought to be the Republican nominee. The network is either incompetent in a way no serious news organization should be, or wholly captured by agenda journalists of the left.

No serious anchor would want to be where [Anderson] Cooper is today, at the center of a vast train wreck which cannot be explained away as the inevitable result of the sudden appearance of big news in a difficult setting, as with hysterical Katrina coverage of bodies stacked in freezers and gun fights in the Superdome, or the result of the input of bad data, as with the early call of Florida for Gore in 2000.

No, this [is] premeditated mediocrity. The network had months to prepare and consider and execute. But even with all that time, it lacked the minimal talent necessary to produce a serious debate about important issues using new technology. All it could deliver was a carnival of bad taste, trick questions, and full frontal left wing bias.

UPDATE: Michelle Malkin has got CNN dead to rights for just how tricked up these questions and questioners really were. I am so glad that this is coming out, because the American people deserve better than the double standard they have been spoon fed by those elites who "know better" than they do. I actually heard Tom Brokaw call out CNN today on the Hewitt show, and Brokaw is no right winger.

My issue with last night is not so much the questions asked; yes many questions were over the top--hell, the guy with the Bible was little more than a sneering heckler. But a President should be expected to know how to handle a hostile questioner. In a perfect world it wouldn't bother me to see Republicans pose the questions in a Democrat debate and vice versa. After all, the idea is to see how a potential candidate can handle the pressure. I think that sort of debate would be a big improvement over what we have gotten to date, because (on the Democrat side anyway) most of the questions have been layups. Pointed questioning would serve the public good. However the kind of heckling questions we saw last night were nothing more than a lame attempt to brainwash the viewers in to thinking that the vast majority of Americans are partisan Democrats.

The problem in this instance with CNN is that for its Democrat YouTube debate, the questions were from a partisan Democrat perspective. In the CNN Republican debate... the questions were from a partisan Democrat perspective. So we are supposed to believe that a network with the resources like CNN can only find good video questions from the political left of the YouTube generation? Have they not been paying attention to bloggers like Michelle Malkin, Allah, Bryan Preston, and Mary Katherine Ham? Please.

No, this was truly a disgrace; and to pretend that it was not done purposefully is a flat out lie to the people of the United States; every bit as much so as were the Rather lies and The New Republic's lies. CNN has now joined MSNBC and the network of Rather as selling out completely to Soros and the MoveOn left. It was pathetic, and a really sad day for American journalism. William Randolph Hurst would have been proud.

UPDATE: More from Glenn Reynolds.

UPDATE: Meanwhile an NBC reporter covering Sarkozy calls Bush a "monkey." Nice.

UPDATE (RELIAPUNDIT): MEMEORANDUM HAS A COMPLETE ROUNDUP AND GATEWAY HAS SOME OTHER GREAT LINKS.

EXTREME LIBERAL BIAS ON MORNING SHOWS

Brent Bozell exposes the extreme, liberal bias on the Morning shows.

Even though we've known this for what seems like centuries, it is still despicable. I was literally yelling at Matt Lauer on the TV last night when Fox played a clip of him telling Tom Delay that there isn't a double standard when it comes to Republicans and Democrats and scandals. Whatever Matt is smoking, it must be some pretty strong stuff.

Here is an excerpt from Bozell's column:

There is no pretense of political balance. They are actively rooting for a Democratic victory next year, and they have the power to make a real difference. Notwithstanding their overall loss of audience in the last decade, ABC, CBS, and NBC morning shows draw nine times the audience of their cable-news competitors and are geared toward the mostly apolitical mainstream, which makes them an important free-media showcase for presidential hopefuls. A new study shows that if this year’s campaign coverage on the TV morning shows were a primary election, the Democrats would win in a landslide of attention and hyperbole.

Rich Noyes of the Media Research Center assessed all morning-show coverage on the Big Three from January 1 through July 31. In those 517 campaign segments, the networks offered nearly twice as many segments to Democrats as Republicans, a margin of 284 to 152. (Another 66 stories focused on both parties.) When the sample is narrowed down just to interviews with the candidates or their spouses and staffers, the morning shows gave out nearly three times as much free air time to Democrats (4 hours, 35 minutes) than they gave to Republicans (1 hour and 44 minutes).

ANN COULTER--CONTEXT IS ALWAYS IMPORTANT

Ann Coulter on GMA 6/25
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I found this video over at Flopping Aces, Curt did an excellent post on Ann Coulter's comments in context and showing what a hypocrite Elizabeth Edwards is.

The rumors are just swirling about what Ann Coulter has and hasn't said. Even Conservatives are condemning her before knowing the whole context. Take the time to watch the video and see what Ann Coulter actually says about John Edwards and the terrorist attack. She is quoting what Bill Maher said about Dick Cheney and of course, as always, that is left out. It also helped me to see her comments about Bush in context about how she views him on immigration and how he has handled the war on terror.

I find it ridiculous that Elizabeth Edwards has the audacity to lecture Ann Coulter about being mean-spirited when we see all the vitriol from the left that they are never held to account for.

BANNED BY PBS: MUSLIMS AGAINST JIHAD--A REVIEW

"Muslims Against Jihad" didn't air on Saturday like it was originally supposed to because of the late breaking news on the Jessie Davis case. Instead, Fox News aired it Sunday night. It was extremely well done and very eye-opening.

The question is often asked, "Why don't moderate Muslims speak out more against radical Muslim extremists?" The documentary shows the reasons why, many of them are terrified and afraid to speak out because of what might happen to them. It showed many Muslims in Europe, especially Denmark, who would try to break away from Islamic extremism only to live in fear for their lives.

The Koran states: First of all guidance, advice, and admonition, then, banishment from the bed and then 'beat them'. When the Koran presented this verse, it did not present it for all cases, but for one case out of all ways of female behavior-the case of disobedience.

The above quote was taken directly from a clip that they showed that aired on an Islamic channel that Europeans were able to access from the Middle East. Basically, it says men don't beat your wife in all cases of bad behavior, only when she disobeys. The whole concept makes me shudder to think about how oppressive it would be to live in a extremist Muslim home.

One of the things I have never understood about U.S. feminists is why they aren't speaking out more about how atrociously women are treated in the Middle East and other countries. The documentary showed how women who flee arranged marriages or who try to flee abusive relationships are often at risk of losing their lives.

Islamic Honor Killings

Islamic Honor killings are where the men in the family, whether it be a father, brother or Uncle are ordered to kill a female relative for a transgression that she has committed. One Pakistani man who lived in Denmark was ordered by his father to kill his sister. Why? Because she wanted to divorce her husband. He refused to do it so his father sent men to try and kill him also. The man said that Islamic honor killings aren't necessarily taught, it is just an unwritten rule in the culture. In Denmark there are crisis centers set up for Muslim women who are fleeing abusive treatment and/or arranged marriages.

Even though there is fear for their lives, more and more women and men are leaving the extremism and speaking out. One such man, Abdel Malik who lives in France was recruited into an extremist group that turned out to be actively involved in terrorism. At first they had him luring in others and then they actually wanted him to commit an act of terrorism. He refused to do it. Instead, he was just starting a rap singing career and after 9/11 he began speaking out against the extremism in his music.

Throughout the airing of the documentary E.D. Hill was talking to producer and director Martyn Burke, and Executive Producer Frank Gaffney. They both talked about the blatant liberal bias at PBS. Early on Martyn Burke was told by PBS to fire Frank Gaffney and another partner because they were conservatives. They asked Burke, Don't you check into the political backgrounds of the people you work with? Burke said he didn't and he refused to fire them. PBS fought them all along the way and when this documentary along with its companion film, Islam vs. Islamists was done they complained that they were alarmist. They showed them to an extremist Muslim group and of course they didn't like them.

As a result, PBS refused to air "Muslims against Jihad" and its companion piece "Islam vs. Islamists" will only be available through Oregon Public Broadcasting. If you live in Oregon check it out, and hopefully Fox News will re-air Muslims Against Jihad if you missed it. It is well worth your time.